Young Plasma Infusion dosage and evidence

What is Young Plasma Infusion?

How does Young Plasma Infusion work?

Not worked out in people. In mice, plasma from young animals carries factors including TIMP2, platelet factor 4, Gpld1 and clusterin. Those improve how the memory centre of the brain adapts, how new brain cells form and how the animals learn. Old plasma carries factors including CCL11 and beta-2 microglobulin, which do the opposite. No study in people has found which part of young plasma, if any, does anything. The Stanford trial did not try to. Plasma is a complex mixture with clotting factors, antibodies and hundreds of proteins. That alone makes it hard to read, even when it is given.

What have studies in people found about Young Plasma Infusion?

One small proper trial exists, and it was sized to check safety, not benefit. 18 people with Alzheimer disease got young plasma at Stanford. They tolerated it, and the study was never built to show it helped. No trial big enough to answer whether it works has been published.

• PLASMA (NCT02256306, JAMA Neurology 2019): 18 people with probable mild to moderate Alzheimer disease, aged 50 to 90. Nine got four weekly units of young frozen plasma or 250 mL of salt water, in turn, with nobody involved knowing which and a six-week gap between. Nine more got plasma with everyone knowing, after a change to the plan. Funded by the US National Institutes of Health, at one hospital.
• Safety result: nothing serious happened that was linked to the treatment. Two people stopped, one for hives and one for a stroke that had nothing to do with it. Problems were mild to moderate and no different between the plasma and salt water groups. The most common on plasma were high blood pressure, a slow heartbeat, a fast heartbeat and headache, each in 3 of 18, and dizziness in 2 of 18.
• The authors name the limits themselves: few people, a short run, and a change of design part way through. Their conclusion is that it was safe, tolerated and workable, and that bigger trials are needed.
• NCT02460731, University of California San Francisco: an early study of young plasma in 6 people with a rare brain disease called progressive supranuclear palsy. One group, no comparison. It started in May 2015 and is listed as finished. No results are posted and we could find no published paper.
• NCT03353597, the registered commercial young-plasma study: one group, no comparison group, nobody kept in the dark, about 2,120 people planned. Its status has been listed as unknown since 2018 and no results are posted.

What this does not tell you: 18 people is enough to spot a common drip reaction and nothing else. The Stanford trial had no memory measure it was big enough to test. It dosed people for four weeks. And everyone in it already had Alzheimer disease, so it says nothing about healthy older adults. No published evidence in people shows that young plasma changes memory, biological age or any ageing outcome. No trial has been built big enough to answer that question.

What do people who took Young Plasma Infusion report?

This is what real people say happened to them, good and bad. Nobody measured it. A report cannot tell a real effect from the lift people get just from expecting it to work, from a diet or training change made at the same time, or from what was really in the vial. We still put it near the top. It is the next best thing to a study in people: what happens when real people use it, including what goes wrong.

• The FDA's February 2019 statement describes businesses in several states selling young donor plasma drips at up to thousands of dollars each. That price range is the regulator's own wording, not a forum guess.
• The FDA lists what they are sold for: normal ageing, memory loss, dementia, Parkinson disease, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer disease, heart disease and PTSD. None of those is an approved use.
• The best known business registered its work on the US trial registry as NCT03353597. It is one group, with no comparison group and nobody kept in the dark, and about 2,120 people planned. Its status has been listed as unknown since 2018 and no results were ever posted. Being on the registry is not FDA approval, and it does not mean a study is any good.
• The FDA's worry about the amounts is specific. The drips being sold can be large, and how much people get is not guided by proper trials.
• The risks the FDA lists for any plasma drip, whatever the reason for it: infection risk that remains even after donors are screened, severe allergic reactions with hives and a blocked airway, a serious lung reaction, and too much fluid for the heart to handle, causing swelling and trouble breathing, especially in people who already have heart disease.

Sources: The FDA consumer statement of 19 February 2019, Important Information about Young Donor Plasma Infusions for Profit, retrieved in full from fda.gov, and the ClinicalTrials.gov registry record NCT03353597 retrieved live from the ClinicalTrials.gov v2 API. No forum posts, clinic websites or press accounts are used here, and no individual clinic or patient report is quoted.

