Microneedling Patches and AI: The Next Frontier in Regenerative Medicine

The regular MSCs have about a 1% ability to home and, and go where they're supposed to go. But the MuCell has a 15% chance, so it's 15 times higher. And then when they go there, they migrate into damaged tissue, and then they go and start to clean it up. They're like the cleanup crew. And then when they do, they'll pick up the proteins and, uh, and they will start to express as if they are one of the cells in those tissues.

In this episode, one of my favorite guests, Dr. Matt Cook. You'll learn all about the amazing future of regenerative medicine, the new sexy alternative to stem cells, some of the best peptide stacks, and where you should actually get peptides now, and a whole lot more. All the shownotes are going to be at bengreenfieldlife.com/cook. 2026.

Here we go.

Hey, everybody listening in, you just jumped in on Matt Cook's and my little pre-show banter. I got Matt a pretty sick Jason Momoa hoodie because frankly, he's often mistaken for Jason Momoa when he's at his clinic mostly due to his cannonball shoulders and his arms that just like keep ripping the sleeves. So, I got him a Jason— look at that. I got him a Jason Momoa hoodie. And, on the back, it had Matt's tagline, which is, "This is going to be amazing." This podcast is going to be amazing. And, I texted Matt like an hour ago and told him he should wear his Jason Momoa hoodie, which was apparently stolen, but I'm wearing the Willie Nelson sure that Matt got me.

So, there you have it.

And, we should probably just address the elephant in the room for new listeners, which isn't who Matt Cook is, but the fact that Matt Cook and I recorded a country music album at a studio in LA. It's at— where is it, Matt? Rockyrootsmusic.com, I think?

Yeah. And there's a lot more where that came from.

Oh, a lot more.

There's a lot more of where that came from. Yeah, yeah.

I need to retire soon so we can just play country music. So, I think, you know, I was talking with my sons this morning and they said, "How many times has Matt been on the podcast?" And I said, "I think this might be his 8th appearance," making you possibly at the top, if not near the top of the most repeated guests on my show. How cool is that?

If you get on 7 times, you get a Jason Momoa hoodie. It's like on Saturday Night Live, they give you the jacket.

That's where you get the hoodie. That's where you get the hoodie as long as your guns match the hoodie. So, all the show notes for everything that Matt and I are about to discuss because Matt is one of the most brilliant voices in all of regenerative medicine and you're going to want the juicy show notes are going to be at BenGreenfieldLife.com/Cook2026, BenGreenfieldLife.com/Cook2026. Matt's clinic is BioReset Medical in San Jose and people fly in from all over the world to see him. And, a lot of the things that we talk about today are also things that you could bring up with your own doctor in terms of the type of stem cells and peptide approaches and things that Matt implements in his practice. So, was that an okay introduction, Matt? Are you happy with that?

I'm 100% of the time I'm happy with you, Ben.

Okay.

Alright, good.

So, I think I already said twice since this podcast started the phrase regenerative medicine. How do you actually explain that to people what that actually is?

So, that's a good one. Basically, there's a set of products that basically came out over the last 20 years, which is stem cells, exosomes, and peptides, which are the products of regenerative medicine. But regenerative medicine is actually practicing medicine using those tools. And they work by different mechanisms and in different ways, but basically using tools. And then there's a big overlap because basically the other thing that happened over the last 20 years is an explosion in the improvement in precision medicine tests or functional medicine tests. And so I think regenerative medicine is basically doing a deep dive in terms of understanding biological processes happening in the body with basically all of the new tech that includes testing but also fundamentally is going to include wearables and all of these ways to assess the body. And then, using basically new approaches to regulate and optimize biology so that the body can heal itself and get itself functioning great.

Ben Greenfield: Yeah. And related to how that's delivered, I was at a clinic about 3 months ago and they were talking about their use of stem cells and peptides and exosomes. I guess you might define those as the holy trilogy of the biologics if you want to call them that used in regenerative medicine. And they weren't really using much guided imaging for delivery. And I've run into that a few times. That's something that you and I have talked a little bit about in the past, But, for you, from what I tell or from what I can tell, ultrasound kind of fits into the picture pretty heavily. Yeah?

Yeah. So, the ultrasound is everything. And, I had 5 or 6 times that are crazy moments in my life. And, I was anesthesiologist and basically what I would do is I would do nerve blocks to put a part of the body to sleep so they could do surgery. And the way we used to do it is we would take a needle that was connected to an electrical stimulator, and then you'd go and we would touch the nerve on the neck and then the arm would start twitching like this and we would turn it down and then we would put numbing medicine around the brachial plexus. So, super crazy. And then, the other way we would do it is if a nerve was next to an artery, we would stick a needle into the artery and then pull back And then when that stopped having blood, we would inject local anesthetic around those nerves. This was like from like, for me, 1998 to 2001. And so then somebody calls me and they go, "You're not gonna believe it." I go, "What's that?" And they go, "There's an ultrasound and you just look at a nerve and then you put a needle right next to it. You don't even need to touch it. And you put a halo of fluid around it." And then, and then what happened is, is then that became available to us. And so, I spent the first half of my life putting nerves in people to sleep using ultrasound to put needles basically to nerves everywhere in the body from the head to the toe. And then, over that first 13 years, all of a sudden, people started to do PRP and other sort of regenerative solutions. And so then we started doing PRP and early regenerative approaches where we would either treat a nerve or we would treat a joint and we'd use ultrasound to see that needle go and be where it needs to be. If you can't see it, if, if you're trying to get inside the knee joint but you don't end up in the knee joint, that's not going to do what you want.

