Sci241 Assignment - Dehydration

Student Name

Assignment: Dehydration

SCI 214

Instructor: Becky Gillaspy

There are different reasons that water is essential to health maintenance. One of the most important reasons is due to the fact that in an adult body, nearly 60% of their body weight is water (Axia College Resource Material, ch. 9, pg. 5). Body water can pass in and out of your bodies’ cells and the purpose of the water doing this is to “equalize the concentration of dissolved particles”, (Ch. 9, pg. 5, para. 3). This process, the diffusion of water, is referred to as osmosis. Not only does this happen in the human body, but it happens all throughout nature as well. An example in the text of how this happens in the body is in the case where there is a region in the body in which the sodium content in the blood is higher than it is in the surrounding cells. When this happens, water gets drawn into the blood in order to “dilute the sodium”, and equalize the cells (pg. 6, para. 1).

There are various functions that water in the body provides. Some examples include the lubrication it provides to your eyes, as well as lubrication that it provides to the joints and mouth (pg. 6, para. 3). I did learn that the blood flowing through our bodies is mostly water. This blood transports oxygen and nutrients to cells throughout the body in order to help it function in a normal manner and also helps to expel waste and cleanse our bodies of toxins. In addition to all of these functions, water also helps to regulate our body temperature. Because water is able to retain heat and then lets it cool down at a slower pace, our body can regulate its temperature easier (Para. 5). Body water also aids our body’s ability to break down and dissolve certain chemicals in our bodies to metabolize and maintain the proper amount of acidity.

When our bodies are lacking the essential component of water, a person can only last a few days (pg. 8, para. 7). Dehydration starts to occur when “water...