Diluted blood plasma found to reverse aging in mice | Hacker News Reader

Diluted blood plasma found to reverse aging in mice

newatlas.com

117 pointsapsec11263 comments

This is basically filtering the plasma to remove harmful stuff, which is present in the older mice but not the younger. That's probably because the older mice's liver and kidneys aren't as effective as they used to be. The conjoined experiment worked because the young mouses liver and kidneys were filtering for both of the mice.

This sort of filtering (which includes albumin replacement) is already available for humans. My ex-wife was hospitalized when her liver failed. Her blood was full of toxins, which overwhelmed her kidneys and eventually caused them to fail too. The toxins in the blood had a lot of bad effects, and would have killed her. While she was waiting for a liver donation, she had to undergo blood dialysis pretty much every day. She was hooked up to a machine that pumped her blood out, filtered it, replaced albumin (which was lost in the filter), and then pumped it back in. Each treatment took about two hours, and was really stressful and dangerous. Her blood pressure had to be carefully managed, and the machine couldn't keep her blood at the exactly correct temperature so it ached when going back in.

Bad as it was, it kept her blood clean enough for her to hang on until she got a transplant. She was on kidney dialysis for a year after that until she got a kidney transplant too.

This was incredibly expensive, because of the albumin. Also incredibly dangerous. You would not want to do this as an elective procedure.

One of my ex bosses had a liver transplant and it meant the rest of his life was spent consuming pills to prevent his immune system from attack the donor liver. I only found this out when I asked a colleague why did he smell funny. Having tried raw liver myself and experiencing the stimulating energising effects compared to cooked liver, I wonder how much folded proteins created by cooking food contributes its own problems. In some cases, if a folded protein gets into a cell, the only remedy for the cell is to have the immune system destroy it. That puts a demand on stem cell generation to fill the void. Its been suggested sweating is the 3rd kidney and that spending 15mins in a 80DegreesC sauna can sweat more toxins than the kidneys can excrete in a 24hr period. Its looking like our sedentary air conditioned office lifestyles could be more harmful than we first thought.

I have found it interesting that Methylation is now being looked at as another form of antioxidant process especially when considering its relationship to cancer progression. When looking at the methylation processes, its clear even the most organic of diets dont contain enough molecules for us humans to maintain healthy methylation, probably because the host animal or plant needs the same molecule to maintain its own life, thus leaving little else for us to use. What constitutes "essential" nutrients is certainly being reconsidered now a days.

I think the medical care or something else was expensive. I did a search and I see 20% albumin solution was about $8 per 50ml.

https://www.drugs.com/price-guide/human-albumin-grifols

I searched and apparently there’s about 3 liters of plasma in the body.

So that’s only about $480 for a full replacement of the body’s plasma, or $240 for what this research did.

It’s probably more expensive because of the machine for filtering the blood and so on. But it doesn’t seem that the raw materials for the replacement solution are expensive.

It would seem to be a pretty big factor if I'm reading correctly that it'd be $480/day.

For context, Irina Conboy (the senior author of this work) has been publishing on the concept of tissue regeneration for a long time now, but I think it's a bit of an exaggeration to consider this line of work to constitute a reversal of aging.

This New Atlas article alludes to work done in 2005, which was a paper Irina published in Nature [1] while she was a postdoc in Tom Rando's lab. They had joined the circulatory systems of young and old mice, and showed that this process could improve the regeneration of both blood and muscle. Significantly, they had highlighted a cellular pathway, called Notch, which they said was responsible for this effect.

In the years since, Irina has focused on the same models -- regeneration of blood and muscle -- but has been looking for a better way than Notch to explain the original findings. It's clear that there are factors in young blood to which some old cells can respond favorably. Importantly, however, none of these measures actually reverse aging in the ways that matter (lengthening telomeres, correcting oxidative damage, etc). Experimental mice treated this way also don't live any longer than usual, except for the very specific cases where you're treating a disorder that would normally shorten their lifespans.

