Held Hostage: How The FDA Is Keeping You From Using Your Own Stem Cells (& What You Can Do About It)

On this episode of the Ben Greenfield.

Fitness Podcast, those little things that are so easy to fix if you knew about it, what you eat, when you eat, how you sleep, how much you sleep, your thoughts, your feelings, your choices of your stress, all of that matters. And I want to empower people to be the CEO of their own health.

And so both my wife and I have our stem cells stored at the US Stem Cell Clinic.

Right now they're held.

Health, performance, Nutrition, Longevity, Ancestral living, Biohacking, and much more. My name is Ben Greenfield. Welcome to the show.

Well, hello.

It seems as though I've been interviewing a lot of really smart women on my show lately. I hope that's cool for you because sometimes I actually feel like my show is a bit of a sausage fest. That's not intentional, it's just the way it seems. Things have worked out. However, I interviewed Judy Arnall on Unschooling last week and Dr. Diana Driscoll on the vagus nerve. And Today I have Dr. Tammy Maraglia on stem cells. So there you have it. Isn't that nice? And I don't know what else to say without digging myself into a sexist hole, painting myself into that corner. So all I'm going to say is I hope you like all of my female guests of late. As a matter of fact, Dr. Sandra Kaufman before that. So there you go. I hope you're happy, ladies. I'm keeping things balanced. All right, so I am part of a few different Facebook groups where there are many smart, smart physicians who are constantly posting interesting updates on all things health and wellness. And in one of those groups a few weeks ago there was a post, and the post was titled Held Hostage, held hostage. And the person who posted it commented that the FDA ruled last week at the time that the post was made that your own stem cells from your own fat are a drug and only they, meaning the fda, have jurisdiction over them. All stem cell treatments using your own cells in the USA now must be from bone marrow. Japan, Panama and many other progr progressive countries have moved in the opposite direction and have approved stem cells from your fat for their citizens due to the high safety and efficacy rate. This post was so interesting to me because of the fact that it pretty much spells out that big Pharma is regulating our bodies legally that I invited the person who posted it to come onto my show today and share what exactly is going on when it comes to the fda basically regulating stuff that comes out of our own bodies, particularly our stem cells, and she's gonna fill us in so her name is Dr. Tammy Miraglia. And hopefully, Tammy, I'm not butchering your last name.

It's not your fault I married an Italian. Okay.

All right.

You did very well.

Good. I figured it was Italian because I speak a pretty good Italian. Maraglia.

All you have to do is add an a vowel at the end of anything.

Uh huh. She's a double abord certified. And in addition to that, Tammy's the author of a book called the Hormone Secret. She's the CEO of the Seattle Stem Cell center and Global Stemology, the only stem cell clinic in the nation that also does complementary hormone, nutrition and inflammation programs, along with their stem cell procedures. She's a keynote speaker for the American Academy of Anti Ag speaks all over the world on this topic. You may have seen her on TV because she's been on Good Morning America and Fox and a bunch of different radio shows. And prior to getting into stem cells, she had an illustrious career in ballet, which is kind of interesting. I don't know. Are ballerinas getting injected with stem cells now, Tammy?

They should, but I don't think so yet.

Will it help? What do you call it when you point your toes being on point?

Painful.

Painful. Isn't there a name for it though, when you point your toes, like extreme plantar flexion.

Oh, yeah. Plantar flexion, Yep.

Okay.

That's the medical fancy word.

Yeah. But what do they call it in ballet?

They just call it on point.

Okay, so I did nail it. It's on point.

You did, Cool.

Yeah. Awesome. One of my podcast co hosts for a while was an actual male. What do you call a male ballerina?

Dancer?

A dancer, okay.

They just get. Ballet dancer. Yeah.

Yeah, that was Brock. He was a dancer. We should probably talk about stem cells though, and not ballet. So before we get into. Into what the FDA is doing right now and some of the things that I alluded to. Tell me about your history in the realm of stem cells and what you're doing with your practice, because I noted that you're. You're doing quite a bit in conjunction with your stem cell treatment. So fill me you're up to in the realm of stem cells.

I actually got into stem cells as a daughter, not as a doctor. My father has copd, which is a chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and it's a lung disease. He smoked for many years, quit. And 15 years after his quitting date, he was diagnosed with this terrible illness that has no cure. And once he was diagnosed and given oxygen, that's the beginning of the end there's no treatment. So being the voracious researcher that I am, I dug in and thought, there's no way my dad is going down without me fighting for his life. And I kept bumping into stem cells, and through my research and connections and conversations, I was invited to actually be a part of many stem cell clinics across the world. But I really wanted to find a place that was doing research, was doing it repeated in a repeatable way, that was monitoring. And I really felt strongly that doing something from his own body was a good, safe first step. So that's how I ended up doing it. So he did his first treatment, and it was amazing. But it takes three to six months to kick in and sometimes even longer. So I was not about to just wait around and see what could happen. I wanted to do everything I could do to increase the success. So I dove into the research again, and it turns out there is a ton of evidence based information about supplements and nutrition and hormones and sleep and stress. There's even a lot of quantum physics, healing energy evidence out there.

What do you mean, quantum physics, healing energy, particularly regarding stem cells.

