Marc Osmosis Case

a. Considering the fact that Marc has both been sweating and drinking minimal amounts of water, Marc is now dehydrated. This means he has less than the required amount of water for his body to complete the processes necessary to maintain its health. As stated in the question, the process of sweating causes the loss of more water than solutes. This means that as the level of water decreases, the level of solute concentration will increase, creating a change in the water to solute ratio.

b. As Marc is dehydrated, he would be experiencing a water imbalance throughout his body. This would make his body complete the process of osmosis. In osmosis, water molecules move from an area of high concentration to and area of low concentration. In this instance, the body cells would be the area of high concentration because they have more unbound water molecules. Since the solute level is higher than water in his blood and fluids, this is the area of low concentration. This would cause a number of water molecules will diffuse form inside of the cell to outside of the cell. This process of osmosis will continue until the

Once the paramedics retrieve Marc, he will have a high concentration of salt in his blood and fluids. This means that the paramedics would treat him with the half normal saline. This is the solution with the lowest percentage of solutes (0.45% NaCl).this will increase his concentration of water throughout this body and will return his cells to their normal size. However, if the paramedics were to keep him on the half normal saline for too long, his water concentration would be too high and his solute concentration would become too low. This would mean that the paramedics would then need to switch Marc to the normal isotonic saline solution (0.9% NaCl). This would balance out both the concentration of water and solutes so that they are now equal. This would set his balance and homeostasis back to normal, thereby helping his recovery. (Johnson