ike comments on The guardian article on longevity research [link] - Less Wrong

8 Post author: ike 11 January 2015 07:02PM

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Comment author: ilzolende 11 January 2015 10:12:32PM 0 points [-]

We already have a sperm/egg donation industry. Why not pay people to be blood donors? I'd probably participate, although the only blood I've donated so far was just a couple of small vials for a study. Aging members of society would get younger blood, which young people such as myself already have plenty of. I get money, which (if I'm still in college by the time people want blood transfusions) they have a greater capacity to earn than I do. Everyone seems to win.

Comment author: ike 12 January 2015 01:00:15AM 0 points [-]

Why not save it for yourself when you get older? For that matter, why don't you store your own blood now for yourself in anticipation for such treatment being available later? Or is that not possible? Have you even looked into it?

Comment author: gwern 12 January 2015 01:21:35AM 3 points [-]

Cryogenic banking does cost money; I know from sperm/egg banking that it'll run at least $100 a year. If you bank a bunch when you're 20 and need it when you're 50... Also, that's a lower bound; sperm and eggs are compact on a volume basis, but how much young blood would you need to bank to make a difference later in your life?

Not to mention that you're paying up front. If there is anything to this research (it would not be the first spectacular results to flame out), it sounds like it may be due to a relative handful of substances in the young blood, and once identified, can be produced in a more efficient fashion than 'young people sucking blood out of themselves and storing for decades'. If in 10 years there's a standardized formula, the cost of extracting & storing your blood will be effectively wasted.

Comment author: ike 12 January 2015 01:34:32AM 0 points [-]

ilzolende seemed to think there was a decent chance of their blood being worth something soon. I argued that if there really is a large chance of that, they should be preparing for it now.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 12 January 2015 03:38:34AM 1 point [-]

Frozen blood may not be good for decades

Anyone have better information?

Comment author: FrameBenignly 13 January 2015 06:08:35AM 0 points [-]

There are changes when freezing blood. The first study I came across stated:

red cells undergoing the non-freezing procedure and suspended in additive solutions had significantly better biochemical preservation after 21 days of storage (p < 0.001). Both procedures removed an average 98% of the initial leucocytes at the expense of 18-20% of the red cells. The non-freezing procedure resulted in higher residual concentrations of HLA class II bearing lymphocytes (p < 0.01), but not higher numbers of dendritic cells.

The second study states:

Fibrinogen activity and mass-length ratio, compaction and fibrin content of the clots made from frozen plasma were, however, all significantly affected by freezing. Mass-length ratio and compaction showed a linear decrease and fibrin content a linear increase over a 4-month frozen storage period, thereby indicating that these variables were probably not stable.

Those are just two such studies; one of red blood cells, the other of plasma. I'm not sure if those chemical changes are important for something like lifespan or reducing alzheimer's, but I would expect a person of the same blood type would be far superior to blood that's been frozen for 30 years.

Comment author: ike 13 January 2015 06:52:19AM *  0 points [-]

So it's possible to store blood for at least 21 days without freezing it. Use that, then. My point stands.

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