Question

What is interstitial fluid?
A. The fluid which removes waste
B. The fluid which dissolves nutrients
C. The fluid which occupies spaces between the cells
D. All of the above

Answer 1

Hint: A water solvent containing carbohydrates, salts, fatty acids, amino acids, coenzymes, hormones, neurotransmitters, white blood cells and waste products of cells consisting of interstitial fluid.

Complete Answer:
- The interstitial fluid is comparable to plasma in essence. Around 97 per cent of the ECF is made up of interstitial fluid and plasma, and a small amount of this is lymph. Interstitial fluid is a body fluid that contains nutrients from capillaries by diffusion between blood vessels and cells and retains waste products discharged by cells due to metabolism.
- The interstitial fluid is eleven litres of ECF and the remaining three litres are plasma. When water, ions, and small solutes are constantly transferred between them through the capillary walls, through pores and capillary clefts, plasma and interstitial fluid are quite close.
- A water solvent containing carbohydrates, salts, fatty acids, amino acids, coenzymes, hormones, neurotransmitters, white blood cells and waste products of cells consisting of interstitial fluid 26 per cent of the water in the human body accounts for this solution.
- Interstitial fluid composition depends on the exchange between the cells in the biological tissue and the blood. This means that in various tissues and in different body locations, tissue fluid has a different composition.
- The plasma that philtres through the interstitial fluid from the blood capillaries does not contain red blood cells or platelets because they are too heavy to move through but does contain certain white blood cells to support the immune system.

So the answer is “Option C”.

Note: Once the extracellular fluid collects in small vessels (lymph capillaries), it is considered to be lymph, and the lymph vessels are called the vessels that carry it back to the blood. Protein and surplus interstitial fluid are transferred to circulation by the lymphatic system. Owing to the Gibbs – Donnan effect, the ionic composition of the interstitial fluid and blood plasma varies. This allows the distribution of cations and anions in the two-fluid compartments to vary significantly.