"Living organ donation may actually increase a donor’s life expectancy"???!!!

[Clark]

http://www.nj.com/healthfit/index.ssf/2014/05/nj_kidney_program_pairs_living_donors_and_recipients_creating_chain_of_life.html

NJ kidney program pairs living donors with recipients, creating chain of life
By Susan Bloom

Though registered nurse Barbara Miller has spent the past 13 years working in a dialysis facility, an even more personal reason led the 57-year-old Sparta resident to donate one of her own kidneys last December.

"My 4-year-old grandson, Daniel, lost kidney function as an infant and was on peritoneal dialysis," she said.

After receiving a kidney from a family member in September 2012, "it was amazing to see the incredible change that came over him," she said. "He's doing great now, and that was the spark for me — I just wanted to give back in light of the wonderful gift Daniel had gotten."

Miller became one of nearly 150 individuals annually to donate a kidney through the Living Donor Institute at Saint Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, and hers was one of 6,000 living kidney donations performed nationwide each year, according to the National Kidney Registry.

...

While there is no mechanism for the medical community to solicit living donors except through educational campaigns, Mulgaonkar said the process involves less-invasive surgery and quicker recovery times than ever before.

"In fact," he added, "studies even suggest that living organ donation may actually increase a donor's life expectancy due to the psychological reward."

N.B.: I created an account so I could comment on this:

Clark 4 minutes ago
The final quote from Dr. Mulgaonkar is provocative, "In fact, studies even suggest that living organ donation may actually increase a donor's life expectancy due to the psychological reward." No one else I know of has ever made such a claim, and I find no supporting research. What are the citation references for these studies? Will you hold Dr. Mulgaonkar accountable for this potentially harmful misstatement if such peer reviewed literary support does not exist?

[Michael]

Wow. That's an extraordinary claim.