Ingles

READING AND COMPREHENSION

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|The measurement of the Compartments of the Body|
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|The weighing machine, which can be foundin any clinic, is one of the doctor’s most useful tools for assessing the general |
|health of his patient. It must always be kept in mind, however, that the body is not a uniform mass. It iscomposed of different|
|compartments, each with a different function, and different diseases affect these compartments differently. For example, oedema,|
|which is due to an increase in theextracellular water, is a typical feature of many cardiac diseases. In wasting diseases too, |
|there is a reduction in the cell mass and in the energy reserve, but there is an increase in the supportingtissue, which is |
|caused by oedema. If the size of the increase in the supporting tissue equals the size of the reduction in the other two |
|compartments, then the total body weight remainsconstant. In cases like these, the weighing machine is too crude a tool to be |
|an accurate guide to health.|
|The different compartments of the body can be measured separately, but complicated laboratory and clinical procedures are |
|necessary. The approximate size of the cell mass maybe calculated from the size of the cell water, which is obtained from the |
|difference between the total body water and the extracellular water. The size of the total body water may be measured...