inside your body what color is your blood?

Answer 1

Inside your body blood is a nice light purplish-blue (go to a mirror, look at the bottom of your tongue, those disgusting veins are pretty much the exact color). When hemogloben (iron-containing oxygen-transport metalloprotein) comes in contact with the oxygen rich air, it turns red.

Also, it depends on who you ask, a lot of people here said it isn't blue/purple it's always red, because the medical term is a RED blood cell. I am using the visual perceptual connotation, which is: if it looks blue/purple it is blue/purple.

EDIT: ms.toinette, the dark red you see on surgeries is a direct result of venous bleeding. Because it is passing through a human blood pump (such as the heart) it has less oxygen in the blood stream. Lighter blood is from your arteries. Hypothetically speaking, if you did an autopsy in a vacuum the blood would be purplish-blue.

Answer 2

Inside of your arteries, it is bright red due to the effect of the Oxygen anteracting with the Hemoglobin. Once it enters the veins, it is still red, just a much darker color of red. Some people say it has a slight purplish tinge, but I don't really see it.

Many people claim that it is blue, however this is a myth. When they state that you can't see it until it is exposed to oxygen and therefore turns red, they are mistaken. If you have ever watched an EMT or nurse draw your blood into those tubes, you have seen deoxygenated blood. Those tubes contain vacuum inside, no oxygen, so the blood does not change color at all.

Answer 3

Blood is ALWAYS red! It does however change in the intensity of the redness. In your body it is a deep red, and when it comes into contact with air it becomes a lighter shade. Think about it.....when you get a small cut on, say, your finger, your blood is a nice, ighter red colous. Then check out either a deep cut or surgery on TV when blood loss is extreme and fast ,it is always a deep red as it has not yet had time to be oxygenated by the air around. Imagine if blood was blue.....how weird would a surgical proceedure look? We'd look like smurfs!

Answer 4

That depends on where in your body it is. Oxygenated blood, like that coming out of the lungs and traveling through the arteries, is red.

De-oxygenated blood, like that traveling through your veins on the way to get oxygen from the lungs, is dark, almost purple.

Answer 5

It is NOT BLUE! I am a teacher and it is quite frustrating to see that this myth persists. When blood is high in oxygen it is bright red and when low in oxygen it is a very deep red/purply colour. Red and deep red can be confusing in diagrams, which is why we draw deoxygenated blood as blue on diagrams.

Answer 6

It is red when it contains oxygen but darker when it is in the veins because most of the oxygen has been taken up by the cells. Hemoglobin combines with oxygen and is essentially red. Plasma, the fluid in which the Hemoglobin travels, is a sort of pale straw colour.

Answer 7

Your blood is always red. It is never blue. Your veins appear blue because of the reflectance of light. When you get your blood drawn, it comes out red. Look at your eyballs--any blue veins in them?

Answer 8

your blood has red blood cells making it red. so its red inside and out. there is a myth that your blood is blue, but thats not true because. well red blood cells are there.

Answer 9

Blue - When your blood is not oxygenated
Red- When your blood IS oxygenated

The reason we ALWAYS see blood red is then you cut yourself, the blood hits the air and turns red - But its really blue.

Answer 10

blue

only when the blood comes into contact with air does it turn red