Posted on 08/20/2023 6:15:03 AM PDT by ConservativeMind
Platelets are behind the cognitive benefits of young blood, exercise and the longevity hormone klotho. In a remarkable convergence, scientists have discovered that the same blood factor is responsible for the cognitive enhancement that results from young blood transfusion, the longevity hormone klotho, and exercise.
In a trio of papers, teams identify platelet factor 4 (PF4) as a common messenger of each of these interventions.
As its name suggests, PF4 is made by platelets, a type of blood cell that alerts the immune system when there is a wound and helps to form clots. It turns out that PF4 is also a cognitive enhancer. Under its influence, old mice recover the sharpness of middle age and young mice get smarter.
"Young blood, klotho, and exercise can somehow tell your brain, 'Hey, improve your function,'" said Saul Villeda, Ph.D. "With PF4, we're starting to understand the vocabulary behind this rejuvenation."
Just injecting PF4 into old animals was about as restorative as young plasma. It calmed down the aged immune system in the body and the brain. Old animals treated with PF4 performed better on a variety of memory and learning tasks.
"PF4 actually causes the immune system to look younger, it's decreasing all of these active pro-aging immune factors, leading to a brain with less inflammation, more plasticity and eventually more cognition," Villeda said. "We're taking 22-month-old mice, equivalent to a human in their 70s, and PF4 is bringing them back to function close to their late 30s, early 40s."
Exercise can keep the mind sharp for decades. Walker and her lab found that platelets released PF4 into the bloodstream following exercise. When she tested PF4 on its own, as Dubal and Villeda also had, it improved cognition in old animals.
(Excerpt) Read more at medicalxpress.com ...
OMG! Those stories about sinister stars and politicians and richies draining blood from babies to look younger have a scientific basis. Yeep! Would getting a location device implanted into kids be anti-Biblical?
“Young blood transfusions” for the elites crossed my mind, too.
Ha!
Bump
In her defense, she married a mohel.
He’s bound to have a bunch laying around, and it’s a shame to waste them.
I want to suck your blood :)
Lol.
The guy that just passed away?
I have no idea who she is married to.
It just seemed like the obvious joke.
Okay, it was funny. I was just wondering as it was in the news in the last week or so.
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