Today I was sitting in lecture listening to how the percent volume of red blood cells in your blood can either increase or decrease the amount of oxygen being delivered to various parts of your body. See the more red blood cells the more oxygen the blood can carry, but the more red blood cells there are the more viscous the blood becomes. Therefore one can determine a certain level of red blood cells that allows for enough oxygen to be delivered while minimizing the work required.
So since it is a Biofluids class we went ahead and solved for the optimum level that would minimize the work required to deliver the appropriate level of oxygen to a given part in the body. For those that are nerdy like myself...the answer is about 43% volume should be red blood cells. Then as a side note the professor pointed out that it just so happens that this is the level for a health human and that it is almost as if it was designed that way. How amazing that we were able to get lucky and just have the exact amount of red blood cells in order that our body would be able to work at the optimum condition...wow what are the odds.
8 comments:
Why don't you show me how you got the answer tomorrow?
And does it mean that I could have got more oxygen but my heart is too lazy to do all the extra work?!
Alright I can show you tomorrow.
No it does not mean that your heart is too lazy. Your heart will do as much work as is needed to get oxygen to your body parts (you don't want it over working itself when it doesn't have to...you know it is just a pump and you don't run your pump at full power all the time...of coarse no human could design a pump as amazing as the heart).
What this means is that your blood is designed such that your heart doesn't have to do anymore work than is necessary. Obviously that is ideal if you plan on using that pump for +80 plus years, nonstop, and hopefully without any maintenance.
"it is just a pump"?!
Ahh...you hurt my feelings.
Or, should I say, you broke my pump?!
I'm sorry...some times I can be completely pumpless.
Complete randomness!!!
All you need is enough time:
roll...
poof...
ping!!!
43% red blood cell volume
I bet if I sat here Long enough I could turn into a FROG!!
lol...you get random frog everytime, sweet!
Wow Tommie (I obviously don't know that it is Tommie so I'm just randomly putting a name) I had no idea that a website could exist that would randomly generate frogs. Who would have imagined that randomly a website would be created that would randomly produce random frogs...hmmm
Wow, that's very interesting because I actually donated blood recently (as you know, Brian... although, don't worry, I'll make sure to make an appt for you next time I go!). See, I never have enough iron in my blood, and it's always on the borderline, so they do this test on a blood sample and if I get a result greater than 39 or something, I can donate.
This time it was 40ish, and I asked the nurse what that meant and what number is not borderline (since I am ALWAYS around 40- I just didn't know if I was aiming for like 41... or 60... or what). She said that the number represented the percentage of red blood cells in your blood, but she didn't know what to aim for, since they only find out the number when it's borderline (and therefore around 40).
And now, thanks to your class and my latent reading of your blog- I know what the optimum is: 43!
Funny how random questions get eventually answered!
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