• Question: Roughly, how long does an individual cell take to make a complete circuit of the human body?

    Asked by rhooper821 to Ben, Dave, Ed, Sam, Susana on 18 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Sam Horrell

      Sam Horrell answered on 18 Jun 2013:

      It takes a blood cell about 1 minute to go around your whole body. Here’s the maths.

      An average adult has about 5 litres of blood in their body and the average heart pumps 70ml with ever beat. An average resiting heart rate is about 70 beats per minute so 70 lots of 70ml is about 4.9 litres. So just over a minute I’d say.

    • Photo: David Briggs

      David Briggs answered on 18 Jun 2013:

      Sam’s answer sounds about right – it’s pretty flipping quick, no?

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