Multiple Sclerosis Damage Washed Away By Stream of Young Blood 216
FatLittleMonkey writes "A new study on mice suggests damage caused by diseases like Multiple sclerosis, as well as natural aging, can be reversed by an infusion of stem cell rich blood from younger mice. Multiple sclerosis is a chronic inflammatory disease that erodes the fatty myelin sheaths around the axons of the brain and spinal cord, and can result in serious disability. Similar effects occur naturally with aging. From New Scientist: 'White blood cells called macrophages from the young mice gathered at the sites of myelin damage. Macrophages engulf and destroy pathogens and debris, including destroyed myelin. "We know this debris inhibits regeneration, so clearing it up is important," says team member Amy Wagers of Harvard University.' Here's the academic paper's abstract."
Virgins... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Virgins... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Virgins... (Score:5, Interesting)
Unrelatedly, TED has a lot to say on the topic of ageing, much of it accessible. [ted.com] The general gist seems to be "as long as food is plentiful, it's in our best interest to reproduce fast and die young, so eating conservatively makes our bodies think they need to survive longer."
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Expect a new story in the Buffy/West Wing crossover fanfic series any minute now:
http://www.fanfiction.net/Buffy_The_Vampire_Slayer_and_West_Wing_Crossovers/13/288/ [fanfiction.net]
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"Need to bathe me in some virgin blood - Ahahahahaha!"
All of the /. posters cower in fear.
Re:Virgins... (Score:5, Funny)
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Shouldn't be a problem finding a selection of them on this site. Of course, they might not fit the idea you have in your head of what a "virgin" looks like, but hey, it's the blood that counts, right?
Finally! (Score:5, Funny)
A use for all those annoying neighborhood children.
Re:Finally! (Score:5, Funny)
Hey you kids! Don't get off my lawn! In fact, there's even better grass down in the basement, come check it out!
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I'll be outside hiding in a bush with a video game tied to the end of a string. "Come on kids, take the bait..."
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I'll be outside hiding in a bush with a video game tied to the end of a string. "Come on kids, take the bait..."
What you'll get is a herd of Slashdot nerds - is their blood really what you want?
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Methuselah's Children? (Score:2)
Isn't this basically what Heinlein used in Methuselah' Children back before I was born?
Be funny as hell if we ended up with a Public Health Service providing new blood to everyone when they needed it, as a life-prolonging treatment....
Good news, everyone! (Score:5, Funny)
Professor Farnsworth knew it all along, so did Mr. Burns.
New Market for Children? (Score:3, Interesting)
I could see this becoming a new business in the third world. Selling children's blood would not be far fetched. Look up were all (or most) of the hair for natural wigs and extensions comes from: Little girls in India.
hell they already sell 'womb access' (Score:2)
now the biomedical companies that make profits from selling to blood banks are suddenly going to have a whole new revenue stream.
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Look up were all (or most) of the hair for natural wigs and extensions comes from: Little girls in India.
I'm fairly certain that they don't kill the little girls for their hair, and last I checked a haircut was pretty non-invasive.
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last I checked a haircut was pretty non-invasive
Did you ask a girl, or it's your own opinion how girls should feel about a major haircut?
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Did you ask a girl, or it's your own opinion how girls should feel about a major haircut?
Well I asked them how they feel about starvation and/or going into the prostitution business, and they weren't too keen on either of those ...
Seriously, who gives a damn? If people want to sell their hair, or their blood, let 'em. If it's a case of parents forcing their children to do it ... well, we might want to look into putting some controls in place to ensure it doesn't get overly abusive, but for many of them it's still better than the alternative.
That explains a lot (Score:5, Funny)
natural aging, can be reversed by an infusion of stem cell rich blood from younger mice.
That explains how Dick Cheney manages to hang on so long; he's been sucking the life force from local villagers at night.
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"That explains how Dick Cheney manages to hang on so long; he's been sucking the life force from local villagers at night."
Worked for Jerry Sandusky until he got caught!
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You know, people make jokes, but that dude had his first heart attack (of 5) 34 years ago. Whatever he's done to keep himself alive seems to have worked pretty damn well.
