Stem cell therapy: Longevity’s next frontier? | Dr. Joy Kong

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The aging process really sets in. 35, 40. It kind of speeds up. Someone gave me a really funny analogy. Is like a, like a roll of toilet paper. The more you, you use it, the faster it goes. So that's kind of the aging process. It just goes faster and faster.

Hello again. Welcome to the livelong podcast. My name is Peter Bose. This is where we explore the science and stories behind human longevity with the goal of optimizing our health span and mastering the aging process.

When I got into stem cell therapy course I was pretty healthy I years old. So now I'm 53. I was like everybody else that we are on the aging pathway, right? No one in the history of mankind has ever escaped this path.

Now the best things that we can do to enhance our longevity are to take lots of exercise and enjoy a nutritious balanced diet. But today we're going to explore a medical intervention that may help with aspects of our health that lifestyle alone cannot reach. We hear a lot about stem cell therapy or regenerative medicine, but what exactly is it and why would we consider it? Let's talk to an expert. Dr. Joy Kong is a triple board certified physician at Chara Health center here in Los Angeles. She is a stem cell specialist and also focuses her practice on age related medicine. She is the author of of a fascinating personal memoir, Tiger of Beijing, which recounts her journey from China to the land of opportunity, which would be the United States. We will get to that in a moment. But first, Dr. Kong, it's great to talk to you.

Thank you so much, Peter. So happy to be here with you.

It's really good to meet you. The Chara Health center in Los Angeles, not too far away from where I am now. What do you do there?

So we focus on stem cell therapy really. We want to reduce suffering and we want to bring more vibrancy to life. So 90% of our patients actually come from all around the world with all kinds of pretty significant health issues. But the other 10% are the people who are already fairly healthy and they just want to keep being healthy and live as young as possible and for as long as possible. So that's what we focus on. We do stem cell therapy, but along with stem cells, we also add different modality to enhance the results of stem cells, such as ozone therapy, peptides, laser therapy, different nutritional therapies, and a lot of natural therapies. So that's the scope. And we also do some ketamine therapy, which help with rewiring of the brain and help with mental health issues.

So much to dive into there. Just before we do that, let's talk about and really start with the basics in terms of stem cells. What are they?

So I always say, if you look at yourself, you, you came from a single stem cell, that is a fertilized egg. So when your mom and dad made you, you came, you were just one cell. But from that one cell, imagine that can form an entire walking, talking, thinking, being like you with complex organs. And that is the power that's embedded in that one cell. And where is it in is on the DNA, Right. So the message is carried by the DNA. And the DNA is the most energy dense substance in the universe. And what is energy but intelligence really? So it's intelligence that's embedded in the DNA that can instruct the organism, the cells to divide, migrate and differentiate and transform into cells of different organs. And so when we use stem cells as a healing tool, we're really tapping into that type of intelligence from the first blueprint.

So stem cells are unique. Are my stem cells unique to me?

Your stem cells are unique to you. All your cells are unique to you. So your stem cells are unique to you. But doesn't mean that when we give one person stem cell to another, especially if the cells are really, really young, they may not have surface markers that mark them as something different from your own cells. So then you can theoretically and clinically we've, we've seen transplant one person's stem cells, especially if they're very young, into another person. You can produce incredible healing benefits. But if you are getting cells, stem cells that are older, such as from somebody's bone marrow, then you need a matching process because it's so unique to you and it's so much older. When it's older, it's expressing all these surface markers that's marking them as foreign. So yes, they're uniquely to you, but they may not manifest if they're really young.

Right. And as you've just hinted, there are different types of stem cells.

