• Parkinson’s Disease: Can Stem Cells Help?




    So let’s jump right in.

    Parkinson’s Disease Lives In A Small Cell Cluster




    We Have Great Medications for Parkinson’s Disease


    Dopamine Agonists

















    We Have Awesome Surgery for Parkinson’s Disease








    surgeons Place Tiny Implants In The Brain






    So what is that best result?

    Brain Implants Are Crazy Effective


    It’s life changing.





    Stem Cells for Parkinson’s Disease?







    Now back to that speculation.

    Ways MSCs Might Help with Parkinson’s

    But what about other stem cells? Could they help too?





    Stem Cells Have Been Used to Treat Parkinson’s Disease


    very important note:





    end very important note








    People Should Not Be Selling Stem Cells for Parkinson’s Disease









  • Adult Stem Cells: What Are They Anyway?

    Adult stem cells pop up everywhere in the news, and yet, much like most of politics, it’s hard to tell what’s really going on with them. So today I’ll explain the most important adult stem cell concepts for you, the everyday, non-scientist, healthcare consumer. And hopefully won’t bore you to tears in the process.

    “Adult Stem Cells” Is A General Term

    In my last post I shared the earth shattering fact that “stem cell” is a very broad term, and unfortunately “adult stem cell” has that same designation. Recall that a stem cell, by definition, is any cell capable of copying itself and turning into a different kind of cell.

    A regular old stem cell that happens to be found in an “adult” tissue qualifies as an adult stem cell. And the whole adult designation misleads a bit, because it gives the impression of a stem cell found only in adults. But adult stem cells can be found in infants, the oldest person in the world, and everyone in between. Even Keith Richards.

    Now, I know you’ve memorized every word of my last blog post. So I don’t need to mention the fact that adult stem cells are found in almost every tissue in your body. And we can just move onto the most important kind of adult stem cell, the mesenchymal stem cell.

    Mesenchymal stem cells are the adult stem cell you hear about most frequently right now. But why?

    Mesenchymal Stem Cells Are The Most Useful Adult Stem Cells*


    I briefly touched on this topic in my last post, but I need to expand. Because these special adult stem cells are awesome.

    Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) show up for the first time during embryonic development. In this cute animation, early stage embryonic stem cells separate into three layers: ectoderm, mesoderm, and endoderm. We care about the mesoderm layer, which creates muscle, blood and blood vessels, bone, and connective tissue.

    During this super complicated process that somehow builds a complete human being almost every single time it happens, the stem cells from the mesoderm don’t disappear. Instead, some remain inside bones and hanging onto the outsides of blood vessels throughout the body, for literally the rest of a person’s life.

    These stem cells that came from the mesoderm and made the daunting commitment to stay with us our whole lives are mesenchymal stem cells.

    I know, a lifelong commitment seems pretty extraordinary. That must set them apart from all the other stem cells, right?

    Didn’t Benjamin Franklin say that 80% of success is just showing up? This must be what he was talking about, eh?

    Not exactly. First of all, Benjamin Franklin definitely didn’t say that. And second, MSCs have a variety of properties that make them A) wildly different versus other types of stem cells, and B) very powerful.

    Surprisingly, most of those properties aren’t the thing most of you are thinking. You know, the thing where MSCs can make muscle, blood, blood vessels, connective tissue, and bone? Right, not that thing.

    I’ve already mentioned the most useful characteristic of MSCs (in this other post): they live and function in the human body during every stage of development. So when we use them medically right now, they have all the signals they need to function correctly*.

    *When they come from your body and then go to work in your body. If they come from someone else’s body, that’s a different story.

    But, MSCs do so many other helpful things that they almost seem magical. Almost.

    Let’s dig into those other properties so you can love MSCs as much as I do. And know when they might come in handy.

    MSCs: Adult Stem Cells That Can Make Several Types Of Tissue

    In humans ranging in age from embryo to centenarian, MSCs live in bone marrow and on blood vessels. That means you can find them scattered throughout almost every part of your body.

    Despite living in so many places, MSCs still qualify as a rare cell type. They make up between 10 and 83 cells for every million cells in bone marrow and anywhere from 200 – 50,000 of every million cells in fat tissue.

    So how do they do such a great job making tissue if they’re so rare?

