Debunking Myths About Stem Cell Ethics

Light in cells actually is a good combo. Light in different frequencies can really help target different tissues. So when we are giving people stem cell infusion, not only we actually put the cells under light for a couple minutes to activate them. Not only that, if we shine the light on particular organs that activate certain adhesion molecules so there's more interaction, more ability for that organ to trap the cells. Welcome to the Dr. Joy Kong podcast. This is where I have a chance to share with you greatest developments in the space of holistic health, longevity and wellness. I have always honored intellectual curiosity and scientific rigor combined with real world practicality. My goal is that what you learn here will help you live longer and live better. Hope you enjoy the journey with me.

Because I'm sure it's not just doctors who are kind of in a bubble about stem cells. I'm sure most people hear stem cells and kind of think sci fi because, well, that's where we're at with the general population is because all of the stuff from medicine just filters down into the general population. So it seems like something, you know, if you talk about stem cells, it seems like something a little bit scary maybe it seems like something that only elite people can do. It seems like something a bit futuristic. Maybe you can just kind of update us on where stem cells, you know, where stem cell therapy actually is, rather than, you know, perception.

Yeah. So people did not have the concept of stem cells. So we're just human bodies, I guess it's just living on and we didn't know how it kept going.

Right.

So in, in late 50s, early 60s, when they started doing bone marrow transplant, they just thought if we transplant bone marrow from one person to another, it seems to help different conditions. So, so if the blood is bad, then if we just trans, you know, put the bone marrow from one person to another, then we can help this new person recover. And they didn't know that there were stem cells in the bone marrow. So they didn't, you know, so that, that came about later and then we realized, oh, so there were these specialized cells that are very primitive, that they have different potentials, so themselves really don't have a lot of functions. And because they're not a working cell, but they have the ability to start dividing and produce offsprings that are working cells and then they make another copy of themselves to preserve its own population. So these cells can replenish their own supply and at the same time they, they, they give you replenishment so you can regenerate your tissue or whatever organ or blood and they thought we only had stem cells in the bone marrow. So this is how it all started. It was like, okay, so those cells are in the bone marrow. That's, that's where they are. And then they realize, oh, I guess stem cells are everywhere. Every organ has organ specific stem cells. That's how your organs can continue. Liver has liver stem cells, heart muscles or heart muscle stem cells, cartilage of cartilage stem cells. So they all have this. And every organ has this end stage stem cell, which itself still doesn't do work, but it has the ability to replenish. However, ever, ever since you were a fertilized egg, right, you, you were once a single cell. Just think of the miracle, you know that. Now we're talking. So from that single cell, it can start dividing and migrating and make these interesting structures and eventually form organs. And everywhere along the way, just think, before it forms the end organ, all those variations of cells are stem cells until it reaches a working cell status. And that's how we can have all these organs and walking around and functional. So right now, not only in each organ, we have these stem cells, but we have something a little bit more general. They're like generalist stem cells, which are these mesenchymal stem cells. So everywhere in your body, along your blood vessels, anywhere you have blood vessels, you will have these mesenchymal stem cells. So they perform a very specific function. They huddle around blood vessels and they have the ability to sense what goes through the blood, and they also sense what's going on in the neighborhood. So they're like the conductor of the symphony of regeneration for your body. So if they sense something that's passing through in your blood, that's really a rescue signal, something that's going on in a particular area that, that has, that's in trouble. Like you, let's say you cut yourself. So then these can squeeze themselves into the blood vessels and swim to find the signal. I always think of a salmon, you know, swimming upstream to find where they need to be. And then once they get there, they squeeze themselves out of the blood vessel and now they start working. Now they can send signals into the blood to bring immune system over. Now they can give signals to local stem cell, make them start to regenerate. They can recruit and send signals to all the immune cells so they can break down scar tissue, they can remove dead cells and unnecessary components that's in that neighborhood. And now that area is cleaned up and ready for new tissue to form. So they really are a crucial step for Regeneration. So now we have all these stem cells. So it has become very famous because it's very easy to grow. So you can multiply them in the incubator and then you can give it to people. And, and, and they are immune privileged which means if I put the cells into, let's say into Johnny from Jenny and so Jenny's genetic material is not gonna manifest in these cells. So the mesenchymal stem cells, MSCs for short, that goes into Johnny is not going to trigger an immune response. Not only it doesn't trigger calms the immune system so much so that you can use these mesenchymal stem cells to give to people who are getting organ transplants. That actually reduces their chance of rejection. So it has a calming effect. So these cells, there are a lot of functions of these cells. This is one reason they're so popular because they're so easy to use and they don't cause problems with during transplantation especially if the cells are younger. So the older the cells are the, the harder it is because when you the cells are older there's less immune modulating properties. They, they also are less adaptable to the new body. They also have less ability to recognize cancer cells because these cells actually have anti cancer properties. They can, they can detect cancer and fight them off and kill them off. But the older the cells are. Research have shown that with direct comp comparison of fat derived stem cells which are MSCs, these MSCs versus umbilical cord derived MSCs, the fat derived MSCs which is from adult person will make the cancer grow and the umbilical cord derived MSCs will make the cancer shrink and go away. So they're very different. So just because we're talking about oh, these are mesenchymal stem cells doesn't mean that you can use them universally from anybody, anywhere and they all perform the same way. No, there's a lot of nuances that.

