Banked Blood May Not Be As Effective As Hoped

URSpider alerts us to two separate research reports published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences pointing to the rapid breakdown of nitric oxide in donated blood as a reason why such blood loses its ability to transfer oxygen, and is sometime implicated in problems such as strokes and heart attacks. Nitric oxide depletion is significant after 3 hours of storage; yet current guidelines allow for storing donated blood for up to 42 days. The article notes: "Several of the researchers, including Stamler, have consulting and/or equity relationships with Nitrox/N30, a company developing nitric oxide based therapies."

Comments

How likely is this?

[Ancient_Hacker]

Blood transfusions have been going on for something like a century. A lot more successful once they figured out the compatible blood types.

Now this "news report" would have us believe that there's been a problem all this time, and either nobody did any research on it, or if they did they were total numbskulls to not see the connection between lowered oxygen efficacy and the lowering of chemical X.

Smells a teeensy bit fishy.

Nitric oxide and not nitrous oxide

[technosattva]

The slashdot article mentions Nitrous Oxide (N20 aka Dinitrogen Monoxide), but the original article talks about Nitric Oxide (NO = Nitrogen Monoxide). The wikipedia page says that the two should not be confused. The former is an anesthetic, the latter is a "toxic air pollutant". Alas, this means that huffing whippets before giving blood isn't going to make it stay fresh longer.

Re:NO dilates blood vessel and not always desired.

[Eivind Eklund]

Very nice post. Thanks.