Speaker (Joy Kong, MD) explains that aging reduces both the number and functional capability of stem cells, which contributes to prolonged inflammation, pain, and impaired tissue repair. She uses osteoarthritis as an example and contrasts adult poor repair with rapid childhood healing, attributing the difference to higher stem cell abundance and activity in youth.
You've lost not only the number of stem cells as you age, you also lost capabilities of your stem cells. That's one reason that you are lingering in your inflammation, right? There's pain, swelling, discomfort. Why aren't things healing? Why are you repairing? Even for osteoarthritis, People think, oh, it's because I hurt my knee. Well, you know, remember when you were a kid, when you were seven years old, five years old, you hurt yourself all the time, right? But you repair like that because why? Because you were full of stem cells and they were working really well.
