5 Things To AVOID With Stem Cell Therapy

There are five common mistakes that people make when it comes to stem cell therapy. So we all know stem cells are not cheap, they're a sizable investment. What can you do to safeguard your investment? Or what should you not do in order to maximize your treatment results? So number one thing is if you think that using your own cells is the best, then you might be mistaken. We all know as we age, our cells decline with us. Even when you're 20 years old, your cells are not as powerful as when you were first born. Of course, when you advance in age 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, then it just gets more and more declined as far as function is capability. So your stem cells is no different. Just like sperm and egg would decline in its quality as we age, so do your stem cells otherwise. So there are a lot of stem cells in your body and they can all decline with you. So if you think that they don't, then really think twice. Because sperm and eggs, these are supposedly the most valuable cells in your body, right? This is to protect your offspring. These should be kept in its quality. But even these decline in quality. So, so you can imagine any other cells in your body. So we have a lot of stem cells in the body. Mesenchymal stem cells is a major source. They're everywhere. When you have blood vessels, so they're hovering around your blood vessels. There are all kinds of other stem cells too. So whichever stem cells that you utilize, they all decline. When you age, the DNA changes, their differentiation potentials are not as good, their inflammatory factors is lower, they're not as neuroprotect to detect cancer has declined. So it may tell all your cells to grow. Um, well, maybe not such a good idea if it's a cancer cell. But a younger cell like umbilical cord derived stem cells are able to tell when a cancer cell is a cancer cell, it can tell that it's different from a normal cell. And then these umbilical cord derived stem cells had more of the capability to recognize that these are not normal cells and they need to be killed off. Whereas your own stem cells, well, research has shown that it has lost some of that capability. So be careful, especially if you've had history of cancer, you've had family history of cancer. Either way, even if you don't have cancer, you need to think about this potential. But these cells are also less effective coming from your own. So that's number one, using your own doesn't mean is better. Number two, using cells that have been over cultured. What I mean is when you grow the cells in a incubator to a huge number. And this is commonly done overseas. So I don't care where you go, whether or not it's Panama or Mexico or the Bahamas or Costa Rica, all these places use expanded cells. Expand means expansion in numbers. So they put the cells in the tissue culture and put them in the incubator. The problem is, the more you incubate and let the cells grow, the more genetic changes can happen. Also, the less stem cells there are. Because when stem cells divide, they tend to divide into a identical copy of itself and another copy that's actually different, slightly differentiated. So these are no longer the stem cell that we were speaking of. So in that sense, we are decreasing the stem cell population when we start to grow these, these cells in the culture. Also genetically, DNA wise, they are degrading. So there are changes in their directions of where they want to go. They may express surface markers that mark them as foreign. So when you put it into another person's body, that may cause a rejection. So when you get your cells in Panama or Mexico, when they expand these cells, the donor cells would have expressed all these characteristics that's consistent with the donor. So all these protein markers are different from the recipient. Right. And that can cause rejection. So not only the cells have degraded, in a sense, they've lost a lot of the stem cell characteristics. So you have a big batch of a lot of cells, but only small portion will be stem cells. And also they've had genetic changes so that they are not as potent and as vibrant as earlier on. And then when you are expanding them, then surface markers start to show up and they can cause rejection. Also, just remember, when they're growing outside of the body in a incubator is not a Garden of Eden. This perfect environment, it's actually stressful for the cells. So the cells can start to secrete inflammatory molecules and cytokines and that can cause problems. This is probably why in overseas locations there's a lot higher prevalence of side effects. For example, Tony Robbins talks about the cytokine storm, which I don't see in my clinic here in Los Angeles, because we don't use expanded cells. We use cells that have not been manipulated in any way. When we get them from the umbilical cord, the cord is carefully, mechanically, kind of handled to free the cells up out of the matrix. It's all mechanical. There's no chemical use, there's no expansion and it's just the freeing of the cells. So they are not, they have not gone through any changes as Far as genetically or surface marker wise, because they're preserved in this, you know, fairly original state. That's what we give patients. You freeze them and then by the time of use, then you thaw them out and give it to patients so it doesn't go through this expansion process. So be careful about using expanded cells. I've seen a research study, I, I published that in my, one of my lectures called R O M S C is created equal. So when you start to expand the cells, some research has been done comparing cells that have been expanded to the cells that have never been expanded. It turns out you can use 10 times the number of the cells you, you think you're getting 200, 300 million. This must be better, right? The results tend to be less. So Even if it's 10 times the results is less than 110 of the number of the cells. And that's what I've seen clinically as well. So that's number two mistake. Number three will be over exercising and overexerting your, your tissue that's trying to repair. So that I've seen all the time. I mean it's, it's, it's funny, but not funny. We patient have patients who have knee problems, muscle tendon injuries, when we give them stem cell therapy, they will do really well. They feel better so fast. That gives them a sense of false confidence. They think, hey, my tissues healed. So I can do all these things now that I couldn't before because I was in so much pain. Well, you have to be very careful because you got to think about