Well, hello ladies and gents, Robert Sykes, Keto savage.com.
Today we got special guest Doctor Jeffrey Gross on the
line. He is the man behind re
celebrate spell with CELL because we talked to you about
stem cell therapy, regenerative therapies, I learned a ton.
The whole concept of gene cell therapy, stem cells, there's so
much confusion around that, myself included.
I'm pretty ignorant on that topic.
So I wanted to bring him on the podcast, do a deep dive, learn
as much as I could, see where it could be efficacious for my own
life and for people that are dealing with pain, arthritis and
just simply want to live their best, most fruitful life in
their later years. So thoroughly enjoy the
conversation, learned a ton. Have got no doubt that you will
take something from it. So that further ado, sit back,
relax, enjoy the conversation with Doctor Jeff and we are live
Doctor Jeffrey Gross. How are you, Sir?
Hey, great to meet you. Thanks for having me on.
I am excited to have you on. We're we're talking about,
you're going to tell me in the audience how to live forever,
right? I'm going to do my best to help
you. That's for.
Sure. Well, I always tell people that
you get nutrition dialed in, you get some form of resistance
training dialed in, maybe some form of, you know, intermittent
fasting. That's the closest thing I know
to the fountain of youth. But you're, you're coming at it
from a whole different angle with, you know, stem cells,
regenerative medicine. So I'm excited to learn from
you, Sir. I think you're right.
You, you listed a lot of the elements that that are so
crucial and we can talk about the reasons if you like.
But the the one thing you could do to up your game in that realm
would be to consider these youthful stem cell and stem cell
based biologics to tap back into that youthful biology.
Well, I definitely, I mean I've had AI think probably just a
handful of guests on that specialized in that, but I would
say that my knowledge of that industry is pretty, pretty
minimal. So I'm excited to learn from it.
With regards to stem cell regenerative medicine, like
that's kind of the new frontier, correct?
Yeah, I I'd say that's accurate, even though it's sort of tapping
back in this, you know, good old fashioned natural biology and
less surgery, less drugs, less synthetic type things.
It really is the the current sort of push in in modern
medicine. Well, I definitely want to learn
all there is to know about that or at least all we can't learn
in an hour. But I want to kind of get some
backs for on you. What was the the catalyst for
taking interest in this in the first place?
Well, a few things that I was practicing as a spine
neurosurgeon. I took care of many thousands of
people with neck and back pain and injuries and disc
degeneration, pinched nerves, that kind of thing.
The full gambit of consultations, therapies, you
know, rehabilitation, sometimes medication, sometimes
injections, and then if all that failed, surgery.
But there seemed to be a large gap for patients who maybe
weren't getting the type of benefits they wanted from the
non surgical treatments and then actually doing the surgery
because the surgeries are quite, you know, quite big.
And, and you know, and some of them involve implanting screws
and rods, which forever change someone.
And, and although there is a, a role for that, there's a large
group of people who who said, yeah, I got problems, but I'm
not ready to do that. I'm not ready to let you put all
that stuff in my spine. And I agreed, I said I, I'm
really don't want to. So they would, they would say to
me, hey, how about this? How about lasers?
How about how about stem cells? And luckily I have some
background and knowledge and, and, you know, undergraduate
stuff and, and molecular biology and, you know, a lot had
happened since I went to undergraduate school.
And it was an opportunity for me at some point to say, you know
what? I, instead of going to those
spine surgery conferences all year, I'm going to go to some of
these stem cell conferences and retrain and reeducate and tap
back into what I really liked in the 1st place when I was
studying, you know, at that level and so much had taken
place and what had taken place. Robert was mostly out of the
country. Most of the good work that we
draw from the follow up studies, the clinicals, the peer reviewed
articles come from Europe and Asia.
We're we're late to the game here in the US, but we're here.
Why? Why is it that we're late to the
game? Like what was the the reason
those other countries kind of got the head start on us?
They they, for whatever reason, did not have the as much
political and economic pressures like big pharma and you know,
you know, follow the money, right?
I mean it, it's people lose money if as, as they see this
stuff working and those people are, are in those industries,
the people who make spine implants and knee replacements
and you know, cholesterol lowering agents and what have
you. Yeah, no, totally.
When people hear stem cells and they're, they have very little
knowledge of stem cell, we'll just use myself as an example.
There seems to be a lot of controversy around that.
Like people like the ethics conversation gets brought in,
brought up like what is stem cell technology?
What is regenerative, you know, cell therapies?
Like, can you just educate the listeners to what that even is
and then we can kind of put the curtain back as to what is and
is not ethical, The different layers of it, so to speak.
Sure. I'm happy to do that.
And you're right, there are a lot of myths, so maybe we can
try to knock some of those out as we go.
But you know, stem cells are the the cells that created us in the
1st place. They're the cells that form in
an embryo and a fetus and a baby.
And even when you're born, you maintain these cells.
These cells when you're when you're born and and even went
into adulthood, have the power to become almost any type of
cell in your body. So if you injure, you know, your
liver and you need more liver cells, the stem cells in that
area can help become liver cells or they can recruit these Bank
of extra, we'll call them not yet job assigned cells to be
assigned a job. And, and we know this because,
you know, we make new skin cells all the time.
We make new hair cells follicles, we make, we make
liver cells, for example, and, and many others.
And when you're injured, you have to heal something.
If we cut you, you know, all these cells are recruited to
heal and those, those also are stem cells.
So our useful cells stem from this Bank of extra reserve
cells. So that's why they call them
stem cells 'cause they stem from Now when you're a, when you're
an embryo, those cells are incredibly more powerful than
they are when you're born. The, the different types of stem
cells are many, but the ones we maintain as an adult.
And when we use the phrase stem cells, generally we're talking
about what are called fancy term here, but mesenchymal stromal
cells, but or MSCS. And these are the ones that you
you have in your bone marrow and in your some of your fat and
other tissues. These are the ones we usually
talk about when you talk about stem cell therapies.
