Experimental Therapies
Young Plasma and Plasma Exchange
Young plasma has no demonstrated benefit for aging. Plasma-exchange studies report biomarker changes, not established health benefits in healthy older adults.
Few longevity ideas sound as science-fiction as this one: that something in young blood might rejuvenate an older body. If you’re reading about young plasma and plasma exchange, the idea started in real laboratory experiments. Humanic Blue examines the gap between those experiments and what’s been shown in people. What’s reached clinics has run well ahead of that evidence.
The FDA repeated its warning in December 2024 that young-donor plasma is not approved for aging or memory loss, has no demonstrated clinical benefit for those uses and carries transfusion risks. Plasma is the liquid part of blood. Plasma exchange is a different procedure: it removes and replaces that liquid rather than supplying young-donor plasma. Small studies report mixed changes in aging biomarkers; a larger Alzheimer’s trial measured disease-related decline. Neither kind of result establishes that a healthy person will live longer and better after treatment.
Key Takeaways
- The FDA says young-donor plasma has no demonstrated benefit for aging and carries transfusion risks.
- In mice, sharing or diluting blood improved some measures of tissue aging; this does not establish a benefit in people.
- Small human studies have found both younger and older readings on aging biomarkers after different plasma-removal procedures.
- One industry-funded Alzheimer’s trial reported slower decline on a daily-activities measure, while its main cognitive result was inconclusive.
- Neither approach has been shown to extend human lifespan or improve health outcomes in healthy aging adults.
What did the mouse experiments find?
The idea came from parabiosis experiments, in which the circulations of young and old mice were joined. Old tissues showed signs of rejuvenation. Later work at the University of California, Berkeley, found that young blood might not be necessary. In a 2020 mouse study, replacing half of old mice’s plasma with saline (salt solution) and albumin (a blood protein) improved muscle repair, reduced liver fat and scarring, and increased the formation of new brain cells. The investigators interpreted plasma dilution as sufficient to reproduce several effects previously associated with young–old blood sharing.
That finding pointed away from adding young plasma and toward removing old plasma, which is what therapeutic plasma exchange does.
Has young plasma helped people?
No benefit for aging has been demonstrated in people. The small study below was designed to ask whether infusions were feasible and safe, not whether they worked.
A 2019 Stanford pilot study gave a small group of patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease weekly infusions of plasma from donors aged 18 to 30. Its primary goals were safety and feasibility, not effectiveness. One author co-founded Alkahest, a company developing plasma-based therapies.
Meanwhile, commercial clinics began selling young plasma infusions. The FDA’s December 2024 update says such marketing continued after its 2019 warning. The agency identifies infectious-disease transmission, allergic reactions and respiratory complications among plasma-transfusion risks and says young-donor plasma used outside recognized indications must be administered by a qualified investigator or sponsor with an active Investigational New Drug application.
What can a feasibility and safety pilot establish without testing effectiveness?
Is plasma exchange different from adding young plasma?
Therapeutic plasma exchange is an established hospital procedure for certain immune and blood disorders. As an anti-aging treatment, it’s experimental.
Biomarker studies. A 2022 Berkeley study reported that rounds of plasma exchange shifted blood proteins toward a younger profile. One author owns a plasma-exchange clinic. In a 2025 randomized trial at the Buck Institute, about 40 healthy adults over 50 received different plasma-exchange regimens or placebo. The authors reported shifts toward younger readings across 15 epigenetic clocks—estimates based on chemical patterns on DNA—with the largest reported changes in the group receiving plasma exchange plus intravenous immunoglobulin, a preparation of antibodies infused into a vein. Those readings do not demonstrate younger bodies or longer lives. Two adverse events led to discontinuation. Several authors disclosed membership in Circulate, a company offering the procedure.
A study that found the opposite. In a 2025 Czech trial at Charles University, healthy blood donors underwent four or eight plasma-removal sessions (plasmapheresis) over 18 weeks, without replacement by young plasma or albumin. The investigators found no significant epigenetic rejuvenation; instead, several clocks, including the age estimate GrimAge and the aging-rate estimate DunedinPACE, rose. The procedures differed, so this was not a direct repeat of the Buck trial. Clock readings can move in either direction without establishing a change in health or survival.
Alzheimer’s disease. The AMBAR trial randomized about 350 people with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s to plasma exchange with albumin, with or without immunoglobulin, or a sham procedure for 14 months. Treated patients declined 52% less on a daily-activities measure than those receiving the sham procedure. This means slower worsening on that measure, not a 52% recovery or reduction in the chance of Alzheimer’s disease. The other main outcome, a cognitive test, did not reach the usual threshold for statistical significance. Analyses planned in advance found favorable results in moderate but not mild disease. The trial was funded by Grifols, which makes albumin and immunoglobulin, and several authors were Grifols employees or consultants.
A 2025 Argentine study compared about 30 treated patients with about 200 patients treated in an earlier period and reported less decline on several cognitive measures. It was not randomized, used controls treated in an earlier period and included a Terumo BCT medical-affairs employee among the authors, so it cannot independently confirm AMBAR’s treatment effect.
Which differences between plasma replacement and plasma infusion matter when interpreting the aging claims?
What’s Interesting
The field has already changed its own premise. It started with the idea that young blood contains something rejuvenating and moved to the idea that old blood contains something harmful that can be diluted. That shift came from animal experiments, not from human evidence. In people, the main outcomes measured so far are biomarkers that can move up or down depending on the procedure and the study, which is why the human results remain preliminary.
