Are Stem Cells the Key to Staying Healthy Well Into Your Golden Years? | Dr. Joy Kong & Brad Kearns

You use the right word, it's a movement, and I don't think that can be stopped. The cat is out of the bag. Now we know that there are these incredibly powerful cells, and I see that every day in my clinic of what it can do for people. It's the patient's results that are driving the movement. It's the patients who are coming to the doctor saying, hey, do you do stem cells? So I see this drastic change in the landscape because the work has gotten out. People know it works. It helps.

I think we got to back up a little bit and give us the basic notion of what is a stem cell. What are the treatments? And then we already know that the fetal derived stem cells are better than the other ones. And you can kind of compare and contrast.

Well, there's a difference. The fetal stem cells are not really legal in the US but these are birth tissue derived birth tissue. Fetal are from fetus. Maybe some countries do that, like Ukraine, but. But not in this country. So nobody is doing fetal tissue derived stem cells. Yeah, these are placenta and vocal cord that comes with the baby. The baby's great, doing well. This tissue will usually be tossed in a biological waste basket. And we're now utilizing it to help heal people.

Right?

Yeah. So what is a stem cell? So if you look at you and me, where we started in life, we started from a single stem cell. So that is a fertilized egg. So, so from that single stem cell, how did that stem cell know how to divide and migrate and form a 3D structure and gradually, you know, evolve into different organs and then form this? Yeah, right. That's pretty incredible. So what does the cell know? And we don't know what the cell know. I mean, it's still a mystery. I mean, this is a mystery of life. But there's an intelligence that's in the cells. Right. They somehow know. And that kind of intelligence is what we're tapping into in stem cell therapy. So the cells somehow know. So when you have the first stem cell, the first stem cell will start to differentiate and form other stem cells. They would divide. As they divide, they will gain function but lose potential. So they will lose the Y potential of becoming anything they can be, but they will gain new function.

So it's no longer stem ce, There.

Are still stem cells, but eventually they will form the end organ cells. And those are not stem cells anymore. Those are tissue specific cells. So they're end organ cells. But before the organ cells, there are stem cells. So each end organ cell came from a stem cell. So the stem cells of course, were in huge number when the baby's forming. But as the fully formed adult, we still have all kinds of stem cells. So in each of your organ, there are organ specific stem ce, There are liver stem cells that can form new liver cells in your bone. Same thing. There are bone stem cells that can form new bone cells. These are the end, like the last kind of the bottom of the evolution for stem cells. But there's still stem cells, but they can only do one thing, which is to form the organ cells. But before that there can be all these, you know, could be 1,000 layers of different kinds of stem cells. So all these are stem cells and they all perform certain functions. And, and in our adult body, we still have a lot of stem cells left. So we have tissue specific stem cells, we have very young immature primitive blood cells that can form all the white and red blood cells in the body. And then we have these mesenchymal stem cells that are very special because they are not so much. They don't perform the function of forming specific cell types, they perform the function of, of coordinating regeneration. So they're everywhere in your body. Anywhere you have blood vessels, blood supply, you've got these mesenchymal stem cells. They're like little, you know, gecko that's holding on the wall of these blood vessels. And not only they're sensing what's going on in the blood vessels, they're also having their, you know, their little feet in the local environment, talking with local stem cells, the local tissue specific stem cells. So they're talking, they're communicating, and they're also sensing what's going on local in the local environment. Is there inflammation going on? Are there senescent cells just, you know, are there cancer cells? And then they can either work on them directly or send signals to the blood so the immune system can respond and come and help you repair and regenerate. So they, that's their function. They're the coordinator. These cells are everywhere. And that's what we're tapping into right now is these signaling cells. So even though they're called mesenchymal stem cells, but the discoverer of these cells actually wanted to rename them medicinal signaling cells because that's what they do. It's like this smart pharmacy. These cells, each one is like artificial intelligence, like this intelligent pharmacy, whatever you need, it knows what to produce, just sends just the right signal to your body to coordinate this repair, regeneration.

And when we're born, you gave me some ratios that were disturbing These incredible cells called aging people.

Yeah, these incredible cells. When we were born, every 1 in 10,000 cells is these, you know, these coordinating cells, right, for regeneration.

Mesenchymal stem cells that were born.

Yeah. And that's.

But they're throughout the body.

