FDA issues seemingly obvious warning against injecting young people's blood to fight aging
Breaking news: you should not be mainlining young people's blood in hopes of staying younger. That's not how life works — as far as we know — and is also not recommended by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The FDA issued a warning about certain organizations across the country that are "offering infusions of plasma from young donors" to help treat illnesses like Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, memory loss and just normal aging.
Yes, there are companies out there, namely controversial startup Ambrosia Health, that pre-FDA warning, offered these types of services.
And also charged thousands of dollars for it. Like $8,000 for a liter of plasma.
$8,000?!?!?!
A liter is about four cups. Do you know how many glasses of wine you can get for $8,000? And you'll probably be feeling younger by the fourth glass.
"Simply put, we’re concerned that some patients are being preyed upon by unscrupulous actors touting treatments of plasma from young donors as cures and remedies," the FDA warning read. "Such treatments have no proven clinical benefits for the uses for which these clinics are advertising them and are potentially harmful."
According to Forbes, the theory that a young person's blood will also in turn make you younger emerged from a Frankenstein-esque experiment done on mice. Scientists connected the blood supply of an old mouse to a young mouse, which ended up making the old mouse "stronger, smarter and healthier and their fur shinier."
Ambrosia Health has since ceased and its blood-transfusion treatments in compliance with the FDA's warning. Their website now reads: "In compliance with the FDA announcement issued February 19, 2019, we have ceased patient treatments."
The startup was founded by Jesse Karmazin, a former Stanford medical student, who said as an intern at the National Institute on Aging he witnessed many successful blood transfusions.
"Some patients got young blood and others got older blood, and I was able to do some statistics on it, and the results looked really awesome," the Ambrosia Health founder told Business Insider. "And I thought, this is the kind of therapy that I'd want to be available to me."
Karmazin is not licensed to practice medicine even though he has a medical degree.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: FDA issues seemingly obvious warning against injecting young people's blood to fight aging
