Your blood is made up of different components. These components fulfill different tasks in your body, such as your immune system or your blood clotting.
With the help of a blood sample, around 180 different blood values can be determined, which can have very different meanings. A large number of common or specific blood values are usually drawn up to establish or confirm a diagnosis or a suspected illness; a single blood value is usually not very meaningful.
However, some substances only show up in your blood when they contain diseased or decayed cells . An example of this is the heart enzyme troponin, which can be found in the blood of the person affected after an acute heart attack and is determined as a value.
If individual organs are diseased or (permanently) damaged, other values appear in the blood that would not be found in a healthy organ.
So-called tumor markers indicate, for example, a malignant disease and are only found very occasionally or not at all in the blood of healthy people. If such blood values are elevated, further examinations usually follow in order to secure a diagnosis or, ideally, rule it out.
Vitamins or minerals such as iron or magnesium can also be determined in the blood with a value. If these values are too low, there is often a deficiency that can be compensated for with the help of a more balanced diet or with food supplements.
A single blood value can therefore sometimes provide an explanation as to why you feel listless and listless, for example. If vitamin or mineral levels are increased, this can also be a sign of poisoning. Blood values are part of the blood count.
Here a distinction is made between the large and the small blood count. The number of different blood cells is determined here. If there are deviations, a (harmless) infection or another disease is usually the cause. Your family doctor or specialist can explain the individual values and their meaning to you most competently.
Blood values in the normal range? What does that mean?
If a person’s blood is examined, individual blood values do not always have to be too high or too low. In a healthy person, the blood values examined are in the so-called normal range.
Similar to the body mass index or other parameters, this normal range is subject to certain fluctuations in which a person is still considered to be “perfectly healthy”. However, individual blood values can also be significantly above or below the normal or reference range.
This can be caused by an illness, further investigations may be necessary. Which reference or standard values are still considered “healthy” is still being discussed in human medicine.
On the one hand, because different doctors describe different values as “still healthy”, while other colleagues are of the opinion that they have to intervene here.
On the other hand, the measured values for determining the blood values vary from laboratory to laboratory, since different measuring methods are used.
If your standard value is in the border area, you can ask your family doctor for a detailed assessment.
