A healthy appetite - foods and stem cells
 

1: Stem Cells Dev. 2006 Feb;15(1):118-23.

Nutraceuticals synergistically promote proliferation of human stem cells.

Bickford PC, Tan J, Shytle RD, Sanberg CD, El-Badri N, Sanberg PR.

Center of Excellence for Aging and Brain Repair, University of South Florida
College of Medicine, Tampa, FL 33612, USA. pbickfor@hsc.usf.edu

A viable alternative to stem cell transplantation is to design approaches that
stimulate endogenous stem cells to promote healing and regenerative medicine.
Many natural compounds have been shown to promote healing; however, the effects
of these compounds on stem cells have not been investigated. We report here the
effects of several natural compounds on the proliferation of human bone marrow
and human CD34(+) and CD133(+) cells. A dose-related effect of blueberry, green
tea, catechin, carnosine, and vitamin D(3) was observed on proliferation with
human bone marrow as compared with human granulocyte-macrophage
colony-stimulating factor (hGM-CSF). We further show that combinations of
nutrients produce a synergistic effect to promote proliferation of human
hematopoietic progenitors. This demonstrates that nutrients can act to promote
healing via an interaction with stem cell populations.

PMID: 16522169 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]