Young blood transfusion

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Young blood transfusion refers to transfusing blood specifically from a young person into an older one with the intention of creating a health benefit.^[1] The scientific community currently views the practice as essentially pseudoscientific, with comparisons to snake oil.^[1][2][3] There are also concerns of harm.^[3] The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, in 2019, cautioned "consumers against receiving young donor plasma infusions" stating that they are an "unproven treatment".^[3]

Research

Experiments beginning in the 1950s in the

A study conducted at UC Berkeley found that when delivered alone, blood from older mice was more inhibitory to the regenerative capacities of younger mice than blood from younger mice was beneficial to older ones, and that the benefit of young blood in older mice was less than had been observed when older mice were subjected to parabiosis.[6]^[7] Replacing plasma of old mice with saline and albumin from young mice was sufficient to rejuvenate brain, liver, and muscle.^[7] A 2020 review of plasma components that change with age identified several candidate anti-aging and pro-aging factors.^[8]

In experiments like this, researchers found that some of the parabiosed died quickly (11 out of 69 in one experiment) for reasons the scientists could not explain, but described as possibly some form of

A review of studies on donor age for whole blood transfusions reported that blood from donors under the age of 20 years, when compared to donors aged 20–60 years, resulted in a modestly higher risk of death in the recipients.[9] However, other studies have found no effect of age.^[10][11] Research on blood transfusion outcomes has been complicated by the lack of careful characterization of the transfusion products that have been used in clinical trials; studies had focused on how storage methods and duration might affect blood, but not on the differences among lots of blood themselves.^[12]

Another approach to achieving "younger" blood is to rejuvenate blood-producing

"simply put, we’re concerned that some patients are being preyed upon by unscrupulous actors touting treatments of plasma from young donors as cures and remedies. Such treatments have no proven clinical benefits for the uses for which these clinics are advertising them and are potentially harmful. There are reports of bad actors charging thousands of dollars for infusions that are unproven and not guided by evidence from adequate and well-controlled trials. The promotion of plasma for these unproven purposes could also discourage patients suffering from serious or intractable illnesses from receiving safe and effective treatments that may be available to them."[3]^[14]

Ambrosia

A startup company, Ambrosia, has been selling "young blood transfusions" for $8,000 since 2016 under the guise of running a

On February 19, 2019, Ambrosia announced it stopped testing the treatment, responding to concerns from the FDA.[14]

Alkahest

Another company, Alkahest, was founded based on the Stanford rodent studies. As of 2017 it is collaborating with European pharmaceutical company