Effects of gender and age on thixotropic properties of whole blood from healthy adult subjects

Abstract

The thixotropic parameters of whole blood from 314 healthy subjects (154 women, 160 men) were measured with our modified method by Low shear 30 Rheometer and calculated according Huang’s equation. This communication offered the reference range of thixotropic parameters from man and woman group. The results demonstrated that no significant differences existed in the plasma viscosity and fibrinogen between man and woman group. Man group had statistically higher values in HCT, yield stress ( ${\mathit{\tau }}_0$ ), Newtonian contribution of viscosity (μ), non-Newtonian contribution of viscosity ( ${\mathit{\eta }}_{\mathit{s}}$ –μ), apparent viscosity at 2.37 sec⁻¹ ( ${\mathit{\eta }}_{\mathit{s}}$ ), the equilibrium value of the structual parameter (A) and apparent kinetic rate constant of rouleaux breakdown (ARC) than those in woman group. The man and woman groups could be separately divided into five subgroups in terms of age. It was found that the levels of fibrinogen and plasma viscosity had a tendency of increasing with aging. In the old subgroup (>60 years) of men and women HCT, ${\mathit{\tau }}_0$ , μ, ${\mathit{\eta }}_{\mathit{s}}$ , ( ${\mathit{\eta }}_{\mathit{s}}$ –μ) and A had significant lower values than those in young and middle-age subgroups. However, It was very interested that there were differences of ARC versus age between man group and woman group, i.e. ARC in the man subgroup III, IV had lower and the woman subgroup II, III, IV had higher values than their respective older subgroup did.