The Ryan Hanley Show - Are Stem Cells the Unlock to Regenerative Medicine? | Dr Joy Kong

Episode Date: May 5, 2025

Join our community of fearless leaders in search of unreasonable outcomes... Want to become a FEARLESS entrepreneur and leader? Go here: https://books.ryanhanley.com Watch on YouTube: https://link.ryanhanley.com/youtube Master of the Close - Learn how to scale your sales process, fast: https://link.ryanhanley.com/masteroftheclose Dr Joy Kong Website: https://joykongmd.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr_joy_kong/ In this episode, Ryan Hanley sits down with Dr. Joy Kong, A board-certified physician, regenerative medicine expert, and president of Chara Health (formerly Uplyft Longevity Center) in Los Angeles. Dr. Kong specializes in cutting-edge therapies including stem cell therapy, ketamine therapy, and a wide range of holistic modalities aimed at enhancing the body's innate regenerative power. Together, they dive deep into the truth about regenerative medicine, demystify stem cells, explore the root cause of aging and chronic disease, inflammation, and discuss how therapies like peptides, NAD, and light treatments can optimize performance and longevity. Dr. Kong also shares remarkable real-world outcomes from her clinic, including cases of vision restoration and liver disease reversal. As the founder of the American Academy of Integrative Cell Therapy, Dr. Kong is passionate about educating both physicians and the public on the science and safety of stem cell medicine. She strongly advocates for high-quality clinical research and is the lead investigator in an ongoing traumatic brain injury (TBI) study. Her work has been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Check Out Our Sponsors OpusClip: #1 AI video clipping and editing tool: https://link.ryanhanley.com/opus Riverside: HD Podcast & Video Software | Free Recording & Editing: https://link.ryanhanley.com/riverside Shortform - The World's Best Book Summaries: https://link.ryanhanley.com/shortform Taplio • Grow Your Personal Brand On LinkedIn: https://link.ryanhanley.com/taplio Kit: Email-First Operating System for Creators (formerly ConvertKit): https://link.ryanhanley.com/kit

really talk about it much on the show, but was like, my kids don't really understand what I do. You know, you know, I, I, I tell them, but I don't know. I wanted them to know, I want them, I want there to be, I wanted them to be able to look back and be like, kind of know who their dad was, you know, like what I was all about. I mean, I talked, I mean, I talked to them constantly. I mean, it's not like they don't know me, but they're, they're kids now, you

know, like they, it's impossible for them to fully understand who you are when you're 44 and they're 11. You know, so like, they just, you can't fully understand who you are. And I think it's kind of hopefully cool if they're interested in or whatever, that when they get older and maybe they're in their forties, they can look back at these shows or you know, and be like, oh, like, that's what my dad was thinking. F, you know, now I'm kind of similar age, similar part in life and, you know, kind of

compare. I think that's, that's interesting. I have two boys. Your show is focusing a lot on entrepreneurship, right? Yeah. I mean, that's how it started. What I'm personally the most interested in is just overall P performance and becoming the best versions of ourselves. So I have people from all over the spectrum on and You know, it's it's more just I like talking to interesting people or trying to help other people be better

Yeah, whatever that takes and sometimes it's like, you know, like I've had Dr. Brian Keating on and he's a doctor by of like. Astrophysics or he goes by professor, I guess now, because too many people were giving him shit about his. He's got a doctorate. He's not a doctor. But but he's an astrophysicist, right? So I had him on the show, which has nothing to do with business. But like his I wanted his I had him on the show, which has nothing to do with business, but like his, I wanted

his, I wanted to share his mindset, you know, because he's such a, the way he thinks is very interesting way breaks down problems. And you know, I mean, they're telling us that stuff is real, that they, you know, can only see through a telescope, you know, X number of billion miles away. Like how do you convince people of people that you know, that's interesting to me. So it's all good. Dr. Joy, I'm so incredibly happy to have you on the show. When someone like our mutual friend Mick Hunt refers me a guest, I get very excited because I know

it's someone who's just going to be incredible and share tons of knowledge. I want to start with like, what is the difference between like regenerative medicine and regular medicine? Like what is the call out for regenerative that makes it different from maybe what we've experienced as medicine through going to our GP for most of our lives? Mm hmm. Well, really regenerative medicine has been around ever since humans are around because we regenerate and that's what we can do.

So if you can tap into a way of doing medicine that coax that capability instead of fighting the body, I think that's one of the problems with conventional medicine is that it's looking at the body as a battleground. And I'm going there, I'm waging battles, and I'm trying to fight enemies and I'm trying to fight the wrong receptors, the wrong neurotransmitters or the wrong protein. So you're going there to wage battle. But what if you're looking at it differently? That you're now working with the body and tricking the body into making healthier versions of

yourself and all of a sudden that you're elevating the body instead of just focusing on fighting a particular issue which has the whole slew of problems such as side effects of these medications and not fundamentally curing or really fixing the problem. So a lot of people just end up with many, many medication, 10, 20, 30, 40 medications before they die. And that's really not the best way for human health, right? It's not, if you can just fully repair, that would be ideal.

