Save Your Kidneys

II. Know Kidney Disease

What is a kidney?

The first obvious question is “what is a kidney?” We are born with two kidneys and they are located in the middle of your back on either side of the spine.  Each kidney is about the size of your fist. The basic excretory unit of the human kidney is called the nephron. A human kidney contains millions of nephrons.  Blood that needs to be cleaned enters the kidneys through the renal artery.  After blood is cleaned by the millions of tiny nephrons in your kidneys, it returns to the body through the renal vein.  Excess water and waste products are excreted into the urine. Urine is excreted from the kidney into a very thin tube called the ureter.  Each kidney connects to a single ureter that takes the urine to the bladder where urine is stored until we go to the bathroom.  The urine is removed from the body through the urethra.