Drinking beer after

Blood-letting, bad

TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol, November 9, (PIA)—In appreciation to somebody who volunteered to donate blood for our patients, we give them a bottle of beer, to recover, at least. Right?

Wrong.

Nurse Milagros Israel, blood services coordinator at the Provincial Health Office said drinking beer after blood donation may not be a very good practice and could be bad for the donor.

Beer, like any alcohol is more diuretic, and it acts on the kidneys making one urinate more than your usual take in, according to Professor Oliver James, Head of Clinical Medical Sciences at Newcastle University.

His study also noted that for every gram of alcohol drunk, urine excretion increases by 10ml.

Moreover, messes the body and reduces the production of vasopressin hormones. These tell your kidneys to reabsorb water rather than flush it out through the bladder. With the body's natural signal switched off, the bladder is free to fill up with fluid.

And why is this bad?

According to healthline.com, around half of the blood you donate is made of water. This means you'll want to be fully hydrated before you donate.

And when you lose fluids during the blood donation process, your blood pressure can drop, leading to dizziness.

With this in the offing, drinking beer which could facilitate the release of more fluids, a donor who will have beer may be at a position when it could take a longer time for him to recover the lost blood fluids than necessary.

This would then run contrary to the intention, that medical practitioners would rather call drinking beer after bleeding a myth.

Furthermore, health authorities say the recommended period between donations is three to four months.

This just means that one can line up for blood donation three or four months after the last bleeding, Israel shared during the Kapihan sa PIA this week.

And while different blood components take different lengths of time to replenish, the fresh whole blood volume is usually restored within ten minutes.

Upon blood donation, blood collection facilities would get a fresh whole blood (FWB), which can be broken down into its components, as needed by a patient.

For anemic patients, a blood component called packed red blood cells (PRBC) is needed, and this component can be separated from an FWB by centrifugation and the removal of most of the plasma, another blood component.  

Plasma is another blood component, often referred to as fresh frozen plasma (FFP) which is beneficial to a wide variety of patients including cancer and leukemia patients, those undergoing liver transplants, bone marrow transplants, and severe burn patients, while hemophilia patients need donated plasma for clotting.

Platelets are tiny cells in your blood that form clots and stop bleeding. These are essential to surviving and fighting cancer, chronic diseases, and traumatic injuries. These do not last long though, and these must be used within five days.

Plasma taken from the body can be recovered within 24 hours, platelets within 72 hours and red blood cells in two to four weeks. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)

NOT BEERY GOOD. Nurse Milagros Israel bared the myth that giving out beer to blood donors may not be the best idea after all. Beer is diuretic and may cause one to frequently pee, triggering dehydration, which is bad for one who has donated blood. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)