Beauty, Science & Risk: The Truth About Modern Aesthetics

In this episode, we sit down with Dr Reza Mia to explore what’s really happening in the world of modern aesthetic medicine. From botulinum toxin treatments and lip fillers to liposuction, body procedures, and the rise of peptides, this conversation goes beyond the surface.

We break down what works, what’s hype, and what people often misunderstand when it comes to cosmetic treatments. Dr Mia shares insights on safety, patient expectations, and the growing influence of social media on beauty standards.

The discussion also dives into the future, including how AI is beginning to shape medicine, the opportunities it brings, and the risks we can’t ignore.

This is a raw and honest conversation about confidence, ethics, and the fine line between enhancement and overcorrection.

If you’ve ever been curious about aesthetics, anti-aging, or where medicine is heading next, this episode is for you.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

We're back and today we're doing something totally different on South Africa's number one health and wellness show. We thought actually not only for the ladies, for the men too. Um, I might get some tips on how to look better. We've got South Africa's top aesthetic doctor, Dr. Reza, in the house. Thank you for joining me. Welcome to the Endure Edge. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, and I'm excited to pick your brain about all these crazy things going on in this world and the longevity discussion because that's what everyone wants to know about. How to live longer and what do we need to do? What do we need to inject? What do we need to wash our face with, our skin with our hair? How do we keep it all going? Um, if you can maybe start off, how did you get involved in this, Doctor?

SPEAKER_00 0:46

You know, I studied medicine because I wanted to do something difficult. I thought after school, I wasn't really sure about what I wanted to do. And I registered for a few different things and I just ended up going into medicine. It was something my dad, I think he wanted to be a doctor when he was younger. And so kind of lived vicariously through me in that moment. And I went, I liked studying. Eventually, I figured out that I actually liked studying. You know, in the beginning, you're kind of the student, you get there and you hate having to have to study. But eventually I kind of got to grips, got to grips with it and realized I liked it. When I was in uh Baraguanath doing internship, I realized that people were dying not because of a lack of doctors or nurses, but because of management. And I thought, well, let me start looking at studying other things. And I started exploring MBAs and then eventually I did one, but got a little bit disheartened with the whole process and the whole, you know, seeing exactly what was going on in those hospitals. It wasn't um unintentional mismanagement. And I kind of thought, well, you know what, I'm going to do my own thing. I started working with my dad in uh properties in different types of businesses. And we brought Dr. Ray. I don't know if you remember Dr. Robert Ray from Dr. 90210.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

Yes, I do. I grew up with him. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

Me too. He brought out a skincare line called Sensual Solutions. And we brought them and we brought him. And one of the creams was called Inhibitox, and it was meant to be a botulinum toxin-like cream, which I don't know why, funny enough, had an effect on muscle where the skin was thinner, but obviously not where the skin was thicker because it couldn't get into the skin. And people kept saying to me, Can't you just do the real injections? Just do the real injections. And I thought after the 10th person, I felt like someone was guiding me. And I thought, well, you know what? Fine. Let me do the course, let me start injecting. And very part-time just saw people in my office in the chair against the wall. And um, they kept coming back and bringing their sisters and mothers and brothers, and you know, it became the full-time job, and that's really how I was led to aesthetics.

SPEAKER_01 2:56

Wow, yes, yeah. I do remember Dr. And is he came to South Africa a few times. We brought him here, yes, and he spent some time on 947 with Jeremy Mansfield. Oh, it was no, it was Darren Simpson, huh? I can't remember who it was.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

Yeah, but a couple of people, I mean, we had him all over. We wanted him to promote as much as he could while he was here.

SPEAKER_01 3:16

Yeah, I remember, and I I used to listen to him and go, wow, this and they used to take him to parties and he only drank water. Um, and I remember being at a party in Lonya with him, and this guy was partying hard, but only on water, and I was like, ha ha, how do you do this, Doctor?

SPEAKER_00 3:31

Yes, I mean, I remember that night even it was uh what was that club called? I forget, but uh in that shopping center.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

Wasn't it? No, yes, in that shopping center. Where the Eurosuit is, it's the same shopping center.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

Yes, yeah. So that was that was long ago.

