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By Miriam Raftery
May 6, 2014 (San Diego’s East County)--The next time someone tells you, “you need some young blood,” they just might be right.
It turns out that old mice who were infused with blood from spry young mice showed significant improvement in memory, sensory function, strength and endurance. The mice also had improvements in certain heart problems and even generated new nerve cells.
The findings could hold promise as a potential treatment to slow or reverse dementia and other conditions in humans.
Science and Nature Medicine has published study results which found that a protein called growth differentiation factor 11, or GDF 11, is responsible for this apparent fountain of youth effect in the mice.
Older mice have reduced blood flow that impacts the brain, heart, nerves and sense of smell. Old mice infused with young blood were able to regain their sense of smell, researchers found.
Researchers hope to test GDF11 it on humans in future clinical trials.
Lee Rubin, a professor of stem cell and regenerative biology at Harvard, said this could mean a “way to reverse some of the decline of aging with a single protein,” the Sacramento Bee reported.
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