Stem cell therapy: Longevity’s next frontier?

Dr. Joy Kong (00:00)

The aging process really sets in 35, 40. It kind of speeds up. Someone gave me a really funny analogy. It’s like a roll of toilet paper. The more you use it, the faster it goes. So that’s kind of the aging process. It just goes faster and faster.

 

Peter Bowes (00:14)

Hello again, welcome to the Live Long podcast. My name is Peter Bowes this is where we explore the science and stories behind human longevity with the goal of optimizing our healthspan and mastering the aging process.

 

Dr. Joy Kong (00:29)

When I got into stem cell therapy, of course I was pretty healthy. I was 45 years old, so now I’m 53. I was like everybody else that we are on the aging pathway, right? No one in the history of mankind has ever escaped this path.

 

Peter Bowes (00:43)

Now, the best things that we can do to enhance our longevity are to take lots of exercise and enjoy a nutritious, balanced diet. But today we’re going to explore a medical intervention that may help with aspects of our health that lifestyle alone cannot reach. We hear a lot about stem cell therapy or regenerative medicine, but what exactly is it and why would we consider it? Let’s talk to an expert.

 

Dr. Joy Kong is a triple board certified physician at Chara Health Center here in Los Angeles. She is a stem cell specialist and also focuses her practice on age related medicine. She is the author of a fascinating personal memoir, Tiger of Beijing, which recounts her journey from China to the land of opportunity, which would be the United States. We will get to that in a moment. But first, Dr. Kong, it’s great to talk to you.

 

Dr. Joy Kong (01:41)

Thank you so much, Peter. So happy to be here with you.

 

Peter Bowes (01:43)

It’s really good to meet you. The Chara Health Center in Los Angeles, not too far away from where I am now. What do you do there?

 

Dr. Joy Kong (01:51)

So we focus on stem cell therapy. Really, we want to reduce suffering and we want to bring more vibrancy to life. So 90 % of our patients actually come from all around the world with all kinds of pretty significant health issues. But the other 10 % are the people who are already fairly healthy and they just want to keep being healthy and live as young as possible and for as long as possible. So that’s what we focus on. We do stem cell therapy, but along with stem cells, we also add different modality to enhance the results of stem cells, such as ozone therapy, peptides, laser therapy, different nutritional therapies, and a lot of natural therapies. So that’s the scope. And we also do some ketamine therapy, which help with rewiring of the brain and help with mental health issues.

 

Peter Bowes (02:41)

So much to dive into there. Just before we do that, let’s talk about and really start with the basics in terms of stem cells. What are they?

 

Dr. Joy Kong (02:50)

So I always say, if you look at yourself, you came from a single stem cell. That is a fertilized egg. So when your mom and dad made you, you came, you were just one cell. But from that one cell, imagine that can form an entire walking, talking, thinking being like you with complex organs. And that is the power that’s embedded in that one cell. And where is it in? It is on the DNA, right? So the message is carried by the DNA. And the DNA is the most energy-dense substance in the universe. And what is energy but intelligence, really? So it’s intelligence that’s embedded in the DNA that can instruct the organism, the cells, to divide, migrate, and differentiate, and transform into cells of different organs. So when we use stem cells as a healing tool, we’re really tapping into that type of intelligence from the first blueprint.

 

Peter Bowes (03:54)

So, stem cells are unique? Are my stem cells unique to me?

 

Dr. Joy Kong (04:00)

Your stem cells are unique to you. All your cells are unique to you. So your stem cells are unique to you. But doesn’t mean that when we give one person’s stem cell to another, especially if the cells are really, really young, they may not have surface markers that mark them as something different from your own cells. So then you can theoretically and clinically, we’ve seen. transplant one person’s stem cells, especially if they’re very young, into another person, you can produce incredible healing benefits. But if you are getting cells, stem cells that are older, such as from somebody’s bone marrow, then you need a matching process because it’s so unique to you and it’s so much older. When it’s older, it’s expressing all these surface markers that’s marking them as foreign. So yes, they’re uniquely to you, but they may not manifest if they’re really young.

 

Peter Bowes (04:55)

Right, and as you’ve just hinted, there are different types of stem cells.

