It’s a topic that makes men around the world squeamish — but it could end up saving their lives.
Scientists trying to find a cure for Alzheimer’s are experimenting with an unlikely new source: menstrual blood.
It may be possible to ‘supercharge’ a type of shapeshifting cell found in periods that can turn themselves into any cell in the body.
In the case of Alzheimer’s, these cells can transform into neurons and glial cells, which become damaged and die when the disease takes hold, causing the memory loss and reduced cognitive functioning seen in patients.
Studies into using menstrual blood stem started in 2007 after experts first determined that the blood shed during the monthly cycle contains stem cells.
A more recent study found that stem cell therapy using menstrual blood stem cells, or ‘MenSCs,’ cleared deposits of protein between neurons and improved memory in mice with Alzheimer’s.
Even more, MenSCs is more readily available than bone marrow that is currently used in the process.
Doctoral researcher Alice van der Schoot has hailed MenSCs a ‘game-changer’ because they double 19 hours faster, compared to the two to eight days for those taken from bone marrow.
Alzheimer’s causes abnormal protein deposits called plaques to build up inside the brain, damaging cells and disrupting their functionality.
Over time, this significantly impairs brain functions such as memory, thinking and reasoning and ultimately leads to death.
Stem cell therapy is used to treat many types of disease, including autoimmune, inflammatory, neurological and orthopedic conditions, as well as traumatic injuries.
The recent study, published by Chinese scientists at Zhejiang University in 2018, isolated cells in MenSCs that were then injected into the mice’s brains, inhibiting a process that releases a harmful protein considered to be the driver of of Alzheimer’s.
They used stem cells harvested from menstrual blood samples donated by ‘healthy women’ who volunteered to participate.
The researchers isolated these stem cells and cultured them before injecting the cells directly into the brains of mice that expressed two human genes known to cause Alzheimer’s.
Following the treatment, the researchers stained the mice’s brains with a fluorescent dye to monitor any changes.
This allowed them to see how the amount of plaque, or harmful protein, in the animals’ brains had changed after receiving menstrual stem cell therapy, finding that areas of plaque were significantly reduced.
They also evaluated changes in the mice’s memory function and spatial learning abilities.
To do this, they used a water maze test, where the mice had to swim through a pool of opaque water to find a submerged platform.
This tested their ability to learn where the platform was and recall how they found it.
The animals that had received menstrual stem cell therapy found the platform much faster than those who did not, suggesting that some of their memory and spatial learning abilities had been restored.
These results are encouraging, but researchers will have to test menstrual stem cell therapy in human Alzheimer’s cases before this treatment can be prescribed to patients.
There have been a few small but promising clinical trials that show MenSCs can be implanted into humans without any adverse side effects, but the research still has a long way to go.
That said, getting MenSCs approved for use in humans would open up a whole new world of opportunities for regenerative medicine, experts say.
‘Stem cells are a promising new class of therapies that have the potential to revolutionize the way a variety of disease states are treated,’ Jonathan Anderson, a University of California stem cell scientist and CEO of Peptide Systems, told Newsweek.
Dr. David Woznica, a regenerative medicine physician at Woz Wellness, said: ‘Likely the greatest plus of menstrual blood stem cells is how easy they are to obtain; no invasive procedures are required.
‘The stem cells present in menstrual blood are similar to those present in bone marrow, though they are able to proliferate more than their bone marrow counterparts, and there is roughly two to four times higher yield of stem cells in menstrual blood than an equivalent volume of bone marrow,’ he added.
In addition to their potential to treat Alzheimer’s, Woznica said MenSCs could eventually help doctors tackle inflammation in autoimmune conditions, repair or prevent heart tissue damage after heart attacks, treat lung injuries and more.
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