Stem Cells Can Repair Your Body and Reverse Your Aging!

Stem cells play a central role in regenerative medicine, an emerging field of medicine that aims to repair tissues or body organs damaged from injuries or chronic disease.  The popularity of regenerative medicine has increased because of two factors, one is the growing demands in organ transplantation and other is the desperate need to find a way to slow or reverse the natural process of ageing.


While regenerative medicine is considered new field, stem cell-based therapies such bone marrow transplants have been used for decades in treating injuries and chronic disease such as leukaemia. Likewise, epithelial stem cell-based treatments have been highly adopted as means to treat burns and corneal disorders.

Breakthroughs in medical researches and an understanding of the clinical applications of adult stem cells have expanded the areas in which stem-cell therapies can be applied.  One of these breakthroughs has revealed that our bodies have an abundant supply of regenerative cells such as mesenchymal stem cells, which can be found in adipose tissue (which is fat).

These regenerative cells in adipose tissues will soon pave the way for developing new treatments for a variety of diseases and conditions such as osteoarthritis, injuries, burns and most importantly aging.


Quick facts:

• Major body sources of stem cells include bone marrow, adipose cells, and the blood of umbilical cord (after birth).
• Stem cells have two unique properties: one is that they can clone themselves continuously and the other; they can reshape to mimic any of the different body cell types.
• Adult stem cells are type of cells with the ability to divide to replace dying cells. These cells, that can be found through out the body, has been the central topic of stem cell research because of their ability to regenerate damaged tissues.

Therapeutic applications

Thanks to the regenerative property of stem cells, several researches have been carried out to study and prove the viability of stem-cell therapies as potential treatments. A number successful clinical trials has shown the effectiveness of stem cell in treating certain diseases and medical conditions.


Skin burns:

The skin damage from third degree skin burns cannot be repaired with a traditional intervention alone. Currently the convenient way of replacing skin damage from severe burns is by skin transplant, either by obtaining the new skin from a donor or extracting it from another part of the body. Thus, Medical researchers have been searching for better ways to treat burns that doesn’t involve a sacrifice. The property of stem cells has led researchers to the hypothesis that these cells might be the answer for fast and effective burn wound management.

The main focus of stem cell application in burns wound care is to speed up the healing process of the wound. With stem cell administration, the medical practitioner is expected to achieve an earlier wound closure, rapid healing and ultimately prevention of and scar formation after recovery.

Stem cells derived from the umbilical have been used in treating patients with severe third degree burns. The treatment involved the use of artificial skin contain a combination of mesenchymal stem cells (MSC), agarose (a polysaccharide polymer) and fibrin (the protein that help in blood clotting). After applying the artificial skin on their skin, the patients have recovered within three weeks, nearly one third of the time it takes with conventional treatments.


Knee osteoarthritis:

Osteoarthritis is a joint disease that often occurs at old people and involves the degradation of joints, including subchondral, articular cartilage and bone. Patients suffering from Osteoarthritis often experience joint pain, stiffness, tenderness and occasionally an effusion.

Experiments on stem cell therapy have demonstrated the treatment’s ability to induce a profound healing in animals with osteoarthritis. For instance, a company under the name of Vet-Stem has experimented with stem cells in horses with joint deformities and revealed the stunning potential of these cells in accelerating joint healing. Besides healing of damaged tissues, stem cells can also modulate the immune system so as to shut off auto-immune responses while combating the diseases simultaneously.

The cells used in treating osteoarthritis are called allogeneic mesenchymal stem. They are obtained from human umbilical cords, often via a donation. The protocol in using these cells dictates that the mother must be tested for STD or other infectious diseases and her medical history must be fully screened before considering her child’s umbilical cord for a donation.


Aging:

Modern medical studies are continuously investigating the potential of stem cell in slowing the natural process of aging.  A recent study has shown that the aging is caused by of the inability of the stem cells in the body to continue replenishing tissues, thus maintaining these primary functionalities of tissues. The study has also indicated that the number of stem cells in young people is much higher than older people because of a better and more efficient replacement of stem cell in the young contrary to the old.

Ultimately, this leads to the conclusion that aging is not a matter of the increase of damage of tissues, but rather a matter of failure to replace these tissues. Therefore, an understanding of the molecules and processes that enable human adult stem cells to initiate self-renew and to divide and proliferate might be the key in curing aging symptoms as well as many age-related diseases such as Alzheimer.