It would be interesting to hear a bit more about that if you can share also about the way in which it needs to be. You know, like you could take it in whether it's like for injection or I know you have that, I mean cream. But like also you're talking about umbilical stem cells. What is the ideal environment for somebody or does it depend on what you're dealing with and how they would obviously.

Receive the stem cells? Yeah, it's very much going to depend on what we're trying to deal with. But the cells, the beautiful thing about these cells is that they are really smart. I Sometimes all I have to do is just put in the body somewhere and then they will go to work. And that's what it's, it's so safe. Right? It's, I mean, it's very challenging to, challenging to really find bad things about getting these stem cell treatment, especially if you don't practice unsafe medicine. Right. For example, a Florida clinic got shut down because they blinded three people and they were injecting cells into the eyeballs. There are certain things that you don't do that if you, you're not understanding how these cells are functioning, what they can do. So you're taking very highly invasive, high risk procedures and then yes, there's a problem. But for simple IV treatment or simple joint injections, I'll be really hard pressed to see really bad things. Especially if you use cells that are very safe, which means stem cells that doesn't have the potential to cause tumor. Right. If you use embryonic stem cells, which are cells that's obtained day five to seven after fertilization. So those cells, those early. That's in the ball of, you know that, that early embryo, within that early embryo, you can, that's very early. Right. You can get, get some cells from the center of this ball and those can become any tissue of any organ. So they're very powerful, but so powerful that, that they can also go haywire and start to make uncontrollable tissues and different types of tissues causing teratoma. So that's one thing that people have heard of, that someone got embryonic stem cell treatment and maybe got injected somewhere and then they get a tumor in the back. So that, that has been pretty common, but not for umbilical cord derived stem cells. So there are nuances. What kind of cells are you using and how are you putting in the body? So all those are important. So the safety of the cells you're choosing and the safety of your protocol, and that's what I'm trying to teach doctors. I founded an academy, American Academy of Integrative Cell Therapy, where we talk about all these different cell sources, how you decide what to do, what to use, and then exactly where are you going to put it? Depending on where, what we're trying to help. So the body has either some kind of systemic condition or has a local issue. Right. So autoimmune conditions is very systemic and local. The most difficult is osteoarthritis in joints, muscle tendon tear or brain conditions, different organ issues. So you approach them differently for more systemic issues and even for local problems, an IV Treatment is very, very powerful. I mean, this is not just me saying it. It's because it's proven by a lot of research. So not only when you put the cells in the vein, it gets flown back into your heart and that gets pumped everywhere into your entire body. So and the cells can find their way to where the injury and inflammation is and then can, you know, get there and do the work. But also they talk with your immune system. So it's not just about traveling to a place. It's also about bring your whole, your own repair system on board, right. Like, you know, the photo biomodulation, like how do you elevate your body's ability? So this is about, you know, that's, this is why it's regenerative. This is smart medicine is waking up your own body. So if you put the cells into there, does it cross the blood brain? Depending on what kind of cells there's still the cells are fairly large. The brain, blood brain barrier, most of the cells cannot cross. But mesenchymal stem cells have been found to cross to a smaller extent. But we do something in the clinic to open up the blood brain barrier. So we actually give mammitol pre infusion. If a person wants to target the brain, there's either brain condition or even neuropathy. We often are using mannitol infusion. So when you give mannitol, you're. It's, it actually shrinks the gap junction. I mean, it shrinks the cells lining the gap junction. So it opens up the gap. Now the cells can pass through and that's about 40 minutes after you, you, you know, provide mannitol. So we use that window to get more cells into the brain. We can do joint injections, right? We can inject locally because the joint space in the joint, especially larger joints like the knees, shoulders and hips, there's not very much kind of exchange between the fluid within the joint capsule. So it's good to inject right into the capsule so that cells can start working. Otherwise you just, you're waiting for the signal to come through. And it's going to be a very slow process. It takes about a couple months to equilibrate between what you put in the blood and what's in the, in the, in the, in the joint capsule. So you want to attack from both angles. But also for larger joints, the outer one third of the cartilage is nourished by the blood supply and the inner two thirds is nourished by the synovial fluid in the joint space. So, you know, if you want to target the full thickness of cartilage to trigger their growth, then you want to put cells in the IV and put cells in the joint. You did mention then a bit about.