 

Dr. Joy Kong (04:59)

There are, and that’s where the confusion can come from. There’s a lot of controversy surrounding stem cells, partially from the initial ban on stem cell research in the George W. Bush era because of concerns of destroying an embryo. So the ban was on the federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, and stem cells basically embryos were not allowed to be destroyed from that particular ruling, but you can still do embryonic stem cell research from the embryonic stem cells obtained from the embryos. But that’s from day five to seven of the after fertilization. So those are very, very early cells and no one is using that in clinical research unless you have an FDA approval as a drug study. So you can only get these type of cells through a clinical study. However, these days, people are getting stem cell therapy from all kinds of sources that are not embryonic stem cells. For example, the ones I use and I love is called umbilical cord stem cells. So these are from life-healthy births. The cord and placenta of course are tossed away usually in the past  but it’s full of very young and very potent stem cells. So we can get cells from that, or you can get cells from your own body, from your own fat, your own bone marrow. These two are very popular sources. There are other sources too. Anywhere in your body, you have stem cells. So even any organ will have organ-specific stem cells. For example, your heart muscle, it will have heart muscle stem cells. The only ability for that heart muscle stem cell to develop is to develop into a heart muscle cell. So there’s one direction. But if we intercept, if we get cells upstream, when they still had a lot of potential to become all kinds of cells, then we can allow these cells to go into various directions of different tissue types. It really depends on where you intercept from the first fertilized egg all the way down to the tissue-specific stem cell. So yeah, so there’s wide array. When you talk about stem cells, people think, it’s this one type of cells that can become anything, and that it can be farther from the truth. There’s a thousand shades of gray, basically.

 

Peter Bowes (07:39)

So there are our own stem cells, are other people’s stem cells, as you say, a wide array of types of stem cells. Let’s talk about then how they can be used in terms of stem cell therapy. What kind of therapies are we talking about?

 

Dr. Joy Kong (07:55)

So there’s a lot of very active research from all around the world using different stem cell types. Some are focusing more on directing a particular stem cell type to become a particular end stage organ cells, know, sticking with the heart, heart muscle cell or liver, you know, liver cell, muscle, muscle cell. So anywhere, if you want the cells to develop just into the cells of that organ, you can induce them in certain way. That’s one type. Another type that’s more general, for example, nowadays the most popular one is called mesenchymal stem cells, MSCs for short. So these cells are already all over your body. Anywhere you have blood vessels, you have these cells. It’s a very special type of stem cells that their job is to hold on to blood vessels a lot of times because they have like these tentacles going around the neighborhood, sensing what’s going on in the local area, talking to local cells, to the immune cell, to the local stem cells, always communicating. But then they’re also sensing what’s going through the blood. They’re sensing the signals through the blood. If they’re needed, then they’re gonna traverse, know, squeeze themselves into the blood vessels and swim upstream to find where the stress signals are at. And then they can get out again and start working in the local area. So these are particular type of stem cells that provides a function of communication throughout the body. The function is to repair, it’s to regenerate, and it’s coordinating. So that is the type of cell that’s used a lot, but there’s also other types of cells, hematopoietic progenitor cells that’s used a lot in bone marrow transplantation for cancer survivors or people with severe autoimmune conditions. And again, that’s utilizing a particular cell type to differentiate into a type of cells, which are the blood cells. So all these are different types.

 

Peter Bowes (09:57)

So what are the main reasons that people will come to you for stem cell therapy? What are the main conditions that you can use this science to enhance their health? And is there a divide between those people who have a verified condition and those who simply want to enhance their healthspan or their longevity without having a condition or particular disease that stem cell therapy can help with?

 

Dr. Joy Kong (10:27)

