LS 34 - Stem Cell Therapy Will Change Medicine, Wellness 360 with Dr. Jane Cases

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Welcome to the Longevity Show, Informing listeners on the important aspects of health, wealth and happiness to ensure you live life to its fullest. With fascinating interviews with top authors and gurus in the field, along with the latest news in the science and technology of longevity, we're going to reveal expert advice and amazing secrets of living a longer, happier life. And now, here's your host, Jason Hartman.

It's my pleasure to welcome Dr. Jane Kossas to the show. She is founder and chief medical officer of Wellness360 comprehensive lifestyle center, and she's creator of the Healing Saint product line. Jane, welcome. How are you?

Thank you for having me, Jason, and thank you for this great opportunity.

Yeah, my pleasure. Tell us a little bit about what it is you do, and then I want to make sure we drill down, Jane, and really define. Define what it is you do for people who may have heard these words thrown around, but they don't really know what it means or what it is. So just give us a broad view first, if you would.

Well, Jason, first of all, I'm a board certified endocrinologist, has a full practice in endocrinology, metabolism and diabetes. And I have a great passion for regenerative medicine. That's why I put up Wellness360. At Wellness360, I offer cutting edge technologies such as stem cell therapy as well as piglet rich plasma therapy for regenerative purposes. And that's just part of it. And we also do some hyperbaric therapy as well as IV nutrition.

Okay, so tell us about hyperbaric therapy.

Well, hyperbaric therapy is a pressurized chamber where we put the patient or individual in a pressurized chamber where we can deliver higher levels of oxygen to be delivered into the body. So in the body, we have areas that have very poor oxygenation, so we deliver this higher pressure of oxygen at higher oxygenation, and that will actually reach the deeper areas of your body, such as your brain, the muscle, the skin, and the bones. And that will actually lead to enhanced regeneration as well as repair.

Okay, so why is it that, you know, I'll call it mainstream western medicine doesn't use that. I mean, I never go to a conventional doctor that's covered by my insurance. And they never suggest hyperbaric treatment. You know, I mean, do they, do they use that type of thing at all?

Yes, absolutely. Yeah, we use hyperbaric therapy. It's an approved use by Medicare and Medicaid for chronic ulcers from diabetes. So chronic non healing wounds, especially from diabetes, that's actually covered by Medicare and Medicaid as well as commercial insurances, but for other purposes, such as for anti aging and for Alzheimer's or for Parkinson's disease or for preparation before stem cell therapy, that's not covered by.

Mainstream medicine medical insurance.

Your main thing though is stem cells, right?

Yes.

Okay, so explain what is a stem cell and then differentiate between the different types of stem cells, if you would.

Yes. Then stem cell therapy that I do@wellness360 is adult stem cells and that's derived from fat or adipose derived stem cell as we call it. And these are stem cells are primitive cells found within a tissue or organ which has the capacity for self renewal and self repair to maintain the integrity of a tissue or organ. So this is a very neat technology because we use our own cells to repair ourselves. So we have stem cells all over our body, but it's abundant in the bone marrow as well as in adipose tissue or on your abdomen or.

On your subcutaneous tissue. So what we do At Wellness 360, we obtain fat using liposuction procedure and we isolate the fat stem cells from that and the stem cells that we gather from that, we re inject it into the areas of interest, such as the joint. If you have osteoarthritis in the knees, then we inject stem cells in the knee and that will help regenerate the knee and make new cartilage.

In our experience and our clinical experience, there has been a great improvement, up to as much as 88% in improvement from baseline in patients who received stem cell therapy for osteoarthritis.

Okay, so what does a stem cell do in there? I mean, so you differentiated between how many types of stem cells are there? I mean, people talk about embryonic stem cells and of course that's a big debate. There's adipose tissue stem cells. Are there any other types?

Yeah, we have the bone marrow stem cells, we have the adipose drive cells. Both of them are adult stem cells which has a very limited potential to differentiate to other cells. They usually differentiate to related cells.

What does differentiation mean? Like, why are you saying that means.

They have the capacity to develop into different kinds of cells, such as if I use this fat stem cell and put it in bone, it becomes bone, even if it came from fat. So fat stem cells can develop into bone cells, or if you put it in the knee, it becomes cartilage. Or if you Put it in muscle, it has the capacity to develop muscles.

So these are sort of the generic multifunctional cells then, right?

Okay, yes. Stem cells are really primitive cells who have the capacity to develop to different kinds of cells. But the neat thing about adult stem cells, there's really no controversy about adult stem cells because.

It eliminates that ethical issue, whether, you know, because you derive it from a living person.

Right, right. But do the adult stem cells not work as well as the embryonic stem cel Scientists want to work with embryonic. Is there an advantage?

Well, the embryonic stem cells has a multi potential pluripotential capacity to develop to any kind of organ. That's why it has so many ethical issues about it, because you can abuse the potential of that source because you can create another organism out of it.