That, that, that's kind of like the concept of taking supplements you don't need and making expensive pee. But on a much greater scale if you've got an expensive bottle of stem cells and you're kind of jamming them blindly into a joint.

100%. And so then, now, I think probably I'm going to dedicate half of my life to making music with you and then the other half to basically teaching people how to do ultrasound-guided injections. And then, we've got the, the, the soul brothers to regional anesthesia, which is who I am, is anesthesia pain. And so then I've got a great anesthesia pain doctor, Dr. Wiegers, and we do basically x-ray guided injections where basically you use x-ray to go either into the epidural space or into discs by the spine or in difficult to get places because ultrasound can't see through bone. Oh, yeah. Okay. So, basically, you have two ways to see that you got your needle exactly where you wanted it to be in the body. Wow.

Okay. So, you mentioned platelet-rich plasma, which I guess didn't even make that top 3 list of stem cells and exosomes and peptides. And, It kind of seems like that's happening in regenerative medicine. Something that was really cool 10 years ago is all of a sudden gradually at the same time replaced by something that's more advanced. Is it just me or is the whole field becoming more popular and advancing at what seems like a faster rate now?

So, that's crazy. My joke, and it's true, so my joke that was like a hardcore just funny joke is because we live in Silicon Valley and ever since 1969, the computer chip doubled every 2 years and that's called Moore's Law. And so I made this law, Cook's Law, that regenerative medicine has been doubling every 2 years. But I thought for sure it's not going to continue, it's going to level off. And so then I would say it, but I would feel kind of bad about saying it. And so then I would be like, it was just a joke. But then consistently every 2 years, it seems like what we have has doubled in quality and it's been amazing. And I would say that that's, I think that I foresee that the next 10 years is going to be the best years of our lives. And the following 10 years is going to be the same thing because the technology's just going to continue to get better and better.

Yeah. Okay. I want to dive into brass tacks, nuts and bolts when it comes to stem cells, exosomes, and peptides. But, if anyone wants to play a fun drinking game along the way, you would have already had to have taken two shots. Anytime Matt says it's going to be amazing, take a shot of your healthy superfood beverage of choice. So, let's talk about stem cells, Matt. I'm going to cut straight to the chase. I have been hearing a ton about MuSE cells. I would love for you to unpack what these are and how they're different than a lot of other stem cells.

Okay, great. So, MuSE— MuSE— MuSE stands for multi-lineage stress-enduring, and so stem cells. But MuSE cells are just a subset of regular stem cells. Okay. And so, there was this— there was an idea that— and this is kind of from the name that a stem cell is a cell that could hypothetically turn into any other type of cell. Okay. So, the idea is that maybe a stem cell is floating around in your bloodstream and it might migrate into your knee and then it might become a cartilage, a chondrocyte. A cartilage cell. But, it turns out that the cells that we've talked about as stem cells, which are called mesenchymal stem cells, and Arnold Kaplan coined this term because he proved that in a Petri dish, he could force mesenchymal stem cell to become a cartilage cell. But, it turns out, and this has been a big topic I've talked about so many times on podcasts, stem cells don't tend to do that. They tend to be signaling cells. They tend to be a little mobile pharmacy that secrete exosomes or a secretome. And then, those signaling molecules tell the other cells what to do and tell them they can heal. And so then, that's what mesenchymal stem cell is. And actually, Arnold Kaplan actually renamed that to medicinal signaling cell. Because for the most part, regular stem cells are just signaling cells. Now, it turns out 2 to 5% of a regular stem cell population are these kind of Navy SEAL type of stem cells that are called mu cells. Okay.

And by the way, real quick before we get into mu cells, you said mesenchymal stem cells and medicinal signaling cells. But both of those, people have probably heard the term MSC.

Yes.

That's what those are.

That's what those are. Okay. So, two names, same thing. And those are signaling communicating cells. I call them like the McKinsey consultants of the body. And so, they're telling people what to do and they tend to regulate the immune system. And, and the immune system is what heals the musculoskeletal system. So they tend to be helpful and effective at musculoskeletal problems. Now, there's this subpopulation of cells that are called mu cells. And so then the interesting thing about this subpopulation and the MSCs can turn into a mu cell and then they can turn back into an MSC. So it's kind of like a superhero type of kind of like Clark Kent. They're walking around like Clark Kent in the day and they can turn into Superman. And there's a couple things. One is they're smaller, they're about half the size, and then they don't express a protein called integrins. And so, as a result, they're much less likely to get stuck in the lungs. And so, it's a theory that if you do IV MSCs that a lot of those get stuck in the lungs, but then they tend to have an anti-inflammatory effect because they're secreting exosomes into your body. Whereas the mu cells, because they're smaller, they actually can get through, get out of the heart and lungs, and then go to the rest of the body.