So there's a researcher called Dr. Bruce Lipton, who was one of the very first stem cell researchers in the United States back in the 1960s. And he was growing different cartilage, bone, you know, muscle in petri dishes with stem cells. And his mentor told him, if there's something wrong with the stem cells, don't look at the stem cells, look at the environment. And that allowed him to change the course of his entire career. And look at how our thoughts and our feelings, which represent the energy, can actually change the structure of our cells and our receptors, which we kind of already know. You know, people understand that when you have a stressful time in your life, it is a thing thought and a feeling. And that thought and a feeling increases certain hormones, cortisol, for example, decreases other hormones and chemicals and results in your immune system being turned off. And many people find that they have a major illness one to two years later, and they look back and go, oh, yeah, I lost my sister, I lost my job, my marriage fell apart. So we know that to be true. And it turns out that there is more and more evident.

He wrote a book too.

He did. The Biology of Belief.

Yes, Biology of belief. Yeah. Okay.

Super, super awesome. Very techy.

It's a good book. So, so is the, the updated one. Dr. Dawson Church's mind to Matter. It covers this stuff quite a bit too, when it comes to the effects of, of protons, emotions, Belief patterns, et cetera, on actual biology and cel. And I had forgotten that Bruce was originally involved in stem cell research. So that's interesting.

Yeah.

What happened with your dad?

So I changed his diet. You know, simple things. People don't realize that there's actually a study about beta carotene and carrot juice and how it rejuvenates the lung tissue independent of everything else. So I changed his diet, I changed his hormones, I changed his supplements. And he went from needing 3 liters of oxygen when he was sick sitting and 5 liters of oxygen when he was walking around to zero oxygen needed while he was sitting. And he could even walk around the house, go get coffee, go to the bathroom without oxygen, and then three liters when he was exercising, which he never did before. And his pulmonologist was like, well, I don't. Our new medication must be working. And I would say really like, show me where in the research that the usual medication actually reverses and heals. I don't find it. What I find is that the medication is a symptom and a symptom treatment and it tries to slow the progression. I've never seen any medication, any pharmaceutical medication actually rejuvenate and regenerate and that's what stem cells can do.

Interesting. And I actually had forgotten that about cancer and carotenoids, but I'll put a link in the show notes. There was a meta analysis that found that people with the high intake of carotenoids had a 21% lower risk of lung cancer. Were there any studies you're aware of that involved beta carotene administration or carrot juice or anything like that in people with pre existing lung cancer?

No, but interestingly enough, taking beta carotene actually did not help. It needed to be from food. And so carrot juice is a great source. And there's a rat study that showed that lung tissue actually was rejuvenated with the poor little rats. We do terrible things to animals, but there's no placebo effect with that.

Well, yeah, it's better than experimenting on humans though. Of course. Course, I'd rather the yeast and the fruit flies and the rodents take a hit for the humans when necessary. So you posted this recent post to this Facebook group that we are a part of. And it really disturbed me this idea that the FDA ruled just recently that stem cells from our own body are a drug. Can you detail what exactly that ruling involved?

So there is a large company, a stem cell bank in Florida called US Stem and a lot of clinics across the United States sent their patients stem cells to be banked and stored there. So that is that.

Sorry, sorry to interrupt right off the bat, but are you referring to the US Stem Cell Clinic?

Yeah. And they have a bank. So they're linked, but separate.

Well, my, my stem cells are stored. My stem cells for my fat are stored there. My bone cells are stored at Forever Labs in Berkeley. But I went down to the US Stem Cell clinic, as did my wife. I had them removed from the fat in my back. My wife had them removed from the fat in our thighs. And so both my wife and I have our stem cells stored at the US Stem Cell Clinic.

Right now they're held hostage and not because of US STEM's fault. So the FDA made a cease and desist and had basically sued this clinic. And long story short, there is a. There's verbiage that the FDA uses that says anything that is more than quote unquote, minimally manipulated means that it's become a drug. And so what US Stem said was we're not manipulating the stem cells in any way, shape or form. What we are doing is we're using an enzyme called collagenase to dissolve the fat so that we can get at the stem cells. But the FDA in their power was able to say, nope, that is more than minimal manipulation and therefore it is considered a drug. And therefore it is only under the jurisdiction of the FDA and must now go through a pharmaceutical manufacturing process.

What's a pharmaceutical manufacturing process involve?

It involves about a million dollar expense to get what's called an ind an investigational new drug application or just a pharmaceutical company who now of course is. It's not going to be from your own body. There is no autologous part of this, which means from your own body. Now they're going to make stem cells a drug, which means you're going to have to buy it. Your doctor will have to buy it in a bottle for many, many, many, many, many thousands of dollars with a huge profit to the pharmaceutical company.

Hmm, interesting. Okay, so basically the idea here would be that in the US we cannot use this collagenase enzyme to, to, to modify the fat cells in any way. Otherwise they are considered to be a drug and must go through the entire long and expensive pharmace. But why wouldn't we just use something else like say umbilical or amniotic or placental or bone stem cells and just say, okay, we're not going to use our fat?

Well, that is what we are doing. But there are a lot of people who, for whatever their reasons, want to use their stem cells from their own body. And there are benefits. I don't think that one size fits all. We offer Wharton's jelly, which is the mesenchymal adult stem cells from the lining of the umbilical cord. We offer exosomes. We'll be bringing on V cells in the fall. We offer bone marrow. And we were offering fat. Now we can still do fat as a same day procedure, but there's no banking up. The problem is that fat has a hugely abundant source. And it's so easy that people have quite a bit of reservation to have a bone marrow aspiration compared to just a little liposuction. So it's really had a lot of challenge.

So is the fat really that much better than something like bone?

