Question for Dr. Allday
 

Steve - I have been meaning to forward this to you in hopes that you will read this and pose the question to Dr. Allday about the use of regenerative stem cells that develop their own blood supply (!) and whether or not this could be further used in equine therapy. The article does note that it is used in some aspects of equine therapy. I was wondering if it can be used to help with some forms of laminitis....

and don't let the "incendiary" title of the article fool you.

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/1...tureofbreasts/

I'm not Dr. Allday, but I've used stem cells in animals (dog and horse) in tendon and joint therapy. Adipose-derived stem cells have been found to be limited in their application, and have already been relatively abandoned in veterinary medicine in favor of bone-marrow derived stem cells.

There are currently multiple uses clinically for stem cell therapy in horses, it is a very common clinical application.

Current research investigation in laminitis seems to be focusing less on adipose-derived stem cells, and more on a variety of bone-marrow derived.

But a major focus is drug use for vessel dilation, and identification of inflammatory mediators/markers that augment the disease cascade (that we can interfer with)

Veterinary medicine is about 10 years ahead of human medicine (due to research funding restrictions the past 10 years) but now is starting to catch up. So we serve as a good baseline for human applications. Human medicine is looking at important clinical applications such as nerve regeneration, pancreatic cells (diabetes), etc. Fat-derived stem cells are not as useful here, either.

As the article notes, there is promise for more realistic breast augmentation using fat-derived stem cells. But if you want skin for a burn victim, you don't use adipose-derived cells.

TheHorse.com has lots of good articles about current stem cell therapy in horses.

Thanks Riot - I was wondering about the use of adipose stem cells due to their ability to develop a blood supply and was wondering if that could be of any help in certain cases of laminitis. I thought I had read that one of the many issues with laminitis is keeping a healthy blood supply in the area.

Obviously, I have NO medical background so I appreciate the easy to grasp explanation!

Guess what The Horse. com just listed on their website? Highlights from this years Laminitis Conference