Drinking Blood – How Safe Is It?

Drinking blood can lead to serious problems

Vampires are very much in the spotlight these days, thanks to the numerous novels and movies that have appeared and that have taken over the young people’s minds.

The most recent event, which shows how much impact these movies and books have on the young minds, happened in Texas, where a 19-year old boy, named Lyle Bensley broke into a woman’s apartment and bit her on the neck. Although this may sound as a little bedroom playacting, the things are more serious than that, given that the young boy claims to be a centuries-old vampire who needs his blood in order to survive the day. Fortunately, the woman got a chance to escape from the young man’s hands and called the police and Lyle Bensley was taken in for assault.

As said before, with everything that is happening right now, with this vampire frenzy, people actually got to thinking whether humans can live as vampires do, by drinking blood. But a very important questions rises – how safe is it to drink blood? The answer to that? Well, it seems that if the blood is free of pathogens (these pathogens are represented by blood-born diseases) and if it is drunk in small amounts like say, a few teaspoons, it may not be able to harm you. Otherwise, you should be really careful.

It is a widely known fact that blood is essential for life when it comes to being confined to places where it actually is supposed to be, like the heart or the vessels, but when it is ingested, things are a bit different – it is like drinking poison. Of course, a small amount will not do you any harm, but the more you drink it, the bigger the danger you are exposed to. Another important fact is that blood is very rich in iron and although all life forms need iron in order to survive, the human body has difficulties getting the excess out of the system and that is when a condition called haemochromatosis appears. This condition can lead to a very wide range of problems, such as liver damage, low blood pressure, dehydration and even nervous disorders.

In contrast to the human body, animals have developed a specialized digestive mechanism, which helps them get rid of the iron excess. In contrast to vampire bats, we do not have such systems developed into our bodies, which would help us get rid of the excess of iron which comes with the blood ingested. As you can imagine, drinking too much blood can only lead to one thing – death.11