Healthy Life Extension

Using Own Skin Cells to Repair Hearts

posted on March 09, 2010

Last week, I told you about an amazing new stem cell breakthrough. Now, just a week later, here’s another.

A heart patient's own skin cells soon could be used to repair damaged cardiac tissue thanks to pioneering stem cell research of the University of Houston's newest biomedical scientist, Robert Schwartz.

His new technique for reprogramming human skin cells puts him at the forefront of a revolution in medicine that could one day lead to treatments for Alzheimer's, diabetes, muscular dystrophy and many other diseases.

Professor Schwartz's work will save lives.

He devised a method for turning ordinary human skin cells into heart cells. The cells developed are similar to embryonic stem cells and ultimately can be made into early-stage heart cells. These then could be implanted and grown into fully developed beating heart cells, reversing the damage caused by previous heart attacks. These new cells would replace the damaged cardiac tissue that weakens the heart's ability to pump, develops into scar tissue and causes arrhythmias. Early clinical trials using these reprogrammed cells on actual heart patients could begin within one or two years.

Schwartz's method requires fewer steps and yields more stem cells. This improved method could pave the way for breakthroughs in other diseases.

For example, new brain cells could treat Alzheimer's patients or those with severe brain trauma, or a diabetic could get new insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. Generating new kidney, lung or liver tissue is also possible, with scientists even being able to one day grow an entirely new heart or other organ from these reprogrammed cells.

"We're trying to advance science in ways folks never even dreamed about," Schwartz said. "The idea of having your own bag of stem cells that you can carry through life and use for tissue regeneration is at the very cutting edge of science."

Is that incredible, or what?

Six weeks ago, I spoke with a friend who knows a man who had several stem cell treatments to treat his Alzheimer’s as well as his other problems. The clinic used his own fat tissue. Prior to his treatments, he was unable to work due to progressive dementia. Now he’s back to running his business. My friend swears he looks twenty years younger, and he has regained his strong libido.

Do you see what I mean about progress moving at lightning speed? Most people still dream about these things as distant possibilities.

A month ago, I met with the CEO of another stem cell company. They treated over 2300 patients so far with their own bone marrow stem cells. I watched some testimonials, and the results were astounding. They claim every patient improved.

Now I’m not encouraging you head for the telephone and start arranging for an appointment. These treatments are far from perfect for everyone, are extremely expensive and are not available in the US. I just want to point out what some early results appear to be and that progress continues at an ever-accelerating rate. Bear in mind, these treatments will only get better over time and will get cheaper.

Long Life,
David Kekich
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MEDICAL TOURISM FOR STEM CELL THERAPIES

Medical tourism exists primarily because the regulatory regime in countries like the US is harsh beyond all reasonable levels, the bureaucratic mindset spun out of control. So the application of new research, such as the growing knowledge of stem cells and regenerative processes, happens in other parts of the world:

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2010/03/on-medical-tourism-for-stem-cell-therapies.php

"Five years, a decade, or longer might pass these days between the early commercial availability of new therapies overseas and their final and expensive passage through the FDA course of hurdles and obstacles. But when responsible companies are regularly offering safe (and much cheaper) therapies in India, Vietnam, and China years ahead of their availability in the US, something has to give.

A wide range of interested parties in the US advocate against medical tourism; to hear them speak, anything less than the full FDA process of years, trials, and tens of millions of dollars will lead to anarchy, and all providers outside the US are evil snake-oil salesmen. Nothing could be further from the truth. Less regulated markets have their own for-profit watchdogs, and aggressive competition shakes out fraud and failure much more rapidly than regulators. In a regulated market, fraud and failure become a part of the landscape, supported by the regulators. Rather than small opportunists trying to put one over on a handful of people until discovered, you'll see massive entities engaged in shaping regulations over years and decades to their advantage, covering up and excusing extensive abuses with the regulator's aid, and so forth.

