Mother Jones – In April, at the TED conference in Vancouver, BC, I watched a woman pull a variety of mushroom powders from her purse, scoop them into a thermos, and add hot water from a nearby tea station to make an earthy beverage.
Intrigued, I asked about her favorite health practices, and she started describing a recent trip to Costa Rica to get plasmapheresis. “It’s when they take your old plasma out, and they replace it with new, fresh plasma,” she explained.
“Donated plasma?” I asked, picturing a commune’s worth of Bryan Johnson’s teenage sons, milked daily for vital proteins.
But she said it had been synthetic plasma, as a detox treatment intended to manage an autoimmune disease.
Plasmapheresis can effectively remove contaminants, such as some heavy metals, from the blood of people with specific health conditions, including autoimmune and blood disease, organ failure, and for those who have recently undergone organ transplants.
Even traditionally virtuous behaviors may cause health problems. Last year, researchers found forever chemicals” in most American kale.
However, for healthy individuals, plasmapheresis cannot improve on the body’s natural detoxification processes, which are efficiently handled by the kidneys, liver, skin, lungs, and other organs—for free. Plus, most heavy metals of concern accumulate in our organs and only trace amounts can be removed in blood.
Elective plasmapheresis for healthy people represents yet another manifestation of the myth of detoxing. Private clinics with varying degrees of oversight offer it, attracting rich medical tourists—even healthy ones.
In an April 2023 Instagram post about her plasma detox treatment, the former professional racecar driver Danica Patrick described the $10,000 treatment as one that “cleans a vast majority of the blood,”getting “rid of metals and mold.”
To illustrate, she holds up a sack of dark amber liquid. “The dark bag is my old plasma,” she writes …
