Hey Everyone!
I listened to the most amazing show on NPR the other day. Krista Tippet interviewed the researcher Doris Taylor is the director of the University of Minnesota department of the Center for Cardiovascular Repair... Doris is doing amazing things in the lab, and maybe you have heard of her. She is the woman who was able to rebuild a cadaver heart with the help of stem cells and eventually got it to beat!
Here's what she and her team does in a nutshell...they take the cadaver heart or organ and wash it with a simple soap solution. This soap will wash away the original muscle cells while leaving the framework of the heart behind. She says it looks and feels like jello. Stem cells are added to this framework and a new beating heart is, well, born.
One thing that Doris is understandably enthusiastic about is stem cells. There seem to be a lot of misinformation about them. for one thing, stem cells are in humans at all ages, not just fetuses. These stem cells vary in number, decreasing as we age, but they play a vital role in repairing the body as we age or are injured.
One thing that she found is that stress can decrease stem cell numbers and effectiveness. Probably no big surprise. But she also found that meditation can increase stem cell numbers! Although it hasn't been proven, I would bet my hat that acupuncture will increase stem cell numbers and effectiveness as well.
Stress not only damages the body, but it also effects it's ability to repair itself. A one-two punch. She mentioned our presidents as an example. The stress that they have been under is so easily apparent when you see the photos of presidents from the beginning of their terms compared to those of the end.
Very interesting.
Here's a video of Krista Tippet holding a heart; http://being.publicradio.org/programs/2010/stem-cells/video_pigsheart.shtml
Here's a link to the interview, if you're interested; http://being.publicradio.org/programs/2010/stem-cells/
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