A Popular Science View of the State of Research into Young Blood versus Old Blood

Research spawned by heterochronic parabiosis studies, in which an old and a young animal have their circulatory systems linked, continues to provide surprises. There is considerable debate over whether helpful factors in young blood versus a dilution of harmful factors in old blood provide the majority of the benefits to the older animal, with the evidence favoring the latter at the present time. Dilution of blood plasma has been shown to produce benefits in animal studies, but that involves adding albumin to avoid diluting that essential protein. Researchers recently showed that adding recombinant albumin, and skipping the dilution, still produces benefits to health in animal studies. This may change the understanding of what is going on here yet again. Last year, two self-described "biohackers" in Russia had themselves hooked up to blood collection machines that replaced approximately half of the plasma coursing through their veins with salty water. Three days later, the men tested their blood for hormones, fats and other indicators of general well-being. The procedure, it seemed, had improved various aspects of immunity, liver function and cholesterol metabolism. Irina and Michael Conboy initially tried taking the reductionist drug development approach. They identified two biochemical pathways implicated with aging, pharmacologically recalibrated both in old mice, and found that the animals' brains, livers and muscles showed signs of rejuvenation. But a mor...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs