

Embryonic stem cells from baboons produced a fully functional artery







This study appeared in the Journal of Cellular and Molecular Medicine.

Source: Science Daily

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RE: Basic maintenance.
By drycrust3 on 1/14/2013 5:33:56 PM , Rating: 2
the issue is when people take their unvalidated anecdotal unscientific belief system and wrap it up in a load of pseudoscience to make it seem like level one evidence from a high quality randomised controlled trial.

Ok, so tell me, how is an ordinary person supposed to conduct a 5 year scientific trial that meets your expectations? It just won't happen. The nearest I can do is a one person trial, which is exactly what I am doing, and what those other people are doing.

There are two really important issues that I can see with stem cells which you fail to account for:
1) Do we need to kill someone to get them? Don't give me the "legally we aren't doing anything wrong" nonsense, Hitler made it legal to kill people like Gypsies, Jews, homosexuals, religious devotees, handicapped people, etc, but that doesn't make it right.
I did some research on stem cells, and as far as I can tell it looks like it is on the border between right and wrong, which isn't good. As much as I don't like to suggest it, one needs to ask whether the purpose of stem cell research is to push the boundaries of what the public will accept as right and wrong.
2) If the cause of the damage to the body was because of an unhealthy lifestyle, e.g. smoking, using "recreational" drugs, booze, etc, then how long will it be before the newly repaired parts of a person are starting to fail again and that person is back at the doctor with the same problem?
Those are two really important issues, and you seem very happy to ignore them.
To me, a much better approach to both of those problems would be to find ways to improve the way a body heals itself then that would avoid the need for stem cells completely.
I heard this piece on the news last year about the oldest man in America eating KFC every day. Guess why this is interesting news, and guess why it didn't surprise me?

RE: Basic maintenance.
By Bubbacub on 1/15/2013 8:44:05 AM , Rating: 2

of course, an individual with no medical training, no funding and no trial support cannot produce high quality scientific research.

thats why we have research departments in all major universities.

the individual cannot be expected to widely read the literature and produce their own considered opinion - this is why we have systematic reviews and metaanalyses.

the individual cannot even really be expected to read and understand the results of systematic reviews - this is why we have doctors - you pay them to do this work for you and you have to trust them to give you the best most honest advice.

if you dont have this sense of trust with your current doctor then i suggest you try to find another one. looking around trying to figure everything out yourself is frustrating and has a risk of causing harm (like steve jobs).

im not a specialist researcher in mesenchymal stem cells but i do know that there is a lot of FUD about stem cell research.

stem cells != embryonic stem cells

mesenchymal stem cells can be harvested from lots of different tissues - nothing has to die to produce them. there was an outcry about taking stem cells from embryos (which is very understandable) - however the overwhelming majority of stem cell research today does not involve any embryos. stem cells have been used for decades - e.g. a bone marrow transplant - a very common and old treatment for some cancers is essentially a transplant of multipotent stem cells.

with regard to eating a normal amount of a varied healthy diet, not smoking, not drinking too much and exercising regularly - this is common sense. you don't a doctor or anyone else to tell you that these are good things to do.

stem cell research (and by extension other research) is not being done so that we can live forever whilst chain smoking whilst guzzling down bucket after bucket of kfc.

its not an either/or situation. we should live nice clean healthy lifestyles and if research on top of that can produce treatments to further improve our quality of life then that can only be a good thing.

