The Hidden Science Behind Regeneration and Healing | Dr. Joy Kong & Carol Covino

One area that stem cell therapy really shines, which is autoimmune conditions. So I laugh at all the categories of autoimmune diseases, you know, 122 of them. It's ludicrous. People are just going to town with classifications. Never mind. It doesn't mean anything. Doesn't do any good to have all these classifications. Okay, okay. You can get down to the very organ, very tissue, but you know, what is a manifestation of the same problem? The problem is that there's interaction of the environmental toxins with your own vulnerabilities. And so your immune system is going out of whack.

How did you get into regenerative medicine? Why regenerative medicine?

Yeah, I've always been fascinated by the human body. I just thought, how miraculous. How does every cell know what to do? How does the blood, you know, just blood flowing through my veins. What a miracle. And I am fascinated by all life, you know, plan plants, you know, and all these animals. So it's very natural for me to, to study biology because it was just, it was cool. It's fun. And then I was faced choice of becoming a PhD or MD because that, you know, if I, if I do something, I want to go the depth. So I, you know, I love science. And I grew up, my dad is a professor, so I thought I would just become a professor. But the moment I shadowed a doctor, an md, she's an OB GYN in nyu. Just one morning, just seeing how she was interacting with patients and seeing all the technology, the ultrasound and everything everybody was utilizing and the interracial couples, which is so fascinating. It's like an interface of humanity, right, and science and technology. So it's, you know, psychology, sociology, it's. And it's, you know, science all combined. So that one morning I thought, I'm going to be a doctor. You know, I may do research, but I'm going to be a doctor. So. And it's cool that nowadays, you know, I am combining, of course, being a scientist because I'm reading all these scientific articles and being a doctor, I still have a thriving clinic in Los Angeles. And I'm an educator. So the fact that I'm inheriting my parents, the teaching, you know, kind of the drive to convey and spread knowledge that's still, you know, very much alive in me. So once I got into medicine, of course it's wide open, you can go into any specialty. And I just became very fascinated with psychiatry when I was doing the rotations during my third year of med school. And I thought this is just, this is the last frontier, you know, how does the brain work? This is amazing. I want to be at the edge of medicine. I always, I want push the limits, right? So the brain has the greatest mystery. Then that's the field I want to be in. So I did practice psychiatry, if you count residency, that's 11 years. I helped a lot of people. I was in emergency room and also county mental health clinic. But I saw the limitation of psychiatry. So yes, we're trying to address difficulties with the brain. But psychiatry is practiced as if the brain is floating above your body and there's nothing connecting the two. I mean that's very silly coming from Chinese culture. We know every organ's connected with each other. There's a universal theme, not to mention the meridians. You know, everything is running along and connecting different parts of the body. That's why you can look at the tongue and you can infer all of these conditions from other organs, right? You look at your eyes or your pulses, everything's connected. So how do I bring that kind of holistic approach to medicine so I can help people maximally? And I was looking into Chinese medicine, I was studying it. But the language of Chinese medicine is very different from the language of modern medicine. One is poetry, the other one is, you know, a scientific, you know, formulations, right? So it's very, very difficult to bring the two together. And then in my quest to learn how to enhance my health, I came upon the integrative medicine. So you can call a functional medicine, holistic medicine or even anti aging medicine is all coming from the same offshoot which is to look at underlying causes of health overall. And there's so much research all around the world about how these, you know, even something as simple as vitamin C, right? Something know or, or, or microbiome, how is that affecting all your organs and all your systems? The medicine that we are trained in, such as me trained at ucla, we focus on drugs. There's no question about it. That's how medical school are funded by big pharma and that's how we were taught. We are groomed to be drug deliverers so we are efficient at diagnosing patients. Why do we diagn the moment you have a diagnosis? There's the FDA indication between drugs and diagnoses. So the importance of doing all these diagnostic tests is to be able to find a diagnosis. So I know what drug to give you. However, when it's drug oriented, you are not looking at any of the underlying causes. And doctors are very locked in within the Model of seeking what drug to give patients. So you're now looking at the cutting edge signs of what's underlying all these problems. Could there be a simple solution? Could the person be just deficient in vitamin B12? How about that? You know, what about a particular hormone? But that is not emphasized. So everybody's focusing on a particular organ. That's why we have all these specialties. So everyone's got their own little niche, their own specialty, their own, you know, toolbox of drugs. So then it's all about giving people drugs. So that to me is a very immature way of looking at the human body. Very