Hiba Iqbalabout 4 years ago

Milky Blood

The blood of a man was so loaded with fat that it turned milky in colour. According to a case report published Feb. 25 in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, the 39-year-old man had diabetes but wasn't taking his meds on a regular basis. With nausea, vomiting, headaches, and diminished awareness, he went to the emergency hospital. He had abnormally high levels of triglycerides, a form of fat, in his blood, according to tests. Triglyceride levels of less than 150 mg/dL are considered normal, while those of more than 500 mg/dL are deemed "extremely high." Triglyceride levels in the man's blood were over 14,000 mg/dL. Doctors attempted to remove the fat from the man's blood using a technique known as plasmapheresis. However, due to the abnormally high blood fat levels, the machine became clogged. To save that man's life, they went to bloodletting, or the manual extraction of blood. It appears to be one of the first occurrences of bloodletting to treat elevated triglyceride levels, known as hypertriglyceridemia, said by the authors. Originally published on Live Science.