Ep4: Stem Cell Therapy: Restoring Neurological and Immune Health

Neurological Recovery: How Stem Cell Therapy Restores Function and Regulates Immunity

Traditional treatments for neurological conditions often hit a wall. For decades, the standard of care for multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s, and spinal injuries has remained largely stagnant, focusing on managing symptoms rather than addressing the cellular root causes. Many patients find themselves on a treadmill of increasing medication dosages with diminishing returns, while their mobility and independence continue to slip away. It is not just a decline. It is a depletion of the body’s natural regenerative capacity.

Mesenchymal stem cell therapy offers a different path by utilizing the body’s own signaling systems to calm overactive immune responses and stimulate tissue repair. By introducing young, high-viability umbilical cord stem cells, we can bypass the limitations of aged “autologous” cells and provide the concentrated biological resources necessary for real recovery. This approach moves beyond the “sick care” model toward a restorative methodology that prioritizes quality of life and functional independence.

The Critical Role of Therapeutic Dosing in Parkinson’s Care

Success in treating advanced neurological conditions like Parkinson’s disease depends heavily on receiving a sufficient quantity of live cells. In many domestic clinical trials, participants receive dosages that may not be high enough to trigger a significant systemic response. For an adult male, a more effective protocol typically requires a much higher concentration to see measurable functional changes. Not just a slight shift. A substantial intervention.

“For an adult male, usually you need to get at least 150 million cells in the intravenous infusion to make the treatment effective for this type of more serious neurological conditions.”

Bypassing the Blood-Brain Barrier via Intranasal Application

The blood-brain barrier is a protective shield that often prevents intravenous medications and cells from reaching the areas of the brain where they are needed most. Intranasal application provides a unique shortcut. By utilizing the thin membranes in the upper nasal cavity, stem cells can travel along the olfactory nerve directly to the brain. This delivery method ensures a higher concentration of restorative cells reaches the target site without having to navigate the systemic circulatory filters.

“In your upper nose area where the olfactory nerve goes to the brain, there’s an area the membrane is very thin so you don’t need to cross the blood-brain barrier for the stem cells to reach the brain.”

Regenerative Strategies for Complex Spinal Cord Injuries

Spinal cord injuries are notoriously difficult to treat because nerve tissue does not naturally regenerate well on its own. While traditional physical therapy is vital for maintaining bone density and muscle tone, it often cannot repair the underlying structural detachment. Integrating localized stem cell delivery with active weight-bearing exercises can help reestablish the transmission pathways. This requires high levels of sterility and specialized application to ensure the cells are placed exactly where the repair needs to happen.

“If you introduce the umbilical cord stem cell in the particular location of injury and then stimulate the regeneration and combined with weight-bearing exercises… then it can reestablish the transmission from the injured site.”

Stem Cells as a Tool for Immune Regulation in Multiple Sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune condition where the body mistakenly attacks the protective sheath surrounding the nerves. This damage leads to a significant drop in neurotransmission efficiency, manifesting as muscle weakness and vision issues. Most standard protocols rely on suppressing the entire immune system, which can leave a patient vulnerable to other infections. Stem cell therapy acts as a regulator rather than a blunt suppressant, helping the body recognize its own tissues and stop the destructive overreaction.

“Stem cells are very good at regulating the immune system and reducing the overreaction in the immune system that causes the multiple sclerosis.”

The Limitations of Aged Autologous Stem Cells

Many clinics in the United States offer autologous stem cell treatments, which involve extracting cells from the patient’s own bone marrow or fat. While this is a widely accessible option, it has a significant drawback: your stem cells age with you. A 60-year-old’s stem cells have a drastically reduced capacity to divide and repair compared to those of a newborn. Using exhausted cells to treat a degenerative condition is often unsatisfactory. It is essentially asking a tired system to do more work without giving it new resources.

“When you reach age 60 it can only divide into 40,000 cells in 30 days. So, it’s a significant decline. And if you use the same kind of aged stem cell to treat an aging person, it’s not effective because you’re not injecting any new life.”

