In the United States an increasing number of doctors are already using autologous stem cells in their practice. The stem cells are harvested from the adipose tissue (fat) or blood from bone marrow of the patient and then injected the same day into another part of the body. For instance many doctors inject joints like knees, hips and various parts of the spine. You can learn more about this or locate a physician at www.getprolo.com. The stem cells can also be injected intravenously into the cardiovascular system.

A Japanese researcher, Nobel laureate Shinya Yamanaka, collected genes from mature adult skin tissue and reprogrammed them to become pluripotent, which is a stem cell characteristic that means a cell is able to differentiate into multiple types of cells. This conversion process, referred to as induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), means that we can take adult cells from a person with a particular disease, turn them into iPSCs, and then induce the iPSCs to turn into different types of body cells. Yamanaka?s iPSC findings show how scientists can essentially ?make any cell turn into any other type of cell and in effect move through wormholes in developmental time? to produce such things as a pancreas from skin tissue.? As a result, ?the petri dish becomes an avatar of the patient? whereby medicines can be identified “that will improve the condition of cells in the patient without having to take cells out of the petri dish and put them back in the patient.”

While harvesting “stem cells” from a patient’s blood from bone marrow or fat from liposuction has great value today neither of these procedures provides pluripotent stem cells needed for diverse tissue differentiation in a laboratory. Rather, these procedures produce mesenchymal cells, which work well for cardiovascular and orthopedic conditions because these tissues are the end organ targets for mesenchymal cells. However, they do not work well for other germ cell layer target organs, such as those produced from endoderm (incl., pancreas, liver, lungs) and ectoderm (incl., nervous system, skin).

Fortunately, there is a lesser known but more viable means for obtaining real pluripotent stem cells that merely involves a blood draw. In 2005, a study published in Minerva Biotechnologica identified stem cells in the blood. In other follow-up studies, scientists showed that such cells could, in fact, be used to regenerate not only heart tissue, but brain, lung, and pancreas as well.

In 2010, a clinical protocol was developed for harvesting, concentrating, reconstituting, and administering pluripotent stem cells obtained from autologous blood. Today the use of stem cells for clinical applications is in its infancy. Physicians still have much to learn about how to more effectively utilize pluripotent stem cells in their practice for the benefit of their patients. Such knowledge includes not only using the most appropriate source for harvesting real stem cells but in improving the means of attracting those stem cells to where they are needed and facilitating their differentiation. As more physicians implement the use of pluripotent stem cells in their practice, such as those obtained from autologous blood, we can begin accumulating the objective data needed to validate stem cells in the present and advance stem cell science into the future.

A hormone that extends lifespan in mice by 40% is produced by specialized cells in the thymus gland, according to a new study by Yale School of Medicine researchers. The team also found that increasing the levels of this hormone, called FGF21, protects against the loss of immune function that comes with age.

Published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Jan. 11, the study’s findings have future implications for improving immune function in the elderly, for obesity, and for illnesses such as cancer and type-2 diabetes.

When functioning normally, the thymus produces new T cells for the immune system, but with age, the thymus becomes fatty and loses its ability to produce new T cells. This loss of new T cells in the body is one cause of increased risk of infections and certain cancers in the elderly.

Led by Vishwa Deep Dixit, professor of comparative medicine and immunobiology at Yale School of Medicine, the researchers studied transgenic mice with elevated levels of FGF21. The team knocked out the gene’s function and studied the impact of decreasing levels of FGF21 on the immune system. They found that increasing the levels of FGF21 in old mice protected the thymus from age-related fatty degeneration and increased the ability of the thymus to produce new T cells, while FGF21 deficiency accelerated the degeneration of the thymus in old mice.

“We found that FGF21 levels in thymic epithelial cells is several fold higher than in the liver therefore FGF21 acts within the thymus to promote T cell production,” said Dixit.

“Elevating the levels of FGF21 in the elderly or in cancer patients who undergo bone marrow transplantation may be an additional strategy to increase T cell production, and thus bolster immune function,” said Dixit.

Dixit added that FGF21 is produced in the liver as an endocrine hormone. Its levels increase when calories are restricted to allow fats to be burned when glucose levels are low. FGF21 is a metabolic hormone that improves insulin sensitivity and also induces weight loss.

