Red blood cells

[sleuth]

"Your body creates and kills 17 million red blood cells per minute." True or false.

I've googled and find sites so scientific that I can't decide. And other sites not too trustworthy. I think it's probably more.

[flamingo97]

This is from the Hutchinson Encyclopedia. It may help (if you can work out the maths!!)

Blood cells constantly wear out and die and are replaced from the bone marrow. Red blood cells die at the rate of 200 billion per day but the body produces new cells at an average rate of 9,000 million per hour.

[halfadaily]

If that's right flamingo, and a billion is 1000 million, then we produce 216 billion cells per day. So what happens to the excess 16 billion cells?

Another of life's little mysteries!

[sleuth]

Thanks for taking the time to answer, Flamingo.