Okay. And real quick, sorry if this is a dumb question, but is that a risk for something to get stuck in the lungs, or does it just mean they're not really going where they need to be going?

I don't think that's a risk because millions of people have gotten a wide diversity of mesenchymal stem cells and they seem to be fairly safe.

Okay.

Overall, however, it's the Wild West. There's all kinds of things going on out there and it's hard to have a product, hard to know what products are, what kind of standardization the lab had, and what you're getting. But probably those ones that get stuck in the lungs, this is just my theory, are having an anti-inflammatory effect there and you're going to have a systemic anti-inflammatory effect over time. And that's what we've noticed. Now, the problem is that probably 15 to 20% of people that get an MSC can have a little bit of an immune reaction to them. And when they have that immune reaction, what happens is you get flu symptoms and then you can get from an injection sort of some chronic swelling. And so then, at first, the first 3 or 4 times I did MSCs, I felt amazing, bulletproof. It was the greatest thing that ever happened to me. The last 3 or 4 times I did it, I got crushing night sweats and shaking chills for days and then it went away and then I felt better. But I was one of those people that got an immune reaction And the people, they get the immune reaction when you inject it. A lot of times you'll inject a joint and people like who are healthy pro athletes a lot of times recover really quickly. But then people with immune problems, sometimes they get swelling that would last for a month. On the other side of the coin, the mu cells express something called HLAG, and it's the protein that's expressed basically by, by by, like, the fetus that's in the embryo. These don't come from fetuses though. But as a result, there's no rejection. And so, that 20% of people that have kind of sketchy outcomes after stem cells, we don't tend to see that with the mu cells. And then, the other thing is, is that they probably— they seem to work much better for injections. And I think that's probably because of this lack of the immune reaction against Okay.

Where do Mu cells come from?

So then that's the thing. So the, the Mu cell comes from an MSC. So it's a subpopulation of an MSC. And essentially what happens is, is that in, in, you know, all of biological processes are kind of like life. And so then imagine if we had a problem here in San Jose, they could activate Delta Force or a SEAL team and send them in here and then they would start doing stuff. Today, there's probably 1— there's less than 1% Delta Force and Navy SEALs in San Jose. But if there was a problem, there might be, you know, 1,000 of them could show up. And what happens is, is in a case of stress, that MSC population, they will start to convert into becoming these mu cells. And so, they convert, they turn into a superhero. And then, once they do, then the amazing thing about them, maybe we're going to have to take a shot right there. I just said amazing. Ben Greenfield: Oh, yeah. Okay.

I'll do it later. I actually don't have a shot glass handy right now.

And I hate to do this to people, but the—

I've got my Post-it notes, so I'm just going to keep track for Saturday night.

So, the amazing thing about that is that they can go into all 3 germ layers. So, they can become any cell type. And then, the regular MSCs have about a 1% ability to home and, and go where they're supposed to go. But the mu cell has a 15% chance, so it's 15 times higher. And then when they go there, they migrate into damaged tissue and then they go and start to clean it up. They're like the cleanup crew. And then when they do, they'll pick up the proteins and, and they will start to express as if they are one of the cells in those tissues. And so, they start to do that relatively quickly. And so then, they can differentiate into basically any type of cell, but they came just in a state of stress from a regular MSC.

Okay, got it. I heard there was some kind of a story about a Japanese researcher who discovered these— there was something unique about their origin. Have you heard this story?

Yeah, I know. So, it's great. This is Mari Dzawa, who's one of the, I think, probably the best stem cell scientist in the world in terms of—

That's like D-Z-A-W-A?

Dzawa, yeah. Okay. And, what happened is the story that I heard is that she's completely dedicated to her PhDs. And so, she's super focused on doing research with them. And so then there was an event that they called her and they're like, hey, you gotta come, come to this event to celebrate basically how good everybody did. And so there was an experiment that they were doing in the lab and then she accidentally put the wrong reagent in the experiment and it killed most of the stem cells, but a few of them lived. And that's basically what we were talking about in that stress environment. Some of them convert into this cell, that's the MuCell. So, she did this and they came back the next day and half of them or most of them were dead but some of them were alive. And then, basically, they figured all of this biology out and then they figured out a process. And so, there's a company that she licensed all of her IP to called MuCell Innovations. And they've got a bunch of content and it's probably worth going there. And I'm working on the sports scientific advisory board to kind of develop protocols to use these cells for injections for athletes but also for longevity and wellness and also for difficult complex illness problems. So, that's kind of the story of how they came about.

So, for the OG original MuCell if that's what you wanted, you would need to ask your doctor if they were using like Dezawa.

Yeah.

Dezawa.

Am I pronouncing that right? Dezawa or MCI. MCI stands for MuCell Innovations. And, the issue is our field basically came out and it was a missionary pitch to talk about regenerative medicine. Our clinical experience was that it was working. But you have labs all over. It's unclear how you compare one lab to the other lab. And what they're doing all over the world is basically licensing her approach because they basically figured it out and it works. And then basically, you know exactly what you're getting, viability, cell counts, all that type of stuff, safety measures in terms of making sure there's no infections. And I think that then what's gonna happen is, is then the next 10 years is gonna be about getting outcomes data across a wide variety of conditions and things that we're looking at and then seeing how these perform over time. But I predict they're gonna perform really well.

