Can
an old person regain new strength and repair his depreciated organs such as
heart and skeletal muscles, some brain cells and neurons by getting a blood
transfusion from a younger person?
Source: agingscience.com
It
has been earnest desire of the man kind to either live for-ever and at least
delay the aging process so that one can remain youthful.
Scientists
have been doing research to understand the aging process and many experiments
have returned encouraging results. For example, we now know that there is a
terminal segment in our DNA, called telomere which plays important role in how
many times a cell will divide. With every cell division the length of telomere
recedes resulting in loss of telomere length. Such is our DNA replication
process which eventually leads to cellular senescence and aging.
Source:
telomerance.net
Recently,
the stem cell research has open a vast horizon of possibilities in terms of
defying aging, replacing damaged organs and scientists have understood what are
the factors needed to transform a stem cells into different body organ.
Now,
this new finding has come where the researchers have provided a clue to the
first question I put in the beginning. Working on the problem raised in 1950s
by Dr. Clive M. McCay of Cornell University
that why after parabiosis,
a process of connecting two individuals by their blood vessels, of an old and a
young mice, the older mice got rejuvenated by the plasma of the younger mice,
two unrelated groups of scientists have claimed that blood transfusions from
younger individuals may make an older individual young, repair their hearts and
may cure an aged brain.
Source: neurorexia.com
The answer lies in the availability of some
proteins in higher amount in the blood of young person which appears to
stimulate the stem cells leading to the formation of new and young tissue in
old person.
We all have stem cells in our body and they
help us maintain our body homeostasis, vigour and adulthood. As we age, the
factors which direct and guide the stem cells to repair the damaged organs and
form new ones decrease leading to aging and aging-related diseases.
The scientists have identified some of the
factors in blood plasma that may turn the clock for older individual. For
example, the team scientists led by Dr. Amy J. Wagers of Harvard University identified
a protein called GDF11 in young blood plasma that may stimulate the stem cells
in old individual leading to the formation of new heart tissue.
Clinically, it means that this protein can be
used a medicine to rejuvenate the damaged heart of an aged person after an
attack. It may also be used as a supplement for older people to strengthen
their heart and reduced the risk of heart diseases.
The same may be possible in case of Alzheimer's disease and many other neurodegenerative conditions that results due to aging.
After this path-breaking discovery, it is
necessary to understand the mechanism how different factors guide the stem
cells to convert into a specific cell of a specific organ. Such understanding
should result in devising some cocktail drug which affects majority of body
organs than taking individual drug to repair specific organ.
In science, every new discovery has potential
harmful side too. In this case as well, there are concerns. The stem cell
stimulation may also result in cancerous tissue which will be required to be
negated for beneficial use. Also that
these experiments have been performed on mice and it will take time to try and
test if these results hold true in humans.
Nonetheless, ‘hope is a great thing’. I am
going close my eyes and think of possibilities of playing soccer with my great
grand-children, why not!!
Further readings:
