Stem Cell Sources Explained: Fat, Bone Marrow, and Birth Tissue

Hi, this is Dr. Joy Kang. I get a lot of questions about how are you getting these stem cells. So first of all, you have to look at different tissue sources, right? So you can get stem cells from your own fat, from your own bone marrow, or from a ready source like birth tissue, which is not from your own body, it's from a life healthy birth. So these are the three major types in the US And I have a video where I explain the differences between these three sources. I went into, you know, extensive literature citations and so you can take a look. It's called are all MSCs created equal? And that will explain to you the differences between different sources. So that's set aside. The bottom line from that video is that birth tissue sources are superior because they are younger, they're more anti inflammatory, the cells are more active, they have longer telomeres, they're more neuroprotective, they have a lot more generations left. So basically from all the therapeutically relevant aspects, these are more potent and more therapeutically helpful. So that's the source that I use. They are the youngest kid on the block in the whole scheme of stem cell therapy, but they're also the most potent. But it takes a long time for people to accept the new kid on the block. But that's what I want to offer patient, right, whatever that works the best. That's my obligation to provide to the patient. So I use birth tissue derived sources. And among birth tissue, there's the umbilical cord and there's the placenta. So some people, you know, are fans of the placenta. The placenta is great, but just remember, the cells from the placenta have its origin both from the baby and the mother. So it's not a pure source. And from what I've seen, the umbilical cord is still a better source. So, okay, now we know umbilical cord source may be a superior source for stem cells. And the umbilical cord have different compartments. There's umbilical cord blood. So that's the blood that flows through the blood vessels, the arteries and the vein in the umbilical cord. And then there's the umbilical cord tissue. That's the tissue that wraps around the blood vessels. A major portion is Wharton's jelly. So that's the gelatinous material that help cushion and protect the arteries and veins. So that's the umbilical cord tissue part. And that part is very rich in mesenchymal stem cell that I've talked a lot about. And it's the hottest Thing in stem cell therapy, in all the research all around the world. And the last component is the amniotic membrane that wraps around the cord. So in that membrane, there are also a lot of mesenchymal stem cells that can be extracted from. And the cord blood contains, of course, the blood that flows through, you know, into the baby. The cord blood, the composition is very similar to bone marrow. It has a lot of mononuclear cells, which are these primitive immune cells. It has some. About 1% of hematopoietic progenitor cells. There are some endothelial progenitor cells, some fibroblasts, and has a very, very tiny amount of mesenchymal stem cells. So in the cord blood, mesenchymal stem cell composition is about 0.01 to 0.1%. So you can see it's very, very little. But there's still a lot of research done on umbilical cord blood cells, and they are very helpful, even though it has very little mesenchymal stem cells. But these cells have their own properties, very good for neuroregeneration. So it's. These cells from different compartments are all a little different. They have different ability to. To differentiate into different types of tissue. They secrete different types of growth factors. And this is one reason that in the product that I have designed utilizes cells from all three compartments. So it has cells from the umbilical cord, blood from the umbilical cord tissue, and amniotic membrane, because they're all slightly different. So I want to harness all, all the potentials from these different compartments because at different cell populations, they can work together so they can be synergistic, and that will provide the maximum benefit for a person. I always say, who am I to play God, right? God put everything in these tissue, and who am I to pick and choose? Because I've seen evidence in both research and in clinical use of all these tissue compartments having a therapeutic benefits, right? Cord blood, tissue, amniotic membrane, they've all shown benefits. So I'm gonna put it all together. So, okay, that's the source. So how are we getting the cells out? What is the process? All these are from live healthy births. The product I use is all from the US Donor. So US Donors goes through very strict, regular prenatal screening. So they get checked for their infectious diseases, and they're screened for various metabolic issues. So these mothers are checked to make sure that the pregnancy is as healthy as possible. So we only use us donors. And the mothers are under age 30, so they're young mothers. And these are only for scheduled cesarean sections. So why do we do that? Because when a baby goes through the vaginal canal, the vaginal canal has a lot of, you know, flora, so lots of different kinds of bacteria. And, and if anyone has seen a birthing process is not a very, it's not a sterile process. You know, a lot of things, a lot of bodily fluid are going through that space. So there's a big chance of contamination when obtain tissue. So these are tissue that are donated and processed by the tissue bank. We only accept tissues from cesarean sections. So that will mean that is a surgical field. So it's completely sterile. What happens is that there are procurement companies that will work with different hospitals and birthing clinics and we'll find out, you know, which mothers are meeting the criteria. And before the mother are getting their scheduled surgery, they're asked if they want