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Fetuses Provide Stem-Like Cells to Mothers

Posted by timothy on from the hedged-language-until-proven dept.

Flatline5150 writes "Excerpt from this article on Boston.com: 'Many a pregnant woman has moments when her fetus seems like a little parasite, all take, take, take. But new research suggests that a fetus may also be giving back a lifelong gift: cells that appear to act like stem cells, migrating to diseased organs in the mother and trying to fix them.'"

7 of 155 comments (clear)

  1. previous research... by Blob+Pet · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm not surprised since previous research has shown that a mother's cells can exist in the blood stream of an offspring several years after birth and the mother's blood stream can contain the offspring's cells as well.

    --
    "...today consumers have been conditioned to think of beer when they see a bullfrog..."
  2. Life expectancy? by booch · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Wow, very interesting. I wonder if that has any effect on life expectancy. I.e. is it part of the reason women live longer than men? It would be interesting to see a study comparing mothers versus non-mothers. Although I suspect that the process of raising kids might have a life-reducing impact, counter-acting the overall numbers.

    --
    Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
    1. Re:Life expectancy? by TheLink · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Not necessarily. Women who don't get pregnant do live fairly long too. Some studies do indicate they're more prone to ovarian cancers, but that may be because having too many periods is not so good for health (counterproductive one might say ;) ).

      Also the stem cells are there, but they may be a cause or contributing factor to the disease. Perhaps the woman's immune system has been "detuned" to not kill those stem cells, and because of that detuning it's not so good at killing diseased cells (malignant/nonmalignant tumours, malfunctioning cells).

      My guess is it's just not so simple - a case of you win some, you lose some, e.g. if the stem cells are good/compatible you win overall, if they aren't, you lose. You could even lose pretty bad.

      So ladies, pick your breeding partners very carefully ;).

      I wonder which scientists are going to do long-term studies on "Long-term health effects on human females breeding with multiple partners of disparate DNA"...

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  3. No need for a 'stem cell battle' after all? by zaphodchak · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It seems to me as though this debate could possibly end a long-standing conflict about whether fetuses should or should not be harvested for valuable stem cells, which have various and sundry medical applications. This debate has been similar to abortion, but it seems now as though these cells that are produced might be able to be harvested alone, with no harm to the child, the mother, or the pro-life lobbyists. ;) It seems like a bona fide solution which would allow for stem-cell-like research without need to harvest fetuses. The only problem now remaining is how to extract these cells.

  4. Re:mmmmmmmmmm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I wonder if this is the basis for the tradition of eating the placenta after birth? It seems to me that it would give a decent evolutionary advantage over organisms that did not exhibit this behaviour.

  5. Re:Exciting by Hungus · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Life is life. People are people. I personally was a bit upset when I found out I had 12 brothers and sisters sitting around frozen.

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  6. Re:Exciting by RedCard · · Score: 2, Interesting

    And this makes them any less valuable because?
    The skin cells I shed are dead and were only a temporary part of my being. Designed, implemented and affected to live for some amount of time die and be removed. This is very much different from a child who needs to move 6 inches to be given actual legal rights in this country.

    Actually, in some sense, one could argue that the skin cells you shed are much more valuable than a clump of ~75 undifferentiated fetal cells.

    After all, your skin cells have served a purpose. They have acted as a barrier to prevent diseases and other chemical and environmental agents from infecting your body, they have acted to help regulate various other functions necessary to your survival. They have proven themselves to be viable, and have served to continue your survival.

    Those skin cells, as part of your person, had all the legal rights that you did.

    Your "brothers and sisters" were no doubt harvested and preserved with a significant amount of help from the medical professional establishment.

    But wait! Your skin cells still contain a complete copy of your genotype, and with various heroic medical contrivances, I could conceivably cause another 'you' to be grown from them. (Don't believe it's possible? That's what they first said about IVF. Wait 20 years.)

    So it's entirely possible for one to argue that your shed skin cells are just as valuable as a blastula.