Immune and blood
Blood
What is blood?
Blood is that red liquid that goes round your veins and arteries. Its pretty important.
What can I learn about blood?
- Blood composition is the make up of blood, from electrolytes, fluid and cells.
- Coagulation is the process of clot formation.
- Haemostasis is the system by which the blood is maintained, and the vascular system kept intact.
What can go wrong with blood?
Blood is incredibly important, which means that problems involving it tend to be quite serious, and dealt with by very clever haematologists. The two key problems that you get are:
- When clotting works too well, where you get thrombosis.
- If it doesn't work at all you get bleeding disorders.
Why not also read about some of the more common blood pathologies? You should also know about the key blood tests, such as FBC, U+Es and LFTs.
Immune
There are two main types of mechanism that beats up any invaders to the body. They are the non-specific defence mechanisms and the specific defence mechanisms.
What does the work?
There are several processes or systems which destroy invaders: Processes
Systems:
- complement
- leukocytes (white blood cells)
- lymphocytes
- antibodies (also known as immunoglobulins)
When it all goes horribly wrong...
The immune system can suck - just ask anyone with Lupus. There are three main areas that it can suck in, explained below:
- Allergic responses.
- Autoimmune conditions.
- Immunodeficiency