Stem-Cell Treatments for Pets

[SRW]

This just sounds too good to be true.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1817572,00.html

I guess it is hard to separate it from the company it keeps.

<SNIP>
Vet-Stem's therapy is just the newest frontier in the booming field of alternative veterinary medicine — which includes acupuncture, chiropractic and aquatic therapies and traditional Chinese herbal medicine — an industry driven by pet owners who are increasingly willing to do or pay whatever they can to help their ailing pets

 

[paximperium]

You can stem cell anything. It is the new frontier of quackery since most people have no idea what stem cells are and believe it is some magical cure-all.

 

[SRW]

If I understand the article correctly they take fat stem cells from the dog and inject them into the problem area. So a dog with a knee degeneration gets stem cells and the stem cells know that they are now supposed to become knee cells and rebuild the knee...what stops them from becoming too much knee? Or becoming blood?

 

[paximperium]

If I understand the article correctly they take fat stem cells from the dog and inject them into the problem area. So a dog with a knee degeneration gets stem cells and the stem cells know that they are now supposed to become knee cells and rebuild the knee...what stops them from becoming too much knee? Or becoming blood?

Well this use of stem cells is crap.

But, ahhhh...now that's the cancer saving, spinal cord saving and parkinson's saving, nobel prize question.

How does the a stem cell develop into specific cell types and organs when all stem cells have the same DNA? That's where a bunch of NIH grant money is going into.