Living With Sickle Cell Anemia Essay

Sickle Cell Anemia is a group of disorders that cause red blood cells to become misshapen and break down. Sickle Cell Anemia affects many people all over the world; Sickle cell disease is the most common inherited blood disorder in the United States, affecting 70,000 to 80,000 Americans (Ashley-Koch, Yang and Olney). Sickle Cell Anemia causes your red blood cells to be thin, stiff, and shaped like a sickle. But your red blood cells are supposed to be round and soft. When a person is diagnosed with sickle cell anemia the blood cells start to become clogged blood vessels, which can cause a great amount of health issues including: infections, stroke, and acute chest syndrome. People get sickle cell anemia by inheriting a mutated gene from both of their parents. On the down side, there is not currently an effective cure for sickle cell anemia, there are several different therapeutic approaches to treating and attempting to cure the disease and help people who are affected with sickle cell anemia better manage their symptoms. There have also been several great scientists that dedicated a lot of research to help find a cure for sickle cell anemia.

“In the United States, it's estimated that sickle cell anemia affects 70,000–100,000 people, mainly African Americans” (NHLBI, NIH, Who is at risk for sickle cell anemia). SCD is a disease that is a serious disorder in which the body can make normal blood cells and sickle shape cells. Sickle shape cells can block the blood flow in your vessels and cause pain or organ damage also put you in risk for infections. SCD has no cure available but there are many treatments out there to deal with the complications of it. From over years treatments did get better from way back in the day doctors have learned. Sickle cell disease has lack of attention and funding because it’s only affecting

Traits get passed down from one generation to the next through Meiosis (cell division), where each parent gives you one Gene for each trait.

Sickle Cell Disease is an illness that affects people all across the globe. This paper will give a description of the sickness through the discussion of the causes, symptoms, and possible cures. Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) is a "group of inherited red blood cell disorders."(1) These disorders can have various afflictions, such as pain, damage and a low blood count--Sickle Cell Anemia.

Sickle cell anemia is a hereditary disorder that mostly affects people of African ancestry, but also occurs in other ethnic groups, including people who are of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern descent. More than 70,000 Americans have sickle cell anemia. And about 2 million Americans - and one in 12 African Americans - have sickle cell trait (this means they carry one gene for the disease, but do not have the disease itself).

Sickle Cell Disease is an autosomal recessive genetic disease that occurs due to a mutation in the β-globin gene of hemoglobin. Autosomal meaning that it is not linked to a sex chromosome, so either parent can pass on the gene to their child. This mutation is a result of a single substitution of amino acids, Glutamic for Valine at position 6 of a β globin chain. The presence of this mutation causes

The sickle-shaped red cells interfere with normal blood flow by plugging up small blood vessels. Sickle-cell anemia occurs when an individual inherits a sickle-cell gene from each parent. Programs have been initiated to detect carriers, who do not themselves show the trait; such carriers are informed that a child resulting from the union of two carriers runs a one in four risk of having sickle-cell disease. Therapy for sickle-cell anemia is largely symptomatic. Preventive administration of penicillin to affected children by the age of four months greatly decreases mortality from infections.

When Malaria is present and infects red blood cells, parasites can infect cells carrying defective hemoglobin which may result in death. Allele frequency changes over time depending on the pressures or circumstances facing a particular population. African populations are especially impacted by both malaria and sickle cell anemia. Depending on the impacted population, allele frequency often shifts and well suited organisms are likely to survive and allele frequencies can increase. When a population is effected by disease or other circumstances, allele frequency may decrease or change. HbA (normal hemoglobin) and HbS (defective hemoglobin) have varying frequencies and while the HbS gene is present in populations it is

In this article, sickle cell anemia is defined as a hereditary disease that destroys red blood cells by causing them take on an elongated and rigid "sickle" shape. In addition, a different type of hemoglobin called Hemoglobin S, is the protein in red blood cells that carry oxygen throughout the body. This protein starts to wrap around other red blood cells when oxygen is lacking to form a helical shape. Once this happens the cells cluster together and elongate and the cells start to "sickle". A person who has sickle cell anemia can only get it if both of their parents carry the sickle cell trait, if only one parent has the trait then there children are at risk for having the trait.

Discussions in regards to race can be fraught with extreme opinions, to examine this subject in a more dispassionate light it is helpful to first define the terms. Race is distinctly different from ethnicity or culture, but is often combined in both writing and thought. From a biological perspective, the description of race in human populations is meaningless, but examined from a cultural basis it can make an enormous difference to a population’s wellbeing, or survival, based solely on their difference in morphology.

Sickle cell disease is a chronic condition that a person can inherit from their parents in which it effects the globular structure of the patients red blood cells. A more sickle shaped structure, which can alter a person’s blood flow, replaces the more common globular structure. This impairment in blood flow can lead to blood clots, severe debilitating pain and damage to vital organs such as the liver, kidney and spleen. This disease currently affects over 90,000 people in the United States, with the majority of them being African American and

The sickle cell disease is an inherited blood disorder that affects red blood cells. People with sickle cell have red blood cells that have mostly hemoglobin's, Sometimes these red blood cells become sickle-shaped or crescent shaped and have trouble going through small blood vessels. When sickle-shaped cells block small blood vessels, less blood can get to that part of the body. Tissue that does not get a normal blood flow eventually becomes damaged. This is what causes the problems of sickle cell disease.

Sickle Cell Anemia is a hereditary disease that changes the smallest and most important components of the body. A gene causes the bone marrow in the body to make sickled shapes, when this happens; it causes the red blood cell to die faster. This is what causes Hemolytic Anemia. Older children and adults with sickle cell disease may experience a few complications, or have a pattern of ongoing problems that shorten their lives. The most common and serious complications of sickle cell disease are anemia, pain, fatigue, and organ failure. Today there are many alternatives and opportunities that a sickle cell patient may consider. One outlined in this paper is the Hydroxyurea method.

Sickle cell anemia is an anemia that is inherited and mostly affects people whose heritage can be traced back to places where malaria was prevalent. There are approximately 100,000 Americans that have the disease and many more with the trait. Several of my family members are afflicted by this medical condition that causes red blood cells to take on an irregular shape.

Sickle Cell Anemia is a group of disorders that cause red blood cells to become misshapen and break down. Sickle cell disease is the most common inherited blood disorder in the United States, affecting 70,000 to 80,000 Americans (Ashley-Koch, Yang and Olney). Sickle Cell Anemia causes your red blood cells to be thin, stiff, and shaped like a sickle. But your red blood cells are supposed to be round and soft. A person that is diagnosed with sickle cell anemia, their blood cells start to become clogged, causing blood clots, which can cause a great amount of health issues including: infections, stroke, and acute chest syndrome. People get sickle cell anemia by inheriting a mutated gene from both of their parents. On the down side, there is not currently an effective cure for sickle cell anemia, there are several different therapeutic approaches to treating and attempting to cure the disease and help people who are affected with sickle cell anemia better manage their symptoms. There have also been several great scientists that dedicated a lot of research to help find a cure for sickle cell anemia.