April 8, 2026 • 35 mins
Priyanka and Hari explore the science of blood, blood transfusions, and why donated blood remains one of the most essential tools in modern medicine. They break down what blood actually does in the body, the different components of blood, and how blood types determine who can give and receive lifesaving transfusions. They also cover who can donate blood, the issue with blood shortages, and how blood donations save lives. Then they unpack the strange and surprisingly chaotic history of blood substitutes and the ongoing effort to create artificial blood.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This podcast is for information purposes only and should not
be considered professional medical advice.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
If you are bleeding out and your cousin is like, quickly,
let me get to the milk carton, make sure that
syringe does not go into that milk carton, that is
not going to help you.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
There's nothing like good old organic human blood. So if
you are actually oh negative, hardy, yeah, that's a big deal.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
That's also my personality. I'm hurrycandibolu, I'm doctor preuncle Wally,
and this is health stuff. Hello. How are you.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
I'm doing Okay, I'm doing okay, Okay.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
I have a question for you.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Okay, have you ever donated blood before?
Speaker 2 (00:56):
I don't think I have. I mean, I'm afraid of
blood and I am afraid of needles, to the point
where one time, I'm not sure if I told this
story before, but my dad was in the hospital and
they were trying to take blood from him and just
the act of like looking for a vein, I passed out. Wow. Yeah,
So blood and me are not particularly you know, a
(01:19):
good combos, So chances are I have not?
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
I think you would have remembered if you would have
donated blood, because they take almost like half a lid out.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Jesus ChRI. The thought of that makes me woo. I mean,
I've given blood for like blood work and stuff, but
that's significantly less I'd imagine.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Yeah, yeah, do you know your blood type?
Speaker 2 (01:41):
I believe it's oh negative, but that might be but
that but that just might be me being cocky. I
don't know. Maybe maybe I just want to be the
universal donor. Maybe that's who doesn't want to be the
universal donor, Like, yeah, I give and I give and
I give.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Oh, that's funny. I'm be positive so.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Well, whenever I'm feeling down, I'm like, I need to
be more like my blood type, you know, be positive.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
No, but I'm glad we're.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Doing this episode today on blood and blood transfusions and
blood donations because donating blood is one of the you know,
if you're eligible to do it and you can do
it safely, it is one of the best things a
human being can do to save the lives every day
(02:36):
of people. Blood is one of the first things, like
if someone is in the ICU or gets shot or
is bleeding out or something like that. Blood donations literally
save lives sometimes when we're going through stuff and we're thinking,
like God, what can I do as a human being
to help others. I mean, gosh, if you're a kid
candidate for blood donation, I have mad respect for you.
(02:59):
I wish I could donate blood. But I realized a
long time ago. You know, every month I lose precious
iron stores in the form of menstruation as a person
that has a uterus.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
So it's like I'm giving away blood whether.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
I want to or not, and so I'm holding onto
every little hemoglobin I can.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
It almost feels like, to be fair, men should be
donating blood every month.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Then, I mean, I think, I think there's an advantage,
and I think, for example, the average size adult man
actually has twelve pints of blood in his body, whereas
the average sized adult woman has about nine pints. Oh geeze,
so a man does have more blood to give. But
(03:44):
I don't want to say like, oh, all men should
be giving out blood, because we'll go through like the
criteria later in a minute of like who's a good.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Candidate, why can't you give blood?
Speaker 1 (03:55):
I've had a history of having low iron levels, like God,
in the past, Like there was a stretch in my
life where I was vegetarian, for like seven or eight years.
But number one, like I was hungry all the time,
and then eventually I got some I got some blood drawn,
and my iron levels were dropping, and so you know,
(04:17):
I just realized, like maybe that's not the best diet
for my particular body type. And then I realized, like,
you know what, just focus on like being okay, yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
But a little background about blood and blood transfusions. When
English physician William Harvey discovered the circulation of the blood
in our bodies back in sixteen sixteen, it triggered two
significant things in Western medicine. One, the first successful human
blood transfusion was performed in sixteen sixty seven, which is
(04:49):
wild to think about considering they didn't have the facilities
that we have today that that was even possible, right right, Yeah.
And two, immediately after, basically medical practitioners try to find
substances that would work as quote blood substitutes, including all
sorts of things like okay, here we go, like milk, beer, urine,
(05:13):
among other liquids, which is wild, Like they would have
if they could have, they would have injected soda into
our bodies, Like this is yeah, ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Can you imagine putting milk in your body. I mean,
remember those milk does your body good ads?
Speaker 2 (05:31):
I mean not what they meant.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
Yeah, exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
There was definitely a need in terms of trying to
figure out how to give someone blood. This is an
interesting sort of problem we face, right because you still
can't substitute human blood with something that's not human blood,
at least not yet. Let's break down what is human
blood because a lot of people don't realize that your
(05:56):
blood accounts for eight percent of your total body weight,
and most of it's actually just water.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
So we are water.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
And when you donate blood, like they take whole blood,
which is actually a mixture of liquids and solids. It's
a mixture of about a little more than half plasma,
which is liquid, and then there's blood cells, which are
the solid parts. And those blood cells are made up
of three different major types, red blood cells, white blood cells,
(06:27):
and platelets.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Wait, so plasma, what does plasma do? What's its function?
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Plasma is essentially the filler, So like if your blood
is made of little blood particles, plasma is that sort
of liquid filler that fills out the rest of the blood.
When you donate blood, they actually separate out your blood
into the different products, the red blood cells, the white
blood cells, the platelets, and then.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
The plasma part of it.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
And believe it or not, that plasma generally when they
give someone fresh frozen plast it's used for like shock victims,
burn victims, if you have like a specific bleeding disorder.
It has like very specific uses, as do the other
components of the blood as well, like red blood cells.
(07:16):
Red blood cells they actually make your blood red and
their primary job is to basically carry oxygen from your
lungs to the rest of your body's tissues like your
heart and your organs, and then they carry carbon dioxide
waste back to your lungs, which you then exhale in
(07:37):
the form of carbon dioxide. And so when you donate blood,
the red blood cells, they're generally given, Like if you're
having a surgery and you're bleeding a lot, they'll give
red blood cells to boost your blood cell levels.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Now, white blood cells are on a mission to identify
and destroy invaders like bacteria, viruses, parasites, and the abnormal cells.
