The Body's Purificatio Plant:
The Excretory System - 1
There are some 100 trillion cells constantly active in the human body. As a result of these activities emerge waste products consisting of urea, uric acid and keratin, some of them very toxic. Unless they are immediately expelled from the body, the body’s functions become impaired, and death is inevitable.
At this point, we can once again see the body’s immaculate creation. In the same way that special systems have been created to eliminate exhaust fumes from a car’s engine, so the special excretory system have been created in the human body to eliminate the toxic products produced during its day-to-day activities.
Just like factories that discharge poisonous wastes into rivers, cells release the waste byproducts they create into the blood plasma. This means the human bloodstream is being polluted by the waste products from 100 trillion cells—pollution that represents a danger to life, unless the polluted blood is cleaned constantly.
But here a major problem arises. Along with such toxic wastes as urea and uric acid, there are also substances in the bloodstream that the body needs, such as amino acids, vitamins, water and glucose. That being so, whatever purifies the blood needs to be more than a simple filtering system. In addition to recognizing and retaining useful substances, this system also must function as a complex purification plant that will distinguish and eliminate only toxic products.
You might at first imagine that a plant so perfect and technologically equipped could be constructed only in a very large area. Yet this incomparable purification plant is actually installed in a very small area, just beneath your skin, at the level of your back, and it has existed ever since you were in your mother’s womb.
The paired organs known as the kidneys serve as a purification plant with which no technology can possibly compete.
Micro-Filters: The Kidneys
How Is the Blood Purification Carried Out?
The creation in the kidney could never have come about by chance. To the side is shown the detailed structure of just one of the more than 1 million nephrons in the kidney.
Blood flowing through the body is first subjected to filtering in the kidneys. In them, a large number of minute filters enable this purification to take place. A manifest miracle can be seen when one considers these filters’ number: In a single kidney there are 1,200,000 filters known as nephrons. These micro-filters consist of a Bowman capsule—a hemispherical structure composed of capillary vessels at the end of the nephron, the glomerulus, the Malpighian corpuscle, and kidney veins. 43 Each of these 1,200,000 filters possesses a perfect creation with thousands of microscopic holes.
Approximately one-quarter of the blood leaving the heart comes direct to the kidneys, by means of the renal arteries, which accounts for more than 1 liter (0.3 gallons) a minute. The vein carrying the blood divides into thinner ones as soon as it enters the kidney. Each of these thin vessels leads to a micro filter. Thanks to the pressure established by the heart, the blood strikes the surface of the filter at considerable speed, and toxic products and water pass through to the other side of the filter. Since proteins and blood cells are too large to pass through the filter, they remain behind. The blood that is unable to pass is thus cleansed and purified.
Consider the information provided so far:
Some 1,200,000 filters have been located in a piece of flesh the size of one’s fist. The same detailed creation exists flawlessly in every single filter. In every nephron, for instance, there is a section called the glomerulus—a ball of blood vessels inside the Bowman capsule. Later, these blood vessels join up and leave the capsule as an artery. Let us now have a brief look at this region.
The glomerulus that enters the Bowman capsule divides into a number of capillary vessels that will constitute the vein node. These blood vessels will later join up and leave the capsule as an artery.
A blood vessel network between two arteries can only be seen in this part of the body. Since the glomerulus capillaries lie between two arteries, the blood pressure is higher here than in the body’s other capillary vessels. The higher blood pressure maintained in this region serves a very specific purpose: to make the filtering process more effective. Again in contrast to other capillary vessels, the walls of the vessels here are double-layered—a structure that not only allows them to withstand this higher blood pressure, but also prevents proteins and leucocytes from leaking out of the blood vessels.
Thanks to all these features, only water and substances dissolved in water pass from the glomerulus capillary vessels into the Bowman capsule. Although there is reverse absorption in other capillary vessels, none occurs in these.
These veins can be cited as an example of the kidneys’ overall creation. The veins that bring the polluted blood to the filters, removed the filtered waste products and carry the remaining clean blood back to the body are equipped with 1,200,000 filters, created in such a way as to create no confusion whatsoever. The veins all lead where they need to go. The path that blood vessels follow in the kidneys, where they will go to carry these products, and where they will leave the kidneys—all is the product of a special creation.
