Interview: Dr Jeffrey Gross

This is episode 289 of the Empowered Team Podcast. Welcome to the Empowered Team Podcast where we explore how to optimize your performance in career, sport and life. And now your host, executive coach and life strategist, Kari Schneider. Welcome.

Welcome to the Empowered Team Podcast. I am here with Dr. Jeff Gross and I'm so excited to have you on for our listeners. I think this is going to be a fantastic topic. We will go into all of the wonderful things about longevity and stem cell possibility. But first I want to tell everyone a little bit more about you. You have a background in biochemistry, molecular and cellular biology. You've learned under award winning Nobel prize winning professors, and you have an extensive over 25 year career working in surgery, in neurology, in all sorts of things that you've studied in order to give yourself that experience in what you're interested in now, which is longevity and stem cells and how to help people, because that's what's aligned with your values. So before I butcher all your amazing accomplishments, please tell us a little bit more about yourself and how you got into stem cells and longevity.

Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here. I think the path is having practice traditional medicine, neurological surgery, spine surgery, treating patients with neck and back pain. I was seeking to find a new additional tool to help people with those problems and others and hopefully avoid surgery or push surgery off as a last resort, a further last resort. And I tap back into my own, you know, loves and desires for the basic science and my undergraduate training. And a lot had happened in, you know, over three decades since I went to undergraduate school. So I went back and there was so much at a blossom, I wanted to apply it to my own field. And that's really the drive for bringing stem cell biology, the modern stem cell biology, to the present medical field, which somewhat stagnates. I mean, not a lot happens in the development and medical fields in time it's very slow. So I'm hoping to help accelerate and bring these tools to the table.

So just in what you've said so far, my brain is exploding with questions and I'm very, very excited. So the first thing is I've heard that there's about a 15 year lag time between when research that is well founded comes out before it can actually get to the patient in the real, live, real time medical procedures. So would you say that that's accurate in stem cell or in the history of stem cell research as well?

Generally speaking, I think that's a good number. It may Be a little slower in things that have political and economic forces to slow them down, which is happening at least in North America on stem cell type endeavors, regenerative medicine in general.

So the, the other thing, so that's. Thank you for, for validating that. So it's not just a, a possibility or a belief floating in my head there. The other thing is that years ago I used to do research in a lab that was primarily back research. So I was researching alongside spine surgeons. So when that was happening at the time, sometimes we would work together, they might utilize my abilities and we'd share patients or I'd get patients passed over to me because I had a lot of rehabilitative experience at the time. But what would happen was the surgeons would typically only when they were receiving referrals, they would only operate on the patient about 50% of the time because the outcome of the surgery wasn't what the patients typically hope for. The patients typically hoped for surgery being the be all end all this is going to fix me. Repair, repair, cut, cut, please, like do the mechanical thing and make it go away because I'm in pain. And the surgeons knew, especially the really good surgeons who weren't super knife happy, they knew that. And this, this is the same with some surgeons I worked with in Turkey overseas with different professional level athletes. And these surgeons would typically default to no, I'm not going to operate on you depending on what the pathology was. Because they knew that the likelihood for the either movement, pain free movement, or just lessening the pain or whatever the patient was hoping for was so unlikely that they weren't willing to take that gamble. And so you're nodding your head. Some of some people are seeing this on video, some people are hearing it. And so you're nodding your head. Is that part of what prompted you to just go, okay, there's new things out there, there's different possibilities. Like what else is. Can we do besides surgery?

Yes. I could not agree with you more and that that was part of the driving force out of frustration watch frustration of my patients with my patients seeing them, watching them and wanting to try different things that are minimally or less invasive compared to a surgery. Who's right? The numbers for surgery are not fantastic. Depending on the surgery. Now, spine pain, neck and back pain is not a homogeneous, uniform problem. There are many different types of issues, but when you break it down, a lot of those issues are structural disc problem, a joint problem, a combination of those problems. And the surgical remedies make sense from an engineering perspective, but they don't always work or work fully from a pain reduction or function restoration perspective.