You know, you could gather 10 stem cell experts in a room, five of them that do research on fat and five of them that do research on bone marrow or any combination amniotic cord, and you could have them debate for days because there are benefits to all of them. And that's the point. Why does the FDA get to say that we only have a right to one and not the other? And it's the beginning of the end?

You said it's the beginning of the end.

Yes. So I have a contact that spends a lot of time in Washington D.C. and he has told me that the next wave of stem cell scrutiny will be bone marrow. And there is another verbiage that they're throwing around that is homologous use, meaning that what you're taking out must be used for the same purpose. So bone marrow is by definition a blood product. So you would only be allowed to use bone marrow stem cells for blood disorders.

Okay, so are there other examples in which we are allowed to use compounds that have come out of our own body? Whether it's, you know, blood or something like that that are not regulated in this same way. Like, is there a reason that the FDA would be going after specifically stem cells from fat or their politics behind this or, or something else going on behind the scenes?

I'm not a conspiracist, but it does, it does look like big pharma is seeing that. Oh my gosh. There's going to be a big impact to big business as usual. Because there is, like you said, is, there's other places. Look at the cosmetic plastic surgery industry. Fat transfer to the face, fat transfer to the breasts, skin grafting. Use what's called the vampire facial, where you draw blood, spin it, and then Put it on top of the face and microneedle it. O shots, P shots. There's all cosmetic stuff that's been around for decades and decades and has never come under any scrutiny from the FDA at all.

Okay, so when it comes to this regulation, what's the difference in terms of what's going on internationally? Like, can you just go somewhere and have this type of procedure? If you did want the concentrated stem cells from your fat, and you wanted to. You basically wanted to pass up bone, umbilical, amniotic, placental, and go after the mesenchymal stem cells from your fat, can you just go do it internationally?

Oh, yeah. And in fact, in sort of a backup plan, I will be going to Mexico this fall looking at spaces for lease and to purchase. I will be building a center of excellence for regenerative medicine and stem cell, where we do everything we do here. Hyperbaric oxygen, IVs, NAD V cells, exosomes, placenta, cord, plus your own fat, your own bone marrow, and not have to live in fear. I never thought as a doctor I would have to be worrying about what I said to who I said and how I said it in fear of my license, trying to take care of patients.

Interesting. Okay, so when it comes to fat versus bone, you mentioned that a lot of people really don't like to do bone. Why is that?

So the perception is that a bone marrow aspiration is a lot more painful. And, you know, if you don't do anything at all, it is. At our clinic, we use laughing gas, and so nobody ever has any problem. In fact, some people have a really good time. Yeah. Other clinics use an anesthesiologist and put patients into sort of a light sedation. Not completely out where they need to be intubated, but they are out. We don't do that. I feel like your stem cells are fighting enough toxins, and the dirt, so to speak, of our body, is where the seeds of the stem cells are going to be planted. And so I'd rather not have a milieu of narcotics and medications flowing through your veins right at the time of the procedure. So laughing gas is amazing. You can even use it during childbirth. They do that in Japan and all over the world because it's quick on, quick off.

So with bone, I actually got the procedure done, like, I mentioned that forever labs in Berkeley. And I. I don't recall it being that unpleasant getting the bone extracted or the. Or the bone. It's. It's the actual marrow, Correct?

Correct. Yeah.

Okay.

And I think that pain is A is a perceptive thing. That's. That doesn't feel painful at all. In other people it does. But even before that, just the thought of it is what we find our patients saying, oh, I don't want bone marrow. And we say, well, why don't you learn about it? There's just this knee jerk, like, oh, that sounds terrible.

So. And it's not with the bone, is the recovery time similar in terms of any type of soreness or anything like that? Compared to the liposuction from the fat.

I would say it's as good or better. You know, when I take out fat, there's a lot of bruising. Because we're using manual liposuction, we can't use a laser assisted liposuction because that damages the stem cells.

Okay, so what kind of intrigues me is the idea of what you are doing to actually maximize the efficacy of some of these stem cell treatments. Like you already alluded to, hyperbaric oxygen therapy. I know that as I mentioned when I was introducing you, you're doing some anti inflammatory procedures, some things to enhance the efficacy of the stem cells themselves, either going into the procedure or during the procedure or after. I would love to hear you talk a little bit more about that. And I do have another question though, before we get into some of the ways we can, we can kind of upgrade our body's ability to be able to use these stem cells or enhance the availability of them. And it is still regarding this FDA issue in terms of what we can do as activists in this area. Is there any type of lobbying going on for this or is there any more movement that we can take part in that would allow us to do something about the FDA keeping us from using something from our own body, like these stem cells from fat? Yes.

I recently heard about an attorney that was hired by a collection of patients, some of them mine, and from other clinics as well. And so if people wanted to contact us, we can put them into contact with this legal group. And there's also. We're in a waiting game. We did write to the judge. The judge actually ordered your stem cells. Literally, you, Ben, and everyone who had their stem cells stored at USM to be destroyed. And so we, and all the clinics and all the patients that had their stem cells wrote thousands of letters to the judge personally and begged for a stay to the order. And it worked. So we're in limbo. They're not getting destroyed. But you can't get them. They can't ship them to you, but they're at least not being destroyed. Can you imagine a government official saying to a financial bank, you need to destroy this client's deposits, all their cash, everything. And the bank would say, but we're just the customer custodian. They're not our assets. They're the clients. And that's what this is about. Those are your cells. How dare they.

