Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Definition
By Mayo Clinic staffA hemoglobin test measures the amount of hemoglobin in your blood.
Hemoglobin is a protein in your red blood cells that carries oxygen to your body's organs and tissues and transports carbon dioxide from your organs and tissues back to your lungs. Hemoglobin's pigment is what makes your blood red.
If a hemoglobin test reveals that your hemoglobin level is lower than normal, it means you have a low red blood cell count (anemia). If a hemoglobin test shows a higher than normal level, it could mean that you have polycythemia vera — a blood disorder in which your bone marrow makes too many red blood cells. Living in a high altitude, smoking, dehydration, burns and excessive vomiting also may cause your hemoglobin level to rise.
- Ganong WF. Oxygen transport. In: Ganong WF. Review of Medical Physiology. 22nd ed. New York, N.Y.: The McGraw-Hill Companies; 2005. http://www.accessmedicine.com/content.aspx?aID=706575&searchStr=oxygen+transport. Accessed Jan. 20, 2009.
- Ganong WF. Circulating body fluids. In: Ganong WF. Review of Medical Physiology. 22nd ed. New York, N.Y.: The McGraw-Hill Companies; 2005. http://www.accessmedicine.com/content.aspx?aID=705037. Accessed Jan. 20, 2009.
- Hemoglobin. In: Nicoll D, et al. Pocket Guide to Diagnostic Tests. 5th ed. New York, N.Y.: McGraw-Hill Companies; 2008. http://www.accessmedicine.com/popup.aspx?aID=3136818&searchStr=hemoglobin. Accessed Jan. 20, 2009.
- Hemoglobin. Lab Tests Online. http://labtestsonline.org/understanding/analytes/hemoglobin/test.html. Accessed Jan. 20, 2009.
- Iron deficiency anemia. Iron Disorders Institute. http://www.irondisorders.org/Disorders/Iron-Deficiency.asp. Accessed Jan. 20, 2009.
- Shayne M, et al. Hematology in older persons. In: Lichtman MA, et al. Williams Hematology. 7th ed. New York, N.Y.: McGraw-Hill Companies; 2006.
- Laboratory reference values. Hemoglobin. Rochester, Minn.: Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research; Dec. 2008.
