Free Republic

After 21 years of unsuccessful heart treatments, including several heart procedures, 68-year-old Coenie de Jongh was desperate. So when his cardiologist suggested a last-resort experimental therapy, it represented a literal life line.  Coenie, from Bloubergstrand near Cape Town, had his first heart attack at the young age of 40. A bypass operation followed and his condition improved, but seven years later Coenie’s health started deteriorating again. More operations and more intense treatment followed, but in 2002 his health took a real turn for the worse.  His condition was so bad he struggled to find a cardiologist who was willing to...

Participants in a Federal Drug Administration (FDA) protocol at TCA Cellular Therapy utilizing stem cells to treat lower limb ischemia are experiencing increased mobility and decreased pain in lower legs. Lower limb ischemia is a condition where plaque build-up causes decreased circulation in the lower leg. Symptoms of the condition include intense pain and swelling. Study participants may have had different factors that contributed to their condition: a family history of Peripheral Artery Disease (PAD), history of smoking and other vascular conditions. Common among them however, were that more traditional treatments (utilizing stents and grafts) were ineffectual and that the...

Trial involves injecting patients' own (autologous) stem cells into areas of their hearts with poor blood flow CHICAGO - Rush University Medical Center is one of the first medical centers in the country, and currently the only site in Illinois, participating in a novel clinical trial to determine if a subject’s own stem cells can treat a form of severe coronary artery disease. The Autologous Cellular Therapy CD34-Chronic Myocardial Ischemia (ACT34-CMI) Trial is the first human, Phase II adult stem cell therapy study in the U.S. designed to investigate the efficacy, tolerability, and safety of blood-derived selected CD34+ stem cells...

Amino acids: Key to a healthier heart? Could taking a few B vitamins cut your risk of a heart attack or a stroke? That's the suggestion from a study published last week in the British Medical Journal (BMJ).  The key is an amino acid called homocysteine, a substance made when the protein we eat is digested — already there is growing evidence to link it with cardiovascular disease, and even stroke. Homocysteine — with the help of the B vitamins including B12 and folate — is rapidly turned into other useful compounds such as the amino acids cysteine and...

2006 DEC 4 - (NewsRx.com) -- Johns Hopkins scientists have successfully grown large numbers of stem cells taken from adult pigs' healthy heart tissue and used the cells to repair some of the tissue damage done to those organs by lab-induced heart attacks. Pigs' hearts closely resemble those in humans, making them a useful model in such research. Following up on previous studies, Hopkins cardiologists used a thin tube to extract samples of heart tissue no bigger than a grain of rice within hours of the animals' heart attacks, then grew large numbers of cardiac stem cells in the lab...

Xabier López Aranguren, a biologist and biochemist at the University of Navarra, has studied in his doctoral dissertation the use of adult stem cells in order to palliate damage to the tissues affected by cardiovascular diseases, which are one of the leading causes of death in the Western world. The results of his research have recently been published in the journal Blood. In these ailments, there is tissue death. The tissues cease to function because they do not receive sufficient oxygen or nutrients via the arteries. In his study he has identified “how adult stem cells can correct this damage,...

Blocked arteries are dangerous wherever they occur and if you get a blockage in your legs, the can cause such excruciating pain walking can be difficult. Now there's a new treatment that allows patients to grow new healthy blood vessels to improve circulation. What's hard work for most of us is the good life for Tom Reynolds. Life on the farm became difficult last year. Tom Reynolds, 77-Years-Old: "I would have a shooting pain that would hit me in, right in my buttocks." Tom had peripheral vascular disease, where the arteries supplying blood to his legs became blocked. Left untreated,...

Researchers at the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation have launched a study to examine whether administration of stem cells to first time heart attack patients can prevent the development of congestive heart failure (CHF). CHF diagnosis is the cause of hospitalization in the United States and is responsible for more than 50,000 deaths a year. Currently, heart transplantation is the only available cure.  Each year more than one million Americans have their first heart attack, putting them at risk of developing CHF as a result of cardiac cell death and scar formation which results in diminished pumping ability of the heart...

When Dr. Christian Barnard performed the world's first successful heart transplant back in 1967, he reached a new peak of human scientific achievement. However, almost 40 years later, the criteria for receiving a new heart is quite stringent, and heart transplants are granted to those patients who have the highest chance for recovery. For thousands of elderly or gravely ill patients with damaged hearts, a transplant is not an option. Now Israeli researchers are at the forefront of research which could one day make heart transplants obsolete - using stem cell technology, they're developing a way to use the blood...

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel DALLAS - Heart attack patients who were treated with their own stem cells a few days after being hospitalized had significantly improved heart pumping ability, according to the largest, most rigorous clinical trial to date of the controversial therapy. The improvement seen with stem cells was better than with the best drugs now available and it appears the therapy actually repaired damage done during heart attacks, said lead author Volker Schachinger, a cardiologist at J.W. Goethe University and the Third Medical Clinic of Cardiology in Frankfurt, Germany. "It opens up a completely new way of treating heart...

HONOLULU - Legendary Hawaiian crooner Don Ho says he could barely walk, let alone sing, and would have been a "goner" without an experimental stem cell procedure on his ailing heart earlier this month in Thailand. Ho, known for his signature tune "Tiny Bubbles," said he hopes to return to the stage soon. "I'm feeling terrific, 100 percent better," Ho told The Associated Press in one of his first interviews since surgery Dec. 6. "I'm ready to go, but I've got to listen to the doctors. "When they say my heart is strong enough to get excited, I'm on." The...

