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Asked by jkxbl to Emma, James, Jayne, Kara, Sharon on 18 Mar 2011 in Categories: Stem Cells.
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Sharon Sneddon answered on 17 Mar 2011:
Hi Jkxbl,
Great question.
Yes, horses do have stem cells and in theory, they could be used in the same way to heal bones and illnesses, however, in most cases, horses that break legs get put down.
I think this is really sad, and it’s mainly done to put the horse out of pain, however it’s also got a lot to do with the money and the care involved in the recovery of a horse, especially if it’s a race horse, it’s unlikely that the horse will race again. Horses are very active animals and it’s hard to keep them still enough and strong enough to stand when they are injured.
If stem cells could be used to help save horses lives in the future then I think it would be a great thing.
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Emma King answered on 18 Mar 2011:
Hi jkxbl – Yes horses have stem cells just like we do. I think the reason they are not so good at healing themselves is more to do with their body type – lots of long bones that need to carry a lot of weight, and it’s very hard to stop a horse walking around until they heal.
There also are financial elements to it, we can’t put a human down if they are very badly injured but people would probably do it to a horse if it wasn’t going to recover -
James Chan answered on 18 Mar 2011:
Hi jkxbl, horses do have stem cells, as do all mammals. Sometimes animals don’t heal well for other reasons, for example, I work with bone. If people have bone that is broken but not fixed so the broken bits keep moving about, that stops the bone healing properly. You can see that the body tries to heal by forming some new bone around the broken bits, but too much movement makes it impossible for them to bridge the gap. I don’t know what kind of injury to the horse you are referring to but there are many factors that affect how well animals heal apart from stem cells.
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