Health Longevity Secrets

Brains of Steel

• Robert Lufkin MD

Share episode

Imagine a world where aging is optional and mental decline is not a foregone conclusion. Tune in to our fascinating episode as we sit down with the great Greta Blackburn and her panel of experts that I had the privilege of being part of at the recent RAADFEST conference in Anaheim, California. The group included Dr Vince Giampapa, Dr Shelly Jordan, and Dr Stephen Sideroff. We got to explore groundbreaking strategies for mental health and longevity. From personal stories of resilience to cutting-edge research on cognitive decline, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's, this episode promises to transform the way you think about aging and mental well-being. Greta's unique blend of humor and expertise sets the stage for an engaging and enlightening discussion that you won't want to miss.

We delve into the heart of resilience and brain health. Learn how purpose, passion, and a supportive social circle are essential for aging well, and discover the revolutionary idea that aging could be optional. Shelly introduces us to the concept of resetting the hypothalamic clock using non-invasive techniques like focused ultrasound, while Stephen redefines resilience with a focus on proactive stress management. 

The episode also uncovers the potential of stem cell therapy, ketogenic diets, and innovative treatments for psychiatric conditions and Parkinson's disease. We explore how regenerative medicine is being advanced in places like Costa Rica and examine the significant role of gut health in neurodegenerative diseases. Don't miss this episode packed with groundbreaking ideas and actionable strategies to help you live a longer, healthier, and more fulfilling life.

https://www.raadfest.com/

Lies I Taught In Medical School : Free sample chapter -
https://www.robertlufkinmd.com/lies/
Complete Metabolic Heart Scan (20% off 'LUFKIN20')
https://www.innerscopic.com/
Fasting Mimicking Diet (20% off)
https://prolonlife.com/Lufkin
At home blood testing (15% off)
https://pathlongevity.com/
Mimio Health (15% off 'LUFKIN')
https://mimiohealth.sjv.io/c/5810114/2745519/30611

Web: https://robertlufkinmd.com/
X: https://x.com/robertlufkinmd
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/robertLufkinmd
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/robertlufkinmd/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertlufkinmd/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/robertlufkinmd
Threads: https://www.threads.net/@robertlufkinmd
Bluesky: ...

Speaker 1:

Tonight I'm gonna find myself a real good time. I feel alive in the world. I'll turn that inside out. Yeah, I'm floating around in ecstasy, so don't stop me now. Don't you dare to stop me now? You can't stop me Cause I'm having a good time and I'm not gonna stop at all.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, rob. That's all I got for you this year. Love you, don't let anything stop you. That's Maria Entregas-Abramson. Ladies and gentlemen, maria, of course, she's director of development at SENS, as you can tell by her singing. Okay, we have our final panel of the day Brains of Steel. We all want that sort of, and I want to introduce our moderator, greta Blackburn. Writer, editor, author, longevity fitness wellness expert, motivational speaker, actor, model performer.

Speaker 4:

Greta is Greta. Please welcome Greta Blackburn. Thank you, joe. Thank you. Thank you, am I. Is it working? Yeah, it's working, hi everybody.

Speaker 4:

So I had a lot. I'm really happy. I had a bunch of people come up to me and go oh, I hope you're performing, I hope you're doing one of your skits. I'm like, no, I'm going to be kind of serious but I'll be a little snarky because I know you guys count on that and thank you. So, welcome to Brains of Steel.

Speaker 4:

You're probably wondering what that means. What is a brain of steel? Well, first and foremost, the name gave me the opportunity to wear my silver pants, so I like that. But you're probably thinking, oh, okay, I got it. It's like Awaken the Giant Within with Tony Robbins right, you guys have done that kind of stuff, right. Or it's like Eckhart Tolle Power of Now, earlier Baba Ram Dass Be here Now, think and Grow. Rich Wayne Dwyer Change your Thinking, change your Life. It's not about that. So if you came here to have like a power of positive thinking type thing I'm just going to say last night's presentation with Jim and Joe they're about as good at that as anybody is I think you guys would agree and I think you know, I think we're actually serious. If Jim had asked you to fire walk naked last night, you probably would have. Right, yeah, I thought so. Right yeah, I thought so.

Speaker 4:

So what hasn't historically been discussed at longevity, life extension type conventions like this is the concept of mental health. So I thought, why not have the craziest person in the hotel be the commentator for that one? Okay, but Brains of Steel was created to show us what's out there that can help with the problems that are abounding in cognitive decline and mental health. Brains of Steel are like the steel foundation beams that don't fall apart under pressure. What do people do? What do the families of people with mental illness do? People with cognitive decline, people with alzheimer's, parkinson's what's out there? What can we do to fortify them, shore up those brains so that they can not only live long? Who cares if you live long, if you're bat shit crazy, okay. So in the town and I can make snarky jokes like that because I come from a family where I had a parent who had mental health problems and you learn those of you who have that you know what that's like as a kid to try to keep people from knowing that your mom's not away getting some kind of a health problem fixed. But she's on the sixth floor of the hospital which everybody knows is the mental health ward. So you learn to get a sense of humor, and I'm going to say that.