"Look at the shoes on your feet - they are pretty essential for most people. Absent shoes, you would struggle more than you would like. But when was the last time you had a serious issue with fraud in the shoe market? When was the last time you had any sort of issue in the shoe market? Yet it is as free as any market is likely to be these days. The average person is likely to think little about dealing with shoe shopping and a lot about dealing with minor medical issues - and that is a mark of the level of regulator-induced dysfunction in the medical industry. If you are perfectly happy with the state of the shoe marketplace, but believe that heavy regulation is required for medicine, then you should probably take a closer look at your axioms."
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LATEST HEALTHY LIFE EXTENSION HEADLINES

SESTRIN, METABOLISM, AND AGING (March 05 2010) http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/vnl.cfm?id=4625
Here, researchers identify another piece of the molecular machineries of metabolism that help to determine life span: "a protein called Sestrin [serves] as a natural inhibitor of aging and age-related pathologies in fruit flies. Sestrins are highly conserved small proteins that are produced in high amounts when cells experience stress. Sestrin function, however, remained puzzling until [researchers] found that these proteins function as activators of AMP-dependent protein kinase (AMPK), and inhibitors of the Target of Rapamycin (TOR). AMPK and TOR are two protein kinases that serve as key components of a signaling pathway shown to be the central regulator of aging and metabolism. AMPK is activated in response to caloric restriction, a condition that slows down aging, whereas TOR is activated in response to over-nutrition, a condition that accelerates aging. Activation of AMPK inhibits TOR, and drugs that activate AMPK or inhibit TOR can delay aging in several different model organisms including mammals. But how the body keeps the activity of these two protein kinases in balance to prevent premature aging was unknown. In future work, [researchers plan] to examine whether the mammalian Sestrins also control aging and metabolism, and whether defects in proper Sestrin expression will provide the explanation to some of the currently unexplainable degenerative diseases associated with old age."

ANOTHER STRIKE AGAINST GROWTH HORMONE (March 04 2010) http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/vnl.cfm?id=4623
Something to think about from EurekAlert!: "IGF-I is a protein hormone similar in structure to insulin and is regulated in the body by growth hormone (GH). Levels of GH and IGF-I decline progressively with age in both men and women and this drop is thought to be related to deteriorating health conditions found with advanced age. In an attempt to combat aging some people use GH as its actions elevate IGF-1. This study however showed that older men who had higher levels of IGF-I were more likely to die from a cancer-related cause in the following 18 years than men with lower levels. This is the first population-based study to show an association of higher IGF-I levels with increased risk of a cancer-related death in older men. Although the design of this study does not explicitly show that the higher IGF-I levels caused the cancer death, it does encourage more study as well as a reexamination of the use of IGF-I enhancing therapies as an anti-aging strategy. Researchers used data on 633 men aged 50 and older from the Rancho Bernardo Study, a population-based study of healthy aging. In this study, the increased risk of cancer death for older men with high levels of IGF-I was not explained by differences in age, body size, lifestyle or cancer history." You might compare this with other findings on IGF-1 levels in long-lived humans.

WHY DO PEOPLE ACCEPT AGING? (March 04 2010) http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/vnl.cfm?id=4622
From the IEET Blog: "When I was in undergrad, a professor asked our whole class a strange question. 'Lets say that I have in my hand, right now, a pill. This pill, if you take it, will make you ageless. [If] you would take this pill, raise your hand.' His point was not that people want to age and die but that we naturally distrust such offers. It simply sounds too good to be true. Our brains are trained, over time, to understand what a reasonably possible benefit can exist for a given price. A free pill that has no side-effects and no Twilight Zone caveats (you have to be alive, can't die so are tortured, etc) seems more impossible than the idea of anti-aging itself. The problem is that this protective aspect of our mind can become over excited, so we stop believing certain solutions are ever possible. To cure, or even significantly reduce the damages caused by aging, are such an epic benefit that it seems our minds will actively manufacture problems, because the benefit must have some sort of epic cost associated. So we tell ourselves curing aging will cause too many problems and that aging has a lot of natural beauty to it and creates a lot of meaning and that all of that is good."

