how much do you really know about your own blood like we all know that it's this red fluid circulating throughout our blood vessels but what gives it its red color we know that it keeps us alive but why what is in this fluid that is so important and where does it come from like how does your body actually make blood well today we're going to answer all these questions and even talk about a few conditions when you don't have enough blood or red blood cells and of course I won't be able to help myself because we'll also spend some time applying how your blood relates to Fitness and athletic performance and how it can change it's going to be a bloody one so let's do [Music] this so let's start by talking about what blood is and some of its amazing main functions and then we can get into how blood is made blood is actually a liquid connective tissue because like other connective tissues blood is composed of cells suspended in an extra cell Matrix it just so happens that the extracellular Matrix of blood is a liquid that we call plasma blood is closely related to other body fluids such as lymphatic fluid cerebral spinal fluid that surrounds the brain and the fluid between the body cells called interstitial fluid and this makes sense because these other fluids are actually derived or created from the blood and replenished by the blood and even returned to the blood so in a way you can think of it as that all the fluid in your body at some point came from your blood which is very important because these other fluids like the lymphatic fluid cerebral spinal fluid and the interstitial fluid nourish protect and exchange materials with every cell in the human body so in a way these are some of the indirect functions of blood but what are some of the more direct functions of blood blood is involved in quite a bit of Transportation it transports oxygen from the lungs to the body cells and then carries carbon dioxide from those cells back to the lungs for exhalation or breathing out it carries nutrients from the gastrointestinal tract to the body cells and even delivers hormones from endocrine glands to various targets throughout the body Blood also transports waste products to the lungs kidneys and skin for elimination blood is essentially this transport medium for the most incredible and efficient irrigation system on planet Earth which we would call our cardiovascular system but blood is also involved in regulation it helps maintain homeostasis in body fluids regulates pH through buffering and is greatly involved in thermal regulation like think about when you're sweating if you were to work out in a hot and humid environment that sweat will cool you down but you are losing fluid in the form of that sweat and if you were to check someone's overall blood volume after a great amount or after a lot of sweating and that person did not replenish the fluids lost by drinking their blood volume would be lower because that fluid to produce the sweat had to come from somewhere the osmotic pressure of Blood also influences the water content of your cells mainly through interactions of dissolved ions such as electrolytes and plasma proteins which we'll get into in just a second and not to get too nerdy and Technical about osmosis but it is really important that you have the right amount and concentration of water in your cells versus the blood vessels versus the spaces between your cells and blood vessels you have to have balance between all three of those compartment or you can run into problems Blood also protects you it can clot to prevent excessive loss of blood after a cut or some sort of trauma and white blood cells and blood proteins protect against disease through phagocytosis which is engulfing Ford Invaders and through the production and use of antibodies and other plasma proteins which we're going to learn about in just a minute so clearly there are many vital functions of blood but what are some of the physical characteristics of blood blood is denser and more viscous than water flowing more slowly through the body it has a temperature of about 38° C or about 100.4 de F and it has a slightly alkaline or basic pH of 7.35 to 7.45 and this pH needs to be tightly regulated because deviations of this can be quite serious like if someone's blood pH went to 6.8 that would likely result in death blood color also varies it's bright red when oxygenated and dark red to a purplish color when deoxygenated blood makes up about 8% of the total body weight with volumes of about 5.6 liters in adult males and 4.5 lers in adult females and here is a really cool FYI with exercise with consistent cardiovascular exercise your blood volume will increase and initially this is an increase in the plasma the fluid component of the blood and this can actually occur within a couple of days of moderate to intense cardiovascular exercise but then over the next few weeks if someone continues that exercise the body will also start to produce more red blood cells which we'll get into more of the details on plasma and red blood cells in just a minute but both of those changes having more plasma and red blood cells will improve Fitness and athletic performance now one thing I do want to mention that may seem a little random at first is that your blood and cardiovascular system can actually be affected by your oral health like for example have you ever heard that tooth decay can lead to heart disease and ever wondered why that is well in some rare cases bacteria from the mouth can get into the bloodstream and cause a heart infection called endocarditis but even though that specific infection is relatively rare there's a tremendous amount of research linking gum disease to other cardiovascular conditions and even diabetes so we're going to try to help avoid these unnecessary conditions by saying thank you to the sponsor of today's video lyen and their revolutionary wave electric toothbrush the Lifey wave featur features a 60° 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brushing routine with the life and wave so now let's make some blood or talk about how your body makes the blood as I've already alluded to blood consists of two main components the fluid component or the blood plasma and the formed elements or the cells so in order to make blood we need to make both of these ingredients so let's start with the plasma plasma is a straw colored liquid that makes up about 55% of the total blood volume and of that 55% of the plasma 91.5% of the plasma is made up of water 7% is made up of proteins and 1.5% is made up of solutes so to make the water component of plasma it's pretty straightforward we just drink water in order to make more and replenish our plasma but making the plasma proteins requires a little bit more than just drinking water yes you need to have amino acids in your diet that come from eating protein but once digested and absorbed the liver will take those amino acids and build the majority of these essential plasma proteins with white blood cells producing some others but let me name a few of these plasma proteins which will just help