There are different types of white blood cells and each
specializes in specific.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Attacks exactly, and that can be its whole other episode,
like breaking down white blood cells into the B cells
and T cells and all.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
The other stuff.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
What's important to know is that like white blood cells
defend us from bad things.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
And then there's platelets.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
If you are bleeding, platelets are the factors in your
blood that make your blood clot. So, like let's say
you have a cut, the platelets will gather and then
they'll make sure that the bleeding eventually stops. And so
a lot of times if people have cancer and they're
going through chemo or like they're getting an organ transplant,
(08:43):
usually they need platelets because their platelet levels.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Drop and plasma, as we discuss, mostly used for burn,
shock and trauma patients and people with certain bleeding disorders.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Yeah, so if you are actually oh negative, Harry, Yeah,
that's a big deal.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
That's also my personality.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
It would be interesting to know, Yeah, if that truly
is your blood type, because it's determined by your genetics
and it's you're born with it. So I'd be curious
to know if, like your family, if you know your parents'
blood types, I don't know my parents blood type I either.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Yeah, you think you know somebody, then you realize you
don't even know their blood type. Yeah, more to come
on health stuff.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
If you ever want to find out your blood type,
they now sell these at home blood type kits that
you can buy or you can test it for yourself.
The reason that it's important to know is because then
let's say you go to the hospital or you have
to have a surgery, the healthcare provider needs to know
where your blood type is in order to determine, like
what are the blood transfusions that you are going to
(09:55):
be compatible with. So there's four basic blood types, there's
blood type AB AB combination, and oh.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Is there an evolutionary benefit to having different blood types
of why do we have different blood types?
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Well, that's a really good question.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
I mean I haven't like studied the answer, but I'm
sure there is an evolutionary benefit to having a variety
of different blood types which have different sort of characteristics. Yeah,
we know, like ecologically, diversity is better for the survival
of a species, right, and so like let's say theoretically,
this is very theoretical. Let's say there was a virus
(10:35):
that attacked one particular blood type. If the whole world
was like an a positive and that virus attacked a positive,
people that's the elimination of the entire species. But fortunately,
like with diversity, it creates some sort of resistance or
susceptibility against different like pathogens ourselves. As far as we
(10:56):
can tell, like, there doesn't seem to exist any sort
of like path that attacks people's blood type per se.
But in general, I think diversity is better for any ecosystem.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
The families have a diversity of blood types.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, Like a mother can give birth to
a baby with a different blood type, right, so then
you didn't wouldn't want to separate that, And then there's
the blood type, and then there's the positive and the
negative part of that. So if you're a positive or
a negative or whatever, and that refers to something called
the RH factor. So RH factor is this protein that
(11:32):
is on the red blood cells. So if you're negative,
like you're a negative B negative or whatever, that means
you don't have the RH protein on your red blood cells.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
But positive blood they have that protein.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
What does that protein do?
Speaker 1 (11:47):
So from what I understand, it helps with the transport
of certain like toxic byproducts like ammonium, and it helps
maintain the pH balance of your blood. But in terms
of someone who's RH negative and how they would have
to live differently than someone's ARG positive. There's, from what
I understand, like a negligible difference. What I can tell you, though,
(12:09):
is that things get dicey in like pregnancy. Okay, So
let's say there's a mom and she's RH negative, but
she then gives birth to a baby that's RH positive.
This is where there can be certain issues that can
arise in pregnancy where the body is now recognizing the
(12:31):
RH positive as like a foreign antigen and then can
start to like attack that so it can affect the
mom more the baby.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's wild that humans have
that risk. You would think that you would hope that
like the blood would be the same between the mother
and the child. But the idea that there could be
an immediate conflict is frightening.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Well, I mean that I feel like that's life for you, right,
full of drama from the It's like you just can't
have it peaceful, right, just from births.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Right.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
But for example, if someone has let's say type A
blood Okay, so whether they're positive or negative. So if
you're a type A blood, type A, then you can't
receive blood from someone who's type B or A B
because it type A blood has antibodies to type B.
(13:30):
So if you give type B or A B to
someone with type A, they're going to actually attack the
B antigens in those other blood types because it's incombatible.
So type A can only receive other type A blood.
Type B can only receive other type B blood. Type
A B blood can receive blood from type A and
(13:51):
type B. So they're kind of the I would say,
like the luckiest because they can get a little bit
of everything.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
And they all can receive blood from okaive.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
And that's yeah, oh negative, like you said, the universal donor. Yeah,
they don't have A or B or any kind of antigen,
so you can give it to anyone.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Because they give, and they give and they give. That's
all we owe negative people. Do I think I'm own negative?
Speaker 1 (14:17):
If you are, then you make up seven percent of
the population, which is really cool.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Because the majority of the like, let's say you don't know,
because I would imagine if you were in an emergency situation, right,
you're not going to necessarily know the person's blood type,
So oh negative becomes incredibly valuable.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
Then exactly Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
So let's say someone you know gets in a car
accident and they get sent straight to the er and
their blood pressures dropping and you can see they're bleeding
out and there's no time to wait for the type
and screen of the blood. They're going to get oh negative,
which literally could save their life.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
By the way, while you were describing that scenario, I
was thinking of the TV show The Pit, yeah, which
is back for season two, in which I'm very excited about.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Oh good, that's good.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
You know I can't I can't watch medical shows anymore.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Yeah, I'd imagine it would be kind of like, that's
not real. That's that's not a thing.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
I'm telling you.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Like I used to watch religiously before I got into
med school.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
I would watch House MD.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Yeah, and literally week one of med school they started
teaching us stuff and I started watching House skin and
I couldn't see it the same way.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Like, try The Pit, just try just one episode.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
Okay, I'll definitely try it. I'll definitely try it.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
But it's like it's like it's like you watching stand
up shows, right.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Like, yeah, yeah, you start to be critical of like, yeah,
I think you're.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Just like sitting there and be like, uh, you know,
did they really need to You know, I'm pretty sure
that's not.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Lupus, that's not diagnosis.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
So well, going back to the four different blood types,
so there's A positive which makes about thirty percent of people,
and these people so if you're A positive, you can
get blood from people who are A positive, A negative,
OH positive, or O negative, and you can donate to
(16:19):
people who are A positive or a BE positive. So
these are like the best type of people for like
platelet donations.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
People who are BE negative, which is about two percent
of the population, you can receive blood that's BE negative
or O negative the universal donor. People with BE negative
blood can only receive blood transfusions from people with their
blood type or the universal donor.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
That's rough.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
That's rough, you know, that's what you get for being negative. Yeah,
nobody wants to help you.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
OH or negative. I'm sure there's plenty of negative nice
people out there.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure there are.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Now OH positive, I would say that's the majority, it's
nearly forty percent of people. They can receive blood from
OH positive or OH negative people, and OH positive blood
people can be donated to anyone who is an RH
positive blood type, So can.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
They take can they take givers and takers?
