As stem cell research advances, many sports therapists, doctors, and other medical professionals have started wondering what stem cells could do for athletes. The controversial procedure of extracting stem cells and injecting them into other parts of the body has generated lots of buzz for professional athletes and now student-athletes. 

Stem cells are a type of cell that have regenerative abilities. They can create new stem cells or create other types of cells such as blood cells, or even brain cells. Research on stem cells is aimed at being able to quickly and artificially generate new healthy stem cells from either a cell donor or the patient itself, and to inject them in an injured or sick area of the body. Stem cells can also be used to test new medications and to better help researchers understand how diseases attack the body. 

Stem cell therapy has treated common and minor injuries such as inflamed joints, ligament sprains, muscle strains, bone bruises, and some forms of early arthritis. These are minor injuries that almost every college athlete faces at some point during their career. While some trials have seen success in this treatment, the results are inconsistent. Some athletes have found that they experience less pain after undergoing stem cell therapy but, in depth and controlled studies have found no difference in muscles and other tissues before and after treatment. 

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Beyond the controversy over whether stem cell therapy is effective, how stem cells are acquired is also controversial. Stem cells are typically taken from bone marrow, a tiring and potentially complicated procedure. More recently, some doctors are taking stem cells from fat cells, which regenerate faster and require a less invasive extraction. However, the only stem cell treatments that are FDA approved are stem cells used in patients with blood disorders. 

Despite being an unproven and controversial procedure, many professional athletes including Tiger Woods, Kobe Bryant, and Steph Curry have used stem cell therapy for conditions related to knee injury or degeneration. This has created a fad of sorts. When professional athletes endorse treatments, many sports therapists and physicians want to offer that service. Use of stem cell treatment in professional athletes has contributed to its popularity in college training rooms. 

So what does this mean for college athletes? While stem cells can be used to treat sports-related injuries, stem cell therapy and other regenerative cell therapy should not be used as a first treatment. Proven and reliable treatments such as rest, ice, and physical therapy are still the best options for recovering athletes as it is not invasive and puts no strain on the athlete from the actual extraction of stem cells. 

Long story short, stem cell therapy is not the cure-all treatment many think it is…yet. Stem cells are a fairly new discovery and still have a long way to go until we know enough about them and their uses. Time will tell if they become the next miracle cure in sports medicine.

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* Originally published on March 31, 2022, by Daley Craft