Author Archives: Senior Researcher

Using Autologous Mesenchymal Stem Cells To Treat Hip and Knee Joint Pain from Osteoarthritis

Using Autologous Mesenchymal Stem Cells To Treat Hip and Knee Joint Pain from Osteoarthritis

I stated about 2 months ago that I wanted to expand the scope of the research that is done on this website, to include other subjects like the biochemistry of cancer, orthopaedic conditions, and similar issues. These next few posts will be dealing with this subjects. Some of the information will be related to what I’ve been researching before.

There was a very recent article (came out on August 3, 2014) that came out in the Australian news website The Age entitled “Stem cell trial hope for osteoarthritis sufferers” which showed that MSCs are being used to treat people who are suffering from knee pain associated with Osteoarthritis. While it may not seem too revolutionary and profoundly new to us who are so used to reading up on Patents and University backed cutting edge research on stem cells, this method would still be very interesting to a large group of the population who are suffering from joint pain from cartilage degeneration.

As the article says, a middle aged female underwent liposuction so that her fat can be sucked and then filtered to get the little bit of stem cells in her fat tissue. Those stem cells will be then be packed together in pure stem cell and high density form, which are injected into her hip joint region to relieve pain.

When looking at the overall procedure from a higher level, I am reminded of a similar type of procedure that is being done by Dr. Peter Wehling at Dusseldorf which is now called the Regenokine/Orthokine method as well as the Platelet Rich Plasma therapy. In all of these methods, the entire thing is minimally invasive.

The hope for the researchers who took the women’s fat out is to get the filtered stem cells to slow down the rate of cartilage degeneration in the woman’s hip. If that is possible, then the need for the complicated and expensive hip prosthetic replacement surgery can be pushed back by more than a full decade. The primary researcher is a Dr Julien Freitag, who would reference a South Korean study. I took the time to track down that exact article and found it. It is suggested in that Korean study that instead of just a single injection of the person’s own adipose derived stem cells, multiple injections will have much better results. 

There will also be a 2nd study looking at how this autologous MSC method would work for cartilage lesions which are the result of trauma which often lead to the onset of osteoarthritis after maybe just 4-10 years after trauma.

The name of the article that is referenced is “Infrapatellar fat pad-derived mesenchymal stem cell therapy for knee osteoarthritis” which is associated with the Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Yonsei Sarang Hospital, Seoul, South Korea. The same group of authors had written also the paper “Mesenchymal stem cell injections improve symptoms of knee osteoarthritis.” which was published in April of 2013.

Infrapatellar Fat PadIn the referenced article, the researchers took the stem cells from the infrapatellar fat pad region (aka Hoffa’s Fat Pad). Refer to the picture to the right for reference to where the fat pad is.

The stem cells which are isolated are then injected percutaneously into knees that have been suffering from arthritis.

Note: I might have made a mistake on assumption before. It seems that the method of PRP is used in this technique. Quoted from the article…

After the stem cells were isolated, a mean of 1.89×106 (range, 1.2–2.3 × 106) stem cells were prepared with approximately 3.0 mL of platelet-rich plasma (PRP) and injected in the selected knees of patients in the study group.

I made the mistake of assuming that the stem cells would be reinjected in the body percutaneously and intraarticularly by themselves. I forgot to realize that the platelet-rich plasma would be used as the semi-liquid transport medium since stem cells by themselves with no medium would just shrivel up and dry out. This method is a type of PRP therapy.

After the first injection with stem cells and PRP, 3 mL of PRP was administered every 7 days as the second and third rounds of treatment. The results from the control group and the actual tested group were statistically significant.

Implications

From my search throughout the hundreds of patents for application of stem cells, I’ve already seen at least 2 groups which have put a patent on the technique on using MSCs to treat osteoarthritis or arthritis in some way, whether by the PRP method or some other idea. I quote was is said in the paper “With regard to in vivo studies, the transplantation of MSCs into full thickness articular cartilage defects has been attempted under various conditions.” so there has been many attempts already, and the results have come in have been very fruitful and promising.

