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An anti-ageing startup is offering transfusions of blood from young people

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Re: An anti-ageing startup is offering transfusions of blood from young people

#41

Post by frgtpsswrdlame »

savanaly wrote: post #32
sp332 wrote: post #6

They buy the blood from blood banks, so people donating blood don't know it's going to paranoid rich people instead of sick people, and they don't get any of the money! Edit: I thought it was illegal in the USA to pay for body parts, but there is an exception for plasma (and maybe the rest of the blood?). But it's already predatory http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/business/06plasma.html and this new business only ma…

There's a concept in economics whereby the gains from trade tend to accumulate to the owners of "fixed resources" in a system. In this case that would be the people selling the blood. So I would expect that in the long run the market would stabilize with people selling their blood getting paid the full worth of their blood (decreased by transaction costs of all the middlemen involved in getting the blood to other peo…

But do we want to allow rich vampires to drive the price of blood up? It seems to me that maybe blood shouldn't be treated like a commodity which is driven by the market. Most people receiving blood are not exactly in a position to turn it down or shop around and so some technologists driving the price up to $8,000 is going to hurt you.

Re: An anti-ageing startup is offering transfusions of blood from young people

#42

Post by BlackLotus89 »

simplicio wrote: post #8

Putting aside the ookiness factor, the science here seems pretty tenuous. "Self-reported improvements that scientists have been unable to replicate in clinical trials" are what's behind every questionable medical practice from homepathy to crystal healing. Especially given the time and money involved in having to get regular transfusions, I'd think the practitioners would be better off using the time to spend an extr…

> "Self-reported improvements that scientists have been unable to replicate in clinical trials"

I'm not sure where this quote comes from or even if it's a quote, but over the last couple of years I often read about studies proving just what this controversial startup claims. Reversing aging in mice and better healing through younger blood. The ability to use pre existing stem cells through transfusions of "younger blood" and such. I'm not sure what to think of it especially since it was only tested on mice and I didn't check the credentials of the researchers, but a quick search turned up multiple hits:

https//arstechnica.com/science/2017/04/component-of-human-umbilical-cord-blood-perks-up-the-minds-of-old-mice/

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130325093659.h...

I remember another article that I couldn't find right now, but claiming a non reproducibility seems wrong.

Again wouldn't go to this startup and think that many things are wrong here, but plausible at least.

Re: An anti-ageing startup is offering transfusions of blood from young people

#44

Post by yincrash »

sp332 wrote: post #6

They buy the blood from blood banks, so people donating blood don't know it's going to paranoid rich people instead of sick people, and they don't get any of the money! Edit: I thought it was illegal in the USA to pay for body parts, but there is an exception for plasma (and maybe the rest of the blood?). But it's already predatory http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/business/06plasma.html and this new business only ma…

For clarity, it appears to be plasma and not whole blood: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/08/young-blood-antiaging...

Re: An anti-ageing startup is offering transfusions of blood from young people

#47

Post by kbenson »

Now you too can have your own blood boy. Careful that your donor has good habits, or your cholesterol might go through the roof. At that rate, you might die by 120!

For those of you confused, it's a reference to a recent episode of Silicon Valley, which actually covered this.

Re: An anti-ageing startup is offering transfusions of blood from young people

#48

Post by gregatragenet3 »

ada1981 wrote: post #24
sp332 wrote: post #6

They buy the blood from blood banks, so people donating blood don't know it's going to paranoid rich people instead of sick people, and they don't get any of the money! Edit: I thought it was illegal in the USA to pay for body parts, but there is an exception for plasma (and maybe the rest of the blood?). But it's already predatory http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/business/06plasma.html and this new business only ma…

Right, I'd be curious what the deal is here. Are they buying blood or plasma? Are the donors compensated? Or do they think they are helping burn victims and end up helping Covfefe supporters? I've long that people should be allowed to profit from selling their bodies /organs to medicine (especially after they die -- ie selling options), but it seems that only others can profit from your donation for the most part.

All of the 'science' links reference studies on plasma - and their website even. https://www.ambrosiaplasma.com/ . So they are using plasma, which it's legal for a person/donor to sell.

Is there any way to find out what blood-banks, and if it's disclosed to the donors that this is where the blood is going? I'd donate to a donor awareness campaign for these blood banks.. If they are not disclosing, I suspect their donations would take a hit if people found out their donation might not go to burn victims or cancer patients, and instead go to modern day Ian McCandless's.

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