What do Harry Styles, Margot Robbie, and David Beckham all have in common?
It’s rumored that they have all used stem cells for anti-aging treatments.
Dr. Ernst von Schwarz, a heart transplant specialist who sees patients from the entertainment industry, said that celebrities use stem cell injections to both lengthen their lives and make them look younger.
“I believe that we can create prolongation of life,” von Schwarz said. “Probably within a couple of years people can live to 120, 150 years if not longer than that.”
Every now and then, claims of this kind appear throughout the mainstream media.
However, this was not a misinterpretation of a statement made by Dr. von Schwarz. He has doubled down on his claims in recent articles—notably one in Fox News and another in the NY Post.
What’s more, Dr. von Schwarz is not just some unqualified doctor or medical quack.
Dr. von Schwarz, MD, PhD, boasts credentials from three esteemed institutions: Cedars Sinai Medical Center, UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine, and the Heart Institute of Southern California. He is a cardiologist, an internist, and a specialist in heart transplants. Additionally, he is a trailblazer in the field of cutting-edge, future-oriented technology, including stem cell treatments for recurrent heart and other organ diseases.
So, what exactly is Dr. von Schwarz claiming, and how much truth is there to it?
How long can people live?
The goal of determining the maximum human lifespan—that is, the longest a person can live—has been the subject of extensive research.
There is debate among researchers and clinicians as to whether there is a natural limit; some, like Dr. von Schwarz, believe it is somewhere around 120, 140, or 150 years; others, like notable biogerontologist David Sinclair, think there is no limit at all, and that getting older does not always mean dying.
The only person acknowledged officially as living past 120 was France’s Jeanne Calment, who died in 1997, aged 122 years and 164 days. But that record has been questioned, with theories circulating that Calment’s daughter was actually posing as her. Some researchers have cast doubt on the record of the celebrated supercentenarian.
However, Dr. von Schwarz isn’t exactly making any outlandish claims about the maximum human lifespan, unlike João Pedro de Magalhes, a professor of molecular biogerontology at the Institute of Inflammation and Ageing at the University of Birmingham in England, who believes that people could live for 1,000 years. Dr. de Magalhães has scrutinized the genomes of very long-lived animals such as the bowhead whale (which can reach 200 years) and the naked mole rat. His somewhat surprising conclusion: if we eliminated aging at the cellular level, humans could live for a millennium—and potentially as long as 20,000 years.
Can Stem Cells Fight Aging?
Aging, as Dr. von Schwarz pointed out, is inevitable, but aging is the greatest risk factor for all-cause mortality. Because of this, an increasing number of medical professionals and academics are of the opinion that advancing age ought to be addressed as a distinct illness.
Dr. von Schwarz mainly propounds the use of stem cells for anti-aging therapy—cells that can develop into many different types of cells in the body. Dr. von Schwarz predicts that understanding how to harness stem cells to repair damaged tissues in the body has the potential to increase the average lifespan by ten years.
However, outside of specific cancers, stem cells do not have FDA approval for the treatment of any illness.
Dr. von Schwarz isn’t alone in his interest in the potential for stem cells for skin de-aging or reverse aging, and there’s a lot of research trying to understand how stem cells can be used to treat aging and age-related diseases.
Dr. von Schwarz has said that stem cells can affect the skin in many ways. According to him, stem cells can rejuvenate collagen deep within the skin, which in turn makes the face look fuller and more healthy. Additionally, he has mentioned that stem cells can aid in the healing process of epithelial cells, which are present in the skin, blood vessels, and organs and cover both the inside and outside of the body.
Through a process known as angiogenesis, stem cells can improve circulation by helping to build new blood vessels, capillaries, and arterials, which in turn support the healing and repair processes.
Though disease has never been cured with stem cells, Dr. von Schwarz noted that their use has seen an improvement in symptoms and the quality of life.
“We have a lot of people, of course, I’m in L.A. and Hollywood. Before red carpets, they come to us a week or ten days before they get their facial stem cell injections, and a week later they glow,” Dr. von Schwarz said in an interview with Fox News. “They look, I swear to God, they look 5 to 10 years younger.”
Dr. von Schwarz, who has worked with stem cells for over 20 years, said the stem cell injections should be repeated every year or every 18 months and cost several thousand dollars each time.
He said the long-lasting effect can likely be attributed to the stem cells stimulating the recipient’s bone marrow to produce more stem cells. If you inject stem cells, the number is doubled in the system a day later. After two or three days, those numbers have essentially quadrupled.
Schwarz revealed that he has a lot of patients, particularly men, who also get stem cell treatments for sexual dysfunction. Studies published by Dr. von Schwarz and his team found that the benefits of the treatment lasted at least a year with one single injection.
He has also seen burn victims and those with skin damage produce excellent results with stem cells.
A Dose of Caution for Seeking Stem Cells
Even though Dr. von Schwarz had good experiences with stem cell treatments, he cautioned prospective patients to be careful with the information they find online, to ask the right questions, and to consult reliable doctors who have extensive experience in the field.
“I wouldn’t believe anything that people tell you on the web or in their marketing materials because, I mean, there are certain things which are just unknown, and the rest is really marketing,” he said. “So again, I strongly believe stem cells and stem cell therapy is the future of medicine. But that business, which is out there, whether it’s within the U.S. or outside, is very uncontrolled and there’s no supervision.”
Dr. von Schwarz also addressed the criticism of stem cell therapy, urging patients to ask where the stem cells come from, whether it’s the umbilical cord or placenta tissue, and what hygienic measures have been taken to avoid sepsis.
“It’s the wild, wild west out there, and I think what we are missing is really an oversight here from inside us rather than from the [Food and Drug Administration (FDA)],” he added.
The FDA has issued a strong statement cautioning against stem cell therapies, stating that certain patients could be susceptible to illicit and dangerous stem cell treatments. The FDA says to stay safe, make sure that any stem cell treatment you are considering is either FDA-approved or being studied under an Investigational New Drug Application (IND), which is a clinical investigation plan submitted and allowed to proceed by the FDA.
Some unscrupulous providers offer stem cell products that are both unapproved and unproven. So beware of potentially dangerous procedures—and confirm what’s really being offered before considering any treatment.
The FDA is increasing its oversight and enforcement to protect people from dishonest and unscrupulous stem cell clinics, while continuing to encourage innovation so that the medical industry can properly harness the potential of stem cell products.
Dr. von Schwarz’s Secrets to Immortality
A common theme in Dr. von Schwarz’s talks is the importance of not thinking that a person can solve all of their problems with a single injection or pill. Instead, what is needed is a whole lifestyle modification change, which includes diet, exercise, the discovery of nutrient deficiencies, and regenerative medicine.
“The goal is to create an improved health and longer health span, not of the lifespan. So, we want people to be able to be active until high ages,” Dr. von Schwarz said.
It is crucial, according to Dr. von Schwarz, to begin doing this in your thirties, when the days of youth are beginning to fade and aging sets in.
So, as with many suggested anti-aging and lifespan-extending regimens, it’s time to start eating right, working out more, and getting good sleep while more information pans out about treatments that will fight aging to help us live longer, healthier, and happier.
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