Tuesday 7 June 2022 12:25 AM How belly fat can help bones to heal faster! trends now
Stem cells from belly fat could repair bones and speed up patients’ recovery after knee replacement surgery.
Scientists have discovered that stem cells — the body’s raw materials for repairing itself — can be turned into bone cells by zapping them with sound waves just ten minutes a day for five days, reports the journal Small.
These new cells could then be used to repair bones; from helping to secure replacement knee joints and dental implants, to spinal surgery and bone defects.
Bones do not always heal on their own. According to a 2019 study in the journal Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology, one in ten fractures will not repair themselves without help.
Stem cells from belly fat could repair bones and speed up patients’ recovery after knee replacement surgery
Stem cells are already used to speed up healing; they can improve, replace or regenerate damaged tissues and organs — so-called tissue engineering.
This is because, under the right conditions in the body or in a laboratory, stem cells will divide to form ‘daughter’ cells which can then be programmed to develop into specific types of cells, such as blood or skin.
However, creating bone cells from stem cells has proved difficult. The sheer number of stem cells required to grow sufficient bone ones — ‘many millions’, according to researchers — makes it problematic.
Harvesting and growing these cells is also very time-consuming and in many cases stem cells are taken from a patient’s bone marrow, which can be a very painful procedure.
The new approach using sound waves circumvents these problems. New bone cells can be grown quickly, in a matter of days rather than weeks, and without the need for painful surgery to extract them from bone marrow.
Scientists have discovered that stem cells — the body’s raw materials for repairing itself — can be turned into bone cells by zapping them with sound waves just ten minutes a day for five days, reports the journal Small
In