Quoted further…

“In 2 reports, experiments on humans [16,17] involving the intraarticular injection of autologous MSCs yielded good results after 6 months. In 2008, Centeno and colleagues reported the use of autologous culture-expanded bone marrow- derived stem cells for knee cartilage regeneration in humans [17]. In their study, the patients’ pain, as determined by the VAS, and range of motion improved, and MRI showed significant articular cartilage growth and meniscus regeneration. “

What I personally got out of it…

I learned that the source of where you get the MSCs is quite important. While it is well known that MSCs can be filtered from bone marrow, bone marrow extractions are often very painful and have a high chance for infections and complications. In addition, as a person ages, the density of MSCs decrease. That seems to be why the researchers here used the infrapatellar fat pad as the source of the stem cells. They were able to get 9.4 g of infrapatellar fat pad which gave out on average about 1.89×10^6 stem cells, which is a nice cell to overall fat density. For future references, instead of asking that we get stem cells from bone marrow biospys, it would be much easier and simpler to use the source of fat from under the patella.

The last important thing that the researchers stated in the study was this ….

the paracrine effects of the cytokines and growth factors released by the grafted cells, which favorably influence the microenvironment by triggering host-associated signaling pathways and lead to increased angiogenesis, decreased apoptosis, and possibly, induction of endogenous generation

I am still trying to understand what this part means and what the implications are.

An Interview With Dr. Tarek El-Bialy On Using Ultrasound To Regenerate Tooth Dentin

An Interview With Dr. Tarek El-Bialy On Using Ultrasound To Regenerate Tooth Dentin

A few days ago we got a comment by someone calling themselves Pete who linked to an interview given where the Canadian Dr. Tarek El-Bialy was being interviewed on his Ultrasound Device & technology to use to regrow teeth, but stimulating the root of the teeth.

Comment

Originally we had written about the technology in a very old post “Teeth Regrowth Using Low Intensity Pulsed Ultrasound, LIPUS“. The researcher we mentioned in that article was a Dr. Jie Chen, also in Canada who claimed that they could use Ultrasound to not just make bones heal fractures but make people grow taller, which was something that was edited into the Wikipedia article on LIPUS (Low Intensity Pulsed Ultrasound). Tyler really got into the idea of using LIPUS and really deep into LIPUS but I had written in the past year a few times showing multiple articles which disprove the idea that Ultrasound would ever lead to increased longitudinal growth in the long bones. Yes, LIPUS machines are already on sale at rather cheap prices, so if there was real evidence in articles and the scientific literature that shows the really small LIPUS devices does any even the slightest chance of increasing longitudinal growth, I would recommend the portable LIPUS devices on this website, since they are just around $30-$50 each, and may be even free if one has the right type of medical insurance.

In fact, I recently downloaded the PDF of an old article I had eluded to to reread the implications on what would happen if you continuously emit ultrasound in lab test rabbits growth plates. (Effect of continuous therapeutic ultrasound in rabbit growth plates).

Regenerate ToothHowever, the technology of LIPUS on nerve tissue and teeth regeneration is much more promising. As Dr. El-Bialy (Associate Professor of Orthodontics and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Alberta, Canada) seems to suggest, LIPUS can regenerate damaged nerves and root pulp.

You can download the MP3 of that interview wth Dr. El-Bialy Available Here

It may not be our primary focus, but learning about the science of teeth and regeneration of teeth might lead to less money we have to spend at the dentist office in the future.

