Protecting Against The Damaging Effects Of Travel, Ozone Treatments For Longevity, Stacking Stem Cells With NAD & Exosomes, & More With Darshan Shah, MD.

My name is Ben Greenfield, and on this episode of the Ben Greenfield Life.

Podcast, there's different ways of getting stem cells, as you know. Right. You can do either autologous stem cells, which is allergenic stem cells.

Right.

So the autologous ones, they come, you get mesenchymals from your fat, hematopoietic ones from your bone marrow. What we find is that most people don't want to go through like a little liposuction procedure or bone marrow procedure.

So I don't want to get a whole drill in my hip in Hawaii.

Exactly, exactly so. And not only that, but, you know, when we take your own stem cells from you, you're young and you're super healthy. But a lot of people are getting these treatments a little bit older. These are older stem cells. They already experience some level of stem cell exhaustion. Right. So they're not as effective. And so we like the umbilical cells because they are, they are from brand new umbilical cord blood that's been donated. So they're new stem cells.

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Well, folks, you have probably, if you've been a podcast listener for, like, I don't know, gosh, like, since what, 2018. Darshan, 18. When I first connected with you guys at Next Health, I stumbled across this facility. I think it might have been my friend Khalil from Sun Life who was telling me about this whitewash, super slick, biohacking, age reversal kind of compound in Beverly Hills. And he's like, dude, you got to go check out this place. It's, like, slick. It's clean. It feels like you walked into some, like, medical clinic on the Star Trek spaceship or whatever. I'm not a trek.

That's what you called it. You called the Star Trek the Enterprise.

And so since then, I've been to that Next Health. I've been to the new one up in West Hollywood and every time, you know, cryotherapy and HBOT and IVs, and it's kind of like biohackers, you know, health enthusiast Paradise. So anyways, Dr. Darshan Shah, if you're listening in, who's sitting with me here today, has recently picked up nextel, started to expand internationally, and put up this slick place in Maui where we are at right now. And it's. It's pretty amazing. I just got done with an ozone iv, so I'm already, it's starting to hit my system now. I'm coming out of that new calm session and I'm feeling good. Anyways, just a real quick thing before we dive in. If you're listening in, you can go to BenGreenfieldLife.com NextHealthMaui that's BenGreenfieldLife.com Nexthealth Good luck spelling the word Maui. You can Google or GPT that.

It'll help you.

I believe it's M A, U, I, but that's correct. These Hawaiian spellings always throw me off. And BenGreenfieldLife.com NextHealthMaui is where we'll keep the show notes. I'll link to. What have we done two other episodes before? Two other episodes?

The third one.

Yeah, we've done two other episodes. You're not still running a podcast, are you?

We are, yeah. We're going to restart it here pretty soon. We took a little break for Covid, but we're going to get back on Pod faded. Yeah, we pod Faded, unfortunately.

All right, cool. So, I mean, I got to ask. Why? Why Maui? Why'd you start here?

Yeah, you know, combination of different factors. So, you know, NextHealth, we've been growing nationally. We're in New York, we're in Los Angeles. And then now we have some internationally licensed and deal. But what I really wanted to do was kind of combine the basics of health and wellness. Diet, exercise, mindfulness, all the stuff that you get here. Virgin mai tais, low sugar, with the advanced longevity technology that we bring to the table as well. And so this place was really on the map. And I think Four Seasons was looking to do something different to kind of complement their spa. So they approached us at Next Health, and we're like, let's do it. And they gave us this beautiful space here. And I thought it'd be a great way to combine kind of the soft stuff with the longevity, longevity technology all in one trip. And so that's why we're here.

Well, I walked in, the first sign in the lobby said Sleep iv. It was like Sleep iv, I think is jet lag iv. Jet lag iv, which I believe my wife's getting tomorrow. And so it's perfect because you get a bunch of people traveling in here, and you can just mainline nutrients into them. And then we'll get into the more advanced stuff, which. Which I actually want to pick your brain about, because some of the ozone, exosomes, stem cell stuff can be kind of confusing. But I think you harped on a good point. Like, I sometimes tell people when they go to get stem cells, look, you're traveling. Your circadian rhythm's off. You're disconnected from the planet Earth, typically, you know, flying 40,000ft above Earth in a metal tube to get to where you're going. You're typically staying in some room you're unfamiliar with. You need to do things to actually prime your body to get the most value out of your stem cell protocol. And when I tell them that, tell them, get sunlight, do earthing and grounding, get into some water, go walking, get fresh air, get some sleep. If you have access to, you know, red light and hyperbaric and stuff, do that. But even something as simple as nature, time is important. Were you thinking about that as far as, like, the beach out here, the water just for sure elements. Because why is like. It's very. It's like Garden of Eden, Esk, in a way. Yeah. There's a lot of tourists running around, but still, like, it's got this raw, like, earthy vibe to It.

