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I have written before (here and here) about radical anti-ageing techniques currently being researched, funded and pursued, primarily by the Baby Boomers. One of those treatments involves blood transfusions. Thank you to Dia (check out her blogs here and here) for sending a link about the new vampiric Blood Countess version of said treatment, now in development: scientists have found that 'young blood can reverse some effects of ageing.'

Image © Sharon Day via Ghost Hunting Theories.

Big Think reports on how blood transfusions from infant mice have been found to reverse ageing in old mice (the original source for the story was the Guardian):

What’s the Latest Development?

At a recent conference among neuroscientists, one researcher unveiled a study in which old mice were injected with the blood of younger mice. Results of the study “found that blood from young mice reversed some of the effects of ageing in the older mice, improving learning and memory to a level comparable with much younger animals.” Additional work that involved injecting older mice with blood plasma from two-month-old mice found that the old mice were able to solve mazes much better than their non-injected counterparts.

What’s the Big Idea?

One of the most important discoveries from this study was that the transfused older mice experienced a “20% increase in connections between brain cells.” Additionally, the number of stem cells increased in their brains. If the results of the study can be applied towards people, researchers hope “the technique could one day help people stave off the worst effects of ageing, including conditions such as Alzheimer's.” While there is a huge jump between working with mice and working with humans, researchers foresee the possibility that “people in their 40s or 50s could take therapies based on the rejuvenating chemical factors in younger people's blood, as a preventative against the degenerative effects of ageing.”

The comments section beneath the Big Think report recounts a similar finding made by Alexander Bogdanov (1873-1928) in the 1920s:

This reminds me of the work of AA Bogdanov, a Soviet System's theorist Via wikipedia:  

"In 1924, Bogdanov started his blood transfusion experiments, apparently hoping to achieve eternal youth or at least partial rejuvenation. Lenin's sister Maria Ulianova was among many who volunteered to take part in Bogdanov's experiments. After undergoing 11 blood transfusions, he remarked with satisfaction on the improvement of his eyesight, suspension of balding, and other positive symptoms. The fellow revolutionary Leonid Krasin wrote to his wife that "Bogdanov seems to have become 7, no, 10 years younger after the operation". In 1925-1926, Bogdanov founded the Institute for Haemotology and Blood Transfusions, which was later named after him. But a later transfusion cost him life, when he took the blood of a student suffering from malaria and tuberculosis. (Bogdanov died, but the student injected with his blood made a complete recovery.) Some scholars (e.g. Loren Graham) have speculated that his death may have been a suicide, because Bogdanov wrote a highly nervous political letter shortly beforehand. Others, however, attribute his death to blood type incompatibility, which was poorly understood at the time."

Image © Sharon Day via Ghost Hunting Theories.

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