by LUKEWARM 8 Replies latest watchtower medical
I'm confused at the huge variance in these percentages - where can I find exactly what % of a red blood cell is made up of Hemoglobin?
KM 11/06 says its 33%
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/medical/123261/1/KM-Insert-How-Do-I-View-Blood-Fractions-Complete-Scan-and-PDF
AJWRB says its 97%
http://www.ajwrb.org/
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The hemoglobin protein makes up about 97% of the red blood cells' dry content.
If you're talking about the total content (including water), then it's about 33-35%.
http://www.worldofmolecules.com/disease/hemoglobin_S.htm
http://www.edinformatics.com/interactive_molecules/hemoglobin_S.htm
Thanks Nobleheart.
Can you elaborate on "dry content"?
Where can I find the actual % breakdown of all contents in a Red Blood Cell?
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Think of grapes and raisins.
Grapes are 'out'.
Raisins are 'in'.
Eating grapes unrepentedly will result in disfellowshipping.
Eating raisins will result in nothing.
Plasma is about 90% water. Red blood cells contain water too, "dry content" is what you get by removing it.
By 'dry content' I mean chiefly proteins (Hemoglobin being the most important one; surface glycoproteins which assign us to a particular blood type, membrane proteins - channels, transporters and enzymes), also membrane lipids and ions (sodium, potassium, etc)
The dry mass % of a RBC is about 95-97% made up of Hemoglobin, basically a complex protein containing iron, that transports oxygen to the tissues and collects carbon dioxide back to the lungs.
There are about 280 million molecules of Hemoglobin in one single red blood cell. The fact that whole blood or red blood cells aren't permitted for transfusion, but Hemoglobin based substitutes like PolyHeme (from human Hemoglobin) are okay now, just shows how arbitrary and unscientific the WT stance is.
Since so much of blood is just water, it ends up diluting the numbers used for comparison. More accurate relationships of non-H2O molecules and compounds can be seen by disregarding the water when making comparisons. Also, in practical medical usage water is sometimes removed, too, not just in calcualtions.
Think of a cup of coffee with cream and sugar. How would you break down the amounts of sugar, cream, and whatever gets in there from the coffee?
You could say your typical cup has 6% cream, 2% sugar, 1% coffee-bean residue, and 91% water (I'm making these numbers up, just for comparison). Or you could say the cup has 66.67% cream, 22.22% sugar, and 11.11% coffee-bean residue, not counting the water (aka "dry" matter).
The WTBTS are being deliberately dishonest in using the 33% figure and describing it as a blood fraction- essentially a red blood cell is a bag of hemoglobin (more accurately , hemoglobin with a very thin enveloping membrane). It is nonsense to describe it as a blood fraction.
Makes sense – many thanks all!
In my opinion this is another example of their selective publishing – only printing what supports their purpose - deliberately choosing what they say to suit themselves.
Technically accurate but still misleading and manipulative to their readership who are told not to research beyond WTS information
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Dozy is right, I've verified this with a leading biologist from Brown University. Hemoglobin is the entire content of a red blood cell, it's hemoglobin with a cell membrane wrapped around it.
