StemTech Under the Microscope

If all this is beginning to sound a little fishy, that’s appropriate: speaking to NutralIngredients-USA, Ray Carter, CEO of StemTech International, said StemEnhance contained the blue-green algae derivative Aphanizomenon flos-aquae, the herb Polygonum multiflorum, and the fungus Cordyceps sinensis. While Mr. Carter was speaking following a deal to allow StemTech to include Australian biotech firm Marinova’s proprietary Fucoidan ingredient in its next generation StemEnhance product, his list of ingredients have a long history of bold claims –and Mr. Carter and his colleagues have a long history of making them.

As far back as 2002, Gitte S. Jensen, PhD, and Mr. Drapeau published a report in Medical Hypothesis in which they speculated that adult stem cells from bone marrow might be capable of migrating via the circulatory system to tissues around the body where they could effect repair. A few months later, they announced that they had conducted laboratory trials on both humans and animals that showed blue-green algae increased stem cell trafficking, and applied for a patent, which was awarded in November 2004, and in 2005 StemTech Health Sciences, a multilevel marketing company, registered its domain name and began soliciting contributions.

But Mr Drapeau and Dr. Jensen’s involvement with blue-green algae goes back even further than that. In July 2000, they were denied a patent on a blue-green algae product, Summa, which they claimed could be used to ‘maintain a healthy cholesterol level.’ The FDA told them that to make the claim would be illegal.

Later, in 2001, a citizens’ group took CellTech – the company Mr. Drapeau and Dr. Jensen operated before StemTech – to a California court over 30 claims the company had made in their brochures or on their website, and the company lost the case. In February 2003, a judge ruled that all the challenged statements were deceptive and obliged CellTech to repay all the purchase prices to California purchasers of their algae products between 1997 and 2002.

It should come as no surprise that despite StemTech’s many Testimonials and ‘double-blind trials,’ then, many other researchers in the field raise serious doubts that StemEnhance does anything at all. 

The Science of StemTech

Mr. Drapeau has claimed that StemEnhance works by blocking L-selectin, a cell adhesion molecule. And while Wotjek Wojakowski, of the Silesian School of Medicine in Katowice, Poland, accepts that in theory a product that acts as an L-Selectin blocker could ‘help with [cells] leaving the marrow,’ he opined that ‘this approach was not tested in clinical studies.’

Furthermore, if cell adhesion sounds to you like something you shouldn’t be playing around with too much, you’re in good company: William Frishman, of the New York Medical College in Valhalla, says, ‘I would look at this with great, great skepticism.’ Thomas Eschenhagen, a professor at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, goes further, warning that while the effects of StemEnhance doesn’t appear to be drastic, based on the information supplied by the company, but whether it’s safe, ‘we simply don’t know,’ and he goes on to state: ‘I strongly advise anybody not to take this drug’ until more studies are done.

What are the dangers StemEnhance could pose? Well, one is the recorded risk of poisoning from ingesting blue-green algae. The Canadian Government warns its citizens of the risks posed by blue-green algae in the wild and observes that they can contain both hepatotoxins, which attack the liver, and nearotoxins, which attack the nervous system. 

That doesn’t prove that stemEnhance contains these toxins, however. A secondary danger is the risk that StemEnhance might actually work. If it really releases stem cells form the bone marrow, is that a good thing?  Not if you have cancer; some cancers are encouraged to grow faster by the presence of stem cells. Dr. Frischman again: ‘Here [with StemEnhance] you’re giving a general stem cell booster. Some people might have occult malignancies and all of a sudden you’re giving them a stem cell booster.’ Just how effective StemEnhance actually is is open to debate; Mr. Drapeau says he is hesitant to provide too much concrete evidence that it works in case the FDA reclassifies it as a drug requiring a prescription, claiming that ‘We have not yet documented in a rigorous manner the health benefits [of StemEnhance] essentially because they are so obvious, and I am concerned if we get data showing the product is effective...we will be in a difficult position with the FDA.’

One final consideration is the risk to your wallet: One tablet of StemSport costs $1, they’re sold in packages of 60 and the company recommends taking up to 4 daily – netting themselves $120 a month per customer.  Wellness Clubs of America founder Dale Peterson comments, ‘People love magic pills, gimmicks & slick web sites, even when they may be hazardous to their health. I have to give StemEnhance's creators credit -- not everyone could turn a potentially deadly pond scum into the cure-for-all-diseases.’