Each additional annual blood donation was associated with a 7.5% lower risk of death

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Tuesday, July 03, 2018 12:49 pm Email this article

Studies have repeatedly demonstrated that blood donors experience lower mortality than the general population, but some have suggested that this may be due to healthier people donating blood.

A 2015 analysis of the Scandinavian Donation and Transfusion database (SCANDAT) found that after adjusting for the internal healthy donor effect, each additional annual donation of blood was associated with a 7.5% decreased risk of death over some number of years.

(I’m waiting for a copy of the study to find out the average number of years of follow-up.)

In other words, the more frequent someone donated blood, the lower their risk of death.

The analyses included 1,182,495 donors of whom 15,401 died during 9,526,627 person-years of follow-up.

Reference

Ullum H, Rostgaard K, Kamper-Jorgensen M, Reilly M, Melbye M, Nyren O, Norda R, Edgren G, and Hjalgrim H. Blood donation and blood donor mortality after adjustment for a healthy donor effect. Transfusion, 2015 Oct; 55(10): 2479-2485.

Author’s Contact Info

Marie Reilly, PhD
Karolinska Institutet
Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics (MEB), C8
SE-171 77 Stockholm, Sweden
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Articles on the same subject can be found here:

• Blood Donation