Whether You Can Get Cholesterol From a Blood Transfusion

Joe: Hi! My name is Joe and I'm from Bangor, Maine. I want to know, can you obtain high cholesterol from blood transfusion?

Dr. Stacy Higgins: Joe that’s a really interesting question. So when someone donates blood, the blood when it gets to the blood bank is really separated into three different parts. The first part is the red blood cells, which carry oxygen, the plasma, and the platelets. Cholesterol which is mainly made in the liver is stored in the plasma. When a person gets a blood transfusion typically what they're getting are the red cells. So those red cells will help to deliver oxygen to the muscle, but the red cells don’t contain the cholesterol which again is stored in the plasma.

A person’s own cholesterol is made in the liver and is really determined by the diet, so if you have a high fat diet, things with a lot of fried foods or meats with a lot of fat in them, as well as obesity will increase your cholesterol. But thankfully you typically don’t get high cholesterol from a transfusion.


Transcription by: Scribe4you Transcription Services