Sad rumors have been recently confirmed: The British actor Christopher Lee – probably most world-famous blood sucker – died at the age of 93 of cardiovascular disorders. He played more than 300 roles throughout his life. If in James Bond, The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, or Star Wars – he steadily took the part of the villain. However, he already gained cult status with his probably most-defining figure as “Count Dracula” in 1858.
The story of the film is rather freely adapted to the original novel of Bram Stoker. It plays in Transylvania at the Hungarian-Romanian border where a vampire hunter has the mission by order of his partner Dr. Abraham Van Helsing to defeat the notorious Count Dracula, on which he failed for the time being. Instead, Count Dracula succeeded in biting his opponent and as a consequence turned him into a vampire. Only at the end of the film Count Dracula gets defeated by the impinging of the gleaming sun onto his skin during a fight against his adversary Van Helsing.
Pale skin, garlic phobia, and the shyness of daylight belong to vampires, which could recently reach cult status for female teenagers with the popular TV series Vampire Diaries. The protagonist Elena decides for love to become a vampire and therefore obtains superhuman abilities, including relative immortality. The immortality of vampires is a mythos, which is millennia-old and brought together from multiple sources. If Medea, Bride of Corinth, or Carmilla, numerous literature of all different eras are linking rejuvenation with the intake of fresh blood since the ancient times.
Of course blood sucking doesn’t provide immortality. But instead of this blood does possess other features, which can possibly turn back time – at least when it comes to the skin and wear and injuries of joints.
The so-called “vampire lifting” became a real anti-aging trend in the last years – both It Girl Kim Kardashian and top model Bar Rafaeli swear by it. By the means of platelet-rich plasma (PRP), which is taken from the patient’s blood, remarkable regeneration success can be achieved. The precious components of blood – blood platelets (thrombocytes), tissue hormones and growth factors – are injected into the desired skin areas where they can take their regenerative and rejuvenating effect immediately after isolation. The effects lasts for several months, repeat treatments are recommendable.
To achieve an even stronger and more sustainable regenerative effect, combination of autologous blood treatments with stem cells extracted from autologous fat is possible. The required stem cells are isolated from a small amount of the patient’s fat, which is harvested by the means of liposuction with microcannulas. Locally injected they support regeneration of skin in facial areas, cleavage, and hands.
Thus it shows that blood combined with stem cells can actually lead to a juvenile vital, smooth skin, for which vampires are famous. Fortunately interested women will be spared sucking blood out of the victim’s neck, because this would be – with all due enthusiasm for rejuvenation – a little bit macabre, and probably Christopher Lee would not have loved to do that in real life too.
DDr. Heinrich, MD