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Biomaterials Skin Offers Hope for Beauty Fitness LifestylesBiomaterials skin, or biomaterial skin, is just one of the exciting options coming down the pike. Biomaterials have been used for centuries - yet only today are they offering sufficient diversity and promise that they're entering the public domain. In a beauty fitness context, they offer great scope for alleviating - and removing - debilitating and unsightly conditions. A biomaterial is "any substance (other than drugs) or combination of substances synthetic or natural in origin, which can be used for any period of time, as a whole or as a part of a system which treats, augments, or replaces any tissue, organ, or function of the body". Romans, Chinese, and Aztecs used gold in dentistry over 2000 years ago, and early dentists used ivory and wood to make teeth. In the last 150 years, we've seen aseptic surgery, bone plates and joints, synthetic plastics, and polyethylene and stainless steel being used. Some of the ailments and uses include vascular prosthesis and hip implants, dialysis, sutures, contacts, spinal rods, probes and - in the more cosmetic area - correcting or replacing ears, noses, amalgam and skin.
Third generation tissue engineered implants are designed to regrow rather than replace tissues, and there is even artificial skin and cartilage cells and substitute heart valves. There will soon be biosensors, biomimetic, and smart devices for controlled drug delivery, and a host of new materials from metals through semiconductor materials, ceramics and polymers. They are already leading to the development of dental implants, heart valves, bone replacements, biosensors, implantable microelectrodes, skin/cartilage and ocular implants, tissue replacements, bioresorbable vascular grafts, biodegradable nerve guidance channels, skin grafts and bone replacements. Biomaterials is an emerging industry with enormous implications for those of us interested in beauty fitness lifestyles. Get your Beauty Fitness JOLT! - the free newsletter that helps you achieve your ambitions. biomaterials skin
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