Young blood transfusion is key to eternal youth?

‘Recharges Brain, Forms New Blood Vessels In Mice’

Kounteya Sinha TNN

London: Transfusion of young blood into an older body may hold the long-sought cure for the decline of the aging brain, according to researchers. Scientists on Sunday confirmed that new blood recharges the brain, forms new blood vessels and greatly improves memory.
    Harvard Stem Cell Institute researchers have shown that a new protein can make the failing hearts in aging mice appear more like those of young and healthy mice.
    It also improves brain and skeletal muscle function in aging mice. In two separate papers, Amy Wagers and Lee Rubin of Harvard’s department of stem cell and regenerative biology (HSCRB) reported that injections of a protein known as GDF11 which is found in humans as well as mice improved the exercise capability of mice equivalent in age to that of about a 70-year-old human and also improved the function of the olfactory region of the brains of the older mice — they could detect smell as younger mice do.
    The researchers expect to have GDF11 in initial human clinical trials within three to five years.
    Both studies examined the effect of GDF11 in two ways. First, by using what is called a parabiotic system in which two mice were surgically joined and the blood of the younger mouse circulates through the older mouse. The second was by injecting the older mice with GDF11. Doug Melton, co-chair of HSCRB, said, “This should give us all hope for a healthier future. We all wonder why we were stronger and mentally more agile when young and these two unusually exciting papers actually point to a possible answer: the higher levels of the protein GDF11 we have when young. There seems to be little question that, at least in animals, GDF11 has an amazing capacity to restore aging muscle and brain function.”
    GDF11 is naturally found in much higher concentration in young mice and raising its levels in the older mice has improved the function of every organ system thus far studied. Last year scientists reported that when exposed to the blood of young mice the weak enlarged hearts of older mice returned to a more youthful size and their function improved.
    They then further reported that GDF11 was the factor in the blood apparently responsible for the rejuvenating effect. That finding has raised hopes that GDF11 may prove in some form to be a possible treatment for diastolic heart failure which is a fatal condition in the elderly that is irreversible.
    They said, “We think an effect of GDF 11 is the improved vascularity and blood flow associated with increased neurogenesis. This should have other more widespread effect on other areas of the brain. We do think that, at least in principal, there will be a way to reverse some of the decline of aging with a single protein. It could be that a molecule like GDF 11 or GDF 11 itself could reverse the damage of aging.” They added, “It isn’t out of question that GDF11 or a drug developed from it might be worthwhile in Alzheimer’s Disease. You might be able to separate out the issues of treating the plaque and tangles associated with the disease, the decline in cognition and perhaps improve cognition.”