How NAD Therapy Transforms Addiction Recovery and Mental Health with John Gillen

Welcome back, dear audience, to another episode of the Longevity and Lifestyle podcast. I'm your host, Claudia von Boeselager, here to bring you the latest insights and learnings to improve your health, your life, and happiness for longer. Thank you for being part of this tribe and wanting to be at your best each day. I love to hear from you, so feel free to follow and reach out on Instagram @longevityandlifestyle. My guest today is John Gillin, a visionary in the field of addiction treatment and a true pioneer in innovation health therapies. With over 19 years of dedicated experience, John has traveled the globe studying and implementing cutting-edge addiction treatment models. He's a celebrated trailblazer who introduced NAD+ therapy in Europe in 2010, revolutionizing the approach to health and wellness. In recognition of his groundbreaking work, John was appointed a visiting professor at the John Nesbitt University in Belgrade, Serbia. His relentless pursuit of innovative treatments such as virtual reality relapse prevention and photobiomodulation showcases his commitment to pursuing the boundaries of what's possible in health and wellness. Please enjoy. Welcome to the Longevity and Lifestyle Podcast, John. It's a pleasure to have you with us today.

Nice to meet you finally, Claudia von Boeselager.

Yes, we managed to get this scheduled. So very excited to have you on. And I'd love to kick off with John, if you could share more about your journey and what inspired you to get into the field of NAD+ and NAD+ in Europe already back in 2010?

Yeah, well, actually, my introduction to NAD+ began really in 2009 when I was attending a conference in LA. My core interest at that time was, and still is to a degree, alcohol dependency. I came into this healthcare business through my own personal experience of alcohol dependency, which, you know, really took me to the depths of despair. Previous to that, I was involved in horse racing. I was a jockey and I was a professional racehorse trainer, so the lifestyle comes hand in hand. But anyway, in 2009, this conference, which was neuroscientific conference in LA, I met a friend of mine called Dr. Heila Cass. Dr. Cass is really quite well known in the field of psychiatry regarding addictive disorders, and she specializes in using non-drug-specific protocols, all based on holistic treatments. So I'd known Heila 2 or 3 years previous to this. Now, she just had a whisper in my ear about this miraculous IV protocol that was being used in the William Head Clinic in Tijuana in Mexico, and she'd been there and she'd seen this happening. You know, she was really quite intrigued about it, so when I come back to London, it sat in my mind for some time, A couple of weeks later, I contacted and I thought, well, you know, there's something that I need to go back there and see what this is all about. I quickly came back to San Diego, I met with Dr. Cass and Isla, and we took a trip to Tijuana, across the border, to the HITCONic. So I was there for a week. The HITCONic at that time was really quite well known. You had a lot of celebrity people visiting there from LA for this protocol. People like John Gray, the best-selling author, sang its praises. So when I got there, I had the opportunity to try this IV protocol for myself, but also had the opportunity to mingle with a few alcohol-dependent people who were there for the reason of this. During the 5 days, what I seen and what I heard these people talking about just sort of blew me away. I had been working in the field of alcohol dependency for some time now, but what I was seeing I'd never seen before. How rapid a recovery these people were making on physical, emotional, and mental levels. I was absolutely, not to say I was awestruck, So when I come back to the UK, I quickly reorganized everything I was doing, and I decided I must bring this protocol to the UK. So then I started to organize what was called the Bionade Clinic at that time in Marylebone in London, in Harley Street. And that's how, that's how I was introduced to it, through Dr. Ryan McCaskey.

I'd love to ask you, John, what were some of the stories, um, that you heard while you were at the clinic in Tijuana that you found so compelling? What was it that you were hearing?

