Question

You accidentally remove the adrenal glands. The patient now doesn’t produce aldosterone. What affect will this have on the kidneys? What effect on hydration? What effect on blood pressure? Tell me one other system that will be drastically altered by a lack of adrenal glands.

Does the patient then begin to hyperventilate What will happen to plasma pH? How might a paper bag help correct this? What will the kidneys do to compensate?
You hand them a pill of unknown origin. After they’ve taken it, you discover that it’s a poison, which is filtered and secreted in the nephron, but not reabsorbed. Is this better or worse than something that is reabsorbed? Explain.

Answer 1

Aldosterone is a hormone produced by the adrenal glands,it plays a central role in the regulation of blood pressure mainly by acting on organs such as the kidney and the colon to increase the amount of sodium reabsorbed into the bloodstream and to increase the amount of potassium excreted in the urine. Aldosterone also causes water to be reabsorbed along with sodium; this increases blood volume and therefore blood pressure

With low level or absence of aldosterone, the kidney wont be able to reabsorb water and retain sodium and moreover it act to increase the level of potassium in the blood, since water is not reabsorbed it results in reduced hydration and low blood pressure. The other system affected would be circulatory system,the veins don't constrict properly, which leads to lower blood volume.

The patient begins to hyperventilate, as a result his blood ph will become alkaline (increase in pH) which could lead to alkalosis, by breathing into paper bag, the idea is to rebreathe the expelled carbon di oxide so that normal pH can be restored.The kidney compensates in response to respiratory alkalosis by reducing the amount of new bicarbonate ion generated and by excreting bicarbonate.

It is better to be secreted than reabsorbed, reabsorption means the movement of substance from the kidney tubule to the bloodstream, which could be dangerous in this case, as opposed to secretion which is movement of substance from blood to the kidney tubule to be excreted out, which could be beneficial in this case as it is a poison.