[HN Gopher] Regular blood donations can reduce "forever chemical...
___________________________________________________________________
Regular blood donations can reduce "forever chemicals" in the
bloodstream: study
Author : wirelesspotat
Score : 184 points
Date : 2022-04-22 16:10 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (theswaddle.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (theswaddle.com)
| xwdv wrote:
| What if the blood collectors just find a way to filter out PFAs
| so they don't get into your donation and they collect a pure
| sample, and overtime you just keep saturating your blood with
| PFAs through constant donations? No thanks.
| at_a_remove wrote:
| That would be more like plasma donation, where it is filtered
| and sent back to you. Blood donation doesn't work like that. No
| filtration.
| smm11 wrote:
| Blood letting, huh?
| M5x7wI3CmbEem10 wrote:
| why not just get regularly blood tested? blood testing also
| extracts blood. but on top of it, you get information
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| > why not just get regularly blood tested?
|
| Volume.
|
| A blood sample is at a stretch max 20ml. A blood donation is
| about 300ml.
| M5x7wI3CmbEem10 wrote:
| ah, thanks!
| neogodless wrote:
| Donate your perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)
| to those in need!
|
| Hmm:
|
| > As to the question of what happens to recipients of this blood:
| "Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances are ubiquitous,
| and no threshold has been identified that poses an increased risk
| to recipients of donated blood components."
| skrbjc wrote:
| My guess is that the person who needs blood cares more about
| getting the blood or plasma than the small amount of PFAS in
| it, which they likely have already.
|
| If this causes more people to donate, it's probably a good
| thing overall, even if the people doing it are doing so in the
| hopes of cleansing their own system of these chemicals.
| giantg2 wrote:
| While I generally agree the idea that it's not harmful enough
| to stop a transfer, I disagree with the basis of the
| argument.
|
| We could also say that given a choice between death and HIV,
| the blood recipient would still want the blood.
| PeterisP wrote:
| With respect to HIV, there is an alternative to get non-
| contaminated blood.
|
| With respect to PFAS, which is a general
| societal/environmental issue it's likely that all donated
| blood has roughly the same PFAS levels, so recipient either
| gets blood with PFAS or no blood at all; and the "new"
| blood might have slightly more or less PFAS than the
| recipients current blood, but the recipient already has a
| comparable level of PFAS anyway.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Yes, and that is a better argument than someone simply
| being desperate enough to accept contaminated blood
| rather than die.
| JamisonM wrote:
| I would argue additionally that once the person in need
| of blood has recovered they can simply donate blood and
| in so doing enjoy the benefits of reduced PFAS levels and
| hopefully save someone else's life with that blood!
| tricky777 wrote:
| if there is no other choice. Yes, reluctantly, I would
| accept hiv. (i.e. I accept days to years duration of life
| vs minutes to hours)
|
| The thing is, donated blood is always in short supply. you
| dont have much choice, when you have a serious blood-loss.
|
| edit: I would be very angry if sombody would have chosen to
| use hiv blood on me while I was uncounciuos. Similar to how
| I would be angry if my arm would be amputated, while my
| conciousness was away.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _given a choice between death and HIV, the blood
| recipient would still want the blood_
|
| ...yes?
| Faint wrote:
| If donator's blood has same concentration of pfas as
| recipients, the recipient's concentration does not change!
| Also, the recipient has probably just lost blood, so total
| amount of pfas won't change either, and taking into account
| that people that donate blood do so often with some regularity,
| the donators blood actually is likely to have less pfas than
| the recipients original blood.
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| They're basically saying: "Sure, you're passing the buck, but
| there's no evidence that your reduction in PFAS results in an
| increase of PFAS to the recipient. Because we haven't looked."
| and then calling that "Science".
| tantalor wrote:
| No, the phrase "there's no evidence" implies an attempt to
| find out that resulted in no support for the notion.
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| If that were the case, they surely would have cited the
| studies.
|
| But let do some simple math. Let's say I (and a dozen other
| donors) have 10ng/mL of PFAS in my system and a recipient
| has 5ng/mL. Assuming 20 pints of blood in a human for the
| rest of this word problem. Recipient requires a transfusion
| of 10 pints which happen to be sourced by those 12 donors,
| What is their PFAS load after the transfusion?
|
| W/bust.ENG :r@wsu[?]
| thewakalix wrote:
| There are two kinds of "no evidence"!
|
| https://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/08/doctor-there-ar.html
| satellite2 wrote:
| On the first donation you're expected to have an average
| level, and thus not to increase the pfas level of the
| recipient. On all subsequent donations you're expected to be
| below average and thus reduce the level of the recipient. So
| I think them being careful is clearly not hypocrisy here.
| somethoughts wrote:
| It'd be interesting if the PFAS could be filtered out before
| being transferred to the next person.
