Stem Cell Treatment – Sorting Hype vs Truth

There is a great deal of excitement in the media regarding the potential use of “Stem Cells” for healing of a variety of conditions. If you or a loved one has a challenging medical condition for which there are limited proven medical or surgical treatments, the allure of a treatment using Stem Cells can be captivating. What if your own (or someone else’s) Stem Cells could improve or cure the condition?

Any new medical breakthrough can be exciting, and thorough scientific studies of safety and effectiveness are needed in order to offer the treatment to a suffering patient. It is important for the science to support the treatment before the marketing of a product begins. So what happens when the marketing hype occurs before the science is done?

The Truth About “Stem Cell” Products

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Such is the case for the widespread medical practice using injections of Amnion / Placenta products. Many patients have been deceived into believing that they are receiving a Stem Cell product when they have been offered a medical product that contains no live cells of any kind. They have been told that the Stem Cells in the product can “swim” throughout the body and heal any of a myriad of conditions, like Alzheimer’s Disease, Autism, lung disease, neuropathy, stroke, and many other conditions.

If you have fallen for this deceptive marketing, you are not alone. Many other patients have spent $5,000-10,000 or more for a procedure using these products. These products have some proteins and other components that may reduce inflammation and promote healing, but numerous lab studies in independent laboratories have demonstrated there are no living Stem Cells, or any living, reproducing human cells of any kind, in them. To make this worse, there have been many documented bacterial infections associated with several of the Amnion / Placental products that were improperly sterilized. 

How could the government agency, the FDA, that is tasked with making sure that our medical products are safe and effective, not do its job? How could a chiropractic or medical clinic provide a treatment that has no scientific proof? How did the Federal Trade Commission not call this the fraud that it is? How could the FDA and the FTC let us all down?

Stem Cell Regulations

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Well, actually, they didn’t. The FDA put into place regulations in November 2017 that provided the companies that manufacture these products an opportunity to prove the safety and effectiveness of these products over the following three years, but none of the companies has done so. Instead, the companies, and the doctors that have been fooled or are part of the deception, used this as an opportunity to sell their products for the last 3-4 years without any science to support their use.

Many clinics have sprung up with the claim of a “Stem Cell” cure with no science and no proof of safety. The FDA recently announced that these products may no longer be marketed in the US after May 31, 2021 without completing studies proving that the products actually work and are safe – the same type of testing that you would expect from any pharmaceutical drug that you take.

Are There Proven Stem Cell Treatments?

Prp And Stem Cell Treatment Prep At Charm

Are there any real, proven medical uses for Stem Cells? Yes, but using real Stem Cells from Bone Marrow or Fat tissue and growth factors from your blood using Platelet Rich Plasma. These have been proven over many years to treat joint, ligament and tendon pain throughout your body. These are also used in treating cancer and other conditions. Stems Cells from Bone Marrow have been used in Orthopedic Surgery for many years to stimulate a better healing process.

Patients can find a reputable clinic offering advanced Regenerative Medicine techniques to treat a variety of different painful joint, ligament, or tendon conditions. Bone Marrow and fat tissue contain readily available Stem Cells that stimulate healing for your sports and spine pain when injected properly into the sites of injury and degeneration.

Unfortunately, we still do not have a proven Stem Cell treatment for Autism, Alzheimer’s disease, kidney failure, severe lung disease, heart disease, or other debilitating medical conditions. But with proper research, undertaken by ethical companies and product manufacturers to prove safety and effectiveness, it is likely that someday we will have treatment options for these types of conditions using Stem Cells.

Dr. David Harris

David Harris

MD

Board-Certified Medicine & Rehabilitation
Board-Certified Pain Medicine

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