Yeah, every 1 in 10,000 cells when we were born. And by the time you reach your teenage years, it became 1 in 100,000. So that's tenfold less. And when we reach our 40s, becomes 1 in 400,000. When we reach our 80s, becomes 1 in 2 million. So there's really no way around it. As you age, these cells, they divide, they're activated, they only have so many generations left. They can only divide so many times. About 76 times. They can only divide that many times.

And they're done 76 times.

Yeah. But also just by living with you, guess what? Your body produces these reactive oxygen species, right? All these, you know, oxidative stress. And you can cause damages, inflammation can kill the cells. So there's nutrition rate, the damages you sustain your body and all your organs can also kill off these stem cells. So you just have less and less and you know, they divide and then they may, you know, fight your battles and then they die and, and then all the toxicities. So you just, there's this straight line decline in the level. So eventually, why do we die? We ran out of things to repair. The cells are old, are not functioning very well, and if you can't replace it, guess what? Then you're just not functioning well. Not functioning well. Eventually everything fails, then you die. But if you have enough stem cells, then you can keep this regeneration going.

So a 40 year old fit specimen versus a 40 year old person who's already lost a lot of their health attributes, are they going to have a similar number of stem cells or is it going to be accelerated or preserved by lifestyle practices in any way?

I don't have data on specifically the number comparison, but I do know when people are sick, if affects their stem cells, their stem cells can be dysfunctional. A lot of people with autoimmune diseases also have defective stem cells. So the stem cells can be affected by the lifestyle and by their illnesses. So that we know, affects their quality and their capabilities.

But let's say the healthiest and fittest of the humans, Justin Gatlin, the Olympic sprinter who made the US team at age 40 as a sprinter. Unheard of. Okay, so let's say someone at that level still has a dramatic reduction in stem cell activity and stem cell number relating to he's not running anymore. At some point, everybody gets old, even the olympic sprinter who's 40. And so there's absolutely nothing we can do about aging. Without intervention. Let's say with stem cell decline, I.

Shouldn'T say aging, but yeah, I don't think there's. Yeah, I think there a natural attrition rate and, and there's a natural escalation of inflammation. So, you know, I, you know, in my presentation about anti aging benefits of stem cells, I talked about how a healthy elderly looking vibrant, right? Boxing, you know, running, doing all these, looking great. His inflammation markers are elevated. It doesn't matter that he's not sick. He's doing great. He's looking great. Just because he's older, his inflammation markers are elevated. So there are things that are trends that you can't quite stop. More inflammation, less stem cells.

We're talking like systemic inflammation of various kinds or.

Yeah, just inflammation markers. There are certain things.

And then I guess after a difficult workout or a long hike, the older hiker is going to have more profound inflammation signaling than a younger person or something.

That's pretty sure bet. Yeah.

Okay. Just basically our aging situation. So now we have cutting edge medical technology to intervene. And how does this happen?

Yeah, so there are a lot of things you can do, I think. And you know, there's more and more. But what I tell people is that the body is complex and we may need to dress things in, you know, various different angles. So even, you know, when I do stem cell therapy now, I tell everybody to take nitric oxide supplement because the nitric oxide level also straight, straight line decline. And so does. Yeah, so does nad. So does mitochondrial health. I mean, a lot of things do this right? So there's so many things we can do to kind of slow down the aging, you know, train. So what? But there's something fundamentally different about stem cells because I call them the engine for the body. Because if you have damages, you have inflammation, but you got enough stem cells, boom, you're repairing it. All of a sudden you're fresh and new. But if you don't have the information to get you to repair, then you're stuck. So these are the engine. This pushes for the renewal of this body. So if you have all the other ingredients, but you don't have enough stem cells, there's only so far you can get. So I call that. It's like putting really clean fuel into a dirty engine. Right. If your stem cells are not functioning well, you don't have enough of them. You know, you don't have very many engines left. Maybe you're supposed to have six cylinder and you only have two left. So you put the purest fuel, you know, beautiful fuel, you still are not going to get very far because you don't have enough engine power. But by the same token, if you have six cylinder, beautiful engine, pristine, made by the top end factory, but you put dirty fuel, you're not going to do very well either. So we need to address both. But there's something fundamentally powerful about stem cells because it is the engine.

