Cenegenics Carolinas First in Carolinas to Offer Adults Chance to Collect, Stem Cells

Jan. 27, 2009 - PRLog -- You don’t have to be a newborn to collect healthy stem cells from blood to guard against future health issues. Beginning this month, Cenegenics Carolinas will be the only facility in the Carolinas to offer a way to collect and store healthy adult stem cells to protect health.

Cenegenics, a preventive health and age management medical institute, has partnered with AssureImmune, based in Boca Raton, Fla., one of only three companies in the U.S. that collects and preserves adult stem cells, to offer this service to their patients. By teaming up with AssureImmune, Cenegenics can help its patients improve the health of their stem cells before they are collected.

Adult stem cells are nature’s master repair cells, according to Connie Araps, Ph.D., AssureImmune vice president of strategic planning and business development. They are produced in the marrow, regenerate our blood and immune system and circulate throughout our tissues and organs, seeking and repairing damaged and diseased cells.

“At Cenegenics we help our patients maximize their health and quality of life, which also helps improve the quality of their stem cells,” says Dr. Mickey Barber, CEO of Cenegenics Carolinas. “What better way to further protect our future health than to offer this breakthrough technology that is as simple as collecting blood, but provides health ‘insurance’ for our future.”

AssureImmune collects adult stem cells, a relatively new technology, from the peripheral blood of adults and older children, as well as stem cells from the cord blood of newborns. As one of the few stem cell banks in the world to use automated, computer-controlled equipment for processing and storage of the samples, AssureImmune is able to recover more viable stem cells from each sample. Additionally, they are the only company who produces duplicate samples and stores them at two different locations for back-up security. For more information about AssureImmune, visit www.assureimmune.com.

"People need to know that stem cells age just as we do, and thus it is critically important for individuals – regardless of age – to bank while they are healthy," says Araps. "Adult stem cell transplants from bone marrow or cord blood have been used by physicians for more than 40 years to treat debilitating conditions like leukemia, anemias and immune system dysfunctions, and the benefits of adult stem cell therapies increase daily. Today, there are over 2,000 clinical trials currently underway in the U.S. for the treatment of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, orthopedic conditions, etc."

Cost for the procedure is $3,395 per person and includes four years of storage. After four years, storage costs range from $219-$349 per year depending on the amount of time prepaid.

About Cenegenics Carolinas
Cenegenics Carolinas is a Charleston-based medical institute that helps patients manage the aging process through a customized regimen of exercise, nutrition and hormone optimization to improve their quality of life and help them feel healthy and years younger than their age. Headed by CEO Mickey Barber, MD, a board-certified anesthesiologist and former assistant professor at Tulane University, Cenegenics Carolinas is one of only seven Cenegenics centers in the country. For more information, call 843-724-7272 or visit www.cenegenics-carolinas.com.