Dixit said further studies will focus on understanding how FGF21 protects the thymus from aging, and whether elevating FGF21 pharmacologically can extend the human healthspan and lower the incidence of disease caused by age-related loss of immune function.

“We will also look to developing a way to mimic calorie restriction to enhance immune function without actually reducing caloric intake.”

Journal Source:

Yun-Hee Youm, Tamas L. Horvath, David J. Mangelsdorf, Steven A. Kliewer, Vishwa Deep Dixit. Prolongevity hormone FGF21 protects against immune senescence by delaying age-related thymic involution. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2016; 201514511 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1514511113

Summary:

Liver-derived metabolic hormone fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) improves insulin sensitivity and extends lifespan in mice. Aging also compromises the adaptive immune system by reducing T-cell production from the thymus. In this paper, we describe a new immunological function of FGF21 as a regulator of T-cell production from thymus in aging. The overexpression of FGF21 prevents thymic lipoatrophy, which protects the mice from age-induced loss of na?ve T cells. FGF21 expression in thymic epithelial cells and signaling in thymic stromal cells support thymic function in aging. Loss of FGF21 in mice increases lethality postirradiation and delays the reconstitution of thymus. Hence, we highlight FGF21 as an immunometabolic regulator that can be harnessed to delay immune senescence.

Abstract:

Age-related thymic degeneration is associated with loss of na?ve T cells, restriction of peripheral T-cell diversity, and reduced healthspan due to lower immune competence. The mechanistic basis of age-related thymic demise is unclear, but prior evidence suggests that caloric restriction (CR) can slow thymic aging by maintaining thymic epithelial cell integrity and reducing the generation of intrathymic lipid. Here we show that the prolongevity ketogenic hormone fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21), a member of the endocrine FGF subfamily, is expressed in thymic stromal cells along with FGF receptors and its obligate coreceptor, ?Klotho. We found that FGF21 expression in thymus declines with age and is induced by CR. Genetic gain of FGF21 function in mice protects against age-related thymic involution with an increase in earliest thymocyte progenitors and cortical thymic epithelial cells. Importantly, FGF21 overexpression reduced intrathymic lipid, increased perithymic brown adipose tissue, and elevated thymic T-cell export and na?ve T-cell frequencies in old mice. Conversely, loss of FGF21 function in middle-aged mice accelerated thymic aging, increased lethality, and delayed T-cell reconstitution postirradiation and hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). Collectively, FGF21 integrates metabolic and immune systems to prevent thymic injury.

Acoustics experts have created a new class of sound wave — the first in more than half a century in a breakthrough they hope could lead to a revolution in stem cell therapy.

The team at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, combined two different types of acoustic sound waves called bulk waves and surface waves to create a new hybrid: “surface reflected bulk waves.”

The first new class of sound wave discovered in decades, the powerful waves are gentle enough to use in biomedical devices to manipulate highly fragile stem cells without causing damage or affecting their integrity, opening new possibilities in stem cell treatment.

Dr Amgad Rezk, from RMIT’s Micro/Nano Research Laboratory, said the team was already using the discovery to dramatically improve the efficiency of an innovative new “nebuliser” that could deliver vaccines and other drugs directly to the lung.

“We have used the new sound waves to slash the time required for inhaling vaccines through the nebuliser device, from 30 minutes to as little as 30 seconds,” Rezk said.

“But our work also opens up the possibility of using stem cells more efficiently for treating lung disease, enabling us to nebulise stem cells straight into a specific site within the lung to repair damaged tissue.

“This is a real game changer for stem cell treatment in the lungs.”

The researchers are using the “surface reflected bulk waves” in a breakthrough device, dubbed HYDRA, which converts electricity passing through a piezoelectric chip into mechanical vibration, or sound waves, which in turn break liquid into a spray.

“It’s basically ‘yelling’ at the liquid so it vibrates, breaking it down into vapour,” Rezk said.

Bulk sound waves operate similar to a carpet being held at one end and shaken, resulting in the whole substrate vibrating as one entity. Surface sound waves on the other hand operate more like ocean waves rolling above a swimmer’s head.

“The combination of surface and bulk wave means they work in harmony and produce a much more powerful wave,” said Rezk, who co-authored the study with PhD researcher James Tan.

“As a result, instead of administering or nebulising medicine at around 0.2ml per minute, we did up to 5ml per minute. That’s a huge difference.”