All right, so what would be the examples of some ways that that would be abused? Like what are people afra.

Well, you can, you know, you can use it for creating another. Maybe you can create another organ out of it, or you can create another being out of it. So because you can create pretty much any kind of organ you want to do from. You want to do. To make that cell to, you know, to develop into something. But with adults. And the ethical issue is that you get this embryonic stem cell from a very. From an embryo. So. From a very very, you know, from a very. From the. From a fertilized egg. So is that a living person already? I mean, so there's this whole religious part.

Well, you know, I mean, that's pretty serious for people. So does it destroy the embryo, though? Do you have to destroy the embryo to use the cells? Okay, you do, yeah.

Yes, yes, because you, you basically get the inner mass of the cells.

Okay, so let's talk about what we can do with this. So you mentioned joints and so forth, right?

Yes. So what I'm basically saying is that with adult stem cells, we only. What we can do is autologous. We can only use your own stem cells to be. To regenerate areas of interest in your own body. So we cannot share it to somebody else.

So the beauty of using your own cells to repair areas of your body, we eliminate the rejection because you use your own cells. So the rejection, the possibility of rejection is no longer an issue. So that's the beauty of it. And it's minimally invasive, it's very safe, and you know, it's readily available because you use your own fat and you can have fat, you can find fat anywhere in the body.

Okay, so, so what can we do with our own stem cells? I mean, you know, we're our own donor, so there's no problem there. You know, it's just like doing skin grafting or something like that. So what, what can't we do with, with our own cells though? Can we. Can we grow a new kidney? Can we grow a new ear with those? Or are we really limited as to their functionality?

Well, we are very limited right now, now in terms of functionality because one of the regulations that we have to respect within the US So we cannot expand the cells here in the US.

For other purposes, like for other clinical purposes.

So what can we use them for then?

For here in the US what we can do is we can, once we isolate the stem cells, which we do outside of your body, once we isolate that, we have to re. Inject it right away, right there. And then we cannot, you know, we cannot store it or we cannot expand those cells right now. But you have the, you know, you have the capacity to store your stem cells for future use in the event that you need it, when you need it as an emergency here in the US but, you know, outside of the United States, you can do it for other purposes.

Okay, so what countries around the world are really leading, you know, in the leading positions for doing things that you can't do in the US it always seems like Europe is more progressive than we are.

Yeah, Europe is very progressive. Mexico, there's so many trials going on in Mexico.

The problem is that I don't really trust Mexico, you know, very much. So. So I don't put a lot of faith in, you know, in, in that if I was sick or if I needed something, I'd probably be more likely to go to Europe than Mexico. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong about that, but it's just my impression.

Well, there's so many things going on in Southeast Asia, like in Thailand. There's huge amounts of research going on right now.

But I'd say when you look around the world though, of places where this is done and it's done legally, would it be the European Union that would be leading the charge, Like Germany being maybe the most advanced country in Europe, would that be the place to go?

But again, depends on what kind of studies they're doing. Some are doing cardiac studies, some are doing some limb salvaging studies, and.

They have different specialties that they do, areas of interest. So depends on the investigator. So that's where you go. But again.

In the US it's very limited, but outside of the Us, we can do. Do so many things.

Okay, so back to what you do. So what can you do for people? I mean, if someone is listening and they have a challenge, what can be solved?

Well, since stem cell, adult stem cell therapy is still not, you know, it's a very new field. There is really no huge clinical trial on it. You know, it's a, it's still in its infancy. So basically we cannot really tell the patient this is curative. So this is all cutting edge. This is all, you know.

Experimental as you could see it. So basically, this could be one option of therapy that they can look into, such as for osteoarthritis of the joint of the knee or the hip or the shoulder. If you have meniscal tear or partial ligamental tears, you can use this as a form of therapy for patients who are looking for alternative therapy for Alzheimer's, for multiple sclerosis, for type 2 diabetes, they can do this. For patients who have COPD, this could be an alternative treatment if they have no other options of therapy, or they can resort to this if they have an early form of disease that would be most ideal. And. Yeah. And for general anti aging purposes, you can also use this for general anti aging purposes.

Tell us about the anti aging side. I mean, we've talked a lot on the show about telomeres, or telomeres, depending on how you pronounce it, and, you know, supplements like TA65, which lengthen them, and other, you know, other dietary and lifestyle things you can do potentially too. But what are you doing with stem cells in terms of anti aging?

