4 ms·

I am stupefied by this. Many, many times I have considered: "what would happen if I banked my own blood and transfused it back to myself 40 years later" And

by rsync 12y ago

I am stupefied by this. Many, many times I have considered: "what would happen if I banked my own blood and transfused it back to myself 40 years later" And of course, my next thought was "of course that has been thought of, and tried, and the reason we don't all know about it is because it must not be helpful." But you're telling me that, in fact, nobody thought to try this ? It is 2014/2015 when someone got around to trying this out ?

dangrossman 12y ago
Is there a method to store blood and have it still be viable for transfusion after that long? I know refrigerated blood only lasts a few weeks...
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- rsync 12y ago
  Is that true ? Whatever controlled freezing method they propose for cryogenics ... although they also propose draining all the blood out first, so ... perhaps that's not relevant ?
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
spitfire 12y ago
Well, Lance Armstrong thought of it. Worked or him pretty well. Sort of.
- serf 12y ago
  blood doping has been a cycling past time since the 70's. Lance's novel approach was the medical write-off on drugs which were OK'd due to their use in his then ongoing cancer treatments.
Mangalor 12y ago
Listen, people are like...craaazy busy...
reasonattlm 12y ago
Transfusions seem unlikely to work at this point based on evidence to date, probably because the factors involved are very short-lived. E.g. transfusions failed to move the needle in mice: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4215333/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4215333/ There is a human trial for transfusion of young blood to Alzheimer's patients but this is probably not going to tell us much, because it is so specific, and because the mouse transfusions didn't work. http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329831.400-young-blood-to-be-used-in-ultimate-rejuvenation-trial.html?full=true http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329831.400-young-blo...
- TTPrograms 12y ago
  It could also be a feedback process - components in older blood induce responses in younger organ tissue that releases components into younger blood that is then transferred to the older organism
- CameronNemo 12y ago
  Well the Alzheimer's study is still useful in its own right.
minthd 12y ago
I think they did the experiment in the 50's with mice, but they didn't understood transplantation and rejection so well back then, so many mice had serious problems.Now we can prevent those. Also i think you'd have a hard time to get money for any "anti aging" research up until recently.
electromagnetic 12y ago
I'd just like to say: Simpsons did it first. July 11, 1991, episode "Blood Feud", the last episode of season 2. The scene is around the 7 minute mark. The implication is that the blood transfusion has made him feel young again. There's actually a few references like this throughout the seasons of the simpsons. It's honestly weird to me this wasn't tried in the early days of performing blood transfusions. I mean honestly the study wouldn't even be ethically questionable. You find patients that need routine blood transfusions and track their health over a period of time, you then administer blood transfusions from sources where you can control for the age of the blood donor. I wouldn't be surprised if it was never even thought of because people seem all too willing to think of the body as "just a machine". Given that we literally urinate out neurotransmitters, and that young people tend to be happier (it's actually called the happiness U-bend, in that 18-21 year olds are as happy as 70 year olds, and 50 years old is the lowest point in peoples reported happiness) so we could just be shooting people full of--quite literally--happiness. Given that severe depression can lead to myocardial infraction, I don't doubt general depression also has long term health effects. Also I don't think antidepressants would benefit, just because they generally make people "not feel" rather than "happy".
- rsync 12y ago
  "It's honestly weird to me this wasn't tried in the early days of performing blood transfusions." It's weird to me it wasn't tried the day after the first successful blood transfusion. A child would think of it. That's what's so stupefying...
  - davorak 12y ago
    If memory serves me it was tried, many times soon after blood transfusions become known to the public. Many rich in europe claimed the blood transfusions from the young rejuvenated them in many respects. I do not remember where I read this any more 10+ years ago now. Here is a small snippet I found with a few minutes of search that seems to be reference to the same behavior I remember reading about: https://books.google.com/books?id=bdIBlQXSKi8C&pg=PA78&dq=history+blood+transfusions+rejuvenate&hl=en&sa=X&ei=dlnDVPP0MIyLyAT2uIGwBg&ved=0CEcQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=history%20blood%20transfusions%20rejuvenate&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=bdIBlQXSKi8C&pg=PA78&dq=hi...
Gatsky 12y ago
The HIV, Hep B and Hep C infections probably wouldn't improve one's life span much. In the early days blood was in short supply and safety wasn't guaranteed. So logically, it was only used in patients that really needed it. Transfusions are safer today (there may be viruses we don't know about...) but blood is still in short supply and there are still rare but life threatening transfusion reactions.
spyder 12y ago
It is 2014/2015 when someone got around to trying this out ? Sure you are "stupefied" if you don't read the article: Clive McCay, a biochemist and gerontologist at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, was the first to apply parabiosis to the study of ageing. In 1956 ...
mvaliente2001 12y ago
I'm not sure about the veracity of this story, but aparently pope Innocent VIII tried boold tranfussion from young boys to kkep him young in 1492. The pope and donor died in the process, probably by incompatibility.
halviti 12y ago
There was a study done a couple of years back that showed that stored blood started to become less effective after about 21 days. http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/11/the-shelf-life-of-donor-blood/?_r=0 http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/11/the-shelf-life-of-d...

by rsync 12y ago

dangrossman 12y ago

Is there a method to store blood and have it still be viable for transfusion after that long? I know refrigerated blood only lasts a few weeks...

