Constituents of Human Blood
See also: Reference ranges for common blood testsBlood accounts for 7% of the human body weight, with an average density of approximately 1060 kg/m3, very close to pure water's density of 1000 kg/m3. The average adult has a blood volume of roughly 5 liters (1.3 gal), composed of plasma and several kinds of cells (occasionally called corpuscles); these formed elements of the blood are erythrocytes (red blood cells, RBCs), leukocytes (white blood cells), and thrombocytes (platelets). By volume, the red blood cells constitute about 45% of whole blood, the plasma about 54.3%, and white cells about 0.7%.
Whole blood (plasma and cells) exhibits non-Newtonian fluid dynamics; its flow properties are adapted to flow effectively through tiny capillary blood vessels with less resistance than plasma by itself. In addition, if all human hemoglobin were free in the plasma rather than being contained in RBCs, the circulatory fluid would be too viscous for the cardiovascular system to function effectively.
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