Stem cells heal heart attack scars

[jimmy olsen]

Great age we're living in.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-57377323-10391704/stem-cells-heal-heart-attack-scars-regrow-healthy-muscle/

(CBS) A new study offers an effective way to mend a broken heart: Stem cells.


The study looked at patients with damaged hearts from myocardial infarctions, or heart attacks, and found stem cells reduced the amount of scarring and helped hearts regrow healthy muscle.

"This discovery challenges the conventional wisdom that, once established, scar is permanent and that, once lost, healthy heart muscle cannot be restored," study co-author Dr. Eduardo Marban, director of the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute and inventor of the techniques used in the procedure, said in a hospital written statement.

For the study, researchers tested 25 patients, an average of 53 years old, who had experienced heart attacks that had left them with damaged heart muscle. Eight patients served as controls and were treated with conventional treatments including medication, and diet and exercise recommendations. The other 17 patients received stem cells, which researchers derived from raisin-sized pieces of patients' own heart tissue.

The researchers found that patients treated with stem cells experienced almost a 50 percent reduction of heart attack scars within 12 months of treatment, while the eight patients who received conventional treatment saw no reductions in damage.

"This has never been accomplished before, despite a decade of cell therapy trials for patients with heart attacks. Now we have done it," Marban said. "The effects are substantial, and surprisingly larger in humans than they were in animal tests."

The study is published online in the Feb 13. Issue of The Lancet.

One of the 17 patients in the study, 59-year-old Fred Lesikar of Menifee, Calif., said his major heart attack reduced his heart function by more than 30 percent.

"The doctors treating me told me that there was no way to repair a heart damaged by a heart attack," he told Cedars-Sinai. But then he saw a news report on the study and called Cedars-Sinai, asking to be a part of the trial. "Today I'm feeling super - better than I did before the heart attack."

Dr. Sonia Skarlatos, deputy director of the division of cardiovascular sciences at the NIH's National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, told CNN that the procedure needs to be tested on more patients before it rolls out to the public, but remains hopeful it can improve quality of life for heart attack patients.

She said, "By preventing the consequences of a heart attack you may be able to prevent further down the heart failure that happens in [many of these] patients."

[HVC]

Great age we're living in.

except for, you know, the republican nutters blowing up any (far off) future clinic that offers this treatment.

[CountDeMoney]

Great age we're living in.

except for, you know, the republican nutters blowing up any (far off) future clinic that offers this treatment.

Yeah, it's been totally awesome watching the US getting lapped in stem cell research by nations like Singapore, South Africa and Portugal.

[HVC]

You threw in that last one just to hurt me

[OttoVonBismarck]

I heard stem cells also make your dick the size of a horse-cock, give you super powers, cure all cancer, halt aging permanently, and increase intelligence by 500%.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I'm just bitter, I feel like we're about 150 years away from biological immortality.

What's interesting is when Benjamin Franklin died he actually said he expected in a few centuries man would transcend death through science, and that unfortunately for him he recognized he was only missing out by a small bit in the grand scheme of things.

[DontSayBanana]

I'm just bitter, I feel like we're about 150 years away from biological immortality.

What's interesting is when Benjamin Franklin died he actually said he expected in a few centuries man would transcend death through science, and that unfortunately for him he recognized he was only missing out by a small bit in the grand scheme of things.

It wouldn't be such a problem if we had non-destructive cryo.  The ghost of Walt Disney is gonna be annoyed he got scammed.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Right, but I think due to the crystallization problem non-destructive cryo would require a significant change to human physiology to be viable, and if we were capable of making such significant physiological changes then we'd be capable of doing biological immortality already.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Hopefully we have advanced enough by the time I die that they can copy my personality and memories into a computer. It won't be the real me, but I'll ask that it be configured such that the electronic version of me trolls the internet for all time as a dying pox on mankind.

[Admiral Yi]

Hopefully we have advanced enough by the time I die that they can copy my personality and memories into a computer. It won't be the real me, but I'll ask that it be configured such that the electronic version of me trolls the internet for all time as a dying pox on mankind.

You could probably get a similar result with a well programmed bot.

[Ed Anger]

I'm working to become a lich.

[Fate]

The actual article in the Lancet is a bit less promising - "...however, changes in end-diastolic volume, end-systolic volume, and LVEF did not differ between groups by 6 months."

A key figure in the measurement of outcomes in these patients is LVEF (left ventricular ejection fraction). Essentially it's an approximation of how efficient your heart is at sending blood to the body.

It's a cool experiment, but right now all these patients have is a thicker heart with no increase in functionality. Hopefully they show improved or less decline in LVEF relative to the controls in the future.

[Admiral Yi]

Even if it doesn't increase functionality it should offer added protection against the heart-stopper punch.

[DontSayBanana]

Even if it doesn't increase functionality it should offer added protection against the heart-stopper punch.

Immunization against the five-finger palm of death?

[Razgovory]

and increase intelligence by 500%.

Well shit.