Speaker 1 (17:25):
And then there's you, the O negative if we believe
it's you, we think we think it is, but we
can't remember seven percent of people. And you can only
get blood that's OH negative. You're the universal donor because
you don't have ab or rh antigens, and that is
the one used most often in emergencies.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
So you just swoop in and help people like a
like an angel.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Yes, take some of me, it will heal you.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
So neither of us have donated blood. But I think
it's important that we go through who is a good
candidate for donating blood and who is not a great
candidate for donating blood.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Basic requirements you have to be at least eighteen years old,
but this faries by location. You have to weigh at
least one hundred and ten pounds, be in good general
health and feeling well when donating, and have adequate hemoglobin
or iron levels, which are checked at the donation site.
So if you have anemia, for example, you would not
be a good candidate to donate blood.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
Definitely not.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
You want to hold on to all of your blood.
If you're an emic, don't give a drop away to anyone. So, yeah,
low iron levels or fareton levels, if you've been sick recently,
because then there's going to be like inflammation in your
blood or infection in your blood. So if you've had
the cold or flu, if you've also had a tattoo
(18:56):
or piercing recently, want to weight several months, ideally up
to a year. Why is that well, with any kind
of tattoo or piercing, there can be a risk of
hepatitis infection. You want to give the tattoo time to heal,
and you want to make sure that you don't have
any issues from that, right, any kind of intervention, like
(19:20):
if you've had recent surgery or dental work, any kind
of intervention where you might have had blood loss or.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Potential for infection. You just don't want to give blood.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Plus I'm guessing you're going to have other issues to
deal with that you want to like work through before
you think about donating blood. You know, if you've traveled
to a place with any you know, malaria ezeka obviously,
if you're pregnant or breastfeeding, and if you're blood pressure,
if you have high blood pressure or low blood pressure,
because if you have low blood pressure and you donate blood,
(19:53):
your blood pressure might drop even more because you're losing
blood volume, right, So that would be a reason that
you would want to just wait.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
If you're taking certain medications, or also if you've been
recently vaccinated. So let's say you just got the flu vaccine,
you wouldn't want to donate blood the next day.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
Most I definitely wouldn't advise that.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Yeah, Yeah, Now, some reasons you cannot donate blood if
you have HIV AIDS, if you have hepatitis B or
C infection, certain blood cancers like leukemia or lymphoma, and
a history of injecting illegal drugs.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
Yeah, and then that's because all of those potentially the
infectious diseases or the cancers they can spread. So you're
basically giving blood that would be contaminated with those agents.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
So now blood is tested I would imagine after it's
taken in right.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Definitely, so most of the blood is screened for hepatitis
infectious agents, and then they separate the blood out into
the different on blood products. They're going to screen you
for all of those things before you donate blood anyway,
and if you come back positive, well, if that's your
first time learning about these things, like you're gonna have
other issues to priority, course of course. And then just
(21:13):
some practical tips like the day you donate blood, like
make sure you eat breakfast that day and you hydrate
a lot, because they'll take between two hundred and fifty
to five hundred ccs, so almost half a leader potentially
of blood. That's a lot of blood. So make sure
you're well rested, and if you have a significant medical
(21:34):
history of any kind, please be honest with them, because
it's not just you know, protecting yourself, but it's protecting
the people who will receive your blood. So, like I said,
like there's many ways to help people.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
If you are a good candidate for this, then by
all means donate, But there's no need to be a hero,
especially if you're not eligible.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Do you still get paid to donate blood? Is that
still a practice?
Speaker 1 (22:01):
So there's like volunteer blood donations there can be paid.
It sort of just depends most sort of like donation
centers are unpaid. Yeah, but I'm sure there are specific
situations where let's say you have you know, own negative
blood or maybe be negative or something really specific where
(22:22):
you could get paid for it. The thing is that
donating blood it really does save lives. I think it's
like such an important thing. I remember doing COVID like
there was a bit of a blood shortage and it
was really really intense. So yeah, if you can donate,
do it, but also don't get stressed out if you can't.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
There are other ways to help. We're going to take
a short break. Stay with us.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Now.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
In terms of artificial blood, your body naturally replaces its
own lost blood cells over time, but for an emergency
or immediate need, transfusions are vital. Your bone marrow produces
new red blood cells. Your body creates millions every second,
but it takes weeks to months to fully replenish after
a significant loss requiring iron and hydration. Blood can be
(23:16):
replaced through procedures like transfusions using donor blood or its components,
which could be like we discussed red blood cells, platelets,
or plasma for loss from injury or illness.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Yeah, and I think what's important to remember about this
point is that it takes months to replenish your iron
stores if you become deficient in iron, So be patient
with yourself, and you know the need for blood is
is so important to be and it saves so many lives.
They have had a lot of attempts over the years
(23:47):
to make fake blood, artificial blood, I mean, and they're
still trying. Nothing works like good old organic human blood though, yea.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
You know, if they are a.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
To be successful and create like an artificial blood product,
I mean, we're talking billions of dollars in sales, I mean,
it would be a complete game changing business. But we're
definitely not not there yet at all.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
I mean, something like that would prevent us shortage, it
would especially globally. It would help people all around the world.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
Right, it would be huge. It would be huge.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
I mean, and speaking of what happens around the world,
you know, according to the World Health Organization, which we
apparently currently are not a part of anymore.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
But that's an aside.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Yeah, there are one hundred and eight point five million
blood donations collected globally, and forty percent of these come
from high income countries, which only makes up about sixteen
percent of the world's population.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Wow, yeah, I would imagine. I mean, is the difficulty
just we have these centers that can take blood, we
have of all these facilities and medical personnel, and so
that would be easier for us to do than if
you're in a developing you know, a for lack of
a better term of country, in the developing world.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
Yeah, yeah, I think there is there is a bit
of an infrastructure situation going on in these sort of
higher income countries, and I think there's also a lot
of rigorous screening coming in from these higher income countries
as well. Here's what's interesting though, in terms of the disparities,
(25:33):
So like, about fifty four percent of the blood transfusions
that are given in low income countries are given to
children under the age of five or less, whereas in
high income countries, the most frequently transfused group are sixty
(25:53):
years or older and they make up seventy six percent
of all transfusions.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Is the logic being that in you know, poorer countries,
you're trying to prioritize for a younger population who's going
to need blood, and in uh, you know, in America,
for example, that isn't an issue, so the people who
are going to need it the most would be older people.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
Right, right, gotcha, exactly, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Which is another reason why artificial blood would change the
world potentially.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Yeah, it would be huge, right, And when you're trying
to create artificial blood. Like, there's the main thing that
you want to be able to do, right is blood cells.