They are, and that's where the confusion can come from. There's a lot of controversy surrounding stem cells, partially from the initial ban on stem cell research in the George W. Bush era because of concerns of destroying an embryo. So the ban Was on the federal, federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. And stem cells, basically embryos were not allowed to be destroyed from that particular ruling. But you can still do embryonic stem cell research from the embryonic stem cells obtained from the embryos. But that's from day five to seven of the of the after fertilization. So those are very, very, very early cells. And no one is using that in clinical research unless you have an FDA approval as a drug study. So you can only get these type of cells through a clinical study. However, these days, people are getting stem cell therapy from all kinds of sources that are not embryonic stem cells. For example, the ones I use and I love is called embryo, is called umbilical cord stem cells. So these are from life healthy births. The cord and placenta, of course, are tossed away usually in the past, but it's full of very young and very potent stem cells. So we can get cells from that or you can get cells from your own body, from your own fat, your own bone marrow. These two are very popular sources. There are other sources too. Anywhere in your body, you know you have stem cells. So even any organ will have organ specific stem cells. For example, your heart muscle, it will have heart muscle stem cells that the only ability for that heart muscle stem cell to, to develop is to develop into a heart muscle cell. So there's one direction, but if we intercept, if we get cells upstream when they still had a lot of potential to, to become all kinds of cells, then we have, we can allow these cells to go into various directions of different tissue types. Really depends on where you intercept from the first fertilized egg all the way down to the tissue specific stem cell. So yeah, so there's wide array. When you talk about stem cells, people think, oh, it's this one type of cells that can become anything and that it can be farther from the truth. There's a thousand grays, shades of gray, basically.

So there are own stem cells, There are other people's stem cells, as you say, a wide array of types of stem cells. Let's talk about then how they can be used in terms of stem cell therapy. What kind of therapies are we talking about?

So there's a lot of very active research from all around the world using different stem cell types. Some are focusing more on directing a particular stem cell type to become a particular end stage organ cells. You know, sticking with the heart, heart muscle cell, or liver, you know, liver cell, muscle, muscle cell. So anywhere, if you want the cells to develop just into the cells of that organ, you can induce them in certain way. That's one type. Another type that's more general. For example, nowadays the most popular one is called mesenchymal stem cells, MSCs for short. So these cells are already all over your body. Anywhere you have blood vessels, you have these cells. It's a very special type of stem cells that their job is to hold on to blood vessels a lot of times because they have, like, these tentacles going around the neighborhood, Sensing what's going on in the local area, Talking to local cells, to the immune cell, to the local stem cells, always communicating, but then they're also sensing what's going through the blood. They're sensing the signals through the blood. If they're needed, then they're going to traverse, you know, squeeze themselves into the blood vessels and swim upstream to find where the stress signals are at, and then they can get out again and start working in the local area. So these are particular type of stem cells that provides a function of communication throughout the body. The function is to repair, is to regenerate, and it's coordinating. So that is the type of cell that's used a lot. But there's also other types of cells. Hematopoietic progenitor cells that's used a lot in bone marrow transplantation for. For cancer survivors or people with severe autoimmune conditions. And again, that's utilizing a particular cell type to differentiate into a type of cells, which are the blood cells. So there are all. These are different types.

So what are the main reasons that people will come to you for stem cell therapy? What are the maintenance conditions that you can use this science to enhance their health? And is there a divide between those people who have a verified condition and those who simply want to enhance their health span or their longevity without having a condition or particular disease that stem cell therapy can help with?