Embryonic and umbilical stem cells. I think probably one of the reasons why a lot of people are a bit wary of stem cell therapy is like, is there, like, an ethical issue around that? You know, I know we've. Chantelle and I have been to a lot of longevity events, and sometimes this comes up at the events. You know, there's sometimes.

Oh, really? Even in that crowd. You think this crowd is more educated, but. Okay, okay, let's put this to rest. The cells that have been used in the US I don't know if you're talking about ethical concerns. That means where the cells came from. Right. So in the US you cannot treat a person using embryonic stem cells. So that's not legal. Also, you cannot treat the person using fetal cells, which means the fetus that have not been born. Right. This is not a. The most famous place that does that is Ukraine. I don't know where it's at now, but that's their claim to fame, that they collect these fetuses. Oftentimes it's aborted fetuses, from what I hear from scientists who have visited their facility. These are from, you know, a lot of Russian women who abort their pregnancy. And then some of them purposely do that because they get compensated. So they would sell, you know, basically the. The fetal tissue, the fetus, and then that's, you know, taken apart and, you know, blended. And that's why here and. And then given to people. So that is not allowed in this country. And what we use is umb, besides using your own.

Right.

We can always get from your own bone marrow your own fat and. Or even menstrual blood. And, you know, there are different places you can get stem cells, but the most common will be from the fat bone marrow or umbilical core cord. So only I don't think people have any ethical objection to using our own. The only ethical objection is umbilical cord. I think people confuse umbilical cord with embryonic stem cells. So the. Maybe they sound a little similar, but umbilical cord is attached to a live baby. So we only obtain these donations when the baby is born and they're alive and healthy and the mother is, you know, is smooth. Everybody's well, there's no emergency involved. And actually, this is all through planned C section because the lab I work with would not want to jeopardize the quality of the cord, mostly from the contamination standpoint, because the vaginal canal has. Harbors a lot of, you know, bacteria and all kinds of. There are all kinds of things in there. So to avoid contamination, then cesarean section is the preferred method. So the mother is all, you know, ready to go. This is all planned. Okay, anesthesia. You can open me up, right? And then you take the baby out. Baby's happy. You clamp the cord and you cut the cord off. The baby is completely fine with the mother and the cord and the placenta is put in the normal saline bag and sent overnight, shipped to a lab most of the time. So that's where the core comes from. You know, before we knew about the stem cells that. That these tissues very rich of, we were throwing them away, you know, routinely. Right. And it's. It's the biological wastebasket. So. So that's where it comes from. And the mothers go through very rigorous testing as far as their own past history, not just their health history, but their travel history, employment history, sexual history. So every. The family history, of course. So everything that's related, that can be affecting the quality of this cord, the donating, this is a pure donation because the sale of human tissue is prohibited in this country. So you can't be compensated in any way. So people don't. There's no incentive of people to lie just so that their tissue can be accepted. So that. That's kind of the framework of how the tissues are obtained and the way.

In which the umbilical cord or placenta is preserved, you know, like you said. I'd be curious to know, you know, because you hear a lot about what I've read with people that have heard that they like either placenta or things like that or the nutrient. But like, in terms of preserving the stem cells and having them, is that super important? By the point, which is injected you like any other.

Yeah. So you need to preserve. So what? That's the trick. How do you. Of course, you can always use it fresh. So I know there are a few clinics that does it fresh. So you get this, the tissue, the core tissue, you separate it out and you don't freeze them and you give it to people. But that's. There's severe limitation. Right. So how you have to use it within a day, maybe two, the most. I mean, you have to really use it right away, otherwise the cells will die. So how do you preserve that? You can use the cryopreservation method, which is an art of itself. So you can freeze something, but doesn't mean when you unfreeze it that they're still going to be alive. So that's. That's the art. So they use cryopreservative to help prevent crystal formation in the freezing process, and that's by not only putting a substance in there to prevent the crystal formation, but also by lowering the temperature very, very gradually by one degree per minute. So if you drastically freeze somebody, that. That's it. That, that's. Says Han. But. But if you really, really slowly, imperceptibly, almost to the living cell, then they kind of just gradually slowed down their metabolism to the point where, you know, you think about the cells oscillating, you know, all the organ organelles, and then they just get, you know, slow, slow, slow, slow to the point where it's still. So you're putting them in the freezing position state by really stopping all the biological activities. And then by the time when you need to use them, if you can do rapid thawing, then it's better for the cells. Then quickly everything's back to normal temperature, and then they can be alive again. If you do it too slowly at a particular temperature, crystals can form. So they can still puncture the cell wall. So that's why I don't advise people to warm cells with their hand. You know, it's better to do it in a water. Water bath. The conduction is much faster, and then the. Yeah, the temperature is actually a little higher than your temperature in the temperature on your hand. So. Yeah, so. So that. That's how they keep the cells alive. And what do you see?

Because now you've been doing this for a while. I mean, you're an expert in this field. So what. What do you see that's kind of the most astonishing for you? Or, you know, have you got some case studies that you're most particularly proud of using this method?

