Characteristics Of Healthy Red Blood Cells

What does a negative charge have to do with why healthy red blood cells do not stick together? Well, did you ever take two small magnets and try to push the two like poles toward each other? When you did what happened? They repelled each other, didn't they? The magnetic force pushed them apart. The image below and to the right of two magnets illustrates this.

Well, just as two similar poles of a magnet will repel each other, so will two objects that each have a negative electrical charge. So when two healthy red blood cells, each with a negative electrical charge, come close together, what happens? They repel each other.

And when they repel each other, they don't get stuck together in clumps and can pass through the tiny capillaries one by one.

Now here's the opposite way of looking at this. What if you have unhealthy red blood cells (that have lost their negative charge) come in contact with each other, especially suspended in plasma that has acid wastes accumulated in it? They will tend to stick together.

So here's an important question. If you have a bunch of your red blood cells stuck together like this, how hard is it going to be for that clump or chain to pass through the tiny capillaries in your body? Well, it isn't going to be hard, it's going to be impossible!

Are you now beginning to see why you want to have 1) clean plasma and 2) healthy red blood cells?

Here's another characteristic that you want your red blood cells to have.

The red blood cell is approximately 7 1/2 microns in diameter. The diameter of your smallest capillaries however are only about half of that size. So your red blood cells not only have to pass single file through these tiny capillaries, but they actually have to sometimes be able to squish into narrower, more elongated shapes to make it through!

In order to be able to do this, healthy red blood cells need to have flexible membranes so they can squeeze through the capillaries but do so without being damaged or breaking.

So, your red blood cells need to have 1) a healthy lipid layer (fat) and 2) a hexagonal mesh protein surface so they can fold and bend without breaking.

What's fascinating is that the human red blood cell membrane skeleton is a network of roughly 33,000 protein hexagons, each of which looks like a microscopic geodesic dome.

This is why your red blood cells are able to bend and squish and not be damaged as they repeatedly squeeze through capillary after capillary during their 120 day life span.

So now that you're beginning to get an understanding of how your blood stream does its job, here's another question for you. How good a job is your blood going to be able to do in providing your cells the oxygen and nutrients that they need if...

• Your plasma has bacteria, yeast, mold and fungus
  
  
• Is thickened by acidic wastes from these microforms
  
  
• Your red blood cells are unable to repel each other
  
  
• Your red blood cells are poorly constructed and can't squish down without breaking as they move through the capillaries

The answer is easy; they aren't going to be able to do a good job at all.

By the way, have you ever noticed how elderly people (or even middle aged people with health challenges) tend to have circulation problems in their extremities and/or complain about cold hands and cold feet?

This is likely because their blood is of poor quality in the ways we just described above. As a result, the cells in their fingers, feet and toes aren't being provided with the oxygen and nutrients they need and the result is poor circulation, neuropathy, tingling, numbness and other problems in those areas.

Are you beginning to have an appreciation now for how important it is for you to make sure that your blood is as healthy as possible? Good.

Now that you have some understanding of how your blood works, next time we're going to look at some actual photos of healthy (and unhealthy) blood. I think you are going to find those photos and discussion in the next issue very interesting.

Until then,

- Andy

Go back to the first page of this issue.