THEODORE DALRYMPLE: Should You Demand Fresh Blood For Your Next Transfusion? “Happily in the event, there was no difference in the outcome of the 2430 patients who took part in the trial. Fresh blood did not conduce to better survival than stored blood. Indeed, those patients who were given stored blood had a lower death rate, though not significantly so. The authors admit limitations to their study: their patients were a mixed lot, with many different conditions, and so the results may have concealed differences in sub-groups. Moreover, their fresh blood could have been still fresher, and that might have made a difference. If fresh blood were needed anywhere, you might suppose, it would be in cardiac surgery. But a second paper, American this time, that reported a trial in 1481 patients, showed the same thing: that fresh blood was not superior to stored. What stands to reason, or is thought on instinct to stand to reason, may not be so.”

That’s interesting. I had seen earlier studies showing that stored blood loses nitric oxide, and so when I give blood I take an extra arginine supplement in the morning to boost the nitric oxide in the blood when I donate.