Bombshell: Explosive Medical Secrets That Will Redefine Aging (14 page)

As an avid participant in antiaging and alternative medicine, the idea of a foreign object in my body was unacceptable. As I mentioned previously, at the time of my cancer surgery, I was offered only two options. When I refused the first choice, implants in
both
breasts to assure evenness and symmetry, the other option offered was the TRAM flap procedure, which was also unacceptable to me.

I had first learned about the use of stem cells in growing new breast tissue from Dr. Robin Smith of NeoStem, a stem cell banking company. I was fascinated by the notion that we could bank our stem cells while we are healthy and store them cryogenically for later use. I also learned that stem cells could be used for a complete breast regrowth from reading literature about a doctor named Kotaro Yoshimura who
was working out of the University of Tokyo. He had successfully regrown breasts on over four hundred women in Japan. Although Dr. Smith made it clear there were no FDA-approved therapies for breast reconstruction, as an optimist I banked my stem cells with NeoStem in 2009, hoping one day to be able to use them for this procedure. I feel that banking your own stem cells is “bioinsurance.” I believe that in the near future, our country will loosen up and allow stem cell protocols and therapies due to high demand. Those who bank their stem cells when they are healthy will be ahead of the game, particularly if facing a catastrophic event.

The official name of my breast regrowth is “cell-assisted lipotransfer.” The procedure is not FDA approved, so for Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital to agree to participate in this groundbreaking procedure, the hospital administrators insisted I obtain an IRB (Institutional Review Board) approval qualifying me for a clinical trial. It took me three years to get this permission. I was disappointed that under this bureaucratic restraint, the FDA would not let me use my banked stem cells as I had wanted, only stem cells taken from my fat during the procedure. (But as you read on, you will see how I was able to use my banked stem cells for other aesthetic procedures.)

I met with Dr. Joel Aronowitz in Los Angeles, and together we went to Korea to learn more about stem cell procedures. I also asked Dr. Yoshimura to come to L.A. to examine me, and he agreed to work with Dr. Aronowitz who already had some expertise in adult stem cell technology and breast rejuvenation. Dr. Aronowitz worked with Dr. Yoshimura to learn this new groundbreaking procedure, and I felt secure that he was properly equipped to do his “virgin” surgery on me. He was successfully able to perform this advanced procedure using my enriched adipose-derived stem cells. Other doctors around the country are doing autologous fat transplantation for cosmetic breast surgery, but I am the first to have Dr. Yoshimura’s advanced technique utilized, legally, using only my fat enriched with adipose-derived stem cells. Because of Dr. Yoshimura’s pioneering work in Asia, this advanced technique has now proven successful here in the United States. This is a great advancement, the best use of a scientific breakthrough. It is a modern approach to beauty, which in my opinion is safer and much less invasive than surgery.

The procedure is really quite simple. In layperson’s terms, the surgical team removed the fat from my stomach by liposuction (boo hoo, hated to see that go!), then they took that fat and spun it at
supersonic speed, separating it into three layers (like a mousse). The first layer was fat, the second layer was blood, and the third layer was stem cells. They took the stem cells, cleaned them, separated them, discarded the weak ones, then converged the strongest stem cells, which were now in high concentrations, and put them into a small concentration of fat so that the fat was supercharged with stem cells. With a “turkey baster” (my term), the surgeon injected the stem-cell-laden fat into my breast until it was of the correct volume. Poof! There it was.

Like a miracle, fat was removed from my abdomen to provide the stem cells that were then sorted in a high-technology procedure to extract the strongest and largest amounts of stem cells to be reinjected into my breast. Here’s the thing: fat can be taken from any part of the body. I would imagine each individual woman would have her favorite places for removal: love handles, thighs, inner thighs. So the whole procedure is a win-win-win; you get a new, real breast, full feeling is restored, plus you get rid of unwanted fat! The whole process took about ninety minutes.

The most painful part of the procedure is the liposuction; it’s not for sissies!

What women do need to know if they are having a mastectomy or a lumpectomy and want to consider this procedure afterward is that it is crucial to maintain the skin around the breast and the nipple. The mastectomies of yesteryear took away everything, the skin and nipple included, making this regrowth procedure impossible. Today doctors approach it differently, and if there is no concern of cancer in those places, the skin and nipple are left intact, which makes regrowth possible.

Now I look down where once there had been no breast and it is beautiful … high and real and firm, soft and unscarred. Talk about reversing aging! My breasts now look like they are those of a young woman. I can’t tell you how this has positively affected me psychologically.

The thrill about this procedure for me is the medical advancement. There is an aesthetic component, of course, but the real joy comes from knowing what this means for all women. It’s a huge advancement for breast cancer.

I researched and persevered, and I never gave up. As I mentioned, it took me three years to obtain legal permission. I did everything right to establish a legal precedent, so other women could qualify for
a clinical trial and thereby allow for insurance to cover it. This is a real merger, truly
integrative
, of the best of Western and the best of alternative medicine.

I could have gone to Japan to do this three years earlier than I did, but instead I spent a considerable amount of time persuading an American doctor to learn this methodology. I allowed him to use me as his first patient because I wanted this to be an American achievement, by an American doctor on an American woman. At present, Americans who want to utilize stem cells mostly have to go to Japan, or the Dominican Republic or Germany, to name a few countries using stem cell procedures. We have been behind on this one. We have the best doctors on the planet in the United States, yet in so many cases our doctors have their hands tied, the laws prohibiting them from being all that they can be. I hope my surgery will open up this progressive and cutting-edge procedure to more people.