So are these things actually in Florida? Like in a lab in Florida, just, just sitting somewhere like, like, are they, are they frozen? Is that how they're storing them?

Yes.

Okay. All right. So do you have any website or anything like that where people could go to, to somehow lobby or take part in signing a letter or anything like that?

Absolutely. So if they go to usstemology.com and just click the link there to email us and then just put a sentence, you know, want to help with a lawsuit? We will get them in touch. And it's a moving target. You know, last month we were all emailing the judge. That's no longer what we're doing now. This month it's the lawyer. So that way we can keep people abreast. I webinars about once every six weeks, just trying to keep people aware. So that'll also get you on the list of being able to hear the next information. It's hard to keep up.

Okay, I'll put a link to that in the show notes. The show notes, by the way, are going to be@BenGreenfield Fitness.com stemcellupdate that's BenGreenfieldFitness.com stemcellupdate. So that being said, we still are able to get access to our stem cells in other ways, as you mentioned. You know, we of course have non autologous sources like amniotic or umbilical or placental. We still have access to bone. You mentioned something called V cells as well. And are those the cells that you can actually get from blood by stressing blood and getting the stem cells that way?

Yeah, there is a stress aspect to it. So it's a laboratory thing. And that's why we're not offering it until the fall. We're getting our FDA compliant lab set up. And so that's, that's sort of the next step in what we find in regenerative medicine is V cells. They're a whole episode on their own because they're not stem cells. They're a antigen specific immunoglobulin expressing cell.

To be fancy, but V cell stands for very small embryonic like cell, correct?

Exactly. That's the acronym it's actually V, S, E, L. It's not a. Some people think it's just the letter V in cell, but it's actually V, S, E, L. Just like you said, very small embryonic like.

And that's synonymous with adult pluripotent stem cell apsc.

Exactly. Oh, you're so up on that.

Yeah. The only reason I know this is I don't know if you're familiar with Dr. Holland Ch? Shen in New York City, but the last time I was in New York City, he brought me into his clinic and he, on the first day gave me a bunch of CoQ10 and NAD and some kind of like antioxidant type of IV treatments. And then he also took about a pint of my blood, stressed it overnight in what I think was a very cold medium, which apparently stresses the cells, causes them to release these V cells, and then he IV'd them back into my body with exosomes the next day. And I felt like Superman for like two months afterwards.

Yeah, that's very similar to what we do. We have a topical application of very potent CoQ10. We have NAD antioxidants. And then the V cells need a light and a temperature stress. And then they're given back to you. And their original location that it's from is your blood and they're two to four microns, so they pass the blood brain barrier.

When you say they pass the blood brain barrier, these V cells, does that mean that this would be something that would be kind of like the. You know, because some people are doing intranasal stem cells like amniotic or umbilical intranasal stem cells for TBI or concussion management, things like that. An alternative to that would be, would be V cells because they cross the blood brain barrier.

Yes. And imagine that A, they're small and B, they're from your own body. So there is no rejection, there's no blood brain barrier to your own cells. But the size can be a problem. So the size and the fact that they're from your own body, it's going to be great for neurological conditions. Parkinson's, Mississippi, als, things like that. I actually have a non profit organization where we treat veterans for free. And I think the majority of our veterans we're treating are with tbi. So I'm excited to do this for them.

Okay, got it. So we have the V cells and then with these other cells, you know, if you were going to do non autologous, umbilical, amniotic or placental or autologous like bone. What type of protocols are you co administering with the stem cells to enhance their efficacy?

So I think that there's a risk for stem cell medicine and regenerative medicine to take stem cell procedures and just do it like we do everything else, one and done. You know, wonder why it's not working for everyone. Just a very western surgical mentality. And the more we learn, the more we realize that our body beautiful symphony and it all works together. And if your stem cells are literally seeds that are growing, then your soil matters a lot. All you have to do is plant a seed in sand or plant a seed in soil that's got fertilizer and worms and the right nitrogen and see what that same seed produces. And so I went back to school after becoming an MD and studied naturopathic medicine. And so that's where all of this came from and the motivation of my father. So every patient gets a nutrition guide and we hear things like, oh, I eat really clean. Well, there's clean. And then there are things that you can do to actually help your stem cells. Help your mitochondria, which is what your stem cells need the energy to produce more. I don't know very many people who are eating five servings of cruciferous vegetables, but that sulfur containing compound in Brussels sprouts and broccoli and cauliflower and things like that is so needed for your stem cells to produce other cells. And without doing that, I feel like it is a little bit of a waste. You're certainly not going to get the best outcome. What, for example, are you going to do if you're getting stem cells for your knee and your gut is completely a mess that you have leaky gut, you have, you know, IBS or something else going on with your microbiome. Stem cells are attracted to in areas of inflammation. And so why waste the stem cells on your gut when we can heal your gut other ways and divert them from your. Which is really what you want. You want that cartilage to be regenerated. So Parkinson's, there's over 80% of patients with Parkinson's have the exact same microbiome deficiency. This one bug is deficient. This bug that is deficient in patients with Parkinson's produces butyrate, and butyrate interacts with dopamine. So we can actually fix their gut and give them a supplement called butyrate, and their tremors get better without anything else. So we have protocols for everything. Autoimmune conditions, neurological conditions, heart conditions, lung conditions, orthopedic conditions. That I have developed over the years. And you don't pay anything extra for it. I just feel like, I don't know, it's my duty to do everything I can since I already know it because I learned it from helping my father. That is my duty to share it. And honestly, I think that, you know, I would love to change the future of medicine. And I don't say that lightly. I really want to make sure that everybody wakes up. What you eat, when you eat, how you sleep, how much you sleep, your thoughts, your feelings, your choices, your of your stress, all of that matters. And I want to empower people to be the CEO of their own health.