Oh, it's fantastic. I mean, you mentioned. So two important things there. One, travel, I think, is one of the most toxic, damaging things you can do to your body, right? Like, you're up there. EMFs, radiation, circadian rhythm is off, like you mentioned. And so when you get to a place like this, it is kind of like the perfect environment to reset all that. But the trip getting here is really damaging. So how do we mitigate for that? And then I come here, you know, for a week on end sometimes, and just like, all the things you said, like, I just get my biology in a really good state by doing things like grounding, getting into the water, all these things. And it's like the perfect combo, right? Like, you come here and you can then prime your body for stem cells, exosomes, et cetera, while you're here. And the nice thing is, you know, I think a lot of people are vacationing now not to, like, go out and party, but just to, like, get a break from, like, their crazy life, right? And so I think a lot of this wellness retreats is a huge concept now, and a lot of people come here to the Four Seasons to make that happen. So it's like a perfect one, two.

It's kind of like a thing in the US Now. People are starting to avoid alcohol in droves, which I kind of like. I mean, it's obviously more, I think, when it comes to liver risk, cancer risk, dementia, et cetera, even though I still drink a couple times a week and I had a fantastic Mai Tai served out of a pineapple last night. I even think when we look at a lot of these street drugs like heroin and cocaine, or you look at some popular recreational drugs like, say, cannabis or psilocybin or whatever, like, arguably some of the popular entheogens are safer than alcohol. Alcohol on par with heroin and cocaine for some of the damage that it does. And so I'm starting to see fewer and fewer people drink, and more and more people be like, oh, I'm gonna have some biohack cocktail, or I'm gonna have ketones, or I'm getting iv, or I'm gonna figure out to spin the dial in the evening. And so I think that it's kind of cool that you can come and do something like this and not just go to Hawaii, all joking aside, to drink, which a lot of people do.

Absolutely. Yeah. And I think, too, you're seeing a lot of, like, alcohol alternatives coming out now, right? Where you still get that fun, social feeling of picking up a cool Looking drink, bringing it to your mouth and drinking it, but there's no alcohol in it. And so I think, you know, the Four Seasons IG does a really good job at their alternative drinks, the. The virgin cocktails, but just make.

My kids had one last night. Have you tried the ketone ones? The keto. So the keto cocktail I interviewed, actually, I had an interview come out last week at the time of recording this with a guy who runs Ketone Aid.

Oh, okay.

They've got like Moscow mule, pina colada, champagne. They just launched a beer that's surprisingly close to beer. They've got gin, tonic, and it's all 13 butane dialed, which is the ketone that when they were doing research on the performance enhancing effects of ketone esters, they had beta hydroxybutyrate bound to 13 butane diol, which is what you hear about, like, all the Tour de France cyclists, DARPA and stuff, using for quelling appetite, going for long periods of time, increasing endurance, et cetera. But when they cleaved the ester bond and just had one three butane dial left over, the rodent models that they tested it on were kind of like stumbling around the laboratory almost like they were inebriated.

Wow.

So this one company, ketone, and they're like, well, there's no toxic acetaldehyde side effects of alcohol. It's just a ketone. And arguably it's even like healthy for you. So they started making these drinks. They sent me their first batch, like almost a year ago, and I tried a few, kind of sort of liked it. And the more research I did, the more I started to try them, experiment them, mix them in cool mugs with electrolytes and ice and a squeeze of lime and a little garnish. And now, like I said, like, I'll have a glass of wine maybe two nights a week now. And almost every night I'm drinking ketones. And it's amazing because you can feel a little button, you feel a little buzz. You get a little socially lubricated, you feel as though it kind of relaxes you. At the end of the day, it has that, that kind of like GABAergic inhibitory neurotransmitter effect. And then the other cool thing is alcohol for many people makes them hungry. Ketones make you not hungry. So I just, I make my what. What I do is I assign my sons a book report every couple of weeks. So in the evening, right when we gather for dinner, we talk about their book chapter and what they learned that day. And while they're telling me all about their book chapter, I'm making myself a little ketone cocktail. It's like a nightly thing for me.

That's amazing. What a great routine.

Yeah.

No alcohol. Yeah, I'm helping this company called Kin.

Yeah, great. They actually put like, you know, adaptogens in the drink and get a little bit of a buzz. Then you get socially lubricated, you feel great, but zero alcohol. It's another great alternative.

Well, you got to wonder how many people are actually mixing with vodka or tequila. I have some kid bottles at home and I was like, what happens if put a little tequila in this? Best of both worlds. And then finally, I did do hyperbaric this morning. Oh, you did?

All right.

I did. I swam 30ft down underneath the water fishies for like 20 minutes up and down. So I was super primed for the ozone idea. I love it. That's what I wanted to ask you. I just got done with an hour of what you call ten pass ozone.

Yeah.

When you guys bring people in here, you actually have like a menu of ozone stem cells, exomes, nad, etc. I want to start with the ozone. What's the protocol and why do you start with the ozone?

Yeah, so we do a 10 pass ozone here. And when, for those of you don't know what ozone is, is where we remove 250ccs of your blood, we expose it to ozone, which is O3, and then we put that same 250cc's back into you. So it's not like we're taking a lot of blood out and then putting it back in later. So it's a super comfortable treatment. You don't feel like you didn't feel bad when you had it done at all, right, or.

No, I fell asleep, I did a new calm. So you guys brought, you guys have the newco. So I just did like a 40 minute new calm.

