By Don C. Reed
Note: the author is neither scientist nor physician. Material cited is personal opinion or public documents. No connection is implied with cited individuals.
Half asleep in bed, I woke to a soft popping noise in my head. It had a bizarre side effect: I could only say a word if I visualized it, letter by letter in my mind, like “C-A-T “ in a spelling bee. I considered driving to the hospital, but did not do so–a serious mistake.
I had just experienced a stroke.
Since that night I have been cursed with a form of stuttering called aphasia, sometimes of a crippling nature, where the simplest vocabulary may vanish. It may take 30 seconds before I can speak, by which time the subject has often moved on…
Still it could have been much worse.
Stroke has been called the “number one cause of disability, the second leading cause of dementia (madness), and the third leading cause of death in adults.
In America alone, roughly “800,000 people will have a stroke this year… 140,000 will die of it…
“The actual stroke occurs when a blood clot blocks a vessel in the brain…cells begin to die within minutes…(1)
Side effects may include loss of body control, including paralysis.
Financially, the direct cost to America can be $35 billion per year. Indirect costs (like missed work) can triple that amount. (2)
How to fight stroke? “The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) is working to use different types of stem cells…to replace those lost during a stroke….and deliver cells into the brain. Other researchers are trying to activate stem cells already in the brain to repair the damage. There is even a special gel, a matrix (3) for nerve repair.”
What happens next? CIRM can provide a strong beginning, but it cannot do everything. Bigger projects are more suited to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), or more specifically the National Institutes of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS).
The NINDS was designed for bigger projects, to continue the most promising lines of progress, hopefully all the way to cure. Major cuts to the NINDS budget (such as we just experienced under the Trump Administration) will of course reduce our chances of defeating stroke.
We dare not go from one slashed budget to another. Millions are suffering, right now: not only from stroke, but from dozens of other chronic diseases.
There is no substitute for reliable funding. If the money is there, we have a chance to develop cure.
If not, not.
3. https://www.cirm.ca.gov/our-progress/disease-information/stroke-fact-sheet
https://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/12997#t=aboutBook