Joy Kong, MDRegenerative Medicine Physician, Educator, and Entrepreneur

The Promise of Stem Cells in Overcoming Alcoholism

10 Dec 2025 · 1 min

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0:57

Joy Kong, MD summarizes a preclinical rat study suggesting bone marrow- and adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) infusions into the brain reduced voluntary alcohol intake. Rats had access to 10% alcohol for 73 days, then 27 days of access to 10% or 20%; MSC infusions reportedly reduced alcohol consumption by ~50% for about 10 days. The speaker frames the finding as promising and links the effect to reduced neuroinflammation.

Questions this video answers

10% alcohol

73 days

27 days

10% or 20%

Bone marrow-derived MSCs and adipose-derived MSCs

Chapters

We don't have a whole lot of good treatments of alcoholism. I was a medical director for a few rehab centers in Malibu, and I've seen how difficult it is, and this is a really powerful study. They were looking at these alcoholic rats and looking at how stem cell infusions can change their drinking behavior. So they were giving them just free alcohol, 10% for 73 days, and then another 27 days of access to 10% or 20%. You drink as you wish. And then they injected into the brain of these bone marrow derived MSCs or adipose derived MSCs, and then they were allowed to drink either water or alcohol, and they showed a significant reduction of alcohol intake. MSCs were able to reduce the alcohol intake by 50% for 10 days. So that's pretty remarkable. Their suspicion is that alcoholism is driven by neuroinflammation. By decreasing the inflammation in the brain, that you drastically reduce the drinking, the addiction behavior.