So the idea behind the cruciferous vegetables would be to upregulate anti inflammatory pathways like glutathione or superoxide dismutase or something like that, I would imagine. And so based on that, are you actually also giving to your patients things like intravenous or intramuscular glutathione or, or n acetylcysteine or things like this for those same pathways?

Yep, we sure are. You know, that's when they're with us. But there's other stuff that they can do at home. You know, magnesium is a rate limiting step for the production of the energy molecule ATP. And our dirt, literally our soil, where we grow, our food, is deficient in magnesium. Because of our farming practices, we don't rest and rotate our crops anymore. So virtually over 70% of the population is deficient in magnesium. And so just those little things that are so easy to fix if you knew about it. Yeah, and that's, and that's actually, maybe this is a good time to talk about the documentary and masterclass that I'm producing and filming currently that'll be out in April. I just can't tell enough people. So I thought, well, why don't we film it? I say the same things over and over and over to all of my Parkinson's patients, all my Ms. Patients, all my lung patients, all my orthopedic patients. Why don't I just film it and then everybody can have access?

Okay, all right, got it. So this masterclass is something that people would actually go online and take. Is it like a series of videos or tests or quizzes or what exactly is it?

So I'm gathering the experts in every area. I'm not the expert in everything by any means. So these will be interviews with experts on how you can up level your own life in the area of sleep, in the area of micronutrients. In the area of hormones, in the area of stress, all of these areas. And it's not just if you're going to get a stem cell procedure though, I believe the dirt matters and our body is our dirt and we can upgrade it, but you can actually activate your own stem cells. I mean, for example, fasting is a well documented way to increase your own stem cells. And more stem cells in your own body is a great thing.

How long would you actually need to fast to up regulate your own stem cells? Are we talking about like a short term intermittent fast? Or if someone really wanted to upregulate stem cells, are we talking more like 24 hours plus?

You know, it's interesting. It would be so great if one size fits all. And it doesn't. So what we know is that intermittent fasting works for the vast majority of people in order to upregulate your stem cells. I think Dr. McColla has a ton of information on that and so does Naomi Whittle. Her, she's sort of the fasting queen. But there are some people whose bodies are really stubborn and they forgot to read the textbook and they do need to have a 24 hour fast. I find it fascinating that every spiritual practice and religion in the world that I know of has a period of fasting. It's like an ancient, ancient thing that just has been passed down and it must be good for us in so many ways.

Yeah. So when it, when it comes to other things that you're doing in your clinic, you know, the N acetylcysteine or glutathione intake of cruciferous vegetables, fasting, you know, these are all pretty interesting, but I'm also, also interested in technologies, biohacks, perhaps more advanced protocols that you might be doing if someone were to come into the clinic for stem cell administration. So is there anything that you think that's very, I guess, compelling or sexy when it comes to little known procedures that you might be doing in your clinic to enhance people's own stem cells or to upregulate their body's ability to be able to respond to a stem cell procedure?

I believe that NAD is going to be something that is very, very iv. NAD is what I'm talking about, is going to be very effective. And we are starting that in September after I have done a ton of research making sure that first of all, that you do no harm. Right. We don't want to hurt these stem cells, but ned is something that has been shown to really help these stem cells. And I think that is cutting edge. There's not very many clinics. You can find some clinics that are doing it for addiction. You know, there's some IV clinics, but not in conjunction with stem cells. Hyperbaric oxygen is also something that we're doing that I don't think anybody else is doing it. And it's right in the same building hormones. We do pellet insertions at the exact same time as your procedure for your stem cells because testosterone has been shown. Of course, it's anabolic. That makes sense. When you're trying to grow things, you want to be in an anabolic, a growth phase and a growth environment instead of a catabolic, which is breaking down. So making sure that patients levels of testosterone are optimized and then just putting in pellets at the appropriate time when you're already numb, already having laughing gas. And the pellets will last three to four months. Perfect timing for creating the perfect environment for your stem cells.

All right, I've got some questions for you. So when it comes to NAD, are you doing multiple IVs and how much NAD are you using in people prior to stem cell protocol?

So we actually are also different. I don't believe that a 110 pound woman who's been sick for a long time should have the same dose of anything as a 250 pound overweight man. So we take the NAD doses per patient and we customize it if we can. You know, patients fly literally from all over the world and all over the United States. We prefer to do more than one treatment, but at least we're going to get treatments in you before your stem cell treatment and after your stem cell treatment before you go home.

Okay, so multiple IV administrations of nad, but you adjust the dosage based on body size, correct? Okay, got it. And when you're doing the nad, are you co administering anything with that? Like anything to up regulate methylation pathways or CoQ10 or anything like that?

Yeah, we have a. A patented topical patch. It's like. Well, actually technically a gel which we put a patch over and it's actually approved. It has all gone through the entire process of being recognized and proven the absorption. And I love that because people who have been sick for a really long time, their gut is not happy. A lot of times it's not absorbing what's going in. And the IV is wonderful. But we can co administer the CoQ10 in a patch form along with the NAD at the same time.

Hmm, that's interesting. I actually have NAD patches. I didn't realize CoQ10 was available as a patch too. Is it like one of those electrophoresis patches with a positive and a negative electrode on it?

