You’re at the GP. Oh no – the nurse hands you a cup, you need to provide a pee sample. Well, at least there are no needles.

Urine is a waste product with meaning. The smell, colour and density, speaks volumes about your overall health and clever little strips, can detect a host of proteins and things, shedding light on your health status.

But, pee might be more than just a useful diagnostic, it could be a waste product with a purpose.

Turning waste into new body parts

Researchers from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Centre, think urine samples could be used to harvest stem cells, that can be used in regenerative medicine i.e. to grow replacement parts.

Current techniques to gather stem cells are rather invasive. Imagine being able to collect precious stem cells without surgery, needles, stress.

Just a quick swish swish in a cup. Some spinning, shaking and baking in the lab and out pops, a new kidney or a coronary artery.

A pipe dream ?

Peeing it together

The team have figured out the recipe to harvest A grade, be almost anything you like (multipotent) stem cells, from urine samples.

And…………. there is no danger of running short, they flow down the pipe, multiple times a day. An endless supply of EASY to collect stem cells.

The great thing about these stem cells is, because they come directly from the person who provided the urine sample, they would be able to create a 100 % genuine spare part. This is important, because the immune system is trained to seek out and destroy. Stem cells from “others” are considered to be fake, and body’s only run well on 100 % genuine parts. (This is why it is so important to find the perfect tissue match, when undertaking an organ transplant).

The source of the golden river ?

We all pee – so these stem cells can be collected in 5 year olds, as well as 75 year olds. The old stem cells, might not be quite as high quality.

So where exactly are they coming from ? The research team are not 100 % sure, but they think the source of the golden river of life, is somewhere in the kidney. This is because, people who have undergone a kidney ransplant, don’t pee out their own stem cells, instead their urine samples contain cells matching the “foreign” kidney.

Bathroom bazaars

We’re living in exciting times.

Bathroom tinkles could produce priceless objects – a patch for a damaged heart or a new pancreas for a type I diabetic.

Further reading

Pink pigments in cranberries help you “tinkle” better	For big decisions bringing in the bladder to “help” the brain is best	Caffeine going down the drain to stimulate the fishes

Want to know more about being super human ?

Subscribe to E-spoons, to get e-mail updates once a month to learn how to keep your body chemistry balanced so you can optimize your health.

NOTE : Privacy & spam policy. Spoonful of Science will not rent, trade or sell the e-mail list to anyone. You can unsubscribe at any time by following the unsubscribe link.

Did you learn something new or do you have a different perspective ? I’d love to hear from you so post me a comment below