SPEAKER_01 3:48

Did you ever expect this field to become so mainstream when you started out?

SPEAKER_00 3:52

No, I thought it was something that there'd always be a little niche of people who wanted to look good and were willing to take the injectables. I always thought of it as the people who would use cosmetics and makeup, and there's people who would have surgery. And then I expected a small margin in between there to need the kind of the ones who are scared of surgery or didn't want to spend the money on surgery, who then wanted the in-between. But it's really just grown and taken from both of those uh people who still obviously wear makeup, look after their skin, and it's become this holistic field uh in covering so many different aspects.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

Was there a turning point that shaped your career dial your um your career decision?

SPEAKER_00 4:35

No, I think once it got going, the ball just kept rolling. And what I liked about it is that it was innovative, it was new, it was unexplored, there were products coming out with a lot of science involved, but the science was still immature in its uh in its stage. And we got to apply the art to it. And we even made that our motto art meets science. And I've taken that into the aviation space with the aeroplanes that we're working on, with everything that we do now. I think how do I combine the art and the science? Because if you look at it, most of most of everything has art and science. And let's bring it together, let's figure out how to do it. But it just kept going from there step by step. We unpacked it as it went.

SPEAKER_01 5:20

So everyone's into it's the buzzword now. We want to live longer, longevity, let's stop drinking alcohol, um, so we can feel better, let's start running, let's join running clubs, etc. What is the biggest misunderstanding about cosmetic medicine?

SPEAKER_00 5:37

Well, you know, running clubs is one of them. You know, one of the things that you need to do to live longer, and one of the biggest predictors of longevity and even cancer survival is muscle mass. So you should be doing things to build muscle. And I know there are many girls out there who say, Oh, I don't want to be bulky, but you know, that's not an easy thing. If it was easy, we'd all be huge. But it takes a lot of work and effort and food to get there. But it's muscle mass. People need to go to the gym, build muscle, build uh density in their bones, and it's a big recipe, a good recipe to make yourself lean and strong going forward. But then when it comes to what we do on the injectable side, it's again that we've got either there's two different ways of thinking about it. Some people think it's a magic bullet, and you can just live anyhow, and like you say, drink, smoke, sleep late, uh, abuse your body, don't eat properly, don't germ, don't look after yourself, and then come in for an injection and look perfect. Obviously, we can still work with anything, but there's a very big difference in the materials that you're given to work with. So a patient who looks after themselves holistically will always look better, live longer, be healthier, and it shows on as a reflection of your appearance.

SPEAKER_01 6:54

So if I understood that correctly, your first advice is even if you come and see me, you still gotta look after yourself.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

Yes, the responsibility is on each individual patient. And we can see it in our patients in the way that they, you know, the hair will grow, the skin will respond better, the density, the tissue, the hydration, it all changes based on how they look after themselves. So the basics, you know, if you think of a triangle, the basics is diet, exercise, sleep, and a positive mental attitude. And from there we can work with everything else. The next step is what you do with yourself every day, how you look after yourself when it comes to washing your face and what you use on your face, these different types of products, but that's a smaller uh contributor to eventual success of your best looks. What we spoke about just now, lifestyle, and then what we do with the injectables, I would say are the main contributors to how you look. What's the percentage?

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Lifestyle too, what you do?

SPEAKER_00 7:54

Lifestyle 60, what we do, uh 40, and then I guess the little percentage somewhere in between is the surgical, where we would refer someone to go and have surgery instead.

SPEAKER_01 8:06

Something that obviously can't be changed because of whatever reason I lost too much weight or whatever it is.

SPEAKER_00 8:12

Well, if the skin is too far gone, we can tighten skin when it's slightly too loose. We can work on density, but we can't stretch skin back. I mean, or de-stretch skin that is, you know, got 20, 30 centimeters on it. Yeah. We can increase breast size, we can't really decrease breast size, but we can tighten skin. But if someone comes in and says, I want four cup sizes and I want it now, we have to send you for surgery. Okay. If somebody says, you know, they've got no head hair and then we need a transplant, we send you for surgery. Yeah. And these are the limitations of what we can do with the treatments that we've got.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

Are people chasing confidence or are they just chasing trends, Doctor?

