Joy Kong, MD, warns that using your own stem cells, especially as you age, can backfire. Older autologous stem cells lose the ability to detect and kill emerging cancer cells and may actually promote existing cancers by secreting growth factors.
A lot of people think, oh, I have to use my own stem cells. Unfortunately, not only your stem cells are less in quantity and quality. It has much decreased capability to help you heal, but also it has become a little blind when it comes to cancer. So our stem cells, especially mesenchymal stem cells, have the ability to detect cancer and kill off cancer. It secrete a direct ligand to trigger a programmed cell death. But when you start to use much older cells, I call it cellular dementia. It's almost like the cells are getting demented. It's like, well, you know, I. I make everything grow, so I don't care what you are, I'll make you grow. So unfortunately, you can promote existing cancer. We all have emerging cancer cells, but if your immune system is proficient and capable and it will get rid of them, if you put in cells that can't recognize cancer but have the ability to secrete all these growth factors and tell everything to grow, that's when there's a big problem.
