Injecting aged rats with plasma from young pigs was found to reverse the biological aging of multiple organs including the liver, heart, and brain. The young blood plasma treatment also enhanced learning and memory as well as decreased two hallmarks of aging: oxidative stress and inflammation, according to a study published in PubMed from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA).
Several animal studies have demonstrated that young blood (plasma) contains several critical factors that are capable of promoting tissue repair and regeneration, but whether these factors have the ability to simultaneously rejuvenate and/or reverse the biological age of aged tissues has remained undetermined, until now.
The preprint published bioRxiv which has been updated, in Geroscience, describes how injecting aged rats with plasma from young pigs successfully reversed the biological age of multiple vital organs, and while improving the function of the vital organs also reduced oxidative stress and inflammation.
Young blood (plasma) rejuvenates aged organs
Chronological age reminds us how many years we have been alive, but molecular biomarkers can reveal how much we have biologically aged and tell us if our bodies have experienced accelerated aging. These molecular indicators and biomarkers have been used to develop epigenetic clocks that can predict true biological age, using these clocks allows researchers to investigate the effectiveness of aging interventions such as young blood plasma injections to investigate their potential to reverse aging at the molecular level.
Keeping this in mind, for this study, 6 unique rat-specific biological clocks were created to determine if pig young blood plasma could reverse the biological age of aged rat tissues in multiple vital organs.
According to the researchers, the injections successfully reversed the biological age of the liver by 74.6%, the heart by 46.5%, and the brain by 24.4% in aged rats. The effectiveness suggests that pig young blood plasma treatments have the potential to address a wide range of age-related diseases.
Treatment also enhances the functions of rejuvenated organs
The researchers then examined if the treatment results correlated with improved vital organ functionality by subjecting two groups of aged rats to the Barnes Maze Test which is a spatial learning and memory test to measure the ability to locate and escape a hole on a circular platform.
One group of rats was treated, and the other was not as the controls. While shortly after treatment both groups took close to the same amount of time to locate the concealed escape hole, one month after the treated rats took significantly less time than the untreated control, indicating that the pig young blood plasma worked to restore cognitive function in the treated aged rats.
Assessment of functional markers in the heart and liver revealed that the young blood plasma treatment increased levels of several markers that are known to support and sustain both vital organ’s function during the aging process. Additionally, the treatment was also revealed to substantially reduce markers of inflammation and oxidative stress which are responsible for driving aging and disease.
When taken together the study’s findings suggest that pig young blood plasma treatment can reverse vital organ aging at the molecular level, rejuvenate organ function, and mitigate two of the hallmarks of aging.
Is this the next anti-aging therapy?
While young blood plasma treatments show promise in anti-aging and longevity research, the full potential and possible side effects are still under investigation. Translating research from animals to humans does not always work out as planned, and it requires years of additional rigorous research, regulatory approval, ethical consideration as well as long-term safety and efficacy data.
For now, this study joins other studies that have shown that young blood plasma treatments have promise to ameliorate age-related cognitive decline as well as the ability to rejuvenate aged tissues. The fact that the treatments demonstrated effectiveness in reducing inflammation and oxidative stress shows its potential to allow organ aging and delay the onset of age-related diseases and warrants further research.
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References/Sources/Materials provided by:
https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37609328
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature22067
