Blood could become an anti-aging tool in the future

MURcia (EP). Professor of Neurology and Neurological Sciences, Stanford University (USA) Tony Wyss –Coreywho showed that plasma from young mice improved brain function and memory in older mice, argues that blood could be an anti-aging tool in the future.

At a seminar “Young blood for an old brain” held at the National Cancer Research Center (CNIO), he explained how blood tests allow us to create an “atlas” of the aging of different parts of the body.

This Swiss-born researcher has focused his career on blood because of the difficulty of studying what happens in the brain at the molecular level. Blood is “an organ that connects all tissues through the vascular system and in principle has the ability to collect molecular information from each cell,” he explained.

To study whether changes in blood proteins throughout life play a role in aging itself, or even disease, Wyss-Korey transfused blood plasma from young mice to old ones, and vice versa. He found that young plasma promoted neural stem cell activity and improved brain function and memory. However, young mice that received plasma from much older mice aged faster.

Another important result, obtained after analyzing proteins in the blood of about 5,000 participants, was that we age throughout our lives, not just in the last part of our lives. But there are differences between the organs of the body, even between tissues or areas of the same organ. An atlas of body aging can be compiled using a blood test.

By analyzing blood, it is also possible to examine, as Wyss-Coray notes, “the impact on aging or disease risk of interventions such as calorie restriction, as well as the role of environmental conditions and lifestyle habits such as exercise.” As for the possibility of these studies having an impact in the clinic, the researcher noted that “in the coming years there will be an explosion of clinical trials” exploring this line of research, including neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease. Wyss-Coray believes this is still on a small scale, but they are offering a proof of concept to further explore its capabilities.