Alcohol, antidiuretic hormone, and dehydration

¶ … alcohol and ADH. There are three references used for this paper.

Alcohol can affect the body in a number of ways. It is important to examine the relationship between alcohol and ADH to gain a better understanding of the roles they play in dehydration.

Kidney Function

The kidneys are the "major organs of excretion (cleaning blood), removing toxins such as drugs, nitrogenous wastes, metabolic wastes such as creatinine, biliruben from blood pigments in bile, and tar and nicotine from tobacco smoke (www.nmc.edu/~koverbaugh/bio106/su02/chapt15.htm)." They are responsible for maintaining "water homeostasis, salt homeostasis-ions of Na, K, Ca and Cl, and pH homeostasis by regulation of H+ ions (www.nmc.edu/~koverbaugh/bio106/su02/chapt15.htm)."

The nephrons are an important part in the filtration of blood. The resulting filtrates pass through the "proximal tubule, the loop of Henle (a long hairpin turn with a descending limb and an ascending limb) and the distule tubule, which empties into a collecting duct (www.3redravens.net/apbio/Chap44notes.html)." The "tubular reabsorption by the proximal tubule and loop of nephron returns large amounts of water and solutes to capillaries by osmosis, active transport and diffusion (www.nmc.edu/~koverbaugh/bio106/su02/chapt15.htm)."

It is important for the kidneys to maintain urine osmolality to prevent "cellular plasmolysis in hypertonic fluid or cellular lysis in hypotonic fluid (www.nmc.edu/~koverbaugh/bio106/su02/chapt15.htm)." When the "osmoreceptor cells in the hypothalamus detect increased blood osmolarity due to an excessive loss of water from the body, there is a release of ADH (www.3redravens.net/apbio/Chap44notes.html)." The urine can become dilute when there is an increase in NaCl concentration, causing the "hypothalamus to sense dilute blood, resulting in a decrease if ADH by the posterior pituitary gland. This lack of ADH makes the collecting duct impermeable to water (www.nmc.edu/~koverbaugh/bio106/su02/chapt15.htm)." ADH production decreases when alcohol is consumed, resulting in dehydration.