Yeah, perfect combo. New calm and ozone. And the ozone being exposed to your blood does a lot of different things. It reduces inflammation, it primes your immune system. It can actually, you know, actually kill bacteria, fungi, viruses in your blood, etc. So it's an extremely rejuvenating treatment, but it's also used a lot in the longevity circles as well now. So we're seeing a lot of people using it for longevity treatments. And it works. Right. And so we, we start with that because it's kind of like a detoxifying, relaxing treatment that you can do. And you can do it up to three times in the Week. Since most people come here for a week, they'll do it every other day. And then it kind of just primes your system for moving on to stem cells and exosomes. It reduces inflammation mainly. So there's different ways of doing ozone and stem cells. One way is we can do a treatment of ozone which primes your system from, for the stem cells. And then people can do one, two or three stem cell sessions after that, or another way to do it. Some people actually want to do ozone and then stem cells. Ozone stem cells. Ozone stem cells. So there's different ways of doing it. And one of the best things about coming here is we have a medical team here. They can evaluate you, they can see what your goals are, kind of what your current state of being is and figure out the best treatment protocol for you.

Do you guys actually do. Because I think you do this up in la. Do you do testing, like gene testing or blood testing or anything like that?

Absolutely, yeah. So one of the big things that we do is diagnostic testing. Right. Because we want to know what's going on with your state of biology. And everyone's so different. So we do blood testing, genetic testing, and we take kind of a functional medicine view towards it. So we're doing a lot of like advanced testing as well. Things like your gut microbiome, your. We're testing your micronutrient levels, we're testing for heavy metals. All these things that affect your current state of health.

Do people do that before they come down so you know what their values are when they're coming in?

Yeah, sometimes they do. Sometimes we do it all in LA or New York.

Okay.

And. But then there are people that discover us here in Maui and we can actually draw the blood panels here as well.

Oh, that's convenient. Yeah. I've. I've messed around the ozone oil suppositories and what I feel after the IV is.

You get like this clean surgeon energy. Sometimes people tell you not to do it too close to bedtime because you get such a big surge in energy. And I love it. And it sticks with you. Like you sleep better, you feel like you kind of jump out of bed a little bit better. I don't know all the mechanisms of action that are going on. I imagine there's some amount of just tissue oxygenation that might occur. And then a lot of people that deal with mold, yeast, fungus, you know, some of these stealth co infections like Epstein Barr and, and Lyme, and I don't know how many people are coming in here with that kind of stuff or how many people have it and don't know it. Get the ozone and then feel better with the suppositories. I've used those before, especially when traveling, when I don't have access to IVs etc and I feel like maybe like a 30, 40% dish comparison, like a slight uptick in energy. You put them up the wazoo in the morning, do a handstand for a minute or whatever and let it soak in. But still something you do get this clean surgery. Yeah. So there's, there's something to it. And they're typically encapsulated in like an olive oil medium. So.

Well, the other thing about ozone is that it's the, like the ultimate hormetic treatment as well. Right. So you're causing some stress to your cells, your cells are resetting and they're getting healthier at a cellular level just using the process of hormesis. And so ozone is really good at providing that as well.

And why do you do 10 pass?

So we do 10 passes just so we can get the most amount of treatment over the course of an hour while you're here. So 10 passes usually takes about an hour.

So that means that. So like a. Explain the difference between like a three pass and a ten pass.

Yeah, a three pass. We're only exposing 750 cc's of your blood to the ozone. With a ten pass, we're doing 2500 cc's.

So it's 250 cc's each pass.

Yes.

And so every time the nurse makes that adjustment on my arm, it's a new pass.

It's a new pass.

Right.

So it's going that little canister, we're exposing it and then we're putting it back in and we're starting again.

Why do some people get like hypoglycemia? Because you guys had a sheet that came out to me yesterday. It said be sure to eat a solid breakfast. So I had coconut syrup, gluten free macadamia nut pancakes with roasted bananas on top, coconut flakes, cacao nibs, celery juice and a little side of sweet potato with scrambled eggs.

Yeah.

So I had a decent amount of carbs for breakfast. I felt pretty good because I'm usually, I was telling you, I'm usually kind of keto for breakfast. And so I have this huge church of energy. But what's going on with the hypoglycemia?

So there's really nothing about the ozone treatment itself that makes you hypoglycemic it's just that some people faint. They get a little bit faint when they get it put in, and hypoglycemia can sometimes contribute to that. So if there's nothing about the treatment itself that makes you hypoglycemic. We just want to get people at a good state so when we put the IV in, they'll feel, they won't feel that, you know, that fainting response.

Okay, got it. So ideally, you come in here, you get charged up with 10 pass ozone, and then tomorrow you've got me moving into stem cell treatment.

Yeah.

What kind of stem cells are we using for this tomorrow?

So tomorrow we're using umbilical cord derived stem cells. And so we're going to do them IV on you.

Okay. Where are you getting the stem cells?

So we're getting the stem cells from a very trusted manufacturer that we use in Kansas City, Missouri. And they're excellent. We, you know, we, we evaluate all the stem cell providers out there and we go actually visit their labs, we look at their certifications, et cetera. So these are umbilical cord derived stem cells.

And why do you go with umbilical cord?

Well, so there's different ways of getting stem cells, as you know. Right. You can do either autologous stem cells, which is allergenic.

Right.

So the tall guest ones, they come, you get mesenchymals from your fat, hematopoietic ones from your bone marrow. What we find is that most people don't want to go through like a little liposuction procedure or bone marrow procedure.

