Can certain Supplements help your Stem Cells?

stem cell supplement

Are there stem cell supplements, or asked another way, can certain supplements help your stem cells?  Not a single week goes by without at least one patient asking this critical question. Based on the available information and our clinical experience going back to 2005, I have put together a list of things I think may help stem cells. But the more definitive and honest answer has always been that I don’t yet know. Because of this, last year I commissioned a lab research project to answer this question for our patients with arthritis. As a result, our advanced research lab in Colorado has been diligently developing models to test various supplements with stem cells. Our focus is whether certain supplements can help stem cells to produce more cartilage. Our team is about halfway there and this really pretty picture above is a great example of their hard work. Here you see a immunofluorescence picture of the amount of aggrecan, sox9, and collagen 2 being produced by stem cells that were exposed to a specific nutritional supplement. The areas that are lighting up like a Christmas tree are those areas where the cell is spitting out these important chemicals that show that cartilage is being made. While most supplement vendors just look at some unrelated published research and try to connect unconnected dots to see what to put into their supplement formulations, we’re taking a much more scientific and much more expensive approach. Why do it this way? Because, unlike other medical clinics dabbling in cell therapies for arthritis, we’re really the only ones that have this sort of advanced research capability to test these theories out in the lab. So when we recommend a supplement for patients to take, we’ll have something more to hang our hat on than “because I said so…”

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Chris Centeno, MD is a specialist in regenerative medicine and the new field of Interventional Orthopedics. Centeno pioneered orthopedic stem cell procedures in 2005 and is responsible for a large amount of the published research on stem cell use for orthopedic applications. View Profile

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NOTE: This blog post provides general information to help the reader better understand regenerative medicine, musculoskeletal health, and related subjects. All content provided in this blog, website, or any linked materials, including text, graphics, images, patient profiles, outcomes, and information, are not intended and should not be considered or used as a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Please always consult with a professional and certified healthcare provider to discuss if a treatment is right for you.

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