What If Reversing Cognitive Decline Was Actually Possible? With Dr. Edwin Lee | TPE Blueprint #18

What if reversing cognitive decline wasn't just a dream, but actually a reality? Today on the episode I'm chatting with Dr. Ed Lee and we're diving into a case study and a lot more that's completely rewriting the rules of brain health. Let's dive into it.

Doctor Ed Lee, it's great to have you here and thank you for your time today. How are you doing?

Thank you for inviting me.

Of course. Well, hey, you're part of the MD Lifespan team, so I guess tell us how you are working with therapeutic plasma exchange tpe, because you're actually delivering these services and you're doing some really cool stuff. You have a study that released as well pretty recently. Give us your background a little bit there.

Well, I'm an endocrinologist by training and I've been doing functional medicine and wellness practice for some time. And I've known Dr. Paul Savage who founded MD Lifespan and I've been doing TPE for probably like two years before we met. And so I published a paper on reversing cognitive decline in a 79 year old gentleman using TPE, but also some other regenerative stuff. We can talk later. And Paul and I started talking and we knew each other prior and so he said, hey, do you want to be a co founder of MD Lifespan? I said sure. And you needed a secret recipe on how to reverse dementia. So I gave it to him.

Let's talk about that. I feel like that's pretty enticing is reversing dementia. Maybe we start because you mentioned the study in the 79 year old who actually now is more closer to 80 because I think that was a year ago we were just talking about. And he's still doing great, which is great. I'll see that there. But tell me about maybe the overview of the thinking of this, of how you think TPE plays with this reversing dementia, brain health and then referencing the studies.

Joe, it's very simple. It's removing all these toxins out of the brain. And if you can remove toxins out of your body, your body and your brain will get better. So it's not just only that patient. His name is. I'll just say Frank is his first name. He couldn't even finish the sentence. That's how bad he was. When he first came to see me, he would stop and I usually can kind of figure out which way a patient can go. But when I first interviewed it was that awkward silence. I had no idea what he was trying to say. He was also having Issues with memory recall, like 10 years prior. So this was progressively getting worse. And he said after, before the third session of doing TPE, he goes, Dr. Lee, my brain is clicked on it. Just like a click went on, a light bulb went on. He goes, I used to was a professional trader and trading stocks. He goes, I got to make a lot of money to afford you, so I got to go back in the stock market. And he made some money there.

So good, good for him. How, how long did it take? Like, how many sessions before that click happened for him?

It took before the third session. We did five in one year. But I have other people. I have a younger one, a younger patient in her late 40s and she just has severe brain fog and it's progressively getting worse. She will walk in a room and not recall why she goes there. She had problems with name recall. And anyway, she said each time got better, but the fifth one just cleaned out everything. It just was amazing. She. She was at a Christmas get together with her family and they played this memory game and she always lost. And this year she. She won. So it's like she. Her family is thinking, like, who is our. Who is this person? You look like my sister, you look like my daughter, but you don't act like her.

So, like, do you think that's a pretty common outcome that you're seeing with folks going through tpe? And of course there's a range. And I'm curious of the other, because you said earlier, you know, you can usually tell a way, which way a patient's going to go.

For my mother, it was one session. She basically had issues with memory. She denied she had, you know, issues with her.

Memory loss, but we did a cruise like two years ago, and her sister went, my aunt went, and they stayed together. And at the end of the cruise, my aunt, who's younger than my mother, said, I will never do another cruise with your mother. Because she kept asking the same questions over and over and over again. And I noticed her memory was going down and. And she visits from Pennsylvania to Florida, and she stays about three months every time she visits. And she was even getting lost in walking in our gated community, which is an oval. And it's like I bumped into her. She goes, where's your house? And I was like, mom, we're just three more houses down. Just keep walking. You'll find it, but you'll get there.

Yeah.

She was convinced that she had memory issues be. Not because of her sister, not because I said so. It's because of my Wife and my mother and my wife had a discussion. And my wife opened up the freezer and took out some egg rolls and said, you made it last week and took in another pack and said you made it a month ago. And it was my mother's handwriting. She's like always like put always labels things in the freezer. And that was the aha moment for my mother because she just didn't believe her sister and she just never remembers. But that moment she goes, oh, I do have a memory issue. So I remember calling one patient that was scheduled to do therapeutic plasma exchange. I told, I said, my mom's leaving, you know, soon. I need, she needs to do it. I have to push you back. And so anyway, so she would, she was. My patient was flexible, understood. And that one session doing that. Plus we did exosomes up the nose and I did a peptide called epithalin E, P, I, T, H, A, L O, N. And we also use a little mesocharma stem cells. So I did both mesocharma stem cells and exosomes. There's a study that's showing if you use epithalin pro prior to using the stem cells, you can convert the stem cells into a new neuron. Oh, wow.

