The joint regenerative power of hematopoietic cell transplantation

Hematopoietic cell transplantation has come to the forefront of health restoration.

For people with joint conditions and pain that’s not helped or relieved by standard means, it holds exceptional promise…

Especially when the joint regenerative power of amniotic stem cells is combined with another source of stem cells that you may remember reading about in one of my previous posts: Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP).

I also want to share some exciting stem cell news: a recent study using stem cells to reverse older age frailty.

The perfect recipe for joint regeneration

Your own natural stem cells don’t just spontaneously grow and heal as you age — not like they did when you were very young.

Hence the value of stem cell injections for joint regeneration. In particular, amniotic-derived stem cells. Yet there’s more you should understand about these stem cells.

First, consider these proven facts about amniotic stem cells (ASC) and ASC fluid. These special cells:

• Are a mixture of multi-potential stem cells that will not form a tumor.
• Are “immunologically privileged,” which means they will not cause a reaction even though they come from completely unrelated donors and recipients.
• Contain many more stem cells than does adult bone marrow.
• Have anti-inflammatory and anti-adhesion properties, thus preventing scar tissue where you don’t want it.
• Are anti-microbial by nature
• Contain compounds that fight immune potentiating agents to reduce auto-immune disease (e.g. rheumatoid arthritis).
• Have shown clinical ability to heal wounds previously considered to be non-healing before the fluid was administered.
• Contain growth factors that stimulate stem cells to differentiate into the many different cell types — hopefully the ones you intend to see regenerated, such as in an old or damaged joint.

Even though amniotic stem cells can develop into many different tissue types, they still must have a favorable environment in which to grow. For example, a joint that has poor blood supply cannot grow new tissue.

Alternatively, if it does not have enough or the required growth factors present to “turn on,” tissue regeneration will be minimal. That’s why I am looking at adding platelet rich plasma to the amniotic stem cell fluid.

In a previous article I explained that platelet rich plasma (PRP) from your own blood has both platelets and growth factors. When platelet rich plasma (PRP) is isolated from your blood. and then reinjected back into your joints, these growth factors stimulate stem cells in your joint tissue to mature into connective tissue cells, blood cells, and nerve cells. When added to amniotic-derived stem cell tissue, PRP injection provides the growth factors that direct the stem cells what to do. They assist in the tissue repair process. Therefore, amniotic stem cell injections mixed with your own platelet rich plasma appears to be the perfect recipe for joint regeneration. Compare this to joint surgery, which comes with considerable cost, down-time, and scaring.

As a reminder, amniotic stem cell therapy plus PRP can be used to regenerate non-healing joints or tendons in your shoulder, elbow, wrist, back, hip, knee, ankle, Achilles tendon, foot plantar (fasciitis), knee, or patellar tendon.

Stem cell therapy for anti-aging

Two small recent human clinical trials show that stem cell therapy is both safe and quite effective in reversing symptoms of age-associated frailty.

What exactly is age-related frailty? Let me explain this first…

In older age we all have decreased physical and immunological function. In these studies, they measured physical performance before and then six months after their one stem cell infusion. Testing included such activity as a 6-minute walk test, short physical performance exam, and a breathing test (forced expiratory volume in 1 second). They also measured their blood for immune markers of frailty (B cell intracellular TNF-α levels) six months after the infusion. And, they gave them a female sexual quality of life questionnaire.

In the more recent study, patients ages 76 years on average were give just one infusion with a high concentration of human bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (20 million, 100 million or 200 million cells) from donors aged 20 to 45 years old. There were no adverse effects.  They found that those who received 100 million cells had significant improvement in all parameters measured as described above.

The next stage for their research is to do a larger clinical trial across multiple locations. If this proves stem cell infusions to be effective, then just one more large randomized (Phase 3) clinical trial will be needed to allow for public approval so this can be more universally recommended in mainstream medicine.

I am excited to see where stem cell research and treatment options can take us — away from drugs that control illness and closer to natural therapies like stem cell therapy that reverse illness and heal.

To healing and feeling good,

Michael Cutler, M.D.

Editor’s note: If you suffer from chronic pain and conventional medicine has let you down, or you just want to escape the potential dangers of OTC and prescription drugs even for occasional pain, you must read Dr. Mark Wiley’s guide, Conquering the Pain: An Alternative Doctor’s Fresh Look at the Newest and Oldest in Alternative Pain Therapies. Click here for a preview of what you’ll find!