Yeah, I think the beauty of holistic medicine is that we treat everybody almost the same because it’s all about optimizing. Whether or not you’re sick or you’re really healthy, you can still be optimized. If we know all the ways to optimize you, a lot of the sickness actually can go away. So the approach is similar, but for a person coming in with a particular condition, let’s say autoimmune issue, we may add different things to enhance the targeting of a particular organ. We can add particular peptides. We can target immune organs with our laser therapy that we use along with stem cell therapy. And if a person comes in with, you know, muscular skeletal issues, we have particular ways of doing that. Or brain issues, we have different agents we use along with the stem cells to open up the blood brain barrier to get more access to the brain. So it depends on what we’re dealing with. But of course, you you know that I cannot claim to treat any condition unless a particular condition has received FDA approval for stem cells to treat. So what I stress to our patients, one, is clinical evidence because I teach hundreds of doctors on how to do stem cell treatments. our course, the stem cell course through an academy I founded, we have hundreds of articles covering different conditions. So these are what has been studied and there’s wide array of conditions. I cover, you know, like 29 different organ systems and disease categories. Neurological is one category, right? Skin is another category. Kidney function is another category. So different organs, we have, you know, almost 30 categories. So in each one, there’s some really, really remarkable evidence. It doesn’t have evidence for everything and not all conditions actually have human studies. A lot of conditions have animal studies, but still there are more obscure and rare conditions that there are no studies because there’s no funding because it’s not very common. So first I look at what kind of studies have shown benefits and I actually have a video on YouTube, a quick lecture kind of going over the different categories. I’ll just give you a kind of short list from head to toe, right? We have brain conditions. There’s evidence for dementia, Parkinson’s, traumatic brain injury, stroke recovery, or MS, or ALS, these tough conditions. And then there’s also for even optic nerve repair for different eye conditions. Those are a little harder, but also helping with hearing recovery. There’s evidence for that. We’ve seen a lot of autoimmune disease showing, you know, having responded really well to stem cell therapy. And I personally have seen incredible results for rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, psoriasis, even sacroidosis, various, you know, tough conditions, even chemical hypersensitivity. That’s another immune dysregulation. And then we are seeing tremendous evidence in heart conditions, any kind of cardiovascular, atherosclerosis, right? People with, you know, heart disease or arterial disease. And then the lung conditions, COPD or lung injury, we’ve seen just incredible results for lungs. Lungs is one of my favorites to treat because it responds so well. It’s such an elegant treatment, you know, simple IV infusion and just incredible results. And then, kidneys, we’ve seen kidney function improving, people staying off dialysis or even getting off dialysis. We’ve seen, coming back to the brain condition, I forgot to mention autism. So that’s another big category, but that’s a full body condition as well. Frankly, everything is full body condition, but we’re looking at the manifestation a lot of times in a particular organ.

 

Peter Bowes (14:48)

Let’s talk about the practicality of stem cell therapy. In other words, I think a lot of people listening, watching this might be wondering, well, okay, you’ve just mentioned a lot of different conditions there. And some people might have reservations about FDA approval, experimental therapies, whether they are really going to help them. There’s lots of those issues. Let’s say in the background, very important to people. But in terms of the practicality, let’s say that you are dealing with a patient and you have determined that potentially stem cell therapy can help them. What happens? What do they need to do and what happens to them?

 

Dr. Joy Kong (15:26)

First of all, I want to make the point that if you want to wait for FDA approval, you can, but at what price, right? You can because it’s gonna take, usually the practice in medicine, which is what they follow FDA approvals, is about 20 years behind the breakthroughs in medicine. So there are certain doctors who are using the breakthroughs right away, and there are doctors who are waiting for 20 years for everything to percolate down through the educational channels and the insurance and everything until they are able to provide it to patients. So just be aware of that. And my function in this world is to reduce suffering and help people to live better and happier lives. So I’m not willing to wait for 20 years for a patient, know, to tell the patient, too bad, you know, yes, this therapy has shouldn’t be shown to be very helpful, but there’s no FDA approval. So I’m, can’t give it to you. So I’m not that kind of doctor. So how do people prepare for it? Be educated.

 

Peter Bowes (16:25)

Let me just jump in with one quick question there. When you say you will go ahead with a treatment that isn’t FDA approved, clearly that is entirely legal for you to do that.

 

Dr. Joy Kong (16:36)