Holy moly.

The thing is our brain cannot develop new neurons. It's like you have X amount of brain cells, so with neurodegenerative disease, you start losing these new neurons. But unfortunately the FDA wants to ban all these peptides and I have a foundation and anyway, it's a non for profit organization to save peptides. So hopefully people can sign up and try to save it from the FDA.

So what's the name of it?

Let's save peptides.org and just please go there.

And I'll be signing the petition right after this. You make it easy. So savepeptides.org that's awesome. You're doing that.

Yeah, it's not.com.org.org yeah, I got it.

We'll put it in the notes and everything so it's easy for folks to access. But keep talking about this whole brain health thing though, because that's what fascinates me with, like I said, the new. The neurons.

Yes, with Frank. We did a. All my patients that come in, we do a kind of a subjective, sorry, an objective testing to see how their brain function is. And there's a computer program called CNS Vitals.

CNS Vital Signs. And so it's. They do it on their lap. They do it. They can do it at home. Some of My patients who have memory issues, they don't know how to use a computer. They'll do it in my office.

Okay.

Because they don't even know what a mouse is. So, anyway, so we've noticed with Frank, his scores were generally almost all in the red. And a year later, he basically got basically more. More in the midline. And then I retested, which after I published, I tested him again, and he's even better. So he's continuing to get better so the brain can recover, but if the main thing is get rid of the bad stuff, and then if you can give the good stuff, which is not easy because the fda, you know, just trying to take away peptides. So I'm now experimenting without using epithelium because it's harder and harder to get that peptide. But I'm using. Just trying to use those exosomes, which are.

Tiny little like bubbles that are regenerative. So if you can get these exosomes from stem cells, umbilical cord stem cells, it can secrete exosomes. These exosomes are so regenerative, it can reduce inflammation. They've done studies where they induce liver failure in a rat and then use human exosomes, which are not rat exosomes. But they've noticed those human exosomes can help the liver.

The rat liver goes from cirrhosis to normal. Wow.

Hello, my name is Kerry Stewart, and I did the brain protocol for the MD Lifespan. I was struggling to recall names of couples, and so I shared this with the doctor. That's when he introduced me and said, I think you're ready, and let me explain to you a tpe, because this is going to help your memory, your focus, your clarity, and I truly believe you'll be a wonderful candidate for this. I have had five TPE protocols, and each time I have improved. And it's not until this last one that I honestly, I am feeling so back on top of my game. Like, my brain fog is gone. I am focused more. I have more clarity. This was life changing for me, and I feel so much better for it.

So exosomes are the really magical part of regeneration. I know we have peptides. If you have epithalin with the mesochromic stem cells, there's a study that was published that shows that usage human stem cells from men, from their mouth cavity, the buccal cavity, and then put in a petri dish and then use epithalin, they grew new neurons because it turns on four or five different genes to make a certain protein and Those proteins are needed for basically neurogenesis. So you need the right environment so for the stem cells to convert. So how do you know the stem cells can convert to a heart cell or to a neuron epithelium? Seems that turns it into brain cells.

Which is brain cells. Okay. So you can kind of target it that way or, you know, guide it that way, if you will.

We call it in vitro study. It wasn't done live, but it was done in a petri dish. So I, you know, I said, I read that article. It's like, oh, let's try this on. On you, Frank. He goes, okay, I know you're not a rat, but I mean, but I mean, we'll try this. And he was one of my first patients. We did tpe.

Yeah.

And so we, we were on the beginning stage. He had a pee, so he had to stop. So we only did a half exchange. So.

Because it takes what, a few hours, right?

At one point, at first, yeah, it took like three hours and we were doing really slow. And now you can do it about 90 minutes. But it was a learning curve for us. But anyway, the first two times when he had to take a head to go to the bathroom, really bad, we. We had to stop it. So he never got the full benefit. But before the third one, he already started feeling better. Despite doing like a half on the first session, half on the second session, he started getting better. So. Which is exciting.

It's very exciting. Well, you mentioned, you know, it's. You need the right environment. So I guess talk to me about this whole, I guess the sequence of how you think things through. And, you know, this could be for other physicians listening as well and other people just considering tpe, like kind of the order of events.

