Blood: Function And Components

The main topic of this paper is blood and its purpose in the human body. Blood is an important element in order to function in life. Blood circulates into the blood and supplies the cells of the body with essential resources such as oxygen and nutrients. It also takes oxidative waste products away within the same cells. There is no blood replacement in our bodies. It can’t be made or produced. For patients who need a blood transfusion, gracious blood donors are the only outlet of blood.

Main Function

The main function of blood consists of protection, regulation, and transport. (‘Blood function and composition – HealthEngine Blog’, 2019). The protection of blood plays an important role in inflammation. White blood cells or leukocytes kill infectious microorganisms and cancer cells. Antibodies and other proteins destroy pathogens. Platelet factors promote blood coagulation and help reduce the loss of blood.

Through communicating with acids and bases, blood helps to regulate pH. Blood balance helps to transfer liquid from and to tissues. Blood carries gases between the lungs and the rest of the body, which include oxygen o2 and carbon dioxide. It transfers nutrients to the rest of the body from the digestive tract and processing sites. It also carries waste products for liver and kidney detoxification or removal. It carries hormones from the glands where they are delivered to the target cells and warms to the skin to regulate body temperature.

One example of blood’s function is nutrients. Nutrients are processed in the gut’s capillaries, transferred into the liver through the portal vein. Several biochemical pathways are explored and the nutrients are also transferred to all the body cells through the blood. Clotting is another example of blood function. Together with platelets in the blood, coagulation factors in the blood plasma ensure that any small breaks or cracks are filled automatically. (‘What is the Main Function of Blood?’, 2019).

When you get an infection, your white blood count is usually high. Being sick and having an infection, your white blood count will help fight the infection so your back to being healthy. Antibiotics are required from time to time when our immune system is overloaded.

The hormone is another example of blood’s function which includes the work of different organs. We have energy as long as all hormones are visible and consistent, and all of our organs work just fine. Yet we feel miserable when hormones are lacking. When we get older the hormones sometimes go away. The last example is heating, as we eat blood rushes to our stomach and the liver and it starts to digest. That’s why when we get tired after we eat because blood is pulled from our brain and it produces melatonin to make us feel sleepy. We sweat and lose some of our body heat through our skin on a warm day our skin veins open wide. It’s the way for the body to keep us calm.

Four Main Components

Blood is so important to our bodies, it’s a specialized fluid that we need to be able to function. The four components are red blood cells, white blood cells, plasma, and platelets. Red blood cells are notorious for being bright red and are mostly in what’s in our bodies. In fact, they are accountable for about 40-45% of its quantity. They say the shape of a red blood cell looks kind of like a donut.

Erythropoietin regulates the development of red blood cells, a hormone is mainly released by your kidneys. Red blood cells begin as small cells in the marrow and it releases into the bloodstream after about seven days of maturation. Red blood cells, unlike other cells, they have no nucleus but can smoothly change the form and by making them pass through your body’s different blood vessels. Although the absence of a nucleus tends to make a red blood cell more durable, and it limits the cell’s life as it moves along the tiniest blood vessels, harming the membranes of the cell and replenishing its supply of energy. For average, the red blood cell lasts only 120 days. Red cells produce a unique protein known as hemoglobin that allows oxygen to the lungs to the remainder of the body and goes back to carbon dioxide to the lungs from the body for breathing.

White blood cells are a lot different than red blood cells. These cells help our body fight infection. They are also a lot less than red and only make up for about 1% of blood. (‘Blood Basics’, 2019) Neutrophil, the ‘immediate response’ cell, is the most abundant type of white blood cell, responsible for 55 to 70 percent of the overall white blood cell production. (‘Blood Basics’, 2019). These last less than a day, so bone marrow needs to continually create new neutrophils to ensure infection defense. The neutrophil transfusion is usually not successful because they do not stay very long in the body. A lymphocyte is another significant sort of white blood cell. Such cells have two primary communities. T lymphocytes manage to control the other immune cell’s activity and target different infected cells and tumors specifically. B lymphocytes produce antibodies, proteins that directly attack viruses, bacteria, as well as other infectious materials.

Plasma is the third component and also a very important factor in the human body. The watery part of blood, fat protein and sugar are known as plasma. The major responsibility is to carry blood cells across the body including nutrients, toxins, antibodies, coagulation enzymes, compound disciples as in hormones, and proteins that help keep the liquid stability of the body.

Platelets are not necessarily cells, but instead small bits of cells, excluding red and white blood cells. Platelets speed up the process of blood coagulation by collecting at the area of an accident, attach to the outer layer of the damaged blood vessel, and developing a network for blood coagulation. It results in a fibrin clot being formed that surrounds the wound and stops the release of blood. The initial railings for which new tissue grows are also formed by fibrin, thereby facilitating healing. A greater than the minimum value of platelets may cause undue coagulation, that can cause heart attacks and strokes although, treatments are available to help prevent these potentially fatal events due to advances in antiplatelet therapies. Alternatively, heavy bleeding can result in lower than average counts.

Erythrocytes, Leukocytes, and Platelets

The leukocyte usually referred to as a white blood cell, is a key element within the body’s infection response. Leukocytes secure the body from the invasion of organisms and cells of the body with deformed DNA and they help clean up debris. Platelets are necessary to restore blood vessels if they are damaged and they also help with alleviate and repair growth factors. While both leukocytes and erythrocytes arise in the bone marrow from hematopoietic stem cells, these are in other significant ways somewhat distinct from one another. Leukocytes are bigger than erythrocytes and are the only components produced with a nucleus and organelles that are full cells.

There is only one form of erythrocyte, other forms of leukocytes exist. Many of these forms are from acute infection and have little lifetime than that of erythrocytes, sometimes as short as a couple of hours or even some seconds. Their movement is one of the most unique characteristics of leukocytes. While erythrocytes extend their days in the blood vessels floating, leukocytes regularly abandon the bloodstream to conduct their combative tasks in the cells of the body. The vascular system is essentially a path they navigate and eventually leave to find their ultimate target for leukocytes. Based on their role, these are sometimes assigned different names as they appear, such as macrophage or microglia.