Study on Age and Red Blood Cell Count in Socially Active Outpatients

Abstract

To investigate the effect of aging on blood hematocrit, we examined hemoglobin concentration, hematocrit levels and red cell counts on 2010 outpatients aged 30 and more who had been treated at our clinic. In male, hematocrit levels were 46% in both 30-39 and 40-49 y. o., 45% in both 50-59 and 60-69 y. o., 44% in 70-79 y. o. and 42% in 80-89 y. o. patients and those in female were 40% in both 30-39 and 40-49 y. o., 41.5% in 50-59 y. o. and then gradually decreased to 40% in 80-89 y. o. patients. To evaluate hematocrit changes chronologically, we compared the hematocrit levels to those of 10 years ago in 935 patients. This chronological study confirmed the results of the corss sectional study stated above that hematocrit levels in male decreased with advancing ages and those in female showed small paek in middle ages. The hematocrit levels in our study were observed to be higher than those in the earlier study promoted by Shirakura et al whose subjects were living in an old people's home by 3.4∼4.5% in male and 3.2∼3.9% in female. These results indicate that hematocrit levels, especially in male, decreases with age, than those of previous reports in Japan. The cause of the differences may be accounted by differences of social life style in the subjects.