Speaker 4:

What's interesting is there was such a stigma around mental health historically. Actually, also in my hometown there was a state hospital for the mentally ill and in those days we would go down. It was abandoned at a certain point and we would go down into the basement there and there were still tiny little rooms with hooks on the wall and chains and bars and no windows. So there's a time when the whole mental health thing there was a big stigma about that. You know, in fact George Carlin has a has a shtick that he does, where he talks about how we've euphemized things to make them sound better and he talks about when soldiers would come back from the war and they had shell shock, you know. So the terms were harsh, you know batshit, crazy, shell shock, looney tunes, granny's off her rocker. But now we can pretty much talk about anything, and so what we want to talk about are the new protocols and the new solutions for these problems. Bring them into the light, not hide them in the dark. So we need help, we need brains of steel and I'm really really proud that I have this great group of guys here to tell you guys what's out there, what's coming down the pike, what's available, so some of you might be able, you may come away from this with something that you can go out into your life and get help for someone in your family right now. So I'm honored to have these guys here with me tonight and I'm going to bring them out one by one and number one I'm going to bring out and I'm going to bring him out as number one for a reason. So this guy, you know there was a time when the term anti-aging wasn't really out there in the parlance. It wasn't really a thing. So this is the guy that coined the term anti-aging. So I think we can legitimately say that he is a pioneer. He's a world-renowned medical doctor, inventor and surgeon I'm reading the bio Specializing in anti-aging medicine. He's one of the first board-certified anti-aging physicians in the world. He's co-founder of the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine and the first president of the American Board of Anti-Aging Medicine. He was nominated for a Nobel Prize in both 2014 and 15 for his groundbreaking research into cellular restoration technology.

Speaker 4:

Dr Vince C Giampapa Woohoo, welcome. So I'm just going to bring my guys out. We're going to have like a hot seat, like a fireside chat. But this is Vince. He's number one as he should be out here. Next up I have Dr Sheldon Jordan. He's from the Regenesis Project. He's a board-certified neurologist, considered the top doctor by Best Doctors in America, who's who Global Edition and Super Doctors. He's a clinical associate professor of you got a long list here, dude, you got to pace yourself Associate professor of neurology at UCLA and USC. He's written a bunch of stuff. He's a big shot. Come on out, sheldon. Yeah, thank you. I told them they need a thank you, the only one to obey. Okay, thank you very much. So our next guy, stephen Sideroff, and he's going to have a book signing in Rad City tonight at 7 o'clock.

Speaker 4:

Dr Sidoroff is coming out His nine principles of resilience. Resilience is what it's about guys to move forward in life over the years and be a real life extensionist. He's an internationally recognized psychologist, executive and medical consultant. He's an expert in resilience, optimal performance, addiction, neurofeedback relationships. He's the king of all things. He's published pioneering research in these fields. He's an associate professor at the Geffen School of Medicine, ucla, with joint appointments in all kinds of departments everywhere. He's also director of the Wallenberg Institute of Ethics, of which I have none. Come on out, stephen, welcome Book signing at seven.

Speaker 4:

Next we have someone who makes me look short, robert Lufkin. He's got a book out right now, a best-selling book, and it's called Lies. I Taught in Medical School the only guy to come clean. Okay, he's a physician, medical school professor, ucla and USC and New York Times best-selling author focusing on the applied science of longevity. After reversing chronic disease and transforming his own life, he's making it his mission to help others do the same. You're going to learn more about what he's about tonight, so let's welcome Dr Robert Lufkin. Thanks, welcome.

Speaker 4:

So these are my boys. I love this. It's a good thing I grew up with brothers. So, guys, we're brains of steel and resilience. You know this is so up your alley, Stephen, but everyone's, and from the concept of resilience to the stuff that Shelly's doing. But I'm going to let you guys maybe I'm going to start down there with Vince, our pioneer Resilience, mental health, brain health, brains of steel what comes to mind for you, what do you got? And we're going to be talking about this at length tomorrow, but we're going to just give you a little preview, a little tickler tonight. We're the fluffers for the actual panel, what comes to mind?

Speaker 6:

Well, I think, is this on yes, I think one of the. To me, the general philosophy of staying mentally fit and aging well comes down to three things. I think you have to have a purpose. I think you have to be have passion. I think you have to surround yourself with the right people, and I think that's how I passion. I think you have to surround yourself with the right people and I think that's how I start off evaluating my goals or people I'm going to be with, but that's what keeps my day going.

Speaker 6:

I have a purpose and that's to learn more and more about how we age, what we can do to help people. You have to be passionate about that fill that full of energy to make it happen. But, most importantly, you have to be at meetings like this, where you meet special people who open your mind to new ways of thinking, new concepts, and you gain that energy. You restore those two things and I think that's what makes a happy person. I think that's what creates resilience. And when you get down and out and think you know, what am I doing? Maybe it's really not what I is going to be going to work or be successful, but those three things I live by my.

Speaker 4:

I live my life by I love that and you're all about all things. Stem cells, which we can get into too. Um, vince has got some wild stuff going on here in the states and in Costa Rica. We'll dig into that, probably tomorrow at some more length. So, shelly, you're big on sending waves into the brain to cure things. Tell us about that.

Speaker 7:

Well, I think.

Speaker 7:

I would start out by saying that growing old is an option, it's not a requirement. And my big interest is letting people know that there's a central clock in the hypothalamus of your brain that says how you're going to get old and when you're going to die. Now the good news, that's the bad news. The good news is, like any other clock, it can be reset, and that's what my research has been over the last 40 years. So it turns out that using non-invasive techniques, including focused ultrasound low intensity, which can be applied to the scalp in a clinic setting, so it's accessible, relatively inexpensive can facilitate the delivery of exosomes and stem cells to the hypothalamic clock, so they can be reset. So this has already been done.