primitive is immature. You know, like, what about wisdom? What about combining different things and understanding a higher level of relationships? So that was what's lacking. And the moment I started to delve deeper into integrative medicine, that's when the subject of stem cells came about. So I was just like every other doctor. Probably 90% of the practicing doctors these days do not know much about stem cells at all. Maybe we, we heard about it. I may have been given a lecture for, you know, 10 minutes on that. You know, we do have stem cells in our body, but that's about all that we knew. We really ignorant and not to mention ignorance on all the research that's going on from around the world. So I had no idea. Even me, right, interested in integrative medicine. Up until eight years ago, I thought that people were still doing research on stem CE and no one is using stem cells. That's how blind, you know, like the blindfold or that you got your blinders on that. When I found out that people were using it and were actually getting incredible results. The first doctor I met who were using stem cells were using umbilical cord stem cells. Giving it to an autistic child is very ironic because there I was, specializing in psychiatry, having seen a lot of kids with autism, and I had no tool to really make a huge difference for these kids. We can sedate them, we can temporarily make them focus a little better, but really these kids are still sick. And I couldn't do what he just did by a simple IV infusion. This guy, this doctor was anesthesiologist. He had no knowledge about autism. Right here I was a specialist. So he was able to do producers benefits. That's way beyond what I was capable of. And that of course, put a big question mark of what am I doing, what am I missing for patients? So that got me really excited about reading the literature and finding out just what this stem cell therapy was all about. And once I started to look at the research at, the whole world opened up, right? So it's very exciting because it's like back in medical school, except that you have to find material yourself and there's no textbooks. So your textbooks are these clinical studies, are these scientific publications. So I just started to read and read and accumulated this library of material. And really that's what formulated. It's kind of like textbook in my own head. And that's what I'm trying to impart to doctors these days. Here, here. This is how I am summarizing what I have learned from the beginning. What the cells are, how they function, and the differences between different cell types and how can you harness what kind of cells? And what does it mean when you do stem cell therapy? There are thousands of thousands different types of stem cells. What would you use? And then are there any evidence you can tell? Patients may ask you, hey doctor, I have rheumatoid arthritis or I have degenerative dystopia disease. So can stem cell therapy help me? What do you say? Do you have any basis in your. Your, your. Your educated guess, right? If there's no evidence to support your claims, then you know that you're, you're just. Anyone can make any statements. So how do you become a valid doctor to deliver information that actually is worth something? So that was kind of my journey of me just my brain was just thirsty for new knowledge, for something that's remarkable. I always say to my patients, I want to give you something that's the biggest bang for your buck. I don't care about, you know, small little therapies. They're great. You know, I may incorporate some adjunct therapies, but the mainstay is what can give you the most jumpstart in your health. So once I founded the stem cell therapy, when it's so holistic, it goes to all these different organs throughout your body, and it talks to different organ in specific ways, and it deals with different tissue needs in its own unique manner because of its own intelligence. Then all of a sudden, I may be an ex psychiatrist. All of a sudden I am producing results that all these specialists are not capable of. So I can help somebody with COPD to get off oxygen, to get off almost on medications, somebody with heart disease to have this jump in improvement in the heart capacity, somebody with liver cirrhosis to actually reverse completely. I mean, it's incredible. You know, sometimes it's almost miraculous. That's why I'm so passionate about this, because people don't have to suffer. We actually have the tools. Science is advancing rapidly, and I'm still very open to all kinds of new technology. I'm not limited to stem cells, but I'm super excited because this is one of the most incredible tools we. So I want to bring that to people's lives. Of course, I brought that to my own life because you. I don't have any illnesses per se, but, no, none of us has a perfect body and perfect health. We're all work in progress. No one has a perfect brain, a perfect body. So there's always something that you can optimize, and stem cells will help you optimize and help you rejuvenate. So we're all aging, yet stem cells have the capability to almost stop the process or even reverse the process, as we have seen in various clinical studies. So that's kind of my journey. It's a long answer.

No, it's fascinating. I'm enjoying hearing your beginnings and how you got to where you are today. And I was thinking of a few things as you were talking, so I think there's confusion. What exactly is stem cell therapy? And then you've listed several conditions. And then I'm think, are perceptions changing in the US or are we still lagging behind?

The US still is the leader in stem cell therapy.