A neo fight, but completely believe in working towards this, which is why I love having people like you on, because we get to learn, the audience gets to learn. And you know, this really, this came to me and I started to see something's wrong. I don't understand it. I'm not a doctor, but I could tell something's wrong with when it came to my mother. So my mother has, she's got some issues with her eyes and different stuff. And a lot of it was inflammation related, right? So a lot of it was inflammation related, right? So a lot of the different things she has is inflammation related.

And the doctor, you know, her doctor, and this is nothing against her doctor, right? But his recommendation was basically a medicine to cure or a pill to cure the inflammation, but then there needed to be another pill to deal with the side effects of that medication. And then a third pill or no, that was it. Then there was a shot that she needed to take to deal with the side effects of the medication that dealt with the side effects of the anti-inflammatory. And I was like that. I mean, again, not a doctor, but just logically that doesn't feel like we should have to take

three different things to solve one problem, right? And so my understanding of regenerative medicine is also kind of a philosophy of getting out ahead of these things before the issue actually occurs. Is that? Yeah, both ways. So either get ahead or actually fixing it really effectively by addressing the root causes.

So, yeah, if some tissue is damaged, then there's low blood flow and you can go in there, give the body something that tell the local tissue to start to repopulate and then tell the blood vessels to start to expand and grow more blood vessels to supply the tissue. All of a sudden you're getting full healing in that area. So, you know, it's funny that you mentioned that case because it is so typical. It's almost like if you, you have to set a race between regenerative medicine and conventional medicine, there's no race. And then it just is so evident because they just keep showing how ineffective the old system is.

Not to say that all medicine is, you know, all modern medicine is not good. There's a lot of amazing things and just incredible advances. But when it comes to chronic illnesses, the way it's addressing it is really misguided. That's why it's ineffective. That's why you see things like people getting on medication after medication to address previous medication. And it just, it just shows how ineffective it is. But when you use these, you can use cells, you can use growth factors, peptides, you can use light, you can use different supplements, all these

can target how the body is going to replenish and make new of itself. So that's why, you know, we are so excited about it because who doesn't want to make new right? Yeah, you know, you just and you just literally hit like three quarters of the agenda items that I want to talk about today because I'm so interested in these things. You know, one last story just for the audience. So I have hereditary high cholesterol. I've been having my cholesterol checked and at high cholesterol since I was eight years old. And, you know, I think right now I'm

like at 260 or something like that. But it's always been in that range. Now, depending on who you talk to, 260 isn't even high. But my doctor last time I went in was like, you know, I got my blood work done. And she's like, it's been too many years. You got to go on Lipitor. Now, I don't want to go on Lipitor because there's a ton of side effects that come from Lipitor. And I just don't want that in my body. And I was like like well, so I did a Google, you know, I Google doctored I did Google MD, you know and Found that like basically if you don't have any plaque there's nothing and I'm getting not a doctor, right?

But if there's no plaque then there's nothing for the cholesterol to grab on to and I said to her well What if can I go get a plaque test and And she's like, well, if you must. And I was like, cause I go, we're on the same page that if like my plaque is zero, I don't need Lipitor, right? And she's like, well, technically you're right. And I'm just like, it like shattered my confidence in my relationship with my doctor that like, she knew that before I went on Lipitor,

I should probably have this calcium test and didn't even mention it. She was just like right to Lipitor. And I was like, Oh my God, like I have to start, I have to start really considering my health more, like not just relying on someone's opinion. Like I have to start to do my own research. And that's why all of this is a preface to get to some of these things that I wanna talk about because I think there is so much information and it feels to me like we are,

especially now that we have like RFK in, for better or for worse and the different things he's doing, he is opening people's mind up to the fact that we can't just blindly listen to the advice from our GP and just that's absolutely going to be okay. So I want to start with one that I think is probably people probably heard the term but have literally might have literally no idea what it is and that's stem cells like maybe just explain what stem cells are for the audience first. The status right now you may have heard of it.

Let's break down stem cells. I'm hoping that that we've gone, you know, beyond that point quite a bit because when I first started in the field, now it's been nine years, people did ask me that all the time the first few years, what is the stem cell? What are you talking about? What is it? But now the question usually is, oh my God, I heard stem cells are amazing, but I have this issue.

Do you think stem cells can help me? So the conversation has definitely shifted. Nonetheless, it's still important to define what stem cells are because there's still even misconceptions about what they are. Some people even refer to PRP as stem cell therapy. Some people refer to like things like amniotic fluid. There's almost no cells. So, but first of all, what is a stem cell?