Re:That explains a lot (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, people make jokes, but that dude had his first heart attack (of 5) 34 years ago. Whatever he's done to keep himself alive seems to have worked pretty damn well.
What he's done is to just be rich - it works wonders with regards to access to health care.
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Access to health care only matters so much, and from what I understand statistically it's access to a primary care physician that matters. You can catch things like hypertension and diabetes before they become serious.
Rich people die of heart disease all the time. I'm assuming Cheney never goes anywhere without a cardiology team, but that's not enough to explain 34 years. No amount of money would have mattered very much in 1978, and even today doctors can do only so much.
It may just be survivor bias
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Not-so oblig reference (Score:3)
Not as sexy, but MS found to be reversed by diet (Score:4, Interesting)
Even cheaper, and something that can't be patented by unscrupulous scientists and pharmaceutical companies, but researchers have already found MS can be reversed by changing your diet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLjgBLwH3Wc
Dr. Terry Wahl presented at TEDxIowaCity that eating nutrient dense foods reversed her second stage MS, and they have moved on to trying it is more subjects. But it sure won't get government stem cell money. And the recommendations fly in the face of government dietary recommendations. Not to mention probably more than a few slashdotters habits.
Compare, trials in mice. Versus clinical trials in humans.
Countess Bathory (Score:2)
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Well, she did experiment with taking virgin blood both internally (drinking) and externally (bathing in it). You see, a good scientist uses different approaches and repeats the test on a big enough sample to get good confidence.
This sounds like it could actually pan out (Score:3)
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It's hard enough to get adequate blood supplies for emergency use.
I can't imagine where we're going to find more donors for therapeutic purposes.
Not to mention the cost of screening all that blood.
Seem to recall hearing that before (Score:3)
natural aging, can be reversed by an infusion of stem cell rich blood from younger mice
Drink young blood, stay young forever...now where have I heard that before?
new serial killer motivation (Score:3)
1. Stalk pretty young girl. The younger the better.
2. Extract her blood with a needle and inject yourself with it while it is still warm.
3. Rinse. Repeat.
4. Solve Rubik's Cube and prepare for eternal life.
Should Make the 1% Happy (Score:2)
This should make the 1% happy and those among the 99%, like their fawning Tea Party who protect them, a purpose in life.
Such Insight! (Score:2)
Here they kept telling me my basement altar for child sacrifices wasn't useful for anything!
Sounds great, except for ethical considerations (Score:4, Interesting)
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Except nobody is going to advocate blood donations from children.
Why not? First of all "young" doesn't necessarily mean "preteen" and, second, where's the harm? Other than the instinctive "think of the children!" emotional bullshit, what's the problem?
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I agree, It is always cool to see stuff like this. The only problem is that it always gives me a terrible urge to go check up on The Singularity Hub.
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Robert Heinlenn covered this in his novels "Time Enough for Love" and "Methusala's Children".
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No, he very specifically wrote about the replacement of blood as a means of attaining longevity for those who were not genetically contrived to be long-lived.
Not only that, he described growing (cloning) blood to do so in his 1940's story.
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I hate to break it to you, but he has Parkinson's, not MS.
Re:Back to the Future (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Back to the Future (Score:5, Funny)
I hate to break it to you, but he has Parkinson's, not MS.
when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
Re:Links to Aspartame (Score:5, Insightful)
There aren't any credible reasons to believe that aspartame causes MS. If that were the case you wouldn't expect the highest rate of MS in the world to be in Seattle where folks tend to be fairly paranoid about aspartame and artificial sweeteners in general.
Monsanto? (Score:2)
It is interesting that aspartame was once manufactured by Monsanto. I have no idea why there are so many pages linking aspartame and MS. I don't see how Monsanto would benefit from this either.
Hmm...
Re:Monsanto? (Score:5, Informative)
It's due to a hoax that made the email rounds years ago and it's never been completely eradicated. People keep it going because of irrational fears and conspiracy theories.
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I didn't realise it was a hoax email. I've seen it in a number of publications (even print) ones which is surprising.
