Another example of how everything old is new ago and how modern medicine ignores the wisdom of the past.
Blood-letting, long deprecated, may be about to make a come back according to this tweet:
As a medical school professor, I've taught about blood transfusions for decades. But this study from Aging Cell just showed that removing blood may be even more powerful.
Researchers performed periodic phlebotomy -- drawing just 6% of blood volume every two weeks -- on aging models.
The results were staggering:
- Memory and cognition restored to youthful levels
- New neurons grew in the hippocampus
- Liver, kidney, heart, skin, and bone all rejuvenated
- Inflammatory senescence proteins (SASP) dropped dramatically
- Klotho (the longevity protein) levels restored
The mechanism? Phlebotomy rebooted bone marrow stem cells, shifting blood production back from the inflammatory myeloid bias of aging to a youthful pattern.
This is metabolic dysfunction in reverse. Aging bone marrow floods your blood with pro-inflammatory signals. Remove some blood, and the marrow resets.
A technically simple procedure with profound anti-aging potential.
Full breakdown coming on the Health Longevity Secrets podcast.
Probably not an option for me as I very much dislike having my blood taken but it's an interesting piece of research published on the 2nd of February 2026. It can be found at this website. Here is the abstract:
Aging is the primary risk factor for numerous chronic diseases, making the identification of safe and effective anti-aging strategies a critical focus in biomedical research. Heterochronic parabiosis by blood exchange shows that the exchange interaction between young and old plasma can exert anti-aging effects through exchange of bloodborne factors. However, the limited plasma source greatly affects clinical translation. Here, we demonstrate that periodic therapeutic phlebotomy in D-galactose-induced aging models exerts significant and comprehensive anti-aging effects, which is reflected by a notable improvement in aging-associated behavioral deficits and neurogenesis, a significant decrease in the level of circulating senescence-associated secretory phenotypes, and an obvious mitigation of aging-associated structural degradation and molecular alterations within the muscle, bone, liver, kidney, and nervous systems. Mechanistically, periodic therapeutic phlebotomy induces bone marrow microenvironment restoration through functional rescue of mesenchymal stem cells and endothelial cells, thereby reestablishing balanced hematopoietic homeostasis. This hematopoietic revitalization subsequently drives systemic improvements in peripheral blood composition and function. In conclusion, our work provides preliminary evidence suggesting that periodic therapeutic phlebotomy exerts anti-aging effects by restoring bone marrow function and mitigating aging phenotypes, subsequently driving peripheral blood functional restoration. Given its technical simplicity and safety profile, this periodic therapeutic phlebotomy strategy will hold potential to pave the way for clinical translation.