Yeah, yeah, there. There's so many. One of my earliest, of course, I'll just tell you my first case where how I got hooked. It was a somebody in the holistic health space, and that's in the probiotics business, who's traveling all over and go to all trade shows and a lot of walking involved. He was 69 years old, but he had a lot of knee pain, osteoarthritis. So he said he saw two orthopedic surgeons who told him, absolutely, you need bilateral knee replacement. No question, is bone on bone, so just don't even bother. So he came to me, said, I really don't want to do the surgery. You know, there's always risk and there's long recovery time. So I don't want. Right. Put artificial, you know, things in my body yet. So let's try stem cells, because you do stem cells. Like, great, let's do it. So again, my approach is to attack from both angles. So I gave him an IV infusion of stem cells, and I give him joint injection, 1cc into each knee. And what's interesting was the next day he. He. He said, you know, I said, how are you feeling? Yeah, I feel fine. And what's interesting is that I slept through the night, and I have not slept through the night for the last, like, four decades, because when his car rolled over, you know, when he was a teenager being in an accident, it tore his rotator cuff, and it never fully healed. So every time when he shifted in his bed in the middle of sleep, it would wake him up from the sharp pain. And then that night, he slept through. And then he kept sleeping, sleeping through. And the shoulder was pretty much. That was fixed. Right. It never bothered him again. And. And then his knees gradually got better and better to the point, like, I think within. Within. I think within a month or two, he was walking a lot. And till this day, he's walking four miles almost every day. Um, and he said, I barely feel. I have knees. Like, I don't. I don't think about it. The only time he noticed there's something is that he said, when he goes downhill, there's a little bit twinge. I had only given him two iv, I mean, two treatments, I think, spaced about a year apart. So the first one he did great, and the second one he said, you know, let's top it off. Let's. Let's. Let's do a maintenance thing. And that was it. So that was. This is, you know, eight years later. Right. This man never needed a knee replacement. So that was. What's interesting about the shoulder is that I didn't know anything about his rotator cuff injury, so he didn't tell me. I wasn't thinking about healing that part. That's why I'm saying about the intelligence of the cells. I can put the cells in the body. The cells just know where to go, because your body will tell the cells. So that was my first case. And not too long after, there was a patient that had liver cirrhosis. And basically, you know, the death is very close. He's in hospice care. We didn't know how long he had to. If you're in a hospice care, usually a month or two, you know, something like that. Weeks to months of life. His brother wanted to save him as a last ditch effort. So we did stem cells and I didn't even give him a high dose because at the time my protocol is a low dose in the beginning and then a higher dose two weeks later. So I only gave him a very low dose. So I was waiting for him to come back and he didn't. And I didn't know what happened. I tried to call and didn't get an answer. And then a couple months after that, I was on a radio show and the person that introduced me to this brother actually brought the brother on to that radio show. That I didn't know it was a surprise. Is that oh so and so is on the line and you treated his brother. I said, okay, amazing. How is your brother? Because I haven't been able to reach the brother. He said he's doing amazing because on his way back to Sacramento after stem cell treatment, because he had ascites, a big swelling, right. A lot of fluid collection in the abdomen. He's just the five hours of drive, the swelling was halfway down, so huge reduction in the swelling. And then within weeks, he was walking around in the yard, talking on the phone like he's a normal person. When he came to see me, I could barely hear him. He was so emaciated and so weak that I, you know, it's