What is the Billionaire’s blood & stem cell club and how does one get into that?
The focus of what I’m satirically calling this “billionaire’s club” is on anti-aging and prolonging life. If you have a lot of money and are willing to take risks on yourself toward some specific goal such as staying young or fixing some disease or injury via spending big bucks, the young blood & stem cell club might be right for you. Billionaires tend to be risk-takers any way, right?
Young blood and billionaires
There have been some whispers (and even a recent article or two), in the last couple years especially, of rich and often famous folks getting sketchy stem cell and other “out there” biological “treatments.” Of course, we all heard about Rick Perry’s stem cell shots (see here for example) and about the famous celebrities who’ve gotten stem cell offerings from clinics including in particular aging former sports stars, some near and dear to people’s hearts.
However, this new phenomenon, if it exists, is different in some ways.
There’s almost a club-like feel to what I’m hearing of rich folks, especially older and aging men but also some women, dropping large sums of money for all kinds of stem cells and other iffy stuff. Maybe there’s a “let’s all catch a game or grab a drink, and then go get injected with XYZ” stuff together kind of feel. The ‘stuff’ they’re getting injected with can range from their own stem cells to placental stem cells to some mystery product to animal stem cells.
And, of course, young blood.
Silicon Valley
Maybe a few pints a couple of times a year of some teenager’s “youthifying” blood for $50K or $100K? Far-fetched? See the image above from an episode of HBO’s Silicon Valley where an older guy (maybe the writers were thinking this was supposed to be Peter Thiel-like?) gets a younger one’s blood to try to fight aging. Silicon valley is apparently one real epicenter of expensive, unproven, alternative therapies like some of the kinds of stem cells out there.
What could go wrong, right?
There are some big names floating around that could constitute a club-like group, which may tend to encourage one another to try the latest thing. As the oldest president ever, I wonder if Donald Trump has considered stem cells or even gotten some? I’ve never heard that, but it wouldn’t shock me. They say stress ages one so the last month might have Trump looking for some fountain of youth.
I suppose if one has the money, is aging, and is into risk taking, what’s to stop them from giving it a go and maybe turning it into a clubby thing?
Stem cells are pluripotent, thus possessing the ability to differentiate into many different cell types depending on the type of environment and interactions that it encounters. Each cell is described as having its own identity and cells are regarded as diverse while they form teams and communicate effectively to allow the holistic functioning of an organism. The subject surrounding the use of these reservoirs to enhance the youthfulness of the ‘rich and famous’ using ‘young blood,’ is seen on both an internal (cellular level) and subsequently external level (physical) and is seen as controversial. The constant debate about the ethics and morals surrounding the use of the undifferentiated cells is an issue on its own and is justified as it is used primarily to pin-point repair mechanisms where degenerate diseases are concerned. The cosmetic fix associated with the presence of ‘youthful blood’ is indeed fascinating however, in this case, is a ‘potential’ human life in the form of an embryonic stem cell worth destroying? Is the power of money so much greater that little to no consideration can be given to these cells? The pros and cons in this specific instance should be re-evaluated as it is not a situation comparable to that of the research being done on a cell for the sake of finding the transcription factor(s) responsible for diseases such as Parkinson’s and the development of a cell which can reverse these adverse effects. The only other feasible alternative may include induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) being used as the precursor for the presence of a more ‘youthful’ billionaire via the use of stem cells which signal specialization to occur. Although this in itself poses a threat to animal testing as a means of testing, it does not involve the interruption of an human embryo for the sake of a procedure which can be classified as cosmetic and as such not life threatening.
The groups that initially elucidated this, though, have then looked at immunogenicity of senescent blood, and due to risky transfusion reactions, filtrations/apheresis may be more realistic from a clinical,fiscal and ethics standpoint. After basically 15 years stem cells have not reached the clinic, and California, not the East Coast is generating innovations here….
The Chinese Central Committee and some of the highest military officers have allegedly been doing this for well over a decade. We heard about this through the largest stem cell provider there in 2007.
Stem Cells are great to fix lots of Diseases like: Ms- Multiple sclerosis, Alzymers, Dimenthia, and many other Immune Diseases. I had a Stem Cell treatment for MS and it works wonders. But I didn’t had to pay 50k . I paid $12,000. Do your research always. Don’t become greedy with looking young. Do it for the right reasons.
I certainly wouldn’t blindly jump in line to do this. However, as crazy as it sounds, there have been legitimate experiments done showing anti-aging effects. The study I remember reading about showed improvements in mice. I’m also pretty sure there have been or currently are human trails to better understand what’s going on and to evaluate the safety concerns. Again, I agree this is unproven and therefore it would not be advisable to undergo such a procedure. Nevertheless, it sure does seem like there’s something to it. I’ll provide some links https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fountain-of-youth-young-blood-infusions-ldquo-rejuvenate-rdquo-old-mice/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsECS5qsGLs http://www.braininjurysupport.org/young-blood-rejuvenates-cells/
I should think that if the stats from all these risky stem cell treatments back up the snide review of this trend, that maybe there would have been at least ONE example of a risk gone bad. But no, not one. This is not serious information.
Richard, My impression is this is too new to really assess risks, but seems to be a real trend amongst the super-rich.