The breakthrough HYDRA device is improving the effectiveness of a revolutionary new type of nebuliser developed at RMIT called Respite. Cheap, lightweight and portable, the advanced Respite nebuliser can deliver everything from precise drug doses to patients with asthma and cystic fibrosis, to insulin for diabetes patients, and needle-free vaccinations to infants.

In a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the scientists tracked 1,000 people born in 1972-73 in the coastal city of Dunedin in New Zealand and calculated their “biological age” after their 38th birthdays based on a wide range of biomarkers. The measurements included:

?Kidneys, liver, lungs, metabolic and immune systems
?HDL cholesterol, cardiorespiratory fitness, lung function
?Length of the telomeres (protective caps at the end of chromosomes that have been found to shorten with age)
?Dental health like the condition of the gums
?Condition of the tiny blood vessels at the back of the eyes, (which are a proxy for the brain’s blood vessels)
?Cognitive function

They looked at the volunteers at age 26, 32 and 38 and found that while most of them aged at a normal pace — one year’s worth of physiological changes for each chronological year — some of them aged surprisingly slower or faster.

In fact, researchers calculated, the “biological ages” of the 38-year-olds ranged from 30 to nearly 60 years. From the report:

The fastest-aging study participants experienced two to three years of changes with the passage of a single calendar year. They tended to have worse balance and motor coordination and were physically weaker. Belsky and his colleagues said that these volunteers reported having more trouble with basic tasks like climbing stairs or carrying groceries.

Moreover, those who were aging fast also showed evidence of cognitive decline. Their IQ scores, which according to previous studies have been shown to remain relatively constant throughout a person’s life, were lower by age 38.

One particularly interesting finding of the study was that the people who were physiologically older looked older, at least according to Duke undergraduates who were asked to guess their ages from their pictures.

The study, which was funded in part by the National Institute on Aging, is significant because it looked at young adults. Most previous aging research is focused on the second half of the average person’s life, in the 50s, 60s, and 70s.

“Our findings indicate that aging processes can be quantified in people still young enough for prevention of age-related disease, opening a new door for antiaging therapies,” the researchers wrote. “The science of healthspan extension may be focused on the wrong end of the lifespan; rather than only studying old humans, geroscience should also study the young.”

Belsky said that in the future a person’s biological age could serve as a simple measure of a person’s health that may help patients better understand the battery of numbers they get from their doctors today.

“A single number would be much easier to process,” Belsky said.

He said the measurement could also help with assessing the health of a community. Right now we look at things like disease end points, new diagnoses, hospitalizations and death, but all are imperfect because they don’t give us a picture of the health of a whole person.

When Steve and Rosa Barney?s daughter Isabella, now 4, was born, the couple decided to take a preventative medical measure that felt both mysterious and hopeful: They banked their baby girl?s cord blood with a private company, thinking that its rich stem cells could be there to help treat an unforeseeable issue, such as childhood leukemia. They also considered that it might someday benefit their older son, who suffers from a motor speech disorder called childhood apraxia.

They wound up using it sooner than they thought, and in a way that totally amazed them ? for Isabella?s own apraxia, discovered at 18 months and largely turned around when she was 3, after a 15-minute, cutting-edge procedure, in which a their daughter had an infusion of her own stored cord blood. ?It was like her being born again,? says Steve, of Queens, New York, who notes that he and his wife were stunned by the results.

Cord blood banking is where the stem cells are removed from an newborn?s umbilical cord once it?s been clamped and cut. Those cells are then sent to a lab and frozen as a type of insurance, in case one day, if needed, they can be thawed and used to treat certain health conditions and diseases.

?We got on the ball a bit quicker with her,? Steve explains, having her tested and utilizing early intervention services when she was very young. But she went to preschool at 2 1/2 with ?very limited vocabulary,? he says, and, after preschool, had only about 15 words that could be understood (typically, a 3-year-old would have about 500 words at his or her disposal). Her parents dove into research about using stored cord-blood for treating apraxia, and found a cutting-edge program at Duke University, where stem-cell pioneer Dr. Joanne Kurtzberg had already overseen a handful of similar, successful treatments ? including for a 5-year-old with cerebral palsy, Grace Rosewood, who experienced vast improvements after receiving infusions of her stored cord blood as part of a clinical trial.

?We were still hesitant,? Steve recalls about taking the chance. ?One thing they don?t tell you with banking is that it?s basically a one-time use.? Still, after speaking with another parent about having success with the treatment at Duke, he says, ?it was a no-brainer for me.?

