Episode 357: The Future of Anti-Aging: Dr. Adeel Khan's Insights on Gene Therapy, Stem Cells, and Exosomes

1h 5m
Are you looking to stay youthful and energetic as you age?

In the latest episode of The Habits & Hustle podcast, I sit down with Dr. Adeel Khan and discuss the cutting-edge world of regenerative medicine. New technologies like gene therapy, stem cells, and exosomes may help slow down aging and heal injuries in ways that go far beyond conventional medicine.

Dr. Khan explains how therapies like Follistatin gene therapy decreased biological age by 11 years on average in a clinical trial. He also covers mitochondria-boosting peptides, engineered exosomes for skin rejuvenation, and stem cell treatments to reduce inflammation and chronic diseases. This is a must-listen for anyone interested in the future of anti-aging and healing treatments.

Dr. Adeel Khan is an expert in musculoskeletal medicine, pain medicine, and regenerative medicine such as Stem Cells & PRP (Platelet Rich Plasma).

What we discuss…
(05:00) Cutting Edge Regenerative Medicine Exposed
(14:52) Revolutionizing Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cells
(22:16) Navigating Stem Cell Therapy Credibility
(25:05) Medical Education and Cutting-Edge Therapies
(38:15) Revolutionizing Healthcare Through Regenerative Medicine
(48:56) Mitochondria Function and Longevity Tools
(56:47) Biotech Clinics and Gene Therapy Development
(01:02:45) Eterna Health and Gene Therapy Technology

…and more!

Thank you to our sponsors:
Magic Mind: Head over to www.magicmind.com/jen and use code Jen at checkout.
BiOptimizers: Use code JC10 for 10% off and shop here: bioptimizers.com/jennifercohen
Sleep Me: use code sleepbetter at www.sleep.me/habitsandhustle

Find more from Jen:
Website: https://www.jennifercohen.com/
Instagram: @therealjencohen
Books: https://www.jennifercohen.com/books
Speaking: https://www.jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagement

Find more from Dr. Adeel Khan:
Website: https://eterna.health/
Instagram: @dr.akhan

Listen and follow along

Transcript

Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins.

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Hi, guys, it's Tony Robbins.

You're listening to Habits and Hustle, Gresham.

So, today, you guys, we have Dr.

Adeal Khan on the podcast.

He is a regenerative medicine doctor.

Did I say that accurately?

Correct me.

You did.

Yeah.

And we are going to really get it into everything, stem cells, exosomes, how to live longer, how to look younger, how to like heal yourself from the inside out and all the things.

Dr.

Khan has, well, he came very highly recommended to me through my very dear friends at Mind Punk.

And then when I went to actually look at who you were and like look at, kind of like research you, knowing that you're going to be on the podcast, you kind of spoke to and really were on a lot of my friends' podcasts.

I felt like I was like the last one to know about you or whatever.

And I don't know how that was, but you know, you can, you can kind of explain to me how you kind of became the it guy in regenerative medicine.

But anyway, I'm glad, even if I got you last, I'm happy to have you.

So thank you for being here.

Save the best for last, right?

Yeah.

So

great answer.

Great answer.

Yeah, no, it's it's interesting because I always was focused on my work and I just started getting attention organically.

Like it was never about my end goal was never to be a social media or have a large following.

My goal was always to help people.

And I think because my intentions have always been very pure, it turns out that people were travels.

And to that end, we've never actually spent any money on marketing, for example.

And so you just organically get people and they refer by word of mouth when you do good work.

Wow.

Well, well, that's interesting because you started this podcast or you started, not started, but you kind of said in the conversation we had prior to actually starting, you're like, oh, I was just with Tony last week, and I thought you meant a different Tony, but you meant Tony Robbins because, excuse me, Tony Robbins is one of your people, one of your clients, correct?

Yeah, yeah, he joined our membership program, and I've been working on him for the last six months, fixing his shoulder up, which is doing much better now.

Wow, so you case, so explain before we get into all the nitty-gritty, and there was a lot of it that I want to get into.

I have like a ton of questions.

Can you just explain for people listening what exactly is regenerative medicine?

Yeah,

it's an old term that came about because it was this whole idea that we can repair or fix tissue back to the way it was.

So instead of cutting something out or giving you a pill,

we can actually fix it.

And that's a shocker because Obviously, we're trained to think we can't fix things in medicine.

We're just trained that you can only manage symptoms and that you can't actually reverse disease.

But regenerative medicine had this promise.

And this was like 30, 40 years ago, probably when the term was coined.

So obviously it's not like it took off right away, but we're finally in that era where this stuff is actually happening in real life with real patients.

We're helping a lot of people and it's only the beginning.

So that means the next 10 to 20 years is going to be absolutely.

mind-blowing in terms of the technology and what we're going to be able to do in terms of repairing tissue instead of cutting things out and instead of just giving pills.

So that's the exciting part about regenerative Medicine.

So, because I also feel like we're in a time and a stage where it's very, very

trendy.

It's like a hot topic.

It's very social mediaable about longevity and how to love to be 120 plus and anti-aging and how to pro-aging and all the things.

Like I feel like that's so part of our ether, our conversation.

So I guess it's not that unusual or weird to me that this has become a hot topic for you, that you became popular and that you're talking about it so organically and that you have all these things because I think this stuff may have been or maybe still what's considered cutting edge and right like it was very cutting edge and like only and it's still kind of is it is it is it still considered very cutting edge very alternative unfortunately it's still far from being what's called standard of care so most doctors don't even know what regenerative medicine is.

If you went to your average family doctor, they would probably just be like, I don't know what you're talking about.

And it's kind of sad because medicine takes so long to change.

And there's something called a translational gap, which is there can be 15 to 20 years before what's being shown in research to be effective gets translated into the clinics of the average doctor.

So there's this huge gap in delay.

And that's the biggest issue.

And that's why this stuff is so important with social media because people can have accelerated learning and they can actually learn about things and figure out, hey, wait a minute, this might be an option for me.

Or why didn't my doctor tell me about this?

It's because your doctor doesn't know.

it's just they don't have the education we didn't have a regenerative medicine curriculum in medical school and there still isn't a regenerative medicine curriculum so unfortunately the clinical work isn't keeping up with the science and the science is rapidly progressing at a pace that's never been seen before so like does this okay so can you kind of let's get into so you're a right are you a medical doctor with a md right you're an md doctor yes i'm not a witch doctor i'm a i am a medical doctor well no and i'm i'm asking i know no no because i'll be honest with you i knew what well first of all you're canadian so So I knew right away that there has to be some legitimacy in you right away.

Because I think a lot of times a lot of doctors run around.

They're not really medical doctors to begin with.

They have some other

performance.

Right.

Yes.

They have an alternative type of medical degree that, you know, is something else.

And then they start doing something that can be very

financially

chiropractic.

Unfortunately, you know, chiropractors, naturopaths, they've even seen podiatrists

who claim they're doing regenerative medicine.

And the problem is it's an unregulated term.

So anyone can just say, yeah, I'm doing regenerative medicine.

And it's like, well, what's your actual training and expertise?

And how do you even know what you're doing?

And so that's the biggest issue with the whole specialty.

And that's one of the biggest.

issues we're working on is how do we standardize this field and create best practices and try to move the field forward.

And a lot of that obviously has to do with doing good research and doing good work.

So that's kind of what we're trying to do.

And I think for me as a physician, my goal is not only to educate the the public, but to educate other physicians that, hey, this might be an option for your patient.

Why not try something that might be less invasive than surgery and has the same potential upside?

That's kind of the way I look at things.

Well, first of all, like I was saying, it was also very costly, right?

Like it's not cheap to do stem cells, exosomes, gene therapy.

All of these things are,

it does make it so these cutting edge things that we're going to talk about are really only available to the mega rich and the super famous because they have the money to pay for it right yeah

yeah it is true but every technology is like that when it first comes out right and i always like to use the analogy of tesla because i'm a big tesla fan and when elon first came out with the 2010 Roadster, it wasn't a very good car and it would cost it $150,000 and it didn't go very far.

And it was just a bunch of lithium-ion batteries like taped together, essentially.

And so, but who did he get to buy it?

He got like Tom Cruise and like all these other people.

And he just got, because they were trying to get a better world for the future, which is that environmentally friendly kind of paradigm.

And this is kind of the same thing I think about is how do we create a better future for everyone is by making these therapies accessible to the average person.

But the only way that's going to happen is unfortunately the famous and the rich have to do it first.

And then it'll trickle down because the demand will eventually go up and you can bring costs down and there's innovation and manufacturing.

And this, all this stuff happens over time.

So I see a similar trajectory with what we're doing.

I feel like in 10 years, the stuff will be a quarter of the price, if not even potentially even less than that, that it is now.

And it's already gone down in the last five years.

Really?

Okay, so for an example, let's talk about this one thing that happened.

Okay, so a couple of few nights ago, actually, let me back up.

So, there was this thing in LA a few days ago, last, yeah, a few days ago.

It was a YPO Global Health and Wellness Summit.

Okay.

And everyone from around the world came in who are in YPO.

YPO is called the Young Presidents Organization, for people who don't know.

And we had like they had all these the top health and wellness experts.

Like, you know, Huberman was there and Atia was there and the, you know, whatever, all these people.

So then because of those names, all these people come from around the world to listen to them speak, yada, yada.

And then one night I had a dinner at my house for some of the people who came in town.

It was, you know, my husband's very involved with YPO.

And this guy comes over, this is like literally three days ago, and I knew you were coming on the podcast, but I was so excited.

He was telling me that that his friend couldn't come to LA to do the summit because he was in Mexico getting a gene, he was getting his, some type of gene procedure where he was changing or like basically changing his genes.

It's like, I don't know what it's called.

Like it's like literally they're putting something in each and every muscle of his to like regenerate his entire body to become.

where he was, I guess, when he was younger.

Do you know what I'm talking about?

What this is called, this gene?

I don't know which, which one exactly, but I don't know if he was seeing me, but we are doing it.

Maybe he was.

That's the thing.

I said to him, I'm like, oh my God, I have this Dr.

Khan's coming on my podcast next week.

He's in Mexico.

He does a lot of these procedures in Mexico.

I wonder if your friend, Nick, his name is Nick, is doing it.

Was it you who he, did he see you?

Oh, I've seen, I saw like 100 patients in Mexico, so I can't

remember all the time.

Last week?

Two weeks ago.

So not last week.

So it was two weeks ago I was there.

So I don't understand.

I'm like, is this actually a thing that you can actually reverse your genes?

Well,

that might be a little bit far-fetched.

And this is where the whole issue is the lack of, obviously, regulatory oversight in those countries.

You get a lot of kind of quackery as well.

So you have to be careful.

But there's a fine line.

And that's kind of one of my skill sets is discerning between what's actual.

good science and innovation versus what's just kind of BS.

And so what we do, we do have a gene therapy platform, but our gene therapy has been vetted by many scientists, including George Church, who's arguably the top geneticist in the world, Aubrey DeGrey, who's another top longevity scientist.

And not only that, I mean, Tony Robbins has done it, obviously, and Brian Johnson and a lot of people have spoken positively about it online.

And it's called Follostatin Gene Therapy.

And that's our technology, which allows us to insert any gene of interest into your body with one injection via subcutaneous injection in the fat or in the muscle, and it'll last for 18 to 24 months.

So what this does is we can target any peptide, for example.

A lot of people know what peptides are.

They're just a chain of amino acids.

Insulin was a peptide that was made a long time ago, but now we have designer peptides that can help with longevity.

Follostatin is arguably the most kind of holy grill of longevity when it comes to peptides.

But the problem has been historically is that it doesn't stay in your body very long.

So folostatin is not a new molecule.

It's been around for like 20 years, but you do the injection and it's out of your system in like 90 minutes.

So it's a very short half-life.

So it's cleared up and it's not, it's basically you have to inject yourself, you know, like 10 times a day to have a sustained benefit.

And no one's going to do that for two years.

That's not realistic.

So our delivery mechanism basically allows your cells to produce folestatin and then it just goes into your blood and then folostatin does what it does, which is it increases energy, it increases strength, it decreases systemic inflammation.

And we've seen some pretty dramatic changes in epigenetic biological age reduction, which is basically how fast is your body aging.

There's arguably, there's not a great test for that at this moment, although there's a company out of Harvard called Generation Lab that measures biological age pretty well.

But the point is you can use it as a decent metric to see how fast your body's aging.

It's called biological aging or biological clock.

So you can have your chronological age, but you can have your biological age, and they could be very different things.

So we've shown that with one injection, that people over age 60 can decrease their biological age by 11 years on average, which is potentially a world record with one intervention.

And that's why we're applying for X PRIZE and a few other things, too.

But it's quite powerful in terms of the biomarkers.

But even clinically, as a doctor, it's not just about biomarkers because you can argue with that stuff.

But to me, what's most important is what is it actually doing to my patient?

They have more muscle, they can put on muscle easier, they gain more muscle, and they, and we measure DEXA scan, so you can actually see that.

And then you actually have more energy.

And so, people, if you're fitter and you're stronger, you're going to live longer.

That's just a fact.

Right.

Let's talk about that.

So, well, I've got so many things to talk about, but so just let me finish on this gene situation.

So, the way you described it, did you, were you the one who worked on Brian Johnson, by the way?

Yeah, yeah, he did our fallest dad in gene therapy.

Yep.

Okay, so that's basically the same thing that this guy was doing.

This gene therapy.

You may have seen him for all I know.

Yeah.

But he usually could have been.

Yeah, it's just an injection and it helps increase muscle mass.

And

we don't inject all over your body, though.

So I'm not sure what that is, but it's just one injection in one spot.

Is it, does it hurt?

And is there downtime?

No, that's the beauty of it.

It takes literally like two minutes and it's just a little injection in your arm, like a vaccine, and there's no real downtime.

It's sore maybe at the site of injection for a couple of hours.

And that's it.

So you're saying that they're saying you don't really have much reason, like, because it's not very old.

It's a very new thing.

Can you say like the benefits are, this is guaranteed, you can't guarantee it any, any benefit, right?

And it's something that you have to kind of keep up.

You can't, it's not a one and done.

So if you do it,

you got to do it every 24 months, you said, once it's done.

Yeah,

eventually it does get turned off by your nucleus.

So it just means it gets silenced and eventually you do have to repeat it.

But almost everyone who's had it done wants it repeated because they feel pretty great on it.

And generally, like we've done it for several hundred people now, including we did have a clinical trial that's being published momentarily.

And so we do have data, obviously, that supports its efficacy.

And the biggest thing is safety.

There's been no documented adverse effects in the three, 400 people that we've done.

