And third, we want to talk about the role of the kidney in reabsorbing
the filtered bicarbonate to maintain the plasma pH, so
this is just simply what's filtered from the plasma.
And four, we'll talk about the role of the kidney in
reabsorbing the filtered proton to maintain the plasma pH.
Okay, so let's get started.
So the first thing we need to remember is, what are acids and bases?
So acids are substances that donate protons, and
bases are substances that accept protons.
And in our biological systems, the fluid systems have such very,
very low free amounts of protons that we use a logarithmic
scale to describe how much we have within the biological system.
And so this is called the pH, and the pH is measured,
the scale goes from 14 to 7 to 0.
A pH of 0 is very acidic, a pH of 7 is neutral,
and a pH of 14 is very basic.
And as you recall, within the stomach we had a pH of 2, so
we have very, very acidic pH within the stomach.
But for the most part the bodies pH is between a pH of 7.35 and
7.45, and we usually refer to it as a pH of 7.4.