What has been described so far are very small parts of the kidneys’ detailed structure. Many books have been written, countless studies and experiments carried out, regarding just a single process in the kidneys or a substance that’s secreted. All the research into human anatomy leads to a single conclusion: that all of our body’s components have to exist as a whole, because our very survival depends on our bodies functioning as a single unit. If the venous system just described did not exist in the kidneys, the body’s excretory system and equilibrium would be impaired, resulting in death.
The detailed structure shown above exists in every one of the more than 1 million nephrons in the kidney. The blood in each nephron goes to the capillary vessel node, known as the glomerulus. The glomerulus lies inside the Bowman capsule, and between these two is a fine membrane. That membrane is the kidney filter. This flawless creation in the kidney belongs to Allah.
Above, a glomerulus, one of the thousands of the small nodes in the capillary vessels, and Bowman capsules. To the side is shown a closer cross-section of a Bowman capsule.
This totally undermines the claims of evolutionists, who maintain that the human body assumed its present form under the gradual effects of such factors as chance and mutations. But to follow their chance-based scenario: Is it possible for a capillary vessel to form by chance, and then to combine with other capillaries, again by chance, to form capsules in the kidney, which also emerged by coincidence, then for these to combine in the form of an artery, and then to acquire the most appropriate structure for the performance of the filtering process—all by chance? It is obvious that any such an account, based on one coincidence after another, is nothing more than a fairy tale. Not one such system could possibly form in such a way in a living thing. Everything in the human body exists as a result of perfect planning. There is, of course, a Power that fulfils this creation, which power belongs to the Omniscient Allah.
Moreover, what has been described so far is only the bare outline of the processes that take place within the kidneys.
THE KIDNEYS, CAPABLE OF DISTINGUISHING GLUCOSE, PROTEIN AND SODIUM ARE A MANIFEST PROOF OF CREATION
Your two kidneys cleanse the blood coursing through your body throughout your life. Part of the substances filtered is sent back to the body, and the remainder expelled as serving no purpose. But how can the kidneys distinguish between protein, urea, sodium, glucose and other substances?
The fore-mentioned node-like body consisting of blood vessels in the kidneys, known as the glomerulus, filters the substances in the blood. In contrast to the body’s other blood vessels, these vessels are covered in three different layers. These three layers decide, with the greatest care, which substances are to be filtered out and expelled, and which are to be returned to the body. But what does a cell membrane measure—and by what mechanism does it identify all the substances in the fluid reaching it and decide which region they should go to? Blood reaching the kidneys contains a great mixture of substances, including glucose, bicarbonate, sodium, chloride, urea and keratin. As the kidney expels all, or part of these substances, it also sends all or another part back to the body. How can a piece of tissue decide which and how much of these substances to expel? The answer lies in the fact that it has been flawlessly created.
The glomerulus’ selectivity depends on the sizes and electrical charges of the substances in the fluid. This means that the glomerulus possesses the ability to identify the molecular weights of the sodium and glucose mixed up in the blood—and the proteins that have negative electrical charges. In this way proteins, of vital importance to the body, are not expelled but are reabsorbed into the body.
How can the glomerulus, made up of blood vessels, possess such superior ability, despite having received no training in chemistry, physics or biology? Yet glomerules perform their functions to the letter because they are inspired to do so by Allah, their Creator. None of the substances they filter is selected at random, or else it would be impossible for our bodies to survive in a healthy manner until these unconscious organs had located the right molecules.
Yet despite all this evidence, Darwinists are so blindly devoted to the theory of evolution that they are unable to consider these facts. For the sake of believing—and having others believe—that everything came into being by chance, they totally distance themselves from reason, logic and science.
The Purification Plant Goes into Action
Every minute, some 125 cubic centimeters (7.6 cubic inches) of fluid is filtered in the kidneys’ microfilters, and this fluid is passed by the bloodstream as waste products to the other side of the filters. This means that 180 liters (47.5 gallons) are filtered every day—enough to fill the gas tanks of four cars. 44 Of course, a human body weighing 60 to 70 kilograms (130 to 145 pounds) couldn’t possibly withstand the loss of 180 liters (47.5 gallons) of fluid every day.
Moreover, in addition to containing toxic substances, this fluid also contains vital ingredients such as amino acids, vitamins and glucose. The loss of these materials would result in death. That being so, the fluid must not be expelled from the body immediately. First, useful substances need to be identified, retained, and re-acquired for the body’s use.
In fact, 99% of the fluid passed through the micro filters is re-absorbed by the kidneys and released back into the bloodstream. At the same time, substances the body needs are caught one by one for re-use. Vitamins, amino acids and other important substances are thus prevented from being expelled in the urine.
