The Old Wives’ Tales Were Right:
-Ok, Elizabeth, Bram Stoker, and a million folk-tales across human history.
Well, scientists are proving these oldey-timey, gruesome omens just about right.
In [what is actually the latest in a series of] experiments on mice, it turns out that blood transfused from a younger one to an older one Does in-fact make the older one quite a bit more sprightly.
What’s Old Is New Again:
I only heard about this a year or two ago in the last big experiment, but it looks like this type of experiment has been going on since at least the 50s. -1950s that-is, not counting Romanian Counts and Scottish novelists.
In that case by Dr. Clive McCay, the younger mice gave their older counterparts improved joint-cartilage as the observed benefit.
In the more recent studies out by teams from Stanford and Harvard, the transfusions improved the old mice’s Brain-Activity, Muscles, Exercise Ability, Intelligence, and Memory.
So what’s doing all the magic?:
-The researchers aren’t completely sure. But they do have at least one candidate: a protein called GDF11, which was focused-on by the Harvard team.
It’s likely-certain that there is more than just one factor doing the work besides only GDF11, especially since many of the effects weren’t as strong when just the GDF11 was isolated and injected into older mice, instead of joining their circulatory systems together through the technique called parabiosis.
It’s More Than Just 1 Compound, It’s A Cocktail:
And when they do isolate the rest, there is a very good chance that some time in the future there will be a whole cocktail of rejuvenating agents (possibly along with Sylvester Stallone’s beloved HGH) you’ll take to keep you at your absolute best as you age.
Let’s just hope they’re all Lab-derived and not some medieval way for out-of-work and disease-free college grads to start paying off those loans in the next installment of the “Blade” movie-franchise.
Check out the additional warning-flags and further details at the Links:
JUMP BONUS!: RadioLab’s Show On This (Starts about 33 Minute Mark)
Photo Credits:
Kate Beckinsale as Selene in the movie, “Underworld Evolution”, by Len Wiseman, Danny McBride, Kevin Grevioux, and Lakeshore Entertainment
Links:
• Source: Knopfler Lab Stem Cell Blog
• More Coverage: NYT-Young Blood, Reverse Aging | Wikipedia-Elizabeth Bathory, Folklore
• Source Studies:
• ScienceMag-Vascular and Neurogenic Rejuvenation of the Aging Mouse Brain by Young Systemic Factors
• Nature-Young blood reverses age-related impairments in cognitive function and synaptic plasticity in mice
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