Nitric Oxide in Stored Blood

[AOTANI, Masayasu]

Discovery That Stored Blood Loses a Life-Saving Gas Could Solve Mystery
Also: A 7-year-old listener asks how to help a friend with a genetic disorder called phenylketonuria, or PKU. Transcript of radio broadcast:
12 November 2007

 

VOICE ONE:

 

This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.  I'm Steve Ember.

 

VOICE TWO:

 

And I'm Pat Bodnar.  This week, we will tell about a gas that helps to carry oxygen from the blood.  We will also report on a British sleep study.  And we answer a question from Canada about a genetic disorder. 

 

(MUSIC)

 

VOICE ONE:

 

Scientists have discovered that stored blood loses a life-saving gas.  The discovery may explain why a great number of people get sick after receiving stored blood. 

 

In recent years, experts have wondered why patients who should survive sometimes die after receiving a blood transfusion.  The cause of death is often a heart attack or stroke.

 

VOICE TWO:

 

Jonathan Stamler is a professor of medicine at Duke University in North Carolina.  He and other researchers found that stored blood has very low levels of nitric oxide.  Nitric oxide is a gas found in red blood cells.  The gas helps to keep blood passages open so that oxygen in the red cells can reach the heart and other organs. 

 

Professor Stamler and his team found that nitric oxide in blood begins to break down as soon as the blood is collected.  Their findings were reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.  

 

VOICE ONE:

 

Another team of Duke University scientists carried out a separate study.  Professor Stamler says that study showed the breakdown of nitric oxide begins within hours of blood collection.  He says the life-saving gas is partly lost after three hours, and about seventy percent of it is lost after just one day.  As a result, he says, there is almost no time that stored blood has enough nitric oxide.

 

VOICE TWO:

 

Scientists tested their theory on dogs and found that low levels of nitric oxide reduced the flow of blood.  Professor Stamler says the scientists corrected the situation by adding nitric oxide to the stored blood.  He says the extra nitric oxide repaired the ability of red blood cells to expand blood passages.  He says blood when injected in animals does a very fine job of improving blood flow and getting oxygen to tissues. 

 

Professor Stamler says people who are in serious need of a blood transfusion should have one immediately.  But he says more studies are needed to show who would receive the most help from stored blood.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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