So I don't want to get a hole drilled in my hip in Hawaii.

Exactly, exactly. So. And not only that, but, you know, when we take your own stem cells from you, you're young and you're super healthy, but a lot of people are getting these treatments a little bit older. These are older stem cells. They already experience some level of stem cell exhaustion. Right. So they're not as effective. And so we like the umbilical cells because they are, they are from brand new umbilical cord blood that's been donated. So they're new stem cells.

And so you guys, I think some people are confused about this. They picture stem cells as like an injection into a joint, but you're literally just going systemically. Full body iv, Right?

Exactly. And there's different ways of doing it. You can do them iv, you can do them at the joints for longevity and, you know, full body healing. We like to go IV for people.

Who haven't Done this before. How long does a systemic full body stem cell IV take?

It's really quick. It's like 15, 20 minutes.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, it's super quick.

Okay, so when you get them shipped down here from Missouri, do you guys got to keep them super cold? Like is there.

They go to cryo freezer chamber, right? Exactly. They're shipped. They're shipped on dry ice and they go into a freezer chamber.

Okay. Now, stem cells, you're stacking kind of like you stacked a newcome with the ozone for me today. What are you stacking the stem cells with?

So with the stem cells, we're stacking NAD and exosomes both. And so the nad, as you know, there's a precursor to ATP. So you're going to get that right after the stem cells. And that's, that's a whole other treatment, but we like to stack exosomes with it because exosomes are the communication packets that are within your stem cells. Right. So now you get the stem cells, but you're also going to get the extra communication packages that go within the stem cells with it.

Where do you get exosomes?

Same place.

Okay, so do you have to screen those as well? Like, is there a risk of getting the wrong kind of exosomes?

Very, very low risk. You know, the main problem that could occur is with a manufacturer that either ships you something that doesn't really have any exosome in the product or stem cells in the product, or it's not refrigerated properly. And just like any IV or any product that you put inside of you, if it's not refrigerated properly and it has a potential of growing bacteria in the vial. You can get bacteria in the vial. So you want to make sure none of that's happening. It's fully sterile, it's stored properly, and you are getting the actual product that you're paying for.

I hear a lot of people talk about exosomes, and they use the term MRNA when they refer to exosomes. What's the link between exosomes and mRNA?

So exosomes are packets within your stem cells and all of your cells actually that contain signaling molecules. Those signaling molecules can be mRNA, which are short pieces of rna, or they can be just little pieces of protein, they can be cytokines. These packages have all sorts of signaling molecules in them that are basically meant to signal surrounding cells into specific biological functions.

And where do they come from? Like, how do you get exosomes?

Exosomes are from within cells so they're actually extracted from within a stem cell.

Okay.

They're taken out of the stem cells, and then they're multiplied and put into these into a product.

Okay. So rather than, like me getting an umbilical stem cell IV with the stem cells that I'm getting already having the exosomes that are naturally in them, it's almost like they're removing them first and expanding the count of the exosomes. And then the exosomes are administered separately from the umbilical stem cells. But the umbilical stem cells already have some exosomes in them.

Exactly, exactly. So the umbilical stem cells, stem cells, the entire cell has millions of packages of exosomes within them. But these were taking the exosomes out, and you're. We're duplicating them so you have even more exosomes.

Okay, with the. With the nad, is that before or after the stem cells?

With the exosomes, it can actually be either way. NAD is kind of acting on a different cellular mechanism, is helping your mitochondria produce energy. Right.

Okay.

So it's probably better to do it before or after. I would say maybe before, because then even the stem cells have more energy to work with.

How come you use nad? Because there's three other options I've heard of out there. Nicotinamide riboside, the nr, the nmn. Was that nicotinamide mono died. Yeah. And. And then this new one, Tony Robbins initially told me about it when I interviewed him, and Peter Diamantis, they wrote that book Life Force, and he talked about nad. Right. Have you heard of that one before?

There's all sorts of people manufacturing NAD and NMN now. And so they're kind of branching off into specific NAD and NMN products. But the thing about NMN and NR is those are taken orally. NAD is the IV form.

Yes.

So those are oral supplementation. The NAD is directly mainlined into you.

Has anybody ever gotten like, NMN or NR ivs to.

Not that I've heard of, no.

Yeah, Yeah. I guess it gets converted via, I believe, the processing in the liver into nad, after which it makes into the cells. But you're shortcutting that and going straight into the bloodstream with nad.

Right.

Which would arguably be the. The best way to increase. It's less convenient, obviously, than just like, take capsule. Right, but that's the best way to get full body delivery.

Exactly. Just like when you eat food and you get the micronutrients through your gut, or take a supplement, for example, it still has to go through your gut and then process in your liver, et cetera. NADIV is just going right to all your cells. And there's also a lot of talk about your microbiome affecting the NR and also the NMN that you take as well. And then converting that. Yeah. In your microbiome so that the cells have an easier time absorbing it too. So there's a lot of research being done, a lot of controversy as well. But I just think just, you know, for me, I just feel like nadiv is not something you're going to do every day. Right. But you can take a supplement every day. So I do a little bit of both. I take a supplement every day and I just take NAD whenever I have access to it.

