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comment by veen
veen  ·  2814 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Show Hubski: Forever Labs

Very ingenious idea! Kudos for starting an entire company like that.

As a layman, I do wonder what the difference is in cell quality when they're extracted at age 20 / 40 / 60 / 80. Do the MSCs deteriorate, which is why it is beneficial to freeze them?





mk  ·  2814 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Yes, they do. They decrease in both number and in function (as measured by their ability to divide, and form new tissue, such as bone). Here are some various references:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26088863

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24607555

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25634304

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25096220

So when you are most likely to suffer from diseases these cells might treat, your own cells have loss much of their therapeutic potential.

One study that I found particularly interesting was that the number of circulating progenitor cells (cells expressing a stem cell marker) in octogenarians was predictive of longevity:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22449458