Ever since stem-cells became popularised into the media, people have been talking about using them as a method of body augmentation.
From adding an ear to your forehead to re-building your entire body, their promised it all.
However, until the biohacker, Ben Greenfield, opened pandora’s box in the realm of penis stem cells, the attention was directed away from genitalia.
After the spread of a highly circulated clickbait article entitled: ‘This Guy Injected His Dick With Stem Cells to Try to Make It Bigger’ and the media frenzy that came after, we felt it was necessary to address this topic.
What is a stem cell?
To properly understand the impact of stem cells in your penis, you must know what they are.
Your body contains a whole host of different cells that serve a various functions.
Stem cells are unique in that they are effectively blank slates that have the potential to be turned into any other type of cell.
This means they are a natural substitute for lots of different cells, making them useful for body enhancement and repair.
However, the use of stem cells has. so far, only been proven to be effective in a small number of surgical procedures, namely Leukaemia.
With that being said, the FDA has no issue with surgeons injecting stem cells as long as they come from the same person AND they don’t claim that they will have any benefits.
Most of the interest for this type of surgery has come off the back of loose research that certain types of stem cell therapy can help with erectile dysfunction related to the nerve damage after prostatectomy.
With the rumours circulating about the possible positive effects of this process, enough men are asking for the procedure to encourage surgeons to start charging thousands of dollars to complete it.
What is a penile stem cell injection?
Penile stem cell injection is a form of penis surgery, focused on the increase in girth of the penis.
Typically, girth enlargement involves the injection of fatty cells into the penis that has been removed from other parts of the body such as the stomach, thighs or buttocks.
These fatty cells tend to be re-absorbed back into your body over time, meaning that it's unlikely the effects of the procedure will be permanent.
By using stem cells instead of fatty cells, the theory is that they'll be more readily accepted by the body, resulting in increased effectiveness of the operation.
How Effective Is The Procedure?
According to Ryan Terlecki, a urologist at the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, this theory is largely untrue.
He makes the point that non-manipulated stem cells wash into the bloodstream within minutes and even if these cells aren’t washed away, there is no guarantee they would turn into useful tissue.
This, in effect, creates the same problem that was highlighted earlier with fatty cell injection; they may add some girth to the penis, but over time, the effectiveness is likely to be diminished.
If you are interested in learning more about penis enlargement surgery, we've put together a full guide which is available here.