Yet another tale from the realms of science fiction you might think. However there are two separate stories on this theme that I have found.
The first, more of interest to chronic back pain sufferers, in an article in The Mail online tells how Swedish researchers have been able to grow human stem cells that help a damaged disc to regenerate.
The significance of this is that disc degeneration is known to be a major cause of low back pain. However it has always been thought that once damaged, back discs cannot heal themselves.
But researcher Helena Barreto-Henriksson of Gothenburg University and her team have discovered areas in discs very similar to stem cells, which have the potential to grow back.
Initial work has shown how animals with damaged discs injected with human stem cells improved by the cartilage repairing itself.
The potential here is far-reaching. Just imagine your back pain being cured by a simple injection! No surgery, and permanently effective. This is one story worth watching.
I can also foresee a time, assuming this research leads somewhere, when many sufferers of chronic back pain wouldn't even get to that point. As soon as back discomfort was narrowed down to disc degeneration, injections could be given to heal the discs before it became a big problem.
How's that for an example of sensible research? If you have the time the full article is well worth a read, you can find it here.
On the same theme, but even more fantastic because it has actually been done, is this story from thesun.co.uk by Andrew Parker. A 33 year old lady from Rugely, Staffordshire, has had an operation where knee cartilage grown from her own cells has been put back into her knee, making a knee replacement unneccessary.The first, more of interest to chronic back pain sufferers, in an article in The Mail online tells how Swedish researchers have been able to grow human stem cells that help a damaged disc to regenerate.
The significance of this is that disc degeneration is known to be a major cause of low back pain. However it has always been thought that once damaged, back discs cannot heal themselves.
But researcher Helena Barreto-Henriksson of Gothenburg University and her team have discovered areas in discs very similar to stem cells, which have the potential to grow back.
Initial work has shown how animals with damaged discs injected with human stem cells improved by the cartilage repairing itself.
The potential here is far-reaching. Just imagine your back pain being cured by a simple injection! No surgery, and permanently effective. This is one story worth watching.
I can also foresee a time, assuming this research leads somewhere, when many sufferers of chronic back pain wouldn't even get to that point. As soon as back discomfort was narrowed down to disc degeneration, injections could be given to heal the discs before it became a big problem.
How's that for an example of sensible research? If you have the time the full article is well worth a read, you can find it here.
This is truly fantastic. I just wish this procedure had been available when I had to have my knees replaced. It’s still fairly new, and the surgeon, Ashvin Pimpalnerkar, is doing just ten of these operations a year so far.
How incredible is that? Check out the full story here.
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