Cerebral Palsy is experiencing dramatic improvements in disability after an experimental procedure involving a stem cell transplant.

Dallas Hextell, a 2-year-old from Sacramento, received an infusion of his own umbilical cord blood as part of a Duke University clinical trial. Within 5 days, he showed improvements in the limitations caused by his condition, and his parents are hopeful that a full recovery may be possible for Dallas by the time he is 7-years-old.

At 18 months, Dallas could not crawl, sit up, clap or speak. But within five days of his infusion last Jula, the child who had not been able to communicate was able to say “Mama,” and he is able to walk unassisted.

At the time of his birth in 2006, the Hextells chose to bank their baby’s umbilical cord blood. While this choice is expensive, it is increasingly popular among parents today. A number of private stem cell banks will preserve cord blood collected at the time of birth and store it for future medical use.

NOTHING IS COSTLY MORE THAN YOUR LOVED ONE’S LIFE.

John Aitken of the University of Newcastle in Australia says in a study published this week that cellular phones in men’s pants pockets damage sperm cells and their DNA.

Unlike previous studies that tested the effect of radiation on laboratory animals,  Aitken’s research group examined what happens to human sperm after 16 hours of exposure to mobile phone radiation. The study’s findings have been published in the journal Public Library of Science.

The study finds that a number of sperm-cell functions such as vitality motility were damaged following exposure. The DNA was also harmed. The researchers note that damage to sperm-cell function, not necessarily caused by radiation, is one of the main reasons that one out of 20 men in the world today suffer fertility problems.

Aitken, director of the Australian Research Council’s Center of Excellence in Biotechnology and Development, says the DNA damage may not have been caused by the radiation directly. Exposure to radiation causes electrons to leak from one part of a sperm cell to other parts, leading to oxidation processes that harm the DNA. The DNA damage affects other sperm-cell functions.

Microwave News, a leading Web site covering health and safety issues related to exposure to electromagnetic radiation, says the current study confirms Aitken’s study from 2005, which established a relationship between the use of mobile phones and reduced fertility among men.

“After 16 hours exposure, there was clear evidence of DNA damage,” Aitken is quoted in Microwave News from an address at a fertility conference in Brisbane last fall.

A study reveals that patients with Type I Diabetes Mallitus were diagnosed by clinical findings and hyperglycemia and confirmed with positive antibodies against glutamic acid decarboxylase.

Most patients became insulin free with normal levels of glycated hemoglobin after follow-ups. To investigate if this effect was due to preservation of beta-cell mass, continued monitoring was performed of C-peptide levels after stem cell transplantation.

C-level peptide measured during the test, before and at different times following HSCT. Morbidity and mortality from transplantation and temporal changes exogenous habits of insulin requirements (daily dose and duration of usage) at “Bone Marrow Transplantation unit of School of Medicine of Ribeirão Preto, Ribeirão Preto, Brazil”.

During 7 to 36-months follow-up, patients became insulin-free, but the conditions varied from a person to a person. Among those, 1 patient resumed insulin use 1 year after AHST. At 6 months after AHST, mean total area under the C-peptide response curve was significantly greater than the pretreatment values, and at 12 and 24 months it did not change. Anti–glutamic acid decarboxylase antibody levels decreased after 6 months and stabilized. Serum levels of hemoglobin were maintained at less than 7%.

After a mean follow-up months following autologous nonmyeloablative HSCT in patients with newly diagnosed type 1 DM, C-peptide levels increased significantly and the majority of patients achieved insulin independence with good glycemic control.