Perhaps David Icke has been right ,young Donated blood from "WHOM?)

Infusions of young blood may reverse effects of ageing, studies suggest

Giving old mice young blood reversed age-related declines in brain function, muscle strength and stamina, researchers say

• Blood transfusions rejuvenate mice. Could they do the same for humans?

Donated blood. Researchers believe an anti-ageing therapy tested on mice should work in humans. Photograph: Martin Argles for the Guardian Martin Argles/Guardian

Ian Sample, science correspondent,

Monday 5 May 2014 09.28 BST Last modified on Saturday 21 June 2014 01.30 BST

Researchers in the US are closing in on a therapy that could reverse harmful ageing processes in the brain, muscles, heart and other organs. Hopes have been raised by three separate reports released by major journals on Sunday that demonstrate in experiments on mice the dramatic rejuvenating effects of chemicals found naturally in young blood.

Infusions of young blood reversed age-related declines in memory and learning, brain function, muscle strength and stamina, researchers found. In two of the reports, scientists identified a single chemical in blood that appears to reverse some of the damage caused by ageing.

Although all three studies were done in mice, researchers believe a similar rejuvenating therapy should work in humans. A clinical trial is expected to begin in the next three to five years.

"The evidence is strong enough now, in multiple tissues, that it's warranted to try and apply this in humans," said Saul Villeda, first author of one of the studies at the University of California in San Francisco.

Ageing is one of the greatest risk factors for a slew of major conditions, from cancer and heart disease to diabetes and dementia. As the population grows older, the proportion of people suffering from such conditions soars. A therapy that slows or reverses age-related damage in the body has the potential to prevent a public health crisis by delaying the onset of several diseases at once.

The three studies took a similar approach to investigate the anti-ageing effects of young blood. Old and young mice were paired up and joined like conjoined twins. To do this, researchers made an incision along the side of each mouse and let the wounds heal in a way that joined the animals together. The procedure meant that the mice shared each other's blood supplies.

Villeda found that blood from three-month-old mice reversed some age-related changes in the brains of 18-month-old mice. The animals grew more and stronger neural connections in a region called the hippocampus, meaning the brain cells could talk to each other more effectively, according to a report in Nature Medicine. An 18-month-old mouse is considered to be equivalent in age to a 70-year-old person.

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Villeda went on to inject blood plasma – or blood without the blood cells – from young mice into older animals. The infusions had a striking impact on the animals' performance. Aged rodents given young blood plasma found their way around a water maze as well as six-month-old mice, and reacted like three-month-olds in an experiment that tested how well they remembered a threatening environment.

"There's something about young blood that can literally reverse the impairments you see in the older brain," Villeda told the Guardian. But he stressed that mice were not humans. "I wish our manuscript could come with a big caption that says 'Do not try this at home'. We need a clinical trial to see if this applies to humans, and to see if there are effects that we don't want."

Villeda said the anti-ageing effect was linked to a protein called Creb that acts like a master regulator in the brain. Young blood plasma makes Creb more active, and this turns on genes that drive neural connections.

In two further studies, researchers at Harvard University showed that infusions of young blood rejuvenated the brains and muscles of older mice. Chemicals in young blood encouraged the growth of blood vessels in the aged brain, which improved circulation in the organ. They also boosted the numbers of neural stem cells, which mature into brain cells. Older mice that received young blood had a sharpened sense of smell, able to distinguish odours as well as young animals could.

"It is possible that increased blood flow might result in increased neural activity and function, opening new therapeutic strategies for treating age-related neurodegenerative conditions," the authors wrote in the journal Science. Intriguingly, when older blood was given to young mice, scientists noticed a dramatic reduction in neural stem cells in their brains.

Similar infusions of young blood rejuvenated muscle tissue in older mice, boosting their strength and exercise endurance, according to another paper in Science.

The Harvard teams went on to show they could replicate the anti-ageing effects of young blood with injections of a single blood protein called GDF11. The amount of GDF11 in the blood slumps when mice grow old. The injections restored the protein to more youthful levels.

Amy Wagers, a senior author on both Harvard papers, said there was good reason to think that a similar approach could help combat the effects of ageing in older people.

"The protein is identical in mice and humans and it is also present in the bloodstream in humans. Our preliminary analyses suggest that it is similarly down-regulated with age, so we think its effects are likely to translate to humans," she told the Guardian.

Last year Wagers showed that GDF11 reversed some effects of ageing in mouse hearts. Barring unexpected hurdles, she expects to start clinical trials of GDF11 in humans in three to five years.

Doug Melton, a stem cell scientist at Harvard, said: "This should give us all hope for a healthier future. We all wonder why we were stronger and mentally more agile when young. There seems to be little question that, at least in animals, GDF11 has an amazing capacity to restore ageing muscle and brain function

Anti-ageing compound set for human trials after turning clock back for mice

New South Wales professor in US rolled back the key indicators of ageing to make two-year-old mice appear six months old

A laboratory mouse. Photograph: Natacha Pisarenko/AP

Oliver Milman

@olliemilman

Australian and US researchers hope an anti-ageing compound could be trialled on humans as early as next year, following a key breakthrough that saw the ageing process reversed in mice.

The study, involving Harvard University and the University of NSW, discovered a way of restoring the efficiency of cells, completely reversing the ageing process in muscles.
Two-year-old mice were given a compound over a week, moving back the key indicators of ageing to that of a six-month-old mouse. Researchers said this was the equivalent of making a 60-year-old person feel like a 20-year-old.
It’s hoped the research, published in Cell, will be expanded to humans as early as next year, with scientists set to look at how the theory of age reversal can be used to treat diseases such as cancer, dementia and diabetes.
The research focused on an area of cells, called mitochondria, which produce energy. Over time, the communication between this area and the cell nucleus degrades, leading to the ageing process.
Researchers injected a chemical called nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, or NAD, which reduces in the body as we age. The addition of this compound led to the radical reversal in the ageing of the mice.
“The ageing process we discovered is like a married couple: when they are young, they communicate well, but over time, living in close quarters for many years, communication breaks down,” said the UNSW professor David Sinclair, who is based at Harvard Medical School. “And just like a couple, restoring communication solved the problem.”
Dr Nigel Turner, senior research fellow at UNSW and co-author of the study, told Guardian Australia the rate of age reversal in mice was “amazingly rapid”.

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“We mapped the pathway to ageing carefully, but it was a real surprise to see the markers of ageing move back so quickly in just a week,” he said.
Turner said a “magic pill” that reverses ageing is several years away, partially due to the cost of the compound, which would be about $50,000 a day for a human.
But trials are expected to commence as soon as next year, with researchers confident that side-effects will be minimal due to the fact the compound is naturally occurring.
“Now that we understand the pathway, we can look at other ways to restore the communication and reverse the ageing process,” Turner said. “People think anti-ageing research is about us wanting to make people live until they are 200, but the goal is really to help people be healthy longer into old age.
“We know that this cell communication breaks down in diseases such as dementia, cancer and type-two diabetes. This research focused on muscles, but it could benefit multiple organs and delay and prevent a lot of these diseases occurring.
“Whether that means we’ll all live to 150, I don’t know, but the important part is that we don’t spend the last 20 to 30 years of our lives in bad health