what's happening on the cellular level, on the tissue level, right? So there's biology which has its own timeline. For example, I give it the perfect example, is that everybody can see is when you had a cut on your skin, right? So let's say you, you had some kind of wound or cut that you ran into something and you cut yourself. And then there's going to be a scab forming on the surface. When the scab is on there, you may be doing something that you can usually do like running against a table or a door. And usually your skin is not going to have a problem. But if you have a scab there, the scab can fall off. Why? Because it's not perfect tissue yet is in the process of making the final product. So it's on its way and it takes weeks, right? You don't just, you think you're a scab, you know that that's not the final product. Same thing as your tendon, your muscles Your cartilage, so just think it's fragile, is trying to make the final product, but there's a process so you can't rush it. And if you put high pressure, high impact on the area that you just, you're trying to fix and all of a sudden the new newly formed tendon are still kind of fragile and they meet, they may tear up or the cartilage, right. If it's perfect, then they have a lot of resilience, a lot of tensile strength. But when you are not done yet, you know that's not the final product. Then some smaller impact can just tear them up. And then you, you starting back square one, right? You, you have to wait for the whole process again. So you don't want to do that. So that's another very common mistakes of mistake that, that people just get so excited about their progress that they go out and do more than they should. So people should really wait for six to eight weeks, something like the bones, maybe even longer, maybe, maybe 12 weeks. Wait for some time for your tissue to really be fully repaired. You don't want to keep going backward. So it just, it would. I know it's hard, especially for athletes, they don't like hearing that. But if you want long term, well, you know, good, healthy tissue, you have to kind of respect the timeline. So, so that's another thing. What's the, what's the fourth, what's the fourth mistake? Fourth mistake a lot of people may not like hearing this is to avoid, well, is to drink alcohol. So the problem, I know alcohol, a lot of people are very attached to it because it makes you feel better temporarily, right? It makes you more sociable. However, we all know that alcohol has a lot of toxic effects. And there may be one thing that people kept talking about saying that there's possibly protective effects for your cardiovascular system. There's some mild evidence, however, it's still not fully conclusive for the little bit of cardioprotective effects. It's probably not good enough to overcome the multitude of damages the. That alcohol can do. So what does it do? It interrupts, disrupts your cell to cell signaling. So the signaling and cytokine production, that's all affected. So cells can't signal to each other very well. It also produces a lot of reactive oxygen species. So these causing oxidative damages and causing systemic inflammation. It also can disrupt stem cells proliferation. They're just survival or differentiation, right? Become different kinds of cells and it just changes their overall vitality. So that beats the whole purpose of stem Cell therapy. Right. So you give stem cells, you're counting on their ability to multiply, to differentiate, to signal. But then if it's cytotoxic, for example, we don't even use alcohol when we do do injections, you know, on top topical treatment for, for, for skin, because it disrupts biologics is not denatures it. So we don't want alcohol to be around with stem cell therapy. And lastly, it can cause cancerous changes. So we know that there is carcinogenic potentials not so much from the alcohol itself, but from its metabolite, acetaldehyde and, and also reactive oxygen species that triggers. So it can also promote cancer migration and, and proliferation. So yeah. So from all these aspects, I would really recommend people to abstain from alcohol use. The question is, for how long? People always ask, how long do I have to stay away from it? Well, I would say if you have to. If you nail me down to a number, I'll say, okay, two weeks. But ideally, you really should avoid it if you can. So if you. It's in your realm of possibility at all to think about staying away from alcohol, I think that's a very good idea. Um, but if you have, have to, have to have a drink and, but you're drinking moderately, you know, it still may not be the best for you, but I would like you to give at least two weeks time to, to not drink alcohol. A month is even better, three months is even better. So, so that's, that's how I feel about it. And the lastly we. The last thing to avoid is toxic food. So that it's difficult because people are attached to their food, to the fried food they want to eat, to the, you know, restaurant food. But there's a lot of seed oils, preservatives, so junk food, definitely. Please stay away from junk food, from any preservatives. The additives, sodas, so bad seed oils, that. That's highly processed seed oil. I would say try to stick with butter, ghee, coconut oil and avocado oil and you will be pretty safe if you just stick with one of those. Oh, olive oil, also one of these five. So, so that's the, that's the five precautions that I really would like people to pay attention to. And you would do yourself a big favor by staying away from these five, five things I discussed. So if you want to learn more about stem cell therapy or if you're considering doing stem cell therapy, we do that every day at our clinic in Char Health in Los Angeles. So I welcome you to contact us. We'll leave the website address in the show Note, you can contact us and discuss your needs with our team. We provide very comprehensive consultations with one of our doctors. So we, we really try to really uphold ourselves to this highest standard. It's not something that will just have a sometimes some of these clinics with non medical professionals trying to do intake, we think that's doing people a disservice. We want our doctors to really fully understand what the patient's needs are and provide individualized plans. So we really take our time to design a good, optimal plan for each person. So this is end of this episode. If you are enjoying it, please hit the like button and subscribe. If you have learned something new from this episode, you can drop a comment or ask a question. And I I'm here to help. Okay, well, until next time.