Hello and welcome to a new series of the zero to finals podcast where we'll be going through

hematology. My name is Tom and in this episode I'm going to be talking to you about components

of blood. And you can find written notes on this topic at zero to finals.com slash components of blood. Then you can find written notes on this topic at 0.0.5.com

slash components of blood or in the hematology section of the second edition of the

zero to finals medicine book. So let's get straight into it.

Blood is made of plasma, which is the liquid part of the blood, which contains red blood cells,

white blood cells, platelets, and clotting factors such as fibrinogen.

Once the clotting factors are removed from the blood, what's left is called the serum.

Serum contains glucose, electrolytes such as sodium and potassium,

and proteins such as immunoglobulins, which are antibodies and hormones.

Let's talk about blood cells.

Blood cells develop in the bone marrow.

The bone marrow is mostly found in the pelvis, vertebrae, ribs and sternum.

Familiarity with the different cell lines can help you understand conditions where things go

wrong with those cell lines.

Pluripotent, hematopoetic stem cells are undifferentiated cells that have the ability to transform

into various blood cell types. They initially become myeloid stem cells, lymphoid stem cells,

and dendritic cells via different intermediate stages. Red blood cells, which are the blood cells that

contain hemoglobin and transport oxygen around the body

develop from reticular sites, which originate from the myeloid stem cells.

Reticular sites are immature red blood cells.

Red blood cells survive around four months or 120 days.

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