When most people hear about regenerative medicine they think of it as something that’s many years into the future. This couldn’t be further from the truth.
It’s actually been around for decades. Bone marrow transplant makes use of this treatment method.
But what is regenerative medicine anyway? The idea behind it is to use your body’s own natural ability to heal itself.
It permanently restores the function of damaged tissue or organs using the patient’s own cells. In this way, it offers hope to individuals who suffer from debilitating diseases and injuries.
In this article, we explore the 7 awe-inspiring benefits of regenerative medicine. Read on.
1. Provides a Less Painful Treatment Route
When a patient goes through a surgical procedure, the surgeon usually has to make an incision at the site. They then have to insert drainage tubes and other accessories required for the whole process.
For complex surgeries, the patient has to be placed under general anesthesia. Regenerative medicine, on the other hand, takes on a more targeted approach.
The tissue is injected to the exact organ or site where they’ll do the most good. The procedure itself employs the use of mild anesthetics which makes it virtually painless for the patient. What’s more, the end-to-end process takes about 30 minutes to complete.
2. Faster Healing Process
When a patient undergoes major surgery, it usually takes them many weeks to recover. Depending on the severity of the operation, the recovery period may even extend for a couple of months before the patient can regain full effectiveness. There’s also the added risk of infection of the incision site. This could lead to complications which ultimately contribute to extended recovery times.
With regenerative medicine, however, the injection site associated with the procedure may leave behind minor bruising at most. This only causes mild discomfort in the region.
The area only needs to be iced every few hours. This provides a more superior alternative to surgery recovery. With complementary therapies like exercise, massage, and chiropractic, the healing process for regenerative medicine can be accelerated further.
3. Offers Personalized Medicine
Most regenerative medicine treatments use the patient’s own cells. When these cells are injected into the specific region of the body that needs treatment, they consolidate into blocks of tissue.
This is what promotes self-healing when the body begins to regenerate new tissue. While the process isn’t instantaneous, it augments the patient’s natural healing process offering an excellent outcome.
The body heals in a more efficient and effective way than it otherwise could on its own. This is especially beneficial when the healing process could be hampered due to aging cells, the extent, location and the type of injury.
4. Regenerative Medicine Reduces the Risk of Rejection
There’s usually a high risk of rejection when synthetic or donor materials are used. The body’s immune response may perceive these materials as threats and attack them.
The effects may be so adverse that the foreign donor material may have to be removed from the patient. This counteracts any therapeutic benefits of the procedure.
With human medicine, however, the chances of your body rejecting its own cells are slim to none. The cells used don’t trigger the body’s immune response since they are already known to your body.
What’s more, the regeneration procedures that use the innermost layer of the placenta to get human amniotic tissue generally have a nil chance of rejection. It’s the only tissue that is universally appropriate for transplant procedures.
5. Provides the Best Alternative to Organ Transplants
The whole idea behind the concept of regenerative medicine is to be able to cure a patient’s ailments using their own tissue. This completely eliminates the need for organ transplants.
If you have a life-threatening condition that requires an organ transplant there are usually two main factors that determine your chances for survival. First, you have to get to the top of the transplant list.
Time is a major constraint and patients may have to wait for ages before they can make it to the top. Second, there’s no guarantee that your body won’t reject the donor organ you receive.
With regenerative medicine, tissue-engineering can regenerate new organ cells instead. It’s now possible to grow a whole new artificial organ from your own cells in a laboratory setting.
6. Enhances Your Quality of Life
Traditional medicine seeks to treat the symptoms of the disease using pharmaceutical drugs or by encouraging you to make specific changes to your lifestyle. Not only does this decrease the quality of your life, but in certain cases, the disease may return to haunt you in the future.
Regenerative medicine goes way beyond treating the symptoms of the disease. It’s the best form of functional medicine that exists to provide a lasting alternative by curing damaged and failing body tissue. Some of the diseases regenerative medicine will be able to heal in the future include:
- Diabetes
- Cancer
- Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)
- Liver Disease
- Heart Disease
- Stroke
Not only will it cure these diseases, but it’ll restore the quality of life the patients had before their diagnosis. It provides the best route for health restoration more so when traditional health methods are no longer working.
What’s more, the latest advances in human medicine have revealed viable methods of aging reversal. Scientists can now reprogram the genes and stem cells responsible for aging. It’s now possible to turn back the clock to enable the body’s cells to grow younger thereby extending the human lifespan.
7. A Cure for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Diseases
Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s are the most widespread neurodegenerative disorders. Not only are they the leading causes of dementia among the aging population but they also lead to the gradual loss of physical functions.
While there are no known therapies that exist to treat the diseases, regenerative medicine is making great strides to change all that. In a clinical trial study, Stanford researchers injected stem cells directly into the brains of stroke patients.
The results showed remarkable motor function improvements in 7 out of the 18 stroke victims who were the subjects of the trial. The future looks bright for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s patients.
The Bottom Line
The potential for regenerative medicine to cure a host of health issues is virtually infinite. From aging reversal to the creation of artificial organs, this treatment method takes advantage of the body’s existing natural mechanisms to restore both your health and quality of life before the ailment.
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