Saturday, January 19, 2013

Rejuvenating power of blood not fiction

Rejuvenating power of blood not fiction

Published: 28 January, 2010, 15:12
Edited: 06 May, 2010, 12:06        http://rt.com/news/sci-tech/rejuvenating-blood-not-fiction/

The image of notorious Countess Elizabeth Bathory, who was said to take baths filled with the blood of virgins to regain her youth, may have some scientific basis.
The blood of young mice managed to reverse some aspects of aging when pumped into old mice’s veins.
The findings by a team at Harvard University showed that some unknown factor in young blood can make old bone marrow act as if it were younger. In the experiment, the researchers surgically connected the circulatory systems of two mice, so that the older animal was constantly exposed to the blood from the younger one.

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As a result the age-associated changes in blood-producing stem cells of the older mouse were reversed. Namely, the number of the stem cells was reduced, while the number of the blood cells they produced increased. With age, bone marrow also produces fewer immune cells and more inflammatory cells, which was also reversed in the experiment. What expertly causes this rejuvenating effect is not clear yet, but the researchers suspect the hormone called Insulin-like Growth Factor 1 may be involved, they write in a paper published by the journal “Nature”. The hormone was previously shown to have a role in longevity regulation.
At the same time, the long-term effect of this blood rejuvenation of bone marrow is unknown and needs further research.
Read also – Blood of Young Creatures Seem to Rejuvenate the Older Ones

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