And do you have to go international to get 'em?

So then this is gonna be the great thing. There's been a big, a lot of regulatory, regulatory changes here in the last couple years. And so then right now, these cells are going to be legal in Florida, but there's a process that needs to be followed, which is that they need to be manufactured in the United States. And so there's a lab in Texas that has basically figured this out. And my understanding is this, they're just weeks to maybe a month away. And so then there's at least 7 or 8 other states that are looking at following the Florida law. And so then what I tell people is, is within 6 months, you're going to be a 2-hour plane trip from a clinic somewhere that's going to be able to follow these processes. And so that's going to be amazing.

Is there anything to the idea of not just injecting them into a joint You, for example, years ago, did some really good things for my knee, which I still owe you a debt of gratitude to for because that's why I'm playing pickleball now. But, is there anything to the idea of just mainlining them via IV into the bloodstream? Do they actually have— I know this term is overused, maybe we can turn this into a drinking game also, but an anti-aging effect?

Well, so I think so. I think so. And so, but I like that term. I'm going to mainline some new cells for anti-aging. But the— so then this goes back to that initial conversation. And so then what happens is one way that I could treat your knee would be to look at the knee, do a diagnostic ultrasound, and then inject either in the joint or around the joint or to the nerve that goes to the joint. The other thing that I could do is put an IV in, put some of those mucils in, and they're going to float around. They're small, they don't express the wrong proteins, and so they're going to get through your lungs. And now they're either going to go to your brain or they're going to go to your internal organs or they're going to go somewhere in your musculoskeletal system. Now, when they go to their musculoskeletal system, some of those can then migrate out and then those cells then are going to be able to go to an area of damage and then could become a cell in that area. So, A, you have that. B, they're regulating the immune system. And so, what happens is all of these organ systems are all basically talking to each other all the time and working with each other. And so, they regulate the immune system, which means they're regulating all of the systems. And then, what happens is how do we prevent aging? A, we prevent aging by optimizing the musculoskeletal system. And I'll tell you that, you know, my approach is to do these on an IV basis every quarter. And then I feel a lot better everywhere when I do that. And so, I think that's a reasonable idea. But then the next thing is how do we prevent aging? And that is that we have to manage all 12 organ systems. Which is basically the musculoskeletal system, cell biology, genetics, and 9 organ systems. If we can optimize those, have them balanced and working, it's like a company. You need the factory, marketing, operations, strategy, all of those things need to be working. And, if that's working, then basically biological processes are intact and that's going to lead to living longer but more importantly living better.

Okay. Now, exosomes, I know, I mean, I've seen studies that get into the double digits in terms of increased lifespan in rodent models. And those, as you mentioned, are pretty important cell signaling molecules. But with Muse cells based on the size, do you still see it as a good strategy to combine them with something like exosomes? I mean, would that enhance the effects somehow?

Okay. So what I'm going to say is to me, of the great questions that I would like to know the answer to, that's like in the top 5 that you could ask me. And I think that I'm going to have a progressively better answer for this every year over the next 4 or 5 years. And so then what happens is, is I could grow stem cells in a lab and then stem cells, when you're growing them in a lab, what they do is they just make those signaling cells or signaling molecules that are called exosomes. And so then I have regular stem cells that I'm growing in lab, or I have, uh, Mu cells that I'm growing in a lab. Mu cells make Mu exosomes. Regular stem cells make regular exosomes. So then now there's one theory, and one theory A is, is that I should just give the stem cell by itself. And then if I give the stem cell by itself, it will float around and it's going to go maybe to your knee and look for inflammation, or maybe there's some neuroinflammation, so that stem cell is going to go to your brain. And so theory A says, do the stem cell and then wait 3 or 4 days. And then after you, you do that, then do an exosome because the exosome will help continue and drive the process. And, and then subset of theory is maybe do several days of stem cells, wait, and then do exosomes and maybe even a couple of days of exosomes. Theory B says If I could give you the stem cell and the exosome at the same time, then the exosome is having an immune regulatory and calming the seas. And so, then the stem cell comes in into a less inflamed environment and can do what it does. And then, maybe the outcomes of that are better. And to me, that's the biggest question in my mind as to what's better between those two approaches. And then, the caveat then on the injection side, same thing. Should you do the injection with exosomes or should you do it without? Basically, what's happening at a regulatory level is that in the States, we're only going to be able to do stem cell injections and not exosomes. Exosomes are for topical use only. But, that's where I say come to the Bahamas with me and Ben. We're going to do amazing event at Champion Spirit. And we have a clinic we're really closely affiliating with there that's amazing that is— we'll have— basically, I'm working with the regulatory organization of the Bahamas. And so then, they're allowing stem cells, they're allowing exosomes, And so, then we can do everything and we'll ultimately compare that data to the U.S. data and basically compare outside of U.S. clinical data inside the U.S. And all of that pushes towards regulatory framework that hopefully we bring that to the States.