    Easy. They respond to homing signals.

    Remember how MSCs live in bone marrow and on blood vessels? That makes them sort of like the homeland security surveillance team of the human body. Except they’re more into tissue repair than stopping terrorism. See, MSCs are perfectly positioned to receive signals sent out by damaged tissue. And once they notice them, the MSCs follow those signals to their starting point where they then do the work of tissue repair.

    How do we know they actually make new tissue? Well this doctor used MSCs to repair broken bones, and this group used them to fix cartilage defects. This other group used them to repair cardiac tissue, and this one used them to grow blood vessels.

    And that’s just a tiny sampling of MSCs creating new tissue in real live humans.

    But MSCs do way cooler things that make them the best of the adult stem cells. So let’s talk about those!

    MSCs: Adult Stem Cells That Decrease Scarring

    We’ve all got scars, right? And I’m not just talking about the emotional ones from learning that no real live person EVER has Disney character hair. Ever. I’m talking about the physical scars (that hurt so much less, Disney).

    My most annoying scar lives on my forearm where a piece of rogue chicken wire got me. It bled like a fire hose and scared the crap out of my mom. She thought amputation was inevitable. She wrung her hands and audibly worried about the number of stitches I’d need, but luckily her fears were unfounded.

    That tiny cut became a scar that hasn’t changed in the last twenty years.

    So what happened?

    This awesome TedEd animation explains the process and is much easier on the eyes than all my words, so take a gander.

    In short, my chicken wire gash didn’t finish healing. My skin went through all the steps of healing right up until the last phase, remodeling, and just stopped short. This is probably why my mom was always complaining about  me finishing projects.

    Anyway, scars are a real thing that happen to most of us, and can sometimes interfere with our day to day lives. You may just not like how a scar looks, or a scar may actually keep you from moving the way you want. Either way,

    MSCs are the adult stem cells that can save the day.

    When MSCs arrive at the source of the homing signals (broken or healing tissue), they dump proteins onto the cells around them. Some of those proteins help the cells in the area to create tissue more like the surrounding tissue. Less like my shiny smooth forearm scar.

    Other MSC proteins also decrease the activity of malfunctioning scar cells. That allows the correctly functioning cells to make more of the new tissue, resulting in a less scar-like scar.

    Researchers the world over are currently looking for ways to use this MSC skill to improve severe scar cases. And if you’re reading this right now, you’ll probably see the results of those efforts in your lifetime. #WhatATimeToBeAlive

    MSCs: Adult Stem Cells That Kill Germs

    I’ve mentioned the basic function of the immune system before, but let’s review. Your immune system has two basic jobs: (1) distinguish between things that are you and things that are not you, and (2) kill things that are not you.

    Sounds pretty simple, right? Well then why do we get infections?

    Well y’all, sometimes things don’t work the way they’re supposed to. You might accidentally encounter a terrifying and rare bacteria in your neighbor’s hot tub. (That’ll teach you to go hot tubbing after Kenneth Parcell told you hot is the devil’s temperature!) Or you learn the hard way that grandma was wrong, and that milk really was too far gone.

    The point is: sometimes your immune system needs an assist. And in some of those cases, MSCs provide the assist. MSCs can supercharge the activity of regular immune cells, and they can fight invading microbes directly. They’ve also been used together with another kind of immune system adult stem cell to cure infected bones, and it worked!

    I must have you convinced that MSCs are THE adult stem cell, but I’ve got two more cool properties to share.

    MSCs: Adult Stem Cells That Control Inflammation

    Inflammation is a natural part of healing. In fact healing can’t happen without inflammation. So why would we need to control it?
    :: coughs loudly ::

    Sometimes things don’t work the way they’re supposed to. Instead of channeling the body’s healing cells and proteins to repair and replace damaged tissue, sometimes inflammation just hangs out doing nothing. Except causing trouble.

    Don’t worry though, MSCs can wrangle their fair share of troublemakers.

    MSCs actually make more inflammation controlling proteins than I would ever list here. But just for scale purposes, let’s say it’s on par with the number of ice cream flavors you can find at a Baskin Robbins.

