Diet fads change drastically every few months. In the early 2010s, people were a
ID: 3522938 • Letter: D
Question
Diet fads change drastically every few months. In the early 2010s, people were acidifying their diets as a health movement, and after 2015, the push is to alkalinize your blood by eating certain vegetables, and even spending thousands of dollars to specially raise the pH of your drinking water. Why, physiologically, do you know that these fads to alter your body’s pH are a huge waste of money? Explain how the kidney is the main regulator of homeostatic blood pH, and how the respiratory system may help contribute to pH regulation as well.
Explanation / Answer
The maintenance of blood ph within its limit (7.35-7.45) called acid base homeostasis.
Homeostasis is a complex synergy involving three organs (lungs, kidney and brain) and chemical buffers in blood and blood cells (erythrocytes).
The process of homeostasis has two aspects that both related to the maintenance of normal blood bicarbonate concentration.
The two aspects are :-
* reabsorption of blood of virtually all bicarbonate filtered from blood by the kidneys.
*generation of new bicarbonate that has been lost in buffering acid produced during normal cell metabolism.
REGULATION OF PH BY RESPIRATORY SYSTEM
Homeostasis is maintained by the respiratory system in two ways.
*gas exchange
*regulation of blood ph
Respiratory system work in conjuction with the cardiovascular system to provide oxygen to cells within the body systems for cellular metabolism and also remove carbon dioxide.
Since, CO2 is mainly transported in plasma as bicarbonate ions, which act as a chemical buffer, as a result of hyperventilation, CO2 is decreased in blood level due to this the PH of body fluids increases.
If acid level rises above 7.45, the result is respiratory alkalosis. On the hand, two much CO2 causes PH to fall below 7.35 which result in respiratory acidosis.
Thus, by clearing carbondioxide, lungs help in maintaining body acid base balance.
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