preview

Essay On Youthful Blood

Decent Essays
Open Document
The interactions of youthful blood in the circulatory system of an elderly specimen arose from the practice of parabiosis. This is a process in which a patch of skin is removed from two rats, which are sutured together at the wound site, causing their circulatory systems to eventually merge. This practice fell out of popularity around the late 1970s, but not before researchers discovered that elderly rats joined to young ones had markedly improved bone density, and, in another study, lived four to five months longer than non-conjoined elderly rats. These discoveries would later lead researchers to conduct further studies, using the same morally ambiguous practice. In 2005, Dr. Conboy and a team of Stanford researchers conjoined young…show more content…
Despite the actual mechanisms of the rejuvenating effect being largely unknown, research is already being done to replicate its results in humans- using plasma donations rather than parabiosis. One company, called Ambrosia, is currently injecting any participants over age 35 and willing to pay an 8,000 dollar fee with blood plasma of donors under the age 25. Their trials are ongoing- and unusual in nature as they do not have a control or placebo group for their subjects. Another company, called Alkahest, has been processing young blood plasma, which are infused in patients with Alzheimer's. This is to attempt to match the precedent set by the parabiotic mice, which had been managed to reverse some the effects of the disease. If results are positive, the rejuvenating compounds within the plasma will be isolated, synthesized, and patented. They expect to announce their findings at a conference this November. The claims made in this article are interesting in the extreme. I'm less interested in whether the young human plasma can actually make a difference (though if it can, that is certainly a revolutionary turn in medical science) and more in how such an idea is possible. Apparently,
Get Access
Related
Get Access