What's going on ladies and gents, Robert Sykes, Keto,
savage.com. And today I've got special guest
doctor Adeel Khan on the line and we dive deep into the
wonderful world of stem cells. So this is medicine. 4 point O,
as he calls it. We talk a lot about, we talk a
lot about peptides. We talk a little bit about
hormones. Talk a lot about stem cell
therapy, gene editing therapy, where that is currently.
What some of the bureaucratic red tape and pushback around
that has been within conventional medicine, western
medicine and where it's going to go in the future.
What some of the use case scenarios for it would be, how
it can promote longevity, preserving muscle tissue,
reducing inflammation and just a host of use case scenarios in an
often times unexpected realms like neurological function,
things of that nature So thoroughly enjoy the
conversation. I've learned a ton.
Stem cell therapy is not what I would consider my wheelhouse at
all, so I was very intrigued to learn more than I did with this
conversation, so have no doubt you'll take something from it
without further delay. Sit back, relax, enjoy the
podcast with Doctor Khan and we are live Doctor Adil
Khan. How are you Sir?
Hey, good. How are you doing?
I'm doing wonderfully well, man, so I know just enough about stem
cell therapy to get me in trouble.
Can you kind of peel the curtain back on that a little bit more?
Yeah that I think that's most people's situation where they
see and hear a few things here and there and it can it can lead
them down a wary Rd. because there are a lot of stem cell
offerings out there and the because of the lack of you know
kind of approved therapies there's a lot of people kind of
dipping their hands into non improved therapies and and and
that's where you get where you can get into trouble.
So. So stem cells you know
themselves are not new the concept has been around for you
know decades. But really what what the main
message I want to get across is the stem cell engineering and
manufacturing has improved significantly and if in to the
point where we can actually gene edit them and engineer them to
do what we want and it's just getting more and more
sophisticated. But just to give everyone a bit
of a background, stem cells are essentially these amazing
molecules that you have all throughout your body that help
to repair and regenerate tissue. And what makes them unique is
their ability to turn into different types of tissue, but
also to replicate and divide and and grow new tissue as well.
Why is there so much red tape around stems as it pertains to
conventional western medicine? Yeah, I mean that's a that's a
long history lesson. But I'll I'll summarize what I
think and this is based off my experience traveling working all
over. You know I've worked in Japan,
I've worked in Dubai, Middle East and in parts of Europe and
South America and and obviously North America.
So what I see the biggest reason is has unfortunately to do with
the regulatory bodies who are overly friendly with the
Pharmaceutical industry. And what that means is they just
have lobbyists who help to prove certain things, and so they have
methods and ways to get pharmaceutical approvals.
But there's no real advocate for stem cells per SE because you
can't really patent a stem cell at least the first generation of
like umbilical cord stem cells. Now there are patented stem
cells coming because you can create gene edited ones and have
specific stem cells for specific issues and that's why big pharma
is starting to dip their feet into this is is for that reason.
But still the obviously making cell therapies is a lot more
costly than making pills. So I think unfortunately it it's
a real problem it's called the revolving door where a lot of
the ex executives from pharma companies go and work for CDC
who work for FDA and you know and they know one another and
and that creates a lot of red tape because cell therapy has
the potential and gene the cell and gene therapy because I like
to bundle them together under the umbrella regenerative
medicine have the have the potential to really disrupt
traditional medicine. And it's obviously going to
happen in our lifetime. It's where we started it.
But there's obviously going to be push back anytime there's a
new technology there's always going to be people trying to
push it back. And and the reason I was
bringing up the international stuff is because in Japan which
is a very developed country has some of the best innovative
technologies with so many in so many different facets and
they've had approval and regulation for these stem cells
for over 10 years now since 2014.
So if if you're looking at efficacy and safety, Japanese
are very careful in what they're going to allow their people to
have. China, same thing and Korea as
well. So all these countries are have
been doing them for a long time. So you I can't.
You can't really justify and say it.
It must be dangerous or it must be unsafe if all these other
countries are doing it and offering it to their people.
Yeah, I totally agree. I actually just recorded a
podcast last week with someone talking about Peptide therapy
and it seems like much of the red tape is very similar between
that and gene cell therapy as far as you know the the big
pharma not having figured out how to make the most money from
it. So that's why.
All the yeah that's that's literally what it is and big and
unfortunately we we do use peptides a lot too to combine it
with our cell therapies and and even our gene therapies based
off of peptide. So I'm I'm very saddened when,
when the FDA decided to ban peptides in the US.
Kind of crazy. Yeah, it is.
It is. It is insane.
So for someone listening that is not well versed in peptide
therapy, gene cell therapy, if they're just familiar like hey,
they they have an injury, they go to the doctor, they, you
know, depending on the type of injury, they get some medication
for it, some pain relief, they put them in a cast or something
like that. How is what we're seeing now
with peptides and and cell therapy and gene therapy like
what is that like differentiating itself from
traditional medicine like you were before we started
recording? You're talking about medicine
one point O2, point O3, point O, 4 point O.
Like how does that breakdown? Yeah.
So first, when it comes to musculoskeletal or injuries, the
biggest, the biggest difference is instead of just managing the
pain or because if the pain gets too much, then maybe you cut it
out or you just put people on chronic pain medications.
We're trying to figure out the root cause and trying to see if
we can restore function to that tissue.
So the classic example of this, which we've done many times and
now it's becoming somewhat mainstream is something like
platelet rich plasma PRP where you just take your blood, you
centrifuge it and you concentrate The platelets and
the platelets act like a medication in the sense that
they send a signal to help repair damaged tendons and
muscles. But the the, the biggest issue
right now in this whole field is how strong does the signal need
to be and what's the best signal, what's the best dosing.
