by Stem cells are the new focal point for the rich and famous, with Hollywood A-listers reportedly spending thousands of pounds each year on expensive therapies offered by private longevity clinics that promise to regenerate the aging body.
The latest recipient is 84-year-old John Cleese, who revealed in an interview earlier this week that he pays £17,000 every 12 to 18 months for private stem cell therapy in the hope of “a few more years”. to buy.
But while stem cells have long been seen as one of the great hopes of regenerative medicine, with long-standing applications in leukemia and ongoing clinical trials in a whole range of diseases from age-related macular degeneration to multiple sclerosis and motor neuron disease, they . They are also very misunderstood.
Because there are very few evidence-based stem cell therapies officially approved by government authorities, numerous private clinics are located in countries such as Switzerland, China, Mexico, India and the United States, operating as experts describe ” a. regulatory gray zone”.
“These clinics may be operating outside of regulatory oversight and scientific collaboration, and do not publish the protocols or results of what they are doing to patients who pay for their services,” says Dr. Anna Couturier, head of research, development and strategy at a non-profit academic consortium that provides information on gene and cell therapies called EuroGCT.
It is not difficult to find evidence of the possible dangers. Just last year, reports emerged of patients in the US who lost their sight after receiving stem cell treatment for a degenerative eye condition at a private clinic in Florida. And while some clinics claim to offer injectable stem cell therapies that boost collagen and give the face a more youthful appearance, scientists say there is little published evidence that this is safe or effective.
“There is not one approved application of stem cells in the cosmetic industry, so all the providers who offer these direct-to-consumer interventions are exploiting a gray zone,” says Darius Widera, professor of stem cell biology and regenerative medicine. at Reading University.
So what can stem cells really do, and what are the common misconceptions?
There is no single ‘stem cell treatment’
Just as cancer and dementia are a combination of hundreds of different diseases, rather than single entities, there are many different types of stem cells, and thus, the potential applications vary greatly.
The most advanced stem cell medicine is when it comes to adult stem cells, which can only be used to generate new cells in their own area. For example, stem cells found in the brain can only be used to produce new brain cells.
Professor Jon Frampton, a stem cell biologist at the University of Birmingham, describes the long-standing use of adult stem cells in leukemia patients, where stem cell transplants are often performed to replenish diseased cells in the bone marrow. from a matched donor.
“You’re trying to get rid of the disease and then replace the blood system with some fresh stem cells,” he says. “It’s tried and tested and proven to work.”
Over the past two decades, so-called pluripotent stem cells, which can be taken from human embryos or generated by clever manipulation in the laboratory, have generated much excitement and controversy. These stem cells can develop into any type of cell in the body. However, while they are often hyped as potential miracle cures, their safety and effectiveness are being tested in early-stage clinical trials and are largely unproven.
You don’t want to inject them into your body
In an interview with Saga magazine, Cleese described receiving the treatment and seemed to describe it as a form of ongoing anti-aging maintenance.
“These cells travel around the body and when they find a place that needs repair, they will change into the cells that you want to repair, so they could be cartilage cells or liver cells,” a he says.
It is not clear what type of stem cell treatment Cleese is receiving, but Professor Frampton says anyone who receives multiple stem cell injections is likely to be at risk.
“If they’re put in the wrong context without the right cues and cues, stem cells do what they can do only in a very random way,” he says. “You can get what’s called a teratoma, because the stem cells grow a lot and form a lump. A teratoma is a monstrous mass of all different types of tissue, all combined into a tumor.”
They could be used to target muscle degeneration and weakness
Stem cell therapies have been credited with extending the careers of countless athletes from Rafael Nadal to Cristiano Ronaldo. Experts say there are various stem cell treatments that could work for athletes and could one day be used to help combat some aspects of the aging process.
These treatments use adult stem cells called mesenchymal stem cells that make components of the skeleton such as knee cartilage or the discs between vertebrae in the back. Professor Frampton describes the therapy as a complex multi-step process in which surgeons extract the patient’s own mesenchymal stem cells before using them to generate new ligament or cartilage cells in a petri dish in the laboratory.
“You would need some biomaterial or structure that makes those cells work and come together to create new cartilage, for example, and have the right properties,” explains Professor Frampton. “And then you would transplant that back into the patient.”
Various clinical trials are now underway in the UK testing the same approach as a potential treatment for degenerative conditions such as osteoarthritis. Other trials are investigating whether new drug therapies can help combat conditions such as age-related muscle wasting by stimulating muscle stem cells and making them more active.
“As we get older, our adult stem cells become less able to do what they need to do,” continues Professor Frampton. “So there are drugs that can reverse some of those deficits so they can continue to do what they’re meant to do for a few more years.”
They could replace tissue
Some of the most dramatic applications could be achieved by using multiple stem cells to replace lost tissue, for example in age-related macular degeneration (AMD) where patients slowly lose their central vision. This is caused by the degeneration of a thin layer of tissue at the back of the eye called the macula.
Professor Frampton also says that some researchers are investigating whether it is possible to use pluripotent stem cells to generate a new macula in the laboratory which could then be transplanted into patients with AMD. “It’s going through trials and I’m hopeful that will be a cure for at least some patients with that disease,” he says.
In the meantime, however, researchers recommend staying clear of private clinics that claim to offer unproven therapies. In addition to the risk of cancer, there are many cases of patients receiving uncontrolled stem cell treatments and developing brain inflammation, life-threatening blood clots, and infections, with some even progressing to death.
“If the product is not sterile, it can lead to inflammation and, in the worst cases, septic shock,” says Professor Widera. “These gray zone clinics have harmed many patients.”
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