Addressing the Autoimmune Roots of Digestive Disorders

Conditions like Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, and IBS are frequently systemic autoimmune issues where the immune system targets the digestive tract. This chronic inflammation can eventually lead to irreversible tissue damage and the need for surgical interventions. Intravenous stem cell therapy allows the cells to travel through the bloodstream and home in on inflammatory signals within the gut. This systemic approach addresses the root cause of the flare-ups rather than just masking the pain or digestive symptoms.

“For these type of inflammatory bowel condition, we use stem cells to regulate the immune system so that they don’t attack the digestive tract as they did before.”

Why Accessing Expanded Umbilical Cord Cells Requires International Care

High-quality, lab-expanded umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are difficult to obtain for clinical use within the United States due to specific regulatory classifications. However, these cells are multipotent, meaning they can only differentiate into limited tissue types like bone or cartilage, making them inherently safer and non-tumorigenic. By providing access to these therapeutic doses in Colombia, we ensure patients receive the quantity and quality of cells necessary to achieve meaningful clinical effects. It is about efficacy. It is about biological potential.

“Umbilical cord stem cells… are very young. One cell can divide into one billion cells. Also they have all the new growth hormones and cell signaling molecules from the newborn baby.”

📄Read the Full Episode Transcript

0:00 Neurological Recovery and Stem Cell Therapy Overview

Dr. Yi Song: The current treatment of multiple sclerosis is still the same as 20 years ago. Stem cells are very good at reducing the overreaction in the immune system that causes multiple sclerosis because it cannot be patented by pharmaceutical companies. They do not want to go that route even though they know it can be very effective.

Hi Xander, nice to have you back again.

Xander: It’s great to be back. I appreciate having you back.

Dr. Yi Song: So I heard you were a personal trainer all around the world. Can you tell me a little bit more about that experience?

Xander: Yeah, I had an enlightening experience when I was a personal trainer in Orlando. I worked at a neurological recovery center where I had clients that were in wheelchairs. They had spinal cord injuries, traumatic brain injuries, multiple sclerosis, and Parkinson’s disease. I think a few of them might have mentioned early on, back in 2017, that they knew of stem cells, but they never did anything. It kind of came to my attention then, and now thinking back on it, that’s where I first heard about it. From our previous podcast, I could really see them benefiting from the treatments from stem cells. Have you ever worked with anybody, for example, with Parkinson’s disease?

1:19 Why Stem Cell Dosage Matters for Parkinson’s

Dr. Yi Song: Oh yes. I worked with one guy and he actually initially went through a clinical trial in Houston. He felt it may help him by reducing the symptoms a little bit, but since it’s a clinical trial in the United States, he didn’t get enough quantities of cells. It’s important for conditions like Parkinson’s or multiple sclerosis to get an enough amount of stem cells based on your body weight.

For an adult male, usually you need to get at least 150 million cells in the intravenous infusion to make the treatment effective for these more serious neurological conditions. Because he only got around 75 million cells for two treatments and the treatments were spread over a two-year period, that may explain why he didn’t see significant improvement.

After that, because all the other medications he was on no longer offered him any relief and his conditions were still progressing, his doctor basically said there was nothing more they could do. He suggested that if the patient wanted to try more stem cells, he should go for it. That’s how I started treating him. We used a 150 million cell infusion plus the intranasal application.

3:04 Intranasal Stem Cells and Brain Access

Dr. Yi Song: In your upper nose area where the olfactory nerve goes to the brain, there’s an area where the membrane is very thin, so you don’t need to cross the blood-brain barrier for the stem cells to reach the brain. Usually, if you do the intranasal application, the stem cells can travel to the brain faster. The intravenous is still important because it’s systemic, but a fewer amount of stem cells can actually cross the blood-brain barrier and reach the area in the brain that needs to be treated.

Xander: What exactly is intranasal?

Dr. Yi Song: Basically, you lie down with your head positioned so the chin is higher than the crown of your head. When we drip the stem cell solution into the nose, it goes to the upper part of the nose. That’s when the stem cells can cross that membrane area where the olfactory nerve connects to the brain. We do that slowly over maybe a one-hour period of time. Usually, you can do that while you’re doing the intravenous infusion of the stem cells.