The state of the research

The evidence, in charts

The studies we cite

• Study in people2019
  Safety, Tolerability, and Feasibility of Young Plasma Infusion in the Plasma for Alzheimer Symptom Amelioration Study: A Randomized Clinical Trial

  This trial asked whether young plasma was safe to give, not whether it helped. 18 people with mild to moderate Alzheimer disease at Stanford took part. Nine had four weekly infusions of plasma from male donors aged 18 to 30, or salt water, in turn, with nobody involved knowing which. Nine more were given plasma openly. Nothing serious happened that was linked to the treatment. One person left with hives, one had an unrelated stroke. No benefit was measured or claimed.

  18 patients with probable mild to moderate Alzheimer disease at Stanford, mean age 74.2 years, 12 women. Nine randomised in a double-blind crossover to four weekly infusions of one unit of young fresh frozen plasma from male donors aged 18 to 30 or 250 mL saline; nine received open-label plasma after an amendment. Primary outcomes were safety, tolerability and feasibility. No related serious adverse events. One withdrawal for urticaria, one for an unrelated stroke. Visit adherence 86 percent. NIH funded.

  PMID 30383097 JAMA Neurology
• Study in people2014
  The PLasma for Alzheimer SymptoM Amelioration (PLASMA) Study

  This is the registry record for the Stanford young plasma trial, not a separate study. Stanford University sponsored it, enrolled 18 people, started in September 2014, and marked it completed. It carries no phase designation. The results are in the published paper, and that paper reports safety only.

  Registry record for the Stanford trial. Sponsor Stanford University, phase not applicable, completed, 18 participants enrolled, start September 2014.

  NCT02256306 ClinicalTrials.gov
• Study in people2018
  Reversing Epigenetic and Other Markers of Senescence by Transfusing Young Plasma To Older Human Subjects

  The best known young plasma business registered a study that can prove nothing. It planned to transfuse 2,120 people in a single group, with no comparison group and nobody kept in the dark. It started in May 2018. The registry still lists its status as unknown and no results have ever been posted. A study with nothing to compare against cannot show that young plasma does anything to ageing, even if it had reported.

  The registry record behind the best known commercial young-plasma operation. Phase 1/2, single group, no masking, no control arm, estimated enrolment 2,120, start 15 May 2018, status listed as unknown, no results posted. A single-arm study with no comparator and no posted results cannot demonstrate anything about ageing.

  NCT03353597 ClinicalTrials.gov
• Review of studies2022
  Efficacy and safety of blood derivatives therapy in Alzheimer's disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis

  A review that pooled the blood-based treatments tested in Alzheimer disease. Pooling them is the honest way to read a field where each study on its own is small.

  Systematic review and meta-analysis pooling the blood-derivative interventions tested in Alzheimer disease, which is the honest way to read a field where the individual trials are small.

  PMID 36443888 Systematic Reviews
• Review of studies2019
  Important Information about Young Donor Plasma Infusions for Profit

  This is the US regulator telling the public to be careful, dated 19 February 2019. Businesses in several states were selling young donor plasma at up to thousands of dollars a drip. They sold it for ageing, memory loss, dementia, Parkinson disease, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer disease, heart disease and PTSD. The FDA says there is no proven benefit for any of those. It lists the risks: infection that screening does not fully remove, severe allergic reactions, a serious lung reaction, and too much fluid for the heart.

  Consumer statement dated 19 February 2019. FDA advises caution about establishments in several states offering young donor plasma at up to thousands of dollars per infusion for ageing, memory loss, dementia, Parkinson disease, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer disease, heart disease and post-traumatic stress disorder, states there is no proven clinical benefit for these uses, and names the risks: residual infectious risk, anaphylaxis, transfusion-related acute lung injury and circulatory overload.

  Source U.S. Food and Drug Administration
• Animal study2011
  The ageing systemic milieu negatively regulates neurogenesis and cognitive function

  In mice, this is the experiment the whole young plasma business is built on. Researchers joined the blood supplies of a young mouse and an old mouse. Something carried in old blood slowed new brain cell growth. Putting a young mouse in an old blood supply, or giving it plasma from old mice, made its brain adapt less well and made it worse at learning and at remembering a place where something bad had happened.

  Mouse. Using heterochronic parabiosis, blood-borne factors were shown to inhibit or promote adult neurogenesis in an age-dependent way. Exposing a young mouse to an old systemic environment or to plasma from old mice decreased synaptic plasticity and impaired contextual fear conditioning and spatial learning. This is the animal experiment the entire young-plasma industry is built on.

  PMID 21886162 Nature