Okay. Yeah, I'm glad you brought it up because I probably would have forgotten that the event you and I are doing in the Bahamas, it's like this kind of like regenerative medicine immersive experience with Matt and I last week of April. I'll put a link to it in the shownotes. If you go to BenGreenfieldLife.com/Cook2026, pretty small crowd of VIPs we're taking down there, but it is open to get in right now.

On that front, the Abdullah, and we're going to put up his bio, is co-running this who is, I think, one of the most sophisticated physio training exercise sports medicine people that I've met. And we're doing it at his location, Champion Spirit. And it's truly impressive, like his approach and his philosophy. And we were talking and I was like, I said, what do you want me to say or do you have any highlights? For the podcast and he said, "What I want to say to people is that they should invest." He said, "The most important thing to invest in is your health." And I thought, "Oh, that's really neat." But—

Although I actually, well, I disagree indirectly. I think the most important thing to invest in is your relationships, but I think that by investing in your relationships, you're also investing in your health.

So amazing. Yeah, yeah.

No, wait, I gotta write that down. That's another shot on Saturday night. Uh, are people going to be able to get Muse cells there, you know?

Yeah.

Oh, sweet.

All right, cool.

All right, folks, there you go.

And Muse exosomes. Oh, the nice thing about that also is, is that then as, as you think about designing like a year, then the, the The thing is, is that stem cells act for 2 or 3 months, exosomes last for 2 weeks to a couple months, and then peptides last for like days to a week. And so then you can do stem cells on a quarterly basis, exosomes on a monthly basis, peptides on a weekly basis. I like that.

I never thought about like that. All right, cool. Fly-in, by the way, folks, I think it's April 25th or 26th is a fly-in date. To the Bahamas. Well, peptides there too, and I want to talk peptides. Honestly, as much as I'd like to get into just a few of the sexy peptide protocols that you like, I couldn't bring up this topic without bringing up the current regulatory landscape because I know that's confusing to people. People don't know what they can get. These sold-for-human-research-only peptide companies seem to be slowly disappearing. You hear some horror stories about people getting peptides from these websites and having a pretty bad reaction or just basically getting burnt for a lot of cash because the peptide doesn't have in it what it says it has in it. Tell me about the current legal or regulatory landscape right now.

Well, fortunately, I'm not a lawyer and I don't play one on TV, But basically, the story about peptides is peptides came on over the last, let's say, 7 years. And that's about how long we've been doing it, almost right from the beginning. And basically, there's 12 organ systems that I talked about and you can regulate all of those organ systems with stem cells. You can regulate them with exosomes generally. And then, there's peptides that work on each organ system and then often can influence multiple organ systems. So, the peptide conversation is a big conversation. What happened early on is that they were being mostly delivered to people either through, A, A, a compounding pharmacy, or B, they were coming kind of from the gray market. And the gray market a lot of times was coming from labs that were making these in China. And often it was the same labs that were making it for compounding pharmacies, but they just didn't want to say where they were getting it. And so then, they were using a loophole and saying, "Okay, this is research purposes only." but there wasn't a doctor involved.

And I just, I kind of laugh because you just picture, you know, these, these gym bros in their white lab coats doing research, you know, in their kitchen, right?

Their pet. Although honestly, you gotta thank the gym bros because I was at a meeting with our friend Jean-François and I was at Charles Poliquin had a big event. And so, I was talking at the event and there was like 100 gym bros there and it was amazing event. And then, they all came up to me and they go, "Hey, do you know what BPC-157 is?" It's like 7 or 8 years ago. And I go, "No." And they go, "Do you know what thymosin alpha-1 is?" And I go, "No." And so then—

Do you even peptide, bro?

Do you know what a peptide is? And I was like, "No." And so then, they did something good. Now, I got a pop quiz for you. What does DNA code for? RNA. That's good. What does RNA code for?

Proteins.

Yes. Yes. So, the language of biology is Basically proteins, but if a protein has more than 50 amino acids, it's called a protein. If a protein has less than 50 amino acids, it's called a—

It's called a protein with high amino acid protein envy or also a peptide.

Amazing. So, proteins and peptides are the language of biology and that's how Basically, our body talks to itself. And that's why I had a great talk with Dr. Wiegers this morning thinking about stuff to say. And he was like, if you sit down and look at a drug commercial, the list of chaotic side effects that you hear at the end of every commercial is crazy. Whereas when you begin to think about the side effects of peptides, they're exponentially lower in general than drugs. And so, then back to the regulatory framework, and I think this administration has done a really great job on this one. Basically, what has happened is a decision's been made, I think, that the gray market needs to go away. And so, peptide science shut down. And I think that whole market's going to go away. And so, then ultimately what's going to be left is the peptides are either going to be coming through a physician or they're going to be coming through a compounding pharmacy. And so, then I helped start this peptide company with the goal of having GMP-manufactured peptides made in the States. And so, we're doing that now.

GMP, like good manufacturing practices.

That's right. So then, you know that the same level of sterility that is used to make an anesthesia drug that I would inject in the operating room is used to make these peptides. And so, then that's really the solve that we were looking for. And so then, that's going to be, I think, a nice—

Okay. And from what I understand, I don't know if you call this a loophole or what, You can get peptides from a compounding pharmacist if you go through a doctor, but you could technically do a telemedicine consult with a doctor and be able to get peptides from a compounding pharmacist. You don't have to wander around your hometown trying to find a GP who's going to prescribe you peptides, right? Right.

