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Urine may have the ability to do something that no one ever could have imagined: grow teeth.
Researchers in China recently utilized human urine to grow teeth.
The information from the study, which appears in the Cell Regeneration Journal, indicates that small, teeth-like structures began to develop. The research team hopes to eventually create full-grown teeth, which may later replace teeth people lose from some kind of injury or decay.
The Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health collected urine, and the cells were harvested in a laboratory setting to be given a chance to become stem cells. A combination of the cells and other bodily material from mice were transferred into the mouse. After about 3 weeks, a tooth-like structure developed. The structure contained pulp, enamel and dentin.
The information from this study doesn’t necessarily mean that urine should be directly turned into teeth. The information, however, provides a nice baseline for more studies utilizing this evidence.
On the other hand, there may be problems that arise from utilizing urine as the source of stem cells. Some studies have demonstrated that urine is not the best source of the cells, and this is coupled with the fact that only a small number of these cells can be translated into stem cells.
A contamination risk may also exist, something that doesn’t happen frequently with other sources of stem cells.
