I’ve always found blood to be a fascinating substance. It flows around in your body delivering oxygen & fuel, removing wastes and even disease fighting cells. Amazingly, you can even remove a few pints and still function perfectly well. Your body makes more.
Each year I have a goal to donate blood two times. I used to go more frequently but a doctor once said it wasn’t such a great idea. And with all the running and training I do, he probably had a point.
Anyway, my blood type is O negative. Admittedly, I’ve always been a bit jealous of people who were A or B or AB or even O positive (universal donor). Somehow, I never found type O as being special. But it turns out that having type O blood may be a positive thing for me in terms of living a long time. According to this research type O blood carries a lower coronary heart disease risk.
It was only a meta study so you can’t be certain of the conclusions. However, I’ll take the advantage. I’m going to need all the help I can get to make it to 107 years old.
Artificial blood
Incidentally, a topic that I find extremely interesting is artificial blood. Not the red food coloring kind that you get around Halloween, but the kind that is being developed to function as an oxygen carrier in the human body. I once wrote an encyclopedia article on the subject of artificial blood. At the time I wrote that there really weren’t any perfect artificial blood substitutes. I wonder if any progress has been made.
According to this Wikipdedia article, Polyheme was tested in 2005 and the results were inconclusive. I guess there isn’t a suitable blood substitute yet so I’ll continue to donate. And also enjoy the fact that my O negative type is better for heart health.
{ 0 comments… add one now }