1: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature03260

I was doing the double red donation for a while before running out of hematocrit. Read about this study and decided to go back to donating but this time just doing the standard whole blood so I could dilute plasma a bit. Will update this post with results in 200 years if this works!

It would be interesting if they would try the same research but reduced to just doing blood-donation-level blood extraction from the mice over a period of time.

Unfortunately, without REPLACING your blood with something, the percent concentration of anything harmful in your blood with be the same. I wonder if it requires a quick replacement with a large percentage of the saline solution to have any effect.

Quick links:

https://www.umms.org/-/media/files/ummc/community/blood-fact...

""" The average adult has about 10 pints of blood in his body. Roughly 1 pint is given during a donation. A healthy donor may donate red blood cells every 56 days """

The original article says HALF the blood plasma was replaced. So if I understand this correctly, a blood donation would need to be done 5 times to match the amount taken out.

Is there an option to get a saline solution to replace blood volume when donating blood?

> without REPLACING your blood with something, the percent concentration of anything harmful in your blood with be the same

Not necessarily. If the process that produced the bad stuff is slower than serum production, the concentration will be lower. If it’s the same, for example, if it’s a problem with the serum production processes themselves, it won’t.

Ha! I'll be waiting!

I submitted this to reddit with limited discussion :https://www.reddit.com/r/Nootropics/comments/hmu8dc/diluting...

I'm 29 years old and I've started donating blood regularly in an effort to achieve the same effect. Ideally you'd donate plasma, but there is an important difference between the treatment in the study and donating plasma: in the study, they replace the plasma with saline and albumin. Donating plasma does not replenish your albumin. Albumin is regenerated relatively quickly, however.

So bloodletting works?

and sucking youngs blood too /s/2

Or less sarcastically, a biological “oil change”.

In blood donations you do not have any replacement either, correct? So from that perspective is there any advantage over plasma donations?

You can donate plasma twice a week, as opposed to every other month for blood.

Also you typically get paid a small fee for donating plasma.

I'm not sure! Straight up blood donation takes away some stuff that takes a while to regenerate, so you're not allowed to donate more often than once every 8 weeks. By contrast, you can donate plasma twice a week in the US (although if I remember correctly, other countries limit you to once every two weeks).

In other words, what they take out of you during blood donations is a lot more...precious.

I'm O- though so I don't know if they'll let me donate plasma (they want my blood!). I was thinking of alternating plasma and blood in order to get a little bit of both if I can.

I stopped giving blood after looking at the evidence a while ago.

Generally people who give blood live longer, and to be honest I can't remember the evidence why I stopped, limited telomere in the blood or something, so I'd like to know more.

You are going to have to fight researchers who are not going to outright say it's bad for you and they will love saying it's good for you.

Here David Sinclair’s response back in May https://twitter.com/davidasinclair/status/125991292869585715...

If you're interested in the science of aging I highly recommend the book "Lifespan: Why we age and why we don't have to" by David A. Sinclair a pioneer in this field. Detailed book with tons of citations but still accessible to the layperson.

I found some of the science interesting in that book; my main memory is that Sinclair is annoyingly arrogant and self-centered. I returned the book.

A blog post about existing information about plasma exchange in humans:

https://joshmitteldorf.scienceblog.com/2020/06/29/human-tria...

"in mice" .... Everyone here is talking about starting to give blood to mimic that study but on any other "mice test prove XYZ" every single comment is "mice != humans".

I treat all of these articles the same way as I treat news about breakthrough new battery technology, aka: maybe it works in a lab but until it's out there it's as good as useless. Simply google "mice drug lifespan" and enjoy the hundreds of articles promising long, alzheimer free, life "in the near future". You can even use google search tool and look back at 2015, 2010, 2005...