Just think of you and me, how we started in this universe, this life, is by forming the first stem cell. And from that stem cell, we started to divide and specialize, different cells are going to directions, we have this magical migration and formation of the human being, right? So that, from that first cell, whatever that's in that blueprint, in the DNA in that first cell, somehow it is capable of directing the forming of this miraculous being, this complex little universe that can walk and talk

and think and interact with each other. So that type of intelligence is really what we're trying to tap into in stem cell therapy. So from that one cell, you can form other stem cells all the way until they become cells of a particular tissue. Let's say your heart, your heart has heart muscle cells, but before it becomes a heart muscle cell, it was a heart muscle stem cell. So that is called the end tissue stem cell. That's the last step of a stem cell before

it loses its stem cell status and become a working cell. So anywhere- The cell goes through puberty, kind of. Exactly. Yeah, I like that. Yeah. So anywhere along the line, those cells are stem cell until you become a tissue specific cell. So we can intercept as, you know, as doctors anywhere before that, and we can put the cells

in the body and they have tremendous potentials. First of all, they secrete a lot of growth factors and they send a lot of signals. So these exosomes are little packets that that's one of the main ways that stem cells are sending out signals. So the cells are potent in triggering actions in neighboring cells in the system. And they also have the capabilities to divide, usually asymmetrically, because they would divide into one copy of itself and another copy that's more specialized.

So now we've got a, you know, more capabilities, but less potential to become everything. So you get narrower and then you get deeper into your function. So but really stem cell is anywhere along the line and there are different aspects or different categories, depending on what you're trying to utilize those embryonic stem cells, which are very early cells that we don't really use in this country for treatments because it's hard to control. They are a little wild. They can become tissues of any kind and oftentimes can form tumor.

So even though they can become anything, but there's a potential risk. And then there are cells that's, um, and organ cells, let's say you want it to grow neurons and then you can grow a neuron and you know, a particular progenitor cells for the neuron. But that is more difficult because they're very small in number. Sometimes you may have to induce other cells to become these cells. And now, at least at this point, FDA says, now, if you're trying to induce other cells to become these cells. And now, at least at this point, FDA says, now if you're trying to induce any cell to do anything or you're trying to grow them to large numbers, you are making a drug. So whether or not I agree with it is a whole other question, but that is what FDA says.

Now you've changed the cells. Now you need to conduct clinical study. This is one reason that things are slowed down. You can't just go ahead and try to trigger some cells to become this new group of cells, new type of cells to tailor your treatments and then, or grow them into large numbers. Now you're creating a drug.

Now it's millions and millions of dollars go into research and approval in this time and energy. And so that slows things down quite a bit. So what we use mostly in this country and around the world right now is what's called mesenchymal stem cell is the most popular type. You can also use core blood or bone marrow.

They contain a lot of the other type of cells, their primitive immune cells or cells that can form the whole blood system. So you can use those as well. But mesenchymal stem cells is the most popular. And those cells actually are all along your blood vessels. Anywhere you have any blood supply, you can rest assured that these cells are hovering over it and they're sensing what's going through your blood and they're also keeping tabs on what's in that neighboring environment to coordinate how to help your body repair.

So those cells are easy to use and you don't, in the US, we are using cells that have not been expanded which means grown into large numbers in a culture medium, but overseas they do expand them so they can create much bigger numbers. That's a whole other subject because from what I know so far, when you grow the cells to that kind of large numbers, you are losing potency and you're also allowing the cells to start to differentiate. So they're growing their own surface receptors that will mark them as coming from somebody else because we're getting these cells from a very

young source from the umbilical cord, right? Usually that's from another person. Unless you saved your own cord, you can use your own. So when you start to expand them, grow them, then you're increasing the chance that the recipient is gonna recognize, oh my God, these cells are not from me, so let me attack, or they can attack the host. So that can cause a whole range of side effects. And stem cell treatment in general,

particularly in this country, seems to be like a slightly contentious topic right there's I've heard arguments that you can't sometimes you can't like recreate the results I've heard are you know read arguments about just the morality of using an umbilical cord that tends to be from some of our more religious groups like there's there seems this doesn't it does seem to be a lot of controversy more religious groups. Like there seems, this doesn't, it does seem to be a lot of controversy around this. So maybe what are the, to me, it makes sense

that as we continue to evolve, deal with new environmental factors, we continue to understand how our bodies work. Our bodies obviously repair themselves. We see it in real time when we're injured, right? So like, we know these things are there. What is the counter argument to stem cells? Why would someone push back against this type of treatment

or just outright try to deny it from even being used? Gosh, that's a great question. And there's so much that we can go into. So first of all, there are a lot of myths. So if people happen to encounter some myths and their brain cells get stuck on those myths, that's one form of resistance. One of the myths is that, oh, stem cells are not legal in the US. Well, that's completely wrong because I've been doing stem cell therapy for nine years. I've taught I've been doing stem cell therapy for nine years. I've taught over a thousand doctors

how to do stem cell therapy. So we're all there providing therapy and it's absolutely legal. Well, first of all, there's nothing that says it's illegal. So it's in a gray area. So no one can say that what you're doing is illegal unless you are breaking certain rules, right? It's still not legality.