Okay, so in the subject of stem cell therapy, there’s still a controversy whether or not stem cell therapy can be categorized as a drug, right? First of all, no single human being has been able to make a cell. I don’t care, you can make chemicals, you can make a molecule. We know one can make a cell because that is a nature’s gift. That is something created, I think, by something way beyond intelligence that we possess. So that goes into a whole other subject, but you cannot patent nature, right? You can’t patent nature. You can patent man-made chemicals or concoctions, but you can’t patent nature. So cells are created by nature. There’s of course controversy and objections to the FDA because doctors want to use this natural therapies like, you know, I’m taking an herb, you know, can I take this herb? Do I need FDA approval to take this herb? Because it’s created by nature. So the FDA regulates the production of drugs and everything else is in medicines regulated by the medical boards. These are the entities that regulates how medicines can be given. So tissue transplantation, blood transfusion, organ transplantation, these are not regulated by the FDA because these are not drugs. So they’re regulated by the medical governing entity, the practice of medicine. the argument is that using stem cells, that’s part of the practice of medicine because we’re using these natural cells to supplement, to help the body to heal. So the FDA responded by coming out with a guideline in 2017 saying, okay, so if you want to use the cells to help the human body, if you do not manipulate the cells, which means that you do not use enzymes, chemicals, you do not grow them to bigger numbers, whatever that was in nature, you separate them out and you give it to a and you give it to the person where the cells are doing the same function as before it was taken out of the body. If it’s a similar function, then you’re doing a tissue transplant. And then we are not categorizing it as a drug, then you don’t need an FDA approval. That’s how we’re able to provide stem cell therapy because we’re using minimally manipulated product and we’re giving it to the body to allow it to function the way it was meant to function. Then we are doing tissue transplantation and we’re practicing medicine.

 

Peter Bowes (19:15)

So it’s mighty complicated in many respects. And of course, these any regulations will differ according to where you are in the world and different countries and different authorities will have different attitudes towards this.

 

Dr. Joy Kong (19:30)

And who is in charge of the country.

 

Peter Bowes (19:34)

So we were talking about the practicality and you were just about to explain to me what the patient could expect.

 

Dr. Joy Kong (19:40)

So if a person wants to get stem cell treatment, I mean, at my clinic it’s really pretty simple. We do a very thorough evaluation and then we may suggest certain laboratory tests so we can dig a little deeper to look at their different organ system to see what needs to be fine-tuned. And then we want to suggest some supplements, not a lot, really the foundational pieces are just four supplements. I do not like overwhelming my patients with supplements. I don’t take a whole lot of supplements. I think a lot of time can be counterproductive when you take too many. And then we will tailor our treatment to a person’s condition. So tailor to their body weight, their age, their health issues, and also what exactly we’re trying to help. Is it a joint condition? Is it a particular organ? Then we may be able to use certain peptides to target those organs. Peptides are the little signaling molecules that there are numerous, hundreds of thousands of different types in our body. So they’re very, very specific. We can use specific peptides to target a particular organ. So all those will be done at the time of treatment. We’ll provide these healing modalities to the patient. But we can also start the patient a little earlier before they come in. So there’s no right or wrong answer. If you want to start earlier, that’s fine. Then you start the healing process little earlier. That’s all fine. And then we also use laser, light therapy, therapeutic laser to activate the cells, make the cells more mobile, make them more just energetically, they’re surviving better and then they’re more active. And we can also target the laser at particular organs to attract the cells to that organ more. So that’s kind of the quick overview. a lot of times we also do ozone therapy right before stem cells because we’re enhancing the immune system, we’re helping the body detoxify. So a lot of synergistic therapies that we add together.

 

Peter Bowes (21:55)

I started by saying that this is essentially a podcast about health optimization, extending our healthspan, the number of years that we enjoy life without chronic diseases. In terms of people coming to you who, I think I mentioned before, don’t have a specific disease or condition that they want to tackle, but they just want to do everything they can to, in terms of interventions, to extend their health span. What sort of advice and treatment, can you give those people and where would you start with that discussion?

 

Dr. Joy Kong (22:30)

Yeah, so these people would be in the same category as myself. So when I got into stem cell therapy, course, I was pretty healthy. I was 45 years old, so now I’m 53. So of course, I was like everybody else that we are on the aging pathway, right? No one in the history of mankind has ever escaped this path. So, but what can you do to kind of slow things down to a point where you’re extending your useful time, your healthy time for a much longer period. I think extending that for 15, 20 years, that’s really no big deal. know, now knowing what stem cells can do. So the recommendation since I got started was that if you want to enhance your ability to regenerate and rejuvenate and possibly dialing back the clock is that you do stem cell therapy every three to six months. I think when you’re younger, let’s say you’re you’re only 30 years old, maybe once a year is fine. But you know, the aging process really sets in 35, 40, you know, it kind of speeds up. Someone gave me a really funny analogy is like a, like a roll of toilet paper. The more you, you use it, the faster it goes. So that’s kind of the aging process. It just goes faster and faster. So if it goes faster, then you may want to do STEM cells a little bit more frequently. So as you get older, you may want to do a little bit more frequently, but in general, when people started in their middle age, or even in their 60s, I think every three to six months is very recent.

