Stem
cell therapy is natural healing: the case for stem cell therapy
in adult kidney repair.
This article was commissioned by Regenecell Pty Ltd, to supplement
the current anecdotal data on stem cell therapy. For additional
information, contact: info@regenecell.com
The kidney's role in reclamation of the body's metabolised substances,
synthesis of enzymes, effect on glucose metabolism, filtering
of ammonia and other waste substances, the breakdown of hormones
and growth factors, and the production and regulation of multiple
chemicals critical to inflammation and immunological regulation
are not addressed by current treatment modalities.(1)
Thus, there is considerable drive to develop improved therapies
for renal failure with the capacity to replace a wider range of
the kidney's functions, thereby reducing morbidity, mortality,
and the overall economic impact associated with this condition.
Such an ambition lies beyond the reach of conventional medicine,
with its mainly monofactorial approach to the treatment of disease.
Into this breach steps the nascent and expanding field of cell
therapy, which offers the promise of harnessing the native abilities
of the cell, endowed to it by a billion years of evolution.(2)
The main strength of strategies involving the introduction of
supplementary cells into a damaged adult kidney to aid in repair
and regeneration, is that they are rooted in the natural healing
process. Numerous studies have shown that renal cell repair and
regeneration following Acute Renal Failure follows a program of
de-differentiation, migration and proliferation, and restoration
of differentiated function (reviewed in Safirstein,
1999 ; Nony and Schnellmann, 2003). The rationale, therefore,
is that accelerating and augmenting this process through cellular
supplementation can only improve the prognosis for sufferers of
acute renal injury.
In a new study, a team reported that injecting stem cells similar
to the type used in bone marrow transplants is "highly renoprotective,
showing almost immediate improvement in both kidney function and
degree of tissue injury, followed by accelerated regeneration
and return of function". These beneficial effects are predominantly
mediated, as their data suggests, by paracrine mechanisms. Paracrine
indicates action instigated by nearby cells, which is how stem
cell therapy works.
These new results challenge the most popular hypothesis of how
stem cells work in kidney protection and repair, which holds that
administered stem cells enter an injured organ where they differentiate
into those cells that have been destroyed, and thus replace them
both anatomically and functionally.(3)
Regenecell uses this process to treat patients in renal failure,
but augments the treatment with RegAmp, a unique advantage to
maintain high blood levels of stem cells for longer periods of
time. This provides better results in the short and long term.
1. Kida et al., 1978; Tannen and Sastrasinh, 1984;
Deneke and Fanburg, 1989; Maak, 1992; Frank et al., 1993; Stadnyk,
1994
2. Humes, 2003
3 American Journal of Physiology-Renal Physiology, published by
the American Physiological Society. Research was conducted by
Florian Tögel, Zhuma Hu, Kathleen Weiss, and Christof Westenfelder
of the University of Utah and the Veterans Affairs Medical Center;
Jorge Isaac, University of Utah; and Claudia Lange, Bone Marrow
Transplantation Center, Hamburg. 15-8-2005