Update #16 – More Resources – August 1st, 2014

Update #16 – More Resources – August 1st, 2014

Last month I could not write up a post for updates and the reason was because the website was down for more than a week. There was some technical and legal issues which needed to be resolved. Here are some things that has occurred in the last 2 months

  • We’ve established that Dr. Ballock at the Cleveland Clinic has been working on a project to study on how to grow a fully functional growth plates with a colleague, a Dr. Eben Alsberg, who I have previously spoke very highly of. The project is supposed to be finished in a couple of months so there is going to be some big news that will be coming out soon.
  • I’ve established that in Google Patents there are multiple types of patents which show that researchers have been working on the science of remodeling bones, using different chemicals.
  • Regenexx and Mesoblasts have both been trying to win over in the spinal disc regeneration niche of biotechnology but their amazing lab animal study results might not be able to be translated to humans. This is the first real example that what we find in the lab may not work in real life.
  • I have reported on the news of Alexander Teyplashin’s team and shown that they are dead serious on putting neoepiphyseal cartilage into human bones to let them grow again. This was the most shocking news to come out and it did lead to some talk in the small community.
  • Teplayshin’s team filed multiple patents and papers showing how to start from human adipose tissue, get stem cells from them, turn them into chondrocytes, and deposit into scaffolds. They figured out the vascularization problem.
  • It seems that many of the people I have mentioned have been working in collaboration for quite a while and I wasn’t aware of it until now. For example, Dr. Jean Welter of the Case Western Reserve University, which is based in Cleveland has collaborated/worked with Dr. Ballock, as well as Dr. Eben Alsberg. It shows that like almost any other micro-niche industry and field, all of the people doing their thing seems to know everyone else that is working on similar projects. I will be talking much more about Dr. Welter’s research soon though.
  • I have purchased multiple books in the last two months looking deeper into the anatomy and physiology on how joints function. They include the following “Joint Structure & Function, A Comprehensive Analysis – 4th Edition” by Pamela K. Levangie and Cynthia C. Norkin, “Treatment by Manipulation” by AG Timbrell Fisher, and “The Complete Illustrated Book of Yoga” by Swami Vishnudevananda. Some purchases have been to help me and others around me to develop a much more active and healthier lifestyle.

As for myself, I have been going to an acupuncturist (who was trained in Russia with a Ph.D and M.D) so have gotten myself much more interested in some of the more quasi-scientific/alternative approaches to medicine and healing. In the last  month or so I have looked into some very strange forms of bone and joint treatment.

As for the backend of the website, I changed the ownership of multiple part. I stopped making any type of adsense earnings on the website – I changed all the adsense ID #s to be under Tyler’s name. There is going to be some big things that I planning on releasing in the coming half of this year.

Updates For Regenerative Tissue Engineering Using Stem Cell For New Growth Plates – How Much Longer?

Updates For Regenerative Tissue Engineering Using Stem Cell For New Growth Plates – How Much Longer?

So the most recent relevant post I had written had said that we would need to wait 30 or even 50 years before the limb lengthening surgery alternative would be finally be available. That made many people very upset that this idea which I had claimed to be “almost there” would still take that long. Let me try to give you guys a better estimate on what is reasonable to expect to happen within the 21st century in terms of biotech.

The short answer is this. If we were to be extremely optimistic, It would take 10 years for the stem cell technique to be viable for for humans to use, but only for real medical issues. Within 5 years, the physicians performing the technique would realize that there is a large financial incentive in using the stem cell approach on people for cosmetic reasons. So being very optimistic, it would take 15 years before we can finally have the chance to use the new growth plate method. On the opposite end, it would take maybe 30 years for the stem cells to have all the technical details worked out for them to be for use for humans, and still another 10 years before doctors are willing to put the technique for use to lengthen bones. So the worst we can do is wait 40 years. Yes, it sucks that it could take almost half a century, and maybe some of us might not even live that long, but biological science is not like computer science, where you have dedicated people who can pump out a new product in a dorm room with a computer working 24 hours a day.

Here is something else which we need to consider. Exponential Growth. When we remember Ray Kurzweil’s Law of Exponential Growth/Returns which is supposed to signal the point known as the Technological Singularity, it suggest that maybe, just maybe the technology may come even faster, if the exponential growth of technological advancement is true. That might mean that at the earliest, the idea of implanting new lab grown growth plates into bones to lengthen the bone might be available for at least young kids suffering real orthopedic limb angular deformities within as close as 5 years, and have it available for adults for cosmetic application within 10 years.

