Treating Muscle, Heart and Blood Loss wih Stem Cells

Muscle damage

Adult stem cells are also apparently able to repair muscle damaged after heart attacks. Heart attacks are due to the coronary artery being blocked, starving tissue of oxygen and nutrients. Days after the attack is over, the cells try to remodel themselves in order to become able to pump harder.

However, because of the decreased blood flow this attempt is futile and results in even more muscle cells weakening and dying. Researchers at Columbia-Presbyterian found that injecting bone-marrow stem cells, a form of adult stem cells, into mice which had had heart attacks induced resulted in an improvement of 33 percent in the functioning of the heart. The damaged tissue had regrown by 68 percent.

Heart damage

Several types of heart disease have been treated in clinical trials and therapy is commercially available. Patients such as Jeannine Lewis and legendary Hawaiian crooner Don Ho have traveled to Thailand to receive stem cell therapy for their heart disease.

Using the patient's own bone marrow derived stem cells or more recently, peripheral blood-derived stem cells, Dr. Amit Patel at the University of Pittsburgh, McGowan Institute of Regenerative Medicine has shown a dramatic increase in ejection fraction for patients with congestive heart failure.

He works with many other countries such as Argentina, Uruguay, Ecuador, Greece, Japan, and Thailand where he has taught minimally invasive techniques for the treatment of non-ischemic (idiopathic) and ischemic heart failure.

In Malaysia as well, Stem Cell Therapy for the heart is well established (www.stemlife1.blogspot.com). Results are inline with results published in research papers.

Low blood supply

In December 2004, a team of researchers led by Dr. Luc Douay at the University of Paris developed a method to produce large numbers of red blood cells.

The Nature Biotechnology paper, entitled Ex vivo generation of fully mature human red blood cells, describes the process: precursor red blood cells, called hematopoietic stem cells, are grown together with stromal cells, creating an environment that mimics the conditions of bone marrow, the natural site of red blood cell growth.

Erythropoietin, a growth factor, is added, coaxing the stem cells to complete terminal differentiation into red blood cells.

Further research into this technique will have potential benefits to gene therapy, blood transfusion, and topical medicine.

Next, Stem Cells treatment in Animals and Rats >>

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