| delecti wrote:
| By putting "toxic chemicals" in the title along with that
| sentence in the body, it sure seems like they're trying to have
| their cake and eat it too with this article. It also lists a
| bunch of negative things that are associated with PFAS levels.
| They're toxic, and associated with a bunch of bad things, but
| don't worry.
|
| > apart from being identified as potentially carcinogenic, PFAS
| are associated with "low fetal weight, impaired immune
| response, thyroid function abnormalities, obesity, increased
| lipid levels, liver function alterations, and, potentially, an
| increased risk of some malignant neoplasms."
|
| I suppose that most blood recipients are probably better off
| with increased PFAS than going without the infusion, but the
| article sure presents the situation clumsily.
| dundarious wrote:
| Presumably it's even odds as to who has more PFAS: the donor or
| the recipient. And if you need a blood transfusion (often in an
| emergency), the PFAS is probably a small negative on a hugely
| positive treatment. It's like pesticides on plants: it's
| probably slightly unhealthy to eat the small level of
| pesticides on most plant food, but it's worse to miss out on
| all the nutrition in plants.
| tyronehed wrote:
| This means anybody who gets a blood donation is getting a nice
| dose of forever chemicals.
| aeternum wrote:
| I guess instead of donations we could bring back the idea of
| bloodletting or just swimming with the leeches.
| matthias509 wrote:
| Also, choking people get bruises to the abdomen when someone
| performs the Heimlich maneuver on them, and people with cancer
| get pumped full of chemicals which just about kill them. That
| treatments also cause harm is pretty normal in medicine.
| QuikAccount wrote:
| If you are in a position that you need blood donation, getting
| PFAS in your blood is the least of your concerns
| loaph wrote:
| If you're getting a blood donation, you've likely lost a lot of
| blood that is being made up by the donation. So you lost blood
| and by extension forever chemicals and are replacing blood and
| by extension forever chemicals. I bet it's a wash as far as +-
| chemicals.
| kaycebasques wrote:
| What is the optimal donation interval? Article mentions that some
| donated every 6 weeks and others every 12 but it doesn't appear
| to mention how the interval affected the forever chemical levels.
| Is more frequent donation better because it's more opportunity to
| remove the forever chemicals?
| amelius wrote:
| Also, starting from what age is it beneficial?
| jeffwask wrote:
| Back to leeches; got it
| 1-6 wrote:
| Leeches make really cool pets.
| superjan wrote:
| The article mentions the reduction, not beginlevels of the
| substances. It turns out that the reduction during the test
| period is about 30% (for at least one of the substance
| categories). A meaningful reduction for sure, but it should be
| interesting to test them after a few years of blood donation. On
| page 6/7 of the JAMA pdf you find the relevant graph.
|
| https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/articlepdf/...
| phren0logy wrote:
| Sharing is caring?
| swayvil wrote:
| Or letting a dozen leeches have their way with your chestmeat.
|
| Those medieval sawbones knew some stuff.
| wirelesspotat wrote:
| I don't like how "toxic forever chemicals in the bloodstream" is
| a normal thing
|
| Veritasium has a great YouTube video about this: "The Man Who
| Accidentally Killed The Most People In History"[0]
|
| [0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV3dnLzthDA
| thunkshift1 wrote:
| Damn.. that dude caused more mayhem and destruction than
| genghis khan..
| edmcnulty101 wrote:
| Are there any blood test as a service sites? Where I can point
| and click order a blood test panel ?
| wirelesspotat wrote:
| In the USA, there's Private MD Labs, ULTA Labs, and Synergistic
| Labs[0]. In the UK, there's Medichecks and Thriva. I expect
| there are similar options in other countries.
|
| However, these general blood tests won't test for PFAS:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31125559
|
| [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/steroids/wiki/bloodwork/list
| adamredwoods wrote:
| We should be able to test our blood for PFAS on a regular basis
| and our doctors should be able to let us know if we need to
| filter our blood.
|
| But PFAS testing is not the norm?
|
| Per a Tedx talk on this subject:
| https://www.nrdc.org/experts/anna-reade/pfas-blood-tests-nee...
|
| >> Unfortunately, a PFAS blood test is not a routine lab test
| that can be processed by your local lab and covered by your
| health insurance. In fact, there are only a handful of labs
| certified to test for PFAS in blood and the out of pocket cost
| for this test is out of reach for most people.
| Exuma wrote:
| What do they cost?