Do healthy lifestyle practices kind of have any magical effect on stem cells? I think fasting has been associated with kick starting the stem cell or the cellular repair or at least different pathways.

I don't know how much it's going to affect the number of stem cells.

I think or how well they're.

Yeah, I think it can help the body to rejuvenate, it can kill off senescent cells. But I don't know if you're able to prevent the reduction in number of stem cells as we age. But yes, of course, if you're healthier, you probably can preserve more stem cells because inflammation does kill cells, kill all cells, including stem cells. So if you have raging inflammation, you're not going to, you know, you're going to destroy more of your cells.

So then we're going to come in and get treatment. We're going to choose between obtaining our own stem cells from fat or bone marrow or getting birth tissue stem cells, which is from an outside source. Another person. I know people have concerns about that that you countered very nicely in one of your podcasts. So maybe you can mention why it's the best and counter some of those concerns of someone thinking, wow, I'm going to get stem cells from some random kid.

Yeah. So one concern is people say, oh my God, you know, there are going to be other people's DNA in my body. I don't want that. But what they don't realize that it's actually part of the human story. It's part of human existence. Because the research I've shown 60% of women have Y chromosomes in their body and they found out that it's probably not just from giving birth to children or from having male stuff. Siblings have died when they were in the womb together. It's probably because of sexual intercourse. So the exchange of DNA. You don't want other people's DNA in you. Maybe you shouldn't have sex.

Founders the Taoist philosophy. They want the female to have as many sexual partners as possible. This is 3,000 year old advice. Yeah. Because you get the more essence the female becomes stronger, more powerful.

That's so interesting that that's, they weren't teaching me when I was in China. Yeah, so, so that's the first argument, right. People worried about other people's DNA. And the other thing is they say, oh, you know, it's not matched, it's not identical to your body, so it's not going to even stay in your body, it's just going to be destroyed. But the thing is that a lot of these cells, when they're in your body, the type of therapies we do, whether or not you're getting it from your own body, we're getting it from somebody else. These cells, once we isolate them, put back in the body, they will do their work and most of them will die. So it's not like they're going to stay there forever and it's going to, you know, become part of your body because possibly 95 to 98% of the cells are going to do their work and die. But maybe a few percent and no, I think exact number, I don't think anyone knows in the world. But the guess is that between 2 to 5%, maybe 2 to 5% will stay. So we have seen that cells can stay in another person's body but in another organism like human cells surviving in mice. And so it's not unheard of. We have tissue transplantation, right. We have big valves. So other species and transplanting from organs.

From other human to my friend, Iron has someone's heart and he's very grateful for it and he's doing fine. So it's routine, it's not a concern really.

Right. So it can happen. It's, you know, it. So it, other people's cells could stay in the body and could be part, become part of you and help you survive and thrive. So that's another thing. You know, majority of the cells are not going to stay. They would do their work and they go away. And the small percent that does stay day can be accepted by the body. So that, that's another thing. Right. So, so these two things kind of counter some of the concerns that people have about using other people's cells. But there's some benefits of using other people's cells, especially when you use very, very young cells. When I say young, this is not just from a zero day old baby, this is younger than the baby because the birth tissue contains cells that were trapped earlier when the embryo was forming. So these are very primitive cells. If you look at their biological markers. They are in between embryonic stem cell and the baby stem cell. So they are kind of, they're more primitive, so they have more power, they have more abilities to differentiate into different cells, cells of different organs.

So they're largely undifferentiated, as opposed to the geckos that are hanging on the liver.

Yeah, they're definitely much. Yeah, right. They're much less.

And so if you're going just to jump to the idea of getting it from your own bone marrow or fat tissue, those are more differentiated, I would guess. Although, why are we choosing bone marrow and fat tissue?

Well, they are a little further down the line, you know, comparing to the birth tissue for sure. Because when you get cells from the fat bone marrow and they're old. Yes. And they could only differentiate into particular pathways. But when you use the birth tissue, they could differentiate into neurons, liver cells. So they have broader range of cells that they can become. So that's one thing. They also have more generations left. Right. They have longer telomeres, so they can work longer. They're going to be healthier longer.

Right. Telomeres, we're probably familiar with that term. It's been bantered about is kind of identifying how much time you have left or how healthy you are with the length of the telomeres on many of your cells. And so the stem cells have a lot of telomeres too.

