Know Your Kidney
Kidneys are unsung heroes of the body
The kidneys are powerful chemical factories that perform the following functions:
- Remove waste products from the body
- Balance the body's fluids
- Release hormones that regulate blood pressure
- Produce an active form of vitamin D that promotes strong, healthy bones
- Control the production of red blood cells
- The nephron (fromGreek νεφρός – nephros, meaning "kidney") is the microscopic structural and functional unit of the kidney.
- It is composed of a renal corpuscle and a renal tubule. The renal corpuscle consists of a tuft of capillaries called a glomerulus and an encompassing Bowman's capsule. The renal tubule extends from the capsule. The capsule and tubule are connected and are composed of epithelial cells with a lumen. A healthy adult has 0.8 to 1.5 million nephrons in each kidney.
Glomerulus:
- The glomerulus plural glomeruli, is a network of capillaries known as a tuft, located at the beginning of a nephron in the kidney. The tuft is structurally supported by intraglomerular mesangial cells.
- The blood is filtered across the capillary walls of this tuft through the glomerular filtration barrier, which yields its filtrate of water and soluble substances to a cup-like sac known as Bowman's capsule. The filtrate then enters the renal tubule, of the nephron
- The glomerulus and its surrounding Bowman's capsule constitute a renal corpuscle, the basic filtration unit of the kidney.[2] The rate at which blood is filtered through all of the glomeruli, and thus the measure of the overall renal function, is the glomerular filtration rate (GFR)