And the worst case scenario, as you said, may be that it doesn't make a big difference.

But in general, I've done it for many people and it's almost always positive, meaning everyone sees increased benefit in terms of energy.

They have less fatigue.

They're stronger in the gym.

And if you do DEXA scans to track, you'll often gain at least a couple pounds of muscle, which is pretty significant, especially if you're getting older and you want to fight.

that muscle loss that's so important.

I think everyone's kind of getting the message now about muscle as an organ of longevity, thanks to Gabrielle.

And so I think what we can do is we can use regenerative medicine to enhance the fundamental principles that allow you to live longer.

And that's basically what we're doing.

And that's why I have so many longevity people knocking at my door because we do have the best technology in the world at the moment when it comes to this stuff.

So how do you know when to do something like gene therapy versus like say stem cells?

Or I know that stem cells are typically known to be used for like regenerating something that was like an injury, right?

Something that has like an injury.

Is it also used for anti-aging or not really?

Okay.

Yeah, because so I like this analogy, which is a great, I think a great analogy for how your bot, your body is like a city.

And imagine there's like different districts and there's, there's this kind of golden library where it houses all the information on instructions and how to maintain the city.

And that's, that's the nucleus where the DNA information is, your genetic information.

And over time, that library where all the good information is starts to get damaged and then it can't repair itself.

And then so it starts sending the wrong instructions.

So who's supposed to fix and maintain that library?

It's the stem cells.

Their job is to maintain it and repair and fix and be like the guys, the construction workers to go there.

But unfortunately, over time, as you get older, your stem cells get exhausted.

That's one of the hallmarks of aging.

It's called stem cell exhaustion.

So to put this in context, when you're a baby, you have 200 stem cells per cell in your body.

And then by the time you're 80, you only have one stem cell per cell.

So it's gone down by an order of 200, right?

So basically 200 times less stem cells.

So there's less repair workers.

There's less people to help repair and regenerate tissue.

And so over time, your DNA starts becoming damaged.

And then this leads to mutations, cancer, immune issues, all these other things that we know are all associated with aging.

Aging is the biggest risk factor for chronic disease.

So if we can slow down aging, we can help people with chronic illnesses.

And that's my fascination.

My fascination isn't necessarily helping rich people live longer.

It's to help the people who are suffering and need actual alleviation of their chronic diseases as opposed to just symptom management.

So then who would use stem cells then?

It can be anybody besides, so let's say I have like, I know if I have a bad knee people or a shoulder, that's when you inject the stem cells.

But can you get them, like you were saying, overall to help with like the inflammation or

body inflammation.

Exactly.

And that's so Tony is, you know, he's a patient of mine who's done it with me and we can talk about it publicly because he's, we were doing some content together so he he does intravenous stem cells and for example it helped his shoulder a lot it brought down his shoulder pain by 90 after one infusion but it's the quality of stem cells and the quality of exosomes that differentiates us from everywhere else and it's it's the way we manufacture them and then it's also and a lot of this i learned in japan when it because the japanese are so far ahead of us when it comes to this stuff they've been doing stem cells culture expanded and a lot of this kind of science of stem cells for over 10 years and it's legal there and it's approved it's regulated but in the US, it's still technically illegal.

So the FDA has made a really outdated, archaic decision on how to regulate stem cells.

And because of that, unfortunately, the US is just falling behind.

And so patients have to travel.

And the way we grow the stem cells allows us to increase their efficacy, essentially.

And there's a lot of scientific details that we don't necessarily have to go into, but the point is the manufacturing is very important.

And the way we manufacture them allows us to increase their potency and allows them to stay in your body longer.

So they're not cleared up as as quickly.

And so when you do an IV, it'll do number one, it'll slow down chronic inflammation.

And as you alluded to, inflammaging as it's called, is inflammation is probably one of the biggest drivers as to why we get old.

And if we can slow that down and change the profile of your immune system, we can really put a dent in aging and even reverse in certain cases where we've helped a lot of elderly people who are kind of just aging, so to speak, and you can reverse a lot, you can make them feel 10, 15 years younger.

It's amazing.

And how often would you have to get stem cells to kind of maintain that feeling and that like that low?

Typically

it's it's actually very similar to the gene therapy, which is why our anti-aging kind of package, so to speak, is combining the folestatin gene therapy with the intravenous stem cells and the exosomes, which exosomes are basically just the soup that the stem cells grow in.

So if you have chicken soup, the chicken meat part is the stem cells and then the soup, the broth is the exosomes.

So it has all the nutrients, but there's no actual cells in there.

But the advantage of that is because the problem is when you do IV stem cells, most of them actually get trapped in the lungs.

But even though they get trapped in the lungs, they still have all these amazing benefits because they communicate with your immune system.

But exosomes, exosomes are so tiny that they can go everywhere.

So they go to your brain, they go to your heart, liver, kidney, everywhere.

And so they can help with a lot of brain health.

They can help to de-age your brain, so to speak.

And especially we have something called engineered exosomes now, which are engineered.

like I was saying earlier to stick around longer.

Because the biggest problem, if you're going to take away one thing from this podcast, the biggest problem with cell therapy is the fact that they're cleared up by your immune system very quickly.

So they don't stick around very long.

So the biggest kind of hurdle right now in regenerative medicine is how do we get these cells and exosomes to stay in the body longer?

Because we know they're so powerful, but they're getting taken away by your immune system so quickly.

So there's all these cool cloaking mechanisms.

I always think, I always talk about like Harry Potter and the invisible cloak.

I don't know if you saw that, but it's basically like you wear.

Sorry, I'm nerdy.

I'm nerdy.

As a nerd, as a nerd here.

So basically, I love it.

He wears a cloak and it makes him invisible.

But imagine if we can make the stem cells and exosomes invisible from your immune system, then they can stick around longer and do their goodness.

So that, and that, and there's also something called hydrogels to protect them and coke them.

So there's all these technological innovations that are happening that are allowing us to make the stem cells stick around longer.

So then what are the kinds of, I mean, you just kind of touched upon it.

You said that there are lots of different types of stem cells.

Because of that, how do people know which ones are good, which ones are bad?

Also, who to go go to, who not to go to?

Because like you did say, like it is because it is alternative still.

I think there's a lot of charlatans, you know, people who are not even actual doctors who are can who can provide it.

Where are people getting these things from?

Exactly.

You know, that's what I want you to answer.

And then how, how expensive is it?

Like, what is the price of it?

Yeah.

So finding the right doctor can be challenging.

My general advice is find a doctor who's actively engaged in research.

If they're not actively engaged in research, I'd probably look the other way because this is still a very new field.

And if they're not, if they're not doing something to contribute to the field, that means they're just in it for the money, which is something you don't want to associate yourself with.

And so, and generally, those people are just trying to make a buck.

And I don't, I'm not blaming them.

I know everyone needs to make money, but

this is people's health.

And it's predatory often what these stem cell clinics are doing.

They're taking advantage of desperate patients who have lost hope and are kind of just giving them false hope sometimes.

And I'm very honest because, and maybe it's a Canadian than me, but I'll tell patients, hey, you don't need stem cells.

You just need PRP or you just need exosomes, which are a fifth of the price.

And it saves them a bunch of money.

And I can just fix them with that stuff.

So I'm always very transparent about what they need.

And whereas I find other clinics will just recommend stem cells for everything when it's not always a solution.

