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April 9, 2021 - 7:00am
A Newsweek report detailing the alleged anti-ageing properties of transfusions of young people’s blood has understandably raised cries of “Alex Jones was right!” The magazine’s marketing of the article was slightly sensationalist; its promotional tweets emphasised the vampirish idea of mainlining the blood of youths while the article considered that as one of many potential anti-ageing treatments.
Still, the theory exists. As the Newsweek author, Adam Piore, writes, interest is mounting in “a hot area of inquiry called geroscience that focuses on identifying beneficial elements of blood that dissipate as we age and others that accumulate and cause damage.” The theory that blood transfusions can reverse these processes has been tentatively tested on mice. “The results were exhilarating,” Piore writes, “They suggested that stem cells could be revitalised simply by reintroducing back into the blood stream the molecules, present in young blood, that could turn them on.”
Well, humans are not mice — but they are not entirely different from them. The theory has been tentatively, and perhaps presumptuously, implemented. A start-up eerily named “Ambrosia” has been selling blood transfusions for some years, though the FDA has tried to block its treatments on the basis of insufficient evidence and potential harms.
Perhaps it is snake oil. But what if young blood has these properties? Nobody, except Jehovah’s Witnesses, oppose blood transfusions per se. We all acknowledge the virtue of donating blood to fill the arteries and veins of people suffering after accidents or in the grip of illnesses like leukaemia. Blood transfusions as a preemptive measure, though, and with a particular focus on the blood of young people, have discomforting connotations. Dracula is the obvious cultural touchstone to reference, though I also recommend the 2004 Hong Kong film Dumplings — if not on a full stomach. When the billionaire Silicon Valley gadfly Peter Thiel was rumoured to be using blood transfusions, he commented, ”I want to publicly tell you that I’m not a vampire. On the record, I am not a vampire.”
The old “feeding” off the youth and vitality of the young strikes an especially sour note after two years of the young have sacrificed their income and experiences for the sake of the elderly and vulnerable. In a time when young people are increasingly arm-twisted into racking up piles of debt for the sake of a pyramid scheme built on credentialism, only to find themselves priced out of the housing market, a focus on prolonging rather than enriching life runs into well-earned cynicism. Sneers are bound about baby boomers who want to cheat death are bound to occur.
Of course, people who lament the trials of youth today will lament the trials of age tomorrow. The seriousness of physical and mental decline mounts in our consciousness as it approaches. Perhaps when a few more lines have been carved into my brow, the idea of anti-ageing blood transfusions will turn from “strange and creepy” to “exciting and inspirational”. Still, a focus on extending life should not obscure the more significant question of how to live it. Quality matters as well as quantity.
Ben Sixsmith is an English writer living in Poland. He has written for Quillette, Areo, The Catholic Herald, The American Conservative and Arc Digital on a variety of topics including literature and politics.
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Subscribe‘A Newsweek report detailing the alleged anti-ageing properties of transfusions of young people’s blood has understandably raised cries of “Alex Jones was right!”’
Alex Jones is invariably proved correct in the medium to long-term. Actually, in that famous Rogan interview a few months go he was proved correct almost instantly on a number of occasions.
David Icke has proven conclusively that pan dimensional Lizards run the world from behind their human masks, and this sort of thing seems exactly something they would like. There is one picture of Zukerberg surfing which distinctly showed a long tail, but it dissappeared from the internet before anyone was able to copy it.
This sounds like the perfect prescription for our collective descent into hell. I can’t imagine morality, or other people’s pain, will trump the lust for living longer and healthier. So easy to put the blinkers on.
Edited due to today’s news
could explain how Keith Richards is still alive
How exactly is Keef still alive along with Shane McGowan and Iggy Pop … but David Bowie is dead… surely its proof ( if needed) that there really isn’t a God ?
Actually that’s a tad harsh.. I like all the aforementioned peoples music… but i am filled with wonder at the randomness of The Grim Reaper
Keith Richard is a nice man who owns a library-he broke his leg falling off his library step.It is strange though when you come across an obituary of someone you assumed had already died decades ago.
Owning a library does not make one a “nice man”, just a rich man.
Well, considering the fact that in the Rolling Stones’ heyday, grown men having sexual relationships with 13 year old girls (as one of his bandmates did) was quite accepted, I wouldn’t put a bit of satanic virginal blood-drinking past any of them.
Might be a future way for young people to avoid extortionate rents? Couple of hundred quid plus a pint of blood a month to their boomer landlord?
IT IS NOT THE BOOMERS DOING THIS. Boomers came from a time when morality still existed, Christianity was not loathed. This is the Tech Generation, the ones who have no idea of good and evil, merely correct and incorrect, and looking good is correct.
