Benefits of donating

Jan 17, 2010

CARING about the needs of others more than your needs can make you feel like you just saved 1,000 lives. Donating blood feels great, especially when you understand that one hour of your time and one pint of blood would save a life.

By Gilbert Kidimu

CARING about the needs of others more than your needs can make you feel like you just saved 1,000 lives. Donating blood feels great, especially when you understand that one hour of your time and one pint of blood would save a life.

When most people roll up their sleeves to donate blood, they do it to help others who are in need. But recent discoveries reveal that benefits of donating blood extend far beyond this, up to having a positive impact on the donor’s health
Some doctors and scientists believe that giving blood reduces the risk of heart disease.

Donors, on average, have fewer risks of succumbing to heart disease compared to non donors, according to Dr. Harvey Klein. He says blood donation reduces the amount of iron in the bloodstream, lowering the risk of heart disease.

Quantities of iron beyond a certain amount can promote formation of free radicals in the body. Free radicals cause cellular changes which can disrupt normal cell function and increase the risk of certain chronic diseases such as heart disease and cancer.

This is more likely to be a problem among men and post menopausal women, since women of child-bearing age shed excess iron through regular menstrual cycles.

Men reduce their risks of heart attack by 30% when they donate blood, says David Meyers, M.D., a professor of Internal Medicine and Preventive Medicine at the University of Kansas Medical Centre.

Women have one-half the iron stores and suffer about one-half the heart attacks and deaths from heart disease as men of similar age. If a person is a regular red meat eater, the risk for iron overload can be even higher.

Since blood donors are well screened for risk factors of the most common and often hidden causes of death — heart disease, diabetes, HIV/AIDS; it could also help revolutionise the role of blood centres as critical partners in advancing overall public health.

The blood donor is, hence, given regular check up for the most common diseases.
There are four main blood groups namely A, B, AB, and O.

A particular blood group can donate to another although certain groups cannot donate to others. Group A can donate to AB and itself, B only donates to itself and AB; AB does not donate to any other although all can donate to it.

O donates to all, but none can donate to it. Almost anyone between the age of 17 and 60 can become a new blood donor and those who are regular donors can continue as long as they are in good health.

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});