Sickle Cell Disease-- Signs, Stats, and Facts

There are various symptoms and signs which accompany sickle cell diseases. Some of the more common symptoms and signs include:

• Joint pain

• Dizziness

• Fatigue

• Shortness of breath

• Swelling of hands and feet

Sickle cell disease affects many Americans with over 100,000 Americans estimated to be suffering from it. Interestingly, sickle cell disease is more prevalent in African Americans with approximately 8% of African Americans in the U.S. having a sickle cell trait while only approximately 0.3% of caucasian Americans in the U.S. have the sickle cell trait. Sickle cell diseases are inherited and recessive meaning they are transmitted from one generation to another, and one only has sickle cell disease when they have two alleles of the trait. Therefore, those counted in the percentage with the sickle cell trait are those with one or more alleles of the trait. It is also worth noting that the severe effects of sickle cell disease results in the median life expectancy for those with sickle cell disease to be 42-47 years compared to the national median of around 79 years.

A noteworthy fact about those with sickle cell trait is that they have a 29% reduced incidence of malaria. This reduction is due to the fact that the parasite which causes malaria invades cells to produce more parasites. During this process, the malaria parasite causes cells with the sickle cell trait to sickle which results in the immune system attacking and getting rid of those cells, eliminating them before the parasite can finish using the cell machinery to duplicate. Therefore, the sickle cell trait provides basic protection against malaria and results in those with the sickle cell trait infected with malaria to have approximately 50-90% fewer malaria parasites. Due to this fact, the sickle cell trait is genetically favorable in malaria dominated regions, resulting in approximately 80% of sickle cell disease cases to occur in Sub-Saharan Africa. This statistics explains why African Americans have a greater incidence of the sickle cell trait as it is favorable in Africa and, therefore, passed down through generations.