hard to hear what he was saying. So. And then within a couple months, you know. Yeah, within, within a couple months, he went to his doctor. Of course he checks the liver function regularly and it was normal. So there's a reversal of his liver disease. And to me, it was just so shocking. So he got liver cirrhosis from hep C, from the. From intravenous drug use. So that was, that was shocking because I did not anticipate. You know, I thought, okay, it's going to help a little bit. And then we're going to keep repairing. So just to see how sometimes how drastic the results can be. And that really gives me hope. And I started revising my protocol, thinking that maybe I can give people less so they will spend less money. It would be better. So why do I want to give them more and they pay more? So I did go in the other direction a little bit too much because I think maybe I ended up giving people the wrong impression that with one treatment, if it didn't work, that means stem cells didn't work. And then I realized, because I've, you Know, had ca. Had cases where at the first treatment, the person didn't notice anything. But after the second, there was drastic response, and the third, even more dramatic. And that's when I realized I may have, you know, shortchanged my. My patients by not, you know, advising them that sometimes it takes multiple sessions, that healing takes time, but everybody have different timelines. So you don't want to give people this, you know, this false impression that one treatment would just solve all the problems. We're not performing miracles here. Although that liver case to me was like a miracle. It's shocking, but it happened. And so how do you write he was written off. Modern medicine had nothing to offer him. So there's no other way to explain. Yeah, the swelling going down within hours of the treatment. And I've helped people with all kinds of. The COPD is another one that I love. Treating lung conditions. Again, modern medicine has almost nothing to offer. Steroid, you know, just oxygen. So I've gotten people off oxygen tanks and off almost all medications. So there's really nothing in modern medicine that helps break down scar tissue. Maybe they can use some kind of mechanical method. Maybe, maybe shockwave and et cetera. But drugs? No, but stem cells can. So mesenchymal stem cells, one of the properties is anti fibrotic property. So they can break down scar tissue. So for liver cirrhosis, for copd, or for other kinds of fibrotic conditions. So they all have, you know, these fibrosis and sclerosing of the different organs. Right. The liver, it can happen in the heart. So it can break down scar tissue as a result of heart attack. It can break down scar tissue in testes again? Yes, Scar tissue, of course, musculoskeletal. So it's pretty cool to know that the cells can do that. Yeah, we treat a lot of autism kits and we're getting really good results. So we have a very special protocol. But that's another area that's very, very difficult. I know it very well because I've worked with so many as a psychiatrist, and it was very unpleasant to me. It was a very unpleasant experience because I didn't feel I truly helped. So if you're a doctor, you're there to help and you see suffering, and then whatever you did didn't really do that much. It's a very, very, very discouraging experience. Like, I don't. I didn't feel good. I was like, why am I doing this? I still can't communicate with the kid. The kid is, you know, I'm Sedating the child. I'm not making the child more functional. The child is not gaining ability to communicate or to relate. Right. Emotional connection with. With people and you know, or as far as, you know, incontinence and some of the behavioral therapies may be help a little bit, but it's very limited. Very limited, very arduous, long process. But stem cells, I have seen people improve rapidly, sometimes even just the same day. There's almost like the brain was inflamed and when you calm the inflammation, all of a sudden a lot of the ability and the function or the communication pathways are opened up and they can have quick changes sometimes. Oftentimes it takes longer time. But still that's a very fast track of progress. Yeah, yeah.

