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Blood from young animals can revitalise old ones

economist.com

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Re: Blood from young animals can revitalise old ones

#131

Post by t0mbstone »

etatoby wrote: post #54

I think older civilizations may have discovered something like this and put it into practice, giving rise to the myth of Vampires. The Vampires of lore are described as very old people who suck the blood of youngsters to stay alive. The parts about them fearing sunlight, or garlic, or whatever, might just be based on side-effects of this cure for ageing. The inaccuracy of "sucking" instead of transfusion, might be be…

What if the major blood donation organizations like Red Cross and United Blood Services are actually run by vampires that secretly use the youngest donated blood for themselves, while giving the older blood to hospitals??

Re: Blood from young animals can revitalise old ones

#132

Post by Jotra7 »

gutnor wrote: post #108
jessaustin wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not immoral to sell one's own blood, so long as one is not left unable to fulfill other moral obligations.

The moral bit is choosing between 2 competing blood donations service - one that is run publicly to save life, the other to extend the life of healthy individual. I make the assumption that the remuneration of the second one will be most likely way bigger than in the first case. The only reason people would chose to donate to the first one is morality which is unfair. The morality of the remuneration is orthogonal. I…

Don't try to bring morality into any discussion with the free market religionists. The only true morality is profit. Everything else is just stupid.

Re: Blood from young animals can revitalise old ones

#133

Post by CyberDildonics »

t0mbstone wrote: post #131
etatoby wrote: post #54

I think older civilizations may have discovered something like this and put it into practice, giving rise to the myth of Vampires. The Vampires of lore are described as very old people who suck the blood of youngsters to stay alive. The parts about them fearing sunlight, or garlic, or whatever, might just be based on side-effects of this cure for ageing. The inaccuracy of "sucking" instead of transfusion, might be be…

What if the major blood donation organizations like Red Cross and United Blood Services are actually run by vampires that secretly use the youngest donated blood for themselves, while giving the older blood to hospitals??

They do already take blood donations and then sell them for substantial amounts of money.

Re: Blood from young animals can revitalise old ones

#134

Post by pizza »

smt88 wrote: post #127
pizza wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, my experience is that almost all ketamine use I know of personally erased that person's depression for a week or so. I think it's less uncommon more and more.

I would strongly suggest that anyone reading this with depression disregard personal anecdotes like these. The placebo effect is powerful, and it's dangerous to self-medicate when suicide is a possible side effect or consequence.

“In a nutshell, I feel confident telling patients who have had little help from previous treatments that ketamine provides meaningful relief from some of their worst symptoms for at least a few days or even weeks,’’ said Dr. Gerard Sanacora, professor of psychiatry and director of the Yale Depression Research Program and primary author of the JAMA report. “But I can’t tell them with any degree of certainty how long the benefit can be sustained or how safe it is to repeatedly administer the medication over periods of months or years.”

http://news.yale.edu/2017/03/01/ketamine-eases-severe-depres...

The method of action of ketamine is thought to be via hydroxynorketamine, not placebo which I don't really see as being pertinent - maybe confirmation bias, but not placebo. I also contend that suicidality is not long-term stable- supposing a typical antidepressants regimen is ineffective and only frustrates a patient, then to not pursue a treatment with a pretty strong effect strength would lead to more suicides as the outcome, imo.

Re: Blood from young animals can revitalise old ones

#135

Post by pizza »

posterboy wrote: post #63
pizza wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, my experience is that almost all ketamine use I know of personally erased that person's depression for a week or so. I think it's less uncommon more and more.

only for the depression to come back in full force, while the tolerance increased?

Considering it's once weekly, tolerance would decrease significantly back towards baseline - ketamine is 99% eliminated in 21 hours (7 half-lives). iirc the mechanism is BDNF expression and reverting neuron energy metabolism conditions - one could potentially speak of the antidepressant effect of exercise also increasing in tolerance via that mechanism, but what I know about what we know so far makes it seem like it is worth the decrease in anhedonic/depressive symptoms.

The other options are pretty much worse, although more common:

- a daily SSRI (thus increases tolerance much faster), and has a larger range of significant side effects, such as anorgasmia, increased depression or emergence of suicidal tendencies, weight gain, "electric zaps"/spontaneous muscle spasm/discontinuation syndrome for months after cessation, dulled affect, increased proclivity towards serotonin syndrome

- leaving depression untreated

Re: Blood from young animals can revitalise old ones

#136

Post by banku_brougham »

Noone has mentioned the movie 'The Island', which hit this topic in a broader sense. Clones used as replacement parts.

I guess its different only in that as a group 'the young' are distinct from 'the clones'

I'm also reminded of a legend from southern africa that HIV could be cured via sex with a young virgin.

