Blood plasma

Blood has a special part.

It is a yellow liquid. This liquid is called plasma. It is mostly water.

Plasma carries things in your body. It carries food and air. It also carries tiny bits that help you stay well.

Some parts of plasma help stop bleeding. This is very important if you get hurt.

Doctors can use plasma to help people. It is used in hospitals and ambulances. It helps when people lose blood.

Plasma is a very important part of you.

Blood is made of many parts. One part is a light amber liquid. This liquid is called blood plasma.

It makes up about 55% of your total blood volume. Plasma is mostly water. It also holds many important things.

Plasma has proteins that do special jobs. Albumins are the most common proteins. They help keep the blood at the right thickness. Without them, blood would be like water. Globulins are another type of protein. Some help your immune system fight germs. Others carry fats through the body. Fibrinogen is a protein that helps blood clot. This stops you from losing too much blood if you are hurt.

Doctors can separate plasma from whole blood. They use a machine called a centrifuge. This machine spins the blood very fast. The blood cells fall to the bottom. The plasma is then poured off.

Plasma is very important for medicine. It is used to treat people who lose blood. During World War II, soldiers used dried plasma.

This made it easy to move and store. Today, doctors still use plasma to help save lives.

Blood plasma is a light amber-colored liquid. It is a part of your blood that does not have cells in it.

Instead, it carries many important things in a mixture. Plasma makes up about 55% of the total blood in your body. It is mostly water, making up as much as 95% of its volume. This liquid helps keep your body balanced and protects you from sickness. It also acts as a path for moving things around.

Many special proteins live inside the plasma to do hard jobs. Albumins are the most common proteins found there. They help keep the blood at the right thickness so it does not act like water. Globulins are the second most common type of protein. Some globulins, called immunoglobulins, help your immune system fight off germs. Another type, called beta globulin, carries fat to your cells. Finally, fibrinogen proteins help your blood clot to stop bleeding.

Scientists have learned how to separate plasma from whole blood for a long time. One way is through a process called blood fractionation. A person adds a special liquid to the blood to stop it from clotting. Then, they put the blood in a machine called a centrifuge. This machine spins the tube very fast until the heavy cells fall to the bottom. The liquid plasma can then be poured off the top.

History shows how plasma has saved many lives during wars. In 1918, Gordon R. Ward suggested using plasma as a substitute for whole blood. During World War II, the military used dried plasma packages.

These came in tin cans and were very easy to move. A man named Charles Drew helped create ways to mass produce this plasma. He also worked on the "Blood for Britain" project in 1940. Dr. José Antonio Grifols Lucas later started a way to return red cells to donors.

Today, plasma is a very important tool in hospitals and ambulances. Doctors use something called fresh frozen plasma to help people who have lost blood from injuries. This is listed as an essential medicine by the World Health Organization. Different people can give plasma in different ways. Some people give only their plasma through a machine. This is called plasmapheresis. In this process, the donor's red blood cells are returned to their body right away.

Blood plasma is a light amber-colored liquid that makes up about 55% of the body's total blood volume. While it lacks blood cells, it serves as a vital medium for transporting many essential substances. Plasma is the intravascular part of extracellular fluid, meaning it is the fluid located inside the blood vessels. It is composed mostly of water, which accounts for up to 95% of its volume. This liquid carries dissolved proteins, glucose, electrolytes, hormones, oxygen, and carbon dioxide. It also plays a critical role in maintaining osmotic pressure to balance electrolyte concentrations and protecting the body from infection.

To understand how plasma works, we must look at the proteins dissolved within it. The first major group is albumins, which are the most common proteins in the plasma. Produced in the liver, albumins maintain the osmotic pressure of the blood. This pressure ensures the blood has the correct viscosity, or thickness, to prevent fluid from leaking out of the capillaries. The second group is globulins. This category includes immunoglobulins, which are produced by plasma B cells to defend the body against pathogens. It also includes alpha and beta globulins. Alpha globulins help transport minerals and inhibit blood coagulation. Beta globulins, such as low-density lipoproteins (LDL), transport fat to cells for membrane synthesis. Finally, fibrinogen proteins are responsible for the process of blood clotting to prevent excessive blood loss.

Scientists can separate plasma from whole blood using a process called blood fractionation. First, an anticoagulant is added to a tube of blood to prevent it from clotting. This tube is then placed in a centrifuge, a machine that spins at very high speeds. The centrifugal force causes the heavier blood cells to fall to the bottom of the tube. The liquid plasma can then be drawn off from the top. In some medical testing, plasma is extracted through filtration or agglutination to identify specific biomarkers. It is important to distinguish plasma from serum. Serum is essentially blood plasma that has had its clotting factors removed. Because plasma still contains these factors, it can be prepared more quickly than serum, which requires a 30-minute waiting period for coagulation.

The history of plasma use is closely tied to medical advancements during wartime. In 1918, Gordon R. Ward proposed using plasma as a substitute for whole blood. During World War II, the military utilized dried plasma packages. These packages came in tin cans and included a bottle of distilled water to reconstitute the powder. This allowed the plasma to be ready for use in about three minutes. Charles Drew was a key figure in this era, serving as the medical supervisor for the "Plasma for Britain" project in 1940. Drew developed mass production techniques that transformed laboratory methods into large-scale operations. He also famously argued against policies that separated blood by the race of the donor, insisting there was no racial difference in human blood.

Another major historical milestone was the development of plasmapheresis. Dr. José Antonio Grifols Lucas pioneered this technique in 1940. In plasmapheresis, a donor's red blood cells are separated from the plasma and then immediately returned to the donor's body. This allows for the collection of plasma alone. Dr. Grifols also opened the world's first plasma donation center in 1945. This method remains a standard medical practice nearly 80 years later.

Today, plasma is a critical resource in emergency medicine. Fresh frozen plasma (FFP) is included on the WHO Model List of Essential Medicines. It is vital for treating trauma patients who have suffered significant blood loss. Because of this, FFP is stocked in hospitals, trauma centers, and ambulances. Interestingly, the rules for plasma donation are different from whole blood donation. While O- is the universal donor for red blood cells, AB is often considered the universal donor for plasma. This is because AB plasma does not contain antibodies that might react with a recipient's antigens.

Plasma levels in the body can change based on physical conditions. For instance, standing still for a long time increases transcapillary hydrostatic pressure. This can cause about 12% of the plasma volume to move into the extravascular compartment. This shift increases blood viscosity and the concentration of coagulation factors. Such changes can lead to orthostatic hypercoagulability. Understanding these shifts helps scientists and doctors manage conditions like circulatory shock, where blood pressure drops and fluid moves into the interstitium, a process known as third spacing.