The blood of young people will not spare rich seniors from sadness and death, says the FDA

The US Food and Drug Administration has issued an alert on Tuesday, Feb. 19, warning older consumers against injecting blood plasma from younger people. Despite being peddled as anti-aging treatments and cures for a variety of conditions, transfusions are unproven and potentially harmful.

In a statement, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb and the director of the FDA's Center for Evaluation and Biological Products Peter Marks wrote:

In simple terms, we are concerned that some patients may be targeted by unscrupulous actors touting plasma treatments of young donors as remedies and remedies.

Establishments in several states are currently selling young blood plasma, which is the liquid part of the blood that contains proteins for coagulation. According to the FDA, young plasma plasma doses can treat diseases ranging from normal aging to memory loss, including dementia, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease, Alzheimer's disease. heart or post-traumatic stress disorder.

The claims are wild extrapolations from intriguing but preliminary findings in mouse studies. Over the years, rodent experiments have suggested that components of the blood of young mice may reinvigorate older mice, potentially acting as anti-aging treatments. However, the results are unclear, controversial and – more importantly – there is no evidence that they are relevant to human health.

The FDA goes on to note that such infusions pose various health risks to humans. These risks include the spread of infectious diseases, the onset of allergic reactions and the occurrence of lung damage. In some people, especially those with heart disease, the infusions can also overload the circulatory system, causing swelling and difficulty breathing, says the agency.

Although the FDA does not mention any infusion company in its alert, one that has received much media attention is a startup called Ambrosia. He now has locations in Phoenix, Arizona; Los Angeles, California; Tampa, Florida; Omaha, Nebraska; and Houston, Texas, according to the company's website. Clients aged 30 and over can make an appointment for a plasma infusion from healthy donors aged 16 to 25 years. One liter costs $ 8,000, while two liters cost $ 12,000. Neither is covered by insurance.

The company conducted a clinical trial of its infusions in 2016, which was completed last year. The trial involved 200 patients aged 35 years and older and was designed to evaluate blood biomarkers related to aging and certain diseases, including "anemia, neutropenia, thrombocytopenia, obesity, diabetes, high cholesterol, high risk of cancer, atherosclerosis , dementia, etc. cataracts. "

It is unclear how the trial unfolded or if the company published one of the results. The Ambrosia website simply states that one trial "investigated the benefits of young plasma".

Ambrosia did not respond to Ars's request for comment.

In their statement, Gottlieb and Marks added that if they found white blood companies misleading consumers, they were willing to take "regulatory and enforcement action".