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by ofonorow » Sun Aug 08, 2010 4:18 am
Thanks for finding this, and I believe we have discussed this Chinese finding. Stem cells are apparently the mechanism the body uses to heal. These cells are undifferentiated, meaning they are not yet a specific tissue, such as muscle, nerve, bone, etc. They can grow (divide) and apparently reacting to signals sent by the surrounding tissue, they become "just like" the surrounding tissue, creating more cells.
If you think about it, the first cell or zygote, (created at conception when the sperm merges with the egg cell), starts dividing and eventually its progeny turn into trillions of cells with vastly different functions. That first cell is called a "pluripotential" cell. The "earlier" a stem cell is, e.g. embryonic cells, the more potential it has to turn into any kind of tissue. This is why there is/was a strong interest in embryonic stem cell research.
As noted in this article, science has found methods for turning "adult" stem cells into embryonic-like stem cells, but they point on that only 0.01 percent are converted. They have discovered that by adding vitamin C, they can increase this production of these useful stem cells by 100 times.
Owen R. Fonorow
HeartCURE.Info
American Scientist's Invention Could Prevent 350,000 Heart Bypass Operations a year