MIND AND KIDNEY <i>REPORT OF THE LAUREAT OF THE BIG GOLD MEDAL NAMED AFTER M.V. LOMONOSOV RAS 2022</i>

Abstract

The report, presented at the General Meeting of the Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences on May24, 2023, was devoted to the results of the author’s research on the physiology of the kidney and water-salt balance, and the practical significance of the results obtained. The author noted that the kidneys provide conditions for the stability of the volume of each cell of the body, maintaining the constancy of blood osmolality, blood volume in the vessels and the total volume of extracellular fluid in the body, constancy of blood pressure, the desired level of blood clotting; the kidneys are involved in regulating the balance of inorganic ions, digesting proteins, hydrolyzing altered proteins in the blood serum, in the synthesis of glucose in its deficiency, maintaining a constant concentration of many organic substances in the blood serum, hormone secretion, and many other processes. Yu.V. Natochin defends the point of view, according to which the kidney is both an organ for excreting unnecessary substances from the blood and storing the necessary substances in it; it is the kidney that allows you to create an ideal composition of the environment surrounding every cell of the body. Another important postulate concerns the origin of life on Earth. The author disputes the widespread hypothesis about the origin of life in the sea water environment, since, in order to ensure the synthesis of polypeptides, the concentration of inorganic substances, in particular potassium ions, must be equal inside and outside the cell in the first emerging cell.