Sunday, 9 June 2019

Stem Cell Therapy Centers Hope To Revolutionize Medical Treatment

By Nancy Howard


Human endeavors have produced amazing advances in all fields but it is the medical advances that most people admire. After all, when one contracts a dread disease or suffers a terrible injury nothing else really matters. Killer diseases are now tamed and routinely treated. Organs are transplanted and even dread diseases can now be managed much more efficiently. Stem cell therapy centers say that their hopes for the future include further major breakthroughs that will change the face of medicine forever.

There is nothing new or revolutionary about bone marrow transplants. They have been performed for some time. Up to now, however, only patients that suffer from leukemia and other cancers related to the blood has been candidates for this procedure. These patients suffer from very low blood cell counts because their chemo therapy destroys all blood cells, healthy and diseased. With the transplants it is hope that new cells will grow.

It is a common misconception that bone marrow transplants are a cure for cancer. It is not. However, scientists believe that it eventually will become a cure. They think that these transplants will cure not only cancers related to the blood, but many other types too. Progress in this field is very slow do to the painstaking nature of the processes employed, unfortunately, and positive results are definitely still some years in the future.

Cancer is not the only area of concern to researchers in this field. There are many studies into the possibilities of bone marrow transplants to regenerate damaged and destroyed brain cells. This is indeed a revolutionary direction of study because if damage brain cells can be replaced by healthy ones then the terrible effects of awful conditions such as Alzheimer, brain and spine injuries and other debilitating disease will be conquered.

Another area of great interest to research is heart disease. Conditions related to the heart remain one of the biggest killers in the world. It is hoped that bone marrow transplants will also be able to replace damaged and destroyed cells inside the heart, thereby reversing the course of many types of heart disease. It is still early days, however, and positive results are still a number of years into the future.

Many people are excited about the possible benefits of bone marrow transplants but there are numerous critics. They accuse researchers of misleading the public and the sponsors of their research with false promises and unrealistic expectations. There is no evidence that even one such transplant has saved a live, they say. As a matter of fact, these transplants are dangerous and can shorten the life of patients.

Perhaps the most contentious issue bothering critics is the fact that the cells being transplanted are not harvested from consenting adults. Instead, it is taken from the umbilical cords of half formed fetuses. This is an outrageous breach of human rights, critics say. If the practice continues, women will be able to profit from getting pregnant for the sole purpose of profiting.

It does not seem as if major breakthroughs in this area are imminent, but one can hope. After all, if bone marrow transplants can indeed deliver on the promises of its sponsors then millions will be saved from an early death. One will have to wait and see.




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