
Scientists have shown that young blood rejuvenates old tissues - aatish
http://www.nature.com/news/ageing-research-blood-to-blood-1.16762
======
rsync
I am stupefied by this.

Many, many times I have considered:

"what would happen if I banked my own blood and transfused it back to myself
40 years later"

And of course, my next thought was "of course that has been thought of, and
tried, and the reason we don't all know about it is because it must not be
helpful."

But you're telling me that, in fact, nobody thought to try this ? It is
2014/2015 when someone got around to trying this out ?

~~~
reasonattlm
Transfusions seem unlikely to work at this point based on evidence to date,
probably because the factors involved are very short-lived. E.g. transfusions
failed to move the needle in mice:

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4215333/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4215333/)

There is a human trial for transfusion of young blood to Alzheimer's patients
but this is probably not going to tell us much, because it is so specific, and
because the mouse transfusions didn't work.

[http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329831.400-young-
blo...](http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329831.400-young-blood-to-be-
used-in-ultimate-rejuvenation-trial.html?full=true)

~~~
TTPrograms
It could also be a feedback process - components in older blood induce
responses in younger organ tissue that releases components into younger blood
that is then transferred to the older organism

------
Tarrosion
This reminds me of a PostSecret submission from several months ago:

[https://postsecretdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/blood.j...](https://postsecretdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/blood.jpg?w=526&h=350)

~~~
tannerc
You can tell it's from a real biologist by the time they spent aligning each
line of text to the background image.

------
jzila
Carl Zimmer published a piece on this in the NYTimes almost a year ago
([http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/05/science/young-blood-may-
ho...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/05/science/young-blood-may-hold-key-to-
reversing-aging.html?_r=0)).

Here's the HN thread on that topic:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7695621](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7695621)

------
moonshinefe
So Elizabeth Bathory was correct after all--ha! Take that, naysayers.

~~~
theophrastus
Bathing, drinking: not-so-much. Apparently it requires direct circulatory
installation (but of which sub-component??). Unfortunately for the "Blood
Countess", she was limited by the technology of her times.

~~~
agumonkey
I'm really curious how symbolic the old 'youth blood' myth were. As if they
had some slight proof that it could work but did it in a cargo cult way.

------
zxcvcxz
As if I need another reason to kill babies. Perhaps there is some truth to
gaining life energy by eating your opponents heart.

~~~
bambax
What a great plot for a sci-fi/noir novel; an evil old man captures babies and
infuses their blood into himself.

With a variant: the babies don't just vanish, they disappear for a while, and
then come back. But alas, inexplicably, once they're back they begin to age
very fast.

Maybe they don't disappear at all, they just start to age and that's how the
inquiry starts. People notice the disease and think it's some kind of virus;
but a young journalist trying to connect the dots notices all affected babies
stayed at the same clinic at some point.

He goes there to see for himself and is greeted by a brilliant doctor who's
wise beyond his years...

~~~
saalweachter
If the secret to immortality is baby blood, that's one of those hilariously
cliche coincidences that makes me think we're living in a poorly written
universe.

~~~
mhomde
The inevitable "baby factory" scene in the movie is sure going to have some
punch

------
erbo
Heck, any Heinlein fan could've told you this would work. In the "Future
History" series (specifically, _Methuselah 's Children_ ), we learn that the
first effective rejuvenation technique was to transfuse in younger blood. It
didn't become practical, however, until they developed a way of growing new
blood _in vitro._ I imagine that's the _next_ thing scientists will be working
on...if successful, we'll get rejuvenation quite a bit earlier than Heinlein's
timeline predicted it.

~~~
tjradcliffe
It's likely even simpler than that. At this point it's a matter of brute force
to investigate the different factors in young vs old blood, isolate the ones
that have the rejuvenating effects, and synthesize away, likely via
programming bacteria to produce them.

They have already identified one candidate--GDF11--and there will likely be
others. So it may be a matter of injecting yourself with a mix of appropriate
synthetics every day or two.

------
PublicEnemy111
What benefits does parabiosis have over taking HGH? The effects of parabiosis
in mice sounds almost exactly like the effects of growth hormone

~~~
nostromo
That's what I was wondering... is it just the increased growth hormone levels
in the young blood or is it the blood cells themselves?

