Heavy Drinking

Audio commentary available on the Flash Cast Podcast.

Several years ago I took a trip to London, purely for pleasure, to briefly experience life on the other side of the pond. I made a point of chatting up the natives in hopes of gaining a little knowledge of local customs, points of interests and foods. One of the food items I was encouraged to try was something called black pudding. You’re thinking chocolate, right? Me too. Boy was I in for a surprise. Wikipedia gives us this description of black pudding:

Black pudding, blood pudding or blood sausage is a type of sausage made by cooking blood or dried blood with a filler until it is thick enough to congeal when cooled.

Sound disgusting? It was. Truly one of the most disturbing things I’ve ever put into my mouth, let alone swallowed. All day long, no matter how many pints of local brew I consumed I just couldn’t rinse the metallic taste of blood from my tongue. It made me think of the folks out there who fancy themselves vampires and actually drink the stuff fresh from the tap. I can only imagine how their breath must smell.

As it turns out, there are serious risks in drinking blood. Since the Halloween season is upon us, I thought we might explore this topic a little farther. Here’s a story just in from lifeslittlemysteries.com :

Recently a 19-year-old Texas man named Lyle Bensley allegedly broke into a woman’s apartment and bit her on the neck. This was not bedroom playacting between lovers; Bensley claimed to be a centuries-old vampire who needed blood to stay alive. The woman escaped and called police, and Lyle the would-be vampire was arrested for assault.

With such a high interest in vampires these days — they’re all over television, movies, and bookstore shelves — many people may be wondering if humans really can survive as vampires. But is it safe to drink blood?

In very small amounts (say, a few teaspoons), and if the blood is free from pathogens (such as the many blood-borne diseases), blood might not harm you. Beyond that, watch out.

The strange fact is, blood, when drank, is toxic. When confined to places where blood is supposed to be — such as the heart, vessels, and so on — it is essential for life. But when ingested it’s a very different story. Of course all toxins have doses, and just as a tiny bit of poison won’t necessarily harm you, the more you eat or drink, the greater the danger.

Because blood is so rich in iron — and because the body has difficulty excreting excess iron — any animal that consumes blood regularly runs a risk of iron overdose. While iron is necessary for all animals (and indeed most life), in high doses it can be toxic. This condition, called haemochromatosis, can cause a wide variety of diseases and problems, including liver damage, buildup of fluid in the lungs, dehydration, low blood pressure, and nervous disorders.

The bodies of animals that digest blood have adapted specialized digestive mechanisms. According to Katherine Ramsland in her book “The Science of Vampires” (Penguin Putnam, 2002) the vampire bat, “requires an enormous intake of iron, which helps make hemoglobin for carrying oxygen from the lungs to the body tissues. Yet the iron intake is generally higher than what the bat needs, so it has a special process for secreting the excess. When ingested, the blood goes through a tract that’s adapted for extracting nutrients. Research on this system suggests that bats have a mucous membrane along the intestinal tract that acts as a barrier to prevent too much iron from getting into their bloodstreams.”

You, however, are not a vampire bat. Because humans did not evolve such an iron-extracting mechanism, drinking blood can kill us.

Feel free to participate in the vampire craze and goth subcultures, but if you’re thinking of sampling human blood, make sure there’s a doctor handy — for you, not your victim.

I’m Jeffrey Lynch and that’s this week’s Spot Of Bother.

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