Red blood cell oxygen has been released the resulting deoxyhemoglobin is of a dark red burgundy color. However, blood can appear bluish when seen through the vessel wall and skin. Pulse oximetry takes advantage of the hemoglobin color change to directly measure the arterial blood oxygen saturation using colorimetric techniques. Hemoglobin also has a very high affinity for carbon monoxide, forming carboxyhemoglobin which is a very bright red in color. Flushed, confused patients with a saturation reading of 100% on pulse oximetry are sometimes found to be suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning. Having oxygen-carrying proteins inside specialized cells (as opposed to oxygen carriers
Glycated hemoglobin hemoglobin. As the average amount of plasma glucose increases, the fraction of glycated hemoglobin increases in a predictable way. This serves as an indicator that blood sugar is increasing and that action should be taken. In diabetes mellitus, higher amounts of glycated hemoglobin, indicating poorer control of blood glucose levels, have been associated with cardiovascular disease, nephropathy, neuropathy, and retinopathy. A trial on a group of patients with Type 1 diabetes found that monitoring by caregivers of HbA led to changes in diabetes treatment and improvement of metabolic control compared to monitoring only of blood or urine glucose. However, a