The Promise of Stem Cell Therapy | Neil Neimark, MD | TEDxAshland

let me start by asking you all a question how many of you here have ever injured yourself if you've ever fallen down and scraped the knee or twisted an ankle maybe strained your back or got a paper cut or a splinter or something like that please raise your hand now and keep it up for a moment great now all those of you who've healed from your injury please put your hand down now but if you're still suffering from a chronic old injury please keep your hand up for a moment great think you can all put your hands down now all those of you who've healed from a prior injury have experienced first hand the healing power of stem cells how because all tissue repair in the body is initiated by stem cells and in the words of dr. Harry Adel s'en and orthopedic stem cell specialists anytime you have healing after an injury it's a stem cell mediated event now those of you who are still suffering from a prior injury your pain or loss of function is due to the fact that either you do not have enough stem cells to fully heal the damaged area or the stem cells that you do have are simply not functioning optimally but here's the good news there are other areas of your body where you have plenty of stem cells that are functioning beautifully for example the bone marrow or your adipose tissue that's fat tissue does anybody here have a little extra fat they'd like to get rid of most of us do and if you take the stem cells from that fat where they are plentiful and you transplant them to an area of the body where they're in short supply then a tremendous amount of healing can occur and this is the essence of what we call regenerative medicine utilizing the body's own stem cells or stem cells from an outside source like the umbilical cord or and the otic tissue of a healthy baby delivery in order to stimulate tissue he and repair now as a family doctor for over 35 years I've seen the positive results of stem-cell therapy in my own practice and in reviews of the current literature and I truly believe that the next great advance in medical care will not be a magic pill it will be a miraculous cell called the MSC the mesenchymal stem cell and it will change the landscape of medicine as we know it over 30 years ago dr. Bernie Siegel the Yale author and surgeon used to say as a surgeon I cut into the body and I rely on it to heal I don't have to yell into the wound and tell it how he understood that the healing system lies within us what he didn't know at the time is that it is the MSC that mesenchymal stem cell that is the conductor of that healing system and it initiates and orchestrates the healing process now in this slide you can see the MS CS are the are the pink cells here lining the capillary bed and most remarkably the reason dr. Siegel never have the yell into a wound and tell it how to heal is because the MSC's yell into the wound for him they don't use regular words of course they use chemical words called signaling molecules and these are natural drug like compounds that stimulate tissue healing now whenever there's damage in the body these pink cells the MS CS go to the damaged area and they survey the area they begin to collect data and they communicate with the other cells in that area and then they intelligently respond by releasing a variety excuse me by releasing a variety of drug like molecules that initiate tissue healing and repair this is why dr. Arnold Kaplan who's a stem cell researcher at Case Western Reserve says that the MSC is an injuries cific drugstore because if you take an MSc and you put it in and damaged injured knee it will produce very different drug like molecules then if you take that same MSC and you put it in an inflamed lung or a damaged liver that's because MSC's are stem cells that are data-driven from the local information they're intelligently responsive to that information and their injuries specific drugstores now where do these drug stores exist in the human body well they exist in an area that we call the universal stem cell niche and that's where all tissue healing and repair occur now in order to explain this concept to you I had to create a fairly complex medical slide so be patient with me I promise I'll walk you through it slowly and even those of you who just don't get science will get it I promise so here it is the universal stem cell niche okay I'm kidding it's not a complex slide but I want to point out a couple of things the universal stem cell niche is simply the location it's the concert hall if you will where all the members of this healing system Philharmonic Orchestra play now leading the orchestra is the MSC who waves the baton and sends these signaling molecules to all the members of the orchestra to ensure that they play their parts that is they do the healing to the best of their ability now here in the front section we have the stringed instruments which are the progenitor cells these are called tissue-specific stem cells and every organ in the body has progenitor cells that only create cells unique to that organ so for example this bone progenitor cell only creates new bone cells and the heart progenitor cell only creates new heart cells and the same is true for every organ in the body now in the middle section where the woodwinds and brass are we have the vascular players these are the capillaries the red blood cells white blood cells and platelets that carry all the healing elements to the body and to the damaged tissue and lastly we have the peri sites this is the percussion section these parasites are those pink cells you saw in that electron micrograph and they have these little finger-like projections that go on to the capillary wall and they monitor they keep their finger on the pulse the rhythm the beat of the local scene and whenever there's damage they break off they go to the conductor's podium and they recruit a whole new healing system Orchestra to initiate tissue healing and repair now the universal stem cell niche is so vital to our well-being that in the words of dr. kristin Camela a leading stem cell scientist if you didn't have stem cells you could only live for about an hour now as amazing as that fact is even more amazing is the fact that these stem cells are helping real patients in real life medical situations get well one of my favorite quotes of all time comes from the American poet Muriel Rukeyser who said the universe is made of stories not of atoms so I want to tell you Jim W story Jim first came to me in August of last year complaining he needed a preoperative clearance for a left hip he needed a total hip replacement now he had been having a lot of pain a lot of clicking and he could no longer walk his dog honey so he was miserable now a year before he had had a total hip replacement in his right hip and that recovery was complicated by an infection and it took him over three months to heal and he was miserable during that time so when I mentioned to him the possibility of doing stem-cell therapy he was interested but he was a little skeptical because his doctor had told in his hip was bone-on-bone so he said only surgery is gonna work nevertheless he was willing to give it a try so under ultrasound guidance I injected about 8 million MSc stem cells into his left hip the whole procedure only took about 15 minutes it hurts no more than a blood draw basically and we put a bandaid on and Jim walked home and I said to him Jim be patient it takes about 3 to 4 months