4 ms·

All the more reason to donate blood.

• entangledqubit 5y ago
  Now I just need to figure out how to donate brain fluid...
  • aeternum 5y ago
    Brain fluid = spinal fluid, sampling it is a somewhat common procedure, just a larger needle and more uncomfortable.
    • amelius 5y ago
      And I suppose a larger failure and fatality rate (?)
• noneeeed 5y ago
  I believe there are good health reasons to donate. I forget the details, but it stimulates positive processes in the body. I think the effect is marginal, but it's nice to know you get a small personal bonus from doing something nice for other people.
  • throwntoday 5y ago
    I've actually been regularly donating for years for that very reason. I figured my body will just create new blood to fill in the gap and much like changing power steering fluid, after enough time it's mostly new stuff.
    • allendoerfer 5y ago
      But your blood is created by cells dividing and they cannot do so unlimited. Your DNA shortens and you run out of room for mistakes proteins make while translating it.
      • ALittleLight 5y ago
        That doesn't seem right. Sperm and eggs are created by cell division too. In some sense you come from a line of cells that extends long before your birth. If cell division "wore out" after some number of divides you should be already worn out.
        • throwanem 5y ago
          I've seen the claim that the correlation between increasing paternal age and the incidence of various congenital disorders has exactly this etiology. I haven't been able to find a paper describing a mechanism, but my literature review tends to specialize in hymenopterological ethology, so I don't know that I would find such a paper even if it exists. The correlation is uncontroversial, though, and I suppose it might not be a surprise to see it demonstrated that the cause is in fact the accumulation of errors in the genome that's half-duplicated during spermatogenesis.
          • ALittleLight 5y ago
            Regardless - at some point "you" (or cells and genetic information that would become you) were an egg. At some point that egg was an egg, and that egg was an egg, and so on all the way up n generations to asexual and single celled organisms.
            • throwanem 5y ago
              Well yeah, but if complex self-replicating organisms aren't also very good at self-repairing, they don't self-replicate very long. Individuals do get less good at it over time, though. The structures described earlier as "shortening" are called telomeres [1], and they do actually do that, as a result of DNA copying being a physically somewhat destructive process. They're purely structural rather than informatic, though, and everyone starts out with a fresh set. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomere https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomere
          • WesternWind 5y ago
• mullingitover 5y ago
  Actually it was nothing to do with adding/removing blood, the treatment worked with synthetic serum albumin[1]. [1] https://www.lifespan.io/news/recombinant-serum-albumin-increases-longevity-in-mice https://www.lifespan.io/news/recombinant-serum-albumin-incre...
• piyh 5y ago
  Donate blood and a man can bleed for a day. Donate marrow and a man can bleed for a lifetime.
  • throwuxiytayq 5y ago
    A while ago I read about marrow donation. Turns out I had all kinds of misconceptions (thought it waa invasive and painful). I'll definitely try to donate when I get my health back in order.
    • piyh 5y ago
      It was not enjoyable, but I'd do it again. The emotional side of it was way more difficult than the physical side. I'd recommend getting benzos for the actual donation day.