Clinical vampirism – something in the blood of youngin’s

Clinical vampirism – something in the blood of youngin’s

It’s not rage, but it is related.  Clinical vampirism is the obsession with drinking blood. The first formal psychoanalytic report was published in 1964 by RL VandenBergh and JF Kelley (Archives of General Psychiatry, 1964, 2: 543–547).  Earlier reports of blood-drinking, especially associated with sexual pleasure, can be found, for example, in the writings of R von Krafft-Ebing in the 1890s. The drinking of a victim’s blood is one feature of some unusually violent murders (e.g., Bulletin of the American Academy of Psychiatry and Law, 1994, 22: 533–544).  Despite its existence, this disorder seems to be very rare and is not specifically noted in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

Within our current focus on lyssantic behavior, it is interesting, and not surprising, that it can be associated with sexual frenzy.  We’ve already noted that rabies can lead to increased libido, and also that love bites are a not uncommon aspect of particularly excited sexual congress.  Although humans are not well-designed to break skin with our teeth, it certainly does occur and the blood of one’s partner happily tasted.

And then, there are the recent studies showing that the blood of young animals, mice, can reverse some signs of aging, specifically cognitive impairment and cardiac hypertrophy.  A Wagers, R Lee and colleagues (Cell, DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2013.04.015) joined the circulatory systems of mice, one young and another an old mouse with signs of thickening (hypertrophy) of cardiac muscle.  By the end of the study, the muscle of the old mouse’s heart had returned to normal size!

I think I’ll just leave all this with a “wowser” and hope I can sleep tonight.