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| If you were curious, a quick search gave me results in the
| range of $300-$400
|
| https://empowerdxlab.com/products/product/pfas-exposure-test
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| I just called Quest Diagnostics and they charge $679 w/out
| insurance for the PFAS panel [0].
|
| [0]: https://testdirectory.questdiagnostics.com/test/test-
| detail/...
| snarf21 wrote:
| We should all get annual blood tests so we can track variance
| from out baselines.
| arcticbull wrote:
| Probably not, honestly. For most tests, the risks associated
| with a false positive outweigh the benefits of marginally
| earlier detection.
|
| Humans aren't precise machines, each person has different
| values and different value ranges for standard measurements -
| and asymptomatic deviations frequently mean nothing
| whatsoever. On the other hand investigations can be invasive,
| painful, risky and expensive.
|
| There's a reason most tests aren't recommended for folks
| outside certain risk categories (age, family history, etc).
| And in a litigious society like America, it's not because
| it's expensive. There's some specific diseases where there's
| a lot of data backing this thesis - certain cancers for
| instance.
| sodality2 wrote:
| > For most tests, the risks associated with a false
| positive outweigh the benefits of marginally earlier
| detection.
|
| If these tests aren't run, then I am not sure if it would
| be "marginally earlier", it might be much later or even
| never that the problem is discovered.
| plonk wrote:
| If they are run, the results could be uninformative
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_rate_fallacy). Too
| many false positives could lead to risky treatment and be
| dangerous. Testing each positive again would still create
| false positives. I don't know the numbers in this case,
| but I wouldn't be surprised if accurate mass testing were
| impractically expensive.
| closedloop129 wrote:
| This should only be a problem if you don't adjust the
| models. If you run a huge number of tests, you can create
| far more detailed models and thus reduce the false
| positive rate.
|
| Ideally, all chemical processes in the body could be
| known and we could have an almost "mechanical" model of
| the body. How else but with more testing can be reach
| that knowledge?
| plonk wrote:
| > This should only be a problem if you don't adjust the
| models. If you run a huge number of tests, you can create
| far more detailed models and thus reduce the false
| positive rate.
|
| Can you? The problem is the test's sensitivity and
| specificity, there's not much statistical work to do
| after the test on a single case. It's not an advanced
| model deciding whether you're sick or not.
|
| > Ideally, all chemical processes in the body could be
| known and we could have an almost "mechanical" model of
| the body. How else but with more testing can be reach
| that knowledge?
|
| Yeah, ideally we would. Not a doctor, but as far as I can
| tell, we're a thousand years away from that.
| wirelesspotat wrote:
| The video in this comment provides some good examples for
| why the risks associated with a false positive can be
| pretty significant:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31126368
| spockz wrote:
| I think the value in regular blood tests is to get an idea
| of what normal values are for you specifically. For some
| diseases/conditions the blood levels have such a big range
| that it is more useful to know the delta.
|
| We hardly ever measure the "good" or stable cases so when
| we start testing stuff when we are ill there is very little
| data on what is normal or even normal for you.
|
| Ive heard of cars where due to family history someone
| preemptively screened on certain blood values. When those
| changed they knew something was up, even though the value
| was still within normal range it was up 100x for them.
| tedunangst wrote:
| That's the whole point of establishing a baseline.
| [deleted]
| solveit wrote:
| I don't know why this comment is downvoted. Let me
| elaborate a little on what I think they meant.
|
| All the risks associated with false positives (other than
| the side effects of actually drawing blood once a year,
| which I think is negligible) can be removed by simply not
| overreacting. Find a cancer? Well, consider not
| subjecting yourself to chemo just to get rid of it. Some
| cancers will kill you by winter, some will just stay
| there until you die of something else. How will we know
| which is which? By testing lots of people over long
| periods of time to see what's harmless and what's
| actually really bad. Or as the previous commenter said:
| "That's the whole point of establishing a baseline."
| pkaye wrote:
| Even is the US, a metabolic panel of about 15-20 basic blood
| tests is only about $40. You an order it online and go to a
| local lab to get blood drawn.
| wirelesspotat wrote:
| There's a great video from Medlife Crisis about why this
| might not be a good idea
|
| "The Problem With Silicon Valley Medicine":
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW3DGnHO2iY
| roywiggins wrote:
| Nobody knows the threshold above which intervening is a good
| idea or worth the effort, so universal testing seems like
| jumping the gun a little.
| sdenton4 wrote:
| People said similar things about lead...
| mrmuagi wrote:
| The people vested in using lead in fuel said so out of
| profit motive, but it seems lead was widely known to be
| harmful for hundreads of years [0] before it was using it
| fuel.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV3dnLzthDA
| roywiggins wrote:
| We don't preemptively test everyone for lead either!
