Fascinating that only now some of the benefits and mechanisms of the omentum are being researched and discovered. And it begs the question, “what else don’t we know about this organ?”
“The omentum has been used for its healing potential for over 100 years … Our data demonstrate that the omentum contains at least two groups of cells that support tissue repair, immunomodulatory myeloid derived suppressor cells and omnipotent stem cells that are indistinguishable from mesenchymal stem cells. Based on these data, we propose that the omentum is a designated organ for tissue repair and healing in response to foreign invasion and tissue damage.” (Shah et al, 2012)
"The progression of chronic kidney disease was slowed due to the continuous migration of stem cells from the omentum to the diseased kidney, resulting in healing of the kidney …Attaching the omentum, a supposedly useless organ lying close to the kidney, to the diseased kidney could be put into practice after some more developmental work … By this technique, patients would be using their own stem cells lying in the omentum to cure their kidneys without depending on outside sources of stem cells." (Garcia-Gomez et al, 2014)
References
Shah S, Lowery E, Braun RK, Martin A, Huang N, Medina M, et al. (2012) Cellular Basis of Tissue Regeneration by Omentum. PLoS ONE 7(6): e38368. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0038368
Garcia-Gomez I, Pancholi N2, Patel J, Gudehithlu KP, Sethupathi P, Hart P, Dunea G, Arruda JA, Singh AK. (2014) Activated omentum slows progression of CKD. J Am Soc Nephrol. 2014 Jun;25(6):1270-81. doi: 10.1681/ASN.2013040387. Epub 2014 Mar 13.