Re:Links to Aspartame (Score:5, Funny)
*ducks
Re:Links to Aspartame (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Links to Aspartame (Score:4, Informative)
I only submitted the story because of the original headline "MS damage washed away by a stream of young blood", in anticipation of Microsoft jokes. (Curse you, competent editors.) Glad to see I got my jokes after all.
Thank you sir and/or madam.
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In that case, did XP mean Xeroderma Pigmentosum [wikipedia.org] because it couldn't withstand the light of day?
XP really means... (Score:2)
In that case, did XP mean Xeroderma Pigmentosum [wikipedia.org] because it couldn't withstand the light of day?
completely off-topic, but XP was an inside joke by the NT team at MS. The project name for the client-server architecture to be based on NT was "Cairo". Win95 and Win98 were the first public releases of the Cairo client-side architecture. It was disappointing to the Windows dev community, because they lacked many of the security and networking features promised by the Cairo team. The gist of the forums comments were, "Where's Cairo?" W2K was the first public release of the server-side Cairo architectu
Re:Links to Aspartame (Score:4, Interesting)
I've been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Started with lesions in my spine taking out all the sensation from my neck to my hips for a month or so, then the blindness in one eye, since then various bouts of stocking+gloves neuropathy that come and go, mixed with random sensations of walking barefoot on gravel and every now and then I lean right while walking in a straight line.
At the time of the first incident, I was drinking about 2 liters (straight from the bottle) of non-diet Dr. Pepper a day, and didn't touch the diet stuff.
Now I drink the diet stuff (still about 2L/day) and lost 60 pounds. Doesn't seem to make a difference neurologically to me. YMMV.
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I suspect you'd also see a huge correlation between Type 1 (and maybe even Type 2) Diabetics and MS if aspartame was a causal link. Since I was diagnosed with Type 1, I consume massive amounts of artificial sweeteners to avoid sugar.
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Hmm interesting. I wonder if there are large number of vegans in Seattle?
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Re:Links to Aspartame (Score:5, Informative)
I'm afraid not [snopes.com]. There is no conclusive link between aspartame and MS within the scientific community. Such claims are often repeated by doctors-turned-authors, scam artists, and conspiracy theorists, though.
Moving on, I do wish this madness with stem cells would end. They have their own soul as much as my feces (mostly dead blood cells and bacteria) do.
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I am not really sure to be honest. I do not see what these individuals can benefit from scaring people away from aspartame? The security industry? I am suspicious of aspartame because it was/has been manufactured by Monsanto and know people with MS who drink too much diet colas.
http://bolenreport.com/feature_articles/feature_article062.htm [bolenreport.com]
http://laurafreberg.com/blog/?p=55 [laurafreberg.com]
There is at least a link to symptoms that are similar to MS. Given the number of people who drink diet coke, there must be some people wh
Sugar industry* (Score:2)
That should read sugar industry.
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Given the number of people who drink diet coke, there must be some people who are sensitive to it.
Just about every product both natural and artificial has some people that are sensitive to it. If you decide not to eat something because someone somewhere is sensitive to it then I can assure you that you will die of starvation. As to what the people scaring others have to gain, money, notoriety, attention, research dollars, market share.
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As mentioned elsewhere, the scammers sell books and gain fame, which they use to sell more books and get on talk shows.
Distrusting a biological chemical because it was once manufactured by a biochemical company who makes some particularly nasty products is as ludicrous as trusting a product because its company has made a few good products lately. Do you think they somehow encode pure evil into the molecule, and it's somehow never noticed by the myriad safety studies?
iPads suck for slash dot. I will cease
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No, it is that Monsanto has a bad reputation for manipulating public opinion and suppressing facts. There are many front groups that are funded by corporate interests. To ignore this when judging the merits of research is folly.