Yeah, I think the beauty of holistic medicine is that we treat everybody almost the same because it's all about optimizing. Whether or not you're sick or you're really healthy, you can still be optimized. If we know all the ways to optimize you, a lot of the sickness actually can go away. So the approach is similar, but for a person coming in with a particular condition, let's say autoimmune issue, we may add different things to enhance the targeting of a particular organ. We can add particular peptides. We can target immune organs with our laser therapy that we use along with stem cell therapy. And if a person comes in with, you know, musculoskeletal issues, we have particular ways of doing that or brain issues. We have different agents we use along with the stem cells to open up the blood brain barrier to get more access to the brain. So it depends on what we're dealing with. But of course, you know, you know that I cannot claim to treat any condition unless a particular condition has received FDA approval, as you know, for stem cells to, to treat. So what I stress to our patients, one is clinical evidence because I, you know, I teach hundreds of doctors on how to do stem cell treatments. In our course, the stem cell course, through an academy I founded, we have hundreds of articles covering different conditions. So these are what has been studied. And there's wide array of conditions. I cover, you know, there like 29 different organ systems and disease categories. You know, neurological is one category. Right. Skin is another category. Kidney function is another category. So different organs. So we, we have, you know, almost 30 categories. So in each one there's some really, really remarkable evidence. It doesn't have evidence for everything. And not all conditions actually have human studies. A lot of conditions have animal studies. But still there are more obscure and rare conditions that there are no studies because there's health funding, because it's not very common. So first I look at what kind of studies have, have shown benefits. And I actually have a video on YouTube, a quick lecture kind of going over the different categories. I just give you, you know, a kind of short list from head to toe, right? We have brain conditions. There's evidence for dementia, Parkinson's, traumatic brain injury, stroke, recovery and, or Ms. Or als, you know, these tough conditions. And then there's also for even optic nerve repair for different eye conditions. Those are a little harder. So just, you know, but, but also helping with hearing recovery. There's evidence for that. We've seen a lot of autoimmune disease showing, you know, having responded really well to stem cell therapy. And I personally have seen incredible results for rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, psoriasis, even sarcoidosis, various, you know, tough conditions, even chemical hypersensitivity, that's another immune dysregulation. And then we are seeing tremendous evidence in heart conditions, any kind of cardiovascular atherosclerosis. Right. People with, you know, hard heart disease or arterial disease. And, and then the lung conditions, COPD or lung injury. And we've seen just incredible results for lungs. And lungs is one of my favorites to treat because it responds so well. It's such an elegant treatment, you know, simple IV infusion and just incredible Results. And then kidneys. We've seen kidney function improving, people staying off dialysis or even getting off dialysis. And we've seen, you know, coming back to the brain condition, I forgot to mention autism. So that's another big category. But that's a full body condition as well. Frankly, everything is full body condition, but we're looking at the manifestation a lot of times in a particular organ.

Let's talk about the practicality of stem cell therapy. In other words, I think a lot of people listening, watching this might be wondering, well, okay, you've just mentioned a lot of different conditions there, and some people might have reservations about FDA approval, experimental therapies, whether they are really going to help them. There's lots of those issues, let's say in the background, but very important to people. But in terms of the practicality, let's say that you are dealing with a patient and you have determined that potentially stem cell therapy can help them. What happens? What do they need to do and what happens to them?

First of all, I want to make the point that if you want to wait for FDA approval, you can. But at what price? Right, you can, because it's going to take, usually the price practice in medicine, which is what they follow. FDA approvals is about 20 years behind the breakthroughs in medicine. So there are certain doctors who are using the breakthroughs right away, and there are doctors who are waiting for 20 years for everything to percolate down through the educational channels and the insurance and everything until they are able to provide it to patients. So just be aware of that. And my function in this world is to reduce suffering and help people to live better and happier lives. So I'm not willing to wait for 20 years for a patient, you know, to tell the patient, well, too bad, you know, yes, this therapy has, shouldn't be shown to be very helpful. But there's no FDA approval. So I'm, I can't give it to you. So I'm not that kind of doctor. So how do people prepare for it? Be educated?

And let me just, just jump, jump in with one quick question there. When you, when you say you will go ahead with a treatment that isn't FDA approved, I mean, clearly that is entirely legal for you to do that.

Okay, so in the subject of stem cell therapy, there's still controversy whether or not stem cell therapy can be categorized as a drug. Right. First of all, no single human being has been able to make a cell. I don't care. You can make chemicals, you can make a molecule. We no one can make a cell because that is a nature's gift. That is something created, I think by something way beyond intelligence that we possess. So that goes into a whole other subject. But you cannot patent nature, right? You can't, you can't patent nature. You can patent man made chemicals or concoctions, but you can't patent nature. So cells are created by nature. There's of course controversy and objections to the FDA because doctors want to use this natural therapies, like, you know, I'm taking an herb, you know, can I, can I take this herb? Do I need FDA approval to take this herb? Because it's created by nature. So the FDA regulates the production of drugs and everything else is in medicines regulated by the medical boards. These are the entities that regulates how medicines can be given. So tissue transplantation, blood transfusion, organ transplantation, these are not regulated by the FDA because these are not drugs. So they're regulated by the medical governing entity, the practice of medicine. So the argument is that using stem cells, that's part of the practice of medicine because we're using these natural cells to supplement, to help the body to heal. So the FDA responded by coming out with a guideline in 2017 saying, okay, so if you want to use the cells for, to help the human body, if you do not manipulate the cells, which means that you do not use enzymes, chemicals, you do not grow them to bigger numbers, whatever that was in nature, you separate them out and you give it to a person and you give it to the person where the cells are doing the same function as before it was taken out of the body. If it's a similar function, then you're doing a tissue transplant and then we are not categorizing it as a drug, then you don't need an FDA approval. That's how we're able to provide stem cell therapy. Because we're using minimally manipulated product and we're giving it to the body to allow it to function the way it was meant to function. Then we are doing tissue transplantation and we're practicing medicine.

So it's mighty complicated in many respects. And of course these any regulations will differ according to where you are in the world. And different countries and different authorities will have different attitudes towards this and who.

Is in charge of the country.

Yes, so we were talking about the practicality and you were just about to explain to me what the patient could expect.

So if a person wants to get stem cell treatment, I mean at my clinic it's really pretty simple, we do a very thorough evaluation and Then we may suggest certain laboratory tests so we can dig a little deeper to look at their different organ system to see what needs to be fine tuned. And then we want to suggest some supplements. Not a lot, really. The foundational pieces are just for supplements. I, I do not like overwhelming my patients with supplements. I don't take a whole lot of supplements. I think a lot of time can be counterproductive when you take too many. And then we will tailor our treatment to a person's condition so tailored to their body weight, their age, their health issues, and also what exactly we're trying to help. Is it a, you know, a joint condition? Is it a particular organ? Then we may be able to use certain peptides to target those organs. Peptides are the ones little signaling molecules that there are numerous, numerous hundreds of thousands of different types in our body. So they're very, very specific. We can use specific peptides to target a particular organ. So all those will be done at the time of treatment, will provide these healing modalities to the patient. But we can also start the patient a little earlier before they come in. So there's no right or wrong answer. If you want to start earlier, that's, that's fine. It's going to, you know, then you start the healing process a little earlier. That, that's all fine. And then we also use laser light therapy, therapeutic laser to activate the cells, make the cells more mobile, make them more just, just, you know, energetically. They, they're, they're, they're surviving better and then they're more active. And we can also target the laser at particular organs to attract the cells to that organ more. So that's kind of the quick overview. But a lot of times we also do ozone therapy right before stem cells because we're enhancing the immune system or helping the body detoxify. So a lot of synergistic therapies that we add together.

And we'll continue this conversation in just a moment.

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Now, I started by Saying that this is essentially a podcast about health optimization, extending our health span, the number of years that we enjoy life without chronic diseases. In terms of people coming to you, who I think I mentioned before, don't have a specific disease or condition that they want to tackle, but they just want to do everything they can to. In terms of interventions to extend their health span, what sort of advice and treatment can you give those people? And where would you start with that discussion?

Yeah, so these people would be in the same category as myself. So when I got into stem cell therapy, of course I was pretty healthy. I was 45 years old. So now I'm 53. So of course I was like everybody else that we are on the aging pathway. Right. No one in the history of mankind has ever escaped this path. So. But what can you do to kind of slow things down to. To a point where you're extending your useful time, your healthy time for a much longer period? And I think extending that for 15, 20 years, that's really no big deal, you know, now knowing what stem cells can do. So the recommendation since I got started was that if you want to enhance your ability to regenerate and rejuvenate and possibly dialing back the clock is that you do stem cell therapy every three to six months. I think when you're younger, let's say you. You're only 30 years old, maybe once a year is fine, but, you know, the aging process really sets in. 35, 40, you know, it. It kind of speeds up. Someone gave me a really funny analogy. Is like a, like a roll of toilet paper. The, The. The more you. You use it, the faster it goes. So that's kind of the aging process. It just goes faster and faster. So if it goes faster, then you may want to do stem cells a little bit more frequently. So as you get older, you may want to do a little bit more frequently. But in general, when people start in their middle age or Even in their 60s, I think every three to six months is very reasonable.

