Sickle Cell Anemia 101

There are over 10,000 diseases known to mankind. One of them is the dreaded Sickle Cell Anemia. This rare disease, mostly found in African countries, turns the red blood cells in a persons body from round and bagel-shaped to a crescent shape. In the United States alone, over 70,000 people have the disease and 2 million African-Americans have the trait for it. Around the world, 1 in 12 Africans have the trait. Although having the trait for SCA doesn't mean you have the disorder, you have the ability to pass it on to your offspring. This disease is not contagious but it is hereditary, and it can only occur when the child is purebred recessive. It was discovered by James B. Herrick in 1904 while testing blood samples from a college student at Harvard. Symptoms include weakness, becoming tired easily, and appearing run down. SCA is also a major cause of jaundice, a disorder that turns the pigment of your skin yellow. A cure has not been found yet, but doctors have found ways to treat patients with Sickle cell anemia. Some options are getting exercise, eating healthy, getting plenty of rest, avoiding extreme cold or heat, and getting a lot of folic acid, which creates new red blood cells in the body. Most people survive from this disease, but the people that do die usually die at a young age. The event that occur at the molecular level is mutation, due to the change in shape and size. As for me, I believe that this occurrence in the blood stream is awful. What I don't understand is how it could kill a person. Does it affect how the heart function? For more information on Sickle cell anemia, click here.