Yeah, well, I mean, I mean, you know, NED at that time, I mean, it was— I mean, nobody'd ever heard of it. I mean, if you visited Google and looked at NED, all you would see there is heavy, heavy science papers, a few anyway, really heavy, difficult to understand scientific papers. It was not a commercial product the way you see it now, and it had actually been used in South Africa since the early '70s to assist alcoholics through an accelerated detox process. What I seen there was Now, at that time, I was a few years settled into recovery myself. The way the NED affected me, I was not using it for any, any reasons like the people that I met, but what I would normally see is people were coming in on the first day. Now, they probably never had a drink for 24 hours. Now, these are fairly chronic dependent people who suffered quite severe withdrawal effects, what we'd need to do, we really need to administer, you know, benzodiazepine sedative drugs to help, something like that. Now, in the clinic, there were obviously a doctor there. Now, there was 6 people I'd seen there. Out of these 6 people, 2 of the people were administered a benzodiazepine-assisted withdrawal medication that you would get here in the UK. Now, I was used to that. The other people refused to take that, they just wanted the IV. As day 1 started to day 2 or day 3, I was with these people for a good 7 hours each day. Now, what I would normally see is people really getting into a bit of a state, you know, physically shaking and really kind of really in a real intense withdrawal state, which is multiple symptoms of, well, basically stress. Now what I noticed was these people never went through that phase, and the people that was on the benzos, by day 3, they requested to stop the benzos, which was unknown to me because normally A benzodiazepine protocol for an alcohol withdrawal would be 10 days, a gradual reduction. These people were off in 3 days, and by day 5, they were absolutely, absolutely as right as they could ever be. Some of them— there was in that group, there was 2 middle-aged women. Now, what I seen, it was hardly believable to me at the time, the difference to their physical appearance within 3 to 5 days was absolutely astounding to me. How young they looked, never mind the, the, the, the, the effects on the alcohol withdrawal, which were absolutely— on a scale from 1 to 10, which you would expect from 8 to 10, these people were like way down there in the 1 to 2. I mean, that, that to me, I'd never seen that before. Using a natural compound. So, and the way they were cognitively, they were, you know, they were right there, they were right with theirself, and they were explaining and expressing how calm and how they were feeling within theirself, you know, from a cognitive point of view, they were as good as they could ever, ever be. There were no after-effects or anything like that, it was just astounding. What I've really seen is what NAD talks about today, a reversal, a reversal in this aging process. With alcohol and alcoholism, if you ever want to see an acceleration of the aging process, it's in that particular individual, especially in my opinion, a female in her mid-40s. Now I'd seen that with my own eyes. Now in 2013, obviously, The scientist, David Sinclair, he reversed the aging process using NAD in animals. I never really, really needed to read that. I'd seen that happen in human beings. In that particular client group, I stayed in touch with these people for some time after I came back, and they used to write emails to me and messages. Saying how well they were doing, how they were functioning better, and so forth. That communication lasted for a good 5 to 8 months with some of them, and they were all doing well. NED was never, it's never said to be something that is going to be life-changing in an alcoholic. It's just part of a program everybody needs to attend. I'd just like to point out, at that time, The whole idea of this NED was never mentioned at this point. What we were looking at and what we thought was happening was a specialist, a special combination of amino acids. That's what we were told it was doing, it was having this effect. So at the time, NED was kept a secret in the Hatconnick. So When I started it in the UK, when I brought it to the UK, I brought this protocol believing, uh, it was a special combination of amino acids. Now, at that time, William, the physician who started all this, had passed away, and his wife had taken control of the business. And when I was there, she was in the process of selling the secrets in this Miraculous Infusion to a substantial compounding pharmacy in Florida, and they'd seemingly had to vet me first before they would allow me to use this protocol. So I had to go through an interview process with the compounding pharmacy, and they ticked me off, so I was granted the use of this. Now, at the same time, a group of people from Springfield Wellness Doctor Richard Medea and his wife Paula. They took their daughter for this treatment, and it really had a big effect on their daughter. So they were investigating this at the same time as me. So at that time in the world, there were only maybe 4 or 5 people really interested in this, and that was wonderful. Just about the same time with some really serious research, because what was happening to me, these side effects that you get when you're taking an IV NAD+, which can be quite a nuisance. Side effects are not very nice.

Nausea.

That's why an NAD+ infusion takes a considerable bit of time to administer in the majority of people. So at the same time, compound and pharmacy also as part of this detox protocol, supplied oral supplements as part of the protocol. When I looked at the ingredients of some of these supplements, which were more or less the same combination of amino acids and minerals and so forth and some vitamins, I seen, I seen this other compound called nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide Nobody had ever spoke to me about it. I started to hone on in this, and I started to do a lot of research on it, and the more I looked at it, the more it became quite clear to me this missing ingredient, which they had to— legally they had to put it on that bottle. That led to the discovery, my personal discovery, of this NED. So I confronted Jane had in Mexico and also confronted the pharmaceutical company who was making this. They put their hands in there and guessed right, you know, and I was told, well, you know, just keep it under the radar, so to speak. But at the same exact same time in America, in Louisiana, Dr. Mehdi had discovered this at the same time. So the bubble was burst, so to speak. So from that point on, everybody knew it was this NED. I mean, that sounds a bit, you know, the American story, but I mean, this is the truth. I mean, no, I mean, I'm here to tell you the truth about how this began. Yeah, so the veil was lifted and everybody started to hear about this NED, and that's From that point on, the amino acids, which are great, don't get me wrong, it's a good thing, but it was really the NAD+ that was making the difference. At the clinic in London, I quickly reorganized, reorganized myself, and I really kind of started to talk about NAD+ as the primary compound that was helpful, and I christened the clinic Bionad. Quite a story, quite an interesting story.

That's so exciting. I firmly believe that we're put on paths and we encounter people we're supposed to along the way for a reason. The beautiful thing is that you took action and decided to bring it to a clinic to London to allow more people access. So I applaud you for that. I'd love to hear, John, a bit, if you could share with my audience in terms of addiction and why or how is NAD+ helping with addiction. Maybe you could walk into a little bit like what is happening in the body for people listening and curious to understand?

Yeah, well, yeah, well, I mean, firstly, I, I really can only speak it from an observational point of view on countless hundreds and hundreds of clients that have used NAD+ for many, many years now. But basically, if I look at alcohol addiction primarily, because I mean, if we're talking about NAD+, you really got to focus mainly on alcohol addiction. Now alcohol, you know, alcoholics are extremely deficient in NAD+, extremely deficient, to the point where they suffer from what's called subchronic pellagra. Now pellagra is a fatal disease, a curable disease I may add, But 150 years ago, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people were dying horrible deaths in the Midwest in America from this unknown disease, and a military surgeon went down and investigated what was happening with these people. Now, these people were field workers, were farm workers, they were in poverty, and their staple diet was only maize. Now, He discovered that these people were dying because of a B3 niacin deficiency. NAD is the biological active form of B3 niacin. So niacin is an essential vitamin that the body must get, or you fall into this state which is called pellagra. The disease is known worldwide as pellagra. Still exists in pockets of the world where there's extreme poverty and people don't have a proper diet. So when, when, when anybody drinks alcohol, NAD+ is used in massive amounts to help the body through the detox process. You know, when you're young, your body has a lot of NAD+. Now, you may be drinking a lot, but your body's producing a lot of NAD+. So the way it counteracts the poisonous effects that alcohol cause, you know, you may suffer a hangover for 2 or 3 days and then your body's produced a lot of NAD+, so you start to feel better again. Now that's a different story when you're aged 40, when your body is not making a lot of NAD+ and you're still drinking the same amount, so you're really getting into a toxic state. NAD+ is part of the body's process of detox. Very, very important. If it wasn't for NAD+, you know, a little amount of alcohol would have fatal effects on people. I mean, because when you drink alcohol, the body's reaction to it is it produces toxins which are hundreds of times more toxic toxic than the alcohol itself. So NAD is the middle player there, and it helps the body detox the acetaldehyde and other toxic chemicals out rapidly out the body. So the more you're drinking, the more the NAD is used, the less you have. So you wake up in the morning, you don't have any energy, you can't get out of bed, you've got headache, you've got all the symptoms of a conventional hangover. You know, alcoholics really are deficient in NAD, really deficient, and the symptoms of this disease, pellagra, is the same as alcohol. It's dementia, it is dermatitis, diarrhea, and death, and that's, you know, the link between the two. But also, NAD in the past 10, 15 years has become to be accepted as a neurotransmitter. So it can affect systems in the brain. It also can affect serotonin, it can affect dopamine levels, and so forth. And all cells need NAD+ to fire. So if you're a big heavy-duty receptor site in the brain, a neuron there, if you don't have enough NAD+, it doesn't fire properly. If there's NAD+ there, the cell does its job as well. So from a brain function point of view, it has an effect there as well. It's absolutely vital. Even anybody just drinking socially at a certain age, it'd be good for them just to even start to take some niacin, B3 niacin.

