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Monday, December 30, 2013

Amazingly, There's a Disease that Bloodletting Cures!

My brother-in-law recently came home for a family gathering and stayed at our house. He was sick as a dog with the flu, and during the gathering he dropped a bombshell: he has hemochromatosis, and urged his brothers and sisters to get tested for it.

Hemochromatosis is a genetic disease, more common in northern Europeans, especially among the Irish, affecting as much as 0.5% of the white population in the United States (with a 1 in 8 or 10 chance for carriers of the genetic mutation). Sometimes called the Irish Disease or the Celtic Curse, hemochromatosis causes iron to concentrate in the joints, liver, endocrine system, heart and pancreas. This can cause arthritis, diabetes, cirrhosis, testicular failure and heart problems.

It affects men more than women, at least until menopause. That means there's actually a good thing about having periods if you have this disease.

Hemochromatosis can also cause your skin to turn a bronze color, which may mean that John Boehner has a medical problem, instead of a fixation on tanning beds.

The interesting thing about the disease is the treatment: bloodletting! Bloodletting is usually scorned as an egregious example of foolish medical treatments: George Washington's doctors killed him by bleeding him of almost a gallon of blood in 10 hours. Of course, he had a throat infection, so his doctors were idiots.

Phlebotomy (as it's now called) is still the best treatment for hemochromatosis. Even better, that blood isn't simply wasted nowadays: it can be donated to others.

Bloodletting might have also had a few other positive effects. It can lower blood pressure by reducing volume, and it can reduce fluid overload in heart failure. For the most part, however, it was no better than a placebo, and probably hurt many more people than it helped, not least of all because of the terrible infections you can get from opening a vein with unsterilized instruments.

The lesson to be learned is that all of us are different: a treatment that works wonders for one person can be deadly for another. That goes for bloodletting, as well as chemotherapy, blood pressure and other medications, as well as diets and even vitamins.

In medicine one size does not fit all.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Leeches are also used in modern medicine for targeted bloodletting. They can be particularly helpful in promoting healing where clotting would be counterproductive due to the anticoagulant the leeches release.

And if that weren't enough, maggots are also used by doctors.