The most important thing a person should understand is that a stem cell is a stem cell is a stem cell! All forms of stem cells are essentially very similar and differ only in fairly minor ways. Primitive undifferentiated (untrained) stem cells by and large can go to any injury and help to repair the damaged tissues. Yes some are more potent than others but in reality they all work as stem cells and support regeneration of damaged tissues. That is the bottom line. All of the hype about embryonic stem cells is just that. The media does not care about presenting facts - they are concerned with selling papers and getting ratings! And it's ratings you get by talking or reporting controversial subjects and getting people upset and excited enough for them to tell others that they have to buy a certain newspaper or magazine to read all about the controversy. When I was inexperienced with media people and would read statements similar to mine above, I would have viewed those words as the rantings of some fanatic pushing his own product or point of view. It was only when I began to be interviewed about my work with umbilical cord stem cells that the media's need for controversy became crystal clear. Many times I have been interviewed by some very nice-sounding reporter who promised to tell the exact information as I presented it - only to find later they eliminate all of the modifiers and qualifiers I used with my information.
They would use only those parts of my information they thought could be distorted so that all of the work I was reporting on appeared misguided and delusional. All the while they would promote the use of embryonic stem cells. Sometimes it is not the reporters but the propaganda put out by the research scientists who are working on embryonic stem cells. The truth is, these scientists have or are trying to get patents on different processes used in the production of embryonic stem cells that could make them a great deal of money. Since they are professors at major universities, the media holds them in great regard even though they have never treated a single patient with stem cells.
They claim to know everything about stem cells yet they've only treated mice! Thus the public has become convinced that we the public are being deprived of miraculous cures since embryonic stem cells are not available. With this erroneous information, everyone has been convinced that we need to spend billions of dollars (in California 3 billion dollars) in hopes of getting embryonic stem cells legalized so they can be used to cure everybody of everything from A-Z.
Unfortunately, the public has not been told about the success of umbilical or bone marrow stem cells as therapy for the very same diseases that all of this money is being spent to develop embryonic stem cells to treat. People are suffering and dying waiting for the moral, ethical, political and profit debates to subside over embryonic stem cell research - while adult stem cells are available now and proving in a clinical setting to work and be safe in thousands who have benefitted from them.
Adult Stem Cells have been found in nearly every tissue in the body. In addition, umbilical cord stem cells are categorized as adult stem cells because they have grown beyond the embryonic stage. Adult stem cells, in fact, have been used in transplants for over 30 years. In the 1960's researchers discovered that bone marrow contains at least two kinds of stem cells, hematopoietic (forms all types of blood cells in the body) and bone marrow stromal cells (a mixed population of cells that form bone, cartilage, fats and fibrous connective tissue). An adult stem cell (sometimes called "somatic stem cell") is a stem cell that has not yet "specialized" (differentiated) which means it hasn't yet become a specific tissue or organ. Adult stem cells are found among differentiated cells in a tissue or organ, can renew themselves, and can differentiate to become specialized cell types.
In fact, the primary role of adult stem cells is to maintain and repair the tissue in which they are found. We find "multipotent" stem cells in adult stem cells. These are true stem cells and can differentiate into a great number of different cell types. For example, the bone marrow contains multipotent stem cells that give rise to all the cells of the blood. In fact, the excitement over the past years has been that hemapoietic stem cells in both cord blood and bone marrow can give rise to neurons and glial cells as well as kidney, liver, and heart cells.
It's the location and growth factors that help determine what the cell can produce. Multipotent stem cells are found in adult animals; perhaps most organs in the body contain them (e.g., brain, liver) where they can replace dead or damaged cells. Bone marrow stem cells are a readily available source of stem cells for most people. In my clinic I use bone marrow transplantation, and now, of course Stemgevity™ is the easiest way to get bone marrow stem cells into the system. Umbilical cord stem cells are available in other countries and are also safe and effective when properly tested and processed.
Both bone marrow and umbilical cord stem cells are multipotent, able to divide into a variety of cells, and they show great promise in reparative and regenerative therapy for all manner of disease in people of all ages. IN FOODS TO PURCHASE ORGANIC, please look at the first sentence in each line. Many of them should have a period and then a capitalization of the next word.
