From vampire legends to lab-grown tissue, the idea that young blood can reverse aging is no longer pure myth. A new study shows that proteins secreted by bone marrow cells, triggered by young blood, can rejuvenate aging skin in the lab.
According to lore, vampires drink the blood of the young to maintain their vitality. In a similar vein (pun intended), the 16th-century Hungarian countess Elizabeth Báthory was rumored to have bathed in the blood of young girls to preserve her youth. Then there’s the widespread QAnon conspiracy claiming that a global cabal of pedophiles is drinking the blood of children to gain immortality.
Well, science may well have caught up with myth. A new study out of Germany, led by the Research and Development arm of skin care company Beiersdorf AG, has examined whether young human blood contains factors that can rejuvenate aging skin. In short, they found that it can – but only in the presence of blood marrow cells.
The researchers wanted to follow up on animal experiments where old mice were rejuvenated by sharing blood circulation with young mice, something New Atlas has previously reported on, using human models. So, they created an advanced “organ-on-a-chip” system containing two 3D human organoids – a full-thickness skin model, and a bone marrow model, which included stem cells that give rise to blood cells. They introduced young (under 30) and old (over 60) human blood serum into this system to see if young serum improved the signs of aging in skin.
The researchers found that when the skin model was exposed to young serum without bone marrow cells, there was no improvement in aging markers. It was only when the skin model was co-cultured with bone marrow and then exposed to young serum that the researchers observed increased cell proliferation, reduced biological age, and improved mitochondrial (energy-producing) function in bone marrow cells. The young serum triggered changes in bone marrow cells, leading them to secrete rejuvenating factors. These altered cells secreted proteins that were shown to reverse signs of aging in skin models.
Using proteomics, the researchers identified 55 age-related proteins secreted by the bone marrow model in response to young serum. Of these, seven showed clear anti-aging effects when tested directly on aged human fibroblasts (cells that form connective tissue) and keratinocytes (the major cell type of the outermost layers of the skin) in the lab. Benefits included more cell division, higher collagen production, better mitochondrial health, and an increased ability to convert into fat-like cells, which is a sign of regenerative flexibility.
The study, though, has some limitations. The experiments ran for three to five weeks; the longer-term effects remain unknown. To avoid confounding variables, the skin models weren’t pre-aged using drugs or age-inducing treatments. The bone marrow models required added growth factors to remain viable, which might’ve confounded results to some extent – although comparisons were made between young and old serum under the same growth factor conditions.
Of course, these results were obtained in lab-grown tissue models. Real human bodies are far more complex. But the study does point to a promising new class of potential rejuvenating ingredients: proteins secreted by young bone marrow in response to systemic cues. These proteins could be explored for topical or injectable anti-aging skin treatments, or as biomarkers for skin aging or rejuvenation.
In the long term, this might lead to individualized therapies using components from a person’s own (young or engineered) bone marrow to restore aging tissues.
The study was published in the journal Aging.
