“Latest Stem Cells News”

A team of researchers from UCL has won a £500,000 grant to develop a synthetic artery that mimics a natural artery – and could revolutionise the treatment of coronary heart disease.

Professor Alexander Seifalian (UCL Surgery and Interventional Science) and Professor George Hamilton (UCL Surgery and Interventional Science & Royal Free Hospital) and their team will use the Wellcome Trust grant to take their work from the laboratory to a pre-clinical trial.

The team has been developing a new nanomaterial with mechanical properties similar to that of human arteries.

The nanomaterial’s inner surface has been modified to attract stem cells from blood circulating inside the body.

It converts these primary cells to endothelial cells, a type of cell that covers the interior of the natural blood vessel and protects it from blockage.

The breakthrough offers hope for sufferers of heart disease who are unable to donate suitable substitute blood vessels for bypass surgery.

Professors Seifalian and Hamilton, experts in nanotechnology, regenerative medicine and vascular surgery, explained: “Coronary heart disease is a condition where one or more blood vessels of the heart become narrowed or blocked. This causes the heart muscle to be starved of oxygen causing damage often leading to a heart attack and muscle death. This interferes with the heart’s ability to pump blood around the body, leading to infirmity and possibly death.

“The current treatment of the disease is to create a new route for blood to circulate, most often by balloon dilatation and stent (stent angioplasty). In many patients however this intervention cannot be performed and in this situation an operation called bypass surgery is needed which can either use substitute blood vessels from another part of the patient or made from a plastic material.

read more: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0908/09081101

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

Scientists have taken the first steps toward producing the “heart patch,” a design for a medical implement used to repair damage from heart disease, a new study suggests.

Last week, researchers from Duke University presented the results of a study which, using mouse embryonic stem cells, examined the way these cells develop into heart muscle, HealthDay News reports (…)

from http://www.privatemdlabs.com/news/Heart_Health_and_Cholesterol/Mouse-stem-cell-study-examines-heart-repair$19405309.php

Look what we have here- another stem cell research trial for heart disease (congestive heart failure) and another heart patient has his life improved. This time, at the University of Louisville, the first heart failure patient treated with his own Adult Stem Cells has improved already, just 2 week after his stem cell treatment.

Adult Stem Cells Result in 30% Improvement

Michael Jones, a contractor in Louisville, was the first congestive heart failure patient to take part in this stem cell research trial. Here is more from the stem cell article:

His severe congestive heart failure was treated with the stem cell treatment. The procedure involved injecting his own cardiac stem cells into his damaged heart muscle. It was done on July 17. He shows already had 20-30% improvement of his heart function since the treatment.

Congestive Heart Failure Kills Millions Every Year- US Does Nothing

Heart failure is a leading cause of death in the United States, affecting some 6 million Americans a year. Half of the patients die within one year. Doctors have had little to offer patients with late-stage heart failure. With major muscle damage to the heart, patients have the option of a heart transplant or implantation of a mechanically assisted heart device.

What About The Millions Who Can’t Get Stem Cell Treatment?

This is good news right? Well yes and no. Yes, I am happy for Michael Jones as he is a lucky man to receive stem cell treatment using his own adult stem cells and unsurprisingly it has worked.

No, because what about the other millions of Americans who aren’t able to receive this stem cell treatment. The Fight Aging Website has a post on this:

It is only in the last couple of years that clinical trials have started for autologous stem cell therapies in the US. Or, to put it another way, for some time now unelected and largely unaccountable employees of the US government have forbidden US residents – on pain of criminal prosecution – from offering or making their own decisions about a medical technology commercially available elsewhere in the world. All the while, these bureaucrats impose vast costs on medical development concerns by insisting on largely pointless trials, continuing far past any reasonable trade-off between risk and reward, thereby greatly postponing the commerical introduction of these technologies in the US.

Do you have responsibility for, or even the ability to make your own medical choices? Not according to people in positions of power at the FDA. Regulation in medicine has largely become an exercise undertaken for its own sake, as is the end result of any centralization of power. No-one’s interests are being served save for those of the career bureaucrats in charge of forbidding new things. Everyone else gets to suffer due to the ball and chain shackled to medical progress, and due to being forbidden the basic, fundamental freedom to choose how to treat their own medical conditions.

Now ask yourself, why can’t anyone with heart disease and the necessary funds just up and do the research on the treatment and choose to try this within the borders of the US? Because a faceless bureaucrat has decided that it is forbidden, and that anyone who offers this treatment must be jailed. Welcome to the land of the free.

