X-Message-Number: 8693
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 1997 20:26:16 -0700 (PDT)
From: Doug Skrecky <>
Subject: A Novel Method of Rejuvenation 

    Could injections of lymphocytes rejuvenate aged humans? It works for
 Snell-Bagg dwarf mice at least. These have an average life expectancy of
 just 4.5 months. At 4 months of age these animals suffer from greying,
 hair loss, and cutaneous and subcutaneous atropy. In short they look
 terrible. Dwarf mice given a single injection of lymphocytes from normal
 40 day old Snell-Bagg mice at 30 days of age, show no signs of ageing at
 7 months of age. Their average life expectancy was not determined since
 some lymphocyte treated dwarf mice were killed, and in any case the
 experiment was terminated after 12 months. However it was observed that
 lymphocyte treated dwarf mice lived for more than 12 months. Normal
 Snell-Bagg mice live for 20 months. Unfortunately lymphocyte injections
 were not tried in normal mice.
    Injections of growth hormone and thyroxine was also tried in dwarf
 mice. Average life expectancy was here increased to 12-14 months. (1)
 Interestingly injections of growth hormone also dramatically extended the
 life span of normal Balb/c mice. About 50% of 17 month old control mice
 died after 1 month. Several injected mice were killed so an average
 remaining life expectancy can not be tabulated. However only 4 out of 26
 mice (15%) had died naturally when the experiment was terminated after
 5.5 months. (2) This leads up to a question.
    Could injections of young lymphocytes in normal mice dramatically
 extend their life span?

 (1) Pierpaoli W, and Sorkin E.
     "Lymphocytes, Hormones and Ageing"
     Nature 240: 557-559  December 29, 1972

 (2) Khansari DN, Gustad T.
     "Effects of Long-Term, Low-Dose Growth Hormone Therapy
      on Immune Function and Life Expectancy of Mice"
     Mechanism of Ageing and Development 57: 87-100 1991

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