0:00 Root-Cause Medicine and the Body as a Garden

Dr. Yi Song: Western medicine approaches are very narrow. They are for profit. They are not for your benefit. Most times they use one size fits all. And human bodies, a garden, they are not a machine. You will never want to wait until the fire already starts to dig the well.

0:23 Stem Cell Therapy and Healthy Aging Overview

Dr. Yi Song: Welcome to Stem Cell Talk. Today, I'm joining Sue Hitzmann to talk about stem cell therapy, healthy aging, and why real healing starts by treating the root cause, not just the symptoms.

0:35 Dr. Yi Song's Medical Lineage and Integrative Approach

Sue Hitzmann: I'm really excited to dive into a number of questions. One of them being this big lineage and this leap that you took because I read in your bio that you grew up in a 17 generation medical family. That's crazy. So I can just imagine your parents saying you can be anything you want as long as you're a doctor. It just seems like that's probably a non-negotiable. But you pursued Western pathology at Brown before returning to holistic medicine. So tell us a little bit about what was the moment for you when you realized that you needed to integrate both worlds to really help people and that the Western world was just not enough.

1:17 Pathology, Chinese Medicine, and Whole-Body Care

Dr. Yi Song: So I always wanted to solve the fundamental cause of the disease and then relieve people from suffering. That was my goal even when I was a teenager. But when I realized the pathology or Western medicine approaches are very narrow, focused on a single molecule, on cells, so they overlook the whole picture, like the whole forest. And human bodies actually are a garden. They are not a machine. You can just switch out the parts. So that's when I realized we need the holistic approach to look at the body as a whole garden Instead of just studying one molecule. So that's what I switched and also because I witnessed my own grandmother I witnessed my mother when she reached age 50 that was around 2000 That was when I was actually studying pathology that they were having all kinds of health problems in their later ages or when my mother got menopause, then the Western medicine really couldn't help them. Or they would just get a lot of side effects and then they would keep going down, having side effects from medication, then you have to use something else to fix the side effects. So it just keeps rolling and then you're on medication for the rest of your life. But for my mother up till now, she's 81 and she doesn't take any medications and she doesn't have any high blood pressure, high cholesterol or diabetes, even though my mother's family had generations of having diabetes.

Sue Hitzmann: Wow. Yeah. I can say, a lot of people who listen to this podcast know the story of my mom after she fell this past year. She broke her femur, had a bad surgery, had to have another surgery. And when you suddenly get roped into the medical world, you realize what a cotton-picking mess it actually is and how absolutely non individual only symptom based they are and that they will throw another pill at a problem that that causes another problem that they're like, my giving an example, my mom, her, we thought something was maybe wrong with her heart. And they were like, Oh, we'll just give her another amlodipine so that she's taking two in a day. And then her lower leg swelled up so bad. I was like, this is like really concerning. And And they're like, well, either you help our heart or you deal with the swelling. And you can just take a pee pill for the swelling. And I thought to myself, we're not taking any of these things. We're just gonna like figure out some better holistic way to keep your blood pressure in a normal base. But the medical world is not in this mindset at all. You must go bananas as a medical practitioner knowing this in the regular medical world, because I know your work really emphasizes is that healthy aging is, it's fundamental and it's actually beginning a long time before you even have symptoms.

Dr. Yi Song: Exactly.

4:22 Healthy Aging Starts Before Symptoms Appear

Dr. Yi Song: So that's why in my book just published the abridged version of the big one that's coming soon in the next two months is talking about six principles of natural longevity. And the number two is early prevention. So you will never want to wait until the fire already starts to dig the wells thinking, oh, I need to do something. But a lot of people, since we even including people in China nowadays, a lot of people are also growing up with the concept of Western medicine. So they just think their doctors know the solution to their health problems. If they get to the point that they need surgeries or they need to take pills, they don't think like they need to address their body's imbalance even before they have any symptoms.

Sue Hitzmann: how do you help people understand prevention as a daily practice rather than a crisis response? How do you do it?