This is similar to what I argued here in this stem cell research post

Stem Cell Treatment Information

For treatment information, please fill out this stem cell treatment form- and one of the Repair Stem Cell Institute’s staff will provide you with more information – free.

For full information, write me at donmargolis@gmail.com and just put “Treatment”  in the subject box. Or, if you want to start the process to treat a loved one now, fill out this stem cell treatment form and one of the Repair Stem Cell Institute’s staff will provide you with all the help you need -free.

Today, Tammy Henderson is riding her bicycle on the road, but less than 2 years ago, Tammy was on the road to a heart transplant after suffering a major heart attack back in 2001. Things changed after Tammy received Vescell stem cell treatment using her own Adult Stem Cells in Thailand in April 2008 to help heal her heart muscle.

From the stem cell article:

My doctor fully believes this is working,” said Henderson. “My echo showed at least a 5 percent improvement in ejection fraction — how well the heart pumps — and my heart shrunk by 3 mm, which is terrific. Usually, the heart enlarges as it gets worse.”

“My oxygen level went up three points. I have been feeling really great, and I’m back to bike riding and walking,” she added.

Her Sister Thrilled With Stem Cell Treatment for Heart Muscle

Tammy went to Vescell stem cell therapy and her sister Kelly Moyer is happy she did:

the improvements “are exactly what we hoped for,”

“In April, her family and I walked the Kensington Park path — 8.5 miles — that includes many hills, I was very impressed with her strength,” Moyer said. “A couple of years ago I would have never thought that kind of experience would be possible. Her heart is getting smaller and pumping better, clear medical signs of improvement. I couldn’t be more pleased.”

Adult Stem Cells Helped Her Sinuses Too

While her heart has shown signs of healing, Henderson said she has been cured of chronic sinusitis. She use to spend $25 month for Zyrtec, but stop taking it in April 2008.

“I have not had a sinus infection since then,” she said. “I think the stem cells took care of it. That’s a major extra plus.”

California Dreaming in Michigan

Moyer hopes that some day the stem cell therapy will be available in the United States. Her sister said there’s a possibility it could be done at Henry Ford within a year.

“I pray that this treatment will be available in the U.S. as soon as possible,” Moyer said. “For someone sick to have to travel around the world for treatment is just absurd, especially living in the U.S. We live in the best country in the world, it doesn’t seem right.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Recent stem cell research studies using Adult Stem Cells to treat heart diseases such as congestive heart failure and heart attacks have made the news recently.  And on the surface, these adult stem cell success stories of heart attack victims making amazing recoveries in these research clinical trials is wonderful news indeed.

New Research Trials for Heart Attack Victims

For example, at the Texas Heart Institute, John Hartman who had suffered a heart attack recently had his own stem cells implanted into his heart muscle in a new stem cell research trial.

From the stem cell article:

Dr. Jim Willerson President, Texas Heart Institute, said, “We think the improvement we see is largely from the blood flow increase salvaging the cells that are reversibly injured, allowing them to function normally.”

“That reflects in the patient being able to do better, walk further, breathe better,” said Dr. Emerson Perin St Luke’s, THI Cardiologist.

Stem Cell Trial for Congestive Heart Failure

Also, in another stem cell research trial at Vanderbilt, an unnamed 65 year old congestive heart failure patient was treated using his own Adult Stem Cells again.   Dr. David Zhao, director of the cath lab there said “The patients who stand to benefit from this approach include those whose coronary arteries are so diseased that nothing else could be done,”

What About Heart Disease Patients Who Can’t Get Adult Stem Cells?

However, the headlines don’t mention the millions who are suffering and dying after having heart attacks (1.25 million per year in the United States) and are in congestive heart failure and don’t have the opportunity to receive adult stem cell treatment because the FDA has classified a patient’s own stem cells as a drug- thus slowing down progress and starving heart patients of a “drug” with no side effects or ethical issues and only has upside.

For every Barry Brown or Kenneth Milles, heart attack victims who were lucky enough to get into a US stem cell research clinical trial using their own stem cells, there are millions of heart disease patients who do not have that opportunity. And for that, we have the FDA to blame.

And that is only addressing adult stem cell therapy for heart disease………what about the hundreds of other conditions that can be helped or improved by Adult Stem Cells?

Sad.

For more information on clinical research trials in the United States, go to the Clinical Trials website – www.clinicaltrials.gov