And there are, there are more fancier things, but that
generally speaking, that's a stem cell.
They come from 2 main sources these days.
And those sources are either you, your body, or a donor.
And typically the donors are perinatal, meaning they're
donated from afterbirth products like umbilical cord tissue,
amniotic fluid, you know, placental tissues, amniotic
membrane tissues. These, these are no longer
needed once a mother has a baby by C-section, usually that those
materials get thrown away and instead of throwing them away,
we now can have them donated and and tested and screened and
used. So I think there was a, you
know, this controversial idea that, you know, there were baby
farming and all this. I've never seen that or heard of
that. I think it's just, it's just
something that gets out there to to, you know, dissuade people
from looking into regenerative medicine.
Yeah, Yeah. So I mean, if that's not
happening, then what would be the pushback in the current day
and age? Is there any pushback?
A couple other pushbacks. One would be people think you
have to leave this country to, you know, get get stem cell
therapies. And that's not true.
Although other countries have had them much longer and
advertise more readily. For example, you can go to
Europe, Asia now you can go to Mexico and Central America have
clinics that that are well known, you know, for these
things. A lot of a lot of athletes 20
years ago, you know, Tiger Woods, Peyton Manning went to
Europe for this. It it just wasn't available in
the US. It is now the other, the other
myth, or maybe it's not a myth. But the other difficulty is, you
know, people want to know, does insurance cover this?
And interestingly, the answer is not yet in most cases.
I see in most cases, 'cause there are some rare cases where
you, you know, you become the squeaky wheel enough and it
works. I've also seen, you know, one of
the the lowest level entry level of regenerative medicine, stem
cell based medicine is called PRP or platelet rich plasma.
Many athletes know about this, right?
You can do it for a tendonitis tennis elbow or strains and
things like that where you draw it from your own blood.
You spin the blood, you pull out the growth factors in the
platelets and you reintroduce them usually over a few sessions
spread apart that also none of this is, you know, yet approved
for marketing claims by the FDA, but some insurances, you know,
the bean counters figured out that it's actually cheaper to do
that than to pay for surgery. So it's coming and it's coming
because we're we are starting to really see the cost benefit of
these less invasive and rather significantly beneficial
approaches. And what is the extent to which
I mean, maybe not even legally, but like what?
What is actually possible? Like if there were no
bureaucratic hoops to jump through, no legal concerns, like
what is legitimately possible with the current technologies
that we have at our suppose. Like if somebody lost an arm in
a car accident, you could grow that back.
Like what? What?
What is the scope of possibilities?
So there there are. Sorry for that noise.
There are some technologies that aren't yet ready for prime time.
Growing back a limb is one of them.
And, and if we can just tap into that for a moment, 'cause it's,
it's really an interest of mine. But you know, there are species
on the planet that can grow back a limb or a tail, right?
We have, you know, starfish and axolotls and which is a kind of
a weird iguana type animal that can grow back a limb.
And you, you may or may or may not know this, but a, a human
child, but before the age of five to six, if you cut off the
tip of the finger, can grow it back.
So we, we retain as humans some of those genes, they just get
shut off and blocked. So as we, as we're able to tap
back into that knowledge, the more we learn.
I, I see that coming someday, Robert, but that is not
currently available. It does require us to tap back
into the power of those embryonic more powerful stem
cells that really aren't available except in very rare
clinical trials. And those are called IPS.
CS are induced pluripotent stem cells and they're, they're based
on giving, giving some growth factors and, and that influence
the genes that are called upon called Yamanaka factors.
And those factors kind of push these cells back along the into
the more primitive ability to, to grow parts of a body, not
just allow a cell to differentiate into what we need.
So as we, as we learn more from that someday, I see that coming.
What's possible now though is, you know, help the body heal,
help a body recover from an injury, a heart attack, a
stroke, help the body fight inflammation because
regenerative medicine, stem cells are highly
anti-inflammatory. So, so many diseases of aging
and aging itself is really an accumulation of chronic
inflammatory changes, these deteriorating degenerating
changes. We use stem cells to help to
help influence our cells back into a more youthful restorative
state. And then also to help
regenerate, you know, musculoskeletal components like
cartilage, like joints. We we have our some of our
lowest hanging fruit is helping people avoid joint surgery and
spine surgery, which is where coming full circle is kind of
where I started in this. It's just expanded so much
beyond what I had initially intended.
Well, I, I don't know man, I'm, I'm 32 and I've noticed that as
of late. I just noticed more aches and
pains I didn't have when I was 22.
You know, I mean, I'm hard on my body.
I feel like I'm doing everything right nutritionally speaking.
I feel like I'm, you know, playing all the right cards, so
to speak. But like I, I tore my LCL in a
jujitsu, you know, run and I got an MRI done on that and the, the
doc was like, yeah, your LCL is going to heal.
It's going to be fine. But in looking at your, your
knee in detail here, there is quite a bit of wear and tear.
You can probably keep squatting for quite some time, but expect
more pain as time goes on. And I didn't like hearing that,
you know. So if I can, if I can mitigate
that by injecting some, you know, plateau rich plasma at
some point in the future, that seems like a pretty non invasive
way to go about it. Well, we could, we could do
better than platelet Ridge plasma.
But yes, we are seeing results now.
And it's not just me. I, I didn't come up with this.
I, I'm following protocols that have published over 15 year
follow-ups on patient in Europe. And we follow those methods and
the, the results are crystal clear that people are having
significant benefit reduction in pain improvement and function.
