Dr. Adeel Khan — who has provided stem cell treatments to Kim, Khloe and Kylie, among other stars — also gives a warning to those who follow celebrity doctor recommendations blindly.
While the trend of celebrities being transparent with their plastic surgeons and treatments continues, Kim Kardashian’s stem cell doctor — who has seen a spike in his own popularity since she posted about visiting his office — says fans should still do their homework before blindly following suit.
Earlier this year, Kylie Jenner was asked by a TikTok user for the details of her “natural-looking” breast implants, Jenner responded, which prompted fellow celebrities to pull back the curtain on their own procedures. Kim, Kylie Jenner and Khloe Kardashian, meanwhile, have also posted to social media about their visits to Dr. Adeel Khan for stem cell therapy, which they say has helped with their pain and inflammation.
While speaking to TooFab’s Christina Cavaleri, Dr. Khan says everyday people still need to do their own due diligence before blindly following a celebrity’s suggestion.
“I think it’s overall positive because it helps to raise awareness and hopefully get people curious about it,” Dr. Khan said of the transparency trend, telling Cavaleri exclusively.
“But at the same time, I think you also don’t want to just go to someone just because they treat celebrities. That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re the most qualified,” he continued. “There’s a lot of cases where a lot of celebrity, let’s say doctors, get into those right networks, but they’re not necessarily the best at what they do.”
He continued: “I think you have to really assess independently of that to still be like, ‘Okay, are they doing research? Are they actively like involved in cutting edge therapies or whatever the case may be?’ If it’s surgery, obviously just checking and validating other sources, basically.”
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Dr. Khan himself has the Kardashians to thank for a recent boom in business, after Kim posted about her journey with stem cell treatment in August, a treatment she says helped her manage her shoulder and back pain.
Sisters Kylie and Khloe followed suit, posting about their experience with Dr. Khan as well.
However, with the positive side of more exposure for his business, those posts also came with the negative. Once Kim shared her post, many with different resources and incomes compared to the Kardashians shared their point of view.
“My debit card was declined at 7-11 Kim,” one social media user wrote at the time.
“Me just living with the pain because I ain’t a millionaire,” another added.
Dr. Khan, however, said those who are focused on the expenses are missing the “bigger picture.”
“The goal isn’t to make people feel bad about themselves that they can’t afford these treatments,” he began. “The goal is to tell people, ‘Hey, there’s a brighter future coming, that one day these treatments will be covered by insurance and we’re not there yet.'”
Dr. Khan claimed that celebrities posting about new procedures will actually help lower the costs in the future, as they become more mainstream and accessible.
“I think ultimately it has positive effects and people who are looking at it from that lens, I think are just missing the bigger picture because it’s easy to obviously criticize,” he said, before sharing the story of a patient who found out about the stem cell treatment through Kim’s post.
“She had back surgery. She’s literally been to like 20 different doctors and just no one has been able to help her,” he explained. “Now we just treated her and, it’s too soon to see all the results yet, but if we’re able to help her, that’s like a person whose life has changed because Kim talked about it.”
It’s not just the Kardashians who have traveled to Mexico to meet with Dr. Khan; Chris Hemsworth and Zac Efron have also worked with him — along with “so many” other stars Dr. Khan said haven’t been as open with their treatments.
Dr. Khan says the treatments range from $2,000 – $40,000, depending on what the patient needs and wants. He also noted that there are programs for those patients to help those who cannot afford the treatments through Eterna’s hardship pricing.