Then came the elaborate process of looking into whether or not Isabella was a good candidate. ?We look at the cord blood, as some banks get a higher quality than others, and we need make sure we have enough cells, with a minimum amount of information, plus good sterility,? says Kurtzberg ? who also runs a public cord-blood bank and Carolina Cord Blood Bank, accepting donations from moms who deliver healthy babies but who have no risks, and is the president of the new Cord Blood Association, created to harmonize education, regulation, and advocacy around the issue of cord-blood banking.

Regarding the decision of whether to bank a baby?s cord-blood privately or publicly, Kurtzberg explains, ?A mom has to know she?s really giving up her rights to the cord blood with a public donation. If it happens to be there, she can have it. There?s no risk, no cost, and is the truly altruistic choice.? Publicly donated cord blood is available to anyone, and doesn?t necessarily have to be a full match; it?s particularly useful for both children and adults who have conditions that cannot be treated with one?s own cord blood ? including some cancers, sickle cell, and metabolic disease.

Isabella received her treatment after receiving a full workup, including tests to make sure there was no genetic disease present. She checked out, and the cord blood was shipped to Duke.

The family was there for three days with their daughter, but the whole infusion process, given through an IV, took just 10 to 15 minutes, Steve says. As Kurtzberg explains, ?The child gets an IV ? sometimes the veins in the feet are easiest to access ? and they get Benadryl and a steroid to prevent reactions.? Then they infuse the cells, which have been washed in a lab, through a drip, similar to how a blood transfusion works. Duke typically does about three to four infusions a week, though that number will soon go up to 10, she says.

?After they put a needle in her foot, she slept for over an hour, and woke up smelling like a can of creamed corn, from the chemicals,? Steve recalls. ?It was the most beautiful smell you could smell.? Isabella?s speech abilities were immediately improved, he adds ? ?like night and day.? She?s now up to about 60 words, he adds, and though is still relying on extra speech-therapy services, ?the biggest thing is that she picks up new words without telling us, and that catches us by surprise all the time.?

The cost of the procedure, Kurtzberg says, averages $7,500 to $10,000, and is only sometimes covered by insurance. In the Barneys? case, the family?s insurance covered about 40 percent. ?It was very worth it,? Steve says ? especially the cord blood banking part. ?I suggest it to everybody, because you just never know.?

High consumption of trans fats such as found in foods containing hydrogenated oils is linked to worse memory according to a study among working-age men, according to research presented at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2014.

In a recent study of approximately 1,000 healthy men, those who consumed the most trans fats showed notably worse performance on a word memory test. The strength of the association remained even after taking into consideration things like age, education, ethnicity and depression.

“Trans fats were most strongly linked to worse memory, in young and middle-aged men, during their working and career-building years,” said Beatrice A. Golomb, M.D., Ph.D., lead author and professor of medicine at the University of California-San Diego. “From a health standpoint, trans fat consumption has been linked to higher body weight, more aggression and other health problems. As I tell patients, while trans fats increase the shelf life of foods, they reduce the shelf life of people.”

Golomb and her coauthor studied adults including men age 20 or older and postmenopausal women. Participants completed a dietary questionnaire, from which the researchers estimated participants’ trans fat consumption. To assess memory, researchers presented participants with a series of 104 cards showing words. Participants had to state whether each word was new or a word duplicated from a prior card.

?Among men under age 45, those who ate more trans fats showed notably worse performance on the word memory test. The strength of the association remained even after taking into consideration things like age, education, ethnicity and mood.

?Each additional gram a day of trans fats consumed was associated with an estimated 0.76 fewer words correctly recalled.

?For those eating the highest amounts of trans fats, this translated to an estimated 11 fewer words (a more than 10 percent reduction in words remembered), compared to adults who ate the least trans fat. (The average number of words correctly recalled was 86.)

“Foods have different effects on oxidative stress and cell energy,” Golomb said. In a previous study, we found chocolate, which is rich in antioxidants and positively impacts cell energy, is linked to better word memory in young to middle-aged adults. In this study, we looked at whether trans fats, which are prooxidant and linked adversely to cell energy, might show the opposite effect. And they did.”

