(Continued from STEM ENHANCE and Bone Marrow Regeneration)
Stem cells have the unique property of being able to reproduce indefinitely. While stem cells can create more of themselves, they also give rise to specialized cells, tissues, and even organs when these need repair or replacement. Early stage embryos consist mainly of stem cells, while in adults, stem cells are not as abundant but are found in nearly every tissue and organ of the body. The bone marrow, however, appears to serve as the major reservoir for stem cells.
Every day, your blood vessels are injured and need repair. This blood vessel damage results from the wear and tear on these delicate inner linings from cholesterol, fats, sugar, hypertension, etc. and leads to their degeneration into atherosclerosis, heart attacks and strokes. These blood vessel injuries have been shown to be healed by stem cells that come out of the bone marrow and circulate in the blood. Indeed, one of the reasons that we grow old and die is due to aging of our stem cells which lessens our body’s ability to repair these daily inner blood vessel injuries. This creates ever-escalating blood vessel disease after the age of 60 with increased calcium deposition and the formation of atherosclerosis.
A person’s own bone marrow stem cells have been shown to be helpful in treating heart attacks and congestive heart failure. Bone marrow stem cells injected into damaged tissues such as those found in a heart attack or brain attack (stroke) have a number of healing properties. Scientists have discovered now that bone marrow stem cells have actually become identical to the surrounding tissue, depending upon which cell type they are injected into. Another way stem cells help injured tissues to heal is by the release of growth factors into the damaged tissues.
In this article of Regenerative News, we are focusing on osteoarthritis, which is otherwise known as degenerative joint disease or DJD. Osteoarthritis is one of the most common causes of pain and disability in middle-aged and older people. The mechanisms responsible for osteoarthritis remain poorly understood, but researchers have learned that the degeneration of joint cartilage is not simply the result of aging and mechanical wear, but also due to lack of repair of the weight-bearing joint cartilage and the underlying bone due to depletion and/or functional alteration of stem cells. This would suggest that in joint diseases such as osteoarthritis, providing the deficient stem cells would contribute to normal healing. Up until now surgeons could only clean up and remove either the whole joint or joint surfaces with the hope of decreasing symptoms and restoring or maintaining a functional joint. But now that your own bone marrow stem cells are available, this has all changed — recent work has shown the potential for the restoration of a joint surface! We believe that the use of your own bone marrow stem cells, especially in combination with other healing and anti-inflammatory therapies could be of tremendous benefit for you now as an arthritic—not in some unknown future time after all the debates about embryonic stem cells die down.
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