And we even have Mris where we've shown improvement in the
thickness of the knee cartilages and the structures that cushion
the joints. So because of these results, you
know, we would take Someone Like You at, at the stage that makes
sense. So whether it's when you start
to have limitations or you have too much pain that you you're
really worried about it or you want to get at it early and
prevent it, I would I would look at you very closely with your
MRI. We would look for specific
targets and deliver regenerative biologics and that could be PRP,
it could be stem cells or the latest and probably most
efficient way to do it is through stem cell signaling
factors called extracellular vesicles, AKA exosomes.
And these are from youthful stem cells.
They're abundant in amniotic fluid.
You can concentrate them down. They're, they're about half the
cost of stem cells and they're, they're they, they penetrate the
tissue very well. So I, I compete in natural
bodybuilding and they've got an exhaustive list of all the
banned substances, you know, steroids, obviously, you know,
hormones. Is, is that something of concern
within the athletic department, the athletic realm for these
therapies, or is that not even addressed?
Like, I haven't looked to see if any of this is allowed, not
allowed, if there's any controversy around this
whatsoever. I don't know about the, the
weightlifting community, but the amateur athletic associations
and, and bodies, the NBA and the NFL all allow all of this.
So in fact, we, we do have some of those as clients.
They don't want me to share their names, but as you, as you
may know, I'm based here in Las Vegas, NV and we have, we have
the summer league, the NBA Summer League.
So we have quite a few tall gentleman who with knee problems
come in and and they like to keep it on the down low.
Well, I would imagine, I mean, I could totally see where if
you're trying to compete in natural bodybuilding, for
instance, using my sport, I mean, if you're taking a bunch
of anabolics, then you're going to have a a competitive edge.
Obviously that's not fair in the realm of natural bodybuilding.
But if you're, you know, dealing with an injury, then I, I don't
necessarily think that yes, you'd, you'd be better off, you
know, against a, a similar counterpart that has an injury
like you're going to heal and recover faster.
But it's not like you're quote UN quote cheating and that
you're building more lean tissue or improving your athletic
ability per SE by mitigating the risk of this injury.
Well, I, I think that's accurate.
And in some ways it overlaps like the long distance runners
that, that, that train at high altitude, right?
They do that to increase their red blood cell count.
So, and to the extent that you know, you are strategic with
your proteins and your amino acids and your high intensity,
in particular muscle, you know, efficiency exercises, you are
also releasing testosterone. So you're, you're self doping in
a way. So, but since that's all
natural, you know, to the extent you could tap into your own stem
cells, I suppose that would be natural too.
But I know that some, some like the cyclist ban the the red
blood cell storage and doping. So I guess it just, it may be
sport dependent, I don't know. Yeah.
So it's all a matter of where you want to draw the line, I
guess. What what about when it comes to
donors? Is there a risk of, you know,
your body rejecting stem cells from a a donor?
Or is it pretty much like biologics?
It all works no matter what what you're using it for, where
you're using it. Well, I, I, I think there's a
hypothetical risk, but we've, we've learned that stem cells
haven't, you know, differentiated into the kind of
cell they're going to end up being.
So they have fewer markers on the cell surface to identify
themselves as foreign. So whereas if you had it your
entire bone marrow wiped out, if you had leukemia and had
chemotherapy and then you needed a bone marrow transplant, that
has to be a match because eventually you will you will
reject that if you're not well matched.
However, with with these these sort of smaller individual stem
cell types of approaches, we haven't seen any type of immune
reaction. There is some hypothetical
reports in the literature, but I've not actually read and seen
anything even even less risky with the extracellular vesicles,
the exosomes that come from stem cells, since they have, you
know, almost no cell surface markers.
These are, we call immuno privileged.
They're naive, they're innocent. They, they, they're like
unregistered voters. They haven't decided.
Gotcha. Gotcha.
And and and I want to make sure I'm hearing you right.
When When you age at at what point?
So like the, the, the cells that I have now at 32, like what,
what would I be able to find useful from for my cells because
they're not near as powerful as those unmarked unregistered
voter cells, right? Well, you still have a Bank of
stem cells in your body. You're, you know, and you're
super healthy. You do every year smart about,
you know, diet, exercise, you know, fasting all the, all the
all the anti aging approaches slow the aging of your cells,
including your stem cell population.
So you know, many doctors here in the country still harvest
stem cells from individuals and give them back to the same
individual, which is fine. But as you age, they become less
effective. And that that depends on how
well you age. You know, your biological age,
not your calendar age. So, so you know, you can take
stem cells from a 70 or 80 year old and they still have some
benefit, but you know, listen, we have access to the most
youthful source. And when you take your car to
get the oil changed, you don't put the old oil back in it.
So although I, I'm not saying any of these are bad, I, I, I
tend to gravitate towards the more youthful sources because A,
you don't have to harvest anything.
B, there, like, like you asked earlier, there really isn't a
problem with rejection. And C They're the most efficient
and active biologics. Can you bank stem cells like I
mean, I would think from an ethical standpoint, what, what I
can foresee happening, you know, in the future is if as soon as
you're born your umbilical cord is banked and any issues you
have in the future, you just happen to your own stem cells
from your births on umbilical cord.
Like that to me I think would remove any ethical concerns if
that's even feasible. Can you bank it like that?
Yeah, actually that you're right on that exists right now.
You can not only can you bank your own if if you bank your
child's umbilical cord, you can use that as well.
It wasn't the original reason people did it, but it's it's you
can bank and not only your own umbilical cord, but you're
right, that's the most efficient thing to do because those are
the best. But you can bank your own fat
cells and stem cells derived from fat and bone marrow and
other places. There are there are some tissue
banks we work with right now that have that service.
Now you do have to pay to bank them each year or each each.
They might have lifetime packages too.
And that's, that's pretty pricey where these off the shelf
donated, you know, particles are much less expensive.
Yeah, totally. And you can bank them
indefinite, like as long as you keep them on ice basically
they're they're good. To go Yep, absolutely.