What a, what a great answer. I think, personally, just because you're pointing to so many other factors that come with the human body. The, the other stressors, the other, the other tissues. There's so much that get impacted. And I think of surgery as one of those things that it's a big shock to the body, never mind the mechanical work that's happening. So that's, that's a part of the issue too, here in Canada. You're in the US And I want to, I'm moving quickly so that we can get to some of these great questions that I know people will have. But here in Canada, I spoke with a spine surgeon friend and I don't want to pigeonhole this just to spine surgeries because I know there's so much more available to us here in this conversation. But I was speaking to a spine surgeon friend and this is about, I would say four years ago and I was aware of stem cell possibility. I was getting, I was, I had witnessed a presentation from Peter Diamantis and just different people who were really on the longevity research path. And I, and he was, my friend was at the end of his spine career and he said, I said, well, what about stem cells? Are these not going to be really changing your experience of surgery or options you can provide people? Because I'd done research in the lab with him years ago and we knew each other well. And he looked, he paused and he looked at me. He's like, you know, in my career, it's not going to be utilized. And he said, even if it is efficacious. And he said, I'm mostly operating on people in, who are throwing themselves off of a building for opioid crisis or they're in a car accident and it's these emergency patch people together kind of thing. And he's like, I wish it were going to be something that I could simply step into and utilize for people for their best lives. But I'm primarily offering, operating on these things. And the Canadian health care system really isn't interested in offering something that's more preventative, longevity based. It's, it's more of a kind of urgent patchwork system. So I know that I've just kind of laid a story in front of you there. What are your thoughts or responses or, or just what comes to you from, from that?

Well, let's start with. I, I don't want to make any pretense here that the American system is any better than the Canadian system these days. In fact, the vast majority of the American system is heavily institutionalized and they use cute words like manage care and really they're managing dollars, not, not health benefits. Right. So, you know, it used to be that my friends who worked in Washington and New York had Canadians that would come across the border for healthcare to America. Now I'm, now that's kind of stopped. It's no better in America. You're list, you're, you're getting, you know, this rationed healthcare, it's usually rationed by hassle. And the, the whole, the whole approach is that your, your health insurer would rather pay for surgery and be done with you and then pay for pain pills than it would be to pursue something more logical. Now, having said that, I'll probably, you'll probably find I was, I'll be buried in the desert tomorrow here in Nevada. But that, that's how it is. So you have to be your own advocate. You have to seek out what's best for you. You have to do your homework and don't, don't take one opinion as the only opinion and that, that includes mine. Don't only take my opinion as the only opinion. Ask questions. If you've heard about stem cells, you heard about this or that, and your doctor doesn't have that as an option, say thank you very much. I also want to get this, these questions answered over here and it's okay to do that and through. The one side benefit of COVID is we now do a lot of health care consultations remotely. We lose the all important physical examination through this method, but we can at least talk and share ideas. So I think at least to that part of your question, there's a lot that can be offered and you have to go off the beaten path and take the road less travel.

Well, first of all, I really love how you've pointed to people being their own advocates, advocating for their own health, making conscious choices between other pieces of advice. So asking the questions, following up, getting another piece, getting another opinion. And on that note, what, clearly this is something that you're excited about when it comes to stem cells, longevity. What are you most excited about when it comes to stem cells? What is this opening up for possibilities for people who have joint issues or they're in pain or whatever else is there. What's, what's exciting about this for you?

So if you allow, there's sort of two pieces to that. My two great excitements are one is what's, what's clinically applic now and the other is, you know, my, my scientific nerd research passions in this area. So for the, for the first part, you know, the low hanging fruit is, is structural inflammatory based pain. Whether it's a disc issue, joint issue or something like that. The low hanging fruit in regenerative medicine are these painful inflammatory, what we call osteoarthritis or, or some doctors will simpl a bone on bone condition where you wear down the cartilage or what we call the soft parts. Right. So we have really some great science that backs this up. But wearing down of joints is a bone problem. It is manifest in the cartilage of the joint, but it's a bone problem. The biology of the joint stems from the cells in the bone, the bone marrow, the growth plates which have stopped growing in an adult, but maintain a bank of these stem cells. And remember the bone created that joint, those stem cells created that joint in the first place when we were in the womb and as a young child. So what I like to do is help tap back into that factory production and help the very cells that made that joint in the first place become stimulated to not promote inflammation which degenerates the joint, but instead suppress the inflammation and in that suppression promote optimal cell function which produces the cartilage proteins to help reverse the wear and tear on that cartilage and restore the, the cartilage.

Okay, so not.

What's that? That's the, the, the first excitement. And that's what in my practice now instead of spine surgeries, I tried to apply not only to the spine, but to other joints. Knees, shoulders, hips, we've done ankles, all kinds of things by an injection procedure through regenerative medicine to stimulate these joints. And, and everything I tell you here is for educational purposes. Every individual has to be addressed precisely and in a custom way.

