Stem Cells Treatment for Heart Disease

Heart disease or coronary artery disease is any diseases related to heart and blood vessels. Heart disease is triggered by smoking, high blood pressure (hypertension), high cholesterol levels, obesity, and diabetes. And it has been a major killer in the United States. Only for one congestive heart failure case, 4.8 million people have been the victims, and there are 400.000 new cases of heart disease every year.
Stem cell research pros and cons
The broken heart muscle cells and the sudden closed blood vessels are the most problems found in these cases. The usual treatments given are medical and device assistances, drug therapies, organ transplants and surgeries. But after these medications, most of the congestive heart failure patients die within five years. This terrible result means that the treatments are not good enough. Therefore, scientists are turning to a better solution, focus on cells' replacements. They think that it may be more useful if the broken or damaged cells are replaced with the new ones which can revive the whole organ (heart, lung, etc.) to work normally.



Now, they are researching the stem cells treatment for heart disease. In stem cells treatment for heart disease, the scientists are turning the stem cells become the specialized cells. Specialized cells mean specific cell for certain organ, it can be any kinds of cell the body needs. In this case, there are three types of cell to be developed from the stem cells :
1. the cardiomyocyte cell, which is the heart muscle cell works to reject the blood out of the ventricle.
2. the vascular endothelial cell, which works to form the inner lining of new blood vessels.
3. the smooth muscle cell, which works to form the walls of blood vessels.

As we know, the heart is the blood pumping machine, which means many blood flows are there. When a heart is damaged by heart diseases, the whole blood pumping system is interrupted. Now, these specialized cells will help a lot in developing a link for arteries (clean blood vessels) to deliver enough nutrients and oxygen to the cardiomycyte / heart muscles cell, then the heart can work normally again.

Stem cells for heart disease?

No matter how good the theory is, it is still a theory. Stem cells treatment for heart disease has not been used for humans. However, the laboratory test really proved that the stem cells can successfully be transformed into cardiomyocytes and vascular endothelial cells.
benefits of stem cell research
Before tested to human, scientists were using rats to prove this theory. They created heart disease on those rats by tying the LAD coronary artery or by placing a ligature around a major blood vessel which supplies the heart muscle, in order to reduce the nutrient and oxygen supplies there. And the result was very satisfying! The adult stem cells were able to form new blood vessels, and very successful in raising the vascular endothelial cells after the transplant. Therefore, the answer for 'does stem cells treatment cure heart disease' is 'YES', and should be tested on human.