New medical science beats within the breast (Stem) Cellular developments, part 2
In the last Daily Dose, I brought you up to speed on stem cells – and the reasons why (uncharacteristically, perhaps) I’ve had virtually no comment on them in this forum or in my newsletter
But enough of that ancient history. Now, there are very real developments in the all-eyes-on-the-prize, history-making realm of stem-cell medicine, a world that’s unfolding and evolving before our very eyes, whether we object to it or not. Read on.
According to a recent article in the UK Daily Mail (London), an experimental heart attack therapy study involving stem cells was started in Britain just weeks ago. The therapy is non-controversial, since it uses an adult patient’s own stem cells – harvested post-attack from their bone marrow.
The point of the treatment is to stop heart attack victims from suffering second attacks shortly after an initial event, or from experiencing subsequent heart failure over time – something conventional treatments do little to prevent. In effect, the study’s authors hope to use a patient’s own cells for “damage control.”
According to the Daily Mail piece, heart attack patients taken to a pair of London hospitals would have the option to take part in the study if they’re coherent enough to give their consent. Stem cells would be removed from participating patients’ femurs within 5 hours of their attacks, then injected into their heart or affected arteries following angioplasty.
The study is pretty rigorous, too. It’s a “randomized double-blind” type – which means that there are 2 study groups of 100 each: One that gets the stem cells and another that gets a blood serum solution. If it’s truly double-blind, the attending physicians won’t even know which are which. Progress of participating individuals will be tracked over time.
Related research at 2 other local UK hospitals is aimed at using stem cell therapy to actually repair the damage to patients’ hearts that occurred with their initial attacks – effectively restoring the heart to pre-attack condition, owing to these cells’ regenerative ability
Authors of both these courses of study have high hopes for success. Similar, small-scale trials in other counties have demonstrated that human patients indeed have the ability to regenerate heart tissue to a certain degree using their own stem cells.
And in more “grow your own” body tissue news