They can divide more times without making mistakes, without making genetic mistakes. So they also can produce more growth factors, they have more neuroprotective properties, they are more anti inflammatory. So all these have been studied in direct comparison to the adult source. And also they're safer. One reason I don't want to use a person's own is because there's less capability of these cells to detect cancer and fight off cancer. Because stem cells, by its nature, it promotes growth. It wants to help everything to grow. So they produce growth factors. When you don't have the kind of intelligence that are still existing in the younger cells, when you see a tumor cell, you don't recognize as a tumor cell. These older stem cells from our own body sees tumor cell and says, oh, that's a cell. Here's some growth factors. And then you end up promoting the existing tumor growth. Whereas the younger stem cells, I showed a research study direct comparison between birth tissue derived MSCs vs fat derived MSCs. Ve Putting it next to cancer cells, this brain tumor cell and the fat derived mics make the cancer grow, and the umbilical cord derived mics make the cancer go away both in the petri dish and in a live animal body. So that's how drastically different they could be. So for me, I just feel like that will be my sense of responsibility. Because we all know that cancer can occur anytime, anywhere, in anyone's body. But it's the power of our immune system to recognize it and get rid of it. But if you happen to have a cluster of cancer cells somewhere and you put back, you put these adult stem cells that may not recognize them as cancer cells and tell them to grow, and then now you have exacerbation of your cancer. So that is a risk I don't want to take.

So why is this even an option? I mean, you're strongly against it. Would someone else argue that this way has advantages from the burst cells?

Because people have gotten good results from the bone marrow and bad derived stem cells.

It's difference between good and better.

And they've been around for much longer than umbilical cord derived stem cells. So umbilical cord birth tissue is the newest kid on the block. Maybe in the last 10, 15 years.

Maybe a little longer, but that's pretty old. So this stuff's been going on for 10 or 15 years or more with the other, the other sources, the bone.

Marrow derived stem cells. I mean, the first bone marrow transplant was, I think was in the 1960s. So it's been around for, you know, at least 16 years.

Wow.

So. And the fat derived stem cells is no longer maybe, you know, 20, 25 years. So but the birth tissue is the newest. People realize, oh my God, look at.

All these 10 to 15 years of implementation. You said, I think first arrived.

Yeah, at least 10 to 15 years. Possible longer. I'm sure the research probably has gone on a little longer, but people have been doing this. Yeah.

So I suppose it started out really small. And what is the growth of the industry been like and what's it like today?

You know, I don't know exactly where it got started, but I definitely know the birth tissues. Red stem cells. Biggest research center I think is in China. Yeah, so they do, of course, lots of births and yeah, so they do tremendous amount of research there.

And like here in America or in the, in the developed nations of the world. How large is this movement? How many people are taking part in stem cell treatment?

Yeah, you use the right word, is a movement. And as a movement, I don't think that can be stopped as the cat is out of the bag. Now we know that there are these incredibly powerful cells, and I see that Every day in my clinic of what it can do for people. So is it's the patient's results that are driving the movement. Because I've gotten providers who approach me saying, can you teach me how to do stem cells? Because I got patients who ask me, they want stem cells. I don't know how to do it. Please teach me. So it's the patients who are coming to the doctor saying, hey, do you do stem cells? I want stem cells. So I see this. I see. I've only been in the field for six years, and I see this drastic change in the landscape because the work has gotten out. People know it works. It helps. And even the questions people ask were different. Initially. People were asking me, hey, Dr. Kong, can you tell me what stem cells are? Like, what. How does it work? And now the question is, okay, I know stem cells are amazing. Can you tell me, I have this condition? Will stem cells help me? So that's, you know, there's a change in the questions. So I know that this is a movement that cannot be stopped. You know, maybe the pharmaceutical companies don't like this. And of course they don't like it because we're getting people off medications because they're. They're recovering. You know, I've treated people with all kinds of conditions, and if they're recovering, of course we're cutting the bottom line. So there are going to be people who don't like what we do because we are affecting their economic anything.

With change, people are resistant, especially the big powers. It's hard to grasp that, but clearly there's many examples of that from the big tobacco industries. I was just learning that when tobacco started to get shut down and the legislation and all the stuff coming out and how bad it was, they quickly scooped up a lot of food brands and started using the same marketing tactics to get people addicted to processed food. It's pretty funny.

