Young blood – the way to eternal youth?

In many legends and stories, vampires are said to avoid ageing by drinking human blood. Count Dracula from Bram Stoker's “Dracula”, Edward Cullen from "Twilight" and Angel from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” all remain youthful and strong for hundreds of years, as long as they regularly drink blood. Similarly, a fanciful legend of the Hungarian countess Elizabeth Báthory (who inspired many vampire legends) tells of how she bathed in the blood of girls to stay young and beautiful. 

As grisly as these stories are, is there some truth to them? That is, can young blood really prevent ageing? There may indeed be some scientific basis for this: our blood contains a vast number of proteins, hormones and molecules that are produced by different organs. Blood from younger individuals is known to have more factors that encourage cell growth, while blood from older individuals has more factors that cause inflammation, which promotes ageing. Therefore, if we could find a way to either increase the factors that encourage cell growth and regeneration, or dilute or block factors in old blood that cause ageing, we could potentially slow down ageing.

Scientists are working to identify the different factors in young blood that encourage regeneration, as well as those in old blood that may cause ageing. The hope is that such findings could be used to create new drugs that might prevent diseases of ageing.