Stem Cell Therapies in Colorado
March 10 2010   |   Permanent Link
A good article from Singularity Hub examines an entrepreneurial medical practice in Colorado that offers stem cell therapies in defiance of the FDA. More of this sort of proactive civil disobedience is needed, but it has a way of ending badly for those involved, sadly. FDA bureaucrats have have not hesitated in the past to destroy legitimate and responsible businesses for failing to tow the line. From the article: "RSI provides its patients with the Regenexx procedure, an adult stem cell transplant that uses your own cells (autologous) to treat joint injuries and bone damage. There’s no surgery needed. A needle extracts bone marrow, RSI isolates the stem cells and cultures them in your own blood, and then these cells are injected into the area where they are needed. They've treated 348+ patients with 800+ injections and show no signs of slowing down. According to RSI's own surveys, 89% of their knee patients showed marked improvement, as did 75% of their hip patients! Within months some patients can walk or run in ways they haven't been able to in years. We've seen these kinds of results from stem cell treatments before, but only in horses and dogs. That's because human stem cell therapies like this one aren't approved by the FDA. How can [RSI] flaunt the lack of federal approval? They claim that Regenexx is solely used as a part of their medical practice, only within the state of Colorado, and as such is no more regulated by the FDA than it would be by the FAA or the Department of Motor Vehicles."

A Biological Bypass
March 10 2010   |   Permanent Link
Via ScienceDaily: "Coronary arteries can become blocked with plaque, leading to a decrease in the supply of blood and oxygen to the heart. Over time this blockage can lead to debilitating chest pain or heart attack. Severe blockages in multiple major vessels may require coronary artery bypass graft surgery, a major invasive surgery. ... Successfully growing new arteries could provide a biological option for patients facing bypass surgery ... In the past, researchers used growth factors -- proteins that stimulate the growth of cells -- to grow new arteries, but this method was unsuccessful. [Researchers] studied mice and zebrafish to see if they could simulate arterial formation by switching on and off two signaling pathways -- ERK1/2 and P13K. ... We found that there is a cross-talk between the two signaling pathways. One half of the signaling pathway inhibits the other. When we inhibit this mechanism, we are able to grow arteries. Instead of using growth factors, we stopped the inhibitor mechanism by using a drug that targets a particular enzyme called P13-kinase inhibitor. Because we've located this inhibitory pathway, it opens the possibility of developing a new class of medication to grow new arteries. The next step is to test this finding in a human clinical trial."

An Interesting Theory on Obesity
March 09 2010   |   Permanent Link
Almost nothing in biology is entirely immune to a good argument for altering what is presently thought of as cause and effect. Here, for example, a researcher argues that the metabolic syndrome we presently ascribe to excess fat, caused by eating too much, is in fact a direct consequence of that high calorie intake, not the fat. It is an intriguing view, but one that needs more evidence before being taken seriously, I think. From the release: "obesity is the body's way of storing lipids where they belong, in fat tissue, in an effort to protect our other organs from lipids' toxic effects. It's when the surplus of calories coming in gets to be too much for our fat tissue to handle that those lipids wind up in other places they shouldn't be, and the cascade of symptoms known as metabolic syndrome sets in. ... There is some disagreement in the field about whether insulin resistance is a primary cause of metabolic syndrome or just one of its features ... Insulin resistance is not the cause of metabolic syndrome, [according to this theory], it is a 'passive byproduct' of fat deposition in the liver and muscle once storage in fat cells begins to fail. ... Based on the genes they carry, some people will be better able to sustain lipid storage in fat and can get away with being overweight, even obese, without the other symptoms. Eventually, though, the need to cut calories is something all of us will face. ... Once you reach a certain age, almost everybody is leptin resistant. Nature stops protecting you once you pass the reproductive years."

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