Growth of Damaged Or Severed Body Parts
Imagine losing a finger, a toe or even and arm or a leg – and voila – that body part is able to grow back. Does that seem farfetched or even impossible? Well, some exciting new developments are creating the possibility for damaged body parts to be rejuvenated.
Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh “are using powder made from a pig’s bladderf to re-grow fingers.” This regrowth process has already been used successfully for soldiers who have severed fingers. Although this scientific realm is in its infancy and at this point doctors may only be able to recreate fingertips, this provides such patients with the ability “to make chanage at a grocery store, turn the key in the car, hold a fork.” This certainly is adding value to people’s lives.
Other researchers are studying techniques for reconstructing faces and creating normal looking ears for people’s who have had severe facial damage and loss. As Joseph P. Vacanti, M.D. says, “We can now envision that some day we give somebody back their own face.” Imagine that. Most of us cannot even fathom what it would be like to lose a part of our body, let along our face that is visible to the world. We are all so concerned with our outer appearance, whether we have gained or lost a few pounds, whether we have good muscle tone or flabby skin. But we can’t imagine actually losing a vital part of our body.
Research is going even further. Diane Hoffman-Kin, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Meedical Science and Engineering at Brown University talks about the research “to help nervers that are injured grow back in a directed way.” At the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, researchers are already “growing more than 20 types of cells including kidney, esophagus, cartilage, smooth muscle, breast, lung and nerve cells.”
It may be only a matter of time before the types of operations, skin grafts and permanent scarring that we see today will become a thing of the past. Right now, the best we can do is to keep our body strong, to keep our immune system functioning and to utilize the most appropriate treatments available for illnesses and injuries.
Dr. Erica Goodstone has helped thousands of men, women, couples, and groups to develop greater awareness of the issues in their relationships and their lives, to overcome and alleviate stressors and discords, and to revitalize their relationships and their own mind-body-spirit connection. Dr. Goodstone can be contacted through her web site at http://www.DrEricaWellness.com and you can read the complete article about current research on growing body parts at http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-16811-West-Palm-Beach-Healing-Examiner~y2009m12d27-Growing-new-body-parts.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Erica_Goodstone,_Ph.D.
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Tags: healing, immune system