Increased blood donation frequency ‘has no major side effects’

A new UK blood donation study has suggested that current guidelines on the frequency of donations could be changed with risk of negative health consequences.

At present, men in the UK are only allowed to donate every 12 weeks and women every 16 weeks, but the University of Cambridge study showed that reducing the interval may be feasible.

The research analysed 45,042 adult blood donors from 25 centres in England, with men split into three groups to give blood every 12, 10 or eight weeks, while women gave blood every 16, 14 or 12 weeks.

It was shown that reducing the interval between donations to eight weeks for men and 12 weeks for women had no major impact on the donors' quality of life, mental function or physical activity, while increasing the amount of blood collected over two years by 33 percent in males and 24 percent in females.

As such, the study highlights a potential means of addressing potential risks to blood stocks caused by increased demand and a lack of donors, as well as a way of improving stocks of universal and rarer blood groups.

Senior author Professor Dave Roberts at the University of Cambridge, said: "In the future we can use our results to predict which donation intervals suit individual donors and move towards personalised donation intervals." 

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