Weight of Kidney and All the Body Organs: Main Functions

 

What are a KIDNEY and its main function?

The kidneys are a pair of organs placed in the back, on either side of the spine, right beneath the rib cage. The kidneys remove waste from the blood and expel it as urine. Blood pressure, as well as the levels of water, salts, and minerals in the body, are all controlled by the kidneys. Their major purpose is to eliminate toxins from the blood and convert waste into urine. Each kidney weighs around 160 grams and excretes one to one and a half liters of urine every day. 200 liters of fluid are filtered by the two kidneys every 24 hours.

 

What is the average size of a kidney?

The size of an adult's kidneys varies with height. It also decreases with age and increases with BMI in general (BMI). Sonography is the most often used method for determining kidney size; however, CT and MRI scans can also be used to measure renal size. The normal pole to pole length of an adult human kidney is 10-13 cm. In general, the left kidney is somewhat longer than the right. As expected, solitary kidneys are larger.

Weight of organs in our body?

Organ weight is a complicated topic. Organ weights vary greatly due to a variety of parameters, including body weight, height, lean body mass, and race.

The Illustrations

In 2001, French researcher Grandmaison and colleagues published research in Forensic Science International comparing organ weights from 684 white autopsies performed between 1987 and 1991.

The robustness and concordance of this study with earlier organ weight studies, as well as the overall rarity of research on the subject, make it a great source for determining organ weights.

Based on the study's findings, the typical organ weights and ranges for men and women are as follows:

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Also Read: What Causes Kidney Stones, Symptoms, and its Types

Organ	Average Weight in Men (grams)	Range in Men (grams)	Average Weight in Women (grams)	Range in Women (grams)
Heart	365	90-630	312	174-590
Liver	1677	670-2900	1475	508-3081
Pancreas	144	65-243	122	60-250
Right lung	663	200-1593	546	173-1700
Left lung	583	206-1718	467	178-1350
Right kidney	162	53-320	135	45-360
Left kidney	160	50-410	136	40-300
Spleen	156	30-580	140	33-481
Thyroid	25	12-87	20	5-68

These ideals, to some extent, lack generalizability and cannot be automatically applied to all persons in a group. Even though humans evolve relatively slowly over time, the findings of this study are already out of date.

Height, weight, lean body mass, and body mass index (BMI) are all characteristics to consider.

According to a study, those who are taller, weigh more (have a higher BMI), and have more lean body mass have larger organs.

According to one study, height is the best predictor of most organ weights; taller people have bigger, larger organs.

Obese people have bigger hearts because of their higher BMI.

Thyroid gland size has little to do with a woman's height, weight, or lean body mass. Iodine consumption, on the other hand, may have the biggest influence on female thyroid weight. Thyroid weights often fall within a stable range for all women in areas where most women consume enough iodine.

Age and gender have an impact on organ weight as well. Women's organs are lighter on average than men's. Organ weights, like lean body mass, tend to drop with age.

The reduction of brain mass as people age is very noticeable. To put it another way, as people age, their brains shrink, which is a natural process. In a similar line, brain size has no influence on intelligence; a bigger brain does not make someone smarter.

According to a 1994 study published in Der Pathologe and based on over 8000 autopsies, the average brain weight in men without brain disease is 1336 grams, whereas the average brain weight in women without brain disease is 1198 grams.

According to the study, male brain weight reduces by 2.7 grams per year on average, whereas female brain weight declines by about 2.2 grams each year. In other words, your brain grows lighter as time goes.

One physical characteristic that has an uncertain influence on organ weight is obesity. Obesity is on the rise in the United States, and rising rates are jeopardizing the validity of organ weight reference values. In certain pathology sources, organ weights are represented as a percentage of body weight, implying a direct and proportionate connection.

The Influence of Disease

It should come as no surprise that the impact of sickness or pathology on organ weight is quite variable and intricate. Certain disorders increase the weight of organs, while others decrease their weight.

Chronic alcohol use is associated with a bigger heart (cardiomegaly) and a larger liver (hepatomegaly) (hepatomegaly). However, when cirrhosis worsens, the weight of the liver in people who are alcoholics may decrease. Scar tissue replaces healthy liver tissue in cirrhosis.

Conclusion:

There is still a lot to learn about organ weights. The size and weight of organs are used during autopsies to determine health status and cause of death, hence investing in such research is crucial.

Currently, reference values for organ weights are not universal and are not based on convincing data.

"Organ weights allow us to discover abnormalities," Allenby continues, "and many ailments are connected to size changes — particularly in the heart." The organ weight helps us validate or correlate the disorders that are present... It aids in the diagnosis."

Non-invasive imaging techniques such as MRI and CT may be beneficial in determining organ weights in the future without necessitating an autopsy.

Jackowski and colleagues revealed that imaging data and volume-analyzing software may be utilized to calculate the weight of the liver and spleen in a report published in Investigative Radiology.

In fact, because there are no changes in intrahepatic blood volume during imaging, the researchers feel that it may be more accurate than autopsy in determining liver and spleen weights in cases of congestion (shock).

They also believe that utilizing CT to determine organ weights has greater potential because CT is less expensive and easier to use than MRI, and MRI's utility is restricted by gas purification and embolized air. The phrase "embolized air" refers to air that has been caught in the blood vessels of the circulatory system.