Well, I think when we talk about longevity, I think, I think we still go back to the basics. I think, you know, we talk about all those esoteric things about, you know, all those supplements and stem cell therapy, but I think it's really going back to the basics of having healthy lifestyle, exercise, you know, low carb diet, high protein, low fat, stuff like that. And what in wellness360, what I do is I encourage my patients to do hyperbaric therapy as well as IV nutrition, as well as taking their pharmaceutical grade vitamins to supplement and optimize their total wellness. But with stem cell therapy, again, if you use it for gel anti aging purposes, if we give it by IV intravenously, then we know that 60 to 70%, when we give it by IV goes to the lungs and about 20% goes to the heart and the rest goes to other areas of the body and 2 to 3% goes to the brain.

So generally, what we're looking at is general repair and restoration of any injured areas of the body that requires that.

Does this work without fail? Is there any debate about it or is it a foregone conclusion it works or is it questionable? Does it not always work?

Well, in my experience and some preliminary experiences or reports, it works. But again, it needs time for technology to prove its worth, famously with any kind of technology that we use in medicine. We need to look at this technology over time to look at its benefits, its long term benefits. Again, it has, I cannot say if it makes, it lessens the shortening.

Of the telomeres, but that one I can't tell for sure. But again.

Adult stem cell therapy or stem cell therapy is a powerful immunomodulator. It's an anti inflammatory, it decreases inflammation tremendously.

And I mean, is this, I mean, you know, basically we die of, you know, two things, inflammation or rust oxidation. Okay. Essentially the way we die is we rust, you know.

Yes, it's very nice of, to simplify, you know, how we look at longevity.

Yes, right. So I mean, is there any debate, are there people, if I was to, you know, find other doctors, would they say, oh, that's not true, it doesn't work, or is this a sure thing?

Well, again, it's, as I've said, this technology, it's pretty much regarded at its infancy. So I, you know, I cannot, you know, tell with great conviction that this is, you know, this is what you have to do.

It's a new technology.

Yeah, it's a new technology. It needs time to prove itself.

Sure, sure, sure. What will be next? You know, what is sort of the next step or the next breakthrough that we all should be looking forward to in this, in this technology.

I think the next breakthrough in this technology is to provide over the counter stem cell therapy.

And what will that look like?

Well, if you can prepare it in a vial form and if somebody needs one and we, you know, and we can just give it as an injection, that would be great.

So it would be a self injection that someone would just do at home.

Yeah, I mean you can just, probably can just buy it over the count. I mean it's a prescription that you get from your doctor and your doctor would just say, oh, you need, you know, this and that, you need the stem cell therapy for your joint and stuff like that. And you just get it out of, you know, buy it and then have your doctor inject it. That would be the best.

Yeah. So how, how is it administered now then?

Right now we use, we use your own cell so it's an autologous way of giving stem cells. Okay. So we don't use other people's stem cells.

To use for your own purposes, for patients purposes in the US.

So right now we can give it intra articularly or in the joint, we can give it intravenously, we can give it through inhalation. So those are the ways that, those are the. Or we can put it through the spine or.

To go into your spinal fluid and we also give it through the nose to get into the brain, to reach the brain. And also we can also give it into your intervertebral spaces for spinal diseases.

Okay. Yeah. Amazing. This is an exciting time to be alive. It really is. Give out your website if you would and tell people they can learn more about you and your work.

Yeah, they're most welcome to visit my website@wellness360center.com and they can also check out my new over the counter product for hair growth and for skin rejuvenation, which.

Is healingsaint.com and how do those work, skin and hair? I mean, what are those stem cell products as well?

Yeah, these are natural growth factors that I. Because two years almost about one and a half years ago, I had a horrific road bike accident. I tore.

A significant amount of skin off my face. So I have to grow back skin on my face. So yeah, and I went to three plastic surgeons and they couldn't do anything about it. So I had to go into my hyperbaric chamber two times a day. I get IV nutrition and you know, do stem cell therapy on my skin, I mean on my face and you know, glue back skin. And then I thought about the idea. So if I can just, you know, synthesize growth factors, that would be the greatest thing to, you know, to continue my treatment on my skin. So I basically did that and you know, I formulated this and this came out to be really effective for me and I have tried it to many of my patients and that has proven to be great. So.

What the growth factors do, what it does, it actually stimulates the stem cells on the skin. If you apply it on your skin, it stimulates the stem cell underneath your skin to make skin, to renew your skin. And if you put it on your scalp, as long as you have stem cells in your hair, on your hair bulb or in your hair follicle, you're going to have hair back again. So even if you have been bulb for 20, 30 years, as long as you still have stem cells underneath your scalp on your hair bulb, then you're still going to have hair if you use this product.

It's amazing what's going on out there. Would this have been possible.

Even five, ten years ago?

Well, it could have been if somebody have really, you know, thought about it. But it's been really, really exciting and I think this is going to change medicine. If this proves to be true and extremely helpful in a lot of areas in medicine, this is going to change medicine.

Very interesting. Well, Jane, thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate having you on and our listeners have your information so they can you thank find you.

Okay, thank you, Jason. Thank you for this great opportunity. Thank you so much.

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