Experts Think Blood Transfusions Harmful

[retroHelen]

Our reasons are not medical but spiritual, but this information is interesting from Tuesday's Daily Mail UK "Good Health" section:

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-5169611/Experts-think-blood-transfusions-harmful.html

 

.....With around two million transfusions a year performed on the National Health Service UK, there are fears that what some experts call doctors’ ‘love of blood’ has gone too far, potentially endangering patients with transfusions that are unnecessary — an estimated one in five cases....

 

...Concerns over the safety of blood from strangers were highlighted recently by a Dutch study that suggested men given transfusions during surgery were 50 per cent more likely to die within hours of an operation if the blood had been donated by a woman who’d ever been pregnant...The results are potentially alarming because — other than blood type — donor details are never disclosed at the time of a transfusion.Scientists think one explanation may be that infection-fighting cells called antibodies, acquired by women during pregnancy to protect their baby in the womb, may trigger a fatal immune system reaction in some men.
 

And there are other safety concerns to do with the use of stored blood. Studies show an increased risk of infections, including pneumonia, among patients given a stranger’s blood stored in bags for a month or more at 4c. One theory behind why this occurs is that red blood cells this old may be less resilient than those in fresh blood and get broken down more quickly when pumped into the body. 

When this happens, they release large amounts of iron — a major source of energy for bacteria.

 

Another concern is that storing blood may trigger biochemical changes that are potentially harmful. Some studies suggest that red blood cells release toxic enzymes that would normally be flushed out of the body through waste products, but instead accumulate in stored blood.

 

Stored red blood cells can also lose their smooth, disc-like shape and become more pointed and spiky — making it harder for them to move through the bloodstream, depriving vital organs of their oxygen payload.

 

But using fresh blood may not be the answer. A 2015 University of Edinburgh study looked at deaths among 2,500 anaemic patients on intensive care wards who were either given blood a week old or blood almost a month old. The results, published in the journal Blood, found no difference in deaths in the three months after treatment.

...Over the years, the use of donated red blood cells has increasingly been extended from treating catastrophic bleeding into routine surgery. Some experts say this is due to surgeons using ‘precautionary’ transfusions, for added security, ..., even if there has been no or minimal blood loss.Controlling anaemia is crucial, as patients with low haemoglobin levels are 42 per cent more likely to die in the 30 days after an operation than those with normal levels. A healthy man usually has haemoglobin of 13.5 to 17.5 grams per 100 ml of blood and a woman 11.5 to 15.5g.

If levels drop below 5g — typically as a result of blood loss during surgery — the risk to a patient dramatically increases. But studies show most surgeons transfuse blood at the first hint of anaemia, when haemoglobin readings are still 10g or higher. Some experts fear this is putting patients at risk.

 

...But transfusions do kill people. The current data shows transfusion is not the most appropriate solution to the management of anaemia. The main risk is transfusion-associated circulatory overload (TACO), where too much blood is pumped into the circulatory system too quickly, putting the heart under strain as it tries to pump the additional fluid round the body. Figures collated by Serious Hazards of Transfusion (SHOT) — a body funded by blood and transplant services from all four parts of the UK — found that in 2016, there were 26 reported deaths where transfusions were implicated. At least 14 were due to TACO.

Another problem is mistakes, such as patients being given the wrong blood type. Around 10 per cent of 1,027 adverse events reported to SHOT last year were due to human error from heavy workload or inadequate staffing.

 

NICE (the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) has issued guidance calling for better treatment of anaemia before patients go to theatre — reducing the need for transfusions.

It wants doctors to give more surgery patients with anaemia a medicine called tranexamic acid, a relatively cheap and effective drug that reduces blood loss by at least a third; NICE estimates the drug is currently used in as few as 10 per cent of surgery cases where anaemia is present.

 

Professor Richards, meanwhile, is spearheading a major trial across 40 hospitals in the UK involving a different approach. It is recruiting around 400 patients due for major elective surgery and identified in advance as having iron-deficiency anaemia, the most common reason for a low red blood cell count. Anaemic patients are often advised to take iron tablets or eat iron-rich foods such as red meat and green, leafy vegetables before surgery to bump up their levels. But Professor Richards says dietary iron is absorbed slowly, and it can take six to nine months for it to boost haemoglobin to healthy levels.In the trial, these patients will be injected with high doses of iron — the equivalent of a year’s iron in the diet — around a week before their operation. He expects the trial, which finishes in 2018, will reduce NHS use of blood transfusions by at least 15 per cent, saving around £35 million a year.

 

NHS Blood and Transplant told Good Health that it is rolling out a programme of ‘patient blood management’ — or limited use of transfusions — across the health service in England.

It says it will lead to fewer complications, faster recovery and shorter stays in hospital."