Yeah, um, and I think there's such an explosion of NAD now, which we'll get to, uh, shortly. But I'd love to take a step back and revisit. So you decided to bring the protocols to the UK But I can imagine that there might have been some challenges that you had faced introducing NAD therapy to the market. Maybe you can share a bit about how that process was.

Yeah, well, well, you know, there were certainly challenges. You know, I set myself up and, you know, right in the center of the medical center in London, the Harley Street. Yeah, nobody I'd heard of NAD+, I'm not a doctor myself, but there was quite a bit of talk around the area about this NAD+. It was, you know, a lot of people were seeing it as a bit of controversial treatment and a bit like snake oil and stuff like that. And, you know, I had a lot of challenging times with professional people, you know, condemning it so forth. I mean, what we were doing was perfectly legal. NAD is a natural compound, and you know, because it's through an IV infusion, we always use doctors who prescribed the protocol and stuff like that. There were challenges. The healthcare regulators in England, the CQC, had never heard of NAD also, so I had a little bit of convincing them that this was a safe treatment to, to, to, to offer people and stuff like that. So it was quite challenging, but the most challenging thing about it was public perception of it. Because nobody even heard of it. I mean, there were a lot of doctors at the same time using megadose vitamin C, for instance, and, you know, other things like that, which people had some sort of idea could maybe help them. But NAD+, because it's an unknown reputation. The challenge was to get, get the word out there for people to start to learn about it. So it was a lot of, uh, a couple of years. But then, you know, people started, you know, some senior doctors start to come and see me and some scientists and so forth. And it really— a few of them, especially the functional medicine doctors, they really started to give it attention. In fact, to the point where they actually referred some of their patients to my clinic. And then when the patients returned back, they could see, they could notice the difference in how the people were talking about the treatment. So it took a good 3, 4 years to get the wheels oiled and get things moving. Of course, now it's like the Wild West show out there.

I know there's a lot of research out there, um, and, you know, discussion around it as well. What are some of the most exciting research, um, that you've seen that have come to light around NAD+ and its application that you're excited about?

Yeah, Claudia, you know, research— I've researched NED for many, many years. I've got two close friends I've been to, in my opinion, are the top NED scientists in the world, which is Dr. Nadia Brady, who's been to London with me many, many times, and Dr. Ross Grant who are specifically focusing on NAD+ for neurodegenerative futures. Now, I don't think anybody really knows the complete science of NAD+. I don't think anybody knows that. It's such a complicated molecule, it's such a molecule, has such a catalyst effect on many, many systems, you know, inside the cell and outside the cell. So I don't think anybody really has totally sort of cracked it yet. You know, I just know from my observations, what I've seen through the years, you know, in the beginning, like I say, I use the word astounded, I was astounded. The good thing about NED, in my experience anyway, is at least 95 to 97% of people respond to it in a positive way. Some people, that could be really quite profound. In other ways, it can be more subtle but still very meaningful. And, you know, so the research, it means most to me is the observation I've had for all through the years. But, you know, science is science, and it's moving on. It's taking more of an interest in NED for real serious health issues that people, as a preventative measure rather than a cure. I think lifestyle, when you're talking about NAD+, I think lifestyle is an absolute must. Like I say, when you're young, you don't have to worry so much, but once you get through the, you know, getting into your mid-30s, then you really have, I mean, to get the benefits of, if you value what NAD+ really is in the body, and obviously You just cannot have life without NAD+. Every living system has NAD+. Lifestyle is a big component to the whole NAD+ world, but research, it continues. I've never seen anything lately that's, uh, has caught my attention, to be quite frank with you. I think the research is coming from Dr. Ross Grant and Nadia Brady. I, I tend to follow them I don't follow a lot of research that's coming from other scientists from the States because they're, they're also looking at NAD as a commercial product. The scientists I talked about, they're not involved in that. The research today, I don't see it's been any different to what it was maybe 5 years ago previously.

