Renal System - Overview

hi everybody dr mike here in this video we're going to take a look at the genito urinary system also known as the renal system so firstly the renal system comprises of two kidneys which we've got here two ureters which we've got here one bladder and one urethra now the kidneys don't just filter our blood to produce urine they play a vast array of roles within the body but before we get to those roles it's important to talk about firstly where the kidneys are located so if you were to slice into my stomach god forbid and have a look inside you would have to pull out all of my abdominal organs my intestines my stomach my liver you'd have to pull it all out and then by the time it's all out you'd find the back of my abdominal wall which we call the parietal peritoneum you would then have to go through that parietal peritoneum to find my kidneys what that's telling you is my kidneys are located way at the back of my body behind that peritoneal cavity and therefore the kidneys are termed as being retro peritoneal retro peritoneal now when we look at the size of the kidneys you can go through if we're working with centimeters for example 12 6 and 3 they're 12 centimeters by 6 centimeters by three centimeters so 12 centimeters tall or long six centimeters wide and three centimeters thick they weigh around about 150 grams and interesting what you're going to find is that the kidney on the right so again this is the right kidney compared to the kidney on the left actually sits lower and the reason why is because our liver that big organ is sitting above it on the right it's pushing it down so the right kidney is actually lower now where do they sit alright so the kidneys actually sit at around about when we look at the top of the kidney around about t11 t12 so you're going to find that the top or the kidney on the left compared to the kidney on the right will be sitting at around about t12 so the thoracic when we look at the thoracic vertebrae 12 this is around about the 11th thoracic vertebrae and when we look at the bottom of it it's a roundabout l2 l3 so from around about t11 to l3 are where the kidneys sit now you know that the 11th and 12th thoracic vertebrae actually have ribs coming around them they're called our floating ribs so two ribs now what that means is there's going to be two ribs that wrap themselves around the kidneys it doesn't offer much protection but it can be dangerous and often in car accidents these kidneys can break or shear so basically cut the kidneys and damage them significantly so that's an important clinical point and again the kidneys towards the back retroperitoneal what are the functions of the kidneys what roles do they play in the body so i like to think about this i use this particular mnemonic to help remind me on the functions of the kidneys all right i say very clever pigeons migrate east and then i add another e for good measure very clever pigeons my great east now let's get rid of the rest of the word and keep that first letter and let's have a look at some of the functions of the kidneys so first v up here is going to be volume the kidneys are really really important in maintaining blood volume fluid volume fluid balance within the body and we know that if we have too much fluid we can pee it out not enough we can tell the kidneys hold on to that fluid really important and we also know that there's a direct correlation between volume and blood pressure and therefore the kidneys are really really important in maintaining our blood pressure what's the c the c is concentration so it maintains the concentration of things within our blood most importantly the concentration of ions remember ions are charged atoms or elements and examples of ions include things like sodium potassium chloride magnesium hydrogen bicarbonate calcium there's so many important ions and again the kidneys can regulate the concentration of these ions in our blood too many pee out not enough hold on to it what's the p stand for in this case the p stands for ph so the kidneys help regulate long-term acid-base balance long-term acid base balance how does it do this well it does this through the regulation of concentration of hydrogen and bicarbonate because we know all acid is is the concentration of hydrogen ions and to make something less acidic we need to give a base which binds or mops up those hydrogen ions so the kidneys can maintain ph by controlling how many hydrogen ions or how many bicarbonate ions we actually have in the system what's the m the m is metabolic important metabolic processes are controlled by the liver the kidneys sorry so these metabolic processes include gluco neogenesis gluco means glucose neo means new genesis means the beginning of read it backwards the beginning of new glucose if our body has run out of sugar for energy we can use fats via the kidneys and some proteins to produce glucose as energy brilliant it also plays a role in glycogenesis so this is the storing of glucose glycogen and glycogenolysis glycogenolysis this is now breaking apart the stored glycogen to turn into sugar to use for energy and last but not least here for metabolic is vitamin d synthesis importantly the kidneys are the last step in activating a vitamin d precursor what does vitamin d do it helps control our blood calcium levels now the last two e's let's just move them down down a little bit so we have some space the last two e's are going to be excretory and endocrine the excretory functions the kidneys play a really important role in getting rid of waste drugs and toxins so wastes include metabolic wastes so things that we produce as a by-product but we need to get rid of because if they stay in our blood they can be dangerous for us so these wastes can include urea so when we break proteins down and we split apart those amino acids we produce ammonia and we know ammonia is not great to stay within our body so we turn it into urea and we need to get rid of this urea and also creatinine which is a byproduct of muscle metabolism creatinine not creatine but creatinine what about drugs the types of drugs that the kidneys get rid of are water soluble they need to be water soluble because this is urine we're talking about if they're fat soluble the body continues to reabsorb them through the digestive system until it's broken down or it's passed through our digestive tract and also toxins whatever those particular toxins may be kidneys play an important role in getting rid of them what about the endocrine function of the kidneys so endocrine means hormones so what are some important hormones that the kidneys produce well that includes renin renin is important when it comes to the renin angiotensin aldosterone system what is this system basically this is a system that maintains fluid volume and blood pressure and how does it do it ultimately helps hold on to water in the body and helps reabsorb sodium and chloride because wherever salt goes water follows remember when you eat some chips for example some salty chips you get thirsty so wherever salt goes water follows so what the kidneys can do specifically after renin's released is it helps tell the kidneys to hold on to salt in the blood and water will be pulled back in maintaining blood volume maintaining blood pressure and another endocrine function is that of e p o which is erythropoietin erythro erythromeans red so an erythrocyte is a red blood cell erythropoietin palesis to create erythropoietin is the production of red blood cells so the kidneys play a really important role in controlling how many red blood cells you were producing in the body why because the kidneys are very metabolically hungry they only weigh 150 grams but they take around about 20 percent of our cardiac output that means of the five liters of blood pumped out of our heart every single minute twenty percent of that goes to the kidneys that's how important they are so they need oxygen they need nutrients and they need to be able to filter all this blood and when they filter the blood they do all of these particular roles so this is a quick run through of the kidneys

Channel: Dr Matt & Dr Mike

Views: 64,955

Keywords: renal, kidney, kidneys, system, filtration, metabolism, vitamin d, epo, erythropoietin, nephron, glomerulus, ph, excretion, reabsorption, electrolytes, nursing, medicine, university, lecture, college

Id: ZvHCKt2BJHg

Length: 10min 40sec (640 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 29 2020