Risk of illness, hospitalization and death in a cohort of blood donors in Italy.

The article discusses a study which compared the risk of disease, hospitalization and death between blood donors (BDs) and non blood donors (nBDs) in Italy. Topics discussed include higher age of death, lower mortality rates and shorter length-of-stay in hospitals among BDs, no link observed between blood donation and the increased risk of malignancies, and comparison of Charlson comorbidity index score between BDs and nBDs.