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Related PSA: If you do a lot of target shooting,
| especially with indoor ranges, it's worth asking your
| doctor to occasionally test your lead exposure.
| dibujante wrote:
| This is true, although I would prefer to still test
| everyone for plausibly important things to feed data
| analysts who might eventually discover something useful.
| sorenn111 wrote:
| I'd love for that to be true, but there's a good chance
| that in doing broad tests you are incurring costs (both
| to patient health and cost [whether paid by patient, gov,
| or insurance company]) without getting anything beyond
| noisy data without useful signal
| rrauenza wrote:
| I wonder how less effective double red donations are at this
| since they return your plasma to you during the donation. Sounds
| like plasma donations are the biggest bang for the buck, possible
| followed by single whole blood donations?
| mike00632 wrote:
| Sucks to be gay in the United States then. FDA prohibits gay men
| from donating blood based on outdated fears of contamination.
| neallindsay wrote:
| I would not have guessed that bleeding would come back as a
| medical treatment in the year 2022.
| buildsjets wrote:
| So, the solution to pollution REALLY IS dilution.
| Jeff_Brown wrote:
| This might be great! Or it might be meaningless. The only
| quantifying passage I see is this one:
|
| > "Plasma donation was the most effective intervention, reducing
| mean serum perfluorooctane sulfonate levels by 2.9 ng/mL compared
| with a 1.1-ng/mL reduction with blood donation, a significant
| difference
|
| But how much perfluorooctane sulfonate did the study's subjects
| start with? I don't care if one treatment accomplished more than
| another until I know that at least one of them made a difference
| worth making.
| nfriedly wrote:
| I know some people are jumping on the idea that these "forever
| chemicals" just get passed onto the blood recipient, but that
| misses the "Regular" part. Sure, the first few donations have the
| higher concentrations of those chemicals, but subsequent
| donations have fewer forever chemicals. The more you do it, the
| better quality it becomes.
| KarlKemp wrote:
| There are quite a few regular recipients of blood products,
| however. It's processed quite a bit (read: separated into its
| constituent parts and reassembled for what is needed, much like
| orange juice) which may already filter the stuff.
| sanj wrote:
| I've been waiting for the Giving Plague to become real:
|
| https://www.davidbrin.com/fiction/givingplague.html
| TheRealNGenius wrote:
| lol this is literally bloodletting. Like what people in the olden
| days did. Lol, comes back full circle.
| zwieback wrote:
| Having grown up in Germany I cannot donate blood here in the US
| (mad cow) so I guess I'll stew in my toxins...
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| If this was conclusively proven to be a benefit, you could
| acquire the equipment, drain a pint of your own blood, and then
| put it in the compost every couple months.
| ipython wrote:
| I had the same problem but it looks like the rules have
| changed: https://www.redcrossblood.org/donate-blood/how-to-
| donate/eli...
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| How about donating platelets? Due to my blood type, they want my
| platelets.
| aesh2Xa1 wrote:
| If the PFAS get separated into the same category as the
| platelets, yes, this'll work. I doubt they do.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Then the sick person gets that stuff? Yay
| dxscorp wrote:
| They want your platelets anyway, they are almost always in
| demand. Some types are more useful but anyone should consider!
| [deleted]
| bluSCALE4 wrote:
| Finally, a reason for me to donate.
| segmondy wrote:
| Another way to say that Bloodletting can reduce toxic forever
| chemicals in the bloodstream.
| np_tedious wrote:
| Brings up an interesting question. Say you couldn't donate due
| to tattoos, needle use from steroids or IV drugs ("have you
| ever injected anything not prescribed by a doctor"), gay or
| paid sex, etc
|
| Are there services for bloodletting?
| colechristensen wrote:
| It's not bloodletting but some things do come out in sweat, I
| remember reading a paper that demonstrated heavy metals come
| out in sweat in significant amounts. Perhaps other things do
| as well.
| sschueller wrote:
| That would mean people who workout a lot should have less
| than sedatary people.
| hypertele-Xii wrote:
| Or cultures that use the sauna.
| colechristensen wrote:
| This is quite possible, now go write a grant application
| for a study :)
| akira2501 wrote:
| Yes.. "Venesection." People with hemachromatosis utilize it.
| 6d6b73 wrote:
| It looks like the school blood letting is the way to health. And
| scientists laughed at people using leeches back in the day.
| KMag wrote:
| At least about 15 years ago, we really had no idea the long-term
| effects of donating blood as often as the Red Cross allows over
| multi-year periods.
|
| I'm negative for cytomegalovirus, which makes my blood suitable
| for newborns, cancer patients, HIV patents, etc. I used to donate
| as often as the Red Cross/New York Blood Center would let me
| (donating plasma in the in-between times when it was too soon to
| donate whole blood), but at some point that forced me to get off
| of my red-meat-once-a-week diet because my iron levels were
| bouncing down around the donation limits.
|
| I didn't realize one check-up with my regular doctor was going to
| involve a blood screening, so when the nurse drew blood, I told
| her that I was going to test as anemic since I donated less than
| a week earlier. I saw the nurse enter my comments into the
| computer system, but I still got a very concerned call from my
| doctor a week later about being anemic. The doctor hadn't read
| the comment on my chart that I had donated recently, but still
| begged me to eat more red meat and liver and/or cut back on my
| blood donation frequency. I asked about spinach, broccoli, etc.,
| and she said it was just very difficult to get enough iron that
| way if I was donating blood that often.
