• How stem cell prevent aging :

Ageing results from the progressive depletion of stem cells, so the introduction of new stem cells has the potential of slowing down or reversing this process.

"Stem cell therapies are among the world's greatest collective scientific breakthrough, possessing the clear potential to revolutionize the practice of medicine and improve the quality and length of life." Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients

Stem cells possess a unique anti-aging effect by improving immune function and regenerating and repairing organs damaged by stressors, like free radicals and the various toxins we are exposed to in our day to day living.

Your body uses its own stem cells to make you stronger, healthier and more resistant to disease. As we age, we use stem cells to repair damaged organs, or to replace those stem cells destroyed by toxins over time.

At all stages of your life, your body fights damage by using stem cells. When you smoke, stem cells head for the lungs. When you are sunburnt, they repair the skin. As late as the early 2000's, we did not know that stem cell replenishment was true for most organs, but today we know that every organ seems to recruit stem cells from the bone marrow to resuscitate itself.

 

• Decline in stem cell production with age :

As we age, however, the bone marrow releases fewer stem cells, giving us less power to repair the damage of ageing. Treatment with adult stem cells reverses this process.

In healthy individuals, skin youthfulness is maintained by epidermal stem cells which self-renew and generate daughter cells that become new skin. Despite accumulation of aging blemishes and changes in aged skin, epidermal stem cells are maintained at normal levels throughout life. Therefore, skin ageing is caused by impaired stem cell mobilisation from the bone marrow or reduced number of stem cells able to respond to repair signals.(6) This means that, if we increase the number of circulating stem cells, by mobilising from the bone marrow, and by infusion of new umbilical cord cells we should dramatically change this cell behaviour.

It has been postulated that stem cell exhaustion from the bone marrow is partly responsible for the process of cardiovascular ageing and the resulting diseases such as angina, heart attack, stroke and senile dementia. It has now been proven that stem cell damage in the bone marrow, from aging, is responsible for coronary artery disease and resultant cardiac muscle damage.(1, 2, 4) This means that cardiac disease can be prevented by stem cell therapy.

As aging progresses, there is a decline in the brain's capacity to produce new neurons. The underlying cause of the declining neurogenesis is unknown, but is presumably related to age-related changes that occur during normal aging of the brain. It is exacerbated by age-related neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases.(5)

References: 1. Spyridopoulos I et al. Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis & Vascular Biology. 28(5):968-974, May 2008. 2. José J. Fuster, Vicente Andrés.Circulation Research. 2006;99:1167.2006 American Heart Association, Inc.Reviews.Telomere Biology and Cardiovascular Disease. 3. Ignacio Flores, Roberta Benetti and Maria A Blasco. Telomerase regulation and stem cell behaviour. Current Opinion in Cell Biology 2006, 18:254–260. 4. Frederick M. Rauscher et al.Aging, Progenitor Cell Exhaustion, and Atherosclerosis. Circulation, The American Heart Association. 5. TL Limke, MS Rao, Neural stem cell therapy in the aging brain: pitfalls and possibilities. J Hematother Stem Cell Res (2003) 12: 615-23. 6. Zouboulis CC, Adjaye J, Akamatsu H, Moe-Behrens G, Niemann C.Human skin stem cells and the ageing process. Exp Gerontol. 2008 Sep 9.

 

• The most powerful solution :

According to the American Academy of Anti-aging Medicine, stem cells appear to be our most powerful tool in Regenerative Medicine at this time. Previous dogma concerning adult stem cells taught that our tissues did not have stem cells and the cells present at birth just declined in quantity and quality until there was nothing left. It was also believed that hematopoietic stem cells lacked plasticity and could not transform to other tissues.

Current medical literature proves that adult stem cells exist in most tissues including brain, heart, muscles and liver and those umbilical cord stem cells and bone marrow stem cells have plasticity to potentially transform and repair all tissues and organs.

Current literature also shows that stem cell supplementation of an age-damaged bone marrow stem cell population can result in rejuvenation and the increase in longevity of that stem cell source.(1)

Reference: 1. Ignacio Flores, Roberta Benetti and Maria A Blasco. Telomerase regulation and stem cell behaviour. Current Opinion in Cell Biology 2006, 18:254–260.