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Way to counter somebody's snopes link with the very same links the snopes article completely debunks. Everything on their is completely false. It's proven fictional writing featuring made-up doctors and absurd MSG-Floride-Aspartame Zionist New World Order conspiracy garbage. You have been conned, and not even by a slightly convincing troll. It's just painful how nonsensical that bullshit is. The "link" you are going on about is this: Decades ago an actual researcher left their email logged in, and so
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People that sell alternate sweeteners (i.e. Stevia based). Alternative, Homeopathic, Naturopathic, or CAM practitioners that sell their services. People that make money off of books about medical conspiracies and nonsense. People that make money from ads from page hits on their blog about medical conspiracies. People that like fame and want to gain followers somehow.
Never mind that some people just really like a good con
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You are very much correct. I did not think about other sweetener manufacturers.
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. They have their own soul as much as my feces (mostly dead blood cells and bacteria) do.
Who has argued that stem cells have souls? What's been argued is that embryo's are human (albeit at the earliest stage), and that getting into the habit of producing human life in a lab to be harvested for its resources (in this case, stem cells) on a mass scale open's a Brave New World kind of Pandora's box. If you're going to argue, at least begin from a real premise.
Second, all the big advances have come not from fetal embryo harvests, but from adult stem cells that have been repurposed in the lab. Feel
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Second, all the big advances have come not from fetal embryo harvests, but from adult stem cells that have been repurposed in the lab.
And until there's a change in US policy, it'll probably stay that way.
Embryonic stem cell research was leaving the US to take advantage of Europe's more liberal laws,
BUT last year, the European Court of Justice banned patents on procedures that involve embryonic stem cells.
So now the research is going to go where the profits are, which are creating stem cells from non-embryonic sources.
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I don't see why growing artificial meet would be morally dubious. Better than killing intelligent animals, for sure.
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You have to meat the meet.
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Re:Links to Aspartame (Score:5, Insightful)
Ugh, this aspartame nonsense is the worst kind of pseudo science. I suppose you also believe that vaccines cause autism? What about peach-pits curing cancer?
Wait, let me guess: the "medical establishment" doesn't want you to know the "shocking truth".
Looking below, it looks like you also believe Monsanto is in on the conspiracy!
I'd laugh if spreading nonsense like you've been doing wasn't so dangerous. People like you are causing real and measurable harm.
Leave medical science to the experts. Hmmm... I better clarify that: Reading a few conspiracy websites does NOT make you an expert!
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You sir are arrogant and unpleasant. Maybe in X years we will truly find out how safe these things are. There is no conspiracy, only a link.
People like you do not see things before they are too late. People who stop and think about things (and witness them) are people who discover problems. Nobody thought X was harmful until it was too late. Maybe I am wrong about aspartame, I honestly have no idea, I just thought I would throw it out there. There is plenty of sources that state both angles.
Diet Soft Drinks (Score:2)
I may have been wrong about singling out aspartame, it could be another chemical that is in diet colas.
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I may have been wrong about singling out aspartame, it could be another chemical that is in diet colas.
See, you still don't have any correlation between diet soda and MS!
People like you do not see things before they are too late.
Perhaps MS is caused by fumes released by scented candles? We better warn everyone of the dangers!
Oh, maybe it's caused by exposure to residue left from tub & tile cleaner? Stop cleaning the bathroom now! We don't know if we're safe!
You sir are arrogant and unpleasant.
Quite possibly. However, people like you are a serious danger to society. Not only do you spread misinformation, but countering that nonsense takes resources away from more productive avenues of research
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Who peed in your cornflakes?
You are conducting various logical fallacies including slippery slopes and ad-hominem attacks and putting words into my mouth that I did not say. I never mentioned anything to do with autism and vaccines. You are way too angry to be considered healthy. You're coming down hard on someone who actually shares your thoughts...
Look outside, pretty much everything can kill you if you are unlucky. If you did not know people who react badly to certain things (or strange allergies) you wo
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You are conducting various logical fallacies including slippery slopes and ad-hominem attacks
Conducting? I think you mean committing.
As for "slippery slopes", you're 100% wrong there.
Ad-hominem? Undoubtedly. Of course, it's not a fallacy as I'm not trying to dismiss your argument by attacking you -- I'm attacking you because you're spreading misinformation.
Perhaps you should learn what those terms mean before you try using them!
Look outside, pretty much everything can kill you if you are unlucky.
