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Showing posts with label Medical Science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Medical Science. Show all posts
We all have bad memories, right? Sheesh, who doesn't? However, for some people, their past experiences are so horrid that it causes them nightmares, violent flashbacks, and other debilitating post-traumatic disorders. Fortunately, neurobiologists from the Medical College of Georgia, USA, discovered a technique to eliminate undesirable memories from our minds, without leaving any consequential damages to our brains.
Everyone undergoing a cosmetic procedure should be informed that there are risks involved in the surgery and that results are not guaranteed. However, more and more patients are surprised at the short period of time their surgery seems to last for.
Some doctors like Dr Michael Prager, a member of the British Association of Cosmetic Doctors, are now convinced that anti-aging cosmetic surgery may in fact hasten the aging process. Read more...
Get this! According to a new Finnish study, those who are unmarried or not living with a partner in midlife could have an increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease!
The 21-year study of nearly 1,500 Finns also reveals that those who are already married around the age of 50 or those who live with partners or having regular close social interactions, have a 50% chance of not getting dementia compared to those living alone!
Human Tissue Regeneration – Junk Science or a Novel Prize Breakthrough?
Another critic of Spievack’s story said that the claims were merely “junk science”. Professor Simon Kay, a leading plastic surgeon and professor of hand surgery at the University of Leeds had dismissed the claims of pixie dust causing finger re-growth. Kay studied the before and after photos of Spievack’s finger injury and said that the injury in the first place did not look serious. To his observations, it was an ordinary fingertip injury with unremarkable healing. He added that all wounds go through a repair process and this is what might have happened to Spievack’s. Because there is a lack of clinical evidences to support the claims of the Spievack brothers and Badylack, Kay had called their story as “absurd and over-egged in the extreme”.
Despite these criticisms, the case of tissue regeneration has reached the US Army’s interest and they are not automatically dismissing this possibility. In fact, the US Army is presently pursuing this line of research and is investing millions of dollars on it. Just recently a wounded American soldier by the name of Harris underwent a history-making procedure that could help him re-grow a finger that he had lost during a bomb attack in Baghdad, Iraq. This surgery is part of a $250 million dollar research pursued by the Pentagon and other national top medical facilities like the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and Cleveland Clinic. Dr. Steven Wolf, the lead research surgeon of Brook Army Medical Center, stated that although the technique of using this collagen dust in regenerating tissues seems to be science fiction, it also appears to be incredibly promising. Wolf further said that if they could pull it off with Harris’ surgery and growing back missing body parts, the next step they would probably do is growing back body organs such as the pancreas and the heart. With a final comment, the surgeon added that in the future, this science fiction discovery may not only benefit the military but also the civilians.
Human Tissue Regeneration – Junk Science or a Novel Prize Breakthrough?
A number of doctors however had criticized the extraordinary story of a regenerated finger. Dr. Stephen Minger, an expert on tissue regeneration and stem cells in Kings College in London, said that re-growing a finger by sprinkling it with powdered pig bladder, although theoretically possible, is definitely unlikely. He had explained that a finger is a very complex structure consisting of skin, fat, tendon, connective tissue, bone and blood vessels. All these complex tissues would have to grow in the right order and the right proportion and positions in relation to each other. The collagen dust would have to persuade the healing stump not to simply form a stump from a scar but to behave as it would have done in a baby growing inside a mother’s womb. He said that salamanders can do this because they have the mechanism to reprogram cells in the body enabling them to form tissues. Humans simply cannot do the same unless an artificial scaffold would be provided in a severed tissue to allow the cells of the tissue to grow into – just like heart valves being grown in laboratories. (part 3 up next...)
*to avoid loading interruptions while watching clip, play from beginning to end then click replay*
Human Tissue Regeneration – Junk Science or a Novel Prize Breakthrough?
Unlike salamanders and sponges, humans, or any mammal for that matter are incapable of growing back limbs or organs lost in accidents or similar events. However, there have been claims made recently regarding the possibility of tissue regeneration. Lee Spievack, a model aircraft enthusiast from Cincinnati Ohio, and his brother Alan, a former surgeon from Harvard and a physician doing research on tissue growth, had said that severed tissues can regenerate when sprinkled with “pixie dust.” Lee who had lost a finger due to a model aircraft propeller in 2005 was convinced by his brother to sprinkle pixie dust on the stump of his lost finger. To Spievack’s amazement, his finger grew back within four weeks of sprinkling the substance.
At the University of Pittsburgh, this pixie dust is referred to as extra cellular matrix from the cells of a pig’s bladders. After the matrix is scraped from the bladder it is dried out and the tissues are formed into sheets or powder. This collagen powder provides a suitable framework for stimulating tissue re-growth and cell division if sprinkled on a wound. According to Dr. Stephen Badylack, the original developer of the pixie dust, the substance consists of a mixture of protein and connective tissues already used by surgeons in repairing tendons. It forms microscopic scaffolding for human cells to occupy and emit chemical signals that encourage other cells to regenerate tissue instead of forming scars. (to be continued)
