When blood clot becomes a problem: The need for anticoagulant

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Moving around everyday by day without any form of disease or pathological condition is something we need to be thankful of. Today a lot of people are in different health conditions, due to one ailment or the other.

Well, my discussion today will be centering on the need for anticoagulant in our life and why it is necessary in some aspect of our daily activities including the laboratory.

Let's begin.

Have you ever asked yourself why blood drawn from the vein doesn't waste time to clot if not kept properly on an anticoagulated container. Have you also been wondering why the blood inside of you remains in it's fluid nature until it is drawn out of the body. Well, if you haven't, you really need to do that.

Before we go into detailed explanation. let's quickly define what anticoagulant is all about.

Anticoagulants are a group of medications that decrease your blood’s ability to clot. They do that by letting your body break down existing clots or by preventing new clots from forming

If you look at the above definition, it simply means that anticoagulant is a substance that prevents blood from clotting.

This anticoagulant is found in the body and also being used in the laboratory to preserve blood from clotting and otherwise. Both anticoagulant are of two types and are very essential in our daily activities.

anticoagulant found in the body.

Human being are naturally equipped with a natural anticoagulant. This anticoagulant is to help maintain the blood in it's fluidic nature and to prevent any form of blood clot that might be an obstacle in causing any heart related disease.

The anticoagulant found in human is termed heparin. Heparin act by inhibiting clotting. It does this by activating some substance necessary to prevent coagulation.
Antithrombin is this substance activated by heparin that prevents clotting from taking place. Heparin anticoagulant are naturally occurring anticoagulant found in the body. It can also be produced artificially which are being used in the laboratory and some other aspect in other to prevent clotting.

Heparin anticoagulant is of two types. Unfractionated heparin (UFH) and low molecular weight heparin.

Unfractionated heparin is termed to be one of the fastest and strong acting heparin we have. This is because unfractionated heparin has a longer molecule which prevents proteins from promoting clotting in our various body.
But for the low molecular weight heparin. It has a shorter molecule which is an indication that it can only be attached to antithrombin.

Aside heparin, there are other anticoagulant we have that can be found in our environment. These anticoagulant performs it's function depending on the area where they are being meant to be.
These anticoagulant includes EDTA, citrate phosphate dextrose adenine (cpda), trisodium citrate.

Let detail a little the functions of this anticoagulant in the laboratory.

Tri sodium citrate

This is an artificial anticoagulant used in the laboratory to determine an erythrocyte sedimentation rate of a patient. This anticoagulant helps to prevents clotting in ESR and is particularly choosing for this test due to its inability of forming Rouleaux.

CPDA( citrate phosphate dextrose adenine)

This is an anticoagulant found in the blood bag. This anticoagulant in the blood bag helps to prevents blood from clotting in the bag and helps to preserve blood for a long period of time.

This anticoagulant is known for its storage capacity and well preserving contents.

EDTA( ethylene diamine tetra acetic acid)

This is a normal anticoagulant use in many hospitals and laboratory. This anticoagulant is known by its effect of preventing blood from clotting. It is used in blood collection in a normal routine laboratory test, like checking the packed cell volume, full blood count, genotype and many others.

Haven known the function of this anticoagulant in the laboratory, let us also talk on its work as a drug in the body by taking a look at this definition.

Anticoagulants are medicines that help prevent blood clots. They're given to people at a high risk of getting clots, to reduce their chances of developing serious conditions such as strokes and heart attacks

The definition is simply explaining to us what anticoagulated drug can do in other to prevent us from developing stroke or thrombosis.

This drug prevents blood from clotting inside the body. Reason being that blood clot has a way of blocking the vein and therefore prevents the normal passage of blood through the vein. When this happens, blood supply to any part of the body will be reduced therefore leading to a very devastating condition like stroke and others.

When anticoagulated drugs are being given, it has a way of preventing blood clot and enable normal blood flow. Anticoagulated drugs includes rivaroxaban,dabigatran, and apixaban.

Conclusion

Anticoagulated drugs are very important when it comes to prevention of blood clot. This drug prevent blood clotting and helps to maintain a normal blood flow in the body.

Also it is necessary to check yourself from time to time in other to make sure that you are free from any clot to avoid stroke.

References
anticoagulant
cpda blood bag
how do anticoagulant work
The role of ethylenediamine tetraacetic acid (EDTA) as in vitro anticoagulant for diagnostic purposes
uses of anticoagulant


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