Few rituals excite young children as much as leaving their recently fallen milk teeth under the pillow so that the Tooth Fairy can take them away and leave a gift in return. Not only for the gift itself, but for the emotion of feeling that they are growing up, no matter how much nostalgia this produces in the parents.
Precisely because of that nostalgia, many choose to keep those milk teeth as a souvenir. The truth is that beyond an affectionate heirloom to treasure along with your first pacifier or your inseparable blanket from when you were a baby, saving children’s milk teeth can be of great help for their future health.
Numerous investigations have proven that milk teeth contain a large number of high-quality stem cells. According to a study published by the National Center for Biotechnology Information in the United States, it is an accessible and important resource for research with these stem cells.
The aforementioned study concluded that in human milk teeth there is a high concentration of stem cells with high potential for different health objectives. They are a very accessible tissue resource, capable of providing enough cells for potential clinical applications.
In addition, it has been shown that the stem cells present in milk teeth have hardly been exposed to environmental damage. Therefore, they carry greater potential to regenerate new cells in other parts of the body.
These stem cells are found in the pulp of the tooth and, although they are also found in permanent teeth, those of milk teeth are of a higher quality as they are not so deteriorated over the years, as well as by certain infections.
The fact that these stem cells can become any other cell in the body postulates them as very valuable and promising for the treatment of numerous diseases, such as cancer, bone regeneration, liver regeneration, regeneration of eye tissue or neuronal cells. Also for the treatment of diabetes, as well as to prevent heart attacks.
Currently, the bone marrow is the main source of stem cells, but this organ presents a more complex access. Therefore, the ease of extracting them from milk teeth is a finding that promises to be very useful in the future, opening the door to new therapies, research, and treatments.