And we still haven't figured that out completely, but there
are things we figured out which is that the signal from stem
cells or exosomes which are kind of the soup the stem cells grow
in, are much stronger than PRP. So you can treat a lot more
significant and severe conditions.
And in peptides what they do they they go down at a cellular
level to target specific pathways, which is this whole
idea of precision medicine, which is like, OK, this is kind
of what's wrong with you. So can we correct that as
opposed to just saying take this medication and manage the pain
that way. So if you have someone who has
an acute, let's just say sprain, we're not talking like a
fracture. Obviously, you know, if you have
a fracture, you still need to go to hospital, you still need to
get and that's where acute medicine is great, right.
But if often times there's people in this Gray area where
they might have a minor injury and they want to just get better
as quickly as possible, peptides can really be effective for
that. Like if you haven't if I would
say I'm a sports medicine doctor by training and I would say like
if I had an acute sports medicine injury kit like a first
aid kit it would probably be BPC 157TB four and and maybe CJCI
Pirellin and these are so the last one is a growth hormone
peptide and the other two are both regenerative medicine kind
of peptides the hub with different cellular pathways and
reducing inflammation and creating an environment that
allows your body to heal. And they're very safe in the
sense that the the therapeutic dose and the toxic dose are so
far off that you can't really overdose on them.
And I have clinically I've I think I've had one patient and
hundreds or thousands at this point maybe have side effects to
the peptide which was just like a local allergy reaction but
nothing nothing serious so there's they're so safe.
So it it it doesn't make sense. Again, I mean the whole
regulation thing we talked about, but it's it's this whole
concept which is the regulatory bodies can't keep up with the
acceleration of medicine transitioning and that concept
is basically medicine. One point O was obviously the
old ages basically where they used to do bloodletting and all
sorts of stuff that you know hit in hit prehistorical kind of
times and probably before the 19th or 20th century.
And then we kind of got into modern medicine, which was 19th
and 20th century and which which was obviously revolutionary for
infectious diseases, treated surgery, surgery advanced so
much. We got amazing at treating these
acute illnesses and diseases that used to kill people.
But we didn't realize that the modern environment that we are
making was setting up people for this huge chronic disease
epidemic where you have what's called an evolutionary mismatch
between our genes and the environment that we're in.
And as this mismatch becomes wider due to the convenience of
modern lifestyle, you see an acceleration in chronic diseases
plus all the toxins and there's so many other factors too.
But obviously the modern environment is not designed for
evolutionary bodies which are designed to be in the sun and
move, eat certain minimally processed foods, socialize like
all these things that are basic but unfortunately most of us
don't do that stuff and and that leads to chronic illness.
And so medicine 3 point O is this whole concept kind of first
proposed by Peter TI believe about just trying to prevent
disease using lifestyle and exercise and all these great
things that we know can be beneficial.
But to me I think be given the environment we're in and we kind
of know a lot of people unfortunately the people it's
very hard to get people to change.
So what I see is medicine 4 point O, which is kind of what
we're trying to bring now to the platform, which is giving your
bodies the tools using cell and gene therapy to be more
resilient and to hopefully create more behavior change and
increase health span. And the perfect example of this
is, is our gene therapy product called falstatin.
Gene therapy. Falstatin has been around for
two decades, but it's a peptide with a very short half life and
it inhibits myostatin, which means it can increase muscle
mass but it also decreases systemic inflammation which
allows to decrease aging, it increases energy vitality.
We've seen people D age their body by, you know, 20 plus years
on based off the epigenetic testing.
Does that mean they're live more than 20 years?
We don't know. But what we can say is their
health span will increase. And increasing their health
span, which means they can exercise and do all the good
stuff for a longer period of time, ultimately is gonna give
you more, not only better quality of life, but more
longevity. Because I think you and I both
know and probably most people know now who are probably
listening to your show muscle is kind of the organ of longevity.
And the more you can maintain that muscle mass through
lifestyle, the better off you're going to be.
And that's what these cell and gene therapies can really do.
Totally agree man. Is there any controversy around
this outside of just the financial concern held by Big
Pharma and traditional medicine? Like is there ethical concerns
or safety concerns long term? Like has there been any data to
back that up? I mean, I guess we're kind of on
the cutting edge a lot of this stuff so that there wouldn't be
any long term data. I don't, I don't imagine.
Yeah, I mean, I mean that's where you have to come back to
first principles and understanding kind of the
fundamental biology and mechanistic action of these
things. And that's why something like
stem cells, so specifically mesenchymal stem cells, which is
just an embryological term to denote kind of their origin.
But these are the ones we're using and they've been around
for like 20 years. So it's not new.
So there is a lot of studies and data on it.
What's new is just the manufacturing and improving the
cell viability and quality. And now we're getting into the
second generation stem cells, which again was probably
discovered. They're called induced
pluripotent stem cells or Yamanaka stem cells, kind of the
Nobel Prize winner Professor Yamanaka named them after
himself. But the the medical name is
induced pluripotent stem cells and they're basically cellular
reprogrammed using these transcription factors.
And you can take any cell in your body and turn it back into
a baby stem cell, which is really cool.
But that even that has been around since I think late 2000s.
So it's not. So I mean if you think about it,
that's still over almost 15 years.
So it's not that that new is just what's new is I would say
is the application understanding how we're using it now more and
more and kind of the potential. We didn't.
