Morning Ramble 370: Young Blood

Young Blood Vampirism

I read an interesting article the other day – in New Scientist again – about the use of young blood to help people with cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.

Apparently, young blood can be used in the treatment of heart disease, cholesterol, Alzheimer’s, and many other diseases. I suppose most of these ailments are associated with older adults, but it’s interesting that at least in rats, these types of problems can be solved by blood transfusions. Yeah…the study worked in rats and the tests done on humans are a bit questionable, but it looks like there may be something there – they just need to better test the hypothesis.

In any case, I’ve noticed (as I’m sure many have) that vampirism is a common theme in games, literature, and all kinds of pop culture. Perhaps this is a precursor to encouraging more blood donations by young people so that older people can get rid of these life threatening diseases.

In League of Legends we have Vladimir, in movies we’ve had Underworld, Twilight, and of course the original Nosferatu. All these depict the lure of immortality based on blood consumption. Living without concern for death or disease because you drink the blood of others – even to the extent that they perish.

The last panel in the image is from Paper Girls issue #6 where the characters travel into the future and encounter themselves. Imagine being able to donate your own blood as a child and store it for when you grow older. Just like we do with eggs and sperm, in years to come, it could become common place to store blood or plasma to provide a transfusion to yourself if you get any of the indicators that you have some deadly disease.

Science sure is amazing and can also bring up some interesting dilemmas.