It works pretty well.

Whether you are really buying in on that conspiracy theory or not, it's clearly when there's a force that's showing potential for change, it's going to be, I guess, an uphill battle in some ways, like with FDA approval and the resistance that the movement faces.

Yeah, yeah. So they're definitely roadblocks because a lot of these companies who are producing the stem cells don't have the resources to, you know, do a big clinical study which costs, you know, tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. You know, it takes a few billion dollars to bring a drug, you know, to. So they want to make the tissue transplantation A drug. So. Which means you need tremendous amount of financial backing to get that going. So that's what's preventing the field from advancing. Because lab doctors are scared saying, oh, it's not FDA approved. Rather than learning by, I should do this and I'm taking on risks. But it's a tissue transplantation. It should be part of the purview as doctors. These are cells from the human body, just like blood transfusion. Blood products are not drugs. They. These are from one human being given to another under the doctor's supervision. The doctors think that this is important to give you a blood transfusion. And so I think it's important to give some cell transplantation.

What's the difference? I mean, what do you think? If you.

Well, yeah, if you manipulate the cells like a lot of companies do, which if you add chemicals, you add enzymes, you start changing the cells, there could be potential unknown consequences. Or if you grow the cells to large numbers in growth, you could cause, you know, there are things that could happen. Cells could degrade. You know, cells can transform. So you do need certain, certain parameters to govern these type of activities. So whether or not they should be classified as drugs, that's, you know, up to everyone's interpretation. But you definitely need a new layer of supervision. But if you're just getting the cells the way they were, careful mechanical separation, and there's all this research from all around the world showing tremendous safety data that there's. It's probably one of the safest thing you can do is to transplant these stem cells from one person to another. They should be allowed to be used as tissue transplantation. That's what I believe, but that's what we're doing right now. The stem cells I'm using are considered tissue transplantation under FDA's own guidelines because FDA put two categories. If you manipulate the cells, then this category is under section 351. If you don't, if it's minimally manipulated, it's considered tissue transplantation. It's under the section 361. So that's how we're doing these transplantations, is that these are minimally manipulated cells. They're considered tissue transplant and not a drug. So that's sounds promising. Yes. Yeah. Except that there are different limitations and there are different things that, you know, even though these are minimally manipulated products that doctors should be able to use as doctors see fit, there's controversies about whether or not you can, you know, do IV treatments. And so there are a lot of nuances that, that scares the Doctors. So it's unfortunate because I think they should be allowed to be used by physicians as they see as the most effective way to help patients.

And right now, I mean, you happen to be a certified psychiatrist, but who can do this? Does it have to be a medical doctor or what are the guidelines around opening up a stem cell clinic, putting up some cool artwork and hanging some IVs.

Supposedly you have to be, you know, licensed provider. So either Maryland or DO or naturopathic doctor in some states or nurse practitioner, the medical board.

Okay.

So there's. Each state have their own medical board and they're the ones that are watching, but the FDA is also watching. So. So I think that the FDA has been criticized for trying to get into the business of managing medical practices because that's not what they're designed for. They're designed to ensure medication safety. Right. So medication devices. So that's what they're, you know, that's their parameter of, you know, a power. But that's why, you know, there has always been government overreaching, know, cases of government overreach. So, you know, a lot of doctors are, you know, upset with what the FDA is trying to do because saying that they believe that the medical practice is really should be governed by the medical board who understands medical practices. So it's not by a drug and device, you know, organization. Yeah.

So I'm coming in for my peak performance goals. We did our evaluation. I'll be report back after I get my stem cell treatment. But there's also, I would imagine a lot of people, most people are coming in with a specific complaint of some kind. And it seems like the areas that you can treat or address are across the board with everything from joint pain to carry on. What are we talking about?

I would definitely not use the word treat. I help people with different conditions, so I help improve their function. So I just have to be very careful with, with what I say, you know. You know, that's just the, the nature of how, you know, the atmosphere right now, you know, how, you know, medicine is, is watched. So. But I do have people with all kinds of chronic conditions that, you know, ranging from autoimmune issues to musculoskeletal injuries to, you know, copd, lung conditions, liver issues, you know, kidney diseases, you know, erectile dysfunction, autism. So I have people from, you know, a wide range of conditions, and I have seen tremendous benefit in all these areas. So I feel like I'm really making a difference in people's lives. And that is really driving, you know, what I'm doing here. It's just, you know, it's the results, it's incontrovertible. You know, when somebody has a condition they've suffered for two years and they've seen, you know, every specialist there is and they're losing hope and they come to you and you do one treatment and things are resolved, you know, that's because of your treatment.

