Diseases Being Cured By Stem Cell Research
Stem cell research has provided some of the most effective cures in the market today. Though they can be very expensive, the use of stem cells have been able to generate good results. However, stem cells cannot cure everything because they are only applicable to cell-related diseases. To give you an idea, here is a list of some of the diseases being cured by stem cell research .
Leukemia
Stem cells have been known to be an effective cure for leukemia and other blood disorders. Leukemia is a blood disorder that is caused by the production of defective white blood cells by the bone marrow. These malfunctioning white blood cells hinder the organs from functioning properly and decrease the resistance of the immune system. Most of the time, doctors recommend leukemia patients to undergo chemotherapy to eliminate these defective white blood cells. If chemotherapy is not enough, the doctors will turn to stem cells to do the job. By implanting these cells to the body, new and healthier white blood cells will be produced by the marrow. Since stem cells are in an early stage of development, the body will not react violently to them nor will they attack the body.
Strokes
There was a study conducted by the University of Minneapolis that proved that stem cells may help people recover from strokes. The experiment was done by implanting stem cells derived from a human bone marrow to a number of mice who were suffering from ischemic stroke. Ischemic strokes happen when a blood vessel that is connected to the brain is blocked, and this prevents any supply of blood from entering the brain. In the experiment, before implanting the stem cells, all the mice were unable to properly use their limbs. But only after a few weeks after the transplant, they regained the ability to move properly.
Heart diseases
There have been studies that presented the possibility of heart diseases being cured by stem cells. By implanting adult or embryonic stem cells into the body, the damaged cells in the heart may be regenerated these cells. Experiments have been done wherein adult stem cells were injected to the heart of a lab rat that had a heart condition. After weeks of observation, there were signs that the heart of the rat truly developed because of the stem cells.
Diabetes
Diabetes is also one of the diseases which stem cells treat . Past experiments that involved stem cells in treating diabetes provided disappointing results. Stem cells were first induced to a number of lab rats. Although the stem cells were able to cure one third of the mice, they were not able to produce any insulin producing cells. However, there was an experiment conducted in the University of California in San Diego where scientists had finally found a way for stem cells to produce insulin producing cells. By combining stem cells with endocrine progenitor cells, they were finally able to create these cells to help in the treatment of diabetes.
Cancer
A study in the University of Minnesota has revealed that embryonic stem cells are potential cancer-killing cells. Today, scientists are currently conducting various experiments and they expect the results to be released in the October 15 th edition of The Journal of Immunology . The whole experiment is based on the hypothesis that embryonic stem cells can become natural cancer-killing cells that can protect the body from being infected with specific types of cancer. A previous study has shown that embryonic stem cells have been successful in killing cancer cells within a test tube. However, this study still needs to go through more experiments by shifting to animal specimens.