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How umbilical cord stem cells are helping life imitate myth

Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, Dec, 2005 by Anthony G. Payne

We've all heard the expression "life imitates art." And it does, sometimes. In science, it could be said that progress sometimes imitates myth, or better yet, turns mythic feats into reality. And this is indeed what has emerged in terms of the response of many infants, children and adults with various eye, circulatory and especially, neurologic diseases and conditions, to treatment with human umbilical cord stem cells.

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Case-in-point: Last year the world was riveted by the announcement by South Korean scientists at Chosun University concerning how they had gotten Hwang Mi-Soon, a woman who'd been paralyzed for 19 years, out of her wheelchair and onto her feet 3 weeks after implanting human umbilical cord stem cells (hUCSC) into her spinal cord.

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Interestingly, just three months prior to the Chosun University announcement, we at Steenblock Research Institute had wound down our analysis of a six month (March-August 2004) pilot study down in Mexico involving 8 children with cerebral palsy who'd received single injections of 1.5 million hUCSCs (subtype CD34+/133). In this study, treating physician Fernando Ramirez (Spinal Cord Regeneration Center, Tijuana, Mexico) administered the hUCSCs in a single subcutaneous injection near each child's umbilicus (navel). No immunosuppressant drugs were given and none of the children experienced any negative side effects or reactions to the treatment. Some children did experience unusual sleepiness following the injection, but this dissipated quickly.

Most of these children showed decreased spasticity and various kinds and degrees of motor skill and cognitive improvement following treatment. Analysis of specially designed questionnaires completed at regular intervals (pre- and post-) by parents and caregivers demonstrated statistically significant improvements in such areas of function as muscle tone, leg movement, hip movement, thinking and understanding. These assessments, while admittedly subjective, did receive additional support in the form of pre- and post-treatment video logs, as well as the results of standardized testing done by physical therapists and submitted by parents.

Most compelling was the fact that a 4 year-old little boy, Adam Susser, experienced a resolution of cortical blindness during the fourth month following his treatment. Adam's eyes worked perfectly, but the optic nerves that conducted the signals from his retinas to the visual centers of his brain were atrophied; so much so that leading ophthalmologists in his home state of Florida had predicted that he would never see. Readers interested in seeing a Sinclair Broadcast Group news segment on Adam's hUCSC treatment and response will find it on www.stemcelltherapies.org/resources.htm (Scroll down to item #12-"Watch a Stem Cell Video" and click this particular link).

SRI has documented similar improvements in many other children with CP (who were not part of the pilot study), as well as children and adults with traumatic brain injury, various eyes conditions including macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy, early stage progressive and secondary progressive Multiple Sclerosis, early stage Lou Gehrig's disease, and recent stroke.

Here are but a sampling of the many case histories on file at SRI:

A. B. 74: stroke, glaucoma -- AB was legally blind in his left eye due to macular degeneration, complications of a stroke, and glaucoma. The vision in his affected eye tested out at 500/20. His eye was swollen and "blood red" at the time of treatment with pure umbilical cord stem cells which he received during January 2003. AB's vision steadily improved and was subsequently found to be 50/20 by his ophthalmologists at Massachusetts General Hospital. Due to this very positive response, Mr. B elected to have a second stem cell treatment during August 2003. About 3 weeks following his second treatment, Mr. B. reported that while little new improvement had taken place in his bad eye, he had begun to regain some use of a previously (stroke-caused) paralyzed left arm.

K.W.: Traumatic Brain Injury -- KW has a history of epileptic seizures, sleep disturbances and motor skill deficits. About one month following stem cell therapy (May 2003), his parents reported that he "hasn't had any more of those seizure-things since I last wrote you." KW's formerly lackluster appetite became quite robust, and he went from sleeping briefly at night to a more normal pattern for his age. KW, whose motor skills were far below normal, experienced slight increases in mobility, began kicking faster, rolling about more, expressed more curiosity about the world around him, and evinced improvements in his ability to memorize and recall information.

R.D.: Diabetes, Type I -- RD, a nurse whose diabetes had caused pronounced neuropathy and retinopathy, received an infusion of umbilical cord stem cells during 2003. The treatment did not alter her diabetic condition, but did reverse the neuropathy and restored her vision appreciably. For one thing, prior to stem cell therapy she had consistently failed the vision test portion of the California state driver's license examination. Eight months after umbilical cord stem cell therapy she passed the vision exam and received her license! RD noted this in a report to SRI: "As I am approaching the two year anniversary of receiving stem cells, I know that the distortions in my vision are less and I no longer have spots in my vision. Most recently, I have been able to read my writing and the computer screen without removing my long-distance glasses. I see most clearly on cloudy days as the glare of the sun is disturbing. I often see things that fully sighted people miss, perhaps due to the intentionality with which I visualize."

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How umbilical cord stem cells are helping life imitate myth

Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, Dec, 2005 by Anthony G. Payne

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