The FDA did put out guidelines, although there's no legal, you know, really bearing because it's not a law, it's not enforceable. As an agency's guideline, what do the guidelines say? The agency, well, they can come after you if you don't follow the guideline, but still you're not breaking the law per se, right? So, but the guidelines are if you use the cells

for the same purpose of what the cells were doing in the body before, and then you're not manipulating and changing the cells in any way, such as using chemicals or enzymes to treat them, which can cause changes, or growing them in large to large numbers, because alterations can also happen. So if you don't do that and you fulfill the same purpose, then you are providing a tissue transplantation. You're not using this as a drug. So if you're tissue transplanting, you're not really dealing with the whole drug control aspect.

You are dealing with how medicine is practiced. So you have your patients to answer to, and you have your medical board, each state's medical board to answer to if you don't do things right. So it's being governed from different entities. So when the doctor is doing, providing tissue transplant, just like a doctor, like I'm a licensed physician surgeon. So basically we're trained to be,

we can do any medical practice or provide any surgeries. So that's what our license is for. And when we do tissue transplant, that is a procedure that we can do just like blood transfusion, just like any organ transplantation. If there's a medical necessity and a doctor can justify from either literature or any kind of standard practice, that there's some kind of standard of practice, that there's some kind of standard established, then they can do it, right? They can justify, but frankly,

a doctor can do anything they want, to be honest, as long as they're not causing harm. Let's say a doctor believes that there's something in the dirt, is really, really good. And the doctor says, I think you should put this in the water and drink it. And the doctor can do that, as long as you're not causing harm.

So that's the scope of practice. So that's first myth is that people think is not legal and is absolutely legal. Why do we have this myth? Well, there are some vested interest in people who want stem cell therapy to be illegal in the US. So everybody can go across the border,

go to Panama, Costa Rica, the Bahamas, Mexico, right? They would love for people to think that their only option is by taking a plane to those places. So that's one myth. And- Joy, do you also, sorry to interrupt you, but Dr. Do you think how much of this is also like the scenarios that we talked about at the very beginning, where there's so much, seemingly so much more money to be made and stacking prescriptions on prescriptions on prescriptions. prescriptions on prescriptions on prescriptions and if there's a

preventative or regenerative medicine that someone can start to use that Keeps them from actually experiencing any of those issues later where these drug companies make all their money You know, I mean, I mean we know we've seen in an RFK and it started already uncover some of this where these drug companies are Petitioning and in many cases, you know, doing in kind trade with the FDA in order to block certain therapies and certain types of drugs because they can, they can actually limit the need for all of these stacks of drugs that they're making billions on. I mean, is that, is that part of it at all? Is there internal push and internal, uh, not to go too down the conspiracy theory role, although conspiracy theories are my favorite. Is there any of that happening inside the states as

well? I wish I could say no, but from what I have heard, I have learned is that there's really no, there's no intention on the FDA's part to really push or fully accept or even wanting these therapies to be approved. So I have heard certain direct evidence that point toward the fact that this agency really is not excited about pushing this forward. It may say so, it may say that we want you to do studies, to do this and that, but what I've seen with companies is that they're given the runaround and they are asked to do things, you know, maybe they think that certain things were not done correctly, then they have to redo certain things, you know, that maybe they think that certain things were not done correctly, then they have to redo certain things and they go around and around and some company run

out of money, go bankrupt and still even very powerful company that I know has not been able to achieve any kind of approval. So there's definitely institutional resistance. It's the red tape roadblock. Yeah. So it's like, yeah, you can do this, Dr. Joy, but here's 17 hoops you need to jump through and-

