Out with the old, in with the young---young blood that is. Blood transfusions from young donors are gaining hype as an anti-aging treatment, but what does the research say about it?
New anti-aging fads continually pop up all over the place: anti-aging supplements, wrinkle creams, face-lifts, juice cleanses, brain exercises, and intermittent fasting to name a few. And the latest endeavor in the fight against aging is teen blood. For a fee of $8000, one company is running a clinical trial where they are injecting adults over the age of 35 with blood plasma from people 25 and younger to see if this young blood has any anti-aging benefits. Other researchers are beginning clinical trials to see if young blood could help treat serious diseases like Alzheimers or Parkinsons. If you’re like us, you might be wondering-- what does the data say about all this?
A lot of the research around the benefits of young blood come from parabiosis studies in rodents-- where two rodents are stitched together so that they share blood. Data from this research indicates that in some cases there are anti-aging benefits. But what works in rodents doesn’t always work in humans, and we are still waiting for results from human trials that are under way.