148. Christian Drapeau | Cracking the Stem Cell Code

Hello, Book Thinkers family, and welcome to our personal development podcast, Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books. During each episode, we interview one of the world's top authors, and as a listener, you can expect to discover new books, new mentors, and new resources that you can use to achieve more and live better. In today's episode, we have the pleasure to interview Cristian Droppo, author of Cracking the Stem Cell Code. Cristian is a leading stem cell scientist, botanical researcher, author, entrepreneur, and CEO of his company StemRegen. You may have heard the term stem cell before, but are unsure of exactly what they are and what they do. In a lot of ways, they seem like magic. Well, today Cristian opens up the veil on all the secrets behind them. In this episode, you'll learn about how stem cells actually work, what they are, how you have the power to heal almost any ailment through them, the science behind stem cells, and how to unlock your healing no matter what your age is. This is an incredible episode and we do a deep dive into a bunch of cool research around stem cells and much more. I'm so excited to share this one with you because I know it will change your life. Now get ready to learn and enjoy this incredible conversation with Christian Droppo. Christian, welcome to the Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books Podcast. We are so excited to get to know you. Talk about your books and nerd out about stem cells. But before we get into it, I'd love to go back and ask why you decided to spend time at an ashram, which is a monastery, if I'm not mistaken, in the French Alps.

Wow! Why did I decide to do this? Well, I'll try to keep that short. But in essence, my background is brain research. So I'm in my maybe 19, 20, maybe 21, and I'm doing research on memory and epilepsy at the Montreal Neural Institute. So I'm essentially using electrodes to record electrical activity in living brain or brain slices in both humans and animals. And while I'm looking and studying for this sort of a substrate of memory in the brain, at the same time, I'm developing a deep interest in Hinduism, Buddhism, and all of this. And becomes this conviction, beyond conviction, like the understanding that this is a reality of life. Reincarnation is a thing. You know, you've had past lives, you will have more. It's just a reality of life. So if your brain completely gets eaten up by worms, but in a next life you remember your past life, that means memory is not in the brain. So I started to really come across like very deep contradiction between what my beliefs were becoming and what I was doing. Observations in the scientific world with some hypotheses or theories that were expressed by some of my professors. And I would come back and I would question them because in the view of this 19, 20-year-old, the truth is the truth. So your professor may have a big title, it doesn't matter, the truth is the truth. So I crossed some lines here by basically telling professors, your theory is nonsense because of this and this and this piece of information in the literature. And one day, the dean, in a very kind voice, he was a very sweet man, the dean called me in his office and he says, Christian, you should just wait before you have your PhD to express your opinions. And the 20-year-old, it just killed the scientist. And it was just, I was a purist. For me, a title just meant nothing. The truth is the truth. So, I took all my PhD, turned it around, wrote a master's, with it. And, uh, and I went to live in a monastery where I, I guess I find more of what I was looking for, uh, searching the mind.

That's so fascinating. Did you grow up with a spiritual background at all? Did you go, go to churches? Did you go to— like, how did you get into the spirituality? Or is it just through this studying of the mind?

It's not, not the kind of questions that I normally get in the field of stem cell research, but, but it's fascinating. I did not grow up in a family that was religious at all. I remember being maybe 7, 8, 9, 10 and going myself Sunday morning at church without my parents just because it was something that was attracting me all my life. I was a very shy young boy. I really did not have a lot of friends. So my friends, I can tell you, until fairly late, until my early teens, was Jesus. So He was my friend. So it's almost like how I grew up. But very early on, this thing was in me, if you want. Well, if there's only one God, then how can you say Jesus is better than the Buddha? Or those things like very quickly did not make sense. So I very, very early on, I would say maybe 14, 15, just trying to dig a little bit into other views of the world. And so that ashram that I went to was an ecumenical ashram. So it was not one tradition. We were basically Seeking to go to the source of all that is, let's put it that way.

I love that. I'll let, I'll let you go, Nick, in just a minute. I just wanted to say thank you so much for sharing that. I think it's like, I don't know, just to— it's, it's an important thing. I came across that you were, you were a little bit more spiritual than I was expecting you to be, and I thought that was so fascinating. So that's why I wanted to talk about that a little bit. But I appreciate you being willing to share, and I'll pass it over.

I'm a very— I would say I'm probably a very rare kind of scientist because I'm trained as a scientist. I'm very much of scientist in the way that my mind works. The difference is probably that I do not limit my observations to the thing that I expect or I believe. I look at reality, and if something that I observe in reality doesn't match what I think, I just abstain from judgment. I just keep it as a piece of information. And that's what really opens the door for realizing that reincarnation is a reality. forget all the dogmas, forget what I may have been exposed to. Let's just look at reality. And I just follow it. And it's unavoidable. When you push science— not put, but push science— it crosses lines that makes you enter a reality that is, that is, I would say, unavoidable, you know, and that is more belonging, I would say, to the spiritual spheres.

