Red blood cells make up around 40% of our bloods volume, also called 'erythrocytes' they contain hemoglobin which is a single protein of iron pigments when combined with oxygen gives our blood the distinctive red colour. Their apperance is unique looking very much like a doughnut with a thin centre that becomes thicker towards the edges.
Their role is to facilitate oxygen from the lungs through the gasious exchange carried out within the aveoli to our body tissue and also to take away the carbon dioxide from these tissues back to the aveoli within the brochial tree in the lungs.
They are made within the red bone marrow which is in the thoracic bones, vertebrae, craniel bone and the ends of the femur and humerus bones. Blood contains around 25 trillion red blood cells which has to be replaced at a rate of around 3 million per second. It is very important that we don't allow our red blood cell count to drop as this can lead to anemia which is a condition that is caused by our healthy red blood cells dropping to a level that causes stress on the body. Anemia can be a result from a inherited disorder, a lack of iron or vitamin deficiency due to poor diet, infections or some kind of cancers.
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