So, there's going to be a big diversity of ways that you can do that, but that's one of the ways. So, you're either going to wander around your town, you're going to wander around your town saying, "Hey, have you ever heard of BPC-157?" Yeah, exactly. Or, you're going to find a telemedicine channel where you can talk to somebody. And, all of this is going to be relatively quickly scaled. And, what happened was about, 4 years ago, basically, the FDA said all of these compounding pharmacies are going to have to stop compounding most of the peptides that people liked. But now, basically, what's going to happen is all of those are coming back hypothetically also in the next few weeks. But if you want to learn more about peptides, you can go to our website. And, Vasalius is the name of the company and Peptual is the name of the brand.

Oh, sorry. Yeah, that's where I get my peptides right now. Salius operating as the name Peptual, like P-E-P-T-U-A-L. Now, they do patches and sprays like nasal sprays and injectables and oral bioregulator peptide capsules. So, there's a lot of different kind of delivery mechanisms. But if you were to put together a peptide protocol for someone, I know it's going to vary from person to person, but let's just say somebody generally wanted to feel good, look good, and perform better. What would it look like in terms of how you'd mix and match different peptides via patches, sprays, injectables, or oral? I know it's a complicated question, but I have faith in you.

Ben Greenfield: Okay. That's a good one. So then, let's pause before we go into that and let's talk about all of those delivery mechanisms. Okay. So then, That's a really good one. In terms of the nasal sprays, and now this is a good one when you think about how do you get something to the brain. And it turns out that in the work that we've been doing and following over the years, one of the better ways to get exosomes into the brain is actually delivering them through the nose because they can crawl up through basically the olfactory nerves. And then they get up into the brain. And so then, the nasal delivery mechanism is a good one. And so, Semax and Selank are peptides that are neurological peptides. But then, as we think and frame the conversation, another one that you can do nasally is NAD. And then, NAD is a vitamin that's a derivative of vitamin B3, but is and has been a topic of many podcasts but is another one. And, that's another way to get NAD to the brain.

Yeah. And, by the way, Nick Noritz just released a video a couple weeks ago. He's a metabolic public health educator who I've had on the podcast highlighting some new research on brain NAD and decreased risk of Alzheimer's and dementia. So, it seems to me like nasal spray-based NAD might be a good preventive therapy.

I think so. I think so. And then, now, since you're on the NAD topic, basically, NAD is like a battery and NAD goes from a high-energy state called NAD+ to a low-energy state. And, if there was an assembly line, there's— and the assembly line of life, Basically, imagine you're making a car and you put a carpool sticker on it. It took no energy to do that. But then, let's say we got to drop an engine block into the car. There's a crane that's got to drop that engine block. And, if we're going to put a carbon molecule on, sometimes what happens is we've got to donate energy and NAD donates the energy to facilitate building something. In an expensive biochemical reaction. And so, it's involved in DNA repair, it's involved in the electron transport chain and mitochondria for making energy, it's involved in the Krebs cycle and the initial parts for making energy, it turns on the sirtuin superfamily. And then, it's super helpful and super important in detox. And so, it helps break down alcohol, I found it to be very helpful for addiction because people with addiction tend to have super low levels of NAD. And so then, longevity now is then managing and optimizing all of these supply chains. And so then, that may be peptide-based, that may be NAD, other vitamins, and those expensive supplements that you talked about. But it's really a total approach to all of that stuff that's the key.

Okay. So, you mentioned CMAX, C-Lanc, and NAD as potentially a spray-based delivery mechanism. Let's say we were going to use that as a foundation for what we were using for cognitive support, for example, and you were to be able to choose a few other things off the shelf like an injectable or an oral or a patch, what else do you think would be useful for folks?

[Speaker:BEN GREENFIELD] So then, what I'll tell you is that the injectable, there's two ideas. One is injecting something subcutaneously that's going to have a systemic effect. So, another peptide is insulin. And so insulin, I inject insulin subcutaneously, let's say, into my belly, but then I'm not doing that so it's going to have a local effect. I'm doing that so that it's going to have a systemic effect all over my body in terms of regulating my blood sugar. And so then I could inject, and if I was injecting subcutaneously for a systemic effect, I could inject C-max and C-length and NAD. So, I could do them in the nose or I could do them subcutaneously. Some people like to do it in the nose because it avoids an injection. And then, some people will find that they like the effect that they get cognitive-wise better from the nasal, but some people will like it from the injection. Yeah.

And, by the way, increasingly for just logistical reasons for one, I am shifting more and more towards nasal sprays and patches as my preferred delivery mechanisms for peptides.