Yeah, because you mentioned your colleague was saying with the neurodigit— sorry, neurodegenerative diseases.

Yeah.

What are some, some things you've heard there? And this is obviously an area of my personal interest because my mother has dementia, late-stage dementia at this point. What are some things that you've heard about or seen there with? And also, I want to ask around that, is it always with the NAD drip or using other interventions or other applications?

Well, for all this time, The only way that had been administered, NAD, was through an IV infusion, which is very costly, and it's a very clumsy type of IV infusion because of the side effects you get and the length of time it takes, but mostly because it's very expensive. What's happened is NAD's caught the world's interest. And a lot of people, you know, using it, what they're doing is they're just using the same protocols for someone who's extremely deficient and somebody who's wanting IV NAD for maybe just general wellness and health and stuff like that. Now that, that ain't good because you start overloading the system with NAD, you're going to get a lot of negative side effects that can occur. So it's never the case the more NAD the better, that's for sure. Even with, even with the addicted clients, when they start a 5-day treatment program, by day 3 they'll have what's called the NAD dump day. But I've had people on day 3 who really could absolutely— so chronically fatigued, some of them could not even get out of their hotel room to come back to the clinic for a whole, whole day. Because when you overload NAD into the system, it can upset the NAD/NADH ratio. And it's the ratio that counts, not just one or the other. So if you've got too much NAD, you've got a lot less NADH, and that means you don't have any energy. It's the NADH that is the spark plug for the energy value from NAD. So NAD will go capture a hydrogen atom and become NADH. It will then go to the cell and it will drop the hydrogen in the cell, and there's a little explosion of energy. It becomes NAD again, and its job is to go and get another hydrogen atom and bring it back in again. You get that? So when you upset that ratio, you can have really issues, fatigue issues, by overdosing NAD. So the protocols through an IV infusion for someone who's just looking for general wellness, a little bit, you know, more energy and so forth, you can never use the same protocols as I was describing for a chronic alcoholic person. That, that is for sure. There's a lot of this, you know, piggybacking on old stuff like that. I think that really needs to be quite clear.

Yeah, thank you for sharing that. Yeah, because a lot of these clinics, they have the NAD, um, drips and things like that too. And, um, I think people really need to look into the modalities and like if it's actually necessary. So thank you for highlighting.

Yeah, so the, the subcutaneous, uh, NAD at home idea came obviously as a result of COVID where no one— the existing client groups I had, they were, you know, wanting NAD, but obviously the clinic was closed. So I started to try on myself and some, uh, close, uh, experienced NED clients of mine, and we tried to— we started to use the subcutaneous. And you know what, you know, the, the effects and the results that was coming through were even better than an IV infusion, because then there were more people have the availability, because it's a do-it-yourself at-home kit, it's much cheaper, and there were much more people using it. So the feedback I was getting was actually better than what it was with an IV infusion because people were not complaining about all the horrible side effects or the dump, the NAD dump day and stuff like that. It was— the subcutaneous is my preferred way for general use of NAD. I use it every day myself. Now, I would still stick with an IV if it was for some specific condition. Early onset Parkinson's and dementia, like you spoke about your mother, I think this, this is very useful and can be very useful at early stage as a way of maybe perhaps slowing the progression of things and at the same time maintaining a quality of life, which is important with these chronic conditions also. So through the years I've been able to I have the privilege of helping some people with Parkinson's and early onset dementions as well. So the dosing has to be respected, and it's not just, uh, I say that the more NAD, the better. The best way to have NAD is smaller doses but frequently, normally 2 or 3 NAD infusions, and then, you know, 6 months later another the best way to do it is on a consistent basis as part of a lifestyle.