5:23 Body Constitution, Epigenetics, and Personalized Prevention

Dr. Yi Song: So we basically need to recognize people's constitution or their body type. Like in Western medicine, most times they use one size fits all approaches. So they just, if you have blood pressure, let's take this pill. If this doesn't work, let's switch to another one. And they don't really look at each person. They have their own unique constitution. So that's the number one principle among the six principles I talked about in the book. Basically you need to recognize each person's unique constitution. So the constitution partially is from your birth. So once you're born, you already carry certain predisposition, certain strengths and weakness in your body from your parents. And then you have your postnatal life, diet, lifestyle, sleep, everything, exercise, everything that can affect your prenatal constitution. That's the part we're talking about in Western medicine now called epigenetics. So even though you have certain predisposition to certain things, that doesn't mean you will definitely develop certain disease down the road. If you know how to modify your body's imbalance according to your body's constitution, according to your body type, then you can actually address your body's excess or weakness properly. So in that way, you will not have any imbalance develop over time to the point that they develop into very severe conditions. So one example is my mom again, my mom's family, including my grandmother, my grandmother, six siblings, all of them have type two diabetes later in their life. And some of them got really bad conditions from the type two diabetes. But my mom certainly has that gene disposition too. And I actually recently did a genetic testing recently. They told me I also have that diabetic predisposition. But my mom up till now, she hasn't developed any diabetic symptoms and she never took any diabetic medications. So it is possible that you modify your body's predisposition, the imbalance early, then you will not need to get into the point that you have to take surgery or medication.

Sue Hitzmann: Yes, my God, I hope everybody is hearing this. I feel like even our genetics are not really what is, it's just one factor, but lifestyle is so absolutely, I think more important in everything that we do, not just the food that we eat, but the relationships we have. And most importantly, you just mentioned your sleep. So I think, yeah, God, I hope everybody's hearing this. That's just so simple.

Dr. Yi Song: We're in a society like most people, they have sleep deprivation, right? And then we have so many social media things that people are addicted, not going to sleep and watching social media or watching Netflix.

Sue Hitzmann: Yeah, to the last second when they're asleep. And then they're like, God, I didn't sleep well. And I'm like, I say that to my boyfriend all the time, how about, just an idea, you stop using your phone up until the point when you finally fall asleep, you'll actually stay asleep. That blue light is intended to increase cortisol and get you addicted. So cut that crap out, but he's still, I don't know. It's like talking to a wall sometimes. But I also wanna go back, you're talking about modern medicine. And I'd like to say that they often treat the symptoms, but really they only treat the symptoms. I've never seen a doctor now. And again, I've really never gone to, I've never had to go to see a doctor, but now with my mom, I feel like we're in a doctor's office like every week, just a different specialist. And they love sending you to another specialist because that's a copay thing, but I digress. But so what patterns, I wanna know, are there patterns that you see most often when people come to you with a chronic issue that haven't been resolved elsewhere, that they've actually been dealing with something and you're noticing it and in an instant you're like, well, what about this? Is that often? Is that common?

9:41 Stress, Digestion, and the Body's Irrigation System

Dr. Yi Song: Yes. So for example, if somebody comes in saying she has been having digestive issues for the past 10 years, and then her doctor, Western doctor would just put her acid reflux proton pump inhibitor or even just tell her to modify her diet. But then that's not sufficient because what happens is when you have digestive system problems over long term, it's not simply a digestive system issue. It is actually an issue from your body's irrigation system if we look at the body as a garden, because your digestion needs the irrigation system to run smoothly to function well. And if you have some long term anxiety, depression, stress, that the first thing it will act on would be the digestive system. So that's why when people they feel anxious, sometimes they would feel stomach upset, or people would have IBS symptoms. That means your digestive system is connected to the emotional stress.

Sue Hitzmann: I 100% agree with that. I always say sometimes your stress is actually eating you alive. Literally, it's eating your guts out and that is what's causing it. And you're right. I've had so many clients who come and they've are on six or seven medications when really it's just they're stressed out. That's as simple as it is. And there's no amount of medication that's going to fix that. That's a whole mindset thing. So one of the things you had, and I really want to talk about this because it's becoming more and more popular out there is the evolution in stem cell therapy. And you've said that your path into stem cell therapy was both scientific, but it was also very deeply personal. So I want to start there just with your own personal journey of what drew you into that field and what convinced you that regenerative medicine was the missing piece.