Yeah, yeah. I started using that NAD3 stuff, taking it orally, but then I probably get an IV once every couple months of nad and I started using the patches like for like a long haul plane flight or a sleep deprived day. I found nad and the other molecule I've seen research for combating the effects of sleep deprivation is creatine. And if I take creatine and NAD on a sleep deprived day, I think it's because obviously a lot of cell repair mechanisms take place during sleep and you're almost like simulating that. I'm not endorsing people's short sleep and just like pop nad, but if you're in a situation where you're sleep deprived. I found NAD stacked with creatine helps a ton of a ton.

Yeah. I think that's a great combo. Those two together for sure. There's so much research on creatine. Like, yeah, if, if anyone has any doubts that creatine is causing all sorts, not just muscle gain, but also, you know, brain function improvement, basically cellular improvement in almost every cell that they should, they should look into the research. It's extremely valuable.

Poor methylators too.

Yeah.

Like if you're homozygous for some of these methylation genes and you aren't methylating properly, creatine appears to help a lot with that. And dropping the homocysteine levels.

Yeah.

The inflammatory homocysteine levels that you see in people who are poor methods.

If you have a high homocysteine, definitely, you know, creatine is a great supplement. Just five grams a day. Reduce it. It really helps reduce it.

Yeah. What about intranasal Nadia? Have you messed around with that much?

I've, I've used intranasal nad. I'm sure it's working. It's, you know, that's a great way to absorb. It's through your, through your nasal mucosa. I just have a hard time finding it, so I don't have it around me all the time, so. And I'm lucky, you know, going to next health. I live right a little bit away from it. I just go and just get it.

Yeah. You know, a guy. What's the current legality of all this stuff? Like, is it pretty much totally above the board? Like no risk for umbilical stem cells nad exosomes or any of this stuff getting cracked down on?

Yeah, there's a lot of crackdown by the FDA right now. You know, we're constantly evaluating, constantly working with our manufacturers to make sure that all using good manufacturing practices, et cetera, we're really making sure that we have all our T's crossed and I's dotted. But it's a constant battle right now, more in the United States than in any other country. The FDA has a lot of regulations around stem cells and exosomes as well.

I wanted to ask you about another iv. Some of this sleep and jet lag stuff.

I think I'm not a special snowflake in that I struggle with sleep when I travel. Yeah, I've mostly solved that through high dose melatonin, cbd and then not to toot my own horn, but I help formulate a sleep product for Kion. So I do Kion, sleep, cbd, melatonin suppository. I'm usually pretty good, but what's, what's the thing with the IVs like a sleep IV or a jet lag IV.

Right. I mean, the same thing like you're so nutritionally depleted when you get to wherever you're going and especially if you're sleep deprived, is basically providing with all the nutrients again that your body is lacking to help get your cells back into a state of health. Right.

Do you need to do it right before bed or can you do it?

No, you can do it anytime. Yep, anytime. The, the effect will last until the end of the evening.

Is there magnesium in the sleep iv?

Huh? There sure is, yep.

Anything else special in there?

Just the rest of the micronutrients. Yeah. There's nothing else like super special about it, but magnesium is a big part of it. Have you tried the timeshifter app, by the way?

Is that the one that anticipates where you're going and tells you your sleep and eat cycles and light exposure cycles before you go?

Yes.

Okay. So I've heard of it. I think I Might even have it download to my phone. I travel so freaking much and have like this robust family life at home, like set family dinners and my work life schedule. I have a hard time preparing for travel unless it's a big international trip and I've got a big like if I'm keynoting at a conference overseas and it's like, okay, I really, really gotta be on top of things. It's gonna be sleep deprived talking in the morning. I'll start to do some of that light hacking stuff. But it's hard like when you're running the family at home and you have certain dinner times to all of a sudden adjust your schedule like three, four, five days of in advance.

Yeah. To be fair, I haven't even tried it yet. But I recommended it to a few people that are internationally flying and they swear by, they're like this is a game changer. Like it really does work.

Yeah.

As you know, like your circadian rhythm is a lot of things. It's not just when you sleep, it's also your exposure to light is when you're eating, etc. And so like you said, this app just moves everything over and gives you notifications of when you need to do those things and it seems to work pretty well.

I get it. I, I have kind of like this intuitive approach to long haul travel, right. I'm like, look, if I just sleep as much as possible while I'm traveling, no matter what, I'm gonna be pretty good when I get to where I'm going. Even if I'm not on their schedule and I'm sleeping all night in the plane and I get there at 8pm and I gotta go to sleep again, I'll do that. I just log as much sleep as possible. So I usually play new Calm on the plane. Yeah, I'll usually use one of those like melatonin suppositories or high dose melatonin. On the plane I'll use an adaptogen like Rishi, typically a little bit of cbd and I will sleep as much as possible on the plane. I, I rarely turn on the entertainment screen. Like occasionally I'll watch a quick show, like a 40 minute cooking show or something that's not a full on movie. I sleep as much as possible. I don't even worry about if I get there and again I gotta go to bed again, barely anything at all. I slam those ketone esters, the ketone esters like 20 grams of amino acids and then I'm just out. Sleep mask, noise blocking, headphones and so it kind of sort of breaks the rules that you hear out there about, oh, keep yourself awake on the plane if it's going to be nighttime when you get to where you're going and try to eat a meal on the plane that aligns with the meal currently being eaten in the times and where you're going. But I don't do anything. I just sleep as much as possible.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's. That's smart. I mean that worked for you. That, that's amazing. Yeah. The other thing I wanted to mention about the sleep IV is we also have taurine and Are you doing any taurine? Yeah, that's another micronutrient to consider.

