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What do platelets do?
Platelets are cell fragments which are an important part of bloodclotting. Similarly to red blood cells, they don't have a nucleus,but they are a lot smaller than red blood ce…lls. When there are toofew platelets, wounds don't close as well and you bleed more.Conversely, when there are too many, your blood clots too easilyand blood clots might form without there being a wound - leading tothrombosis. However, the range of platelet counts that are healthyis very large, unlike for other blood cells. If you're on the lowerend, somebody with five times as many platelets as you might stillbe perfectly healthy. How they work: When a blood vessel is injured, blood comes intocontact with the protein mesh underneath the vessel wall. This meshcontains collagen. Blood contains platelets, but also a proteincalled Von Willebrand Factor (VWF), which sticks to collagen. Onceit is stuck down, VWF itself becomes sticky for platelets which arealso in the blood. This way, VWF becomes like glue stripts forplatelets to stick onto an injury. This causes platelets toactivate and stick to each other, forming a plug over the injury.There are more details to what platelets do, but this is their mainfunction. (MORE)