Blood Health

What Makes Up Healthy Blood?

The liquid component of your blood is called Plasma and has a pH around 7.4. Human blood consists of a liquid (plasma) and a number of cellular and cell fragment components. The blood’s volume is 60 % Plasma followed by 40% cells and fragments. Four of the most important components of our blood are red cells, white cells, platelets, and plasma.

Red blood cells (erythrocytes) are flattened, concave cells about 7 µm in diameter. Red blood cells are the color red because they contain a protein chemical called hemoglobin which is bright red in color. Hemoglobin contains iron and is an excellent vehicle for transporting oxygen and carbon dioxide.Mature erythrocytes are small and lack a nucleus. There are 4 to 6 million of them per cubic millimeter of blood, and have 200 million hemoglobin molecules per cell. About 1/3 of all the cells in the body is a red blood cell (around 25 trillion in the body). Production of Red blood cells is manufactured in red marrow of long bones, ribs, skull, and vertebrae. Since the life-span of an erythrocyte is only 120 days, the body is constantly making new ones and destroying the old ones in the liver and spleen. The body reuses the iron from hemoglobin in the red marrow.

White cells, (leukocytes) exist in variable numbers and are larger than red blood cells. Leukocytes normally only make up about 1% of the blood’s volume. Leukocytes are found not only in the blood, but also in the spleen, liver, and lymph glands. Most are produced in the bone marrow from the same kind of stem cells that produce red blood cells. Others are produced in the thymus gland. Their main function involves the body’s cellular immune response. There are five major types of white blood cells and they include neutrophils, lymphocytes, eosinophils, basophils, and monocytes. They are the essential components of the complex immune system. They seek out, identify, and bind to alien protein on bacteria, fungi and viruses so that they can be removed. T-cells attack cells containing viruses. B-cells produce antibodies. When red cells die, they are removed from the blood and their components are recycled in the spleen. Most individual white cells last 18-36 hours before they also are removed, though some types can live as long as a year.

Platelets are irregularly-shaped blood cells that are produced in the bone marrow and contain cytoplasmic granules. Their main health function is to control bleeding and they are essential to normal blood clotting (coagulation). Platelets circulate for about 10 days before being removed by the liver and spleen. The average person has 150,000 to 300,000 platelets in each milliliter of blood. Platelets stick and adhere to tears in blood vessels as well as release clotting factors. Idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, also known as I.T.P., is a condition of having a low platelet count (thrombocytopenia) of no known cause. A hemophiliac's blood cannot clot since they have a hereditary or genetic disorder that impairs the body’s ability to control clotting. Providing correct proteins (clotting factors) has been a common method of treating hemophiliacs.

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