Every cell’s life depends on blood. Blood ferries materials between cells and the outside world. Cells in distant parts of the body share materials and information through it. This article explores what’s really in blood, and how a prepper can keep theirs in good shape.
Caveat: I’m not a physician; this isn’t medical advice. This is information on how your body works, especially as it relates to prepping.
Blood is more water than anything else
Plasma makes up a bit over half of the volume of blood; and 90% of that plasma is water. The water washes everything else around, keeps things flowing, stabilizes temperature. Critically, it fills the elastic vessels to keep the pressure up. Without that pressure, blood wouldn’t push up into the head (where really, you rather need it). Without the pressure, blood running through the capillaries would trade anything with the cells it passed by.
Therefore, the first mission with blood is to make sure it has enough water. In real living, especially real emergencies, water loss erodes physical performance faster than about any other problem. Dehydration pops up fast and has big impacts. (Read more about it by clicking here.)
On a related note… if someone loses a lot of blood and there’s no way to replace it, bringing their fluid volume back up helps. Plenty of hydration won’t replace all the lost blood’s functions, but it will make a positive difference.
Blood is thicker than water — mostly because it’s about half water and half other stuff.
Red cells make up 40+% of the blood
Now this is the stuff we think about when we think of blood! Red blood cells contain the red hemoglobin protein. The hemoglobin sucks up oxygen as the blood passes through the lungs and drops it off to grateful muscles, brains, bones, etc. Too little oxygen being dropped off leaves us tired, weak, and muzzy-headed — or even dead.
Red cells are lean, mean, oxygen-carrying machines. They’ve lost every cell part not needed for that job. As a result, they can’t repair themselves. They get old and stiff (I feel ya, red cells!) and are recycled after about three months of doing their job. The bone marrow produces a constant stream of new red cells to replace the old. That job requires about three weeks and plenty of iron, as well as some protein.
Red cells and the prepper
So what’s this mean to a prepper? For one, losing blood means losing red cells. You’ve got a few spares sitting around, but if you lose much blood you’ll lack sufficient oxygen delivery for weeks.
Normally the liver and bone marrow conspire to recycle and re-use the iron from the old red cells. If you must replace lost cells, it’s going to take a lot of iron. Red meat sources are the richest, but they’re not the only game in town. Whole grains and leafy greens (I’m looking at YOU, spinach!) have a good bit. Cooking in cast iron adds dietary iron to food too, especially if there’s some acid in the food to help dissolve teensy bits of the pot. Spaghetti sauce over whole grain noodles, spiked with some spinach and red meat if you’ve got it — Sounds like a Winner!
Women of reproductive age need to be especially careful to get enough iron, as they lose some each month. Be careful with supplements though. Moderate supplements (such as 100% RDA) can be helpful, but if you get super doses it’ll plug you up like a corked bottle. Constipation isn’t actually that fun, or good for you.
Protein is also needed to make red cells. If the diet’s anywhere near normal, that’s not going to be a problem. You’ll sacrifice muscle protein to make red blood cells. It can be a problem on very low protein diets, so no rebuilding red cells while surviving on those “24 hr ration” bricks.
White blood cells
See the thin layer of off-white stuff between the plasma and the red cells in that tube of centrifuged blood above? The buffy coat includes white blood cells and platelets.
The white blood cells obviously aren’t nearly as common as the red, but they’re critical. They protect you from invaders, as well as playing janitor to clean up bits of you that break or wear out.
White cells often live short, exciting lives. You must replace them often to stay protected. What’s that mean to a prepper? Don’t expect to have good immune function if you don’t stay decently fed. Also, manage stress. Immune cells run and hide when too many stress hormones hang around too long. Exercise, too. Exercise encourages the white blood cells to act like baby bear from the Three Bears fable: not too aggressive, not too passive.
Blood’s coolest trick: Making itself Stop Being Liquid
The last components don’t take up so much space, but they’re huge in function. Clotting factors are proteins the liver makes and puts into the plasma. Platelets are little cell fragments the bone marrow adds to the blood. Clotting factors and platelets team up to detect problems such as damaged vessels or blood leaking where it oughtn’t be. Then they perform some biochem magic to turn the blood from a liquid into a thick gel, then a semisolid clot. Very impressive work for some proteins and used-to-be cells!
Neither clotting factors nor platelets last long in circulation. They’re used up or recycled frequently.
What’s that mean to a prepper? You need a good liver, functional bone marrow, and good nutrition maintain blood’s ability to clot. Bruising easily and having trouble stopping small bleeds are signs you’re running into trouble with one of these. Fortunately, they’re faster to make than red cells; so if you lose blood you won’t stay hemophiliac for weeks on end.
Click here if you’d rather read about how to make blood stop leaking on command.
Sharing blood
I’ve seen preppers talk about having transfusion supplies on hand. I’m not sold on it; but I won’t tell you it’s a Bad idea either. I will tell you there’s no point if you can’t figure out blood types reliably and/or can’t do venipunctures reliably.
We don’t keep such equipment. The scenarios where we could successfully use it pretty scarce. Also, I’ve too little faith in my skills in venipuncture on someone with already low blood pressure to make it seem a good bet.
We do, however, both know our blood types. That’s important; as in a real emergency our go-to answer would be to get help from someone who Does have the means to do it successfully. Most of those people don’t keep materials on hand to type blood. There’d be little point anyway; the reagents don’t last long even with refrigeration.