Sometimes we use peptide.

Sometimes we use nutraceuticals.

Like there's different approaches to the chronic complex conditions we see.

It's not always just a one size fits all and just stem cells for everyone.

And so finding someone who does research and ideally some has some sort of institutional affiliation because that usually shows some sort of of credibility as well.

So for example, I'm a professor at University of Toronto.

I teach other residents and stuff like that.

So I think that also usually bolsters some sort of credibility.

By the way, I want to interject for a second because I think a lot of people don't aren't aware of this.

For people who don't know,

U of T University of Toronto is really a phenomenal university.

It's kind of

the Harvard of Canada.

And I think it's really interesting.

Malcolm Gladwell had this conversation also, Fest, because, you know, people don't realize that.

They hear Harvard, Princeton, Yale, because it's very much part of like our vernacular.

But the people coming out of Canada, and I'm not just saying it's Canadian, I'm saying it because it's actually legitimate.

And people who you don't know if you don't know.

U of T is

the most reputable.

And it is, it's harder to get in there than it is sometimes to like a Harvard.

Oh, no, I know, I know many of my friends who are physicians who couldn't get into University of Toronto medical school, but they got into Harvard Medical School.

So

it is very challenging to get into medical school, especially in Ontario.

Yeah, it's really hard.

That's why that, so you are affiliated with

U of T?

Yeah, I'm a professor there.

Yeah.

So I teach med students and residents.

Unfortunately, because I got so busy with everything, I am not teaching as much anymore, but I'm probably going to keep my affiliation for global elective.

So even if I'm traveling abroad, residents have the option to come train with me internationally.

So guys also like Malcolm Gladwell went there, Jordan Peterson taught there, and also, you know, also same thing.

So we say Canadians, we're a good bunch.

Yeah, it is true.

That's why I just want to give people like apples to apples because, you know, people don't understand

what U of T is.

So, why I want to bring it up is because there is legitimacy just by you saying that you're affiliated with them.

There, it's like, again, I just want to, I want to show people there is things are not always equal, right?

Like, doctors aren't equal.

Colleges aren't necessarily always equal.

In this case, like, you obviously are a real MD.

And, and by the way, yeah, yeah.

And you are affiliated with a real university.

So, did you go to medical school there?

I went to the University of Ottawa, which is the capital of Canada.

I know.

I was born in Ottawa.

Oh, were you?

Yes, I was born in Ottawa.

Okay.

I feel like most Americans don't know what Ottawa is.

No, they do not.

But it's our capital.

It's our capital.

So, but yeah, so, but the reason I teach and the reason I decided to do that was because I do want to educate the future generation on this stuff because I think it's so important for them to know about it.

And every resident who I teach is blown away by the stuff stuff we're doing.

And in fact, I recently hired one of the doctors I hired was one of my students.

So because they're just so enamored by what we're doing, and they're just like, holy crap, how come I was never taught this before?

Yeah.

And so it's just, it's just that kind of, I love, and I love that reaction every time they see what we're doing and they're just kind of like just fascinated by it.

And I think, uh, I think it's just the beginning of it too.

So it's going to be exciting to see where it goes.

And then just to answer your other question about the cost, it is, it ranges.

If you do a simple exosome procedure for like a joint or something, it can be a couple thousand dollars.

But if you do the full package and there's a lot of stuff that we do, you could spend up to $50,000, $75,000.

So it's, it's just such a big range.

It just depends on what you're doing.

Yeah.

So the anti-aging stem cells, which is probably the most common thing we do, it ranges from 15 to 25,000.

So it's still pretty pricey, obviously.

But like I said, in a couple of years ago, that used to be like 30 to 50,000.

So I think it's already come down a decent amount.

So what is the difference in procedure between the anti-aging stem cells and let's say the stem cells for an injury like a shoulder or a neck?

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

It's actually very important because the anti-aging stem cells are what are called culture expanded stem cells.

So they're grown.

We take the umbilical cord tissue, for example, after C-section bursts.

We do a bunch of testing to make sure they're safe, good quality.

Half our samples are thrown out because they don't meet the quality standards.

And then we grow them for three or four weeks.

It's kind of like cooking bread or cooking something.

I don't know.

But you've been busy.

Breaking bread.

Sorry.

Okay, baking bread.

As you can tell, I don't don't cook or bake.

Apparently not, yes.

Yeah, so, but basically when you when you make the stem cells, it's called culture expansion.

So you're growing them and you have to grow them to a certain amount for them to be useful when you put them intravenously.

So if you just put one million stem cells intravenously, for example, that's not going to do anything.

And that's actually very common in the US.

There's all these stem cell clinics offering intravenous stem cells and they're just underdosing people completely or they're just lying to them.

And I've seen that happen to many celebrities, again, predatory people.

And so, and plus, it's also illegal, but I mean, that doesn't stop people, I guess.

But, but so the point is, you do culture expanded, you grow them, and those are stem cells that you want to put intravenously because they're going to help to regulate your immune system.

So, they're good for chronic inflammation.

They're good for autoimmune conditions.

But if you just have a shoulder issue, you don't need those powerful, you don't need like 100 million stem cells in that one area unless you have really bad advanced osteoarthritis.

That's the only time we really use it.

But if it's just an injury for like a tendon or a muscle or a nerve, then we just use exosomes because exosomes, they have all the signaling molecules in there to reduce inflammation, to help heal tissue.

And then we combine them with peptides because they target different pathways.

So, the combination of exosomes and peptides works wonderfully for almost every soft tissue injury, whether it's a shoulder, knee, ankle, or whatever.

And so, that's that's usually what I use.

And I use that for a lot of my pro-athletes.

Like, I've treated a lot of NHL, NBA, NFL guys, and obviously they wouldn't be coming to me if I couldn't do good work, you know what I mean?

Because their body is their livelihood.

Right.

So, then, when do you use PRP then?

So, I use PRP.

Yeah, so platelet.

So, platelet-rich plasma is where we take your own blood, we spin it in a centrifuge, and it concentrates the platelets, hence the name platelet-rich plasma, because it's rich in platelets.

And platelets are little molecules that help to repair tissue.

They send signals for growth factors and release growth factors, but it's very limited because it's your own blood and everyone has variability.

Some people have healthy PRP, some people don't have healthy PRP.

And if you're older, if you're in your 60s or 70s, you better believe your PRP is not going to be good as someone in their 20s.

So there's a lot of variability and you can't standardize it versus off-the-shelf standardized like exosome or stem cell products.

So that's problem number one.

And then problem number two is PRP is not very anti-inflammatory.

It's good for promoting inflammation.

So it's actually good for like muscle tears.

Or if you have an acute muscle tear, it's great or acute tendon tear and you want to get back to running or put back to sport right away, then it could help shorten the healing window.

But it's not good for chronic degenerative conditions, which is what most of society is dealing with.

And so that's where stem cells and these exosomes and peptides are much more beneficial.

So So that's so PRP, I still use it.

If I have a pro-athlete or bodybuilders, I did work with a lot of them, they tore something in the gym and they come to me the next day, then I'll do, you know, I'll usually do PRP for them.

And it works right away.

Like

the only experience I had to have with PRP was when I got a facial and they did PRP, you know, that, you know, that now we're using engineered.

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

We're doing engineered exosomes now for the face.

And it's a completely game changer in terms of it's 10 times more potent than PRP, first of all.

Second of all,

engineered exosomes actually stay on the they actually stay much longer.