What This Means in Practice
For living longer and better, young plasma and plasma exchange for aging remain experimental.
The FDA warns that young-donor plasma has no demonstrated anti-aging benefit and carries risks. Its guidance requires an active Investigational New Drug application—FDA oversight of an experimental treatment—for uses outside recognized indications. A ClinicalTrials.gov listing by itself does not establish that oversight or effectiveness.
For plasma exchange, the studies raise specific questions: Was the treatment the same as the one being offered? Did it measure health or only a clock reading? Were the investigators financially connected to the procedure? The biomarker trials cannot answer whether repeated treatment helps healthy older adults, and the Alzheimer’s trials cannot establish a general anti-aging benefit.
A primary care clinician or hematologist can explain the procedure’s established uses and risks. For Alzheimer’s disease, a neurologist can discuss approved treatments and trials.
The route from animal mechanism to a meaningful human endpoint is the central problem in What Is Geroscience?.
Bottom Line
Young plasma infusions have no demonstrated benefit for aging, the FDA reiterated in 2024, and they carry transfusion risks. Research has shifted to plasma exchange, which removes old plasma. Small human studies, mostly by researchers with commercial ties, report shifts in aging biomarkers, while an independent trial of plasma removal found that some clocks gave older or faster-aging readings, without establishing that participants’ health worsened. An industry-funded Alzheimer’s trial found slower decline on some measures; a later nonrandomized historical-control study cannot confirm that effect. No study shows either approach improves health or extends life in healthy older adults. For now, they’re research questions, not established anti-aging treatments.
A NOTE FROM LONGEVITY365
We read research, consult expert perspectives and work to make complicated health information easier to understand. What you’re reading here reflects how we’ve interpreted and organized that information. It is educational content—not personal medical advice, diagnosis or treatment guidance.
We’re not perfect, and neither is the available research. Evidence changes, new studies emerge and what’s appropriate for one person may not be appropriate for another.
Use this article as a starting point for your own research and conversations with qualified professionals. Always talk with your doctor or another trusted healthcare professional before making decisions that could affect your health, particularly if you take medications, are receiving treatment, have existing health conditions, are pregnant or have other circumstances that could affect what’s appropriate for you.
Reader Questions
A few questions to carry into the comments or your next conversation. Please leave out identifying or personal medical details.
- 01What did this article make clearer about the gap between an aging mechanism and a proven human outcome?
- 02Which claim would you want to see tested in people before it affected a real health decision?
- 03What question should readers keep asking when "Young Plasma and Plasma Exchange" shows up in longevity marketing?
Extra Insights & Sources
The evidence summaries and linked sources behind this article.
What We Know
- The FDA says young plasma infusions have no demonstrated benefit for aging and carry transfusion risks. Established.
- Diluting old plasma improved several tissue measures in mice. Supported (animal).
- Plasma exchange can shift blood proteins and aging clocks in small studies. Preliminary.
What We Don’t Know
- Whether plasma exchange improves health or extends life in healthy older adults. Unknown. No trial has measured those outcomes.
- Whether changes in epigenetic clocks translate into meaningful health effects. Unknown.
- Whether AMBAR’s Alzheimer’s results will be confirmed independently. Unknown.
- Long-term safety of repeated plasma exchange for aging. Unknown.
Source Materials
- FDA: Update on Young Donor Plasma Infusions Offered for Profit (December 6, 2024) — Current regulatory source for the lack of an approved aging or memory-loss use, absence of demonstrated benefit, continuing commercial marketing, transfusion risks and the active-IND requirement outside recognized indications.
- Mehdipour et al., Aging (2020), PMID 32474458 — Mouse neutral-blood-exchange experiment; supports only the nonhuman muscle, liver and neurogenesis findings and the shift from adding young plasma to diluting old plasma.
- Sha et al., JAMA Neurology (2019), PMID 30383097 — Eighteen-participant mild-to-moderate Alzheimer’s pilot using plasma from donors aged 18–30; designed chiefly for safety and feasibility, with Alkahest conflict context.
- Kim et al., GeroScience (2022), PMID 35999337 — Small human therapeutic-plasma-exchange proteomics study; source for younger-profile protein shifts and the clinic-ownership conflict.
- Fuentealba et al., Aging Cell (2025), PMID 40424097 — Randomized, single-blinded study in 42 adults over 50; source for the multiple clock results, treatment groups, two discontinuations and Circulate/Global Apheresis affiliations. Biomarker change was not treated as proof of health benefit.
- Borsky et al., Scientific Reports (2025), PMID 40592961 — Randomized crossover study of four or eight plasmapheresis sessions over 18 weeks in healthy donors; source for the lack of significant epigenetic rejuvenation and increases in several clock measures.
- Boada et al., Alzheimer’s & Dementia (2020), PMID 32715623 — AMBAR randomized 347 patients for 14 months; source for the 52% relative reduction in decline on the daily-activities scale, the inconclusive other main cognitive outcome, severity subgroup and extensive Grifols funding/employment conflicts.
- Taragano et al., Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease (2025), PMID 40928812 — Thirty-two treated patients compared with 194 historical controls; included as later supportive but nonrandomized evidence, with its calendar-time/control limitations and Terumo BCT conflict stated.
Featured image: Image by Alexlukin via Envato Elements.
Leave a Reply