ERUSALEM - After 61 years of pumping blood, Marie Carty's heart was failing her. Months earlier she had given up her two-mile walk on the boardwalk of her New Jersey hometown along the Atlantic Ocean. She could barely make it from the parking lot to the view of the water. Although Carty knew she needed a new heart, she was afraid hers wouldn't last during the long wait for a transplant. Desperate for an alternative, Carty found the Israeli-Thai company Theravitae, which has begun performing an experimental procedure that multiplies stem cells taken from a patient's own blood and injects...

Experimental treatment makes 70-year-old a poster boy for science Mike Swendseid seemingly had run out of options in battling heart disease. The Grand Forks man had angioplasty. He underwent quadruple-bypass heart surgery. Inside him were four wires, two stents, a pacemaker and a defibrillator. "After the last stent, doctors told me there was nothing more they could do for Mike," said his wife, Marion. But, as science progressed, there was something. In January, the 70-year-old Swendseid became a recipient of experimental stem cell treatment at the Minneapolis Heart Institute, which is part of Abbott Northwestern Hospital. The treatment uses Swendseid's...

Researchers say they've lessened the effects of stroke in rats by transplanting stem cells into the rodents' brains. The treatment also seemed to help rats fight a condition similar to human cerebral palsy.  There's no indication yet that the treatment will work in humans, and the lead researcher cautioned that the strategy is no "magic bullet." However, tests in people could begin as early as next year, said Cesario V. Borlongan, an associate professor of neurology at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta. Will not be a total cure The treatment is "not something that will totally cure stroke...

Stem cell injections might someday be used to treat a debilitating cardiovascular condition called peripheral arterial disease (PAD), researchers say. People with PAD have poor blood circulation -- especially in the legs -- and can suffer sores, ulcers and even amputations. PAD is caused by a clogging and hardening of the arteries, and patients may need surgical procedures such as angioplasty or an artery bypass graft to widen narrowed blood vessels. However, as many as 12 percent of PAD patients can't have these surgical procedures. That's why researchers at the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis are investigating the...

Crystal-clear material is better for optics, scientific applications May 16, 2005 Researchers at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, D.C. have produced 10-carat, half-inch thick single-crystal diamonds at rapid growth rates (100 micrometers per hour) using a chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process. The size is approximately five times that of commercially available diamonds produced by the standard high-pressure/high-temperature (HPHT) method and other CVD techniques. In addition, the team has made colorless single-crystal diamonds, transparent from the ultraviolet to infrared wavelengths with their CVD process. Most HPHT synthetic diamond is yellow and most CVD diamond is brown, limiting their optical applications. Colorless...

Research Presented at American College of Cardiology Annual Scientific Session Reports D-Ribose Improves Ventilatory Efficiency in Congestive Heart Failure Patients MINNEAPOLIS, Mar. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- MINNEAPOLIS, March 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Ventilatory efficiency is recognized as an important predictor of survival and disease progression among patients with congestive heart failure (CHF). Thus, improving ventilatory efficiency in this population is of prime importance. A research report presented at the American College of Cardiology's Annual Scientific Session 2005 in Orlando, Florida, suggests that D-Ribose can play a significant role in this key pursuit.It is well accepted that failing hearts are energy starved...

How Fish Oil Protects Your Heart   While there are many (unnecessary) pharmacological treatments for the prevention and management of coronary heart disease, both health professionals as well as the public believe simple dietary interventions may prove to be more beneficial. Specifically, omega-3 fatty acids from fish and fish oils can protect against cardiovascular disease.Omega-3 Protects Your HeartFollowing are just some of the benefits omega-3 has to offer: Antiarrhythmic: counteracting or preventing cardiac arrhythmia Antithrombotic: tending to prevent thrombosis (a blood clot within a blood vessel) Antiatherosclerotic: preventing fatty deposits and fibrosis of the inner layer of the arteries...

Herbal alternatives are under attack. Download and print flyers. The flyers urge consumers to tell their congressmen and senators to attend the JUNE 17th Herbal Alternatives Congressional Briefing to learn the truth about herbs & health. It is critical that Congress attends this briefing because: HERBAL ALTERNATIVES ARE UNDER ATTACK. News headlines misinform and mislead decision makers. Products you depend on for your health could soon be banned. MANY CAPITOL HILL STAFFERS AND POLICY MAKERS DO NOT UNDERSTAND NATURAL HEALTH INDUSTRY ISSUES. Since DSHEA was passed in 1994, about 50% of Congressmen and Senators and 80% of Congressional aides have...

-- Researchers synthesize gem-sized diamonds of natural colour and exceptional hardness using Chemical Vapour Deposition. -- WITH U.S. GOVERNMENT DEBT now topping US$7 trillion (about US$100,000 for each family of four), and interest rates at historic lows, new life is beginning to breathe through the Canadian resource sector. One sign of this renewed vigor is a sudden surge in prospecting claims being staked throughout vast tracts of the Canadian Arctic. Over 1,500 new permits have been issued this year for Nunavut alone, compared to 190 last year. And according to the Nunavut Mining Recorder’s Office in Iqualuit, the largest number...