    MSCs are so good at controlling inflammation that they’ve been used (in very small studies) to treat inflammation related diseases like Crohn’s disease and Lupus.*

    *Please note, these are early stage studies and not currently available treatments. If you have Crohn’s disease or Lupus, remain incredibly skeptical of anyone offering you a stem cell based treatment. Unless you hear “this is experimental” and “it probably won’t work, but it might,” the treatment likely leans in the direction of shady. And if you’re not sure, just shoot me a message! (Using the contact form, definitely not a gun, please.) <– I’m in Texas, so I have to say it.

    MSCs: Adult Stem Cells That Rescue Other Cells

    I love weird things, y’all. People, places, books, phrases. If it’s weird, I’m probably into it. And that’s been true since long before I moved to Austin. So don’t go blaming that personality quirk on the city of weird, because it’s all me.

    This fact is relevant on account of this last property being my favorite. Because it’s pretty weird and unexpected.

    MSCs save dying cells. As a kid fascinated with biology and chemistry, I never dreamed there were cells bumping around inside our bodies just waiting to counsel other cells when they despair of life. And yet, that’s exactly what MSCs do.

    See, sometimes things change in your body temporarily. In a heart attack, part of the heart muscle doesn’t get enough oxygen, which makes those heart cells hit the self-destruct button. And just like every over-dramatic villain movie, once self-destruct mode activates, it can’t be undone. Even if the temporary change has been addressed, and the heart muscle has oxygen again.


    Yes, you guessed it, your new favorite adult stem cell can save the day again.

    MSCs do a couple of different things that de-activate a cell’s self-destruct mode. They directly touch dying cells (like a hug, but for cells!), and they make proteins that prevent self-destructing cells from finishing the job.

    Isn’t that cool?

    Sometimes the results after MSC treatment seem like they’ve lasted way longer than they should have. And I think this property accounts for that. By saving some of the dying cells, the MSCs have a much longer lasting effect on the tissue. Because those saved cells can live for months or even years in some cases, all the while contributing to better tissue function and a happier human owner.

    Alright y’all, that was a whirlwind. If you stayed with me this whole time, thanks for coming along!

    If you’re still with me, let’s walk back through all that info real quick. And probably leave you wondering why the next three sentences weren’t this entire post.

    Just a quick recap:

    Adult stem cells are regular stem cells found in an “adult” tissue, which means all humans have them.

    Mesenchymal stem cells are the most useful adult stem cells, because they live and work in our bodies at every stage of developmentthey make new tissue, decrease scarring, control inflammation, kill germs, and save dying cells.



    Do you have questions about adult stem cells that I didn’t answer? Or did I make things super confusing? Let me know in the comments, or use the contact form to complain directly in my inbox!

    Thanks for reading, y’all!

    Photo by Louis Reed on Unsplash


  • The Top Five Things You Don’t Know About Stem Cells

    Girl Meets Stem Cells: A Short Story

    Y’all know the little career interest boxes they make high school students designate on standardized tests? As if fourteen year olds should really know what they want to be doing 30 years later. Well, when I took the PSAT, a million or so years ago, there was an option for bioengineering, and I had never heard that term before. So naturally, I checked it and never looked back.

    I correctly assumed that bioengineering would be the discipline in which smart people figured out what to do with stem cells, and I was obsessed with stem cells and the problems they would solve in my lifetime. At the time, the only stem cells I knew were embryonic stem cells, but the press was super convincing:

    Embryonic stem cells can grow any tissue in the human body!

    Embryonic stem cells can cure cancer!
    (fact: they were actually causing cancer)

    Embryonic stem cells will make you more popular and social!
    (that was just a lie I told myself while hiding in the back of the AP chem classroom, but I think it was totally helpful)

    As a person of adult age but soundly teenaged disposition, I have had to face this shocking but ultimately fantastic truth about stem cells:

    The majority of stem cell media coverage will lead you to completely incorrect conclusions about them.

    So today I’m covering the top five things you don’t know about stem cells but really should. Before I get into that, just to be clear, embryonic stem cells, and in fact all stem cells, will not make you more popular and social, no matter how fantastic a Disney movie that premise would make.

    Now that I’ve cleared that up, let’s move on to the top five things you don’t know about stem cells but should!

