Home › Blog › Regenexx In The News: Helping A Triathlon Participant

Regenexx procedure patient sees dramatic results.

Press Release

University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
July 14, 2008

Dr. Joseph Maroon, Professor of neurosurgery at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and team neurosurgeon to the Pittsburgh Steelers for the last 20 years has recently qualified to participate in the Hawaiian Ironman Championship Triathlon on October 11, 2008. The Hawaiian event is the “Super Bowl” of triathlon competition. It includes a 2.4 mile ocean swim, a 112 mile bike race over the lava encrusted island followed by a 26.2 mile marathon. Competitors have 17 hours to complete the event.

Dr. Maroon is sponsored by Gatorade and qualified for the Hawaiian race by finishing the Muncie, Indiana half Ironman distance race in the 65-70 age group on July 12, 2008. He finished 5th in his category with a time of 7 hrs.

Dr. Maroon has completed over 60 triathlon events of the Olympic distance category (.9 mile swim, 25 mile bike, 6.2 mile run) and 5 Ironman distance events. Two of these were in Hawaii, one in New Zealand, one in Canada and one in Europe. This will be his sixth.

Five years ago, after participating in the Hawaiian event he injured his knee and was told that an artificial knee replacement was required and his competitive days were ended. Eight months ago he met Dr. Christopher Centeno who was experimenting with stem cell transplantation in patients with hip and knee osteoarthritis. Dr. Maroon traveled to Boulder, Colorado where he had three stem cell transplants into his knee and subsequently has returned to triathlon competition.

As an active neurosurgeon performing over 400 brain and spinal operations per year he is also chairman of the General Nutrition Corporation’s (GNC) scientific advisory board. In this capacity he works closely with Dr. Guru Ramanathan, Chief Scientific Officer for GNC in evaluating and introducing new sports and nutraceutical products into the GNC line. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of Mylan Laboratories, the third largest generic pharmaceutical company in the world.

For the last several years he has been doing research into the various ways of enhancing the quality and length of life. His book on this topic entitled, The Longevity Factor-How Red Wine and Resveratrol Activate Longevity Genes for a Healthier and Longer Life is to published by Simon and Schuster and released in December 2008. In June he was elected to be the Senior Vice President of the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine that has over 20,000 members

This patient was treated with the Regenexx-C (cultured stem cell injections).

Chris Centeno, MD is a specialist in regenerative medicine and the new field of Interventional Orthopedics. Centeno pioneered orthopedic stem cell procedures in 2005 and is responsible for a large amount of the published research on stem cell use for orthopedic applications. View Profile