The Future of Medicine: Dr. Joy Kong on Regenerative Stem Cell Therapy

[00:00:03] Hi, I'm Dr. Russell Thackeray and welcome to Resilience Unravelled, a podcast with new ideas, new thoughts and new thinking about resilience. Guests with remarkable stories, products and services that can really power up your own mindset and resilience. You can also go to our site for more information, to ask questions or to access some of our resources at www.resilienceunravelled.com. Let's get started!

[00:00:33] Hi and welcome back to Resilience Unravelled and we are truly blessed this evening to have a really fascinating guest. Joy Kong, MD, is sitting in front of me. Welcome Joy to this evening's episode. How are you? I'm really well. Thank you so much Russell. I'm very happy to be here. Brilliant. Where in the world are you? Oh, where? In Los Angeles.

[00:00:57] Oh, blimey. How is it over there at the moment with all the chaos and fires and things? Is it settling down? It is, yeah. Some areas still smell a little smoky. I think the smoke is hanging on to things. But other than that, it's gorgeous. Fantastic. Tell us a bit about yourself. So, if I start from the beginning, I grew up in China, in Beijing. It's an important part of who I am. That's why I mention it.

[00:01:26] I think a lot of people look at me, they think, oh, I'm just a Chinese American who grew up in America. I have a whole other life. Prior to this, when I was just one of the millions and millions of Chinese girls who had no money, no resources. Really, my parents were teachers, but I wanted to come to America. So, I wanted to come to America. When I was 20 years old, I dropped away from architecture study and I came to America.

[00:01:51] And then I ended up pursuing medicine, of course, because I love biology, love the science of life. I find it the biggest mysteries in the universe, and I wanted to be part of understanding it and maybe contributing to somehow making people live better. So, when I got into medicine, I went to UCLA and then specialized in psychiatry because I was fascinated by the brain.

[00:02:18] So, I practiced in psychiatry for 11 years. I went into addiction medicine as well. So, I have three board certifications, psychiatry and neurology and addiction medicine, and then anti-aging and regenerative medicine. I'm my own evolution as far as medicine goes because I wanted to, first of all, be as helpful as I can to my patients.

[00:02:41] And the conventional medicine system I was brought up in was ill-equipped to help me enhance a person's life or to address the multitude of issues that every human will have because we are a very complex entity, a little universe walking around. And there are so many aspects, but conventional medicine is reducing each person to various organs as if these organs don't communicate and talk to each other.

[00:03:10] So, I found that short-sighted and immature because I grew up, I guess, from an ancient tradition where we understand that all the organs are connected and there are energy channels flowing through the body. And you want to know what's happening everywhere else in the body in order to enhance a particular organ that you're looking at.

[00:03:32] That got me interested in the holistic approach of medicine, which includes anti-aging medicine, what's called integrated medicine or holistic medicine. It all lumped into the alternative medicine realm, but pretty soon, I believe it's going to be very soon, that this is going to be the mainstream medicine. Right now, these are the offshoot, but it has exploded because I go to different conferences and I see all these technology coming out.

[00:04:00] Literally, this new way of medicine is going through an explosion, whereas the conventional medicine are hanging on to drugs. They're very limited in their model. They're trying to create little molecules that can end up having certain chemical reactions in the body, but it's not utilizing, they're not utilizing quantum physics.

[00:04:20] They're not utilizing all kinds of resources or intelligences, like the intelligence that I'm tapping into by giving people stem cell therapy or exosomes or anything else that come from the natural world that can enhance your body's own regeneration. Conventional medicine is not utilizing that because the whole premise is about making drugs and patenting drugs and making astronomical amount of profit.

[00:04:47] So I saw the limitation of that, and I thought that was a travesty to human health because we're not helping humans or helping companies to make more money. Humans are hanging in. I've seen plenty of all these people who go to see their doctors because I worked at the Veterans Administration for a few years, and everybody comes in with between 10 to 35 different drugs. So everybody is a pharmaceutical bag, basically.

