Fresh cell therapy: The medicine of the future

MANILA, Philippines - In Germany, a few weeks ago, I found myself engrossed in a story about a middle-aged British woman who suffered from colitis or chronic diarrhea all her life from the time she was a baby. It’s a strange thing to share at the dinner table, but nothing could suppress the enthusiasm of our storyteller, Niwat “Bobby” Kittichaiwong, who was also our our host in Germany.

For four days, our group, comprised of a handful of lifestyle journalists, along with Miss Universe 1969 Gloria Diaz, were guests at Villa Medica, a German cell-therapy clinic that Bobby acquired in 2009. Bobby, along with the clinic’s chief medical director, Dr. Geoffrey Hürtgen, had just flown in from London after treating the woman with colitis with fresh cell therapy and couldn’t wait to tell us about how it turned out. Prior to the treatment, in spite of subsisting on a plant-based diet and living a generally healthy lifestyle as a yoga teacher, the client still suffered from diarrhea six times a day. The day after she was injected with fresh cells, the diarrhea that plagued her for her entire life had ceased.

“Why keep this a secret?,” he concludes. “We want to share this with the whole world. We want people to know that this isn’t a hoax.”

It sounds like another testimony that Bobby will be keeping in his back pocket for quite some time — if fresh stem cell therapy is a gospel to be spread, then Bobby serves as its unlikely evangelist.

THE STEMS OF

FRESH CELL THERAPY

Villa Medica was originally established in 1978 in Edenkoben, along Deutsche Weinstrasse, the oldest Wine Road in the world, by Dr. Burkhard Aschhoff. However, it was in 1931 when Dr. Paul Niehans, considered the Father of Cell Therapy, accidentally discovered cell therapy when he replaced a damaged parathyroid gland with live parathyroid cells from a calf. It was a risky experiment, but the woman went on to live for 25 more years. Niehans passed on his knowledge to his student, Dr. Alexander Gali, who would eventually instruct Dr. Burkhard Aschhoff. In turn, Dr. Aschhoff would take in a doctor named Geoffrey Hürtgen under his wing.

Nine years ago, Bobby was searching for ways to treat his mother’s cancer and anemia when he discovered fresh cell therapy. “She was on chemotherapy, steroids. She didn’t want to live,” he recounts. He invited Dr. Aschhoff to come to Bangkok and treat his ailing mother. “Today, she’s alive and well with no more cancer. She’s completely healed,” he shares.

Before Bobby, a Thai businessman, took over the clinic, they only served 50 Asian clients a year, along with a handful of regulars from around Europe. Two years after he acquired it, renovating the 121-year-old mansion to look more like a luxury hotel and training the staff to emulate traditional Thai hospitality in the process, the annual number of clients grew by 300 percent. Today, they cater to more than 1,000 clients from 24 different countries. (It’s important to note that at Villa Medica, they refer to their visitors as “clients,” rather than “patients.”) Seventy-percent of the clinic’s clients are Asian, from Thailand, the Middle East, China and the Philippines.

FRESH CELL VS. STEM CELL

First, a disclaimer is required because fresh cell therapy is often confused for stem cell therapy. On his website (Dr-aschhoff.com), Dr. Aschhoff wrote, “Fresh cell therapy is mainly the use of live animal cells which are injected into the patient with the purpose of achieving a revitalizing effect. These cells are generally extracted from sheep’s fetuses. The female donor animals are from closed herds, this is done to prevent the risk of contagious diseases.”

On the other hand, on Stemcellrevolution.com, the official website of The California Stem Cell Treatment Center (a partner The Stem Care Institute Center for Pain and Regenerative Medicine in Bonifacio Global City), stem cells are extracted from the patient’s own fat, bone marrow, umbilicus and blood. Locally, autologous adipose-derived stem cells or fat-derived stem cells are used for the treatment. According to the website, once adipose-derived stem cells are extracted and administered back in the patient, “they have the potential to repair human tissue by forming new cells of mesenchymal origin.”