SPEAKER_00 8:54

Both. You know, we can see who comes in and who's asking for fashion, who's asking for something that really matters. So I spoke about our one motto of art meet sites. Our other motto, which we actually trademarked, is timeless elegance. It means you look your best forever. Like the house we work in. It's a classic styled mansion. It looked good 20 years ago, it will look good in 100 years. And so that's what we want out of each patient. We don't want them to chase things like Russian loop or fox eye or fashion, because that doesn't fit everybody's face.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

On that note, how do you how do you reset unrealistic expectations when a patient walks into your rooms?

SPEAKER_00 9:36

Blunt, frank discussion. There, you know, we can't say, I'm sorry, your feelings will be hurt, because people don't need that. Feelings are put aside. Yes. In those four walls, we can say, you know, this won't work for you, this will work for you, your body shape is not right for this, your uh skin density needs this work. It's important that we just be blunt and clear with the patients. It's not, you know, we're not would never be mean or nasty or anything like that, but we would be very clear so that people understand exactly what is achievable and what they can and can't do.

SPEAKER_01 10:13

Your philosophy on beauty has it changed over the years as you saw more and more people?

SPEAKER_00 10:19

No. Funny, mine has been the same. Timeless elegance, you know, uh tailored beauty, tailored results, each individual patient is a masterpiece. What is changing, and it makes me very happy, is the patient, average patient perception and their expectation. Whereas before people were thinking along the lines of give me more lip and more cheek and more. Nowadays they want their cheeks to be better, their lips to be defined. They don't want to look like they've had work. And that's kind of like now aligning with what we with what we do.

SPEAKER_01 10:51

Okay, so on that note, we've all seen them walk around Santin City, sorry, Santin City, and they got these big lips, and it just doesn't look great. Um has that be can that become an uh addiction? Lip filler, Botox, whatever it is, can that actually become an addiction?

SPEAKER_00 11:11

Yes, and you know, so there's certain psychological issues. The first one, body dysmorphic disorder, is very real, affects more people than we even realize. But less severe and more common is a lack of understanding of beauty. Now you know that if we had to give a pencil to a hundred people and tell them to draw something random, let's say a cow, some of those cows would look awesome, some of them would look majestic, some would look amazing, some would take your breath away. Most of them would look terrible. And that's the problem is if you don't understand beauty and you're judging your face in the mirror, and then you're going to somebody who doesn't either understand beauty or is only there to extract as much money as possible from you, then you will end up looking funny because you will look in the mirror and think, I don't like what I see. Let me go and get more lip filler. But that's not the answer. You know, often it means just something in the cheek or the nose or the eyes. It means something else needs to be balanced. And that's kind of the problem with aesthetics, is it looks glamorous from afar and it seems easy to do from afar. And so we get illegal injectors. We get uh people who are either banned in their own country or wanted for fraud in their own country. So they escape here and they may or may not be doctors. We don't know because they're not registered. And then you get actual uh people who are not and never were doctors in any country who somehow get their hands on something. Maybe it's fillers, maybe it's toxins, maybe it's water. We don't know what's in those syringes because uh nobody knows what's in there. They're not registered substances, they're not buying them from the right suppliers. And so they get a hold of this, they inject it in people, they charge them huge amounts of money. And obviously, when people are unhappy and try to look for them, they kind of just vanish and disappear and go underground. And you can't find them again because it's not like with a doctor. If you're unhappy, you can go to the HBCSA and you can say, This doctor made a mistake and is not willing to help me, or whatever the problem is with them. Versus an illegal injector, it goes, Well, what is your recourse? Mainly it's SAPS, it's a fraud charge, it's uh assault charge, but it's difficult for you to get any kind of recourse because you don't know what's inside you.

SPEAKER_01 13:26

Okay, on that note, I'm doing this for the first time. Yes, I come to your rooms. What's the first questions I need to ask? Or any I go to any doctor. Obviously, I'm sure men and women out there are looking at price. That's a big thing. But what's the questions to ask to make sure this guy's real, his product is real? I'm sure there's fake product out there too. Yes. Um, he knows what he's doing. Take us through that.

