Stem Cells and Cancer | Research and Clinical Trials | Explained by Dr. Joy Kong, MD

There has been reports that stem cells can promote cancer. We want to know, okay, if I'm doing stem cell treatments, I'm trying to enhance my health, but is this going to promote cancer possibilities? Hi, this is Dr. Joy Kong. There has been a question that's been asked many times which is about cancer and stem cells. So this is a huge topic I've been explaining to patients for a want to put it on video? So there's a comprehensive review of really what's going on when it comes to this particular important subject. So there has been reports that stem cells can promote cancer. So this is why the concern has been coming into place. Because people may have just had recent cancer or is concerned maybe they will get cancer later on. You know, of course, you know, nobody wants that. So I want to just give you my perspective. This is no way a definitive answer, but I'm going to give you my best educated estimate and my, my perspective. So first of all, there are different types of stem cells, right? And there are cells called embryonic stem cells, which nobody's using in the US as far as clinically. You know, you can use it in research but not in clinical work. So embryonic stem cells can produce de novo cancer, which means new tumor, same as induced pluripotent stem, cel, pluripotent stem cells that were derived from something like skin cell. Right. We can transform these cells back into an embryonic stage. So both of these types of cells can produce new cancer. So they actually can form new tissue that are a uncontrolled growth. So these are new cancer cells. That just doesn't happen with the sources we actually use clinically, which are umbilical cord derived, placental derived, or using your own bone marrow fat derived. So there's no new cancer that's going to be made. But does that mean that you're not going to have cancer that are existing, that these cells can trigger their further growth? And that's a possibility. So that's something I want to talk about. Mesenchymal stem cells, which are the most commonly used type of stem cells these days, they do have pro tumor possibilities. So there has been studies showing that they do have pre cancer properties. But then there are also a lot of studies showing that these MSCs Mesenchymal stem cells could inhibit the growth of tumors through a multitude of mechanisms, including jeopardizing tumor cells cell cycle and inducing their apoptosis, which is programmed cell death. So we have to look at, you know, what's going on, you know, why are there Reports of pro cancer properties. And we talked about the difference between embryonic versus adult sources. So we won't even need to talk about that at this point, since embryonic or induced pluripotent stem cells are not really used clinically. So we're looking at adult sources, which include using cells from your own body and cells from the birth tissue, which are umbilical cord or a placenta. So the common sources, there are other sources too, like using dental pulp or using the menstrual blood. So but these are less common, so we're talking about the more common types. When you look at these studies, you have to think about, okay, the studies are done. Is it in a human body or is it in a petri dish? Because in a petri dish there are a lot less factors. Let's say you put stem cells next to cancer cells and then you get some growth in the cancer cells. So the only thing you can look at is maybe these stem cells are producing growth factors and they're just spewing out growth factors that are promoting cancer growth. But it's not in the body. In the body is totally different because in the human body, you have this complex interaction between the cells and the immune system. Right? So if you can enhance the immune response to fight off your cancer, that's a whole different story. And that's abse it in a petri dish. So and there's also another aspect which is looking at self versus non self. So let's say you have some cancer. We all have cancer emerging in our bodies. That just part of being human, you know, living and you know, having oxidative damages and, and the aging process, right? Senescence. So when you have yourself trying to survey yourself, sometimes yourself fails. But if you have a source from somebody else, sometimes it can recognize. So self versus non self. If you have growing cancer that you're not controlling, that means in a sense, your self has failed to some extent. So that's another differentiating factor. So if you're getting yourself stem cells from yourself, you're giving back to yourself, then possibly yourself is already not recognizing the cancer. So that's something to think about. Just to give you a backgr. MSCs have been reported to contribute to the survival and proliferation of tumor cells, and it can inhibit natural anti tumor immune responses and promote tumor angiogenesis. But then on the other hand, you have all these other evidence showing that MSCs have anti cancer properties, including being cytotoxic on tumor cells, inducing apoptosis, and suppressing the proliferation of glioma cells and it can secrete what's called trail ligand. So this is a tumor necrosis factor and these are related to pro apoptotic effects on tumor cells. So these are triggering programmed cell death. So these MSCs can directly trigger cell death and also it can inhibit tumor vascularization. I just told you that it can promote tumor angiogenesis, which is vascularization. So now we have a direct opposite report. We also have seen umbilical cord MSCs, mesenchymal stem cells showing inhibition of tumor growth by direct cell to cell contact. So that's pretty cool because it can directly inhibit the tumor growth by touching the cells, talking to the cells. So because of these discrepancies regarding the impact of mesenchymal stem cells on cancer development, this has kind of, you know, hindered the development of MSC based treatments on cancer. So because people are not sure, they're, you know, concerned what about the pro cancer reports? But from what I've seen from significant amount of research on MSCs and cancer treatments, that is regarded as a possibly next best candidate for cancer treatment could be really one of the most promising methods that we're going to utilize, especially if we use cells from another person, what's called allogeneic. So allogeneic means coming from another person. And these cells coming from another person could possess this property of being attracted to solid tumors. And, and they also have been known to be immune privileged. That means your own immune system is not going to attack these cells, even if these cells are coming from another person. Mscs is that special. It has this ability to calm the immune system and not promote an attack on itself. And also they're very easy to obtain and maintain. So I do want to reiterate that different sources of stem cells cause different