It is the leader.

Yeah. It's so funny. You know, there's grass is always greener syndrome, right? People think, oh, my God, you know, the Japanese are really good. You know, they're, they're, they're really ahead. Or Europe is Switzerland. You know, they're really good. I'm sorry. You know, I, you know, this actually all these, I've had people from all these places coming to our clinic to seek therapy. And when you look at published scientific studies, the US Is the absolute leader in the world when it comes to stem cell therapy. And we're actually less restrictive than a lot of countries. For some smaller countries, like the Caribbean countries, maybe a few South American countries, their laws are more laissez faire. So they may not have the kind of scrutiny that American governing bodies have on doctors saying that, oh, if you do this, you have to, you know, show certain criteria, or if you start to change the cells, then you need to go through a clinical study to show. Like, in the US you have to show the FDA that you are safe and safe therapy and that you are able to produce the results that you claim you can. But in other countries, Bahamas, Mexico, you know, they, they are more open. They're like, o. You can do. You can change the cells and you give it to people. This is natural. So they're not really restricting people as much, but there are. There. There's so many concerns when it comes to changing the cells. So in the US what happens is that if you do not change the cells artificially by using a chemical or enzyme, or you do not grow them in a culture medium to huge numbers, because in that growth process, cells will age and change when it keeps dividing and growing. It's the same thing when you grow them in culture medium. You can think that I'm creating a medium that's perfect for cells. I'm sorry, you cannot create a medium that's as perfect as your own body. So when you put the cells outside of the human body and you keep letting them grow, it's stressful. So they can produce inflammatory molecules, and they also start to differentiate, because that's what they do. That's the nature of stem cells, is that they gain function. When they gain function, they also gain surface markers. The surface markers will be consistent with the donor. So if you want to use somebody else's, let's say from the umbilical cord, which is way superior than bone marrow transplant, because bone marrow would be from a fully formed adult person. But umbilical cord is so young, so early. It's much younger than the babies, the newborn babies. Stem cells is much older than the umbilical cord stem cells. So that's how special this cord is. But the umbilical core stem cells, if you keep growing them in culture, they can start to change and express their surface markers and proteins. That's consistent with that baby, which is different from the recipient. And now all of a sudden you can get rejection reactions. And that's what I've seen in treatments overseas. It sounds great that they're giving you 100, 200, 300 million cells, but what kind of cells are they? Because frankly, from the research I've seen, if I give people 30 million cells that's completely unadulterated, not changed in any way, you mechanically separate them and then cryopreserve them. So they gradually lower their metabolism until to the point where they're frozen in animation. And then when you're ready to use it, you thaw them out and you give it to people. So if you do that and you can give a much smaller number of cells. So my 30 million cells, actually research have shown works better than the 300 million expanded. So that's one of the misconceptions that people have, that they Think more is better, but more of what? More of lower quality products. What happens is that it actually decreases the efficacy. So I can show you a study where the 10 times the number of cells of will actually give you less results than the one that's one tenth of what you're giving. So not just that you're not gaining extra, you're actually defeating your purpose, you're lowering your ability to, to produce change. So that's one thing that people need to be aware of. So in the US if you don't change the cells and you are giving it to people, right, you don't make claims. This is still considered. You know, like we in California, we put on our clinic door says that this is an experimental procedure that doesn't have FDA approval, but you're aware of the risks, benefits, and then you have consulted with your primary care doctor. So if that's the case, then yeah, people are properly informed. And this is a very natural therapy. This is a tissue transplantation. I'm not giving people drugs, I'm giving people a tissue transplant. Just like blood transfusion or any organization transplantation, there's no need for drug study because it's not a drug. There's no need for FDA approval because it's not under FDA purview. I mean, it's not really. That's not what their job is. Their job is to govern the production and distribution of drugs. So it's not even under their governance. It's really governed by the American association of Tissue Banks. So any tissue transplantation are supposed to adhere to certain standards from the tissue bank. So certain screening has to be done and the sterility testing, testing has to be done properly. And then you have to have proper tissue tracking. Anytime I give a patient these cells, at any point, if the patient needs to know who the cells came from, we have a chain of command, right? We have a trace that we know who the person who the donor was. So that's, that's the difference. So that's why in the US we can give people these stem cell treatments. And I believe because we cannot use expanded cells and we ended up amassing this vast amount of data because so many people got treated with these, what's called native cells. So they haven't been manipulated. At a very small number, people are getting incredible results. So it's almost like because the regulations, people can expand it, it turned out to be a really good thing that we're able to use these original cells.