Speaker 7:

This is not just a hypothesis. This has been done in humans. We've used this technology now thousands of times in humans. We've published this, including major journals, including Nature, a few months ago. Now I have to say that this is research. The FDA wants everybody to know that none of these things should be done outside of a clinical trial, which is the way that we try to work with this material. But what is in store for everybody in this audience, if you want, is that your clock of aging can be reset. I believe it is an option, and we're just getting started with this, but the next few years are going to be amazing. So I would invite everybody to my lecture tomorrow, where we'll be talking about the central clock, why we have it, why we age, why we die and why that's great for the species not necessarily good for the individual involved, but nevertheless we can fool Mother Nature.

Speaker 4:

I love that and I love the fact that you say aging is an option. I like to say, aging is a bitch, but aging is an option is a little more socially acceptable. So thank you for giving me that. When is your talk tomorrow? Oh, when's your talk tomorrow?

Speaker 7:

The talk, I believe, is around 11. I think it's 1130, 11 or 1130. It's in the breakout session and I think it's on the main stage here.

Speaker 4:

He's Sheldon Jordan, so I'm not going to leave.

Speaker 7:

I'm just going to stay here all night and I'll be here tomorrow morning 1130.

Speaker 4:

He's going to be shooting waves and brain waves. So, steven and I have your book and tomorrow I'll have it with me to show them. And the book signing again tonight is at seven o'clock at Radfest at Red City. I'm sorry, resilience, and I'm about halfway through the book. I've got my index cards. I'm in my path. Right now I'm on my path. I love that. Tell us about Brains of Steel, and that certainly fits the theme of the book, which is the nine pillars of resilience. Thank you, is this on? It doesn't sound on Testing, ah okay.

Speaker 3:

Well, I'd like to begin by redefining resilience, because a lot of people talk about resilience as the ability to bounce back, but I want to present a situation that we can all identify with. We have an event happening tomorrow and we start worrying about it today. Maybe it's a test we're taking, Maybe it's a presentation performance, and we begin to get a little bit anxious. Maybe we don't get a good night's sleep and the day of the event we're concerned about how we're going to do, we're stressed, the event happens and we do really well, we knock it out of the park. But bouncing back means that what the brain does is it pairs all the worry, all the anxiety, all the stress that led up to the event with the success of the event. And so the takeaway, unconsciously, is that when I worry, when I'm anxious, when I'm stressed, I do.

Speaker 3:

Well, we don't do that consciously, but that's the power of the conditioned effect, and one of my early mentors, a pioneer in neuroscience, donald Hebb, said neurons that fire together wire together, and so that's what we put together. Bouncing forward instead is that at the moment that we have that success, we stop and we, in the present moment, we say to ourselves wait a second look how well I did. Now it's time to trust myself. Now it's time to believe in myself. I did really well. Next time I will expect that I will do well and I won't have to worry, and I won't have to be as stressed. And so resilience, bouncing forward, is about us learning appropriate lessons that help us grow and not stay stuck in old patterns.

Speaker 4:

Nice. So rumination is a killer, so rumination is a killer.

Speaker 3:

Rumination is, you know, we all have a certain amount of personal energy and we're always making unconscious choices. Where we put that energy?

Speaker 4:

Rumination is putting energy into wasted effort. Nice, okay, thank you. We're going to come back and talk about that a little bit more. So Rob Lufkin has a great LinkedIn feed. Follow him. Guys Like 10 posts a day. All good stuff. You have some interesting thoughts about Brains of Steel and one of them is regarding diet Right. You have some colleagues that are doing some very interesting stuff in that field. Share about that, if you would a little bit.

Speaker 8:

Yeah, I mean it goes along with sort of an overlying theme that we're facing a tsunami of chronic diseases in the 21st century and, interestingly, these are the same diseases that I will, and all of us statistically will, die of and will ultimately determine our longevity.

Speaker 8:

And the problem is that modern medicine is addressing the acute findings with them with pills and surgery which can manage the acute symptoms, but in many cases they don't affect the long-term consequences and may not even slow them down. So what I'm really excited about is the idea the growing idea that many people are realizing is that we can actually that these chronic diseases share a basic metabolic, mitochondrial origin that we can program with our own lifestyle choices. We can program with our own lifestyle choices things like you mentioned nutrition, exercise, sleep and we can have a significant impact in these chronic diseases that determine our lifespan, and also with additional lifespan pharmaceuticals as well. But we can ultimately lengthen our lives and these diseases include you know, all the ones we've been talking about at the conference obesity, diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, cancer, alzheimer's disease but also mental illness, and there's some really exciting work being done with that.

Speaker 4:

And would you just speak briefly to the keto factor in that?

