Highlights
- Using young blood to help slow down the process of aging has been explored since 1950s.
- Recently, a clinical trial has been launched in California where the blood plasma of young people is infused in older adults.
- A single infusion of a two-litre bag of plasma will cost patients $10,500.
- Health experts warn that the procedure is just a marketing gimmick.
Since the 1950s, the notion of using young blood to help slow down the process of aging has been explored, when researcher Clive M. McCay joined old and young rats together by stitching the skin on their flanks.
This process, known as parabiosis, saw their circulatory systems becoming joined, which made the cartilage of the older rat appear more youthful than it would otherwise. There have been countless studies since McCay’s research, with more recent research also showing positive results.
In 2011, researchers found young blood administered to old rats resulted in a burst of new neurons in the hippocampus, the region of the brain that forms memories. In 2013, a paper published in Cell, said that while a component in young blood, GDF11 increased muscle strength, other researchers were unable to replicate it.
"In our study, circulation between the young and old mouse was maintained for nearly four weeks," says Amy Wagers, a professor of regenerative biology at Harvard University and an author of the Cell report.
Karmazin said he believed these studies were proof the treatment should be used for humans. “I think the animal and retrospective data is compelling, and I want this treatment to be available to people,” he said.
Karmazin said one patient who suffered chronic fatigue syndrome “feels healthy for the first time” and “looks younger” after receiving the treatment.
Professor Irina Conboy from University of California believes previous studies needed more solid evidence to prove they actually work. “The problem is that there is no evidence to suggest that an infusion of plasma from young to old animals reverses aging,” she said.
Bioethicist Jonathan Kimmelman also believed there is no proof the plasma infusions work and Ambrosia’s treatment is just a marketing gimmick to earn money.
“There are a lot of patient-funded trials run by companies that use the trials as a way to sell products that wouldn’t be marketable because they’d have to be regulated by the FDA,” he said.
In addition to paying upwards of $10k for a procedure that might not actually work, chief of the immunotherapy division at California Pacific Medical Center Dobri Kiprov said patients were at risk of lung injury or deadly infections. “To expose people to danger unnecessarily — in my mind, that is really horrible,” he said.
Source-Medindia