What Are Stem Cells

Stem cells are cells from which all of our body's tissues and cells originate, derive from or "stem". Stem cells may be the single most important beneficial health force that Mankind has ever discovered! The first stem cell is the cell that forms when a sperm and egg join together to produce a new baby (called a zygote). During the first few divisions of this first stem cell, the cells can be separated and used to either make duplicate babies (clones) or can be used to heal acute and chronic injuries, repair damaged tissues and to build new organs.

As new tissues develop, a few stem cells do not become specialized into the various tissues components but remain hidden in areas of the tissue that are relatively low in oxygen. These stem cell "niches" helps them remain inactive like "sleeping beauties" waiting to be awakened and to spring into action by the kiss of their handsome prince. These handsome princes are certain hormones that are released from damaged tissues shortly after damage occurs. These hormones circulate through the blood to the bone marrow and the surrounding tissues adjacent to the damaged tissues- awakening the sleeping beauties. Once awake, these stem cells quickly move to the damaged tissues, attach themselves to the inner lining of the blood vessels where the damage has occurred and migrate into the tissues to begin the healing and restoring process.

This is an amazing, miraculous process we are beginning to understand and harness for the benefit of people like you who are looking for support for health problems. We have learned to extract and concentrate stem cells from various tissues (see Sources of Stem Cells) and can expand them in the laboratory in order to give to you massive quantities of these healing stem cells. This whole NEW area of knowledge and its application has been called "regenerative therapy" since supporting the regeneration of your damaged tissues and organs is the real beneficial outcome of the new techniques we are utilizing.

All stem cells share three things in common:

All stem cells are capable of multiple renewal -Once a cell becomes "specialized", as in when it becomes muscle cells, blood cells, or nerve cells, it does not normally regenerate. On the other hand, stem cells are non-specialized and may replicate themselves many times when instructed to do so by their friends and neighbors in damaged tissues. This is why doctors prefer to take thousands of non-specialized (also called undifferentiated) stem cells into a laboratory and coax them to proliferate for days to weeks- making it possible to return millions of stem cells to a patient for optimal healing.

All stem cells are non-specific - The very name "stem", denotes a cell that does not have a tissue-specific destination or structure. A stem cell by definition is a yet unspecialized cell that gives rise to specialized cells. A specialized cell is a cell that has developed some sort of "trade" just like a young worker entering the workforce. Just as humans have to be trained by their older, more experienced workers, stem cells must be given instructions by their older, more experienced neighbors before they can take on the same tasks. So specialization is the process of going from being untrained (undifferentiated) to trained (differentiated).

All stem cells can become specific cell types -As Non-specific (non-trained) stem cells come into damaged tissues they divide into "progenitor" (or precursor) cells (like apprentices - workers in training that are acquiring the skills but have not mastered all of the skills yet) that then divide into specific cells.

The formation of heart muscle cells, nerve cells, pancreas cells, etc. from apprentice stem cells occurs under the direction of their teachers - the mature workers (the fully developed already in place, working heart muscle cells, the nerve cells, the pancreas cells etc.). These professional (differentiated) cells instruct the growing apprentice (progenitor) cells how to become cells just like themselves so new tissue forms exactly like the damaged tissue was before the injury occurred.