I understand that we need for to survive since we break down the nutrients inside for energy, but the use of water confuses me
In: Biology
Think of a mummy, all dried out and crispy. It would crack if it moved. Its blood can’t move. Its muscle cells can’t change shape, which is what makes muscles move. Its brain can’t send electrical impulses to the rest of the body to make it function, because electricity is conducted through water. We need water for every system in our body to be able to move, otherwise they’ll just be frozen in place.
Chemical reactions take place easily in the medium of water or using water, with the amount of water on Earth it meant that the life we know have adapted to use those reactions to live, without water being present it is possible that life may have found other ways to exist.
Virtually all the chemical reactions in our bodies happen “in solution”…the chemicals are dissolved, or at least free floating, in a fluid. For humans (and all other forms of life we know about), that fluid is water.
Water is what lets the molecules that “make us go” move around and interact with each other. Without water we’re a pile of non-reacting chemicals. Try baking a cake without the wet ingredients and you kind of get the idea.
We lose water to our environment constantly, since we’re way wetter than our surroundings and we use some of it to carry waste out of our bodies, so we have to keep replacing it or we shut down and die.
Water has particular chemical properties that are important for nearly every aspect of biological life. The enzymes that act as the machinery of life only fit together properly in water. The membranes that make up cells and the organelles inside them can only exist in water. Many nutrients, and essential components of cellular processes, can only get where they need to be because they’re dissolved in water. The dissolved salts and electrolytes that participate in numerous cellular processes such as metabolism and nerve conduction and muscle contraction can only do so because they are dissolved, which allows things like concentration and voltage gradients to become important factors.
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