At just 4.5" inches, it's hard to believe the kidneys cleanse upwards of 150 quarts of fluid from your body every day. It can be easy to overlook the importance of kidneys until their wellbeing is in jeopardy, but they are essential to healthy bodily functions.
The human body absorbs whatever food nutrients it needs for energy and self-repair. After your body has taken what it needs from the food, waste is sent to the blood. If your kidneys did not remove these wastes, the wastes would build up in the blood and damage your body.
Kidneys are comprised of different parts and tissues. One critically important part is called a nephron. There are more than one million nephrons in each kidney that all work together to remove waste and impurities from the body. Each nephron filters a small amount of blood, which is why there are so many of them within the kidneys. The cortical nephrons, which make up about 85 percent, are found deep in the renal cortex, while the juxtamedullary nephrons, which make up about 15 percent of total nephrons, lie close to the medulla.
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