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A millionaire obsessed with eternal youth performed a "vampire ritual" with his 17-year-old son
Eccentric 45-year-old American millionaire entrepreneur Brian Johnson, somewhat obsessed with being forever young, recently began transfusing himself with the blood of younger people. But on his last visit to the hospital, he performed what the Western media have called "the vampire ritual of the 21st century," transfusing himself with the blood of his 17-year-old son.
Bloomberg reported on Johnson's strange preferences.As noted, during his last visit to the hospital, the millionaire brought with him not only his son, but also his 70-year-old father, who also received "junior blood".
As the publication notes, this is not the first time Johnson has undergone the procedure, which he hopes will make his body look younger. Previously, however, he had used blood from an anonymous donor chosen based on his body mass index, blood type, diet and general health history. Plasma donors typically receive about $100 in gift cards for the procedure, which costs about $5,500.
Now the rich man has gone to the trouble of actually tasting the water from the fountain of youth, performing what Futurism has called "the vampire ritual of the 21st century."
In early 2023, Johnson announced his intention to return his "brain, heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, tendons, teeth, skin, hair, bladder, penis and rectum" to the state they were in when he was 18.
As noted, it is not a cheap entertainment, because for the procedures he hires a team of 30 doctors and specialists, whose consultations cost him about 2 million dollars a year.
Similar attempts to restore youthfulness through blood transfusions existed for a long time. Legend has it that in the early 17th century, Hungarian Countess Elisabeth Bathory used the blood of young girls to rejuvenate her skin. It is believed that hundreds of girls were murdered for the sake of baths filled with blood, but during the trial the countess was accused of 80 murders.
Nowadays, however, one does not have to kill to get young blood for oneself. As Johnson's example shows, it is enough to find the right donor and doctors.
At the same time, scientists point out that there is no evidence that young blood has a positive effect on the human body.
It is known about experiments on mice, which were not too moral, when young rodents were literally sewn together with older ones, creating a common circulatory system. This resulted in slight improvements in the older mice, but exactly how such a system works and whether it can be applied to humans, scientists don't know.
In 2019, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a warning against the practice of blood transfusions in young humans, which it called an "unproven" therapy.
"There is no proven clinical benefit to the infusion of plasma from young donors to treat, alleviate or prevent these conditions, and there are risks associated with the use of any plasma product," the FDA warned.
Experts also suggest that the practice may end up doing more harm than good. Charles Brenner, a biochemist at City of Hope National Medical Center in Los Angeles, said he believes the practice is crude, unproven, and relatively dangerous.
He suggests that the real reason why people try to transfuse their young blood is because "they are afraid of their mortality."
Johnson, on the other hand, claims that his experiment is guided "by evidence" and does nothing "on the basis of feelings".
Previously OBOZREVATEL also told about the study, which found that a lack of oxygen can extend the life of mice by 50%.
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