It was interesting when you're talking because obviously red light therapy is also doing that like reducing that inflammation, which is I think one of the reasons for things like autism. But it's a good. I was thinking it's just such a good combo because presumably, you know, the stem cells are going where they're needed and things like autism, there is a strong gut component there. I'm sure, you know, you probably not.

Yeah.

If you feel the gut stop inflammation because you're stopping all the.

Right. Yeah.

Or metabolites. So I wonder.

Lighting cells actually is a good combo. I actually did a lecture on this. Light in different frequencies, different wavelengths can really help target different tissues. So when we are giving people stem cell infusion, not only we actually put the cells under light, different colors, we have this cool machine that has light. Well, so we put the cells in the base in light for a couple minutes to activate them. And then we put an IV back and give it to people or inject into different tissues. So we activate them with light already. And then while we're giving people stem cells, we have the light going, focusing on different organs. Because what happens is that not only the light can make the cells more mobile and, and more proliferative, so they actually gaining more potential to. To make offsprings, but they are. They're metabolically more active, so more viable, so they have healthier existence. And not only that, if we shine the light on particular organs that activate certain adhesion molecules so there's more interaction, more ability for that organ to trap the cells. So all of a sudden he's like, oh, you're stuck here, you know, stay here and work in this organ. And that's really what. What we want. Right. We want the cells to be an organ that we want the cells to. To repair. But I don't like the invasive methods. When you have to inject into an organ that could be, there's, you know, there's problems with it, but you can, you can, with skilled hands, you can put the cells right there. But I'm, you know, not going to inject somebody's kidneys or someone's bladder. I, you know, I don't, you know, there's still a risk to it, but I can do it very elegantly by focusing the light on particular words. Yeah.

Well, Jorah, could you give us a little an example. I know you say it's, it's case by case, it's different and, but just a, an example of a protocol if someone came into the clinic and how, depending on what they're dealing with. Obviously, if it's super refined, you would, what you kind of couple with the stem cells, Right.