Red blood cells they carry oxygen, so you want to
create cells that are able to carry oxygen the same
way red blood cells can. And the other thing is
(26:41):
that if you were able to create artificial blood technically,
it would have a longer shelf life than regular blood.
So blood expires, I mean everything gets old, yes.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Yes, So blood is not like you have a period
of time you can use and if you don't use it,
you can't it goes bad. Wow, that is wild. I
had no idea.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Yeah, and you know all of the infectious disease risks
would go away with artificial blood, right. I think it's
it's a lofty goal to create fake blood that actually works.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
And many have tried, and many have failed, and some
of the things they've tried have been weirder than others.
From the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, there were many
attempts at transfusions involving wait for it, urine, animal blood
or plasma, which often ended in fatal results which I
(27:38):
would imagine like all of a sudden, you're putting pigs
blood into a human and guess what that doesn't work out?
Speaker 3 (27:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
A man named Theodore Gayard Thomas was a practicing gynecologist
in the nineteenth century in New York City. He was
a popular doctor and an outspoken advocate for using wait
for it, milk as a replacement for But this is
in the night fineteenth century. This guy's arguing we should
be we should be injecting milk into people. At the time,
(28:07):
bleeding was often a death sentence, and blood transfusions were
kind of hit or miss. Medical science was still a
few decades away from discovering blood types and blood type incompatibility.
So milk seemed reasonable, I suppose at this time.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
Because if what was happening is people would get the
wrong blood type and they were dying, so milk seemed reasonable.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Patients who received mismatched blood often suffered
side effects, including death. Doctors were looking for something less
risky than blood, and Thomas was convinced milk was the answer.
In eighteen seventy five, Thomas injected cow's milk into a
woman's suffering from severe uterine bleeding after he'd performed in
operation to remove her cancerous ovaries. Initially, he wrote that
(28:52):
the patient quote complained that her head felt like bursting.
She soon developed a high fever and an abnormally high
heart rate, but a week later she recovered.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Which again barely really and again I had nothing to
do with the milk.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
The recovery had nothing to do with the milk she
recovered from the milk.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
Oh, can you imagine? I just I'm just like imagining
being the patient and.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
Your crazy doctor is like, Okay, now, time to put
milk in you.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Wait, so it's just a regular practice doctor, Just just
trust me, Trust me on this. I got a feeling
that this is gonna Thomas subsequent and by the way,
I imagine the milk was not organic at the time.
I mean, actually probably was organic.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
Yeah, I mean was it pasteurized? Who knows?
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Right? I guess it's irrelevant because it's still milk.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Yeah, yeah, and it's still eighteen seventy five.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Right right. Thomas subsequently performed seven separate milk transfusions, publishing
his results in several medical journals, and predicted synthetic blood
would have a brilliant and useful future, which is still
potentially true, except for the milk part. Milk transfusions fell
to the wayside due to the increasing adverse and sometimes
(30:13):
devastating effects, but also because something new came to the scene.
In eighteen eighty four, saline became the go to replacement
for milk as a blood substitute.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
And thank god it couldn't have come soon enough because
saline actually we still use today in medicine as something
to help expand the blood volume when there's an emergency
and we need to get the patient's blood volume bigger
(30:43):
in a short amount of time. Obviously it's not like
a true substitute for red blood cells.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
But I'm yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
So here's what's interesting about saline though, because the reason
saline came to be was because of experiments done on
way for it frogs.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
Oh buddy, yeah, so they they the.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
Scientists found out that they could keep frogs alive for
a little bit of time if they removed all their
blood and then replaced it with saline. But but these
results were actually very misleading because it was later found
out that the frogs could just survive on their own
for a bit without any blood circulation at all. So,
(31:27):
you know, it didn't that wasn't really like the best study,
but it ended up being helpful anyway, because saline we
use it today, which which I'm so glad we do,
and I think it's way better than milk.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
So where's salines commercial? Where's salines ad campaign? But because
it can't replace the action of red blood cells, it's
not considered a true blood substitute. Correct, Like you're saying.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
Not like a true blood substitute.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Yeah, it's just filler basically.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
Yeah, it's filler exactly.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Now, there are some recent developments of different blood alternative technologies,
none are fully approved yet for clinical use. There have
been some real sort of disasters. I'd say back in
the nineteen sixties, they actually studied these synthetic sort of
(32:24):
teflon like molecules that could dissolve large amounts of oxygen.
They were called per fluorocarbons, which are very strongly related
to PFAST, which are the forever chemicals. But they obviously
discontinued that because of surprise toxicity issues and you know,
(32:48):
they cause like strokes and stuff. So yeah, putting forever
chemicals and people like didn't work. And then there were
these other ones called HBOC's, which stands for hemoglobin based
oxygen carriers, which they're derived from hemoglobin, which is part
of the red blood cell. They carry oxygen, but again
(33:09):
didn't really work out as well because they cause kidney
damage and high blood pressure.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
So we still don't quite have it yet figured out.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Yeah, there's nothing like good old organic human blood.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Yes, of course, with a compatible blood type.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
So if you're gonna take a few things away from
this episode, Number one, don't let anyone transfuse you with
anything other than human blood, at least not yet. Yes,
for some reason, if you are bleeding out and your
cousin is like, quickly, let me get to the milk carton,
make sure that syringe does not go into that milk carton.
(33:49):
You do not. That is not going to help you.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
Yes, And here's the other thing. You know, if you
don't have any contraindications for blood, don't like, if you're
greater than eighteen you weigh more than one hundred and
ten pounds, you don't have any medical issues, and you
want to do something that can save lives, definitely consider
donating blood, because, as we've learned today, there's literally no
(34:15):
substitute for human blood. And when people experience physical traumas, surgeries, cancers,
blood disorders, it's donated blood that saves lives every single day,
so it's a great way to help.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
Just remember the old saying, don't worry, be positive.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
Yes, be your blood type. Thanks so much for listening.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Again, if you're enjoying the show, please like, subscribe and
give us five stars on what are platform you listen to?
And if you don't like the show, please send this
to your enemies so they can like and subscribe and to.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
Us five stars.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
No, seriously, the engagement really helps us with a wider audience.
So we appreciate you listening and we hope more people listen.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
Health Stuff is a production of iHeart Podcasts. The show
is hosted by Me, doctor Preanca Wally, and Harrikonnebolu. Producers
are Rebecca Eisenberg, Jenna Cagel, Christina Loranger, Maya Howard, and
Katrina Norvel. Our researcher is Maria Tremarki and our intern
is Katia zobel Lejayala. To send us a question, you
(35:23):
can email us a voice memo at health Stuff podcast
at gmail dot com. Thanks so much for listening.