Speaker 8:

Yeah, so part of a metabolically healthy lifestyle is to adopt changes in your metabolism which results in ketosis, which is the body burning fat instead of burning glucose and sugar for energy. And the interesting thing is, when people go into ketosis in these metabolically healthy diets there are interesting beneficial effects across all of the diseases I mentioned, but in particular, vis-a-vis this panel, is mental health work, and I want to shout out to Chris Palmer, who's written a brilliant book called Brain Energy, and also Georgia Ede, who also has another great book on them. They're both psychiatrists. They deal with severe psychiatric conditions where patients are hospitalized with them and on many, many medications, and what they found out is because of the similarity of many of the psychiatric medications for these mental health issues that are the same medications that are used for seizures or epilepsy. They wondered if the original treatment for seizures or epilepsy, which is simply fasting or inducing ketosis, would benefit these psychiatric patients. And recently Chris Palmer and Georgia Ede have shown some dramatic results. They've been recently reproduced independently with Stanford where some not all of the patients by any means, but some patients have dramatic response to their psychiatric conditions just by going on a ketogenic diet. And I asked Chris Palmer about this and he tells the story. I said hey, chris, how do you know it's the ketosis, how do you know that's what's doing the effect? He goes well.

Speaker 8:

Here's an example, mr Smith. He was in the hospital with schizoaffective disorder, which is a mental health condition where the hallmark is you hear voices. Voices talk to you. You may have heard that before and after we put him on a ketogenic diet, he was able to go off all medications, he was able to leave the hospital, rejoin his family and actually regain gainful employment and have a job. But he reports that when he starts eating sugar, seed oils, junk food and goes off the diet, he knows immediately because he starts hearing voices start talking to him again and then he immediately reverses it by going back to staying in ketosis. So it's a fascinating phenomenon. It certainly, you know, deserves a lot more, a lot more attention. And now psychiatric hospitals. Many people are talking about that. You know anybody with a psychiatric condition should be put on a ketogenic diet just as a first course, to see if it works, because it doesn't really. It doesn't work on everybody, but for some people it's game changing and we'll actually reverse it.

Speaker 4:

I love that I actually have the converse of that. When I'm eating really healthy, I hear a voice that says go have a brownie. Who can relate, vince? Here's what I want to ask you what's the basis of your practice? Is people who just want to come and get rejuvenation via stem cell therapy? Is that correct? Or is it what? What all are you up to in Costa Rica and here in the States? And you're up, you're building a community and all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 6:

Well, I mean, my basic philosophy is human beings have an innate regenerative system, just like we have a cardiovascular system, a muscular system, and I believe that if we can maintain our stem cell numbers and function, we can age much, much more efficiently. And if you really look at the hallmarks of aging, stem cell loss is really dependent upon all the other hallmarks of aging. So they build on each other until eventually it results in stem cell loss. And up until now I'd say up until recently there is very little you could do to really fix the loss of stem cells. So 10 years ago literally 12 years ago I guess it was I started to collect and store all three major stem cell types from people immune stem cell bases, vascular stem cells and mesenchymal stem cells for regenerative purposes, and we give those back. I was giving those back every year for people who were 50 and over and what we saw is they functioned better, their immune system stayed better and it started to and this is before all of the new technologies we had. So that's when I really started to realize we have a regenerative system and it really it's based on the total number and function of our stem cells, but the real reason those stem cells stay functional is the genetic clocks that we have inside them. So as those genes change, we not only lose stem cell numbers, we lose stem cell function.

Speaker 6:

So in Costa Rica we're the only clinic that is licensed in the ministry of health to collect and store stem cells, to expand stem cells, to use stem cells for different treatments, from cosmetic to, you know, cardiovascular to orthopedics, to erectile dysfunction, to cosmetics. And the basis of all of this is if we get our stem cells collected and stored, not only can we use them now but the things that are coming in the future, looking at enhancing them with genetic technology, looking at helping them work better with a whole host of other new technologies, for instance for brain regeneration. Those cells can be used to deliver their exosomal contents and be guided to different parts of the brain. But without having your stem cells stored, the ability to use not only what we have now but what's coming in the future is really not going to be available. So our goal is to have people not only get collected and stored but be able to kind of restore that loss of the regenerative potential as they age.

Speaker 4:

I love that and I want to come back at some point, the concept that you coined the term anti-aging and you were involved way back when this wasn't even a thing. So when you say we're doing things that will regenerate the brain, and ie help with mental health and brain health and brains of steel and all of that, I think what do you see as the most exciting? And then I'm going to ask you something, Shelley, specific to Parkinson's but what do you see as the most exciting prospect? On the horizon vis-a-vis regeneration.

Speaker 4:

Is there something that nobody here has heard about? Is there something that you're in Because you're a pioneer? So we're going to look to you for what's coming down the pike.

Speaker 6:

I usually Just one thing.

Speaker 6:

Just one thing, just one thing Well, I'm usually described as someone who's too far out there and looking into the future, but I completely believe the next quantum step ahead will be being able to take our stem cells and genetically enhance them even better than what we were born with. That is, to maintain the most common causes that cause us to lose function, like to maintain muscle mass, to maintain our cognition, to maintain our immune function, to maintain our energetics. That's already underway, but it's going to be very, very, I would say in the very near future we'll be able to literally upgrade ourselves genetically at the level of our stem cells, which will then affect our whole body cells. And I'll cut it short there, because I'll be speaking about the rest of that tomorrow.

Speaker 4:

And I would say, yeah, that's exciting and I would say you could coin the term upgrade, but Asprey already did, so start thinking about a new one. Shelly, tell us about the Parkinson's stuff Really specific, because I know there are I really know there are people in this audience who are dealing with that. I know that I have a friend who's dealing with that. Someone has Parkinson's and they come to you and you do what you do. What kind of improvement Does the Parkinson's go away?

