A team of Japanese scientists have discovered an ideal source of adult stem cells-wisdom teeth- for future regenerative medical applications.
These cells can be cultured in the lab to make new heart cells, brain cells, muscle cells, bone cells, etc., to replace cells that need to be replaced in your body.
Hajime Ohgushi, from the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (Japan), and colleagues find that third molars, commonly known as wisdom teeth, are a rich source of mesenchymal stromal cells that are similar to cells found in bone marrow, a common stem-cell source.
They concluded that since wisdom teeth are discarded as clinical waste, that stem cells derived from wisdom teeth are a valuable cell source for the generation of adult stem cells.
Stem Cells are one of the most exciting areas of Anti-Aging and Regenerative Medicine today.
Harvesting your own adult stem cells for future use is perhaps one of the best forms of insurance-bio insurance- that you can have.
The future of Anti-Aging and Regenerative Medicine is to be able to take stem cells- which are cells that are capable of becoming all or many of the different kinds of tissues in the human body- and to inject them into the brain, the heart cells, the spinal cord or other parts of the body where they can repair damaged, worn out cells.
The primary benefit of using your own adult stem cells is that your body will not reject your own cells and they will engraft faster and work more efficiently at repairing damaged tissue.
Although Adult Stem Cell Therapy to treat disease and aging is slow to come about in the United States, it has already been used successfully for over 20 years in the form of bone marrow transplants in the U.S.. These are stem cells that are used to treat blood cancers.
Adult Stem Cell Therapy is already being developed and used in many parts of the world to treat Alzheimer's diseases, spinal cord injury, stroke, burns, heart disease, diabetes, osteoarthritis, and rheumatoid arthritis.
Currently, in the U.S., there are over 2,000 clinical trials using adult stem cells as treatments and about 450 clinical trials focused on cardiac therapies in which these cells can be used to replace damaged heart tissue.
