01. Stem cells are the source of life
Stem cells are the origin cells of cells and are a type of cells with the potential for self-renewal and multidirectional differentiation. Stem cells can repair damaged tissues, cells and organs in the human body and are seed cells from the beginning of life. It can differentiate into more than 200 different functional cells in the human body, so it is called "universal cells" by the medical community.
When our human body is still growing, stem cells continuously differentiate into various new cells, providing raw materials for our growth and development, and the formation of bones and muscles. When our bodies no longer grow after adulthood, stem cells replace and renew aging or damaged cells for us in time to ensure that we are energetic at all times. It can be said that wherever new cells are needed, there are stem cells. Scientists analyze that cell therapy technology based on stem cells in the 21st century will become another medical revolution after drug therapy and surgical treatment.
02. The essence of human aging stems from the reduction of stem cells
The reason why the human body ages is mainly because the speed of cell renewal is lower than the speed of aging, and fresh cells are insufficiently replenished. Cell aging and stem cell exhaustion are important signs of body aging and are important factors driving the occurrence and development of elderly diseases. Scientific research shows that during the aging process of the human body, the proportion of stem cells in our body gradually decreases.
Take the change in the proportion of bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells as an example: at birth, the proportion of mesenchymal stem cells in all cells in the bone marrow is 1/10000, at the age of 15 in adolescence, it is 1/100000, at the age of 30, it is 1/250000, at the age of 50, it is 1/400000, and at the age of 80, it drops sharply to 1/2000000, which is 200 times lower than when it was just born.
If the number of stem cells decreases and the function declines, the ability to repair tissues and organs will decrease, and the body will develop various diseases, which are lingering and difficult to cure. If tissue and organ damage can be repaired in time, the disease will not occur or will be cured quickly. Anemia, a common disease in the elderly, is caused by a decrease in red blood cells, arthritis is caused by insufficient regeneration of cartilage cells, and muscle atrophy is caused by the death of skeletal muscle cells. Decreased heart, liver, spleen, lung, and kidney functions, as well as decreased resistance, are also related to insufficient cell regeneration capacity.
03A large number of studies have shown that aging is the biggest risk factor for most chronic diseases, including tumors, hypertension, coronary heart disease, chronic bronchitis, pneumonia, gallbladder disease, prostatic hypertrophy, femoral fractures and diabetes.
How can Chinese elderly people live longer and healthier? This is always questioning our current health system. Recently, Longeveron, a US company, published a Phase I and Phase II clinical study report in the Journals of Gerontology. The report showed that many symptoms of patients with frailty syndrome were improved after supplementing with young mesenchymal stem cells, and no adverse reactions occurred. The results of this study prove the safety and effectiveness of mesenchymal stem cells, and also give hope to China's 264 million elderly people. Mesenchymal stem cells have many biological properties. The improvement of this treatment may come from the interaction between mesenchymal stem cells and various types of immune cells, and it has been proven that it can inhibit inflammation.
Mechanism of mesenchymal stem cells in treating diseases:
After intravenous injection, mesenchymal stem cells will home to the site of inflammation and tissue damage;
Mesenchymal stem cells can differentiate into many cell types, including muscle and bone, to replace and repair dead or damaged cells;
Activate dormant or inhibited cells; Mesenchymal stem cells can secrete bioactive compounds that induce tissue recovery and inhibit inflammation;
Mesenchymal stem cells have immunomodulatory effects and can avoid host immune responses. Using the principles of stem cell regeneration and repair, human tissues extracted by stem cell therapy are used to separate stem cells and cultivate them in vitro to enhance their activity, increase their number, and then replenish the body.
The special homing effect of stem cells can identify the signals released by aging and damaged cells in the body, locate the parts that need repair and regeneration, and differentiate into cells in that part to achieve an overall improvement in the body's functions. At present, accurate detection of aging and geriatric diseases and stem cell regenerative medicine treatment are effective methods to delay aging, reduce the incidence and mortality of geriatric diseases, and are also important countermeasures to achieve healthy aging.
04. Stem cell technology, extending human life
With the development of stem cell technology, through a large number of experiments and clinical control studies, people have gradually realized that the fountain of youth we have been looking for is not somewhere else, but hidden in our bodies.
Whether the human body is young depends mainly on the cells in the body. Only when the cells are healthy and energetic can the body maintain youth. The state and fate of cells are determined by stem cells. Stem cells can repair cell damage, replenish cell consumption, and activate cell energy.