Excellent, excellent. Okay, so this is, this is so exciting because not only is it dealing with some of the inflammatory processes, it's also promoting more cellular growth and regeneration. Now for the geeky people who are.

Like.

What I'm wondering is when. And we will get to the second part that you are excited about. I want to just park that for a second. What I'm wondering about is, is harvesting stem cells because one of my friends about say five, six years ago, she, my children are older, she had her first couple children and here in Canada, when they cut the umbilical cord, they asked if they were going to save the umbilical cord for her baby, which my youngest child is 13. And when I had my Daughter, my last child, they didn't ask that. So in the time, in about an eight year span of time, they had gone from not harvesting stem cells to harvesting some stem cells, which I don't know if they still do, but that was for typically, from my understanding purposes of if the child ever had some sort of illness or disease that they could then utilize as stem cells to help later on. If that was the case. However, for the rest of us who are interested in being healthy, active, vibrant, and we have not harvested our own stem cells. What, what, what happens? What are you suggesting? Because I know there are some options out there, but what is your go to? Kind of like, what do you think is the best method for garnering stem cells?

Yeah. So let me help unpack a little that you're right. The traditional method and reason for, for harvesting your newborn's umbilical cord for a bank of stem cells is, you know, God forbid your child has leukemia and needs a complete bone marrow transplant, which most of your bone marrows, stem cells, particularly as a child can. The real question is, can you use those stem cells for other reasons down the line? And the answer is yes. The problem is it does cost to bank that umbilical cord. So you have to go through a service and bank it and that's fine. Can you use those cells for other family members? Yes, you can. Again, has to be banked and then you have to have the cells put in the petri dish and let them divide and create enough of them. But the more common source and what we use these days is off the shelf, regenerative biologics donated by screened and tested and willing mothers who are having C sections after they have their baby. Congratulations. Here's your newborn. Great job. Oh, by the way, we're going to throw all this stuff out, the placenta, the amniotic fluid, the umbilical cord, because it's for thousands of years, except in a few cultures where they eat it or bury it, it's trash. So instead of medical trash, it's now medical treasure. And from it we can harvest different forms of biologics, regenerative biologics, including stem cells. Stem cells is the buzzword, but there are other elements and they can be used and provided to others without any meaningful rejection because stem cells do not really trigger the immune system.

If I ask why, that's going to open up a whole new thing.

Yeah, It'll be brief. The why is these cells haven't differentiated into some type of individual, type of tissue cell. Right. The stem cells are Able to divide into different types so they don't demonstrate on their surface certain proteins of individuality. And like a liver.

Sorry, if, like a, if a liver were to be rejected because it's a liver now or something like that?

Yeah, it's not so much that it's a liver, but it's someone's individual liver. There's some individuality in that. And that's when you, you ever talk about matching? Right. So. And you have to have a match. So in this case, those stem cell and related biologics are immuno. Immuno privilege. They don't trigger that individuality. And some science, scientifically it's called immunomodulatory. They actually do fine. In a recipient of, who doesn't match, there can be sometimes a little brief reaction, maybe a slight fever or something, but we rarely even see that.

Wow. Wow. Okay, so this is really interesting. And is that the only place that, that stem cells are typically being harvested from? Where else are stem cells being harvested from?

The only other alternative would be from your own body and given back to you. And typically that comes from fat or bone marrow. And I don't know about you, but when I take my car for the oil change, I don't like to put the old oil back in. So I like the young, unadulterated stuff that hasn't been exposed to questionable elements in the water. Food behaviors, alcohol consumption, what have you for, for years and years. We want the fresh, perfect, unstressed, most potent anti inflammatory regenerative signal we can get.

And, and that just to understand the value chain overall, is that something that someone's paying for? So, so you have to purchase this from some sort of harvesting entity or a company that harvests, if you will. Okay, Right, right.

We, we buy these from ironically, FDA certified and approved labs following the best practices out there, who screen each sample and we, we get them fresh on dry ice and I have a special freezer and we store them here for that purpose.

But then the FDA isn't fully on board with stem cell injections. Is that, is that the next.

