The Urinary System

As your body performs the chemical activities that keeps you alive, wastes material such as carbon dioxide and nitrogen are produced. Your body has to get rid of these toxin in order to stay healthy.

How does your body get rid of these wastes?

Which body systems are involved in excreting these wastes?

Excretion- is the process of removing wastes and excess products from the body.

Three of your body systems are involved in excretion: your skin, your lungs and urinary system.

Urinary system- A collection of organs that remove waste from the blood; this system include the kidneys, ureters, urethra and the urinary bladder.

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bladder - a hollow organ that stores urine until it is excreted.

kidney - two bean-shaped organs that take waste from the blood and produce urine.

ureter - two tubes, each of which carries urine from a kidney to the bladder.

urethra - the tube that carries urine from the bladder out of the body.

Urine- a concentrated mixture of waste materials that forms in the nephrons of the kidneys. Adults eliminate a quart and half of urine each day.

Urea  a white water-soluble crystalline compound with a saline (salty) taste and often an odor of ammonia, produced by protein metabolism and excreted in urine.

Renal artery

supply the kidneys with blood.

the kidneys receive approximately 20% of the cardiac output.

Renal vein

Drains the kidney of its blood supply and take the deoxygenated blood to the heart.

Nephrons-a microscopic filter in the kidney that removes a variety of harmful substances from the blood.

Hormones Your body fluids are regulated by

hormones.Antidiuretic (ADH)- Signals to your body that there is a water shortage. The kidneys are instructed to take back water from the nephrons and return it to the bloodstream creating less urine.

Continued …..When you are hydrated, smaller amounts of ADH are released. The kidneys react by allowing more water to stay in the nephrons and leave the body as urine.

Disorders of the urinary system

Bacterial infection- when bacterial get into the bladder is causes a bladder infection. This causes a condition that is very painful and causes you to urinate a lot and it is painful to excrete urine. You can also have a urinary tract infection. If left untreated these infection could cause damage to the kidneys.

Kidney stonesKidney stones- which are small,

crystallized substances, such as calcium, that form in the kidney or other parts of the urinary tract.

Smaller kidney stones can pass out of the body on their own, although this can be painful.

Larger stones may require surgery, or they may be broken into smaller pieces with sound waves in a procedure called ultrasonic lithotripsy.

Diabetes-a disease caused by a malfunctioning pancreas that produces little or no insulin) can result in impaired blood flow through the kidneys.

Bacteria that cause tuberculosis can travel from the lungs and infect the kidneys.

Drug use, including long-term use of some prescription medications as well as illegal drugs, can also cause kidney damage.

Certain birth defects may cause the kidneys to have abnormal shapes or to function improperly.

Treatment of severe kidney disease may include kidney dialysis, a procedure in which blood is circulated through a machine that removes wastes and excess fluid from the bloodstream. Some may have to go their entire life to get dialysis treatment or wait for a kidney transplant.

More than 38,000 people in the United States alone wait for a kidney transplant each year, and fewer than 12,000 of them receive this life-sustaining organ.

In a kidney transplant, the donated kidney may come from a close living relative of the patient or from a person who has recently died. The donor kidney is removed by clamping and cutting the renal vein and artery (1). The diseased kidneys in the patient may be left in place, or one or both may be removed if they cause persistent infection or high blood pressure (2). The donor kidney is placed in the pelvis region of the recipient and the organ's renal vein and artery are attached (3). Both the donor and the recipient can survive in good health with only one functioning kidney to filter and regulate the composition of blood.

Let’s label your chart

And learn how the kidneys filter blood.