Nutrition, exercise, sleep, they're all critical. So, you know, there's a doctor that, he's Dale Brennison. He has written the book on reversing Alzheimer's and he has the Dale Brennison Protocol. But not everybody can take hormones like my mother. She is a survivor of breast cancer. So she is estrogen positive and progesterone positive receptors. So she cannot take estrogen or progesterone. So estrogen deficiency will basically lead to brain cognitive. Well, her brain will shrink. And so I've noticed then, since she'd been on that tamoxifen, her brain just was going downhill. So she wasn't going to die. She's not going to die of brain, I mean, breast cancer, but she's going to. You know, if I didn't do anything. She's going to die of basically dementia, which is terrible. So. Right. Not everyone can do hormones, but majority of people can. But if you can do the hormones that will really help. But I have patients who've been on hormones for 15 plus years and they still get dementia. Interesting because I've been doing, I'm almost in practice for close to 30 years, so I've seen a lot over my time. So. So even patients who are optimized, you can't get rid of the toxins. So the toxins will accumulate and it'll basically destroy whatever organ it's accumulated the most. Unfortunately, the brain will accumulate a lot of microplastics and it will accumulate a lot of different other fat soluble toxins.

Yeah, and talk to me about that. And like, so the toxin thing specifically because like where you said the accumulation. So a lot of microplastics in the brain.

And of course there was an autopsy study that showed that this was done like I think out on the west coast and they basically noticed like in regards to microplastic, I can't remember exact number, but it's like 20 or 20 times higher than people who, who didn't have dementia. So they, they, they basically studied, it was postportum, post mortem, meaning the patients already died, so they know what they died of. And they basically looked at the brain and compared to someone who died of a heart attack. And they looked, compared to the brains and the brain basically has like 20 to probably 30 times higher amount of microplastics. So and that's, that's not just one study. There were, there was other studies that they're showing a higher amount of like microplastics in the olfactory bulb. So when you breathe in, you know it's in the air, it's in the water. And, and they've done rat studies where they contaminated the water with microplastics. And the thing is that within couple, within a month the, the rodents would have cognitive decline.

And that's just, I mean that's just environmental stuff. And we've talked a lot. You know, Dr. Savage has been on here multiple times. We broke down. So yeah, definitely reference those listening and watching. Go check out those previous episodes where we break all those environmental factors. Mainly in your house, unfortunately, something like 500 times more toxic is what he was saying.

Not many people are going to live under a tree.

You can't fix it all anyway.

Right, Right.

What's, what's your vision? And we can kind of like close it up a little bit here is, is, you know, I'm, I'm thinking of like what would the recommendation be, you know, and not everyone's going to get tpe, it's right now, it's so early, but I want to just at least paint a picture of what's possible and that's, you know, speaking with you and then also kind of. So it's almost like what are the options right now for people to kind of clear out some of these toxins in your mind? TPE being probably the best way, but just your thoughts there. But also where the future goes for like the average person and what's, what could be available for them?

Well, there's some couple simple things. Stop drinking from bottled water because that has BPA and other phthalates and other toxins there that will accumulate. And if you do cook, try to use, avoid the Teflon because that's the pfas, that's the forever chemicals. So you know, if you have a spatula, that's Teflon, that's a black one, just throw it away and get either ceramic or basically stainless steel so that you can reduce that forever chemical there with PFAs. And then there's use air filtration and try to water filtration to try to get rid of some toxins. But we live in a toxic world. There's no place on earth that you're going to be avoided, that you're going to be free of toxins. They've done a study basically in the South Pole and It was on 60 Minutes and I remember watching it and they drilled some, they went down pretty far to sample the ice and they carbon dated, it was like 200 years ago. And then they looked at how many chemicals there were and there was tons of chemicals 200 years ago. So that's the South Pole. It's in the water, it's in the wind. So where are you going to go? Even in space there's radiation. So it's just we have to deal with what we have. But I think a lot of things have a positive attitude. Be happy, have gratitude and love and have family and friends and just give back to society. I think that's I think really important. And sleep well and exercise at all House. But eventually, if you can afford it, get therapeutic plasma exchange and hopefully with MD lifespan as it expands, it'll become more affordable and I believe everyone can get it done. So it's just, it's right now pricey but over time, hopefully with volume the price will come down. That's the goal with MD Lifespan is to expand it and to make it more affordable.

I love it. Yeah, that's, that's what I, I love about what Dr. Savage is doing, what you're doing as a founding member and yeah, just over I'd say over the coming years. I know the plan is to, yeah, to make it more accessible and ideally this podcast will be that access at first of information. So then yeah, when the time is right, whenever it is for someone's timeline, you know, they could jump into it and make that, you know, at least have the control a little bit more so than, than not at all. Well, Dr. Dr. Lee, I appreciate you. I urge folks, everyone go to save peptides.org and, and give us sign the petition. It's clear.

Thanks.

Of course.

All right, take care.

Talk to you soon.

Bye.

Byebye.