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Stem Cell Hope For Heart Victims; Daily Mail Reporter
Daily Mail
12 October 2005
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.
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