Mean age of red blood cell (RBC)

Range diabetic subjects 47.9±6.0 (range 39-56): nondiabetic controls 50.7±6.9 (range 38-60) days
Organism Human Homo sapiens
Reference Cohen RM et al., Red cell life span heterogeneity in hematologically normal people is sufficient to alter HbA1c. Blood 2008 112: 4284–4291. doi: 10.1182/blood-2008-04-154112. abstract & p.4286 table 2PubMed ID18694998
Method Abstract: "To explore the hypothesis that variation in RBC life span could alter measured HbA1c [hemoglobin A1c] sufficiently to explain some of this discordance, [investigators] determined RBC life span using a biotin label in 6 people with diabetes and 6 nondiabetic controls. Mean RBC age was calculated from the RBC survival curve for all circulating RBCs and for labeled RBCs at multiple time points as they aged. In addition, HbA1c in magnetically isolated labeled RBCs and in isolated transferrin receptor-positivereticulocytes was used to determine the in vivo synthetic rate of HbA1c."
Comments Abstract: "The mean age of circulating RBCs ranged from 39 to 56 days in diabetic subjects and 38 to 60 days in nondiabetic controls." P.4287 left column 2nd paragraph: "Red cell survival curves and calculated mean RBC age: The individual RBC survivals for NDM (nondiabetic) (top panel) and DM (diabetes mellitus) subjects (bottom panel) are shown in Figure 3. These plots, although showing a long, almost linear phase consistent with previous data, are indeed curvilinear. There is heterogeneity in both the overall duration of survival and the shapes of the curves. [Investigators] chose a cubic fit for the data and used the best fit parameters to estimate the mean age of the RBCs [ref 29]. Although there was substantial variation among individuals, there was no significant difference in mean RBC age between groups: 50.7 plus or minus 7.2 days for NDM subjects and 47.9 plus or minus 6.1 days for diabetic subjects (Table 2, P=.46). Corresponding ranges for mean RBC age were 38.4 to 59.5 days and 39.4 to 56.0 days, respectively."
Entered by Uri M
ID 112491