After allowing an under achieved 17 year old to pierce two holes into my precious six year old body I have known about my fainting problem.  I cannot remember a time I have gotten a shot, blood drawn, viewed a gory scene, or overheard a tragic story of blood loss that has not sent me plummeting to the ground, unconscious to the world until my body decided it is ready to come back to life. I have always felt it is unfair I will never get to watch Grey’s Anatomy or Nip Tuck, shows my friends adore and binge on. It also fascinates me that my mom, aunt and sister are all nurses and actually look at that horrid sight of blood day in and day out.  I now question why only certain people faint at the sight of blood?

In my earlier post, Ahhhh Spider!, I explored the connection between arachnophobia, the fear of spiders, and our ancient ancestors that were forced to develop an awareness to spiders in order to survive. I research how a certain awareness to spiders has been genetically passed on. It is believed that fainting as well as vasovagal syncope, when the body over reacts to certain triggers such as blood, is also something that we have developed from our cavemen ancestors.

Dr. Fredrick Jaeger is both the Director of the Cardiac Arrhythmia Monitoring Lab and Medical Director of the Syncope Center at the Cleveland Clinic. Jaeger has vastly studied vasovagal syncope and believes it is a reflex in certain humans genetics that we automatically trigger as a form of self-preservation when injured.  When you faint your blood pressure and heart rate fall giving your body the opportunity to slow bleeding while also making the body lay vertical, so more oxygen can get to the brain. “If you’re a caveman and another caveman comes over and cuts your arm off, the sight of blood or injury may cause you to faint. So when you’re lying there on the ground, you’ll look like you’re dead to the other cavemen and he won’t cut your head off,” explains Dr. Jaeger on how fainting during ancestral times had its benefits.

Strong debate still exists to determine if this fainting phenomenon has been acquired in all humans. It is easy for me to understand why this deliberation exist and not all scientist feel faiting is passed genetically. My grandfather has been a fainter his whole life, with extensive stories of when he has dropped. My oldest sister Danielle is also known to faint in hot weather and dehydration, but neither of them have ever hit the floor due to the sight of blood or needles like me. So, yes, fainting does run in our family, but for unrelated reasoning.

What often leads the fainting from genetics debate is the possibility of a gene that can lead to fainting. For example the medical journal, Neurology, published a study done by Samul F. Berkovic from the University of Melbourne “that reviewed 44 families that have a history of fainting, and found genetic patterns that could be traced through generations.” Researchers were able to take the results from the families to focus on chromosome 15 which they believe could give an explanation to why so many individuals faint.  “In some families it’s [vasovagal syncope] transmitted as a dominant trait, which means every relative has a 50-50 chance of inheriting it.” Although it is hard for me to not take note that Berkovic said ‘some families’, this leads me to question all other families. If fainting was truly caused by our genetics that were developed by our ancient ancestors wouldn’t it make sense for most humans to be susceptible to fainting? Not just the 40% of people that will faint at some point in their lifetime. I also question this because if fainting was truly a survival technique like Jaeger claims wouldn’t only the strongest survive due to the theory of evolution and those that failed to faint for protection die out.

I noticed Berkovic’s fails to mention details on the families that participated in his study besides their shared history of fainting. I believe it is important to know more about the demographics of these families. Since Berkovic never states that his study was randomized I do not know if age, gender, or socio-economic status could play any role in Berkovic’s results.

Even if genetics truly plays a factor in a person’s likelihood to faint it still doesn’t explain why blood is so hard for people, like me, to stay vertical to.  I think a potential answer is an intense phobia of blood. Hemophobia, despite how irrational it may be, is a learned response on how you handle blood. This could also be due to something traumatic that happened as a child that has left a person scarred. I make fun of how easily I faint from being hemophobic, but to others having this fear can lead into deep depression or similar mental illness.

Science could be observing fainting from the wrong direction.  I have considered reverse causation to possibly provide an answer to why people faint at the sight of blood. What if people weren’t prone to fainting from how anxious blood makes them, which then leads to a decrease in blood pressure and heart rate and then actually fainting. Instead it was that a person is anxious because they have a learned response to seeing blood and immediately fainting? There needs to be greater research into the characteristics of an individual in a family that faints more often than other members, as well as if gender, race and age can be correlated to fainting so that researchers can gain more knowledge into what specifically causes individuals to drop.

Unfortunately, I can not provide my readers with a clear explanation to why blood causes you to faint, or a quick fix to your blood phobia so that you can finally watch Grey’s Anatomy. There needs to be more research done at a greater size to one day provide those answers. Some may see benefits to their fear of blood as never feeling the pressure to go pre-med, or having an excuse to why you will one day accidentally miss the birth of your sister’s child. Although the possible injury and disease associated with fainting is good enough reason to stay far away from blood.