Current FDA regulations give blood a shelf life of six weeks, but recent findings are proving otherwise. Those findings show that patients who receive blood that is older than two weeks are more likely to die or suffer from complications than those who receive newer blood. There are many scientific explanations that support this finding. First, as blood ages outside of the body, they begin to lose their ability to carry oxygen and the red blood cells become more rigid, making it hard for them to travel through the body, and more likely to form life-threatening clots. To put it simply, this old blood may be serving merely as a volume-expander, and a risky one at that.
Scientists and doctors are constantly confronted by their lack of full understanding of the human body when working with blood. This incredibly important fluid is surprisingly delicate and more is found about it annually. Although researchers have learned how to properly screen blood for such things as HIV, they now have new issues confronting them regarding other possible hazards. Dr. Sunil Rao, a Duke assistant professor of medicine who runs the cardiac catheterization labs at the Durham VA Medical Center says, “We are only now starting to realize what happens to blood when it is drawn out of a human body and sent to the blood bank for storage.”
Get more of the latest findings here.