A huge amount of water - 7 to 9 l - moves from the blood into the bowel every day, through osmosis and digestive secretions. since people only have 5 l of blood, why don't they die from losing all the water from their blood into the bowel? the reason is that, in a healthy person, as the food and ions move down the bowel, they are absorbed into the blood. what will the water do then?

Question

Martin Steele

Biology

17 November, 05:30

A huge amount of water - 7 to 9 l - moves from the blood into the bowel every day, through osmosis and digestive secretions. since people only have 5 l of blood, why don't they die from losing all the water from their blood into the bowel? the reason is that, in a healthy person, as the food and ions move down the bowel, they are absorbed into the blood. what will the water do then?

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Answers (1)

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Reed Adkins · Answer 1

The event order should be:

1. Ingesting food, the small bowel filled with food solutes and become hypertonic. It will attract water from the blood which is hypotonic

2. Food digested, some of it absorbed. The osmotic pressure inside bowel will be reduced.

3. All food is absorbed, the osmotic pressure reduced significantly makes it hypotonic. The blood attracts water as it is hypertonic. This will increase the blood volume