Alzheimer’s Patients Will Be Injected With the Blood of Young People
It’s not often that science confirms ideas straight out of vampire lore, but here you have one: a spate of studies in mice have found that infusions of young bloodseem to reverse aging. So now we’re moving to the next logical step: giving the blood of young humans to Alzheimer’s patients.
The first very human trials testing the effect of young blood will start in October at the Stanford School of Medicine. Patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s will receive blood plasma donated by volunteers 30 or younger. Despite vampiric-sounding premise, approval for human trials were quite easy to get, the study’s head Tony Wyss-Coray tells New Scientist. After all, we’ve been giving blood transfusions for long time—just without studying all the health effects.
I’ve often wondered how many everyday medical procedures – things repeated on millions of people every year – might have beneficial effect that nobody notices because nobody is looking for them.
So that is the secret to Keith Richards remaining alive!
What’s interesting is that if this pans out, blood from guaranteed healthy young people will suddenly have a market value on what are likely to be very private markets – if you know what I mean.
That’s how Heinlein’s Methuselah’s Children ended.