[00:05:18] They're carrying the drugs, and of course it's paid by the government, and it's insurance, and it's all a conglomerate with the purpose of extracting wealth from people, giving them something so they can hang on, but not fundamentally solving their problems, and not making them living any healthier. So I saw all this. So have a lot of doctors who have woken up. I call those awakened doctors.

[00:05:45] Unfortunately, awakened doctors tend to be persecuted by the system, such as which during this whole pandemic, some doctors lost their license. The FDA is still trying pretty hard to suppress the type of medicine that really can get a person not to take drugs and can actually thrive. But all those are suppressed.

[00:06:06] It has become my mission to bring this new form of medicine to help it to thrive because that is the right thing to do for bringing up the happiness index of the world. So then I got into stem cell therapy has been a huge part of this regenerative approach to life. And yeah, the field is rapidly evolving, so I'm always reading research and providing education to doctors. So that's what I do these days.

[00:06:35] Not only do we have a thriving practice in Los Angeles, people fly from all around the world to come see us, but I also have a stem cell distribution company where I will find or develop the best quality product to other providers so they can provide these regenerative therapies. And then I have an academy where I train a lot of physicians.

[00:07:26] Just about who I am because I'm going to fight through obstacles. I'm not going to be stopped because I think what was trying to stop me coming to America, it was trying to stop my life force from expressing. And that's what's happening with regenerative medicine is that there are all these entities with vested interests trying to suppress life force from expressing. And I'm not going to stand for that. So anyhow, a long introduction.

[00:07:57] It's a long introduction. And what you've done is given me thousands of things to go out to unpack. So I'm going to unpack a few of those things if that's OK. So you're talking about regenerative, I can't say the word, medicine, this preventative medicine, this treatment. And it's obviously the work of the chemical pharmaceuticals and food companies, which is creating the illnesses in the first place. So there's a whole industry going on there. So what do you mean by regenerative medicine? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:08:27] My body has a capability to make it fresh, make it whole. Right. We can grow a new liver. We can replenish our skin when we break our skin. Your body has the ability to make itself whole. And that's what we're after. We are trying to tap into that capability. How does your body know to repair itself so it's fresh and new again? And machines can't do that.

[00:08:55] But as a biological miracle that we all are, we have that capability. So how do you tap into that? You can use maybe supplements to trigger that kind of response. Maybe we use red light and other light therapies, different laser light therapies. We can use sound. There are quantum technology, different frequencies. You can evoke certain repair mechanisms.

[00:09:21] You can trigger enzymes to come alive within the cell's receptor from interacting with the environment and then triggering the development of a fresh new cell. So we can use... So PRP has a lot of growth factors that can trigger regeneration. So you're repairing your body to make itself whole. And then, of course, stem cells and exosomes, these are very powerful biological agents because

[00:09:49] these are from the human body, right? Made not by humans, made somewhere that we are using, we're utilizing. So the intelligence within stem cells and exosomes, that's what we're borrowing so that we can use the signaling, the right signals from these intelligence entities to get the body to make itself whole again. Yeah.

[00:10:16] Now, and I can see now why you were saying what you were saying earlier about... Because actually most classically trained medics, especially in the US, wouldn't be talking about this holistic approach. So it's actually quite interesting to hear a person of science talk about this rather than... In our world, we talk about medicine, complementary medicine and alternative medicine. We see complementary medicine as all the things you've been talking about. And some of the more funky stuff is alternative, which is absolutely fine. So talk to me about cell cells.

[00:10:46] Oh, before I do, before you do, you're talking about this ability to regenerate. What does that mean for aging? For aging, just think of when you were little kids, when you break your skin and when you hurt yourself or you hurt your joint and you repair very fast. But when you're older, we all know even just having a cut in the skin, right? We're repairing at a lot slower speed than we were young.

[00:11:11] So your body is not keeping up with the demand as effectively. So you're repairing and regenerating at a much slower rate. The number of stem cells, as far as ratio compared to how many cells you have, when we were born, one in 10,000 cells is a mesenchymal stem cell, a very important form of cell that is really important for regeneration of the body. But when we reach our 40s, it's one in 400,000, right?