Let’s give you guys some perspective. If you guys typed into Google right now the term “new growth plate”, you would find as the first link a article/reference to Dr. Robert Ballock’s research at the Cleveland Medical Clinic. That shows that Ballock is very serious on getting the technical details on lab grown growth plates to work out. His desire is to use his knowledge from Harvard to help young children to correct bone grown irregularities. The article you find #1 in Google Search is called “Regrowing Growth Plates: A Fix for Kids’ Injuries? Promising research to mend growth-stifling plate damage” was written back in Feb of this year, 2014. The website by Cleveland Clinic showed that he is focused on the research, and his grant (which we linked to on the previous post) revealed that the project would end around August-Sept this year.

Quote… “In test tube studies, Dr. Ballock’s research team developed a 3-D cell culture model that replicates the key features of what appears to cause growth plate cartilage to develop in the column-like shape that leads to lengthening of the long bones in children.”

At the end, Ballock stated in typical research fashion that his research would be years away from being used for real application. This is disheartening to many teenagers and young people who want to be taller NOW and want something as soon as possible, but it takes time. Even when you want to use the stem cell approach for cosmetic use, other entities can resist you and your research.

The recent reveal that Alexander Teplyashin’s team in Mocow, Russia in getting bones to lengthen by implanting culture grown “growth plates” and trying them out on ram/sheep shows that in theory and concept, the stuff would work. However, Teplyashin is still a researcher (actually has a Ph. D in plastic surgery) and he must follow the guidelines and protocols that the academic and corporate rules set for him.

Here are some problems that have caused the whole stem cell research to be resisted. When George Bush was president (the 2nd one) he imposed laws which made it not possible for USA based researchers to use embryo derived stem cells. Because of Bush, the research into stem cells was halted for his entire 2 terms, which was basically a full decade. While the USA was held back, other countries in the world like Japan, South Korea, Germany, and Russia rushed forward and was willing to take the chance the Americans were not. It wasn’t until 2009, when Obama came to office did the law against stem cell research (at least the embryo derived ones) get lifted. (source: Obama Lifts Bush’s Strict Limits on Stem Cell Research).

The 2nd problem is that Teplyashin’s research has also been halted by the government branched in Russia, one source we found stated. His team is written up grants, petitions, and proposals to move forward in their research, but the government seems to be blocking his team from further progress.

All of this may sound like really bad news, but there is a LOT of good news which I have found recently which shows that the endeavor is definitely being pushed forward.

The Good News

Good News #1 – On the problem on cartilage material strength and whether it can handle the upper weight loading – It seems that this is not a problem. I do read a lot of reddit threads and on one reddit thread, where people were talking about the possibility of getting lab grown cartilage transplanted into their knees for pain management and osteoarthritis treatment ( http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/24gghv/for_the_very_first_time_engineers_have_grown/) it was revealed that cartilage that is created in the lab synthetically can withstand the weight load, with the high enough equilibrium compressive strength/modulus. Refer to the study Comparison of the equilibrium response of articular cartilage in unconfined compression, confined compression and indentation for more information.

Good News #2: The problem that the people who want to fix their knee articular cartilage degeneration have cleared up is that cartilage implants like autologous chondrocyte implantation has not worked too well to the defects on the surface of articular cartilage. The problem is that the neo-cartilage tissue doesn’t seem to be able to fused properly with the older, natural cartilage. The cartilage then turns into the fibrocartilage tissue type. Of course, these guys on the Reddit Science Thread wants to add cartilage to an area of the body where there is already cartilage. As we know, cartilage is an anareobic environment aka avascular, where the cells inside the ECM of the cartilage can’t get nutrients through blood vessels. Of course then it would make sense that plopping new cartilage on top would not work out too well, since traditionally you need vascularization to get the transplants to fuse with the rest of the body. Our desire is instead to add cartilage to a place where there is no more cartilage (fully fused) and only bone. Bones are very nicely vascularized. In fact, we reported news recently that the vascularization issue was figured out by Teplyashin’s team in a paper that they published (How Svetlana Zagirovna Sharifullina Developed A Vascularized Fully Functioning Growth Plate)