11:47 Stem Cell Therapy Begins With a Family Health Crisis

Dr. Yi Song: So my experience with stem cell, the first treatment was with my mom again. So my mom is always my guinea pig for anything I want to try. They are our best teachers. I agree. So the problem is my mom is even though she never developed diabetes and she does have that diabetic genetic predisposition from her family. And so she has this lower like circulation issue or vein insufficiency that became very dominant about five years ago. And it gave her a lot of inflammation in the lower leg. The leg looks like a champagne bottle. It has redness, swelling, and also she feels a lot of pain constantly. So we tried many different things before I even got to know about stem cells. We tried acupuncture herbal medicine. We even searched whether there is any effective Western medicine treatment for that. It turns out that the Western medicine treatment, again, is not even fixing the root problem. They are either trying to close your vein with ablation. So they think then your vein will now leak the fluid out. Then they think that won't cause further inflammation. Or I know, personally, another patient of mine whose mother at that time she had stent treatment in her from the growing area. And then they think that will blow out the vein, the junk in the vein, so that it will open it up a little bit more. But then it ended up that she had to have amputation because of that. Because they blew all the junk into her feet and she was diabetic. So then she couldn't clean out those junk. They blew out from the stent. Then they had to amputate her feet.

13:45 Stem Cell Research for Type 2 Diabetes

Sue Hitzmann: Do you think that you can, can you actually, do you think you can reverse type two diabetes with stem cell therapy?

Dr. Yi Song: According to research that was not done in the United States, there's a research paper that was done in China. They actually followed up with a group of type two diabetic patients with, they did stem cell treatment three times in the first six months. Then after that, they followed up this group of patients, like around 200 or 300 people, for up to four years. And after the six months treatment, a certain percentage of people, they actually could get off their diabetes medication. And then there's also a certain person. They, I think they did double blind. I don't remember exactly how they did it, but basically compared to the control group, there's a significant benefit of using stem cell treatment. And also when they followed up for up to four years, the group that received the stem cell treatment still has significant amount of people in the group whose A1C level is still controlled very well without taking the medication.

Sue Hitzmann: Wow. And I do want you to mention this because I know this to be true is that not all stem cells are alike. And this was something we talked even offline a little bit about was that when my mom got stem cell therapy, when her hip was really hurting her and her knee, we were like, let's just see if it helps. And we were using her stem cells. So can you talk about the difference and like what which like how do you use them? Which is the best to use?

15:36 Umbilical Cord Stem Cells Versus Autologous Cells

Dr. Yi Song: Okay, so for your mom when she did her own stem cell from her bone marrow or fatty tissue, if you are 80 years old, your own body stem cells are 80 years old as well. So that means they don't have the ability to proliferate. That's one of the reasons why we age is because of stem cell exhaustion. Because when we age our stem cells ability to repair our body, to regenerate the tissue, declines significantly. So somebody in their 60s compared to the umbilical cord stem cells, there's like a 400,000 times decline in the ability of the stem cells. So when you use umbilical cord stem cell, not embryonic stem cells, so embryonic stem cells are pluripotent. They are unethical to obtain because you have to kill the embryo. And also they are dangerous because they can develop into anything, including cancer. So we never use embryonic stem cells. We use the umbilical cord stem cells, which are the same type of stem cells from your marrow called mesenchymal stem cells. So the umbilical cord stem cells are like a jump starter to your body when you are in your 70s, 80s, or whatever age you receive them, because they are zero age and they are full of energy and life. They secrete so much growth hormones and cell signaling molecules. So when you get the umbilical cord stem cells injected into your joint or intravenous infusion, you actually are adding like the zero year old life energy into your body to supplement your body's energy. So it's a jump starter to start your own body stem cells to start dividing better, proliferating, and also repairing mainly the damaged tissue. So that's how why the umbilical cord stem cells can have much better effects than using your own body stem cells.

Sue Hitzmann: And so I would imagine that when you have a baby, you should keep that, you should keep the umbilical cord for that child in general, right? Because can't they keep that so that if as you age, something happens, you're actually still using your own genetically inclined cells. And that's one thought that I have in my mind. And the other is like, how does my body accept these cells if they aren't mine to begin with?

