Blood is life and what makes blood life?

The first Secretary-General of the Nigerian Traditional Medical Association (NTMA), Rev. Theophilus Lambo, who is the Provost of God’s People Church Theological Seminary, Maryland, United States, answers the question.

I have always wondered about blood, and how to stay off anemia as I plan on getting married soon. Do enlighten me on.

–Toyin Obajana, 28-year-old weaver, Kajola, Kogi State.

A lot of people agreed that blood is life just as many religious sects also confirmed in their doctrines and teachings. Blood, to some young people, becomes a commodity to sell to hospitals, while one also sees the Red Cross organisations asking the public to donate blood to save lives.It is hence pertinent that a simple explanation about this essential commodity to humans, which our lives depend on, will be worth our interest, and on how we can all stay healthy and live to ripe old age if we have more knowledge about blood and how to protect it in our body.

With the increase in the freedom and permissiveness in our modern society, it is no longer safe to assume that any type of blood is a life saver. Hospitals and Blood Banks can longer trust any blood without subjecting it or its donor to severe screening to ascertain if such blood samples are free from deadly virus that thrive in blood such as HIV/AIDS, Ebola, Malaria parasites, Hepatitis, and many other infectious diseases.

Hence, we need to know the following to broaden our knowledge about blood and all that relate to blood, which is not the privilege of physicians and all health care providers alone to know, but also the public since it is common practice today to see many people in possession of hypodermic needles injecting themselves with different sorts of drugs without any physician’s supervision; a thing not common in the days of our fathers.

What is blood? What is the composition of blood? What are the essential beneficial properties of blood that makes it to become life? And what are the consequences of shortage of blood in the body?

Blood is defined medically, as the red fluid that circulates in the hearts, arteries, capillaries and veins of a vertebrate animal, carrying nourishments and oxygen to and bringing away waste products from all parts of the body.

What is the composition of blood? The blood is composed of cells, cell fragments and an aqueous solution (plasma). Blood makes up about eight per cent of the human body weight. It contains erythrocytes, leucocytes, thrombocytes (platelets) and plasma.