This podcast is for information purposes only and should not
be considered professional medical advice.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
If you are bleeding out and your cousin is like, quickly,
let me get to the milk carton, make sure that
syringe does not go into that milk carton, that is
not going to help you.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
There's nothing like good old organic human blood. So if
you are actually oh negative, hardy, yeah, that's a big deal.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
That's also my personality. I'm hurrycandibolu, I'm doctor preuncle Wally,
and this is health stuff. Hello. How are you.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
I'm doing Okay, I'm doing okay, Okay.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
I have a question for you.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Okay, have you ever donated blood before?
Speaker 2 (00:56):
I don't think I have. I mean, I'm afraid of
blood and I am afraid of needles, to the point
where one time, I'm not sure if I told this
story before, but my dad was in the hospital and
they were trying to take blood from him and just
the act of like looking for a vein, I passed out. Wow. Yeah,
So blood and me are not particularly you know, a
(01:19):
good combos, So chances are I have not?
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
I think you would have remembered if you would have
donated blood, because they take almost like half a lid out.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Jesus ChRI. The thought of that makes me woo. I mean,
I've given blood for like blood work and stuff, but
that's significantly less I'd imagine.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Yeah, yeah, do you know your blood type?
Speaker 2 (01:41):
I believe it's oh negative, but that might be but
that but that just might be me being cocky. I
don't know. Maybe maybe I just want to be the
universal donor. Maybe that's who doesn't want to be the
universal donor, Like, yeah, I give and I give and
I give.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Oh, that's funny. I'm be positive so.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Well, whenever I'm feeling down, I'm like, I need to
be more like my blood type, you know, be positive.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
No, but I'm glad we're.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Doing this episode today on blood and blood transfusions and
blood donations because donating blood is one of the you know,
if you're eligible to do it and you can do
it safely, it is one of the best things a
human being can do to save the lives every day
(02:36):
of people. Blood is one of the first things, like
if someone is in the ICU or gets shot or
is bleeding out or something like that. Blood donations literally
save lives sometimes when we're going through stuff and we're thinking,
like God, what can I do as a human being
to help others. I mean, gosh, if you're a kid
candidate for blood donation, I have mad respect for you.
(02:59):
I wish I could donate blood. But I realized a
long time ago. You know, every month I lose precious
iron stores in the form of menstruation as a person
that has a uterus.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
So it's like I'm giving away blood whether.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
I want to or not, and so I'm holding onto
every little hemoglobin I can.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
It almost feels like, to be fair, men should be
donating blood every month.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Then, I mean, I think, I think there's an advantage,
and I think, for example, the average size adult man
actually has twelve pints of blood in his body, whereas
the average sized adult woman has about nine pints. Oh geeze,
so a man does have more blood to give. But
(03:44):
I don't want to say like, oh, all men should
be giving out blood, because we'll go through like the
criteria later in a minute of like who's a good.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Candidate, why can't you give blood?
Speaker 1 (03:55):
I've had a history of having low iron levels, like God,
in the past, Like there was a stretch in my
life where I was vegetarian, for like seven or eight years.
But number one, like I was hungry all the time,
and then eventually I got some I got some blood drawn,
and my iron levels were dropping, and so you know,
(04:17):
I just realized, like maybe that's not the best diet
for my particular body type. And then I realized, like,
you know what, just focus on like being okay, yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
But a little background about blood and blood transfusions. When
English physician William Harvey discovered the circulation of the blood
in our bodies back in sixteen sixteen, it triggered two
significant things in Western medicine. One, the first successful human
blood transfusion was performed in sixteen sixty seven, which is
(04:49):
wild to think about considering they didn't have the facilities
that we have today that that was even possible, right right, Yeah.
And two, immediately after, basically medical practitioners try to find
substances that would work as quote blood substitutes, including all
sorts of things like okay, here we go, like milk, beer, urine,
(05:13):
among other liquids, which is wild, Like they would have
if they could have, they would have injected soda into
our bodies, Like this is yeah, ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Can you imagine putting milk in your body. I mean,
remember those milk does your body good ads?
Speaker 2 (05:31):
I mean not what they meant.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
Yeah, exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
There was definitely a need in terms of trying to
figure out how to give someone blood. This is an
interesting sort of problem we face, right because you still
can't substitute human blood with something that's not human blood,
at least not yet. Let's break down what is human
blood because a lot of people don't realize that your
(05:56):
blood accounts for eight percent of your total body weight,
and most of it's actually just water.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
So we are water.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
And when you donate blood, like they take whole blood,
which is actually a mixture of liquids and solids. It's
a mixture of about a little more than half plasma,
which is liquid, and then there's blood cells, which are
the solid parts. And those blood cells are made up
of three different major types, red blood cells, white blood cells,
(06:27):
and platelets.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Wait, so plasma, what does plasma do? What's its function?
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Plasma is essentially the filler, So like if your blood
is made of little blood particles, plasma is that sort
of liquid filler that fills out the rest of the blood.
When you donate blood, they actually separate out your blood
into the different products, the red blood cells, the white
blood cells, the platelets, and then.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
The plasma part of it.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
And believe it or not, that plasma generally when they
give someone fresh frozen plast it's used for like shock victims,
burn victims, if you have like a specific bleeding disorder.
It has like very specific uses, as do the other
components of the blood as well, like red blood cells.
(07:16):
Red blood cells they actually make your blood red and
their primary job is to basically carry oxygen from your
lungs to the rest of your body's tissues like your
heart and your organs, and then they carry carbon dioxide
waste back to your lungs, which you then exhale in
(07:37):
the form of carbon dioxide. And so when you donate blood,
the red blood cells, they're generally given, Like if you're
having a surgery and you're bleeding a lot, they'll give
red blood cells to boost your blood cell levels.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Now, white blood cells are on a mission to identify
and destroy invaders like bacteria, viruses, parasites, and the abnormal cells.
