How Treatment of Autism is Possible Through Stem Cell Therapy?

1. How Treatment of Autism is Possible Through Stem Cell Therapy? Gracie was diagnosed with the rare disease, Autism when she was just 2. Gracie was one of the 25 children who were involved in a study at Duke University. The goal was to see whether a transfusion of their own cord blood stem cells could help treat their autism. Fortunately, results were positive and impressive. More than two-thirds of the children showed improvements and Gracie was one of them. Though she still suffers from the disease, she is more on the normal path. Now, she is even attending a regular school and is successfully thriving there. The story of Gracie has given new hope to autism patients. Cord blood stem cell storage and stem cell therapy have now become an effective and safe method of autism treatment in the medical industry. Many children suffer from autism all across the world with autism spectrum disorder ranging to different degrees. How umbilical cord stem cells are obtained and why they are ideal for treatment of autism? The adult stem cells used for the treatment of autism is collected from the umbilical cord of a newborn baby, just after the birth. Before they are approved for the treatment, they are screened for infection. Stem cells retrieved from cord blood are ideal for the treatment of autism because they allow the physician to administer uniform doses. Stem collection from the patient’s bone marrow can be an arduous process, especially when the patient is a child suffering from autism. As cord blood stem cells are collected right after a normal and healthy birth, they are much potent than their older counterparts (stem cells derived from bone marrow). In addition, cord tissue-derived mesenchymal stem cells are not recognized by the body as foreign. As a result, they pose no rejection risk! There are many advantages of treating autism with umbilical cord stem cells; like, the most suitable stem cells with anti-inflammatory activity, ability to stimulate regeneration and immune modeling capacity can be screened and chosen. Besides, umbilical cord tissue provides sufficient supply of mesenchymal stem cells. In bone marrow stem cell transplant, chemotherapy drugs are used to stimulate the bone marrow to produce granulocytes and stem cells; but cord blood storage omits this need. Every cloud has a silver lining, and umbilical cord stem cell therapy is the new hope for autism patients. As the stem cells collected from cord blood has been already helping patients to treat more than eighty diseases, parents are indeed taking a wise step to bank the cord blood of their babies.