Arthritis Treatment: Does Stem Cell Treatment for Osteoarthritis Really Work?

Arthritis Treatment: Does Stem Cell Treatment for Osteoarthritis Really Work?

The most typical form of arthritis, osteoarthritis (OA), affects greater than 20 million Americans. Most significant targets with this disease may be the knee.


Osteoarthritis is a wear and tear disease involving hyaline articular cartilage. It arises because of having less ability of cartilage to take care of excessive breakdown. - Double Stemcell Halal

The basic treatment means for osteoarthritis has not yet changed in additional than 50 years. Basically, physicians are already educated to treat the outward symptoms of pain and try to restore function and wait for inexorable journey to joint replacement.

Different modalities such as physiotherapy, analgesics (pain relievers), non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS), exercises, braces, topical agents, and injections of either corticosteroids ("cortisone"), or viscosupplements (lubricants) are all tried and so the doctor throws up their hands and says towards the patient "you have to have a knee replacement."

So essentially there's a huge void between management of symptoms and eventual surgery.

Recently, excitement has swirled round the role of regenerative medicine techniques in solving the osteoarthritis conundrum. These include using platelet-rich plasma and stem cells.

Unfortunately, this interest has had untoward unwanted effects. The very first is the proliferation of practitioners who've jumped on the bandwagon minus the requisite training.

The second reason is the press hype generated from this relatively new treatment approach.

A good example recently may be the headline in a Australian newspaper, "A "MIRACLE" cutting-edge stem cell operation could have saved Sharks forward Anthony Tupou's career."

Just in case you are not on rugby, Anthony Tupou was a former star within the sport. He underwent a stem cell procedure involving the use of fat-derived stem cells for any knee issue. And also this procedure has apparently resurrected his career. Double Stemcell Halal

Dr. Paul Annett, a sports physician, raised an appealing counterpoint on his blog. He quite rightly remarked that many procedures performed inside the arena of sports medicine are executed simply because they "might be helpful" and therefore are relatively innocuous.

He then posits that "there are numerous potential reasons this procedure may of great benefit to some patients, including the 'placebo effect', the normal fluctuation of arthritic disease or some mechanical effect of the injection itself. Anthony's knee could feel great while he had an off-season without running!

And he then goes on to say, "The ethical supply of surrounding this is for the advocates of this method to execute some randomised double-blind numerous studies (the 'gold standard' of studies) to rigorously confirm the relative benefits..."

And i also couldn't agree more. Nevertheless there is abundant anecdotal evidence these procedures have benefit, there isn't any rigorous double-blind controlled trials. The reason why are likely two parts.