Sandra Kaufmann discusses Cellbex, an FDA-approved drug in Japan, which she says upregulates heat shock proteins and may mimic sauna benefits including protection against Alzheimer's. She also covers hydralazine, an anti-inflammatory that may reduce advanced glycation end products, sharing her personal dosing history from 5 mg to 100 mg.
Questions this video answers
The guest says Cellbex has been FDA-approved in Japan for drug-induced gastritis.
She reports starting at 5 milligrams and experiencing blood pressure of about 60/40.
She reports building tolerance and taking up to 100 milligrams with no apparent blood-pressure effect.
Chapters
So your sauna in a suitcase, you can't pack your sauna in a suitcase. You get to a hotel or you're traveling and you want to get the benefits of, let's say, you know, the heat shock proteins and you know, the things that sauna does for you. What's your drug of choice?
Oh, so this is a great one. I love this one. So this is a drug called Cellbex S E L B E X and it's been FDA approved in Japan for drug induced gastritis.
And oddly enough it up, it upregulates heat shock proteins and that's pretty much all it does. So it's, it's really remarkable because there have been some studies in early Alzheimer's demonstrating that if you are on Celvax, you just do significantly better. Because Alzheimer's is a disease of misfolding of proteins and if you can refold them, are you just going to do significantly better? Um, therefore, on top of not getting drug induced gastritis from all the drugs that I'm on, I am readily upregulating all of my heat shock proteins.
Oh, so so these other drug. Well explain what drug induced gastritis is because you make a good point. If you're using all these things, there might be effects on your gastrointestinal system that you want to avoid.
No, Correct. So anyone that takes a variety of medications knows that sometimes people say, oh, it just doesn't sit in my stomach. Well, right, because it does, it goes to a stomach, sits on the lining where it has to just sort of have these drugs absorbed and sometimes that causes a bit of inflammation which we call gastritis. Right. Because it's in the gastric area and that just can be extremely annoying. You know, people perceive it as heartburn, abdominal pain, et cetera. So this drug is specifically for drug induced gastritis, which I find horribly ironic. Right. So I get to pop it into my pill stack and it helps me in two regards.
So is, is the mechanism of action by which it would inhibit gastritis based on the actual production of heat shock proteins or is that just kind of a bonus side effect that gives you the, the sauna without a sauna?
It's the same effect based in two different tissues. So but heat shock protein is going to help with protein creation and proteostasis which is basically getting destroyed by, by the inflammatory process of drugs sitting in your stomach. So it's the same process in a different organ system.
So when you see these studies out of Finland that show that regular use of a sauna four to five times a week results in, particularly in men who are studied there, a remarkable decrease in risk of dementia and Alzheimer's. Is that via this same heat shock protein like effect that Celbex is simulating?
Absolutely, absolutely. Because Alzheimer's is, as I said, it's a protein misfolding disease. That's what amyloid is. And if you can refold these proteins, then you don't get as much cell dysfunction and therefore the dementia is less pronounced or even reversed.
So if you had a high genetic risk for something like Alzheimer's or dementia, maybe you didn't have access to a sauna, you couldn't afford a sauna, you're traveling and can't use a sauna, or you're even intolerant to asana, maybe you're claustrophobic or you freak out or you can't stand the heat or whatever. Cellbacks could be a good choice.
Oh, it absolutely is. And there are zero side effects. Zero side effects. It is an incredible medication and I would, I would even say use it in addition to the sauna because there's no ramification of over upregulating your heat shock proteins.
Have you ever used it? And because of the upregulation of these heat shock proteins, found that a sauna becomes more intense or uncomfortable or does it not cause anything like that?
No, you would never know because it's not affecting the temperature of your body at all. Obviously, heat shock proteins are being upregulated because you are in an area that is hot. Right. By definition, that's what happens. Why does that happen? Because if you think about the molecular basis of proteins, when you heat them up, they lose their three dimensional structure. Right. They fall apart and then a chaperone has to come and put the molecule back together so that the protein does what it's supposed to do. But it's based on the stress of temperature. Right. Celbex isn't based on the stress of temperature. There's no temperature elevation whatsoever. It just upregulates the chaperones. So you're not going to see any interaction between the two systems physically. You're only going to see it on a molecular basis.
And arguably, if you had upregulated heat shock protein density due to cell use, you would be able to withstand heat a little bit better. Like if your friends had challenged you to see who can last the longest time in a sweat lodge, that might be your illegal performance enhancing drug of choice.
I don't know if that's true. Feel free to Try it. Because I don't think that you proceed.
At your own risk.