It's actually a gel. And then we put a patch over top of it.

Okay, interesting. All right, so in addition to that, you mentioned hyperbaric oxygen therapy for something like that. Is someone just going into a chamber one time for an hour, an hour and a half prior to procedure, Are they doing a series of treatments after or what's the best practice for hbot?

Most of our patients that live in the area do multiple, multiple, multiple hyperbaric. The evidence is pretty clear that your benefits increase the more you do. I mean, there's some protocols out there that it's 6, 60 treatments. We feel like at least the one hyperbaric treatment is going to offset the low oxygen level from the airplane ride that you had just, you know, reset. And that might only get us to zero. But at least you're not in the negatives. But yes, we try very much much. We sell them in packages of six, and patients usually purchase more than one package.

Okay, gotcha. And then when it comes to these pellets, hormone delivery pellets, how exactly do those work? And is this just like a one time acute dosage of a hormone instead of something like someone being on ongoing hormone replacement therapy?

No. So pellets are amazing in that it's not like a shot, it's not an acute dose, that your body gets this big bolus, this big high dose, and then it sort of peter out over time. So if you looked at a graph, it wouldn't be a big, high, peaky mountain and then a slow decline. Ski hill pellets actually are inserted and they're encapsulated and they slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly release hormones over time. And so I love that because it mimics mother Nature. And the higher your cardiac output and blood flow, for example, you Ben, you would actually draw pellets because every time you work out, you increase your cardiac output and it draws more. So yours may not last four or five months. You would be drawing on it more. But patients who are just having their regular life and are mere mortals like the rest of us, that it can last about four months, some patients up to six months, and it's a slow release over time. And I love that because it's one and done. You don't have to do it maybe two, maybe three times a year. We want our patients to come back for three treatments. I feel like your first stem cell treatment is all about decreasing the inflammation in your whole body and the second and third treatment are more targeted. That's just my opinion. There is some anecdotal research on it. Our patients have had phenomenal success, more than higher than the average, though. Not everybody. You know, we're still figuring out why not even aspirin works every time for every person. I want to make sure people know it's not a snake oil kind of thing. But we sure are getting great success. And I think that's because of the holistic approach.

And you like the pellets versus something like a daily application of hormone cream, for example. Because I know that. I think it was Jay Campbell who I was interviewing who says that daily application of a testosterone cream, he mentioned it was superior to something like the, I believe, a bi weekly injection that a lot of people do. Like an intramuscular injection, possibly better than like even a daily subcutaneous injection. But we really didn't discuss pellets that much. Much. It sounds like pellets would be very, very simple though, for that long term release without even worrying about a daily cream application.

So I would agree completely. Injections are my least favorite way to administer testosterone and medication and hormones. We have a lot of patients on a daily topical cream. It's just that pellets are so easy and they are slow release, so why not? And if you're somebody who has Ms. Or Parkinson's, daily creams are not easy.

Yeah, yeah. It surprises me that more people who are doing testosterone replacement therapy or hormone replacement therapy aren't using something like a pellet. Are they just flying under the radar or am I just completely unaware?

It is very popular with physicians who are procedure oriented. But a lot of physicians, I would say the vast majority of physicians who do bioidentical hormone or hormone therapy are more on the internist side. They're not internists because they practice functional or natural medicine, but they're more accustomed to prescribing and educating and informing rather than getting sterile gloves on and prepping the area in a sterile fashion and using a scalpel. And I mean, it takes me 10 minutes, but it's still a minor surgical procedure that has to be done in a sterile way. And then if, you know, if you don't do it right, you can cause a bad infection. And so maybe that's why is the cost similar? No, it's more expensive upfront, but not over time because it lasts. So that might be the other reason is that it is more expensive up front. You're kind of getting a three to four month dose that you have to pay for all up front.

Yeah, yeah. One of the issues I know with like the bi weekly injections is it just doesn't simulate the natural release of testosterone that occurs on a daily basis. And you also, when you do like a larger bolus like that, like an injectable, you get a significant increase in aromatization and estrogen. And I believe there's higher levels of, what's it called, erythrocytosis when there are some red blood cell issues in response to large dosage.

Exactly. And then the blood gets thick and you know, there's lots of studies about increased risk of cardiovascular, heart attack and things like that in men with testosterone. It wasn't that it was these high doses, it was this thickening of the blood through the erythrocytosis. And if you mimic mother nature and you trust, but verify with follow up CBC with differential, you'll be fine.

Okay, got it. So we've got hbot, we have nad, we have hormone pellets, the administration of some type of glutathione or cruciferous vegetable source. You know, you mentioned obviously sleep and lifestyle and emotions based on, you know, the work of Bruce Lipton for example. Is there anything else that, that's interesting that you're doing at your clinic as far as this kind of holistic approach to stem cell therapy that involves, involves co administration of a lot of other protocols.

So we do test, we don't like to guess. So we do look at your hormone levels. Even testosterone in women is so important. That's when my book was about the hormone secret. The secret to hormone therapy in women is a low dose testosterone and making sure it's optimized. So we test, we also look at your microbiome. I think that's a very poorly understood. But not just the bugs, not just what's your microbiome looking like, also your digestive enzymes. The people that tell me I'm eating clean, I say that's awesome. Are you absorbing it? And they don't know. And if you have a deficiency of digestive enzymes, you could be spending a ton of time, energy and money on food that you're not absorbing. And the other only way to find out is to test.

