Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Regular blood donations can reduce “forever chemicals” in the bloodstream: study

theswaddle.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 213 posts

Re: Regular blood donations can reduce “forever chemicals” in the bloodstream: study

#91

Post by sodality2 »

arcticbull wrote: post #76
snarf21 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should all get annual blood tests so we can track variance from out baselines.

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 m…

> 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.

Re: Regular blood donations can reduce “forever chemicals” in the bloodstream: study

#93

Post by revolvingocelot »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #74

“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 rad…

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.

Re: Regular blood donations can reduce “forever chemicals” in the bloodstream: study

#94

Post by giantg2 »

PeterisP wrote: post #90
giantg2 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

Yes, and that is a better argument than someone simply being desperate enough to accept contaminated blood rather than die.

Re: Regular blood donations can reduce “forever chemicals” in the bloodstream: study

#95

Post by wirelesspotat »

snarf21 wrote: post #71
adamredwoods wrote: post #58

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…

We should all get annual blood tests so we can track variance from out baselines.

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

Re: Regular blood donations can reduce “forever chemicals” in the bloodstream: study

#96

Post by sodality2 »

giantg2 wrote: post #88
brimble wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, my first thought was "holy shit, maybe finally an actual justification for regular bloodletting as a health practice!"

I believe there are one or two conditions that actually require it in modern medicine, but I forget the names.

https://web.archive.org/web/20170701150031/http://articles.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".

Re: Regular blood donations can reduce “forever chemicals” in the bloodstream: study

#97

Post by HalcyonCowboy »

giantg2 wrote: post #88
brimble wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, my first thought was "holy shit, maybe finally an actual justification for regular bloodletting as a health practice!"

I believe there are one or two conditions that actually require it in modern medicine, but I forget the names.

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.

Re: Regular blood donations can reduce “forever chemicals” in the bloodstream: study

#98

Post by roywiggins »

adamredwoods wrote: post #58

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…

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.

Re: Regular blood donations can reduce “forever chemicals” in the bloodstream: study

#100

Post by tedunangst »

arcticbull wrote: post #76
snarf21 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should all get annual blood tests so we can track variance from out baselines.

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 m…

That's the whole point of establishing a baseline.
Post reply on HN