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Some wealthy people are injecting blood from teenagers to gain ‘immortality’
- perpetualcrayon 9y agoThis is one among many signs that we (as a species) have reached a point where we no longer need money as a means to accumulate wealth. We need money as a means to moderate consumption. The ideas for how to spend extraordinary wealth will only continue to get weirder.
- 21 9y agoDo you need to pay more to get your blood from blonde virgins? I feel a business opportunity for enterprising girls. EDIT: Why the flagged? I was just making fun of the situation.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- marsrover 9y agoOne step closer to cattle.
- FractalNerve 9y agoWe're there already, officially: https://phys.org/news/2015-12-china-clone-factory-scientist-eyes.html https://phys.org/news/2015-12-china-clone-factory-scientist-... What can be done, will be done. Too much to win with military budgets here, that's only what hits the more and more strongly regulated public news. Edit: My sentiment is to no trust any goverment denying mass experiments. Too much insanity in the politic, bureaucratic power lust.
- brianwawok 9y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBA0AH-LSbo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBA0AH-LSbo I wonder if they knew this...
- Roritharr 9y agoI was expecting this to happen after the first news broke of the "findings" a while ago.... Can we ethically ask if it does work?
- burkaman 9y agoYes, test animals first, and then find volunteers who are willing to be tested without being paid. Blood transfusion has less ethical issues than something like an organ transplant, since there's no permanent effects on the donor.
- yellowapple 9y agoI'm pretty confident that donors won't touch this with a ten foot pole unless they're paid. The only reason why I'm willing to part with my supposedly-precious O- blood is because I'm reasonably confident that the blood will be going to people who actually need it. Otherwise-healthy old people using my blood as some kind of sick fountain of youth completely throws that dynamic out of the window. That's my blood, and I will be paid for both the blood itself and the time out of my day, and I will be paid very handsomely, or the old rich people will be out of luck. This is especially true during clinical trials.
- dmix 9y agoTLDR: A test using mice doing a transfusion of blood from younger->older showed signs of rejuvenation. It's still going through clinical trials for humans. An SF startup is running such a trial with 100 people, each of whom paid $8k. + there are critics/skeptics of it's scientific viability as well as the costs considering it's unproven. Key quote: > “There's just no clinical evidence [that the treatment will be beneficial],” argues Tony Wyss-Coray, the Stanford neuroscientist behind a key 2014 mice parabiosis study. For one thing, Karmazin’s trial does not use a placebo control group and participants can be as young as 35.
- andreasgonewild 9y agoYuck; if that's where awesome profits takes you, I'll pass. Can you get more detached from reality?
- coss 9y agoI'm not sure why you wouldn't want this? Must suck being old and tired all the time. I'll take youthfulness over that any day.
- ams6110 9y agoAt age 52 I can honestly say I don't feel more tired or generally any worse in any way than I did when I was 16. My eyes are about the only thing that has noticeably aged. I'm a bit far sighted at this point
- xenihn 9y agoDo you still exercise? I personally think that the biggest part of feeling more tired with aging is that people just stop exercising. Not exercising less, just completely stopping, because you get caught in a cycle of being too tired from work/commuting to exercise, and having less energy due to a lack of exercise.
- tedunangst 9y agoDetached from reality?
- mmagin 9y agoVia http://uk.businessinsider.com/young-blood-plasma-transfusions-anti-aging-remedy-2017-1?r=US&IR=T http://uk.businessinsider.com/young-blood-plasma-transfusion... "He adds that because patients are paying it wouldn't be fair to give anyone a placebo."
- coliveira 9y agoIn other words, there will be obvious scientific challenges to the validity of such a study...
- IncRnd 9y agoExactly. It's not a real study.
- Joof 9y agoCharge 10k-12k and use the extra funds to run a study large enough for a placebo group (say, 50% get placebo and a small sum of $$$ for their time).
- whafro 9y agoRefund the placebo folks after the study?
- ada1981 9y agoOffer to give them treatment if it was effective? The only study here is one in how to seperate people from $8k with the promise of near immortality from blood that was taken under the pretense of helping people who actually need it.
- pmorici 9y agoAs close as you can get to real life vampires.
- weberc2 9y agoMy mental image is Mr. Burns from the Simpsons.
- yellowapple 9y agoEven down to the part about living forever.
- zbobet2012 9y agoThe fact that the silicon valley episode was based in reality is super disturbing...
- s73ver_ 9y agoI read Dan Lyon's book "Disrupted" about the time he spent with HubSpot before becoming a writer for Silicon Valley. He says that there were times where he would pitch something that he actually saw or happened to him, and the other writers would shoot it down because it just didn't seem realistic.
