I keep seeing scientists talk about this, which has led a lot of people to view D+Q therapy and stem cell injections as complementary. But I’ve never actually seen a serious paper arguing that clearing senescent cells causes stem cell depletion. Everything I’ve read suggests that clearing them actually restores stem cell function.
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A lot depends upon what causes senescence. My view is that a high proportion of senescent cells are the daughter cells of stem cells which were intended to become somatic cells. Stem cells split asymmetrically with some returning to stemness.
If you kill those cells you run short of somatic cells. If you kill the stem cells you run out of stem cells. The tests that are run may not distinguish between cells in the process of differentiation and those which are stem cells in hypoxic niches.
My own personal strategy is to nudge them into functioning. That actually I think creates a risk of cancer, but if done correctly then they simply function as somatic cells which is what we want.
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