There are eight different blood types and each one holds a unique power to save lives.
But the most common blood type is O+, accounting for more than a third of all people (37%). This means there is a higher demand for this blood type when it comes to blood transfusions.
Why are there different blood types?
There is evidence that the different blood types have evolved over millions of years, with type A being the most ancient.
The difference between the various blood types comes down to sugars that cover the surface of red blood cells. These sugars can be misinterpreted as foreign invaders by the body’s immune system when they don’t match up correctly, making a mismatched blood transfusion potentially deadly.
For this reason, it is extremely important to find a compatible blood match for transfusion patients. With O+ being the most common blood type, having an available blood supply is critical.
What is the best donation procedure for those with O+ blood?
Those with O+ blood type (who meet certain criteria) are encouraged to choose Double Red Cell Donation. This kind of procedure takes twice as many red blood cells from the donor while leaving the platelets and plasma behind.
It’s an efficient way for O+ donors to get more bang for their donation buck by helping to save even more lives!
Those who are unable to meet the height/weight requirements for Double Red Cell Donation may still complete a traditional Whole Blood Donation. This procedure utilizes red blood cells, platelets, and plasma, and one donation can help save up to three lives!
Discover how you can best help those in your community by targeting your blood type and learning which donation method is best for you!
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Blood is actually a tissue. It is thick because it is made up of a variety of cells, each having a different job. In fact, blood is about 80% water and 20% solid.
The circulatory system is the route by which the cells in your body get the oxygen and nutrients they need, but blood is the actual carrier of the oxygen and nutrients. Blood is made mostly of plasma, which is a yellowish liquid that is 90% water. In addition to the water, plasma contains salts, sugar (glucose), and other substances. And, most important, plasma contains proteins that carry important nutrients to the body’s cells and strengthen the body’s immune system so it can fight off infection.
The average man has between 10 and 12 pints of blood in his body. The average woman has between 8 and 9 pints. To give you an idea of how much blood that is, 8 pints is equal to 1 gallon (think of a gallon of milk).
What is blood?
Blood is actually a tissue. It is thick because it is made up of a variety of cells, each having a different job. In fact, blood is about 80% water and 20% solid.
Blood is made mostly of plasma, but 3 main types of blood cells circulate with the plasma:
- Platelets help the blood to clot. Clotting stops the blood from flowing out of the body when a vein or artery is broken. Platelets are also called thrombocytes.
- Red blood cells carry oxygen. Of the 3 types, red blood cells are the most plentiful. In fact, a healthy adult has about 35 trillion of them. The body creates these cells at a rate of about 2.4 million a second, and they each have a life span of about 120 days. Red blood cells are also called erythrocytes.
- White blood cells ward off infection. These cells, which come in many shapes and sizes, are vital to the immune system. When the body is fighting off infection, it makes them in ever-increasing numbers. Still, compared to the number of red blood cells in the body, the number of white blood cells is low. Most healthy adults have about 700 times as many red blood cells as white ones. White blood cells are also called leukocytes.
Blood also contains hormones, fats, carbohydrates, proteins, and gases.
What does blood do?
Blood carries oxygen from the lungs and nutrients from the digestive tract to the body’s cells. It also carries away carbon dioxide and all of the waste products that the body does not need. (The kidneys filter and clean the blood.) Blood also
- Helps keep your body at the right temperature
- Carries hormones to the body’s cells
- Sends antibodies to fight infection
- Contains clotting factors to help the blood to clot and the body’s tissues to heal
Blood types
There are 4 different blood types: A, B, AB, and O. Genes that you inherit from your parents (1 from your mother and 1 from your father) determine your blood type.
Blood is always being made by the cells inside your bones, so your body can usually replace any blood lost through small cuts or wounds. But when a lot of blood is lost through large wounds, it has to be replaced through a blood transfusion (blood donated by other people). In blood transfusions, the donor and recipient blood types must be compatible. People with type O blood are called universal donors, because they can donate blood to anyone, but they can only receive a transfusion from other people with type O blood.
