HGH, combined with insulin and anabolic steroids can dramatically increase your size and strength (Bonds was on this regime) but on their own simply promote growth of tissue; you still scar but the injury heals faster.

Combine the 2 and you see where this might be something any person would want.

I am the furthest thing from a doctor/scientist, so this may be a stupid question, but are stem cells capable of increasing strength? Or were they used to simply repair damaged tissue? I assume the latter because the article states they were used to repair ligament damage… just curious as to the capabilities of stem cells in this regard.

Not trying to start a political debate here, but wanted to clear some facts.

As an undergrad I spent over a year working in a joint replacement clinic and auto-stem cell treatment was something we talked a lot about. In a previous post I mentioned the use of HGH in healing joint damage. There is enough reason to pursue BOTH kinds of treatments for professional athletes, not to mention the general public. Animal studies are very encouraging.

We as consumers of medical care need to get away from the knee jerk assumption that hormone or infusion treatments are automatically cheating. After all, you can get your eyes laser corrected, cochlear implants, and titanium joint resurfacing; none of which are illegal and all of which improve your condition to a pre-injury status. In fact, in the case of eye surgery, you might be better than the way you were born. Is that cheating? It certainly is an enhancement.

For example, I’ve had 4 operations on one eye (for a retina detachment and other problems). After each operation, I was prescribed eye drops that had steroids in them. Perfectly legal, but I was taking an MLB-banned substance.

This seems like an awesome procedure. And as a guy who is at the forefront* of Cystic Fibrosis research, this is stuff I’ve heard about for years. But I still see this as a positive step to better medicine for everyone.

*I participate in walks and stuff

So he’s basically the Six Million Dollar Man?

I guess he looks a little like Lee Majors.