Super High Tech Animation of Stem Cell Therapy!
Wait! Hold on, I know what you are thinking, “I would never consider using stem cells, SHHHHH! That’s sooo controversial, you should never talk about politics, religion, or, well, I forget the other thing that you are not supposed to talk about in polite company, but I’m sure that stem cell research is on that list.”
Hear me out for a second. Remember that I am a molecular geneticist by training. Before I went to medical school, I was slicing, dicing, and julienne frying the genome for the sake of creating vaccines for the betterment of my fellow humankind (some of my research contributed to the creation of the Gardasil vaccine for cervical cancer). However, one college degree didn’t seem to be enough of a challenge for my brain cells, so I ordered a double and graduated Summa Cum Laude with a BS in molecular genetics, and a BA in comparative religion and a minor in medical ethics (so there)! That being said, I want you to please lend me your ears [or in this case, your eyes since you’re reading this, [ I’m also an eye surgeon, so you can trust me with them as well] while I tell you a little bit about adult stem cell therapy and how everyone can benefit from it.
First of all, what is a stem cell? Well, before we are born, the growing embryo (early fetus) is filled with cells that are living the “American Dream” they can grow up to be anything! Once the sperm fert ilizes the egg, an overwhelming cascade of molecular events orchestrates this one cell to become a walking, talking, drooling bundle of joy in about 9 months. How can this happen? Well, each cell in a developing fetus starts out as an unemployed college freshman. It hasn’t been told what to think, it doesn’t have any skills, it just walks around campus, looking at bulletin boards until it stumbles across an interesting environment, then it hangs around and gets indoctrinated into a major course of study and before you know it, graduates with a degree—“ Congratulations! You’re a heart cell!” ”Great work, you’re a skin cell!” “Why couldn’t you be more like your cousin Lenny, HE’s a brain cell!” In other words, each of the stem cells has the POTENTIAL to become anything, it just depends upon the crowd that it’s hanging around with, and the molecular markers that are turned off and on at any given time during development. However, once a cell does specialize in a particular function, it usually can’t be converted into a different type of cell, it’s stuck in a routine [beat the heart, beat the heart, beat the heart…every day it’s the same thing]. It gets to be kind of old really fast –exactly! No cell lives forever, they eventually are put out for retirement only to be replaced by a new up-and-comer. Only, some cells, like nerve cells, when they die, they can’t be revived and brought back to life. They are so super specialized that they only get one shot in this lifetime. This is why we can’t cure the blind, or help people with spinal cord injuries to walk again, or to reverse the brain damage from head injuries or stroke victims. Gone forever. In medicine we have a saying “time is tissue” and in the event of a stroke or heart attack, we only have a certain timeframe (usually less than 90 minutes) to try to save those dying cells.
Okay, enough doom and gloom. How would you feel if I told you that there is a medical treatment that could limit, or even potentially reverse the damage that unfortunately happened, and that it wasn’t a drug, that it came from your very own blood… wouldn’t you want it?! This treatment does exist, and it is called “Adult Stem Cell Therapy” and I can get you started on the path to insuring your own personal health today, right this minute. Give me 4 hours of your time, and for the next 20 years you can be safely reassured that if you are faced with a [God Forbid] catastrophic event such as a spinal cord injury, heart attack, or cancer, that your own stem cells are banked and available to you in your time of need. Here is how it works:
I am a certified medical provider for a company called NeoStem [www.neostem.com]. If you would like to collect your own stem cells, you come to my office and I do a standard history and physical exam and then I provide you with the paperwork to have a small sample of your blood drawn right around the corner from my office in Manhattan. This small blood sample is to make sure that you are healthy enough to donate blood, and that your blood meets the same standards required of a volunteer blood donor. Once the laboratory tells me that everything is okay and that you are healthy enough to undergo the stem cell isolation process, I will write you a prescription for a medication called Neupogen {New-Pa-What?]. Don’t be frightened, we have been using Neupogen for years to help people with low white blood cell counts boost their immunity. Essentially, Neupogen invites the STEM CELLS IN YOUR BONE MARROW to come on out into your bloodstream and join the party! You need two little shots of Neupogen (though a teeny-tiny thin needle, Neupogen is administered the same way as insulin). Ever hear the phrase “Timing is of the essence?” Well, the way that this proceeds is that you need to take the Neupogen shot once a day for two days in a row, and THEN you can pass go and gather up your stem cells while you may!