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"Blood Cells" redirects here. For the journal formerly known as Blood Cells, see Blood Cells, Molecules and Diseases. "Hemocyte" redirects here. For invertebrate immune system cells, see Hemocyte (invertebrate immune system cell). A blood cell, also called a hematopoietic cell, hemocyte, or hematocyte, is a cell produced through hematopoiesis and found mainly in the blood. Major types of blood cells include red blood cells (erythrocytes), white blood cells (leukocytes), and platelets (thrombocytes). Together, these three kinds of blood cells add up to a total 45% of the blood tissue by volume, with the remaining 55% of the volume composed of plasma, the liquid component of blood.[1]
Red and white human blood cells as seen under a microscope using a blue slide stain
The darker red blood syringes have deoxygenated blood, whereas the brighter red have oxygenated blood.
Red blood cells or erythrocytes, primarily carry oxygen and collect carbon dioxide through the use of hemoglobin.[2] Hemoglobin is an iron-containing protein that gives red blood cells their color and facilitates transportation of oxygen from the lungs to tissues and carbon dioxide from tissues to the lungs to be exhaled.[3] Red blood cells are the most abundant cell in the blood, accounting for about 40-45% of its volume. Red blood cells are circular, biconcave, disk-shaped and deformable to allow them to squeeze through narrow capillaries. They do not have a nucleus. Red blood cells are much smaller than most other human cells.
RBCs are formed in the red bone marrow from hematopoietic stem cells in a process known as erythropoiesis. In adults, about 2.4 million RBCs are produced each second. The normal RBCs count is 4.5 to 5 millions per cu.mm. RBCs have a lifespan of approximately 100-120 days. After they have completed their lifespan, they are removed from the bloodstream by the spleen.
Mature red blood cells are unique among cells in the human body in that they lack a nucleus (although erythroblasts do have a nucleus).
The condition of having too few red blood cells is known as anemia, while having too many is polycythemia.
Erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) is the rate at which RBCs sink to the bottom (when placed in a vertical column after adding an anticoagulant). Normal values of ESR are:
• 3 to 5 mm per hour in males.
• 4 to 7 mm per hour in females.
Artificially colored electron micrograph of blood cells. From left to right: erythrocyte, thrombocyte, leukocyte.
White blood cells or leukocytes, are cells of the immune system involved in defending the body against both infectious disease and foreign materials. They are produced and derived from multipotent cells in the bone marrow known as hematopoietic stem cells. Leukocytes are found throughout the body, including the blood and lymphatic system. There are a variety of types of white bloods cells that serve specific roles in the human immune system. WBCs constitute approximately 1% of the blood volume.[4]
White blood cells are divided into granulocytes and agranulocytes, distinguished by the presence or absence of granules in the cytoplasm. Granulocytes include basophils, eosinophils, neutrophils, and mast cells. Agranulocytes include lymphocytes and monocytes.
The condition of having too few white blood cells is leukopenia, while having too many is leukocytosis. There are individual terms for the lack or overabundance of specific types of white blood cells. The number of white blood cells in circulation is commonly increased in the incidence of infection.[5] Many hematological cancers are based on the inappropriate production of white blood cells.
Platelets, or thrombocytes, are very small, irregularly shaped clear cell fragments, 2–3 µm in diameter, which derive from fragmentation of megakaryocytes. The average lifespan of a platelet is normally just 5 to 9 days. Platelets are a natural source of growth factors. They circulate in the blood of mammals and are involved in hemostasis, leading to the formation of blood clots. Platelets release thread-like fibers to form these clots.
