Let’s be honest. We’re all pretty darn scared about what’ll happen to us as our brains age - a decline in memory, learning, and, what’s worse, living with Alzheimer’s disease. If only we had a magic pill that would bring our brains back to peak power! Well, if we cultivate patience and wait a bit longer, that magic pill might become a reality in the form of blood transfusions from athletes to mere mortals. In a revolutionary study published in Nature and covered in the New York Times, Dr. Tony Wyss-Coray and his colleagues at Stanford find that sedentary mice show improved cognition and disease-resistance after receiving blood transfusions from “marathoner mice”. One major factor responsible for this transformation might be Clusterin, a protein found in higher concentration in athletes that drives anti-inflammatory processes in the brain. Obviously, this has implications for humans - blood transfusion may revolutionize treatments for Alzheimer’s disease and general cognitive decline. But we need to wait for human trials to confirm whether it works for humans without major adverse effects. We’re happy to remind you that Dr. Tony Wyss-Coray is a member of FORM’s advisory board. Congrats, Tony!
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