Well, let's, let's, let's look at that very carefully because there's a lot of mythology surrounding that the FDA has jurisdiction over these things as to what claims can be made when they determine it's reached a certain scientific potential. So that has got subjectivity built into it. And there are lots of pressures. Right, and governmental, political, financial, economic. But the FDA doesn't tell doctors what they do or not do. And you hear this word Approved. Is this FDA approved? What that means is it's approved for claims before it's approved. Doesn't mean it's unapproved or disapproved. Yeah, it's, they're neutral. They haven't yet decided.

Yeah.

So you know, you hear I, I have trolls on the Internet who will go to our tick tock or our social media and say, oh, that's illegal when we talk about these things, just like I'm talking about them here. And that's not illegal. Yeah, it, it would be improper for me to make any claims under the FDA classification here that we can cure or treat anything, but doctors can never guarantee that they cure or treat anything anyway, so the whole thing is sort of questionable. Anyway, sorry for that diatribe.

No, it's, it's, it's very, it's very understandable. And, and I, I appreciate that, that openness and transparency because it's one of these things that when anything is new, even if it's been validated in research, there's still this, this span of time and, and I've been watching or just trying to read or learn or talk to people about stem CE quite some time and it's still just, you know, and I anticipate it might take another five to 10 years for it to be this commonplace conversation as, as one of the lists, a list of things that are available to people. And at this point, you know, you're, you're talking about scenarios in joints especially that as people are getting older, it's just common wear and tear. You've got common wear and tear. Most of the people that I know are active humans, they've done a lot of things. By the time they're over 40 years old, not only do they not have that elasticity, they've also worn down some joints a fair bit. And then it's, it's the oh, do you go in and do the scope and get the cleanup scope kind of thing. But then what? Same thing again in another five years or, or same. Because it's just continuing to wear down. So, and then people want to have some, some chondroitin and some take some supplements which from an efficacy standpoint it's if, if it works for someone, it's a very, very long and consistent consumption in order to get the tiniest little wee change in, in any sort of car because it's like it's cartilage just doesn't grow on trees like, like sharks. So, so those, though this becomes such a viable possibility and so do you Want to say anything more about, about this as an option, or do you want to go to the second thing you're really excited about?

I think it's important to know that we have some, you know, case by case, great results. Not again. The FDA will not approve me saying anything more than that. But we have, we have cases where we've done an MRI seven or eight months later and seen return of cartilage measurement in the knee. We're doing this in other areas of the body, and with that improved pain and improved function. So we'd love to help people avoid or delay the need for joint replacement. We can't fix everything. There's always a role for surgery, of course, but if we can insert a new tool that's minimally invasive through an injection and get results to push off these more traditional, older, somewhat significant surgeries, then I think we're doing the right thing.

I love that standpoint because it speaks to an open mind of what might be the best scenario for this particular situation. So without, without having to put you on the spot too much, do you have favorite joints to, to recommend stem cell because they tend to have the most success. What joints? Or is it very individual? What do you think has the most success at this point for your experience?

Well, everything is individualized, but across the board, I think the knees do the best. And I think the reason for that is it has the longest research behind it. It's most commonly involved joint. So we have, we have a lot there to look at. And it has a really good surface area. It's more of a flat facing joint for most of it, as opposed to a ball and socket joint like the shoulder or hips. My shoulder and hip patients tend to take a few more months to derive benefits. We have knee patients who derive them earlier, generally speaking.

And when you're talking about deriving benefits, are you talking about multiple treatments? So maybe what, what is the, or is it one injection? What does it look like for a patient? And let me give you an example, by the way. Okay, you've got a 50 year old female. I don't know who this would be, but a 50 year old female, two crush discs, L4, L5, L5S1 has had bilateral nerve damage down both legs, restored and rehabbed that by themselves because they had the information or know how. But it's not an operable situation because both the discs are just, you know, crushed down. There's no protrusion, there's no, there's nothing really visible to remove on the mri. So in a Scenario like that. Just. And clearly you are not giving medical advice. This is not a give medical advice situation. Just hypothetically, what would you. What would you think would be an option from a stem cell, or would there be an option from a stem cell option?

We would evaluate this mythical person for that option, right?

Yeah.