So what happens to our stem cells as we're aging so I'm 63. What's going on with my stem cells right now?

In the moment? Yeah, I'm sorry. Because, I mean, literally, since you're born, the number of stem cells, it just, it's going literally off a cliff. As far as the ratio of your stem cells and the total number of cells in your body, right, the total number doesn't change, but the number of stem cells is dropping off a cliff. So just to give you an idea, when you were born, if we're looking at mscs, which is mesenchymal stem cells, these are one of the most popular stem cells these days. This is just one type, but it has a very special place in your body because that is the conductor of symphony of regeneration. Because literally direct. What happens is that anywhere you have blood supply, you will have these cells because these cells are hugging the blood vessels, Anywhere you have your blood vessels. So these cells are right on the wall of your blood vessels, sensing what's going on through your blood. And, you know, it's able to sense the chemical signals. And if there is a stress signal or some kind of information that triggers the cells to. To mobilize, they can squeeze themselves into the blood vessels and swim upstream to find where the signal is the strongest and then squeeze themselves out of the blood vessels to go to work in that area. So it talks to your local cells, talk to your immune system, sends signals into the blood and mobilize your immune system. So they're coordinating this repair and regeneration. So when you were born, every 1 in 10,000 cells is this MSC mesenchymal stem cell. But by the time you reach your teenage years, it's already one in 100,000. So you're one tenth the ratio, right. So you have less cells to help you regenerate. You know, just think about a newborn. If there's a cut, you know how fast that little cut will heal. But by the time we, you know, get older and older, everything just start to slow down. When you reach your 40s, it's only 1 in 4 cells is a stem cell. So you're one quarter of what you had when you're a teenager. I don't know if you remember. I remember when I was in my 40s and when I cut my hand or there's wound, I was like, why is it. It's been days. Why is it still there? Should have been disappearing. So because you are used to certain speed of healing and. And then you realize, okay, things are slowing down. So that's what's happening. Your body Is, you know, declining in its power to regenerate. And then when you reach your 80s and is only 1 in 2 million cells, is a stem cell one fifth of what you had when you were in your 40s. So what do you do? Right? So there are different things that you can help with increasing your stem cell population. There, there may be different tricks and all the biohackers you can do do it to some extent, but you cannot replenish to the extent of what can be accomplished through stem cell therapy. Because all of a sudden you're getting a blast of huge amount of stem cells, not just stem cells in the body, but they're mobilized. They're actually in your body, in your system, ready to work. Because this is, this is why, you know, just because you have stem cells in your body doesn't mean that they're out there helping you working. This is a perfect example, such as when we do stem cell therapy using a person's own tissue, we had to, let's say bone marrow derived stem cells or fat derived stem cells, we have to drill into your bone to get the bone marrow out and then process the cells in a way. We separate the stem cells out and then we give it to you in your blood. All of a sudden you're getting better. But you had those cells all along, right? Same thing with the fat derived. We do liposuction and we get the cells out and then we put in your bloodstream. All of a sudden you're getting better. All these cells were in your body. What were they doing? Nothing, not, not very much. Right? Because if a person is sick and you still have these cells, so you need to mobilize them, activate them. So, so that's, you know, there are things that you can do, but it's not going to be as potent and powerful as actually getting stem cells. Not to mention you're getting cells, if you're using young sources, it's a lot more potent than your own stem cells. There's just no way around it. I, that is actually the very first lecture I gave on stem cell therapy at different conferences. It's called ROMSCs created equal. Because that was the question I wanted to answer. Here I was fresh, fresh and new in stem cell therapy and I could do stem cells use, use stem cells from a person's own body, from fat or bone marrow, or I can use the birth tissue, right? And you're, you know, these other camp, you know, who are using birth tissue derived. What do I do? Which one should I go for? So I went on a quest because I, I was wide open. I'm willing to do whatever that's the best. So when I compared the tissue sources of cells from the bone marrow, the fat and the umbilical cord in every category, I compare them to by collecting clinical or research studies. Whether or not it's the number of growth factors they secrete, the amount of growth factors, the differentiation potential, how widely they can become, different types of cells, how immune modulating, as far as their interaction with your immune system, help balance your immune system, or how neuro neural protective so protecting your brain or how many generations they have left because the cells can keep dividing and keep doing the work. But if you only have a few generations left, then you have less amount of time to actually do the work, how long the telomeres are and everything. In every category it just shows that umbilical core cells are superior. Like it's, is unequivocal. So I'm not going to argue with the studies from all around the world. I'm just a synthesizer of information. I want to show people what has been studied. Not only these cells are more potent, they're also safer, ironically safer in the sense that they will have less cancer causing potentials. When you compare directly of fat derived mesenchymal stem cells with umbilical cord derived mesenchyma, mesenchymal stem cells, if you put them next to cancer cells, so they've done research, putting them next to glioblastoma, right? Very virulent form of brain cancer, they put them next to the tumor, either on a petri dish or on a live animal's body. In both cases, if you put fat derived MSCs next to the cancer, the tumor, the tumor kept growing, getting bigger and bigger. But if you put umbilical cord derived mics, the tumors start to shrink and go away. So even though they're all mese chymostem cells, they're not the same, they're not equal. Your own stem cells unfortunately has been aging with you, so they have been declining. I coined the phrase cellular dementia. So it's almost like they've forgotten they have reduced in their capacity to, you know, for their full glory. Right. So every time you have a new baby, you have a full reset, you know, everything is back to a healthy, the original blueprint. But the blueprints start to degrade the more, the longer you live. Because the stem cells, the reason that, you know, we love them is that they're with us our whole life, right? We have this reservoir, but the Problem is that they have been with us our whole life. So every, you know, a glass of alcohol drink that you've had, every bad junk, fruit preservative, or whatever toxins you put in your body, all the cigarette smoke that you've inhaled or the radiation that you've, you've had, it's all affecting your cells, every cell in your body. So there's no way around it that life is affected by the environment. And then there's a degradation process. That's why none of us come out of this alive. Right. So there's. So how do you, you know, if you are using cells that have been degraded, then you're going to have limited ability to exert benefits and promote healing. So for me, if I have a tool that's more effective and, but also safer at the same time, you bet that's the one I'm going to choose. So that's why, you know, when people think that using your own is better, you know, just, just look at the, the research and make your own decision. Yes. When you're younger, probably it makes more sense if you're, you know, under age, whatever, 40, 50, it may be fine. But just know the older you are, the more degraded you are. But Even when you're 40 years old or 30 years old or 20, your cells still are not nearly as potent as the cells from the umbilical cord.