18:20 Cord Blood Banking Versus Cord Tissue Storage

Dr. Yi Song: So nowadays there are certain percentage of people they actually do keep their baby's umbilical cord. But then even when you do that, you have to keep in mind that there's a difference between keeping the cord blood versus keeping the umbilical cord tissue. Because sometimes people only froze, cryopreserve their baby's cord blood because they think once we preserve that if the baby later on develop leukemia, myeloma, lymphoma, then they can use the baby's cord blood to treat these conditions. But on the other hand, if you do have the chance of keeping your baby's umbilical cord, If you do this practice in the United States, you can only retrieve your baby's own umbilical cord if this baby at a certain age develops a certain condition and they deem it as medically necessary. So it's very strict and it's now clearly written because recently, last year, I had a woman who was pregnant with her first baby and she wanted to save her baby's umbilical cord because she said it's like paying for an insurance for the baby's health. But I actually recommended her to contact a place in Houston where they actually even isolate the mesenchymal stem cells from your baby's umbilical cord and then store that for you. But then she was trying to ask them when she can retrieve those, they say only in medical emergency. So you have to have proof that you have this medical emergency for your baby. Otherwise, you cannot retrieve them.

Sue Hitzmann: Yeah, that's the whole US regulatory landscape that drives me crazy. I'm always talking about this whole food and drug administration. Is anybody going to whistle about this? It's like these two things should not be together. And stem cell therapy isn't FDA-approved in the US. But you're saying actually, is it now? Because I know that that in and of itself creates a lot of fear and a lot of confusion in people. So how do you explain the regulatory limitations? And of course, this is one of the reasons why you chose to practice in Colombia, right? So talk a little bit about that too.

20:52 FDA Status and Stem Cell Standardization

Dr. Yi Song: Yeah, so none of these procedures with stem cells are FDA-approved. The only procedures that are FDA-approved are using, say, your umbilical cord blood or umbilical cord stem cells to treat leukemia or lymphoma. There are procedures approved for that. However, they do not have any other procedures like for osteoarthritis or even for rheumatoid arthritis, autoimmune condition, none of these are approved by FDA. And the reason for that is because, first of all, stem cells from the umbilical cord, they are now, they're like a natural ingredient. They are not a single ingredient pharmaceutical. So it's very difficult for the pharmaceutical company to patent it because it's a natural ingredient. You cannot say you devised this component to treat this disease. So there's not a lot of profit for the big pharmaceutical companies to pursue this type of thing. So that's why the other reason why FDA has not approved any of these. And then the other thing is, it's very difficult to standardize because when you get the umbilical cord stem cells even from one single donor, and then you grow in the lab, which all of these cells are from the same donor, the same origination, they still are not a homogenous cell culture, because they have many subtypes, subpopulation that display different properties. So then because this is very difficult to standardize, then that's another reason why it's very difficult to be approved by FDA. So because of that, and also for a lot of orthopedic conditions, or even some Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, the umbilical cord stem cell treatment can be very powerful. Like my mom's condition, there's no proven research paper saying that it will help her. But because I understood the mechanism, how the stem cell works, and I thought, why don't we just try it because there's nothing to lose. And they worked within the months for her. And ever since then, she probably has been getting stem cell treatment on average twice a year. And for her leg, one leg was completely the inflammation was gone after about three months. And then the other leg two years later started developing the same thing. So then we did two more treatment on the other leg. That was like about one year and a half ago.

Sue Hitzmann: So now she doesn't have any inflammation in her legs. So are you doing it local? You're actually injecting it locally into the body?

23:47 Local Stem Cell Injections and IV Infusions

Dr. Yi Song: So for my mom's condition and for a lot of people's condition, like your mom's hip or those type of things, it is beneficial to do both local injection and intravenous. Because for anybody with aging, we have more chronic inflammation. It is proven as one of the hallmarks of aging. Because our body just cannot keep up regenerating and repairing the damage from our daily activity, then the deficit accumulates. So when that happens, that's when the chronic inflammation arises. So the umbilical cord stem cells are very good at reducing inflammation all over the body. So when you introduce the stem cells through intravenous infusion, it actually travels throughout your body in your bloodstream and since where you have inflammation, then they will hone into the area where the inflammation is. So then in that kind of case, if you have this leg problem or the joint issue, the knee, then you do the systemic intravenous infusion plus the local injection. That's the best result. If you are finding our conversation helpful, please make sure to subscribe so that you don't miss our future episodes. We talk about everything from stem cell science to holistic healing approaches, all grounded in research and real results.

