Significance of Buffer in Living Organism

The concept of pH plays an important role in the body since the body is filled with acids
and bases. Life depends upon the balance between these biological substances.
Fortunatelynature has a way of maintaining constancy of pH. The pH of these biological fluids is
maintained by buffers (Zaballa et al., 2010).
A buffer solution is one that resists a change in pH when a small amount of acid or base
is added. A buffer solution contains a weak acid and its conjugate base, or a weak base and its
conjugate acid. It has a remarkable property of maintaining an almost constant pH even though
a strong acid or base is added to the solution.
The human body has several buffer systems. In the blood, bicarbonate buffer system is
present. Principal intracellular buffer is the phosphate buffer system. They regulate body
chemistry (answer to Question 2) in a narrow range of acidity (Apps, 1992).
As stated by Nucum (2005), living systems regulate pH because relatively small
changes in pH of the most body fluids can have drastic, even lethal effects on the organism. A
drop of blood pH from 7.4 to 7.0 can lead to coma, and an increase to 7.8 can lead to tetany.
One of the buffer systems in the blood is consisted of carbonic acid and sodium bicarbonate
(Nucum, 2005). Other buffers systems are phosphate buffers systems.