That makes so much sense because I had always heard, oh, it's better to use your own. But when you explain it that way, makes perfect sense that really you're taking something basically flawed and putting it back in, for lack of a better terminology there. And so it's not going to perform.

The same, not to mention any illness. Right. A lot of the illnesses, including a lot of autoimmune diseases, they've shown that there's a stem cell defect. So your own system is a faulty. So if you keep putting back the faulty signals, then you're just going to be limited in your ability to really fully repair.

I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis when I was. How old was I? 53. So 10 ago. Now, how are individuals with that autoimmune disease, or really, you know, others, such as lupus, how can this help them?

Yeah, so that's one area that stem cell therapy really shines, which is autoimmune conditions. So I laugh at all the categories of autoimmune diseases, you know, 122 of them. It's ludicrous. People are just going to town with classifications, never mind it doesn't, doesn't mean anything. Doesn't do any good to have all these classifications. Okay, okay. You can get down to the very organ, very tissue. But you know what is a manifestation of the same problem? The problem is that you, there's interaction of environmental toxins with your own vulnerabilities and so your immune system is going out of whack. All of us have weak points, right? None of our organs and tissues are really built the same way. There may be places that are weaker. So like for me, I may have a tendency to have a little bit long, you know, like issue, you know, from growing up in China, being exposed to smoke and cigarettes and pollution. So you know, that may be a place where if something bad happens, that's where it pops up first. So you know, but it's the same problem is that your immune system is not able to keep up. It's not helping you to repair or is getting, getting over activated and then is attacking your own body. So stem cell therapy, the beauty such as MSCs, mesenchymal stem cells is that it has ability to shift your immune system from an inflammatory to an anti inflammatory state and it boosts your immune system. Your immune system is too weak and enhances it and calms it when it's too overactive. So in conditions like rheumatoid arthritis, lupus or psoriasis or sarcoidosis, I mean there's so many Hashimoto's, all these autoimmune conditions, it's a manifestation of the same thing. So when you are addressing the cause, which is immune dysregulation, all of a sudden any of these conditions can, can people can get better. So that's what I've seen. You know, one of my patients is, my favorite memories is this rheumatoid arthritis patient who was a surgical technician, who's been working as a surgical technician for 30 years. But she got rheumatoid arthritis and she was losing her ability to use her hand. So it's devastating because she's going to lose her livelihood. And then she came in for stem cell therapy. I think it's like 15 minutes into the IV drip of the stem cells, she did this, she made a fist and she started crying. She said, I have not been able to make a fist for over two months. And, and she was, it was just so beautiful. And she went back to work. You know, it's, she went into right. Remission of, of most of her symptoms. So. And the same thing was with lupus, there was a One of my first patients had lupus and she was young, she was only 34, but she was losing her hair, poor energy and just was not doing well. And after, I think we did two sessions and she was already doing phenomenally. And I think she added another one. Just, you know, she wanted to keep the momentum. But she's in remission. I mean, she's been doing really well. This has been eight years. So there's hope, right? There's so much hope, yeah.