Sue Hitzmann: Wow. And where? I don't know these like just kind of crazy ideas just come in my mind, but where does a clinic get umbilical cord stem cells? Are people donating them? Are they? Are there are there? Yeah, like how is somebody getting that?

25:39 Umbilical Cord Donation and Cell Processing

Dr. Yi Song: So because a lot of people, they don't know anything about the umbilical cord. So basically after a woman giving birth to a healthy baby, the umbilical cord most times are discarded. And then there are these cord banks, of course, nowadays they already realize umbilical cord has a lot of good stuff in it. So they would go to the hospital to ask people around, ask the pregnant women who are about to deliver babies, do you want to donate your umbilical cord? So if they agree to donate, they will sign the paper. Then at when they are delivering the baby, they are going to get the umbilical cord from the baby to the court bank because they didn't say they were going to save it for their own baby sake. They're not going to pay $5,000 or something like that, or $200 per month for the rest of the baby's life. Then these cord banks, they actually obtain the donor umbilical cord. Then they isolate the cells from the umbilical cord. And in US, you can only cryopreserve them right after the isolation. Then they can sell to practitioners for treating the joint issues.

Sue Hitzmann: I think that's really the problem that's going on for everybody. And it's frustrating for me is that, in the US, we now have concierge medicine, and these concierge places, which sounds so much more appealing than me spending $800 a month on insurance that doesn't really do anything for me. And we're really in kind of I think a crossroad of recognizing that the insurance companies are not out for us, we can give them all of our money. But then when we need it, they're like, Oh, well, hang on a minute, we're not gonna like actually help you out, you're gonna have to pay out pocket for, your health care, we're not, we're not here to help you, you're here to fund us and give us jobs. And that's kind of what it feels like to me. But there's this also this concept of like, personalized medicine rather than this one size fits all, which I think is what our medical practices like what you talked about earlier, and I know that your work kind of blends not only stem cells, but these anti aging protocols and also emotional health. So talk a bit about personalized balance care, and why that's so essential for true regeneration.

28:07 Personalized Medicine, Insurance, and Treatment Access

Dr. Yi Song: Yeah, so we already talked about we need to recognize your body's constitution, right? Each person is different. So we have to recognize that whole body balance and imbalance since your birth. And then we need to address the weakness and moderate the excess in your body. Even though you don't have any symptoms. And then, the insurance company in the United States, all of them are publicly traded. So they are for profit. They're not for your benefit. They're not for your health. So what they want is they want to collect money from you and then make money out of your premium. But then when you do need something, they don't want to pay. Bummer for you, sorry. Yeah, so, so this is this, that's the reality. And even recently Mark Cuban, who started some kind of online drug, like medication website, he even said he said the insurance is not for your health. So if you really want to be healthy, and then take care of your body, you better off just pay out of pocket for your own health needs, instead of paying the insurance company the premium. Yeah, that's a fact.

Sue Hitzmann: I actually had, I was talking to my boyfriend the other day, and I just got at a calculator. I'm like, let's just say that I've been paying health insurance since I'm 20. And let's say on average, it was between three and $800. So it's just like hit it at a $500 a month premium. You're talking about $300,000 over a lifetime that I've already paid out. And I think I've been to a doctor like twice, you know what I mean? Like there's, it's just like, God, I could really, I might as well just put it in escrow and when I need it, it's there. Exactly. And I think a lot of people are at that place because the bad news about concierge medicine that I'm seeing and even stem cell is that you actually have to have money to do these things. That tens of thousands of dollars to do it. And it's hard because you've spent all your money on useless healthcare, and now you really wanna do something and you don't have the money for it. So do you think there's ever gonna be a point where this is going to maybe shift where insurance, I know that the answer is already no, but might actually pay for any of these kinds of things?