Speaker 7:

Everything is treatable is the way I would look at this. And Parkinson's disease we know a lot about. We know a lot about what causes it. We know how, even many years prior to the clinical recognition, that people are already having a degeneration of the nerve cells that create dopamine in a substantia nigra.

Speaker 4:

Is there a way to see that? Let me just ask you is there something to see?

Speaker 7:

Actually there are, and so let me tell you a little bit about the understanding about how this works. We believe that in a lot of people, parkinson's disease begins in the gut. And how do we know that? Well, there's some really interesting historical information. Interesting historical information there was a physician who did the following experiment he knew that many people will have a colonoscopy, like perhaps many of the people up here on the stage, and polyps are found and they get put in a little pickle jar and they're put up on the shelf in the hospital and they stay there forever, right. And this doctor had the idea that now I'm seeing some patients with Parkinson's disease, let me go back and look at these polyp samples from the colon from 10 years ago and do they have those abnormal proteins that accumulate in Parkinson's disease, so-called alpha-synuclein? Do they exist way before the patient had a clinical appearance of Parkinson's disease? And lo and behold, when you look at these colonic samples, these colonic polyps from 10 years before a diagnosis was made, sure enough, those alpha-synuclein particles are already there. So it starts in the gut.

Speaker 7:

And here's the other thing that is really cool. Another physician looked at vagotomy, so everybody knows about the vagus nerve. That's a connection between the gut and the brain. It's a pathway. It turns out that it's a pathway for alpha-synuclein to go from the gut into the brain and once it gets into the brain, these particles act like prion viruses. They start proliferating and spreading. What is very interesting is that people who had vagotomy many years ago for treating ulcer disease so for a completely different condition, to treat ulcers they didn't get Parkinson's disease later. But if you look at the incidence of Parkinson's disease in people who have not had vagotomy, which is the majority of us, the incidence of Parkinson's disease in people who have not had vagotomy, which is the majority of us, the incidence of Parkinson's is way higher. And again, it's that pathway from the gut to the brain. And now, over the past several years, we've learned a lot more about this. Why does this happen?

Speaker 7:

Well, it turns out that at the gut level there are different bacteria that you might call them bad bacteria. There's, of course, good bacteria that help maintain the barrier between what's in the lumen of the gut and the rest of the body. And when you lose that barrier, because bad bacteria are taking over and the bad bacteria don't make butyrate, which is necessary to maintain that barrier function, you start getting leakage into your system, and so what happens is the alpha-synuclein at the gut level may actually be an immune response initially, so maybe the alpha-synuclein is there to corral some of the viruses that are leaking in. The problem is, like many things in the inflammatory system, when things are too enhanced and they're overboard, they actually produce more pathology. So, having that long digression about what's the pathology behind Parkinson's disease, each of these elements that I'm talking about can be reversed so we can replace the bad bacteria in the gut.

Speaker 7:

There are various techniques, up and to fecal transplant to replace the biome in the gut. The leakiness of the gut can be taken care of. The inflammatory response at the brain level caused by the alpha-synuclein particles can be treated with a variety of anti-inflammatory agents that get into the brain. And then, of course, there's an overall inflammatory condition, as related to aging, that makes everything worse. So when we detox people with plasmapheresis and other events, that can be very helpful as well, and then the final thing that can be done is think about delivering exosomes with their anti-inflammatory quality directly to the substantia nigra and putamen, which we do on a regular basis as part of a clinical trial, and what we found is almost 70% of the individuals have a substantial improvement by way of delivery of young exosomes to the substantia nigra and putamen using focused energy in the form of ultrasound.

Speaker 7:

So the ultrasound can be targeted to the substantia nigra and putamen and what happens is, temporarily, the adhesiveness of the blood vessels in the target zone becomes sticky. So when you give the exosomes they actually stick to the vessel wall. They get pulled in across the endothelium without disrupting the blood-brain barrier and delivered into the target zone so that the exosomes can do their anti-inflammatory work. So when you look at starting from the gut, working your way up, thinking about detox, removing the inflammatory response and then finally adding a regenerative quality to the therapeutic regimen, then you have, I believe, a very good chance of changing the outcome of Parkinson's disease. So when I see a patient coming in, in the old days I'd have a horrible conversation with the patient and with the family that I know what you have but I'm so sorry I can't really help you very much. Now the conversation is I know what you have and I think there are things we can do to really help out.

Speaker 4:

And if people and you're speaking tomorrow. So if people have questions, they can ask you. If they think of something tonight, they can ask you. But also, does your website have any information about this, of what you're doing and what we just talked about?

Speaker 7:

Just about everything I'm talking about has been published in major journals, including Nature and Neurology and the Alzheimer's journal and so on, so my website is pretty bare bones.

Speaker 4:

Okay.

Speaker 7:

But there's probably a lot more I should be doing on the website, but if you just yeah we want a section on the website. Yeah, yeah, it's something that I have to work on, but I haven't done that yet.

Speaker 4:

Okay, stephen. So resilience and your background, though the idea of resilience was that just sort of always at the forefront or is this something because you've been doing what you've been doing for a while? Is this something that sort of is the culmination of what you saw in your practice over the years?

