“Latest Stem Cells News”

Transplanting own stem cells into heart of severe angina patients lessens their pain and improves their ability to walk, a new study has revealed.

The largest national stem cell study for heart disease showed that transplant subjects also experienced fewer deaths than those who didn’t receive stem cells.

In the 12-month Phase II, double-blind trial, subjects’ own purified stem cells, called CD34+ cells, were injected into their hearts in an effort to spur the growth of small blood vessels that make up the microcirculation of the heart muscle (…)

He also said that this study provides the first evidence that a person’s own stem cells can be used as a treatment for their heart disease. However, he cautioned that the findings of the 25-site trial with 167 subjects, require verification in a larger, Phase III study.

The stem cell transplant is the first therapy to produce an improvement in severe angina subjects’ ability to walk on a treadmill. Twelve months after the procedure, the transplant subjects were able to double their improvement on a treadmill compared to the placebo group (…)

from http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life/health-fitness/health/Your-own-stem-cells-can-help-treat-heart-disease/articleshow/5242519.cms

The symptoms of multiple sclerosis could be reversed thanks to stem cell transplants from the patient’s own bone marrow, according to a study that will be published in March in Lancet Neurology by researchers from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, who say that stem cell transplants could restore the immune system of patients suffering from the disease, stopping its evolution, and even causing its regression.

Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease characterized by a defective immune system, which attacks the body’s own tissues in the central nervous system, and effects 57 thousand Italians. The disease develops through a process called “demyelinization”, which causes the deterioration of myelin – sheaths composed of fatty acids that cover nerve fibers – slowing or completely stopping the transmission of nerve impulses along the fibers in the brain and the spinal cord.

A particular type of stem cell transplantation using the patient’s own cells led to short-term freedom from insulin injections in 20 of 23 patients newly diagnosed with type 1 diabetes participating in an experimental protocol in Brazil.

One patient even managed to go four years without needing outside sources of insulin, although the average was 31 months, said the authors of a report in the April 15 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, a themed issue on diabetes.

The patients also kept their blood sugar under control, which is key to preventing complications from diabetes. And, the authors stated, increased C-peptide levels indicated that the pancreas’ beta cells were alive and well.

“We were trying to preserve islet beta cell mass, that is, the cells that produce insulin, by stopping the immune system attack on these cells,” said senior study author Dr. Richard Burt, of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. “Why new onset? Because we wanted to make sure there were still some islets there. We don’t believe stem cells form islet cells, but if the islet cells are still there, there might be regeneration if we stop the attack soon enough.”