REGENERATIVE MEDICINE

If you’re interested in safeguarding your health for the long term, you may want to consider banking your stem cells for use in regenerative medicine. Many parents are doing this for their children at birth, but if you missed that opportunity for yourself or your children, you may want to bank some of the stem cells from your teeth.

Banking Stem Cells from Your Teeth

Your teeth have stem cells that can be saved. If you or your child is having a tooth extracted, you may want to consider saving those cells. The process is easy.

Simply register online at StemSave.com. Once you’re registered, Stem Save sends a kit to our clinic. Then, during your appointment, we put your teeth into the transport kit. The sealed kit is rushed to the Stem Save labs. There, the cells are extracted, tested for viability, and saved for future use through a process called cryopreservation.

The Role of Stem Cells in Regenerative Medicine

Regenerative medicine refers to the process of regenerating cells, bones, tissues, and other parts of your body, and stem cells are at the heart of regenerative medicine. Stem cells are plastic—that means that they have the flexibility to truly become anything.

In fact, they are the only cells in your body that can differentiate and become other cells. They are also the only cells with the ability to regenerate. In fact, recently, doctors were able to use stem cells to regenerate a woman’s windpipe. Rather than have to get a transplant from a stranger, this cancer patient was able to get a new windpipe made from her very own cells.

Research on Stem Cells

The future role of stem cells is still being discovered. Top researchers from around the world are currently trying to find ways to use stem cells to regrow bones, make organs for transplant patients, and create new healthy muscles and tissues.

If successful, these therapies may eventually cure issues that are currently untreatable. That includes diabetes, heart disease, renal failure, osteoporosis, and a range of other chronic or deadly diseases. In the United States, researchers at the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine, the National Institute of Health, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services are all researching new ways to use stem cells.

Benefits of Using Stem Cells for Regenerative Medicine

The main benefit of using stem cells for regenerative medicine is that you are using your own cells which eliminates the possibility of rejection. For instance, normally, when you do an organ transplant, you have to take immunosuppressants to prevent your immune system from rejecting the new organ and attacking it.

In the future, when you have an organ that’s been grown out of your own stem cells, you don’t have to worry about those risks. Your body will instantly embrace the new organ.

When to Bank Stem Cells from Your Teeth

Ideally, it’s best to bank stem cells when you are as young as possible, and to that end, you may want to bank the cells from your children’s baby teeth. However, it’s also possible to bank cells from wisdom teeth or teeth that are extracted for crowding.

If you want the potential benefits of banked stem cells, we can help. Contact Greater Atlanta Oral Facial Surgery to book an appointment and talk about stem cell banking today. In the future, this decision may have the power to save you from Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, MS, or