Anybody hear anything about Stem Cells??? My cousin is some science geek and he says that if you inject them into a given muscle/muscle tissue they become that muscle and keep on growing. They’ve been used in cases where a stroke would damage heart cells, the doctors inject them into the heart and PRESTO new working heart cells. That must be a more than simple version of how it works. If you carry over the properties of the Stem Cells, you can see why us TANKZ could benefit from them - Inject some of them into our Lats and we get HUGE Lats and so on. Anybody got any thoughts on the Stem Cells??? Could they be the next best thing to hit the market???
You couldn’t afford them. The best source for them is human embryos, and only the existing cell lines will be federally funded, as per President Bush’s speech. There are other sources, but it isn’t exactly easy to get stem cells, nor to “inject” them. If Bill Gates decided he wanted to get buff that way, he might be able to afford an injection large enough to do anything.
Stem cells do take on the form of whatever cells surround them, but their primary medical use will probably be to repair damaged nerve tissues, though we’re not there yet. Keep in mind that the long term effects of stem cell injections are not known… stem cells cause a certain growth factor in surrounding cells, which may contribute either to recovery or eventual cancer… noone knows yet.
Stick to working out.
The idea of using them for bodybuilding
purposes is science fiction however using them
as a therapeutic is more likely, but still
many years away.
The nice thing is they are free. Just workout and you’ll get an infusion of them to the site of muscle injury. They are called satellite cells. The study you are referring to used skeletal muscle satellite cells to repair infarcted heart tissue (not a stroke BTW). The skeletal muscle satellite cells were able to repair the injured tissue and improve heart function.
When you injure you muscle during a workout, satellite cells are recruited (yes they actually move) to the site of injury. They likely also multiply once or twice, but the chronology is difficult to pinpoint. They will then fuse with the existing injured muscle and assist in repair and regeneration. In the end you have more nuclei in that muscle and ultimately can build more protein.
injecting stem cells into a muscle to make it bigger is absolutely ridiculous. embryonic stem cells are “pluripotent”, meaning they have the ability to develop into any type of cell. This happens by culturing the cells, ex-vivo (outside the body) in a medium containing the proper growth factors, cytokines, nutrients, and even microenvironment. Once you’ve steered the cells down the lineage you are looking for, you have to find a way to get them to stay there and perform the desired function. The immediate promise for this type of therapy is to replace disfunctional blood cells, grow new islet cells (for diabetics), grow new nerve cells, or grow cells in other damaged organs. Let’s say you isolated some embryonic stem cells and found the proper conditions to steer them towards muscle cells…you would still need to figure out a way to make them integrate into muscle tissue and then respond to a stimulus. Nope. Never gonna happen. We’re much closer to figuring out a way to genetically alter the regulation of muscle protein: best case scenario would be to introduce a new gene that upregulates muscle growth (probably by satellite cell formation) or down-regulates catabolism. You’d do this by integrating the new gene into a viral vector and infecting the recipient with the virus. Bottom line is that you won’t see any of this stem cell technology having an effect on bodybuilding in your lifetime. whoever said it would be too expensive is also right on the money…this stuff is so much more complicated and expensive than you would ever believe. we’re talking hundreds of dollars per microgram for only one of the chemicals responsible for steering a cell’s development down a certain path.
Actually getting an embryonic stem cell to incorporate into muscle tissue would be relatively easy. What is it that makes you think, “integrate into muscle tissue and then respond to a stimulus” in muscle would be any more difficult than for any other type of tissue. Quite to the contrary, we know quite a bit about what makes a muscle cell determine itself. If we can make a fibroblast into a muscle cell simply by inserting a plasmid with one of the myogenic regulatory factors, why wouldn’t we be able to coax a pluripotent cell down that lineage. Further, once a cell line has been begun the muscle determination sequence it is very simple to get it to integrate into the muscle and “respond to a stimulus”.
Your statement that Nope never gonna happen is a bit ludicrous when you realize that cell therapy has been investigated for 15-20 y in muscle, and successful trials in animals have been demonstrated for the past 5 y. The thing is, it probably will not be necessary to use embryonic stem cells, when various adult stem cells can be used to get the job done. You should expect to see various human trials of muscle stem cell therapy in the next couple of years. Now, as a tool for bodybuiding, I suppose once practitioners get a hold of the tools it could happen. Some doctors will do anything. And yes you are right it would be expensive, but some people are willing to spend thousands of dollars a year on worthless GH therapy, so why not spend a bunch of money on something that might actually work.
Another question might be, "How do you propose to FORM satellite cells?" Yes, it is likely that you will see growth factor or cytokine therapy that can ACTIVATE satellite cells to proliferate, but they are not going to spontaneously form. I thought that went out with Koch. I would also propose that it would be simpler, to perform cell therapy, than to get a gene via vector into the muscle. I would be very queezy about having someone inject me with AAV or some other vector. No matter how well they are characterized, and how much of the guts are taken out, a virus is a virus and viruses induce oncogenes. Give me cell therapy any day.
Sorry, Redi not Koch.
One thing which seems not to get noted
as it should in popular discussion of this
issue in the media is that where adult
stem cells could be used, embryonic stem
cells are an inherently inferior choice
because the adult stem cells will have
your DNA if derived from you, but no
embryonic stem cell will (unless you are
a clone.) In other words, using cells
from an embryo is transplanting foreign
tissue into you, with potential associated
immune problems, perhaps requiring
anti-rejection drugs which are not good
for you.
Embryonic stem cells may have uses which
adult stem cells cannot fulfill, but
this inherent drawback of embryonic stem
cells seems to be being overlooked in
the media.
I agree Bill, I think the reason may have to do with the sensational aspects of ESC.Adult SC
just don’t elicit the same emotion from the public and therefore coverage from the media.
Not to mention the media being just plain ignorant.
Yes, Bill and Mike. That was the point I was getting at. ASC therapy is on the immediate horizon, and seems to have a lot of potential. ESC will likely not find much use in the near future because work has been held up for so long. The real value in the ESC resaearch is simply going to be to enable scientists to elucidate new mechanisms and models for development.
Interesting point Bill.
Bill or Steve…how do you go about getting adult stem cells? What uses could they have?
Is there any way besides embryos for getting stem cells? I though you could get them from the ebilical cord? Did I spell it right? Thanks.
Keago. 
Researchers have discovered stem cells in
various tissues of adults, most recently the skin.The uses would be varied as they would be
able to differentiate into many cell types ie,
neurons, muscle, etc, etc.
Thanks for the info.