Once you’ve done the Neupogen twice as directed, then you can go to one of several NeoStem facilities in the country (there is one right around the corner from my office in Manhattan). Plan to spend about 3 hours there watching a movie or otherwise entertaining yourself as your newly minted stem cells are isolated from your blood through a simple IV process called “plasmapheresis.” Plasmapheresis simply means having the blood drawn from one arm to be run through a fancy machine that picks out only the stem cells and then gives you back your blood through another IV line [okay, there is no tap-dancing around this, there will be an IV in each arm, one arm going out, another arm going in, but like I said, give me 3 hours of your time, and I’ll give you 20 years of stem cells- aren’t you worth it?].
You only have to collect your cells once at the facility (although you can chose to do so more than once, I’ll tell you about that in a bit…]. Once your stem cells have been collected, that’s it, NeoStem takes it from there. The amount of blood that you donate is approximately less than ½ of a cup! From this ½ cup of blood some will be stored under a certain process in case you were to need it immediately in the [God Fobid] event of chemotherapy. The rest of the stem cells are cryogenically stored for use in the distant future. The stem cells have been shown to maintain their functioning for up to 20 years. The NeoStem storage facility is currently located in Los Angeles, California.
What are some medical circumstances where having access to your own stem cells might be beneficial to your final outcome? Well, the list grows every day but includes: Age-Related Macular Degeneration, Alzheimer’s disease, Autoimmune Disease, Bone Repair, Cartilage Repair, Congestive Heart Failure, Crohn’s Disease, Diabetes, Heart Disease, Leukemia, Liver Disease, Lupus, Lymphoma, Multiple Myeloma, Muscular Dystrophy, Multiple Sclerosis, Nerve Degeneration, Parkinson’s Disease, Radiation Sickness, Spinal Cord Injury, and Stroke.
So, why did I get involved with stem cell therapy…for beauty’s sake of course!! Aside from being selfish and wanting to help myself and others to store their own stem cells for their future health, we are behind the times when it comes to using this therapy for anti-aging purposes! I have several patients who travel internationally and they have received embryonic stem cells from sheep in Germany, France, and Russia for anti-aging purposes! Think about it, aging is caused by inflammation. The stem cells go to areas in the body where inflammation is present and miraculously transform themselves into the tissue type that has been injured. These are “shovel-ready” cells that are able and willing to perform any job required, all the body need s to do is ask them. Imagine aging backwards, what a curious case! You can do stem-cell therapy if you injure your knee running on the treadmill, or simply because you just want to look younger with improved vitality.
Okay doc, it all sounds too good to be true, what’s the catch? Here it is. Donating and storing your own stem cells is as easy as 1-2-3 here in the United States, but getting them transfused when you want them involves a little hop and skip across the border because the therapy is not yet FDA approved in this country [and likely, will not be for the next 18 months of so thanks to a little thing known as big government]. Does that mean that stem cell therapy is unsafe? Absolutely not, it means that the FDA is arcane. The FDA was put into existence to monitor the quality of drugs and machines that are used for medical purposes in this country. The FDA is not allowed to tell doctors how they practice medicine or use those approved drugs and devices. This is because each patient is different and when the FDA was formed, they were intentionally limited in their scope of regulating medicine so as to preserve the sanctity of the doctor-patient relationship. Usually, a drug or medical device is approved for one purpose, but if the physician finds that it will be helpful for treating another condition, it is legal for the doctor to do so [this is called “off-label use”]. For instance, the FDA approved the drug “Zyban” as a stop-smoking aid, although this same medicine had been in use for treating depression for years. So why isn’t stem-cell therapy FDA-approved in the United States? The answer is – “beats me. “ The stem cells are actually not a drug, they are your own cells. Stem cell therapy is the technical equivalent of giving you a blood transfusion with your own pre-donated blood. The sticking point is that the cells are frozen, [funny, don’t we already know that frozen sperm and frozen embryos work just fine?] and this is why we have to jet to a lovely tropical paradise to receive them when you need them [for now]. There ARE some facilities that use stem cells for therapy, but in order to participate, you must actually have the disease being treated and then qualify to be included in these academic studies. In mu mind, I really believe that we will be treating ourselves with our own stem cells in about 18-24 months when the FDA approves their use, but in the meantime, I will be going to the lovely spa facility that already exists in beautiful, sunny Mexico to get my beauty boost [tragic, but somehow, I’ll survive].
The second sticking point is the cost, the drugs and the collection fee are expensive, and insurance doesn’t cover it. The actual storage fees are affordable, and since you only have to donate once, it makes a better investment of your money than a mutual fund right now…
I hope that this informative. I look forward to showing you the videotape of my own stem cell therapy from sunny Mexico very soon, until then…Adios!”
Have a Beautiful Day!
Dr. Lisa