to see results well at the 3-month point I saw Jim and he was a little discouraged he was only about 25% better but I said to him Jim be patient let's give it a little longer so in February of this year at the six-month point I saw Jim again and he was ecstatic he was in virtually no pain he could barely tell the difference between the left hip and the right hip and most importantly he was able to take his dog honey out on 45-minute walks pain-free now Jim's a little camera-shy but I was able to catch this photo of him back on the happy trail with honey again now let me show you what happened inside Jim's hip when we put those stem cells in what happened is the stem cells go up to the conductor's podium they assess the area they assess the damage and then they send these signaling molecules to the progenitor cells to the tissue specific bone stem cells and cartilage stem cells that exist in that area and they've always existed in that area the problem is as we get older they decrease in number and then with wear and tear sometimes they get a little sleepy and tired and they get weak and weary and they lay down and take a nap so when we put those MSC's in they awaken Jim's napping progenitor stem cells they reenergize them and they come to life and they start creating new cartilage new bone new ligaments that lead to the growth and repair of that hip now stem cells don't only work in area in aging painful joints they also work in any can anytime in the body where there's excess inflammation immune system problems or wear and tear now this is a list of clinical trials being studied by dr. Neil Riordan an author and stem-cell researcher down in Panama all with very positive results and when you see this list of seemingly diverse conditions all responding well to MSC therapy everything from autism to asthma to osteoarthritis rheumatoid arthritis spinal cord injury you begin to appreciate the power of the MSC to awaken our healing system now I want to tell you one other example of how stem cells have helped patients with diabetes prevent pain and suffering in this study by dr. Prochazka at the University Hospital in Ostrava in the Czech Republic he studied 96 patients with what we call critical limb ischemia that's low blood flow to the feet and he divided these patients up into two groups now mind you all these patients were at risk for amputation because diabetics easily get in little cuts on the bottom of their feet that can get infected it can spread to the bone and often necessitate an amputation so in the first group the patients were given stem cells and these stem cells were taken from their bone marrow and they were injected along the leg here and along the foot ulcer base and in that group of patients 79 percent went on to heal completely by the 90 day point unfortunately 21 percent of those patients did require an amputation now in the group - that did not receive stem cells 44% of them required an amputation that's over twice as many patients needing an amputation they could have been entirely prevented by a single stem cell injection in a procedure that basically took an hour and a half to complete now I want to show you what happened beneath the sir or on the foot first with this critical limb ischemia you can see it they 0 this big wide gaping wound by day 30 it's a fraction of what it was in ninety days after a single stem cell injection it's almost completely healed now if you look beneath the surface at the blood flow what we have here is called an angiogram this is a picture of the blood vessels that go down to the feet on the left here this is the the foots down here and this is the top of the leg the calf you see what this is before stem cells it looks like a little country road or two barely carrying any blood down to the foot now ninety days after a single stem cell injection what you see here looks like a major metropolitan freeway system carrying massive amounts of blood down to the feet and remember the MSC not only heals tissue but it's also what we call angio genic it stimulates new blood vessel formation and because these MSC's like to live along the capillaries the more blood flow you have the more stem cells the more stem cells the better the healing the better your health I want to leave you with a quote from one of my personal heroes Norman Cousins who used to say the doctor has a role beyond the prescription pad to invoke the patient's own bodily resources for healing what this means is we need to just stop throwing a drug at every problem we need to learn how to harness the regenerative powers of our own healing system not only through advanced stem cell technologies but also through better nutrition better lifestyle choices better stress management and living a life of contribution purpose and mean but it's up to each and every one of us to get the word out about stem cells why because no drug company or surgical device company is gonna tell you about all the benefits of stem cell therapy because it disrupts their industry it eats into their market share and their profits so there's not going to be any fancy TV ads or print ads telling you all about the amazing benefits of stem cell therapy the task is ours it's up to us but if we rise up to that task this is what the future holds every patient with heart attack or stroke will immediately receive a series of MSC infusions that will help minimize scarring of the heart and limit the neurological damage and disability every child with autism will receive a series of MSC infusions that will help reverse the inflammation in their brain and help reintegrate that child into a healthy normal life and every patient with autoimmune disease whether it's diabetes lupus MS or rheumatoid will receive a series of MSC infusions that will help reset their immune system at the root cause level and help them to minimize their exposure to dangerous drugs and dangerous side effects there's an ancient teaching that says whoever saves a single life it's as if they saved the entire world so please share this information with just one loved one one co-worker one family member who may benefit from stem-cell therapy and together let's help save just one person's life let's help alleviate just one person suffering and let's help make a better healthier world through the promise and the proof of stem cell therapy thank you [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 80,817

Rating: 4.891892 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Health, Death, Life, Medicine

Id: kFTN9AJAEQc

Length: 17min 35sec (1055 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 23 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Oysseus]

MYRRMIDONS,MY BROTHERS OF THE SWORD,I WOULD FIGHT BESIDE RATHER YOU THAN ANY ARMY OF THOUSANDS, DO YOU JNOW WHAT'S HIDING THERE ON THAT BEACH IMMORTALITY,IT'S YOURS TAKE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - ACHILLES(TROY).

[u/HuricaneFighterPlane]

Neil Riordan's website leaves the taste of snake oil in my mouth. Sure, these therapies could help in some cases and maybe do even more in future, but now for autism, CP, MS? Stem cells therapies for these conditions are very popular in Turkey and Ukraine, but never heard a convincing account of somebody improving his condition. Once I asked about it a neurologist specializing in kids with CP and he dismissed it.

Divorcing desperate people from their money to do experimentation on them is not OK, or at least the price should be lower or rebated.