PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Karlijn Peffer
AU  - Martin den Heijer
AU  - Wim L A M de Kort
AU  - André L M Verbeek
AU  - Femke Atsma
TI  - Cardiovascular risk in 159 934 frequent blood donors while addressing the healthy donor effect
AID  - 10.1136/heartjnl-2018-314138
DP  - 2019 Apr 08
TA  - Heart
PG  - heartjnl-2018-314138
4099  - http://heart.bmj.com/content/early/2019/04/08/heartjnl-2018-314138.short
4100  - http://heart.bmj.com/content/early/2019/04/08/heartjnl-2018-314138.full
AB  - Objective To investigate whether regular blood donation decreases cardiovascular risk.Methods All 159 934 Dutch whole-blood donors with an active donation career of at least 10 years were categorised into sex-specific donation tertiles based on the number of donations during this 10-year qualification period. Cardiovascular endpoints were based on hospital discharge diagnoses and death certificates from Dutch Hospital Data and Statistics Netherlands and occurring after the 10-year qualification period. Cox regression was used to estimate the age-adjusted and starting year-adjusted hazard rate ratio (HRR).Results Female high-frequency blood donors had a reduced cardiovascular morbidity (HRR=0.91, 95% CI 0.85 to 0.98) compared with low-frequency blood donors. No effect was observed in men (HRR=1.00, 95% CI 0.95 to 1.05). To rule out a residual healthy donor effect (HDE), additional sensitivity analyses using a 5-year qualification period were conducted. The results supported the absence of a residual HDE.Conclusions This study showed a protective effect of long-term, high-frequency blood donation against cardiovascular disease. This effect was only observed in women and not in men.