(Side Note: Here are some places which I regularly read up on and make sure I keep up with the most up to date information on reconstructive tissue engineering, stem cells, and such. http://www.reddit.com/r/science, http://www.reddit.com/r/stemcells, http://www.reddit.com/r/tissueengineering, http://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/, http://www.reddit.com/r/orthopaedics, http://www.reddit.com/r/cancer . In addition, I also read up on the works for the dozens of researchers cited http://www.beckersspine.com/spine/item/14329-10-spine-surgeons-researching-disc-regeneration)

Conclusion:

So when it comes to the technical problems of getting the synthetic lab grown growth plates to meld with the surrounding bones, which is usually just a vascularization problem as Hakkers stated in our interview years ago, that seems to have been resolved.

And when you look at how strong the lab grown cartilage really are, looking at the values of the equilibirum compressive modulus, you find that the major issues that I have come up with seems to be almost all gone.

The few problem that I can think of is that the scaffold derived epiphyseal hyaline cartilage is not producing enough ECM organic compounds, most specifically Collagen Type II, the GAGs, and proteoglycan. However, I would suspect that the technical issue would be a rather easy one to figure out. The other thing is how would the surgeon make the right type of cut into the epiphysis-metaphyseal connected region to implant the cartilage. If you look at how real cartilage is layered in the human body (I saw off the end of a dead young pig’s leg), they are not flat, but curved and bumpy, which is probably due to the different rates of chondrocyte columnar activity.

Then when you look at how easily it is for people with a 3-D printer to print out layers of hydrogel and scaffolds these days, with maybe dozens of people doing similar research, things seem to be looking very good.

I don’t want to make it sound too positive, since there will always be huge issues. The article I found written by someone at Regenexx over the fact that Mesoblast spent hundreds of millions but still couldn’t get their human subjects to have similar results as their lab rats show that sometimes the best results on lab animals can not be translated to humans. The article back in May of 2013 MAJOR STUDY UPDATE: STEM CELLS EASE BACK PAIN revealed that while the subjects did indeed decrease back pain, the disc height did not increase like what happened in the lab with the rats.

Harald Oberlander who I have been in contact with referenced Mesoblast’s research to the people on the Make Me Taller forums but I don’t think even he is aware of the most up to date releases that is coming out of the company. Progress is not easy.

 

Theories On The Causes And Treatments For Cold Knees and Cold Feet

Theories On The Causes And Treatments For Cold Knees and Cold Feet

Cold KneesNote: This post does not deal with the endeavor of height increase, but is related. I have stated multiple times before that I planned to expand the scope of the research of this website to include bone and cartilage related medical conditions. Height Increase research is for cosmetic reasons, but real medical problems like osteoporosis and osteo-arthritis should always be dealt with first. 

Recently my Asian girlfriend started to notice that her feet and knees was getting unusually cold even though the temperature is quite warm in this Summer weather. She has had a history of dealing with cold knees and cold feet, as well as cold hands.

However, this recent episode has made me start to suggest that there might be some deeper connections and physiological causes to her condition which even most medical professionals have never been able to decipher. Having lived in Asia and seen the bone physiology of the East Asian ethnic groups, and done meta-statistical analysis to compare various racial groups, I feel that I might be able to give a completely new and rather original spin on this rather common and annoying little symptom.

Here is what I do know.