Interesting. I've heard of somebody doing
that with teeth. I don't know if it was like baby
teeth or like certain like there's a certain type of teeth
or something like that more effective.
I don't that's a different type of stem cell.
You know, the vast majority of our bodies made-up by a layer of
the embryo called the mesoderm. And that makes most of the
connective tissues, you know, joints and muscles and bones and
things like that. And most, most of the organs.
So teeth are very different though.
They're part of the neuroectoderm, which which is,
you know, more like neurologic system teeth.
A few other things like it's a, it's that's different, but yeah,
you would need the teeth for that purpose.
Gotcha, gotcha. Makes total sense.
So at what point does the like once we get all those dialed in,
this is this is the common practice, at what point does it
make sense to go the route of surgery versus the stem cell
regenerative care like where is that line drawn?
Well, let's pick a common ailment like a, a knee
degeneration. So the cartilage wears down or
you've had prior injuries and tears, maybe prior surgeries
and, and then you you develop what your doctor might call
arthritis or osteoarthritis. And some doctors would say it
gets to a point of bone on bone, which is really just a stage of
cartilage loss. At at some point, a regenerative
procedure may not be enough to help you restore that cartilage.
The cells in the bone that make cartilage may have just
undergone too much degeneration. They you may be exposed to
metabolic problems when you're not a healthy individual.
At some point that and the and the pain is too great, surgery
would become a necessity to replace that knee.
Yeah. And you see, like you said, you
typically worked with spinal surgeries in the past.
Right. I've got a few friends that have
had, you know, spinal fusions at one point or another, and that
seems like a pretty and when you when you do that, you just
totally lack the mobility. I mean the spine is is not meant
to be fused a. 100% correct if it it.
I've done many of these and they were right for the right people
at the right time. And if I had regenerative
medicine as one of my tools back then, I might have tried that as
well. And I'm glad I have it now to
try for people before we do a fusion surgery.
You're right. Fusions are kind of old
fashioned and barbaric. They haven't changed
significantly since they were, you know, discovered in the
1940s and 50s. Of course, back then there
wasn't. There weren't screws and rods to
go with them. You know, those, those became
more popularized in the 1980s and beyond.
But if you look at the history of knees as a parallel, you
know, before they were knee replacements, if you had end
stage knee problems, you got a knee fusion.
You couldn't bend it at all. And you'd have to be pretty bad
off to have that knee fusion to walk around with one, you know,
fixed leg. But there were people that did
it. I I've seen it, but when they
came up with the knee replacement, I think that was a
game changer. Of course, now we're doing too
many of them too early. The the spine, though, has had a
different attack. When artificial discs became
available instead of fusions, they they didn't have the kind
of results across the board we had hoped for.
Particularly in the lower back. They do much better than neck.
The neck holds up a lot less weight than the lower back does.
Yeah, and I would think I mean like like I've like I said, I've
never had any of these done to myself.
But like I look at my mom and she's had, you know, both knees
replaced, hip replaced, worked on her foot.
And like any type of mobile, any type of joint in your body
that's meant to, to oscillate and move and, and bear weights,
like when you put some mechanical tool set in there and
like you are by definition changing the operation there.
And especially if you're fusing or putting screws in.
So like if you could simply regenerate that native tissue.
And that seems like a no brainer to me.
Well, that's one of the reasons I went into this and why I've
become so excited about it. And I agree with you.
I, you know, I did this to add a new tool in my toolbox, but now
it's, it's a tool that I want to make available to so many people
for so many reasons. Before, before surgery, before
drugs, these kinds of things. So, and we've got incredible
things coming as well. I mean, we're just, you and I
are just scratching the surface on this introductory talk today,
Robert. Well.
So I feel like the the technology and the the know with
all and the ability is not going to be the bottleneck.
It's going to be all the bureaucratic red tape and like
the people that control the pocketbooks within the world of
big Pharma, big medicine. So I'm assuming that's what's
going to be the hurdle. I, I would agree with that.
I think that's what I feel. For example, you know, I, I've
changed my name and my practice to, to sorry about that to re
celebrate because it's, we're celebrating the renewal of cells
and I'm really focusing on, you know, anti ageing and health and
so many things, you know, not trying to push the envelope of,
of Wellness over sick care. And I've, I've tried to put some
advertisements on Google and Facebook for this and we are
denied right out. We are disqualified.
So there's very little advertising in the United States
because to be compliant with the current FDA status on marketing
claims, we can't even advertise regenerative medicine, stem cell
medicine, biohacking, anti aging, all those phrases are
flat out denied. Well, it's unfortunate because I
mean, like, I, I, I see this unfold in, you know, big pharma,
big food all the time. And it's like if, if somebody's
going to be put at a disadvantage from a monetary
standpoint, like they're just, they're, they're going to fight
tooth and nail to prevent whatever it is that's happening.
When I look at this, like when you look at the cost, the
lifetime value, so to speak, like if you look at people as
products and your company is big pharma, then the lifetime value
of your product, your viable customer, so to speak, is much
higher if they have many more ailments and you can continue to
prescribe them drugs, pharmacology and expensive, you
know, surgeries and, and hardware.
So this pretty much negates all of that.
So like, how are they possibly going to be incentivized to jump
on board with them? Exactly.
So I've, I've seen this over and over and, and, but it's not
going to stop me from trying to help people and do the right
thing and not, not rest on the laurels of, of thing, of things
that doctors were doing 60 or 70 years ago, like fusions and, and
things that just haven't changed, haven't caught up with
the times, particularly when you can go to other places in the
world who are really fostering this biotechnology.
Yeah, no, I totally agree. I feel like, and correct me if
I'm wrong, but I think the most viable solution would be to make
it more affordable for people to just go direct and bypass
insurance altogether. So is that feasible?
They're yeah, that's what we do now.
So we with, luckily with the cost of the biologics, you know,
there's more competition. So costs have gone down here in
the US and you know, we really want it to be affordable.
