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FDA Warns Against Using Young Blood As Medical Treatment (cnn.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned Tuesday against using plasma infusions from young blood donors to ward off the effects of normal aging as well as other more serious conditions. Plasma, the liquid portion of the blood, contains proteins that help clot blood. The infusions are promoted to treat a variety of conditions, including normal aging and memory loss as well as serious conditions such as dementia, multiple sclerosis, heart disease and post-traumatic stress disorder.
"There is no proven clinical benefit of infusion of plasma from young donors to cure, mitigate, treat, or prevent these conditions, and there are risks associated with the use of any plasma product," FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb wrote in a statement Tuesday. "The reported uses of these products should not be assumed to be safe or effective," he added, noting that the FDA "strongly" discourages consumers from using this therapy "outside of clinical trials under appropriate institutional review board and regulatory oversight." Gottlieb said that "a growing number of clinics" are offering plasma from young donors and similar therapies, though he did not name any in particular.
"There is no proven clinical benefit of infusion of plasma from young donors to cure, mitigate, treat, or prevent these conditions, and there are risks associated with the use of any plasma product," FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb wrote in a statement Tuesday. "The reported uses of these products should not be assumed to be safe or effective," he added, noting that the FDA "strongly" discourages consumers from using this therapy "outside of clinical trials under appropriate institutional review board and regulatory oversight." Gottlieb said that "a growing number of clinics" are offering plasma from young donors and similar therapies, though he did not name any in particular.
Income inequality is a problem but it's certainly not the biggest or most pressing issue with a medically unnecessary waste of precious lifesaving bodily tissues... paying blood donors should be illegal anyway.
So the traditional food pyramid is actually a lot more bunk then people realise, but also you can say that without being the worst kind of creature on the internet.
It's turtles all the way down.
Plasma is the stuff in blood that's not red blood cells. It's basically everything else other than the oxygen bearing red cells, this includes minerals, salts, proteins, sugars and vitamins along with blood clotting factors anti-bodies and a ton of other stuff. Any blood born pathogens are in the plasma, NOT in the red blood cells themselves (you can count on one hand the number of pathogens that could be inside a red blood cell).
The plasma is also the area where things like antibodies and immune system components are contained. Usually the centrifuge that removes the red blood cells also takes the white cells out too but the risk of a allergic reaction is still high because of all the other components that are unique to the person that generated the plasma.
Apparently you are under the misguided impression that the red blood cells are the only thing in blood and that is where pathogens are. This is not the case, red blood cells have pretty much a single purpose and that's to move oxygen. Everything else is moved in the plasma surrounding the blood cells.
If folks really find this 'treatment' beneficial, find someone with hemochromatosis, and offer them a low payment for regular donation.
For those that don't know, it's a condition where a persons gut is sort of out-of-control in terms of how much iron it absorbs, leading to a slight excess of iron. This slight extra iron can build up to unsafe levels if not removed for several decades- and the most convenient option for removal is simple: Draining about a blood donation worth of blood twice a week, until the levels are 'normal', then less frequently to maintain.
The body replaces the blood just fine, and the blood is perfectly find for almost every use, since a slightly elevated iron level is rarely an issue for 99% of cases.
Unfortunately, lots of blood organizations refuse to draw blood from folks with this condition for free - and want to charge for the regular blood donation as 'treatment' - and will even pour the blood out rather than use it to help anyone, with no clear reason other than unmentioned greed as motivations.
So, if this 'treatment' becomes fashion, then I hope it leads to a less crazy situation for folks with that condition - though it is still crazy to use blood this way too. Perhaps in this case, two crazy situations make a sane result?
Ryan Fenton