Blood gets its color from hemoglobin, the protein in your red blood cells that carries oxygen throughout your body. When hemoglobin binds with oxygen, it turns bright red.

Pulse oximeters are widely used in hospitals and clinics to monitor blood oxygen levels. These small, noninvasive devices ...

Diet: A diet that is too low in iron, folate, or vitamin B12 can affect your body’s ability to produce hemoglobin. Blood loss: Significant bleeding can lead to low hemoglobin levels, but long ...

Reduced blood flow can deprive the brain of vital oxygen and nutrients, affect the brain's ability to function properly, and slow cognition. At its worst, poor circulation to the brain can cause a ...

Tangent. The use of pulse oximeters increased during the Covid pandemic because they’re used to measure how severe the disease is. Compared to white patients, pulse oximeters overestimated blood ...

Gokhale, S.G., et al. (2022) Innovative technology to eliminate the racial bias in non-invasive, point-of-care (POC) haemoglobin and pulse oximetry measurements.British Medical Journal Innovations ...

And for people with darker skin, that can result in a reading from the pulse oximeter that overestimates the amount of oxygen in their blood. Toussaint stands next to a table full of technology he ...

Black, Asian, and Hispanic patients are more likely to have their blood oxygen levels overestimated by common pulse oximeter devices. For COVID-19 patients, that meant delays in receiving ...

Scientists have long known that pulse oximeters are less accurate when used for people with dark skin tones – and now, a new report offers some insight into just how much more inaccurate these ...