Okay, now when, when you're talking about the, the idea of hormone replacement therapy, particularly testosterone for women, what about progesterone? Because I, I hear quite a bit about the advantages of progesterone. There's even a recent book someone sent to me, I think it was called the adrenal reset or something like that. And that even discussed the use of progesterone in children with ADD and adhd. And I hadn't really looked into progesterone that much. But are you using progesterone in your clinic at all?

Oh, yeah. In fact, I have a whole chapter on my book. And in my book and in my clinic, I say that if there was a fire in my house, I would grab my progesterone and my children, my husband can run for himself. It is known as the valium that bathes the female mind. It balances glucose. It's a natural diuretic. It is also one of the things that, you know, we just recently talked about testosterone being converted with the aromatase enzyme into estrogen. In men, progesterone actually can block that conversion. And if men have trouble sleeping, then progesterone helps sleep. People who wake up between two and four in the morning with their mind wide awake don't know why they woke up. It's often a progesterone deficiency. So, yeah, we test for all of your hormones. We optimize progesterone, we optimize testosterone, we optimize thyroid. We look at fasting insulin. Insulin is very, very inflammatory. So what's going on with that? We look at your cortisol levels, we look at ferritin. Ferritin is the molecule. It's a stored iron molecule, but it's the carrier of your thyroid hormone to the cells. So if you don't have optimal ferritin levels, then your thyroid isn't going to have the impact at the cellular level and you're not going to have the energy you could have on the reverse side. High ferritin can happen with fatty liver and things that are congestion in the liver. And so we need to clear out the liver if you. Ferritin is too high. So we try to leave no rock unturned.

What about men? How much do men benefit from progesterone?

We have a lot of men on progesterone, and it's one of the first things we, we implement if we find that their estrogens are high.

Okay, so that, so that would be. That would be the test. You would test for aromatization or high estrogen levels. And that would be a. That a man would benefit from progesterone.

Yep. And then we compare it with clinical. Do you have trouble sleeping? Are you waking up? Is your brain overactive? Also, progesterone stimulates the cells called osteoblasts that build bone Believe it or not, there are a lot of men who are having osteopenia and osteoblast now. Why? Because of the H2 blockers and the, all of the antacids, all of the Prilosec, all of the Zantac, all of those medications, they do a great job of blocking the acid from being produced, some of them for even 24 hours. And people take them every single solitary day. The problem is, is that most of the minerals that you need to rejuvenate and repair your bone ongoing need an acidic environment to be absorbed. So we're finding men that have osteoporosis.

Progesterone is something that I've seen for sale on Amazon. Like you can buy progesterone cream on Amazon. Is that something that's safe or something that you would recommend or is this, like many other hormones, something that needs to be to be administered under the supervision of a physician with ongoing testing?

I think it's a good, safe first step, but I don't think it's specific at all. You know, by definition the over the counter cream is going to have a. It's not a specific dose. If you took 10 pumps and you measured the amount in each, it's not going to be the same. So I like using a certified compounding pharmacy. Also, when you take progesterone by mouth, it's one of the very few hormones that is safe by mouth. It has the ability to affect your brain in a more positive way and so it helps your sleep, it helps your stress, it helps your peacefulness.

Interesting. I'm tempted, just based on what you're saying to just try progesterone based on its, it's rampant availability, like I mentioned, even on Amazon. But at the same time, these are hormones and I would want to be pretty careful. It seems like it is a little risky.

Well, and how do you know if you don't know where you started with a test and you implement what you're trying and then you test again to see whether it did anything? It is best to do under the care of a physician. Otherwise you're just doing a shotgun approach and you don't know if you're feeling better or worse because of that.

So another question that I wanted to ask you was about pulsed electromagnetic field therapy. There's a lot of PubMed research you can find on the effects of PEMF, particularly the effects on bone marrow stem cells and the upregulation of mobilization and also production of stem cells in human bone marrow. Is that something that you do in your clinic any type of PEMF therapy like PEMF mats or coils or anything like that?

We don't at this time. Have you heard of a rife therapy?

Yeah, as a matter of fact, I recently was looking into rife therapy because I was battling a bout of giardia and was actually just looking into all the different things that would work as an anti parasitic treatment, including some of these so called biohacks. And I came across microcurrent frequencies and then also rife machines as a complementary alternative therapy, not just for cancer, but also for parasitic infections. So I'm somewhat familiar with them. And from what I understand, to get a true rife machine based on the research from this guy, Royal Rife, who developed it, it's kind of difficult to find something that uses the same frequencies as he originally researched for cancer.

It is, and it's also, everybody says, well, this is the upgraded rife machine, but it's actually not. It's now using, you know, WI fi and things like that, which bring in a lot of frequency. And so it's not the original rife frequencies. These are the things that I am going to have in the clinics outside of the US As a, as a md, I'm at a specific and sensitive place to be implementing treatments and recommendations that aren't FDA approved. So these things are my passion. Dr. Barry Morgulin is another person that I follow and love his, his work in energy. He's actually an md. He was a gastroenterologist, you know, head of the department in California, UCLA. He's spent 25 years studying Chinese healing and the energy work and the quantum physics. Him and Joe Dispenza, all these people and you know, we actually pray for every patient. And I believe that's just all the same kind of stuff. It's this energy that you can't put on a prescription pad.

