Vampires – young at heart?

Is young blood the way to stop aging? This week, Harvard and Stanford scientists have found that blood proteins and plasma taken from young mice repair age-related damage in the brains and muscle tissue of old mice. The special properties of young blood have a long history in folklore: the C16th serial killer Elizabeth Bathory famously bathed in the blood of her young victims to retain her beauty.  The history of vampires is a fascinating tale, and one covered in part by an Optional Subject in the first year of History at Oxford. The vampire phenomenon is a topic for scholars of Psychology, History, English Literature and even for Medics – the medical implications for drinking blood range from haemochromatosis to porphyria. (And look, we didn’t make a single Twilight reference).