Drug & supplement interaction

Stem Cell Therapy + Apixaban

Apixaban brand name: Eliquis.

No Known Interaction

Medically reviewed by Dr. Brian Staiger, PharmD, BCPS · Updated July 2026 · Pair last verified Sep 13, 2026

The bottom line No known interaction

We found no known interaction between Stem Cell Therapy and Apixaban in our sources. Absence of a documented interaction is not the same as proven safety, and does not guarantee one does not exist. Do not start, stop, or change a medication or supplement based on this page; confirm with your pharmacist or doctor first. Additionally, although there is no interaction, the two are separately associated with some of the same side effects, which would make a new symptom harder to attribute to one or the other.

Know someone interested in this? Share

Facebook Post Reddit Email

On this page

Interaction report

Stem Cell Therapy and Apixaban

We checked these two against our interaction database. Here is what we found.

No Known Interaction Found

We did not find a documented interaction between Apixaban and Stem Cell Therapy in our sources. This does not guarantee that the combination is completely free of risk — research on Stem Cell Therapy alongside specific medications may be limited.

Worth understanding: our licensed dataset holds no drug-interaction record for Stem Cell Therapy at all — not against Apixaban, and not against any other medication we track. This verdict therefore rests on the absence of any recorded data, not on research that looked at this combination and found nothing. We cannot rule an interaction out.

Stem Cell Therapy is a treatment rather than something you take. Tell whoever provides it which medicines you use, and ask your prescriber whether it is appropriate for your health and treatment. Do not stop a prescribed medicine on your own.

Always talk with your pharmacist or doctor before making changes to your medications or supplements, particularly if you take several medications or have an ongoing health condition.

Stem Cell Therapy safety at a glance

Stem Cell Therapy overall Use caution Proven uses exist, but most marketed stem cell treatments are unproven and can carry serious risks.

Pregnancy Avoid Unproven stem cell treatments should be avoided during pregnancy unless medically necessary and supervised by specialists.

Breastfeeding Avoid Avoid elective stem cell procedures while breastfeeding; safety has not been established.

Safety guidance is general; always confirm with your pharmacist or doctor for your situation.

Still wondering about combining Apixaban and Stem Cell Therapy? Ask Dr. Brian Staiger, PharmD, BCPS directly ›

What to actually watch for

No Interaction Found — But Data Suggests Stem Cell Therapy and Apixaban May Share Several of the Same Side Effects

This is not an interaction. Neither one changes how your body handles the other, and nothing here says they react together. What our sources do show is that each has separately been linked to the effects below — so having Stem Cell Therapy while taking the medicine can make those effects more likely to turn up, and harder to pin on one or the other if they do. 2 of them are worth acting on rather than waiting out — marked below.

Blood clots Worth acting on Additional detail
Stem Cell Therapy
“Injections of direct-to-consumer or commercial stem cell preparations have been associated with reports of cardiac arrest, myocardial infarction, arrhythmias, pulmonary embolism, venous thromboembolism, skin growths, cancer, sepsis, pneumonia, necrotizing ulcers, meningitis and other infections, allergic reactions, Graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), stroke, hemorrhage, paraplegia, pain, blindness, and death.

Intravitr…”

Stem Cell Therapy · Natural Medicines adverse-effect record, reported in arrhythmia.
5 sources cited

99543. Bauer G, Elsallab M, Abou-El-Enein M. Concise Review: A Comprehensive Analysis of Reported Adverse Events in Patients Receiving Unproven Stem Cell-Based Interventions. Stem Cells Transl Med. 2018;7(9):676-685. PubMed

99731. Zahid MF, Murad MH, Litzow MR, et al. Venous thromboembolism following hematopoietic stem cell transplantation-a systematic review and meta-analysis. Ann Hematol. 2016;95(9):1457-64. PubMed

109539. Richardson E, Project Director. Harms linked to unapproved stem cell interventions highlight need for greater FDA enforcement. The Pew Charitable Trusts Brief. June 2021. Available at: https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-briefs/2021/0

99542. Ansari ZA, Kuriyan AE, Albini TA. Unproven stem cell therapy for macular degeneration. Oncotarget. 2017;8(53):90636-90637. PubMed

99555. Kuriyan AE, Albini TA, Townsend JH, et al. Vision Loss after Intravitreal Injection of Autologous "Stem Cells" for AMD. N Engl J Med. 2017;376(11):1047-1053. PubMed
“Injections of commercial stem cell preparations have been associated with cases of cardiac arrest, heart attack, arrhythmias, and pulmonary embolism. In a case report, a 77-year-old male with pulmonary hypertension developed cardiac arrest and died after receiving an intravenous infusion of adipose derived stem cells.”

