The suggestion that young blood may be the key toreversingsome of the negative aspects of aging sounds like the setup to a horror movie. In reality, however, itrefers to some groundbreaking work being carried out byscientists at the University of Ulm in Germany.

Theyve been examining the ways that old blood can be made young again, and they hypothesize that it might help fight some of the effects of aging.To achieve this, theyve discovereda protein capable of boosting blood stem cells, which prompts them to act like the stem cells of younger people.

More: Scientists may have discovered how to reverse the natural aging process

Older stem cells have several disadvantages, Dr. Hartmut Geiger, co-author of a paper describing the work, told Digital Trends. Theyresult in fewer red blood cells, and fewer of an important immune cell that fights infection. They also tend to produce more leukemia, which is a cancer of the blood. All of this is linked, at least in part, to the aging of stem cells. If you have younger stem cells, we think that we can reverse some of these effects.

Older stem cells tend to possess these negative characteristics thanks to the declining number of so-called mother stem cells in our bone marrow as we age. This decline triggers the effects Geiger describes.

In trials with mice, Geiger and his team discovered that older mice have lower levels of a protein called osteopontin. They decided to testthe effect of this protein on blood stem cells.

We took the stem cells from aged mice, incubated them with the osteopontin protein, and then gave them back, he continued.These blood stem cells, which had come from older animals, were found to have a lot of the features of stem cells coming from much younger animals in terms of function.

Its still early days for the research, but the suggestion that osteopontin could make stem cells behave in a more youthful way is certainly promising. The team is now developing a drug made up of osteopontin and a protein for activating it.

Hopefully human trials can follow in the not-too-distant future while were still around to benefit from them.

Link:
Young blood: Scientists say this protein could be key to reversing aging process - Yahoo News