     1. There are as many different kinds of stem cells as there are flavors of ice cream.

    The term “stem cell” is as broad as the term “doctor.” In fact, the definition of a stem cell only provides two defining characteristics: they can make copies of themselves (self-renewal), and they can turn into a different kind of cell (differentiation). There are literally hundreds of different types of cells that meet this definition. Embryonic stem cells that can make exact duplicates of themselves OR turn into literally any cell type in the body. Hematopoietic stem cells can clone themselves OR turn into any blood cell. Mesenchymal stem cells, my personal favorite, along with making their own copies, can turn into connective tissue, cartilage, bone, and fat tissue.

    Every type of stem cell has unique properties that make them suitable for very different applications. A hematopoietic stem cell is great as a part of leukemia treatment, but it’s as useless at bone healing as I am at break dancing. Neural stem cells can become new neurons and glial cells, which may one day be an incredibly powerful tool in the treatment of neurological damage. But you probably won’t want to use them to fix that bald spot you swore you wouldn’t inherit from your dad.

    Each different type of stem cell functions correctly in a specific environment. Embryonic stem cells need the very specific environment only found in utero. If they are applied outside of that environment in a place where they cannot receive the intricately measured, timed, and delivered signals they need, they almost always cause a type of cancer called a teratoma. As I’ve explained a million times – embryonic stem cells are like adventurous children. If left to their own devices with no supervision, they’re probably going to play with matches and burn the house down. But, with the right signals (the ones only found in utero), they can make it out of childhood and become overly sarcastic scientists instead.

    Mesenchymal stem cells, a type of adult stem cell, are primed to function in the human body at all ages – from infancy to your centennial years. Since their natural environment is your body, at whatever age you are, they do what they’re supposed to do when used in your body. That’s why my co-authors and I titled our review paper, “Mesenchymal Stem Cells: Environmentally Responsive Therapeutics for Regenerative Medicine.”

    It’s incredibly important that anyone attempting to use stem cells in the treatment of any human injury or pathology chooses the right stem cell for the job. Nobody who ever needs brain surgery thinks, “I’ll just have this podiatrist down the street do it. A doctor’s a doctor, right?”

    So when you hear the term “stem cell” you should always ask – what kind of stem cell? And so should every media outlet that covers stem cells, especially when people have done irresponsible things with them. The type of stem cell matters, and in my experience, when people choose to do irresponsible things with stem cells, it is because they don’t understand the most basic properties of stem cells, including the most obvious fact that all stem cells are not created equal.

    For more information on the kinds of stem cells, including which ones are used in clinical practice right this moment, in this country, read this post that I haven’t written yet but will. Check back later for a live link, or join the email list!

    2. Stem cells live in almost every tissue in your body.

    Yes, your adult human body. They’re in your brain and in your muscles, in your bones, in your heart, and even in those jiggly parts you can’t lose without giving up carbs. Your body is literally chock full of stem cells at this very moment.

    What does that mean?

    It means that you and I are probably going to see some really wild stuff happen with medical advancements in the next 10-20 years. Most of my friends have heard me say this, so apologies to everyone who already knows: I fully expect to live to 120 and do handstands and cartwheels the whole time.

    Because of stem cells.


     3. Embryonic stem cells are the most useless kind of stem cells.

    Say whaaaaat?

    I’ll say it again. Embryonic stem cells are the most useless kind of stem cells. For now at least.

    You shouldn’t take my word for it though, so let’s break it down. Most of the applications in which we, living, breathing, hashtagging humans would want to use stem cells involve replacing or repairing some tissue inside our bodies. That means the stem cells would need to stay and live happily in our bodies.

    You know who has a lot to say about what stays and lives happily in your body? Your immune system. It has two basic jobs: (1) distinguish between your body and not your body, and (2) destroy and eradicate anything that qualifies as not your body.

    Now, are you an embryo?

    If you are, and you’re reading this, mazel tov – you’re probably the great white hope of this universe, and I hope you grow up to be kind and just funny enough to laugh at yourself all through middle school.

    For the rest of you, you’re not an embryo. Even if you’re in the reading audience identifying as your spirit animal instead of a human, you’re not an embryo. Unless your spirit animal is an embryo, in which case we need to talk about all the other possible spirit animals you could have chosen. White tigers, unicorns, mermaids, leviathans (because I still have nightmares about that movie), those teacup raptors from every Jurassic Park movie, and REGULAR RAPTORS. But I digress.