Right.

So. And I see that all the time, and it's wonderful.

So this is getting an intravenous stem cell infusion and I guess the intelligence of the cell is knowing that my heel and my plantar fasciitis is not working right. And so it's going to address. It's going to same with some traumatic brain injury is another category where the stem cell comes into your bloodstream and essentially it knows what to do with that cellular wisdom.

So, yeah, I'm basically allowing the cells to do exactly what they were doing in the body, which was they were all around blood vessels. If they sense something bad somewhere, they're going to squeeze themselves into the blood.

Vessels, such as inflammation.

Right. Or injury. So they're going to swim upstream to find the signal and then they're going to get out of the blood vessel because the signal is strongest over there. They're going to get to local tissue and start to. To coordinate this repair, regeneration. And that's what I'm counting on. If I put the cells, instead of letting them sitting outside of the blood vessels and try to listen to what the signals are, I put them in the blood vessels so they can do what they were going to do anyhow, which is to find the signal and then get out and do their work. So I'm letting the cells do exactly what they were designed to do.

Pretty heavy. So we have our stem cell treatment and then we have this other amazing contribution to the planet. It's called Chara Omni and the title of the product is Stem Cell regenerative Cream. And I've become a recent enthusiast in skin care and I want to get that skin and top. I haven't put anything on my skin my whole life. I didn't pay attention. I'm a guy. I don't care. And now the results speak for themselves. You just turned 51 and she's a regular user. I can't wait to get started. We're going to do some before and after stuff, but tell me about how you came to develop a skin career.

I know, it's so funny. That was the last thing on my mind when I went into this whole regenerative medicine field. I was like, yes, I can really heal people. I could be a healer that I always felt that I was. And I just want people to do well. You know, I didn't care about the face. I was like, you know, I, you know, like that's cosmetic. You know, I'm really not that interested, not that inspired. But you know what, I want to look good, so I need a good skincare product. And then so, and then because I know so many products are so toxic because you know, all these artificial ingredients, you know, they all come from petroleum and it has a lot of unknown or even undiscovered problems and you know, disrupting your immune system and your hormone system. So I thought there's no way I'm going to put on this most absorbent organ right on the human body. So I'm not going to put those on my face. I want an all natural product. I just don't need toxins on my face. And, and just to find a non toxic product or a all natural product was really difficult. I, you know, I, you know, purchased Korean product, right famous, you know, like, you know, it's supposed to be great. They said it's all natural. And then when I actually got to bottle and look at the ingredients, I realized like, what's this, what's this, what's this? So all these things are not natural ingredients. I was very disappointed. And then I tried to get natural products and then when I put them in my drawer, you know, they were samples. And then by the time I was ready to use it a month or two later, they had all separated into different layers so they, they were not stable. Yeah, so, so that's when I thought, okay, you know, do I have to make something myself since I can't find it? And because I have access to stem cells, because I understand peptides and, and you know, and I, I love all these natural herbal, you know, products that, you know, all these things, you know, it became a playground. I can put all these incredible things in the product and that's what I did. I don't even know how many herbs are we have there probably 15, 20, and so many herbs and all these natural oils and antioxidants and prebiotics and even the preservative is natural, as a natural preservative. So I'm nothing synthetic in this, in this product. So, and the results really speak for itself. We've got, you know, highly experienced estheticians who've seen everything or other doctors who are really into skincare you know, carry other lines, lines. And the doctor was just giving me a testimonial. She said, I'm phasing out all my other products in the, in the clinic. I have all these European products, you know, that I don't, I don't, we don't need them. This is all we need. This is all in one. It has basically you don't need a toner, you don't need a serum, you don't need a moisturizer. This is to the cream. It's got everything because it's deep, penetrating and it has all the protection, even, even sun protection. There are ingredients in there that can help protect against UV light. So it just is only one that makes it very simple.

Including the stem cell derived, it's called the amniotic matrix and other agents that you're not going to find probably in any other cream.

