Benefits of Donating Blood

Donating blood is not only a humanitarian act, but it has many benefits, but not everyone can do this charitable work. Learn about the benefits of identifying blood and who are the groups that cannot donate blood:

Benefits of donating blood

Despite the high compliance with blood donation, there is still a shortage of blood units. Why should you really join the circle of donors? There are three factors:

1. Saving a life The
most important benefit of donating blood is to save a life.
Urgent surgeries are performed in any case, and elective surgeries are often postponed due to a shortage of blood units.

2. Good for your health

Several different studies conducted in the United States and Finland have shown that the incidence of heart attacks and cerebral hemorrhage is much lower in blood donors than in the rest of the population.
Regular blood donation reduces the percentage of iron in red blood cells. Iron is a toxic substance that leads to the oxidation of oxygen and thus reduces the risk of these diseases.
The relationship between donating blood and reducing the incidence of heart attacks and cerebral hemorrhage has gained another explanation, which reduces the benefits of donating blood. According to this interpretation, people who donate blood are more conscious of their health.
Also, there are different groups in the society that are prohibited from donating blood. As a result of both reasons, the health status of blood donors is already much better than that of the rest of the groups.

Who cannot donate blood?

• People for whom donating blood is dangerous, such as heart patients or epilepsy patients, in order to maintain their health. On the other hand, donating blood is not acceptable to people who may have various diseases, to maintain the health of those who need to donate.
• According to international regulations, people who have been in places where there is a possibility of contracting various diseases that threaten the life of the donor, are prohibited from donating blood permanently or temporarily. For example, people who have been in England for a period of time between 1980-1996 cannot donate due to the outbreak of mad cow disease .
• People who were born or lived in Africa for more than a year after 1977 cannot donate, due to the high prevalence of AIDS. However, people of Ethiopian origin who have not lived in Africa can donate blood.
• People who belong to a society with a high incidence of infectious diseases cannot donate blood.
• Users of injecting or inhaling drugs also cannot donate blood.
  People with tattoos, who have traveled to countries where malaria is common or who have had unprotected sex, cannot donate blood temporarily.

see: benefits of swimming in cold water in the morning

Blood groups are determined by genetic inheritance, rare blood groups are related to the country of origin, and therefore in different denominations different blood groups can be found.

“In every blood donation, the blood type and its affiliation with these rare groups are examined. The importance of identifying these units is twofold: to identify the donors, and to provide the appropriate blood donation when necessary.”
Hospitals do not have in their warehouses units of blood of the rare type, because they cannot keep the types with a commonality of 1:10,000 or even more.

When a patient comes with a rare blood type, he obtains blood from a special stock, based on frozen blood units, which can be preserved for up to ten years, while the normal unit of blood kept in the refrigerator lasts for 35 days.