Arteriosclerotic events are less frequent in persons with chronic anemia: evidence from families with hereditary spherocytosis.

Because anemic persons have lower cholesterol and whole blood viscosity than those who are not anemic, we hypothesized that subjects with hereditary spherocytosis who have not had the spleen removed should have fewer arteriosclerotic events than unaffected family members. We defined arteriosclerotic events as myocardial infarct, stroke, coronary artery surgery, and carotid artery surgery. We compared the rate of these events in affected-not splenectomized persons to the rate in unaffected family members.