So, and what is the difference between— there's now like NAD+ available in pill form, there's a subcutaneous as you're mentioning as well, like the microdose of it.

Yeah, well, well, yeah, well, I mean, I was there right at the beginning when you had companies like Chromadex with the niagen and all these NAD precursors all came well after I was involved with NAD. So I've watched how that's evolved through the years, and if you go to any of the Google pages or anything, any of the science that you'll see will be this type of, in my opinion, pseudo-type science, a poem, one of these precursor products that everybody's using these days. I would— I personally don't use any precursor myself. I don't see it. I would rather, if I was looking for a precursor, I'd probably take some niacin, to be quite honest with you. That would be my preferred choice and much cheaper at the same time. A lot of the NAD is made in small compounded pharmacies in and around the States. Specific patient-named, like, uh, supply, which I know some of the compounded pharmacies have been doing it for a long time. They're really quite good, some of them, but I would certainly do your homework if you're looking for an injectable or an IV to make sure it's good quality and it's produced in the right, under the right GMP conditions and so forth.

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What would you recommend, John, for people who want to do the homework? What should they look out for?

For the home, the home use.

For the home use, exactly.

Yeah, well, look, I mean, By all means, you can, you can try the precursors. Hundreds of people who have came to me have tried the precursors, but then they start the sub-q or the IV, and it's a completely different ball game for them, you know. And, you know, and then, then they find out with the subcutaneous, depending, you know, your reason for using it, if it's for a general health condition, if it's wellness and energy, you know, it's always good to start off with a little loading effect. So use it 3, maybe 4 days in a row, you know, then every other day, or depending on your lifestyle. I mean, lifestyle is different to how you use it. So if you're having a few glasses of wine every night then I'd be saying it's unique. It's probably wise to use it every day, to be quite honest with you, because there's nothing worse, depletes NAD, than alcohol. Alcohol, excessive exercise, and a stressful, busy lifestyle. And you know, at this time of the year, I'm not talking about the UK, exposing yourself to the sun is another way of really depleting your NADs. You've maybe done it yourself, you've maybe lay out in the sun for maybe an hour or so, or maybe longer, and then you feel quite exhausted, you know, because all the NAD has— the body's prioritized it to protect the skin. It's a lot of people's— quite a big organ. So sometimes you feel fatigued after a sunbathing session. So you have to be careful with lifestyle, but generally speaking 3, 4 consecutive days, then every other day, uh, if you get— if your lifestyle is quite balanced and healthy.

That's a good way to do it. You've also studied photobiomodulation in Russia. So what are the potential— what do you see the benefits?

I mean, that's very interesting. I was using it in combination with the NAD. As well. I mean, photobiomodulation, I think it stacks up pretty well. It's been around for a long time. I mean, the Russians have been using it for decades and decades. In fact, most of the science to do with photobiomodulation, especially red spectrum light, has been done in Russia. But, you know, the translation from that science to Western understanding It's taken a long, long time, but it's really took quite a climb in the past, say, 5 years, especially with red, red light spectrum. Now, I was using an IV— it was IV red light, uh, I was doing it in the clinic, uh, and, you know, especially for people with pain syndromes were coming back to me and saying how much it helped reduce the effect of pain in these people. It's something that I tried to create based on, uh, laser, which was, you know, it could maybe penetrate through the skin into the bloodstream that way. Uh, it never— that never really took off for me, but I would still support photobiomodulation. Yeah, I mean, there's some big companies like Thorn now coming up with all sorts of lasers and red light appliances. So that's something that I would definitely— I may come back and look at that. I mean, the clinic I'm involved with here in Scotland, one of the reasons I've come back to Scotland is to open up Scotland's first psychedelic clinic. So it took me 2 years, but the Scottish regulators up here only 2 weeks ago have registered the clinic. It's a clinic called Eulis. So, uh, we start, we start off with ketamines, but we don't want to be known as a ketamine clinic. We're certainly Scotland's first ketamine clinic. We will be using it for treatment-resistant depression and so forth, but we'll be adding the other psychedelic compounds onto that as, as they're released for license. 2 years ago Yeah, and also ketamine with alcohol as well is quite outstanding. There's a phase 3 study in process right now with, uh, Exeter University. These studies will be probably published in a year's time. The studies in phase 2 were certainly convincing enough for me that haven't— if you were talking about research, I've never seen anything in my lifetime that has shown the positive effects in alcohol-dependent people, like ketamine-assisted psychotherapy programs. And that's, that's, like I say, that's my real interest. So it's a whole new venture for us being up back here in Scotland with Scotland's first psychedelic ketamine clinic. We have interest from Edinburgh University, has been granted funding to do research with us and so forth. This is a whole new thing. But again, in that clinic, we'll be also using NAD as well. It's combination with ketamine, like a lot of clinics do in the States.

