What Cells Are the Best
People know stem cell therapy. Almost everyone knows someone who’s had it done, has had it done themselves, or has heard about it in the news. As the field has grown beyond embryonic stem cell research that got squashed by the US government in the early 2000’s, different types of stem cells have been touted as the best. So which kind of stem cell is best and are certain stem cells better for certain conditions than others?
Since embryonic stem cell researched slowed greatly in the early 2000’s, most of the stem cells studied are what we consider adult stem cells even those from umbilical cord blood and tissue. Adult stem cells are significantly safer than embryonic stem cells as studies have shown they are not cancer causing like embryonic stem cells are when removed from the blastocyst.
Of adult stem cells currently being used clinically, there are 3 main types: umbilical cord (UC), bone marrow stem cells (BMC) and adipose stem cell (ADSC). Let’s look at the pros and cons of each of these cell types.
Bone marrow stem cells have been around for the longest time. They were first used in oncology for blood related cancers and actually have FDA approval for such. It was much later that BMC started being used for regenerative therapies, initially musculoskeletal and progressing into neurodegenerative and other conditions. The good news is BMC is often given back to the patient it was harvested from (autologous use of the BMC). The cells the patient receives has their own DNA and doesn’t have a chance of carrying any infectious disease the patient isn’t already infected with. The downside is that harvesting BMC requires a physician to typically drill a hole into the iliac crest of your hip, which can be painful.
Adipose derived stem cells (ADSC) have been studied for decades now and been widely used clinically for over 10 years. These cells are also commonly harvested from the same patient they are returned to. Unlike your BMC, which are constantly working to produce the immune cells that protect your entire body, ADSCs remain largely dormant in your adipose tissue. These cells are typically much more robust than BMC and can be more comfortably obtained in quantities up to 500x greater than BMC (Michalek 2012).
Umbilical cord stem cells (UMC) are the gold standard stem cells if they are your own. In the future, all babies will have their UMC sent to a cryobank, where their cells can be frozen, and ultimately culture expanded, to be given back to them throughout the course of their life. Your UMC are your youngest and healthiest adult stem cells. Unfortunately, UMC is being heavily marketed to patients seeking answers to their pain from regenerative medicine. Random UMC cells with random DNA are being injected into random patients. The UMC is screened for about 8 infectious diseases, but that’s it. It should be quite concerning to the general public that these cells, which have no long-term safety data, are being injected into joints and systemically to patients with no regard for DNA matching. Immunologists suggest that your body might be able to suppress the foreign cells for a number of years, but that as the cells differentiate into functional tissue and express their inherent markers which are different from your own, patients could find themselves dealing with graft versus host disease.
Long story short: if you haven’t banked your own UBC, which most people reading this likely haven’t, you’re going to want to use an autologous cell source (one of your own cells). Both bone marrow and adipose tissue have shown success in different areas of medicine, with adipose yielding the higher cell count and higher viability later into life.