Well, I'm happy that, that we're asking about some things that you don't typically talk about on other podcast interviews. I think our audience, they want to get to know you as as a person, as an author, not just as a scientist or a stem cell researcher. And it reminds me of a conversation I was listening to the other day. Joe Rogan just interviewed Graham Hancock, and he's an archaeologist that goes against a lot of the conventional wisdom in traditional sort of textbook archaeology. And I sort of view you the same way, uh, like you speak in a very similar way, meaning just because people like the ones with the credentials say it is so, it doesn't mean that it is that way. The can reveal something different over time. So have you always had a little bit of a rebellious nature to you, or was this just something that developed as you started to see inconsistencies?

I, I don't see myself as rebellious. Like, I, I don't know if that's the qualification that I would put on it. I would say that I do not accept something if it doesn't match my observations and the results of my own sort of thought process. And that thought process, I try to— I watch it like very carefully. I'm extremely careful of what the mind does because the mind is always basing itself on the bits and pieces that it knows. And there's only one certainty: what you know is just bits and pieces of a reality. So what you know is always smaller than what you don't know about something. So I'm like extremely— I wouldn't say doubtful, very careful of how I observe my own mind going in a direction. So that's what allows me to look at things differently. So it's not like I'm rebelling against the things. It's just that I don't accept them unless they really show themselves to be true at a deep core of observation, if you want.

Well, I love that answer. I think it's so cool that, you know, you, you don't limit yourself, which isn't typical. And I think like scientists or people that are like spiritual gurus, like they tend to put themselves in one camp or another camp, and then that's it. They're like, this is what I am. I can't believe any of that. So I'm going to go full into the woo-woo stuff. you know, spirituality and not going to do the science. Or the other side of that is they're into the science and they're like, well, I'm not— I'm gonna just brush off the whole spirituality side. So I think that's very cool how you seem to find a balance of that, and I think that's possible for a lot more people. Now fast forwarding a little bit, you end up after the ashram, you go to— you end up in the United States in Oregon, correct? And that's where you start to study this plant, which is the blue algae plant. I'd love to know more about how you guys found that plant and like what, what impact that had on your life and your research?

Well, it is a, it is a fellow, Darryl Coleman. He passed away a few years ago, but he was growing spirulina in New Mexico, and he had this, uh, this pond that was covered with a dome, and it made his pond look like a spaceship. Uh, and at some point, just a very sort of Curious event, there's a senator that used to be a former astronaut in New Mexico who thought it would be a cute photo op. So he visited there, they did this photo op, and this column was picked up in a bunch of newspapers in the area. And it was picked up by the newspaper in Klamath Falls describing how this man was growing blue-green algae, spirulina, in a pond in New Mexico. So there's a fellow living in Klamath Falls who wrote back to Darrell Coleman and said, If you really like to harvest this blue-green stuff, he says, the lake behind my house has tons of it. And he said, okay, send me some. And so the fellow, the guy went into the lake and with window screens picked up, filled up 2 45-gallon of this blue-green algae, shipped it on a reefer truck. And when this arrived in New Mexico, that was 2 months of harvest in the ponds. So he said, wow. So he jumped in his car, drove to Klamath Lake, and that was his beginning of harvesting this blue-green algae. neuroendocrinology as a dietary supplement. It's very different— no, it's not very different. It is different from spirulina in certain respects. One of them is its effect on stem cells. We discovered that later. But its benefit on the mind, it gives you sort of a sense of mental clarity, mental energy, and that was the main reason why it was developed. So when DSHEA was passed in America, the Dietary Supplement Health Education Act, in 1994, The company needed to have scientific documentation to support any of the claims they would make. They hired me, and it's through a set of circumstances. I had heard of their product. I was in Montreal. What I skipped there, that is sort of part— in my world, it's part of this whole spiritual continuum, but I developed ways of learning really, really fast. And I wrote a book about learning fast, like learning a language in a week, for example, those kinds of things. And so it gives me the chance of teaching something complicated and make it very simple. So I started to lecture for that company in Montreal. Somebody told the company, hey, you've got somebody in Montreal that is teaching about your product and maybe you should ask him to teach for your company. So they invited me to speak with them and one thing leading to another, they hired me. So in 1995, I moved to Oregon to take the— to head the research and development department for that company. So to make the story very short, In the process of studying that plant, I came across people reversing multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's, diabetes, liver failure, kidney failure, emphysema. So many different aspects of human health we had no understanding until the observations started to come out that stem cells were more powerful in your body to just be precursors to blood cells. So we started to look at the effect of that plant on stem cells, and we discovered that it was a stem cell mobilizer. It was putting more stem cells in circulation. And that's where all my, my, my interest shifted into stem cells. That's kind of how all of that happened.