Yeah, Dr. Barry has actually been on my podcast before and I've gone down to his clinic for some of his pretty intensive energy treatments. And for everybody listening in, you should go listen to my podcast with Dr. Barry because he's a very interesting guy. And we actually did a two hour video interview when I went down there to his clinic. And his energy medicine is pretty intense stuff. He's a very, very cool guy. So he does powerful work. And I completely agree with, with your comments regarding prayer and emotions. As a matter of fact, that's how our family starts. Every single day, me and my boys and my wife gather around the little breakfast nook table we all do our gratitude journals. We all memorize one really powerful verse from scripture that's on the top of every day on our gratitude journals. We just memorize what's actually written in the. It's called the Christian Gratitude Journal. We memorize what's written in that for the day. And then we, we all hold hands and we say a prayer and everybody just prays for each other and anyone else that God has placed in our hearts. And it, it is. Well, let me put it this way. When we skip it or when I'm traveling, I just feel different the rest of the day. But when our family holds hands and prays at the beginning of the day, everybody's emotions are better. No matter whether I'm low on sleep or in a bad place emotionally, before we begin that practice, once we finish it up, my body just feels rejuvenated and positive. And it is, you know, for me, as crucial as my daily workout or my, my big ass morning smoothie or anything else like that. Like, I just feel amazing. So I, I'm really happy that you're, that you're focusing on that too, because it is really important.

And, and we ask patients if they want to pray with us, and some do, and, but you get prayed for by name no matter what. And we have a similar practice in our family. I love that you memorize a scripture. I may be borrowing that, but we, that's what we do as our evening meal. Grace is that we go around and we say our gratitudes and bless the meal toward the use of our bodies. So it's powerful. And there's actually research, Ben, there's research that shows that patients that were prayed for, whether they knew it or not, do better. There's a heart attack study years ago, and they measured how much medication these patients would ask for, pain medication. And the patients that were prayed for, regardless of whether they knew it or not, had a statistically significant lower dose requested of pain medication.

Yeah, prayer is pretty powerful. And you can actually, I mean, you can Even go to PubMed and do searches on prayer and find some pretty interesting medical studies on the healing power of not just people praying themselves, but also what's called intercessory prayer, like other people actually praying for them. And I realize that some secularists or atheists might say that positive emotions will elicit the same effect, and that may be true. But as someone who has a strong belief in a higher power myself, I think there's more going on than just positive emotions and protons. Like, I believe in the Fourth dimension. I believe in spirits. I believe in a God. And I think that there's, there's more to it than just positive emotions. Like, I, I think that you can actually, you can actually have yourself healed by the entity that created you and that other people can also act as intercessors on your behalf. So I realize it's controversial for a lot of people and even offensive to a lot of people, but it's, it's what I believe and I respect you for including that in your practice as well.

And, and we respect people that don't have that. We're just going to love on you. And so our mission statement is, is that we're going to do everything that we can to make your stem cell treatment as successful as possible using a holistic modality that you won't find anywhere else. And we may or may not be so successful in the stem cell outcome that we're treating. We may not be able to reverse your als. We may not be able to do that because statistically speaking, nobody is 100% successful 100% of the time yet. But we will bless your life.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think that is a perfect place to finish this interview. We went some places way beyond the FDA's regulation of STEM cells, which may have surprised some people listening in. But I will link to everything we talked about. Not only your book the Hormone Secret and your clinic, but also of course, US stem ology, where people can fill out a contact form to find out what they can do about what the FDA is currently doing regarding our stem cells. I'll include studies on pemf, on prayer, on testosterone, on other interviews like the one I mentioned with Dr. Barry, as well as the books by folks like Bruce Lipton and Dawson Church, research on the carotenoids and lung cancer. Everything that you heard about, I will include links to over in the show notes. So just go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com STEMcellUpdate BenGreenfieldFitness.com stemcellupdate and it's all there. And you can also, when you go over there, leave your questions, your thoughts, your feedback and Tammy or I will reply. So that all being said, oh, go ahead.

I'll also give you, I'll also give you updates as I come. You know, I'm a keynote speaker in October in Dubai at a regenerative conference and so I'm always getting more information and so I'll pass it all to you so you can update it onto the site as well.

As I learn yeah, absolutely. That's funny. I'll be in Dubai in November giving some talks over there, so.

Oh, we miss each other.

Following up. Right behind you. And also for those of you who are interested in the stem cell documentary and masterclass that Tammy is doing, as soon as that becomes available, even though there is no link or ability for you to sign up for it right now, as soon as that's available, I will also put a link to that in the show notes@bengreenfieldfitness.com stemcellupdate so if you visit that page again, probably in a few weeks, you'll find a link to that documentary and masterclass. So I think that's it. Tammy, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Oh, thank you so much. It was fun and I hope it blessed people's lives to get a little bit more aware of what they can do.

I'm sure that it will. And folks, thank you everybody for listening in. Until next time, I'm Ben Greenfield along with Dr. Tammy Moriglia signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com have a great week, spread the love and leave me your comments, your questions, your feedback over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com 401. Thanks for listening in. Have an amazing week. Well, thanks for listening to today's show. You can grab all the show notes, the resources, pretty much everything that I mentioned over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com along with plenty of other goodies from me, including the highly helpful Ben Recommends page, which is a list of pretty much everything that I've ever recommended for hormones, sleep digestion, fat loss, performance, and plenty more. Please also also know that all the links, all the promo codes that I mentioned during this and every episode help to make this podcast happen and to generate income that enables me to keep bringing you this content every single week. So when you listen in, be sure to use the links in the show notes, use the promo codes that I generate because that helps to float this thing and keep it coming to you each day and every week.