Is the blood inside you blue or red?

Question

mine is black lol

Answer 1

Everyone has both blue and red blood.

Red blood is blood that has been recently oxygenated, therefore, it has just left the heart and travels to the rest of the body.

Blue blood has traveled through the body and is making its way back up to the heart to gain more oxygen at the lungs.

Answer 2

Don't listen to any miss led people who believe in the myth that blood turns blue when it is de-oxygenated in the veins. Blood is red due to the heme component in the hemoglobin molecule. The intensity of the red color changes as oxygen saturation increases in the blood. I work in a hospital lab where I have drawn thousands of patients blood samples from veins. I have even drawn blood directly into anaerobic blood culture bottles where there is no oxygen present. In every case the blood is red.

Answer 3

If you are a human being and from this planet..your blood is red. Oxygen has nothing to do with it except to keep your cells alive. Perhaps you are confused about the saying "blue-blood" when people of royalty are referred to. Looking at the veins from the outside they appear to be blue. Same thing when looking at the ocean. The ocean water is as clear as water coming from your kitchen sink. Although it appears to be blue.

Answer 4

Human blood is ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS red.

It is NEVER blue. As stated already, the blue to purple hue of our veins through our skin is due to the way light is refracted. The blood itself is merely a darker red when it deoxygenated.

Please, people, stop perpetuating the myth that blood is blue!

Answer 5

Blood is a bright red in its oxygenated form (i.e., leaving the lungs), when hemoglobin is bound to oxygen to form oxyhemoglobin. It's a dark red in its deoxygenated form (i.e., returning to the lungs), when hemoglobin is bound to carbon dioxide to form carboxyhemoglobin.


Veins appear blue because light, penetrating the skin, is absorbed and reflected back to the eye. Since only the higher energy wavelengths can do this (lower energy wavelengths just don't have the *oomph*), only higher energy wavelengths are seen. And higher energy wavelengths are what we call "blue."

Part 2 below is quoted for you with the link in sources.
Color
In humans and other hemoglobin-using creatures, oxygenated blood is bright red. This is due to oxygenated iron-containing hemoglobin found in the red blood cells. Deoxygenated blood is a darker shade of red, which can be seen during blood donation and when venous blood samples are taken. However, due to skin pigments, blood vessel coverings and an optical effect caused by the way in which light penetrates through the skin, veins typically appear blue in color. This has led to a common misconception that venous blood is blue before it is exposed to air. Another reason for this misconception is that medical charts always show venous blood as blue in order to distinguish it from arterial blood which is depicted as red on the same chart. The rare condition sulfhemoglobinemia results in green blood.

The blood of horseshoe crabs is blue, which is a result of its high content in copper-based hemocyanin instead of the iron-based hemoglobin found, for example, in humans. Skinks in the genus Prasinohaema have green blood due to a buildup of the waste product biliverdin.

Answer 6

Blood is both blue and red. Fully oxygenated blood (coming from the lungs) is red, while oxygen depleted blood (headed back to the lungs) is blue. Blood from a wound is always red because it has come in contact with oxygen in the air.

Answer 7

I did a podcast about this very issue. Listen to it here:
http://www.medicalminutepodcast.com/?p=27
Just click on Play Now to listen right on your computer.

Short answer: it's all red, but different shades of red. Unless you're an octopus.

Answer 8

Dear Jessica,
The blood within our viens is blue. It appears red once it has been exposed to the air and become oxidized.

Answer 9

Both.

It's red when it contains oxygen (it always turns red when exposed to the air outside your body), but blue when it doesn't have oxygen.

Arteries contain red (oxygenated) blood. Veins contain blue (deoxygenated) blood.

Answer 10

It is blue. Once exposed to oxygen outside the body, it turns red.