Now do they have to keep going back for therapies or is it like a one and done kind of thing?

This is what I tell people. Okay. If we're looking at whether or not we need more therapy, more treatment sessions, we have to answer the question, why did you get sick in the first place? So how come the person next to you is not sick? So what's in, what's about you that got you sick? Is it your genetics? Is it your environment, your toxic load, your stress level? Is it the kind of food you're putting your body or, you know, like if, if it's an acute issue, let's say you just hurt yourself, you injured yourself, let's treat it and you're done, right? Don't hurt yourself anymore. And that's, that's it. But if you have a chronic condition, we have to answer the question of why you're having the chronic issue. For chronic issues we can give you therapy to get you better. But if you keep doing the same thing, if the, the factors are still there, that's trying to bring you back to the disease state, if you're still eating junk, right, you're not, your microbiome is, is not balanced. It's not producing, giving you the kind of the, the hormones or the, the, you know, whatever you need to the gut health that you need, and then you're going to have the same toxic load that's pushing you toward disease. This is why an integrative approach is so important. We can give you the big gun treatment to get you better, but you better look at why you got sick in the first place. So if you can address all those factors, then you're great. Then you don't need another one. Except that we're all aging, right? We're all aging. And if you want to slow down the aging process, you can do stem cells, but you know, there's the so called aging, normal aging process. I don't know how normal it is, but we can even reverse that process. But if you're just looking at not getting sick, if you can address why you got sick in the first place and not keep triggering your body to be sick, then you don't need a follow up treatment.

I love that so much. You're talking my language because I'm such a believer in lifestyle factors. Everything from sleep to stress, past trauma, getting sunlight, movement, all of it. Nutrition, of course, key. And if we don't address those things, yeah, we can throw remedies at it, but it's really not solving the underlying problem there. So I really love that you address that. Now. I was thinking about the way it's delivered. You talk about this IV drip now, is it delivered differently based on what somebody comes in? Let's say somebody comes in and brain health is more of the issue.