So we should warn everyone of every possible danger, even if there is no evidence to support it? That's what's at issue here: the nonsense you're spreading about aspart
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Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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Heinlein made that point in Farmer in the Sky [wikipedia.org], in 1953.
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Dig More (Score:3)
It's not hard to find more than one page suggesting it's just a hoax.
http://laurafreberg.com/blog/?p=55 [laurafreberg.com]
Maybe one day we'll learn the truth (the truth is out there) but something just seems fishy to me. I know someone with MS who drinks lots of diet coke, I don't trust it.
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Can you tell me more about this?
I have always assumed it was the aspartame as the active ingredient in diet drinks.
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Hmm... Comrade Chairman, I think I found a way to not only enforce our "one child per family" rule, but also profit from it...
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The study was made in cooperation with the University of Transylvania.
Terry Wahls, MD, defeated her MS with nutrition (Score:3)
http://www.terrywahls.com/ [terrywahls.com]
"In 2003 Terry Wahls, M.D., was diagnosed with secondary progressive multiple sclerosis and soon became dependent upon a tilt-recline wheelchair. After developing and using the Wahls Protocol, she is now able to walk through the hospital and commute to work by bicycle. She now uses intensive directed nutrition in her primary care and traumatic brain injury clinics. Dr. Wahls is the lead scientist in a clinical trial testing her protocol in others with progressive MS. "
Also:
http://a [mercola.com]
Some issues (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Some issues (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, this sort of immortality would be more of a curse than a blessing even if it were possible to pull it off. Who would want to live in a broken-down, aged body forever, kept alive only by a steady stream of stem cells? Is this world such a nice place that you would want to stay here forever, even if it means existing like that? I wouldn't do it even if I had the option. Death would be preferable. The stem cells wouldn't give someone who is 250 years old the same body they had at 18...they would probably be trapped in a bed in a severely debilitated state. The worst type of immortality is one that brings no pleasure.
Re:Some issues (Score:5, Insightful)
Who would want to live in a broken-down, aged body forever, kept alive only by a steady stream of stem cells?
So long as my mind is intact, fully functional and I have a decent means to communicate with the outside world? I would.
Re:Some issues (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you sure? It's easy to feel that way now, but visualize yourself in that situation. Even if you were able to communicate and had your mental state preserved, there is no guarantee that you would be able to enjoy life or do much of anything. What would someone in that state do to pass the time? After several years of being trapped in a useless husk of a body and spending your days staring at the ceiling, would you still want to live? The real horror would be that you would have centuries of that to look forward to and that all your days will be mostly the same. Would people still come to see you after your friends and family passed on, assuming they didn't get the treatment?
I'd rather live a normal lifespan and then die surrounded by friends and loved ones. Having my consciousness cease to exist would be a better alternative to that sort of immortality. I'm 28, in good health, and I'm already weary of this world. I stay here because I have people who care about me and there are things I want to do in life, but when my time comes I will go without complaint or regret. Seneca taught that being able to face and accept inevitable death without fear is a sign of strength and wisdom. Quality, not quantity of life is what matters.
Re:Some issues (Score:5, Insightful)
So how did Steven Hawking take your recommendation that he should just die.
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Even if you were able to communicate and had your mental state preserved, there is no guarantee that you would be able to enjoy life or do much of anything. What would someone in that state do to pass the time?
In two words, 'the internet'
Many of us already spend considerable time learning new things and talking to new people over the net, once you have the ability to sort the crap information from the good there is far more to learn in this world than can possibly be done in a lifetime.
After several years of being trapped in a useless husk of a body and spending your days staring at the ceiling, would you still want to live?
Good old fashioned suicide solves that, if you no longer want to live.
Would people still come to see you after your friends and family passed on, assuming they didn't get the treatment?
Some people enjoy the peace and quiet of being alone, and while human psychology tends to like communication and interaction with others there will always be at
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and writing software that adds value but REQUIRE corporations to employ an army of IT workers with various specialties -
Try reading about the Broken Window Fallacy. Writing crapware that requires far more work than better software doesn't help society, it holds society back.
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"loose"
trollin away the day.