When you say do stem cells or.

Do stem cell therapy, that'll be IV stem cell therapy.

Right. So let's dive into that. What does that involve?

The same process I just talked about. Right. Evaluation. And then we determine the dosage on the person's body weight, age, and health issues. If they're really healthy, then we don't need to add any additional cells for a health condition. So we just calculate the. What the patient needs based on their body weight and age. And then, of course, we do everything else. Pretty much the Same, the different supplements, the peptides and the laser treatments, ozone. So it's pretty much the same. And of course we want to evaluate their, their labs, looking at their hormones and looking at their carbohydrate metabolism, et cetera, inflammation markers. So we want to provide a holistic package. So a person is doing everything they can to not be in the way of regeneration and healing, basically.

And what is the source of those stem cells for the IV stem cell therapy?

Yeah, I've talked a lot about the source and I have a lecture on YouTube called Are OMIC's Created Equal? We talked about the MSCs, mesenchymal stem cells, how important they are for the regeneration of the body and, but not all MSCs are the same. If you're getting it from your own body, such as your own fat or bone marrow, versus getting it from very young sores like the umbilical cord, the, the quality and the capabilities of these MSCs are actually very different. When I compare these different sources, it turns out that the younger sources from the umbilical cord, everything about these cells are superior to a person's own cells when they're older. So when compared to bone marrow or fat derived stem cells, these younger sources secrete more anti inflammatory factors. They have longer telomeres, they have more generations left, they have wider differentiation potentials, they're more neuroprotective, and most importantly, well, not most important, but very importantly, they also have better ability to detect cancer. Because one of the only caveat about stem cell therapy is people say, oh, can it promote cancer because it tell everything to grow? Well, yes, if you're using your own stem cells that have lots, certain capabilities and intelligence at recognizing cancer. And then it tells everything to grow, including a person's own emerging cancer cells, which we, we all know, all of us keep having these cells popping up as part of being alive. So if you have cancer cells that tells everything to grow, including cancer cells, then you're increasing risk. However, if you use younger stem cells like the umbilical cord source, the tendency is that these cells will recognize the cancer and send them a particular signals. These ligand actually tell them to go on programmed cell death. So they're vastly different. That's why I choose the umbilical cord derived stem cell as the source for my patients.

Okay, so umbilical cord stem cells, where do they come from? Who do they come from? What is the original source of those stem cells?

Yeah, so the source will be from young, healthy births. So there's a whole process of how these are obtained. There are procurement companies. That's all they do. They have contracts with birthing clinics and hospitals. When a woman is about to give birth, then they ask the woman, do you want to save the court for your own baby or would you like to donate? Actually, majority of the women will donate because it does cost a lot of money to store the tissue or cells. So, you know, they, they, they may not have the financial resources or they see the importance of it. So they would donate. The companies. Well, I can't speak for every stem cell lab out there, but for us, we only accept 10 tissue from younger women under age 30 who are giving birth through cesarean section. Because that's when it's a surgical field, right? It's completely sterile. Then you're not introducing any contamination bacteria from the vaginal canal. But these women can only, these tissue from these women can only be accepted in if the women have gone through very, very strict screening, and that includes questionnaires about their own health history, their family history, their travel history, work history, their, you know, sexual history, their partner's history. So everything you can imagine that goes into that can affect the quality of this cord is asked that even only if they have a pristine answer, then we will accept such donation. And so at the time of birth, the procurement company will be right there waiting for the birth tissue. So as long as the baby is healthy and is crying, right, you cut the cord. And then the cord and placenta will be put in the normal saline bag and be sent to a lab. Different labs are different. Most of them are doing overnight delivery on ice and sent to a stem cell laboratory. And that's when they will start processing it. And even before they process it, they're supposed to send everything for infectious disease testing. These are all the ones that are required by the American association of Tissue bank for any organ or tissue donation. You have to screen for these infectious diseases. And then after the product is finished, you have to send it out to another third party lab for sterility testing, which means that you have not introduced bacteria or other contamination into your product. So they will take about two weeks. They have to grow the product, try to put in a culture to see if anything, any bacteria develops, any toxins. These endotoxins are secreted and the results will come back in two weeks and only when that's clear, then the products is available for, for sale, I guess to doctors and to be allowed for clinical use.