|
| I called up the New York Blood Center to see if my regular doctor
| was over-reacting and/or they had any suggestions about keeping
| my iron high while donating as often as possible and still
| keeping red meat consumption low. They told me that there weren't
| any long-term studies on people who donate as often as they're
| allowed over long periods. Also, they reaffirmed that red meat
| and liver are really much more dense sources of iron than any
| plant sources.
|
| Anyway, when you donate whole blood/plasma regularly and you're
| CMV-negative, they cross-check your blood for leukocyte
| compatibility with immunocompromised patients. Three times, I was
| asked to donate leukocytes for kids with cancer. Two times I was
| able to donate leukocytes, and the third time, my hematocrit was
| too low. I highly recommend it, if nothing else, you feel like a
| really decent person for a couple of weeks after donating
| leukocytes to a kid with cancer. It's a pretty low-effort way to
| leave the world a little better than you found it.
|
| I moved to Hong Kong for a while, and there, they take 400 mL
| instead of a 500 mL, and let you donate less often, but the
| minimum body weight limit for donation is lower. (People there
| are smaller on average and eat less red meat than the average
| American.) I was also very involved with dragon boat racing
| there, and being slightly anemic makes training harder, so I only
| donated once a year in HK. I really should have donated more in
| the off season.
|
| Now, I've got a young son who's blood-compatible with me, so even
| though they'd never run my blood directly into my son, my wife
| would really prefer that I keep my blood in my veins for
| emergencies. I'd still prefer to donate blood, but my wife really
| doesn't ask that much from me, and it's a small thing to give up
| for a few years.
| croes wrote:
| So we are back to bloodletting?
| codingdave wrote:
| Yes, just as that is the standard treatment for
| hemochromatosis. Just because it is the wrong treatment for
| most things does not mean it has zero therapeutic value in
| specific circumstances.
| codyb wrote:
| As a regular donator, it's really important to watch your iron
| levels. After donating double red blood cells every time I could
| for two years my iron levels dropped significantly and had a very
| negative impact on my quality of life until I figured out what
| was wrong.
|
| Now I eat more spinach and chicken to give myself a boost but I'm
| taking a little break to recoup before going back again.
|
| Either way, donating's great, totally should do it, it's super
| essential and there're always shortages. Just make sure you're
| supporting yourself if you make it a habit.
| incomingpain wrote:
| Canadian blood services specifically doesn't allow me to donate
| blood. Admittedly, I fear needles pretty fiercely anyway so it's
| not something I'm going to be fighting.
|
| I find it interesting though that the argument to donate blood is
| that one's blood might be toxic. That giving away your toxic
| blood might make your own blood less toxic.
| d4mi3n wrote:
| Is there any reason why one couldn't simply have blood as a
| kind of treatment?
|
| I'd certainly be happy to have blood drawn if it meant lowering
| blood toxicity I had no other way of treating.
| toast0 wrote:
| Therapeutic phlebotomy, basically bloodletting, is a common
| treatment for hemochromatosis, iron overload. It would make
| sense as a treatment if you've got too much of a substance in
| your system, that substance accumulates in your blood, and
| you're otherwise healthy enough to tolerate the loss of blood
| periodically. Depending on the substance, there may be other
| means that are more effective, or less invasive, of course;
| and if it's an urgent need to reduce the substance,
| bloodletting would likely be too slow.
| wrycoder wrote:
| Or you could take small dose aspirin and just bleed
| internally. Same result, fewer heart attacks.
| slt2021 wrote:
| religious Muslims have treatment that is exactly that - blood
| drawing.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupping_therapy#Wet_cupping
| jesusofnazarath wrote:
| wirelesspotat wrote:
| Yeah, the article mentions recipients of the toxic blood. I
| wonder if there will be more research to identify any risks for
| recipients
|
| > The logic in removing them is simple: PFAS work by binding to
| serum proteins in the blood; removing some of this blood,
| therefore, would lead to the reduction of forever chemicals in
| the bloodstream. As to the question of what happens to
| recipients of this blood: "Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl
| substances are ubiquitous, and no threshold has been identified
| that poses an increased risk to recipients of donated blood
| components."
| fredley wrote:
| I started donating blood specifically because I have a needle
| phobia. I'm up to 8 donations now and feeling better about it
| each time.
| shafyy wrote:
| I also had an "irrational" fear of donating blood and
| needles, and being encouraged by my girlfriend, also started
| doing it. Well, I did it once a couple of months ago and
| almost passed after some minutes (they had to stop).
| Apparently, this is not uncommon for young skinny males. But
| maybe my excitement also didn't help. Will try again :D
| DrBoring wrote:
| That prompts a curious thought: If you dump 1 unit of your
| toxic blood into the 9 units of blood inside the body of a
| transfusion recipient, then how toxic does their blood become?
| 1/10 toxic?
|
| I've also wondered, is it possible for a transfusion recipient
| to fail a drug screening test because their doner had recently
| consumed drug prior to their donation.
