Feb 08 2010
There’s no doubt that blood saves lives. According to the Red Cross, in the United States alone about five million people need a total of 14 million pints of blood each year. That’s 38,000 pints every day.
But transfusions are not without their dangers. Among them is transfusion-related acute lung injury (TRALI), a rare but potentially [...]
Oct 16 2009
Previously in The Spittoon, we discussed two papers that identified genetic variants associated with hemoglobin levels in circulating blood.
But blood consists of much more than hemoglobin, and it is responsible for much more than just transporting oxygen. This week Nature Genetics published the results of two of the largest blood studies to date, which together [...]
Oct 12 2009
Doctors routinely order the complete blood count (CBC) for their patients because they can learn a lot about a person’s health by measuring the numbers of different types of blood cells in the circulation, their sizes and the ratios between them.
One component of the CBC is usually a measure of the total amount of hemoglobin, [...]
Aug 06 2009
Not long after Karl Landsteiner first described the different ABO blood types, scientists started looking for associations between blood type and other human traits. Some of their theories were truly weird (more on these tomorrow!), but some have held up to scientific scrutiny.
Venous Thromboembolism (VTE)
People with non-type O blood (A, B and AB) have been [...]
Aug 05 2009
When it comes to blood transfusions, what’s good for one person might be deadly for another.
This might seem obvious today, but until 1900 the idea of “blood types” wasn’t understood. A person in need of a transfusion could find himself getting a donation from just about anyone, and sometimes even an animal!
But in 1900 [...]