We would start with a very specific MRI. We would get that MRI from what's called a 3 Tesla machine. And for those in the audience who don't know, that's the highest quality strength of the magnetic field, which gives us the best resolution of the images. It's like buying a new television. You'd want the 4K Ultra HD. This is the MRI version of that. And there's a great variety in mri. So this is the highest end mri, but we would also ask for a sequence which is an extra little bell and whistle on the MRI called an inversion recovery sequence. And this is usually not part of a standard joint mri. It can be part of a standard spine MRI in some places of high quality. But, you know, MRI centers like to move you quickly through the. Through the thing because you're in there, it's loud and they want to get more people on and off the machine. So if we get a good MRI by those definitions, we would look for changes in the bone marrow, and those changes represent a replacement of the healthy marrow, which contains many stem cells with fat tissue. It's called a fatty bone marrow replacement. Those would be our treatment targets in the vertebral bones surrounding this person's L4.5 disc and L5S1 disc. Based on correlating that with the symptoms, we would see if there are some injection targets to help reactivate some of the stem cell activity that support the health of the cartilaginous discs.

And so would. Would potentially those discs just gain greater. They're just not as flattened and squished like they have become.

Let's say that's the goal. Yes.

Potentially. Yeah.

We see that in our other joints. We have treated a number of spines and have a variety of results. Our longest patients are about a year and a half at this point. So we're still tracking that data. And we don't do MRIs routinely afterwards, especially if someone's feeling good. And there's no reason to do an MRI. Most of the MRIs we do after the fact are out of curiosity.

Which points to something else which intrigues me because I have a research background, is that you're talking about the tracking, you're talking about the following. It's the. Well, what's happening here. What more can we learn from this? How can we, how can we gain more information and then maybe make some more discoveries along the way? Is that some of how you think on this?

It is. And, and we're involved in writing some protocols for, for an actual scientific study. The problem is the best studies require a placebo arm and nobody wants to be the placebo in this case. So it's hard to write this study to get the kind of data that would get the attention of the FDA in a good way, because some group of patients are going to have to be that placebo. And I think the only way to, to do that study would be to offer the, the people who eventually find out their placebo receivers a subsequent treatment just to reward them. I don't know if there's an implied bias in that. And this requires a lot of thought. So working on that with some people and it's not easy.

Yeah, yeah. And it's, it's not like it's easy to make it a, a large sample size either because again, because of those placebos and, and getting different, different joints, different people, different groups of knees, groups of whatever. It's. Yeah, there's a, there's a lot there. Okay, so out of curiosity again, because I love this, this topic here, what have you decided to, what areas have you injected and what have you, you experienced so far?

Me personally, on myself.

Yeah.

Okay. So I've had, I, we talked about anti aging at the very beginning. We really didn't get into it.

But is this the second topic, anti aging?

No, it's not.

Oh. Oh, okay.

Okay.

We got more to do.

This is good.

Keep going, keep going.

I'll, I'll be brief and then if, if you're, if your audience would love to expand on one of these topics, of course I'll make myself available. But the anti aging is really applying this anti inflammatory treatment to the whole body and to all your cells. And we do that mostly through intravenous IV treatments. So I do that every few months. We have people that come in for that. It's very common. It's very similar to people who go down to Panama or out of the country for IV stem cells. Right. We do that here. So I've done that. I've also had injections in my scalp because I was starting to get some thinning hair. And I'm trying to show your audience, but it's doing pretty good. I've had four times in the scalp. That's what I've had personally. But we here in the office for people we do. Well, besides the joints, which we do at a local injection center, we have cosmetic implications where we can micro inject the skin of the face and the neck. We have, we've done breathing treatments for people with long Covid and trouble breathing and chronic bronchitis. I mentioned the scalp. We've done also P shots and O shots which are for male and female sexual activity enhancement, things like that.

That's amazing. So this really expands from it. It's not just decreasing pain, but it's really enhancing the overall longevity, the youthfulness, the, the feel good of what people are experiencing as their tissues are aging or as the toxins in their body from life and what's happened in their lives has built up. So it's, it just is giving those cells that may not be as efficient or effective as they once were. That possibility of reducing the inflammation and increasing the cellular function. Would that be a really generalized way of applying that?

No, you, you've got it perfectly. You know, listen, we throw out the word inflammation all the time. And you know, it really speaks to your, your cells are on fire. And they're on fire because they're defending against their environment. What they're exposed to electromagnetic fields and pesticides in our food source and whatever. It's just. And it accumulates and how fast and how much you accumulate determines how rapid you age. And that's why you can look at two 80 year olds and one looks maybe 65 and one looks 100.