 

(my comment: I wonder if their findings and results have been aided by our HLC's and dealing with us for surgery in hospital. So  many times over the years I have heard our brothers and sisters saying that they were well enough to leave hospital long before many others on the same wards, having the same treatment, but the others were having transfusions)

 

 

 

[vern]

the old blood books had non spiritual reasons stated and shared a few points.

 

 

4 hours ago, retroHelen said:

50 per cent more likely to die within hours of an operation if the blood had been donated by a woman who’d ever been pregnant

whoa...

 

 

4 hours ago, retroHelen said:

iron — a major source of energy for bacteria.

?????   why do they want women to take Iron when they get older????....

 

 

4 hours ago, retroHelen said:

depriving vital organs of their oxygen payload

The old blood books said that someones elses blood actually can't carry oxygen for 24 hours; so that all your really doing is doing a blood expander....

 

 

nice find.

 

[retroHelen]

I think that the newspaper has seen the results of adverse transfusion effects and then, if the answer is not forthcoming from the scientists, they let someone else - not so knowledgeable, guess why they happened. 

 

I have read elsewhere that women's blood has too much female hormone in it for men's systems to cope with, so it sets up an inflammatory response and even if the man does not die, he will have an inflamed system that can set up for other autoimmune disorders caused by the rogue elements in the 'foreign blood' that the immune system cannot recognise. Then the inflammatory elements go to the joints and they ache like you have flu and if the body doesn't deal with them quick enough, then you could develop rheumatism in the joints.

 

I believe it is a different reason that feeding large amounts of haem iron may overwhelm already poorly kidneys and liver (that may be a cause of anaemia in the first place) that doesn't recognise a stranger's blood. The major food source for bacteria is glucose - hence the danger of having a bacterial infection or fungal infection and then the person gets blood high in blood sugar from an undiagnosed pre-diabetic which feeds the infection.

 

For the same reason, if a person has small cancerous tumours and gets a pre-diabetic's high blood sugar blood in a blood transfusion - cancer cells are anaerobic - (don't need oxygen to live) they develop extra receptors for glucose - their main source of fuel - and become more aggressive.(Take heed with your  own diet if you find you have any tumours)

 

If a person is diabetic, it could be a hazard getting transfused with blood from an undiagnosed pre-diabetic whose blood sugar will be very high. Many people on a standard Western diet are high blood sugar without realising it as refined flour in baked products and pasta have almost as much glucose as table sugar by weight, so it's not just sweet things causing the problems.

 

Here's a whole other raft of reactions that put's even worldly people off blood transfusions: https://patient.info/doctor/blood-transfusion-reactions  I thought the scariest was if a person had a food allergy/intolerance and the blood from a stranger is high in it as it was a regular part of their diet - risk of anaphylactic shock and death if not recognised in time!!

[Ferb]

12 hours ago, vern said:

why do they want women to take Iron when they get older?

 

Although you need iron and may need to be supplemented with it if you don't have enough, like many things you need, even water and oxygen, it's still toxic if you have too much of it.

 

24 minutes ago, retroHelen said:

I believe it is a different reason that feeding large amounts of haem iron may overwhelm already poorly kidneys and liver (that may be a cause of anaemia in the first place) that doesn't recognise a stranger's blood. The major food source for bacteria is glucose - hence the danger of having a bacterial infection or fungal infection and then the person gets blood high in blood sugar from an undiagnosed pre-diabetic which feeds the infection.

 

That's probably a better explanation.  It is true that some bacteria mainly feed on iron though - it just depends on the species.  I've never heard of any of those species living in our bodies though, it's hard to imagine there being enough iron for them to survive.

[pnutts]

21 hours ago, vern said:

The old blood books said that someones elses blood actually can't carry oxygen for 24 hours; so that all your really doing is doing a blood expander....

2, 3  DPG is inactivated when blood is cooled. It takes 24 to 72 hours for it to be reactivated. In the meantime blood can Not release O2.

Blood starts losing Nitric Oxide immediately when removed from living body and is measurable after 3 hours.

Within a day, most NO is gone thus blood vessels shrink, restricting blood flow. This is why heart attack patients are given "Nitro" spray or pills - to open up blood vessels.

On 12/13/2017 at 7:38 PM, retroHelen said:

One theory behind why this occurs is that red blood cells this old may be less resilient than those in fresh blood and get broken down more quickly when pumped into the body. 

When this happens, they release large amounts of iron — a major source of energy for bacteria.

Yup. A Canadian led 5 year study ABLE finished 3? years ago found blood older than 2 weeks had severe deformation/stiffness of Red Blood Cells ( RBCs ). They never really addressed

the problem properly but did range of several days of the age of blood, not daily. $$$ is behind a lot of this.