Stem Cell Therapy · Natural Medicines adverse-effect record, reported in arrhythmia.
2 sources cited

99543. Bauer G, Elsallab M, Abou-El-Enein M. Concise Review: A Comprehensive Analysis of Reported Adverse Events in Patients Receiving Unproven Stem Cell-Based Interventions. Stem Cells Transl Med. 2018;7(9):676-685. PubMed

99731. Zahid MF, Murad MH, Litzow MR, et al. Venous thromboembolism following hematopoietic stem cell transplantation-a systematic review and meta-analysis. Ann Hematol. 2016;95(9):1457-64. PubMed
Apixaban

Listed in the ADVERSE REACTIONS section of the FDA label for Apixaban. Read the label on DailyMed ›
Bleeding or bruising Worth acting on Additional detail
Stem Cell Therapy
“Injected direct-to-consumer stem cell preparations have been associated with reports of stroke, brain hemorrhage, and other neurological complications. In one case report, a 69-year-old female with leg numbness and difficulty walking from chemotherapy complications developed a stroke and died after receiving grossly filtered bone marrow aspirate injected into her right carotid artery.”

Stem Cell Therapy · Natural Medicines adverse-effect record, reported in chemotherapy-related complications.
2 sources cited

99543. Bauer G, Elsallab M, Abou-El-Enein M. Concise Review: A Comprehensive Analysis of Reported Adverse Events in Patients Receiving Unproven Stem Cell-Based Interventions. Stem Cells Transl Med. 2018;7(9):676-685. PubMed

102553. Madhavan AA, Summerfield D, Hunt CH, et al. Polyclonal lymphocytic infiltrate with arachnoiditis resulting from intrathecal stem cell transplantation. Neuroradiol J. 2020 Apr;33(2):174-178. PubMed
Apixaban

Listed in the ADVERSE REACTIONS section of the FDA label for Apixaban. Read the label on DailyMed ›

Reported for Stem Cell Therapy but not commonly for Apixaban: a severe skin reaction, a heart attack, loss of bladder control and unsteadiness.

Effects for Apixaban come from the ADVERSE REACTIONS section of its FDA label; effects for Stem Cell Therapy come from the Natural Medicines adverse-effect record, quoted above. Wording is matched across sources by our own clinical vocabulary, so treat this as a prompt to pay attention, not a diagnosis.

Overlapping uses

What Apixaban Is Prescribed For, and What Stem Cell Therapy Has Been Studied For

These two come up together because they touch the same health topic — not because they do the same job. Apixaban is a prescription medicine with approved uses on its FDA label. Stem Cell Therapy is a treatment: what follows is what researchers have looked at it for, and how strong that evidence is.

Apixaban is prescribed for: Apixaban is used to reduce the risk of stroke and dangerous clots traveling through the body in adults with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation (an irregular heart rhythm not caused by a heart valve problem). It is also used to prevent deep vein thrombosis (DVT — a blood clot in the leg) in adults after hip or knee replacement surgery, and to treat DVT and pulmonary embolism (PE — a blood clot in the lungs) in adults, including reducing the risk of those clots coming back. Eliquis (the brand-name tablet and kit) is additionally approved to treat venous thromboembolism (VTE — blood clots in the veins) and reduce the risk of recurrent VTE in pediatric patients from birth and older, after at least 5 days of initial anticoagulant treatment. The generic apixaban tablet carries the adult indications only.

Stem Cell Therapy has been studied for:

Stroke studied, not established Stem Cell Therapy has been studied for this. Natural Medicines rates the evidence: Insufficient Reliable Evidence To Rate Read what the research shows
Stem Cell Therapy for stroke
A meta-analysis of small clinical studies in patients after stroke shows that receiving autologous bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells intravenously or injected into another body part might improve function as measured on the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) and the Barthel index (BI), but not on the modified Rankin score (mRS) when compared with control.
1 source cited

99724. Nagpal A, Choy FC, Howell S, et al. Safety and effectiveness of stem cell therapies in early-phase clinical trials in stroke: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Stem Cell Res Ther. 2017;8(1):191. PubMed

Effectiveness ratings and the research summaries above are the verbatim record from the Natural Medicines database, which grades evidence from “Effective” down to “Insufficient Reliable Evidence To Rate”. A rating below the top of that scale means researchers have looked at it — not that it works, and never that it can stand in for a prescribed medicine. Do not stop or replace Apixaban on your own; if you are taking Stem Cell Therapy for the same health topic, tell your prescriber, especially if the medicine is being adjusted to a target.

