Florida, U.S., Taking stem cells are usually obtained from umbilical cord a newborn child is then stored in a special bank. It turned out that these stem cells are also found in menstrual blood that have the potential for treatment.

Menstruation is a woman’s monthly period which serves to clean the uterus to prepare for a potential pregnancy.

Now known that stem cells found in menstrual blood may potentially for the treatment of stroke, Alzheimer’s disease and Lou Gehrig’s disease or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

Umbilical cord blood and menstrual blood turned out to contain stem cells that have the ability to transform into various other cell types. The researchers explain in the journal Cell Transplantation that these two blood sources is easy to obtain.

Researchers from the University of South Florida and 3 private sector researchers are Saneron CCEL Therapeutics and Cryo-Cell International in Florida and Cryopraxis and Cell Praxis, BioRio in Brazil said this because these cells are immunologically immature so that it can contribute to the viability of the cells .

This is not only limited to mere theory. Stem cells harvested from menstrual blood has been successfully differentiated into neural cells in vitro (in lab). When these cells are put into experimental animals that had a stroke, then these stem cells can reduce behavioral disturbances in rats affected by stroke.

Julie Allickson as vice president of research and development of Cryo-Cell to explain how the decision of a woman’s menstrual blood to be stored. A tool such as cups of medical special silicone material is inserted into the vagina when women have a greater flow of menstrual blood.

The cup will remain in the vagina for 3 hours to get as much as 10-20 milliliters of blood, after it was issued and placed on a special tool to then be sent to the laboratory. Then the blood will be stored in blood banks for a period.

“Women have cells in the endometrium to regenerate monthly during the period of reproduction. These cells rapidly divide and produce growth factors. The primary mechanism is what we believe can help the improvement in animal studies,” said Allickson, as quoted from Healthland.TIme .

The researchers showed that stem cells from menstrual blood can be a resource that is much more recent than the umbilical cord blood. Even so there is still much to be done to make this a reality.