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Originally posted by DELTABRAT
Right. Sickle cell trait is nothing. Everybody and their mothers have that. SST manifests physically, neurologically, or otherwise, in no way whatsoever. Anemia is a problem, additionally, under intense, stressful conditions, exhaustion and low oxygen could occur. However, I think it's important to keep in mind that this young man was an athlete and so for his sickle cell trait to suddenly start "acting up" because he was running some laps, I think is nuts.
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How does sickle cell cause the anemia? I know how it does, but I want to see what your thinking is...
Because these things are not as black and white as we want to make them out.
Sickle cell "trait" is still a haploinsufficiency disease. Missing one of the beta-globin alleles or being a compound heterozygote, still manifests as sickle cell anemia when under medical stress conditions.
Who knows what this boy exactly was genotypically. He carried the sickle cell trait, meaning he did not have a fully functional beta-globin gene product.
To me that immediately spells disaster in whole organ function from heart disease to cancer because blood is consider an organ system, too. Without blood flowing throughout the body system properly, the organ failure is relatively high.
As I understand it, they made the boy exhausted with doing exercises that he was unable to do. That already means his physiological sympathetic nervous system was on full drive. His response was exhaustion to slow his roll. He was too young to articulate his problems to the personnel so they immediately thought he was faking it. Then the personnel attacked him and he eventually, he succumbed to unconsiousness.
Those are the differentials I can come up with from my vantage point, however, I am not a physician. But I do know how these gene product interactions can make fail to cause organ failure, particular that in the heart. That is where most of my grant funding comes from NIH...