Industrial trans fats are artificially produced to turn liquid oils into solids at room temperature and extend food shelf life. They can be found in margarines, fast foods, baked goods, snack foods, frozen pizza, coffee creamers and some refrigerated doughs. The Food and Drug Administration is taking further steps to reduce the amount of artificial trans fats in the U.S. food supply.

Analyses in younger women are needed to determine whether effects extend to this group, Golomb said.

In a 10-year U.S. study, people who drank coffee regularly were less likely to die of many causes, including heart disease and diabetes, than those who didn’t drink coffee at all.

The more coffee study participants consumed, the lower their risk of dying, and decaf drinkers showed a similar pattern.

“Coffee contains numerous biologically active compounds, including phenolic acids, potassium, and caffeine,” said lead author Dr. Erikka Loftfield of the National Cancer Institute in Rockville, Maryland.

Many studies have found that coffee consumption is associated with lower risk of overall and heart-related mortality, Loftfield told Reuters Health by email.

The researchers used data from a previous study on 90,317 adults without cancer or history of cardiovascular disease who were followed from 1998 through 2009. They had reported their coffee intake, along with other dietary and health details, at the start of the study.

By 2009, about 8,700 people had died. After accounting for other factors like smoking, the researchers found that coffee drinkers were less likely to have died during the study than nondrinkers.

The risk of death was lowest for those who drank four to five cups of coffee per day. A similar association was seen among drinkers of decaffeinated coffee as well, according to the results in American Journal of Epidemiology.

Coffee drinkers had a reduced risk of death from heart disease, chronic respiratory diseases, diabetes, pneumonia and influenza and suicide, but not cancer, the researchers found.

“Although coffee drinking has also been inversely associated with incidence of certain cancers, like liver, in epidemiological studies, we did not observe an association between coffee and overall cancer mortality,” Loftfield said. “This may be because coffee reduces mortality risk for some cancers but not others.”

People who consumed two to three cups of coffee per day had approximately an 18 percent lower risk death during follow-up compared to those who reported drinking no coffee, she said. Drinking up to five cups per day, or 400 milligrams of caffeine per day, is not associated with any long-term health risks, Loftfield added.

Moderate caffeine intake, up to 200 milligrams per day, is even safe for pregnant women, according to a statement by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

“There is an accumulating number of studies of very high quality that show that people who drink more coffee tend to have better health outcomes,” said Dr. Marc J. Gunter of Imperial College London, who was not part of the new study.

“Coffee drinking is correlated with other health behaviors,” and those who drink it regularly may have other healthy habits, like exercising and keeping to a healthier diet, though the researchers tried to account for those other factors, Gunter told Reuters Health.

The study doesn’t prove that coffee extends life.

“You could argue that people who are already sick might not be drinking as much coffee,” Gunter said.

But coffee may also have a direct effect on inflammation or cardiovascular health, he said.

“It doesn’t seem to do you any harm, if you like drinking coffee then carry on,” Gunter said.

Coffee can be part of a healthy, balanced lifestyle, and it may even do some good, though we can’t yet recommend than non-drinkers adopt the habit for health reasons, he said.

Human supercentenarians share at least one thing in common–over 95 percent are women. Scientists have long observed differences between the sexes when it comes to aging, but there is no clear explanation for why females live longer. In a discussion of what we know about stem cell behavior and sex, Stanford University researchers Ben Dulken and Anne Brunet argue that it’s time to look at differences in regenerative decline between men and women. This line of research could open up new explanations for how the sex hormones estrogen and testosterone, or other factors, modify lifespan.

It’s known that estrogen has direct effects on stem cell populations in female mice, from increasing the number of blood stem cells (which is very helpful during pregnancy) to enhancing the regenerative capacity of brain stem cells at the height of estrus. Whether these changes have a direct impact on lifespan is what’s yet to be explored. Recent studies have already found that estrogen supplements increase the lifespan of male mice, and that human eunuchs live about 14 years longer than non-castrated males.

More work is also needed to understand how genetics impacts stem cell aging between the sexes. Scientists have seen that knocking out different genes in mice can add longevity benefits to one sex but not the other, and that males in twin studies have shorter telomeres–a sign of shorter cellular lifespan–compared to females.

“It is likely that sex plays a role in defining both lifespan and healthspan, and the effects of sex may not be identical for these two variables,” the authors write. “As the search continues for ways to ameliorate the aging process and maintain the regenerative capacity of stem cells, let us not forget one of the most effective aging modifiers: sex.”