Plasma

Looks like

The straw-coloured liquid part of blood, just over half its volume, mostly water with dissolved proteins, salts and sugars.

What it does

Carries blood cells, nutrients, hormones, waste and clotting factors round the body.

Keeping it well

Dehydration concentrates it; drink enough. Donated plasma treats bleeding, burns and immune deficiencies.

Related conditions

• African trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness)
• Aplastic anaemia & marrow failure
• Clotting disorders (thrombophilia & APS)
• Dehydration & electrolyte disorders
• Delirium
• Dengue & mosquito-borne fevers
• Diabetic ketoacidosis
• Disseminated intravascular coagulation
• Ebola virus disease
• G6PD deficiency (favism)
• Haemophilia & bleeding disorders
• Hereditary spherocytosis
• High cholesterol
• Malnutrition & refeeding syndrome
• Maternal (puerperal) sepsis
• MRSA and resistant staph infection
• Myelodysplastic syndromes
• Neonatal sepsis
• Neutropenic sepsis
• Postpartum haemorrhage
• Scrub typhus & rickettsial infections
• Sepsis
• Shock (circulatory failure)
• Toxic shock syndrome
• Typhoid & cholera
• Vitamin B1, C and other deficiencies
• Vitamin D deficiency
• Von Willebrand disease