[00:11:41] So even when I were teenagers, it's one in 100,000 as compared to one in 10,000. So and when you're in your 80s, it becomes one in 2 million. So you literally are dropping off a cliff. So can you replenish that? Can you get the body to have more of these engines to form new tissue, to give your signals, to revamp your system?

[00:12:09] And that's the part where stem cell therapy can really come in. There are all kinds of things you can do. But regeneration, because one reason we get older, our face, our wrinkling, and then we're getting more illnesses, including cancer. The biggest predictor for cancer is age. The why is because your immune system is aging. It can't keep up.

[00:12:33] So you don't have good enough cells to revamp any organs, including the immune system. That's another organ system. Yeah. So if you can bring about regeneration or higher capabilities in those systems, all of a sudden you can repair much faster. Your face and then organs are going to be younger in state. Yeah. So for the three people on the planet that doesn't know what a stem cell is, could you tell us that?

[00:13:00] But also can you talk about why that ratio goes from being so large, 1 to 10,000 to 1 to 2 million? Are the stem cells dying off or are the other cells replicating? And what's going on? Yeah, they do die off. Quickly, what stem cells are, I always go back to the very origin, which is when we were both, we're all a fertilized egg, right? We all started from there. And that is the very first stem cell for you, right?

[00:13:29] So from that one cell, the cell has intelligence and capability to form many offspring. Somehow each offspring knows exactly where to go, what to do, what surface receptor to express. So then they can start forming little structures and then that becomes organs. And then you have a full human being. But anywhere along the line, unless you have formed a organ-specific cell like liver,

[00:13:57] that's a liver cell that's working as the liver itself, right? Performing a function. Anywhere before that is a stem cell. So there's a thousand variations of stem cells. So it definitely bugs me when people say, oh, stem cells as if it's one entity. No, you've got thousands of variations. But we can intervene anywhere along the line and grab one of the cells that hasn't become the tissue-specific cell and get it to go certain directions and do certain things.

[00:14:26] So that's what stem cell therapies are. So stem cells are the cells that are not at the final stage of performing work in an organ and has the potential to become more specialized. And then it can make more copies of itself to replenish its own population. So one of the major features of stem cells is that they, when they divide a copy that's identical to itself and a copy that's a little more specialized. So it always keeps its own population.

[00:14:56] However, now we come to the question of a population. As we get hurt in life, we have toxic exposures or even just breathing the oxidated damages that comes with being alive, but your cells degrade. The DNA degrades, the mitochondria degrades. And then there are all these functions of the cell start to decline. And also inflammation is toxic. It can also kill off your cells.

[00:15:25] So then there's just attrition rate, right? Life is not free. Every time you live and breathe and there's work involved and there is a price to pay. So the price to pay for life is the aging process, is the reduction in these regenerative engines in your body. Interesting. It's a fascinating system, isn't it? The patternization of that approach.

[00:15:52] The fact that it duplicates itself and creates a cell that could almost be anything, which is an astonishing feat of nature. Okay. So as you say, the process of oxidization, all that sort of stuff, injury being used up. So is it possible, therefore, to receive stem cells in later life in some form or other? Or do they have to be some derivation of our stem cells? Do we need to have stuff taken out and put back in? No. So that's the whole field of stem cell therapy.

[00:16:21] So initially, people thought that we only have stem cells in bone marrow because they found out that there were stem cells in bone marrow. But now we realize it's everywhere in the body. Anywhere you have blood supply, you will have mesenchymal stem cells because they hover around the blood vessels. And then you have all your organs have its own stem cells. So do you need to use your own or can you use somebody else's?

[00:16:46] So there are plenty of stem cell studies and also FDA-approved treatment. FDA only approved, I think, two indications. One is for hemo reconstitution after a person wiped out their own immune system in cases of cancer, blood cancer, or autoimmune diseases. And then they can reintroduce either their own stem cells before the destruction of their whole immune system

[00:17:12] or introducing somebody else's, such as somebody else's bone marrow stem cells. Or there's, yeah, but you can also transplant umbilical core blood, which has very similar composition to the bone marrow. So you can use younger sources from another human being, or you can use your own source. Using your own source, the benefit is perfectly identical to you. But the problem is that why are you needing it in the first place?

