We’ve long known that the human body has the amazing ability to heal and repair itself and, in recent years, we’ve been finding ways to direct and harness this power, which includes our Lipogems adipose/fat therapy.
At Genesis Orthopaedic and Spine, our team prides itself on using the most advanced techniques available for helping our patients to overcome musculoskeletal issues of all kinds. As part of our extensive suite of treatment options, we offer regenerative medicine therapies that help you heal from within, using your body’s own powerful reparative resources.
One of the greatest resources of reparative tissues lies in your fat, and here’s how we can tap into this resource.
The power of fat
When we turn to Lipogems adipose/fat therapy, our goals are twofold:
Cushioning and support
When you injure a soft tissue, our first goal is to create an environment in which we can protect this tissue, providing it with a safe space to heal. In this regard, fat is the perfect tissue as it provides support and cushioning for your damaged tissues.
Accelerated healing
Beyond cushioning and support, fat is also an ideal tissue because it contains 100-500 times more reparative cells than other similar tissues in your body. More specifically, your fat houses adipose-derived stem cells (ASCs), which are a type of mesenchymal stem cells. These cells are what we call undifferentiated cells, which means that they have the ability to transform into other cells and then multiply as that cell.
When we introduce ASCs, these cells not only transform into the cells your damaged tissues need to re-engineer themselves, but they also release cytokines, which are cell-signaling molecules that regulate immune response. The cytokines initiate the migration of reparative cells to your damaged tissues and also control inflammation in the area, which can help with pain relief.
Another benefit of Lipogems adipose/fat therapy is that we’re harvesting and preparing your own fat, which means your body readily accepts the treatments.
Where Lipogems adipose/fat therapy excels
Fat grafting isn’t a new field, as it has long been in use in other medical circles, such as plastic surgery. This use led to an interesting discovery, which was reported in Frontiers in Pharmacology:
“Clinical use of fat grafts for breast reconstruction in tissues damaged by radiotherapy first provided clues regarding the clinical potential of stem cells to drive tissue regeneration. Healthy fat introduced into irradiated tissues appeared to reverse radiation injury (fibrosis, scarring, contracture and pain) clinically; a phenomenon since validated in several animal studies.”
Since this discovery, the orthopedic world, including our practice, has had great success using fat to address any number of soft tissue issues, such as:
- Rotator cuff tears
- Knee arthritis
- Meniscus tears
- Achilles tendon tears
- Anterior cruciate ligament tears
- Labrum tears
This list is by no means comprehensive, but it illustrates some of the more common problems we see at our practice in which fat therapy can play an important role.
If you’d like to learn more about the exciting potential of Lipogems adipose/fat therapy in helping you to heal, contact one of our locations in West Orange or Westfield, New Jersey.