Dr. Yi Song: Well, for the insurance to pay for any stem cell treatment, first of all, stem cell treatment has to be approved by FDA. Let's not even talk about stem cell, even PRP, your own blood, platelet rich plasma is not FDA-approved procedure. So PRP has been in existence for over 40 years and it has amazing results when treating a lot of conditions. And of course, when we use stem cell treatment, we combine the PRP with the stem cells together. So you get both your body's PRP and the stem cell. So not even PRP is an approved procedure. And for most people, if they want to do PRP for their joint issue or for any other conditions PRP can help, they have to pay out of pocket.

Sue Hitzmann: Pay out of pocket. Yeah. Yeah. And again, it's thousands of dollars. It's no joke. And, and that is, that's what's a struggle for me is watching clients who you just full Well, no, could be doing these types of therapies and making headway. But because there is a money restricted place that they can't afford to do it. But again, all of these years we pay into a medical practice that's really not for us. And I think that's, again, I wouldn't say it. I know that the answer is no, that it's never going to come to our advantage. Because in fact, the pharmaceutical industry needs us to be sick, which is why they called the Food and Drug administration, they're going to give us shitty foods, we have to take their drugs. Let's, let's be honest, know that this is actually a thing they're poisoning our food so that we get sick. And, even when you look at the food pyramid, the food pyramid is actually made to create type two diabetes, if you ask me, and now we need to put the upside down, right? Exactly. And there's also another recently changed it, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. They're finally saying, oh, but the cat's out of the bag, people are on to us. Now, let's go ahead lean this down a little bit.

32:38 Emotional Stress, Inflammation, and Cellular Repair

Sue Hitzmann: And I know you also talk about mental and emotional health at the core of wellness. And I know, again, I can speak for myself. My mom has bipolar one, and I have watched her in and out of institutions, many drugs. And in fact, a lot of it has to do with joy and happiness and nothing more, and maybe some like family secrets, which we've just found out about, that's for another podcast. But you emphasize that mental health is really central to physical longevity. So how do you see emotional patterns, stress and trauma influencing aging and cellular repair?

Dr. Yi Song: Okay, so we need to look at the body as a garden again. And then the emotional part actually is the irrigation system in the garden. So when you have emotional stress, what it causes is the blockage in the irrigation system in your whole body. So it will affect a lot of irrigation system going to different parts of your body, the different parts of the garden. So that's why when you have long-term stress, anxiety, depression, it actually leads to a lot of physical conditions because your garden's irrigation system is all blocked up. So your many parts of your body cannot get the proper irrigation, the proper nutrition to flourish. So that's why in the early of this episode, we actually talk about the connection between emotional stress on your digestive system. So that is the same principle.

Sue Hitzmann: Yeah, that makes so much sense. And I think it's one thing that people actually don't address is that their stress response is constantly on. And oftentimes I talk about that, that your stress and repair like two sides of the seesaw and your stress side has gotten a little heavy. And so the repair part of the body actually is no longer able to bring you back into regulation. And at night when we're supposed to be sleeping and you're not sleeping, that's where cellular repair is dominant, right? So if you don't get a restful night's sleep, you're actually increasing your own tendency towards a stress response. And this is probably what you see most often in your practice, right?

Dr. Yi Song: Exactly. And also when you have a lot of emotional stress over long period of time, we're talking about 10 years, 20 years, that's when your body starts accumulating this chronic inflammation. Because when you have stress, the garden is blocked, then you will accumulate inflammation at different parts of your body. And also your immune system would be affected. So for some people it will manifest as compromised immune function. Then this compromised immune function can also make your body accumulate malfunction cells. So that's why for a lot of people developing cancer in later in their life, it's also because of long-term emotional stress, causing the system not able to eradicate the malfunction cells in your body over a long period of time, that's when the cancer cells start to flourish.

Sue Hitzmann: Yeah, wow. And I think that's probably happening to way too many people right now. It seems like more and more people are getting cancer that I know and that's just frightening to me that it's happening so often in so many ways. And yeah, and I think it has a lot to do with their mindset. To begin with, there's probably a piece of that. And you also talk about the regeneration effect, right? And this whole idea that ancient longevity practices and modern biotechnology really belong together. So what would you say are maybe the most powerful principles from traditional Chinese medicine that modern anti-aging science is finally catching up to?

