Cord blood has opened a new gateway in the field of alternative medicine.  Even though the concept of cord blood has been around since 1983, the first ever successful cord blood transplant was conducted on a six year old boy, who was suffering from Fanconi’s Anemia in 1983. Since then umbilical cord blood has been used in numerous therapies and transplants successfully.

Cord blood banking is a process of collecting stem cells in which umbilical cord blood is clamped and cut after a baby is born. These stem cells are adaptable cells that have the ability to regenerate and regrow. For this quality, these stem cells are used in treating more than 80 diseases and disorders now. There are two types of cord blood banking: Private and Public.

In private cord blood banking, you can store your baby’s store blood by investing a small amount of money. In exchange, you would retain the sole ownership of the stem cells, derived from the cord blood. This is the reason that more and more parents are opting for private cord blood banking, so they can use the stem cells any time in the future. On the contrary, you donate your cord blood in a public cord blood bank. Once donated, you cannot claim it in the future. Stem cells stored in public cord blood banks are used primarily in researchers and medical studies.

Once you save your baby’s cord blood, the stem cells can be used to treat any member of the close family circuit. For example, if you save your younger child’s cord blood, the stem cells can be transplanted to your elder child. They can also be used to treat any disease or disorder in you or your partner.

And the amazing part is, there is no need to match the cells before the transplant unlike bone marrow transplants. In bone marrow transplants, doctors need to go for graft vs. host disease (GVHD) matching, just to ensure safety and stability of the transplant. With cord blood stem cells, doctors can do away with GVHD matching. Since umbilical cord blood stem cells are inborn in nature, they are adaptive to any circumstances. Therefore the chances of rejection are also minimal to zero.

Now let’s take a look at the diseases and disorders that can be treated with cord blood stem cells.

Researchers have proved that cord blood stem cells can treat many types of cancer such as lymphoma, leukemia, and autoimmune. Apart from that these stem cells are extremely useful in treating the aftereffects of stroke, diabetes, and spinal cord injuries. Disorders like autism, Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease are also treated with cord blood stem cells. Patients treated with the stem cells have shown immense improvement in the first 6 months.

So, once you save your child’s umbilical cord blood with a private cord blood bank, you can not only safeguard your child’s future, but also protect your family. Even though there is a fee attached, but for a safer and worry-free future, it’s totally worth it.

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Many athletes take painkillers regularly after intense workout sessions. The reason being, any muscle injury, inflammation, soreness, stiffness and aches can be handled with these medicines. But a new study suggests that these anti-inflammatory non-steroidal drugs often harm the muscles rather than doing any good. A Stanford Medicine study supports this view and proposes a new study, based on the inflammatory component to treat muscle degeneration with muscle stem cells.

The stem cells in muscles are scattered across the skeletal muscle tissue. They remain inactive until they are divided by stimulation. When our muscles go through an injury or damage, an inflammatory component activates these muscle stem cells, so they start regenerating the tissue.

The team at Stanford suggests that a molecule, Prostaglandin E2 or PGE2, gets released when the muscle sends the inflammatory signal. This component stimulates the repairing process by aiming at the EP4 receptor, located on the surface of muscle stem cells. The muscle stem cells division is caused by the interaction between PGE2 and EP4, which leads to muscle tissue regeneration.

Dr. Helen Blau, the senior author of the study, said, “Traditionally, inflammation has been considered a natural, but sometimes harmful, response to injury. But we wondered whether there might be a component in the pro-inflammatory signaling cascade that also stimulated muscle repair. We found that a single exposure to prostaglandin E2 has a profound effect on the proliferation of muscle stem cells in living animals. We postulated that we could enhance muscle regeneration by simply augmenting this natural physiological process in existing stem cells already located along the muscle fiber.”

They have conducted a study on a mice model and it reveals that the PGE2 is increased by injuries and that in turn increases the expression of the EP4 receptor. This incident leads the team to the idea of treating the mice with PGE2 pulse, so they can stimulate the muscle stem cells to repair the damage.

Dr. Adelaida Palla, the co-first author explained, “When we gave mice a single shot of PGE2 directly to the muscle, it robustly affected muscle regeneration and even increased strength. Conversely, if we inhibited the ability of the muscle stem cells to respond to naturally produced PGE2 by blocking the expression of EP4 or by giving them a single dose of a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug to suppress PGE2 production, the acquisition of strength was impeded.”

The research clearly shows that painkillers can make the situation worse. Additionally, it also suggests that the molecule; PGE2 can be the natural element to enhance muscle regeneration. Dr. Blau is hopeful that future studies will show more encouraging results with PGE2.  “Our goal has always been to find regulators of human muscle stem cells that can be useful in regenerative medicine. It might be possible to repurpose this already FDA-approved drug for use in muscle. This could be a novel way to target existing stem cells in their native environment to help people with muscle injury or trauma, or even to combat natural aging,” added Dr. Blau.

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