She was at a wedding last summer when she suffered her fourth heart attack. Carron was hanging Japanese lanterns as part of her job when the 58-year-old event planner and mother of two felt the familiar pain in her chest. The doctor told her that she was on her last string and the next time could be her last. An evaluation showed that she was getting less than 50% efficiency from the right side of her heart. Stents didn’t work so they tried a defibrillator. When those measures proved unsuccessful, a heart transplant list got another name.

“All I could do was cry,” she says. “I just thought, ‘I’m about to die.’ There’s 100,000 people waiting for a heart.”

As autumn approached, her condition worsened.

“I couldn’t walk 20 feet without being on somebody’s arm,” Morrow says. “I couldn’t go to the mall. My legs just wouldn’t carry me. I knew I had really gotten worse.”

Her church rallied and offered support.

“Each time I’ve had one of these heart attacks, the church has surrounded me in prayer,” she says.

Carron’s health records were eventually sent to Texas thanks to her nurse. She had been researching adult stem cell therapy and had watched over Carron since her third heart attack. It was during her research that she learned of a groundbreaking study at the Texas Heart Institute.

“Within a month’s time, I was in Texas,” she says.

But the study would be limited, with only 30 people admitted. There would be 10 placebo patients, and 20 stem cell patients.

“I started praying,” Morrow says. “They called me at a quarter to five.”

More than a decade ago, the research began in Brazil, and now Carron would be involved with it.

The treatment was not approved by the Food and Drug Administration, and for the surgery to take place, she had to sign liability papers.

“My next choice was just to drop dead, so I signed everything,” she says, “and had full confidence in that group.”

Carron when into surgery on October 14th, 2006 – her birthday. From her left hip, 50cc of bone marrow was removed and stem cells were cultivated from the tissue. She was back in surgery only four hours later, and the right side of her heart was injected with 30 million stem cells.

Carron had a great deal of traveling to do after the procedure. She remained in Texas for nine days, but had to return every two weeks until January. All her plane trips were paid for by a local businessman who as a catering client of hers.

“I knew within two months something was going on,” Morrow says. “I could sing a whole song at church.”

By December, she “was plating food as hard as any other chef there.”

In April, “I had a huge wedding in Jackson, Mississippi. We put in 80 hours that week. My sister said, ‘Carron, you know you have the stem cells.'”

It was confirmed the following week in Texas: “This little bitty envelope had ‘stem cell’ in it.”

To measure her progress, she had another CT scan performed on her heart. She went to the University of Alabama for the scan this month, the same place where she was informed of her bleak outlook only a year ago.

“The doctor calls and says, ‘Ma’am, the right side of your heart is normal.'”

She had the scan results faxed to Montgomery because she was sure there had been a mistake.

“I was in la-la land for several days.”

On June 7th, she was on PBS in a featured documentary.

“I told the doctor, ‘I don’t understand why we have this huge political mess going on about stem cells,'” Morrow says. “I’m living proof that adult stem cells work far better than embryonic. And why should embryonic even be in discussion?”

“I’m here to say, ‘I’m living proof. It saved my life.”

“I’m just doing great.”

Her defibrillator is no longer needed, an $85,000 remedy that completely failed. Less than $600 was needed to culture Carron’s stem cells.

“This is going to revolutionize heart disease.”

“This community has been such a strength for me,” she says. “I am just so blessed. I feel so undeserving. I am not a perfect person. I just am overwhelmed with how good God is to me.”

“I have been given an opportunity

On the condition that the work does not involve human embryos, Pope Benedict XVI reiterated the Roman Catholic Church’s support for stem-cell research.

Adult stem cells exist in tiny numbers within developed organs. This was the topic of discussion at a conference at Rome’s La Sapienza University on research into the treatment of heart disease with so-called adult stem cells. The pontiff directed his comments at delegates attending the conference as he held his traditional weekly general audience at the Vatican.

The use of embryonic stem cells is controversial because harvesting the cells involves the destruction of a human embryo. The cells are created shortly after conception.

The church’s position is “clear,” the German-born pope said. “Scientific research should be rightly encouraged and promoted as long as it doesn’t hurt human beings whose dignity is inviolable from the very first stages of existence,” he said.

Based on a conviction that an embryo is a human being from conception and therefore its life cannot be interrupted, the church’s objections to embryonic stem-cell research are the same as its arguments against abortion.

