i<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
This is a story about two people sharing one body. Maybe even three people. Or four.<\/p>\n
Back in the late 19th century, a German scientist named Georg Schmorl made a remarkable discovery: Cells from a baby can hide out in a mother\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s body, after birth<\/em>.<\/p>\n More than a hundred years later, scientists are just beginning to figure out what these cells are doing. And their findings may have implications for how cancer and autoimmune diseases affect women.<\/p>\n But the discovery also means something else. Something that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a bit mind-boggling: You likely have cells from your older siblings in your body. And cells from your grandmother, maybe even you great-grandmother.<\/p>\n Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s how.<\/p>\n Pregnancy has every element of an alien invasion, says Dr. Hilary Gammil, a fetal medicine expert at the University of Washington in Seattle.<\/p>\n The fetus has different genes than the mom. So in a sense, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a foreigner inside the mom\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s body. And the placenta literally invades the mother\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s body, Gammill says.<\/p>\n As the placenta grows, it reaches out and grabs onto the mom\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s arteries to control blood flow. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The human placenta is one of the most invasive placentas,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d compared to those in other animals, Gammill says.<\/p>\n This ensures the fetus has nutrients. But in the process the baby ends up giving the mother a gift. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a very large amount of fetal material that is sloughed off into the mother\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s circulation,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d says Dr. J. Lee Nelson, also at the University of Washington. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153This material is widely circulating in the mom\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s body.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n Nelson has been studying this rogue fetal material for more than 20 years. It contains DNA from the fetus, tiny pieces of the placenta and potent fetal cells. They travel around the mom\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bloodstream and sneak into her organs.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153They can go to the liver and become liver cells, or go into the heart and become muscle cells,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Nelson says. Fetal cells can even cross the blood brain-barrier and turn into neurons.<\/p>\n When scientists first started studying fetal cells in mothers, the cells got a bad reputation. They have been linked to preeclampsia and autoimmune diseases, such as scleroderma.<\/p>\n But, as time went on, more studies began to suggest that in some situations fetal cells can be beneficial to moms, Nelson says. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got to think of these cells as friends,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she says.<\/p>\n Scientists have found fetal cells in scar tissues, specifically scars left by C-sections. These cells make collagen. So the fetus could be helping the mom recover after birth by repairing wounds.<\/p>\n Fetal cells also are linked to an overall reduced risk of rheumatoid arthritis and thought to protect against breast cancer.<\/p>\n One hypothesis is that fetal cells may act like little sentinels, watching out for breast cancer cells and killing them. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t caught them in the act yet to say for sure that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what they are doing,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Gammil says. But some studies suggest this could be case.<\/p>\n For autoimmune diseases, the baby\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s genes likely determine whether the fetal cells are friends or foe Nelson says. Specifically, if a gene involved in immune recognition matches too closely to the mom\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s genes, the cells could trigger automimmunity. But otherwise, they may be protective.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Being an optimist, I think the benefits will outweigh the times when they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re problematical,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Nelson says. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153So it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s actually a beautiful cooperation.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n And it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not just the mom that gets an extra set of cells.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been talking about a very one-sided story \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6. This is a bidirectional process,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d says Amy Boddy, a postdoctoral fellow at Arizona State University who recently wrote a review on this topic.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Cells from the mom also cross the placenta and enter the fetal body,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Boddy says. And that means you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got your mom\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s cells inside you.<\/p>\n But it also means you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re likely closer to your older brother or sister than you might think.<\/p>\n Since your mom had cells in her body from all her other pregnancies and her mom, that means you likely have cells from your older siblings, and from your grandmother, and maybe even your great-grandmother.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You can keep going up the family tree pretty far,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Boddy says.<\/p>\n So far, scientists haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t actually seen these \u00e2\u20ac\u0153grandma cells\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in anyone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s body. But if they do exist, then it means we all walking around with a whole family tree inside of us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" i This is a story about two people sharing one body. Maybe even three people. Or four. Back in the late 19th century, a German scientist named Georg Schmorl made a remarkable discovery: Cells from a baby can hide out in a mother\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s body, after birth. More than a hundred years later, scientists are just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27000\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}