Composition
Interstitial fluid consists of a water solvent containing sugars, salts, fatty acids, amino acids, coenzymes, hormones, neurotransmitters, as well as waste products from the cells.
The composition of tissue fluid depends upon the exchanges between the cells in the biological tissue and the blood. This means that tissue fluid has a different composition in different tissues and in different areas of the body.
Not all of the contents of the blood pass into the tissue, which means that tissue fluid and blood are not the same. Red blood cells, platelets, and plasma proteins cannot pass through the walls of the capillaries. The resulting mixture that does pass through is, in essence, blood plasma without the plasma proteins. Tissue fluid also contains some types of white blood cell, which help combat infection.
Lymph is considered to be extracellular fluid until it enters the lymphatic vessels where it is then considered to be lymph. The lymphatic system returns protein and excess interstitial fluid to the circulation.
The ionic composition of the interstitial fluid and blood plasma vary due to the Gibbs-Donnan effect. This causes a slight difference in the concentration of cations and anions between the two fluid compartments.
Read more about this topic: Interstitial Fluid
Famous quotes containing the word composition:
“Since body and soul are radically different from one another and belong to different worlds, the destruction of the body cannot mean the destruction of the soul, any more than a musical composition can be destroyed when the instrument is destroyed.”
—Oscar Cullman. Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead? The Witness of the New Testament, ch. 1, Epworth Press (1958)
“There is singularly nothing that makes a difference a difference in beginning and in the middle and in ending except that each generation has something different at which they are all looking. By this I mean so simply that anybody knows it that composition is the difference which makes each and all of them then different from other generations and this is what makes everything different otherwise they are all alike and everybody knows it because everybody says it.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“Modern Western thought will pass into history and be incorporated in it, will have its influence and its place, just as our body will pass into the composition of grass, of sheep, of cutlets, and of men. We do not like that kind of immortality, but what is to be done about it?”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)