The Total Quantity of Hemoglobin in Man and its Relation to Age, Sex, Bodyweight and Height

Abstract

Summary.According to a method already described the total quantity of hemoglobin has been determined on 17 boys and 21 girls between the ages of 8 and 17, on 174 men between the ages of 18 and 57 and on 92 women between 17 and 70.In the case of the male material the total quantity of hemoglobin increased with age and broadly speaking with physical growth up to the age of 22. In the female material — as in the male —the quantity of hemoglobin increased up to the ages of 12 to 13, but after this, the increase was considerably less up to the age of 20, after which it remained constant.In the male material the quantity of hemoglobin showed a manifest increase in relation to the bodyweight during the years of puberty and up to the age of 22, but in the female material there was a relative decrease from the age of 12 to 20.The average quantity of henloglobin in the adult man was 1.16 % of the bodyweight and 0.86 % in the adult woman.Even previous to the years of puberty the sexes showed a difference concerning the total quantity of henioglobin in relation to the bodyweight but none in relation to age.The quantity of hemoglobin did not increase with the increase of weight after physical growth had ceased, at least as regards the female material.The quantity of hemoglobin showed good correlation with the height during the years of development, though there was only slight correlation in the case of men and women. As regards the surface area of the body the total quantity of hemoglobin showed only slightly better correlation than to the bodyweight in men and women. but it was less in children.Broadly speaking the blood volume showed the same variability as the total quantity of hemoglobin, except that the difference between the sexes, in adults, was about 10% lower as regards the blood volunie than it was concerning the quantity of hemoglobin.The size of the error which the niethod adopted has, in that part of the carbon inonoxide is bound estravascularly inter alia to the myoglobin is discussed and the total hemoglobin determinations of some chronic Cases of anemia are given as a further proof of the smallness of this error, which is reckoned as being from 2 to 3%.The significance of the seemingly hormonal effect on the hemoglobin production under and after puberty is also discussed.A grant has been received from the Therese and Johan Anderssons Foundation for these investigations.