hematocrit level

[Yellow Fang]

I've been told that I can't take part in a food trial at the Food Bioscience dept. at the local university because:

"As I told you on the recruitment visit the blood from your finger was taken to evaluate if you are anaemic or not. I did a test and I found that your hematocrit level is 37% whereas healthy adults males should have it in the range 40-52%. This means that you are anaemic and I can not include you in the study. Such temporary drop of immunity could happen without any reason but I would advise you to check this with your GP."

I'm not too bothered about not being allowed to take part in the trial, as it meant providing fecal samples, and involves a fair bit of pain-in-the-arse record keeping. I did wonder how much blood they intended to take. Also, it's not a total surprise as I sometimes used to be turned away when going to give blood because my blood count was too low, which often seemed to coincide with when I was at my fittest.

My questions are:

How does this hematocrit level correspond to the blood count level used by the blood transfusion service? With the blood transfusion service, I used to be refused if my blood count was less than 130.

Isn't the hematocrit level the thing EPO is supposed to raise? I thought the maximum hematocrit level allowed by the UCI was 50, yet I'm told the natural range is 40-52%.

 

[Fiona N]

My questions are:

How does this hematocrit level correspond to the blood count level used by the blood transfusion service? With the blood transfusion service, I used to be refused if my blood count was less than 130.

Well the simple answer is no as the hematocrit was given as a percentage (by volume, IIRC), a level of 130% is obviously nonsense and what the BTS are using is a density measure although I don't recall what the units are.

Isn't the hematocrit level the thing EPO is supposed to raise? I thought the maximum hematocrit level allowed by the UCI was 50, yet I'm told the natural range is 40-52%.

EPO does raise hematocrit levels and normal levels are under 50% but there is a genetic mutuation relatively common in Finland but not elsewhere AFAIK which raises the hematocrit levels beyond this because the EPO regulatory control is impaired. The UK cyclist Charlie Wegelius has this mutation and has needed a 'blood passport' since the hematocrit level criterion was brought in. Other endurance sports like cross-country skiing have long recognised that there are natural outliers whose high levels are entirely natural (if very beneficial for these sports). Interestingly people with this mutation don't have elevated EPO levels - it's just that their bodies don't switch off production of EPO when the blood has sufficient red blood cells, which is what happens with the rest of us.

 

[Yellow Fang]

Cheers Fiona. I think I've heard something about that condition. It's not actually very good to have heightened levels of blood iron. My brother was told he had elevated levels of iron, but he was ok on the second reading.

 

[Fiona N]

Cheers Fiona. I think I've heard something about that condition. It's not actually very good to have heightened levels of blood iron. My brother was told he had elevated levels of iron, but he was ok on the second reading.

Ah I think you're confusing two things here - high levels of normal blood red blood cells (haemoglobin - which is a function of aerobic conditioning, altitude and health) and abnormal retention of iron in the blood - again a genetic problem which results in 'old' red blood cells not being properly broken down and removed from the blood. This leads to a chronic condition called haemochromatosis where blood iron levels get so high that they start to poison the liver resulting in cirrhosis which is nothing to do with alcohol consumption (although alcohol will make things worse). If caught early enough, it's treated by a lot of blood letting (I have a friend that during early treatment gave blood 3 or 4 times a week until his blood iron came down to more normal levels). If it's not caught until the liver is damaged, I'm afraid it's pretty much a lifetime off alcohol and limits on diet etc.

 

[Becs]

I've been told that I can't take part in a food trial at the Food Bioscience dept. at the local university because:

"As I told you on the recruitment visit the blood from your finger was taken to evaluate if you are anaemic or not. I did a test and I found that your hematocrit level is 37% whereas healthy adults males should have it in the range 40-52%. This means that you are anaemic and I can not include you in the study. Such temporary drop of immunity could happen without any reason but I would advise you to check this with your GP."

Sounds like they are a bit clueless. A low-normal haematocrit doesn't mean you have a drop in immunity. It is only measuring red blood cells and gives no information about the white cells that fight infection.

 

[Yellow Fang]

I expect this was a typo, sort of. Although they were going to test the body's reaction to a flu jab after eating certain food stuffs.

The odd thing is that I took part in another food trial in which they took about half a pint of blood out of me on four occasions. I thought that in this trial, they would only take enough to do some antibody tests or something.

Anyway, what is the measure the Blood Transfusion Board uses then?

 

[Yellow Fang]

I'll answer my own question. The 130 figure seems to be grams of haemoglobin per litre of blood. Healthy figures are over 130 for a man and 115 for a woman.

http://hcd2.bupa.co.uk/fact_sheets/html/anaemia_iron.html