I don't think anyone realized that when stem cells,
mesenchymal stem cells were first discovered in in 1992 by
Professor Arnold Kaplan, I don't think, I don't think he even
realized how much potential these things had for so many
various conditions. So what we're realizing now is
these things can be programmed similar to how drugs release a
therapeutic dose. If we just have to figure out
the right dosing and right programming for these cells to
get what we want them to do and we can treat a lot of diseases.
So it's really exciting for that reason.
So, so to answer your question in in, in short, the risk of
vasectable stem cells and IPSCSI think is very minimal because if
it's steady for a long time, the biggest risk with IPSCS which
are those Yamadaka ones is because you're taking them back
into an embryological state there they have too much
stemness, so they can actually turn into tumors.
But we have a technology that has a gene edit which prevents
these IPS CS from turning into tumors.
So it's it's a very sophisticated technology where
you can actually program these cells and you can build in these
safety mechanisms. And the same thing with our gene
therapy. The we're the only company in
the world that has a reversible gene therapy and that's gives us
a very unique safety point because traditionally gene
therapies were viral vectors and viral vectors, you can't reverse
them. And and unlike CRISPR, which
edits your genes, this is not editing your genes.
All it's doing is inserting A plasmid which just produces more
of the falstatin which goes into your circulatory system.
So both of the things that I, at least the things I'm working
with, I'm very comfortable in their safety because I.
And once you understand the mechanism, you're kind of like,
oh, OK, well, I mean it's reversible.
Let's just say for the worst case scenario, you want it out
of your body, you just take an antibiotic and it's out of your
body. So and that that's never
happened to date. Like no one's wanted to have
their body because everyone feels pretty great on it.
But let's just say you wanted it for whatever reason, it it has
that safety mechanism built into it.
Gotcha. And the main the main mechanism
of action is the is the anti-inflammatory effect when
injected in a localized region, right?
For falostatin, yeah, it's actually that's one effect.
But the other effect which I would say is equally as
important is the inhibition of myostatin.
Because follow statin as the circulatory blood levels go up,
it has an antagonistic relationship to myostatin.
So it inhibits myostatin, which means you can put on muscle
easier. And I I call it a body
recomposition tool because it actually makes fat loss easier
because it improves metabolism and then it also makes muscle
gain easier. So it's pretty cool.
Probably improves metabolism because of the increase in lean
tissue, I would imagine, right? Exactly.
And also we know that chronic inflammation when you have pro
inflammatory cytokines, it can affect the cellular pathways
that regulate metabolism. So by clearing up some
inflammation, you're improving your metabolism in that sense as
well? I'd love to kind of dive into
some use case scenarios here because most people when they
hear stem cells, they're probably thinking OK you have a
meniscus tear, you have some soft tissue damage, you inject
stem cells there around the knee and that promotes healthy tissue
growth, anti inflammation there in that region.
What are some other use case scenarios here?
Yeah, I think, I think what we're understanding now is I
mean there was a paper that just came out there's so many use
cases. I I it it sounds kind of crazy,
but I would say almost every chronic disease, you know from
dementia, Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease.
There's a trial that came out this year which was really put
people into remission multiple sclerosis and and a chronic
inflammatory bowel disease, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus.
The problem is because there's now stem cells is such a broad
word and there's so many different type of cell
therapies. So that's that's where it's
getting sophisticated. So there's different cell
therapies now we can manufacture for all these different
conditions. So my favorite use for it and
the use case that I see the most benefit for is definitely with
chronic diseases and chronic inflammatory conditions such as
rheumatoid arthritis or inflammatory bowel disease.
And where we do intravenous stem cells and it actually it does
something called macrophage phenotyping which is basically
it's shifting how the macrophages which are these
white blood cells part of your immune system is shifting how
they express their signals from pro inflammatory to
anti-inflammatory. This is called immunomodulation
and this immunomodulatory effect is by far the most beneficial
part of putting stem cells intravenously.
And of course when you're modulating the immune system,
it's going to have anti aging and longevity benefits because
we all know inflammation and chronic inflammation is one of
the main drivers of aging. So that's why people use it for
anti aging and longevity. But I really like the use case
of the IV because I see just so many broad applications for it
do. You see people starting to do
this like prophylactically, like, even if they don't have
any known. Oh yeah, all the time.
Yeah, yeah, it's, it's obviously it's the cost has come down I
think, you know, I think couple years ago it was almost like
five years ago, it's probably double the price.
So it's come down by half I would say.
So I think it's becoming a lot more affordable and I think in
another five years they'll be probably half the price.
So I I can, I can that and that's why I think in 10 years
when this is you know one or $2000 or something like that or
a couple $1000 for an IV I I feel like and that lasts for 18
to 24 months you could I could see millions of people doing it
you know. And that is something that they
would probably have to do just independently or would they be
able to go to their insurance you think?
That's I mean that and the goal is insurance but that's to me
that's a 20 year timeline because you're playing that's a
long game, right And that is the game I think we we're in back in
my mind that I'd love to see and that's part of the reason we're
doing our clinical trials and everything but but I do think
that'll take that'll take it as a multi decade endeavor But in
the meantime I think this can become more accessible and
affordable as obviously the early adopters are paving the
way for regular people to kind of afford it.
Yeah, cuz you see a lot of people, well known people, elite
level athletes, Rogan, Tony, Robbins, these people are using
this technology now how are they getting access to it?
They just they have localized. Well yeah.
Tony's a patient of mine so he he he, so we've we've worked on
him and fixed up his shoulder and did the fall stab for him.
He's going to be making a testimonial for me so I can talk
about it and we have a picture together on Instagram but he's
but yeah so I he obviously comes to see me he'll he'll have to.
