How saving their baby teeth could help save children’s lives
Yorkshire (PRWEB UK) 21 January 2014 -- Ongoing worldwide research is consistently proving that stem cells will be a cornerstone of medical treatments in the future. Already, literally thousands of stem cell therapies for a host of dangerous and life-threatening conditions have already been successfully performed, and specialists agree that many newly discovered treatments are just around the corner.
Stem cells are biological cell types found in multicellular organisms like mammals, and that, of course, includes us. The incredible thing about stem cells is that they are able to divide and change into other types of cell, and this is what gives them their unique ability to repair, or even replace, cells that have been damaged by disease or injury.
The potential for the health of younger and future generations is enormous.
Although stem cells are found in many different parts of our body, it is the stem cells found in our children’s teeth that are most precious in terms of their potential to safeguard health. While an inevitable crystallisation process makes adult teeth useless for stem cell therapies, first teeth and young wisdom teeth contain tooth pulp in perfect condition to provide useable stem cells. What’s more, children naturally lose 12 milk teeth over a 5-year period, and this means plenty of chances to collect the teeth most likely to be suitable for harvesting stem cells. The other big advantage of children’s teeth is that they fall out naturally, and that makes recovering the teeth a pain-free, risk-free and non-invasive process.
Today, scientists have the expertise and technologies to safely extract and store stem cells taken from baby teeth and wisdom teeth. Crucially, storing a person’s stem cells for possible use in their own future medical treatment means that compatibility – or finding the right ‘match’ – won’t ever be an issue. This is one of the key factors that has given rise to people storing their own children’s cells as a way of protecting them against a future illnesses or conditions. Having access to a child’s stem cells makes any future treatment far more likely to succeed, an extremely encouraging situation given that scientists are regularly discovering more and more conditions they can treat using stem cells.
So, what about the specific illnesses and conditions that tooth stem cells can be used to treat?
Scientists already know that stem cells within tooth pulp have the ability to develop into a wide range of tissues, including skin, nerve, muscle, fat, cartilage and tendon. This amazing versatility has huge and positive implications for medical uses of tooth stem cells, and that’s why almost everyone has a vested interest in this medical breakthrough, from young adults, parents and expectant parents right through to those who might one day want a family.
Stem cell therapy has already enabled practitioners to grow skin, tracheas and corneas, as well as repair human hearts. Even more excitingly, it is now widely agreed that future stem cell therapies will allow medical practitioners to tackle a host of injuries, illnesses and heredity conditions. Among them, these are likely to include Type 1 diabetes; neuronal degenerative disorders like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Huntington’s disease; cardiovascular disease; paralysis due to spinal cord injury; liver disease, strokes; heart attacks and joint repair. Stem cells can also help to repair the body’s immune system and, under the right conditions, can even be used to form organs, bone and other tissue.
BioEden have a UK team that has been right at the very heart of the science surrounding the extraction and storage of tooth cells – in fact they are one of the world’s leading authorities on it.
Working within strict scientific codes of practice, and in collaboration with world-renowned organisations, BioEden have developed a unique and patented procedure to help families take advantage of this cutting-edge medical science. Today, they are the world’s first and only specialised biobank capable of collecting, assessing and cryogenically storing living tooth cells.
BioEden's tried and tested service gives customers the chance to send in their children’s teeth for dental pulp extraction. What makes BioEden different from other stem cell storage services is that they take the procedure one crucial stage further by isolating cells from the tooth pulp itself. This final stage is a patent protected process, and it allows them to then perform a unique validation to make sure they isolate living cells from exactly the right teeth: those with what’s known as Mesenchymal stem cell markers. In short, without this additional unique procedure, it is impossible to guarantee that useable cells are isolated and stored.
The dawn of stem cell storage services marks an incredible turning point in every parent’s effort to give their children the best chance of a longer, healthier and altogether happier life.
For more information, call BioEden Free on 0800 083 5164.
Stuart Taylor, BioEden, http://uk.bioeden.com, +44 1484505620, [email protected]
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