Re: Blood from young animals can revitalise old ones

#137

Post by robbiep »

sundvor wrote: post #102
robbiep wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are continually performing blood generation. What on earth are you referring to?

Ah, I had larger than average/sudden blood loss in mind. My bad. I'm not a biochemist, but my understanding was that the natural , far slower rate at which blood is broken down / discarded is much less conducive to having a good supply of healthy Erythrocytes than what you get when half a litre of blood must be replenished. Upon doing a donation that's a solid supply of fresh red blood cells into your system. I was r…

You've picked up some interesting ideas from somewhere but my education is that they are false. Of course, as any good scientist I stand ready to change my position should I be presented with evidence. The idea of training for blood regeneration is wholly unsubstantiated by the scientific evidence.

Assuming functional spleen and liver, the human body is also exceptionally good at removing damaged red blood cells. Average life span given no RBC abnormalities is 120 days; there is no 'degradation' of oxygen carrying capacity that happens between a cell freshly minted and one nearing the end of its lifespan.

The human body has significant spare resources in the marrow waiting to spring into action and training is not necessary. Upon significant blood loss, (i.e. Secondary to trauma) regardless of the blood loss naive or the regular donor, reticulocytes (not completely differentiated red blood cells) are liberated from the marrow, 'early' as it were.

A blood donor gives less than an amount of blood that causes physiological changes, BY DESIGN.

Increased red cell production is governed by oxygen demand/oxygen thirst in a complex sensing mechanism by the body and regular donation barely tickles red cell production

Re: Blood from young animals can revitalise old ones

#138

Post by thinkfurther »

pmoriarty wrote: post #126
thinkfurther wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What technological stagnation? > Through our scientific and technological genius we’ve made of this world a neighborhood. And now through our moral and ethical commitment we must make of it a brotherhood. We must all learn to live together as brothers—or we will all perish together as fools. -- Martin Luther King Every time someone makes a comment indicating a modicum of social progress, there's a response like yours…

"Ever noticed how the greats don't seem to obsess much about having to die at some point?" This probably greatly depends on the person. For instance, John von Neumann, one of the brightest and greatest (though in many ways still very flawed) people I know of, was terrified of death.[1] Many great people past and present have sought immortality, or at least ways to extend their lives. They did not want to "go gentle i…

Was Marcus Aurelius a saint? Was Einstein?

> Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms.

Am I? When I was 9, I cried the whole night because I realized that thousands of years of future adventures, including space travel and meeting aliens, will go on without me. I got over it.

In that poem notice words like "because", "might have", and "too late". If your words did fork lightning, if your deeds did dance in green bays, if you learned early to not grieve the sun, how does this apply? If you haven't made piece with death early on, what kind of life are you living, and how would merely extending it help? What you consider saintly I consider the mere minimum. My own life is neat, but if compared to all of life, it's a pixel in a movie frame. Why be a stuck pixel?

Re: Blood from young animals can revitalise old ones

#139

Post by sundvor »

robbiep wrote: post #137
sundvor wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, I had larger than average/sudden blood loss in mind. My bad. I'm not a biochemist, but my understanding was that the natural , far slower rate at which blood is broken down / discarded is much less conducive to having a good supply of healthy Erythrocytes than what you get when half a litre of blood must be replenished. Upon doing a donation that's a solid supply of fresh red blood cells into your system. I was r…

You've picked up some interesting ideas from somewhere but my education is that they are false. Of course, as any good scientist I stand ready to change my position should I be presented with evidence. The idea of training for blood regeneration is wholly unsubstantiated by the scientific evidence. Assuming functional spleen and liver, the human body is also exceptionally good at removing damaged red blood cells. Ave…

Thanks, I appreciate your knowledge, and welcome the opportunity to update/correct my long held beliefs. I will seek to learn more about the process.

So basically the main benefit of donating would be for others; I'm still keeping my upcoming O- donation in my schedule. ;)

Re: Blood from young animals can revitalise old ones

#140

Post by robbiep »

sundvor wrote: post #139
robbiep wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've picked up some interesting ideas from somewhere but my education is that they are false. Of course, as any good scientist I stand ready to change my position should I be presented with evidence. The idea of training for blood regeneration is wholly unsubstantiated by the scientific evidence. Assuming functional spleen and liver, the human body is also exceptionally good at removing damaged red blood cells. Ave…

Thanks, I appreciate your knowledge, and welcome the opportunity to update/correct my long held beliefs. I will seek to learn more about the process. So basically the main benefit of donating would be for others; I'm still keeping my upcoming O- donation in my schedule. ;)

Yes, it's the altruistic component that has the long lasting value, however you are excising around 200mg of cells and proteins every time you donate - albumin, other blood proteins and of course cells. So in the long run I think about it as losing weight as well ;) not to mention the energetic anabolic endeavours your body must go through to rebuild all those macromolecules !
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