Friday, April 23, 2004
New Alternatives
We all know I'm a big fan of herbal and alternative medicine, and that fans of herbal medicine have had plenty of reason to be smug recently. And now we have another. Turmeric seems to help with cysitic fibrosis, a debilitating and mostly terminal genetic condition. In mice with the disease, turmeric all but eliminated symptoms. Whether this translates to humans or not, it will lead research in new directions.
Bioartificial livers, which are pig liver cell membranes in an external blood processing unit, have been successfully used to treat patients with acute liver failure. Patients go through treatment once a day, and the idea is to keep them alive long enough for their own livers to repair themselves or for a transplant to arrive. A study shows this system 44% more effective than traditional treatments. This is bloody cool! Although it would be cooler if we could stem cell up some new, genetically matched ones for homotransplantation.
Bioartificial livers, which are pig liver cell membranes in an external blood processing unit, have been successfully used to treat patients with acute liver failure. Patients go through treatment once a day, and the idea is to keep them alive long enough for their own livers to repair themselves or for a transplant to arrive. A study shows this system 44% more effective than traditional treatments. This is bloody cool! Although it would be cooler if we could stem cell up some new, genetically matched ones for homotransplantation.
