What Does White Blood Cells Eating Up Red Blood Cells Mean?

Within the bloodstream of the human body there are two types of blood cells; red blood cells (RBC) and white blood cells (WBC). The white blood cells are much larger in size than the red blood cells and in a healthy body they are also much fewer in number too. They exist to protect the body from infection. If the body does become infected then the white blood cells will instantly attack the virus, bacteria or whatever the organism is that is causing the infection. If the infection that the body is attacked by is a bacterial infection then you will find that the white blood count will rise at an extremely rapid rate in order to fight off the infection as soon as possible. Some rare conditions will actually cause the larger, stronger white blood cells to eat up and destroy the red blood cells within the body. There are a number of conditions that actually cause this and they can be quite hazardous to your health. An autoimmune haemolytic anaemia is one possibility and a G6PD deficiency is another, both of which should be easily detectable by your doctor or physician. A G6PD deficiency is brought about by a genetic mutation that causes the haemoglobin to become susceptible to inactivation and thus destruction or being eaten up by the white blood cells. The autoimmune disease can sometimes be the result of a drug allergy but there are also a number of other unknown causes for this disorder.

White blood cells engulf the intruder to the organism (they don't attack red blood cells unless they are someone else's), the engulfing process is call phagocytosis. After the intruder cell has been ingested it is broken apart by digestive enzymes inside the white cell. The contents of the cell are expunged into the digestive tract to be released with other wastes.

There are a number of conditions which can cause red blood cells to burst, but white blood cells "eating up" red blood cells sounds a bit different.  Some possibilities are G6PD deficiency or an autoimmune hemolytic anemia.  The first is caused by a genetic mutation which makes the hemoglobin susceptible to inactivation and subsequent destruction, the second may be the result of a sort of drug allergy but I'm not sure that any clear explanation is known.

What if I'm producing too much iron