What is hematocrit compared to blood results?
Hematocrit is a measure of the “thickness” of your blood. Basically your blood is extracted via needle and tube and then centrifuged (spun at high speed) and then examined. When you spin the blood really fast, the heavy parts of the blood settle to the bottom of the tube and the light parts stay at the top. Thus your red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets, proteins, and plasma all form layers in the tube. Hematocrit is literally the fraction of the tube that is occupied by red blood cells. For males a hematocrit of 46 – 50 is normal, for females its around 42 – 45, indicating that men generally have thicker blood than women.