It's very exciting. Yeah, I have some, um, friends and contacts in the US who have ketamine-assisted therapy clinics as well, and, um, also for treating chronic, uh, chronic pain, obviously treatment-resistant depression. I mean, there's very compelling research for people unfamiliar Even out of, you know, many universities now at this stage, but originally sort of Imperial, Johns Hopkins, etc., were looking at the psychedelic support. And I've been at conferences also where veterans have gone up and said they wouldn't be here was it not for psychedelic-assisted therapy. So it is very compelling for a lot of people too.

Well, that's something where the science is really— if I'm looking at anything these days, I follow the research coming out of psychedelic science, and it's— I just came back from a big conference in Amsterdam 2 weeks ago where everybody's— the biggest one in Europe. A little bit disappointed that, you know, MDMA never get past this time, but Rick Doblin, who's given 35 years of his life through the MAPS program, he was there, but he's pretty, you know, confident, and by October that'll have its full FDA approval, and hopefully shortly after that we'll be able to use it here in the UK as well. So, and then obviously the psilocybin and, you know, DMT and other psychedelic medicines, as it is, the tech bible, hopefully we'll be able to use here as well. So that's where I'm at right now. I'm really keen to see about the future of psychedelic medicine. And mental health, psychiatry, and obviously addictions. Yeah.

Yeah. I think it's really exciting, compelling. I mean, just looking at the success rates, it's almost unheard of. I was at a presentation of a friend, Sean Wells, in Dallas at the biohacking conference recently. And it's, I mean, you're looking at success rates of like 85%, 75%.

Yeah.

You never see this in research.

Yeah. And you know, I've been in the States, a lot of psychedelic conferences, and I mean, it's great to hear the scientists and all the psychiatrists and everybody else talk about this and the clinicians, but I'm getting the opportunity to meet the people on the ground, and I've spent loads of time talking to people whose lives are completely changed by this experience. Yeah, that, that's really how I judge what I'm doing, or listening to what the people's actually saying. But, uh, I think it's definitely a game-changing event in mental health. Again, the challenges are people's perceptions. They're used to psychedelics in a positive way, especially ketamine. Yeah, but like you say, the science is there to support us. And I think the UK, or here in Scotland, the toughest thing I've ever done in my life was to get this clinic here over the lane. I mean, you know, being the first in Scotland is quite something. It's really been quite difficult process to get this to where it is, but we got it 2 weeks ago. We have a top consultant psychiatrist who is our medical director. She's based in London, Dr. Pamela Waters, but we have a lot of physicians and everything else here in Scotland. And we'll have a training program starting within the next 6 months, and we're going to show other people how to put all this together and so forth. It's exciting times. But like I say, uh, we'll include the NED as well for people who choose to, to want to try that as well. So exciting times.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. So congratulations on persevering across the finishing line with the— getting regulators to change their mind is never an easy task.

No, especially here in Scotland.

If anyone could do it, you could, John. So well done. As we today, John, um, for my listeners interested in understanding NAD and even, you know, psychedelic-assisted therapy, um, for living better, what are some online resources or books you'd recommend they start with?