- narrator 9y agoThis is kind of old news. The new hotness is GDF11 injections.
- richardthered 9y agoI think the Dark Crystal is a better reference... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4voZl28ADM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4voZl28ADM
- spraak 9y agoSo, honestly, how far off are the conspiracy theories of what aborted babies are used for? :S
- IncRnd 9y ago"Researchers typically take tissue samples from a fetus that has been aborted (under conditions permitted by law) and grow cells from the tissue in Petri dishes. "Many of the uses of fetal tissue — and much of the debate — are not new. "It's just that the public is finding out about it," said Insoo Hyun, associate professor of bioethics at Case Western Reserve University. http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/17/health/fetal-tissue-explainer/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/17/health/fetal-tissue-explainer/...
- serf 9y agoWell, honestly, they (the conspiracy stories) have little to no connection to reality. Next question.
- brooklyntribe 9y agoIt works, so go for it! :-)
- fiatjaf 9y ago"The super rich"? You mean this as a class of people? I have a lot of money, but I'm not doing it, so I'm probably not on the "super rich" class, right?
- bradjohnson 9y agoGet over yourself.
- fiatjaf 9y agoWhat does that mean?
- bradjohnson 9y agoJust because an article title mentions the "super rich", don't feel the need to inject yourself into the discussion by waving your money around and saying that this doesn't apply to you. Nobody cares.
- true_religion 9y agoSaying "I have a lot of money" is hardly convincing evidence of being "super rich".
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- reasonattlm 9y agoThe aim is to see whether or not this can usefully change the balance of signaling molecules to, say, spur greater stem cell activity. There has been a trial in Alzheimer's patients, but some signs in animal studies that transfusions from young to old don't do much. It seems useful to speed up the process of determining whether or not transfusions are an interesting line of research, or something that only looked promising. That means more patients and larger trial populations, which Ambrosia is working on. These transfusion initiatives are one of a number of outgrowths of parabiosis research in mice. Heterochronic parabiosis is the name given to connecting the circulatory systems of an old and a young individual. The older mouse shows a modest rejuvenation in a number of measures of aging, and the younger mouse shows some greater signs of aging - though most of the focus here has been on the old mouse. In recent years this technique has been used to search for potentially actionable differences in levels of specific signal molecules circulating in the bloodstream. For example, stem cell activity declines with aging, and this is likely governed by signaling processes. If levels of the most relevant molecules could be adjusted in old individuals, it might be possible to produce benefits that look quite similar to those of stem cell therapies: increased regeneration and tissue maintenance. This class of approach puts damaged, aged cells back to work, and does little to address causes of aging based on accumulation of metabolic waste, such as cross-links that stiffen blood vessels, but to the degree that it can improve health it is probably worthy of further investigation in the same way as stem cell therapy was back in the day. One potential shortcut to the production of therapies is to perform transfusions: deliver young blood or young plasma to old individuals. I call this a potential shortcut because it really is still very uncertain as to (a) whether or not the whole process works in humans anywhere near as well as it works in mice, and (b) whether or not transfusions will recapture the effects of parabiosis to a useful degree. The evidence in mice suggests so far that it may not. It is possible to paint all sorts of scenarios in which the fact that old and young cells are in contact, feeding signals to one another in a feedback loop, is necessary to produce beneficial changes in the old individual. It is also possible to imagine signals with a short half-life, that won't be recaptured in transfusions, or changes in the old environment that are based on an increased level of specific signal molecules. That increased level won't be changed in the slightest by the arrival of some amount of young blood plasma. Only reduced levels are likely to be impacted that way. In any case, testing and perhaps ruling out the fast path of transfusions seems like a fair plan. If it works, it will draw in more funding to build the better option of manipulating signal molecule levels directly. It if doesn't work, that result will direct scientists to focus on more productive lines of research and development. There is some grumbling from the expected quarters over the structuring of this present initiative by Ambrosia, but getting it done is better than not getting it done. The data will be useful in the sense that only sizable effects are interesting, and thus before and after data for participants will be convincing. Marginal effects, of the sort in which it would have been useful to have a control group to establish whether or not any benefits actually resulted, would mean that this probably isn't worth further exploration. Still, this well demonstrates the fact that many scientists who work within the heavily regulated, slow, and repressive system of medical development really don't like it when people try to get things done more rapidly and more inventively. To the extent that it closes down productive avenues, this is a dangerous attitude. Recent commentary suggests that none of the results so far are either large enough or extensive enough to definitively be something other than the placebo effect, chance, or other items such as a patient making lifestyle changes. I think there is some skepticism regarding the potential effectiveness of transfusions of young blood in any case; the data is somewhat mixed, and underlying theory on what is going on still in flux. Recent research suggests that the effects observed in parabiosis studies of mice with joined circulatory systems are due to a dilution of harmful factors in old blood rather than a delivery of helpful factors from young blood, for example. If the case, that would mean that transfusions should produce very limited results at best. Still, obtaining data is the important thing, and that is what is being done here. Those complaining the loudest should put in the work to raise funds and run a study they way they would prefer to.
