The Daily Telegraph - Features
The murky, unregulated world of anti-ageing stem cell therapy
John Cleese pays £ 17k a year for it, but the procedure is under-researched and could be dangerous.
Stem cells are the new focal point of the rich and famous, with Hollywood A-listers reportedly spending tens of thousands of pounds each year on expensive therapies offered by private longevity clinics which promise to regenerate the ageing body. The latest taker is 84-year-old John Cleese, who recently revealed that he pays £17,000 every 12-18 months on a private stem cell therapy in the hope of buying “a few extra years”.
But while stem cells have long been regarded as one of the great hopes of regenerative medicine, with applications in leukaemia and ongoing clinical trials in a whole host of diseases, they are also highly misunderstood.
There are very few evidencebased stem cell therapies approved by governmental authorities, but there are private clinics in China, Switzerland, Mexico, India and the US operating in what’s described as “a regulatory grey zone”.
“These clinics may be operating outside of regulatory oversight and scientific collaboration, and do not publish the protocols or outcomes of what they are doing to patients that pay for their services,” says Dr Anna Couturier, the head of research, development and strategy at a non-profit academic consortium which provides information on gene and cell therapies called EuroGCT.
It is not hard to find evidence of potential dangers. Just last year, reports emerged of patients losing their sight after receiving a stem cell treatment for a degenerative eye condition at a private clinic in Florida. Some clinics claim to offer injectable stem cell therapies which boost collagen and give a more youthful appearance, but there is little published evidence that this is either safe or effective.
“There is not a single approved application of stem cells in the cosmetic industry,” says Darius Widera, a professor of stem cell biology and regenerative medicine at the University of Reading.
Just as cancer and dementia are a collective of several hundred diseases, rather than single entities, there are many different types of stem cells, and the potential applications vary hugely.
Stem cell medicine is most advanced when it comes to adult stem cells, which can only be used to generate fresh cells in their own particular locality. For example, stem cells in the brain can only be used to produce new brain cells.
Prof Jon Frampton, a biologist at the University of Birmingham, says the most longstanding use of adult stem cells is in leukaemia patients. Stem cell transplant is often conducted to replenish the diseased cells in the bone marrow with those from a matched donor.
“You’re looking to get rid of the disease and then replace the blood system with some fresh stem cells,” he says. “It’s tried and tested and proven to work.”
Excitement and controversy has been generated by so-called pluripotent stem cells, which can either be taken from human embryos or generated through lab manipulation. While often hyped as potential miracle cures, their safety and efficacy is being tested and they remain largely unproven. In an interview with Saga magazine, Cleese described receiving a treatment which he appeared to describe as a form of ongoing anti-ageing maintenance. “These cells travel around the body; when they discover a place that needs repair, they’ll change into the cells that you want for repair,” he says.
It is not clear what kind of stem cell treatment Cleese is receiving, but Prof Frampton says anyone receiving pluripotent stem cell injections could be in danger. “If put into the wrong context without the right prompts and cues, stem cells do what they’re capable of doing but in a very random way,” he says. “You can get a horrible tumour called a teratoma, because the stem cells grow a lot and form a lump. ”
Stem cell therapies have been credited with extending the careers of numerous sportsmen, from Rafael Nadal to Cristiano Ronaldo, and there are potential stem cell treatments which apply to athletes and could one day be used to help tackle some aspects of the ageing process.
These utilise mesenchymal stem cells which make components of the skeleton such as knee cartilage or the discs between vertebrae in the back. Prof Frampton describes this as a complex process in which surgeons extract the patient’s own stem cells before using them to generate new ligament or cartilage cells in a petri dish in the lab.
“You would need a biomaterial or some structure which gets those cells to work and join together to form new cartilage, for example,” he says. “Then you’d transplant that back into the patient.”
Various clinical trials are now taking place in the UK in which this same approach is being tested to treat degenerative conditions such as osteoarthritis.
As we get older, the stem cells in different parts of our body also age and become less efficient. Other trials are investigating whether new drug therapies can help combat conditions such as age-related muscle wasting.
“As we get older, our adult stem cells become less capable of doing what they’re supposed to do,” says Prof Frampton. “So there are drugs that can potentially reverse some of those deficiencies so they can continue to do what they’re meant to do for a few more years.”
Some of the most dramatic applications could be achieved through using pluripotent stem cells to replace lost tissue, for example in age-related macular degeneration (AMD) where patients slowly lose their central vision. This happens due to deterioration of a thin layer of tissue at the back of the eye called the macula.
Prof Frampton adds that some researchers are investigating whether pluripotent stem cells can be used to generate a new macula in the lab which could then be transplanted into patients with AMD. “It’s going through trials and I’m pretty hopeful that that’s going to be a cure for at least some patients with that disease,” he says.
However, in the meantime, researchers advise staying well clear of private clinics which claim to offer as yet unproven therapies. As well as the risk of cancer, there are numerous cases of patients receiving unregulated stem cell treatments and developing brain inflammation, life threatening blood clots, and infections, with some even going on to die.
“If the product is not sterile, it can lead to inflammation and, in worst case scenarios, septic shock,” says Prof Widera. “Many patients have been harmed by these grey zone clinics.”
‘There is not a single approved application of stem cells in the cosmetic industry’