  • East Asian females on average, in general seems to have a lower than average bone mineral density (BMD) than other races.
  • It has been contributed to the fact that while still an embryo, the developing child did not get the high enough level of calcium needed for the prenatal baby to grow. (refer to Bone Health in Chinese American Women). it seems that based on the diet of East Asian cultures, the females of those cultures just wasn’t getting enough calcium (maybe high level of Lactose Intolerance??) , which translated to their developing baby, which grew up with low levels of bone density as well.
  • Not only that, since pregnancy means that a high level of calcium will be transferred from the mother’s body to the babies, the mother will have an increase chance of osteoporosis.
  • Anecdotally, my mother who has multiple Asian female friends have recently told me that they were getting knee replacements as early as their 50s. Knee replacements is one brutal surgery, where a prosthetic is placed where there used to be cartilage and bone before.

So what does this all have to do with cold knees and cold feet?

Based on my research of the past 2 years, cold knees and cold feet, which seems to predominantly effect East Asian females and Caucasian females, is the result of the individual who has a low level of bone mineral density, which has a ripple effect on the other types of tissue connected to the osteo tissue (aka bones).

The cold knees is a sign that they have weaker than average bones and joints. However, what do we mean when we use the word “weaker”?

I know from personal experiences that my girlfriend has never been able to donate blood because the blood donating centers say that she has a very low level of Iron in her blood, which has led to her having anemia. The result is that she has had to go see her personal gynecologist to get ferrous fulmarate intravenously dripped inside her on a regular basis.

In addition, she has a horrible habit of drinking very low levels of water consumption. Her incentive in changing her water consumption level has resulted in the cold knee symptoms disappearing for a long duration, until recently when she moved and changed her eating habits.

It was also found that she has a slight thyroid issue when I took her for a full medical exam more than a year ago. In addition, her menstrual cycle is much larger than average, resulting in more blood loss, which might also contribute to the low level of iron in her blood.

So here is what I am willing to outline for the medical condition of Cold Knees and Cold Feet…

Symptoms…

  • Cold Knees
  • Cold Feet – Sometimes Cold Hands is another symptom

Causes…

Note: All the following causes are theories and guesses based on my personal experience and research.

  • Lack of Iron – the person might be anemic
  • Hypothyroidism – the symptoms of hypothyroidism include 1) increased sensitivity to cold temperature, heavier or irregular menstrual periods, joint pain, and depression. (source)
  • If not hypothyroidism, then some type of thyroid issue (don’t quote me on that one)
  • Habitual Low Consumption of Water 
  • Low Bone Mineral Density – This suggest that the person has a much higher chance of getting osteoporosis later in life.
  • Decreased Circulation 

Update 8/13/2014: It seems there there might be 2 other medical conditions which might be linked to cold knees. They are 1) celiac disease/gluten sensitivity and 2) unusual period types, specifically heavy thick bleeding periods, which I suspect is causing the onset of the cold feet and knees.

Treatments…

Note: Everything I will recommend will be based on personal, amateur level research.

  • First, go to one’s GP (Primary/Family Doctor) to get a full blood work done to see if they are low on any vitamins or minerals. – Check for hypothyroidism and anemia.
  • Start Taking a MultiVitamin – I Suggest a Centrum Silver For Women at the local GNC or Walgreens
  • Take Vitamin D3
  • Take Iron Supplement – this is based on my experiences with a gf with anemic symptoms.
  • Take Vitamin K2 – This is critical. I can not stress how important MK-2 and MK-7 are.
  • Get the recommended daily level of Magnesium – (source: Magnesium Is Crucial for Bones). Magnesium is critical for Vitamin D to work properly.
  • Drink at least 2 liters of water each day – stay hydrated. This will improve on the circulation problem and help with the thyroid issue a little
  • If the person recently went through pregnancy ie a woman, add Calcium to one’s diet to replace for the loss of calcium which got transferred to the baby.
  • Get deep tissue massages ie Swedish – for increased circulation
  • Yoga – for increased circulation

Low Term Considerations.

Here is what my research has told me after many older females I’ve known in my life who had to go through full knee surgery has suggested to me.

If you are in your 20s or 30s and experience cold knees or cold feet (and hands) it is a sign that the bones (and thus also the cartilage) in your body is getting weak.

