La Jolla Wellness Institute

La Jolla Wellness Institute is a comprehensive medical practice which covers a number of complementary and related aspects in the care of disease and health preservation, as well as truly rejuvenating techniques and procedures.

It is run under the medical direction of Dr. Benito Villanueva, a scholarly physician with an extensive and illustrious career, ranging from full academic involvement as medical school professor in the early years, to a continued involvement in research and development, as well as day-to-day medical care. His formal training is in obstetrics and gynecology, which he completed at the Georgetown University Medical Center, followed by a post-doctoral graduate fellowship in reproductive endocrinology and infertility at the University of Washington, in Seattle. That led to his appointment as medical school professor at the University of California San Diego in La Jolla.

In the course of the several decades, obvious connections and correlations were cultivated by Dr. Villanueva and his staff in several fields of medicine and health enhancement. His primary specialty, being an obstetrician and gynecologist, deals at this time with all aspects of gynecologic medical care, both surgical and nonsurgical, leading up to the most advanced minimally invasive laparoscopic procedures, of which he has been one of the largest users in the last several years. His knowledge and training in uro-gynecology under the iconic Dr. Andrew Marchetti makes him a leading expert in the treatment of urinary conditions in women. His subspecialty training in reproductive endocrinology and infertility brings the fields of fertility assessment and treatment for infertile couples, with all the available modern-day advancements in techniques, including in-vitro fertilization, which he conducts in the Reproductive Sciences Center laboratories, a highly recognized and successful institution in La Jolla for many years. Dr. Villanueva was the specialist responsible for the first in-vitro fertilization pregnancy reported in San Diego County, in 1981, only one year after the first reported pregnancy in the United States, and two years after the first reported IVF pregnancy ever in the world, in London, England, in 1979. He has devoted all these years to continued improvement and excellence in the infertility therapy, with present-day aspects of egg donation, sperm donation, intrauterine insemination, as well as IVF, done with remarkable success. The endocrinology expertise allows Dr. Villanueva to have developed one of the largest menopause clinics, with extensive and proven safe means of hormone supplementation, utilizing the latest advances in bio-identical and natural hormones. That aspect has expanded into covering all the effective ways of dealing with male aging and the use of testosterone pellets and estrogen pellets has been done consistently by Dr. Villanueva for the last 15 years.

A budding, promising area is that of sexual therapy for erectile dysfunction for difficult cases of status post radical prostatectomy, advanced diabetes, or atherosclerosis, with the utilization of patented techniques with compounded medications with remarkable proven success.

For the last decade, in his previous group practice, Dr. Villanueva developed a cosmetic surgery wing that was remarkably well received and appreciated by his patients, with the use of minimally invasive techniques, such as fillers or Botox injections, and carefully crafted liposculpture, in which he received his training by the celebrated Dr. Jeffrey Klein.