Jun
9
Battling MS in Baghdad: Iraqi doctor uses stem cell therapies to help treat patients’ diseases
Filed Under News, Research | 3 Comments
Amid the blast walls and cacophony of Baghdad, patients at a local clinic are receiving potentially groundbreaking stem cell therapy, treatments that remain illegal and unproven in many countries.
Dr. Abdul Majeed Alwan Hammadi is conducting the treatments for free, mostly on young Iraqis. He is a clinical hematologist who works in the Bone Marrow Transplant Center, part of Baghdad’s Medical City complex of hospitals on the eastern banks of the Tigris River.
Hammadi says he started therapies in 2008 and has so far treated 34 patients, the majority for multiple sclerosis.
Unlike the more controversial embryonic stem cells, Hammadi’s therapy uses a person’s own adult stem cells, which researchers believe may contain various regenerative and adaptive properties that potentially hold the key to curing a number of diseases.
Hammadi, who graduated from a medical college in Baghdad, claims no side effects have been reported in his patients. He said he is in the process of collecting his data for publication, while also seeking official license for the therapies from Iraq’s Ministry of Health, which funds the center.
One of Hammadi’s patients and proponents of the therapy is the Rev. Andrew White, a British priest who runs St. George Church on Baghdad’s Haifa Street.
White was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1998 and said his vision, speech and motor skills were steadily degenerating until he began Hammadi’s therapy in January.
White helped Hammadi establish the bone marrow center in Baghdad in 2001, bringing the doctor and his staff to England for training in marrow transplant techniques.
White said his slurred speech and other MS symptoms improved since starting the three-hour therapy sessions, which involves Hammadi extracting adult stem cells from White’s blood and then injecting them into his spinal cord.
read the rest at Battling MS in Baghdad: Iraqi doctor uses stem cell therapies to help treat patients’ diseases | Stars and Stripes.
via Wheelchair Kamikaze.
Jun
9
Breast-Feeding Reduces Risk for Multiple Sclerosis Relapses
Filed Under News, Research | Leave a Comment
June 8, 2009 — Study results are now published suggesting that women with multiple sclerosis (MS) may reduce their risk for relapses after pregnancy by breast-feeding. “Our findings call into question the benefit of choosing not to breast-feed or stopping breast-feeding early to start taking MS therapies,” lead author Annette Langer-Gould, MD, from Stanford University, in California, said in a news release.
The findings are published online June 8 and are scheduled to appear in the August issue of the Archives of Neurology. First presented at the American Academy of Neurology 61st Annual Meeting, in Seattle, Washington, the authors anticipated that the study would raise some eyebrows.
“This is controversial,” Dr. Langer-Gould told Medscape Neurology before the April meeting. For nearly a decade, many physicians have encouraged MS patients to restart medication as quickly as possible after pregnancy, and many women have chosen not to breast-feed their babies for this reason.
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Jun
2
X’s Exene Cervenka Reveals She Has Multiple Sclerosis : Rolling Stone
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Exene Cervenka, co-lead vocalist and original member of famed Los Angeles punk band X, revealed in a statement today that she is suffering from Multiple Sclerosis. “After some months of not feeling 100% healthy, I recently had some medical tests run and the prognosis is that I am suffering from Multiple Sclerosis,” Cervenka said. “Apparently, it has been affecting me for quite some time.”
In a sad coincidence, X announced just last month that they were embarking on the “X on TRL” tour with the purpose of raising money for the Sweet Relief fund, a charity founded in 1992 by singer-songwriter Victoria Williams, who was also diagnosed with MS, to aid to uninsured musicians. “Although this is obviously unfortunate news, I am choosing to see the positive in it. I, and X as a band, have supported the Sweet Relief charity since the mid-1990s; the irony of this is not lost on any of us,” Cervenka said in the statement.
read the rest via X’s Exene Cervenka Reveals She Has Multiple Sclerosis : Rolling Stone : Rock and Roll Daily.