ANOTHER NOVEL VIEW OF ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE (March 03 2010) http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/vnl.cfm?id=4621
It is good that more new theories on the mechanisms of Alzheimer's disease are emerging, such as this, via EurekAlert! One thing you don't want to see in an advancing field of science is a monoculture of ideas. "For years we thought that A-beta was just metabolic garbage produced as a byproduct of other processes within the brain, but these data suggest it is a normal component of the brain's innate immune system. It looks like factors that trigger hyperactivity of the innate immune system - not only infection but also traumatic brain injury and stroke, which are already known to increase the risk for Alzheimer's - could cause excessive deposition of A-beta. ...
The researchers suggest that chronic activation of the innate immune system in response to either a persistent or transient infection of the central nervous system might lead to excess production and accumulation of A-beta.
Known Alzheimer's risk factors – such as stroke, head injury and exposure to certain anesthetics – could also trigger the innate immune system and increase A-beta production, leading to an excessive and dangerous inflammatory response within the brain. ... Now we need to figure out what is triggering the innate immune system, particularly as we age, and what genes control A-beta's role in the innate response. If we can identify which pathogens are more likely to trigger A-beta plaque aggregation, we might develop ways to prevent or control that response, for example by immunization."

AN INTERVIEW WITH AUBREY DE GREY (March 02 2010) http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/vnl.cfm?id=4619
The irreverent Viceland interviews Aubrey de Grey: "Typically, today, the therapies [of regeneration] involve things like injecting stem cells into the spinal cord or the heart in the vicinity of a trauma, to stimulate rebuilding of the damaged tissue, or else wholesale surgical replacement of an organ such as the heart or bladder with one created in the laboratory by tissue engineering. But as we progress, it will broaden to include 'molecular-level' regeneration, such as injecting enzymes (or the genes encoding them, depending on the target tissue) that can break down unwanted molecular byproducts of metabolism that are accumulating in cells as 'garbage' and that eventually impair cell function. In the case of injecting genes, we're talking about the standard techniques being developed for somatic gene therapy for inherited diseases: packaging the new DNA in a virus that worms its way into cells and integrates into the chromosome. (In many cases it will be doable much more safely, however, by performing this manipulation on stem cells outside the body, which can be verified for the correct genetic alteration before being injected.) The type of damage we repair need not be restricted to sudden, trauma-derived damage either - the gradually progressive damage that comprises aging is just as legitimate a target for regenerative medicine."

THE COST OF PHYSICAL INACTIVITY (March 02 2010) http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/vnl.cfm?id=4618

From the New York Times: "What, I’d like to know, will persuade the majority of Americans who remain sedentary to get off their duffs and give their bodies the workout they deserve? My hope is that every new testimonial to the value of exercise will win a few more converts until everyone is doing it. Physical inactivity is one of the strongest predictors of unsuccessful aging for older adults and is perhaps the root cause of many unnecessary and premature admissions to long-term care.

[It has long been] well established that higher quantities of physical activity have beneficial effects on numerous age-related conditions such as osteoarthritis, falls and hip fracture, cardiovascular disease, respiratory diseases, cancer, diabetes mellitus, osteoporosis, low fitness and obesity, and decreased functional capacity. Exercise [produces] a significantly reduced risk of cognitive impairment after two years for participants with moderate or high physical activity [when older] than 55. Sedentary skeptics are fond of saying that of course exercise is associated with good health as one ages; the people who exercise are healthy to begin with. But studies in which some participants are randomly assigned to a physical activity program and others to a placebo (like simply being advised to exercise) call their bluff. Even less exacting observational studies, like the Nurses' Health Study, take into account the well-being of participants at enrollment."

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