4:33 Parkinson’s Motor Improvements After Treatment

Xander: What was this individual with Parkinson’s like before that and then what was he like after?

Dr. Yi Song: Before, he had a lot of mobility issues and could not even coordinate hand motion. But after the two treatments we did within a six-month period of time, he’s able to make movements that he couldn’t before and he can walk straighter too.

Xander: Wow, so enhanced motor patterns. How did you treat things like a spinal injury or multiple sclerosis in the neurological clinic where you worked as a personal trainer?

5:15 Spinal Cord Injury and Regenerative Limits

Xander: We would oftentimes get individuals that had high-level spinal cord injuries. We would get them out of the chair for weight-bearing to assist with their bone density and get movement back to the muscles using a lot of electric stimulation. I’d be very curious to know if there would be any use for stem cells for individuals with spinal cord injuries who are paraplegic?

Dr. Yi Song: That’s why I asked you that question, because I wonder if you combined the training with other treatments. What you were doing in the neurological clinic was more like physical therapy.

Xander: It would usually be myself and a team of three other people. We would get them out of the chair and spot them at their knees because, with a high-level spinal cord injury, they don’t have control over their legs. We would hold them so they’re getting gravity weight-bearing and provide stimulation pads attached to different muscle areas so they would tap in a little bit when the muscle moves during an exercise.

Dr. Yi Song: But what else were they doing to repair the injured spinal cord? The reason they couldn’t move is because certain areas of the spinal cord were detached or severed, right?

Xander: Yeah, they would come to our facility mainly for the weight-bearing element. A lot of times they don’t have insurance to cover additional avenues to improve their overall body. I remember clients talking about a location in Miami for stem cells, but this was early on so I don’t know much. I’d be curious about your perspective.

6:58 Direct Spinal Cord Stem Cell Injections Explained

Dr. Yi Song: If they already have a spinal injury, it’s very difficult for the injured part to repair itself. If they combine the injury treatment with stem cells, it has to be done in the particular location where they have the injury. For that type of procedure, you have to do the intrathecal injection of stem cells into the exact location where the spinal cord injury happened.

That procedure has to be done in an operating room with high sterility because you don’t want an infection in the spinal cord. The patient needs to go under anesthesia. Because stem cells are very good at stimulating your own body’s stem cells to regenerate, and spinal cord injuries are very difficult to regenerate, introducing umbilical cord stem cells in that location can stimulate regeneration. Combining that with the weight-bearing exercises you mentioned can reestablish transmission from the injured site.

8:31 Stem Cells for Multiple Sclerosis Immune Regulation

Xander: Are there other neurological issues that really benefit from stem cell therapy?

Dr. Yi Song: I’ve seen stem cell therapy helping multiple sclerosis because it’s an autoimmune condition. Stem cells are very good at regulating the immune system and reducing the overreaction that causes MS. Multiple sclerosis is caused by the immune system attacking your nerve sheath protein, which reduces neurotransmission efficiency. Most MS patients are on immunosuppressive drugs to help reduce inflammation. However, these drugs sometimes don’t work well, and you need to keep increasing the dose or switching drugs. The current treatment is still the same as 20 years ago; they just use MRI to monitor progression. With stem cell treatment, it really helps regulate the immune system. For people who have tried multiple drugs and still have progression, stem cells are a viable alternative that can slow the disease and help gain mobility back.

10:30 Risks of Long Term Immunosuppressive Drugs

Xander: What would be some of the negative effects for immunosuppressive drugs?

Dr. Yi Song: A lot of immunosuppressive drugs generally suppress your immune system rather than specifically regulating it. They decrease the ability to defend your body from external pathogens, which is why people on these drugs are prone to infections. Over the long term, this is problematic because you need your immune system to function correctly to prevent things like cancer. If you suppress it in general, things that need to be removed from your body are not effectively removed.

Xander: Essentially, if someone receives stem cell therapy, you’re eliminating the need for long-term immunosuppression and removing an extra cost that would exist in their lifetime.

