ITWire

The researchers used the menstrual blood from nine female humans. They put the menstrual blood cells in vitro (under laboratory conditions) with cells from the hearts of laboratory rats.

Within three days about twenty percent of the cells within the combination began to beat on their own. The cells eventually formed tissues similar to what is found in the heart muscle.

The researchers saw improvement in the condition of the hearts of the rats after the menstrual blood cells were inserted.

One of the Japanese researchers, Japanese cardiologist Shunichiro Miyoshi, with the School of Medicine at Keio University, stated that their success rate from the use of menstrual blood cells is about one hundred times higher than the 0.2 to 0.3 percent from research with stem cells taken from human bone marrow.

Their higher success percentage is thought to be the result of menstrual blood containing precursor cells, which can be developed into cardiac stem-cell material.

According to these researchers, the precursor cells from menstrual blood have greater potential for repairing heart damage than does stem cells from bone marrow.

The result of their research appears on April 17, 2008, under the title “Novel Cardiac Precursor-Like Cells from Human Menstrual Blood-Derived Mesenchymal Cells” in the journal Stem Cells.

The authors of the study include: Naoko Hida, Nobuhiro Nishiyama, Shunichiro Miyoshi, Shinichiro Kira, Kaoru Segawa, Taro Uyama, Taisuke Mori, Kenji Miyado, Yukinori Ikegami, ChangHao Cui, Tohru Kiyono, Satoru Kyo, Tatsuya Shimizu, Teruo Okano, Michiie Sakamoto, Satoshi Ogawa, and Akihiro Umezawa.

The scientists are associated with: Keio University, the National Research Institute for Child Health and Development in Tokyo, Tokyo Women's Medical University, and Kanazawa University.

The abstract to their paper follows on the next page.