Ben Greenfield’s Weekly Roundup: April 3

Welcome to Ben Greenfield’s Weekly Roundup!

In this weekly post, I share with you my most interesting discoveries of the week, including the latest news on the fronts of fitness, nutrition, health, wellness, biohacking, and anti-aging research. I also recap my upcoming events and special announcements so you can keep up with opportunities to learn, giveaways, discounts, and more!

New Discoveries

Joe Rogan and I Just Had Our Blood “Oil Changed” at Ways2Well + The Real Differences Between Plasmapheresis, Dialysis, Young Blood, and More 🩸

A lot of you had questions after I posted about my recent plasmapheresis treatment at Ways2Well in Austin, Texas (you can also listen to my podcast with founder Brigham Buhler here). Additionally, Joe Rogan’s Instagram post last week about his own experience there sparked even more inquiries.

Let me clear a few things up, because if you scroll the comments of our social media posts, you’ll see dialysis, plasmapheresis, plasma exchange, and “young blood” treatments all getting lumped together, and they are very different things.

Let’s start with hemodialysis. This is a kidney support machine that filters waste, fluid, and electrolytes when your kidneys can’t keep up. About 519,000 Americans use it, usually three times per week for four hours at a time. It keeps people alive, but it doesn’t restore kidney function, and it isn’t something you’d use for performance or longevity.

Now let’s get into plasmapheresis, which is where things become more interesting. Plasmapheresis just means separating plasma from blood cells outside the body. There are two main ways this is done, centrifugation and membrane filtration, and they lead to very different outcomes.

Centrifugation spins your blood, similar to an old milk separator, to divide it into red cells, white cells, platelets, and plasma. This method is widely used in hospitals, with more than 30,000 large-volume exchanges each year across 450+ centers in the U.S., treating over 85 conditions.

Membrane filtration takes a different approach, using filters to remove specific molecules and then returning your own plasma back into the body with no replacement fluid needed, making it a more targeted technique. Cascade filtration and LDL apheresis are two examples of this method.

Therapeutic plasma exchange, or TPE, is the clinical term for plasmapheresis, and it is what has been getting attention lately, including what Rogan and I both did at Ways2Well.

TPE removes about 3 to 4.5 liters of your plasma and replaces it with saline, albumin, and sometimes immunoglobulins. It was originally designed for serious autoimmune conditions, but it’s been explored seriously in longevity circles, and my own pre/post labs tell an interesting story, including a big drop in liver enzymes indicating lowered liver inflammation, a large decrease in ferritin also indicating decreased overall inflammation, a significant cleanup of lipids (likely why my plasma was so viscous and thick), a decrease in Hs-CRP, and a much lower thyroid peroxidase antibody count indicating reduced autoimmune activity against the thyroid gland.

After the procedure, I also received an IV infusion of stem cells and exosomes to further reduce inflammation and enhance regenerative potential.

Here’s what most people don’t think about: your plasma isn’t just liquid. It’s loaded with biology, including over 10,000 detectable proteins, thousands of peptides, dozens of hormones, inflammatory cytokines, and billions of exosomes per milliliter carrying signaling molecules, growth factors, and nucleic acids.

When you remove and replace it with saline, all of that goes with it unless you add something back. This is basically an oil change for the body, and it works best when you refuel with the right things afterward.

There’s also small-volume plasma exchange, which is a different category entirely. When you remove less than a liter, your body rebuilds what’s lost within about 48 hours. This approach has decades of safety data behind it, with over 78 million procedures performed each year in plasma donation settings.

Then there’s young fresh frozen plasma, or yFFP, which is the one that really gets people talking (for more insights, you can check out my podcast with Dr. Khanh Nguyen here). This is plasma from healthy donors aged 18 to 25, collected at peak physiological function, frozen, and matched to the recipient. More than 1,000 human treatments suggest it can trigger regenerative signaling in older individuals. I’ve done this myself at Austin Regenerative Therapy, and in some ways, it goes beyond TPE. That said, since it involves donor biologics, some people prefer TPE combined with added compounds like exosomes or stem cell derivatives.

Here’s a quick breakdown so you don’t mix these up:

• Hemodialysis: Kidney support for organ failure
• Membrane filtration: Removes specific molecules, returns your own plasma
• Centrifugation apheresis: Separates blood components, used across many diseases
• TPE: Large-volume plasma replacement, originally for medical conditions, now explored for longevity
• Small-volume exchange: Well tolerated, body rebuilds quickly
• yFFP: Young donor plasma with regenerative signaling

I’ve spent years researching this space, talking with clinicians, and trying these protocols. For more information, you can start with these additional resources: