Listen to this PodcastMore 60-Second Health
Valentine's Day can lead to plenty of broken hearts. But for cardiac wounds that time alone won't heal, science has made some major advances. When it comes to heart attack, for example, a big development is emerging from a tiny source. Stem cells are coming of age.
Stem cells, harvested from a patient's own bone marrow, have been heralded as a potential quick fix for damaged heart tissue. But can these progenitor cells actually work to heal massive muscle damage?
A new review of 33 studies assessed data from more than 1,700 heart attack patients. The review researchers found that those patients treated with stem cells—in addition to the standard care of angioplasty—had stronger tickers for years to come than those who had not gotten stem cell therapy. The review article is published in The Cochrane Library. [David Clifford et al., "Stem Cell Treatment Following a Heart Attack"]
It's too early to say whether those with stem cell treatments will live longer, according to the new analysis. But for affairs of the heart, it's more evidence that good things can come in very small packages.
—Katherine Harmon
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]
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5 Comments
Add CommentI'm glad Obama did not outlaw stem cell research like Bush did. Chaney can even benefit from this one. Thank God for science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJames: You making a big assumption there when you suggest that Chaney has a heart...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOh crap! You are right. I don't know what I was thinking.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAppears its a complicated procedure.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLONGEVITY IS ONLY DESIRABLE IF IT PROLONGS YOUTH, NOT AGE. --- Alexix Carel
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The key to every biological problem must finally be sought in the cell, for every living organism is, or at some point has been, a cell.”E.B. Wilson, 1925
Nobody likes aging. The hair grays, the brain slows, the muscles ache and we enter a slow steady decline, as the cells in our body lose the ability to regenerate and heal themselves.We may as well admit it; we are all prone to bouts of vanity. It’s a natural human instinct, but sadly age does not just affect our looks; it brings health risks too. Our immune cells weaken and we are become at high risk to any number of diseases including, heart problems, damaged eyesight, hair loss, impaired hearing and memory loss, to name but a few. The whole process can be difficult to cope with and many people find it hard to accept.
In medical science, the aging process was always seen as something that just had to be put up with, an inevitable part of life we could do nothing about. However, breakthroughs in Stem Cell research are completely changing the way we view the aging process.
Our understanding of human cells means that there are now methods we can use to slow down the aging process.
see http://stemcell.cn.com for more info's and actual treatment options