Technology in the Purification Plants
As described above, a perfect and multi-functional plant is essential to purify the blood—and to re-absorb useful substances in the fluid already filtered. Allah has installed more than 1 million micro-purification plants in a kidney only 10 centimeters (4 inches) in size and 100 grams (0.2 of a pound) in weight.
As you’ve seen, blood pumped from the heart to the kidney is filtered through more than 1 million micro-filters. What we call micro-purification plants have been installed immediately behind these micro-filters. Each plant consists of a mini-pipe 31-millimeters (1.2 inches) long.
Yet this is one of the most perfect purification plants in the world. Despite all the great technological means mankind has invented, no purification plant comparable to this little tube has ever been created.
Before examining how this little tube functions, we need to concentrate on the important fact that it is only 31 millimeters (1.2 inches) long. Bearing in mind that there are more than 1 million of these micro-purification plants in a single kidney, the total length of all these tubes laid on end is actually 31 kilometers (19 miles)!
The fact that Allah has installed these 31 kilometers of tubing so flawlessly into a 10 centimeter (4-inch) organ is one of the countless miracles He has manifested in the human body. In addition to containing an important quantity of useful substances, the yellowish kidney fluid also contains harmful substances that cross to the other side of the micro-filters, and now starts a very important journey within the 31-millimeter (1.2-inch) purification plant.
A Living Pipeline
The 31-millimeter purification plant or pipeline we have been referring to is actually a living tube—or more accurately, a collection of millions of living cells. These cells which constitute the pipeline fulfill a vital function for the human body with enormous determination, consciousness and responsibility.
From within the urine, the cells select and trap those substances necessary for human survival. They then pass them through the capillary vessels surrounding this pipeline, expending considerable quantities of energy. Substances of vital importance—glucose, amino acids, and proteins—are thus released back into the bloodstream. For this process to take place, the transportation molecules that will assist the cells need to be ready. Everything has been flawlessly planned and set out.
We now need to think a little. The cells gain nothing from the work they do. Yet just like a chemist, they distinguish the requisite molecules and deliver them to the blood vessels, day and night. To select between different substances, a cell needs to possess information, and must have intellect and experience to tell them apart.
But it is not enough for only one single cell to possess awareness. It is essential that millions of cells in the kidneys should assemble to form a tube, and that all of them should work together, demonstrating the same determination. Therefore, billions of cells all exhibiting similar consciousness must come together to form a million independent pipelines. At the same time, more billions of cells must combine so as to form a million filters and locate themselves at the entrances to the pipelines.
Remember that no cell possesses any consciousness whatsoever. If a collection of cells come together in a tiny tube in one corner of our bodies and perform actions requiring reason, responsibility, and coordination, then that is a manifestation of Allah’s infinite intellect and incomparable artistry. Such a flawless order can only come into being, not through a string of coincidences, but by Almighty Allah telling it to “Be!”
The Originator of the heavens and Earth. When He decides on something, He just says to it, “Be!” and it is. (Surat al-Baqara: 117)
The Kidneys’ Delicate Tasks
Before examining the other functions of the kidneys, it will be useful to look briefly at the world of water inside us. The human body’s solid appearance is actually based on the fluids it contains. More than half of the water, comprising 60% of our body weight, is inside our cells. The remainder—mainly in form of blood and lymph—bathes all the cells in our body.
It is essential that each of the above components making up the excretory system for removing waste products from the body should exist fully formed. This is one of the proofs that the human body is created by Allah.
The water surrounding our cells must be of a particular density, or the situation could grow very dangerous. To emphasize the importance of the water surrounding the cells, if the cells in a drop of blood are placed into pure water, they will swell up and explode. If placed into a liquid environment denser than tap water, they will fold up on themselves and collapse.
The pure water in the first experiment will enter the denser cells. In the second experiment, the water within the cell will be pulled out into the denser external environment. Developments of this kind in the cells, give rise to deadly consequences in the body. For that reason, it is essential that the body’s internal fluids should remain at a specific density.
The kidneys are created with special systems to ensure that the balance in question is maintained. In addition to filtering and cleaning the blood, this miraculous pair of organs also regulates the quantity and density of the fluid in your tissues and makes the necessary adjustments accordingly.
You may never think about the water level in your tissues in the course of your day-to-day life. Without your being aware of it, however, the kidneys regulate this water level for you—working non-stop, just like the trillions of different cells that work on your behalf.