• @[email protected]
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    301 month ago

    Donating plasma works even better. They extract a larger volume of fluids per session, twice a week instead of once every 8 weeks.

    Don’t worry about the recipient: If you are donating plasma regularly, your PFAS levels will be well below average.

    • @[email protected]
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      171 month ago

      Huh, I thought that they only filtered your blood when donating plasma, hence the PFAS could simply be returned to you. But I have to admit that I’m far from an expert on this matter.

      Either way, we kinda have returned to bloodletting being a reasonable medical approach.

      • @[email protected]
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        181 month ago

        They centrifuge your blood and return the RBCs, but the PFAS hangs out in the plasma. Mostly. If there was much in the red blood cells, the liver would be removing it and you’d be pooping it out.

    • @[email protected]
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      141 month ago

      A woman having a child is the biggest reduction. Make of that what you will. I sure hope the placenta, and not the baby, is getting the remainder. But I am guessing both.

    • @[email protected]
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      101 month ago

      Here’s a source for anyone interested. I just tested my well water where I’m at and it’s 10x over the legal EPA limit :( . Might be testing my blood next and heading to the plasma donation center!

    • @[email protected]
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      1 month ago

      wait are you guys serious? I know about microplastics and pfas in us but is it a fact donating helps to get rid of some?

      • @[email protected]
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        1 month ago

        For PFAS, yes, definitely. They’ve done studies on this, some are linked elsewhere in the thread. PFAS in the bloodstream is removed through either whole blood or plasma donation.

        For microplastics, I can’t say with absolute certainty, as I don’t know the concentration of microplastics in the blood, or if replacement blood/plasma contains microplastics. But, the mechanism is the same: extract polluted fluids; allow body to replace with non-polluted fluids. Concentration of pollution falls.

    • Zagorath
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      91 month ago

      Wait, you can donate plasma two times in one week where you are? That feels kinda insane.

      In Australia it’s 12 weeks for whole blood and 2 weeks for plasma. Or 4 weeks for switching from whole blood to plasma.

      • @[email protected]
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        81 month ago

        It’s so much worse than you realize. All blood and plasma must be obtained by “donation” for obvious ethical reasons, but American prisoners get incentives for participation/punishment for non-participation. Private American medical companies make billions of dollars in profit every year selling blood on the international market, but the prisoners don’t see a dime of it. The sellers are so unscrupulous that they have been caught knowingly selling tainted prisoner blood, and continuing to do so after being caught.

        • @[email protected]
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          1 month ago

          The events you’re talking about occurred from the 1970’s to 1983. They haven’t done prison blood drives or accepted plasma from prisoners in over 40 years.

          If you’ve spent more than 72 hours incarcerated, you are ineligible to donate blood products for 12 months.

          • @[email protected]
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            11 month ago

            Not OP, but I was unaware of that. That must have caused most all the AIDS that was caught through transfusions.

      • @[email protected]
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        71 month ago

        Yep! US allows plasma donation up to two times per week, with at least 48 hours between donations.

        Can’t donate plasma or blood for 8 weeks after donating whole blood, or 16 weeks after donating packed RBCs.

        Packed RBCs are basically the reverse of plasma donation. Instead of returning the RBCs and keeping the plasma, they take two units of RBCs and return the plasma.