There are different types of white blood cells and each
specializes in specific.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Attacks exactly, and that can be its whole other episode,
like breaking down white blood cells into the B cells
and T cells and all.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
The other stuff.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
What's important to know is that like white blood cells
defend us from bad things.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
And then there's platelets.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
If you are bleeding, platelets are the factors in your
blood that make your blood clot. So, like let's say
you have a cut, the platelets will gather and then
they'll make sure that the bleeding eventually stops. And so
a lot of times if people have cancer and they're
going through chemo or like they're getting an organ transplant,
(08:43):
usually they need platelets because their platelet levels.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Drop and plasma, as we discuss, mostly used for burn,
shock and trauma patients and people with certain bleeding disorders.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Yeah, so if you are actually oh negative, Harry, Yeah,
that's a big deal.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
That's also my personality.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
It would be interesting to know, Yeah, if that truly
is your blood type, because it's determined by your genetics
and it's you're born with it. So I'd be curious
to know if, like your family, if you know your parents'
blood types, I don't know my parents blood type I either.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Yeah, you think you know somebody, then you realize you
don't even know their blood type. Yeah, more to come
on health stuff.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
If you ever want to find out your blood type,
they now sell these at home blood type kits that
you can buy or you can test it for yourself.
The reason that it's important to know is because then
let's say you go to the hospital or you have
to have a surgery, the healthcare provider needs to know
where your blood type is in order to determine, like
what are the blood transfusions that you are going to
(09:55):
be compatible with. So there's four basic blood types, there's
blood type AB AB combination, and oh.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Is there an evolutionary benefit to having different blood types
of why do we have different blood types?
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Well, that's a really good question.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
I mean I haven't like studied the answer, but I'm
sure there is an evolutionary benefit to having a variety
of different blood types which have different sort of characteristics. Yeah,
we know, like ecologically, diversity is better for the survival
of a species, right, and so like let's say theoretically,
this is very theoretical. Let's say there was a virus
(10:35):
that attacked one particular blood type. If the whole world
was like an a positive and that virus attacked a positive,
people that's the elimination of the entire species. But fortunately,
like with diversity, it creates some sort of resistance or
susceptibility against different like pathogens ourselves. As far as we
(10:56):
can tell, like, there doesn't seem to exist any sort
of like path that attacks people's blood type per se.
But in general, I think diversity is better for any ecosystem.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
The families have a diversity of blood types.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, Like a mother can give birth to
a baby with a different blood type, right, so then
you didn't wouldn't want to separate that, And then there's
the blood type, and then there's the positive and the
negative part of that. So if you're a positive or
a negative or whatever, and that refers to something called
the RH factor. So RH factor is this protein that
(11:32):
is on the red blood cells. So if you're negative,
like you're a negative B negative or whatever, that means
you don't have the RH protein on your red blood cells.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
But positive blood they have that protein.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
What does that protein do?
Speaker 1 (11:47):
So from what I understand, it helps with the transport
of certain like toxic byproducts like ammonium, and it helps
maintain the pH balance of your blood. But in terms
of someone who's RH negative and how they would have
to live differently than someone's ARG positive. There's, from what
I understand, like a negligible difference. What I can tell you, though,
(12:09):
is that things get dicey in like pregnancy. Okay, So
let's say there's a mom and she's RH negative, but
she then gives birth to a baby that's RH positive.
This is where there can be certain issues that can
arise in pregnancy where the body is now recognizing the
(12:31):
RH positive as like a foreign antigen and then can
start to like attack that so it can affect the
mom more the baby.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's wild that humans have
that risk. You would think that you would hope that
like the blood would be the same between the mother
and the child. But the idea that there could be
an immediate conflict is frightening.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Well, I mean that I feel like that's life for you, right,
full of drama from the It's like you just can't
have it peaceful, right, just from births.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Right.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
But for example, if someone has let's say type A
blood Okay, so whether they're positive or negative. So if
you're a type A blood, type A, then you can't
receive blood from someone who's type B or A B
because it type A blood has antibodies to type B.
(13:30):
So if you give type B or A B to
someone with type A, they're going to actually attack the
B antigens in those other blood types because it's incombatible.
So type A can only receive other type A blood.
Type B can only receive other type B blood. Type
A B blood can receive blood from type A and
(13:51):
type B. So they're kind of the I would say,
like the luckiest because they can get a little bit
of everything.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
And they all can receive blood from okaive.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
And that's yeah, oh negative, like you said, the universal donor. Yeah,
they don't have A or B or any kind of antigen,
so you can give it to anyone.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Because they give, and they give and they give. That's
all we owe negative people. Do I think I'm own negative?
Speaker 1 (14:17):
If you are, then you make up seven percent of
the population, which is really cool.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Because the majority of the like, let's say you don't know,
because I would imagine if you were in an emergency situation, right,
you're not going to necessarily know the person's blood type,
So oh negative becomes incredibly valuable.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
Then exactly Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
So let's say someone you know gets in a car
accident and they get sent straight to the er and
their blood pressures dropping and you can see they're bleeding
out and there's no time to wait for the type
and screen of the blood. They're going to get oh negative,
which literally could save their life.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
By the way, while you were describing that scenario, I
was thinking of the TV show The Pit, yeah, which
is back for season two, in which I'm very excited about.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Oh good, that's good.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
You know I can't I can't watch medical shows anymore.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Yeah, I'd imagine it would be kind of like, that's
not real. That's that's not a thing.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
I'm telling you.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Like I used to watch religiously before I got into
med school.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
I would watch House MD.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Yeah, and literally week one of med school they started
teaching us stuff and I started watching House skin and
I couldn't see it the same way.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Like, try The Pit, just try just one episode.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
Okay, I'll definitely try it. I'll definitely try it.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
But it's like it's like it's like you watching stand
up shows, right.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Like, yeah, yeah, you start to be critical of like, yeah,
I think you're.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Just like sitting there and be like, uh, you know,
did they really need to You know, I'm pretty sure
that's not.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Lupus, that's not diagnosis.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
So well, going back to the four different blood types,
so there's A positive which makes about thirty percent of people,
and these people so if you're A positive, you can
get blood from people who are A positive, A negative,
OH positive, or O negative, and you can donate to
(16:19):
people who are A positive or a BE positive. So
these are like the best type of people for like
platelet donations.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
People who are BE negative, which is about two percent
of the population, you can receive blood that's BE negative
or O negative the universal donor. People with BE negative
blood can only receive blood transfusions from people with their
blood type or the universal donor.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
That's rough.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
That's rough, you know, that's what you get for being negative. Yeah,
nobody wants to help you.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
OH or negative. I'm sure there's plenty of negative nice
people out there.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure there are.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Now OH positive, I would say that's the majority, it's
nearly forty percent of people. They can receive blood from
OH positive or OH negative people, and OH positive blood
people can be donated to anyone who is an RH
positive blood type, So can.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
They take can they take givers and takers?