Yeah, we support you. We want you to do this, but you just do this first. And then somehow I just couldn't finish doing those things. All right, so some people think it's illegal. What are some of the other myths that people are running into? People think, oh, are you killing babies? Well, I don't know anybody that's killing babies in the United States. Maybe in other countries, especially if they're doing fetal stem cell treatments, such as Ukraine, I have definitely, definitely abortion will be involved

and it involves a destruction of a fetus, but that's not legal in this country. So no babies killed and embryonic stem cells are not used for clinical use. You can't give it to people as treatment. You can do it as research, but you can't give it to any humans. So the cells we use either is from a person's own,

like your own bone marrow, your own fat, we can get from your dental pulp, like they're different sources, menstrual blood, but more and more popular, and because it's more powerful, is the early birth tissue derived stem cells, such as from the umbilical cord. So the umbilical cord is obtained only after a healthy baby is born, right? What do you do with the cord? Usually in

the past, you cut the cord and you toss in the trash. Now we know, no, don't toss it. There's so much incredible things in this that we can use it to help people repair and heal. So that's another myth that people think that anyone's harmed by getting stem cell therapy. I think partially was because years back, George W. Bush banned embryonic stem cell. He didn't ban the research. He just banned federal funding that supports more embryo destruction. So he just didn't want more, you know, lives. Was that like an anti-abortion play? Was that kind of plant?

Is that what that like kind of a side product? So that's ideological. There's a little bit of ideological, ideological battle going on in the U S. So, so he passed a law banning federal funding for a stem cell new destruction of an embryo. But people who, or labs who already have these embryonic stem cell lines that you just keep using the same line to do research, that's not banned. So they can still research, but still they can't give it to humans for just clinical use. So that's another

people get confused there. Like why if they're able to do the research and they find out that something could actually help people, why is it well, political or so that's definitely a highly manipulated process, right? You're getting cells from the embryonic, basically day five to seven, when the fetus is forming, the embryo is forming, there's a ball of cells. Inside the ball, there's certain, you know, straggling these cells, they're called inner cell mass, and you can grab any cell from that inner cell mass, and you can form a full human. So that's the embryonic stem cell that they're getting. So

you can get that from day five to seven after fertilization. The problem is that they are still difficult to control, that they can cause what's called teratoma, which is an uncontrolled growth of tumor. It could be all kinds of cells from like hair, teeth, bone. They're all clustered together. So there are other countries who are doing embryonic stem cell treatment, just not in the US. However, people have heard horror stories of how a person grow a tumor. A lot of times they grow a tumor on the back.

That's very commonplace. So all of a sudden they grow a tumor on their back. That's very commonplace. So all of a sudden they grow tumor on their spine and they're having people who have been paralyzed because of this. So there's a little bit of, well, there's a high risk that we can't control these cells that they can just all of a sudden start to form tumor cells. So that's one reason it's not allowed in the U.S. besides the etiological, besides the ideological concerns of destroying of an embryo. Yeah. Yeah, seven days is pretty early to do that kind of thing. I was thinking more like, living in New York,

and it don't mean it's to be political, but New York loves abortions and all these babies are going somewhere. I would rather if we're gonna, I'm obviously, I swing a little more conservative. But if we're going to allow for all this, you know, part of me is like, you know, maybe at least we could use them for good and help the people that are still here.

But if it's that early, that that's really early. And plus, it seems to me like that's pretty scary. But what you're saying is that, OK, so that that might be the more scary side that are used to scare tactics all the way to embryonic. But something like umbilical cord much more stable, much more we can use it for research and we can actually use it for products. as the embryonic stem cell, which really shows that they are more flexible, they've got more potentials, they're just in a more primitive state. And then they're so down the stream because they are all the way down to the formation of the baby. So they have also evolved to the point where they are not going to go crazy, go haywire.

So these cells were trapped when the embryo was forming and then they're retaining some of the characteristics of the early embryo. But but also they just lost some of the crazy potentials. Yeah, awesome. So why would why would someone want like what's a use case force themselves for for someone who's listening and you know, like what, what, what are some of the things that we use them for today that, you know, people can, can think about in their own life as a potential treatment versus maybe again, going down this

pharmaceutical rabbit hole, which I'm, yeah, the exciting thing is, is that the, the range is just kept, it keeps expanding either from research, published research, or from anecdotal clinical practice. So even if you just look at research, it's extremely active all around the world. There's so many conditions. I know this because I've read almost all of them, all these articles, because I teach a course through the academy I founded called American Academy of Integrative Cell Therapy. So I train all these doctors and I train them through evidence. I don't train them through my philosophy. Right. This is all about evidence. Let's see what we have found out through rigorous research. So there are evidence of every organ systems just from head to toe, right?

From brain diseases, as early as autism, cerebral palsy as late as Alzheimer's or later other neurological, neurodegenerative conditions. And we have cardiac issues, horror lung, liver, reproductive systems, and all kinds of muscular skeletal issues, all kinds of systemic conditions, like autoimmune issues or cancer.

I mean, you name it, there's tremendous amount of evidence. And then every day, the doctors that I work with, and me, we keep accumulating new evidence. Basically, we're in the frontier. We're right in the front line. And we started we start to see things that have never been seen before. Right. So a few examples, even just things I've seen. I mean, I couldn't believe there are a few cases I just couldn't believe.