SPEAKER_00 13:51

The best way to know for sure if this is a real doctor, and you can ask when you make your booking, you can say, Um, can you tell me what the doctor's medical practice number is?

SPEAKER_02 14:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

And you can get that MP number, you can type it in to the HPCSA register, or you can even get the doctor's name, surname, name, type it into the register on the HPCSA website, and the doctor's information will come up. They'll tell you if they're registered, if they've been struck off, if there's any judgments against them. All of these things can come up on the HPCSA website. Now, all good and well. That's step one. Make sure that they are actually real doctors so that you don't get taken for a ride. Because, like I say, all the marketing we do to educate the patient also attracts people from, you know, from the shadows who think that that's an easy way for them to extract money from an unsuspecting public. Yeah. So, what we're doing is also educating the public to know when they can they need to be more careful. The second thing, once you find out that they are real doctors, that doesn't mean that they know what to do when it comes to aesthetics. They don't teach you this in medical school. You have to go and learn it for yourself, you have to do the courses, you have to, and you can also ask. Ask the doctors what additional training you've had. You know, we put our certificates on the wall so everybody can see what we've done. If anybody says to you, um, don't ask me, how dare you ask me? Uh, they get upset, they block you, they move, they shift, they divert, then you know they're full of uh uh crap. Because why would you not want to tell people? I can tell, I'm very proud that I have an aesthetics, a diploma in aesthetic medicine. You worked your ass off for it. I'm happy for it, and I and I'm proud of it. I'll tell everybody about it. So if the doctors are not uh additionally trained, then they're not going to likely be able to use the products as well as they should be. But then there's a third step, is again, we said art meets science. So all of this covers the science and the legal side of it. The art side is well, have a look at what they've done. If you know patients they've seen, if you know basically, yes, look at the Google reviews, look at, and you know, we'll all have sometimes a strange review here and there. You know, not everybody likes everybody.

SPEAKER_01 16:02

Well, sure, especially if you see a lot of patients.

SPEAKER_00 16:05

We expect some people not to even get along with us. You know, sometimes you make a joke with a patient and you think you're just being nice and they kind of take it the wrong way. Not everyone's happy with their BMW, they drive. No, exactly. So have a look at those reviews, uh, look at the social media, but again, be careful. What we've seen, what we found as uh the doctors at AMSA, the Aesthetic and Anti-Aging Medical Association of South Africa, is that uh some of these the fake doctors are using just um face app. So they'll do some injecting and then they'll do some tricks. I uh this is something everyone can do at home is to take your phone out, open the camera, the selfie camera, looking down, get the shock of your life, take it looking up, and look how pretty you look.

SPEAKER_01 16:52

Double chins gone.

SPEAKER_00 16:53

Everything's younger. So what they'll do is they take the picture and then they lie them down for the after picture. So they do do some work, then they lie them down, and then they do face app. And so the patient just looks like you know their own daughter or their own son. And well, marvelous, and it kind of fools people in a way, but there's something that people can do now. Thank goodness for AI. I know face app is the bad side of AI, but there's a good side of AI. You can I I did it myself. I took the uh my phone and I said to Siri, I said, tell me what uh app has used, what app has been used on this picture to make it look the way it looks. And Siri says, Well, this is face app, and you can download it here, and this is why I know it's face app. And so you can actually judge those social media before and afters by asking your phone to even do it for you, which is a nice thing that the patients can start doing, and then they'll realize how many fake pictures are out there.

SPEAKER_01 17:49

That is amazing. That I think if there's anything to take from that, guys, that's what you can take when it's a before and after picture. When it comes to anything, weight loss, I think dieticians that are bullshit, etc. So just on Botox, quick back, Doctor. I've heard obviously sisters, brother, uh well, not brothers, but sisters' wives, um, yeah, friends. Some of them go to the dentist for Botox.