Speaker 1 (17:25):
And then there's you, the O negative if we believe
it's you, we think we think it is, but we
can't remember seven percent of people. And you can only
get blood that's OH negative. You're the universal donor because
you don't have ab or rh antigens, and that is
the one used most often in emergencies.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
So you just swoop in and help people like a
like an angel.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Yes, take some of me, it will heal you.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
So neither of us have donated blood. But I think
it's important that we go through who is a good
candidate for donating blood and who is not a great
candidate for donating blood.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Basic requirements you have to be at least eighteen years old,
but this faries by location. You have to weigh at
least one hundred and ten pounds, be in good general
health and feeling well when donating, and have adequate hemoglobin
or iron levels, which are checked at the donation site.
So if you have anemia, for example, you would not
be a good candidate to donate blood.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
Definitely not.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
You want to hold on to all of your blood.
If you're an emic, don't give a drop away to anyone. So, yeah,
low iron levels or fareton levels, if you've been sick recently,
because then there's going to be like inflammation in your
blood or infection in your blood. So if you've had
the cold or flu, if you've also had a tattoo
(18:56):
or piercing recently, want to weight several months, ideally up
to a year. Why is that well, with any kind
of tattoo or piercing, there can be a risk of
hepatitis infection. You want to give the tattoo time to heal,
and you want to make sure that you don't have
any issues from that, right, any kind of intervention, like
(19:20):
if you've had recent surgery or dental work, any kind
of intervention where you might have had blood loss or.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Potential for infection. You just don't want to give blood.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Plus I'm guessing you're going to have other issues to
deal with that you want to like work through before
you think about donating blood. You know, if you've traveled
to a place with any you know, malaria ezeka obviously,
if you're pregnant or breastfeeding, and if you're blood pressure,
if you have high blood pressure or low blood pressure,
because if you have low blood pressure and you donate blood,
(19:53):
your blood pressure might drop even more because you're losing
blood volume, right, So that would be a reason that
you would want to just wait.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
If you're taking certain medications, or also if you've been
recently vaccinated. So let's say you just got the flu vaccine,
you wouldn't want to donate blood the next day.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
Most I definitely wouldn't advise that.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Yeah, Yeah, Now, some reasons you cannot donate blood if
you have HIV AIDS, if you have hepatitis B or
C infection, certain blood cancers like leukemia or lymphoma, and
a history of injecting illegal drugs.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
Yeah, and then that's because all of those potentially the
infectious diseases or the cancers they can spread. So you're
basically giving blood that would be contaminated with those agents.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
So now blood is tested I would imagine after it's
taken in right.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Definitely, so most of the blood is screened for hepatitis
infectious agents, and then they separate the blood out into
the different on blood products. They're going to screen you
for all of those things before you donate blood anyway,
and if you come back positive, well, if that's your
first time learning about these things, like you're gonna have
other issues to priority, course of course. And then just
(21:13):
some practical tips like the day you donate blood, like
make sure you eat breakfast that day and you hydrate
a lot, because they'll take between two hundred and fifty
to five hundred ccs, so almost half a leader potentially
of blood. That's a lot of blood. So make sure
you're well rested, and if you have a significant medical
(21:34):
history of any kind, please be honest with them, because
it's not just you know, protecting yourself, but it's protecting
the people who will receive your blood. So, like I said,
like there's many ways to help people.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
If you are a good candidate for this, then by
all means donate, But there's no need to be a hero,
especially if you're not eligible.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Do you still get paid to donate blood? Is that
still a practice?
Speaker 1 (22:01):
So there's like volunteer blood donations there can be paid.
It sort of just depends most sort of like donation
centers are unpaid. Yeah, but I'm sure there are specific
situations where let's say you have you know, own negative
blood or maybe be negative or something really specific where
(22:22):
you could get paid for it. The thing is that
donating blood it really does save lives. I think it's
like such an important thing. I remember doing COVID like
there was a bit of a blood shortage and it
was really really intense. So yeah, if you can donate,
do it, but also don't get stressed out if you can't.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
There are other ways to help. We're going to take
a short break. Stay with us.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Now.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
In terms of artificial blood, your body naturally replaces its
own lost blood cells over time, but for an emergency
or immediate need, transfusions are vital. Your bone marrow produces
new red blood cells. Your body creates millions every second,
but it takes weeks to months to fully replenish after
a significant loss requiring iron and hydration. Blood can be
(23:16):
replaced through procedures like transfusions using donor blood or its components,
which could be like we discussed red blood cells, platelets,
or plasma for loss from injury or illness.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Yeah, and I think what's important to remember about this
point is that it takes months to replenish your iron
stores if you become deficient in iron, So be patient
with yourself, and you know the need for blood is
is so important to be and it saves so many lives.
They have had a lot of attempts over the years
(23:47):
to make fake blood, artificial blood, I mean, and they're
still trying. Nothing works like good old organic human blood though, yea.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
You know, if they are a.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
To be successful and create like an artificial blood product,
I mean, we're talking billions of dollars in sales, I mean,
it would be a complete game changing business. But we're
definitely not not there yet at all.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
I mean, something like that would prevent us shortage, it
would especially globally. It would help people all around the world.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
Right, it would be huge. It would be huge.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
I mean, and speaking of what happens around the world,
you know, according to the World Health Organization, which we
apparently currently are not a part of anymore.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
But that's an aside.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Yeah, there are one hundred and eight point five million
blood donations collected globally, and forty percent of these come
from high income countries, which only makes up about sixteen
percent of the world's population.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Wow, yeah, I would imagine. I mean, is the difficulty
just we have these centers that can take blood, we
have of all these facilities and medical personnel, and so
that would be easier for us to do than if
you're in a developing you know, a for lack of
a better term of country, in the developing world.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
Yeah, yeah, I think there is there is a bit
of an infrastructure situation going on in these sort of
higher income countries, and I think there's also a lot
of rigorous screening coming in from these higher income countries
as well. Here's what's interesting though, in terms of the disparities,
(25:33):
So like, about fifty four percent of the blood transfusions
that are given in low income countries are given to
children under the age of five or less, whereas in
high income countries, the most frequently transfused group are sixty
(25:53):
years or older and they make up seventy six percent
of all transfusions.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Is the logic being that in you know, poorer countries,
you're trying to prioritize for a younger population who's going
to need blood, and in uh, you know, in America,
for example, that isn't an issue, so the people who
are going to need it the most would be older people.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
Right, right, gotcha, exactly, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Which is another reason why artificial blood would change the
world potentially.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Yeah, it would be huge, right, And when you're trying
to create artificial blood. Like, there's the main thing that
you want to be able to do, right is blood cells.
Red blood cells they carry oxygen, so you want to
create cells that are able to carry oxygen the same
way red blood cells can. And the other thing is
(26:41):
that if you were able to create artificial blood technically,
it would have a longer shelf life than regular blood.
