ИСТИНА

Understanding the properties of erythrocytes, red blood cells (RBC), is vital as they directly impact human health, and their alteration from the norm is indicative of diseases such as diabetes mellitus, arterial hypertension etc. The aim of this study is to estimate the differences between RBC properties in healthy humans and in humans with arterial hypertension — a pathology that affects blood pressure in elderly people. Methods of light diffractometry and diffuse scattering were used to measure deformability of the cells as well as their aggregation parameters — the speed of the aggregation process, amount of aggregating cells, etc. The blood used in the study was drawn from patients with an average age of 59±3 years and a group of healthy donors with average age of 57±9, in total 64 people were involved. Based on the results of our measurements we can make a conclusion that RBC aggregates of patients with arterial hypertension are stronger and form faster than those of healthy people. As for the deformability index, it is slightly lower at any shear stress applied when the pathology is present. Our results confirm the possibility of using methods of light scattering for monitoring the hemorheologic status human patients and the progress of disease treatment.