People suffering from diseases or other medical conditions that currently have no cure may be desperate to seek some kind of medical treatment. And while stem cell therapies may sound promising and offer hope, many of those currently being advertised are not proven to be safe or even successful. It’s important to be cautious and understand all of the facts before considering any kind of stem cell therapy.
What Diseases Stem Cells Can Treat
While stem cell therapies have the potential to treat various diseases such as multiple sclerosis, type 1 diabetes, Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease, so far only a few have proven to be safe and effective. The U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is responsible for regulating stem cell products. Currently, the only FDA-approved stem cell therapies in the U.S. are stem cell transplants.
Since stem cells have the ability to develop into a wide range of specialized cell types, such as muscle, skin and brain cells they can be used to produce new tissue and replace damaged cells. In a stem cell transplant, stem cells are taken from a donor’s cord blood or bone marrow. The donated stem cells replace the cells damaged by chemotherapy or disease and they help fight cancers and blood-related diseases, such as leukemia, lymphoma, neuroblastoma and multiple myeloma.
Stem Cell Therapy Safety Concerns
The FDA has approved a very limited number of stem cell treatments, but you wouldn’t know it by the amount of advertising and clinics around the U.S. offering stem cell therapies. Unfortunately, many of these advertised therapies have never been approved by the FDA and are considered unsafe and can cause more health issues. According to the FDA, some of the adverse effects of unapproved stem cell treatments include:
- Administration site reactions
- The ability of cells to move from placement sites and change into inappropriate cell types or multiply
- Failure of cells to work as expected
- The growth of tumors
Why Stem Cell Therapies Should Be Approved by the FDA
Having stem cell therapies go through the FDA review process means the products are investigated through clinical trials to determine if they are safe and effective. As part of the FDA’s review, investigators must show how each product will be manufactured so the FDA can make sure appropriate steps are being taken to help assure the product’s safety, purity and strength. You must be cautious of any stem cell treatments that haven’t gone through the FDA, or if they are being offered in different countries. It’s important to understand both the benefits and risks of stem cell therapies.
When exploring stem cell treatments, the FDA recommends people to consider the following:
- Ask if the FDA has reviewed the treatment. Ask your health care provider to confirm this information. Ask for this information before getting treatment—even if the stem cells are your own
- Learn about regulations that cover stem cell products in other countries
- Know that the FDA does not have oversight of treatments done in other countries.
- If you’re considering a stem cell-based product in a country that may not require a regulatory review of clinical studies, it may be hard to know if the experimental treatment is reasonably safe.
While the list of approved stem cell treatments is short, many therapies are making their way through clinical trials. But until then any unapproved treatments should be considered highly experimental. If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