He usually we do it in Mexico, Los Cabos that's where and we
also have places in Dubai and Europe and then we have one in
Bahamas going to open it up next year.
So we have different off site locations and I think medical
tourism's just going to continue to grow because like you said
people are seeing you know the Tony Robbins of the world and
and those people doing it and more and more athletes.
So people are starting to wonder and be like why are all these?
Rich and famous and successful people and amazing ** athletes
doing it. So there's got to be a reason,
right? And so people start looking into
it and they want a lot of people who have the means to do it.
Don't want just like Sub Park medical care that you can get in
US if you have access to better technology.
And this is all, I guess there's just less bureaucratic red tape
to jump through in these other countries.
That's why it's accessible there.
Yeah, and and they're not corrupted.
It's, I mean just the truth by political companies, I mean like
the Middle East, I mean Japan and Dubai are perfect examples
because they're, they're developed countries obviously
with like especially Japan has a really like robust economy.
Like it's not like it's like a third world country there,
right. So they're obviously doing it
for a reason and they're allowing their people to have
access to this because they believe it's good for them.
What is the as a bodybuilder? I'm curious what is the rate of
lean tissue growth using something like this therapy as
opposed to those that go the route of anabolic steroids for
instance? Yeah, It's definitely not going
to make you blow up like Anabolics, but Anabolics
obviously have so many other side effects and they accelerate
aging and whereas this slows down aging, this is going to
help. Typically I'm, I'm a natural
bodybuilder myself, so I can tell you my experience and based
off our clinical trial, I can give you some info on that too.
But for myself, for someone who's been working for over 10
years, it it, it can help you to gain about 15 to 20 point 20%
strength, which is pretty significant if we've been
training a long time. And then that strength increase
obviously you can do more volume and then you can put on more
muscle and you're not going to put on like you know if you're
trying to put on, if you're going in this calorie surplus,
you can put on, you know maybe two 3 lbs / 6 months type of
thing. But typically it's nothing
crazy. But there are some people who
are hyper responders that we had in the clinical trial.
We had some natural bodybuilders who put on 6 to 8 lbs of muscle,
and this was confirmed by DEXA scan.
And then we had some people who weren't working out at all and
they still gained like one 1 1/2 lbs of muscle and they lost body
fat. So there's so there's definitely
a benefit even if you're not exercising, but if you exercise,
you're obviously going to get more out of it.
I would imagine that would still probably be frowned upon within
natural bodybuilding federations.
They would probably still view that as like.
A Yeah, I've had. I've had this discussion with
Jeff Nippert and Alan Aragon. I don't know if you know who
they are. Yeah.
So both of them. I mean it's an interesting
discussion because we we have there isn't there definitely is
not a consensus in the community.
I think some people think that it's similar to BPC and it is a
peptide technically. So it's just helping with
healing and recovery. Yes it is giving you some sort
of advantage but so is creative. I mean, look at creatine.
Like, I I don't know where you draw the line and between what's
natural and what's unnatural, because creatine has obviously
benefits too. It's an ergogenic aid, Caffeine
as well. And so I don't know what I think
in this era, modern era peptides in my opinion shouldn't be
considered illegal when it comes to sports performance.
But many federations have banned them, which is a shame and which
is why I like the fact that Peter Thiel and these guys are
getting, I don't know if you've seen that thing about starting
enhanced. Enhanced, Yeah, I'm a I'm a huge
proponent of that. So I'm going to be one of the
doctors. I think that's a great idea.
So it's it's it's the way things should be anyway, because most
people do use this stuff and they just skirt testing and they
know how to get around it. Yeah, I mean totally independent
of the the natural bodybuilding federations and sports
performance in general. Like, I'm super excited about
this from an aging and longevity standpoint.
Like when you have an elderly individual that would most
definitely benefit from it and they're not trying to compete,
you know, for cash prizes or anything.
Like I can't understand why there would be so much pushback
for that demographic. Yeah, and that's why we we
believe a country like we're doing our phase two trial for
sarcopenia which is age-related muscle loss.
Sometimes it can be, even at younger ages, but generally it's
with aging and sarcopenia is probably a bigger public health
concern than osteopenia or osteoporosis, which is low bone
density but doesn't get talked about enough.
And sarcopenia, there's no treatment for it.
So this will be the hopefully the world's first treatment for
sarcopenia and we want to get that.
And the goal for that is to eventually have insurance
companies cover it for that, for that indication, especially with
the aging population. And that's why Japan's in our
sight and because we believe Japan will really love the
treatment because obviously they have a really aging population,
so. What about something like
diabetes? How would this be applicable for
those suffering with diabetes? Yeah.
Well, there's two types, right? Type one, type 2.
So type 2, as most people probably know, is related to
hyperinsulinemia, which means you have persistent insulin
levels because you become resistant, because you're
because of the blood sugar levels becoming persistently
high, not exercising, all the lifestyle stuff, stress, sleep,
there's so many things that can affect it.
And over time, your cells just don't respond to the insulin
signal. And so your body has to produce
more and more insulin. And this, this is called insulin
resistance. And then that insulin resistance
leads to chronic inflammation. And that chronic inflammation is
what kind of leads to that degradation of health and
cardiovascular disease and everything else that comes with
inflammation. And that is so the way we treat
that because if you think about inflammation as a root cause is
by we talked about how intravenous stem cells have a
benefit. So we we can do intravenous stem
cells and then we also inject the stem cells directly into the
pancreas, which can help to reduce the inflammation in the
organs as well and allow the body to resensitize kind of to
insulin. And so we, we've seen people get
off if they're on insulin or medications, We see the blood
sugar improved dramatically with just regular umbilical cord stem
cells done through this method. And there's a paper that was
published actually from India this year too.