    Assuming you are not an embryo – if someone were to put embryonic stem cells in your body, what would happen? (Other than them doing their best to form a teratoma)

    Your always on, omnipresent immune system would recognize those cells as not your body. Then those not your body embryonic stem cells would be labeled with the molecular equivalent of giant flashing lights that say “DESTROY ME IN THE MOST VICIOUS WAY POSSIBLE IMMEDIATELY.” And then your immune system would do its job and kill them.

    So ignoring the fact that we still aren’t great at telling embryonic stem cells which type of cell to turn into, ignoring any of the many passionate views people have about them for personal/religious/financial reasons, embryonic stem cells are the most useless type of cells because they are not your cells. And as such, they can’t live in your body without copious amounts of immune suppressing drugs, just like an organ transplant.

    Important Note: There is a specific type of embryonic-like stem cell made from your own body that may turn out to be the next great advancement in medical science. I’ll cover them in detail in another post, because there’s way too much information about them and way too many cool things being done to cover them in this post.

    4. Clinical stem cell treatments are available in the United States, right now, and they DO NOT cost $50,000 – $100,000 cash.

    I have personally assisted hundreds of adult stem cell cases using mesenchymal stem cells from bone marrow. No, I was not there for procedural assistance. I’m not a medical doctor, y’all. Do you know how much med school costs???

    Because I’ve personally seen these cases, I know that there are hundreds if not thousands of qualified, trained physicians specializing in orthopedics, spine, pain management, obstetrics, aesthetics, and even some general practitioners who offer treatments utilizing adult stem cells from the patient’s own bone marrow. So why haven’t you heard of this yet?

    Believe it or not, doctors aren’t great at marketing, nor do they really learn much about it in med school. So most of them are depending upon word of mouth, or their favorite scientist, to get the word out.

    I say most, because there are some who are fantastic at marketing. They also often happen to be people who are charging what I would label as highway robbery prices. In this particular story (<– click the link), you see that one patient paid $30,000 for a stem cell treatment (administered in Mexico, which is a whole other issue).

    That’s not normal.

    You do not need to go to another country, and you do not need to pay tens of thousands of dollars or mortgage your home to get a legitimate stem cell treatment. I’ll do a separate post on which treatments are clinically sound and which you should avoid at all costs, because I could write an encyclopedia on that topic. For now, let’s just focus on the average and reasonable costs for adult stem cell treatments from bone marrow. For a single procedure, let’s say the most common – a knee arthritis treatment, you’re looking at an average cash price of about $5,000. Some places will be a little more, some places will be a little less.

    Where are these places? There’s this one in Colorado, this other one in Colorado, this one in Dallas, this one in Portland, this one in Cleveland, this one in Tyler, and a whole slew of others that I don’t have the time or space to list on this page.

    You know what else is awesome? Just last month, an insurance company announced that they will begin covering bone marrow derived adult stem cell treatments as a way to provide better care to their customers. You can bet that more will follow, and I predict that within three years, all major insurers will have jumped on this band wagon. These kinds of treatments are better for patients, and they’re actually about 1/5 – 1/10 of the cost of currently available and covered treatments.

    5. Stem cells are not magic. Stem cells are science.

    If you’ve attended any of my presentations, you’ve heard me say this ad nauseum. Stem cells are not some kind of magic bullet panacea that will fix anything we throw them at. When physicians (or people posing as them) assume they are, people get hurt, sometimes irreparably.

    In order to use their powers for good, we (the scientific and medical community) have to educate ourselves on the mechanisms by which stem cells can or could treat a particular injury or pathology. We need to consider the environment from which they are coming as well the one in which they will be placed. We need to read up on the literature. We need to understand how this group grew cartilage with their patient’s bone marrow derived stem cells, and how this doctor treated osteonecrosis with them. We need to appreciate the science behind this doctor’s treatment of fractures that wouldn’t heal.

    There is a wealth of information on stem cells, a 30+ year history of safe and effective use of bone marrow derived stem cells in orthopedic treatments, and textbooks full of information on why this particular cell type seems to work so well.

    Do we have all the answers?

    Absolutely not.

    But do we have enough of them to make operating in the dark, closing our eyes and hurling them at macular degeneration or cerebral palsy, inexcusable?