| mrfusion wrote:
| So the pfas just mostly hang out in the bloodstream?
|
| That seems kind of strange they never get filtered or end up in
| organs.
| ouid wrote:
| I've been wondering about this for a long time.
| s0rce wrote:
| This is the first example of detoxifying your body might actually
| be real.
| hereme888 wrote:
| Detoxification/cleansing has always been real, in the
| alternative and conventional/allopathic medical worlds. I don't
| know any school of thought that denies the benefits of
| cleansing (within reason); only those who disagree on how to go
| about it.
| google234123 wrote:
| Most Detoxing your hear about (and all from "alternative"
| (read: fake) medicine) is a marketing strategy for treating
| nonexistent conditions.
|
| Body acidity is a myth, cleaning organs like the kidney or
| liver is a myth, and all the detox treatments peddled have
| never been shown to actually remove any toxins from a human.
| mrmuagi wrote:
| The problem is the best thing to detoxify is your bodies
| organs and healthy function of them should be priority numero
| uno.
|
| I think fad diets are the terrority where it gets a bit
| unreasonable (juice cleanses?). Chakra/Qi cleanses?
| elil17 wrote:
| There's a theory (see slimemoldtimemold.com) that PFAS cause
| obesity (or, rather, cause increased hunger which in turn causes
| obesity). This seems like a great way to actually test that
| hypothesis.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| "Forever chemicals" is kind of a scary marketing term that helps
| sell ad views.
|
| PFAS materials (teflon, high temperature o-rings, refrigeration
| fluids, fire-fighting foams, anti-cancer drugs and other
| medicines, etc.) encompass such a broad range of chemistries
| (anything with the fluorine atom attached to carbon) that have
| many many orders of magnitude differences in half-life.
|
| It's analogous to labeling anything radioactive (bananas) as a
| "forever chemical" because some radioactive nuclear waste does
| have >10k year half-lives.
|
| The nice thing about PFAS compared to nuclear though is that even
| the 'forever' versions that have really long half-lives can be
| easily catalyzed to break down using the right
| materials/temperature/pressure.
|
| People are looking for catalysis processes to get rid of nuclear
| waste using atto-second lasers: https://bigthink.com/the-
| present/laser-nuclear-waste/ (Would be amazing if it works)
|
| Also, fluorine incorporation in water is starting to be
| reconsidered by some in the medical community (greatest volume of
| human fluorine consumption by far):
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8169995/
| krapht wrote:
| Are you telling me the government is fluoridating my precious
| bodily fluids?
| specialist wrote:
| What would you call that category?
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| Maybe you hail from the Fallout universe, but this strikes me
| as a totally specious comparison. Nuclear waste is the
| consequence of highly specialized processes occurring in highly
| regulated situations. It's easy to detect, straightforward to
| contain, and the average person need never run into it because,
| in addition to all this, it's regulated out the ass literally
| everywhere.
|
| PFAS is already in everyone's bloodstream because we slathered
| our cookware and dental floss in it, and nobody can stand up to
| DuPont.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| Takeaway: It's possible to reduce them.
|
| That's good. The rest: Eh. It's fairly weak as some kind of
| _medical recommendation_ if you ask me.
| lizardactivist wrote:
| And.. pass them on to some other poor bloke?
|
| Anyway it does seem like certain stuff seems to build up in the
| blood-stream over the years, with the body having no way of
| removing it, and that bleeding and receiving plasma effectively
| gets rid of it.
|
| I wonder if this could be considered as a real medical treatment
| and offered to people.
| matthias509 wrote:
| So your solution is what? Don't donate blood or plasma? Have
| only humans who aren't exposed to PFAS done blood or plasma
| (which don't exist anyway)?
| aidenn0 wrote:
| There's also been some recent evidence that donating blood can
| increase lifespan in men, with lowering serum iron levels
| suggested as the causal link.
| psychlops wrote:
| Nice try, vampires!
| jandrese wrote:
| Seems like vampires would end up concentrating these toxic
| chemicals over time.
|
| Maybe a story prompt about vampires that discover they are
| dying due to heavy metal buildup in their systems. They go out
| in search of remote island nations that have populations with
| little exposure to modern low level contaminants. Have to adopt
| to slow island life.
| 1024core wrote:
| Could you just filter your blood externally, dialysis-style, and
| get rid of these chemicals that way?
| colechristensen wrote:
| I would much rather lose blood than require my body to try to
| rebalance what a dialysis machine disrupted.
|
| A filter which excludes all of the things you don't want in
| your blood and left anything besides plain water would be hard,
| not worth the trouble.
| Pulcinella wrote:
| Perhaps these sorts of chemicals re not particularly water
| soluble? Otherwise you kidneys could just filter them out into
| your urine.