And they showed that same type of results with I think 40 or 50
patients that were able to get off insulin by through this
method. And for type 1, which is more
complicated because there's an autoimmune component and it
tends to be genetic. But what's being worked on for
that and we're we're working on this as well is creating those
genetically engineered cells but creating beta islet cells.
Beta islet cells are the cells that produce insulin and so you
can transplant them via infusion into the pancreas and basically
regrow new islet cells to produce insulin.
But you have to create an environment so the body doesn't
attack itself. So that's the clinical trial
we're going to be doing is kind of combining it with the
intravenous stem cells and something called FMT, which is
fecal microbial transplant for the microbiome and a few other
peptides and bio regulators to help support the immune system
and the thymus gland to basically reboot the immune
system and then transplant new beta islets into the pancreas.
So that's the clinical trial we'll be doing.
It'll be starting next year. There's already a company called
Vertex that has done beta islet cells successfully.
But the problem was the patients have to go on immunosuppressants
because of the the cells that they used.
Our cells will not have the need for immunosuppressants.
So we're hoping we'll have a positive result.
I think we will. And if we do, obviously it'll be
pretty revolutionary for people with type one diabetes.
No, 100% as a treatment like that, something that would also
be administered like on a 1824 month basis or more frequently.
No, it's meant to be permanent because we're in grafting, we're
in grafting new cells that are going to transplant.
It's the same thing with the Parkinson's disease trial they
did this year. They use those IPSC cells I was
talking about and they differentiate them into dopamine
producing neurons and they transplant them surgically into
the claudate nucleus or cotamputamine into the brain
part where the dopamine neurons get degenerated in Parkinson's.
And so you're actually engrafting new cells and those
new cells produce dopamine and so you've effectively cured.
I never like to use the word cure, cause the medicine, you
know, cured is. It's hard to say, 'cause that's,
you know, sounds too good to be true.
But let's just say in remission you're putting patients into
remission effectively after the treatment.
That's just with a single treatment.
Wow that that's insane. That seems much less profitable
than a consistent. Exactly, it's just.
Medication or constant insulin prescriptions.
So yeah, that's the hard part, man.
It's unfortunate there has to be so much finance focused around
treatment, but I mean, for the well-being of the patient, this
seems like the way to go. Yeah.
And and that's why I think the reality is as as more and more
of those, the stuff that we, we explore and if we're able to
pull it off, I think there's going to be a lot of negative
media and negative press around it.
I mean, there's already some about our gene therapy company,
but it's unfortunate. I think I, I always equate it to
what Tesla went through. Tesla was the most shortest
stock in history. At one point it was 33% shorted
which means the hedge funds were trying to drive it under the
ground and because they didn't have because they were so
shorted, they can't. It's harder to raise cash and if
you have more cash flow it makes it harder to run a business and
grow. And so they almost went bankrupt
and. And but why was that?
It was because the oil industry really wanted them to fail and
they did not want them to succeed and they did everything
they could and all the media outlets and everything kept
saying sell, sell sell. Tesla's going to go bankrupt and
you know, after 2020 they their stock 10 or 20X and there was
something called a short squeeze.
And so I saw that unfold as as an investor, early investor in
Tesla. And so I I I expect the same
thing with this stuff. How do you stay optimistic, kind
of being on the tip of the spear with it, but seeing all this
push back? I think because honestly it's
it's as silly as it sounds. I think it's because of the
modern era we're in. If we didn't have social media,
there'd be like 0 hope because then then then the narrative is
all controlled by like 1 entity essentially which is mainstream
media. And they all more or less have
the same people behind them and kind of they want to push
stories in a certain way. But because of because of social
media they can't really stop it and and and to the extent that
they'll go where you if you if you put stem cells on a Google
ad they'll take you down or if you know even on YouTube certain
things and so they can't but they can't really stop podcasts
and and certain things on Instagram and and influencers
talking about it and getting it done because that's that's the
only way you can really grow because if you if you run Google
ads on stem cells they'll block you.
So it's it is an interesting time in that way.
But I I think because of the ever growing the stain in
mainstream medicine as well. COVID actually helped ironically
enough. Because people just after that,
there's so much distrust in the mainstream narrative and people
are starting to question things more and don't necessarily
always believe what their doctor has to say.
And I think that's and that's the whole point.
I'm not saying believe everything I say either.
You got to fat. It's good to get different
opinions and then just weigh all your options and know what's out
there so you can at least make an informed decision.
The problem is when you go to your average doctor and let's
say you haven't, you have chronic pain or you have an
injury or whatever disease you have, they're only going to give
you what they know. They don't know what they know.
They don't know what they don't know, right.
And and and that's that's the biggest problem is the lack of
education and medical doctors education after medical school
and residency is pretty abysmal. Our our medical school education
is actually terrible as well in in in hindsight because it gives
us a great foundation just for Physiology and pathophysiology
but doesn't really it doesn't it there was very little training
on actual root cause mechanisms and how they play into disease
and targeting those essentially what's called functional
medicine and that's something I had to study on my own and but
there's like little to no teaching on that and which is
like a shame. When you when you reach out to
like doctors and physicians boots on the ground, you know
care caregivers are are they pretty receptive to what you're
having to say? Are you still getting pushback
from them? I'd say it's mixed.
There's definitely some who are receptive and then I would say
the majority are still pretty conservative and there are still
just kind of like, oh, the guidelines don't say this,
therefore it can't be true. Yeah, there's and the guy, where
did the guidelines come from, though?