Is that, is that one that like creatine is something that gets decreased in response to sleep deprivation or jet lag or something like that?

Exactly, exactly.

Do you mix it with Red Bull and vodka.

Full of great.

Giant pineapple? You know, it was funny. Is like the Red Bull vodka thing, I think that got outlawed in some nightclubs in Europe. Like people have strokes and heart attacks. You know, the mix of the caffeine. I don't think the taurine had anything to do this but it was the high dose caffeine alcohol a lot of times a bright light, sleep deprived scenario. But what's funny is that has been shoved under the bus. But then people can just like it's still kosher and kind of cool to get like an espresso martini, which is basically the same thing, right? Boatloads of caffeine, sugar and alcohol.

It's so crazy. Like over here I was at the bar, like everyone like four women had this espresso martini. Like three of the guys.

And I'm like, it's, it's the worst. Especially when you have these, these ketone alternatives. Are you guys planning here in the Four Seasons Maui location to add some of the type of stuff you have up in LA like hyperbaric or cryo.

So, so the next phase of what we're doing here is to actually build like a little biohacking center and is what I call like the longevity, the, the longevity triad. So we're going to put the cold therapy. So either cryotherapy or a cold plunge, some, some type of heat therapy like a sauna and then the hyperbaric oxygen.

Yeah, heat therapy outside, man. I was just in the gym this morning. Yeah, you don't need a sauna. Go with the crowd. What, what do you think are some of the cooler biohacking technologies you've seen coming down the pipeline. I was showing you a sick hyperbaric chamber this morning, by the way. It's like a four person, like bunch of people can be in there. Almost like partying in a hyperbaric chamber.

Yeah.

What, what are, what are some things.

I really like hyperbaric, so I'm getting hyperbaric for my house. You know, we have hyperbaric chambers at Next Health. I think, I think hyperbaric is something that is often overlooked in longevity circles. But I think there's been some studies out now with something about hyperbaric DHEA and I think growth hormone, like turning back biological aging, but I think hyperbaric by itself. We are actually going to start a study where we're going to be measuring biological aging, methylation, methylation tests like a Horvath clock and see how much hyperbaric oxygen actually affects that.

That'll be interesting because the hyperbaric studies I've seen so far, all looking at rate of telomere shortening, which is kind of sketchy. Even some of the more accurate labs like Spectracel. Now what you were referring to, the methylation clocks, the, like, the true age diagnostics, the Horvath clock that give you a status of how much you've aged, what you're actually not your rate of aging is, but what your actual biological age is.

Right.

I'd be more interested to see what hyperbaric does to that. I think the DHEA growth hormone study was separate from the hyperbaric. And that was one of the most profound studies I've seen in the past five years. As far as the age reversal or longevity enhancing effect, I, I don't take DHEA or growth hormone, but I use Colostrum, which is kind of like a pretty powerful growth hormone precursor. And then for the DHEA component, I don't, I don't do much as far as that's concerned, but I think the colostrum helps out a little bit. And then a couple of times a year, I use those peptide bioregulators now.

Yeah.

Have you looked into those much?

I have, I have, yeah. Which ones are you using?

Well, there's like 20 of them. They have these crazy Russian names like Cordial and Penny Allen, but you don't take them every day because it's like 20, 30 capsules or injection. But you do like to. I think the doctor convinced the primary Russian longevity researcher who looked at a lot of this, this peptide bioregulators, which are very short peptides that travel to each specific organ to allow rejuvenation of that particular organ. I think his gold standard protocol was twice a year for something like 10 days. And so it's a lot of capsules or mess around, the insulin syringe and the injectable peptides. But I think like, if you look at some of the Russian research, it's literally decades of research behind this stuff.

And in humans, yeah, they've done a lot. Epithalon I think was one of the main ones started with. And it's incredible like the, the methylation clock reversal that happens with epithelon as well. So I mean there still needs to be a lot more research done on it. And it's always like, I think the sample size, like 5, 6 people, they're not like huge studies. So yeah, you know, definitely need larger randomized control studies. But really encouraging, really encouraging information there.

Yeah, it is. And you know, you look at some of these more prolific biohackers and follow some of the routines, you know, whether it's, you know, whatever David Sinclair or there's a guy named Brian Johnson right now is put together fantastic blueprint website. I'll probably interview him soon. You know, Dave Asprey, some of these guys, they're stacking a lot. I mean extra virgin olive oil and dark chocolate and red light and hyperbaric and peptide bioregulators and the stem cells, the nad, the ozone, etc, So I think it's interesting that there's not one thing that moves the dial. It's very similar to like Dale Bredesen's book the End of Alzheimer's. It's always a multimodal approach.

Multiple things. Yeah, exactly. And we know even at point a certain cellular level, there are nine different.

Processes going on that are causing that cell to age. Right. And so even at a cellular level, there's different places that you need to work to turn back biological aging. And so there's going to be. Whenever we get to that point where we're able to actually turn back, biological aging is going to be a multitude of different things, not just one pill.

