When Will Athletes Be Able to Follow in Gov. Rick Perry's Scientific Footsteps?

And by that I don't mean when fighters will become believers in Intelligent Design as a matter of "faith and intellect". Were that the case, I would commit writer's seppuku, and ignore the sport for its intellectual (and moral) bankruptcy. No, I'm talking about Perry's unique method of back treatment. Which required stem cells.

Ever since the first successful transplantation of bone marrow in 1968, stem cell research has seen many different milestones. Three decades later, cultures of human embryonic stem cells would show to be capable of forming various different body tissues. The research, even in the face of Bush's restrictions, never slowed down.

If clinical trials for stem cell therapy have lagged it has been due to the foresight of the FDA: clinical trials for gene therapy proved fatal for 18 year old Jesse Gelsinger, and so the same discretion has been applied to stem cell research. Particularly, adult stem cells.

A little over four decades later, and just this July, South Korea approved the first commercial treatment for heart attack victims. The trick here is taking stem cells in the patient's bone marrow, and then throwing those cells into the coronary artery (preliminary reports revealed a 6% increase in heart function).

All of this has been accomplished on the back of adult mesenchymal stem cells. The question required for this stem cell revolution was "how can we reprogram an adult stem cell's genetic material into an induced pluripotent stem cell (iPS cells)?" And scientists found that answer in viruses. 

This was the research Gov. Rick Perry took advantage of when he had fat cells from his body injected into his back to treat his back pain. Could MMA fighters one day have access to this treatment? According to Dr. John Park, MMA fighters probably need it. Dr. Park wrote an interesting feature on back pain in MMA a couple of years ago for FIGHT! magazine, revealing what puts MMA fighters at risk:

Mixed martial arts and grappling athletes often have flexion dominance in the lower back and pelvis. In neutral spinal postures, the lower back should curve inwards, but many of the movements in Jiu Jitsu and submission grappling occur with the back in the opposite direction with the lower back flexed forward and the hips flexed. Additionally, most training drills involve repetitive flexion at the waist and abdominal strengthening movements, causing tightness of the hip flexors and weakness of the hip extensors. Over time, the lower back muscles become under utilized while the hip flexors become shortened.

This is the big news in stem cell research: that it's finally ready for the masses*. Back pain in particular is a unique beast because it is often associated with chronic pain, and that in itself has a strong link with drug use where painkillers are often present. 

*Ready for the masses does not mean "completely safe". It was as early as May of this year that mice were shown to reject IPS cells made from their own cells.