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
rsync 12y ago
Is that true ? Whatever controlled freezing method they propose for cryogenics ... although they also propose draining all the blood out first, so ... perhaps that's not relevant ?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

spitfire 12y ago

Well, Lance Armstrong thought of it. Worked or him pretty well. Sort of.

serf 12y ago
blood doping has been a cycling past time since the 70's. Lance's novel approach was the medical write-off on drugs which were OK'd due to their use in his then ongoing cancer treatments.

Mangalor 12y ago

Listen, people are like...craaazy busy...

reasonattlm 12y ago

Transfusions seem unlikely to work at this point based on evidence to date, probably because the factors involved are very short-lived. E.g. transfusions failed to move the needle in mice: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4215333/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4215333/ There is a human trial for transfusion of young blood to Alzheimer's patients but this is probably not going to tell us much, because it is so specific, and because the mouse transfusions didn't work. http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329831.400-young-blood-to-be-used-in-ultimate-rejuvenation-trial.html?full=true http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329831.400-young-blo...

TTPrograms 12y ago
It could also be a feedback process - components in older blood induce responses in younger organ tissue that releases components into younger blood that is then transferred to the older organism
CameronNemo 12y ago
Well the Alzheimer's study is still useful in its own right.

minthd 12y ago

I think they did the experiment in the 50's with mice, but they didn't understood transplantation and rejection so well back then, so many mice had serious problems.Now we can prevent those. Also i think you'd have a hard time to get money for any "anti aging" research up until recently.

electromagnetic 12y ago

I'd just like to say: Simpsons did it first. July 11, 1991, episode "Blood Feud", the last episode of season 2. The scene is around the 7 minute mark. The implication is that the blood transfusion has made him feel young again. There's actually a few references like this throughout the seasons of the simpsons. It's honestly weird to me this wasn't tried in the early days of performing blood transfusions. I mean honestly the study wouldn't even be ethically questionable. You find patients that need routine blood transfusions and track their health over a period of time, you then administer blood transfusions from sources where you can control for the age of the blood donor. I wouldn't be surprised if it was never even thought of because people seem all too willing to think of the body as "just a machine". Given that we literally urinate out neurotransmitters, and that young people tend to be happier (it's actually called the happiness U-bend, in that 18-21 year olds are as happy as 70 year olds, and 50 years old is the lowest point in peoples reported happiness) so we could just be shooting people full of--quite literally--happiness. Given that severe depression can lead to myocardial infraction, I don't doubt general depression also has long term health effects. Also I don't think antidepressants would benefit, just because they generally make people "not feel" rather than "happy".

rsync 12y ago
"It's honestly weird to me this wasn't tried in the early days of performing blood transfusions." It's weird to me it wasn't tried the day after the first successful blood transfusion. A child would think of it. That's what's so stupefying...
- davorak 12y ago
  If memory serves me it was tried, many times soon after blood transfusions become known to the public. Many rich in europe claimed the blood transfusions from the young rejuvenated them in many respects. I do not remember where I read this any more 10+ years ago now. Here is a small snippet I found with a few minutes of search that seems to be reference to the same behavior I remember reading about: https://books.google.com/books?id=bdIBlQXSKi8C&pg=PA78&dq=history+blood+transfusions+rejuvenate&hl=en&sa=X&ei=dlnDVPP0MIyLyAT2uIGwBg&ved=0CEcQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=history%20blood%20transfusions%20rejuvenate&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=bdIBlQXSKi8C&pg=PA78&dq=hi...

Gatsky 12y ago

The HIV, Hep B and Hep C infections probably wouldn't improve one's life span much. In the early days blood was in short supply and safety wasn't guaranteed. So logically, it was only used in patients that really needed it. Transfusions are safer today (there may be viruses we don't know about...) but blood is still in short supply and there are still rare but life threatening transfusion reactions.

spyder 12y ago

It is 2014/2015 when someone got around to trying this out ? Sure you are "stupefied" if you don't read the article: Clive McCay, a biochemist and gerontologist at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, was the first to apply parabiosis to the study of ageing. In 1956 ...

mvaliente2001 12y ago

I'm not sure about the veracity of this story, but aparently pope Innocent VIII tried boold tranfussion from young boys to kkep him young in 1492. The pope and donor died in the process, probably by incompatibility.

halviti 12y ago

There was a study done a couple of years back that showed that stored blood started to become less effective after about 21 days. http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/11/the-shelf-life-of-donor-blood/?_r=0 http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/11/the-shelf-life-of-d...