Sickle Cell Essay, Research Paper

Sickle Cell Anemia is a genetic disorder of the blood. This disease is very harmful causing infections, damage to organs, pain in the back, chest, and abdomen. The symptoms of this disease come at an early around six months of age, they are serious infections, pain and swelling in the hands and feet, and the heart gets larger.

A defective gene that produces a weird form of hemoglobin causes Sickle Cell Anemia. Hemoglobin is a component of the red blood cells responsible for transporting oxygen from the lungs to the tissue. The hemoglobin S distorts red blood cells after they release oxygen in the tissue. These disfigure cells are called sickle cell because of the look a like to the sickle, a type of crescent-shaped cutting blade used in agriculture. The shape of the cell makes it hard for these cells to pass through tiny blood vessels, resulting in painful blockages that prevent very important oxygen and nutrients in the blood from reaching organs and tissues. So the person with the disease is very weak of other infections and could be harmed from it easily. When the blood flow to the brain is affected, sickle cell patients maybe could experience brain damage, for example a stroke. Sickle cells also break apart more readily than health red blood cells leading to a lack of red blood cells, known as anemia.

Sickle-cell anemia is a recessive genetic disease, meaning a child with the disease must inherit one copy of the defective hemoglobin gene from each parent. This disease is very common in western Africa and people of western African ancestry. An estimated 8-12 percent of all African Americans carry the sickle-cell gene. Sickle-cell anemia is also common in people from the Mediterranean countries, the Middle East, and India, or peoples whose ancestors came from those places. Researchers say that the reason why these countries and locations have a big population of sickle cell carriers because carriers of the cell gene makes them less susceptible to malaria. Malaria was a leading cause of illness and death in these regions. Carrying the cell makes the person more likely to survive from the malaria than non-carrying people.

A blood test can determine if the person has the disease of not. This is a very painful disease. A friend in school has this disease and there’s been many times where he suffered from strokes or suffered from other illnesses. I feel very bad for him and I hope that the population of the people that has this disease decreases so fewer people could stop suffering from the same pain my friend suffers.