NewScientist (10 June 2017) reports on a fascinating new trial:
TRANSFUSIONS of young blood plasma may cut the risk of cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and heart disease in older people, according to a controversial new study which …
“I don’t want to say the word ‘panacea’, but there’s something about teenagers,” Jesse Karmazin, founder of start-up Ambrosia, told New Scientist. “Whatever is in young blood is causing changes that appear to make the ageing process reverse.”
Since August 2016, Karmazin’s company has been giving people aged 35 to 92 transfusions of blood plasma from people aged between 16 and 25. So far, around 100 people have been treated. …
None of the people in the study had cancer at the time of the transfusion, but Karmazin’s team looked at their levels of proteins called carcinoembryonic antigens. These chemicals are found in the blood of healthy people at low concentrations, but in larger amounts can be a sign of cancer. The levels of these antigens fell by around 20 per cent in the blood of those treated, the team found.
Karmazin says the team also saw a 10 per cent fall in blood cholesterol. This may help explain why a study last year by a different company, Alkahest, found that heart health improved in old mice given blood from human teenagers.
Ambrosia also reported a 20 per cent fall in the level of amyloids – a type of protein that forms sticky plaques in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease.
The problem? No control group – and …
The fact that they all paid $8000 to be included, as well as the study’s lack of a placebo group, has attracted much criticism.
Obviously, we can’t be bleeding our children just so us oldsters can feel better – although it’d put a wonderful spin on the old Hansel and Gretel story. And whether the effects are real or merely placebo-related is a powerful question that may be further polluted by requiring participants pay for the privilege.
But it does fit with earlier studies involving old mice and young blood – from both young mice and young humans. So intriguing, yet so compromised. And why? Because Big Pharma can’t make money off this treatment – directly. I wonder if they figure it’s impossible to synthesize, or impossible to patent?
