• Question: How long does it take for 1 blood cell to travel round the body :)

    Asked by 264sprg52 to Andrew, Dan, Emilia, Helen, Katy, LauraAnne, Stephanie on 7 Nov 2016.
    • Photo: Dan Gordon

      Dan Gordon answered on 7 Nov 2016:

      What a neat question. For this we need to assume that we are looking at an average person of around 75 Kg and 1.80m height. Also that they are rest. Under these conditions it would take a single blood cell, assuming it did not get used or deposited elsewhere just under 60s to travel around the body. So if we double the heart rate from 70 bpm at rest to 140 bpm during moderate intensity exercise we could be looking at around 30s to get round the body.

    • Photo: Helen Hanstock

      Helen Hanstock answered on 7 Nov 2016:

      At rest, it would probably take about 1 minute. Most adults have about 5 litres of blood and cardiac output (the amount of blood pumped by the heart in one minute) is about 5L/min. But if you are exercising it could be a lot quicker!

    • Photo: Emilia McAllister-Jepps

      Emilia McAllister-Jepps answered on 8 Nov 2016:

      Great answers!

      I wonder how long it would take for a cell to travel around at maximal effort during exercise?

Comments