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Diluting blood plasma rejuvenates tissue, reverses aging in mice

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41–50 of 108 posts

Re: Diluting blood plasma rejuvenates tissue, reverses aging in mice

#41
Maybe "old blood" has a lot of immune signalling volume going on? Elevated cytokine/chemokine production, elevated counts of immune cells that recognize more of the environment than a naive, under-exposed body? Inflammation.

Maybe part of aging is an auto-immune dysfunction?

Granted, this is a very dynamical system. The immune system clears cancers that are constantly popping up and prevents infections from taking hold.

(This is all unscientific pontificating. I had an undergrad in biochem, but I don't follow the relevant research.)

Edit: I'm getting downvoted for stating that this is just a theory based on my undergrad understanding. Does that add too much noise to the conversation? I wanted to foster discussion. I'm also willing to longbets this one. We're starting to see the immune system implicated for roles in diseases such as Alzheimer's, for instance. It's complicated machinery.

Aging has many causes. Oxidative stress is one. Over-stimulation of the immune system could play a direct role and seems like it's worth exploring, and I'd bet real money on it.

Re: Diluting blood plasma rejuvenates tissue, reverses aging in mice

#42
post #27

So, blood-letting[1] works? [1] https://www.history.com/news/a-brief-history-of-bloodletting

Lovely anecdote: A relative of mine has seasonal headaches that they experience, and they have told me that the way they relieve them is to go and donate blood. Works every time, without a hitch. I wouldn't be surprised if there is at least one study out there (or maybe even a wikipedia page) that attests to this phenomenon.

The article mentions plasmapheresis, therapeutic plasma exchange, so the posted article itself attests to this phenomenon.

Re: Diluting blood plasma rejuvenates tissue, reverses aging in mice

#43

I think popular press of animal studies is mostly clickbait, especially aging studies. The lifetimes of mice are so small compared to humans that you have to apply large scaling factors. An old mouse would be a very young human. How valid the scaling factors are is a different story.

In this study they didn't look at the lifespans of the mice, they looked at markers of the health of different types of tissues. A lot of the time when something is about "reversing aging" it's about improving health so that organs of the old work more like those of the young or curing diseases of old age and not necessarily about increasing lifespan.

Re: Diluting blood plasma rejuvenates tissue, reverses aging in mice

#44
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’ve never encountered someone with low blood albumin, it is a very serious problem. You get terrible edema all over. Albumin helps you not retain the water in your cells, and instead to get the fluid back into your bloodstream for excretion.

is there a way to supplement it, such as milk or egg whites?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypoalbuminemia

If your albumin levels are low, then you probably have more serious problems than your albumin levels being low, so you'd want to treat the underlying condition.

Re: Diluting blood plasma rejuvenates tissue, reverses aging in mice

#45

This may go part of the way to explaining why women have a longer life span then men, they're constantly having to manufacture new blood. Men only have to create new blood if they donate or suffer some injury, but women's bodies are generating new blood all the time.

I always assumed this was in part related to socio-economic reasons (men on average do jobs with much higher death rates) as well as the effects of pregnancy, where the mothers body can be healed when pregnant due to migration of stem cells. Wild speculation on that last one impacting the life span, but there is evidence for it.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21185-fetus-donates-s...

Re: Diluting blood plasma rejuvenates tissue, reverses aging in mice

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is getting flagged down as a dumb joke, but for those in the cheap seats, it's not entirely clear exactly how this differs. Presumably adding "adding albumin and water" is different than just "adding water". But why, exactly? And so on.

It differs because everything except saline and albumin is filtered out. The point is to show that some markers of aging are harmful byproducts in your blood, and filtering them out can have positive effects.

It seems kind of unsurprising to me, given dialysis is a thing.

Actually, now I'm wondering, could this be a simpler substitute for dialysis in some cases?

Re: Diluting blood plasma rejuvenates tissue, reverses aging in mice

#47

This may go part of the way to explaining why women have a longer life span then men, they're constantly having to manufacture new blood. Men only have to create new blood if they donate or suffer some injury, but women's bodies are generating new blood all the time.

There's some research (which I won't dig up at the moment; google "iron longevity" for a start) indicating that it's actually iron/heme which is bad. Women can get rid of it, at least while their fertility lasts. Men can't.

Re: Diluting blood plasma rejuvenates tissue, reverses aging in mice

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It differs because everything except saline and albumin is filtered out. The point is to show that some markers of aging are harmful byproducts in your blood, and filtering them out can have positive effects.

It seems kind of unsurprising to me, given dialysis is a thing. Actually, now I'm wondering, could this be a simpler substitute for dialysis in some cases?

It's surprising in the sense that even people with fully functioning kidneys could benefit from it.

Re: Diluting blood plasma rejuvenates tissue, reverses aging in mice

#49
post #3

Seems like the conspiracy theories that the rich and global elite harvest the blood of the young and innocent to rejuvenate them isn't as false as we once thought... /s Sometimes I wish we had a medical system where whoever wanted to be a test patient for whatever reason could sign on the dotted line once advised of the potential downsides (up to and including death assumedly) so we could advance medical science fast…

I think you missed the point... this article shows that the blood of the innocent is overrated and saline can be used in its place. If we're going with vampire conspiracies, they no longer need mortal donors, and can now exterminate us all with no consequence.

Re: Diluting blood plasma rejuvenates tissue, reverses aging in mice

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It differs because everything except saline and albumin is filtered out. The point is to show that some markers of aging are harmful byproducts in your blood, and filtering them out can have positive effects.

It seems kind of unsurprising to me, given dialysis is a thing. Actually, now I'm wondering, could this be a simpler substitute for dialysis in some cases?

Therapeutic plasma exchange is use in cases of renal disorder: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6521768/
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