Can Baby Blood Reverse Aging?
Scientists have recently discovered that transfusions of young plasma can rejuvenate older mice. Unlike the Bathory legend and Voronoff’s transplanted glands, these experiments do not constitute pseudoscience.
Umbilical cord blood protein may be responsible. When researchers injected it into older mice, they became faster at learning mazes and displayed enhanced hippocampal activity.
1. It Rejuvenates the Brain
Researchers have discovered that injecting young blood back into old animals can help them shed fattiness and fibrosis from their livers, foster muscle cell proliferation, foster formation of new neurons in the brain, improve cognition and memory functions and slow aging processes such as oxidative stress and neuroinflammation. Young blood’s rejuvenating properties have been associated with GDF11, TIMP2 and Klotho proteins; injecting these proteins can boost muscle cell expansion while simultaneously improving brain function while slowing progression of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.
Stanford University researchers recently conducted research that demonstrated blood from newborn babies can have profound anti-ageing properties. By injecting plasma (the liquid component of blood) from three life stages into older mice, those that received plasma from newborns experienced dramatic improvements. Their performance improved greatly when learning and remembering maze pathways; this increase coincided with increased activity levels within their hippocampi–an area crucial for memory and learning processes.
Scientists are conducting studies to understand exactly why young blood can have rejuvenating effects. One difficulty lies in its complex cellular mechanisms that cause aging; many overlap with each other and some soluble factors found in young blood may both improve and impair cognitive performance as well as influence whether neurons form new connections.
Villeda and his colleagues are using single-cell RNA sequencing to compare gene expression before and after being exposed to young or old blood to help explain what’s happening. Their initial investigations indicate that certain types of cells respond particularly to rejuvenating effects of young blood, including adipose mesenchymal stromal cells, hematopoietic stem cells and liver cells.
2. It Reverses Age-Related Memory Loss
Scientists recently found that injecting young blood into old mice made them healthier, stronger and smarter. Furthermore, their maze navigation improved and their hippocampuses, responsible for spatial memory function, showed greater activity than before.
Scientists have since realized that this phenomenon is attributable to various factors, including TIMP2 protein levels in older mice declining over time compared with younger ones. When TIMP2 levels are replaced with new plasma from younger animals, performance improves substantially.
Other proteins, like oxytocin (which is prevalent in younger individuals and umbilical cord plasma), reduce muscle atrophy and improve cognitive function in older mice. GDF11 increases stem cells while creating new connections between neurons; both proteins have shown to have rejuvenating properties in animals.
Osteocalcin (OCN), an immune-rejuvenating protein found in young blood and umbilical cord plasma, plays an integral part in cell maintenance and regeneration; its infusion can increase bone density as well as reverse muscle atrophy in older mice.
While these experiments may be promising, it remains uncertain whether baby blood can effectively rejuvenate human bodies and prevent disease. Due to FDA regulation of blood transfusions that requires doctors to be licensed before offering infusions to healthy people for payment; thus preventing companies like Alkahest from offering it infusing baby blood to healthy people for money. Still, Alkahest is raising funds for its Phase 3 clinical trial on Alzheimer’s, while testing its effects against other diseases; its completion is scheduled for 2021.
3. It Reverses Age-Related Muscle Loss
Experiments conducted by researchers who surgically connected the circulatory systems of old and young mice found that transplanted blood from younger animals rejuvenated older ones, leading them to believe there may be an anti-ageing elixir lurking within younger blood, thus reverseing aging processes by reinfusing it back into an aged body. This phenomenon, known as parabiosis, led some scientists to speculate there might be something of value hidden there that could reverse aging processes by simply reinstating young blood into older bodies.
Researchers’ findings have created a gold rush among entrepreneurs selling plasma infusions from young donors to treat various health conditions, such as multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s and heart disease. Unfortunately, however, the FDA advises against such unproven therapies.
Rando and Wyss-Coray have set out to identify what it is about young blood that restores muscle and brain tissue in older animals. Their researchers have identified several proteins as being particularly significant: GDF11 is thought to aid cell division and regeneration of new tissue; TIMP2 promotes muscle repair while decreasing inflammation; while Osteocalcin is associated with bone formation and mineralization.
The team also found that heterochronic parabiosis – which typically happens during gestation – slows the aging process in mothers. This suggests that blood factors might be to blame and even raises the possibility that some form of anti-ageing could lie within maternal antibodies circulating during gestation. Research is underway to understand how antibodies affect cell activity, and whether drugs that destroy senescent cells mimic their beneficial effects; eventually the team hopes to develop safe and effective treatment protocols suitable for human clinical trials.
4. It Reverses Age-Related Weight Gain
Scientists have successfully rejuvenated aged mice using blood from young animals. In one experiment, veins from two mice were connected so that their circulatory systems shared, and when exposed to each other’s blood, an older one experienced revitalization as it passed from younger to old – this phenomenon is known as parabiosis.
Researchers are making strides toward understanding what in the blood of young animals has the rejuvenating effect. GDF11 protein may hold some clues; in particular it inhibits production of an enzyme involved with aging process which allows more cell division and increases rejuvenation rates.
GDF11 is just one of many proteins found in blood that could have an anti-ageing effect, with studies pointing towards other proteins like TIMP2 as having the power to delay or even reverse aging processes. Finding an ideal combination of factors that will work together can actually reverse it!
Scientists may one day uncover what makes young animal blood so beneficial, so as to replicate its effectiveness in human patients. But this research does come with risks: severe allergic reactions could occur and young blood may simply not work at all for people.
But if it does work, Wyss-Coray believes a much stronger brew than natural plasma will be necessary to revive an individual. He suggests using a concentrated mix of 10-20 pro-youthful molecules combined with antibodies to neutralize any ageing factors present in their old blood – similar to what occurs during gestation.
5. It Reverses Age-Related Cancer
Researchers have discovered that replacing old blood cells with younger ones can slow the aging process in certain tissues, although this kind of heterochronic parabiosis only works with certain cell types and doesn’t address many other mechanisms that contribute to aging. A more targeted approach involves drugs like dasatinib – approved to treat certain cancers – and quercetin, an antioxidant dietary supplement available commercially — both of which have shown great promise in targeting and eliminating senescent cells which accelerate cell aging.
By surgically connecting the circulatory systems of young and elderly mice in this way, surgery reversibly rejuvenates their organs while also reversing brain aging by decreasing production of certain proteins that inhibit tissue function disruptions. Mice exposed to young blood show improved cognition, reduced cell senescence rates and greater blood-brain barrier integrity.
However, these results should be treated with healthy skepticism, since they are based on mouse studies and no significant beneficial effects have ever been demonstrated in humans. Meanwhile, Wyss-Coray has received emails from Alzheimer’s patients seeking infusions of young blood as well as elderly billionaires interested in financing this Fountain of Youth.
Wyss-Coray hopes that these promising experiments can be leveraged by formulating a concentrated blend of pro-youthful factors mixed with antibodies that neutralise harmful proteins that accumulate over time and neutralising these harmful proteins through antibodies. He can then formulate this product so it rejuvenates human cells with minimal side effects – something he hopes can happen within a short period, though finding funding and partners for clinical trials will likely be required in order to do it successfully.