If I'm reading the article right, it was neither, but actually just the
plasma:

> Plasma alone had the same effects. “We didn't have to exchange the whole
> blood”

Did they remove the growth hormones from the plasma? It doesn't say...

~~~
digi_owl
From some cursory wiki reading it seems blood plasma is quite the blanket
term. Electrolytes, proteins, CO2 removal, it's involved in quite a number of
places.

------
Mz
You don't need a transfusion to do this. You just need to work on your blood
health.

Excerpt:

 _“I thought, 'Hey wait, they're sharing blood,'” says Michael. “'This could
answer that question we've been asking for years.'” At the end of the
presentation, he ran up to Irina and Rando. He had not even finished his pitch
before Rando said: “Let's do it.”_

It was when I read up on how the body reacts to high altitude that I had my
aha! moment that the blood was the common denominator between the gut and lung
issues in people with CF. When you go up in altitude, you pee more. Well
before you see altitude sickness, the body starts dumping wastes via the
kidneys that it can't breathe out due to thin air.

------
JoachimS
Am I the only one wondering what happens to the poor young mouse when it gets
the old blood?

~~~
kevbin
Starts talking about the good old days, complains about the noise teenager
mice call music these days, nods off for a while then heads over to Luby's for
an early dinner.

------
gcdgcd
The leaders of the Chinese communist party have already found this long time
ago. As I known the old leaders of the chinese communist party change their
blood of PLA periodical to keep them health. one article could find here:
[http://app.secretchina.com/node/472395](http://app.secretchina.com/node/472395)
(in Chinese)

~~~
EGreg
It looks like hieroglyphs to me.

~~~
kbenson
Here's google's translation:
[http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-
CN&u=http:...](http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-
CN&u=http://app.secretchina.com/node/472395&prev=search).

Surprisingly readable after you get few paragraphs in and start picking up on
the common mistranslated words (Some other title for Mao is being translated
as "hair").

~~~
maaku
Mao means hair. That is his name.

~~~
kbenson
Interesting, it's able to infer that Mao is a name about half the time.

(I still consider it a mistranslation, as it's a name. I wouldn't expect John
Smith to translate to another language with "Smith" being replaced bu the
equivalent in the other language either).

~~~
chc
But in English we capitalize names and put articles before common nouns,
whereas in Chinese both are just "mao." It _is_ a mistranslation, but a more
understandable one than translating "John Smith" as "John a metal-worker".

------
swayvil
To state the obvious :

 _Aging billionaire keeps a dozen healthy athletic vegetarian teenagers on
hand for weekly blood transfusions._

No joke. It's happening right now.

So is this a bad thing?

------
adekok
Didn't Heinlein predict this in the 70s?

~~~
chckn
In which novel?

------
psadri
Dracula?

------
rrodriguez89
Thank God i have the sister younger than me that love me very much :D

------
pinder
Mr. Burns was right.

~~~
Eric_WVGG
Elizabeth Bathory was right first —
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Báthory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Báthory)

~~~
mattmurdog
Exactly what I was thinking.

------
zach
The future of Silicon Valley: "This internship really sucks. Just when I think
there's nothing left they can ask of me..."

~~~
zach
Ugh, the comments for this article are a disaster. I was trying to start a
conversation in a creative way, my apologies.

------
ikeboy
Plot twist: it's all a corporate hoax by the makers of the Hansel and Gretel
movie.

------
sizzzzlerz
The secret of Dick Cheney, the Dark Lord, Himself, has been revealed! For
decades, He has been kept alive by the blood of the young, and, until now,
only His doctors knew the truth. Expect His vengence to be swift and severe!

