| Stem Cell Hope For Heart Victims; Daily Mail Reporter |
A HEART disease victim given pioneering stem cell treatment
abroad unveiled an ambitious project yesterday to bring the
same hope to others.
Ian Rosenberg, who was given a couple of months to live two
years ago, travelled to Germany to have
his own stem cells injected into his heart.
'Within a matter of months, I was able to do things I could
only dream of doing before, such as walking
up and down stairs or playing golf,' he said. 'Stem cell
therapy has given me years I never thought
I would have.'
He founded the Heart Cells Foundation charity so that others
could benefit from the technique. It is appealing for
£6million to fund a four-year study involving 700 patients
and has already raised £1million to allow the trial to
start.
Researchers at Barts and The London NHS Trust will examine
how the stem cells of patients who have suffered a heart
attack or who have heart disease can be used to treat them.
Stem cells can turn into almost any other type of cell in
the body. Some patients will have them extracted from bone
marrow in their hip and injected into their major coronary
arteries or directly into their heart. Others will be given
injections of growth factor drugs to try to cause stem cells
to 'spill out' of their bone marrow and into their blood.
Cardiologist Anthony Mathur, who is leading the research,
said: 'Our studies will tell us if adult stem cells in bone
marrow can repair damaged hearts and if so how these cells
should be administered.
'Heart disease affects almost 2.7million people and claims
120,000 lives each year. If proven to work, these cells
could revolutionise the way we treat heart disease and
transform the lives of millions of people.'
Impotence may be an early warning of heart disease even in
men who appear healthy.
Researchers in Italy studied 143 men with similar coronary
risk factor scores, 70 of whom were impotent. Those with
erectile dysfunction had higher levels of C-reactive
protein, which is associated with damaged arteries.
The researchers said the smaller arteries supplying blood to
the penis suffer obstructions earlier than the larger ones
connected to the heart. They called for erectile dysfunction
to form part of a general assessment of heart disease risk.
Daily Mail Reporter
Daily Mail
12 October 2005
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