Bone marrow

Looks like

Soft red tissue inside the hip bones, breastbone, ribs and spine, turning yellow and fatty with age.

What it does

Makes every blood cell: red, white and platelets — millions each second.

Keeping it well

Iron, B12 and folate from food. Unexplained bruising, repeated infections or deep tiredness is worth a blood count — a cheap test that settles most of these questions.

Its parts

• Haematopoietic stem cells
• Red marrow
• Yellow marrow

Related conditions

• Acute leukaemia (AML & ALL)
• African trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness)
• Anaemia
• Aplastic anaemia & marrow failure
• Chronic leukaemia (CML & CLL)
• Clotting disorders (thrombophilia & APS)
• Dehydration & electrolyte disorders
• Delirium
• Dengue & mosquito-borne fevers
• Diabetic ketoacidosis
• Disseminated intravascular coagulation
• Ebola virus disease
• Essential thrombocythaemia
• G6PD deficiency (favism)
• Haemophilia & bleeding disorders
• Hereditary spherocytosis
• High cholesterol
• Immune thrombocytopenia
• Iron deficiency
• Malnutrition & refeeding syndrome
• Mast cell activation & mastocytosis
• Maternal (puerperal) sepsis
• MGUS (monoclonal gammopathy)
• MRSA and resistant staph infection
• Multiple myeloma
• Myelodysplastic syndromes
• Myelofibrosis
• Neonatal sepsis
• Neutropenic sepsis
• Parvovirus B19 (fifth disease)
• Polycythaemia vera
• Postpartum haemorrhage
• Radiation injury
• Scrub typhus & rickettsial infections
• Sepsis
• Shock (circulatory failure)
• Thalassaemia
• Toxic shock syndrome
• Typhoid & cholera
• Vitamin B1, C and other deficiencies
• Vitamin D deficiency
• Von Willebrand disease