[00:17:41] So are you aging? Are you sick? Are you suffering from certain conditions that oftentimes will result in stem cell degradation? So the stem cells are defective, which was part of the mechanism why a person maintained in this sickness state. So imagine if your stem cells are perfect and they're active, then you can just replace whatever that's damaged. But if you're not up to par in your own stem cell, either production or function,

[00:18:11] then you may need some outside help. And the beauty of using something from another human being is that you can use something that's much, much younger, which makes it more potent. So what I focus at my clinic is birth tissue-derived stem cells. And that means umbilical cord, placenta. So when the baby's born, right, baby's healthy, we're not hurting any babies, baby's alive, and we usually cut off the cord

[00:18:38] and toss the whole placenta embolical cord. But now we know that's like a treasure trove. You do not throw that away. So if the mother is willing to donate, then that can be used to extract these valuable cells and growth factors, etc., and give it to people for healing purposes. These younger cells will give you, they're more potent in the sense that they have higher anti-inflammatory actions, more immune modulating capabilities.

[00:19:08] They can be more protective for your brain. They have longer telomeres, which means that there are more generations left when the cells divide, so they can stay in your system longer. And in that respect, they also accumulate a lot less toxic waste and metabolic waste, etc. So there are a lot of advantages. And we're not counting on the cells' ability to really form new tissue. What's interesting, we're really, right now, the kind of therapies I'm doing

[00:19:38] is that we are waking up the body with the signals from these cells because they have potent signals. I'm liking, you know, the analogy would be like when a person's getting older, it's almost like a TV screen that's just getting more and more pixelated. And you start to not be able to figure out, okay, okay, I can't see it very well. This is not pleasant to look at, right? I'm not seeing, what's the message? So it gets worse and worse as you get older. But if you put these young, fresh cells,

[00:20:08] all of a sudden, it's like you got a blast. And all of a sudden, your high def is coming back. So, Joe, why can't everybody have these treatments just as a matter of course? One day, they will. So one day, it's going to be so commonplace. It's going to be such a, just no big deal. Right now, it sounds like a fancy treatment that you can only get at certain clinics. Only with doctors who are forward thinking. Maybe only in certain countries, some people think.

[00:20:38] However, as the costs start to go down, as the awareness start to rise, what will happen is that stem cell therapy is going to become the foundation of modern medicine. It's going to be as commonplace as antibiotics for the last few decades. It's just anything you want to do. You want to enhance your health. You don't want to age. Okay, get some stem cells. If you got injured, you got sick. Okay, get some stem cells to get better. Oh, you need surgery. You need to do something to fix certain things.

[00:21:06] Okay, let's get your stem cells so you heal so much faster. Everything you do, you can use stem cells to accelerate and enhance it. So right now, because it's still new and the establishment is not very supportive, like I mentioned, the entire medical model is based on petroleum-derived pharmaceuticals. And that has generated behemoth, just absolutely unimaginable wealth, right?

[00:21:35] And people who have that kind of wealth are controlling the medical educational system. So they are one of the biggest funding sources for the FDA, right? The governing agencies. Medical school, all our medical schools are controlled by these entities, the big pharma, because they fund the medical education. So the entire focus, because I went through that myself, the entire focus is on diagnosis. Once you diagnose, then you give people drugs

[00:22:01] because it's an automatic matching system. Yeah, all you need to do is wait until people get sick, right? Don't touch them. You don't have to touch them. You don't have to try to make them do any better. Just wait until they get sick. They will get sick. So once they get sick, why don't we find a diagnosis? Because all the drugs has gone through the FDA approval process, which link the drug to the diagnosis. So that's entirely, the whole thing about you can't make any claims because the moment you mention a disease,

