The human body is full of marvels, and stem cells are perhaps the biggest. These cells are the building blocks upon which all human life is formed as they transform and multiply to build a body from the ground up.
One of the brass rings of medicine is to tap the amazing power of stem cells to help solve any number of medical riddles, from replacing organs to rebuilding damaged tissues.
As scientists work toward these lofty goals, stem cell therapy is playing an invaluable role in how we approach musculoskeletal health at No Mercy Sports Medicine. Our own Dr. Moisés Irizarry-Román, who is a sports medicine specialist, routinely uses autologous stem cells as part of management and therapy of musculoskeletal injuries, and we’ve learned what stem cell treatments can and can’t do.
Because stem cell therapy is all the rage these days, there are plenty of claims swirling around. We want to do our part to separate fact from fiction.
For decades, there’s been some controversy around stem cell therapy, primarily the use of embryonic stem cells. Not all stem cells are the same — embryonic stem cells are the most powerful and can transform into just about any cell and then multiply as that cell. That’s why they’re referred to as pluripotent.
Adults have tissue-specific stem cells (multipotent or unipotent cells), which are found in your bone marrow and adipose fat tissue. These cells are less powerful than embryonic cells, but they can still transform into certain cells, such as blood, cartilage, and bone cells.
When we use stem cells as part of your therapy at No Mercy Sports Medicine, we harvest your own stem cells from your body and we help redirect them into your damaged tissues. Not only does your body readily accept the stem cells, but we’re not harvesting them from another human.
We mentioned earlier that the ultimate goal of regenerative medicine is to be able to completely rebuild or replace tissues in the body — just as a lizard can regrow a tail if it’s broken off.
The adult stem cells that we harvest aren’t quite capable of that. But they do set the stage for healing and supply invaluable resources to aid in the repair and regeneration of damaged tissues.
For example, through stem cell therapy, we can suppress your body’s immune response by reducing inflammation, which goes a long way toward pain relief.
Stem cells aren’t a fad, and they hold a lot of promise for the future. Researchers are working on reprogramming adult stem cells to turn them from multipotent cells to pluripotent (more like embryonic cells), and they’re having some success with these efforts.
In other words, scientists are growing powerful stem cells in a laboratory setting that can be used in humans to address any number of health concerns. This is currently in action, and stem cell therapies are helping people with serious health issues, including life-threatening blood disorders.
There may come a time, in the not-so-distant future, when stem cell therapy holds the key to curing injuries and diseases of all kinds, but it’s not there yet. In the meantime, our practice is proud to be part of the early movement of stem cell therapy, and we’re seeing a good deal of success in our own patients.
If you’d like to see for yourself how stem cell therapy can support your healing and health, please contact No Mercy Sports Medicine in Miami, Florida, by calling 305-614-6757.
*Individual results may vary