The way that humans anatomically work, being bipedal, and walk upright, means that structurally speaking, the knees are the weakest area on the human body. Knees and the lower back are the two most common locations to result in pain and problems with people, whether they have an active life or not. (Have anyone else noticed just how many chiropractors practices and offices have been popping up in American towns, even though the theory behind chiropractor work is based on Subluxation, which has no scientific basis? Based on my guesses, chiropractors is nothing more than modern bone setting (which was called Manipulation Surgery at the turn of the 20th century) combined with deep tissue massage physical therapy. The theory of chiropractors is just pseudoscience. From one source (available here) it is said that  “Back pain is the leading cause of disability in Americans under 45 years old. More than 26 million Americans between the ages of 20-64 experience frequent back pain”.  )

Cold knees and cold feet is a sign that the person is at a much higher level of risk for osteoporosis (aka low bone mineral density) and osteo-arthritis (aka degradation of articular cartilage structure) later in life, as quickly as even 10-15 years into the future. 

They will be the ones getting the total knee replacements and they don’t even realize yet in the future. No regular/family doctor with their limited experience and knowledge on the physiology of the bones and cartilage would be able to explain what is going on.

Physiologically speaking, it is caused by three main things…

  1. Decreased circulation in that area
  2. A specific mineral is being transported out of the region (currently, I am not sure which one). (Note: From a physics point of view, it would not make any sense how it is possible that within the human body, a certain local area is cooler than the surrounding area on a Summer Day (I measured the temperature on the skin using a Thermocouple) unless there is a biological process acting similar to an air conditioner going on i.e. a heat transfer and/or a type of chemical endothermic reaction.)
  3. Some form of hormonal imbalance is triggered at some level in the pathway upstream.

This post is for my fiance/future wife, and all of the rest of the people in the world who experience this condition and don’t know what it means. I’ve consulted internal medicine and orthopedic specialists and they have never been able to provide for me a decent and solid sounding answer to the causes and potential treatments to this condition, which I believe is a symptom and sign that something much worst is going to happen later in life.

A Suggested Idea On How We Can Theoretically “Reopen” The Closed Growth Plates

A Suggested Idea On How That We Can Theoretically “Reopen” The Closed Growth Plates

I have said multiple times that it would be next to impossible within this century to create any type of technology to ‘reopen’ fully closed growth plates, at least completely non-invasively. That has been my opinion for a long time since I really started to understand how human bones really work and are organized. Unless there is some type of radical biomedical technology I am not aware of that is coming down the pipeline in the next few decades, I would not be looking for a completely non-invasive way to get the growth plates back.

However, I did recently read an article which seems to suggest at a very theoretical level that it might be possible to kind of “reopen” the closed growth plates, but it would still not be completely non-invasive. Refer to the paper “Roles of neutrophil-mediated inflammatory response in the bony repair of injured growth plate cartilage in young rats“. The PDF for the article is free for download.

I was made aware of the paper when I was trying to find relevant research that Cory Xian had done, since Tyler said that Xian was one of those people we should be following. This paper I did take the time to really look over extensively, and it just slightly hints at the idea that we might be able to change the progenitor cell lineage to something which it is not naturally supposed to go into.

Here is what you need to understand about the microbiological processes that seems to occur after the growth plates in a rat model were intentionally fractured and then analyzed.

Process #1: Inflammatory – This would be the initial injury induced inflammatory response, which is the automatic process that is activated when almost every part of the body is injured. What happens is that inflammatory cells, which comes in the types known as neutrophils, monocytes, lymphocytes, starts being rushed to the local area of injury. In terms of time, at least on the rat models, the first process lasts around 3 days, the maximum effect being around 1 day.

  • Process #2: Fibrogenic
  • Process #3: Osteogenic
  • Process #4: Bone Bridge Maturation

More Details On the Initial Inflammatory Response – The researchers have identified at least 5 different types of chemicals which will be stimulated to go towards the injury area. They include a chemokine, pro-inflammatory cytokines, and fibrogenic growth factors.

