Functions
Blood performs many important functions within the body including:
- Supply of oxygen to tissues (bound to hemoglobin, which is carried in red cells)
- Supply of nutrients such as glucose, amino acids, and fatty acids (dissolved in the blood or bound to plasma proteins (e.g., blood lipids))
- Removal of waste such as carbon dioxide, urea, and lactic acid
- Immunological functions, including circulation of white blood cells, and detection of foreign material by antibodies
- Coagulation, which is one part of the body's self-repair mechanism (blood clotting after an open wound in order to stop bleeding)
- Messenger functions, including the transport of hormones and the signaling of tissue damage
- Regulation of body pH
- Regulation of core body temperature
- Hydraulic functions
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Famous quotes containing the word functions:
“Empirical science is apt to cloud the sight, and, by the very knowledge of functions and processes, to bereave the student of the manly contemplation of the whole.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Adolescents, for all their self-involvement, are emerging from the self-centeredness of childhood. Their perception of other people has more depth. They are better equipped at appreciating others’ reasons for action, or the basis of others’ emotions. But this maturity functions in a piecemeal fashion. They show more understanding of their friends, but not of their teachers.”
—Terri Apter (20th century)
“Those things which now most engage the attention of men, as politics and the daily routine, are, it is true, vital functions of human society, but should be unconsciously performed, like the corresponding functions of the physical body.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)