to save the cord for their baby. And if they say, you know, no, which is really 90% of people because it does cost a few thousand dollars to store the tissue, you know, store the, the cells from the umbilical cord, then most people say no. The people who say no, then the procurement company will ask, would you like to donate? A lot of people say yes. But then they have to fill out this extensive questionnaire. They have to answer questions regarding their, their own health history, their own toxic exposure, their work history, their travel history, their, their family history, partners histories, you know, their sexual history. So prenatal history. Of course, everything is asked there, a lot of questions. And there's really no incentive for these women to lie because they can't even be compensated, not even like a little token gift because that's considered selling of human tissue and that's illegal in the United States. So they can be enticed to donate. So people really have no incentive to lie. So they will answer all these questions. And the lab I work with will only accept donors that have a perfect answer. So these are young donors and they are, you know, screened for their potential, you know, genetic diseases and in any toxic exposure. So once they meet all the criteria and the tissue is accepted at the time of birth, so it has to be uneventful birth process. So even if the mother has a low grade fever, it's a rejection. So that tissue will not be accepted. It has to be very uneventful, has to be a very, very healthy birthing process. And the, the procurement company will have someone waiting in the birthing room once the baby is born and the umbilical cord is cut. The placenta and the cord will be put in a normal saline bag and on ice to be shipped overnight to the laboratory, to the tissue bank. So what are screened for these tissue? Everything that is required to be screened for organ transplantation will be screened for these tissues. So let's say someone wants to donate a kidney or liver or, you know, these organs will have to go through extensive screening processes where they're checked for infectious diseases, right? Hepatitis, hiv, syphilis, ebv. So there's a cluster of infectious diseases that have to be screened. And the tissue bank I work with actually go above and beyond, screen a lot more than what's required for tissue transplantation. They actually screen for prion disease, Chagas Lyme disease and Covid. So all these are screened. And only if the person's, you know, the donated tissue is completely free of any of these infectious agents can these tissue be really utilized. So what happens is the tissue arrives, goes through all these screening, and the results may take a little while, but in the meantime, the tissue processing is happening. The so in the United States, if you're using enzymes or chemicals, that's considered altering, potentially altering the cells. And that will make these product, a drug, manipulated product. So that's what's considered manipulation. So, you know, our product, what I use, definitely do not use any chemicals or enzymes. So there's no manipulation. And we don't grow the cells. There are certain laboratories that grow the cells and then sell a product without an IND approval, which is not legal in the U.S. we are able to provide tissue transplantation, provide it to physicians or to give it to patients. It's because they're not drugs. We don't have to go through IND study. This is tissue transplant. Just like as a physician, I can give somebody a blood transfusion, right? I'm not going through the FDA for blood transfusion. And I can provide surgery, you know, you know, do organ transplantation, right. You know, if I'm trained in liver transplant, I could, you know, I'm licensed as a physician, surgeon. You know, once I'm trained, I could, you know, do the transplantation. I don't need FDA to approve for a liver to be transplanted. So it's similar philosophy. So the tissue transplantation, you know, that, that's, that's minimally manipulated, right? If you manipulate the tissue, then it becomes a drug. So that's a whole other regulation. So anyhow, the way the cells are processed is that they're carefully mechanically separated from either the blood, the cord blood, or the tissue, the, umbilical, cord tissue, the amniotic membrane. So slow mechanical separation process. And these cells, once they're separated out, then they are carefully frozen. So cryopreservation. So that's lowering the temperature to the point where the cells are completely frozen, kind of frozen in animation. They are basically the temperature are lowered by 1 degree per minute so that slowly these cells are slowing down their metabolic activity. And so to the point where they are not moving, right, all the organelles and everything inside the cells are still. And that's when you can kept the cells liquid nitrogen, probably almost indefinitely. So we say 30 years for sure. 30 years. You know, you see sci fi, you know, people, you know, can be reawakened many, many years later. But, you know, we say these cells, you know, at least 30 years, probably much, much longer. And even if just on dry ice, it can, you know, years, that's no problem. So the freezing process is very methodical because if you allow it to go too fast, then you could puncture the cells and you could damage cells. So, so methodical freezing process. And then after cells are frozen and fully processed, then they will need to be sent to a sterility lab. So what we're trying to make sure is that during this whole processing, right, somebody's there trying to process this tissue, that no contamination is introduced, that there's no, you know, bacterial or any other contamination. So these are sent to a lab specifically to grow the tissue and to try to detect, to see if there's any contamination, any viral. And they grow the tissue to see if there's