5 replies to this topic

[YOLF]

I seem to recall a technology that was able to fractionate good blood from bad blood? IIRC it was able to do so b/c less healthy blood held more iron or something and was heavier. It was thought that doing this on a regular basis would be good for us and for our longevity. So why not partner with "The Blood Bank" to propagate this technology to make blood donation more attractive? We'd need to study this and make sure that there was a net benefit first. Right now, blood donation ages us and depletes, albeit slowly, our replicative capacity. It's not noticeable, but it could benefit the donor and ensure that there is always enough blood. Now would be the right time to do this and make this technology widely available. There will be demand for it until we start cloning blood that is as good or better than the rest.

 

Having this technology will also improve the quality of blood given to patients.

[Kalliste]

Do you have any sources regarding the statement that blood donation ages us prematurely?

I seem to recall a lot of favorable evidence for blood donation. I've always considered it to be something that stimulates hormesis in some weird way.

 

Anyway, I posted an article about Googles idea of building a bracelet that would constantly clear the blood passing by it of some unwanted cells.

I'm sure this can be done in multiple ways though it would be nice if we did not need a trained nurse to puncture us. I suspect that these kinds of treatments will show up in a not too distant future.

It's already possible to chelate some metals via blood-filtering and I recall that this is done for some types of cancer.

[corb]

Blood can be indefinitely replenished by the hematopoetic stem cells. Unless I'm mistaken.

If that wasn't the case bone marrow transplants would be incredibly damaging to the donor much more than a blood donation.

I've not heard of anything of that nature ergo blood donations should be completely safe.

Edited by corb, 28 March 2015 - 11:07 PM.

[Danail Bulgaria]

Blood can be replenished throughout our life, it simply receives aging damage too.

 

The blood cells normally live one to several weeks, after that they are being destroyed, and replaced with new blood cells. Similar things happen with the skin - skin cells die and exfoliate constantly, independently if you are going to donate them or not.

 

In brief - the blood donation will not damage your haematopoetic system, if you don't give blood too often.

 

In order to know that, and many other things, the people from this forum have to change their negative view on medicine and turn to the real science, that deals with the human aging on a daily practice.

 

A sample citation from the Hazzard's Geriatric medicine and gerontology 6th edition, 2009

 

"A major question with regard to the aging hematopoietic system is
whether or not the pluripotent HSC has a finite replicative capacity.
Studies of long-term bone marrow culture show that maintenance of
hematopoiesis varies inversely with the age of the donor from which
the culture was initiated. Additional studies using serial transplantation,
whereby HSCs are subjected to in vivo serial transfer into
recipient animals in which hematopoiesis has been ablated, also reveal
a gradual loss in the ability to self-replicate. Thus, CFU-S from
young donors is better able to repopulate the marrow of irradiated
mice than CFU-S from old donors."

[YOLF]

Anytime you increase the replicative demand there will be some side effect. If you have to replenish more cells than usual, you put more strain on those systems and other connected systems. The impact might not be significant initially, and most people will probably die of something else, but given an indefinite lifespan and advancements in technologies that will allow us to live longer, it may become evident. It's likely to be something we just aren't recognizing right now. It's a pattern that keeps popping up. So let's get progressive and improve the system. 

 

In any case, there is still reason to encourage the implementation of this technology even if we disagree on the significance or impact of blood donation.

[YOLF]

Do you have any sources regarding the statement that blood donation ages us prematurely?

I seem to recall a lot of favorable evidence for blood donation. I've always considered it to be something that stimulates hormesis in some weird way.

 

Anyway, I posted an article about Googles idea of building a bracelet that would constantly clear the blood passing by it of some unwanted cells.

I'm sure this can be done in multiple ways though it would be nice if we did not need a trained nurse to puncture us. I suspect that these kinds of treatments will show up in a not too distant future.

It's already possible to chelate some metals via blood-filtering and I recall that this is done for some types of cancer.

I'm sure there are some benefits and some negatives. As with anything we're interested in, we always want to make it more beneficial and less negative to hope to reap a life extension benefit from anything we do.