One of them was a patient that was had a when he was nine years old, he got a brain surgery from because of a brain tumor. But the surgery went, it didn't go very well. There was a problem. So optic nerve was, was damaged. So he couldn't see from that one eye for 44 years until he got stem cell therapy from us. He's starting to see in that one eye. So this is something that like I would have never if I had done a consultation with a patient, I would have just said, you know, I doubt this is going to help your vision. You know, I would I will not anticipate I mean, I just I wouldn't I've never give false

hopes. But the fact that the person starting to see it just it is so inspiring of what these cells are capable of. And one of my earliest patients was a liver cirrhosis patient. He didn't qualify for liver transplant because he was IV drug user. So he was in hospice and he was had almost no strength to talk and is extremely emaciated with a big belly, the ascites. I gave him one treatment and I couldn't believe it as I found out later because I was planning on doing more, but he didn't show up. He got recovered so fast that even on the way on his drive from Los Angeles to Sacramento, within those four or five hours, the swelling had gone down halfway.

It was just, I couldn't believe it. And then within a few weeks, he was walking around talking like a normal person. And then within a couple months, when he went back to his primary care, his liver specialist and his liver tests actually was normal. So that one was absolutely incredible. And it could be an outlier. However,

show me a conventional medicine, any medicine you have that can create this, you know, I will be in shock. We don't have anything like this. So there are outliers of extraordinary outcomes. And there are people whose outcome is not as extraordinary and then vast majority is in between. People are getting incredible benefits from previously with no medications and no medical treatment was making a difference. So it may take several sessions, so it's not a miraculous thing, but still we are able to create changes

that the conventional medicine really didn't have tools to create. And sort of in a very non-medical way, essentially like taking the individual with the optic nerve, essentially the stem cells are, are helping to regrow the damaged tissue associated with say like the optic nerve or something. Is that, is that the idea or? Yeah, from what we give him, right?

We're not giving him neuro progenitor cells. We're not injecting right into the area. And a lot of times we don't have to because of how these cells work. So how I consult with patients is really by talking about how the cells work and to see if that can dovetail their condition. So something like optic nerve damage. So there's tissue death and damage.

Maybe it's not dead, maybe just severely damaged, but still the person could not see. There could be a local inflammatory mechanism maybe just severely damaged, but still the person could not see. There could be a local inflammatory mechanism going on that there's so much inflammation that is diseased, right? There's a blockage of signaling. So how do the stem cells work? So the mesenchymal stem cells I'm talking about, that's one of the main players in regenerative medicine.

The mechanism is one is highly anti-inflammatory. So think about chronic illnesses and how many of these have inflammation as part of the mechanism. So if you can calm the inflammation, now you're allowing the body to go to the other way of existing, which is regenerate. Dr. Joy, I just want to stop for a second and have you touch on this. This is something that I have learned over the years because I had such bad tissue damage in my right elbow from playing college baseball and throwing improperly for so long that there was a period of time where, like, I don't know if you can see the people watching on YouTube, this is what my right arm looked like now now I can extend it all the way but there for a period of time this was as far as I could

extend my right arm because of how much tissue damage and inflammation was going on in my elbow and I had doctors go oh that just happens to baseball players and blah blah blah and you use your elbow and all this kind of stuff and then I finally found a physical therapist who was who like gave me this intense download on inflammation. And I had no idea like I don't know a regular person you hear the term I mean today you might hear it more but this is 15 years ago. And I just didn't realize I mean I simply I did two things one I broke down the some of the scar tissue with a whatever like a roller but all I really did was change my diet to a highly anti inflammatory diet and my arm just started to creep down down down and now I pretty much eat up an anti inflammatory diet all the time as much

I can although I do occasionally like a cocktail. And now I have full range of motion just just from changing my diet and inflammation and and I'm sorry to interrupt you but I but I think what you're saying is so incredibly important, this idea of the reduction of inflammation in our day-to-day lives. And I guess my question to you is like, do you think stem cell therapy will ever be a just, oh, I'm losing the right word right now

because I just went off on that story. But like a day-to-day, yeah, yeah, day to day, just preventative. That's where we're going. That's where we are. We'll be there. We'll be there in our lifetime. And, you know, hopefully within 10, 15 years, I'm really hoping. It really depends on the regulatory atmosphere and how it just, yeah, that has a lot to do with how fast we can get there. So, and your example of your arm, it's just so beautiful because you are, you were doing regenerative medicine, right, through dietary approach, because calming the inflammation,

you're addressing this through a systemic method. And that's one of the mainstays of how I use stem cells to help people is through the systemic route because your arm, the tissue damage is, the reason it's chronic is because your body somehow could not repair it. Because acute injury, yes, you're gonna be inflamed, you're gonna be in pain,

but if your body is doing its job, cells should get right over there, take away the bad cells, calm the inflammation, now you can start regenerating. And why couldn't you? It's because your body was in this stuck position, is in this place of inflammation that it can't move on from.

