News flash: Golfers have bad backs. From Jack Nicklaus to Joe Hacker and every duffer in between if you play golf for awhile you more than likely have a bad back. So it’s not surprising that the Greatest of All Time, who had bashed millions of balls has back problems. 
Jack has dealt with back issues most of his life and like most of us with ailing backs would try just about anything to get rid of that daily sometimes debilitating pain. Well, Jack has gone to extraordinary means to try and right his old, creaky back.
It was at a birthday party in December of 2015 when Nicklaus first met German stem cell pioneer Dr. Eckhard Alt. Intrigued by what Alt told him about this experimental therapy, 78 year old Nicklaus once again became a student, reading up on Eckhard, the clinic and the possibilities of stem cells. Within a couple of months, he was convinced adipose stem cells, found in abdominal fat, may be something that could finally provide lasting relief for his aching back.
Fast forward to February, 2016. At the Isar Klinikum in Munich, Germany, Nicklaus was prepped for the procedure. After getting a shot of local anesthesia and light sedation, he underwent liposuction on his abdominal area to harvest the stem cells, which come from the blood vessels. The fat in the human body is a rich source of these blood vessels. Three ounces of fat was extracted from his abdomen.
The abdominal fat was then strained with an enzyme called Matrase to break down fat tissue and release the pure stem cells in large numbers (roughly 75 million cells) without modifying or changing the nature of the cells. The slurry mix was then spun down through a centrifuge to get a 
concentrated islet of stem cells. This process took about an hour. After a quick check for contamination, the cells were injected back into Nicklaus’s body.
Nicklaus received 10 injections in his back on each side of his lumbar spine, or lower back, and four in his cervical spine, or neck. Out of the whole process, Nicklaus said the liposuction was the worst part. “I mean, I was black and blue from the middle of my chest all the way across my hip down to my groin. And uh, it was not pretty for about 10 days.”
While he didn’t feel “immediate relief,” he did notice “the pain he used to feel while actively playing golf, had subsided after a few months”.
The use of stem cells and the research being done is controversial and not yet approved by the FDA but other countries have a more flexible approach when it comes to this cutting edge medicine so many Americans are forced to travel outside the U.S. to seek their relief. While stem cell research is being conducted on a grand scale across the nation it can take ten years of clinical trials and hundreds of millions of dollars before the FDA ever gets around to approving a new drug or therapy.
That’s not just for stem cell research but any number of drugs and therapies are approved by other countries while the FDA continues their long investigation into them. There are methods out there to help people, cure diseases and alleviate the suffering of millions that other countries are utilizing while the U.S. takes decades to approve. Some people can’t wait. Jack was one of those and there are millions like him seeking treatments to help combat their illnesses.
Jack’s desire to take advantage of a therapy outside of this country that could possibly help him is so understandable but he is a man of means and is able to do so. But there are millions of people who need treatments but can’t afford them or have access to them because of their unapproved status here in the states.
The FDA, the hospitals, the drug companies need to take a more aggressive approach when it comes to issues like this. People are suffering and a possible solution is being held up due to politics, payoffs and bureaucracy.
Good for Jack and his ailing back but prayers go out to all of those who need help that can’t get it and not just for a sore back.
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