GENERAL HISTOLOGY

INTRODUCTION

CELL STRUCTURE

Question [CLICK ON ANY CHOICE TO KNOW THE RIGHT ANSWER]
A person should never drink salty water because their cells would
A
shrink
B
expand
C
Either A or B
D
None of the above
Explanation: 

Detailed explanation-1: -This is called osmosis. The sea water is far more concentrated than our body cells. So if one drinks sea water, his cells will rapidly lose water as our body cell is also a semipermeable membrane and as a result it allow water to go out of the cells. This will cause dehydration and the cells will shrink.

Detailed explanation-2: -When cells are exposed to high levels of salt (sodium chloride) they lose water by osmosis and shrink. The cytoplasm condenses and the movement of cellular components, such as the cytoskeleton and organelles, stops.

Detailed explanation-3: -A cell place in salty solution would loose water as water will move from cell to surrounding hypertonic medium by the process of osmosis causing the cell to shrivel up.

Detailed explanation-4: -If we place a cell in the hypertonic solution like in sugar or salt solution, the cell will shrink. It is because the movement of water takes place from lower solute concentration to higher solute concentration i.e from inside sugar solution to attain equilibrium. It results in shrinkage of the cell.

Detailed explanation-5: -Hence, the salt solution acts as a hypertonic solution when compared to the RBC. Therefore, water will move out of the RBC by osmosis and will result in the shrinking of the RBC (water moves from a hypotonic solution to a hypertonic solution).

There is 1 question to complete.