    When we embrace the knowledge behind stem cells, everyone wins.

    And that, y’all, is science.

    Image adapted from ZEISS Microscopy from Germany [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

  • References Matter | Click The Links!

    Y’all, one of my favorite people called me yesterday and reminded me to discuss my references soapbox. I can’t believe I haven’t done it yet, because standing on a soapbox is literally the only time I make it to average height.

    Here’s what’s up:

    There are metric tons of misinformation in the media, especially the mother ship of fake news, social media. Most of that misinformation is actually pretty easy to recognize, because it’s not supported with any real references.

    What do I mean by “real references”? Let’s break it down.

    Real References Are Peer Reviewed

    First of all, Gwyneth Paltrow’s blog is not a real reference. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t know that bacteria are actually necessary for our survival, so her 3 am epiphanies about feminine hygiene do not qualify as legitimate information.

    Now, there’s no real way to ensure that any piece of scientific evidence is 100% bulletproof. But the scientific community has several principles that ensure we get as close to bulletproof as possible over time. The first of those principles is peer review. You can read the different takes on peer review from Wikipedia, Elsevier, and Wiley, but they all say essentially the same things.

    Peer review maintains standards of quality, improves the science, and provides credibility for published data.

    The process is pretty simple. An investigator (scientist, doctor, enterprising fifth grader) documents how they did an experiment, their results, and what they believe those results mean. They then submit that documentation to a scientific journal. If the submitted information is strong enough, the journal shares it with individuals who are knowledgeable in the area of investigation. Those individuals (peer reviewers) then go through the entire document with a fine toothed comb. If they find a problem with the manuscript, they send it back to the original investigator for additional experiments, revised conclusions, and any number of other modifications intended to increase the quality of the information.

    Peer Review Rejects Flawed Attempts At Science

    Most publications are not accepted for publication without changes, and the vast majority will go through at least two rounds of revisions before the reviewers deem it high enough quality to share with the world.

    And – the scientific community actually rejects a significant portion of submitted manuscripts for scientific shortcomings. This applies only to situations in which the reviewers find scientific shortcomings too serious to be fixed through the process of peer review, but it happens fairly often. It also protects the integrity of published information by preventing mass-distribution of incorrectly reasoned or executed experiments.

    Real References Include Statistics

    Listen, I hate statistics too. Believe me. But much like a Good Housekeeping seal of approval or a great score from Consumer Reports, statistics help us determine whether or not we can trust data.

    Let’s say you’re doing an experiment. You want to see if fifth grade girls carry the same amount of gum as fifth grade boys. You bump into one fifth grade girl who has 2 pieces of gum, and one fifth grade boy who has 4 pieces of gum.

    At first blush, it seems like you could say that fifth grade girls do not carry the same amount of gum as fifth grade boys. But this is where statistics would help. If you did a simple test on your data, you would find out that your data is not significant – i.e. statistics say that the 2 pieces of gum for the girl and the 4 pieces of gum for the boy aren’t necessarily different. Probably because your sample size – i.e. the two kids you polled – was too small.

    Now, if you expand that experiment to polling 500 fifth grade girls and 500 fifth grade boys, you might find out that girls have 2.3 pieces of gum on average. And boys have exactly 3 pieces of gum on average. Well those two are actually closer than our first small poll, right?

    But statistics takes into account the fact that your second poll involved 1000 kids instead of just two. And then statistics say that the difference between 2.3 pieces of gum is significant. Statistically significant.

    That’s an important phrase – statistically significant. It’s your neon flashing light saying “this data matters.” You don’t have to know what a p-value is or a chi squared test. You can even skip right over t-tests and quartiles. All you really need to know is that published data with real value is statistically significant. And the authors will usually come right out and say, “our results were statistically significant.”

    Statistics involve many more subtleties, and I refuse to execute that deep dive until someone requests it.

    Because I hate statistics too. I just know they’re necessary. Like doing laundry and not wearing yoga pants to work.

    This Blog Includes References and Statistics

    Sort of. I absolutely include references. Any time you see me mention a study, a researcher, an investigator, the word is a link to the study. Every single time. If ever you can’t find a link, that’s a mistake. So let me know, please!

    I will not include the actual p-values and statistical information you might find buried in the scary parts of my dissertation. If you want information like that, please find the mustiest part of your local university library and go nuts. Or click the links to the studies.

