14.3.97

Giving blood "may be good for heart"

By David Fletcher, Health Correspondent

BLOOD donors may be protected from having a heart attack, according to a study of 2,682 men published today.

The finding was described as "very interesting" by the National Blood Authority but a spokesman said it was too soon to use it as a "carrot" to encourage men to become donors.

Researchers kept health records on the men aged between 42 and 60 over five years. A total of 153 of them gave blood during the period of the study and only one had a heart attack - a rate of 0.7 per cent.

Over the same period 226 of the 2,529 non-donors had a heart attack - a rate of 9.8 per cent.

Giving their findings in the British Medical Journal, the researchers say: "The blood donors' risk of acute heart attack was 86 per cent less than that of the non-donors.

"This is the first study to report a reduced risk of coronary events in male blood donors."

The researchers, from the Institute of Public Health in Finland, say the explanation of the finding may be depletion of the body's store of iron caused by blood loss. There is already some evidence that high iron stores increase the risk of heart disease.

They say: "We suggest that the loss of iron associated with giving blood might be the reason for the observed risk reduction."

However, the report adds that voluntary blood donors may be more health conscious and more healthy than non-donors and this could help to explain the finding.

The researchers call for more studies to investigate the effect of lower levels of iron in the blood on the development of heart disease.

A spokesman for the National Blood Authority said a lot more work needed to be done before it could be proved beyond doubt that giving blood reduced the risk of heart attacks.

"It will not alter the way in which we encourage male donors to give blood voluntarily," he said.