Regardless of how far modern medicine has come, reversing the aging process remains one of science’s biggest challenges. For centuries, humans have been obsessed with finding the ever-elusive fountain of youth.
From the Victorian era, women who would use mercury to remove wrinkles to ancient Romans who used a special concoction with crocodile dung as the main ingredient in their spa treatments. Nonetheless, no one was able to crack the anti-aging code – until now.
Cellular regeneration uses a modern approach to not only slow down the aging process but, in some cases, even reverse it. Additionally, regenerative medicine has also proven to be quite effective in relieving pain. Here’s everything you need to know about it.
What Is Cellular Regeneration?
Some parts of the human body can repair themselves after injury. The liver is one such organ. If disease or injury damages part of the liver, it can grow back to its original size. However, other parts of the body can’t. Case in point: If your leg got amputated, it wouldn’t grow back.
The process of growing new cells in place of damaged ones without the need for transplants is referred to as cellular regeneration. Several species are known to regrow damaged or missing parts of their body.
If a salamander lost its leg, for instance, it could regrow an entirely new one in just five weeks. Scientists use this as the basis for figuring out how to replicate this process in humans.
What is interesting is – humans do have the ability to regenerate. Think about it. Genetic information in a human embryo is what develops into a complete person in just nine months. This shows that we have it in us to grow entire organs and body parts from scratch.
What Causes Aging
To understand how cell regeneration works, it’s important to first understand what the aging process is all about. The cells in the human body take quite a beating in the course of an individual’s lifetime. Psychological factors like stress, as well as environmental factors like poor diet, alcohol, and UV rays, cause significant damage to the DNA in the cells.
The body has sophisticated biological systems that exist to counteract this cellular damage. Some of these are involved in cellular aging to ensure that individual cells only live for a particular amount of time before they’re retired.
For instance, the telomeres are stretches of proteins and DNA located at the end of cellular chromosomes. Each time a cell undergoes division, these telomeres get shorter with each subsequent division. When the length of a telomere reaches a particular cut-off point, cell division can no longer continue. As a result, the cell dies, which is what the aging process is all about.
The Role of Stem Cells in Cellular Regeneration
Stem cell therapy, which is also referred to as regenerative biology, focuses on the use of human stem cells to promote the repair response of injured, dysfunctional, or diseased human tissue. Stem cells are essentially the body’s raw materials from which all cells with specialized functions in the human body are generated.
They are manipulated in laboratory settings to generate more cells referred to as daughter cells. These could go on to become new stem cells or differentiate into more specialized cells that serve a specific function like nerve, blood, or heart muscle cells. The adult stem cell is then implanted into an individual to repair the defective tissue.
How Stem Cells Treat Aging
Now that you understand what stem cells are and their role in cellular regeneration, let’s look at how they are used to treat aging. Here’s what we know so far.
Aging is the progressive decline in the life span and proliferative ability of cells. This decline results from a wide array of physiological and environmental factors that cause damage to cellular DNA.
Cellular regeneration, on the other hand, does the opposite. It triggers the repair response of damaged human tissue and grows entirely new cells through stem cell therapy.
The specific stem cells used in the treatment of aging are known as Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). These are derived from amniotic fluid, umbilical cord tissue, adipose (fat) tissue, or bone marrow. They can differentiate into several different cell types, including skin, neural, corneal, muscle, cartilage, and skeletal cells.
When used in conjunction with anti-aging genes like Klotho, stem cells create a complex protective shield around cells to help them withstand the destructive effects of aging. Depending on the site they are injected, stem cells turn into the specific type of tissue your body requires and eventually replaces it altogether.
Some of the anti-aging benefits you get from stem cell therapy include:
- A wider range of motion in different joints
- Better heart health
- Improved cognitive ability
- Increased flexibility
- Longer lifespan
- Smoother skin
How Stem Cell Therapy Relieves Pain
In addition to the anti-aging benefits of cellular regenerative medicine, stem cell therapy is also used as an innovative treatment alternative to invasive surgery for joint pain relief. It has proven to be quite effective in relieving and eventually eliminating the pain caused by several conditions, including:
- Achilles tendinitis
- Arthritis
- Bursitis
- Non-healing fractures
- Plantar fasciitis and foot pain
- Shoulder pain
- Torn rotator cuff
- Wrist, elbow, knee, and ankle pain
The process involves a series of three stem cell injections into the pain site spaced out over three to five days. These usually regenerate and spur the growth of new cartilage, which is what cushions the bones.
They also produce new skeletal muscle cells, which help to repair damaged tissue and improve bone strength. Pain relief occurs relatively quickly and continues to improve with each passing week.
The Future Is Now
While age-related deterioration is inevitable, cellular regeneration represents a new frontier in restorative medicine. It shows promising results in the growth of new tissue, which helps to slow down and reverse the aging process altogether.
It also reduces chronic pain, which is essential for a better quality of life. If you want to live longer, stem cell therapy is the true fountain of youth.
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