Next year we’ll see the first results from a trial that has given young blood to people with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s in the hope that it will improve their symptoms.
There’s good reason to think it will. Years of animal experiments have shown that an infusion of young blood in older mice can improve their cognition, physical endurance and the health of several organs. It even makes them look younger.
The first few people to trial the procedure got their “taste” of young blood in 2014. It came in the form of a transfusion of blood donated by volunteers aged 30 or younger.
The team behind the trial hopes to see immediate improvements in cognition, but Tony Wyss-Coray at Stanford School of Medicine in California, who is leading the study, cautions that the procedure is very experimental. For that reason, it’s probably best to avoid private clinics that have already started offering to turn back the years in a similar manner.
What makes young blood so revitalising is unclear, but we are starting to get a handle on some candidates. For instance, a transfusion of young blood can reverse heart decline in old mice, an effect that can be mimicked by giving mice just GDF11 – a growth factor in the blood that decreases with age.
When Wyss-Coray’s team injected young human blood into old mice he says they saw “astounding effects”. We have our fingers crossed for a similar reaction next year.
First results from human young blood rejuvenation trial expected
16 December 2015
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Dracula was on to something. The idea that blood from the young can rejuvenate an ageing human body might not be too far from the truth
