Why Donate Blood?

CEBU, Philippines – We often hear of blood-letting events. Various civic organizations – the Red Cross, in particular – regularly hold such events, several times a year. They do it regularly because blood is necessary and they need to stock up on it.

Blood delivers oxygen and nutrients to the cells in the body. It also collects toxins in the cells and discards these out of the body. Normally, a person would have enough blood in order to function, but many others are in situations where they need help.

Blood stock comes in handy in times of emergencies, when somebody needs extra supply of blood. This usually happens with victims of accidents and certain diseases where blood transfusion is necessary. The blood that’s been collected from blood-letting events and stored in blood banks would come to the rescue.

But donating blood is not only a good civic act. It is also good for the donor. It is a two-way street; the good deed of the donor comes back to him in terms of health benefits. The website www.time.com enumerates some of these benefits:

Your blood may flow better. “If blood has a high viscosity, or resistance to flow, it will flow like molasses,” says Phillip DeChristopher, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Loyola University Health System blood bank. Repeated blood donations may help the blood flow in a way that’s less damaging to the lining of the blood vessels and could result in fewer arterial blockages. That may explain why the American Journal of Epidemiology found that blood donors are 88-percent less likely to suffer a heart attack.

It’s not clear if there are lasting health benefits associated with better blood flow. (These kinds of studies can’t prove cause and effect – for example, blood donors might lead healthier lifestyles than the general population.)?“What is clear is that blood donors seem to not be hospitalized so often and if they are, they have shorter lengths of stay,” Dr. DeChristopher says. “And they’re less likely to get heart attacks, strokes, and cancers.”

You’ll get a mini check-up. Before one gives blood, he’ll first have to complete a quick physical that measures his temperature, pulse, blood pressure, and hemoglobin levels. After his blood is collected, it’s sent off to a lab where it will undergo 13 different tests for infectious diseases, including HIV and West Nile virus. If anything comes back positive, he’ll be notified immediately.

“If year after year your tests come back negative, then you’ll know for sure there’s nothing you’ve been exposed to,” Dr. DeChristopher says. The physical and blood tests are no reason to skip the annual doctor visit, but they’re good for peace of mind. But one should never donate blood if he suspects he might actually be sick or have been exposed to HIV or another virus.

Your iron levels will stay balanced. Healthy adults usually have about 5 grams of iron in their bodies, mostly in red blood cells but also in bone marrow. When one donates a unit of blood, he loses about a quarter of a gram of iron, which gets replenished from the food he eats in the weeks after donation, according to Dr. DeChristopher. This regulation of iron levels is a good thing, because having too much iron could be bad news for the blood vessels.

“The statistics appear to show that decreasing the amount of iron in otherwise healthy people over the long run is beneficial to their blood vessels, and diseases related to abnormalities in blood vessels, such as heart attack and stroke,” he says.

Still, data from The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that nearly 10-percent of women in the U.S. suffer from anemia, a condition where the body lacks red blood cells or hemoglobin (most commonly due to an iron deficiency). In that case, it’s best not to give blood until the anemia is resolved, he says.

Women who haven’t hit menopause yet may find it hard to donate blood, too. “Pre-menopausal females can be somewhat iron depleted with blood counts just under the lower limit,” Dr. DeChristopher says. If one has low iron and she still wants to be a donor, taking an oral iron supplement may help her to re-qualify, he says.

You could live longer. Doing good for others is one way to live a longer life. A study in Health Psychology found that people who volunteered for altruistic reasons had a significantly reduced risk of mortality four years later than those who volunteered for themselves alone. While the health benefits of donating blood are nice, the donor shall not forget who he or she is really helping: A single donation can save the lives of up to three people, according to the Red Cross. “The need for blood is always there,” Dr. DeChristopher says. “It’s important to recognize how important willing donors are.”