Stem Cell Therapy: The Cost, the Results, and What Modern Medicine Misses | #188

These cells contain the information that can make us whole. Because of that kind of power, it can make us new again, regenerate our organs and all the cells that were not working well. I'm already using it for anti-aging purposes. There's evidence that in animals they can extend lifespan by about 30%. And not only just extending lifespan, they actually found that the cells, from every measure you look at, were reverted to the younger state. So the animals are of younger age. We don't treat diseases, we treat patients. I've seen it do incredible things.

With me today is Dr. Joy Kong, a triple board-certified stem cell physician. My first question to you is, did we finally invent something that's on pair with these lifestyle interventions? Is stem cell therapy on the same level?

Well, lifestyle is extremely important. I never want to diminish that. That's part of my— the foundation of my wellness and my patients' wellness. But stem cells is kind of a fitting into a puzzle that we didn't have a piece for, for our entire human existence, because we didn't really understand very much about cells. You know, we know we have organs, but as far as individual cells and what they're doing and really fairly new. Of course, we didn't know anything about stem cells, that, that we have these early, powerful, original cells with full spectrum of capabilities. And they can become anything in the body. They have this ability to differentiate and form new cells. So we didn't know anything about them until the '60s. So all this is quite new, but what it does is that it's showing us that now we have the tools to give the body what started to miss as we get sick and as we get older. Because these cells contain the information that can make us whole, just like how it can make us a whole new human from one single cell. Because of that kind of power, it can make us new again, regenerate our organs and all the cells that were not working well.

So yesterday, I went real deep into the details of stem cells. And what I forgot is actually ask him what, what is it good for, you know, what are the extra things that we can expect if we do something.

So in the US is that we have to be extraordinarily careful about what we say about diseases as far as conditions, because we cannot make any claims that a certain therapy can help with a condition if the FDA has not approved that therapy for that condition.

So there is this, this problem with asking experts to justify themselves. The reason we normies seek out the expertise, the opinions of experts, is because we want to know what they feel. And if they have to, if we force them to, to, to justify and and simplify— then they have to simplify the things that they know, and by simplifying the things, they actually lose their expertise by definition. What do you see? Yeah, I know you have to tread carefully here.

We don't treat diseases, we treat patients, right? And the patients happen to have some kind of condition. So I can talk about how the patients did, right? People can have anything. So we treat patients with all kinds of conditions, extraordinarily wide range of conditions from the head to the toe. We treat patients with, first of all, systemic conditions, a lot of autoimmune diseases, inflammatory type of conditions. And then we treat people with musculoskeletal issues, any joints and muscles and tendons in the body. And we treat patients with brain diseases, traumatic brain injury, Alzheimer's, stroke victims, or MS and ALS, Parkinson's, or autism, which is a systemic a disease and has a brain component to it. And we help patients with just about any internal organ issues. So we have helped patients with heart problems, history of heart attack or atherosclerosis, people with thyroid issues, with lung problems, COPD, lung chemical injuries, and people with kidney diseases, with liver problems, with testicle issues, and, and even have helped people to enhance, apparently enhance the fertility, just like taking antibiotics before you get surgery, when you think you might catch something, or when you have caught something, when you get sick, when you get injured, you can get some stem cells. I'm already using it for anti-aging purposes. So are a lot of patients who come to our clinic. So that does allow this ongoing repair and rejuvenation to prevent decline and deterioration. So we can definitely, I think one day, depending on, you know, where the science is going, 'cause there are a lot of exciting things going on with the arrival of AI that really speeds up the pace of science. I think, you know, who knows, who knows what we're going to find with these cells. But even just right now with the cells we have, which most, the most commonly used cells are mesenchymal stem cells. So even just with these, what I use is from the umbilical cord. Of course, I also use other cell types. That are also stem cells from the umbilical cord blood. So I use a combination of cells which will give me broader range of potentials as far as what they can do. Even just with these cells, we can— there's evidence that in animals they can extend lifespan by about 30%. And not only just extending lifespan, they make the old animals look like younger animals. And then when they dissect their bodies, their muscles and their brain, they actually found that the cells, from every measure you look at, whether or not it's the amount of growth factors they can secrete, or the amount of toxic waste they accumulate, or neurotransmitters they secrete. Everything you look at, these levels were reverted to the younger state. So really, the animals have cells that are of younger age. So the animals are of younger age. And we are at the point in history where we humans can benefit from that, that we can greatly stall the aging process and allow our lifespan to be extended, I believe 30% is no big deal. Hello, my loyal listeners. I want to interrupt this podcast for just a second because I want to let you know that if you're looking to help solve a major health issue, or you're looking for health optimization and just for longevity purposes, you can find us at Chara Health. We are considered the leader in the regenerative medicine and longevity space. And we utilize modalities like stem cell therapy, peptide therapy, plasmapheresis, ozone treatments, laser therapy, all to create a beautiful symphony to get you to where you want to be. You can find us at www.chara-health.com. That's C-H-A-R-A. These umbilical cords are from babies who are born live and healthy, and the cord is cut and usually you know, thrown away with the placenta into the trash. But now we can get cells out of it. What happens with the umbilical cord is that when the baby's forming, the cord actually traps all these cells that were younger in their differentiate— stage of differentiation. So these cells have surface markers that are no longer existent in the baby's stem cells. So we all think the baby's fresh and brand new. Well, the baby is older. Than the cells that in the umbilical cord. So it's a nice intermediary between the embryonic stem cell, which was just day 5 to 7 after fertilization. So these are in between that and the new baby. So the ectopic pregnancy, that'll be even younger. I haven't seen much studies on these particular cells as far as their safety. I know embryonic stem cells, there are problems because of how potent they are. Also because they were so early. They haven't withstood the test of time. When we have a fresh newborn baby that's alive and healthy, if the baby's not healthy, we're not going to accept the cord. We only accept from healthy live births. So we know this, these cells are connected to a human being that's fully formed. That is, is, it's good to go, right? Because a lot of pregnancies don't result in live births because they just don't make it. Something's wrong with the chromosomes and DNA and metabolism, you know, the different pathways. They just say, they can form a viable baby. So when a full baby is formed, then you know that these cells don't have any abnormal genetic conditions. But if you haven't withstood the test of time and the full formation of a baby as a demonstration that everything is going right, then there's a risk. So I don't know how he reduces that risk. Yeah. So that's something I, I, I need to hear more from people who are doing that. Embryonic stem cells has very high risk of forming teratoma, which is uncontrolled growth. Of cells forming tumor. So one of the reasons is because the cells are so wild and they can go fully awry and, and become anything. And we still have trouble controlling that. But if you use cells from the umbilical cord, there's no such problem. So they don't have that wild potential anymore. So I don't know where these ectopic pregnancy embryos, where they fall on the risk of forming teratoma.