The guidelines come from specialists who are considered
top in their field and who all have industry ties.
So it's it's just a system that feeds itself.
How how long has Y'all's company been running?
When did you start it? My own company has been around
only for a year actually. It's been crazy where we went
from start up to scale up. We're growing like really fast.
And then the the mini circle gene therapy company's been
around this. We started, I think, in 2017, so
almost seven years. And what, what made you want to
go down this trajectory, man? Like what were you doing prior
to and then had had you switched course to this?
Like what was the the catalyst there?
Yeah, I'm I'm a I'm a gym, gym junkie at heart.
So I'm a meathead funny, you know.
So I was a personal trainer and I'm sure, you know, if being in
the fitness world, you have a very different perspective about
health because you you'd literally see in front of you
how fitness, just fitness, exercise, nutrition can fix so
many chronic diseases and and help so many people.
So I always had that lens when I was in medical schools.
Kind of like why are we learning more about prevention and why
aren't we learning more about how to actually treat the root
cause? So I was just, that was just my
bias, I guess coming from the personal training world, which
obviously paid off because it's LED me down this road of kind of
innovating and discovering new things and being able to look at
things differently from the average doctor.
Yeah. No, that's I think that's a good
background to have, man. Like you, you didn't get into it
because of any financial means. Like you just simply recognize
the benefit of how you could subject your body to certain
stimulus, IE the training, and then benefit from it.
So that's the purest lens to look at Medic Medical, you know,
intervention and health through. Yeah.
No exactly. I Jordan Peterson on his podcast
he's like why should people trust you And I'm like that's
basically it. It's like because I I don't have
I was never motivated by finance and and then Canada especially
where we're not we don't even we're not really really talk
about that because it's it's a publicly funded system.
So you never really look at how much doctors make.
Well, at least I didn't. And and I think that when you
look at it from that and you're kind of just looking at it from
like how do I help more people, it naturally takes you down this
route. Because I mean, I just can't see
as an average physician, if you're in the regular system,
you obviously see it's broken unless you're like a trauma
surgeon or those are different things.
But if you're dealing with chronic disease care like
internal medicine, family medicine and a lot of these
specialists who are just prescribing medications for
chronic illnesses, how can you not see it's broken?
It's so obvious and and I think most of them are and they know.
I think a lot of them know actually and a lot of my
physician and friends know that it's just most of them are too
burnt out or tired to care. And the ones who want to make a
difference, they're just, they just don't know how.
And so I'm hoping that we can kind of be almost like a beacon
of hope or light that we can create a lot of systemic change.
Totally, ma'am. Out of out of curiosity, what is
the the publicly funded system in Canada like?
All in all, like, do you think that is a significantly better
system than what we have here in the States?
No, it's probably way worse. Probably way worse.
It's I mean from a metrics perspective it's it's probably
it is OK from from if you look at the numbers in terms of GDP
per capita and how much you spend you guys are worse but but
we also have people dying while waiting in emergency rooms and
we have people waiting six months to get Mris when they
have cancer. So and there's tragic cases like
where people die in those cases like it's so we have pretty some
pretty horrific things that I don't think should happen in the
developed country whereas at least in the US if at least you
can pay to get those things done and but that but then it's too
much to the other extreme where it's like people are paying way
too much and insurers are charging so much and it's like
at the end of the day who's who's making all the money?
It's not the doctors. Doctors do pay it's it's
insurers and it's the pharmaceutical companies and
it's the hospitals. So it's just this business
that's feeding itself. What would be?
I mean this is just us totally blue sky thinking that, but what
would be the ideal set up situation?
Like would it be through a governmental entity at all or
would it just be quality? Quality.
Well I think first we have to we have to maximize medicine 3.0
and which means prevention and it's like how do we scale that
and we do have a company called Exalt XAL T dot Fit and we're
basically our goal is to do that.
I mean it's super ambitious but we're we're trying to basically
use virtual trainers like personal trainers and fitness
coaches because we and just making it more accessible by
using machine learning and having a dashboard that allows
every tracking. Because as I'm sure you know the
biggest issue is behavior change and it's we we're trying to
solve for behavior change by just having you accountable to
someone. I don't think AI on its own can
replace it. I think people need a coach and
they need someone to keep them accountable and that's the only
way they're going to stick to it long term.
And then once you've solved for behavior change and you scale up
medicine 3 point O where it's like OK, this is super
accessible and you're you're actually getting these
preventative care methods, then they're like 80% of chronic
disease goes away And then that's based off long term data.
We know that 80% of chronic illnesses are linked to
lifestyle and then you can add in the layer have hopefully one
day where these imagine where intravenous stem cells or
exosomes and these gene therapies are covered by
insurance and you can go to your doctor every two years and get
them done and give you vitality and energy and how to prevent
disease and that would be and then and then instead of just
chasing disease you're you're preventing disease altogether
but that's not good for business.
So I don't, I don't know if that will happen, but I hope that
will happen. Yeah.
Well, that that our hopes are aligned there for sure.
If you were to map out like a a timeline, chronologically
Speaking, of what this would look like as far as the
technology goes, the gene cell therapy, like what?
What do you forecast over the next 10, twenty, 3050 years?
Yeah, I think, I think over the next in 10 years we'll see stem
cells become mainstream, which means they'll be accessible.