to solidify some of the functions of the blood that we've previously talked about albumin makes up the majority of the plasma proteins it transports certain hormones fatty acids and even certain drugs throughout the blood it also contributes to the blood viscosity and influences fluid distribution throughout the body globulins are another set of plasma proteins that help to attack viruses and bacteria some of them can also transport iron lipids and fat soluble vitamins fibrinogen is the last plasma protein I'll mention and this plays an essential role in blood clotting now remember we also said that 1.5% of the plasma was made up of solutes essentially substances that are dissolved in the blood and as you'll see we would get some of these from our diet breathing and just byproducts of metabolism and this 1.5% includes electrolytes such as sodium pottassium magnesium calcium and chloride it also includes nutrients such as glucose amino acids and fatty acids it includes Gases such as carbon dioxide and oxygen as well as includes various hormones vitamins and waste products so you can see there's a lot to the plasma and hopefully this illustrates why it's so important for multiple physiological processes that occur throughout the body and why plasma donations can be so important for certain patients like if someone had a certain clotting condition or they weren't able to produce certain globulins or albumin getting a plasma donation would greatly help them and on to the next component of the blood the formed elements or the cellular component this makes up the remaining 45% of your total blood and is broken down into three cell types red blood cells also known as arthos sites white blood cells also known as lucites and platelets which are also known as thrombocytes all three of these cell types are actually made by the red bone marrow that is suspended Within the Deep part of your bones called spongy bone and this process of producing blood cells is referred to hematopoesis the red blood cells are by far the most numerous so we will spend a little bit more time on them and since we've talked a lot about numbers today let me give you some other staggering numbers your body produces over two to three million red blood cells per second which means that around 200 billion red blood cells can be produced in a day day that is crazy to think about but that is just matching the amount of red blood cells that we go through or that are destroyed in a day so good job to the red bone marrow for keeping up with that but many of you may have already known that the whole job of the red blood cell is to carry oxygen to the tissues and cells throughout the body everything about this cell is designed to make it an efficient oxygen carrier the plasma membrane of red blood cells is both strong and flexible which allows the cells to deform without rupturing as they squeeze through narrow blood capillaries red blood cells are also one of the few cells that don't have a nucleus so all their internal space is available for oxygen and they also lack mitochondria and generate ATP anerobic through glycolysis so they don't use up any of that oxygen that they're transporting even the shape of a red blood cell facilitates its function a bioc concave disc has a greater surface area for its volume than a sphere or a cube so this greater surface area allows for more efficient diffusion of gas molecules into and out of the red blood cell and if you still aren't impressed by your red blood cells let's mention hemoglobin hemoglobin is an oxygen carrying protein which is a pigment that gives blood its red color every red blood cell contains about 280 million molecules of hemoglobin and each hemoglobin molecule can carry up to four oxygen molecules so that means each red blood cell could carry over a billion oxygen molecules and so you can probably see why red blood cells are so important for health and even Fitness we mentioned earlier that adaptation of when you exercise your body will increase the blood plasma but also eventually increase the number of red blood cells if you have more red blood cells you can carry more oxygen to the exercising muscles those exercising muscles can utilize that oxygen in the mitochondria and you can produce more of the energy currency of our cell's ATP which equals increased athletic performance and fitness and a little spoiler alert we are working on a video about what training at elevation can do for your red blood cell count so stay tuned for that but you may have also heard of something called anemia there are different types of anemia but in general each of them is characterized by a reduced number of red blood cells or decreased amount of hemoglobin which would decrease the overall oxygen carrying capacity of your blood some of the common types of anemia that you've probably heard about are iron deficiency anemia if you don't have enough iron you can't make hemoglobin anemia can also be caused by inadequate intake of vitamin B12 or folate both of which are needed to make red blood cells and females are more at risk for something called hemorrhagic anemia due to menstrual bleeding especially if they are more prone to heavier periods and after talking about all that cool information with red blood cells we can't forget about the white blood cells and the platelets white blood cells protect the body against infections and foreign Invaders there are several different types of white blood cells each with specific functions some get more involved with bacterial infections While others are more involved in viral infections some of them you can think for getting overly involved with allergies or allergic reactions some engulf pathogens some produce antibodies and some even keep a record of previous infections so that you can amount a quicker and more robust immune response if you were to be exposed to that pathogen again so there can be quite a bit of complexity with all the different white blood cell types so we'll save going any deeper into white blood cells for a later video and finish up with those wonderful little platelets platelets are cell fragments that play an important role in blood clotting and wound repair a blood clot is a gel-like mass that consists of a tough thread-like protein substance called fibrin as well as platelets in any blood cells trapped in the fiber this blood clot not only provides a seal that prevents further blood lck from a damaged area of a blood vessel but it also pulls the edges of the blood vessel back together to help repair that damage platelets come together to form a platelet plug that fills the Gap in the blood vessel wall and this will essentially help to stop you from losing more blood which from everything we've learned about blood today that's kind of important so hopefully today's video provided you with some new and useful information about blood and possibly a new toothbrush so be sure to check the link in the comments for more information and while you're in the comments feel free to fre to leave us one on what you thought about today's video and I'll see you soon