Word: stamler
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Logically, and medically, patients who need transfusions - those with low blood counts - should benefit immediately from a transfusion of new oxygen-laden red blood cells. Yet many get sicker. Puzzled by the paradox, Stamler and his colleagues decided to look more closely at banked blood - to figure out whether it underwent certain changes that turned it from life-saving in the donor to potentially deadly...
...turns out that within hours of leaving the body, levels of nitric oxide in the blood begin to drop, until, by the time donated blood expires after 42 days, the gas is almost nonexistent. "The reality is that we are giving blood that cannot deliver oxygen properly," says Stamler, lead author of the study. "Many patients who are getting blood are being put at increased risk...
...blood transfusion to help restore oxygen to deprived tissues, have a 25% chance of having a heart attack and an 8% chance of dying within 30 days; similar patients who do not get transfused have an 8% chance of a cardiac event and a 3% chance of death. Stamler hypothesizes that without NO, red blood cells cannot drill their way into tiny blood vessels; rather, they pile up in narrow passageways, blocking blood flow instead of increasing it and hampering the heart...
Wouldn't it be more effective if banked blood could simply be improved? Stamler's study suggests it can: by replacing nitric oxide in stored blood, Stamler showed that the risk of heart attack and death from transfusion dropped dramatically, at least in mice. And there's reason to believe such replenishment could work in human patients as well; already, premature babies born with lung and respiratory problems are placed in NO-rich environments to ensure that their still developing tissues get the oxygen they need to grow properly. For now, the American Red Cross, which oversees 14 million units...
...stop there? Stamler argues that it might be possible to supercharge the NO content in blood and use it as a treatment for everything from heart disease to angina to diabetes. "We all want to open up blood vessels, and blood knows how to do that," he says. "The opportunities to manipulate the system to do even better are now available." And that would truly make giving blood the gift of life...