| munk-a wrote:
| Even if the body doesn't have the equipment built in to deal
| with it it's not a stretch to believe that we could build an
| external machine specialized to the task - whether dialysis
| machines can do it on their own or not I'm uncertain.
| hereme888 wrote:
| Sheesh, I can't believe the percent of negative comments! Someone
| finally figured a way to reduce PFAS. It's a hugely positive
| finding, especially in light of people being able to keep their
| red blood cells. Hopefully it can be ruled as a safe long-term
| solution for now. Looking forward to reading updates on this
| research.
|
| And btw, donating plasma doesn't mean other people will get your
| PFAS; many things can be done with plasma besides injecting into
| other people.
| kurupt213 wrote:
| Regular plasma donation is probably much worse for your long
| term health than ppb levels of pfas.
| inspector-g wrote:
| Citation?
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Regular is an extremely vague term here, what are you talking
| about? a few times a year or weekly? Like the other person
| said, citations needed.
| mrtksn wrote:
| I haven't heard of PFAS before but the findings kind of sounds
| straightforward? If something that can be synthesised by the
| body gets contaminated by external pollutants, it should get
| purer by removing part of the contaminated material since it's
| going to be replaced by newly synthesised supplies and result
| in dilution of the pollutant.
|
| In other words, dilution is solution of pollution[0]
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvnllquGmgg
| s0rce wrote:
| Even if someone else would get your PFAS its most likely they
| have them as well and its certainly better than dying of blood
| loss or not treating other serious issues that rely on various
| blood products.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Anyway it's a problem you can fix yourself by donating more
| blood than you receive.
| qgin wrote:
| Absolutely, the point of a blood transfusion is that a body
| needs blood replenished faster than it can produce it. A
| blood transfusion now, PFAS or no, gives someone a chance to
| survive (and who knows, maybe donate blood themselves at some
| point)
| KarlKemp wrote:
| There are diseases where you get regular transfusions. For
| these patients, PFAS would become a problem since they are,
| by definition, not subject to degradation. Unless, of course,
| the patients are physically losing blood.
|
| Which makes me wonder if women have a specific advantage on
| this matter. I do remember reading that regular blood
| donations show health benefits, and that women get them "for
| free", so to speak. This may be part of the reason.
| rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
| Our recent cavemen ancestors probably got injured and bled
| a bit much more often than we do.
|
| It's not hard to imagine the human body optimizing for
| those conditions, which would make permanently holding onto
| all your blood suboptimal.
| giantg2 wrote:
| So does this imply that women have lower levels than similarly
| exposed men?
| jandrese wrote:
| Unless you move away from the source of contamination you'll
| just replenish it with your blood. Given that these chemicals
| seem to be omnipresent in our environment you are probably out
| of luck.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Doesn't that negate the logic of the article?
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| I assume you mean due to menstruation? It highly depends on the
| individual, ethnicity, health, build, etc, but the amount of
| actual blood (vs mucus and non-blood fluid discharge) released
| in a cycle isn't as much as you might think. So the answer is
| probably "somewhat but negligibly so?"
| giantg2 wrote:
| Well it happens frequently. So maybe the amount is low per
| occurrence, but the cumulative amount may be larger than a
| typical man who doesn't donate at all, right?
| mkoubaa wrote:
| Shouldn't this mean that women have fewer of these chemicals due
| to losing blood regularly on their cycle?
| MiddleEndian wrote:
| I shall have my servant bring me my leeches at once!
| treeman79 wrote:
| You say this in jest. But how would one actually get rid of
| blood if you can't donate?
| mikeodds wrote:
| You simply dump it in the street https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-
| england-berkshire-60493339
| twic wrote:
| I know life often imitates The Onion, but "passersby were
| amazed at the unusually large amounts of blood" was not one
| of the headlines i ever expected to cross the chasm.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| Skateboarding.
| 1-6 wrote:
| Stop jesting.
| MiddleEndian wrote:
| No clue. I actually can't give blood because I get too dizzy
| and it would not be cost effective for them to have to
| babysit me for 30 minutes.
| mkoubaa wrote:
| Cupping
| mindcrime wrote:
| Take up mountain biking.
| andymboyle wrote:
| Some folks on certain medications (or just because) can have
| an increase in red blood cell production, sometimes called
| "blood thickening," I believe, and they can sometimes just
| get a prescription from a doctor to go to a donation
| facility. Or some facilities will still just allow you to do
| this if you tell them you need to get rid of excess blood for
| the reasons above, and then they dispose of it. (Not everyone
| requires a doctor's prescription for it.)
|
| That's just one use case, obviously, so there is a system for
| some to get rid of excess blood, at least, in a similar
| manner as you would donate.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| There was some discussion[0] on HN a few weeks ago
| organizations (like the Red Cross[1]) not accepting
| donations from patients who require therapeutic phlebotomy
| (hemochromatosis patients, for example) because their
| donation provides the donor a benefit (and therefore isn't
| strictly altruistic). That sent me down an interesting
| rabbit hole of reading (link in discussion).