That's a good point! The only reason I'm comfortable self-experimenting on this one is that 1) there's already evidence that frequent blood donors outlive non-donors (obviously that's an observational study, but still) and 2) there's actually already a clinical use for plasma replacement therapy in Alzheimer's that's roughly identical to the one done in the study.

In addition - they theorize that it's a buildup of bad elements in the blood that causes some runaway process that contributes to aging, so it might follow that less extreme interventions (~15% removal of blood plasma, like plasma donation, which takes around 800 ml out of the ~5500 ml of plasma in your body) done more frequently might provide the same effect.

You're right though - totally unproven.

Due to a past (super low risk) medical condition, I cannot donate blood. There’s not really any other way to replicate this, right?

But you can throw blood away

Right but there’s no organization devoted to extracting blood and throwing it away.

How hard is it to learn how to draw your own blood? eg. what the nurses do when you give a blood sample for lab tests.

For tests, healthcare professionals draw a very small amount (some tubes hold less than 5ml, each).

Donating blood takes upwards of 550ml out of your system. It's in another league entirely. They unfortunately cannot be compared like this.

half a liter sweet jesus thats a lot

“That’s almost an arm full” old Tony Hancock reference for the older British reader (google Tony Hancock blood donor Sketch).

The only difference is the equipment, a little time, and the volume you ultimately end up with.

Sure there is, just buy a 'blood drawing kit' online and get a nurse or ex-nurse friend to do it for you. Then dump it down the drain and physiologically you'll be in the exact same place as anyone who gave blood.

I was thinking about this the last time plasma replenishment came up on HN. I can’t donate blood as I lived in the UK during the “mad cow” years, which prevents me from donating in various other European countries.

Simple blood-letting might be feasible... but something feels odd about just throwing large volumes of blood away, and my partner wasn’t totally down to help with the practical side...

> making conjoined twins of old and young mice so they shared blood and organs

You say conjoined twins, I say chimaera. That's freaky mad science right there.

Previous discussion from June: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23556209

So now we really need to figure out how to grow blood.

Edit: nevermind. I misread the original study and thought that was what they had done.

Isn't the point here that it's not being replaced with blood? just saline + albumin?

Exactly. In fact, the authors note that the effect on their own defined markers of aging was more significant when using saline + albumin than when using young blood.

>In our paper, we looked at the hippocampal neurogenesis, which is the formation of new neurons in the area of the brain that is responsible for learning and memory. We saw an eightfold increase in all the animals after neutral blood exchange, which is much higher than anything else that was observed either by heterochronic parabiosis or reported by young blood infusion. In old mice transfused with 50% young blood, we did not see an improvement in neurogenesis, which, again, puts a question mark on potency of young blood in old mammals. Does young blood by itself work as a medicine or not? If you dilute old blood by 50%, in neutral age blood exchange – with albumin-supplemented saline, there is quickly better neurogenesis.

Edit: (overwritten since can't delete a comment if someone replies?)

I am willing to make some concessions to live forever.

So not a "blood letting," but a "blood plasma letting," very different, you see.

Is it possible to make synthetic albumin? Doesn't all of it come from humans?

This reminds me a whole lot of traditional wet cupping techniques.

This can also explain why if you turn vegan can improve on your health and life.

FYI, I am not vegan and my brief stint didn't produce endless energy, but I can see how this could work.

I turned at 49, two and a half years ago.

My reasons are many. Besides the moral side, I think having a lower % of methionine in my diet then someone who eats meat/eggs/dairy will help me live longer. I also lost 70 pounds, and nothing else I ever did got me to lose and appreciable amount of weight for long.

Could it really be this simple?

I have this theory that if we all started to live forever we'd all kill each other going mad. There is only so much mental trauma a human can take so extending life would aggravate this to a point of no return.

This is why the cycle of life is so precious. A minimum of second hand information is passed between generation as we get through a lifetime. We distil the best and worst.

But we would become so detached and apathic, living forever sounds like hell.