SPEAKER_00 18:18

So where are you on that? We call it botulinum toxin. I'm not allowed to use the brand name. So what you said is one of the brand names. Okay. But uh that's fine, you can say it. You're not a doctor. Now, what we say with the dentist is they also can legally administer these injectables. They are trained at medical school in face, neck, that type of thing, but it is more oral. There's no reason to expect them to know how to do any body work or to understand and have an understanding on the same level as a doctor to do injectable work around the body.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

Okay. So it's okay, but it's not okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

It's you Yeah, you know, there's legal and there's expertise and this, but you know, again, there are dentists who have gone through the mill, they've done the additional courses, they've done the diplomas, they do have a deeper understanding of the average dentist. But the thing what we see of people just jumping on the bandwagon of, oh, I'm legally allowed to do this, so I'm going to be doing it, is not the right way. Again, see what the experience is like of the individual dentist. I don't think we can collectively say all dentists are good or bad. Lip fillers, when do they look great and when do they go too far? When it fits your face and it sticks within the general proportions and things like the golden ratio, and again, that's where we say an understanding of beauty. If you don't have good taste and you don't understand what beauty and what pretty is, then how can you produce it? And so I I love the type of patient who sits in the chair and says, I'd like lip filler, but I'm leaving it to you to do what you think will look best for my face. And then I can work and we can work the art and we can make it blend in and it can get them to look their best. So uh a tailored, defined, uh fitting lip looks good. Inflated, tube-like lips, donuts can never be pretty. There is no way in the in the universe that you will ever find that attractive because you would never find that naturally. You would never have evolved. Your brain has never evolved to like something that looks like an unnatural donut.

SPEAKER_01 20:29

Okay, so let me let me abuse you a bit. Yeah, please. Um, I've never done anything on my skin. Yeah, you're looking at me, and I'm still how old are you, doctor? Mm-hmm. 42. You are we are the same age, guys. And yeah, we're zooming. Okay, I've got sun damage. I'm an ultra-distance runner, endurance runner, a lot of sun damage. I've been on reaccutaining, but I didn't stay at the sun. I went on our main comrades on reactive thing, so you can see the sun damage. Okay. Um, I've got a wrinkled, I've never had aesthetic work done. Okay, in my life. Okay, nothing. Where does someone like me start?

SPEAKER_00 21:09

What do you do? You know, I would start by telling me about your running history before I said running is so bad.

SPEAKER_01 21:19

So just before you're gonna agree with 100% everything you said about that and muscle mass, building all of that. We're in agreement on that.

SPEAKER_00 21:28

Second, I would start with the basics. You know, if I had to look at your face, I would say, let's deal with the muscles that are working against us. A lot of people think gravity is responsible for our face descending over time.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

My family's got a double chin problem.

SPEAKER_00 21:43

Yeah, but it's hereditary. You know, when I had my 30th birthday, I thought, oh, I feel like I'm getting fat. And I looked at my tummy and I'm like, I'm not getting fat. Why do I feel like I'm getting fat? And then I saw the pictures from my birthday and I saw my turkey neck, and I was like, hey, that's what it is. I feel Like I'm getting fat because you know, this muscle, I always show patience with my pen. I'll say the platisma, your neck muscle, it wants to look like this. Okay. And it's got four main bands, but it's a wraparound muscle. And the problem is it doesn't end here, it ends on the outside of your jawline. So you can blend together your neck into your jaw very effectively if you leave that muscle intact. So what we do is we relax that muscle with a toxin, allowing it to pull back. We do the same thing with the jowls, we do the same thing with the frown, because collectively you can think of those muscles as the tricep of your face. Okay. So that's what's pulling down. If you stop that and you leave the biceps, which is things like your smile muscle, your forehead muscle, then you effectively create an upward imbalance, whereas your whole life you have a downward imbalance. And then we do things to the skin to create elastin density, help it to lift tighter. Now, this process of lifting at 20 is a two-week process. At 80, they've even measured it. And even though the muscle still takes two weeks to tighten, the skin takes time to follow because of the lack of elastin. And so that can even take 18 months. But the exciting thing is it didn't take 18 months to not lift. It took 18 months to lift. And so these patients at 80 didn't need then a surgical alternative. They just needed time. And if we combine with other treatments, machines, injectables, we can help with all the tightening. And the side effect will be that we're working on the skin tissue quality at the same time. So one of my new favorite treatments is platelet-rich fibrin, where we use your blood, and I'll do that to you as well, for the pigmentation, the skin density, the healing, the inflammation, that all of these texture issues we can work with just by using your own blood.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

Is that spinning up a the plasma and injecting that back?