  • 1 type of neutrophil Chemotactic Chemokine – CINC-1
  • 2 types of Pro-inflammatory Cytokine – TNF-Alpha and IL-1Beta
  • 2 types of Fibrogenic Growth Factors – TGF-Beta1 and PDGF-B

What the researchers did was add a type of chemical which will decrease the number of neutrophil cell count. Quote: “Using an antirat neutrophil antiserum, a significant 60% reduction in neutro- phil count was achieved at the growth plate injury site”

(Side Note: The most interesting part of the neutrophil to pro-inflammatory cytokine stimulation is that while the antis-serum reduced the neutrophil count, it did not decrease the expression and numbers of the TNF-Alpha or the IL-1Beta (or the Fibrogenic Growth Factors like TGF-Beta1 and PDGF-B) . The reasoning is because besides the neutrophil expression increasing in the bone fracture site, there is two other types of cells which are rushed there, the monocytes and the lymphocytes, and the monocytes, which are also known as macrophage, are the other type of cells which really increase the expression of the Interleukin (IL-1Beta) and the tumor necrosis factor (TNF-Alpha). The results is that the number of MSCS which rushed to the local fracture sight was not not decreased. That suggested that the number of neutrophils in the growth plate injury sight had no real link to the amount of MSCs which will go to that growth plate injury area.)

The result of adding the chemical was that in the injury area, there was more bone tissue than cartilage tissue by ratio that had developed. This suggests that neutrophil cell types has the effect of at least shifting the osteogenic/chondrogenic ratio the other way. The researchers tested the osteogenic and chondrogenic gene expressors the SOX-9 and the COl-Type IIa and saw that the gene expressions were reduced. In reverse, the expression of bone cell differentiation transcription factor cbf-alpha1 and bone matrix protein osteocalcin, which create osteogenic tissue was increased.

If there is an injury aka fracture in the bones, the neutrophils would be able to help the fibrogenic growth factors to develop more cartilage progenitor type tissue and cells.

I quote the last sentence that is in the paper…

“These results suggest that an injury- induced, neutrophil-mediated inflammatory response may be involved in regulating downstream chondrogenic and osteogenic events, leading to bony tissue formation at the growth plate injury site; it appears to play a role in suppressing mesenchymal cell osteoblastic differentiation and increasing chondrogenic differentiation in the repair of injured growth plate cartilage”

It seems that one might be able to block the formation of bone bridges and keep the MSCs in the chondrogenic lineage if we could around the Fibrogenic or Inflammatory stage find some type of chemical to block the injury response processes from ever reaching the osteogenic stages.

It would be the pro-inflammatory cytokines the TNF-Alpha and IL-1Beta that we need to suppress while at the same type increase the number of neutrophils. The researchers did notices from their previous studies that if they did a local induction of chemokine IL-8 (or CINC-1 in rats) the neutrophil numbers would increase, but from past research, interleukin types are not good for cartilage tissue generation. The result of using the suggested IL-8 seems to be an increase in the macrophages in releasing the TNF-Alpha and IL-1Beta. So another chemical besides the IL-8 for neutrophil number increase would be needed. The researchers did say that The TNF-Alpha and the IL-1Beta are what will stimulate the fibrogenic growth factors to be stimulated so we might need to find a third compound to stimulate the fibrogenic growth factors while at the same time we decrease the levels of cytokine inflammation.

What ever chemical has that duo effect, when injected into the fracture area of a bone, might mean that cartilage type tissue, even if it is fibrocartilage in nature, would develop. Sure, we are talking about the growth plate response mechanism in rat models, but there is still some type of knowledge we can transfer for human application. If we do that, I believe that we might be able to create some type of pseudoepiphyseal cartilage layer, which can be slowly changed over time to be hyaline in nature, and then expanded for lengthening of the bones.