Why do vampires from Dracula to Angel seem to crave the blood of the young and beautiful? The undead may be onto something. Young blood, it seems, has special healing properties that have been lost in older blood.
A recent finding by scientists from the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, and Duke University challenges long-held ideas about why our bones have a harder time healing as we age. Their research discovered that old mouse bones mend like youthful bones do when they’re exposed to young blood after a fracture.
“The traditional concept is that as you get older, your bone cells kind of wear out so they can’t heal as well, and we thought we’d find that during this study as well,” explains study co-author Benjamin Alman, of the Hospital for Sick Children. “But it turns out that it’s not the bone cells, it’s the blood cells. As you get older, the blood cells change the way they behave when you have an injury, and as a result the cells that heal bone aren’t able to work as efficiently.”
Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/vampire-healing-young-blood-can-mend-old-broken-bones-180955336/#6KVsMQciQ3xJdKCF.99