Now, when you shift your diet, all of a sudden, you're allowing all the anti-inflammatory signals to come through, and now you can heal. So that's what we're doing with stem cell therapy as well. One of the main reasons stem cells work so well is that it calms the inflammation. Inflammation is hand in hand with aging. As we age, it doesn't matter how healthy you are,

your inflammation level is getting higher and higher as evidenced by inflammatory markers. You're just gonna get higher markers. It doesn't matter if you're a perfectly healthy, vibrant, older person. So inflammation is closely related to aging and aging is closely related with disease, is the most predictive factor of chronic illness,

including cancer. So if we can calm the inflammation, we can actually slow down the aging decline. So that's one of the powerful methods. And the other thing that stem cell therapy worked really well on is immune regulation. So that's kind of hand in hand with the inflammation. So if you're stuck in inflammation, that means your immune system is more shifted toward

inflammatory response. But there is a counter response that your system just get lower and lower in their capability of evoking. So when you are using stem cells, it can shift your body, get you out of that inflammatory stickiness, and now you can move on to regeneration. That's why it's been extremely powerful in autoimmune diseases.

It's like one of the places it just shines. If you have autoimmune, you have lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, and all kinds of odd, you know, autoimmune diseases. I believe they're calling the same diseases by over 120 names. So that make them feel better, make the doctors feel better. I know exactly. I know the organ. I know the problem of which organ and this is autoimmune, but not realizing that it's the same disease. It just pops up in different places. So which means the repair the the cure or the the you know, the method of addressing

it could be just one. If you just reduce inflammation and shift your immune system, it doesn't matter what you have and everything can get better. So that's the immune regulation. And besides that, it has all kinds of cool stuff that it can do like breaking down scar tissue. I've seen that in liver cirrhosis,

in lung fibrosis, right, COPD and other long damages, in peronies, which is an abnormal curvature of the penis because of inflammatory plaques, it's really easy to help. One injection is straightened right up. And so the breaking down of scar tissue is something that is exciting because conventional medicine has nothing for it. So, and then I heard that women like a little curve, but you know, I'm just saying, I don't want to knock all, you know, we don't want to knock all that stuff. I couldn't help myself.

So, um, yeah, I still have a like 11 year old sense of humor. Okay, so I want to rapid fire some things at you and kind of just get your quick thoughts on a couple, you know, kind of moving. We spent a lot of time on stem cells, which I really appreciate. I also, whether we do it with everyone listening or when we go, I want to figure out what like dark web website I can go to to order some like, you know, some something I can start to test with. I love testing stuff. Um, okay, so I'm gonna throw like a few different I'm gonna either maybe misclassified maybe not but but just regenerative type medicines or that I've seen classified as regenerative and just get your feedback on some of these. The first, and we'll start light and maybe move a little heavier,

like infrared therapy slash sauna heat therapy as a way to help your body regenerate. Yeah, I don't know how much evidence, but definitely infrared sauna, we know light is highly, um, you know, very good for cells, cellular health and for detoxification. Of course, that's going to enhance the health of your cells. I think we just, we're at the beginning of understanding what light can do. I do use light in our stem cell

treatment. Actually, I use laser light of different colors and wavelength. So red, green, and violet. So three different colors, those will target different mitochondrial enzymes, and that elevates the mitochondrial function. Of course, that is the powerhouse for the cells, and that will elevate your body's function, period. So, um, and also I can direct cells to particular locations if I use the laser to target. But, um, yeah, to answer your question, I love infrared sauna. And I think light therapy is a really, really powerful adjunct. I think we're just at

the beginning of understand how much of light beings we are. Yeah, I think I've heard, I've done it a few times, but I have a few buddies who've made it part of the routine and they swear by it. I mean, they're like, oh my gosh, my skin, the way I feel, it's incredible, but that's good to know. Okay, what about NAD? Talking about mitochondrial energy, I've heard a lot of people, I take a NAD powder that my,

a friend who is very into optimization got me turned on to. And he said, hey, this is like the food for our mitochondria. It helps our mitochondria work. It brings back cells that maybe, you know, gives them more energy. They perform for longer, etc. You know, where does that play a mix in this? Is that part of something people should be considering? Yeah, it's very popular. I think I've heard people getting tremendous results and feeling

great and doing great. I just don't notice a big difference in me when I do it. And it's very uncomfortable, but there are supplements you can also take to elevate your NAD level. So I think those are a good idea. There's still some controversies out there, you know, how much, you know, absorption rates and that kind of stuff. But I think in general, it could be helpful, but it's still individualized. Some people don't notice any benefit, but some people really swear by it. Yeah. The people who swear by it, I've found,

are the ones who can tolerate the injections or the drips and sit there for two hours and get an NAD drip. But it's also, I think to your point, and just for the audience, my experience has been, it's very expensive for the lack of real change that you seemingly feel, right? Like, you know what I mean? Like when you're talking like bang for the buck,