What do the long term clinical studies that follow up people who've had stem cell therapy, perhaps on as you say, sort of a three to six monthly basis with their overall health and longevity in mind. Pursuing that health span. Is there data?

Yeah, I haven't seen long term study. There's one human study that was only looking at three months and six months after stem cell treatments and they noticed that people have better skin. They notice improvement in skin and hair and energy level and sex drive. So but that's fairly short term, right? Three to six months. The long term so far we have animal studies because animals only live for about 20 months. Right. They age at mass, much faster speed and they, they die. So then you can really test to look at their aging process and look at the, the longevity aspect. How long does it affect lifespan? So for humans, you know, by the time your subjects finish, you probably have died. Yeah, you know, like we don't, it's going to be, take a long time, but we can learn a lot from animal studies. Was fascinating in animal studies that in both mice and rats, when you start to give these animals regular stem cells when they're like kind of middle aged, the time that they live, the lifespan has been extended by 30% consistently. So that has been repeated. You extend lifespan, but not just how long they live, but how well they live. So they look better, their spine is straighter, their hair is shinier, they're running around faster, you know, better locomotion. And then their, their ability to think, you know, to go around mazes is, is maintained. So they're maintaining their useful capabilities. And what's fascinating was when they actually dissected some of these animals, when they look at their muscles and their brain tissue and look at all these markers, whether or not it's neurotransmitter levels because the levels decline as we age, or toxic metabolic waste built up, or their growth factor secretions or other senescent markers that start to show up as you get older, all these parameters after stem cell treatment, everything was reverted to the younger state. So you have physiological markers that demonstrate the maintenance of youthful state. Another thing I want to add that even if you're not middle aged, let's say you are 70 years old, it's still not too late because there's this experiment looking at these old mice and human equivalent age of 75 years old when half of their peers have died and then they start giving them stem cells. I think it was every two weeks. The amount of time these animals have left on earth was basically three times as long versus the rats, the mice that did not get the stem cells. So you triple the amount of time that you have left on earth. So that's very significant. That's very, you know, it really, I think, gives a lot of hope for people who are looking for something that really can make a big impact.

And what about anecdotal evidence from patients that you yourself have treated over a period of time? How have you. Maybe you could give me some idea of what the longest period is that you followed a particular patient and what changes, if any, you've seen.

So, one thing I can tell you because I've been doing IV stem cells on myself every three months for the last eight years, and I've only met a couple of other people who have done as long as me, and they all look at least 10 years younger than their age. So that I've seen. And then for my own patients, I think the longest one that has been doing this consistently has been five years. And this is actually a doctor, and he is, I think, 83 years old now. And he looked like he's in his 60s and people couldn't believe. And he's great energy level. He still travels extensively and teaching other doctors. Yeah. So he's functioning amazingly well.

And what emphasis do you put on. And clearly, there are many facets of life, many aspects of our lives that influence our health and longevity. And I mentioned at the start, obviously, our nutrition, our diet, our exercise regime, they play a significant part, don't they, in terms of that healthy aging process?

Yeah, I think diet is the foundation. If you put dirty things in your body, then your body is gonna be made of dirty things. Diet is crucial in reducing toxic exposures. There's so many toxicities around, you know, even the EMF and, you know, things from the air, from the household products. There's so much that one can do to reduce the impact. And of course, there's so many things that are going to be helpful. Good sleep is important, good mental state, reducing stress, that we all know is crucial. So meditation, yoga, you know, things like that will be very helpful.

And you obviously, yourself have a personal passion for longevity, and you say you've been treating yourself in terms of stem cell therapy for a number of years. I'm just curious what your personal longevity goals are. How do you see the decades ahead and how do you. I mean, clearly it's obvious how you apply the science to yourself, but what is your vision of the future for you?