I can show you some before and afters after if you want to see them, but it's pretty amazing.

So, the but this is what we're doing, and we're working with a lot of like A-list celebrities now and doing this stuff.

And they're gonna come, they're coming down to Cabo and we're doing it there.

And so, it's just uh, it's gonna

become the new vampire facial.

Okay, what is it?

Tell me, can you give me engineered, I want, yeah, for sure.

Come come to Cabo.

We'll

come to Cabo.

You have to ask me twice.

All right, I'm gonna book my ticket now.

That's amazing.

So, so explain this to me.

So, it's tell me what the facial is.

This is very interesting.

Yeah, it's, it's basically, so there are a ton, again, there's, if you, if you type exosomes, California, you'll probably find 100, 100 clinics that are offering it.

But the problem is

the quality of exosomes are basically useless.

Like they actually don't, most of them don't do anything because they're basically a water.

The contents in there are dead or they're not very useful.

Or they're just, and the other problem is there's, there's a, there's a $500 million black market, exosome black market in the U.S., which means there's all these manufacturers that are making exosomes, but they're illegally distributing and selling them to doctors.

This is none of this is FDA approved, right?

So I'm doing this stuff in jurisdictions where I'm allowed to do it.

I don't necessarily agree with FDA, but I'm still going to follow their rules because I don't want to be one of those shady doctors offering things that I should be offering.

And so that's why I work in the places I work.

And the beauty of working in Dubai and Switzerland and all these other places I work is that if we have the approvals and we have the regulation to we're allowed to do these things openly.

And so we're allowed to innovate.

So So for example, the exosomes that we would use for you for the face, they're engineered, which means they're enhanced.

There's something called muselles.

This is again a Japanese technology where if you increase the muse content of stem cells, it allows them to survive longer and it increases their efficacy of reducing inflammation and helping with regeneration, collagen production.

So it just makes your skin essentially glow.

It makes it look smoother.

It helps with wrinkles and it can also help with collagen stimulation, which is always a good thing for obviously skin aging.

Yeah.

Is this also something that you have to upkeep, right?

Like you can't just get it one and done.

You have to get it done.

Yeah.

So I work with a Japanese plastic surgeon who's been doing this stuff for a decade.

And she said

it usually lasts for two to three years at least, like this facial.

So it's very, it's not like you have to do it all the time.

But yes, it does last a pretty long time.

I love that.

I mean, okay, I'm writing that down.

I'm going to put that down.

There's someone also in Utah.

Like I was at this other biohacking conference in London a couple of years ago.

And there was people there who said that they're doing, they actually, they offered me to go to them in Utah to do some stem cells.

You don't want to go that guy.

He's a naturopath and he's also, yeah.

You know what I'm talking about?

Yeah.

So I was thinking, like, if they're not legal in the U.S., how is he doing it?

Like, I never understood that.

I couldn't, like, what Adam was saying.

Because

FDA can't keep up with all the clinics.

It's, it's actually very problematic.

There's, there's just popping up everywhere.

And FDA can't shut them all down.

They, they literally cannot keep up.

They send them letters and some of them get shut down.

Some of them keep operating until they get a letter or a warning.

And then FDA just has to slowly crack down on them, but they literally can't.

There's just too many of them now.

So you mean, so he's operating in Utah illegally, basically.

But Florida, too.

Florida, California,

there's dozens of stem cell clinics, but none of them are offering.

proper stem cells.

Number one, often they're false advertising because they're not offering the expanded stem cells I was talking about.

Right.

Or number two, they're just doing it obviously just without FDA approval and just kind of hoping they don't get caught or waiting until they get caught, I guess, and hoping they made enough money by then.

You know what?

That's interesting.

That makes sense because when I was talking to Adam, Adam, Mind Pump Adam, who he said it really helped his psoriasis.

I have psoriasis too.

He said it really helped his psoriasis.

The stem cells did.

But when he was telling me he was going to, he was actually, he told me he was going to Mexico for this.

I'm like, well, why are you going to Mexico?

There's like all these places I know, like, go here, go there, like in the U.S.

He's like, oh, it's illegal in Canada, I'm sorry, in the U.S.

I was surprised because, like, I, like you were just saying, there are a lot of people, the people in Utah, a lot of people I figured, are like, they're doing it here.

So, can you tell people, is there a way that

what sign, besides the research and all that stuff that you're saying that they could look for as a doctor, are there certain things that people should look for when they're looking for a stem cell or to know that they're legit?

Or how do they know from one quality or one type to another?

And people can just tell you whatever they can tell.

You're not going to know the difference.

You're not looking at the packaging, right?

So how do people know?

Exactly.

It's, it's really challenging.

And I think I don't have a great answer for that, to be honest.

I think the best way is to look at who else,

like trying to rely on people you know who've gone to the person to get treated.

Right.

That's the only way you can do it.

I wouldn't go to, I wouldn't just go search some random clinic and go to that clinic.

I would only go to someone if they come highly recommended by someone you know personally.

Because even the problem with a lot of these stem cell clinics, again, it's very predatory.

They'll pay influencers or they'll pay people to do testimonials.

So especially with a lot of these influencers, because they make a living off their content, so they'll get free stem cells and then they'll make a post for them.

So you have to be very careful.

But you know, that's obviously why I'm trying to create our brand to kind of be the first global brand that's legitimate and credible and doing offering the best technology and actively trying to do the research too.

Just because regenerative medicine is such a wild, wild west right now and it needs to, it definitely lacks some standardization and credit.

And we're losing credibility because these doctors are kind of ruining it for the people who are actually trying to do it for the right way.

So it's very frustrating for me because I get patients all the time who spend so much money and they were basically conned into something because the doctor told them and it wasn't even the right thing or it was even dangerous in some cases because the stem cells weren't grown properly.

And so you have to be very careful for sure because you are putting live cells in your body.

You don't want to just be doing that.

willy-nilly, so to speak.

Could it be dangerous then?

Yeah, yeah, because stem cells, if they're not grown properly, so this is a nuance, but it's called the number of passages.

So

the number of times you replicate the stem cells, for example, if you replicate them too many times, it can cause DNA damage, make them less stable and less likely to survive.

So then you just have a bunch of senescent cells that are just dead cells, like zombie cells, and then they just send pro-inflammatory signals.

So then they can actually cause more harm potentially.

So you got to be careful.

So that's why the manufacturing details of how they do it is so important.

And also optimizing everything.

And that's, again, that's why we have protocols that we've kind of developed with using hyperbaric oxygen, peptides, and all these other things to try to really make sure that we're doing everything we can to enhance the effect of the stem cell and give the best results possible.

And we're, and, and, like I said, we're also doing a lot of research, and essentially, all the money that we make goes back into RD.

Like, that's that's just the way I want to run our company because I want us to actually be like a research institute more than anything else.

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So you're working where in Mexico and in Dubai and Lithuania, it looks like we're going to to have a clinic there.

And we were in Switzerland before, but we changed to Lithuania now.

And then we also, I also work in Tokyo.

Okay, so how did you even begin this?

So you saw that there was a need, like when you were a regular doctor, were you actually, were you working with patients, like just prescribing or yeah, this is the show, right?

Habits and hustle.

You gotta, you gotta.

I want to know what the hustle was.

How did you bring it?

How did this happen?

Like you, what kind of doctor were you?

Give me the background, like how this whole thing came to be.

