Red blood cells

Looks like

Flexible discs without a nucleus, 25 trillion of them, each living about four months.

What it does

Carry oxygen on haemoglobin from lungs to every tissue.

Keeping it well

Iron, B12 and folate; pallor with breathlessness on stairs means a blood count is due.

Related conditions

• Acute porphyria
• African trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness)
• Anaemia
• Aplastic anaemia & marrow failure
• Autoimmune haemolytic anaemia
• Clotting disorders (thrombophilia & APS)
• Dehydration & electrolyte disorders
• Delirium
• Dengue & mosquito-borne fevers
• Diabetic ketoacidosis
• Disseminated intravascular coagulation
• Ebola virus disease
• G6PD deficiency (favism)
• Haemolytic uraemic syndrome
• Haemophilia & bleeding disorders
• Hereditary spherocytosis
• High cholesterol
• Iron deficiency
• Lead poisoning
• Malaria
• Malnutrition & refeeding syndrome
• Maternal (puerperal) sepsis
• MRSA and resistant staph infection
• Myelodysplastic syndromes
• Neonatal sepsis
• Neutropenic sepsis
• Newborn jaundice
• Parvovirus B19 (fifth disease)
• Polycythaemia vera
• Postpartum haemorrhage
• Scrub typhus & rickettsial infections
• Sepsis
• Shock (circulatory failure)
• Sickle cell disease
• Toxic shock syndrome
• Typhoid & cholera
• Vitamin B1, C and other deficiencies
• Vitamin D deficiency
• Von Willebrand disease