I think there is a possibility that we can live a very, very long time with a breakthrough in medicine. I'm talking about hundreds of years. I think it's is a possibility, but personally I don't care for that much. I just want to be healthy and enjoy my existence. Right. I don't want to be in pain, I don't want to be in discomfort. I want to have full mental capacity and really enjoy you, you know, everything that life has to offer. So I, you know, before I encountered anti aging medicine, I always thought I was going to live until I was 92, but now I have anti aging medicine. You know, I was like, okay, 115 probably is no problem, but you know, I don't really. Again, I'm not attached to that because I am also a very spiritual person. I think we are way more than what this physical, this flesh body, you know, this is. So I don't mind moving on to explore other realms. So to me it's not as important. But what is important is that I enjoy my experience when I'm right here.

I just wanted to, before we finish this conversation, just to touch on your book which I mentioned at the beginning of this interview. It is a personal memoir, Tiger of Beijing, full titled the Inspirational Memoir of a Fierce Regenerative Medicine Physician. And it is your own very personal story of how you got to the United States.

Yeah, how I got to the United States and how I survived the first two years is almost like a two separate journey in a sense, but it's of course connected. How I got to the US was related to how I'm living the first two years in the US because of a particular person I met when I was in China. But the story is about overcoming adversities and sticking to your dream and not let anybody take that away. And, and also fight for your soul, right? Fight for what you believe that your life is worth. So that's, you know, for me in China, I just had this gut feeling that I had to be in the United States. I call it Tiger of Beijing because I was kind of like a tiger. And my friends, they would know I'm, you know, I was very strong willed, very stubborn, rebellious. So I didn't quite fit in China. I wanted to be in a place that's more free, that I can be more. Just express myself more freely without being judged, you know, without so much restriction. Because I felt just kind of like bound when I was in China. So I knew I wanted to get out. And my first attempt at getting out was rejected in the American Embassy. So that's where the book started about me being very confident. I thought I was going to get the visa, but no, I was rejected so what do you do from there? Because I grew up, you know, my parents were teachers. We had no money, no connections. What do I do? I was rejected by this powerful country, the most powerful country on earth after the pretty powerful country, you know, China had made it very difficult for me to even to get to the doorsteps of the embassy. So what do you do? And then I went on kind of an adventure, which makes a pretty good story, and. Except that the story was real, that I actually lived it step by step. So I'm a very truthful person. I like. I think truth is very powerful. So I share the true story with the world. At first I thought I was going to write it as a novel because I enjoy writing. And I thought, okay, I'm just, you know, this is about the story. But then I realized I got tired of using the third person, and I just wanted to just speak, you know, this is me. This is my story. So what the whole world know, this is what happened to me instead of happened, you know, to this other person in the book. So I decided, okay, the whole world can know this happened to me, and that's no big deal. That's when I decided to make it a memoir.

Do you go back to visit?

Yeah, yeah, frequently. My parents, all my families are still there.

I'm just curious in disclosing this, what are you excited about in terms of the future and stem cell therapy? What can you see on the horizon that we could be talking about and people could be experiencing? Perhaps in a few years time?

I think stem cell therapy is going to be a lot more available, that more people are going to benefit from it. What I see is that this is maybe not a few years, but maybe in 10 years, that this could be as common as antibiotics. That is no longer going to be a fancy term that everybody's like, of course you're going to get stem cells. What you want to get better quicker? Get some stem cells. Oh, you, you. You got sick. Get some stem cells. Are you going to do surgery? Well, of course you're going to take some stem cells so you can heal way faster and way better. So it's just going to be part of human existence that we know that there's these powerful cells available to help us repair and keep us younger. Then it's just going to be just part of us. It's not going to be a fancy treatment anymore.

Well, Dr. Joy Kong, I really wish you all the best with your future work. Fascinating conversation. Thank you very much indeed.

Of course, Peter. Yeah. Thank you for all your good questions.

The LiveLong podcast is a Healthspan Media production. I'm Peter Bowes. You can contact me through our website livelongpodcast.com where you'll also find show notes for this episode.

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