So people either use their health savings account plans if
they have it, or if not, when you look at the cost of a knee
replacement or even a knee Arthroscopy surgery to clean up
a tear or something, which you might need anyway.
But the the cost, the downtime, the miswork, the recovery, the
pain, the risks, the infection risk, all that compared to let's
say you know, a $15,000, you know, one time knee procedure
with regenerative medicine. It's hard not to consider the
two, you know, side by side. Yeah.
So, so let's paint, let's paint some some numbers here.
So if if someone is going like if you have a candidate and they
are, they're not too far gone to require surgery, they would
benefit from the the cell technology that cost around 15
grand you send. Yeah, typically like if we take
if you have a single knee and the knee is usually and not
always, but usually at least one dose of the the biologics above
the knee cartilage, 1 dose below.
So we can get all the the cells ramped up to support the
cartilage and and help it heal in the surgery center with some
sedation. It's how we do it.
Paying for all those things all in cost is, is usually around 10
to $15,000. And then if you need additional
doses, let's say you need 3 doses in in the knee or one dose
in another knee or something at the same time.
It's just smaller incremental dose cost 'cause we just have to
pay for the additional dose. The surgery center is all paid
for, the time is all paid for, the anesthesiologist is all paid
for. So that's usually what goes into
it. And it's an injection is how
it's delivered. Yeah, when we're talking joints
and spine, it's it's a it's an injection into the the cells
that make cartilage. Those cells live in the bone
just adjacent to the cartilage. Cartilage itself has very few
cells. It's mostly a biological rubber
protein. Yeah.
So you get a pretty much stick the needle through the cartilage
directly into the bone, which probably doesn't feel too great,
which is why you need the anesthesiologist.
To put you out exactly, and it's just sedation.
It's a twilight. It's not a full general, but,
and, and honestly, the, the procedure, it only takes 10 to
15 minutes. The hard work is done ahead of
time. We get specialized Mris, we look
for the targets in the bone. We match it up where the pain is
clinically and where the problems are.
And, and we, we do all the mapping ahead of time.
So when I go into the surgery Center for the procedures, I I'm
already, I already know what to do, where to put it, how deep in
that kind of thing. And that typically, I mean
you're seeing people only require, you know, one session a
dose above and below the knee and then they're good or do they
often times need additional? No, the goal is to do this once
the we're basing this on the the European protocol that has the
15 year follow up. They're soon they're going to
publish their twenty year and they show that if you do it by
this bone technique, over 80% of the people, I think it's 82% of
the people at 15 years are still doing great.
So I can I can say that the goal was at least to match those
results And and we just don't know what the 20 and 25 year
results look like. But, but if someone had this and
didn't need anything for 20 or 25 years and they had to come
back again, I, I don't think that's a, that's a, a losing
situation. I think it's a win.
Yeah, no, totally. So we'll, we'll just use myself
as a hypothetical example here. And you haven't seen my Mris
obviously. And, and I'm still able to
totally squat and move without much pain.
So I, I, I feel like I'm not a candidate yet unless I was
trying to just prophylactically. But let's assume you know, I'm
32 now in, you know, 20 years. It's, it's considerably more
painful for me to squat, for instance, heavy load.
At what point in that lifespan would I ideally try and do the
stem cell therapy? You know, would I do that now at
32, or would I wait until it becomes much more painful?
Well, it's, it's person dependent, you know, if you, if
you still see yourself being the savage you are 20 years from now
at the same go, you want to, you know, the same personal records
and what have you and and competitions.
You would probably do it earlier because you want to preserve
that. If you, if you are, you know,
someone who who's not a fitness professional and you were, you
know, you were going to have an office job and young kids and
stuff. You weren't, you weren't going
to go at the, you know, the the hardest hards that people, you
know, challenge themselves. You, you probably could put it
off until it really started to bother you.
So it's just, it's just, you know, everyone's an individual.
We have to make it precise for that person.
It's a it's a personal decision. Totally.
And if I was to contrast that scenario with going the route
of, you know, knee surgery near placement, then that would often
times get pushed back until it becomes painful.
Like if I was to go to the doctor now, they'd be like,
yeah, just keep doing what you're doing.
And then if I was to go to the doctor in 20-30, forty years and
they'd do another MRI. But yeah, you need a new knee,
you know that at that point, what am I looking like at at the
cost standpoint compared to, you know, 15 grand for the
injections versus what? Well, usually health insurances
will pay for your knee replacements whatever your
deductible would be. So 5006 thousand a dollar
deductible. Plus, if you had a, a job that,
you know, required you to be present, you might miss hours,
you know, of work and income, you'd have physical therapy,
you'd be trouble walking. You're, you know, for a while
it, it would be, you'd have pain, you'd need pain pills for
a while, you know, so the, the, the cost of surgery isn't just
the dollar cost, right? There's a opportunity, there's a
lost opportunity cost. We'll call it a lost
opportunity. And with with the injections
like you get the injection and and is there any downtime after
that? Are you pretty much off the
races the next day? No, we, we want people up using
their joints stimulating that what we call mechanoreceptors,
which are the small nerve endings that sense the movement
and release cellular factors that call for healing and tell
the exosomes in the stem, in the stem cells that you activate,
you know where they where the the cartilage is needed to be
the proteins that are needed to be produced and deposited.
So we want people up and using it.
They are you are sore for a week or so but nothing ice wouldn't
take care of and some Tylenol. So I wouldn't have to take time
away from the gym, I can just go right back to it.
You could, you know, again, you may be ginger for a few days,
but you could, you know, if you had your knee treated, you could
go, you know, work on your bench press and arms and isolated arms
and back and show other parts, you know.
But yeah, you could use it. You can certainly use your knee.
