Extracellular fluids

Extracellular fluid (ECF) denotes all body fluid outside the cells. Total body water in humans makes up between 45 to 75% of total body weight. About two thirds of this is intracellular fluid within cells, and one third is the extracellular fluid. The main component of the extracellular fluid is the interstitial fluid that bathes cells.

Extracellular fluid is the internal environment of all multicellular animals, and in those animals with a blood circulatory system a proportion of this fluid is blood plasma. Plasma and interstitial fluid are the two compartments that make up at least 97% of the ECF. Lymph makes up a small percentage of the interstitial fluid. The remaining small portion of the ECF includes the transcellular fluid (about 2.5%). The ECF can also be seen as having two components – plasma and lymph as a delivery system, and interstitial fluid for water and solute exchange with the cells.

The extracellular fluid, in particular the interstitial fluid, constitutes the body's internal environment that bathes all of the cells in the body. The ECF composition is therefore crucial for their normal functions, and is maintained by a number of homeostatic mechanisms involving negative feedback. Homeostasis regulates, among others, the pH, sodium, potassium, and calcium concentrations in the ECF. The volume of body fluid, blood glucose, oxygen, and carbon dioxide levels are also tightly homeostatically maintained.

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