36:36 Chinese Medicine Meets Modern Longevity Science

Dr. Yi Song: I think even like biohackers or modern anti-aging science, they still don't address the body's unique constitution. Like even though we have the trend in functional medicine, you do all these different tests, they still don't look at your body as a unique garden. So sometimes they only do certain tests and then they just use those tests to give you supplements. But what they overlook is that the tests we developed are from the knowledge we already know about the biochemistry, the function in the cellular level. But then there are so many things. What we know is only 1% or even less than 1% of what's going on inside the human body. So what we don't know, we don't have any tests for it. So again, we need to look at the body as a garden. Then we need to look at things both in the microscopic view of the Western medicine approach. And then also in the bigger picture, we need to look at things energetically. So that's when, if you combine both the macro vision with the microscopic tests, all these things, then you can actually have a better understanding what's going on in the body.

Sue Hitzmann: Yeah, I also think that with all of the functional medicine, it does seem like it's a supplement garden, like they just supplement you and supplement you. And I don't know how far you get with supplements, rather than just really looking at whole food, happiness and movement as being like fundamental to all of it in general. So I want to talk a little bit about, you talked about your book, Regeneration, the Regeneration Effect, and this whole idea about staying young, you're blending the science and spirituality and these practical tools. What do you hope people will walk away with, especially those who feel aging is something happening to them, rather than something that they can influence?

38:48 The Regeneration Effect and Early Prevention

Dr. Yi Song: So the number one thing they should learn from the book is that early prevention is the key. And then once you recognize the early prevention is the key, you can start now. You don't want to wait until you're 60 or 70 to do it. You want to start now. And then how do you start now? So number one thing you need to recognize your body's unique constitution. Then you can address the root cause. Then from addressing the root cause, you actually look at the whole body as a garden and then address the whole irrigation system. Then you combine this whole approach with the natural rhythm of the nature. So you recognize, our body is part of the universe and we're the conduit between the universe and the earth. So that's when you actually get into the energetic level. And then from there, you actually combine all the available advanced technologies with the ancient principles, then in the right proportion with different treatments. That's how you achieve the optimal health and longevity.

Sue Hitzmann: So simple. And your resort, the Zenergi, right? Is that it's energy in Colombia. Tell everybody a little bit about this space that they can come to and what it might look like to come and visit and engage in regenerative therapies.

40:21 Zenerchi Retreat and Colombia's Healing Environment

Dr. Yi Song: So I started the Zenerchi retreat before I even started doing stem cells because I just fell in love with the energy, the air in Colombia. And then we talked about the high cost of healthcare in the United States. And I also like the idea that in Colombia, you don't need to have very high cost of healthcare to get very high standards of healthcare, including a lot of Western medicine procedures. And also you don't need to wait for three weeks, three months to get an appointment. You can get MRI appointment within a week if you need it. And you don't need to go through the lengthy insurance approval. So that's the other thing that really attracted me. And the most attractive part is the cleanliness of the air because it's at 2,500 meters, which is 7,000 feet, in elevation. So the air is very clean. And the year-round temperature is around 70 Fahrenheit. So it doesn't have extreme heat or extreme cold. And I feel every time I go there, my energy is lifted and I feel more relaxed. I feel my body energy flow is better. So that's how I promoted me to start the energy retreat in Colombia, because I feel people should come to these type of places to relax and then promote their body's healing. And then afterwards, I got introduced into the lab in Colombia, growing stem cells. So that's how I combine all these things together. And in the process of doing stem cell treatment to people, I realized a lot of people, they think stem cell treatment is a Western medicine treatment. In reality, it is not. That's why it's not approved by FDA. And it is actually combining the Western medicine treatment with the concept of Chinese medicine, because umbilical cord placenta are used in Chinese herbal medicine for thousands of years, even before we know about how to isolate the stem cells.