They'll probably be available everywhere and including in
North America I think as well because FDA and healthcare, I
mean they they have no no choice but to admit that these things
work and different cell therapies for different
conditions and it'll probably it'll be regulated but at least
it'll be permitted. And then same thing with the
gene therapies. I see that stuff really becoming
mainstream and it might be sooner, but I think often the
kind of precipitous or kind of trigger to for a lot of these
things to become mainstream, as sad as it is, it's kind of like
cosmetics or the sex industry. And the reason I use that
example is like platelet rich plasma like PRP was around for a
long time like you know almost 2030 years for for
musculoskeletal conditions. But it didn't become mainstream
until until they started using it for hair and then face the
vampire facial and then the pee shot like penis and then people
started talking about it. So it's I feel like once we're
all working on the gene therapy product for cosmetics called
copper peptide gene therapy. So I feel like that and then
we're also working on women's Viagra gene therapy.
So I feel like once we've launched those products, I think
gene therapy will become a lot more popular and more
mainstream. And that'll be a good hopefully
trigger for more and more people to want to, yeah, to want to do
it. And and then that'll also pave
the way for us to do more research in clinical trials and
then show that, hey, this stuff actually works and have insurers
cover it. And then in in 20 years and 30
years, what I see is customized cell therapies and gene
therapies, which means we can take, we can take a cell from
your body, a defective cell and correct the defect and then
manufacture the healthy cell and then put it back in your body
and fix whatever problem you had in the first place.
So customize to your body. That's that's gonna happen for
sure in our in our lifetime. Yeah, it's a lot of people are
talking about doing that like in embryonic stages, like for, you
know, people before they're born yet, which is kind of crazy that
that is even a possibility when people are kind of like playing
God with that one. Well, that already happened in
China and then the guy got arrested.
But I feel like they just did that for optics because I'm
pretty sure China and Russia are probably doing that.
I just based off their ethics, the way they are with things and
they want to obviously be the first to do things.
And yeah, but the gene editing embryos is a whole Pandora's box
And I think there's going to have to be a lot of regulation
created around that and ethicists and a lot of people to
figure out what's the best way to regulate that because
obviously gene editing embryos can be life saving potentially
for some embryo have genetic deficits, right.
So but on the other side of it then you can start manipulating
and start being like oh we want to enhance their height or why
don't we make them have this eye color and this type of stuff.
So then it just, yeah it just gets into a whole controversial
box that I hope smarter people than what's been done with the
tech industry will create. Because the tech if anything
I've we've learned from big tech is lack of regulation is not a
good idea because then like obviously I'm I don't know if
you've heard about how you know technology probably shouldn't be
so overly used for young kiddos with on screens and stuff but
it's just like no regulation around it.
So it's just like, you know, it's like dopamine casino for
kids. Yeah, no, totally.
It's it's scary times for sure as far as that's concerned.
But I would hope there wouldn't be.
There is, but I hope that that that the controversy wouldn't be
nearly as heightened for, you know, simple acute inflammation
injuries, ailments that could and should be corrected, you
know, relatively easily with this technology as we know it
now. It's unfortunate that people
have to go to a third world country or not third world
country but a different country to get this care.
It's like for people listening now that are in the States, for
instance, like what is their best option?
Like if they're wanting to, you know, mediate some type of.
Well, the problem is if you Google stem cells US, you'll
find hundreds of clinics, many of them being in Florida and
that the problem is that they're not legitimate clinics because
stem cells are illegal and not FDA approved, both stem cells
and exosomes. So it's like how are all these
clinics operating? It's just FDA can't keep up and
shutting them all down, which it's not a you know, it's it's
not a great environment. Because the problem is when you
don't, when you don't have proper regulatory oversight,
then you have people. Then you have bad players who
don't really know what and they're just trying to cash in
on the opportunity because they know there's some desperate
people out there who are just Googling stem cells and will go
to the first person who's nearby.
And the problem in the US is you're only allowed to use
autologous stem cells, which means from your own body and
your own body. Stem cells after age 40 are
really not that useful because there's something called stem
cell exhaustion, which is one of the hallmarks of aging, which
basically denotes the stem cells functioning to repair and
regenerate tissue decreases as you age.
Plus, you're not allowed to expand stem cells, which is the
dosing. So if I take stem cells from
your body, from your fat or your or your bone marrow, and I
inject it back in, I may be injecting 500,000 or something
to maybe a million at most. And that can still be helpful
for certain conditions. I'm not saying it doesn't work,
but it's often temporary. And for muscle tendon tears, it
can still work for those issues. But if you're talking about like
really severe osteoarthritis or chronic illnesses, it's not
gonna really do much for long term results.
And so then you have to go into work called culture expanded
where you actually grow the stem cells for a couple weeks and
then we we you know we put like 100 million or 200 million or
sometimes even more. And so obviously if you have 100
times higher dosing, just intuitively you're probably
going to think it's going to work better.
And it's it's not that more is always better, but there in this
case it actually is there is a certain dose that you have to
have for these things to be efficacious, which is the
biggest problem I see with the clinics that, you know Joe
recommends and some of the other clinics is is dosing.
And I've had many patients go to those places and not get good
treatments. And even like, you know, like
Israel, we had a post with him Adiosania, he's AUFC fighter and
you know he was going to go to CPI.
But the problem is luckily he came to me just because they're,
it has to be the, the interventional skill set and how
you go to stem cells. There's so much nuance to it,
and I'm not saying that we're the best, but I just, I've
learned from different people around the world who are the
best. I think like in Japan and in
other in Europe and stuff we've been doing for such a long time.
And I'm just kind of taking their practices and bringing
them here. Gotcha.
So I'm, I'm 32 that's kind of selfish question here but I'm
not over the the hill yet so to speak.
Is there anything that I could and should be doing to kind of
play for the long game like STEM?
