Your old bones might heal better if they were dipped in the blood of the innocent, a new study suggests.
Researchers from Duke University and the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto have discovered that "old mouse bones mend like youthful bones do when they're exposed to young blood after a fracture," Smithsonian reports.
"As you get older, the blood cells change the way they behave when you have an injury, and as a result the cells that heal bone aren't able to work as efficiently," one of the co-author's of the study, Benjamin Alman, told Smithsonian. Blood typically drives healing at the site of a fracture, and Alman and the study's other authors believe young blood may secrete an unknown protein that speeds up the process.
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But before you go looking for a supple neck, Smithsonian cautions that "[s]haring human blood... raises a number of red flags." Scientists are instead focusing on identifying that mysterious molecule so they can derive drugs from it.
Who knows? Maybe a youth serum is just around the corner — no sleeping in coffins required.
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