Question:

I just got my complete blood count results back and everything was in range except the eosinophil and the eosinophil ABS. What causes these to be low? How low is too low? (mine are eosinophil 0.6 and eosinophil ABS 0.05) Is there anything that I can do to improve the numbers?

Answer:

You do not want your eosinophil counts to be high- this is a bad thing. Eosinophils are cells that go up with allergy, asthma, parasitic infection, and a variety of other causes. In your case, the lab has put a lower level on the reporting, but it is not of concern. Usually, there is only an upper limit, not a lower limit.

If everything else is normal, then I would not worry about a low eosinophil count. The numbers you see are common ways of reporting the cell count. The first Eosinophil number is the percentage of total white cells, in this case 0.6%. The Eosinophil ABS is the absolute count. This is the percentage multiplied by the total white blood cell count. In your case, this appears to be about 50, which is nothing to be concerned about.

For more information:

Go to the Allergies health topic.