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Comment by sundvor | Hacker News Reader

Ah, I had larger than average/sudden blood loss in mind. My bad.

I'm not a biochemist, but my understanding was that the natural, far slower rate at which blood is broken down / discarded is much less conducive to having a good supply of healthy Erythrocytes than what you get when half a litre of blood must be replenished. Upon doing a donation that's a solid supply of fresh red blood cells into your system.

I was referring to it specifically being beneficial to men because they/we do not have menstrual cycle - where blood is refreshed at a higher than average rate as such.

Also. In case of a trauma, it would stand to certain reason that someone who is a regular donor would be better equipped to recover from this than someone who's never experienced blood loss before.

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You've picked up some interesting ideas from somewhere but my education is that they are false. Of course, as any good scientist I stand ready to change my position should I be presented with evidence. The idea of training for blood regeneration is wholly unsubstantiated by the scientific evidence.

Assuming functional spleen and liver, the human body is also exceptionally good at removing damaged red blood cells. Average life span given no RBC abnormalities is 120 days; there is no 'degradation' of oxygen carrying capacity that happens between a cell freshly minted and one nearing the end of its lifespan.

The human body has significant spare resources in the marrow waiting to spring into action and training is not necessary. Upon significant blood loss, (i.e. Secondary to trauma) regardless of the blood loss naive or the regular donor, reticulocytes (not completely differentiated red blood cells) are liberated from the marrow, 'early' as it were.

A blood donor gives less than an amount of blood that causes physiological changes, BY DESIGN.

Increased red cell production is governed by oxygen demand/oxygen thirst in a complex sensing mechanism by the body and regular donation barely tickles red cell production

Thanks, I appreciate your knowledge, and welcome the opportunity to update/correct my long held beliefs. I will seek to learn more about the process.

So basically the main benefit of donating would be for others; I'm still keeping my upcoming O- donation in my schedule. ;)

Yes, it's the altruistic component that has the long lasting value, however you are excising around 200mg of cells and proteins every time you donate - albumin, other blood proteins and of course cells. So in the long run I think about it as losing weight as well ;) not to mention the energetic anabolic endeavours your body must go through to rebuild all those macromolecules !

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