When people discuss “fat stem cells” they usually mean something called “stromal vascular fraction” or SVF. While references to fat or adipose stem cells can sometimes mean non-SVF materials, these days adipose SVF gets the most attention. But, does anyone have a clear picture of this biologic? Fortunately, it’s starting to come more into focus in recent years and I’ve updated this post in May 2020. What exactly is Stromal Vascular Fraction (SVF)? In a nutshell, stromal vascular fraction is a cellular extract made …Read More
mesenchymal stem cells
A fitness guru named Ben Greenfield has now reported self-injecting non-FDA approved stem cells from US Stem Cell. He says the stem cells came from a clinic that lost a big federal court case 9 days ago. Greenfield posted a Facebook video of the actual injection, which he narrates. There’s some text along with the video. Together they raises many troubling questions. Date of video vs. date of court ruling Greenfield says in the text describing the video that the stem cells were sent …Read More
Historically, the main route of proposed healing via stem cell therapy was cell replacement. In this way of thinking the transplanted cells engrafted (took up home) in the patient’s tissue and replaced dead or diseased cells. However, interest continues to grow in other possible modes of healing by stem cells that don’t rely on cell replacement. In today’s post I cover 4 other possible mechanisms for stem cell therapy to aid health. Secreted factors An alternative, not mutually exclusive model to cell replacement is …Read More
Ain’t nothing like the real thing…right? No, by the ‘real thing’ I’m not talking about Coke versus Pepsi or Coke versus Diet Coke, but rather stem cells. (On a side note there’s still some people who apparently believe the stem cell myth that there are stem cells in Pepsi). I get a regular stream of emails from patients and sometimes phone calls asking questions about stem cells and especially stem cell treatments, but at times I’m not sure the treatment in question really involves …Read More