Just when you think that scientists and doctors must be near to running-out of new health benefits to research and incredible discoveries to make, they unveil some more.
One of the symptoms of a stroke — where the affected area of the brain is unable to function — is the inability to move one or more limbs on one side of the body. Disability affects 75 percent of stroke survivors enough to decrease their employability.
“In Australia there are 60,000 strokes a year, 5000 in South Australia — one every 10 minutes,” says Associate Professor Simon Koblar of the University of Adelaide, who is leading research on the use of stem cells from teeth to repair stroke-damaged brains.
“After one year, one-third of those people will have died, one-third will improve, and the other third are left with a disability,” he said.
“The challenge to improve function after a stroke is enormous but there are huge potential benefits, not just to the individuals, but for the whole Australian community.”
The tooth stem cells are being used to repair brain damage by transforming into healthy new brain cells and in turn restoring movement to affected limbs.
The stem cells are taken from the dental pulp — the tissue in the centre of an extracted tooth. It then takes up to six weeks for enough cells to grow in order to make a transplant.
Unlike transplants from donors, these stem cells have no risk of rejection as the body recognises them as its own.
The treatment, which offers significant hope for the world’s increasingly aging population, is currently being trialled on animals and it is hoped that it could be available within a few years.
“Just a small increase in function can mean the difference between someone being employed or unemployed on disability so, because we’re starting at such a poor base that we can do so little, a small increment of improvement would be absolutely fantastic,” Associate Professor Koblar said.
During the trial, 52 men and women who suffered from mild to moderate asthma were given 340mg (approximately the recommended daily allowance) of magnesium citrate or a placebo.
Those who took the magnesium supplement were proved to have improved lung function and reported that their overall quality of life had improved.
Previous research backs up these findings with a reported link between low levels of magnesium in the diet and more frequent and worse asthma attacks. The reason for this is believed to be that low levels of magnesium prompts increased histamine release, which subsequently causes asthma symptoms.
Magnesium is an essential mineral for human nutrition where it serves several important metabolic functions:
It plays a role in the production and transport of energy.
It is important for the contraction and relaxation of muscles.
Magnesium is involved in the synthesis of protein, and it assists in the functioning of certain enzymes in the body.
Green vegetables such as spinach are particularly good sources of magnesium because the chlorophyll molecule (which gives green vegetables their colour) contains magnesium.
Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia. It is an incurable, degenerative and terminal disease and is generally diagnosed in people older than 65 years of age and is predicted to affect one in 85 people globally by 2050.
When the brain is working normally, brain chemicals called neurotransmitters help brain signals travel around the brain and body via nerves. But Alzheimer’s sufferers have a reduced number of neurotransmitters.
It’s believed that nicotine, which has long been known to be a stimulant and is also highly addictive, has a positive effect on memory by mimicking the action of neurotransmitters essential for this brain activity.
Following one study that found four weeks of nicotine treatment halved decision times in memory tests, a new year-long clinical trial is underway in the US to see if memory can be improved over the longer term by using nicotine patches ranging from 5mg to 15mg, the Daily Mail reported.
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