Yeah, so I was just a general practitioner like a family doctor which means i just did general training and then i trained in sports medicine under dr anthony gallia who's kind of one of the top sports doctors in the world he was the one who pioneered prp injections for sports athletes he treated trekker woods and many other high profile people and so i learned about prp from him so i was very blessed and obviously to have him as a mentor just because i was i learned how to do prp properly but then i kind of saw some patients not get better and then also there were a lot of patients that we couldn't help and so i kind of was like okay what what else is out there?

And so, I started venturing a little bit more because, and that's and honestly, it's taking risk is one of the biggest things.

I wasn't afraid to take risks.

I kind of took a big risk by working in Dubai last year because I never had lived there before and I didn't know what it was gonna be like working there, but I just said, Okay, let's just go for it, let's just see what happens.

And I didn't

hold on, hold on, how did you get to Dubai?

That's a long place from Toronto, you know?

Like, what did you do?

Okay, well, yeah, sorry, let me give you the context.

So, I treated, um, I was invited to treat one of the Sheikh Mohammed Alabar.

I treated him two years ago.

He owns the the six tallest buildings in the world and

Imar properties, which is a Burj Khalifa and a bunch of those buildings.

So, because I treated him about two years ago, then the following year, because I treated him and it was on social media, I obviously had a lot of people in Dubai asking about me and stuff like that.

So, I was like, okay, why don't I just go there and stay for a few months and see how it goes?

So, I just, but I didn't have enough patience to really be that busy because it's not like I have a huge presence there.

But I just decided to do it anyway, mainly because stem cells are legal in Dubai and peptides and all the stuff that I'm used to, I wanted to use.

So I could get a lot of experience there without having to worry about obviously health care FDA and stuff like that.

And it allowed me to get a lot of real world experience and also learn from scientists who are manufacturing the stem cells who've been doing this for 10 years.

And those scientists were from Italy and Italians as well are very meticulous with the way they do things.

And so I learned a lot from them too.

And that's kind of how I started getting into this whole world.

And then that led me to, I went to Japan to treat someone.

And when I went there, I worked with the Sergio medicine clinic and i learned a lot there too and that's why i'm working there this summer just because i feel like japan's so far ahead of what we're doing and i can i feel like every time i go there i learn something new uh so i want to keep so i keep on going that way but uh yeah but definitely the biggest thing is doctors are very used to staying in their box and they and we're taught guidelines and we're taught we're actually taught to kill our creativity, which is kind of ironic because we have all these very bright and brilliant people going into medicine, but then they're taught to only follow the rules within these certain box.

And if you, if you go outside of these rules, you can get in trouble.

So most doctors are scared to do anything outside of the box.

Whereas for me, I was kind of like, okay, well, the stuff inside the box is clearly not working for a lot of people.

And look at our medical system, look at our costs, look at everything.

Like it all points to a failing medical system.

So something has to change.

So that was always my kind of motivation, I guess, for wanting to pursue this.

And so how did this guy, like, I know who he is, he's one of the richest men in the world, this guy in Dubai, and it's the tallest building in the world.

But how did he even know about you to even know and even contact you?

Because you were living in Toronto.

Because did he really contact your mentor?

That, what's that guy's name?

Dr.

Gallup.

No, he contacted me.

Well, yeah, it was interesting because the reason he contacted me was because his personal trainer followed me on Instagram and heard about me.

And then Olibar was asking who is the best guy in the world for PRP because I want to get it done.

And then he was like, this guy.

And so I don't know if I'm actually the best guy.

I don't know if I'm actually the best guy, but I guess I'm the loudest online.

Apparently, you are, or at least loud enough that the guy in Dubai heard you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay.

So then, when do you decipher?

Like, let's talk about peptides.

Peptides is like kind of, I feel like on the, you know, on the totem pole, peptides is like the last, like, it goes, I don't know, the gene, the gene therapy, stem cells, exosomes, peptides, and then, yeah, and then peptides.

Peptides is the easiest.

Yes.

And for, and for a while, peptides was very readily available in the US.

Like, I was given a ton of peptides.

I was given the CP, you know, CJC, CJC,

1295.

Yeah, that one.

BPC 157, which was really good for inflammation as well.

Is that the kind of thing?

And by the way, the other one, though, I just mentioned, the CJC was really supposed to be great for like, I think, like human, like muscle mass and blah, blah, blah.

Like when you're like to, what was it?

What's the

problem?

I was on for 10 minutes, not even I got off.

I didn't like it.

It made me really bloated, actually.

Yeah, and it can cause flushing in a lot of people.

So that's a second generation.

Flushing, flushing, and like make them like flushed and feel uncomfortable.

Oh, yeah.

And so

there's a third generation growth hormone releasing hormone, which is what the class of peptides is for that specific one.

It's called tessamorellin.

That tends to work better.

And that one tends to cause less side effects.

So if someone wanted to try a growth hormone peptide, that's the one I'd recommend in general.

And again, these things are generally very safe and have very little downside.

And they can help.

And you can cycle them for four to six weeks for anti-aging longevity or if you're having an injury and you want to help with recovery but basically it helps with fat loss recovery it can help with sleep it may help increase muscle mass like you said and there's all these cool benefits and there's really no downside to like tesmerellin and then there's other ones that i'm a huge fan of mitochondrial peptides because there's something called the unitary theory of aging.

It's kind of this whole idea that there's one root cause of aging.

And it seems like it points to the mitochondria, which is very interesting because the mitochondria, as we learned in high school biology, is we thought it was just the powerhouses of your cells, but it turns out they do much more than that.

They're these amazing little organelles that evolved like 2 billion years ago and you have trillions and trillions of them in your body.

And they actually help to regulate, it seems like they're one of the biggest regulators of what's called tissue homeostasis, which means they help to regulate and maintain your body in a steady state.

And that entropy over time is what actually leads to aging.

So if you can maintain the health of your mitochondria as much as possible, that can potentially slow down aging quite a bit.

And this is really shown in a study where they looked at a five-year-old who had 0% mitochondrial dysfunction, and then a 70-year-old who had 95% mitochondrial dysfunction.

And mitochondrial dysfunction just means that mitochondria aren't doing what they're supposed to, which is regulate tissue homeostasis, energy production, iron metabolism, all this oxygen, oxidative stress.

So everyone's heard of antioxidants.

Why are antioxidants good?

It's because they help support the mitochondria because they produce free radicals.

And when that balance of antioxidants to oxidative stress gets out of whack, so to speak, there's too much oxidative stress, then that's what leads to senescent cells, inflammation, and all these other kind of hallmarks of aging.

So if we can keep your mitochondria healthy, I think that's a great tool for fighting down aging.

That's the gist of what I'm saying.

And so SS31 is probably my favorite mitochondrial peptide.

And the reason is because it can help to restore mitochondrial function and help with the actual anatomical kind of disruptions that happen.

So it's a pretty cool peptide.

And then there's a few other ones, but that's probably my top one at the moment.

So are they legal?

Because I heard they're now banned or in the US.

Right?

Yeah.

Like, we were going to open a clinic in Florida.

And I literally just, I'm glad we didn't because

after the FDA banned peptides, I was just like, okay, well, what can I do there?

Like, it's just like, okay, so no thanks.

I will just open a clinic in Bahamas because it's just ridiculous.

Yeah.

That's crazy.

So, like, where are people like, I mean, if people don't want to jump on a plane, again, this is making it like people have to like jump, like literally jump through like hoops

and to get to any type of this type of alternative.

