Regenexx (stem cells for knees)

Hi

I'm a stem cell biologist and would strongly recommend you remain very skeptical regarding the effectiveness of any stem cell treatment. That being said, there have been numerous developments in the bone and skin repair fields and it can't hurt to inform yourself of course.

I'd say your best bet is to contact stem cell experts working in academia near where you live or those that collaborate in clinical trials (clinicaltrials.gov). Most stem cell biologists are more than willing to give you science-based information, in particular because there are way too many scammers out there trying to make a buck selling useless therapies for a lot of money (and thus giving the field in general a very bad reputation).

If you do find any private companies selling treatments, try to find out if they collaborate with academia or are/were part of a clinical trial, how many patients have been treated, can you talk to those patients or the study leaders, are there any scientific publications (in particular where they were involved specifically, because scammers often cite random publications that were done by others and not themselves), were the cells proven to be safe (most bone marrow-derived cells are), were there any complications, for how long were the patients followed up, were any short-term gains (i.e. months) still present long-term (i.e. years), etc.

Other than the origin, I don't expect there are major differences in repair capacity of stem cells from marrow or fat tissue. Also keep in mind that your own bodies' stem cells come with all the pluses and minuses of how they are already functioning (or not).

Hope this helps with getting accurate information.

Best,

Piet

We sent your question to the AMSSM sports med docs who advise the website.
Here was their take:
http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/cms/article-detail.asp?articleid=...