Speaker 3:

How did the nine pillars of resilience come about? Well, what I'm interested in is how we can become and maintain optimal functioners. How can we get our bodies into the best state to function at our best? And one of the approaches that I've been involved in for many years that has to do with the ability to self-regulate. So instead of getting a medication to do what the body has lost the ability to do, how do we train the body to regain those abilities? And the approach and right in the approach has been biofeedback. So biofeedback is a way of monitoring some aspect of your physiology, feeding that information back to you so you could literally learn to gain or regain control over your own physiology.

Speaker 3:

More over the last 20 years, I've been focused on neurofeedback, which is essentially EEG biofeedback Monitoring your brainwaves, selecting out components of your brainwaves that are either too elevated or too depressed, and literally training the brain to go more into an optimal level of functioning. We've done this with attention deficit disorder. We've done this with a lot of different uh problems. We published a study about twenty years ago in which we went into a drug treatment center and we did two different versions of neurofeedback. The first one was to address attention deficit disorder, attentional issues, and help the addict be more present, more focused. The second protocol that we used was referred to as an alpha-theta protocol, and this dropped them into a deep state, a deep theta state, and in that state, when memories, traumatic memories come to the surface, they're able to handle them in a different and a more effective way. That sort of takes those memories from the desktop into the hard drive, so to speak, of the brain. And we got tremendous results and that's a protocol that's now used in drug treatment centers all over the world.

Speaker 3:

More recently, we did a study with breast cancer survivors. So these are breast cancer survivors that have chemo brain cognitive deficits due to the cancer and the chemotherapy. That has resulted in them losing their jobs, being unable to focus and concentrate jobs being unable to focus and concentrate. With them we also did a neurofeedback intervention in which, first of all, we did a quantitative EEG where we looked at their brains before treatment, and we found very elevated levels of low frequency delta the lowest frequencies that are very common during sleep. So of course they have cognitive deficits. They're walking around half asleep.

Speaker 3:

So the protocol that we developed and used was to train down those frequencies. So there's a bar graph in which, moment by moment, in real time, their level of delta activity and theta activity is moving, and when it drops below a certain threshold the bar turns green. And then we have high frequency, between 25, 35 cycles per second. That's common with anxiety and tension, and those were also elevated in those subjects and we down-trained those.

Speaker 3:

And then we had a bar graph representing low beta, between 12 and 18 cycles per second, and that turned green when it went above the threshold. So we had these three bar graphs and we had one on the left side of the brain, one on the right side of the brain, one on the right side of the brain. So they're literally seeing six bars going at the same time. But when all turned green, a picture animated and a tone went on and we did 18 sessions and at the end of those 18 sessions we almost completely normalized their brainwave function and the women reported that they got their lives back. And so what was amazing is that by doing this neurofeedback intervention, we took a brain that was severely impaired and it became a brain that was almost completely normalized. So it shows the power of the healing power of our brains if we do the appropriate intervention. I love that.

Speaker 4:

Yeah. So, rob, the title of your book is so great Lies. I Taught in Medical School. This is probably somewhat off topic, but if you can, book is so great Lies I Taught in Medical School. This is probably somewhat off topic, but if you can make it on topic that'd be great. But I got to ask what is the biggest you lying thing? You, what is the biggest lie you told you dog Talk to us.

Speaker 8:

Well, each chapter has a lie, and certainly on mental health, maybe I'll propose a thought experiment. We're in the middle of a tsunami of not only the chronic diseases but also mental health suicides. But even beyond that, the world is a strange place. Now we have two full-on global wars going on, maybe even more that I'm not aware of. But in addition, we're at a unique time in our political parties in the United States where, you know, republicans don't talk to Democrats and vice versa there's this almost toxic environment.

Speaker 8:

So if we go back to what we were saying about a metabolically healthy lifestyle and how, the work of Chris Palmer and Georgia Ede and others, showing that at least some patients are able to reverse their psychiatric conditions by a healthy, metabolically healthy diet, which basically means no junk food, if you flip that around, the converse is is there a percentage of all of us that the junk food that we consume makes us, maybe not full-on psychiatrically ill, but just in the daily ups and downs, the anger, the anxiety with our spouses, with our kids, with our employers, with our employees, the conflict that we have, I can't help but wonder how much this metabolically unhealthy lifestyle that we all have is contributing to the mental interactions that we have all day, every day at a subclinical level, and it's driving a lot of the conflict in the world.

Speaker 8:

You know, when the world leaders have that can of Diet Coke on their desk, or the you know sodas, or the you know Big Macs, or whatever they eat, and every you know the most of the re eating junk food, you can't help but wonder how they would change if they were in a metabolically healthier state, with periodic ketosis even.

Speaker 4:

Keto for president.

Speaker 4:

So and one'll talk about the emotional cost to the families and those with cognitive decline.

Speaker 4:

But when we look at the this is just us talking here sort of off the cuff we look at the homeless problem, we look at the violent acts of crime, the things that go on because of mental illness, people hearing voices in their head and going out and doing crazy stuff, people on the street who just really need to be under mental care and medicated properly. So the idea of getting a handle on this whole mental health problem, whether it's through being nine pillars of resilience warriors or having the proper stem cells or whatever, the improvement in society and, to your point, if people were just eating properly and thinking right, we could really make a big difference. So what are things that people can do? What on the ground, on the court, court, what can we do to try to affect? I mean, you're doing it with lies I taught in medical school. What are some other things that people can just do in their life to kind of make this, to make the world a better place?