I, I don't know, I don't think you can perceive that your proteins are unfolding.
Well, I, I was more referring to the fact that I, I believe one, one effect of higher number of heat shock proteins would be increased ability to be able to withstand temperature stress.
I don't know why people get up and leave the sauna. Is it dehydration? Is it electrolyte deficiency? Is it just an elevated temperature that's causing an inflammatory process? I actually don't know what causes people to get up and leave. I don't think that you can actually physically sense your proteins unfolding because that would be pretty damn impressive.
Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. You don't have to have some Jedi skills.
I mean do it, you know, an IV and be hydrated, drink a lot of electrolytes, take an anti inflammatory and then I bet you can do it.
Yeah, yeah, I, I bet. One of the reasons people get out of the sauna is very similar to the so called central governor mechanism that causes people in say an ironman triathlon or a marathon to bonk. Even when adequate carbohydrates are present, the body kind of, or the brain kind of shuts down the body because it perceives stress that could in some way become pretty deleterious. Right. Like you've been going for eight hours now, you better just stop and you get central nervous system fatigue due to that. Central governor Tim Noakes I think has done some writing on this. So I think probably that's one of the reasons people tap out in the sauna. But anyway, so, so cell backs. That's an interesting one. You just mentioned inflammation. I know there's a lot of anti inflammatories out there. There's also a lot of protocols that people do to lower inflammation such as cold therapy or red light therapy or something like that. What would you say from a recovery or an anti inflammatory or even like a, an oxidative stress reduction type type of strategy would be pharmaceutical?
Ooh, that's a good question. So the best one is going to be one that no one's ever going to take.
Well, I take it. So hydralazine.
Hydrolazine.
Okay, you're going to love this one. So hydralazine is a medication that people would give you if you walked into the emergency room with very elevated blood pressure.
Okay. So it is an arterial vasodilator. So basically it will emergently drop your blood pressure.
Therefore it takes A while to build up into your system to actually be able to take it safely. A lot of people are.
So are we talking about like more powerful than something like Viagra or sildenafil?
So that is a completely different drug class and we can get to those. But the interesting thing about hydralazine is the hydrazine molecule aspect of it. And the reason I take it is several fold. So, number one, it is a very potent free radical scavenger in terms of free radicalized oxygen, but it is also one of the most potent reactive nitrogen scavengers. And by blocking those pathways, you're going to block basically a lot of the inflammatory processes. So that's kind of really cool. The other thing the hydralazine or the hydrazine molecule does, it's one of the most powerful transglycosylating agents. So if you eat glucose, and I'm sure you don't, but I'm a junk food junkie, when you eat glucose, it is attracted to very specific amino acids and nucleic acids. And when it sits on becomes something called an age, which is an advanced glycation end product. So the glucose sits there and it's like six non enzymatic steps. The first three are reversible and the last three are not. And the idea is, during the period that it's reversible, if you put a molecule that's more attractive to the glucose, it'll jump ship. And then you just rescued your tissues. So the hydrazine molecule is extremely attractive to glucose molecule, so it falls under the transglycosylating sort of category. And it's been demonstrated that if you take hydralazine and you load up with glucose, the hydralazine molecule bonds to the glucose and you can trace it out of your, out of your urine. And you just sort of, you know, avoided a whole glucose load.
So why'd you say nobody's ever going to take it?
Because it takes a long time to build a tolerance up without killing your blood pressure.
Oh, so you're going to get dizzy, you're going to get all the things that would happen if you kind of open up the fire hoses too much.
So it's a bit like being able to build up toxins in your body, sort of. So when I first started, I took 5 milligrams and thought I was going to die. My blood pressure was 60 over 40 and I thought, oh, this is the dumbest.
Oh my gosh.
So then I went down to two and a half milligrams built up and over the course of three years. I can now take 100 milligrams with no effect.
Wow.
So when I down 100 milligrams of hydrolysine, I take it now with meals.
It's a fantastic transglycosylating agent and reduces inflammatory processes.
You would take it with any meal that contains an appreciable amount of glucose.
Yep.
Okay, interesting. Is there, is there a, like a brand name for hydralazine?
It's an. That's the generic name. It is so old and so dirt cheap. I'm sure there are a million names for it.
Okay, okay, got it. So that's super interesting because a lot of people talk about the buildup of advanced glycation end products or ages as a primary contributor to the aging process to skin, hair, nail degradation, et cetera. And this is something that could potentially, especially for someone eating glucose and carbohydrates, put the brakes up.
Oh, 100%. In fact, I have a six to seven step methodology for blocking the effects of glucose hit.
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