Sickle Cell Cure?
Sunday, October 21, 2007 at 06:55PM 
Just when you think you know everything something new comes up to slap you in the face. I’m enjoying a pleasant Saturday morning while watching the news when a report about a new treatment for Sickle Cell Anemia caught my eye. Dr. Yutaka Niihara along with colleagues of Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in California discovered that Sickle Cell patients can be treated with Glutamine L. But what freaked me out was when I decided to research upon this topic I found out that Dr. Niihara made this historical find over ten years ago! So why is it that local news is treating this like the man just made this find last week? I dunno. But check this out:
They found that the amino acid glutamine maintained the normal shape of red blood cells and kept the cells from forming the abnormal sickle shape. This was a remarkable finding. This discovery led to further work where glutamine was given to people who have SCD. Of the 7 patients in the study, all 7 had increased energy, 6 had increased physical activity and all 7 had a decrease in chronic pain over the one-month study. When blood cells of some of these patients were examined under the microscope, there were hardly any sickle shaped cells. The latest study by Dr. Niihara and associates showed that glutamine reduces the stickiness of sickled red blood cells. Stickiness or adhesion of red blood cells in people who have SCD is one of the main reasons that organs of the body are damaged. Glutamine decreases this stickiness and allows the blood cells of SCD patients to maintain a normal shape and move through the blood vessels more easily.
In another study, glutamine was provided for 24 weeks to children and adolescents who have SCD. A measurement was made at the beginning and the end of the study to determine the amount of energy it took for the patients to maintain normal cel function (metabolism). This is called resting energy expenditure. It is known that when a growing person uses a high level of energy just to maintain the body there is little energy left to support normal growth. The researchers found that glutamine supplementation decreased resting energy expenditure. The authors of the study concluded that glutamine may be able to improve growth in children who have SCD by reducing the amount of energy they burn just to maintain their bodies and channeling it into growth.
It has also been suggested that glutamine may decrease the frequency of infection in people with SCD although this has not yet been proven. In many other studies where people are at risk for infection such as people with extensive injury or burns, providing glutamine significantly decreased infections compared to a similar group of people who did not receive glutamine.
Reader Comments (5)
Things that make you go hmmmmmmmm
Shit, I was mad as hell when I found out how long they've been sitting on this maraculous treatment. In ten years I haven't heard of this glutemine treatment from ANYONE i.e. "The Today Show" or "60 Minutes" or even "NPR news".
Makes you wonder if the "idea" this is "Black" sickness has anythng to do with it...doesn't
Ex-fucking-actly. That's why negroes gotta understand that READING IS FUNDAMENTAL and THE PEN IS MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD at the very least. All this anti-intellectualism and other self-sabbotaging, self-defeating, self-destructive garbage too many black people invest their time into needs to be put to an end.
Another amazing thing is that we think theres no cure for SCD, but scientists have cures SCD many times using methods other than bone marrow transplants, They have cured it using stem cells from a child's sibling's umbilical cord, they have even cured it in persons using stem cells from their own skin.
Why isn't this info available and being mass tested so it can be administered to the public, really does make you wonder.