Alicia Mackey Huber explains why stem cells need to fit through capillaries to repair your body. Stem cells are up to 20 micrometers wide, capillaries about 12, so poor blood vessel health blocks repair to tissues that need it most.
The red blood cells themselves are just about the size of a capillary. So the real question comes with stem cells. Stem cells can be up to 20 micron. Your capillaries will be about up to 12 microns. And when you think about the fact that stem cells are the repair system, if they don't reach capillaries, that's the place where stem cells can leave the blood and go into tissues. That's where the machinery for that migration exists. So if stem cells can get into capillaries, that area of the body deprived of proper microvasculature is deprived of repair.