I know.

I think the only therapy.

The only workaround right now, unfortunately, which I'm not necessarily recommending is that you can order it off certain websites yourself and you can't get it up.

You can't get it through a doctor anymore because doctors aren't allowed to prescribe it.

But you could technically, no one can stop you from ordering it off a website and then self-administering it and stuff like that.

Right.

And this doing the shots yourself.

But like that to me, I don't know.

So then you're saying this SS31, which is the mitochondrial peptide, is the one that you think is the most valuable, right?

In terms of much better than NMN.

So have you heard of NMN?

Well, I've heard of NAD.

I mean, I'm a big NAD person.

Yeah, yeah, so exactly.

And NAD is a, is an intermediary metabolite for ATP production.

So it basically helps to support mitochondrial health, right?

And so

NMN is also that.

It helps.

it's a precursor that helps with NAD synthesis.

But the problem with NAD, like a lot of people do IV NAD and iv nad isn't that great because it doesn't actually go into the cells a lot of it just floats around and just cause it can cause more issues so you have to take something called trimethylglycine before doing iv nad if you're going to do it but that's not even the best way ss31 is is superior no no that's very i was going to ask you about that actually so so hold on just finish with the mitochondria because i'm going to get right back to the nad i have a whole thing on that i want to ask you yes okay so so so basically the SS31 is going to help to make your mitochondria function better.

And if they're functioning better, that means they can process the metabolites of nad and all the precursors better and they just do what they need to do better which is maintain that tissue homeostasis prevent excessive oxidative stress and help with cellular signaling and all these other important functions that the mitochondrial are so important for maintaining uh so that's what that's why i like ss31.

so the problem though is if you're saying people should maybe just buy it on a website again it's about i'm not recommending that i'm just saying that's the only option that's the only option

okay i'm not by the way i'm not recommending that either.

Okay, this is not, none of this is doctor recommended, just telling you what's available out there in the world.

Yes.

But like, but like, you, but the truth is, we don't know, like, you don't know these websites.

You don't know where they're getting it from.

It could be, it's actually not the greatest idea in that sense, too.

So, what are people to do?

Well, that's why FDA's decision to ban them was nonsensical to me.

It was like, why don't you just regulate them and allow doctors to prescribe them?

They were doing it to compounding pharmacies.

Like, you know, but we all know why.

we all know why it's because they can't they're not patented by pharmaceutical companies and the insurance companies can't they can't all make money on it so exactly that's all it is right and so they they know they know the name of the game and they know how to play the system and this is what they do so unfortunately for now yes you you are kind of resorted resort to either traveling somewhere or you have to get them yourself but you know i think there there is a company called Neo7 that's very promising.

They're using something called augmented peptides.

And I believe they do are in the process of getting FDA approval to be a licensed manufacturer and supplier to patients and to clinics.

So I think that's the most promising one I've seen.

So hopefully once they take off, then it'll be more accessible to the average person.

And you're saying BPC 157, what is that really good for?

Yeah, so that's body protection complex.

And that one.

is called the Volverine peptide, as some have said, because it helps with regeneration and repair.

And the way it does that a lot of the way is through gut healing.

So it helps with repairing the gut lining.

So your gut lining, just to give people some interesting facts, your gut lining repairs itself, it has to repair the lining of the gut every three to five days.

So think about all these millions of cells that have to turn over and repair every day.

And that's the gut lining.

And so, and there's something called a stem cell niche, which helps to maintain that.

But as you get older, the stem cell niche becomes less functional, like we talked about.

And so your gut lining can't repair itself the way it used to.

And so then that's where you get leaky gut.

And that's where you can get what are called neoantigens that leak into the blood and cause all these other issues and lead to autoimmunity.

So if we can repair the gut lining through BPC, which it has been shown to help with that, and there's, and again, there's very little downside.

There's some people saying, oh, can BPC increase the risk of cancer because it stimulates certain growth factors?

But it's not about stimulating growth factors.

It's about what's the tumor microenvironment.

The microenvironment is a term we'll hear a lot more of in medicine in the next couple of years because now we're learning at a cellular level what's going on with disease.

So the microenvironment is really what dictates whether or not something's going to progress or cause issues.

So if you're reducing inflammation systemically, that's going to improve the microenvironment of the tumor.

And actually, in my opinion, if anything would help with cancer, it wouldn't cause cancer or increase the risk of cancer.

That was my question, like also with the CJC 1295, all these things that are touting regenerative cells, like even the gene therapy.

If there is cancer that runs in your family, isn't there like a risk at all for, you know, when you're turning over cells quickly or at all?

like I would think that that can be cancerous, right?

Or no?

Yeah, so it all depends on the signals that are being sent.

So if the signal being sent is one of mitochondrial dysfunction, for example, where it's loss of oxidative stress and loss of inflammatory signals, then yes, as they repair and as those cells divide and replicate, they're going to have more and more errors.

And then yes, it can lead to more mutations and cancer risk.

But if you're improving the cellular environment by improving mitochondrial function or by using BPC to reduce gut lining and or to help repair the gut gut lining and reducing inflammation, or even with like folastatin, for example, by increasing muscle mass and decreasing inflammation.

These are all things we know are going to improve the actual cellular environment and therefore have, in my like, have actual positive outcomes on your long-term health.

And that's where, that's where you have to come down to like what I always call first principles.

What's the root kind of drivers as to why we age?

A lot of that has to do with loss of muscle mass and

our immune system becoming dysregulated.

Those are probably two of the biggest drivers so if we can make a dent on those two things then we know overall we're going to help aging and the benefits in my opinion will much outweigh the potential harms or risks and again there's obviously data and studies to back up the safety of a lot of these things but if you just look at if you think about it from a first principles perspective then you realize that hey i'm putting on muscle and i'm decreasing inflammation this is going to way outweigh the any potential theoretical harm that i might be doing for cancer, which hasn't been shown at all.

But even if it was, I think having more muscle is going going to be way more protective for that anyway.

Right.

So that's why strength training is so important as you age as well, which is something that everybody can do without going to Mexico or Dubai necessarily, right?

To help you.

And so the tools, to me, these are just tools that can allow you to exercise longer, right?

Because why do people start declining?

It's because they start getting chronic pain, they start becoming fatigued, they don't sleep as well, they start just feeling just generally tired.

And so if we can give them peptides or we can give them stem cells or gene therapy or whatever it may be in our toolbox, it's just going to allow them to do these healthy behaviors longer, which ultimately will help with your longevity.

And that's, that's the way I look at it.

Oh, I see what you're saying.

Okay.

So yeah, you're saying you're just giving people the tools to actually live longer by doing the things that keep you living longer, basically, right?

So let's talk about NAD.

So you're right.

So NAD IVs, NAD in general, you know, it's all about

NAD is all about, isn't it like replenish?

It's about replenishing your cells and turning over your cells quicker and for energy and for all these things.

What do you think about just incorporating that into someone's day-to-day life to help them with all the things we're talking about, with longevity, with aging, with, you know, like this?

Yeah,

if we come back to this whole unitary theory of aging, of mitochondria being the root cause of aging, then anything that's going to support your mitochondria, which NAD certainly will, because NAD is, as we know for sure, as you get older, your NAD levels do decrease.

And if we can help to support by increasing their levels and help the mitochondria to maintain their function, that ultimately will have an impact on aging.

