Bone Marrow Brief Introduction
Bone marrow is gel-like tissue exists inside the bone. Human adult bone marrow weighs around 2.6 kg and it's the heaviest of all parts of the body. Bone marrow produces blood cells every day, ranging from red blood cells, white blood cells, and a component that's thickening the blood to prevent it from spilling everywhere (causing bleeding everywhere).
Blood Cells and Bone Marrow Description
Our red blood cells deliver oxygen throughout the body. It contains iron that binds oxygen, so red blood cells can transport oxygen to the lungs, through veins, and the entire body. The skin of red blood cells contain protein and fat, which balances and stabilises the cell so it can travel across the body without bursting or spilling everywhere.
Our white blood cells is responsible to remove foreign invaders, while protecting the body from infectious disease. The white blood cells are also produced in bone marrow. The amount of white blood cells must be at 1% of the total amount of blood cells in the body (Red blood cells are 45% of the total amount of blood cells).
The number (1%) is so important, because if the body is missing 1% of its white blood cells, the body immune system may suffer tremendously because nothing is guarding our body against malicious substance (like dust particles which causes allergy, asthma, or flu).
The white blood cells may increase a little bit when it's trying to fight diseases (which is often the case). Surely, too many white blood cells may cause problems too. There are two types of bone marrow; red bone marrow that produces blood (normally in babies), and yellow bone marrow that contains mostly fat (normally in adult). The yellow bone marrow may turn into red bone marrow, especially when the body needs to produce more blood.
Note that, the bone marrow only produces blood and release them out, and it's Vitamin B12 that helps blood cells to reach maturity.
Bone Marrow Damage
Radiation or chemotherapy can break bone marrow cells into parts, so bone marrow may produce lesser blood cells. Consequently, the person may get sick easily, because blood is transporting nutrients across the body, and blood is scarce, so nutrients cannot travel across smoothly and the body's immune system suffers.
In some cancer radiation treatment, the patients' bone marrow is taken from the back waist (it hurts), so after chemotherapy, the bone marrow is injected again to restore the patient's immune system. Bone marrow may be donated, or taken for disease diagnosis, but it's advised not to do it too often. I'd prefer to refrain from anything related to sampling the bone marrow though.
Bone Marrow Caution
In the case of bone marrow donation, since each bone marrow produces unique blood cells, the donor must ensure the bone marrow matches that of the patient. Then, doctors first kill the patient's bone marrow by radiation, and then injected a new bone marrow to the patient, so the new one can begin to produce blood.
See also:
Stay Healthy with Information About Bone Marrow
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