And so, then the crazy thing about this is that the patches are going to be delivering something over 7 minutes with the microneedling patches. And so then, what's going to happen is there's going to be this evolution where I could say, "Oh, okay." Let's say we're going to do an immune peptide like thymosin alpha 1, and then we were going to do another immune peptide that's useful for musculoskeletal issues like TB500 and then BPC-157. So then, probably, you know, you're going to be able to have the choice and say, "Oh, okay." I could inject those with an insulin syringe. I could inject them with a pen like an Ozempic pen. And so there's going to be a wide diversity of pens, or I could put that in a patch and then that patch goes on and then you're getting systemic absorption. Yeah.

And then some of the patches are different, like the electrophoresis patches, which aren't a microneedling patch. But instead use an electrical current to deliver transdermally. I wear the 1,300-milligram NAD patch when I'm doing a long-haul flight. Those are the ones from Peptual. So, I'm basically getting the equivalent of an NAD IV during the 12 hours that I'm doing international travel and it's a game changer.

Ben Greenfield: Yeah. And, the good and bad thing about the subcutaneous injections, is it's just like all anesthesia drugs, you're going to have a high blood level and then it's going to come down. And so, whatever you absorbed, most of our NADs and our uses in the liver and the brain. So, whatever got absorbed when it was at the high level is going to get absorbed and then it goes down. I actually think that over time, what you're doing when you have that low-level infusion for 13 hours You're just getting nice steady absorption. And I think that that's a win for sure.

Okay, got it. And then, I would be remiss not to ask about a lot of these peptides that are usually champions for mitochondrial benefits like humannin, MOTC, epitalon. Do you use those frequently in your practice or in your own protocol?

Yeah. So then, I've been big fans of that and then SS31 also. Okay. Okay. SS-41 actually stabilizes the mitochondrial membranes. If you said, oh, so what is going to be the doubling? What's going to be the doubling that happens in the next 2 years? And I've got some inside info on this, but it's basically the mitochondrial peptides are going to get exponentially better than they are right now. And what happens with that is basically One idea that you say, oh, okay, what could we do that would be good for the brain and good for the liver and good for muscles and, and good for the gastrointestinal system would be to try to come up with something that was good for each one of those. The other thing is if you could improve mitochondrial function in the body globally, a rising tide lifts all boats, and that improvement in mitochondrial function then helps optimize everything.

Yeah. And, a lot of these are working on different pathways, some on mitochondrial biogenesis, some on the mitochondrial membrane, some on cardiolipin. So, we probably don't have time to dive into the network of ways that you could combine them, but there is ample information that exists on these. And, I'll include some helpful links in the shownotes. But, even that alone, on my little Post-it note here, not the one that is the drinking game Post-it note, different one. CMAX, C-Lanc, NAD as potential intranasal sprays, something like thymosin alpha 1, TB500, and BPC-157 as either injectable or nasal. You could top that off with an NAD patch weekly. And then, for mitochondrial support, something like SS31, MOTC, Humanin, or Epitalon. And that could be a pretty good base stack.

That's a pretty good base stack. And then, the final thing is when you think about— and a nice way to think about these is all of these systems. And so then, one of the systems is the hormonal system. And so, there's a whole group of peptides that'll help you either synthesize or make growth hormone. And over time, basically everything goes— as we age, everything goes down in the body. And so, if we can use biochemistry to optimize that, then basically, we're telling the pituitary gland to synthesize and make a little bit more growth hormone. And often that's a nice thing. And then people, uh, some people will take those continuously, cycling 5 days on, 2 days off. And then some people will have— there's a variety of cycles that we can do. And maybe what we'll do is we'll put together our top 5 protocols and we're going to post them up on the website.

That'd be incredible. I'll put them in the show notes at, uh, bengreenfieldlife.com/cook. 2026, I think I did learn that. We'll call it the Jason Mamoa stack from you, Matt. I do it twice a year for 12 weeks, 5 days on, 2 days off. I use one of the growth hormone secretagogues. Actually, typically, I'll do tesamorelin in the morning and CJC-ipamorelin in the evening, 5 days on, 2 days off, 12 weeks, take a 12-week break, do it again. And, I've been doing that for couple years.

Yeah, that's an amazing protocol. And the CJC also seems to help at night for sleep.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And the testamorelin for kind of the visceral fat issue is pretty good at decreasing visceral fat adiposity.

And so then, I think the whole world basically came to me and said, Oh, you know what, you were right, peptides work because the GLPs help people lose weight. And then, so people realize, oh, and, but the hormonal thing and getting the hormones balanced is I think a key component in life. I think the thymus and alpha-1 that you talked about is an immune peptide and regulating and managing the immune system is key because I basically missed half a day of work in my entire life before 2020. And I was like, I met so many people. I was like, did you ever miss a day of work? They're like, no. And then suddenly COVID happened. And so, the immune peptides are helpful. They regulate the immune system. Stem cells and exosomes also regulate the immune system. So now, we've got a diversity of ways. And so then you say, how are we going to think about all of this stuff? And then basically it's been a little bit Jimbro kind of conversation of how we think about this stuff, which is, oh, Ben Greenfield does this, which is almost like the best thing in the world to do right now is just to find out what Ben does and copy it. However, the The biggest disruption in my life before now was when they said, "Oh, you can see inside the body with ultrasound." The biggest disruption of our lives ever is going to be AI. Because what's happening is, basically, when you take all of the data of someone and put it inside of a language model, the AI can organize the precision and functional medicine data that used to take us 8 or 10 hours, and now it takes us an hour, and it's going to take us like 20 minutes. And so then what, what's going to happen? And so I've been working on this for a while, but it's coming together, and I'll have something next time I talk to you. But basically, the, the AI is going to give us outcomes data from your labs, genetics, and wearables. And so then, what's going to happen is you're going to be taking— you're going to be doing the Ben protocol or the Jason Mamoa protocol and you're going to be doing that. And then, we're going to see, "Oh, man, his heart rate variability just got a lot better," or maybe it got worse. And so then, at a micro level between wearables, lab data, and then all of the other data that is feeding in, then we're going to begin to really understand how this stuff works. And then our jobs are going to be so much easier that we're going to be able to dedicate half of our time to country music.

