There are over 5 liters of blood in an average person. We
know that when we injure ourselves this mysterious red liquid comes flowing
out. But, what is our blood made out of? What makes our blood so special?
In 1840 hemoglobin was discovered by Friedrich Ludwig
Hunefeld, who was a member of the German Biochemistry Association. He
discovered hemoglobin by looking at the blood of an earthworm. He allowed the
blood of the earthworm to dry and crystallize between two glass slides. He
looked at the slide under a microscope and he saw sharp bright red structures.
He found that these structures were what came to be hemoglobin. Overtime it was
found that not only earthworms had this structure, so did most invertebrates.
Overtime, it was found that this hemoglobin structure actually transported
oxygen throughout the body. Hemoglobin transports oxygen from respiratory
organs such as the lungs, and releases it in the tissues to help with cell
survival. The iron protein forms an unstable reversible bond with oxygen.
Hemoglobin actually forms in the cells of bone marrow and is made of four heme
groups surrounding a globin group. This makes it a quaternary structure. Hemoglobin
is what gives blood its color and red blood cells their shape. The human body actually contains three types
of hemoglobin. These are Hemoglobin A, Hemoglobin A2, and Hemoglobin
F. Hemoglobin A is the most common type. Hemoglobin A2 and F are
extremely rare. Hemoglobin also has a buffering factor. This protein is what
keeps blood at the pH of 7.4. If there is an accumulation of carbon dioxide
within the blood, this will cause the pH to decrease. With hemoglobin
maintaining the pH, this allows the bodies enzymatic reactions to occur without
any problems. Hemoglobin is obviously essential to life itself. If we didn’t have
this protein in our body, we would have no way of transporting oxygen from one
end of our body to another.
It is crazy to think something so small is what is keeping
our bodies alive. It is even crazier to think that hemoglobin wasn’t even known
of until 177 years ago. Our bodies truly are a wonderland.
It really is insane to think that something that small is keeping out bodies alive. I know about hemoglobin from the classes I have taken, but I never knew that he had examined an earthworm to discover hemoglobin. That was so interesting to find out.
ReplyDeleteHave you ever seen this "alkaline diet", which encourages avoidance of acidic foods to maintain the bodies pH? HA!, I say. As you explain, hemoglobin requires a very tight pH range...if you left the range by eating fried and processed foods (you can't--I've tried), you'd die of oxygen deprivation long before cancer developed. So.
ReplyDeletehttps://draxe.com/alkaline-diet/