Benedict’s predecessor, Pope John Paul II, outlined the Vatican’s position in a 1995 encyclical, “The Gospel of Life,” saying, “Human embryos obtained in vitro are human beings and are subjects with rights; their dignity and right to life must be respected from the first moment of their existence. It is immoral to produce human embryos destined to be exploited as disposable `biological material.”

When cord blood cells are transplanted to patients, a number of ailments have begun reversing their effects as records have proven. Research has shown that diverse treatment strategies for over 70 diseases can be derived from umbilical cord blood stem cells. Where re-growth of cells is necessary for treatment and bone marrow transplants are the current mode of treatment, research is being conducted to see the potential of cord blood stem cells in this category as well.

Researchers claim that bone marrow and its hemapoietic characteristics can be found in umbilical cord blood stem cells as well. The cells that make up the various organs throughout our body can be developed from these particular stem cells. To treat disorders that surface in the various organs, cord blood stem cells are typically chosen due to their versatility. But those suffering from blood disorders make up the majority of the recipients of cord blood according to records.

Platelets, white blood cells, and red blood cells can all be created by umbilical cord blood stem cells. Fanconi, Anemia, adult and child leukemia, lymphoma ,and most other malignant blood disorders are treated with cord blood stem cells for this very reason. Parkinson’s disease, immune system disorders, heart muscle disorders, cardiac diseases like heart attacks, severe spinal cord injuries, and some sight disorders, are among the life threatening diseases that have been successfully treated using umbilical cord blood stem cells.

Cord blood stem cell transplants are most commonly administered to those patients who decide to forgo the painful procedures involved with a bone marrow transplant. Children and young adults have been the primary recipients of cord blood cell transplants. One of the reasons for this is that as a recipient becomes larger, the demands of cell quantity become greater. Most often, the quantity required for adult treatment cannot be found.

Since they are the most primitive cells of the body, they are often referred to as “naive” cells. Thus, where tissue re-growth is needed , they exhibit the adaptability to form the cells of any respective organ. For this reason, the recipient’s immune response is less likely to reject the cells.

Fewer matches of cells can be found for ethnic and racial minorities. Individuals that fall into this category are encouraged to save their children’s umbilical cord blood so that it can be used by their family at a later date if needed. Finding genetically matched cord blood cells is difficult for a few other individuals as well. Others who should seriously consider cord blood stem cell banking are parents of newborn adopted children and those born though in vitro fertilization.

Preserving a baby’s cord blood stem cells makes perfect sense. Offering umbilical cord blood storage, cryogenic facilities or “cord blood banks” are accessible in nearly ever corner of the world today. Since the cells are useful in the treatment of many deadly diseases, they could potentially save a child’s life, or one of his or her siblings, or even another family member. Since it is relatively difficult to find a match for some, those individuals should strongly consider banking as well.

In order to repair the damage caused by heart attacks, British scientists will be trying a new method to treat the condition. Their hope is to regenerate tissue by using the patient’s own bone marrow. Stem cells taken from the marrow will be injected into the damaged hearts.

60 people who have recently suffered severe heart attacks will be involved in the trial which will be lead by Raimondo Ascione of the University of Bristol. The damaged tissue could potentially be repaired by stem cells that will be injected by Dr. Ascione during coronary bypass surgery. The cells have the potential to differentiate into the types of heart cells needed to fix that patient’s hearts.

About 230,000 people suffer a heart attack each year, making heart disease the biggest killer in the UK. Nearly one-third of those heart attack victims die. Because arteries get clogged with fatty deposits, blood supply is restricted, and this eventually leads to a heart attack. The hearts ability to pump blood is reduced when cells in the oxygen-deprived area die causing scarring.

“One in three people will die within two or three years and the remaining people will have a very poor quality of life,” said Dr Ascione. “Your exercise tolerance will be very poor, you will not to be able to enjoy your life. If this [experiment] works you will minimize this … the point of this trial is to do the bypass and try to repair the scar, to make it a viable muscle again.”

A type of stem cell that only forms about 1% of the bone marrow will be used for the experiment.

“This approach ensures no risk of rejection or infection,” said Dr. Ascione.

Scientists will conduct MRI scans of the patient’s hearts prior to the operation and six months afterwards.

“We expect that part we injected to be repaired and it will pump and contract properly,” he said.

Funding the trial with a