 

Peter Bowes (24:02)

When you say do stem cells or do stem cell therapy…

 

Dr. Joy Kong (24:05)

That would be IV stem cell therapy.

 

Peter Bowes (24:07)

Right, so let’s dive into that. What does that involve?

 

Dr. Joy Kong (24:10)

The same process I just talked about, right, evaluation, and then we determine the dosage on the person’s body weight, age, and health issues. If they’re really healthy, then we don’t need to add any additional cells for a health condition. So we just calculate what the patient needs based on their body weight and age. And then of course we do everything else pretty much the same. The different supplements, the peptides, and the laser treatments. So it’s pretty much the same. Of course, we want to evaluate their labs, looking at their hormones and looking at their carbohydrate metabolism, et cetera, inflammation markers. So we want to provide a holistic package so a person is doing everything they can to not be in the way of regeneration and healing.

 

Peter Bowes (24:59)

And what is the source of those stem cells for the IV stem cell therapy?

 

Dr. Joy Kong (25:06)

Yeah, I’ve talked a lot about the source and I have a lecture on YouTube called Are All MSCs Created Equal? We talked about the MSCs, mesenchymal stem cells, how important they are for the regeneration of the body. But not all MSCs are the same. If you’re getting it from your own body, such as your own fat or bone marrow, versus getting it from very young source like the umbilical cord, the quality and the capabilities of these MSCs are actually very different. When I compare these different sources, it turns out that the younger sources from the umbilical cord, everything about these cells are superior to a person’s own cells when they’re older. So when compared to bone marrow or fat-derived stem cells, these younger sources, it secretes more anti-inflammatory factors. They have longer telomeres. They have more generations left. They have wider differentiation potentials. They’re more neuroprotective. And most importantly, well, not most important, but very importantly, they also have better ability to detect cancer because one of the only caveat about stem cell therapy is people say, can it promote cancer because it tells everything to grow? Well, yes, if you’re using your own stem cells that have lots of certain capabilities and intelligence at recognizing cancer, then it tells everything to grow, including a person’s own. emerging cancer cells, which we all know, all of us keep having these cells popping up as part of being alive. So if you have cells that tells everything to grow, including cancer cells, then you’re increasing risk. However, if you use younger stem cells like the umbilical cord source, the tendency is that these cells will recognize the cancer and send them a particular signals, these ligand actually tell them to go on programmed cell death. So they’re vastly different. That’s why I choose the umbilical cord derived stem cell as the source for my patients.

 

Peter Bowes (27:04)

Okay, so umbilical cord stem cells, where do they come from? Who do they come from? What is the original source of those stem cells?

 

Dr. Joy Kong (27:13)

Yeah, so the source will be from young healthy births. So there’s a whole process of how these are obtained. There are procurement companies, that’s all they do. They have contracts with birthing clinics and hospitals. When a woman is about to give birth, then they ask the woman, do you want to save the cord for your own baby? Or would you like to donate? Actually, majority of the women will donate because it does cause a lot of money to store the tissue or cells. you know, they may not have the financial resources or they see the importance of it. So they would donate. The companies, well, I can’t speak for every stem cell lab out there, but for us, we only accept tissue from younger women under age 30 who are giving birth through cesarean section because that’s when – it’s a surgical field, right? It’s completely sterile. Then you’re not introducing any contamination bacteria from the vaginal canal. But these women can only, these tissue from these women can only be accepted if the women have gone through very, very strict screening. And that includes questionnaires about their own health history, their family history, their travel history, work history, their sexual history, their partner’s history. So everything you can imagine that goes into, that can affect the quality of this cord is asked. That even, only if they have a pristine answer, then we will accept such donation. And so at the time of birth, the procurement company will be right there waiting for the birth tissue. So as long as the baby is healthy, you know, is crying, right, you cut the cord. And then the cordon placenta will be put in the normal saline bag and be sent to a lab. Different labs are different. Most of them are doing overnight delivery on ice and sent to a stem cell laboratory. And that’s when they will start processing it. And even before they process it, they’re supposed to send everything for infectious disease testing. These are all the ones that are required. buy the American Association to Tissue Bank for any organ or tissue donation. have to screen for these infectious diseases. And then after the product is finished, you have to send it out to another third-party lab for sterility testing, which means that you have not introduced bacteria or other contamination into your product. So they will take about two weeks. They have to grow the product, try to put in a culture to receive anything, any bacteria. develops any toxins, these endotoxins are secreted and the results will come back in two weeks. And only when that’s clear, then the products is available for sale, I guess, to doctors and to be allowed for clinical use.