Speaker 8:

but I'm serious about that well, there's a growing movement in metabolic health that one political party started but both political parties are now getting involved with and hopefully it won't become a political issue. It's something that we can all embrace. But if you look at Public health recommendations, it's recently shown that most of the people that drafted the recommendations have conflicts with big food. And if you look at the recommendations, the bottom of the old food pyramid is all junk food it's cereals and grains and that's because the people who drafted those had conflicts of interest with junk food makers. So we can really draw attention to that, and metabolic health is one way to do that.

Speaker 4:

Okay, Anybody else know how to save the planet? Save the whales and eat the tofu.

Speaker 6:

You know, I have a philosophy. I think that in today's world, especially our younger kids, our children, but also our adults we spend so much time on the Internet and with information overload and what we do is our brains get in a state of being constantly overstimulated, and I think that is a big problem because it takes us away from thinking about other things that are probably more important, not just our interpersonal relationships, but the more important things about world peace or basically focusing on what's really important at the moment. So one of the things that I've recommended and I follow routinely during my training sessions with people I say how do you stop that, particularly with your children? But I know we get blasted with so much new information. What I do is when I start to feel a little, I would say, overloaded, I learn I just breathe. I take about a three-minute period where I will focus on breathing in and out slowly and usually just for a couple of minutes.

Speaker 6:

Well, it stops that feeling of not only being overstimulated, it quiets the brain, it alkalinizes my body and I find that if I just do that for a few minutes, it's a little trick that and most of the people I tell this about really find that helps not only slow down their thought process, but it changes their mind, their attitude towards stress. It changes their mind towards the I would say the reactive thought process they have about certain things. And I think we all have to learn to tone down the information load we're all exposed to, and particularly if we're on social media and then we're looking at our internet and then you're trying to focus on what's happening around you. Human beings were not designed to handle that much information overload 24-7. And that's really what I believe is one of the reasons why we can't think rationally about what's really going on in front of us. I love that.

Speaker 4:

How many people out here think you're addicted to your cell phone? Yeah, yeah, and actually there was a study, and I don't remember who did it, but the simple act of going outside and taking a walk and gazing at the horizon they found alleviated depression. So that's a pretty easy thing to do. And now you combine it with the breathwork stuff that you're talking about, which can be super easy.

Speaker 3:

So, yeah, you know, over this last year I've given a few talks in Europe and in Central America on community resilience, and so we're all very vulnerable to the environments in which we put ourselves into. But it's true about our community environment and the more global environment, and so in these talks I've been encouraging leaders to do what they can do to create more environments that are more conducive to people feeling safe and comfortable. So what would it feel like if you walked down the street and you saw a policeman? And as you got to the policeman he smiled and said I hope you have a good day.

Speaker 3:

What if we had environments in which the community, the government, supported more positive environments? Think about the baseline level of stress and tension that would be reduced through that mechanism of the environment. So you know we need to do our own personal resilience efforts at becoming more resilient ourselves, but we also want to demand from whether it's organizations, corporations or communities. Have the communities demand that any company that gets tax breaks, that gets considerations, have them do public service announcements that support greater resilience, make that an aspect of living that we encourage on all levels.

Speaker 4:

So, in other words, make the entire world a people in limited place, woo-hoo. But yeah, and truthfully, there is a tie in there and that's what it's all about. That's what these guys are all about, we're about, and that's great. So, marianne, I may be going off piste here. I'm not sure we're going to take. Do we have Q&As? I'm be going off piste here. I'm not sure we're going to take. Do we have Q&As? I'm just going to ask out here. Does anybody out here have a question generally for one of our specific presenters? Come on up, I'm going to give you a mic, my girl.

Speaker 2:

I know, this is a little bit off track here.

Speaker 4:

Come on over, I'm going to give you the mic. I've been dying to ask this.

Speaker 2:

There is a new wave going on in this country that drinking your urine will create stem cells in your body and if you age it it will even create more. People are using it to get rid when they've had the COVID vaccine. There has been so many anecdotal studies on this and they have been very successful in improving their health through doing this. Are any of you familiar with? This is a new wave. There's books being written on it and I know that they did it in India a long time ago and I think in China, and I just wanted. They did it in India a long time ago and, I think, in China, and I just wanted to get your opinion.

Speaker 4:

My first thought is that the pee would corrode the brain of steel. But that's just me. But seriously, yeah, I can tell you that.

Speaker 6:

I have to be honest, I've never heard of that. But if you're looking for things that you can drink orally, heard of that. But if you're looking for things that you can drink orally, afanizamina Flos Aqua, which is Lake Klamath blue algae, has been documented in multiple studies to increase your stem cell numbers. Sea buckthorn extract, another compound you can take. In fact we have a formula with Afanizamina Flos Aquaqua C Buckthorne extract, all published to document increases in releases of all three types of stem cells. That's been published by University Studies. As far as urine goes, I would much rather prefer a good glass of red wine.

Speaker 4:

I was going to say tequila. I was going to say tequila, but yeah, you're thinking the same thing.

Speaker 6:

There's no information.

Speaker 4:

I've ever seen. Wait, we've got a question. Revolution, viva, viva.