SPEAKER_00 23:50

Spinning and separating and then microneedling it back. But nowadays we can even use that to make a filler. So we convert that into a gel and we can use that to fill the eyes next to your nose, pretty much everywhere, except if I wanted to emulate bonier structures like cheekbones, bridge of the nose, and jawline, then I use a much thicker filler. Okay. It's one of the ones I don't want to use the brand names, but there is a thicker filler that we can use for that. The rest of it, we pretty much are mainly using this blood filler because patients are liking the idea of a natural product that will metabolize for sure. You know, there's some blood, yeah. Genetically, some people have um an ability to keep the filler forever. It's not common. Again, back to the normal distribution graph. Some people it's very short, most people it's about a year or two, but some people keep on uh clinging to that filler for much longer. And so people are more coming in asking for natural alternatives, and that's kind of where we got into the treatment for boobs, a non-surgical injectable way of increasing the boob size, and we're using platelet-rich fibrin fillers to do that.

SPEAKER_01 25:04

On the notes about the breasts and the boobs, what should someone truly understand before breast surgery? Well, because I know they they run straight, and also you probably get dodgy doctors. Well, I've heard about dodgy doctors, yes. You go straight, run straight to some plastic surgeon and say, I want to lift, I want a cup size, four cup sizes, whatever it is. What should they understand about breast surgery?

SPEAKER_00 25:27

What they must fully investigate the full cost, the risks, implications, long-term, how does it heal? Uh, scarring, because we deal a lot with this post-operative scarring when it comes to things like uh lifting, things like the you know, the side effects that can happen. Also, to understand that it may not feel natural, depending on where they place the the implant. You can sometimes feel where it's placed. And so we like to use our injectable alternative when patients don't like those ideas. Again, if somebody's got a lot to lose, we can't tighten the skin uh that's stagging down to your navel. We can't uh increase five cup sizes. But I think we've we have increased patients one or two cup sizes quite successfully. Patients are happy. We've got a nice we I'm writing up an article right now, and we've been asking and following up with patients how do you feel? Give us a rating, and most of them will give us eight, nine, or ten, which is quite nice, even if you're one year later. Yeah. Tells us that we've got nice good longevity out of that injectable.

SPEAKER_01 26:35

And I've heard about implants that expire, and you actually got to get them removed.

SPEAKER_00 26:42

I think that the newer ones are not like that. Okay, is that is that an older thing? But yes, it used to last about 10 years, and then it was advisable to change them. But also So it's actually a poison, apparently. Well, no, not so much a poison. I mean, if you think in terms of there were some that were made by a certain manufacturer that was, I think they were implicated in in breast cancers. But if you think about saline, saline is basically just liquid. If it bursts, you just uh absorb that liquid into your body. It's like normal saline, what you'd have in a drip almost. But the other one, you can get a gel, a silicone gel, and those you can chop them in half, and the silicone gel will still stay inside, it won't pour out into your body. So there have been good advances in the actual implants that go into the patients. But again, it's still a foreign product that you're putting into your body. And again, if we see a need for it, we will refer the patients for plastic surgery consultations. But my philosophy is to always start light and go deeper, as you could. I mean, if there was a cream that would work, I would start with that, but there isn't. And so we do the cheaper, less risky, less invasive treatment first. If it seems not to be enough for the patient, then we can send them for surgery. You know, whenever there's a borderline, like does it do they need surgery or not? We'll start with the lighter stuff first and then go refer if necessary.

SPEAKER_01 28:08

I want to stick to a little bit of the male subject because I feel we get we get neglected with this, and we also want to look good. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 28:15

Um your take on testosterone replacement therapy when necessary and when handled appropriately, and when it's used to keep you in the normal range, not as an anabolic. You should never take it to grow muscle. So, like we said, muscle is good, but if you had to take a steroid or testosterone to get uh bulked up, then it's not healthy muscle. You pretty much will deplete your body from head to toe, damage everything from head to toe by using that. And so definitely don't do it at home, don't do it from the guy at gym. If you are getting it from your personal trainer or from a backroom or from a website, then you don't even need to ask us. You know the answer. You know it's the wrong thing to do.

SPEAKER_01 29:02

For sure.