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30808856
|
| [1] https://www.redcrossblood.org/donate-blood/blood-
| donation-pr...
| andymboyle wrote:
| Very interesting! Thanks for sharing.
| jfengel wrote:
| I didn't realize that. I was briefly thought to have
| hemochromatosis, and had been "self-treating" via the Red
| Cross for years.
|
| It turns out I didn't have hemochromatosis. It was merely
| a bit high, but knowing that I donated so often (both
| whole blood and platelets, which you can do more often),
| there was concern that the "self-treatment" was covering
| up a real problem.
|
| I had not heard at the time that they wouldn't have
| wanted my blood. It was over a decade ago, and it's
| possible that the policy didn't exist then.
| dvdgsng wrote:
| I have hemochromatosis and here in Germany it's
| impossible for me to donate blood. It's not actually
| forbidden, afaik, but no company want's to give
| 'contaminated' blood to patients, even though it would be
| perfectly fine.
| jfengel wrote:
| Do you do phlebotomy some other way? Do you just draw the
| blood yourself and discard it?
|
| It amused me very much at the time to think that
| "bloodletting" might, in fact, be medically prescribed.
| deluxeroyale wrote:
| People on steroids/that have been on need to do this
| regularly
| [deleted]
| invalidator wrote:
| I wasn't able to find a reference, but I believe it's
| possible to go to a blood drive and have blood drawn and
| discarded. This provides cover for people who are ineligible
| but don't want their friends/coworkers to know.
|
| Alternatively, it's easy to DIY if you are so inclined. You
| just need some sterile needles and alcohol swabs.
| sophacles wrote:
| Just stop by the barber. Mine has a 2-for-1 deal on
| thursdays: bloodletting and shave for 2 bits.
| brimble wrote:
| Yeah, my first thought was "holy shit, maybe finally an
| actual justification for regular bloodletting as a health
| practice!"
| giantg2 wrote:
| I believe there are one or two conditions that actually
| require it in modern medicine, but I forget the names.
| sodality2 wrote:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20170701150031/http://article
| s.l...
|
| > Some people, he tells us, absorb too much iron, often
| as a result of a genetic condition called hereditary
| hemochromatosis. Over the years, the extra iron builds up
| slowly in people's bodies, causing damage to organs such
| as the liver and heart as well as the joints.
|
| > What contains a lot of iron? Red blood cells! That's
| what. Thus, the therapy for iron overload (as it's also
| called) is to draw pint after pint of blood from patients
| until the iron stores drop to an acceptable level, and
| thereafter draw the occasional unit of blood so those
| levels don't creep up again.
|
| Sounds very familiar if you replace "iron" with "PFAS".
| HalcyonCowboy wrote:
| Hemochromatosis is one, I was suspected to have it when I
| was younger and regular blood donations was an effective
| way to reduce my blood iron. Turns out I don't actually
| have the condition (it's genetic and doesn't go away as
| you age, whereas my extremely high iron resolved on its
| own), but I'm not mad about it, just a change I've
| welcomed.
| jleyank wrote:
| "Give blood. Play rugby."
| [deleted]
| daenz wrote:
| I used to donate blood regularly. I would donate more regularly
| if I got a full blood panel with each donation. I've been quoted
| $600-2500. Surely you can comp that for me if I give you a pint.
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| According to the Red Cross website, donated blood is tested,
| too. https://www.redcrossblood.org/donate-blood/blood-donation-
| pr...
|
| So presumably they could just pass back the results of that
| test
| valarauko wrote:
| I think its only tested for infectious diseases and the like,
| not the sort of things covered in a blood panel like the
| parent is referring to. I suppose at least the results of the
| infectious tests could be passed on.
| daenz wrote:
| It looks like it's just tested for different diseases. I'm
| more referring to my different blood metrics (cholesterol,
| CBC, CMP, hormones, etc)
| KMag wrote:
| ... or run each donated pint through one randomly chosen extra
| screening. Donate often enough, and you get a full screening.
| areyousure wrote:
| In case anyone is curious, it appears a pint of blood in the US
| sells for $150--$300.
| daenz wrote:
| That seems to answer it on face value, unless the prices
| quoted for blood panels are very inflated due to insurance.
|
| EDIT>> Maybe a punch card? Donate N pints, get a free blood
| panel.
| specialist wrote:
| Worked for Quest Diagnostics in the mid 2000s. My
| understanding is they basically print money. After capex,
| most tests are very cheap. A bit like running a silicon
| fab.
|
| Lab companies absolutely should be included, as a co-equal,
| in the list of villains.
| refurb wrote:
| "After capex"
| tibiapejagala wrote:
| In Poland you can get basic tests once a year if you ask
| beforehand.
| CommanderData wrote:
| Blood letting then. Is that the same?
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