[00:22:32] oh my God, you're encroaching on the territory of the FDA approval. So you can't say anything, right? And nutraceuticals, they get persecuted all the time. They can't make claims. So even if somebody is doing great with certain conditions, as if it's against, yeah, they make it against the law that you can't say it. Otherwise, they can come after you. So yeah, the entire system is not supportive of the type of medicine that help people not to be sick

[00:23:00] and actually help them heal naturally, right? Become whole again instead of using all these drugs that have patents on them. So there's a drug in use at the moment, just sorry to cut across you, called ozempic, which everybody's using left, right and center. Are you saying stem cells would be a better solution than using ozempic? There are a lot of natural ways to heal the body. Why are people overweight in the first place? Are you eating toxins? If you're pumping your body with toxins and you're eating too much of it, of course you're going to be overweight.

[00:23:29] So why don't we solve the problem first? Yeah, if you can eat healthy, you do everything holistic, allow your body to regenerate, you're not going to be overweight. You don't need ozempic. So that's the whole point. But yes, are some people morbid obese because they have been poisoned by the system? And possibly a few people have some genetic predispositions, but that's very far and few in between. But yeah, I think if we can help the body naturally heal, you may not need something like that. Sure.

[00:23:59] And just another question. So if you're bringing stem cells to bear, given the prevalence of mental health conditions at the moment, are these going to be regenerating parts of the brain? Because that's a completely different structure, I'm guessing. Would there be any benefit there? Yes, there are definitely active research on stem cell therapy for brain conditions. And we have seen people with various severe brain illnesses, right? This is when things have gone so far in the wrong direction.

[00:24:26] But before anyone have symptoms, we all have decline in our brain function. There's no question, unless you work really hard to prevent that decline. So stem cell therapy, it can help conditions that are so far down the line where people are quite sick, like when people have Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, S, multiple sclerosis, traumatic brain injury. So that's not the neurodegenerative still. There's no therapy.

[00:24:56] There's no remedy right now. But stem cell therapy has shown tremendous promise. I think we're still at the early stages. This is why I'm very active in talking with scientists and wanting to bring more and more technology into the space, because I can't stand when people don't get enough benefits, because brain conditions are the toughest. It's one of the toughest to treat post-stroke victims. But still, we're seeing some wonderful results, really heartwarming results.

[00:25:26] So yeah, it's not just me, other practitioners doing stem cell therapy. Yeah. It's very common over here. So that's interesting you're talking about this. I'm sensing we're scratching the surface and that's fine, because it was nice to do this as a sort of an introduction. So how can people find out more about you, Joy, and touch base with you? Yeah. One of the best sources for information and people are really interested in many aspects about stem cell therapy is my YouTube channel. People can just look up my name, Joy Kong MD, so K-O-N-G.

[00:25:55] And my website, so on my YouTube channel, I have a lot of lectures that I give at scientific conferences and they're just me explaining things, breaking things down in more understandable terms. And my website is joykongmd.com. So that's everything I'm doing, including training for physicians and I also do a whole of this, dense cell creams. People are really interested for facial rejuvenation, which is, yeah, which is fun.

[00:26:25] So yeah, those probably be the best places. People can always find me on Instagram, doctor underscore joy underscore Kong. I'm very responsive. I like communicating with people and helping whoever that wants, that needs help from me. That's been absolutely fantastic. A whistle-stop tour of the subject. I really enjoyed it and all you've done is you've made me really curious to investigate the subject in much more depth than to educate myself, which is your mission with us. So thank you so much for spending time with us today. It's been an absolute treat

[00:26:55] and an honour. Oh, thank you so much, Russell. I really enjoyed talking with you. Hi, I hope you found that episode useful and entertaining. If you want to support our work, please go to resilienceunravel.com and you can become a member there as well. You can also send us a question there and even apply to do a podcast. You can also leave a review on Apple Podcasts or any of the other podcast hosts of your choice,

[00:27:24] as well as getting hold of some useful resources about resilience and a whole lot more. Join us next time on the next edition of Resilience Unraveled.