response. So I mentioned using your own cells may have a different response than using somebody else's. So one example from a really good research the study done was looking at using your own stem cells, fat derived MSCs, mesenchymal stem cells, using that, putting it next to glioblastoma, a very virulent form of brain cancer, putting it next to those cancer cells in a petri dish and also on an animal's body, right? Two separate studies. In both cases, when you put fat derived MSCs next to the cancer cells, the cancer keeps growing, right? It enhances growth. But if you use umbilical cord derived MSCs next to the cancer cells, the cancer actually start to shrink and go away. That's how different they are. Even though they're all mesenchymal stem cells, so you can't lump all of them together as if they're the same. So another interesting fact, you know, of just the utilization of mesenchymal stem cells is that in cancer treatment is that hematopoietic stem cells have been used for hemo reconstitution in disorders like leukemia, lymphoma, multiple myeloma. So they can wipe out your bone marrow, so your own blood system, because that's, we're in dealing with blood cancer. So you can wipe out your own bone marrow and reconstitute it with hematopoietic stem cells. And either somebody else's bone marrow is rich in hematopoietic stem cells, or you can use umbilical cord blood stem cells. The cord blood is rich in, you know, a lot of immature or primitive immune cells, but also has a lot of hematopoietic stem cells. And however, when you use hematopoietic stem cells to reconstitute in these cancer cases, there's a high rate of graft, graft versus host disease. So, so you're, there's an interaction of the two systems that you, your new graft could attack the host, could, you know, cause damage to your own tissue. But mesenchymal stem cells, given at the same time as the hematopoietic stem cells can actually reduce that kind of impact and relieves graft versus host disease. So it can be an adjunct to enhance the treatment results for these transplantations, either bone marrow or umbilical cord blood transplantations, or you can call it hematopoietic stem cell transplantations. So as you can see, there are all these complex factors if you're using younger cells. From what I've seen from research, younger mesenchymal stem cells have generally anti cancer properties. In general, the vast amount of research evidence has pointed to anti cancer properties. But if you use your own stem cells, then there's much more risk of enhancing existing cancer, so not causing new cancer. Right, because we're talking about adult stem cells. We're not talking about embryonic or induced pluripotent stem cells. So we're talking about adult stem cells. But if it's from umbilical cord source, it is generally anti cancer. But if it's from your own person, from your own bone marrow or fat, then there's a tendency to enhance cancer growth. And why does that? Because your own stem cells have been with you for the entire time that you've been alive. So anything you've Done all the bad food you've eaten, you know, if you smoked and drank, and if you have been in toxic environments or you know, just been exposed to our normal environment, which is toxic, it can damage your cells or even just breathing, the oxidative damages can impair your cells. So these cells carry with you, the stem cells carry all these genetic changes and degradation with you as you progress in your age. And as they lose certain vibrancy, right, they lose certain capabilities. They also are losing the capabilities sometimes of detecting cancer. Whereas younger stem cells can recognize that these are cancer cells, there's something wrong with them. Let me send them something different to kill them instead of telling them to grow. But the older cells, like the ones in your own body, will have less and less of these potentials. So it may tell everything to grow. So this is one reason I personally would not use a person's own stem cells because of concern of exacerbating existing cancer. I will use young, vibrant umbilical cord derived stem cells which is actually younger than the baby stem cells. So when the baby's born, the baby's zero day old. Right. But the umbilical cord stem cells are way younger than the zero day old baby is actually in between. Because when the baby was forming, the embryo was forming, these cells were trapped in the umbilical cord. So they were kind of, they are in between the embryonic stem cells and the babies stem cells. And they kind of got best both worlds because not only they are more potent, they have more potentials to differentiate, you know, becoming different lineage, lineages of cells. But also they are safer, they're not dangerous in a sense like your own stem cells that can just tell everything to grow indiscriminately. So if you use umbilical core stem cells, then you're giving people higher capacity for regeneration because of more growth factors, is producing of higher potency of signals, is sending out, but also is reducing the chance of promoting existing cancer, which most of us will have from time to time. So I'm counting on my own immune system's capacity to extinguish these cancer cells, to, you know, attack them and make them go away. And this is one reason I use stem cell therapy on myself. Because not only it has direct anti cancer properties, it's also going to boost your own immune system which is going to be the, the foundation in how we fight cancer is our own immune system. If we can boost our own immune system, then we really have a chance of always getting rid of these cancer whenever they occur. Which is the fact of life. So I hope this gives you a good perspective. Subject that that's a little tricky. There's so many moving parts. But as far as the research goes, this is what I have gleaned so far that I want to share with you, and I hope you find it helpful. And if you want more information on stem cell therapy, I have a lot of videos on YouTube because I really try to share what I know because I know how confusing the field is. Not only the public's confused, doctors are confused, which is why I started Academy American Academy of Integrated Cell Therapy. If anyone's Interested, go to AAI c t.org There are a lot of case studies or some, you know, articles, but if you want in depth information, you may want to take the course I put together called Fundamentals of Stem Cell Practice. And yeah, so for anybody that's interested in, you know, knowing more about what I do, please just, you know, look at my YouTube videos. You know, I do podcasts as well. And then my website is joycongmd.com you can go on there and look at all the things that I'm trying to do to bring to the world to help people heal and make this a better world for all of us. So I hope you enjoyed the video and feel free to leave a comment. I always read a comment and I will respond. So thank you for your attention. And until the next time.