What do you guys think about stem cell therapy or prp injections?

[Tordor]

I've been hearing quite a bit about stem cell therapy and prp injections from friends and the likes throughout the years. A lot of these clinics, their websites and google searches seem to tout a bunch of benefits for these interventions, including join pain relief whether it be shoulder, knees, ankles, or hips, they also claim arthiritis, osteoarthiritis, osteoporosis prevention/reversal. They also claim to boost just overall energy levels and heal injuries from sports or just daily life much faster (seen some also claim to improve erectile dysfunction). Claims of improvements in lifting strength performance, endurance and just overall athleticism are also common, claims of sarcopenia or dynapenia prevention/reversal are also there. Of course not every single clinic claims every single one of these benefits, but I'm just listing everything I've seen claimed so far, even if it's outrageous. I've also seen some high profile celebrities and athletes such as Ronnie Coleman undergoing these treatments, especially stem cell therapy, and then heavily endorsing it talking about how much better they feel after undergoing it.

While all of that is cool, everything I've come across about the benefits so far seem to be completely anecdotal and I am not sure if there is actual research in humans proving any of these benefits, and the clinics with the more outlandish claims also tend to charge a fortune for their treatments and also seem to be located in places with overall less regulation on medical interventions (costa rica, colombia). So is there actually any data on humans backing up all these claims or is it mostly just hype?

[Austin Baraki]

Hi,

This is something we've addressed a few times in our content over the years, although I don't have Q&A links immediately handy to provide a direct reference. The most recent discussion on this was on the lsat podcast with Dr. Eubanks, episode 225, starting at around 1:01 in. Hope that provides a good starting point for our thoughts.