The Blood Coagulation and Fibrinolytic Enzyme Systems in Healthy Adult Africans and Europeans — A Comparative Study

Abstract

In a comparative study of blood coagulation and fibrinolysis in healthy adult East Africans and Europeans, the Europeans were found to have some evidence of a relatively hypercoagulable state, and the European male had significantly reduced fibrinolytic activity and potential when compared to the African male. A parallel is drawn with the known prevalence of atheroma and thrombo-embolic disease in these populations and the suggestion made that the greater fibrinolytic activity of the African, perhaps resulting from a radically different diet, may account in large part for his relative freedom from atheromatous vascular disease.