I have a basic understanding of biology and cells from high school. I know that oxygen reaches our blood cells to keep them alive sort of. Say you accidentally scrap your arm and it starts to bleed. I believe it’s white blood cells that form the inevitable scab that as it heals, right? Are they dead skin cells? Say your arm is itchy, is it the dead skin cells that cause the itch? I’m asking when do cells die in general and if oxygen is at all involved in that process, basically?
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No, all our cells need oxygen to live and red blood cells are there to transport the oxygen all over our body. So all of our cells are “exposed” to oxygen. They need it to produce energy for their functions.
When you get a wound red blood cells, fibrine and thrombocytes together form a sort of a clot over the wound, and when this clot dries and hardens, it becomes a scab. Under the scab the wound is protected and skin can be regrown across it.
The cells in your body renew all the time. Old cells die, new cells are made. Some cells have a lifespan of only few days (like in your gut, I’ve read), other cells live decades (like nerve cells). The outmost layer of your skin cells live for a couple of weeks, I think, renewing constantly.
(I’m not any kind of expert so correct me if I’m wrong.)
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