Gifting life: Why you should donate blood

Facts first, more than one million new people are diagnosed with cancer each year. Many of them need blood, sometimes daily, during their chemotherapy treatment. We all have 70 ml of blood/kg body weight and during blood donation only 8 ml/kg body weight is removed. One can certainly part with this small amount. Each one of us can donate up to 500 ml of blood without any harmful effect. With modern technology a single unit of blood can be split into components, so that 3-4 patients are benefitted from one blood donation. Around 107 million units of blood are collected globally every year, of which only 38 per cent comes from developing countries where more than 80 per cent of our population lives. The highest number of blood donors are in Switzerland, where 113 out of 1000 donate blood. Now back home in India, recent studies suggest that every year in the country only 8 million units of blood are collected, while the requirement is nearly 12 million units. A large proportion of these blood units are utilized by thalassaemia and cancer patients. Mind you that healthy males can safely donate blood at every three months interval. In case of SDP donations, a two days interval is permissible between two consecutive SDP procedures, with 24 maximum, permissible plateletpheresis procedures in a year.

When you donate blood regularly, it gives you the opportunity to save multiple lives. But as it turns out, blood donation does a lot more than just doing a good deed. For instance, researchers at the University of California have found that you can lose up to 650 calories per pint of blood donated. A study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute that followed two groups of men for four and a half years, suggest that offloading a batch of your blood means reducing iron stores in your body. Iron has been associated with cancer causing free-radicals. The group that donated a couple times a year lowered their iron levels and therefore their risk of getting cancer compared to the non-donor group. A study in the American Journal of Epidemiology showed that men who donated blood once a year had an 88 per cent lower risk of heart attack than men who skipped out. So another benefit of donating your blood is getting your heart into tick-top shape. Research have pointed out the fact that as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's have a connection due to excessive iron in the body, so donating blood regularly can check those iron levels in keeping it moderate. While there are several physical benefits to donating blood, the most powerful health benefit is arguably in the psychological realm. Donating blood means that someone (or multiple people) somewhere will be getting the help they desperately need. Volunteering has been shown to have positive effects on happiness.

Tata Medical Center jointly with Rotary Club of Calcutta Newbies under the latter's mission health mindfulness initiative started building awareness on these. The annual need of blood in Tata Medical Centre is 11,000 donors. In this respect, they have tried to bridge this need by encouraging to promote blood donation that will be a boon for Tata Medial to provide blood to their patients. The objective of the exercise is simply to promote and make aware to every segment of the society especially the youths, summarising contradictions, protocols, myths and potentials of the donation process. They have developed a mobile application namely Bloodlink- the donor's app, available in google play store. Through the app, individuals can store their vitals-blood pressure, SPO2, height, weight, blood sugar and the donation history. Would others take a lesson or two from this?