Cord Blood Stem Cells Can Repair Heart Damage

Betterhumans Staff

Jan. 4th, 2005

Human cells restore pumping function in rats following heart attack

Stem cells from umbilical cord blood have effectively treated heart attacks in animals, suggesting a new source of cells for human treatments.

Researcher Robert Henning and colleagues at the University of South Florida in Tampa injected human umbilical cord blood stem cells into rat hearts an hour after a heart attack and found that they greatly reduced the size of damage and restored pumping function to near normal. Scar tissue was minimized and more heart muscle remained than in controls.

Previous research has demonstrated the potential of using stem cells to treat heart attack damage, but these have primarily used stem cells from adult bone marrow and skeletal muscle. While not as primitive as embryonic stem cells, stem cells from infant cord blood are less mature than those from adult bone marrow and skeletal muscle.

"Cord blood stem cells may be more amenable to repairing hearts," says study coauthor Paul Sanberg. "In addition, cord blood stem cells are readily accessible, easy to use, and, like adult stem cells, are not as controversial as embryonic stem cells."

The study, however, didn't show how the umbilical cord stem cells reduced heart attack damage. It's possible, the researchers say, that the cells transformed into functional heart muscle cells to regenerate damaged tissue—something disputed in treatments using adult bone marrow.

Henning suggests, however, that the stem cells instead may release nourishing substances that spur primitive cells in the heart to form new blood vessels and muscle.

The research is reported in the journal Cell Transplantation.