Are Umbilical Cord “Stem Cells” a Thing?

Let’s say you’re in a US clinic and someone offers you stem cells from Wharton’s Jelly? Is that for real or fiction? Based on the existing research, it’s not real. While Wharton’s Jelly is a component of an umbilical cord that can contain stem cells, the US products being sold to clinics do not have…read more

PRP Is an Exosome Treatment

Exosomes are all the rage these days. The problem is that exosomes are yet another fake treatment as most of the products being used are just amniotic fluid thrown into a centrifuge. What is amniotic fluid? Mostly baby urine. We also have very little evidence that these exosome products do anything for anybody. Compare that…read more

How Much Blood Should Be Drawn to Make PRP?

We often see patients who tell us they had a PRP shot that didn’t work. When I ask how much blood was drawn, they tell me a few tubes, which isn’t enough to make a high-quality PRP. Hence, these patients never had real PRP, but dilute plasma containing some platelets. Why does this happen? The…read more

How Would You Know If You Got a High or Low Quality BMC Procedure?

A bone marrow concentrate procedure or BMC contains the patient’s stem cells. However, how the doctor performs this procedure either means high or low stem cell numbers. At Regenexx we deal with these variables to ensure you’re getting a high-quality procedure. If you’re outside of the Regenexx network, how would you know?

2024 Regenexx Infographics

For the new year, I wanted to post a series of infographics that I have been creating. These are very focused on helping patients either understand high from low-quality orthobiologics offerings or help them make key decisions like whether they should get surgery or an invasive procedure versus a precise, guided orthobiologic injection instead. Each…read more

Can You Use Chat GPT to Write Scientific Papers?

Six months ago I tried to use ChatGPT to write a summary of the medical research on a topic. It failed miserably and perhaps the worse thing was that it made up fictional scientific references that didn’t exist. That was ChaptGPT 3.5, so now that I’ve been using ChatGPT 4 for some time, it’s time…read more

Happy Holidays!

The Great PRP Gel Tube Caper

There’s a PRP scam being run out there by many clinics that claim to offer PRP treatment. They use cheap PRP Gel tubes made in China for pennies on the dollar that produce substandard PRP. Let’s dive into this today so both providers and patients can avoid this problem. What Is a PRP Gel Tube?…read more