First of the thorough evaluation is really important.

Right.

We understand what the person's constitution. The only people, really, I see people getting side effects are people who have hypersensitivity, like histamine type of reactions that. So they are the people that may break out with a rash. They just have hypersensitivity activity to almost to a lot of things, chemicals, food, medications. So we're, we're careful with them. But when they come in, usually we can run labs, get a baseline lab, and we give them a whole set of supplements that increase their blood flow, increase their building blocks, the availability of building blocks, which are amino acids to build more structures and protein to repair. We give them fulvic acid, which, which really contains a lot of trace minerals, so we can replenish the body of all these essential minerals that perform all kinds of biological functions. So we want to address all that. You know, we, we want to prime the soil, right? Give, give them everything that's needed. We also give them something called stem regen that will release more cells from their bone marrow because we, what I give the patients, a lot of them will end up in the bone marrow. So I want the cells to get out of the bone marrow and circulate and work. So we give them a set of supplements, and then we also use peptides with our treatments. So if we're targeting immune system, we have peptides to enhance immune health. If we're targeting the brain, then we have brain peptides. If we're targeting metabolism, you know, sugar metabolism, et cetera, we have those peptides. So it really depends on what, what each person needs. Then we tailor, make, and we target the organs more specifically. And then we use light Right. To focus more on that organ. So that light we can actually program to different frequencies. So wavelength is set. There's red, green and violet colors. But then we can program different frequencies. And those frequencies will talk with different type of cells in the body, depending on what organs you're trying to talk to. So it's really fascinating. And then. Yeah, we also give them different things. We have a light bed, so. So light is an important component. We actually have people go into this light bed that has not only light frequencies, but also quantum frequencies to help with the healing of the body. So we want to help them detox, help them elevate the rejuvenation capabilities. Right. Activate the mitochondria. And then. Yeah, so that's, that's pretty much the, the protocol that we were. We're putting everything together to prime the soil. And then. And then, of course, depending on what the person needs, if they want hair restoration. Right. We can do a hair procedure. They want facial rejuvenation, we can do the face or sexual rejuvenation. We can inject things into vagina and penis. So, yeah, we can, we can put the cells in different places. Yeah.

That's amazing. I mean, it, it's. It is frontier medicine. You know, we. It does feel like it's still frontier medicine and there's so few experts in the field, but it is so gratifying to hear about doing things in a more holistic way, you know, and trying to move away from the drug model. I mean, I'm not that I do. Yeah, it's needed in some cases, but the problems that we're dealing with in our modern society aren't really those cases, acute cases, potentially. We do need to have the drugs, but most of the time we need to find different solutions, especially in this kind of field we're in, which is longevity. You need to have something that's going to increase your longevity in your health span. Otherwise you're kind of. If you're treating with drugs, you're kind of limiting the amount of years you have healthily. Because there's always a price. Right. Your liver's got a. Detox. It, you know, there's always a price to be paid for the drug.

I know. Yeah. When you tinker with nature, you know, just be aware of the consequences. Yeah. So I just. And I think, to me, the reason I've incorporated so many things into our protocol is I think when something touches my brain, it's like, you know, once the knowledge is inside of me, I. I would like just on a Conscious. Well, on a conscience level, like my own conscience will not allow me not to utilize it, not to give it to patients. It was like, okay, now I know I can't unknow this, and I know how powerful, how important it is. And if I don't give it to patients, then I'm not doing justice, you know, for. For their health. So that's. That's why I just keep adding on these different modalities.

And I think it's also rare to have. I mean, like Sarah said, amongst all this, always people are focusing on one area, one specialty. So it makes one hesitant to know how you would couple them, because there's a lot of experimenting or a lot of research. So it's amazing that you have. You take each case by case, and you have all these things kind of incorporated you. You've actually answered most of my firearound questions by just. Just everything he's saying.