Yeah. For you personally, what do you think are the non negotiables? Like if you wake up on a typical day knowing everything you know and having access to seeing some of the latest technology that's coming out, you're talking about how you're getting hyperbaric. What would be the non negotiables for you for your own protocol?

Like, I mean, absolutely, like what I always tell everyone, like, you know, when you come to next health and we sit down with you for a consultation, we don't even start talking about the longevity technology, Peptides. We don't start talking about any of this stuff, even, even hormone therapy until you have the basics covered. Right. So that's what I love about coming here is it's much easier to get the basics covered because you know you're going to sleep well all night, you're going to go outside in the morning, expose yourself to the sunlight, take a beach walk.

You're going to eat at 4am if you're from the mainland.

Yeah, yeah, right.

I get more done in Hawaii by noon.

Right.

Than back home. Just because. Yeah. You're wide awake at 4:00am yeah, exactly, exactly.

No, that, that is true until you get yourself regulated. But yeah. And then, you know, you're eating much better here. Hopefully you're. The food here is super healthy, on point and like you talk about a lot in your books is, you know, making sure your meat is well sourced, your fish comes from a good place, etc. And then exercise, like exercise is I think built into the DNA of this place. They have an incredible gym here. They have lots of classes, yoga, et cetera and meditation. Right. Like calm your mind. So once you get all that right, then it's, then we start talking about some of this longevity stuff. And then my level 2 then is to do some of these things like heat sauna therapy, cryotherapy, et cetera. And once you start getting some of that worked into your routine, because I really feel like it has to be part of your routine. Right. You can't just do something one time and expect a year from now for your biological age to be reversed. That's unrealistic and so gotta be part of your routine. So make heat, sauna, cryotherapy. Whether and whether you have a cryotherapy chamber or a cold plunge or you're just jumping in the ocean every day, I think that's super important. And then after that, the non negotiables for me are gonna be the hyperbaric chamber. I try to do that at least once a week. I definitely try to. If I don't do a lot of IVs, but if I'm having a week where my nutrition hasn't been on point or I've been traveling, I've been just working really hard and just running and I felt feel stress, then I'll do an IV. So I think IVs for me are a mainstay in my, in my health routine. And then NAD once, once a month I'll do nad sometimes I'll do it more if I, if I need to, if I can do it more. And then I'm starting to play around with some of the more.

More not so well researched stuff, just like trying it on myself, that I think it's going to be helpful for me. So I am doing stem cells and I'm starting to do something called total plasma exchange or therapy.

You are?

Therapeutic plasma exchange. Just work that into my routine. I'm going to attempt to do that once a quarter if I can explain.

That to people with a therapeutic plasma.

Exchange is so therapeutic plasma exchange is basically. It's somewhat like ozone on steroids. Okay, so what we're doing is we're removing your blood again. We are separating your blood in this machine that is basically a giant centrifuge, okay. And it's separating your blood into plasma, into the blood cells and the platelets. So, you know when you take a vial of blood and you spin it down for prp, right? The plasma's on top, little layer of platelets, and then you have the blood on the bottom.

Right.

So that's basically what we're doing. So when this machine separates your blood, it then.

We can take the plasma out completely and put your blood cells back in. So you get all your red blood cells and your white blood cells put back in. But that plasma that's removed, that's where all the inflammatory cytokines live, the malformed proteins live, the toxins live, et cetera. So we're totally removing your old plasma or your, your plasma that's basically shuttling these things around in your bloodstream all day while your liver and your kidneys are getting, are trying to catch up with eliminating it. Right. We're removing it completely and we're replacing with brand new fresh albumin. And the reason we put albumin in is because, number one, it maintains oncotic pressure in your blood. So you don't drop your blood pressure. You need protein in your blood to maintain your blood pressure. But the other thing that we're seeing with putting fresh albumin in is albumin binds a lot of these toxins and a lot of these, these proteins. So with having fresh albumin, you have brand new binding sites that can then go to your brain, go to your organs and bind some of these toxins and these malformed proteins as well.

Okay, assuming I can't just eat like an egg white omelette, where's the albumin coming from?

Albumin is donated. It comes from. Yeah. Plasma phoresis done on humans that have donated their albumin does it have to.

Be, like, young humans that have been.

No, it doesn't.

In general.

Yeah. I'm so glad you asked that, because a lot of the talk around this comes with the young blood experiments, like we heard about, like, Peter Thiel.

That's what people think. They're like, you got some healthy young child that you're stealing blood from, but this isn't the case.

No, that is not the case at all. So what. There's been a lot of research done on this, actually. And what's actually showing to be more beneficial is not the fact that you're actually taking blood or whatever, plasma from someone young and putting it in yourself. That's not what's really working. What's really working is taking out the old stuff and getting rid of it.

Okay.

And replacing it with brand new, fresh albumin. And the albumin is basically. It's not young plasma. We're not taking, like, young blood and mixing it in with you. It's is just protein. That's all it is. And then we're putting that back in your bloodstream.

How hard is that to, like, is it like, super expensive? Hard to hunt down?

So it is very hard to hunt down right now because not a lot of people doing it. There's just. It's brand new in the kind of longevity field. There have been some really good studies in Alzheimer's slowing down the progression of Alzheimer's by 60%, which is incredible.