So blood expires, I mean everything gets old, yes.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Yes, So blood is not like you have a period
of time you can use and if you don't use it,
you can't it goes bad. Wow, that is wild. I
had no idea.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Yeah, and you know all of the infectious disease risks
would go away with artificial blood, right. I think it's
it's a lofty goal to create fake blood that actually works.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
And many have tried, and many have failed, and some
of the things they've tried have been weirder than others.
From the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, there were many
attempts at transfusions involving wait for it, urine, animal blood
or plasma, which often ended in fatal results which I
(27:38):
would imagine like all of a sudden, you're putting pigs
blood into a human and guess what that doesn't work out?
Speaker 3 (27:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
A man named Theodore Gayard Thomas was a practicing gynecologist
in the nineteenth century in New York City. He was
a popular doctor and an outspoken advocate for using wait
for it, milk as a replacement for But this is
in the night fineteenth century. This guy's arguing we should
be we should be injecting milk into people. At the time,
(28:07):
bleeding was often a death sentence, and blood transfusions were
kind of hit or miss. Medical science was still a
few decades away from discovering blood types and blood type incompatibility.
So milk seemed reasonable, I suppose at this time.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
Because if what was happening is people would get the
wrong blood type and they were dying, so milk seemed reasonable.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Patients who received mismatched blood often suffered
side effects, including death. Doctors were looking for something less
risky than blood, and Thomas was convinced milk was the answer.
In eighteen seventy five, Thomas injected cow's milk into a
woman's suffering from severe uterine bleeding after he'd performed in
operation to remove her cancerous ovaries. Initially, he wrote that
(28:52):
the patient quote complained that her head felt like bursting.
She soon developed a high fever and an abnormally high
heart rate, but a week later she recovered.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Which again barely really and again I had nothing to
do with the milk.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
The recovery had nothing to do with the milk she
recovered from the milk.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
Oh, can you imagine? I just I'm just like imagining
being the patient and.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
Your crazy doctor is like, Okay, now, time to put
milk in you.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Wait, so it's just a regular practice doctor, Just just
trust me, Trust me on this. I got a feeling
that this is gonna Thomas subsequent and by the way,
I imagine the milk was not organic at the time.
I mean, actually probably was organic.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
Yeah, I mean was it pasteurized? Who knows?
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Right? I guess it's irrelevant because it's still milk.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Yeah, yeah, and it's still eighteen seventy five.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Right right. Thomas subsequently performed seven separate milk transfusions, publishing
his results in several medical journals, and predicted synthetic blood
would have a brilliant and useful future, which is still
potentially true, except for the milk part. Milk transfusions fell
to the wayside due to the increasing adverse and sometimes
(30:13):
devastating effects, but also because something new came to the scene.
In eighteen eighty four, saline became the go to replacement
for milk as a blood substitute.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
And thank god it couldn't have come soon enough because
saline actually we still use today in medicine as something
to help expand the blood volume when there's an emergency
and we need to get the patient's blood volume bigger
(30:43):
in a short amount of time. Obviously it's not like
a true substitute for red blood cells.
Speaker 3 (30:49):
But I'm yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
So here's what's interesting about saline though, because the reason
saline came to be was because of experiments done on
way for it frogs.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
Oh buddy, yeah, so they they the.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
Scientists found out that they could keep frogs alive for
a little bit of time if they removed all their
blood and then replaced it with saline. But but these
results were actually very misleading because it was later found
out that the frogs could just survive on their own
for a bit without any blood circulation at all. So,
(31:27):
you know, it didn't that wasn't really like the best study,
but it ended up being helpful anyway, because saline we
use it today, which which I'm so glad we do,
and I think it's way better than milk.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
So where's salines commercial? Where's salines ad campaign? But because
it can't replace the action of red blood cells, it's
not considered a true blood substitute. Correct, Like you're saying.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
Not like a true blood substitute.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Yeah, it's just filler basically.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
Yeah, it's filler exactly.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Now, there are some recent developments of different blood alternative technologies,
none are fully approved yet for clinical use. There have
been some real sort of disasters. I'd say back in
the nineteen sixties, they actually studied these synthetic sort of
(32:24):
teflon like molecules that could dissolve large amounts of oxygen.
They were called per fluorocarbons, which are very strongly related
to PFAST, which are the forever chemicals. But they obviously
discontinued that because of surprise toxicity issues and you know,
(32:48):
they cause like strokes and stuff. So yeah, putting forever
chemicals and people like didn't work. And then there were
these other ones called HBOC's, which stands for hemoglobin based
oxygen carriers, which they're derived from hemoglobin, which is part
of the red blood cell. They carry oxygen, but again
(33:09):
didn't really work out as well because they cause kidney
damage and high blood pressure.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
So we still don't quite have it yet figured out.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Yeah, there's nothing like good old organic human blood.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Yes, of course, with a compatible blood type.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
So if you're gonna take a few things away from
this episode, Number one, don't let anyone transfuse you with
anything other than human blood, at least not yet. Yes,
for some reason, if you are bleeding out and your
cousin is like, quickly, let me get to the milk carton,
make sure that syringe does not go into that milk carton.
(33:49):
You do not. That is not going to help you.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
Yes, And here's the other thing. You know, if you
don't have any contraindications for blood, don't like, if you're
greater than eighteen you weigh more than one hundred and
ten pounds, you don't have any medical issues, and you
want to do something that can save lives, definitely consider
donating blood, because, as we've learned today, there's literally no
(34:15):
substitute for human blood. And when people experience physical traumas, surgeries, cancers,
blood disorders, it's donated blood that saves lives every single day,
so it's a great way to help.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
Just remember the old saying, don't worry, be positive.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
Yes, be your blood type. Thanks so much for listening.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Again, if you're enjoying the show, please like, subscribe and
give us five stars on what are platform you listen to?
And if you don't like the show, please send this
to your enemies so they can like and subscribe and to.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
Us five stars.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
No, seriously, the engagement really helps us with a wider audience.
So we appreciate you listening and we hope more people listen.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
Health Stuff is a production of iHeart Podcasts. The show
is hosted by Me, doctor Preanca Wally, and Harrikonnebolu. Producers
are Rebecca Eisenberg, Jenna Cagel, Christina Loranger, Maya Howard, and
Katrina Norvel. Our researcher is Maria Tremarki and our intern
is Katia zobel Lejayala. To send us a question, you
(35:23):
can email us a voice memo at health Stuff podcast
at gmail dot com. Thanks so much for listening.
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