Stamina therapy

Stamina therapy (also known as Stamina method, or simply Stamina) is a controversial alternative "medical treatment" invented by Italian former professor of psychology at the University of Udine Davide Vannoni, PhD (born 1967 in Turin), founder and president of Stamina Foundation (a self-declared nonprofit organization founded in 2009) and owner of a market research company.

This "therapy", mainly aimed at neurodegenerative diseases, would rely on the conversion of mesenchymal stem cells into neurons and it is currently kept secret by its promoters and lacking in scientific validation proving any therapeutic effectiveness; it does not appear, moreover, that Vannoni ever published any article about Stamina therapy on scientific journals thus subjecting it to the usual peer review processes.

The Italian government decided in May 2013 to start testing Stamina therapy. After intense pressure from the media and the increasingly insistent pro-Stamina street demonstrations amongst the Italian and international scientific community protests. Tests were discontinued in October 2014.

The proposed method includes the conversion of mesenchymal stem cells (cells usually intended for generation of bones and adipose tissue) into neurons, after a short exposure to retinoic acid diluted in ethanol. The therapy consists in removing cells from the bone marrow of patients, their in vitro manipulation (incubation of stem cells for 2 hours in an 18 micromolar solution of retinoic acid), and finally their infusion into patients themselves.

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