Extra red blood cells??

[Stars Will Fall Tonight]

Hey everyone, I'm very curious about something. Does having tons of extra red blood cells come with an advantage such as... a stab wound healing really fast? Like, say someone gets stabbed in the chest without the heart being hit and it's healed the next morning? Does extra red blood cells do that?

[Stars Will Fall Tonight]

Someone please answer me. This is a serious question.

[Darkphantom]

For one thing this forum dosen't move very fast and secondly no... It dosen't help.

Clotting is a biochemical response carefully regulated by the biological process known as the "Coagulation Cascade"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coagulation A number of factors released around an injury site trigger the conformal changes of proteins which turn it from a water soluble protein thus dissolved in your blood to a non-soluble protein which forms a fibrous mesh in which blood cells and platelets become trapped forming a plug.

Having more blood dosen't help with anything really other than potentially enduring blood loss.

[Stars Will Fall Tonight]

Hmmm.... what about extra white blood cells?

[Redem]

Having extra red blood cells has one effect, it increases the amount of oxygen the blood can carry. For this reason "blood doping" is banned in professional athletics and sports. However, the effect can be replicated by training at higher altitudes, forcing the body to generate extra blood cells in response to altitude sickness.

[Dr Dimari]

If you artificially create a polycythaemia (more redblood cells in the body than it needs) you do get an increased clotting ability. This is due to the viscosity of the blood become thicker, and increases of turbulent flow. This increased turbulent flow will cause damage to weak spots of the endothelium of blood vessels. When this damage occurs, it releases cytokines and von Willebrand factor which start the clotting cascade. Hence, yes it will allow more clotting, but will cause clotting where you don't want it.

Polycythaemia is not a good condition to have, and is hard to treat, especially if it occurs naturally. Supportive treatment includes fluids, diuretics, aspirin or low weight molecular heparin (enoxeparin/clexane) as well as looking at its course: bad bone marrow or a erythropoetin secreting tumour.

As for white blood cells: You would get a pseudo infectious status, and lots of other issues. Further more, you increase the risk of autoimmunity due to the amount of dormant/bored white cells that wont be needed.

[Darkphantom]

Dr Dimari

As for white blood cells: You would get a pseudo infectious status, and lots of other issues. Further more, you increase the risk of autoimmunity due to the amount of dormant/bored white cells that wont be needed.

That would happen if you naturally had a higher than normal white blood cell count autoimmunity is a developmental problem with immature white blood cells.
If you used Transplanted White cells it would result in a "Graft vs host reaction". Which has very similar effects to an autoimmune disease but is different in origin. Wouldn't have any effect on clotting.

The effects your interested in including clotting and increased rates of healing are unique in that they are both positive feedback mechanisms which are rare in nature.

They have very important Stop commands in the physiology. Otherwise positive feedback could very well destroy the whole system. But might not be sufficient to stop them if such mechanisms were enhanced some other way. Think bicycle breaks attempting to stop a motorcycle.

Increased blood clotting reaction could result in effects mentioned before where you get random blood clots forming in the body.

A potential unfortunate side effect of increased rate of healing might well be tumors.

[Dr Dimari]

Darkphantom

Dr Dimari

As for white blood cells: You would get a pseudo infectious status, and lots of other issues. Further more, you increase the risk of autoimmunity due to the amount of dormant/bored white cells that wont be needed.

That would happen if you naturally had a higher than normal white blood cell count autoimmunity is a developmental problem with immature white blood cells.
If you used Transplanted White cells it would result in a "Graft vs host reaction". Which has very similar effects to an autoimmune disease but is different in origin. Wouldn't have any effect on clotting.

The effects your interested in including clotting and increased rates of healing are unique in that they are both positive feedback mechanisms which are rare in nature.

They have very important Stop commands in the physiology. Otherwise positive feedback could very well destroy the whole system. But might not be sufficient to stop them if such mechanisms were enhanced some other way. Think bicycle breaks attempting to stop a motorcycle.

Increased blood clotting reaction could result in effects mentioned before where you get random blood clots forming in the body.