Cell. Yeah, I mean, like, to me it's
just, it's all about the means, right?
Like if you have the means to do it, there's no reason you can't
do the stuff starting in your 30s or even in your 20s because
it has so much upside with pretty much like little to no
downside. So the I think the biggest
things people in your age group like to do probably is the fall
of Saturn just because especially if you're a lifter,
it just gives you a better, it gives you better pumps because
it increases neurological Dr. which is pretty cool and then it
just gives you better recovery, better strength and yeah and
then some people what we do for them too is the, the IV, the
intravenous stem cells as part of our anti aging stuff and that
just helps with recovery, it can improve HRV and sleep.
So. So there's some, there is some
tangible benefits you can see from that stuff.
But I think, I think for you probably if you're going to just
do one thing, probably the false data would probably be the thing
that you would be like, oh, this was this is awesome.
Would it be worthwhile to do any stem cell banking like so I can
kind of sit on it until a lot of this regulatory stuff gets
worked out? You don't need to because we're
getting into the era of genetically engineering stem
cells so we can manufacture them and make better ones from
someone else than your own body anyway.
Even even the umbilical cord, I think it's going to be
relatively outdated within the next few years.
I mean it's always starting to be because like the Parkinson's
trial is talking about that was with the second generation stem
cells as well. So we're going to be
transitioning to those later this year and the idea is we'll
use, we'll still have umbilical cords available and there's
still efficacious for certain things, but the second Gen. has
more definitely more potential. That's crazy, man.
It's crazy what science is allowing us to do now.
It's amazing. Yeah, I mean it's it's it, it
sounds like sci-fi right, where you're engineering cells to do
what you want. So it's it's called synthetic
biology which is really exciting field and it's only gonna get
more and more sophisticated. I'm excited to see where it goes
for sure. I know you got to catch a flight
here soon, so I don't want to keep you long, but for the
listeners sake and for your sake and what you're trying to get
the word out there for, what can people do?
Where can they go to learn more? What should people do to?
Learn more. I think at the very least like
I'm a huge fan of peptides and I think really learning about
peptides and educating yourself because they can really make a
difference. Like NMN is is not a peptide but
it is a molecule that's been talked about a lot for anti
aging. And I think that and there's
certain peptides like s s 31 and I see JC Apramellian which I
think are great to cycle throughout the year.
So I think those are and they're not expensive and those things
are easy things I think everyone can do that can add into their
longevity routine. And then as this stuff hopefully
becomes more and more accessible then it's obviously this is like
the next step up. But I feel like a lot of people
who you know listen to your show I'm sure or a health conscious
and they have the foundations in place.
So it's like what else is out there and I would say it goes
peptides and then cell and gene therapy after that.
Got you. Yeah.
I just finished a book from Saint Clair and he was, you
know, very bullish on Intamin. Do you do that yourself?
Like how do you kind of work that into?
Your routine? Yeah.
No. Yeah, I started.
I started doing it myself and I I think it's so the reason
people to understand why this molecule in particular is so
powerful and it's so beneficial is because the mitochondria, I'm
sure everyone from high school, high school biology remembers
mitochondria are the powerhouses of the cell.
There's these little organelles that are, quote UN quote
powerhouses, but there's so much more than that we're realizing
they're they they help with signal transduction, iron and
calcium homeostasis. And most importantly, they they
are probably mostly involved in cellular senescence.
Which means if the mitochondria become dysfunctional and there's
too much oxidative stress, and that can be a signal for the
cells over time to become senescent.
And there's also something called mitophagy, which is
mitochondria themselves are supposed to send a signal to
become catabolic and kind of disappear, but sometimes they
don't and they become senescent too.
So and then when you have build up of senescent cells, that's
least of chronic inflammation and all these other things.
So that's really one of the biggest.
What's called theories of aging is based off mitochondria
dysfunction. And to really put that in
perspective, when you're five years old, they've done studies
where if you take a 5 year old, they have 0% dysfunctional
mitochondria. If you take a 75 year old, they
have 95% mitochondrial dysfunction.
So what does mitochondrial dysfunction really stem from?
It stems from the different intermediaries.
And the things that make up mitochondrial function such as
NMN helps to support NAD, which is A, which is a molecule that
helps to produce AATP, which is energy.
So basically NMN SS31, which is another peptide I both support
mitochondrial function, and there's been studies in animals
showing NMN and S S 31 together are more efficacious, so I
usually recommend taking them together because they have
different mechanisms as well. Gotcha.
Very cool. Very cool.
What do people go to Find out more about you, man, and to dive
deeper into your ecosystem? Yeah.
I mean I I'm pretty active on Instagram at ER dot Akon Khan
and I think TikTok is the Regen doc.
I think that one is just for fun.
But we we post stuff on there as well just because especially
with the younger generation I mean we get it's funny I had a
I've I've had so many people in their even in their 60s I'm like
how'd you find me? They're like TikTok I was like
what That's crazy. And so it's yeah.
So we're very active on there and our website's eternal, like
eternal without AL dot health, and you can just go on there and
book an appointment and if you have.
And there's lots of information too.
And a lot of times people aren't sure if this stuff can help them
or not. And if you're struggling out
there and you're not sure what your options are, you can always
get a console and see if we can help you.
Awesome man. Well I certainly appreciate the
time Doctor Khan, and I appreciate you being on the tip
of the spear cutting edge and doing this research and doing it
for the right reasons, changing lives.
So I'm I'm definitely excited to follow along and see how this
unfolds as time progresses. So keep fighting the good fight,
man. Yeah.
Thanks. Appreciate it.
Have a good one, Sir. Take care.
Bye.