SPEAKER_00 29:02

But if you're being managed by a doctor who's trained or an endocrinologist or somebody who's got a good understanding of how all of the hormones fit together, then you are probably in good hands. But don't, it's not homework.

SPEAKER_01 29:15

So get your blood work done basically. If you've got lotosterone, let a doctor prescribe your dosage.

SPEAKER_00 29:21

Don't you you know, use it appropriately as it should be.

SPEAKER_01 29:24

Who are the doctors to go see for this? Well, endocrinological.

SPEAKER_00 29:27

I've heard of friends that sorry, say that again. Endocrinologists. And endocrinologists. Yes. Am I saying it correctly? Endo, like endo, the endocrine system deals with hormones. Okay. So the endocrine system.

SPEAKER_01 29:39

So not your GP.

SPEAKER_00 29:40

Well, you could start there. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 29:42

People getting prescribed TOT from a GP. And my first thing is, what does the GP know? I think the guy at the gym knows more than the GP. No, the GP will still know more than the guy at the gym.

SPEAKER_00 29:51

Okay. Always. Because they do you do study the endocrine system. You'll work in endocrine. You'll do, you'll know a lot. But there's a limit. Apologize. So there's a limit. And it's up to then. Again, a professional GP will know that this patient needs more care than I am able to give them, that I know how to give them, that I'm trained to give them, and now I need to refer them to either somebody with more training or a specialist endocrinologist.

SPEAKER_01 30:19

There's a buzzword going around. Yes. It's the biggest buzzword on social media with every celebrity on every other podcast: Joe Rogan, Rich Roll, Dr. Hibberman. It's just peptides. Yes. They are trending. What is a peptide? Let's start there.

SPEAKER_00 30:39

Do you know? I'll come, I'll get back to this. So the buzzwords. That's important. A few years ago it was stem cells. And every cream had a stem cell inside it. Everything, everybody told you about a stem cell, a stem cell enhancing cream, and this and that. And I always would say to the people who try to sell me those creams was, Does this work? And they would say, yes, of course. I say, well, then it needs to be registered as a medical substance and we need to be issuing it with a prescription or at a doctor's rooms. You can't be selling it over the shelf unless it doesn't work. In which case you're allowed to sell it over the shelf and you're allowed to just give it to people. And slowly people understood more about stem cells, exosomes, that type of thing. And so the problem we had here was that we couldn't get legal stem cells. And there's there's two main things. I'll come back to peptide. Sorry. On the stem cells, you need somebody who's been trained, and their training needs to be recognized by the HPCSA. So what I've got is an American Board of Regenerative Medicine certificate, making me a diplomat. And we offer that course now to other doctors, and it is HPCSA recognized with 30 CPD points, which means we tick the one box. The other box is where do those cells come from? They either have to come from the patient, in which case they'll be the age of the patient, or they have to come from a registered stem cell bank. And that will be things like umbilical cord blood, uh, stem cells from that region, or it'll be exosomes which are derived from those stem cells. And those are now available, so that ticks the other box. So we're very happy to be able to offer this to patients. And most of the time when people are looking for certain cures and treatments, the answer lies there, not in the so-called peptides. Now, peptides, there are peptides that work, and there are peptides that have been studied and proven. And you can go onto PubMed, for example, or Google Scholar, and you can find the studies that have been done, peer-reviewed studies published in medical journals that show you which peptides work. So I'll give you an example. One of the treatments we use is a product called hair fillers, which has uh peptides inside it. And again, it's a registered substance, it's a registered substance that has been studied and has been cleared and registered with SAPRA and well wherever they are in the country. And so we know when we buy that product, it's got the peptides that we want. And we also know that those peptides have been proven to work. So you have to look at two main things. It's easy when you look at it in this way. You step back and you look at those peptides. Number one, are there studies that show that that peptide does what people are claiming that it can do? Num because sometimes it's just a fantastical claim. You know, you sometimes people take it to fix, you know, broken arm.

SPEAKER_01 33:34

You know, it's not TPC 157, TP500.