The normal range (99% of population analyzed) for platelets is 150,000 to 450,000 per cubic millimeter.[6] If the number of platelets is too low, excessive bleeding can occur. However, if the number of platelets is too high, blood clots can form thrombosis, which may obstruct blood vessels and result in such events as a stroke, myocardial infarction, pulmonary embolism, or blockage of blood vessels to other parts of the body, such as the extremities of the arms or legs. An abnormality or disease of the platelets is called a thrombocytopathy, which can be either a low number of platelets (thrombocytopenia), a decrease in function of platelets (thrombasthenia), or an increase in the number of platelets (thrombocytosis). There are disorders that reduce the number of platelets, such as heparin-induced thrombocytopenia (HIT) or thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP), that typically cause thromboses, or clots, instead of bleeding.
Platelets release a multitude of growth factors including platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF), a potent chemotactic agent, and TGF beta, which stimulates the deposition of extracellular matrix. Both of these growth factors have been shown to play a significant role in the repair and regeneration of connective tissues. Other healing-associated growth factors produced by platelets include basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF), insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), platelet-derived epidermal growth factor, and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). Local application of these factors in increased concentrations through platelet-rich plasma (PRP) has been used as an adjunct to wound healing for several decades.
Main article: Complete blood count
A complete blood count (CBC) is a test panel requested by a doctor or other medical professional that gives information about the cells in a patient's blood. A scientist or lab technician performs the requested testing and provides the requesting medical professional with the results of the CBC. In the past, counting the cells in a patient's blood was performed manually, by viewing a slide prepared with a sample of the patient's blood under a microscope. Today, this process is generally automated by use of an automated analyzer, with only approximately 10-20% of samples now being examined manually. Abnormally high or low counts may indicate the presence of many forms of disease, and hence blood counts are amongst the most commonly performed blood tests in medicine, as they can provide an overview of a patient's general health status.
In 1658 Dutch naturalist Jan Swammerdam was the first person to observe red blood cells under a microscope, and in 1695, microscopist Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, also Dutch, was the first to draw an illustration of "red corpuscles", as they were called. No further blood cells were discovered until 1842 when French physician Alfred Donné discovered platelets. The following year leukocytes were first observed by Gabriel Andral, a French professor of medicine, and William Addison, a British physician, simultaneously. Both men believed that both red and white cells were altered in disease. With these discoveries, hematology, a new field of medicine, was established. Even though agents for staining tissues and cells were available, almost no advances were made in knowledge about the morphology of blood cells until 1879, when Paul Ehrlich published his technique for staining blood films and his method for differential blood cell counting.[7]
- ^ Maton, Anthea; Jean Hopkins; Charles William McLaughlin; Susan Johnson; Maryanna Quon Warner; David LaHart; Jill D. Wright (1993). Human Biology and Health. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, USA: Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-981176-1.
- ^ Boron, Walter F.; Boulpaep, Emile L. (2017). Medical Physiology (3rd ed.). Philadelphia: Elsevier. p. 434. ISBN 978-0-323-42796-8.
- ^ Basic Biology (2015). "Blood cells".
- ^ Alberts, Bruce; Johnson, Alexander; Lewis, Julian; Raff, Martin; Roberts, Keith; Walter, Peter (2002). Molecular Biology of the Cell (4th ed.). New York: Garland Science. ISBN 0-8153-4072-9.
- ^ Kumar, Vinay; Abbas, Abul K.; Fausto, Nelson; Aster, Jon C. (2010). Robbins and Cotran Pathologic Basis of Disease (8th ed.). Philadelphia: Saunders/Elsevier. ISBN 978-1416031215.
- ^ Ross DW, Ayscue LH, Watson J, Bentley SA (September 1988). "Stability of hematologic parameters in healthy subjects. Intraindividual versus interindividual variation". American Journal of Clinical Pathology. 90 (3): 262–7. doi:10.1093/ajcp/90.3.262. PMID 3414599.
- ^ Hajdu, Steven I. (2003). "A Note from History: The Discovery of Blood Cells". Ann Clin Lab Sci. 33 (2): 237–8. PMID 12817630.
- Media related to Blood cells at Wikimedia Commons
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