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