Stem cell therapy becoming more widely accepted

Wednesday, July 21, 2010 by: Jonathan Benson, staff writer
Tags: stem cells, therapy, health news

(NaturalNews) Scientists, media pundits, academics and researchers often speak of stem cell therapy as a potentially revolutionary technology in the field of medicine, but according to Professor David Warburton from the Saban Research Institute at Los Angeles Children's Hospital, stem cells are already viable in many different treatment applications.

For years, there has been much controversy over stem cell research. This is due to the fact that the type of stem cell research people often talk about is embryonic stem cell research. Embryonic stem cell research is not only controversial, but it is also a failure, especially when you consider that other non-controversial stem cells, like the kind obtained from adult organs, are already providing breakthroughs in treatment technology that embryonic stem cells have been unable to accomplish.

Professor Warburton has a particular interest in amniotic fluid-derived stem cells, which come from the amniotic fluid of pregnant women. According to him, "there are no ethical objections to using amniotic fluid derived stem cells," which makes their study an important subject of stem cell research.

Stem cells can be used not only to treat disease, but also to regenerate and grow new organs. A person can literally have his or her own stem cells harvested and used to regenerate needed organ tissue, eliminating the need for taking anti-rejection drugs like one would have to following conventional transplant surgery.

According to a recent BBC report on the subject, there are already many cases of successful stem cell therapies, including the following cases:

-Spanish surgeons recently engineered the world's first tissue-engineered organ transplant, in which a patient's own stem cells were applied to the donor organ in order to facilitate a successful transplant.

-A young British boy underwent a stem cell organ transplant, making him the first child in the world to have this type of treatment.

-U.S. scientists successfully created fully-grown and fully-operational liver grafts.

And according to Dr. Sharon Maolem in her book Suvival of the Sickest: A Medical Maverick Discovers Why We Need Disease, stem cells are practically immortal and "have the potential to become anything and they never run out of steam."

So it is no wonder that they have seemingly limitless potential in medicine.

Sources for this story include:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/ferg...

http://www.naturalpedia.com/googlesearchresu...