How saving their baby teeth could help save children’s lives
January 22nd, 2014 11:44 amYorkshire (PRWEB UK) 21 January 2014
Ongoing worldwide research is consistently proving that stem cells will be a cornerstone of medical treatments in the future. Already, literally thousands of stem cell therapies for a host of dangerous and life-threatening conditions have already been successfully performed, and specialists agree that many newly discovered treatments are just around the corner.
Stem cells are biological cell types found in multicellular organisms like mammals, and that, of course, includes us. The incredible thing about stem cells is that they are able to divide and change into other types of cell, and this is what gives them their unique ability to repair, or even replace, cells that have been damaged by disease or injury.
The potential for the health of younger and future generations is enormous.
Although stem cells are found in many different parts of our body, it is the stem cells found in our childrens teeth that are most precious in terms of their potential to safeguard health. While an inevitable crystallisation process makes adult teeth useless for stem cell therapies, first teeth and young wisdom teeth contain tooth pulp in perfect condition to provide useable stem cells. Whats more, children naturally lose 12 milk teeth over a 5-year period, and this means plenty of chances to collect the teeth most likely to be suitable for harvesting stem cells. The other big advantage of childrens teeth is that they fall out naturally, and that makes recovering the teeth a pain-free, risk-free and non-invasive process.
Today, scientists have the expertise and technologies to safely extract and store stem cells taken from baby teeth and wisdom teeth. Crucially, storing a persons stem cells for possible use in their own future medical treatment means that compatibility or finding the right match wont ever be an issue. This is one of the key factors that has given rise to people storing their own childrens cells as a way of protecting them against a future illnesses or conditions. Having access to a childs stem cells makes any future treatment far more likely to succeed, an extremely encouraging situation given that scientists are regularly discovering more and more conditions they can treat using stem cells.
So, what about the specific illnesses and conditions that tooth stem cells can be used to treat?
Scientists already know that stem cells within tooth pulp have the ability to develop into a wide range of tissues, including skin, nerve, muscle, fat, cartilage and tendon. This amazing versatility has huge and positive implications for medical uses of tooth stem cells, and thats why almost everyone has a vested interest in this medical breakthrough, from young adults, parents and expectant parents right through to those who might one day want a family.
Stem cell therapy has already enabled practitioners to grow skin, tracheas and corneas, as well as repair human hearts. Even more excitingly, it is now widely agreed that future stem cell therapies will allow medical practitioners to tackle a host of injuries, illnesses and heredity conditions. Among them, these are likely to include Type 1 diabetes; neuronal degenerative disorders like Alzheimers, Parkinsons and Huntingtons disease; cardiovascular disease; paralysis due to spinal cord injury; liver disease, strokes; heart attacks and joint repair. Stem cells can also help to repair the bodys immune system and, under the right conditions, can even be used to form organs, bone and other tissue.
BioEden have a UK team that has been right at the very heart of the science surrounding the extraction and storage of tooth cells in fact they are one of the worlds leading authorities on it.
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How saving their baby teeth could help save children’s lives