Preview

Excretion in Humans

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
992 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Excretion in Humans
Excretion in Humans
Excretion is the removal of toxic materials, the waste products of metabolism and substance in excess of requirements from organisms. Metabolism is chemical reactions taking place inside cells, including respiration.
The body excretes three main waste materials. These are Carbon Dioxide, Urea and Water. Excretion is a very important feature to us because without it toxic substances will build up in our bodies and kill us. It also helps in maintaining the composition of body fluids.
The Excretory System of humans is made up of 4 structures: Two kidneys, two ureters, a bladder, and the urethra. The kidneys act as a filter to filter the waste products from the blood, the ureters are tubes that transport the main waste products (urine) from the kidneys to the bladder, where it is stored until it is excreted out of the body through the urethra.

Formation of Urea:
When you eat a food high in protein, it is digested in the small intestine into amino acids.
The villi on the walls of the small intestine absorb the amino acids into the hepatic portal vein.
Hepatic portal vein is a special vein that transports digested material from the small intestine to the liver.
The liver plays a big role in maintaining the level of protein in our body. It absorbs all amino acids from the hepatic portal vein. If the body needs proteins, they will pass through the liver into the blood stream to be used by the body cells to make protein.
If the body does not need proteins. The liver will absorb excess amino acids and break them down into carbohydrates and nitrogen. The formula of amino acids is CHON; here we remove the nitrogen from the molecule, to get a carbohydrate. This is called deamination. Nitrogen is made into urea which is a nitrogenous waste product.
The products are then released to the blood stream.
Kidneys Structure:
A kidney consists of two main structures:
Cortex (outer layer)
Medulla
Between the cortex and the Medulla, there is a

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The largest solid organ in the body, situated in the upper part of the abdomen on the right side. The liver has a multitude of important and complex functions, including to manufacture proteins, including albumin (to help maintain the volume of blood) and blood clotting factors; to synthesize, store, and process fats, including fatty acids (used for energy) and cholesterol; to metabolize and store…

    • 1391 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Water is obtained from food, drink, and from reactions that occur in the body. The kidneys process and balance the amount of water that enters your system with the amount that is released. The digestive system helps rid the body of solid wastes, but some of the wastes in the blood are the remnants of the digestion of food products. For example, when amino acids are broken down by the body, ammonia (NH3) is formed. This product is so toxic that only small amounts can be tolerated by the body. The liver steps in and helps convert this poison to urea, a safer version of this waste product that can be easily removed in urine.…

    • 1606 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Urine collects in the kidneys  travels through 2 thin tubes Ureters to bladder  Muscles in the ureter walls tighten and relax to push urine downward away from the kidneys  Sphincter is like a rubber band which keeps the opening of the bladder so that urine can pass down through the urethra urethra, tube that allows urine exits the body.…

    • 660 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    When we vomit, the acidic nature of our stomach contents becomes immediately apparent both from the taste and from the burning sensation in our throats. The purpose of this acidity is to kill any bacteria we swallow with our food. In the stomach, digestive enzymes and a muscular churning action combine to reduce our food to a thick liquid called chyme. Chyme exits the stomach through a second sphincter and enters the small intestine. Typically, it takes the stomach about 4 hours to process a meal. The small intestine is about 20 feet long. In the duodenum, the first foot of the small intestine, digestion continues with the breakdown of proteins, fats, carbohydrates, and nucleic acids. Some of the digestive enzymes at work in the duodenum are made by the small intestine itself. Others are made by the pancreas. Pancreatic enzymes play an important role in neutralizing food, which arrives from the stomach in a highly acidic condition. In addition, the small intestine receives bile, a substance that is produced in the liver and stored in the gall bladder. Bile is an emulsifier?it breaks fats into tiny droplets that are more easily attacked by enzymes. Beyond the duodenum, the rest of the small intestine functions primarily in absorbing nutrients into the body. In order to be able to do this efficiently?that is, rapidly?the small intestine has a huge surface area. It is covered with numerous fingerlike projections called villi, each of which is in turn covered with tiny little projections called microvilli. Flattened, the small intestine would fill the area of a tennis court! Digested nutrients are absorbed across the surface of the small intestine into capillaries found inside each villus.…

    • 4740 Words
    • 19 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Unit 8.3.1 Study Guide

    • 4808 Words
    • 20 Pages

    | Transport of materials- including gases nutrients and wastes around the body, from where they are absorbed/ produced to where they are released/ needed…

    • 4808 Words
    • 20 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Chapter 10 review

    • 3492 Words
    • 14 Pages

    Defecation is a function of the: a. urinary system b. excretory system C digestive system Mader - 010 Chapter... #4 35. The renal pyramids are contained within the:…

    • 3492 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The liver is responsible for producing enzymes and solutions necessary for digestion. This includes the production of bile, which helps with the breakdown of fat from our food…

    • 664 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The proteins we gain through eating are processed into amino acids and use to replace the proteins already found in the body. There is a total of 20 different amino acids that combine together to make the different proteins. Amino acids that cannot be produce by the body are known as essential amino acids, and are acquired through the foods we eat. These essential amino acids are necessary for the body to function.…

    • 450 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Review Sheet 2

    • 591 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Now, take the organs/structures listed above, and assign each of them to one of the organ system categories below:…

    • 591 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    While going through the stages, what is failed to be mentioned in the travel of the food is the gall bladder, liver, and pancreas. The gall bladder basically acts a storage facility for bile, which is produced by the liver (Inner body, 2013). The role that the pancreas plays in this is storing the bile after it goes through the gall bladder. It is stored in an area called the duodenum (Johns Hopkins, 2012).…

    • 689 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The hepatic portal system is an arrangement of blood vessels between two different sets of tissue. Blood from the stomach, spleen , intestines and pancreas drains into a number of veins which merge to become the portal vein. The vein transports gastrointestinal…

    • 420 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    P1 06TB NCC13e

    • 5600 Words
    • 22 Pages

    Without critical essential amino acids to perform their roles, many of the body’s life-sustaining activities would come to a halt.…

    • 5600 Words
    • 22 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The first half of module seven discussed protein digestion, absorption, and metabolism; while the second half focused on pathological stress and kidney disease. Protein digestion occurs in the stomach and small intestine. When a protein reaches the stomach it is denatured by hydrochloric acid. Once the protein is digested pepsin breaks apart the denatured protein into peptides. Peptides move into the small intestine where they encounter an enzyme that digest the peptides into di- or tripeptides, then into single amino acids. Once the protein is digested into single amino acid groups, then the amino acids can be absorbed into the intestinal epithelial cells. The amino acids are moved from the intestinal epithelial cells into the capillaries of the intestinal villi. From the capillaries of the intestinal villi,…

    • 430 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Proteins are a part of every cell, tissue, and organ in our bodies. The protein we eat is broken down by amino acids that are later used to replace proteins in our bodies. These proteins include meats, poultry, fish, eggs, nuts, seeds, milk and milk products.…

    • 410 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Bytr

    • 1711 Words
    • 7 Pages

    The human body cannot make eight of the twenty needed amino acids, therefore, they must be consumed as part of the diet. The other types of amino acids may be produced by the body, but they require components of other consumed proteins. Proteins in the diet can be broken down into amino acids by the digestive system and rebuilt into needed proteins by cells of the body. They perform many functions including forming structures, forming enzymes, and use as an energy source, with excess energy being stored as fat.…

    • 1711 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays

Related Topics