Clinic uses blood transfusion to slow ageing

A new clinic is using transfusions of young blood in an attempt to help slow ageing.

Feeling old and tired? A startup called Ambrosia Medical might have an answer. The clinic has developed a procedure to transfuse blood plasma from young donors into older people. The procedure intends to give patients more energy. As blood transfusions are already approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Ambrosia does not need any additional permission for the procedure. In fact, every year, around 14.7 million transfusions are safely performed in the US. However, Ambrosia is the first clinic to market transfusion of young blood for health reasons.

Last year, Ambrosia and California physician Dr David Wright performed a clinical trial of the procedure involving 81 patients. In the trial, patients received plasma from a donor between the ages of 16 and 25. Before and after the transfusion the blood of each patient undergoes testing for biomarkers. These are biological substances that can indicate health. Although not yet published, Ambrosia Chief Operating Officer David Cavalier reported that the data “showed promise”. Patients paid 8,000 USD to participate in the trial, but the clinic has not yet set a price for the treatments.

Blood transfusions themselves are perfectly safe. However, there is no clinical evidence as of yet that the treatment proposed by Ambrosia is beneficial. The company’s founder, Jesse Karmazin, says that many of the people in the study did report feeling more energetic. The company is currently scouting locations in New York for its first clinic, and is searching for investors.