I like you said, it seems nominal versus what you have to pay to experience it where, you know, I think there's other ways. Another one and then I'm finishing with peptides because that's the one I'm actually very interested in. But I've seen this everywhere and I actually saw it on your channel. I have not had a chance to watch a video yet. Methylene blue. I've had multiple people not again not a doctor

but I've had more because I have because I do the podcast people seemingly think I know what I'm talking about. Just so everyone's listening I don't that's why I bring guests on like Dr. Joy. But I've had people reach out to me about methylene blue and just said what this all about. I literally have no idea what is methylene blue. Is this something that helps in this kind of regenerative frame or is it another kind of fly by night thing that you see on Instagram and TikTok? Well, Methan blue has had a history of over 140 years. So it was developed as a dye, you know, to dye genes. But then apparently people who were working in these in these factories that were, you know, had their hands in these dyes, they never got sick in one of the plagues. That's how they realized that there's a lot of antimicrobial properties.

And so they were the first anti-malarial drug developed. But later on they realized, oh, it can help with mental issues. So people in asylums, they started giving psychotic patients these Methylene Blue and found out they were helpful. And yeah, and then there was later on was used to help you know, help you fight a carbon monoxide poisoning, and because it can it can help take the molecule, the damaging molecule off the oxygen, I mean, off the the red blood cells. But then they found out that they were you were able to people were able to use it for traumatic brain injury. So emergency rooms started to give IV infusions of Methylene Blue for people who have traumatic brain injury. And that's, I think the popularity started to happen.

I wonder if it has to do with COVID when so many people have brain fog and low energy and people are searching for things that can really reverse that. And because what they found out is that is a potent mitochondria enhancer. So now people with brain fog, fatigue, and all kinds of conditions are able to get relief and it's really great for brain health.

So that's how it became, I think, popular. And of course, RFK was taking it. Yeah, no, that's really interesting. Because the guy that reached out to me is actually has long COVID, or is dealing with the ramifications of long COVID. And ever since he got COVID, he's had the brain fog and the lack of energy and some of the symptoms that have come. You know, I always part of me wants to be like, dude, you're 40 something years old, we all have we're all not as sharp as we were 20s. But um, but no, he was that's interesting.

So that that's really interesting that came out of COVID. I know we're running out of time, but I have to ask you about, and we probably don't have enough time to dig into deeper into these, but it gives me a reason to have you back. peptides, right? I'm currently taking some morelin, which I'm working with a woman who does hormone optimization. I had a really about a year ago, I got I like ran into a brick wall. Not literally figuratively. I'm Living in New York. I deal with the New York winners for 44 years and 44 years old. I've dealt with in my entire life I understand there's you know vitamin D and everyone kind of is a drop. You don't see the Sun for about four months

But man, it was different and I went got my testosterone tested and I was at a 70 so man, it was different. And I went and got my testosterone tested and I was at a 70. So seventh percentile of men my age. Oh my goodness. Which was bad, which was odd. I mean, I work out, I eat well, you know, whatever. But I was way off, way off, right?

Like no sex drive. I was, it took me every ounce of energy I had to get to the gym, terrible workouts, really bad moods, whatever. And so we did a little bit of testosterone stuff and kind of got that straightened out and figured out what that was. And some of that may have been stress-related,

but one of the things that she put me on was samoralin. And then that got me kind of researching more and learning more about what peptides can do. And so just with the time we have remaining, I'd love for you to finish a little bit, maybe just tell a little bit about how peptides work and if they work in conjunction with stem cells and how we should be considering these things. Yeah. Peptides is really a nature's way of making, getting things done. In our body,

we have over 300,000 different kinds of peptides. I mean, literally is a sea of peptides that's doing the work. So we've only discovered, I think about 70,000 of them, no, about 7,000 of them. And we are only using maybe around 100 or so. But it's still an expanding field. There's new things coming out, new discoveries. The beauty about peptides is that they're so specific. You can target specific organs, specific functions,

because it's like, all these keys, right, are floating around in your body and they're all searching for the lock. And so if you can replenish the keys, because a lot of times as we age, we may have lost certain keys and all of a sudden you can't unlock functions or you have really short supply of it,

you just can't get enough of the job done. So now we can replenish it, now we can unlock that function. That function can be immune function. So you can target by enhancing your thyroid function. I mean, thymus. So like the T alpha one, the thymus beta four, also called TB 500, you can you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you