![]() ![]() For example, table salt is an electrolyte that dissociates in water to form the particles sodium (Na+) and chloride (Cl-). Electrolytes are chemical compounds that dissociate (or break up) in solution into separate positively or negatively charged particles. ![]() We will discuss the formation of urine in a moment however, let us understand what electrolytes are. This balance is maintained mainly through the kidney acting together with certain hormones in the body. Conversely, the less the fluid intake, the less the urine volume output. The more liquid one drinks, the more urine one excretes. The body's chief mechanism, by far, for maintaining fluid balance is to adjust its fluid output so that fluid output equals fluid intake. ![]() ![]() There is no question about which of the two mechanisms is more important. Under normal conditions, homeostasis (relative uniformity of the body's internal environment) of the total volume of water in the body is maintained or restored primarily by devices that adjust urine output to fluid intake, and secondarily by mechanisms that adjust fluid intake. The term fluid balance means that the volumes of ICF, IF, plasma and the total volume of water in the body all remain relatively constant. Note, too, that the water outside of cells - extracellular fluid (ECF) - is located in two compartments: in the microscopic spaces between cells, where it is called interstitial fluid (IF) and in the blood vessels, where it is the principal constituent of plasma, the liquid part of blood.Ī normal body maintains fluid balance. Note that the largest volume of water by far lies inside cells and is called, appropriately, intracellular fluid (ICF). It occupies three main locations in the body known as fluid compartments.įigure 1 illustrates the relative sizes of these fluid compartments. This, the body's most abundant compound, is water. If you are a healthy young person weighing 120 pounds, one substance alone, out of the hundreds of compounds present in your body, weighs about 72 pounds, or 60% of your total weight. Have you ever wondered why you sometimes excrete great volumes of urine and sometimes almost none at all? Have you ever wondered why sometimes you feel so thirsty that you can hardly get enough to drink and other times you want no liquids at all? Have you ever wondered why every time you go to the movie theater and drink a large soda at the beginning of the movie, you almost always have to go to the bathroom during the middle of the movie (the worst time possible)? Did you know that if you were eating salty popcorn along with your large soda, you would not have to interrupt your movie to go to the bathroom? These conditions, and many more, relate to one of the body's most important functions - that of maintaining its fluid and electrolyte balance. Return to first page for background information on these pages. Noonan, Ph.D., Health and Physical Education Department, Fashion Institute of Technology of the State University of New York (FIT-SUNY), and SexQuest/The Sex Institute, NYC, for the benefit of students and other researchers interested in the human aspects of the space life sciences. Ray Noonan's Archives: NASA's Humans in Space: The Fluid Regulation SystemĪrchived by Raymond J. ![]()
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