 

Peter Bowes (30:23)

What do the long-term clinical studies that follow up people who’ve had stem cell therapy, perhaps on, as you say, sort of three to six monthly basis, with their overall health and longevity in mind pursuing that healthspan, is their data?

 

Dr. Joy Kong (30:40)

Yeah, I haven’t seen long-term study. There’s one human study that was only looking at three months and six months after stem cell treatments, and they noticed that people have a better skin. They noticed improvement in skin and hair and energy level and sex drive. So, but that’s fairly short-term, right? Three to six months. The long-term. So far, we have animal studies because animals only live for about 20 months, right? They age at much faster speed and they die. So then you can really test to look at their aging process and look at the longevity aspect. How long does it affect lifespan? So for humans, by the time your subject’s finished, you probably have died. It’s going to take a long time, but we can learn a lot from animal studies. was fascinating in animal studies that in both mice and rats, when you start to give these animals regular stem cells when they’re like kind of middle-aged, the time that they live, the lifespan has been extended by 30% consistently. So that has been repeated. You extend lifespan, but not just how long they live, but how well they live. So they look better, their spine is straighter, their hair is shinier. They’re running around faster, know, better locomotion. And then their ability to think, you know, to go around mazes is maintained. So they maintain their useful capabilities. And what’s fascinating was when they actually dissected some of these animals, when they look at their muscles and their brain tissue and look at all these markers, whether or not it’s neurotransmitter levels, because the levels decline as we age, or toxic metabolic waste built up, or their growth factor secretions, or other senescent markers that start to show up as you get older. All these parameters, after stem cell treatment, everything was reverted to the younger state. So you have physiological markers that demonstrate the maintenance of youthful state. Another thing I want to add that even if you’re not middle-aged, let’s say you are 70 years old it’s still not too late because there’s this experiment looking at these old mice and human equivalent age of 75 years old when half of their peers have died. And then they start giving them stem cells. I think it was every two weeks. The amount of time these animals have left on earth was basically three times as long versus the mice that did not get the stem cells. So you triple the amount of time that you have left on earth. So that’s very significant. That’s very, you know, it really, I think gives a lot of hope for people who are looking for something that really can make a big impact.

 

Peter Bowes (33:42)

And what about anecdotal evidence from patients that you yourself have treated over a period of time? How have you, maybe you could give me some idea of what the longest period is that you followed a particular patient and what changes if any you’ve seen?

 

Dr. Joy Kong (33:58)

So one thing I can tell you, because I’ve been doing IV stem cells on myself every three months for last eight years, and I’ve only met a couple of other people who have done as long as me, and they all look at least 10 years younger than their age. So that I’ve seen. And then for my own patients, I think the longest one that has been doing this consistently has been five years. And this is actually a doctor, and he is, I think, 83 years old now and he looked like he’s in his 60s and people couldn’t believe. And he has great energy level, he still travels extensively and teaching other doctors. Yeah, he’s functioning amazingly well.

 

Peter Bowes (34:42)

And what emphasis do you put on, and clearly there are many facets of life, many aspects of our lives that influence our health and longevity. And I mentioned at the start, obviously our nutrition, our diet, our exercise regime. They play a significant part, don’t they, in terms of that healthy aging process?

 

Dr. Joy Kong (35:01)

Yeah, I think diet is the foundation. you put dirty things in your body, then your body is going be made of dirty things. Diet is crucial in reducing toxic exposures. There’s so many toxicities around, you know, even the EMF and, you know, things from the air, from household products. There’s so much that one can do to reduce the impact. And of course, there’s so many things that are going to be helpful. Good sleep is important. Good mental state, reducing stress, that we all know is crucial. So meditation, yoga, things like that will be very helpful.

 

Peter Bowes (35:41)

You obviously yourself have a personal passion for longevity and you say you’ve been treating yourself in terms of stem cell therapy for a number of years. I’m just curious what your personal longevity goals are. How do you see the decades ahead and how do you, I mean, clearly it’s obvious how you apply the science to yourself, but what is your vision of the future for you?