With the success of my regrowth, all women who are choosing to have implants now have a
real
option. Personally, I can’t imagine why any woman would ever want to have a foreign object put in her body when she could have this procedure instead. Implants are laden with side effects, such as leaking, infections, and rejections, all of which simultaneously degrade health. A woman can now utilize a safe procedure of taking fat from her own body to regrow her breast and do a better job. Maybe the simplicity of the procedure is why there was such resistance and difficulty to my getting permission to do it. My procedure required less surgery, fewer drugs, no foreign objects, and less money; sometimes you have to sit back and think about who might have a vested interest in this procedure not being available. Whatever the reason, what could have been an easy stroll was made a long and difficult road for me instead.

No matter. It was worth it to help move the dial forward and bring this type of change to all who need or want it. All I know is that every time I look down at what hadn’t been there for eleven years and is now replaced by a beautiful real breast that is a part of me, I smile.

Now, as for my banked stem cells … After the breast procedure, I asked my doctor to request that NeoStem send out
some
of my banked cells (I still have enough left cryogenically preserved to last me a lifetime) that originated in my bone marrow but were obtained through my blood. He injected these cells to improve the appearance of the skin on my neck, giving me, in essence, a stem cell neck lift
using my banked stem cells. These mixes of cells contain something called
VSEL
(very small embryonic-like) cells, which have many regenerative properties. The result of the injection? Natural smooth skin, without any surgery. The wrinkles on my sixty-five-year-old neck are greatly improved, all without surgery. (For detailed information on stem cell banking and an accompanying video, go to my website,
www.suzannesomers.com
, and find the episode on my Internet talk show called
Suzanne Somers’ Breaking Through
, which features Dr. Robin Smith discussing banking your stem cells.)

Using banked stem cells as a beauty enhancement is a huge medical advancement, showing off the skills of our doctors when working at their best.

Everyone is afraid
of catastrophic events! These are the unforeseen health incidents that occur: crippling autoimmune diseases, cancer, and the big one, the one that scares people the most, a heart attack! We think we have no control over any of these things, but this is a book about aging well and avoiding the conditions that are killing others. So, how do we control this fear and avoid the “catastrophic event” that brings down so many?

There is a way!

My family has been plagued by heart disease; it killed my mother and father and so many of my relatives. My sister has already had heart surgery for her coronary arteries. Thankfully, she caught it in time and now is on a regimen that will prevent heart problems for her in the future. I am grateful she has adopted these protocols because I cannot imagine living in a world without my sister.

The answer is not in pharmaceutical drugs! If it were, then heart disease would not be the number one killer in the country.

Yet what goes wrong, particularly with people who
are
health conscious but are brought down by the “big event,” for instance, like Jack LaLanne? With his aim to live well past a hundred, what did
this famous health pioneer miss? With his diet and exercise regimen he should have lived even longer. What causes people who take exceptionally good care of themselves to die of age-related diseases? What else could he have done?

And how is it that people who do make good choices and avoid bad habits—eating healthy, exercising, and taking supplements—still develop a serious illness?

This chapter will answer these questions. There is a nice reward for making healthy lifestyle choices: It will add years to your life, free of the afflictions you see in others who may be younger than you. Yet there are other things you can do that you might not realize exist. Read on.

Bill Faloon
is a cofounder of the Life Extension Foundation, the largest longevity organization in the world. Life Extension members take extraordinary measures to slow their rate of biological aging with the objective of forestalling the onset of degenerative disease
.

I wanted to find out from Bill what prevents people from living as long as they should, even when they make major efforts to remain young and vigorous
.

Bill Faloon is also the publisher of
Life Extension
magazine, which reports on cutting-edge health and science issues. It is printed monthly and is, I believe, the most impressive gathering of the newest medical information in the country. It is jam-packed with information to improve life quality and teaches readers how to save their lives
.

Bill Faloon is passionate about eradicating age-related disease; both he and his scientific advisory board have a remarkable grasp of the latest lifesaving therapies. This interview about avoiding the “catastrophic event” that robs so many of us of life is eye-opening
.

SS:
Hello, Bill. First, tell my readers how the Life Extension Foundation started.

BF:
Thank you, Suzanne. Back in 1980, I helped assemble a group of people who wanted to slow our rate of aging. None of us liked the odds we faced of contracting degenerative disease, so our group developed what were some aggressive interventions at the time aimed at slowing our biological clocks.

SS:
What were people doing back then to remain younger longer?

BF:
The biggest handicap was that most of us lived in the United
States. That meant we would be the
last
to access medical advances because of the FDA’s obstructionist policy toward scientific innovation. We had to import coenzyme Q
₁₀
from Japan for personal use because the FDA claimed it was a drug and not a dietary supplement. The vital hormone DHEA was approved in Europe, but of course not in the United States. Potencies of vitamins were so low that people had to swallow a lot of pills to obtain a meaningful dose. The challenge back then was gaining access to therapies that had demonstrated antiaging potential in scientific studies but were banned by the FDA.

SS:
Amazing that a supplement as important to life as coQ
₁₀
, particularly for those people on statins, could be prevented from being sold in this country for so long. How many of you were there initially?

BF:
There were only about three hundred of us back then. We worked together in a loose-netted confederation, talking on the phone and corresponding by mail to exchange information. We had doctors, research scientists, and dedicated laypeople who didn’t like their odds of contracting cancer, stroke, heart disease, or senility. None of us accepted these inevitabilities, so we wanted to see how far we could go to prevent age-related illnesses.