Like many of my comments, it wasn’t intended to be taken that seriously. Regarding the rentier demographic, it’s probably more the 45-65 age bracket than the boomers specifically.
“I will give you my blood if you will pay off my student debt”..hmm
I know it is so twisted now, back in the day you just had some scary and creepy artist who did the dark arts paint your portrait and you hid it away. Tech chances everything.
I knew the Techy cult have sold their soul to the devil. The 4 horsemen, Gates, Zukerberg, Dorsy, and Bezos obviously did, global power for a dark deal of utter wealth and power, one can see it in their actions of being against all which is decent and for all which is degenerate. Stories of goat sushi being Dorsey’s favorite meal add to the picture, Gates and his bat soup at black candle dinners…
The story is it happens at a dark crossroads, a place where two opposite directions cross and in the moment is neither. Robert Johnson story is the best known, a failed guitar player who after total misery walked into a Delta Juke Joint and played the Blues so perfectly no one in the world could match his ability, and changed music for ever. The story was he had met the devil at a lonely crossroads and sold his soul for the ability, which he never denied.
Some dark crossing of two dark roads, could be in the glitzy part of LA, could be in the Ghetto, could be in lonely country, but I think the Tech guys know where it is, and is likely used for its dark purpose every night, and so evil increases its foothold in the world exponentially.
If an old man receives the blood of an 18-year-old girl, might the recipient not run the risk of developing gender dysphoria? Having had a blood transfusion a few years ago, I didn’t notice any biological change and I remained as grumpy and right wing as before according to my wife and daughter. I seem to remember that monkey gland treatment was thought to reverse ageing but if it occurred, I haven’t noticed an increase in the the number unwrinkled old people around. I think our American friends have really just invented something else for our wonderful young people to be angry about. Cant wait for YBM – Young Blood Matters.
I’ve just checked to see what the date is. It isn’t April 1st.
This idea’s been around for a long time in various forms. Somerset Maugham, in his later years, regularly went to a Swiss clinic for ‘glandular’ injections (although I think the source of the glandular extract was sheep, not some 18-year-old student).
I think there’s probably some solid science beneath the rather sensationalist headline. As the author notes, however, quality of life is at least as important as quantity.
Yes you nailed it. This has been going on for as long as homonids have walked the earth. We regularly drank and continue to drink blood from the animals we kill. Most high quality blood sausages in Poland come from younger animals.
Thank you for the article. My thoughts and feelings are quite similar with regard to most of the phenomena you mention.
In 2016 I spent the first six months in hospital with e-coli poisoning followed by sepsis and losing 10 kilos.
In September I suddenly realized that when I combed my hair there were no hairs in my comb nor on my collar whereas previously there had been some. 5 years later,at 81. I would have thought that it should be dropping out.
Whist in hospital I had received large amounts of antibiotics as well as18 units of blood.
Any suggestions?
Not surprising; we’ve already psychologically abused, terrorized, guilted, emotionally blackmailed, and wrecked the education and social lives of the young with all this Covid hysteria. Old people drinking their blood is the next logical step.
No, it is neither exciting nor inspirational .. I really do not see why on earth anyone would care to write about such an issue if not the purpose is to navigate and register the public’s feelings and push gradually undercover to an ever more reckless morale. Many words have already been said all over the internet, such as farms with women and babies etc and an entire net of criminals. This net needs those we call doctors and scientists as well.. This is only a softer version making it look a bit lighter than a crime and compare it with lifesaving blood transfusions. One more evil article for pushing the human being into demise and decadence little by little.. to get used to it.. either old or young.. everyone must be guilty, older generations are turning against the younger and vice versa.. for some are hoping… there will be no escape.. But in the reality of real people that is b*llsh*t .. Grandparents and parents love their children and grandchildren, and youngsters need their love and support.. If you want to stay young for longer the recipe is easy and available to everyone: eat healthy, exercise, keep positive, work hard, look for truth and meaning and be a snob with this kind of articles!
A good source of income for the young, I’d have thought.
Surely this is the least the young can do for their soon not to be elders. No different to the existing worthy cause of giving blood for general medical needs but with potentially vastly more reward and just for the proverbial ‘arm full of blood’. Anyway it will only be an interim measure for a generation or two as the complication of building in an automatic ageing process for the benefit of all species that reproduce sexually will turn out to be much simpler to remove than install.
I live in USA where I am not allowed to donate blood to the Red Cross because I was in UK during the Mad Cow years (this is true, they will not accept blood from donors who were there then). My wife is a ‘VIP’ doner who gives regularly, over the years a tub of it, she has saved many lives that way. ‘No Different’? You must be Gen X or something.
Well, maybe the answer is to just clone people from genetically engineered models having had all conscience brain function removed, and then farm these clones for the blood to get you through the interim?