Amanda Schaffer at Slate looks into a new Japanese fad:
Located in a tony complex—upstairs from L’Occitane and Armani, down the hall from Morgan Stanley—the clinic offers 10-minute intravenous drips to urbanites in need of a pick-me-up. (The place is called Tenteki 10, after the Japanese word forintravenous.) When I drop in, three women are on their way out, exuding relaxation, as if they’ve been to a spa. A technician tidies up the treatment room, where patients sit on elevated stools. IV bags release liquid into their veins as a flat-screen TV displays images of red leaves and water rushing over rocks. Many of the treatments include recognizable fare—vitamin C, biotin, and various amino acids—however questionable it may be to infuse unspecified doses of these “treatments” into healthy adults. But the kicker is the key ingredient in one of the cocktails: human placental extract.
The article goes on to detail some of the supposed benefits of human placenta, among them increased energy, improved skin and a youthful appearance. As is usually the case with these sorts of fads, the science doesn’t stick:
To date, at least, that evidence supporting placenta as a health treatment is scant. The effects on skin are also fairly speculative. In theory, topical gels or creams containing placental extract might help chronic wounds to heal. That is plausible since placenta contains compounds that facilitate collagen formation and skin cell proliferation, says Michael Nelson of Washington University School of Medicine, who edits the scholarly journal Placenta. But this paper, at least, finds that the wound-healing effect is merely comparable to that associated with a common antiseptic. Nor did I turn up any clinical trials that demonstrate anti-aging effects on skin, at least in the peer-reviewed, medical literature. Perhaps the fountain-of-youth claims spring from a belief that substances connected with childbirth or infants must hold some power to turn the clock back.Meanwhile, claims that the extract aids both insomnia and fatigue are cause for some head-scratching.