No Cool, cool. And then when it comes to like
chiropractic care, for instance, you know, like a lot of people
go to the chiropractor and the fancier chiropractors that will
have you do an X-ray, They'll show you what your spine's
looking like, they'll show you any, you know, dis alignments
and they'll recommend a game plan.
They're like, do you put much stock in any of that or is that
all smoke and mirrors? I've worked with chiropractors
most of my career and you know, I, I think chiropractors are
helpful knowing that if you get the axial skeleton in better
posture and alignment, meaning the, the spine, then the
appendicular skeleton, meaning the the other joints, you know,
shoulders and hips and down the stream function best.
Nerves are less compressed and there is some credence to that.
It doesn't fix everything but as part of a rehabilitation program
I'm I'm pro chiropractic. Gotcha OK that makes sense but I
feel like the the most proverbial bang for the buck.
If you have a known issue with regard to any of your discs or
any any cartilage specific spots, I think you would be way
better off going the route of the regenerative stem cell
therapy. Yeah, I mean, if you're, if
you're well, you try everything else first, right.
This is an injection. You know, you should try regular
rehab and recovery if you have an injury.
And all the, all the things that you would normally do, you know,
acutely, you know, rest, ice, compression, elevation.
And then, you know, stretching, good strengthening, building up
the surrounding muscles and, and the flexibility training and,
and then all the hormesis, you know, the cold plunges and, and
fasting, all the good things you can do to stimulate your own
stem cell activity. And then I think regenerative
medicine is the next step. If those things are inadequate
to get you where you want, then then we talk about some type of
approach that I do. What is the the the largest
demographic from an age standpoint of people that are
using and benefiting from from the regenerative therapies?
I have, I think I have two peaks.
I have, I'll call it the young middle age, you know, the 30s
and 40s. These are usually weekend
warriors and people who may have had during their teens a sports
or skiing injury. And it's really starting to hold
them back from enjoying their desire and ability to be
youthful in their 30s and 40s. Then I have the older
population, you know, I'll call it, you know, upper sixties, 70s
and beyond that have. You know, just accumulated
chronic degeneration and don't want to become completely
sedentary and don't want surgery.
That's that's probably the bigger desire.
Yeah, I would think, you know, I don't know, like I, I talked to
people that are older, you know, 7080 and they have a significant
ailment. And when you get that age, like
the, the rate of muscle loss is directly, you know,
corresponding to how health you are.
Like when you start going downhill and you stop moving
your, you start losing your lean tissue, you become more prone to
falling. That's why all these, you know,
statistics of once you get a certain age and you start
falling, your likelihood of not surviving an additional year
past that, it is just significantly amplified.
I feel like a lot of that is because they have these chronic
pains and ailments and they just simply decide to not move as a
way of hedging against that likelihood of falling or dealing
with that pain. And if there's a way to mitigate
or bypass that, I would think that alone would be, you know,
tremendous in improving their overall lifespan, but more
importantly, their health span. Just sheer enjoyment for waking
up and living throughout the day.
I couldn't agree more with you. I think you take care of your
muscles, they'll take care of you.
So I agree so 100%. Where do you see everything
going? Like what's get you excited now?
Like where do you see the trajectory heading?
What's the next 5-10 years look like in this space?
Well, so the, the projects we're working on besides sort of
these, these low hanging fruit, you know, joints and, and
structural stuff is we do, we do some IV Wellness and, and
general inflammation reduction procedures where we give the
exosomes IV. We do many other things IV, we
do some cosmetic stuff. We have some sexual Wellness
shots. But what's coming and not yet
quite available, but we're pushing is there are certain
immune cells in our body, certain T cells that their job
is to go around and remove accidental cancer cells from our
body. So we we have accidental screwed
up cells all the time. We have so many cells that that
happens, but we have our immune system usually just removes
them, kills them and otherwise we would all have cancer at a
much younger age. And because these cells are very
powerful, there are now biologics that are derived from
these cells that could be useful as a augmentative treatment for
cancer patients and or a preventative.
So that's that's one area. The other area is there are some
of these biologics that are stuffed with extra mitochondria
and you think about people that really have difficulty losing
fat, losing weight and it and if you could, you know, inject some
of these into a white adipose and convert it to brown adipose
tissue. It's a lot easier to burn with
exercise and and cold therapy. Because as you know, you know,
brown, brown fat is metabolically highly metabolic,
right? Got a lot of mitochondria, a lot
going on. So also mitochondrial therapies
could be used not only for certain mitochondrial problems
and diseases, but also maybe even as a hack to help people
maintain muscle mass in that older age group, in that frail
age group. And and like you said, muscle,
muscle mass is lifespan and it's it's health span because it's
you, you can do more. Yeah, no, totally.
And you think all this is right on the horizon?
Oh, it's, it's, it's available in other countries.
China's way ahead. They have some of these things
already. And there are some places in
Europe where you can get the, the immune therapies and, and
it's coming and, and there are people working on it here in
the, in this country, but it's not yet available clinically.
But it's, I imagine within a few years, particularly if we can
really, really push and open up some of these regulatory issues,
we, we, we will get to some studies quicker.
I feel like the average person, like when they have an ailment,
when they have a pain and injury, like they just default
to go into their primary care physician and, you know,
subscribing to whatever they recommend in the, in the
biohacking space, like in, in our space, it's like we're
always looking for the next thing.
We're always on the, the cutting edge and, and trying to explore
and we typically never look to our primary care to give us the
best, best feedback and, and route of action.
So like, what is it going to take for this modality to, I
mean, it seems like it's already there from a cost standpoint,
like it's more cost effective. Even if you're bypassing
insurance. When you look at the lifetime
cost, the opportunity cost like that doesn't seem to be the
barrier to entry when you look at, I think it's just a matter
of getting it known. And if people are going to
primary care and their primary care is not talking about it,
like I'm assuming, that's probably the lowest hanging
fruit from a education standpoint.