The website further explains, “Mesenchymal stem cells are undifferentiated cells that have the ability to replace dying cells and regenerate damaged tissue. These special cells seek out areas of injury, disease and destruction where they are capable of regenerating healthy cells and enabling a person’s natural healing processes to be accelerated.”

THE PROCESS OF REGENERATION

The basis of fresh cell therapy is founded upon a basic theory advocated by 16th-century Swiss-German Renaissance physician Paracelsus: “similis similibus curantur,” which translates to “same heals same.” In other words, heart heals heart, lung heals lung and spleen heals spleen.

At Villa Medica, fresh cells are taken from Black Mountain sheep, which are raised specially in a farm and are kept under strict veterinary supervision. Sheep cells, they say, are very similar to human cells and in comparison to other animals, like pigs, rabbits and cows, sheep are clean animals and rarely contract diseases. The donor sheep are checked for rabies, Q-fever, tuberculosis, brucellosis, leucosis, leptospirosis, salmonella, toxosplasmosis and chlamydia. Once they pass all tests, a male and female sheep, who are less than one year old, are allowed to mate. According to Dr. Aschhoff, only two sheep herds in Germany meet their standards.

One hundred and twenty days after the female sheep is impregnated, it is quarantined and further tests are made. A few hours before a client undergoes fresh cell therapy, the sheep is slaughtered and a doctor removes the uterus, from which he extracts the embryo. From the embryo, organs are removed and, depending on what ails the client (remember: heart heals heart, lung heals lung, and so on), the organs are made into a solution that the patient is immediately injected with via intramuscular injection through the buttocks.

Intramuscular injection allows the body to metabolize the live cells and convert them into amino acids, thereby reducing the risk of rejection by the body. After the injection, patients are under mandatory bed rest for 48 hours, under 24-hour surveillance. The staff regularly check clients for allergic reactions, like redness and itchiness, which are the worst possible reactions following injection. In the same way that getting a flu shot sometimes results in a fever, the doctors assure clients that feverish symptoms after injection are a good sign: it means their immune system is reacting to the cell therapy.

At the clinic, they frequently refer to the fresh cell therapy as a holistic wellness retreat, meaning the injection of live cells alone aren’t enough to make a client well.  “Fresh cell therapy is just like food. You can still get sick, you can still die, but it’s giving you quality of life,” Bobby explains. Following the injection, they are given a one-month supply of supplements and are encouraged to continue with whatever medication they were taking prior to the treatment, while being mindful of their eating habits. Most importantly, they are advised to take it easy in the following weeks.

COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS

With fresh cell therapy, could you theoretically cheat death? I was met with a vigorous shaking of heads. “It’s like what Dr. Niehans said, ‘What I am striving after is not only to give more years to life, but especially to give more life to years,’ Dr. Ingeborg Ewen, who joined Bobby in welcoming us on our first night at Villa Medica, says. “When we inject you, it’s going to make you feel better. It can prolong the process of the onset of complications. Or even, they don’t come at all.”

It isn’t uncommon for the doctors at Villa Medica to refuse treatment to certain clients, particularly those who are pregnant, suffering from tuberculosis, malignant tumors in the acute stage, acute infections, advanced kidney ailment and generally patients who have terminal illnesses. For clients who are eligible for the treatment, doctors are careful to manage their expectations. “It’s not that fresh cell therapy can cure everything — when damage is done already, the damage is there. It’s not a miracle therapy we’re doing here,” Dr. Ewen is quick to clarify.

Some of the conditions that they’ve successfully treated include signs of aging (exhaustion, sleeping problems, diminishing vigor), chronic functional or degenerative organic illnesses (problems with kidney, digestion, gallbladder or pancreas, and spinal and joint problems), heart and circulatory problems (post-heart attacks and strokes, circulatory problems in the brain and coronary arteries and vascular calcification), general immune deficiencies (multiple sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), hormonal disorders (sexual dysfunctions, infertility, menstrual disorders, menopausal disorders, growth disorders, diabetes mellitus, obesity) and genetic and development dysfunctions in infants and children (Down syndrome, infantile brain damage, brain damage due to infections and vaccinations). They also offer supportive treatment for cancer or metastases, which involves treatment with umbilical tissue, adrenal gland or thyroid to stimulate the immune system.