Can we just take a moment from a high level and define stem cells for everybody that's listening today?

Everything in your body are called somatic cells, meaning they are cells that are very specialized. They will do one only thing. They will never transform, will never multiply. If you lose your sight, you lose cells in your, let's say, Let's say you stop hearing. If you tell somebody, scream louder in my eye, it's not going to work. The cells in your retina respond to light. The cells in your ear respond to sound vibration. Everything in your body does one thing. It never changes. At the other end of the spectrum, you have stem cells. They are nothing. They are a blank cell with the potential of becoming any one of those somatic cells in your body. So they were traditionally known to only be blood precursors. That is the big discovery that gave rise to what today we call stem cell research. 20-some years ago, we discovered these stem cells that have been known for decades to be precursors to red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets. Well, they can also become heart, liver, lung cells, pancreatic cells, brain cells, everything in your body. And not only do they can, they do it and they do it every day of your life. It's your repair system.

That's so cool. I think 2023, you know, we're in this world where stem cells is kind of this buzzword that so many people use. And what I've noticed is that I've just recently started to get into kind of the research side of it because I've heard— I've had some older friends that are going down to Mexico and doing stem cells, and I'm like, what, what the heck is that? Why are they going down to Mexico to get stem cells? Like, what does this mean? So I think there's a lot of misconceptions about exactly what it is. So thank you for bringing some clarity to that. But maybe we can bring some further clarity to it as well, because I know I've looked at a couple of your TikTok videos and the questions that come up a lot are, where do you get stem cells from? Do they— can you only get them from babies? Like, is there any way to get new stem cells through your diet? Do you have any answers to those questions?

Yeah. Stem cells have never come from babies. This is a whole political game that if you want, we can go in that rabbit hole. This has never been a thing. It was sort of a— it was to create some— it was a political move. I'll leave it there. They never came from babies. They can come from umbilical cord, but that's not the baby. The umbilical cord used to go in the trash, and now we realize that they have a value. So they collect these umbilical cords, and you can take stem cells from the umbilical cord, from the placenta. They can come from your fat tissue. They can come from your bone marrow, from your blood. These are like the main sources of stem cells that are utilized today. What I'm working with is not stem cells. What I'm working with is plant extract that when you consume them orally, they will trigger— these plant extract and their active compounds will trigger the release of your own stem cells. You already release stem cells from your bone marrow every day. It's just a normal part of your physiology. How many stem cells you have in circulation dictates how your body can repair and stay healthy. And if you put more in circulation, well, your body can repair better and stay healthier. It's just that simple. So, you can either get stem cells as a one-time treatment if you want. You go to Mexico, you get one injection, let's say 100 million stem cells for $20,000, or you take an approach like what I've been working with. You take a blend of these herbal extract and you take one serving, 2 capsules, and you will release about 10 million of your own stem cells. You do this every day. After a month, you've released 300 million of your own stem cells. You didn't go out. You didn't have to go to Mexico. Well, maybe you want to go to Mexico, so maybe you couple that with the beach. But just generally speaking, it's really just an approach that to me is just so much— how could I say? Well, it's cheaper, number one, and it's more physiological. Let's just put it this way. It's your own body doing it little by little. Every day over longer periods of time. So, it's a more natural repair. Not to say here that one is better than the other. It's, it's what led me in that direction. And today, with 20 years of experience with it, I can appreciate what it can do in people's life.

So, Stem Cell Regen is your enhancer. You take 2 capsules a day. Over the course of a month, you might release 300 million stem cells. So, how long until you run out? How many do we have in our body that can be sort of awakened using that language?

Yeah. So StemRegen, you don't run out. You are the best way to come to, to talk about your bone marrow. Before I go there, it's important to understand we're born with red marrow. Red marrow converts very early in our lives into yellow marrow. By age 30, we've lost about 90% of our red marrow. So the number of stem cells in circulation drops by 90%. In your 30s. And that's when we kind of discover we're no longer Superman, Wonder Woman. You know, the injuries that you got when you were 5, 10, you completely forgot about them. Like, they're gone and they're gone quick. When you get these injuries in your 40s, they linger a little bit longer. It's all a matter of how many stem cells do you have available to participate in this process of tissue repair. So you want to have enough stem cells in circulation. But stem cells in circulation is reflected by how many— how much red marrow you have and how much this red marrow is releasing stem cells. But the red marrow is more like a well. You go in an artesian well, if you take more water from the artesian well, your well is not going to go down. Your well always stays at the same level. Your red marrow functions like this. When a stem cell leaves the bone marrow, it divides and it leaves a sister behind. So you don't— you're— the level of stem cells in the bone marrow, when you release 10 million, you don't have a lack of 10 million in your bone marrow. It stays very constant. It keeps shrinking as you age, but what you have is just as productive.

