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Anti-Aging Start-Up Is Charging Thousands of Dollars for Teen Blood (vanityfair.com)
An anonymous reader writes: A startup called Ambrosia is charging about $8,000 a pop for blood transfusions from people under 25, Jesse Karmazin said at Code Conference. Ambrosia, which buys its blood from blood banks, now has about 100 paying customers. Some are Silicon Valley technologists, like Thiel, though Karmazin stressed that tech types aren't Ambrosia's only clients, and that anyone over 35 is eligible for its transfusions. Karmazin was inspired to found Ambrosia after seeing studies researchers had done involving sewing mice together with their veins conjoined. Some aspects of aging, one 2013 study found, could be reversed when older mice get blood from younger ones, but other researchers haven't been able to replicate these results, and the benefits of parabiosis in humans remains unclear. "I think the animal and retrospective data is compelling, and I want this treatment to be available to people," Karmazin told the MIT Technology Review.
Note that donated Blood has an expiration date. Living cells die. Red blood cells last for 42 days, platelets last only for 7 days.
That means in order to have enough blood for medical emergencies, we need t constantly have EXTRA blood available that will be wasted. Which means that every day we throw out a ton of 'expired' blood.
This new business can help manage this problem. Bigger market, means less gets wasted. Worst case scenario, we can say "sorry, you need to return that blood, that was a 12 car pile up on I95." Build it into their contracts.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
If they did it here (Canada), I'd love it because the money would go back into Canadian Blood Services, and help fund blood drives, collection, and storage.
Hell, if they gave a percentage back to young donors to encourage regular donation, and another percentage to artificial blood research, that'd be awesome too.
Lining a for-profit blood business owner's pockets though? Not so nice.
If you ever need an organ transplant, all those transfusions will lower your ability to find a good match. When my wife was on the list for a kidney transplant, she needed transfusions due to anemia, and MAN did they hold back as much as possible so as not to screw her out of a new kidney.
Why do we care if the fda intervenes or not? The data is out there, the clientel wealthy enough to be well informed. Do we really need a nanny on everything?
Loren Pickart first discovered this effect in the 1970s and found the responsible isolate, GHK, which has been extensively studied.
It's probably available in kilogram quantities for the price this company is charging.
This company is either ignorant of basic science, or a deliberate scam.
In the old days the kidney recipiant would also receive a bloodtransfusion during transplantation. Because it causes a significant immunological depressing effect, limiting rejection.
Why on earth would repetitive immunological hits be good for you? More likely cause more cancer and infections.
There are several reasons doctors are very cautious in giving transfusions. Only when there is a clear benefit, it weighs up to the ' costs/risks'.
Why are other peoples sig's always more witty ???
I like how the left out the follow-up study in mice where they only gave transfusions to the older mice and it had no effect.
It turns out the effect was from the young kidneys, liver, etc. that the older mice could use when their circulatory systems were joined.