The beauty about IV therapy, the intravenous route, is that it actually mobilizes your immune system. So it's not just that we're putting things in an iv, in the, in your veins, and then the cells will find their way to the place that they're needed. In the process of doing that, the cells is everywhere. Is everywhere. Where your immune cells are, that will be your spleen and your peripheral lymphoid system is talking to everything your body, body. So then it amplifies your body's ability to repair, to remove things that don't belong and to, you know, attack cells that are bad and promote the environment for regeneration. So you want to bring your immune system on board. So to me and my clinic, the IV therapy is really kind of a cornerstone because even for a local issue, I've helped people to have local problems completely resolved with a simple IV infusion, including someone's chronic knee pain. I was trying to save people money. I'm always trying to save people money. I said, well, you know, I know you're trying to help your brain. You know, we're doing IV route, which she got great results by the way. He had traumatic brain injury, but you know, the knee, it may get better with just the IV route. Let's, let's see if we can just do that without injecting into the knee. Lo and behold, a month later, he said, well, doctor, I guess I don't need a knee injection. My knee is fine now. So that's the beauty of it. And I've had plenty of cases where multiple locations, people are doing better just from an IV treatment. But different conditions may require extra attention, right? Like the brain, because we all know about the blood brain barrier. So the cells have a hard time get through the barrier. Although MSCs do cross the blood Brain barrier to some extent. However, at our clinic, we can give people this sugar molecule, mannitol, to open up the blood brain barrier, which is what they do a lot in emergency rooms, in brain trauma cases to prevent brain swelling. So they want to open up the blood brain barrier so the fluid can escape. But in our case, we're opening up the blood brain barrier so the cells can get across, and research have substantiated that it does. So we get more cell delivery into the brain by using this pre infusion of this sugar molecule. And then we can also do something through the nasal route. So you can do intranasal. You can either inject stem cells into the nasal membrane, which is a little uncomfortable. So that's why I've changed the approach to doing nasal drips of exosomes, because exosomes are nanoparticles. They get absorbed right through the nasal membrane. So if stem cells, if I just put it on surface, they just sit there because they're too big, they can't go across, so you have to inject it. But exosomes, they go right across. So they can go across the cribiform plate and right into your brain. So that's another way of accessing the brain. And then for different body parts, the places where it's easily accessible, we can just inject right there, let's say somebody injured a tendon somewhere or the joint, right, A knee joint. So knee joint. You know, we can do all kinds of joint injections. Wrist, shoulder, knee, hips. So we can inject right into the local area. Because all of a sudden you're getting a lot of cells and a lot of signals. Because when you put an IV route, only some are going to get to a place if you have a lot of inflammation all throughout your body, the cells are going to be attracted here, attracted there. All of a sudden the forces are divided, right? So your troops, you know, you only have a small group that's fighting your. Your battle here and battle there. So it's hard to promote the kind of, you know, the repair that you want in a particular area because you may not have enough numbers. But if you inject right into that area, there you go, that's where they're going to be. So we do local soft tissue injections, joint injections. We can also do penis injections and the vaginal injection to enhance sexual wellness. So for men, of course, for erectile dysfunction, Peyronie's, which is the plaque forming, you know, curvature of the penis, those are very easy. And they respond really, really well, so you can help with erectile dysfunctions by injecting directly into the penis, a vagina. Same thing. You know, women, you know, since women can fake it, so we don't, you know, there's not as big of issue. Right. For men is like staring right in your face. They, they, they, they're more prone to want help. But women's like, oh, he's a little dry. You know, it's not, maybe not as much pleasure. But you can definitely enhance the vaginal health by injecting stem cells. So there's better sensation, better lubrication, and just better sexual experience overall. And then we can also do facial rejuvenation. We can inject stem cells right into face. You know, it, it's very simple procedure. The results are profound of what these cells can do you as much. It's more obvious when somebody has a lot of lesions. And that's, you know, one of our patients have all these tremendous sun damage. And with one treatment, the results are astounding. And you can do hair restoration as well. So you can inject stem cells or exosomes to promote hair growth, which works very well as well. Yeah. So these are the local approaches that sometimes may be needed.

It's so important for women. I mean, you hit it on it all because women will go through menopause and of course the sexual health will suffer and they'll get that vaginal atrophy, and then it can be so, so painful for them. So I love that there is something for women because it's always been focused on men. Men have to have this. And it's never been focused really on women. So love that. And of course, we're always concerned about our skin aging and hair loss. That's another thing that I see. A lot of women talk to me about that they go through menopause and all of a sudden they'll experience this hair loss.

So I have to mention, you know, I mean, I'm very open. So I'm 53 years old. I'm still menstruating. Right. I'm, you know, I have a great menstruation. So it actually extends your productivity, your, your, your fertility. And I've seen that in my patients. I've seen patients who were having trouble conceiving. Like, for example, this one lady, she's actually a doctor. She was trying to conceive for four years, always ended up in miscarriage. And then she did an IV stem cell treatment with me. Within two months, she's pregnant. And this is probably a year ago. Already she already gave birth, you know, a year ago and she's doing great. So happens very fast, it improves your overall health. Your body is, you know, a better environment for, for fertility. And research has actually shown this is not just anecdotal, so not human research, but this is animal research looking at menopausal perimenopausal rats. So these, you know, these rats are going through menopause. What they did was that they give these perimenopausal rats stem cells, IV stem cells. Guess what happened? They looked at the ovary size, it increased the number of follicles, increased the amount of hormones they secrete, the estrogen progesterone. And also those increased. And the FSH and lh, which usually increased with age, they got decreased, which shows a better fertility. And then the number of pregnancies of little rats also increased. So there the proof in the pudding, right? Young stem cells rejuvenating the reproductive system of older animal.