That's so fascinating. I'm sorry, I keep hogging from Nick. Nick, he wants to ask some questions too. I'll let you, Nick, I promise. But I just find this— this is just such a fascinating thing. I just turned 30. a week ago about, and I'm like listening to it. That's why I'm like, I think I'm getting more into this whole stem cell thing because I'm like, I'm already starting to notice my body's a little, takes a little bit longer, you know, to recover from a workout. And you just, you start to notice those things as you, as you age a little bit. So I think this is just such a fascinating topic. I'm curious. So how does, like, what is, what is it about these plants that triggers this inside of our bodies? And I'm sure it's like, extremely scientific, but like, is there any way in like layman terms and regular language that we can understand how these plants are, I don't know, extracting that out of our system, those stem cells?

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Yeah, I mean, before I go there, let me put that like in a very broad context. These plants are not doing anything new.

Mm-hmm.

It's just that we've lifted the COVID on something that had always been there. We just didn't know that it was there. Because how do I identify these plants? They're not, like, super rare plants that nobody had seen before. I chose— I choose these plants because they have a long history of use for very many different types of health benefits. So, if I come across a plant that has been reported historically to be good for your heart, for your lung, liver function, by the way, diabetes, and also to repair from broken bones, And it's also good for emphysema. And in another place in the world, well, they use it for Parkinson's. That tells me stem cells. When it starts to do many things, stem cells. So, I go and test it and I can show that that plant indeed works by releasing stem cells. So, that plant now doesn't do something novel. The novelty is just that now we document it. It's been doing this forever. So, it's not really a new thing. So, really what we're doing is try to understand how it's doing it. And right now, the understanding is that— and I'll try to make this simple because it can get quickly complicated— when a stem cell stays in the bone marrow, it all depends on what is referred to as the CXCR4-SDF1 axis, which is SDF1, stromal-derived factor 1, is a molecule released by the bone marrow constantly or released by an injured tissue. So when that molecule is released, the stem cells has a receptor, CXCR4, specific for SDF1. When these 2 connect together, the stem cells express adhesion molecule and it clings to its environment. So as this molecule is released in the bone marrow, constantly connecting with that receptor, the stem cells constantly stays in the bone marrow. The moment you disrupt this connection, you allow the stem cells to detach from the bone marrow. So when you have an injury, your— the injured compound, the injured part of your body will release a compound called granulocyte colony stimulating factor, G-CSF. When it gets into your bone marrow, it makes your bone marrow secrete an enzyme that digests SDF-1. If you don't have SDF-1 and it does not connect, therefore, with the receptor, the stem cells lose its adhesion to the bone marrow, gets back in the blood. Another thing you can do is that there's a molecule that activates those receptors. If you can block the molecule that activates these receptors, now you get the molecule but you no longer have the receptor. So, it detaches from the bone marrow. Blue-green algae from Klamath Lake contains a blocker of the molecule that activates the receptor. That's how we documented how it was working. There are compounds, other compounds your body makes that will trigger stem cell release, like stem cell factor is one of them. Panax notoginsen will increase the amount of stem cell factor into your blood and will also make SDF-1 show up into your blood. So, SDF-1 is in the bone marrow. When it shows up into your blood higher than your bone marrow, it creates a gradient now where stem cells are more attracted to the blood than to the bone marrow. So, these are all the different ways by which these plants are acting. So, in a nutshell, the vast majority of these plants act by mimicking the same thing as if your body had an injury. So, you may have heard of these products that trigger autophagy in the body. They're called fasting-mimicking compounds. Call those injury-mimicking compounds. That's essentially what it is. And, your body triggers a repair response. But, if there's nothing specific to heal, then they go and they just replace the cells that are being lost in the body. And, that's their anti-aging You know, properties.

So, how many plant extracts are there in your Stem Regen product?

We have 5 plant extracts that we have documented work by increasing the number of stem cells in circulation. But, as we are studying plants, this is like real scientific research. Like, we don't know what we're going to discover. So, along the way, as we're looking at plants like Goji berry, medicinal mushroom, colostrum. These are all plants that have been associated with a broad variety of health benefits. We found something completely different. Within about 20 minutes of consumption, the number of stem cells drop suddenly in the bloodstream. So, as scientists in the lab, when you see this, the first reaction was, okay, something's wrong with our machines. So, let's clean the machine, repeat the study, another decrease. Okay, something's wrong probably with the reagent, maybe our antibodies. Throw away the antibodies, buy new antibodies. And, you go through this process. I've done this a few times in my life. And then, you realize, no, what I'm seeing is real. And then, as we studied it more, we realized that some of these plants work by increasing— so, I told you in the bone marrow, SDF-1 connects with the receptor and it makes the stem cell stay in the bone marrow. When the stem cell is released and it's your bloodstream, that same molecule is released by an injured tissue. So, when the stem cell goes into the fine capillaries of that organ and it meets that molecule, So, it creates adhesion molecule and then the stem cell cling to the capillary, migrate in the tissue, and goes to repair that injury in that tissue. So, what we found is that the moment you consume something like medicinal mushroom, goji berry, the number of those receptors increase dramatically on the membrane. So, those stem cells now respond much quicker to any signal of an injury. So, they disappear from the blood as they migrate in the tissue. Very soon after we consume these products. So it became clear in my mind that although the migration step is not very well documented in the scientific literature because there's no drug known to do this, so therefore there's no studies on it, but it's pretty obvious if it's in the blood and it goes and repairs your pancreas, it needs to get into the pancreas. So although I cannot really quote a lot of science and studies behind it, it's pretty clear to me that if I stimulate their release and I have found something That can stimulate their migration as well. Let's blend them together. And the moment that I started to blend these 2 types of compounds together, people started to report better results than I had before. So, I started to blend those 2 types of compounds in the products that I'm developing. So, it's 5 plants that trigger stem cell release and 2 that we have documented trigger migration into tissues.

I don't know if it's placebo or what it is, but a couple of months ago I hurt my back a little bit when I was in the gym, and it was right around the time that I received a bottle of Stem Regen, and I took it for a full month, and my back injury went away very quickly, like very, very, very quickly. And so I'm curious, was that placebo, or how fast can Stem Regen or this proprietary sort of group of compounds that you're putting together, like How fast can they take action and can people actually notice a difference in healing their body?

Well, you're one of the thousands and thousands of people who have had this placebo effect. So, let me put it very simply. It's your repair system. If something is damaged, it's screaming for repair. It's calling for stem cells. If you put more stem cells in circulation, that's what they do. It's a little bit like if you need money and then suddenly you get money and now you can pay your debt and you say, was that payment placebo? It feels good, but was it real? It's how it works, you know?

I love that, yeah.

It's exactly how it works. So, what you're describing there is probably the most common story. And actually, to a point where we're starting to develop that market segment where we tell people, so, Luke, you were talking about going to the gym. And starting to see that you don't recover as fast, I basically— anybody who takes StemRegen, and I will say, go to the gym and trash yourself. Like, do something that tomorrow you would not be walking straight or your life would be miserable. Take 2 StemRegen after your gym session, take 2 before you go to bed, and then see how you are in the morning when you get up. All the microlesions, which tomorrow will be turned— will turn into inflammation and everything that is associated with soreness. If you put more stem cells in circulation, well, they will go migrate into those areas that have the microlesions and they will repair. And you won't have the consequence of those microlesions. It's really simple. And when you think about it, it's so logical. So, yeah, the injuries is probably where we see the The larger number, the largest number of stories.

That's so cool. And I'm 100% gonna do that. I actually, I should have a delivery today of the Stemmergen that I ordered because doing some research on you, I was like, okay, I gotta try this stuff. This is amazing. It's so interesting. So what is the correlation between your mind and the pain and like in healing? Because what I'm hearing, you know, Nick said placebo, but I had a back injury a long time ago when I was young.

Yeah.

And I tried everything for years trying to fix it, trying to, I mean, I did everything from, you know, chiropractor to acupuncture and everything in between. And one day I found this app and it was called Curable. And basically all it was, it was really simple. It just brought you through all these mind exercises to get over the chronic pain that you had. And within 9 months I was completely pain-free and just completely better. So I'm always curious as to How much of the healing power is inside our minds versus outside of us?

That rabbit hole goes really, really deep. Let me, let me give you an answer which is not going to be an answer, you know, of a story that I've had. So, I've been meditating for a long time, but I've always had this thing which is a pain in the middle of my back that I just had to contend with for decades. And one day, I went to see a Feldenkrais therapist. And the first session was before— he said, before I put my hand on you, let's observe that pain. And as ridiculous as it is, I had never done that. I contended with the pain. I saw the pain. I tried to fight the pain. But I never sat to just observe the pain. So I sat for the first time observing the pain. It's probably 10 years ago. observing the pain. And as I observed the pain, this thing comes on me, which was— it's not a voice. It's just like, you know, it's a knowing. It comes on me. And it was, if I verbalize it, it was, I don't know why you put that pain there, but there's something that you don't want to break through. And I'm in front of this fellow and I start crying. And I, you know, it's not my style, but I started crying. And And I canceled the treatment. I didn't need the treatment anymore. And from that day, I can sit in meditation for 3 hours and I will not have back pain. It's a pain that I contended with for decades. So, the answer to your question, where is the pain coming from? I can tell you that if you have pain somewhere in your body and suddenly you watch a great movie, That pain is not bothering you at that moment. There is a component of the mind that is huge in anything that is pain, which is not to say that there's not a reality to the pain, but yes, there is definitely a huge mental component to the pain. And a component of stress and a component of memory in the area. The area can have a memory that creates a local tension that maintains the pains in the area. All of that is mind, you know. Stress in an area is still mind. So in that way, there are many layers of mind to the process of pain. Absolutely no question.

Well, I love that answer, and it's— it was very similar to what the process that I went through, which was just observing the pain and like having to let go of that pain. Like, that pain was put there for a reason. So I had a very similar experience to that. I'm curious, so now when it comes to stem cell production, Is there anything that we can do in our minds or any practices that we can do without like taking stuff? Is there anything that we can do to increase the production of that, or is there not? Is it just through these plants?

I'm sure. I'm sure. Well, there's two things when you say the production. There's the amount of red marrow that shrinks into fatty marrow. Can we stop that? Question mark. Nothing has ever been, as far as I know, documented in this realm, and if anything. If your red marrow reconverts into— so fatty marrow reconverts into red marrow. So if your red marrow grows, typically this is a form of leukemia. So this reconversion is not seen so far as a positive thing. So production, I don't know, I can't tell. But if you just talk about release from the bone marrow, which is really the most important aspect, all I can say is that Dr. Doris Taylor did publish— actually, she did not publish as far as I know. She mentioned in an interview— I wish it was published— she mentioned in an interview, yes, we studied the effect of meditation on stem cells and we can quantify more stem cells in circulation after meditation. So that piece of information is out there. I would believe it. It's not a study, but I would believe it. But let's say I go in a little bit more fundamental Uh, answer to your question. We know that you need norepinephrine transmission, noradrenaline transmission, to release stem cells. What I mean is that if you use any means of releasing stem cells— obviously this is done in animals— but you block noradrenaline neurotransmission, you don't release stem cells. So, neural transmission is essential to the overall process. Why? Question mark. I don't think— I'm not aware that it has ever been studied more than that. We know that once stem cells have been released, on their membrane, they have receptors for all the known neurotransmitters, or let's see, all the main neurotransmitters. We know that the nervous system has nerve terminals all throughout the microvasculature. Your nervous system can dilate, contract capillaries, like, instantaneously from your brain. So now, you put all of that together and you say, I can release stem cells from the bone marrow with my nervous system. I can Guide them toward an area where I want them to go. I can stimulate their migration out into that tissue. Yeah, I believe that the mind can do it. And what I'm saying here is that I remember when I was a teen, there was in Montreal this fellow that had a spinal cord lesion and he healed himself. In an interview, they asked him, what did you do? Well, I spent, he said, I spent the last 2, 3 years, every single time that was free, I would go And I would visualize light and I would reconnect my spinal cord. And then he regained mobility. I mean, you hear that story and this defies medicine. You know, it completely defies medicine. But, you know, if I go back to what I was talking about before, I see one case like this, all I can tell is that it's possible. Medicine can tell me it's not possible, but it happened once. Therefore, it's possible. Instead, let's just find how it happened. So, So that's my way of approaching it. So, so I'm looking at all of this now with all the knowledge that I have with stem cells. And I'm thinking, yeah, probably the guy just guided his stem cells through this process of visualization to that area. I don't have any proof of it. It just makes a whole lot of sense.

I absolutely— I can feel your energy through the screen, which doesn't happen very often. But I see your passion behind all this stuff. And I just, I love it. Like, I'm literally— you're talking, I'm getting goosebumps. It's just been And it's such a fun conversation that I think we could probably go for hours longer. I just, I have a couple more questions, then I'll toss it over to Nick. But what is the, what's been the thing that's like drive, what's your driving force? What's your why? What's like getting you going? Because I mean, I see your passion behind it, but what is it like ultimately? Like what's your why?

