ASSIGNMENT 1

Answer any four of the seven questions. If a question has multiple parts, you need to answer all the choices. Due date is next class period.

1. Water is the most abundant substance in the body. Which properties make water vital to the maintenance of human life in the event of: (Answer all choices)
   A.    vigorous exercise
   B.    transport of nutrients, gases, and wastes
   C.     food digestion
   D.    movement of bone within a joint cavity.
2. A patient arrives in ER in severe metabolic acidosis. What does this mean, and what could be the cause?
3. Choose one of the systems discussed in your text in the atlas following chapter 1 and describe what possible effects a cholesterol-rich diet might have on the organ system you choose.
4. What are some of the roles that proteins play that are scattered throughout the lipid bilayer of the cell membrane?
5. Two patients visit the ER of a local hospital. Patient A appears to be edemic, with swollen hands and feet, due to water retention. Patient B is dehydrated due to excessive exposure under a hot sun. What kind of IV therapy might each patient be prescribed, i.e. a hypotonic solution or a hypertonic solution? Why?
6. Explain why the symptoms of many inherited diseases result from abnormal protein function.
7. Which process-diffusion, osmosis, or filtration-accounts for the following situations?
   A.    Injection of a drug that is hypertonic to the tissues stimulates pain.
   B.    A person with extremely low blood pressure stops producing urine.
   C.    The concentration of urea in the dialyzing fluid of an artificial kidney is kept low.