I did not know rats went through perimenopause. I kind of got stuck on that little fact. That was an eye opener for me. How can this help them?

Well, it will help really. There's regeneration of all your tissues. So even if, you know we're not bringing you back into reproductive ears, we can protect your cells and your body. What they've shown is that when you animals, especially when you do anti aging study and longevity study, it's very hard to do it on humans. Right. It's going to be a very long term study, but you can do it very fast in animals because rats and mice, they live for about 20 months. So you can quickly decide whether or not stem cells actually help prolong life. And the results has been consistent. Consistent. When you give middle aged animals regular stem cell treatments, their lifespan is expanded by about 30%. And not just lifespan is health span. They look better, their spine is straighter, their hair is shinier, their locomotion, you know, they move better and their cognition is better. They remember the mazes better. So you're improving the quality of life to, you know, of these, you know that from these animals, of these animals. And they live longer. And even if somebody is older, this another study which is really cool because they're giving animals that are old at the human equivalent age of 75 years of age when half of their peers have died. So that's, that's kind of the, that's an older animal. And when they start to give them regular IV stem cells, what they've shown is that the amount of time they have left on earth is extended three times. So let's say usually they have only a month to live. All of a sudden now, on average, they're living for three months. So not only you're extending their life, but they also look better. They just, they are not declining, you know, rapidly like the ones that do not get stem cells. So even if you're older, you know, I have patients come to me in their 80s or even, you know, approaching 90. It's not too late. You can still help your system to function better. Yeah, so. So there's hope for everybody.

I love that. And the brain health, I've been so focused on that. That has been my thing lately. You know, being in my 60s, I don't know what it was, but when you're younger, you just, I don't know, you take your own brain for granted. Like, it's always going to be functioning well. And now being in my 60s and my sister's in her 80s and she has Alzheimer's and seeing that whole just devastating, devastating disease. And I've just been on a quest, what can I do? Lifestyle, all of the things to have a great brain or the best brain I can have.

Obsessed about my brain. So I always said if something goes wrong with my brain, I don't even want. I don't even worry about helping me. You know, just let me be gone. I. I don't care. So the brain, I want to. If I'm here on earth, I want my brain to be fully functional. I want to be able to enjoy every task there is and, and, and, and everything life has to offer. So I can just tell you, well, of course, I do IV stem cells on myself every three months. Months. And that has been happening over the last eight years. So to me, that's a foundation, right? I'm actually regenerating all my tissue, including my brain. But in addition, of course, eating healthy. I mean, everything that really you're doing, eating healthy, don't put junk in your body. And, you know, I haven't been very good about blocking blue light, but I think that's very important too. You know, I'm gonna implement that in my life. I just don't want to wear glasses all the time. But you may have to, you know, to really protect yourself, getting proper sleep. And one great thing is exposed to sunlight in the morning, you know, reset your circadian rhythm and give you, you know, proper melatonin production later on the day. And that, that's very protective. Melatonin is a very powerful hormone, really. And you know, exercise, right. That enhances your all your growth factors and activating all these genes that, that help you stay young. So that's really important. Certain peptides. Certain peptides. I love Epitalon, great for anti aging. It actually repairs your DNA, rejuvenates your cardiovascular system and extends your telomeres and protects you against all age related diseases, including cancer. So epitalon is really important. You only have to do it once every six months and that's the beauty of it because it repairs your DNA. There are a lot of different peptides, but Avitalon for anti aging is phenomenal. There are certain brain peptides that people can't utilize. There's CMax, great for cognition. Clank, also very helpful. It's good for anxiety. And there's cerebral lysin, which is a powerful one, but you have to get the right source and then something like methylene blue. I take methylene blue. I love the fact that it super oxygenates your body and it's very neuroprotective. So if you haven't tried it, you should consider methane blue. So I did a podcast with the founders of Best365 and they have the best methane blue product and it's in tablet form. You can get a tincture too, but the tablet form, you know, it's not going to stain your tongue and you can, yeah, take that. It's for, for extra protection. And then of course there are different neutral picks and mushrooms and you can always add that to your smoothies.

Love it. Well, Dr. Kong, this has been a wonderful conversation and I must say I've learned a lot and I truly mean that. So thank you. And I know the listeners have too.