> There is only so much mental trauma a human can take

My experience has been that I get mentally healthier as I age.

For reference, I'm 33, so the "experiment" is far from complete, but early results are quite promising.

As an aside, I attribute this to using my mind in a better way than other people. I have achieved this through great effort and investment of time, which has come at the expense of other areas of my life.

There is no instruction manual for the human mind, but we need one.

As another aside, your position is anti-life and anti-humanity. That isn't supposed to be an argument that stands on its own; I'm just pointing it out.

How many traumatic experiences have you had? Have you ever been permanently injured? Have you directly experienced a war? If you lived to be 1000 what are the odds that your answers to these or similar questions would change? Just because you have been fortunate enough to not have experienced major trauma at 33 does not mean you will continue to be this lucky.

I have experienced major trauma. I think it's enough to justify what I've said. I'm not willing to answer specific questions about that or give you a list.

I don't think you are right to assume that a 33 year old has not experienced major trauma. That would not even be a valid assumption for a much younger person.

I'm sorry if my original comment was demeaning to other people who have experienced trauma. I can see how it could be. I meant to give people hope that you can heal (at least enough to get on) in many cases. I did not mean to put people down for struggling with trauma. I certainly have struggled with it.

Based on what you had written I was assuming that you had not experienced major trauma. The questions were intended more to point out ways that someone could be 33, or significantly younger, and have major trauma and were not intended to get specifics about the trauma you suffered. I am well aware that young people can suffer major trauma and this was clearly not the best way to get my point across.

I'm glad that you were able to get better but not everyone can. Your anecdote doesn't invalidate my point. If you lived long enough, statistically you'd be extremely likely to suffer from a major trauma that you would not recover from.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/01/sunday-review/blood-plasm...

Somewhat related, but blood made up 2% of total US exports in 2016. We are the only developed country that allows people to sell their blood. It's depressing to know that the rich will literally be living off the poor's blood.

To the contrary, those who want to remain healthy will be donating blood instead.

The vast majority of blood comes from poor people with no other choice selling it. If you don't see something wrong with that, I don't know what to tell you. The poor should not have to literally sell their blood to survive. The article literally says that they take blood from young mice and put it in old ones.

> The article literally says that they take blood from young mice and put it in old ones.

That's the study from 2005. The news here is that you don't need to do that. They found that "a special solution made of basic ingredients in saline and the protein albumin" also works.

Most every advanced material good and service that is cheap today was once rare and expensive. Prices fell as the methods for producing those goods and services became more efficient. If the rich are paying for something as exotic as YouthBlood™ this should delight you, as it is only a matter of time before producers of said product will find ways to scale and cheapen it.

Maybe I'm not autistically analyzing this like other people in this thread. I just wanted to point out that the article mentioned taking young people's and putting it in old mice for better living. Currently the poor are exploited for cheap blood because many have no other option.

> "autistically"

I think many of us would appreciate it if you did not use autism as a negative label.

Why not? Autistic people have a certain way of doing things, so it seems like a valid comparison to me

I see where you are coming from. From my perspective, your view of poor people as being without agency such that their voluntary decisions in perhaps the most well-off country on earth, in the most well-off time in earth's history, the idea that said trade constitute "exploitation" is very telling of your internal beliefs about the poor. Perhaps you think they are too dumb to make informed choices. Perhaps you think there are droves of poor with no skills, no useful utility to provide to society, other than to sell their blood. I think this belief is ignorant at best (you ever been poor? I have) and morally abhorrent and classist at worst.

But hey, maybe I'm just autistic.

> *the rich will literally be living off the poor's blood

The entire article is about that not being helpful.

I don't see how? The article talks about taking young mice blood and putting it in old ones. Young poor people will be much more exploited.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16EL-ZexH5A&feature=youtu.be...

You should watch part of this documentary to see what I'm talking about.

Read the article again. It's not about that.

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