Sticky Blood : From Blood Clots to Covid-19
Inside Health
BBC
4.4 • 575 Ratings
🗓️ 23 September 2020
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Thromboses - blood clots that form in the circulation - are easily the biggest single killer of British men and women. They affects people of all ages, races and ethnicities. Most strokes and heart attacks are caused by thromboses forming in the arteries supplying the heart or brain. But clots in the veins can be just as lethal, particularly when part of the clot breaks off and travels around the circulation and lodges in the lungs. Recently, the appearance of abnormal micro-clots in the lungs of severely affected Covid patients has highlighted the huge impact even tiny clots can have on our long term health and mortality. What more should be done to protect people from this misunderstood condition?
James Gallagher unravels the risks and causes for blood clots, from deep vein thrombosis to clots in the lungs. As he hears from patients, the surprise of a DVT diagnosis and debilitation can be profound. Treating clots is a delicate process with a need to get the balance right between thinning the blood but preventing bleeding. James examines the effectiveness of the latest range of anticoagulants that have a more predictable blood thinning effect, without the need for regular checks to make sure the blood’s not too thick or too thin.
The psychological effects of being diagnosed with thrombosis are often under reported. but in up to half the cases severe anxiety, depression and PTSD can arise. We hear of a major new study following the experiences of patients from their diagnosis to follow ups after treatment that explores how effectively they overcame the impact on their mental health of knowing they carried a blood clot.
And James Gallagher reports on the newly emerging relationship between Covid and clotting. It was back in April when the alarm was first sounded about abnormal blood clots in severe Covid cases. Research is shedding new light on the causes of the problem - sticky blood. In turn, this knowledge is offering up new ways to treat some of the major complications thrown up by the virus.
Presenter: James Gallagher Producer Adrian Washbourne
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Greg Jenna and good news, Your Dead to Me is back for a new series. Here we go. Yes, we'll explore Emperor Nero's notorious reign with Professor Marybeard and Patton Oswald. I would not want my daughter having the remote control, not alone an empire. We'll dissect the decadent life of Philippe Duke-Dor-Leon with Tom Allen. I've often tried to pretend I'm an aristocrat and being very quickly knocked down. And there'll be so much more with comedians like Olga Koch, Mike Mosniak and Rihalina. I'm excited. You're dead to me, the comedy podcast that takes history seriously. Listen first on BBC Sounds. You're listening to Inside Health, which was first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on the 22nd of September 2020. |
| 0:39.6 | I'm James Galaher, the BBC's Health and Science Correspondent, and we're devoting the whole |
| 0:44.1 | of this edition to blood clotting. This is partly due to COVID-19 as exceptionally sticky, |
| 0:50.9 | clot-prone blood has emerged as an unexpected symptom of the disease. But this process |
| 0:56.9 | is far bigger than COVID. The fact our blood clots is both life-saving and one of our biggest |
| 1:03.5 | killers. A clot is like a biological plumber fixing our leaking blood vessels. If you cut |
| 1:10.2 | yourself, it's the clot that stops you |
| 1:12.6 | bleeding to death. But clotting is a finely tuned process that can go wrong. Clots can form |
| 1:19.6 | where they shouldn't. Thromboces, clots inside our body's arteries and veins, can be deadly. |
| 1:25.8 | Those that form in the arteries around the heart or in the |
| 1:28.3 | brain can block the supply of oxygen. There, more commonly known as a heart attack or stroke. Clots |
| 1:35.2 | in the veins get less attention, but they can still be deadly when bits break off and lodge |
| 1:40.5 | elsewhere in the body. Let's find out more with Beverley Hunt, a professor of thrombosis and hemostasis at King's College London. |
| 1:48.2 | If you have a blood clot in an artery, |
| 1:51.8 | you will lose the blood supply to the area supplied by the artery. |
| 1:56.3 | So, for example, a stroke is when you block one of the arteries in your head and you lose the blood supply |
| 2:02.6 | to a piece of brain. Heart attack is when you block the blood supply in an artery to part of the |
| 2:09.6 | heart. And then you've got clots in vein, slightly different in that if you get a clot in the |
| 2:15.7 | deep vein of the leg, you won't lose your leg, |
| 2:19.6 | but that bit of leg that's drained by that vein will tend to get a bit swollen |
| 2:26.4 | and might turn blue or might have very few symptoms at the time. |
| 2:31.3 | And then the real problem with the deep vein thrombosis is that part of it |
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