Donating Kidneys Does Not Shorten Life Span

Donating a kidney to somebody who needs one to live has been proven not to reduce a person’s life span.

This is the finding of a study appearing in the March 10 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The study is based on the health records of more than 80,000 kidney donors spanning the years of 1994 to 2009.

Researchers compared overall mortality rates of these donors to a group of control subjects, to determine if donors were at increased risk of early death.

They noted that within the first year of the surgery to remove a kidney, the risk of death was slightly higher in this group, but after a year, the risk was null.

It is estimated that each year in America, 6000 people donate a kidney to somebody who needs one, and the wait list for a kidney is greater than 80,000.

• Share
• Tweet
• "&title=""">