Rate of aging slowed with young plasma transfusions

Village News Staff

Aging can be understood as gradual, progressive deterioration simultaneously affecting different organ systems. People with a faster Pace of Aging tend to experience more rapid aging-related declines in physical and cognitive functions. Your genes play an important role in your health, but so do your behaviors and environment, such as what you eat and how physically active you are.

Evidence suggests that intervention to slow Pace of Aging could preserve functions lost with aging and extend one’s health span. A new blood test developed in 2022, DunedinPACE, is a highly accurate and test-retest reliable single-time-point measure that quantifies an individual’s Pace of Aging by analyzing a biological process in which methyl groups are added to a DNA molecule to turn genes “on” and “off.” For example, methylation of the DNA sequence of a gene may turn the gene off so it does not make an essential protein.

Unlike genetic changes, epigenetic changes are reversible, but difficult to realize. Prolonged calorie restriction was shown to reduce certain epigenetic biomarkers by 2–3% after two years, with previous research equating a 2–3% rate decrease to a reduction in mortality risk of 10–15%. Aggressive aerobic activity has also proven to be aging-rate reducing.

DunedinPACE is faster in chronologically and biologically older individuals. Faster DunedinPACE is associated with morbidity, disability, and mortality. A DunedinPACE of 1 was established to reference an average rate of 1 year of biological aging per year of chronological aging. Among Dunedin Study participants, the range of values extends from just above 0.6 (indicating an aging rate nearly 40% slower than the norm) to nearly 1.4 (indicating an aging rate 40% faster than the norm).

The DunedinPACE test provides an alternative way of measuring whether age-slowing treatments may work. Sensitive to health interventions, the DunedinPACE very importantly allows faster testing of treatments intended to extend health span in humans.

A local 67-year-old male resident with Parkinson's disease, anonymously identified as “PR”, read the article in Fallbrook’s 2022 Source Book about Tom Casey and his plasma treatment being available in Texas where Casey’s accredited blood bank is located.

This individual then contacted Casey who introduced him to IRCM Institutional Review Board Co-Investigator Dr. Daniel Stickler of the Aperion Center in Austin, Texas, where PR participated in the Golden Gift Investigational young Fresh Frozen Plasma (yFFP®) Treatments Study: https://joshmitteldorf.scienceblog.com/2023/01/16/the-clock-logic-of-plasma-exchange/

Four months after receiving 2.5-liters of yFFP via three plasma exchanges over 30-days, PR’s DunedinPACE of Aging remarkably slowed by 18% to 0.83 of normal. A second IRB study patient anonymously identified as “MJ”, a 78-year-old female with dementia, had her rate of aging drop by 17% to 0.78 of normal aging after receiving 2-liters of yFFP via IV.

In 14 years of epigenetic testing, the speed and significance of these rate-of-aging reductions by simply receiving blood plasma from sex-matched young donors is without medical precedent.

PR, a relatively robust individual, has not yet noticed a benefit to his treatments despite the positive implications of his rate of aging reduction, but he remains encouraged, including recently traveling back to Texas to exchange an additional liter of his blood plasma for yFFP.

The Village News will look forward to reporting on PR’s progress when his next round of tests becomes available. MJ, who continues to live a healthy lifestyle, has reported elevated cognitive awareness, well-being and physical activities. Like PR, MJ is now scheduling a second yFFP infusion with the hope of steadily improving.

Participation in the Texas-based IRB study is rapidly increasing as publicity of young plasma treatments went viral worldwide last month after longevity-influencer Bryan Johnson made public at the Stanford Applied Longevity Translation Symposium that he has been successfully receiving young plasma treatments in Texas. Johnson and the IRB study’s Principal Investigator, Dr. Dian Ginsberg, will be featured speakers on this subject at RAADfest in Anaheim Sept. 7-10, as will Dallas-based yFFP Co-Investigator Dr. Jeffery Gladden.