Credit: Gabriele Maltinti / EyeEm via Getty Images
January marks the start of a new year, but it is also National Blood Donor Month.
The beginning of the year is a critical period for those in need of blood transfusions as people tend to stop donating during the holiday season. The winter in general also experiences a dropoff as donors get sick more frequently.
With blood supplies running short, life-saving cancer treatments and surgeries like heart-transplants have to be pushed off.
Rodney Wilson, biomedical spokesperson at the American Red Cross, told Cheddar News that every two seconds someone in the U.S. needs a blood transfusion.
"It is a need that is coast to coast in every community across the country, and not enough people are donating. Only about 3 percent of the population has ever donated blood and yet most of us will need blood in our lifetime," Wilson said.
If you plan to donate blood, there are a few caveats to consider before heading to your local donation center. Participants must be at least 16 years old, weigh at least 110 lbs, and cannot donate more than six times a year with 56 days in between each donation.
The policy was changed again in 2020 shortly after the onset of the coronavirus pandemic when blood supplies were critically low to allow gay and bisexual men to donate if they hadn't engaged in sex with men in the last three months.
Thinking about trying a new diet but not sure which way to go? An evidence-based analysis of 10 popular eating patterns shows some promote heart health much better than others.
Camilla Marcus, founder of West-Bourne, joined Cheddar News to highlight the issue of wastefulness in the food industry and spoke on the importance of regenerative farming amid a growing climate crisis.
Melissa Whitely, personal trainer for Life Time Fitness, spoke with Cheddar News about the importance of recovery following a tense workout session. "If we're not going through the proper recovery methods, we can have undue pain, discomfort, tightness in our muscles and all those other things we can avoid," she said.
Dr. Payel Gupta, medical director of allergy, asthma, immunology & ENT for LifeMD.com, joined Cheddar News to discuss some tips on how to cope with allergy season. "With the warmer temperatures, we're seeing that the seasons arrive sooner and actually last longer, and also the elevated CO2 levels actually cause the plants to release more pollen," she said.
A new survey from the National Council for Mental Wellbeing shows that four in five behavioral health workers were concerned that labor shortages in their field “negatively impact society as a whole.”
Food and Drug Administration regulators on Tuesday approved a first-of-a-kind drug for a rare form of Lou Gehrig’s disease, though they are requiring further research to confirm it truly helps patients.