Yeah, yeah. And it's, it's. I'm very sensitive to this right now because it's been about a year of, of putting a graves illness, so an autoimmune illness into remission. I think I'm very close to being able to say that I'm putting it into remission, but it's that it's not that inflammation is so terrible in and of itself. It has a role, but it's when there's so much of it in so many areas or when there's one area when it's just constantly inflamed in certain areas as well. And I know that for myself. I watched myself age so fast while my whole body was in this high immune, high inflamed state that was so foreign to me because I've always been, you know, the healthiest person people know and whatnot. So it's very, it's very interesting to me to see what my body is going through as it got sick, as I was very sick, as it, as I've been Healing and to just become more aware of how many things are at play. That it's not just one thing, it's not just one contributor. There's so many things. It's not just about age or, you know, past traumas or viral load or toxins. It's like you pull all those together and what's going to happen, who knows? Depends on the timing, the magical mix and, and all of that. So it's very, very interesting to hear what their, what supports and what options there are to help our bodies heal and do what it does. Our bodies know how to heal if they are given the chance. And this is supporting the cells. Is that you're nodding. So I'm thinking I'm on the right track here.

No, no, I mean, you listen, you didn't need me on. In this whole education. It's exactly right. This is all about hopefully returning the cell towards a state of optimal function. We call that cellular metabolism. Optimal cellular metabolism as opposed to being stuck in this defense mode which is called inflammation.

Wonderful. I love this. And of course I've been doing deep dives into my own things. So this is, is, this is now going okay. I, I think I need to explore more, more stem cell treatment. So on that note, I just out of curiosity, we're. I'm in Canada right now. I have lots of friends in the States, lots of friends in different parts of the world. But I do know some people who would go down to Mexico to get stem cells treatments. I also have heard from friends who have gotten stem cell treatments who warn against some and advocate for others because there are different qualities or different methodologies. What would you say to that? Not only price point, but also quality or technique. What, what? Because it's the wild, wild west in terms of lots of people trying things out. What, what's out there?

Well, there's a, you know, there's a lot and, and unfortunately I don't know a ton about the different, you know, Mexican or Central American treatments or suppliers. You know, they're, they have many good results as well. However, they, they don't. They're not beholden to the FDA or the, the similar authority in Canada. So I just don't know. I can tell you there are, there are quite a few regenerative medicine professionals in the United States. We, we don't advertise well on the Internet because we don't want to run a foul of the fda. And also we can't run Google Ads or Facebook ads. Those companies certainly are not a, a free speech way to go. So we can't do any ads. So it's hard to get the word out that there are places in North America. I imagine there are in Canada as well. I have colleagues throughout the nation and we do talk and we do have national meetings and in the regenerative medicine space. So you just don't hear about us so much. So it's hard back to sort of the meat of your question. It's hard to know what's, what's going out there. Are you getting cells from a neonate? How healthy was the mother when she carried the neonate? How did they track it? How did they screen the samples? Are the cells fresh? Are they manipulated and changed in some way? Are they allowed to divide in a cell culture? How many divisions do they allow? Because for those of you that remember the movie Multiplicity with Michael Keaton, a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy, every time you make a copy, the chance of inserting error or change is there. So these are really good questions you should ask the clinic or the regenerative medicine doctor where you are. That's what you want to know. Those elements.

Yeah, yeah. And though it's, it's really important that because most people are used to going on the Internet and trying to figure things out themselves or then it becomes a. Here through a friend. And the, the thing that popped in my mind while you were describing this was that would. So back before stem cells were out there was pro pro therapy or plp. Platelet rich. Yes, Injections. Platelet rich, plasma that had been pulled out, done some, you know, refining and then re injected in to help stimulate the cells and, and the healing of the Achilles of the whatever the area was typically in an area that was in the midst of healing or, or needed a little boost in getting back into that healing cycle. Would places that were kind of on that early track of something like that, would they be often doing stem cell treatments as well? Or am I just being way too speculative here?

No, some. Some do. Those were people that were on the cusp of the cutting edge at that time. Right. Prolotherapy became prp. And PRP is sort of the first line of regenerative medicine and contains many of the same growth factors and cell signaling molecules that stem cells have and other biologics. So generally those are the right minded docs.

Gotcha. Okay. And then I don't want to forget, but you had said there was a second area that you're really excited about. What, what, what's that?

Make it brief. Yeah, I'll make it brief. So. So we really didn't get too far into this, but there are small particles that are given off by cells, and they communicate with other cells. And they're called extracellular vesicles for short. We call them exosomes. And when you take exosomes from stem cells, you can get some benefits that stem cells may not have. And it turns out that stem cells only last in your system perhaps 10 to 14 days anyway. And really, they are the delivery mechanism for these exosomes. The exosomes are taken up by your own cells, including your own stem cells. That's the reactivation mechanism. You can cut out the middleman and cut out the stem cells and go right to the exosomes, which you can get in a more concentrated way for less cost, actually. It comes usually from filtered amniotic fluid and umbilical cord fluids and jellies, and it comes from the same donation process, and it travels better in the body. They're easier to handle and store. It'll travel across the blood brain barrier if you get an iv, which stem cells generally don't. So if you're trying to deal with recovering from a stroke or want to deal with an inflammatory burden of Ms. Or something like that, you really have to consider the exosomes as. As a more effective means of regenerative travel there. But I'm finally getting to the answer to the question is I'm excited about designer exosomes. Now, those aren't currently available here in the US but there are exosomes that are worked on in China that can deliver more mitochondria to someone with sarcopenia. Sarcopenia might be considered a muscle wasting. You know, elderly people in nursing homes tend to get wasting, or people with chronic disease tend to get wasting. And as you probably know, muscle mass is correlated with longevity, so this could help maintain muscle mass. So there are other types of designer exosomes, those that might help the immune system with dealing with, you know, preventing cancer or even treating cancer. So these are coming. I'm very excited about them, and I got my hands in learning and trying to have access to some of these things, but that'll be slower to come here in US because that is a manipulated, potentially manipulated tissue, and we're not allowed to use manipulated tissue.

It's. It's really interesting how, you know, Covid changed a lot of the rules around what was able to be used and not used and how fast things progressed in certain ways, and who knows where. Where things will go and if the prices will go down, especially with how much A is being used in the medical field. Can I just get. I'm, I'm in the process right now, and I haven't announced this publicly yet, but in the process right now of co authoring a book on ethics and leadership in AI, and there's lots of usage in AI in the medical field for quite some time. Most people don't realize, even though more people are becoming aware of AI right now. It's just, I know that this is a whole other ball of wax, but if you had a couple sentences to say on your opinion on where AI may be, maybe in the mix for stem cells or, or the things that you're interested in, in longevity or stem cell work.

Yeah. I mean, listen, AI is a pattern recognition tool. It's not a replacement for making a good and ethical decision about how to, how to do anything, including give advice in medicine. But it can help us more efficiently look at bodies of research and patterns of symptoms and help sort out what that could be from a list of most probable down to least probable, which as you know, is called a differential diagnosis list. So I, I think that there is a role for that and it also helps us look at a lot of data. Right. You know, molecular data. We now talk about the individuality of our own, not only genetics, but what we call secretomes. You know, what's in our bloodstream, what particles are there, what molecules are they making, which means which genes are more active. I mean, as we have access to this data and can measure it, then AI will help the sort out what the problem is that makes that secretome. So I think AI is going to be helpful because sometimes a single human brain can't take in and memorize all that data and quickly put it together.

Yeah. And, and the one, the context that I'm more familiar, not super familiar, but in, in cases like lung films or radiology film charts, where it's easier for the AI to scan than it is for human eye, or it's just easier to find what needs to be seen than it is for, for humans. So, and that's been utilized for quite some time, but most people just aren't aware that the AI is already helping them or helping the system in those ways. Okay, so before we, before we wrap up here, if I, if I'm a, I'm 50, but let's say I'm anywhere between. I've got kids who are 13 to 23 years old, I've got friends who are, you know, in their 30s to their 60s, family members who are older. When, when should people start to go, okay, I'm gonna either save some money for this or I'm going to endeavor to find the right place. When is this all ages thing? Is this, you know, start when you're 40 thing? Like what, what do you think?

Yeah, I mean, listen, for, for the joints. It's on a problem basis, right? You have a problem. We, we start to look at it. We have younger people who are athletes who we address. You know, we have some professional athletes we look at. We also have weekend warriors. And, and we have people who are in their 80s who come in who have just osteoarthritis, aches and pains, autoimmune, and they want to feel better and have a better quality of life in their later years. So, so it just depends on the person. We, we also have a group of biohackers that love to come in here, and I'm probably one of them and come in here periodically. They fly in to get an iv. Just preventative, just to, you know, optimize their functioning. We have a lot of, you know, CEOs, entrepreneurs who, who think out of the box in the business sense, but are smart enough to think out of the box on the health sense too. In the preventive.