It is also worth noting that fresh cell therapy can also be used to treat vegetative and neurological disorders (depression, psychosis, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease), which is important to highlight, considering the recent suicide of model Helena Belmonte, who suffered from bipolar disorder.

For those who are concerned with the long-term effects of fresh cell therapy, Dr. Ewen tells us that they’ve had many clients who have loved the results so much, they’ve repeated the therapy several times over the course of their own lives with no adverse effects. In fact, most of their patients come in every year for their fresh cell treatments. “One German lady has done this 25 times. She started in her 30s and is now 89 years old,” she shares. Bobby himself has already done the therapy 10 times for preventative measures.

THE MEDICINE OF THE FUTURE?

Apart from overcoming personal doubts about fresh cell therapy (the treatment is yet to be approved by European Medicines Agency or EMA, which is the EU’s counterpart of the FDA), potential clients of Villa Medica must also surmount another more practical concern: its hefty €15,000 price tag. Granted, included in the package is a three-night stay at Villa Medica, complete with meals and snacks, plush airport transfers in luxury automobiles, and the ultimate healthcare perk: A lifetime guarantee of the treatment.

What differentiates Villa Medica from other cell-therapy clinics, Bobby says, is their after-care service. Unlike other clinics, he flies in one of his doctors to Asia to check up on their clients and also maintains a medical staff of 30 in the region for his clients’ convenience. In Manila, we have Dr. Dolly Diaz, who can also be scheduled for consultation in Davao and Cebu for two to three days, as needed.

However, all this eludes you unless you have the money, which discourages many, especially when you take into account that fresh cell injection isn’t a one-time, big-time treatment. “The cells die, which is why you need to get it again,” Bobby clarifies. As for how often clients would need to get fresh cell therapy is determined on a case-by-case basis, however the best results happen after a couple of treatments, and it is advisable to repeat FCT on a regular basis.

“For those who cannot pay, we try to find a way,” Bobby tells us over dinner, and it’s a sincere sentiment. Currently, Villa Medica aims to help 30 to 50 autistic children every year under the Caring Hearts Foundation. The treatment is funded by the clinic, along with the donations of their clients. “But we cannot help the whole world. I only have 18 rooms and three doctors,” he stresses.

Logistics aside, the issue of making fresh cell therapy available to more people is a little more complex than that. For instance, if fresh cell therapy is safe and it works, why isn’t it approved by the EMA? Currently, Villa Medica is one of the few clinics licensed and approved by the District Administration Office of Sudliche, Weinstrasse, Germany, and complies with strict guidelines set by German health authorities. However, without the approval of agencies like the EMA and FDA, it’s difficult to make the treatment widely available and more importantly, acceptable.

One would think that Villa Medica could bankroll the research, since they accommodate 1,000 patients a year, but realistically, only big pharmaceutical companies could afford to fund this type of research. According to Eurostemcell.org, “The number of patients needed to trial a new therapy can range from around 100 to several thousand. Extensive data must be gathered for each individual and a clinical trial costs €20,000 to €40,000 per patient. Even a relatively small series of Phase I, II and III studies costs well over a million euro, while some larger trials cost over a hundred times more.”

 â€œThere are easier ways to make money than this, I can tell you,” Bobby says as dinner winds down. For the moment, fresh cell therapy is only available to and championed by those who can stomach its cost and potential risks. After all, like most procedures in the medical industry, including a routine tonsillectomy, nothing is 100-percent safe — not even for the one-percent who can get their hands on fresh cell therapy.

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For inquiries about fresh cell therapy at Villa Medica, call 502-0189 or contact Suzette Lopez at 0915-5485195 or Rosemarie Fernandez at 0917-8420292. For more information, visit www.villa-medica.com.