Let's pick up on the, on the recreational aspect of stem cell therapies. Let's say I want to start doing this indefinitely as a general protocol in my life next to lifestyle interventions. How often would I do what and how much money would it take and where would I have to live?

And depending on where you go, of course, the, the range of stem cell treatments—

to you, of course.

To me, okay. So we are kind of, I think, in the middle. It may be on the lower side of the cost because I know overseas can easily go to $25,000 or even to $50,000. So at our clinic, depending on your body weight, your age, and your health issues, there's a range of how much product is needed, and that would determine how much the cost is. If we're just looking at IV treatments, we start at $8,500 and go all the way if you need a lot of products and you're going to inject into all kinds of places. So that could go—

$8,500 per IV treatment.

Yeah. So just for— if just IV can go up to $18,000, and then if you add different injections, if you want intranasal exosomes to target your brain, if you want to inject into your joints, if you want to do a facial rejuvenation, hair restoration, you want to have better sexual functions. I mean, everything, then the more you do, then the more it adds up. So, but just basic IV treatment, generally from $8,500 to $18,000. At our clinic.

Oh, friend.

I do it every 3 months, but we have another patient that does it every 2 months because we are biohackers. We, we want to be preemptive, but some people do it every 6 months. Even if you do it once a year, it's better than not doing it at all. This is really in the realm of preventative. You can always do it for treatment purposes, right? You're doing it to help you recover from any particular condition, and that it's a different protocol. If you're dealing with something that's really impacting your life and you want to solve that problem, we usually recommend 3 sessions within every 1 to 2 months. But for some people, just 1 session, it pretty much solves the problem. But for some people, it may take 3 or even 4. If you don't do everything right to correct why you got sick in the first place, your condition may come back because the same— it's like a train going train one way and you don't do anything to try to stop the train. So you do stem cells, you're like holding the train back a little bit. So the stem cells doing its work, but the same force is pushing the train going in that direction. So if you don't have anything, you didn't correct anything that was powering the train, then the train is going to keep going. So then you may exacerbate, get a little worse, and then you try to stop the train again by stem cells. There are some people in research, I've seen that in the clinic, would do one treatment, The patient is trying to do everything right. They could do well for 10, 15 years.

Are you familiar with tren? Be all, end all body recomposition drug?

No, I'm not. What, what, explain that to me.

Yeah. When you look at the bodybuilder who's achieving a Mr. Olympia level of fame, they are definitely on it. Is really no human studies that we can make any conclusion from yet. So many people are using it. So somehow we we have a good idea of what it does and it does a lot of great and a lot of very nasty things, of course. But, but there are no studies like it's, it's somewhat cutting edge. Then my question to you is that what, what does stem cell therapy do? And I don't care about the studies because the studies are not there. Science didn't catch up. So what's your expert—

well, what's that intuition? I've seen it do incredible things. I have one of my earliest patients was somebody that was dying dying from cirrhosis, literally in hospice care with who knows, 1 to 2 months to be alive. And we did one treatment actually at a fairly low dose. He didn't come back and I didn't know what happened to him until a couple months later that his brother was on a radio show with me. And that's when I asked him, how's your brother doing? Because he was so weak, he barely could speak. What happened was on the way drive back from Los Angeles to Sacramento, that's about 4 or 5 hours drive. In the middle of the drive, the swelling was halfway down. Within a few weeks, he was walking around in the yard, big gait, loud voice, talking on the phone like he's some normal person. And then within months, his liver function was normal. I was so shocked. All I could say on the radio was, "Really?" And that was because I did not expect that one small little dose of these cells could do this. Thank you for watching and listening. If you enjoyed this kind of content, please subscribe and turn on your notification bell so you don't miss any of my future content. And if you want to learn more about regenerative medicine or other modalities in anti-aging medicine, please go to my YouTube channel, Joy Kong, MD, and there are all kinds of videos to help you keep learning.