- alphonsegaston 9y agoGlad that the wealthy have moved on to actual vampirism after decades of the financial/metaphorical variety.
- tarr11 9y agoThis would make a great SF story. Over time, the demand for young blood continued to grow but there was a stubbornly limited supply. A new batch of YCombinator "blood startups" aimed to disrupt the industry by supplying devices that made it more convenient to infuse blood directly into your bloodstream. One company based in Menlo Park, dracul.ai, developed a set of titanium prosthetic fangs that would eliminate the need for an expensive IV procedure and hospital visit. Instead, the blood was extracted directly into the fangs, which were than purified by nanotubes and fed directly into users' bloodstreams. Scattered reports came out that wealthy users were luring young candidates to their large Woodsite and Atherton estates and extracting blood from victicms, without consent. Company founder (who simply goes by monicker "Vlad") vehemently denies such allegations.
- sdenton4 9y agoMy favorite part of the original Dracula is all of the weird shit that starts happening just because Dracula's in the neighborhood. Rat infestations, mysterious plagues, the madmen in the asylum getting frisky... Obviously, this could all translate perfectly into a story of late capitalist vampires living in a condo-converted church in the mission...
- tareqak 9y agoArguably, this business has sort of tested the waters for the market value of developing artificial plasma for the same purpose. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_substitute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_substitute
- joney_baloney 9y agoIs it bad if I root for Kim Jong Un to nuke these people?
- ImSkeptical 9y agoYes. What's wrong with paying people for their blood? It sounds gross, but if it works, and all parties are informed and consent, what's wrong with it?
- will_brown 9y ago>all parties are informed and consent, what is wrong with it? It's exploitation. First if teenagers are actually doing this (under 18 anyway) they can't legally consent to this. Nevertheless, the only thing they are informed of is they don't have money and they want it. It's like asking what's wrong with child prostitution as long as the children are informed and consent. You think the class of people engaging in this practice would continue if they were limited to using their own children? We aren't exactly talking about a last resort of donating an organ to keep someone alive.
- ImSkeptical 9y agoLet's assume the children in question are old enough to give meaningful consent - otherwise, I agree there is a problem. I don't think the decision to have your blood drawn is as impactful as consenting to sex - sex has psychological and physiological implications that are not considerations with getting blood drawn. This isn't really exploitation, they understand what they give up, blood and time, and what they get - money. This seems more like a trade. Do you think that any trade between two parties where one has considerably more wealth than the other is exploitation?
- tomc1985 9y agoFunny, I just listened to an episode of Nightfall that was just exactly this. (The Blood Countess)
- 21 9y ago"I'm not really in the camp of saying this will provide immortality but I think it comes pretty close, essentially." We've all seen marketing speak, but wow :)
- ada1981 9y agoHad this on my clipboard to paste here. This guy is saying this is pretty close to immortality. He has no idea what he is talking about, what a scam artist.
- Gatsky 9y agoI don't know how this got ethics approval. Doing a trial in 600 people without a placebo or randomisation when you are using a potentially harmful treatment like transfusion is ridiculous. Of course, they aren't interested in proving whether it actually works. They will report that patients experienced subjective benefits and then engineer some surrogate blood biomarker of youth that 'improves' after transfusion. Then they will sell a transfusion product for at least the next 10-20 years it will take a proper trial to be conducted by someone else.
- nserrino 9y agoIf it does work, then this is the first step to mass adoption: early adoption by the wealthy.
- oblib 9y agoThis is surely a response to a fear of death. Perhaps a chance to beat the devil? Life has been an adventure and dying will be one too. Hell, I'm surprised I've lived this long so everyday is good, but I'd feel pretty creepy inside if I did something like this. I'm not a believer in nothingness. I feel we carry what we do with us forever. I wouldn't want this following me, not even from 10,000 years away.
- tyrw 9y agoWould you get a heart transplant to save your life?
- jstewartmobile 9y agoDo we take hearts from healthy people to replace hearts that are still working just fine?
- yellowapple 9y agoThis is pretty much the premise of The Island.
- ccdev 9y agoLooks like Blood Boy is now more real.
- djvdorp 9y agoOrphan Black, anyone?