From our Q&A

Questions About Stem Cell Therapy or Apixaban

These are real questions from readers, answered by the pharmacists at HelloPharmacist — written by a person, not generated from a database. Each one covers Stem Cell Therapy or Apixaban, not necessarily both, but if one is close to what you were about to ask it will usually go further than a database entry can:

Not quite your question? Ask our pharmacists directly — it is free, there is no account required, and answers usually come back within 24 hours.

Everything else you take

See Every Supplement That Interacts With Apixaban

This page covers Stem Cell Therapy only. If you take other supplements — a multivitamin, a sleep aid, something for joints — the Apixaban page lists 285 supplements it has a documented interaction with, worst first, each one explained.

The most serious there right now: Activated Charcoal (major), Danshen (major), Grapefruit (major), Piracetam (major) and St. John's Wort (major).

By severity: 5 major · 240 moderate · 40 minor.

From our pharmacist’s overview on the Apixaban page

“St. John's wort can weaken apixaban (Eliquis), speeding how the body clears this blood thinner and leaving you less protected from the strokes and clots it is prescribed to prevent.”

Reviewed by 2 · Jul 18, 2026

Open the Apixaban interaction page

How much people look this up

Where Stem Cell Therapy and Apixaban Sit Against Everything Else

Out of every supplement and medication people look up on HelloPharmacist, here is where these two land this week — and which way each has been moving.

Supplement Stem Cell Therapy

Steady interest

#829 of 1,452 supplements looked up here in the last 7 days

29 days ago today

Medication Apixaban

Most looked up

#1 of 2,830 medications looked up here in the last 7 days

29 days ago today

Position among everything looked up on this site, not a measure of how commonly either one is used or how important it is. A supplement can climb this list because of a news story. It counts every request to the page, automated ones included, and nothing here identifies anyone.

Where does our data come from?

Source: the Natural Medicines (TRC Healthcare) clinical database — the evidence-graded professional reference for herb & supplement interactions.
Citation library: 103,510 references behind our interaction content, 65,311 of them resolved to verified PubMed/DOI sources. See every Stem Cell Therapy reference on this page ↓
Freshness: we automatically re-check this combination every week — this pair was last verified September 13, 2026. The Stem Cell Therapy and Apixaban records this page draws on were last updated July 10, 2026.
What “no known interaction” means: no documented interaction in the sources above — not a guarantee of safety. Supplements are studied far less than prescription drugs, so we say exactly what the evidence supports, and nothing more.

Data structure & sourcing designed and verified by Dr. Brian Staiger, PharmD, BCPS.

Treatment approach

About Stem Cell Therapy

What is Stem Cell Therapy?

Joint and arthritis pain
Sports and orthopedic injuries
Anti-aging and wellness
Blood and immune disorders (proven medical uses)
Neurological conditions (experimental)

Stem cell therapy is a medical treatment, not a dietary supplement or herb. While some forms—like bone marrow transplants for blood cancers—are well-established and FDA-approved, most clinics offering stem cell injections for joints, aging, or chronic disease are selling unproven, sometimes risky treatments. Talk to a qualified doctor and be very cautious of clinics making big promises.

Stem cells (from bone marrow, blood, fat tissue, or umbilical cord) · Clinic-administered injections or infusions of cells

An interaction check asks whether these two react with each other — it does not ask whether Stem Cell Therapy is a good idea for someone in your situation. Here is what our Stem Cell Therapy record says about it on its own.

Stem Cell Therapy: dosing

There is no standard over-the-counter dose for stem cell therapy, because it is a medical procedure, not a supplement you buy and take at home. The type of cells, how they are prepared, and how they are given vary widely by treatment and clinic.For approved uses like transplants, dosing is carefully calculated by specialists based on the patient and condition. For unproven clinic treatments, there is no agreed-upon dose, and that lack of standardization is one reason these treatments are hard to judge for safety.Never accept a stem cell treatment based only on marketing.

From our Stem Cell Therapy monograph — the full record covers uses, side effects and every documented interaction.

Read the full Stem Cell Therapy monograph & all interactions

Medication

About Apixaban

What Is Apixaban Used For?

Brand name: Eliquis

Apixaban is used to reduce the risk of stroke and dangerous clots traveling through the body in adults with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation (an irregular heart rhythm not caused by a heart valve problem). It is also used to prevent deep vein thrombosis (DVT — a blood clot in the leg) in adults after hip or knee replacement surgery, and to treat DVT and pulmonary embolism (PE — a blood clot in the lungs) in adults, including reducing the risk of those clots coming back.

