The history of civilization has shown over and over again that with innovation comes hope for advancement and a greater standard of living for the entire civilized world. This inherent hope is part of what bonds us together as one human spirit, regardless of race, class, religion or creed. Nowhere is this human spirit more evident right now than with the progress that is being made with stem cell therapy. There are innumerable areas where stem cell treatment is promising or emerging in treating a myriad of different diseases and conditions. Any one of these areas could easily be written about as a seperate book so this article will only just scratch the surface on the potential of such therapy and point out areas where work is being done. This is fitting because the reality is that from a science standpoint the true potential of stem cells therapy is not yet clear. With that being said the following are a few key areas of such therapy followed by a couple of concrete examples of how it is currently being applied.
Areas of Therapy
- Stem cell research is being done on brain degeneration diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease.
- Brain and spinal cord injury
- Both stroke and traumatic brain injury cause a loss of neurons and oligodendrocytes within the brain. Therapy with stem cells could help to repair the damage from such occurrences.
- Therapy with stem cells for treatment of heart disease usually uses a special type of bone marrow stem cells. However, there is some that thought that the use of other types of adult stem cells may also be viable options.
Examples of Current Application of Therapy
There are clinical trials ongoing throughout the world (the first known was in Scotland) in which stem cells were injected into the brains of stroke patients to see if that would be effective. From a heart standpoint, adult therapy using stem cells for treating heart disease was commercially available world wide starting back in 2007. There are uses for stem cells being tested or at least researched in a litany of other applications for everything from blood-cell formation to diabetes to even baldness. It is worth everyone’s time to get educated and help support such research where ever it is being done because we truly cannot predict where the next innovative breakthrough may come from. There is hope and humanity everywhere this research exists.