The Conboy Plasma-Dilution Treatment is Available Now
Recently, watching a video interview of Irina Conboy, I became aware that Conboy plasma-dilution for humans is available in San Francisco and Miami from the medical practice of Dobri Kiprov, MD, who works with and has published with Profs. Irina and Michael Conboy of UC Berkeley. Here are links to videos and writeups about Dr. Kiprov's work on plasma dilution:
https://youtu.be/5gGFJtKIUN0
https://neo.life/2021/06/perspective-therapeutic-plasma-exchange-the-future-of-aging/
https://www.TPEplus.com
I contacted Dr. Kiprov and had a Zoom call with him this morning. Here's what I learned:
- Kiprov's plasma-dilution protocol is slightly different from that described in the Conboy papers. He adds some proprietary ingredients to the saline + albumin to suppress negative immune reactions. I suspect that said reactions are caused by a stabilizer component that is in the albumin.
- Treatment for one person involving two sessions of plasma dilution spaced 2 days apart costs $6,000. There is a discount if a couple both have treatments at the same time.
- Several patients have had Horvath-type DNAm bio-age tests before and after treatment. The apparent epigenetic reset from the treatment is about 3-4 years. Kiprov does not think the epigenetic reprogramming is "permanent".
- The effects of the plasma dilution sessions are cumulative, and Kiprov recommends that they be done monthly for about 6 months, with semi-yearly or yearly treatments after that.
- The observations of recipients are that there are immediate benefits from a plasma dilution session, but they are observed to diminish in a few weeks. This motivates the repeated sessions.
- There are plans to set up more centers to perform plasma-dilution treatments at other population centers around the USA. No decisions yet about where.
I am considering arranging one set of plasma-dilution sessions for my wife and me next December (for ~$10k), but I don't think we can afford a full 6-month series of them (~$60k). Also, I am disappointed to learn that the apparent epigenetic reset of the Conboy treatment is only a few years. According to the paper published with Steve Horvath, Harold Katcher's E-5 treatment on rats produced an epigenetic reset by about a factor of 2.
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You have to search them out, but there are plasma donation centers here in Florida (as opposed to blood donation centers) where you can make two donations a week of 600 yo 800 mls. Simple donation - no saline and albumin replacement. Irina Conboys gene expression data was done on tissues 1 week to a month out from a single 50% dilution and still showed positive changes, so I'm guessing that substantial loss of old plasma in two weeks should show benefit. I am going the route of plasma and platelet donation at my blood bank which I can do every two weeks (they use the donations for cancer patients). Over course of 6 weeks early this year I turned over most of plasma volume. Like most interventions, I am flying blind, but hoping for best. I think Kiprov needs to provide a helluva lot more data (i.e good science) before charging $6,000 for something that should costs him a few hundred in supplies.
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Fred Cloud Only difference between donating plasma, or platelets/plasma, and whole blood is the time it takes somewhat longer. I've had no side effects. Needle placement process is the same. It takes 24 to 48 hours for body to make up the plasma volume lost.
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Peter Great, good to hear, thanks.
By the way, did you read Lou Hawthorne experience with full conboy therapy dilution? He is a forum member here and is a good read.
https://neo.life/2021/06/perspective-therapeutic-plasma-exchange-the-future-of-aging/
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I spoke with Dr David Hause at the Maxwell Clinic in Tennessee in Brentwood near Nashville. They are also replacing plasma with albumin and getting good results he says. I believe he was adding exosomes as well.
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Here's a link
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Kiprov has shown no data which supports using his very expensive TPE vs simply donating plasma (for free), either at a blood bank, or a plasma-only center. Conboy's have shown that albumin plays no role in the rejuvenation process, and my own blood testing has shown that my albumin levels recover very quickly (days). Kiprov's "special Ingredients" with no details, along with the $$$$, seems snake oily to me.
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Peter Conboy studies show you need to dilute plasma by 50% to trigger rejuvenation and that is what Kiprov is able to achieve. Plasma donation is less than 25% total plasma volume. So it doesnt reach the threshold and so rejuvenation isnt triggered. Read Lou Hawthornes posts on here and experience with it and read the conboy study paper.
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Fred Cloud Thanks for your comments, Fred. I've got all the Conboy's papers, read them thoroughly, and listened carefully to their interviews and Irina's presentations. I have not read or heard them claim that 50% dilution at one time is needed to trigger the changes they observed. No dose response curve came out of their work. Have heard them admit they do not know the minimum effective dose and do not know how long the effects last, although some of the effects they observed were seen a month after dilution. 50% dilution is a holdover from their parabiosis work which is by default 50%, and is similar the amount of dilution done during one TPE, so it was a natural place to start. For me, it's do nothing in terms of plasma dilution, or donate. One donation of 800 mils is ~ 25% of my plasma. Two donations can be done a couple of days a part, which I've done once, but now do once monthly, with platelet donations in between. So, basically, I have no reason to think the effects are nil until 50% dilution (at one time) is reached, but will look at the studies again. If you have specific info about this that you can point me to please let me know. You might want to look up a 2021 paper by Rob Flickenger on plasma dilution and proteome changes, in which he documents effects of normal plasma donation by a small group of human subjects. I had lots of questions about the "study," which leaves a lot to be desired, but it did seem to point to Conboy-like changes occurring with basic monthly plasma donation.
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Peter I have always thought that the plasma donation spaced 2 days apart should get you to the 50% mark, but who knows. Have you considered supplementing with oxytocin to boost the effectiveness a bit more when doing plasma donation? The conboy study showed the ratio of tgf-b and oxytocin seem to trigger the changes. So if you do plasma donation and take oxytocin you might get the ratio up enough to trigger the rejuvenation.
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Fred Cloud Thanks for paper. Was aware of this work but haven't looked at details. I do pay attention to inflammation as it may have an upstream effect on many aging pathways. Only track hsCRP as a proxy for other markers at this time, but mine is low, always < = 0.3 mg/L, so I'm guessing TGFb tracks with that. Work in the area of the microbiome and certain bacteria indicates that routine consumption of fermented foods will lower a range of inflammatory markers including TGFb ( preprint Sonnenburg, Gardner 2021 63852603 (biorxiv.org) ). I think maintaining gut barrier function plays into this as well as having other benefits (e.g lower CD38). Susan Erdman of MIT has done interesting work showing (in mice) that a strain of L reuteri will increase oxytocin.
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C10&q=erdman+oxytocin&oq=
I've long eaten fermented foods but have added my own homemade versions seeded with L. reuteri, but have no way to test effect. Not sure how effective exogenous oxytocin is as I believe it has a short half life. Supposedly exercise also helps with oxytocin, but I'm not sure how solid the research is.
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Peter This is not to be confused with long term inflammation lowering. The paper is basically saying the therapeutic effect of plasma donation is triggered by temporarily lowering tgf-b and raising oxytocin and you can essentially replicate plasma dilution by taking an alk5 inhibitor and oxytocin, so no plasma purging at all. But I am thinking you could at least use oxytocin for a short window of time such as 2 weeks after plasma donation to try to boost the ratio of oxytocin to tgf-b temporarily triggering the rejuvenation achieved by TPE. In other words, the 50% isnt the magic key, its the ratio of these two that is the real factor and 50% dilution just happens to get that ratio up where it needs to be.
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Fred Cloud Thanks. I will look at the information and data with that in mind.
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