Eliquis (the brand-name tablet and kit) is additionally approved to treat venous thromboembolism (VTE — blood clots in the veins) and reduce the risk of recurrent VTE in pediatric patients from birth and older, after at least 5 days of initial anticoagulant treatment. The generic apixaban tablet carries the adult indications only.

See full Apixaban drug information

Keep checking

Other Drugs & Stem Cell Therapy

Browse every other medication we’ve checked against Stem Cell Therapy — both the ones with a known interaction and the ones without. Select any drug for the full detail.

0Major

0Moderate

0Minor

2,829No known interaction

2,829 No interaction

No interaction 2,829 drugs checked — show the list

We also checked Stem Cell Therapy against these medications and found no known interaction in our sources. Open any page to confirm.

Showing the 60 most looked-up of 2,829 medications checked with no known interaction — see the full Stem Cell Therapy list.

See the full Stem Cell Therapy interactions page

See every supplement checked against Apixaban, ranked by severity

Evidence & sources

Stem Cell Therapy References

The 26 references that drive our Stem Cell Therapy monograph and interaction data, from the evidence-graded Natural Medicines (TRC Healthcare) database. Citations with a link open the study on PubMed or the publisher’s site.

Ansari ZA, Kuriyan AE, Albini TA. Unproven stem cell therapy for macular degeneration. Oncotarget. 2017;8(53):90636-90637. PubMed
Bauer G, Elsallab M, Abou-El-Enein M. Concise Review: A Comprehensive Analysis of Reported Adverse Events in Patients Receiving Unproven Stem Cell-Based Interventions. Stem Cells Transl Med. 2018;7(9):676-685. PubMed
Berkowitz AL, Miller MB, Mir SA, et al. Glioproliferative Lesion of the Spinal Cord as a Complication of "Stem-Cell Tourism". N Engl J Med. 2016 Jul 14;375(2):196-8. PubMed
Kuriyan AE, Albini TA, Townsend JH, et al. Vision Loss after Intravitreal Injection of Autologous "Stem Cells" for AMD. N Engl J Med. 2017;376(11):1047-1053. PubMed
Perkins KM, Spoto S, Rankin DA, et al. Notes from the Field: Infections After Receipt of Bacterially Contaminated Umbilical Cord Blood-Derived Stem Cell Products for Other Than Hematopoietic or Immunologic Reconstitution - United States, 2018. MMWR Morb M
Iijima H, Isho T, Kuroki, Takahashi, Aoyama. Effectiveness of mesenchymal stem cells for treating patients with knee osteoarthritis: a meta-analysis toward the establishment of effective regenerative rehabilitation. NPJ Regen Med. 2018;3:15. PubMed
Sanapati J, Manchikanti L, Atluri S, et al. Do Regenerative Medicine Therapies Provide Long-Term Relief in Chronic Low Back Pain: A Systematic Review and Metaanalysis. Pain Physician. 2018;21(6):515-540. DOI
Rocco M, Juri C. Is treatment with stem cells effective in Parkinson's disease? Medwave. 2018;18(5):e7242. PubMed
Shah R, Latham SB, Khan SA, Shahreyar M, Hwang I, Jovin IS. A comprehensive meta-analysis of stem cell therapy for chronic angina. Clin Cardiol. 2018;41(4):525-531. PubMed
Guo J, Dardik A, Fang K, Huang R, Gu Y. Meta-analysis on the treatment of diabetic foot ulcers with autologous stem cells. Stem Cell Res Ther. 2017;8(1):228. PubMed
Nagpal A, Choy FC, Howell S, et al. Safety and effectiveness of stem cell therapies in early-phase clinical trials in stroke: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Stem Cell Res Ther. 2017;8(1):191. PubMed
Qiu Y, Li MY, Feng T, et al. Systematic review with meta-analysis: the efficacy and safety of stem cell therapy for Crohn's disease. Stem Cell Res Ther. 2017;8(1):136. PubMed
Sormani MP, Muraro PA, Schiavetti I, et al. Autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation in multiple sclerosis: A meta-analysis. Neurology. 2017;88(22):2115-2122. PubMed
Gao W, Chen D, Liu G, Ran X. Autologous stem cell therapy for peripheral arterial disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Stem Cell Res Ther. 2019;10(1):140. PubMed
Fisher SA, Doree C, Mathur A, Taggart DP, Martin-Rendon E. Stem cell therapy for chronic ischaemic heart disease and congestive heart failure. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2016;12:CD007888. PubMed
Novak I, Walker K, Hunt RW, Wallace EM, Fahey M, Badawi N. Concise Review: Stem Cell Interventions for People With Cerebral Palsy: Systematic Review With Meta-Analysis. Stem Cells Transl Med. 2016;5(8):1014-25. PubMed
Zahid MF, Murad MH, Litzow MR, et al. Venous thromboembolism following hematopoietic stem cell transplantation-a systematic review and meta-analysis. Ann Hematol. 2016;95(9):1457-64. PubMed
El-Badawy A, El-Badri N. Clinical Efficacy of Stem Cell Therapy for Diabetes Mellitus: A Meta-Analysis. PLoS One. 2016;11(4):e0151938. PubMed
Kim G, Eom YW, Baik SK, et al. Therapeutic Effects of Mesenchymal Stem Cells for Patients with Chronic Liver Diseases: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. J Korean Med Sci. 2015;30(10):1405-15. PubMed
Fisher SA, Zhang H, Doree C, Mathur A, Martin-Rendon E. Stem cell treatment for acute myocardial infarction. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2015;(9):CD006536. PubMed
Kolasinski SL, Neogi T, Hochberg MC, et al. 2019 American College of Rheumatology/Arthritis Foundation guideline for the management of osteoarthritis of the hand, hip, and knee. Arthritis Rheumatol. 2020 Feb;72(2):220-33. PubMed
Skeen M, Eksteen C, Pepper M. Stem cell tourism and spinal cord injury in South Africa. S Afr Med J. 2019 Sep 10;109(8b):17-23. PubMed
Madhavan AA, Summerfield D, Hunt CH, et al. Polyclonal lymphocytic infiltrate with arachnoiditis resulting from intrathecal stem cell transplantation. Neuroradiol J. 2020 Apr;33(2):174-178. PubMed
Richardson E, Project Director. Harms linked to unapproved stem cell interventions highlight need for greater FDA enforcement. The Pew Charitable Trusts Brief. June 2021. Available at: https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-briefs/2021/0
Appelt PA, Comella K, de Souza LAPS, Luvizutto GJ. Effect of stem cell treatment on functional recovery of spinocerebellar ataxia: systematic review and meta-analysis. Cerebellum Ataxias. 2021 Feb 25;8(1):8. PubMed
Hinkle JW, Mahmoudzadeh R, Kuriyan AE. Cell-based therapies for retinal diseases: a review of clinical trials and direct to consumer "cell therapy" clinics. Stem Cell Res Ther. 2021 Oct 11;12(1):538. PubMed

