Friday, Jan. 20, 2012

Food Matters: Advancements continue to be made in stem cell research

What is happening with stem cells as the hope for major cures for disease, brain and nervous system disorders?

The primary role of adult stem cells in a living organism is to maintain and repair the tissue in which they are found. When someone is cut or breaks a bone, it is the stem cells that regenerate new tissue to repair the damage.

Adult stem cells have been identified in many organs and tissues, including brain, bone marrow, peripheral blood, blood vessels, skeletal muscle, skin, teeth, heart, gut, liver, ovarian epithelium and testis. The best known and oldest traditional use of adult stem cells is from the blood-forming stem cells in bone marrow (called hematopoietic stem cells or HSCs) used to treat leukemia.

The great thing about stem cells is that any one of them can transform into a variety of different tissues. Researchers have actually been able to grow the special insulin-producing beta cells of a pancreas. This is great news for those with insulin-dependent diabetes who are not able to make their own insulin.

Actor Christopher Reeve, most famously known for his film role as Superman was a loud proponent of stem cell research as a way to treat spinal cord injury. This was a personal quest for him, as he found himself paralyzed from the neck down after falling from a horse. His legacy lives on after his death in 2004.

According to the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, two teams of Japanese researchers working separately reported in 2009 that they were able to reprogram mature skin cells of mice to an embryonic-like state. They used the resulting cells to create live mouse offspring. Other studies have found that human skin cells are able to revert back to what appear to be human embryonic stem cells called induced pluripotent stem cells (IPS). Umbilical cord stem cells have also shown great promise.

This is good news as there has been a lot of controversy about using embryonic stem cells for research and treatment. One of the big problems with embryonic stem cells is that they are hard to control. Perhaps you want to grow a liver but an eyeball might appear. Adult stem cells are more specific to the tissue being regenerated, and since it can come from the person to be treated you can avoid the problem of tissue rejection.

Early in the "W" Bush administration, federal funding for embryonic stem cells was approved but limited to a pool of embryos that have been left over from fertility clinics that would have otherwise been destroyed. Labs were allowed to share this supply to develop stems.

Michael J. Fox, another actor with Parkinson's disease, and Nancy Reagan, whose husband President Ronald Reagan had Alzheimer's disease, have both been working diligently to push for more research and funding using stem cells. There is much yet to be done but it shouldn't be long before more breakthroughs bring about routine treatments for many of these ailments.

Perhaps soon we will be freezing sample tissues of different parts of our bodies to be kept in a bank and later used to make new organs or tissues that could save our own lives. Pretty amazing stuff!

Chuck Newcomb, MS, RD, CDE is a consulting registered dietitian currently providing medical nutrition therapy services for Memorial Hospital Los Banos. He has a masters of science in clinical nutrition from New York University.

E-mail questions to the Attention of ChuckRD at: MHALosBanos@

SutterHealth.org or on his website MySmartRD.com.