A new stem cell treatment for multiple sclerosis has successfully enhanced the health of 80 percent of the participants in a clinical trial. However, the results of this small clinical trial must be confirmed in a larger blind study.
Stem cell therapy is showing more promise than any other treatment for MS. Multiple sclerosis is a debilitating autoimmune disease that can case excruciating pain and a lifetime of wheelchair confinement.
What Are Stem Cells?
Stem cells have the ability to become other types of cells in the laboratory and in the body of animals and in the human body. Stem cells also have the capability early in life to repair other damaged cells and organs.
Stem cells' ability to divide is limitless as they replenish any other cells in a living person or living animal. When stem cells divide, the new cell has the capability to change into another type of cell or remain a stem cell.
Types of Stem Cells
There are two types of stem cells used in the treatment of MS: adult stem cells found in the organs of adults and embryonic stem cells that are derived from fertilized embryos.
Adult stem cells repair the organs they come from and embryonic stem cells can become any type of cell they are cultivated for. Scientists hold the belief that both adult and embryonic stem cells hold the most promise of a cure for many diseases including MS.
What Is Multiple Sclerosis?
MS is a chronic debilitating disease that affects the central nervous system. It is believed to be an autoimmune disease. For sufferers of MS, this means that the human body is attacking its own brain and spinal cord.
To date there is no cure for MS. However, stem cell therapy has successfully repaired the damage and diminished the symptoms of MS patients in a small clinical stem cell therapy study.
How Stem Cells Work
Stem cells work by locating and repairing many areas of bodies that are damaged. The major concern with MS is that scientists don't know where the lesions caused by MS are located.
There are more than 50 symptoms associated with MS. Among them are depression, bowel disorders, sexual dysfunctions, fatigue, numbness and pain. Adult stem cells have successfully reversed these symptoms.
New Research Results
In a recent study, MS patients had been given medication that encouraged their own bone marrow to discharge immune stem cells. These stem cells have the capability to turn into any kind of immune cell in the bloodstream. The stem cells were then extracted from the patient's blood. The patients were then given drugs that eliminated lymphocytes--the immune cells doing the damage--from their systems. Scientists then injected the patients with their own stem cells. The patient's stem cells rapidly divided and provided them with new normal immune cells.
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