There are probably some stem cell products out there. There definitely has become popular. But what makes our stand out is that we, we also have all these peptides and also the mixture of what I put in there, including different matrix and the different cell types, but the cells are not alive. So no one has a stem cell cream that has live cells, but the.

Cells IV for that.

Yeah, but the cells will have all these regenerative, these early regenerative molecules and signals that can promote skin regeneration. And then also no one, I haven't seen an all natural skincare product and just having our, you know, really magical blend that just somehow produce this beautiful, glowing, youthful skin.

Okay, we're going to put the link in there to Chara Omni. You can learn more about it. Love the information education on the website. Love your podcast. We can find those on YouTube. Wow, what an experience to open up the door to amazing healing powers and cutting edge medical technology. Dr. Joy Kong.

Thank you. Yeah, so now I have things for the body and things for beauty. Right. For you know, vibrant health and beautiful appearance. So now we can. And then I also do ketamine therapy to address the mental and spiritual health aspect. So then use a true, you know, body mind integration. So that's what I do in the clinic.

So before we go, tell me a little about that ketamine therapy. I know it's becoming popular for treating things like depression, anxiety, things of that nature and other things.

So ketamine was an anesthetic that's been used for over 60 years. One of the safest anesthetics there is, but at very, very low dosage compared to the anesthetic dose. It actually has Psychedelic properties. So people have this incredible experience which.

Is the low dose, the IV Ketamine.

Yeah, it uses very low dose.

Oh, okay, yeah.

Compared to the anesthesia dose. Anesthesia knocks person out.

Knocks people out. Yeah, yeah. So you're awake when you're doing this infusion.

You are, you are fully conscious. So it's conscious sedation, but you may have an incredible experience. Vision, you have altered awareness. So if you open your eyes, you know, things may seem very strange, but what you do is you close up your eyes and, and, and go on this journey, this experience. Some people say like have a one patient. He was saying that he had this incredible, it's like the traveling of his consciousness where he was observing his thoughts, you know, thoughts going, you know, in front of him. He was like, no, I don't want that one, I don't want this one.

Wow.

And he was having, you know, everyone has different experience. Yeah, for me I was having this incredible visual. It's, it's like what I describe as like Circus Soleil times 10 and you are in front center seat. The show is made just for you and you're on a helicopter. So for me it was an incredible, incredible. And it was so spectacular, so beautiful and so profound and, and took me to places that I never knew, I couldn't even imagine. I mean that the profundity is, it's so overwhelming that it changed my spiritual kind of basically gave me firsthand evidence that there's other things going on. So everyone has very different experiences, but it gives them perspective, give some clarity. But it is FDA approved for treatment resistant depression. But off label use is great for anxiety, for ptsd, for addiction, for migraines and chronic pain. So it's a, it's a powerful modality.

I guess the, the mechanism is you're going to come out of it with like you said, perspective and clarity and so therefore addressing whatever that list you just, you threw down.

And it's not just by clarity is because it changes your brain chemistry as well. It promotes brain derived neurotropic factors. So it promotes neurogenesis. So it reinforces neuroplasticity. And this is one reason for PTSD is so incredibly powerful. It rewires the brain. As a psychiatrist who worked at the VA treating I don't know how many veterans with PTSD from all kinds of wars, it's incredibly difficult to rewire the brain. It's almost impossible to get them past the trauma and not to have the kind of visceral, you know, horrifying experience or just you know, this sympathetic overcharge. But with the ketamine, the response almost can be sidestepped. So instead of going directly to the sympathetic overdrive, you are changing the loop, then you don't have that response. And that I've seen with ketamine. And it's just incredible to watch.

I think you have some shows about this where you talk in more detail on your podcast.

I haven't talked enough about it, but.

Sometimes the cell content.

Yeah, yeah. Stem cell is my main thing, but ketamine, I think is one of the most powerful things because with stem cell therapy, I'm not going to be able to change thought patterns. I'm not going to change somebody's ptsd.

Right.

Because that takes a whole different level of organization that the cells may help the structure of the brain and a particular neuron maybe damage damages in the brain, but it's not going to change the wiring. And I think that takes a whole different way of affecting the brain. And that's what I've seen with ketamine and possibly some other psychedelic plant medicine. Yeah.