Speaker 5:

Also to Dr Vincent Giampappa. You talked about the stem cell therapy in Costa Rica. In which other countries are these therapies allowed? Because in the USA they are not. In Europe it's even worse. So where can you do these therapies?

Speaker 6:

So you know virtually every other. Many countries have stem cell therapy and most of those therapies virtually all are the use of umbilical cord stem cells, which are young stem cells, highly anti-inflammatory, have regenerative potential. We do use that. In Costa Rica we have our own lab and a GMP ISO 7 level facility. But the secret really is and I believe the only place I know that collects all three of your own stem cell types hematopoietic stem cells, endothelial progenitors and mesenchymal stem cells is what we do. And now you can get stem cells from your fat tissue, mesenchymal stem cells. You can get stem cells from your bone marrow, which has a mixture of different types of stem cells, but collecting them via this process called apheresis, which is a compound that we use to release. We use compound for about five days subcutaneously to release billions of newly formed stem cells. These are stem cells that are not senescent. These are of the highest quality of your own stem cells. We're the only clinic I know of anywhere that does that and that puts that into cryo preservation where those stem cells stop aging while your body ages. So we collect them in people 20 to 40 years of age, the first window, because those cells then are usable later on in life when they start to age at their purpose. These are cells that are very little DNA damage the ideal gene activity profiles for them people to use as a preventive bioinsurance program, we call it, and if we're 50 years and above which most of us are we still collect and use them because there's still a big benefit of using even if the cells are older.

Speaker 6:

But the real promise is coming very shortly, I believe, where we can collect 70, 80-year-old stem cells and turn them back into 20-year-old stem cells, and we actually did that in 2014 and 2016. And we followed those. It was just a few number of people, I think a half a dozen people who today are in their 80s and still in really amazing health. People who today are in their 80s and still in really amazing health. So I think the horizon is all about collecting your stem cells so you'll have the ability to utilize either stem cell reprogramming, gene enhancement or maybe both to really allow your innate regenerative system to work as well as it did when you were young and, I believe, even better, and I think we're right on the cusp of that happening shortly.

Speaker 6:

So you do this in the United States as well. So here's what's interesting Collecting and storing your stem cells is an FDA-approved process. The compounds we use FDA-approved process. You can do that, but you can't get them back and use them for preventive reasons. You can get them back if you have cancer or certain autoimmune diseases, but to stay healthy, as an elective wellness treatment, you can't get them Now. We all know why.

Speaker 7:

Yeah please, please I don't know if this is on. Okay, I'd really like to comment on what Vince just said, because all of you can play a role here. There are amazing technologies that are well studied, that are very safe, that have shown to be effective, but they can't be deployed because of, I would say, government interference. If you will, what it's going to take, and if you want to come to my discussion tomorrow morning my other lecture I'm talking about a grassroots effort, so that means all of you in this audience can play a role here. If we are organized and we give ourselves a voice, I am convinced that these bureaucratic agencies like the FDA can be brought under better control, and particularly with some of the recent Supreme Court rulings, this is a time to strike, so I would encourage all of us to write your congressmen, visit your congressmen and perhaps, through organizations like this one, we can organize trips to Washington DC and get these people off their butts and working for us rather than against us.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, definitely. Thank you. So that's a perfect. That is the perfect closing. We're out of time and thank you for sliding that one in. I want to thank you guys for coming along and playing on this brains of steel thing and I want to thank you guys and I'm going to say as we move forward here, you know one of the things that just occurred to me and I'm just going to run this by you and who wants to answer this? So people often think and I've had people comment they're like I don't know, how do I know if I have cognitive decline? I'm forgetting my keys? I had asked you about the Parkinson's. You gave me a great answer. But how does somebody know? Is it just you being a dingbat me, or is it normal? Or when should one begin to wonder if it's cognitive decline or they're just a dingbat? Great, question.

Speaker 7:

Thank you, I'm happy to take that to start.

Speaker 4:

Okay, good.

Speaker 7:

So this is a conversation I have with people on a daily basis and unfortunately, most of my colleagues out there have this misconception that there's such a thing as age-appropriate memory loss.

Speaker 4:

Okay.

Speaker 7:

I think that's completely incorrect. I don't believe that your memory should be any different than it was when you were 21 years old Now. Admittedly, some people are dingbats okay, but you're always a dingbat, not Greta, not her Right, okay, not. Greta, not her Right? Okay, you said that.

Speaker 4:

I did.

Speaker 7:

What I ask patients is if you think your memory is changing. What I'm really interested in how does it compare with when you were 21 years old? And if you think that you've slipped even a little bit. I'm taking this very seriously and having evaluated over 40 years, thousands of patients, and we use advanced imaging so we can see when things are really no longer in a quote normal range.

Speaker 7:

When people see themselves slipping in their memory, they don't know where they parked the car, they don't know where they left the keys, they don't remember to do things in the proper sequence, they forget people's names, they forget dates from recent times. When that happens and they've never had that before I take that very seriously because if you see these patients or these subjects or people five years or ten years down the line, I guarantee you that those early signs were very important and we should have been acting on them from the very first day, have been acting on them from the very first day. So when you see a neurologist and he says, oh, your memory is being lost a little bit, but that's normal for your age, no, don't take that as an answer. Wow.

Speaker 4:

Wow, thank you. Yeah, and regarding memory, don't forget the book signing at 7 o'clock and thanks again, you guys. Thanks very much.