Giving blood may help donors

Blood donations may help keep the body’s circulatory system healthy by reducing stores of iron, but the effect may not work for older people, a new study suggests.

Researchers at the White River Junction Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Vermont and Dartmouth Medical School said they looked at 1,277 men and women ages 43 to 87 who had peripheral arterial disease, a common condition in which narrowed arteries reduce blood flow to the limbs. The study lasted for six years.

Blood was drawn to promote iron reduction at six-month intervals from some of the patients but not from others. As a whole, there was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of deaths, heart attacks or other problems.

But when the researchers analyzed the results just for younger patients ages 43 to 61, they found fewer deaths from all causes in the iron-reduction group, and fewer nonfatal heart attacks and strokes.

Excess iron in the blood is thought to promote free-radical damage to arteries, particularly in the early stages of heart disease, according to the study published in the Feb. 14 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Assn.