STEM CELL THERAPY HYPE OR HOPE
In the medical treatment of the beginning of 21th Century, the word “Stem Cells” certainly became a buzzword, used by many in many different ways creating quite a controversial image of the treatment potential of stem cells.
As you can read on our and many other websites, some, including some regulatory authorities, defend in the name of patients the idea not to use unauthorized new stem cell therapies whereas others advance in treatments and scientific experimentation. How can we find a “consciousness tolerable way” to advance with potential successful improvements of quality of life of patients to support their unmet medical need? Not an easy question because life is precious for those having it, potentially on the way losing it and those believing in protecting it.
To avoid the ethical and moral discussion on when life starts and when embryonic stem cell research destroys life we support only Adult stem cell research and treatments as a part of our “consciousness philosophy”. Anyway, according to new insights of a human body and its cellular functions, in the last few years, we can today use stem cells, from adults avoiding any controversial discussion.
Main places of adult stem cells are bone marrow, adipose tissue (fat), peripheral blood, but also many other so-called Niches in cellular tissues, or from umbilical cord and placenta, contain stem cells useful for therapeutic applications.
When you review websites you will find all kind of therapeutic treatment possibilities, even claiming high success rates. Patients do have to understand that those clinics are talking of anecdotal success rates, i.e. success in individual cases and it is difficult to judge how big the overall success of treatment is.
We believe that with the present reviewing structure of drugs “invented” by companies and eventually approved by health authorities like the FDA / EMA, the market introduction will take considerable time and even though once approved, there is no guarantee of late side effects as we can see in the annual statistics of adverse events with approved drugs.
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The only western oriented country which officially changed its regulation to accompany the new technology and its human application are Japan. American and European companies have started to develop their stem cell products in Japan because there is a “fast track” procedure, where a company may bring a stem cell product within a very short period to the market instead of ten plus years in the US and EU countries.
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