What is so special about blood?
By: MariaJose Flores
Is it red or is it blue? Human blood is red to the naked eye because of hemoglobin, which is carried in the blood and functions to transport oxygen, is iron rich, and red in color. Did you know that octopuses and horseshoe crabs have blue blood? Why you may ask, this rather uncommon color of blood is due to the protein transporting oxygen in their blood, hemocyanin, which is actually blue. Blood travels all around us, but what exactly is so special about it? It brings oxygen and nutrients to all the parts of the body so they can keep working. Essentially, blood is your best friend – it keeps you safe and sound.
Adults’ blood contains about 3 liters of plasma, red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets. Vitamins, electrolytes, and other nutrients are dissolved in the blood, and carried to the body’s cells and organs. Fun fact, gold makes up about 0.02% of human blood. Generally speaking, if for some reason you were in need to store blood, blood remains good for 42 days if it’s not freezed. It is possible to freeze blood and last longer, but freezing blood is a poor way of storing it.
Believe it or not the color of your blood says a lot about how your body is doing. It’s not always bad, take for example, if your blood looks almost black then it probably means it’s deoxygenated due to the difference in shape of the red blood cell when the oxygen binds to hemoglobin in the blood cell. Bright red blood means oxygen binds to iron. Pink blood means it has mixed with your cervical fluid which may indicate low estrogen levels in the body. Now orange blood means there’s an infection such as bacterial vaginosis or trichomoniasis. People with orange blood should check for telltale symptoms.
The intriguing and rather exciting thing about blood is the fact that it’s cruising through your system as we speak. Blood is around as long as you are around. Blood is a body fluid that transports essential nutrients and oxygen to the cells. Next time you wonder why your blood is a different color, remember, it may be due to the protein molecules that carry oxygen in the blood.
The Main Types of Blood and Bone Marrow Cancer
By: Avantika Samanta
Cancer impacts hundreds of thousands of people a year, and blood and bone marrow cancer themselves cause over 50,000 deaths in a year. This harmful disease impacts many lives, and many don’t know what blood and bone marrow cancer is. The three main types of blood and bone marrow cancer are leukemia, lymphoma, and myeloma, and each of them are different. It is important to understand and recognize these differences because it has the possibility to impact anyone.
Leukemia is probably one of the more well known cancers of the three, and is most common in patients under 15 years of age. There are many types of leukemia, some more common in adults and some more common in children. Leukemia impacts the white blood cells, preventing them from fighting infections in the body and can either be acute (fast-growing) or chronic (slower growing). White blood cells usually grow in an orderly way but in patients with leukemia, their bone marrow produces and excess amount of abnormal white blood cells which are not able to function properly. The symptoms for leukemia vary depending on the type of leukemia, but some common ones include: swollen lymph nodes, excessive bruising or bleeding, frequent or severe infecitons, fever or chills, recurrent nose bleeds, and more. It can be diagnosed through regular physical exams, blood tests, and bone marrow tests. Treatment for leukemia can be complex considering it depends on many factors age, type, and where it has spread. Chemotherapy is the common form of treatment, involving the use of chemicals to kill leukemia cells. Patients may receive a singular drug or a combination of them that is taken through a pill or a direct injection. Targeted therapy also exists, which targets specifically cancer cells so it may cause less harm than chemotherapy or radiation therapy. Radiation therapy utilizes high energy beams such as x-rays in order to prevent their growth. Radiation may be applied to a specific area of the body, or all over the body, and is occasionally used to prepare for a bone marrow transplant. Bone marrow transplants, also called stem cell transplants, helps to reestablish healthy stem cells by replacing the bone marrow with leukemia-free cells in order to regenerate healthy bone marrow. These may be achieved through a donor or your own stem cells.
Lymphoma impacts the lymphatic system, which is a network of vessels and glands (lymph nodes) that allow waste and additional toxins to leave the body. White blood cells which fight infections and promote healing circulate throughout the lymphatic system, and lymphoma a type of cancer that produces white blood cells, called lymphocytes, in a rapid and uncontrollable way for no useful purpose. There are two primary categories of lymphoma, Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) and Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). HL is rare, it usually does not spread to other organs and is considered highly treatable. It can be identified by Reed-Sternberg cells, large, abnormal lymphocytes that increase in number as disease severity increases. NHL affects three types of white blood cells in the lymphatic system which include B-lymphocytes (B cells), T-lymphocytes (T cells), and natural killer cells (NK cells). NHL can occasionally spread to other parts of the body such as the liver, bone marrow, and the brain. These two kinds of lymphoma account for over half of all diagnosed blood cancer in the US. It can occur anywhere in the body because lymph nodes are present in several areas of the body. Symptoms include fatigue, shortness of breath, coughs, night sweats, chills, and more. It is diagnosed through analyzing medical history, physical exams, or other diagnostic tests like bloodwork or a biopsy of a lymph node. Treatments are quite similar to the ones mentioned previously for leukemia, involving chemotherapy, targeted therapies, and radiaiton therapy. Due to the harm caused by treatments such as chemotherapy, sometimes a hematopoietic stem cell transplant is done to help the body recover.
Myeloma is when abnormal plasma cells, or myeloma cells, accumulate in the bone marow and crowd out healthy cells. Plasma cells are a type of white blood cell that develops antibodies to fight many of the infections the body encounters. Myeloma can lead to low blood counts, the thinning of bones, and the risk of fractures. Myeloma also produces an abnormal antibody known as immunoglobin which can lead to complications such as kidney damage. The most common symptoms of myeloma include bone pain and fractures and other symptoms weakness caused from anemia, frequent infections and fevers, headaches, constant thirst, and more. It can be diagnosed through blood or urine tests, and other tests such as a bone marrow biopsy or imaging tests are used to confirm the findings. Treatment is very similar to the two previous types of cancer mentionedincluding chemotherapy, targeted therapies, radiation therapy, and bone marrow/stem cell transplantation. They are used the same way but are tendered towards fighting myeloma cells.
As society progresses new findings are made everyday. Researchers are learning more about illnesses impacting the blood and bone marrow, helping to increase the understanding of them along with developing treatments. This is the age of technology and although there are treatments, there is always room for improvement. It is vital to understand what is currently being done to treat these diseases, and to recognize what needs to be done in the future.
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