A potential unfortunate side effect of increased rate of healing might well be tumors.

Yup. I agree with you, although I'm not sure about your last line. I don't think that would happen.

[Darkphantom]

Dr Dimari

Darkphantom

Dr Dimari

As for white blood cells: You would get a pseudo infectious status, and lots of other issues. Further more, you increase the risk of autoimmunity due to the amount of dormant/bored white cells that wont be needed.

That would happen if you naturally had a higher than normal white blood cell count autoimmunity is a developmental problem with immature white blood cells.
If you used Transplanted White cells it would result in a "Graft vs host reaction". Which has very similar effects to an autoimmune disease but is different in origin. Wouldn't have any effect on clotting.

The effects your interested in including clotting and increased rates of healing are unique in that they are both positive feedback mechanisms which are rare in nature.

They have very important Stop commands in the physiology. Otherwise positive feedback could very well destroy the whole system. But might not be sufficient to stop them if such mechanisms were enhanced some other way. Think bicycle breaks attempting to stop a motorcycle.

Increased blood clotting reaction could result in effects mentioned before where you get random blood clots forming in the body.

A potential unfortunate side effect of increased rate of healing might well be tumors.

Yup. I agree with you, although I'm not sure about your last line. I don't think that would happen.

Well not a tumor as such when the healing mechanism fails to shut off properly you end up with Keloid scars where they form unusual lumps of scar tissue which begin to infiltrate normal tissues.

[Dr Dimari]

Darkphantom

Dr Dimari

Darkphantom

Dr Dimari

As for white blood cells: You would get a pseudo infectious status, and lots of other issues. Further more, you increase the risk of autoimmunity due to the amount of dormant/bored white cells that wont be needed.

That would happen if you naturally had a higher than normal white blood cell count autoimmunity is a developmental problem with immature white blood cells.
If you used Transplanted White cells it would result in a "Graft vs host reaction". Which has very similar effects to an autoimmune disease but is different in origin. Wouldn't have any effect on clotting.

The effects your interested in including clotting and increased rates of healing are unique in that they are both positive feedback mechanisms which are rare in nature.

They have very important Stop commands in the physiology. Otherwise positive feedback could very well destroy the whole system. But might not be sufficient to stop them if such mechanisms were enhanced some other way. Think bicycle breaks attempting to stop a motorcycle.

Increased blood clotting reaction could result in effects mentioned before where you get random blood clots forming in the body.

A potential unfortunate side effect of increased rate of healing might well be tumors.

Yup. I agree with you, although I'm not sure about your last line. I don't think that would happen.

Well not a tumor as such when the healing mechanism fails to shut off properly you end up with Keloid scars where they form unusual lumps of scar tissue which begin to infiltrate normal tissues.

Well that would be caused by dysplastic fibroblasts... which go a bit silly secreting collagen creating an acellular truffle filled scar. One thing could be a poorly controled and shut down immune system, but other theories include local wound features such as the cut, tensions on cells and stuff like that. All I know is you treat them with steroids, interferon, occulsive dressings and careful surgery as a last resort.

[Mooby the Golden Sock]

Stars Will Fall Tonight

Hey everyone, I'm very curious about something. Does having tons of extra red blood cells come with an advantage such as... a stab wound healing really fast? Like, say someone gets stabbed in the chest without the heart being hit and it's healed the next morning? Does extra red blood cells do that?

Extra blood cells carry more oxygen. They also up the hematocrit of your blood, making it flow more like syrup than water.

The slower flow and increased turbulence could increase platelet accumulation, but this is an indirect effect. A more direct effect would be to increase the work your heart has to do (think squeezing syrup vs. water out of a hole in a bottle.) This is why professional athletes who take extreme measures to increase their hematocrits can have a heart attack.

And no, adding more cells to your blood won't turn you into a superhero. Even if you up your platelets, which do most of the clot work, it won't have that effect. Instead, you get clots in your blood vessels, which can kill you if one of them gets lodged in an important vessel.