Explain how the use of distilled water in place of this saline solution would be expected to upset the patient's homeostasis?

Answer 1

The saline solution used in hospital I.V.s is a solution with about the same water concentration as the human body. If distilled water were used instead, the imbalance of concentrations of salt between the water and the body would cause cells to react, and the process of osmosis to cause them to bloat up with water, potentially damaging them.

Answer 2

The human body needs electrolytes which can be found in salt. A saline solution is basically a salt water, and it provides the body with more than just hydration through water, it gives it electrolytes and other benefits as well. Think of it as gatorade, helping your body stay hydrated, and hydrating it faster.

Partially.

Saline is used in IVs because distilled water is relatively hypotonic, which would cause an imbalance salinity, which can damage the body.

Answer 3

Distilled water could be used in place of saline solution to upset a patient's homeostasis by having them ingest a fair amount of it. The human body has fluids that are slightly salty and have a pH of around 7.4. Distilled water should have a pH of 7.

Answer 4

The body naturally contains a certain level of "salts". If you interrupt that balance by injecting something with a very different ion content, you disturb the flow of water in and out of cells.

A hypotonic situation is created when the surrounding liquid has a lower salt concentration than the interior of a cell. Water flows into the cell to try to achieve balance, but the cell cannot withstand the pressure and it bursts, called lysis (crenation is the opposite situation; caused by a hypertonic environment).

Distilled water contains littler or no salt and will create an imbalance in the bodies normal environment, a hypotonic environment.

Answer 5

I think that our red blood cells would absorb the water since those cells would be hypertonic to the distilled water entering the blood stream through the iv. The cells would end up absorbing to much water and lysing in the end if enough water was put into the blood stream.

Answer 6

Saline solutions are isotonic with blood (that is, they contain the same percentage of ions). If water were infused, you would end up with osmosis, or the water would travel to the cells, causing them to grow and lyse (explode). Remember that with a semi-permeable membrane, water travels to wherever has the higher ion concentration (in this case, red blood cells).

Answer 7

because distilled water does not have any dissolved salts in it

Answer 8

Your cells would burst as water would flow into them by the process of osmosis. If saline is used, it has the same amount of salt as your cells have and there would be no problem.