    In this blog, I will include statements about statistical significance. Like in this post, where I say there is a “real statistical difference” between the two groups of women tested. Or in this one where I make several statements including the fact some data was not statistically significant.

    Reliable Data Can Be Repeated

    When a scientist is lucky enough to achieve statistically significant results, either through a deal with the devil or a well-designed experiment, the data still isn’t beyond question. Once published, other researchers around the world execute their own similar experiments, building on or directly repeating the original experiment.

    That’s how people discover what turn out to be the biggest scientific scandals ever. Bunches and bunches of scientists repeat experiments without arriving at the same results as the original publication, and then the internet yells about it. A lot. All leading to the giant discovery that either someone lied about their original data, or they left important information out of their methods.

    Repeatability also leads to what we call scientific consensus. Science Moms actually do a pretty great commentary on the value of scientific consensus in this video. The gist is that over time, scientists all over the world repeat and build upon previously published data. Eventually the scientific community as a whole arrives at a consensus, an accepted agreement that the original data is valid. Because. So many people directly reproduced it or built further data upon the validity of the original data.

    Is This Reference Legit: A Checklist

    As you’re scrolling through Facebook, wondering why your grandmother posts so frequently about the health benefits of red wine, use this checklist to decide if grandma knows her stuff.

    Or is just an apologetic wino.

    • Is there a reference for the stated “facts”?*
    • If so, is that reference peer reviewed?*
      • Not sure?Go to PubMed and search for it. If it’s in PubMed, it’s probably peer-reviewed.If it’s not in PubMed, try Googling the publisher. If it’s a legitimate journal, they will have a site and an explanation of their peer review process.No site, no explanation of peer review? Not legitimate.
    • Does the reference say the results were statistically significant?*

    If you answer yes to all of the starred question above, the reference is probably be legitimate. As with all things, there are exceptions. But this list will get you to the right conclusion 95% of the time.

    Not sure if a reference is legit? Don’t have time to check it out yourself? Just do what my fabulous friends do, and ask me in the comments or send me a message!

    Photo by Sunyu on Unsplash

  • Does Pregnancy Accelerate Aging?

    URGENT DISCLAIMER: I have never been pregnant, so I have no personal experience with any of the real life side effects of pregnancy. I am in awe of those of you who do. Several of my brave friends have shared a few choice tidbits, which is how I know that pregnancy is not for the faint of heart. Well, that and a lot of science.

    Anyway, the reason for this post is a recently published study in which the authors have boldly declared that pregnancy does in fact accelerate the aging process. This is what they’ve titled their study:

    Reproduction predicts shorter telomeres and epigenetic age acceleration among young adult women

    I can already hear my friends – of course pregnancy accelerates aging! Because it ends in children, and children give their parents gray hair and heart disease. They’re always finding that one outlet you forgot to cover, mouth kissing the dog, and discovering their acrobatic skills on the second story balcony, precariously balancing twelve feet from the concrete floor that now seems like more of a health hazard than a “sleek feature for the modern homebuyer.”

    And also, our mothers have been loudly beating this concept into our brains pretty much since birth.

    But science says (1) your mom was right (Take a moment to get your arms around that. If you’re struggling, remember that no one can make you tell your mom that she was right.), and (2) babies actually do even more to steal away their mothers’ youth*.

    How exactly do they accomplish this? Well, first, take heart. Your baby isn’t using it’s tiny fingers to damage your DNA. Technically, your body is doing that. The biochemical processes involved in pregnancy shorten the ends of your chromosomes and they alter a process involved in DNA traffic management*, both of which contribute to aging at the cellular and molecular levels.

    Telomeres Keep Your DNA Young

    Your genetic material hangs out in chromosomes, the three-dimensional DNA sculptures found in the nucleus of each and every one of your cells. Every time a cell replicates, and most of the cells in your body do that pretty frequently, it copies that DNA and passes it on to the new cell. For the process to go off without a hitch, the cell uses a complicated system that I’m going to grossly oversimplify and probably offend any molecular biologist who stumbles upon this post. But, if you’re not a scientist, you’ll get the take-home message. And that’s why I’m here.

