Why do I have kidneys?

This bean-shaped organ is so essential to good health that your body comes with a second one for free! Each kidney is crammed with more than a million microscopic filters-called nephrons – that skim the waste chemical and other gunk from your blood. One of the main jobs of the kidneys is to filter the waste out of the blood. How does the waste get in your blood? Well, your blood delivers nutrients to your body. Chemical reactions in the cells of your body break down the nutrients. Some of the waste is the result of these chemical reactions. Some is just stuff your body doesn’t need because it already has enough. The waste has to go somewhere; this is where the kidneys come in. First, blood is carried into the kidneys by the renal artery (anything in the body related to the kidneys is called “renal”). The average person has 1 to 1½ gallons of blood circulating through his or her body. The kidneys filter that blood about 40 times a day! More than 1 million tiny filters inside the kidneys remove the waste. These filters, called nephrons, are so small you can see them only with a high-powered microscope.

 

Picture Credit : Google