Yeah, well, maybe I'll tell you another fun case. There are quite a few. I mean, there's another one I was talking about breaking down scar tissue in. In the. In testicles. So I had a patient, because we have all kinds of people who are desperate for solutions, and they find their way to us because stem cells is. Are their last resort. They tried everything with their doctor. Right. They trust their doctor. They did everything, and they took all the drugs, and they. Even. This guy who came to me had one of his testicles cut off because. Because he was getting swelling and inflammation and then infection. So he was in, you know. Right. The testicle got huge and was infected in pain. So his urologist said, well, let's forget it. We've tried everything. Let's cut that. Cut that off. So. So he lost one testicle, and then within a couple years, the other testicle is doing the same thing. So now he's facing the possibility of losing that one as well. So then he contacted us and said, Dr. Kong, can this help me? My testicles have been swelling. It's been infected. Can this help? So I looked through literature. There's no report on this particular case. So a lot of times people come to me with more obscure cases. So it's not the most common. So then no one is spending the money and energy to study it. Right. If it's not as common. So then, now you rely your knowledge as a doctor, your understanding of the pathophysiology of why this happened. But a lot of times we don't even know how it happened. However, a lot of times we do know that there's Inflammation involved and there's a lack of immune support. So the immune system is not able to fight it off. The inflammation is not fought off, the infection is not fought off. What's going on. So there's inflammation, immune dysregulation or immune lacking involved and then there's tissue damage involved. There's fibrosis and there's maybe issue with blood flow. So any of these factors the stem cells, the reason mesenchymal stem cells are so powerful is one, it's incredibly anti inflammatory and can calm your inflammation. So your system can shift from this inflamed state to. To the state of repair. So it reduces inflammation. So your body can shift into repair gear and also modulate your immune system. So your immune system shifts from a more inflammatory state for more to more anti inflammatory state. This is one reason for autoimmune diseases is so powerful. And then it breaks down cigar tissue we talked about. It promotes vascular formation so it generates more blood vessels delivering more, more blood flow and so more oxygen and more nutrients and remove toxic waste. And then it's directly antimicrobial. It actually can secrete antimicrobial peptides to fight off microbes for you. It's anti cancer. So it can detect cancer and can send this ligand called tetra ligand directly tell the cells to pop off, you know, basically kill yourself. And so that's a powerful lichen. That's how it can kill cancer. And then it can also protect cells. So when the cells sometimes don't have to die, like in stroke circumstance or crush injury, the area that got cut off of blood supply, they die, but the neighboring cells don't have to die. But just the way nature is set up that when, when there's a blood supply cut off there all these, when the cells start to die, then they send out all these chemical signals and there's a. It triggers this calcium cascade eventually leading to cell death to all the neighboring cells. So now you've got a big like the brain infarct size comparing to where the blood supply was cut off. So but stem cells can come in and salvage it. They can actually prevent that process, you know, from happening. So stopping it midstream. So there are all these properties of the cells. So that's why when I talked with patient, this patient with a testicular swelling and infection, okay, we know infection is going on. There's inflammation, there's some immune, the lacking immune support and, and there's fibrosis because he had nodules, testicular nodules going on. Fibrosis going on. So let's do IV stem cells. I'm not touching your testicles. I like to do iv, and I think it can help because cells will go where it needs to go. Lo and behold, within two months, all the nodules went away. The testicles went back to its normal size. He was ecstatic. His testicle was saved. So that was a very interesting story.

That's a great story. Yeah, it's amazing.

I don't think I was aware quite.

Exactly how it worked. You know, the inflammatory piece was maybe a new thing.

Thank you for listening to this episode. Hope you enjoy the content. And if so, please rate and follow this podcast. To reach me, you can contact Uplift Longevity center, that is Uplift with a Y. You can also subscribe to my YouTube channel, Joy Kong MD see you next time.