excerpted from: nytimes.com
Young Blood May Hold Key to Reversing Aging
Two teams of scientists published studies on Sunday showing that blood from young mice reverses aging in old mice, rejuvenating their muscles and brains. As ghoulish as the research may sound, experts said that it could lead to treatments for disorders like Alzheimer’s disease and heart disease.
In the early 2000s, scientists realized that stem cells were not dying off in aging tissues.
Thomas A. Rando, a professor of neurology at Stanford University School of Medicine and his colleagues wondered what signals the old stem cells would receive if they were bathed in young blood. Experiments indicated that there were compounds in the blood of the young mice that could awaken old stem cells and rejuvenate aging tissue. Likewise, the blood of the old mice had compounds that dampened the resilience of the young mice.
Work was furthered by Amy J. Wagers, a member of Dr. Rando’s team, who had relocated to Harvard. To pinpoint the molecules responsible for the change, Dr. Wagers and her colleagues screened the animals’ blood and found that a protein called GDF11 was abundant in young mice and scarce in old ones.
“We can turn back the clock instead of slowing the clock down,” said Dr. Toren Finkel, director of the Center for Molecular Medicine at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. “That’s a nice thought if it pans out.”
read more at: nyti.ms/1iYIpDm
James M. Pearson, MD FACS
Board Certified Facial Plastic Surgeon
Trust Your Face to a Specialist!
PearsonMD.com
The post Young Blood May Hold Key to Reversing Aging appeared first on Dr. James Pearson Facial Plastic Surgery Blog.