Medication overviews come from MedlinePlus (NIH); supplement label data from the NIH Dietary Supplement Label Database. Content is written and reviewed by licensed HelloPharmacist pharmacists — see our data sources and editorial standards.

Pharmacist Counseling Corner

Having Stem Cell Therapy While Taking Apixaban: Common Questions

Is it safe to have Stem Cell Therapy while taking Apixaban?

We do not list a known interaction between Stem Cell Therapy and Apixaban. That does not guarantee the combination is risk-free, so confirm with your pharmacist or doctor — especially if you take other medications or have a health condition.

Do Stem Cell Therapy and Apixaban have any of the same side effects?

Yes — our sources link each of them separately to 2 of the same effects. That is not an interaction: neither changes how your body handles the other. It does mean that if one of those effects turns up, it can be harder to tell which one is behind it. They are listed on this page with the source behind each.

Are Stem Cell Therapy and Apixaban used for the same thing?

They overlap in purpose, which usually means the real question is whether you need both rather than whether they are safe together. This page lists the shared uses and how strong the evidence is for Stem Cell Therapy in each. That is a conversation for your prescriber, especially if Apixaban is being adjusted to a target.

Does Apixaban interact with any supplements?

Yes. Apixaban has documented interactions with 285 supplements in our database — Stem Cell Therapy is not one of them. The Apixaban interaction page linked on this page lists every one, ranked by severity.

Written and reviewed by the HelloPharmacist editorial staff. Our editorial policy

Where next

Keep Exploring

Stem Cell Therapy monograph Uses, safety profile, and every drug interaction in one place Apixaban drug information The full plain-English guide to this medication Apixaban supplement interactions Every supplement checked against Apixaban, ranked by severity Supplement interaction checker Check any supplement or product against your medications Browse medications A–Z Every drug we’ve checked against herbs & supplements References The 26 citations behind this page Ask a pharmacist Free, personal answer from our licensed team

Still Have a Question About Apixaban and Stem Cell Therapy?

Our pharmacists answer your medication & supplement questions — free.

Ask a pharmacist

This information is for education only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Always check with your pharmacist or doctor before starting, stopping, or combining supplements and medications.