Now, the problem is, as I was kind of alluded to earlier, was that IV-NAD may not actually do what it's kind of touted to do and promoted to do.

And it may actually cause more harm because that NED doesn't actually go into the cell and just floats around and causes inflammation.

So you have to be careful with a lot of these clinics that are just promoting IV-NED for everyone.

And wow, how do we know?

How do we, that's an up, that's a really good one.

Well, the the way you would know is if they're sophisticated, even a little bit, they would know to give you trimethylglycine.

So if you give trimethylglycine, it's just a supplement.

But if you give it with NAD, like 30 minutes before, then it can increase the intracellular penetration of NAD.

So that's how you would know if a clinic was kind of new what they were doing with IV-NAD.

That's really interesting because I've gotten that done many times,

the IV, not many times, but a few times the IV.

Well, wait till you, so we have something in Mexico for that too, which you can do when you come.

So we do something called placental implant injection.

It's basically placental tissue, and we inject it subcutaneously into your,

just into your fat, and it helps to boost your body's own production of intracellular NED for about three months.

Really?

So is that, wait, so that's so interesting because like I was going to say about these IVs, number one, it takes a very long time to go.

Also, you're so nauseous.

I don't, I'm not, it was really hard for me.

I've done them a few times with other, like with like with NBA players, but athletes.

And like some people are like, can like get it in in like 20 minutes.

I was like there for two hours.

And so is a lot of these other people actually, like only two guys I know were easy with it.

And what I noticed was that the first time I got it done, I felt maybe much more cognitively focused and alert the next couple of days.

The second time I got it done, I think the more I got it, I think I only got it done like three or four times, but the effects or the efficacy did diminish.

Did my body acclimate to it?

Or like, what was the reason for it?

Well, even the first time, like, how long did those benefits last?

Not very, like, listen, not very long.

And also, I think what you just said was really interesting because how does someone, like, I don't think I was necessarily offered that trimethylene?

Glycol, yeah.

Yeah, let's call it, try, what?

Say that again.

Yeah, trimethylglycine.

Trimethyl.

I'm going to write that down, actually.

So that's one sign.

How else would you know if it's actually just, if it's not going into your cell?

Is there a symptom that people can feel?

Well, the nausea.

So that's why you get, that's why you get that.

Is that why?

So if you do the trimethylglycine, that should mitigate some of the symptoms.

But honestly, again, it's about technology, right?

Now, I think there's also NAD patches now that are more convenient.

And then there's also, there's, so I think the technology is improving.

But right now, I mean, I like the placental implant because it's a couple hundred bucks and it's, it's, it lasts for three months and it, it's such an easy thing to do.

And it's for me, it's a, I'm, I'm a minimalist.

I have such little time and I'm sure you do too.

So I can't sit there for two hours doing an IV every couple of weeks.

Like I just don't have that type of time.

Oh, God.

And so for me, it's like, what can I do that's going to have the most benefit for my health and longevity and with the least amount of time?

And that's why I like all this stuff because let's just say you wanted to do all the stuff that we offer.

It literally takes like one or two days of your time and then you're good for like two years.

Wow.

And so do you have a clinic in Cabo, you said?

Yeah.

Okay.

A clinic.

And you were in Dubai.

Do you have a clinic in Dubai or where?

Oh, you have a clinic in Dubai now.

Okay.

And in Lithuania.

Is that what you said?

Yes.

We're just in the process of setting that up because Lithuania is part of the EU.

But because we got certain approvals there, we're going to set up shop there.

Yeah.

Do you have a partner now or is it just you?

It's me for the most part, but I do have a board and investors and all that stuff.

And obviously we're scaling up pretty big and being a CEO and also being running and being a doctor is an interesting mix.

But I've become very fortunate because, you know, when you, when you do, obviously, if you have a good eye for technology, then people want to invest in you.

So it becomes pretty cool here.

Well, okay, so this is now the business part.

I'm sorry.

It's going to take me a few minutes to get through.

This is what I have to talk about for two minutes here.

So then on the business side of these clinics, is your goal to franchise these clinics?

Is your goal just to open up more clinics?

Like, what is the ultimate goal?

Yeah, my vision for the company is to be more of a biotech and distribution company over time.

But probably over the next five to 10 years, we'll open up maybe five to 10 clinics at most, not more than that, because they're meant to be kind of exclusive and medical touristy type of clinics where people travel to.

So it's not like you need thousands and thousands of people to come to, and obviously they're expensive treatments.

So the idea is for them to be places where people go as a, as almost like a destination.

every year or two years or whatever to get their anti-aging stuff done.

And so you don't need like hundreds of them.

So we're only going to keep them to a handful around the world.

And, you know, we're in Europe, one in Europe, Asia, Middle East, sort of, you know, that type of thing.

And then the plan is to keep on developing the biotech side, which is a technology.

So like the mini circle technology, I talked about folostatin.

That's just one product.

So we have three other products coming out in the next 12 months.

We have something called LH gene therapy, which will replace.

testosterone replacement therapy.

It'll just be one injection and optimize your testosterone for 18 to 24 months.

We have copper gene therapy, which will be good for skin rejuvenation.

And then we also have clotho gene therapy, which will be good for brain health and protecting against neurodegeneration.

It may also increase IQ because people who have higher levels of clotho, on average, have a higher IQ of six points.

So in our clinical trial, we'll be measuring clotho levels and we'll see if people's IQ go up, but it'll be interesting to see.

Either way, it's good for brain health and people who have higher levels of clotho are protected against dementia, including Alzheimer's dementia, even if they have the gene that increases the risk of it.

So clotho is a really fascinating peptide, if you haven't heard about it, but it's really cool.

No, I've never heard of that.

wow and so that's and so do you do hormones as well are you doing hormone therapy there we're gonna have a gene therapy for men uh essentially as a way to prevent them having to inject themselves every day or every week with testosterone it'll be an alternative where you just do one injection

yeah but you're not doing it yet not yet not yet it'll be out in the summer and uh and yeah but we do do some hormonal work because I do have obviously sometimes hormones are part of the problem but you can't just ignore them right and we're we're getting all sorts of chronic complex cases from all over the world so you have to kind of look at everything you can't just if it's if it's just a shoulder issue obviously we don't have to look at hormones but sometimes you're getting these like patients that have been through like 20 doctors and you're like their last resort so you really have to kind of dig deeper and really look at everything absolutely wow wow this is so interesting my god dr khan this is i love this i've learned so much from you i'm gonna come see you in the clinic i want to i want to try some of this we'll do the facial and we'll give you a boost of energy and all that stuff i think you'll love it i will but what's not to love I might look 20 years younger.

I'm there.

You know, like this is amazing.

This is amazing.

So tell people where to find you.

Like, what's a clinic called?

What are you calling?

What are you called?

Where can people find you?

Like, what's your yeah, so mini circles are gene therapy technology and then eterna is our clinical services.

So our clinics are called eterna and obviously they're in Cabo, Toronto, Dubai, and kind of working on expansion right now.

And the easiest way to find me is definitely Instagram at dr.acon K-H-A-N.

But our website is eterna.health and i know there's always people looking for more information we have more information on there and obviously i have lots of content and then you can also for people who are suffering out there and may have lost hope uh you can always reach out to us and book an appointment and hopefully we can be of some value to them thank you all right well thank you for being on this podcast and um i'm gonna see you in cabo so

sounds good

all right bye everybody