donating blood to lower cholesterol?

that would be the opposite of blood doping...Why would you want to reduce your performance?

stormer94 said:

Oddball thought I was having. is it possible to lower my LDL by donating blood? My theory is that you are giving up some old tired blood, and body makes new to replace it.

So, just how out of the loop is my theory?

That said, according to my doctors, my HDL is great, and kind of outweighs the LDL, so I'm not high risk. BUT my LDL is higher than some.

I dunno. Anybody??!

Thanks for reading and replying.
-Bob

Bob, excellent thought. Though it hasn't been practiced in years, cyclists from the early times -- around the 70s -- would routinely use leaches to "drain off" unwanted blood before and during races. If you look at the pictures from that era, often you'll notice small black blotches on the riders arms, legs and necks.

I had some of those images enlarged on my computer system at home in the Helmut Cave by my assistant, Otto. He'd point at an area on the photo and I'd say "Enhance... Enhance... Enhance..." until you could see perfectly that the black blotch was actually a blood sucking leaches.

Also, removing parts of the body not involved with cycling was also en-vogue for a while. Armstrong, for example, rode with only one testicle. But other riders used to routinely remove an ear or a couple toes or a finger and then sew them back on after the race to elude doping control since removing body parts for the explicit purpose of enhancing performance is banned by WADA. Removing testicle is extreme, but that only proves Lance's dedication to the sport. They call him Mr. Milimeter for several reasons. This is one of them.

Cholesterol is made by your liver and is stored in the body in more places than just in the blood. The plasma is the window where cholesterol is measured, and cholesterol in the plasma is in equilibrium with that in the rest of the body. When you remove a pint of blood, the cholesterol will re-equilibrate rapidly, and the liver will make more.

The bottom line is that removing a pint of blood will have no significant impact on the amount of cholesterol in the body. Your body will replace cholesterol faster than it can replace the lost red blood cells.

RickF said:

Cholesterol is made by your liver and is stored in the body in more places than just in the blood. The plasma is the window where cholesterol is measured, and cholesterol in the plasma is in equilibrium with that in the rest of the body. When you remove a pint of blood, the cholesterol will re-equilibrate rapidly, and the liver will make more.

The bottom line is that removing a pint of blood will have no significant impact on the amount of cholesterol in the body. Your body will replace cholesterol faster than it can replace the lost red blood cells.

Well, if that's accurate, so much for that great idea... What about donating plasma???

What about if you are eating better than you used to, and "in theory" your cholesterol is lower, and your blood has all the bad stuff in it from back when you spent to much time in McDonalds...?

Dietary cholesterol accounts for 10% to 30% of the total. The majority of the cholesterol is made by the liver. Donating plasma has a limited effect because the body is going to replace what is removed faster than you can donate plasma. In patients with familial hyperlipidemia (severly high cholesterol due to too much production by the liver), plasmaphoresis can be helpful. Unlike donating blood or plasma, plasmaphoresis "washes" the plasma of cholesterol continuously for several hours and returns the plasma, minus the cholesterol, back to the body. During this process, the entire volume of plasma can be "washed" several times over. Plasmaphoresis must be performed every three days or so to have a meaningful effect. Within a few days to weeks of stopping the plasmaphoresis, cholesterol will return to what it was.

As far as the MacDonald’s meal you consumed, within four to six weeks of changing your diet for the better, you will achieve the maximum benificial effect on plasma cholesterol. It will take much longer (six months to several years) of eating well to achieve the maximum effect in terms of removing atherosclerotic plaque from the blood vessels, but donating plasma or blood is not going to have an impact.

Without taking drugs to control cholesterol, diet will lower cholesterol by 10% to 30%, exercise will lower the bad cholesterol and raise the good cholesterol (HDL cholesterol) by up to 30%, and weight loss if your percent body fat is above normal, will have beneficial effect, but some people just have bad genes. If it is in the genes to have bad cholesterol, then the only thing that is going to help is a 3-hydroxy-3-methyl-glutaryl-CoA reductase (HMG CoA reductase) inhibitor such as Lipitor (atorvastatin), Crestor (rosuvastatin), etc. There are no shortcuts.

stormer94 said:

Well, if that's accurate, so much for that great idea... What about donating plasma???

What about if you are eating better than you used to, and "in theory" your cholesterol is lower, and your blood has all the bad stuff in it from back when you spent to much time in McDonalds...?

a good question, iv made over 100 plasma donnations and hav'nt thought that deep about it, put the question to a couple of nurses or (somone that knows) when you next donnate. sticking to a good diet is the answer to lowering cholesterol in the first place as we all know.We are told not to eat fatty foods 12hours before donnating.the fatty product can be seen in the recovery plasma bag, you might be onto somthing.

Sounds like RickF knows his stuff. 🙂

Well, sounds like I should just continue to eat right and do my thing. Was hoping there was an additional thinkg I could add.

Many thanks.
-Bob