How exactly do cells actually get the oxygen from your blood if your red blood cells never leave your blood vessels?

Question

I know that your blood carries oxygen to distribute to cells, but if the red blood cells and hemoglobin never leave the blood cells, how do the body cells receive oxygen from these cells? How is oxygen transferred?

In: Biology

Answer 1

all thing naturally move from where there is a lot of it to where there is little of it – this is called diffusion. think of putting colouring in water. even if you don’t stir it, it will still eventually spread out across all the water. there is a lot of oxygen in your blood and less oxygen in your cells, so the oxygen will diffuse out of the red blood cells, and into cells near the vessel. i’m pretty sure cells can be up to 1~2 centimeters away from a blood vessel before it can’t get enough oxygen or other nutrients from diffusion.