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You can help to make therapies for aging and life extension medicine a reality. Click here to participate in improving your future health and longevity!
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At least part of the first wave of real healthy life extension therapies seems likely to result from research into stem cells and regenerative medicine. Regenerative medicine helps natural healing processes to work faster, or uses special materials to regrow missing or damaged tissue. Doctors use regenerative medicine to speed up healing, and to help heal injuries that cannot heal on their own. Regenerative therapies have been demonstrated (in trials or the laboratory) to heal broken bones, bad burns, blindness, deafness, heart damage, nerve damage, Parkinson's and other conditions. Work continues to bring these advances to patients.
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Research undertaken in 2004 and 2005 suggests that adult stem cells - which become less effective at their job of repair and healing with age - could be rejuvenated, restored to action with the right biochemical cues. This exciting research offers additional opportunities for the use of stem cell research to extend healthy life span and the normal capabilities of a healthy adult.
Stem Cells and Aging at InfoAging
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Regenerative medicine will result in extended healthy lifespans, as we will be able to repair some of the damage caused by aging, organ by organ. Aging damages every part of our bodies, however - including our stem cells! Until we can address the root causes of age-related degeneration, we must learn how to regenerate every part of the human body. We must also become capable of reliably preventing and defeating cancer in all its forms and repairing age-related damage to the brain in situ - increasing risk of cancer with age cannot be prevented through regenerative medicine, and the brain cannot simply be replaced with new tissue.
All told, these tasks will prove to be a mammoth undertaking. Nonetheless, like all great advances in medicine, it is a worthy, noble cause. Today, hundreds of millions of people live in pain and suffering - and will eventually die - as a result of degenerative conditions of aging. Today, we stand within reach of alleviating all this death and anguish, preventing it from ever occuring again. We should rise to the challenge!
All of the most impressive demonstrations of regenerative medicine since 2002 have used embryonic and adult stem cells to trigger healing in the patient. A great deal of press attention, for example, has been given to successes in alleviating life-threatening heart conditions in Japan, the US, South America, and Germany.
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Stem cells are unprogrammed cells in the human body that can continue dividing forever and can change into other types of cells. Because stem cells can become bone, muscle, cartilage and other specialized types of cells, they have the potential to treat many diseases, including Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, diabetes and cancer. They are found in embryos at very early stages of development (embyonic stem cells) and in some adult organs, such as bone marrow and brain (adult stem cells).
You can find more information on stem cells at the following locations:
Embryonic and adult stem cells appear to have different effects, limitations and abilities. The current scientific consensus is that adult stem cells are limited in their utility, and that both embryonic and adult stem cell research will be required to develop cures for severe and degenerative diseases.
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Stem cell research is a hot topic in the press. It has been in the news non-stop since early 2003: not a week goes by without the announcement of a new and amazing advance. The first crop of simple stem cell therapies for regenerative medicine might be only a few years away from widespread availability. "Simple," because these therapies are on the level of transfusions. Stem cells are cultured from the patient's own tissue and then injected back into the body - new medicine doesn't get much simpler than that in this day and age. Researchers tell us that we are on the verge of a revolution in medicine as large as early successes in blood transfusion or controlling infection.
If you read enough of the literature, stem cells from your own body begin to sound like a miracle cure-all; culture them, return them to the body, and injured tissue begins to heal. It isn't anywhere near that simple, however, and this throwaway statement hides the many years of hard work by scientists to bring us to this point, as well as the many years of hard work ahead. Research continues, with a tone of excitement coming from the scientific community. They know they are onto something big.
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| Last updated April 06, 2007 |
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