Hello and welcome to the Zero to Finals podcast.

My name is Tom and in this episode I'm going to be talking to you about anemia.

And you can find written notes on this topic at zero to finals.com

or in the hematology section of the second edition of the Zero Definals Medicine book.

So let's get straight into it.

Anemia is defined as a low concentration of hemoglobin in the blood.

This is a consequence of an underlying disease and not a disease itself.

Anne means without and emia refers to the blood.

Hemoglobin is a protein found inside red blood cells. It's responsible for picking up oxygen from the

lungs and transporting it to the body's cells. Iron is essential in creating hemoglobin, and it forms part of its structure.

The mean cell volume, or MCV, refers to the size of the red blood cells, and it's highly relevant

in anemic patients.

The normal ranges are, for women, a hemoglobin of 120 to 165

grams per liter and a mean cell volume of 80 to 100 femtoleters. For men, the normal range is

130 to 180 grams per liter, and again the same mean cell volume of 80 to 100 femtoleters.

Let's talk about the causes of anemia.

Anemia can be divided into three categories based on the mean cell volume. Microcytic

anemia is where there's a low mean cell volume, normocytic anemia is where there's a normal

mean cell volume, and macrocytic anemia is where there's a large mean cell volume.

The mnemonic for remembering the causes of microcytic anemia, where there's a low mean cell volume,

is tails. T for thalassemia, A for anemia of chronic disease,

I for iron deficiency anemia, L for lead poisoning,

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