Summary chapter 1

Your body contains a lot of water which is distributed into different compartments and contains a carefully controlled combination of salts. Water and salt level disturbances can cause major physiological abnormalities affecting for example nerve and muscle cells ability to conduct electrical impulses, or the cell’s ability to transport molecules across the cell membrane. The regulation of water and salt levels are closely linked. The kidneys play a key role in this regulation, as we shall see next.