Stem Cell Therapy for Heart Disease

Cord Blood Stem Cells And Cardiovascular Disease

21st Century adult stem cell medicine -

The twenty first century is witnessing a revolution in cellular medicine. Thousands of patients around the world have already benifited from biotechnologies using the stem cells-delivered safely by skilled physicians. Diseases once considered incurable are responding well to stem cell therapies and are restoring a quality of life to patients they thought they had lost forever.

More information and to contact about stem cell therapies - www.stemcells21.com

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women in the U.S. Approximately one million people die of cardiovascular disease annually despite medical intervention, with coronary artery disease claiming 50 percent of those lives.(1) Although heart disease impacts an older population whose heart muscle, arteries and pumping function have deteriorated over time, heart ailments also strike the very young. According to the National Institutes of Health, congenital heart disease is responsible for more deaths in the first year of life than any other birth defect.(2)

To date, there is no proven "off-the-shelf" therapy to repair or regenerate the heart after acute myocardial infarction (heart attack) or congestive heart failure. Because heart cells have a limited capacity to regenerate, researchers are exploring potential therapies using various stem cell sources to repair or replace damaged tissue including vascular endothelial cells, which form the inner lining of new blood vessels, and cardiomyocytes, the heart muscle cells that contract to pump blood into and out of the heart.(3)

The stem cells found in a newborn's umbilical cord blood are one type of stem cell holding great promise in cardiovascular repair. Stem cells from cord blood may have an advantage over those found in bone marrow or peripheral blood because they are immunologically "younger" and appear to be more versatile. They also demonstrate an important characteristic with embryonic stem cells: they are able to differentiate into nearly all cell types in the body. However, cord blood stem cells offer important advantages: 1)they do this in a safe and controlled manner; 2)they have been used in clinical practice to treat humans for more than 20 years; and 3)there is no controversy involved in their collection.

Researchers are noting several positive observations in pre-clinical animal studies. Thus far, in animal models, cord blood stem cells have shown the ability to selectively migrate to injured cardiac tissue, improve vascular function and blood flow at the site of injury, and improve overall heart function.(1)

Repairing Blood Vessels and Improving Ventricular Function

The heart demands a large volume of blood flow in order to bring nutrients and oxygen to the muscle tissue after it has been damaged. Research demonstrates that cord blood stem cells are capable of giving rise to vascular endothelial-like cells, which are believed to aid in the repair of heart tissue damage due to myocardial infarction. Several pre-clinical studies of induced myocardial infarction in rats have shown that cord blood stem cells have the ability to: