The ageing process adversely affects the quantity of the bone marrow stem cells, was the finding by the Indo-Japan joint working group of Nichi-In Centre for Regenerative Medicine (NCRM), Chennai published in Bone Marrow Research.

However an earlier study by Posvic et al., which had claimed that the stem cells of bone marrow don’t decline with ageing, has been questioned by the NCRM group based on their own findings. The NCRM group has given a thorough explanation reiterating the logic behind their findings, which has been published in the Journal of Gerontology, the official issue of the Gerontological Society of America.

The author of the article Dr Abraham has explained that their findings in more than 300 people of various age groups have proven that stem cells decrease in quantity with ageing and any generalization of a fact in contrary can be acceptable only when evaluated in larger number of healthy age matched controls without any comorbidity.

According to him, the NCRM team has been working on prevention of age related damages in stem cells employing physical and chemical maneuvers as well as synthetic nanomaterial and polymer based scaffold based tissue engineering or cryopreservation methodologies. The postponement of such age related changes may enable an enduring youthfulness.  The team is also working on enhancement of the immune system to prevent age related weakness in immunity to prevent cancer or viral infection both are known to be common with ageing.