Sue Hitzmann: Yeah, I only think it's not approved by the FDA because it works. I'm just saying, why do they want something that's gonna make us healthy? They're like, does that work? Forget it, we're not approving that. If it works, no way. It's kind of like peptides. We talked a little bit about this before we went on air, you know that peptides, I just started in the last about four or five months. And I definitely think TB 500 and BPC 157 should be readily available because they do seem to turn the lights on and help a body very quickly. And it's another thing where they just won't approve things and they make it hard to get. And there's a lot of bad stuff out there. You want to make sure you're getting something reputable, but it's actually hard to do that unless you have a good source. So I think that these are… Yeah, other things that were just like, they work, but they're not gonna be approved. So who recommended you to do peptides? I have a medical doctor who had a collective that they actually have a compounding pharmacy. And so this is what they do. And I'm not at will to say, because they said, don't tell anybody about us because then we'll get shut down, which is frightening to me because it's really excellent. But I think that if anybody's listening, I'm not encouraging you to go on social media, finds somebody who's talking about peptides and get your peptides from these people because I was actually just at the Lake Nona Impact Forum and one of the doctors was saying one of his patients wanted to do peptides. And he said, let's get it really tested. So they spent 10 grand, they got it tested and there was ecstasy in it. I was like, no wonder he felt so great.

Dr. Yi Song: I know, I've heard so many people saying they were injecting themselves BPC 157 and then they didn't feel anything. They say maybe they're just paying $300 for water.

Sue Hitzmann: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, and that's it. It could be, right? You just don't know unless you have a good quality. It's been tested. But even then, I think it's a bit of the Wild West. And so finding people that are knee deep in this research that can find high quality peptides, that are understanding stem cell research, that are really out to make people healthy. I think this is, we just need more of that because again, the FDA is not gonna approve things that actually viably will make you well. I don't think that's gonna happen in our future. So Dr. Yi, how can people find you? If they wanna maybe come to the resort, they want to do a retreat, they wanna get down to Colombia or they just wanna learn about your book, how do they find you?

45:16 Book Resources and Consultation Options

Dr. Yi Song: Sure. So I actually have a page where people can go to claim a gift for your listeners. So they can go to gift.regenerationeffect.com and then from there they actually will get a download of Tend Your Body Like a Garden, which is book four, the principle number four. And then if they want to order the, they want to pre-order the heartbound copy of 400 pages, then that is available over there as well. And also after they order the gift, they can also set up a complimentary 15 minute consultation that they can learn about their body's constitution, which is very important. And then from there, if they're interested in learning more about what kind of treatment they need to help their health longevity, then we can have a lengthier consultation after they fill out the health history form.

Sue Hitzmann: I love that. I'm going to sign up. I just feel like this just sounds like the 2.0 for me also. So Dr. Yi, I ask everybody the same question who comes on Anatomical Gangster, I'm gonna pose it to you. If you could tell somebody something that you've learned in your lifetime, a real life lesson that completely changed your view of the human experience, and maybe if they heard it, it would change their life as well, What would it be?

46:37 Energy, Meditation, and Whole-Body Health

Dr. Yi Song: So I think it would be you actually need to recognize that your body is flesh, and then you do have an energetic part of your body that is inside the flesh. So what we're trying to do in the health and longevity to promote the health span, it's actually we're trying to prolong the healthiness, the function of the flesh part. But then to help your body, you definitely need to help the energetic level as well. So that's when we talk about the emotional well-being and the emotional well-being, the mind on the body. So how I learned about this was because my family has generations in Chinese medicine. So particularly my aunt, who is my mother's sister, she had a lot of health problems. So she actually introduced a lot of Qigong master meditation master when I was growing up. So I actually practice that. So that's why that also influenced my view of human body and also how you integrate the Chinese medicine principles with the modern technology, because I myself actually experienced the advanced meditation, what it can do to your body. And also, when you get into that stage, you can actually envision a lot of things energetically, that most people normally you don't experience. So that's the part that, not everybody can achieve that state, but you don't need to achieve that state to make your body harmonious and also the energy level to influence your body's function, that part you can actually achieve through combining the principles in the book with the technologies available today.

Sue Hitzmann: I love that. Yeah, I think that's so true. I always tell everybody, you're not gonna bring your body with you when this lifetime's over, but your energy body that gets to come with you. So take care of your energy body because that's timeless. Whereas the body itself is just one piece of the big puzzle. That's such a great way to think of it.