It seems that researchers have found a new reaction carried out by the hemoglobin molecules in our red blood cells. Specifically, the researchers have discovered a method of converting nitrate salt stored in the blood cell into nitric oxide by oxidized hemoglobin. I found this article interesting not simply because of the new finding, but because it supports the idea that hemoglobin has undiscovered functions in the human body.

The main purpose of hemoglobin is to pick up oxygen molecules as blood passes through the lungs, then deposit the oxygen in the tissues that need oxygen. However, the average person has a hemoglobin concentration of about 15mg per deciliter of blood. This hemoglobin is 100% saturated with oxygen when leaving the lungs. At the end of the round trip through your body, it is about 70% saturated with oxygen before picking up more oxygen in your lungs. Think about all the energy that your body spends pumping blood around your body during the course of a day. If the only purpose of hemoglobin is as an oxygen transporter, that is a lot of reserve! The human body is generally more efficient that this, suggesting that hemoglobin serves some as of yet undefined purposes, making it even more of an elegant molecule than presently known. Of course, the role of this newly discovered reaction on vascular hemodynamics is yet to be defined.

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