Stem Cells Show Promise for Repairing Damaged Hearts

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2011/12/04/stem-cells-show-promise-for-repairing-damaged-hearts/

The promise of stem cell research just got a lot brighter.

There was some very good news from the world of medicine just a couple of weeks ago. For the first time, stem cells were injected into the hearts of humans who had suffered serious heart damage, and patients improved dramatically. It appears that, as everyone hoped, the stem cells grew into new heart cells to replaced the damaged tissue. This is the promise of all stem cell research: to repair or replace damaged organs that otherwise would never recover. In principle, we can someday use the same technique to replace damaged livers, kidneys, spinal cords, cartilege, and virtually all other tissues in the human body.

In the new study, just published in The Lancet, a group of researchers led by Robert Bolli grew stem cells from patients’ own hearts, after the patients had suffered serious heart attacks, leaving their hearts permanently damaged. Bolli explained to CNN reporter Caleb Hellerman:

“Once you reach this stage of heart disease, you don’t get better. You can go down slowly, or go down quickly, but you’re going to go down.”

And yet in this study, they did not "go down." They got better!

This is just an excerpt from the article but I think just this little bit of information speaks VOLUMES. Cardiac/Heart disease is if not one if not the top killer in adults today. Could we be on the cusp of a world where one has a heart attack and we will have the ability to inject stem cells and they will repair the damage instead of having to resort to a total heart transplant which a matching donor must be located first before anything else can move forward? We are as a say many times "in the midst of a medical revolution" brought on by the almost magical powers that stem cells provide. The same adult stem cells in pristine condition that can be found in baby;s umbilical cord blood are discarded by the thousands daily. What more does science, researchers, and the medical community need to provide to make one realize that saving your baby's umbilical cord blood stem cells could be a life-saving decision for every expectant parent. This is a great article, please pass this along to your friends and family, the masses need to see the medical revolution unfolding right before our eyes!!!!