Yeah. Yeah. And I love it. So the— in terms of how that manifests, right, delivery platform-wise, is this like some kind of a HIPAA-compliant dashboard that a patient or client would have access to that allows them to using an API or other mechanism, import wearable data, upload labs that they're uploading or you're uploading, any other information, health history, goals, maybe even things related to spiritual practice, family relationships, some of those other things we know are important. And then, basically, the LLM is then within that dashboard able to provide the precise kind of prescription and then you guys look at that and deliver it whether it's a peptide protocol or pharmaceutical protocol or whatever?

100%. 100%.

Okay.

And then, to give you an idea, there was a great article in the New York Times that I read and it goes, "The entire world is about to realize what Silicon Valley engineers realized last year and this year." which is that AI is something that was coming, was going from something that was a very helpful tool to something that's going to replace your job. And then basically the people that I'm talking to now don't believe that, believe that AI is going to do 90% of primary care. And so basically there's going to be a, there's got to be a thing that happens that all of your data is in there, it's going to be exactly what you said, and then you're going to be able to get primary care for $100 a month. Something like that. And I'm working like in 3 or 4 years, but that's where all of this is going. And so then, this regenerative medicine is just a module that lives inside of AI. And so then, what we will do is then we'll get really great data, track that over time, and compare that to the diversity of other approaches, surgery, interventional, other interventional approaches, medications.

Yeah. And, you joke about that freeing up more time for you to make music, but when it comes to the existential crisis of the so-called age of abundance, I actually think that's the direction that human beings will go as a lot of this stuff becomes more accessible and affordable. And income generation becomes something more automated is relationships, community, more time at the coffee shop with friends, making art, crafting, woodworking, being with people, having more time for family dinner or to hang out with the kids or maybe having a couple extra kids because now you've got more time. There's so many, I think, positive ways to look at what some people think might be a crisis of boredom. That I think could actually be really cool.

Amazing, I mean. It's amazing. And you think about relationships, there's a family that I work with that I've been friends with, the Frankel family. And they were some of the first people that I ever met. Keith Pine, who's the greatest sports medicine doctor in the world, who was the team doctor that I worked with at the nationals, who, went to the Dodgers and it's just an incredible guy, introduced them to me. So, it's kind of one of my basically very first fam people that I met. And then Mitch ended up joining us and joining our team. And so, we've had this sort of amazing relationship and he's been so helpful and he's an agent and gets stuff done. And I was sitting last night and I was thinking, how do I say thank you to Mitch and make him feel amazing? And so then I said, and we were, I say everybody is a superhero in our practice. And so I said, Mitch, you're Paper Man because you get all of the contracts, you know, everything. So I asked ChatGPT to create a superhero avatar of Mitch, a paper man, which I did. And so then I had that and then our entire team basically was just laughing all evening about Paper Man. But it was like that heart-space connection relationship and it was kind of AI-facilitated. So, we'll put that in the show notes also.

There we go, Paper Man TM. So, by the way, everybody, also related to relationships and community, no joking here, the Boundless program that Matt and I are going to run at the end of April in the Bahamas will be pretty fun because we'll be playing sports. We will be eating amazing food. We'll be trying out a lot of these protocols and there's chances kind of like to meet privately with me and Matt about your exercise protocol, your medical protocol. So, you can go to BenGreenfieldLife.com/BecomeBoundless or you can go to the shownotes at BenGreenfieldLife.com/Cook2026 where I will also make sure to include information for you on the Dzaua Muse Cells and MCI, Vesalius or peptual for the peptides, and then also a handy illustration of Paper Man along with Matt's favorite peptide protocols. How's that for some juicy show notes, Matt?

I couldn't get any better. By the way, George Kettle said to say hi. He wants to meet you.

Oh, awesome. Wait, do I know who that is?

Oh, he's a football player. Oh, okay. Nobody confuses me with him because he's got a different hair color.

He's got a different hair color. I'm sorry, George. I should know that.

All right.

Well, folks, once again, 8th time and I have 9 tick marks down on my Post-it for my drinking game. So, however that goes down, I'll have to get the alcohol metabolizing peptide beforehand. Um, Matt, thanks so much for doing this.

I love you. You're the best.

I love you too. I can't wait to see you in April.

Okay.

Yep. All right, bye-bye everybody. Hit subscribe, leave a ranking, leave a review if you got a little extra time. It means way more than you might think. Thank you so much.