    Imagine that your chromosome is just a straight line, not a complicated three dimensional shape. At the end of that straight line is a little tail that we call a telomere. The telomere exists to make sure that your DNA is copied completely and faithfully, so that you don’t lose any important information toward the end of your DNA strand. The DNA copying process looks kind of like this:

    telomeres shorten during pregnancy

    It takes TONS of cycles (yes, that is the technical scientific term for it) of cell division for telomeres to get short enough to cause real problems in your cells. But, when that happens, the problems are very real. The cell with the short, sad telomeres (or none at all) will enter a phase called senescence, which basically means that the cell stops working correctly and may die.

    Fortunately for most of us, our bodies make this cool enzyme that adds pieces back to our telomeres after they’ve been lost. Kind of like when you lose your favorite t-shirt. You think you’ll never see it again, but then it turns out your mom just sewed the sleeve back on for you, and you get another 15 years with it.

    So, what does that have to do with pregnancy and aging?

    Pregnancy Shortens Telomeres*

    Yep, this study investigated a group of women, average age 27 years old, who had experienced varying numbers of pregnancies. Here’s the breakdown:

    0 Pregnancies | 507 Women
    1 Pregnancy | 174 Women
    2 Pregnancies | 102 Women
    3 Pregnancies | 28 Women
    4 Pregnancies | 7 Women

    When they analyzed the effects of pregnancy on telomere length, they found that each additional pregnancy generated between 0.34 and 3.67 years worth of telomere aging. This finding was determined after controlling for other variables like age. So it wasn’t just that older women were more likely to have been alive long enough to have three pregnancies. There was a real, statistical shortening in telomere length as a result of additional pregnancy.

    These researchers found something else kind of interesting. Additional pregnancies don’t seem to affect future fertility.

    So even though each pregnancy ages mom’s cells, it doesn’t seem to affect her ability to inflict that damage on herself again with another pregnancy.

    Pregnancy Changes Your DNA*

    Sort of.

    This study also investigated the effects of pregnancy on something called DNA methylation, which the video below hilariously explains.

    Basically, methylation alters the parts of your DNA that can be expressed. It doesn’t add or subtract information, it just hides or shows it. Kind of like when you’re supposed to be reading your history book but you’ve put Harry Potter inside your history book. You’re not learning history, but the information is still there for when you’ve had enough Hogwarts for the day. I know there’s no such thing. Just use your imagination.

    Back to this methylation issue.

    Your cells run into a lot of problems when methylation gets in the way of their normal functions.

    The researchers in this study assessed what they call DNA-methylation age, and it turns out pregnancy affects that too*. Each additional pregnancy in the study increased DNA-methylation age by between 0.29 and 0.63 years. 

    What Does It Mean?

    Don’t start blaming your children for the fact that you can never find your sunglasses just yet. Unless they’re relentless little kleptos, in which case, please carry on as usual.

    For the rest of you, as is often true in science, one study is not definitive on its own. At least not for the whole population.

    Another study from 2017 looked at the same basic concepts, and you know what they found? Something completely different.

    The CARDIA Study actually began in 1985 and has been conducted exclusively in the United States. At the 20 year follow-up point, 72% of the original 5115 subjects were still reporting their data, which is kind of amazing in and of itself. #GeekMoment

    More interesting to me is the fact that this study found no relationship between number of pregnancies and telomere associated aging.

    Note: The study at the beginning of this post was done in the Phillipines.

    Given the conflicting information between these two very different populations of women, I’d venture to say that pregnancy does age your cells. If you happen to live in the Phillippines and possibly other places in which the conditions of pregnancy create the same cellular conditions.

    No Really, What Does It Mean?

    Well, we know women in the Philippines experience aging at a genetic level during pregnancy, adding years to the state of their genetic code. We also know that the same isn’t true for women in the United States.

    So what’s the moral of this story? If you’re going to have a baby, and you’re choosing between pregnancy in the US or in the Phillippines, choose the US.

    It’s science, y’all!

    *All starred statements only apply to the subjects of the Philippines study.

    Also, scientist gripe: that study title was all kinds of wrong. For science. Here’s an appropriate modification:

    Reproduction predicts shorter telomeres and epigenetic age acceleration among young adult women IN THE PHILIPPINES


    Photo by Arteida MjESHTRI on Unsplash