Yeah, and that's why I'm here on your show today.
And and I do other shows because I want to share this with
people. I want to get the word out.
I want them to know that they or their family or their friends
have other options. And when you go to your doctor
and you ask, hey, are there any options in the stem cell
industry? Just like my patients asked me.
And for so long I said, I don't know.
I don't know. I don't know if it's ready.
And finally, I I said, OK, something's up and I have to go
back and do this if they don't have an answer for you.
And, and by the way, I don't know is a reasonable answer, but
what it says is let me go ask someone else.
Yeah, if they don't have an answer or they say no, you got
to get another opinion somewhere.
Yeah, I feel like a lot of them just default to what they do
know, what's comfortable. So if somebody was to like a lot
of people probably not even going to say, hey, what about
stem cells? Like a lot of people don't even
know that is a feasible option. But if they do, I would imagine
that their doctors would likely say it's kind of the new thing.
We don't have enough research or, you know, scientific studies
based on it. So let's go ahead with this
surgery in the meantime instead. Right.
That's very common. And, and you know what, maybe I
was guilty of that for a long time myself, whereas, you know,
I learned to do what I was trying to do.
And that was the set of tools I offered people.
And I offered them as best as I could and helped as many people
as I could. But man, if I had these other
tools back then, and maybe they weren't ready for prime time
back then here in the US, but they are now.
And that's why I I'm happy to be part of that and and do my part
to get the word out. So what what is that like
someone listen to this like man, my knees been bothering me I
want to I want to go this route as opposed to getting a knee
replacement. What, what does that workflow
look like? You they fly to Las Vegas, they
get an MRI and they. No, no, no.
It's it's a lot easier than that.
So we, we, we get on the zoom with them, we get to know them,
we make sure their body is ready and all other ways.
So if you're, if you're not healthy, if you're not eating
right and you're not, you're not supporting your own stem cells
yet. We got, we got to get that going
first, because if we're going to do something involving
regenerative medicine, we want your cells to be as receptive as
possible. So that could be anywhere from
bioidentical hormone optimization to, you know,
dietary and supplements and in food and macros and good
protein. And, and you know, you may, you
may know a whole lot more about that than I do.
And we would, you know, restorative sleep, everything we
want everything to be ready. So we start to get to know
somebody, we would order the MRI and the MRI has to be very
specifically done. It can't be just your
neighborhood MRI. It has to be the high resolution
three Tesla machine. So if you went to go buy a new
TV today, Robert, you'd want the 4K Ultra HD so it has the best
picture. We need that MRI and we need it
done with some certain additional bells and whistles,
sequences that aren't standard, doesn't cost more, but but we
have to get them. And then when we get the MRI, we
get access to the data. Then we get back on the zoom and
we review the results of the MRI, the pictures.
I can share my screen with someone and show them, and then
only if they're a candidate at that point do we invite them to
come out to Las Vegas for the injection.
Gotcha. Gotcha.
And that 15,000 that you tossed out as as a ballpark figure,
does that include everything from when once they get there
that I mean, I don't even know what the MRI, what's a typical
MRI cost these days? I don't remember what I did when
I got. My OCL, you're in Vegas because
sometimes we do wait for people to come here.
We, we have contracts with local centers.
We can get the an MRI of an E for $265.
And you know, there's a little bit increase each year, but it,
it's, it's not bad. We sometimes find other places
throughout the country because we have people all over who need
an MRI and we, my staff will call around and find a place,
see if they can negotiate a cash rate.
But you can usually find one for 600 or less.
And if it's done right and it's hard to get them to do it right.
And sometimes we've had people that they didn't do it all.
We had to send them back at no additional cost and complain
and, and I and I and I lost the rest of the question and, and
when I was answering that, but it includes, it does not include
the MRI. Oh, that's the way you're
asking. It includes all the visits, the
actual, you know, procedure, the facility.
It includes everything except your travel and stay and your
MRI. It's really so it's, it's all in
and, and again, some people just need one dose, some people need
5 doses. So it's just it varies.
And is there any body part or joint that is off limits per SE
or is pretty much anything goes? I would assume the knees and the
spine and the hips probably would be the the main focal
points for people. Yeah, I've, I've done toes and
ankles and, you know, arthritic thumbs and, and shoulders and
elbows and, and, you know, AC joints.
So I, I've done quite a bit. We are working on getting a
smaller needle to address TMJ problems.
In the meantime, I have a lot of people that ask about that.
There are certain areas of the spine that I don't feel
comfortable getting to through a needle even though I've been
there surgically. For example, the very top of the
spine or where the skull meets the spine.
We can people can have painful joint problems there.
I just haven't felt comfortable getting there because of all
the, you know, neurologic structures nearby.
But in time, perhaps we'll work that out.
Is there any risk to this? Obviously, if you, you know,
miss your mark with the needle and you hit that, that could be
bad. But apart from that, like if
you're addressing a knee, for instance, like, what is the
worst case scenario? Like what?
What What can you mess up apart from just missing the target?
Well, any, anytime you put a needle in someone, you know,
like you said, you can, you can hit something you're not
supposed to hit. You could put it in the wrong
place and it wouldn't have a benefit.
You could get an infection if you don't, you know, pay
attention to your cleanliness and aesthetic technique and you
know, you know, keeping it sterile, things like that.
Other than that, I, I, everything else is just
completely hypothetical. Like we talked about the
rejection, although I've never seen it.
Yeah. So significant less risk all in
then you know, having, you know, open knee surgery and getting
you know, joint replace that would assume.
Right. Oh, yeah, the, the, the risks of
joint replacement. You know, I think, I think it's
3 or 4% of people have some complication, whether it's a
blood clot or, you know, problematic swelling or lung
infection or urinary infection from the catheter.
I mean, there's so much that's going on with the joint
replacement surgery that adds risk compared to an injection.
