FLAME with Brad Hook
From Stem Cells to Signals: A New Era of Healing
Former Tampa Bay Buccaneers and UCLA Athletics chiropractor Dr Tommy Rhee on a quiet shift in medicine — from injecting cells to understanding the signals that guide healing.
Tommy has spent nearly two decades helping elite athletes recover faster — and watching regenerative medicine grow up around him. The interesting move, he argues, is away from the blunt instrument of stem cell injections toward cell-free therapies: working with the signalling that tells the body how to heal, rather than forcing new material into it. Less force, more precision.
He's frank about the risks and realities of stem cell treatments as they're currently sold, and grounded about what still matters most: inflammation, stress, recovery, and the unglamorous daily behaviours that out-perform any injection over the long run. A clear-eyed tour of where healing is heading, from someone who works on bodies for a living.
In this episode
- The shift from injecting cells to guiding healing signals
- Cell-free regenerative therapies, explained
- The risks and realities of stem cell treatments
- Why inflammation and stress shape recovery
- The simple behaviours that still matter most for long-term health
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