any toxins that can be produced, endotoxins produced by bacteria. So that would take a few weeks for the results to come back. And only when the results come back as clean, that's when a tissue bank is able to provide the product to clinics and doctors for use. So you can see that's, that's the whole process. It, you know, it doesn't mean that there are not people who have cut corners who ended up providing contaminated product. You know, we've all heard about the Livyon debacle where the cord was contaminated with E. Coli. Lots of people ended up in the hospital. And that's really sad for everybody else who's doing everything right. Um, so you can't say the entire stem cell therapy is unsafe because somebody produced a bad batch of product, right? Just like you can't say, let's say, you know, we have a medication, ibuprofen, and some manufacturer produce a really bad batch, ibuprofen. All of A sudden you said, you know, we should ban ibuprofen because, you know, someone had produced something that, that's really bad for people. So same philosophy. So this is the process. I am a proponent of getting products from the U.S. donors and, and use a minimally manipulated, you know, process because these cells will be best preserved for their original properties. And when companies start to expand the cells and produce them to large numbers. I've talked about this in other videos. Like the one video, I talked about the differences between what we do in the US and what they do in Panama and Colombia and Mexico, the Bahamas, you know, all these overseas locations. They're able to expand the cells without having to go through any drug application process, which is very costly and very labor intensive. So they're able to do that. So it sounds great. You know, people are getting 100 million, 200 million cells. But these are expanded cells. So once you cultural, you know, culture them in a incubator and they start to reproduce. These are cells who are adapted to live in the incubator. They're not adapted to live in the human body. So the cells will adapt to that environment. They will produce a lot, but that is still some kind of stress. When cells are under stress, they will not make identical stem cells. They will produce daughter cells. So these cells are further differentiated. They have a more tendency to cause rejection because they've expressed more surface receptor of the donor, because they're more differentiated. So that's, that's kind of a little bit, you know, side note about the tissue processing and why I think minimal manipulation is important. And when I give the cells to the human body, inside the human body, then the cells are adapted to the human body, right? Whatever. When the cells reproduce it, these are cells that are reproducing inside the human body. And what's interesting is that a lot of these, you know, not a lot, but some companies realized, oh, when we expand the cells, they change and they don't seem to work as well. And then there are problems. So what do they do? They try to mimic the human body, including trying to grow cells in a sphere. Right. Instead of having edges. And when you have edges, the cells definitely change. So the human body, we have no edges in the blood vessel. Everything is, there's no sharp edges. So they're trying to simulate the human body. So I, you know, to me it's, it's not the most intellectually satisfying way of doing things. I would rather put the cells in the human body self and let them do their work. So, so that's kind of the rough overview of what we're doing here. And so just a quick note. I do a lot of stem cell therapy in my clinic here, Uplift Longevity Center. So we do use what I think is the most comprehensive stem cell product in the country. And I did formulate the product myself because I've done so much research on different sources of the stem cells and I want to harness the, you know, the most comprehensive potential from the cells. I think what we're doing here, you know, speaks for itself. I've founded American Academy of Integrated Cell Therapy. If people are interested, you can go online aai c-t.org and on that website there are all these case studies and majority of them are my patients. You know, the cases that I've seen, seen, but some are from other doctors who have worked with me, who have trained. So these are, you know, really interesting cases with diverse conditions. So it may be really interesting for people to take a look and may offer a lot of people really, you know, wonderful hope. And I've seen, you know, some just incredible things. And I always say that stem cell therapy is bringing the joy back to medicine instead of throwing drugs at people, which is how I've been trained at ucla. You know, I love ucla, but you know, it's still very conservative because entire medical system is very conservative. It's based on prior tradition and it's based on the big pharma drug model. And it still makes me laugh when I look at different drugs, even common ones, you know, like say IVIG infusions and these immunoglobulins. When I look up on the mechanism of action, it still says unknown. So there's so much of what we're using in modern medicine that we're accepting as, you know, incredible life saving medicine, that we think this is gold standard and we don't even know how it works. So but you know, there are a lot of innovative holistic treatments and one of the ways that traditional medicine or western, you know, this, this conventional medicine, how they shut down, how they want to speak badly about these therapies. One of the things they say is that we don't know how it works, you know, but then we don't know how most of the drugs work anyhow. So that's my little rant. So I hope you enjoyed this video. And again, my clinic is Uplift Longevity Center. Uplift with a Y. And I look forward to helping more people and getting more information out there. Until next time.