Well, there's 2 things. I would say the very first one, which is a little bit more like philosophical if you want, for me is I did not choose to do stem cells. It's something that fell on my plate when I was like 20-some years ago. And when I proposed this idea that stem cells were the repair system of the body, and I had a plan that was putting more stem cells in circulation, honestly, the thought that came to me, honestly, super naive, but it was like, oh my God, we're putting an end to disease. I was excited. And then, I faced the world and it was just like the barrage of like, I mean, it was like it was a wall. Like, the idea just did not go through. So, I thought, okay, I'm just going to abandon it. But, if I have the belief that this can really change health and wellness and the whole world of medicine and I'm the only one convinced, I'm convinced, I have zero doubt, but I'm the only one believing it. Am I allowed to drop it? Can I drop it if I know that it's true? So suddenly, it becomes like almost like an existential question, which is I've just have to— I got this ball right now and I'm the only runner with it. So I have to run with it. So I ran with it and I had clear signs, you know, in meditation and everything that, yeah, it was— let's call it destiny. It was there for me to carry it. So that part has always been there. Otherwise, it's not what I would have done. My choice would have to be to do something with more what we talked about before, reincarnation, spirituality. I would probably be still a monk in an ashram. I don't know. But then, and the other part that is really pushing it is the cases, the people, the number of times, thousands of times people came in a lecture. I have 2.6 million air miles. Of traveling, lecturing on stem cells. I've lectured to a lot of people. The number of times that people came to tell me their stories, and some of these stories were so touching, you know, like parents like crying, not crying like hysterically, but like tearing up because of what it did to their child, how it changed it. Like, here's one story just as an example. I'm in Mexico once and this father introduced me to his daughter. She's 12. And, he's telling me the story that she had vitiligo. She's born with vitiligo. So, her hands, her face, her body has all these white spots and she was bullied all the time at school. So, her childhood was miserable. So, she's taking the product that we had at the time. And then, he asked his daughter, he says, remove your sandal. And, they're showing me the only white spot left was about a pea size on the surface of her foot.

Wow.

So now his daughter could go to school without being bullied. What does that do in the life of a child and then the parents? So you hear a story like this. Can you just say, you know what? I'm hitting resistance with this whole concept. It's just too difficult for me. I'm going to stop. Like, can I do that? When you hear those kinds of stories, you can't. So it's the stories. The stories has been over the years the fuel. Tons of stories of all kinds.

That's amazing. It gets me really excited for you, uh, and I'm happy that we've connected and, you know, that I've used your product and I'll continue to use your product. And as things get updated and you put out new things in the future, I'm excited to be involved with them as well. Uh, I'm curious, do you take Stem Regen every day? Do you recommend that people cycle on and off? What year, what age should you start? I mean, just give us all the details.

Okay. I take it every day, but I want to put this into a greater context. I grew up with this concept over the past, let's say, 23 years. And let me open a parenthesis and then what I'm going to say will make sense. Stem cells are the repair system of the body. So, when something is broken, they repair. So, studies were done. Example, you take a female mouse, you irradiate the female mouse, so you kill all the stem cells, and then you inject stem cells from a male. So now those stem cells have the Y chromosome. So you can follow the Y chromosome in the body. So you trigger an injury to the heart, to the lung, wherever. And then you observe the repair process. And when you look later, how many stem cells, how many cells of the heart, the liver, whatever the tissue have the Y chromosome, it allows you to monitor that repair process. That's how these studies were done. And at the end of a study, sometimes you're left with with mice that are— that you did not need in the study. So oftentimes, scientists keep them as pets. And 3, 4, 5, 6 months later, the question is, well, let's go and look at these animals. And what is starting to emerge is that stem cells don't just go where something is broken. A few months later, if you look at the mouse, cells with the Y chromosome are everywhere in the animal. So the question was, so do we have the same thing in humans?

Yeah.

And there's one set of circumstance when you can test that in human is a woman with leukemia that got a treatment of radiation and then received a bone marrow transplant from a male-compatible donor. Now, all of her bone marrow is made with stem cells that have the Y chromosome, but her body is made with cells that have the double X. So now they went back, scientists went back into bank of tissue biopsies taken from women after they died at the time of the autopsy, women that received a bone marrow transplant And died a year, 5, 10, 15, 20 years later. So now, across tissues and with time, it revealed the phenomenon that intuitively we have known for a long time, but scientifically we had no data. We are constantly in the process of turnover. So, Luke, you're turning 30. You don't have a 30-year-old lung. You don't have a 30-year-old liver. You don't have a 30-year-old pancreas. We have a new pancreas every 4 to 6 years, new lung 2, 3 years, new skin every month, half of a new heart every 25 years. So, you already have half of a new heart, you know. So, that means turnover, meaning you lose cells and you need stem cells to replace what is being lost. But by age 30, you've lost 90% of the replacement part of the equation. So, there's a point in your 30s where you lose that balance between loss and replacement. And that's the day when you start to experience aging. The real deficit will show up maybe 10, 30 years down the road, but you have started the process. So, understanding this whole phenomenon, my view was you need to offset that cellular loss every day because it happens every day. So, I've taken it every day of my life. But now, I guess over the years, if we have a product now with StemRegen that is more potent and more powerful than anything else I've done before, if you release 10 million stem cells with 2 capsules, after a month you've released 300 million stem cells. Maybe you can do this for a month and do this, let's say, 4 times a year, and you'll, you'll recover the last 3 months. You know, maybe you don't need to do this every day, or maybe you do it every 3 days. You know, so I'm thinking, yeah, somebody could do this. Like, you monitor your body and you do this somewhat— you do it somewhat regularly. It doesn't have to be every day. And if a day you feel that something needs to repair, well, you just up the dose. You put a little bit more stem cells in circulation. The older you are, the more regular you need to start to get on doing this. Because in 2013, I published this view. Given everything that I said, it kind of comes to reason, or you can express the hypothesis that that decline in the number of stem cells is the reason why people develop age-related diseases. But there's a way to prove that. So I published this theory in 2013, and I said, the way to prove it, let's go and count the number of stem cells in people who have developed age-related diseases, and let's compare that to people who are healthy of the same age. We should see that people with disease have fewer stem cells. It will be the evidence to say there's a link between how many stem cells you have every day and the development of disease or your ability to stay healthy. Now, about 50 of those studies have been done. If you count the number of stem cells in people with diabetes, kidney failure, liver failure, emphysema, heart disease, atherosclerosis, erectile dysfunction, arthritis, lupus, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, liver failure— I mean, the list is growing. All these people across the board have less than 50% of the number of stem cells that you find in a healthy person. So, the next part of my next book— so, the first book, Cracking the Stem Cells Code, describes What's the natural role of your stem cells in your body? How do they work? And what can happen in your life if you can put more in circulation? The next one is what happens if you happen to not have enough? And if we do a study across the board, what through— like, do a meta-analysis of the scientific literature, can we reach a number of stem cells where we know that if we are under that level, you know that in 5, 10 years, you will have an age-related disease? So, because when we do this, it becomes a risk factor. So, the moment that it's a risk factor, now every— I am convinced you quantify now, medicine will quantify your level of cholesterol to predict your heart risk, if you want. Honestly, you get about the same precision with flipping a coin. Honestly, it's about the same precision. But if you count the number of stem cells in circulation, that is going to be such a better marker of losing your health. In the next 5, 10, 15 years. And you can just sit back and if I ask you, what is through your family, genetics, lifestyle, what is the weakness in your physiology? You know. You know what is your weak— maybe not at 30. At 40, you start to really know where your weakness is in your physiology. You look at your dad, your grandparents, your mom, you look at your family, your uncles, your own life. You know what is going to be the weak point. Well, if you have fewer stem cells in circulation, start taking care of it because— or repair it by putting more stem cells in circulation every day between now and the time that you go into the coffin. So, with all of that in mind, I don't remember where we started with this. I think we— it was like, should we take that every day? Well, I'm thinking boost your ability to repair. And as you age, You need to up a little bit that, that, that repair process in the body.

This, this is, uh, just from observing you speak, this is one of my favorite conversations that we've had. I totally nerd out on this subject, and I'm happy that we're connected. We have a hard stop in a couple of minutes, so I'll kick it over to Luke for his sort of famous final last question. And we'll probably have to have you on again once Luke and I do another round of Stem Regen so we can talk a little bit about our experience. I mean, I did it for one full month. I just purchased another bottle while we were talking, so I'll do it for another, another full month soon.

Yeah. Well, like I said earlier, this conversation could probably go on for hours just because it is, it's something that I'm so fascinated by and I, I, I love talking to somebody that just has such a passion for something. Like you can just feel it. And I'm, I'm so grateful for your time and coming on our show. This has been great, but I, I'll have 2 final questions. The first one is this, which I ask every guest, is if you, if all the stuff that you put out, the research, the books, the courses, speaking gigs, all that disappears, but you can leave the world with a single piece of advice, what would it be?

Joy is a choice. You can choose it any day. There's nothing, absolutely nothing that has happened in your past that is real today. It's only real because you carry it. You can choose to let it go and joy is right there. That would be it.

I love that. More people need to hear it. I can't wait to get this episode out. Well, the final, final question is this. Where can people go to find out a little bit more about you? Where can they go to find StemRegen and all the books?

You go to stemregen.co. So you can see the StemRegen, you can have the book. You can follow, as you mentioned before, on TikTok, Stem Cell Christian, Instagram as well. I use Stem Cell Christian because nobody can spell Drapot. So, you can get information there. And, all the research that we have done is all on our website, stemregen.co.

Perfect. Well, thank you so much. And, we'll be sure to link all that in the shownotes. Appreciate your time. This has been such an amazing conversation.

My pleasure.

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