 

Dr. Joy Kong (36:05)

I think there is a possibility that we can live a very, long time with the breakthrough of medicine. I’m talking about hundreds of years. I think it’s a possibility. But personally, I don’t care for it that much. I just want to be healthy and enjoy my existence. I don’t want to be in pain. I don’t want to be in discomfort. I want to have full mental capacity and really enjoy everything that life has to offer. I, you know, before I encountered anti-aging medicine, I always thought I was going to live until I was 92. But now I have anti-aging medicine, you know, I’m like, okay, 115 probably is no problem. But, you know, don’t really, again, I’m not attached to that because I also a very spiritual person, I think we are way more than what this physical, this flesh body, you know, this is. So I don’t mind moving on to explore other realms. So to me it’s not as important, but what is important is that I enjoy my experience when I’m right here.

 

Peter Bowes (37:15)

I just wanted to, before we finish this conversation, just to touch on your book, which I mentioned at the beginning of this interview. It is a personal memoir, Tiger of Beijing, full title, The Inspirational Memoir of a Fierce Regenerative Medicine physician. And it is your own very personal story of how you got to the United States.

 

Dr. Joy Kong (37:37)

Yeah, how I got to the United States and how I survived the first two years is almost like a two separate journey in a sense. But it’s of course connected. How I got to the US was related to how I’m living the first two years in the US because of a particular person I met when I was in China. But the story is about overcoming adversities and sticking to your dream and not let anybody take that away and also fight for your soul, right? Fight for what you believe that your life is worth. So that’s, know, for me in China, I just had this gut feeling that I had to be in the United States. I call it tiger of Beijing because I was kind of like a tiger who has any my friends, they would know I’m, you know, I was very strong-willed, very stubborn, rebellious. So I didn’t quite fit in China. I wanted to be in a place that’s more free, that I can be more, I just express myself more freely without being judged, you know, without so much restriction. Cause I felt, just kind of like bound when I was in China. So I knew I wanted to get out and, my first attempt getting out was rejected in the American embassy. So that’s where the book started about me being very confident. I thought I was going to get the visa, but no, I was rejected. So what do you do from there? Because I grew up, know, my parents were teachers. We had no money, no connections. What do I do? I was rejected by this powerful country, the most powerful country on earth after the pretty powerful country, China, have made it very difficult for me to even get to the doorsteps of the embassy. So what do you do? And then I went on kind of an adventure, which makes a pretty good story, except that the story was real, that I actually lived it step by step. So I’m a very truthful person. like, I think truth is very powerful. So I share the true story with the world. At first, I thought I was going to write it as a novel because I enjoy writing and I thought, okay, I’m just, you know, this is about the story. But then I realized I got tired of using the third person and I just wanted to just speak, you know, this is me, this is my story. So what the whole world know this is what happened to me instead of happened, you know, to this other person in the book. So I decided, okay, the whole world can know this happened to me. And that’s no big deal. That’s when I decided to make it a memoir.

 

Peter Bowes (40:24)

Do you go back to visit?

 

Dr. Joy Kong (40:26)

Yeah, yeah, frequently my parents, all my families are still there.

 

Peter Bowes (40:30)

I’m just curious in just closing this, what are you excited about in terms of the future and stem cell therapy? What can you see on the horizon that we could be talking about and people could be experiencing perhaps in a few years time?

 

Dr. Joy Kong (40:43)

I think stem cell therapy is going to be a lot more available, that more people are going to benefit from it. What I see is that this is maybe not a few years, but maybe in 10 years, that this could be as common as antibiotics. That is no longer going to be a fancy term that everybody’s like, of course you’re going to get stem cells. What, you want to get better quicker? Get some stem cells. you got sick? Get some stem cells. Are you going to do surgery? Well, of course you’re going to take some stem cells so you can heal way faster and way better. So it’s just going to be part of human existence that we know that there are these powerful cells available to help us repair and keep us younger. And then it’s just going to be just part of us. It’s not going to be a fancy treatment then.

 

Peter Bowes (41:28)

Well Dr Joy Kong, I really wish you all the best with your future work. Fascinating conversation. Thank you very much indeed.

 

Dr. Joy Kong (41:35)

Of course Peter. Yeah, thank you for all your good questions.