Issue #3

The Heart And Soul Of Your Blood Stream:
Your Red Blood Cells

Here's what you need to keep in mind about the cellular portion of your blood.

You can live for weeks without food and days without water. But you can only live for a few minutes without oxygen. And because "you" are nothing more than an accumulation of trillions of your cells, the very essence of your life depends on making sure your cells get all the oxygen they need every moment of every day.

So, the next most logical step in this process would be to ask,

"Ok, if I want to make sure that my cells get all the oxygen they need, how do my cells actually get their oxygen?"

The answer is your red blood cells.

Here's some specifics on how your red blood cells get oxygen to the other cells in your body.

The main oxygen carrying component of your red blood cells is hemoglobin. Hemoglobin consists of "heme", which is an iron bearing red pigment, and globin which are ribbonlike protein chains.

Oxygen from your lung's tiny air sacs enters your red blood cells and combines with the iron to form oxyhemoglobin.

This is the form in which 97% of oxygen is transported throughout your body. The other remaining 3% of oxygen is carried along in a dissolved state in your plasma.

As we discussed earlier, as your blood moves from your arteries to your capillaries, your blood flow slows down. This slowing of your blood flow permits the exchange of oxygen to your cells and carbon dioxide back to your red blood cells. Your red blood cells then transport the carbon dioxide (most of it) to your lungs where it is released as you exhale.

So, let's summarize what we know so far. We know that in order for your cells to get nutrients in the best way possible, your plasma should be as clean as possible. We also know that in order for your cells to get the oxygen they need, you need to have your red blood cells to be in top working condition. So the next question follows.

"In order for your red blood cells to do their job and keep you alive, what kind of characteristics should your red blood cells have?"

Well, to answer that, let's start by looking at what your red blood cells have to do.

When your red blood cells begin to pass through the smallest capillaries in your body, they actually have to make it through capillaries that are so small, they can only pass through in single file, one by one. So, how do you make sure your red blood cells are able to do this? Here's how…

One very useful way of seeing how healthy your red blood cells are is to examine them through a process called Live Blood Analysis.

When you do this and look at live blood through a phase contrast microscope, you will find that HEALTHY individual red blood cells are separated and not sticking together. They are separate mainly for the following reason;

The surface of a truly healthy red blood cell
has a negative charge.

Why is this important? Click on over to the next page to find out.

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