Yeah, you're going to see my, my husband and I show up on your doorstep here. And then what about cost, roughly? I mean, what are the ranges that people are looking at in different parts of the US or, or in your, in your practice? What are people looking at?

Yeah, it's highly variable. I can tell you in US dollars. You know, our entry level exosome IV is, is under $4,000 for, for me to treat a joint. Let's take a bad knee. Who need. It's usually two doses of exosomes, one above and one below the meniscus at the surgery center, all inclusive. With the anesthesiologist, you're looking at just under 10,000 for something like that.

And are you looking at. Are you. Are. Is there anyone that, that is still harvesting their own or do you really. Are you always going for the, the new umbilical or some people. Because I've heard it's a pretty painful process to harvest your own stem cells.

Well, yeah, it is, but it's also painful to do the bone injection to put them in. That's why we sedate people. I, I could potentially do a harvest. I, I haven't. It just doesn't make sense to me. It doesn't make any sense to me to take my 58 year old stem cells and back in and expect a 12 year old.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. You want the younger stuff. Okay. And anything else that you want to share with people before we wrap up just in, you know, this is clearly something that you're very aligned with, with your values, your experience, clearly passionate about it. Is there anything else you want to share with anyone? Advice that you would say or. There's one thing that you said, and I love this, it was that knowledge isn't power. Instead, executing on knowledge is the real power. I love that. Is there anything else that you want to share with our listeners?

Thank you. Don't give up if you have three opinions that all tell you the same thing and you know in your heart and you've read on the Internet, there might be another option. Keep looking to get someone who can least answer those questions. For example, if, if, if I took the, this back problem this mythical creature has that you spoke of, and we went and saw, you know, my professors, all of them in neurosurgery throughout the land, most of them would offer a fusion surgery because that's all they have left. You'd have to find someone who has opened their mind and trained and read and researched on all the new techniques. So just because 99 guys said it one way doesn't mean the one guy might not be the right answer for you.

I, I love that you've said that. And I'm just gonna give people a close the loop on that little thing is that when I saw my MRI and I've, I've had back issues for years with this hypothetical human and when I saw the hypothetical humans MRI and saw those narrowed spaces between the, the vertebrae, that's the moment that I had grace for. Oh my gosh. This body has just, it's raced, it's run, it's lifted, it's Olympic lifted, it's done so much. And, and then that's when the orthopedic surgeon said, you can't be running anymore. You'll never run again. This isn't something you should ever do. And that's when I smiled and I left and I said, you don't know what I know. You're in an operating room. And I've, I've seen and rehabbed and seen things that the body can do hundreds of times that most people haven't. And, and that's when I walked away and for the next two years got my body back to being able to run at the time. And this is a couple years ago. So thank you. And so I, I love that you've said, don't give up. There is, there is another way. The body is a magnificent, magnificent thing. And, and that's for me, what's enabled me to keep serving the brain and think strategically. And I really think that the body doesn't lie. And if we can just connect this and this, we've got a really amazing. I'm pointing to my head, my brain and my heart and the body and got your head, your heart and your body. You put all those together. We've got incredible humans who can serve other humans and advocate for ourselves and each other. So I just want to say thank you so much for sharing your wisdom, your expertise, your opinions, your knowledge. You are working on a book called Get Young Again. When, when can we expect that? When can we look for it?

Gosh, that sounds like a deadline.

I know. I was like, no pressure.

I've got at least 60% of it done. But the problem is there's so many new things that come out every day and I want to go back and add that. I need to at some point just turn off the faucet, call it, you know, first edition and let it get out. But let's hope, let's hope by the end of the year that and, and I'm working on a course that goes along with it so. Because these days, you know, not everyone like loves a book. But there'll be a lot coming and it'll be a how to guide on anti aging that explains it, gives you a little biochemistry along the way.

I love that. Count us in. If there's any way we can support you, please let us know. We'll get another link from you to put in the show notes that has your website. People can also reach you. I think it's Instagram @re celebrate. Is that right?

Re celebrate? Because we're, we're celebrating your stimulating your cells renewal.

Oh, it's so good. It's R E C E L L E B R A T E for re celebrate. It's so great. Thank you so much, Dr. Jeff Gross. We appreciate you and this has been just so much fun and fantastic.

Thank you so much.

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