Well, I mean, I think there's that much, uh, on the internet now. We got some great associations that you just subscribe to, they're free, you get all the updates and you can join free podcasts and I mean the whole psychedelic world's just exploding. The information is, you know, getting updated day by day and a lot is, like I say, it's free. For any professionals, you know, there's some good training courses based in the States and the MIND Foundation in Germany offer professional training courses. But I mean, what we're doing at the Ullis— Ullis is a name, it's an old Celtic, Scottish Celtic name. It means 'change by experience,' you know. So we'll be— our website will be getting up, you know, updated regularly as well once we, we start going. Our first clients will probably start to come to the clinic probably around about maybe the end of July, mid-July. So we'll be giving a lot of updates here in Scotland. There is a psychedelic association, uh, free to join. I would say anybody who's interested in mental health or anybody who's been unsuccessful with other psychiatric treatments, it's definitely worth having a little look at these new psychedelic medicines because, like I say, I've never actually seen. I never thought it'd be possible for me to see in my lifetime that the science that's coming from psychedelics.

Yeah, it's very exciting. Where can people learn more about what you are up to, John? Where would you direct them, be it on social media or any websites? Um, what would you like to share?

Yeah, well, right now, to learn more about what I'm, what I'm doing and the collection of people that's around me I'll get some fantastic people around me from all over the world. I think the aulis.co.uk website would be the main site to look at. As far as NED, then nedplusathome.com. But I've got a new venture that I've started with my daughter. If you were talking about the science, I've now just formed a company called NADPET. So NED, a subliminal Syringe application for pets is now launched. So we have nadpet.co.uk for anybody who's interested in cats and dogs. It's an oris musical application, so it's just like a little syringe, sublingual syringe. And with my background in horse racing, we have a more high-powered subcutaneous injection for performance, Equine NAD+. So that's going on nadpet.co.uk.

Beautiful.

These are available now. Beautiful research. I mean, the animal world has supplied all the research for NAD+, and nobody's come back to help the animals. So it's, you know, so I'm doing that. I thought, so I'm taking that research, it came from the animal world, and I'm now treating the animals. What's that?

Beautiful. I think that will be a huge market as well. Everyone wants their pets, uh, healthy.

And it's much, much, much more affordable and things like that. So yeah, that's also very exciting as well.

Yeah, very exciting. So you're— never a dull moment. Clearly, clearly the NAD is working well for you, John, with so many different businesses.

Well, for me personally, I'm only— I just can't— I mean, I just could not live the life I'm leading without the NAD+, which is general wellness and everything else that it gives. I mean, I just use it, I use it every day. I'm fortunate to use it every day, so I use it every day. Yeah, it's a brilliant one for me.

Yeah, yeah, and keeping you bouncing. So it's been my—

since I discovered it a way back, as we started this conversation, in 2009, It's been my whole world, you know, and what I've seen with it, you know, it's just been marvelous to see how it helps people. And that's the majority of people who try it, you know. It's a lot of medicines, it's maybe just a little number of people that get the benefits. With NAD+, it's a large number of people that respond to it. So it's been a— it still is a big part of my life, but it's been You know, now it's the whole world's learning about it. Great. I mean, that's why I started it. The more people know about it, and I'm sure the better ideas will come along with it. There's new things like the night pen injections coming out, so it's a little bit more neat. Carry it in your bag and just give yourself a little shot, just like an insulin pen. That's coming shortly as well. So yeah.

It's exciting times. Well, thank you for dedicating so much of your life to this and making it more accessible. John, do you have a final ask or recommendation or any parting thoughts or message for my audience today?

Yeah, what— from my perspective, for any of your audience, let me tell the audience that if you yourself or any of your immediate family, like these days, are suffering, life's becoming a little bit unmanageable due to mental health issues, certainly you must have a look at the psychedelic medicines that's coming along. That's my closing message, because, you know, the science that's emerging, the interest, and the people it's helped is really phenomenal. You know, it was just an absolute shame that Nixon put the war on drugs way back in the early '70s with us, or we could have been far more advanced with its potential than what we are. So that's my closing message.

Yeah, exactly. Beautiful. Well, thank you so much, John, for taking the time to come on today. It's been a pleasure speaking with you.

Yeah, it's been lovely speaking to you, Claudia von Boeselager.