Dr. Yi Song: That’s true, but most people still don’t think that way. Stem cell treatment for autoimmune conditions is still new to many, and people with severe conditions are often afraid of exploring outside conventional treatments even if they aren’t getting results.

12:31 Digestive Autoimmune Diseases and Stem Cells

Xander: I see commercials for Crohn’s disease and IBS. Would stem cells be an avenue to treat those digestion issues?

Dr. Yi Song: Crohn’s, IBS, and ulcerative colitis are considered autoimmune because the immune system attacks the digestive tract. Patients experience flare-ups, pain, and some eventually need surgery to remove part of the colon. Stem cells are very good at reducing inflammation. We use them to regulate the immune system so it stops attacking the digestive tract. Patients also need to modify their lifestyle because many inflammatory bowel conditions are related to stress. High stress over a long period exerts damage to the digestive tract; it’s the first system stress acts on.

15:22 How IV Stem Cells Target Inflammation

Xander: When implementing stem cells for digestion, are you injecting directly into the stomach?

Dr. Yi Song: For digestive system problems, it’s mostly through intravenous injection. When you go through the vein, it travels to the lung and then to the digestive tract. These mesenchymal stem cells have a property well-established in research: they travel to the site of inflammation. Once circulating in the bloodstream, they hone in on areas sending out inflammation signals. Once there, they release signaling molecules and growth factors to help your body’s cells repair the area.

17:12 Epilepsy and Less Invasive Stem Cell Approaches

Dr. Yi Song: For some advanced conditions like epilepsy, some biotech companies are developing ways to implant induced stem cells into the brain. But that’s very invasive because you have to open up the skull. I’ve had several people inquire about epilepsy for their children. One guy was having seizures every month. It’s damaging to the child’s lifestyle. Instead of the invasive implantation, the first step might be to see if intravenous and intranasal application can help those conditions.

18:59 Umbilical Cord vs Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells

Xander: How do you continue to stay sharp or do your own research?

Dr. Yi Song: I do online research and attend conferences. Many are focused on induced pluripotent stem cells, which pharmaceutical companies prefer because they can have more control and patent them. Pluripotent means the cells can grow into any kind of cell in your body, like liver or kidney cells. They are like embryonic stem cells but are induced from something like a piece of skin. However, pluripotent cells can even grow into tumors.

Mesenchymal stem cells from the umbilical cord are multipotent, meaning they can only differentiate into a limited number of cells like bone, cartilage, skin, or neurons. They won’t grow into tumor cells. Because umbilical cord stem cells are not a single monoclonal type, they are difficult to standardize and patent. That’s why pharmaceutical companies don’t like them, even though they are effective.

23:06 Autologous Stem Cells and Aging Limitations

Dr. Yi Song: There are two types of treatment: autologous or allogenic. Autologous means the cells are from your own body, like bone marrow or fatty tissue. The problem is that for someone in their 40s or older, their own stem cells have declined. When you’re young, one cell can divide into 1 billion in 30 days; by age 60, it’s only 40,000. Using aged stem cells to treat an aging person is often not effective for advanced conditions like Parkinson’s or MS.

Allogenic treatment uses umbilical cord stem cells which are very young and have new growth hormones. Research shows that if you grow 60-year-old stem cells with newborn stem cells for three generations in a lab, the old cells can become young again. But autologous bone marrow extraction is very invasive and requires general anesthesia.

27:18 Accessing Care and Treatment Locations

Xander: Why would someone choose the invasive route?

Dr. Yi Song: Because that’s the only type of stem cell treatment approved by the FDA in the US. Some people see FDA approval as the gold standard and don’t trust anything else. This has been a wealth of information. How can people get in touch with you?

Dr. Yi Song: You can visit stemcelltherapyexperts.com. We have commonly asked questions and explanations for various conditions. We are looking forward to helping more people gain their health control back as they age. We perform the treatments in Colombia, but consultations can be done in the United States.

Xander: Thank you for the education on stem cells.

Dr. Yi Song: Thank you for asking valuable questions.