What You Don’t Know About Stem Cells Could Hurt You
For decades, the use of stem cells for scientific research has been an extremely contentious and controversial issue in the United States. Many European countries openly use stem cells for medical research, but ethical and religious concerns have held back American innovation, a fact that symbolized by President George W. Bush’s veto of the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2007. However, since President Barack Obama signed an executive order that overturned Bush’s ban on funding for embryonic research, as well as a number of other advances in stem cell research and technology, there have been breakthroughs, allowing for scientists to harvest stem cells from relatively uncontroversial sources, such as adult and amniotic stem cells. These breakthroughs in stem cell research and technology could have major repercussions in the area of regeneration and repair of tissue.
In just the past few years, it has been scientifically proven that stem cells have done amazing things for people suffering from a variety of illnesses. For example, stem cell research has given the eyesight back to blind people, but stem cells have also done great things for people who suffer from constant body aches and pains.
According to a study from Gallup-Healthways, as many as 31% of American adults suffer from some sort of persistent neck or back pain. In addition, almost 26% of American adults have virtually constant pain in their leg or knee, and 18% of American adults have some sort of condition that causes them constant pain. But with these new successes in stem cell research, many of these people can now be cured! The chances are that you are someone, or you know someone, who suffers from neck, back, leg or knee pain. Stem cells therapy has the potential to not only cure those problems but also cure them quickly, and this therapy is one of the alternatives to surgery.
In fact, professional athletes have been using one particular type of treatment, Platelet-Rich Plasma therapy (more commonly referred to as PRP), for years. To get athletes back on the basketball court or football field quickly, PRP is used to help the cells in your body grow and repair themselves naturally. Now you can have access to this type of procedure as well.
PRP can solve a number of health issues that may come up at some point in your life, including a torn rotator cuff, tennis elbow and tendon injuries. Regeneration and repair of your body can be solved with PRP. Over 100 million people in the United States suffer from some sort of chronic pain, and many of those people can be cured with PRP.
While these types of treatment are great for athletes and young people, they can do even better work for older people, many of whom have fragile joints and bones. Every single year, hip fractures are responsible for 258,000 hospital visits by people 65 years or older. Those elderly people could be healed quickly with these new types of medical technologies, potentially giving injured elderly people a better experience of life.
Don’t let what you don’t know about stem cells hurt you. There are morally and ethically unambiguous ways to gather the stem cells help your body with regeneration and repair and could get you back up and moving.