Plus it just sucks, man. Like seeing my mom go through
her two knee surgeries, hip surgery.
It's like, I mean, you're walking around in a cane, a
Walker, crutches, like six months just to get back to where
you were. Like to me, that's just, that's
just no fun. Yeah, it's pain.
It's a painful recovery. You know, I've, I've watched and
helped so many people with spine surgeries like that recover.
And it's, you know, and, and I know some surgeons that, you
know, just lament having to see those patients in the first few
weeks after surgery because it's, it's, it's a guarantee
they're not going to be super happy.
Yeah, no, for sure, for sure. Well, this is super exciting,
man. I am very intrigued by this.
I definitely do want to dive in and see, you know, sports
specific for me with natural bodybuilding, like what they
allow, what they don't allow. But like I, I want to live my
most optimal life as healthfully as I can for as long as I can.
And I think that should be anybody's goal.
And I feel like this makes a lot more sense than going the route
of, you know, pharmacology or or surgery if it's not needed.
Yeah, I I love the way you think.
I wish everyone did. And everyone doesn't, of course.
And but we're here to help anyone who we can who wants to
pursue that a goal like yours. So yeah, this is this is I've,
I've become excited. And I'm not only a practitioner
of it, I'm also a customer. I've been, you know, using these
myself and offering it to people I know.
And it's, it's been wonderful. What?
What have you done personally, if you don't mind me asking?
Like just like your. Own Yeah, I've been doing the IV
just for general Wellness, aches and pains, things like that,
anti ageing. And then I've done some of the I
had a little thinning spot on my top of my head, losing some hair
follicles. So I've done 4 injections in my
scalp. And how does that work?
Like, how does the hair loss thing go, 'cause I was, I mean,
people are funny, man. Like people will put their their
knee on the back burner, but if they lose their hair, like we
got to get that fixed. Yeah.
Well, you know, it's, it's, it's very simple.
You know, we, we just, we put some topical numbing on the
scalp and then in, in then we inject the areas where you have
thin hair and there's reduces the inflammatory follicular
damage and helps improve the, the hair, saves the hair
follicles that are trying to die off.
So that's that's what we've seen there.
And you noticed a pretty, pretty significant improvement
relatively soon? We have I'd say we have mixed
results with with the hair I have if if you have a a full on
ball, like if you have a few inch bald spot on separate hood,
I'm probably not going to be able to inject exosome, stem
cell derived exosomes and regrow your hair.
If you have an area that's thinning, that's where we want
to catch you from losing anymore and start to thicken it up.
We have seen that I've had some good results on myself.
We also combine it with some topical peptides and things we
recommend you get now when we get into these future these,
these induced pluripotent stem cells and things I was alluding
to earlier. I think those will probably be
useful in in regrowing hair follicles in the bald in the
full on bald. Yeah, no, that makes sense.
So when you look at the the average typical lifespan for
Americans, for instance, I'm not even sure what the stats show
now is. I want to say it's like 77 or
something like that, and probably 8182 for females, 77
for males, and maybe I think it's something like that.
Yeah. In 20 years, for instance, let's
say this new regenerative cell therapy is the standard of care.
What do you assume the average lifespan will be at that point?
Like if you I mean this is totally speculative, but just
out of curiosity. So it is, but you, you use the
word average, which I think is important because when you look
at these lifespan tables, if you are a person who pursues health
and Wellness, you know, you, you're in the good group on the,
they don't separate those, but remember, they're mixing in to
those numbers, the healthy people and the people that smoke
2 packs a day. So, so the average, you know,
you're, you're going to exceed the average.
So I would, I would say that with current technologies,
depending on how much you take advantage of them, IV therapies,
stem cells, exosomes, things like that.
I mean, I, I don't see why we couldn't add anywhere from 25 to
50 years for super avid adoptees, people that do this
all the time. So that that that's what I see.
And we would have that technology at our fingertips
within the next 20 years for sure, you would think.
It's here now. Yeah, yeah, that's, that's
crazy, man. I, I look at people who pay no
mind to their health, who eat whatever they want to drink,
smoke, do all the wrong things. And it's just, it's, it's it's
kind of disheartening because like you see the masses,
especially in America, it seems as though we're going, we're
dropping off a Cliff from a health standpoint.
But then like, you know, like in my circle, talking to the
biohackers, talking to the people that are paying attention
here, talking to you, it's like the people that are trying to
push the envelope. Like the technology's there, the
information's there, the abilities there.
And it's like the the gap between the haves and the have
nots with regards to health is growing incredibly, incredibly
broad. I would agree with that.
I think I would. I would.
I've had the same observation. You're right.
Very interesting. Well, I'm super excited, man.
I'm excited about what you're doing.
I'm excited about learning more. I I'm excited to figure out how
I can continue to be the best bodybuilder I can be well into
my later years. So I'm going to be giving you
some business, man. Anytime I'm here for you, you
and any of your listeners, I'm happy to help in any way that I
can and I appreciate you know you having me on.
Thank you. My pleasure, my pleasure where
people go to find out more and book a console and take next
steps. Look, look me up at Re Celebrate
is the name of the company. So we it's spelled RECELLEBRATE
and that's the name for everything.
It's our website isrecelebrate.com, Instagram,
LinkedIn, Facebook, TikTok, Pinterest, wherever wherever you
put in re Celebrate, you'll find us.
The branding is on point man. I can totally see where somebody
is trying to set like spell, you know, re celebrate would
possibly spell it wrong, but like you got recalibrate, you
got rejuvenate, you got you got regenerate, you got all that
under one roofs. The branding's on point.
Thank you man. Appreciate that.
Doctor Jeff, really appreciate the time, man.
Appreciate the insight. If there's everything I can do
for you, by all means, just let me know.
I'd love to talk again. Thanks, Robert.
Sounds good. Take care.