I flew the two researchers who did that up to my house. We did a podcast on, like three years ago.

Yeah, it's incredible, right? I mean. I mean, it's going to be mind blowing when this starts to become more mainstream and we really see Alzheimer's being slowed. But there's studies in longevity now, too, like actually turning around a lot of the biological markers of aging as well. So it is difficult to find right now. We do it in our Los Angeles clinics.

You guys do it at next.

Yeah, we are doing that. Yeah. Whenever you want to come by, come by.

We'll do it totally through your softball.

I'd love to do that. Yeah. Yeah, you should come and you should come and check it out. It's pretty amazing. And I just did it a few days ago, actually. I did a few days ago. And how do you feel after you do it? You know, you feel fine. Just like you did with ozone, you get that burst of energy. You feel like you sleep incredible that night. And just like with ozone, like, it reduces the amount of inflammatory factors in your bloodstream. So I did stem Cells right after that.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

So.

So that one would be like, one you could precurse before stem cells with.

Exactly.

Wow, that's crazy. Is it super expensive to do plasma exchange right now?

It is, because we actually have a physician that comes does it for us that's a specialist in plasma exchange and dialysis. So he's there. We have a whole team of people there. So it is a little bit of a production. So the cost is somewhere around $8,000 or so. But, you know, as this stuff gets more.

Those researchers of my house, it was like, currently like 40,000.

No, cost has come down much lower.

Yeah, okay.

It's about 8,000. But, you know, as we get better and better and this technology is more available, it'll keep coming down in price.

Do you think you guys would eventually have that here at the Four Seasons?

That's the goal. That's the goal is having all of our locations.

That'd be crazy. Go flat into Hawaii. Get a full body oil change. Exactly.

It's like an oil change for your body.

Yeah.

It's pretty amazing.

So I've heard described as interesting.

Yeah.

So as far as the. As the future of what this clinic looks like, you can introduce more biohacks right now. The gold standard protocols. You come down, you do ozone. You chase that with stem cells, nad and exosomes combined with grounding and earthing and doing the beach walks and getting out in the water and maybe getting a sleep IV at night to help with the sleep. And that would be kind of like the gold standard protocol.

That's the gold standard here right now. Yep.

Yeah.

And I think. I think, you know, we can do that depending on how long your trip is. Most people come here for, like, five to seven days. So we try to fit in at least three of these treatments in while you're here, and it's a really great package. They just get away. And, you know, you tie that in with all the rejuvenating stuff that we talked about with your diet and the sleep and the beach walks and.

Yeah.

Hikes and the exercise and all that stuff, and I think it. I think it works extremely well.

Awesome.

Yeah, awesome. Well, I'm looking forward to how I feel. I might have to let people know after this podcast how I feel with doing the. The 1, 2 combo. The ozone today.

Yeah.

Then I'm. What I have tomorrow. Stem cells. Nad, exosomes.

Yep, stem cells.

Massage tonight with my wife.

Yeah, there you go. We forgot about massage.

You guys actually arranged, like, they put together for those of you listening? They put together pretty cool packages here. But I'm getting the massage with my wife, which I'm kind of nervous about, Darshan, because she likes to talk to her massage therapist the whole time. My wife is a very kind person. She's incapable of, like, sitting next to someone on an airplane or like last night next to the drunk girl at the bar without just like talking to them the whole time. So when I get a massage, I like to keep my mouth shut and tell the massage therapist, hey, I'm going to be up inside my head or sleeping. Like, do your thing and I'll let you know if anything hurts or whatever. And my wife's just like Chatty Cathy the whole time. So I might bring earplugs to my massage.

Or bring a newcome with you.

Or bring the new.

Bring the new, right?

Exactly. Well, this is a cool spot. I'm glad that you guys open up here. I'm glad I've been able to discover it. And for people who would hear this podcast and want to come down and do it, I assume I can just put. Put some links and contact information in the show notes, or people could just google NextHealth Maui or whatever.

Yeah, and then we'll set up the whole experience for you from the moment you arrive to the moment you go home. We can set up the entire longevity retreat for you. Is that what we like to call it? And yeah, anyone on our team can do that. So just call us at Next Health and we can get all set up.

Amazing. Okay, so I'll put the shownotes@BenGreenfieldLife.com NextHealthMaui M A U I BenGreenfieldLife.com NextHealth Maui and if you go to the show notes, I'm going to also link to the other two podcasts that you and I did, Darshan, just because there's a lot more information about all this stuff that we got into and some other biohacking technology. So stack this one. Speaking of stacking with the other podcasts and your life will be better. And hopefully your telomeres and all that crap will be shorter. Longer longer or longer? Longer. You're not shorter, hopefully, unless you have that pineapple Mai Tai.

Exactly.

Thanks, man.

Hey, man, thank you so much. That was fun.

More than ever these days, people like you and me need a fresh, entertaining, well informed, and often outside the box approach to discovering the health and happiness and hope that we all crave. So I hope I've been able to do that for you on this episode today and if you liked it or if you love what I'm up to, then please leave me a review on your preferred podcast listening channel, wherever that might be, and just find the Ben Greenfield Life episode. Say something nice. Thanks so much.

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