SPEAKER_00 33:38

So now stem cells can help you fix a broken arm and they can help you heal faster. Platelet rich fibrin locally can help you do that as well. But stem cells have something called homing. So if you have stem cells in your body and you have a good supply of them, if you have a stroke, if you have a heart attack, whatever damage happens, the stem cells kind of migrate, they signal to each other, and they're called homing. They go there and they start working. Okay. But if you put stem cells into an otherwise healthy adult, it's not that they're wasted. It's just they won't do anything until you stimulate them to do something. Okay. So there must be a problem for them to fix. When it comes to the second step now of peptides, one is do they work? Okay, yes. Maybe we we get a yes on some of them. Where are they coming from? Is the product you're buying really that peptide? You know, there was something called lemon bottle a while back, an unregistered substance that all the beauticians got a hold of, not all, some of them, and were injecting people, telling them they would lose fat. And when those bottles were tested, they found them to contain saline, they found them to contain insulin, and they found them to contain a whole range of things that were not what was promised to be inside that bottle. Now, the same thing happens with the peptides. If you're buying it off a website, if you're buying it from the personal trainer, if you're buying it from anywhere other than a pharmacy or a doctor, you don't know what's inside there. You could be injecting yourself with drain cleaner. Who knows what's what's in there? Sorry, that was my law going on. I recognize that I do apologize. Um so that's the general rules when it comes to peptides is uh is it real and where are you getting it from? Because, like I say, we have real peptides we've been using for years. Yeah, it's just we know where it comes from and what's inside it.

SPEAKER_01 35:29

I've heard there's fake stuff on the market. Um that are going around. But I've also seen, and I won't mention names, but beauticians, aesthetic doctors, whatever we're gonna call them, that are advertising, oh, they can sell you skin glow, which is what's it? I don't even know, CHB, B B C C S G H dash C U mixed with TB500 or mixed with BPC, and they can inject skin glow for you and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 35:56

Anyone, a medical doctor who is advertising a non-registered substance and saying that it will cure X, Y, Z, is probably committing a crime and needs to be then reported to the HBCSA and they can handle it from there.

SPEAKER_01 36:11

Will anything happen? Yes. Okay, yeah. So it's not like it's not like reporting crime to SAP.

SPEAKER_00 36:18

No, no, and so that's kind of what we've been dealing with with these, with what, like we say, the fake injectors, is people want to see something happen. And so what we're trying to do now is to bring and shed more light onto these events and to the punishment. Because people need to understand that if I impersonate a doctor in South Africa, there's a chance or good chance that people are going to chase me and I'll end up in prison. And so, what we're doing, this is the plan with uh the next few months, is to chase these people down and to get them in jail.

SPEAKER_01 36:48

Yeah, and the problem also is, and yes, social media is to blame, but they create such a big hype that I sit back on my morning scrolling or my evening scrolling going, I want to buy skin glow, I want to get this pen.

SPEAKER_00 37:03

Yes. I mean, and again, what you see is not always what you get. Because what made me start doubting the specific person that we were talking about, and I can't remember who it was, it was somebody that received a lot of negative attention over the last few weeks. It's a doctor from Turkey or alleged doctor from Turkey who was practicing here without a license. And you know, when I inject a patient, I expect there to be needle holes, I expect there to be some bruising, I expect there to be some swelling, I expect the patient to look like they've been through some kind of a trauma because they have been. You know, it's not you're not just rubbing a cream. Again, you're taking a substance and injecting it into a patient. If you're microneedling, they should look very red. And so when I saw that the afterpatient just looked perfect, that's what made me go, hey, this seems too good to be true. Let's start asking. Then I asked Siri to investigate. So when it feels like a little too good to be true, it's time to start asking questions.

SPEAKER_01 38:06

Okay, so peptides, are they gonna be the future? The legal peptides, the ones that have that will be backed by science that have been tested. Is it the future?

SPEAKER_00 38:18

No.

unknown 38:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 38:23

But thank you for being honest. You know, with any medicine, if it is useful, produces results, safe, doesn't kill you, people will start to use it more. They'll be in more studies, they will appear, and it won't be, oh guys, look over there. There's something that can help you. It will be in your face, it'll be in the news, it will be legal, it will be allowed. Everyone, you will never have to source it from anyone other than just going to your doctor. You know, there's sometimes the people who want you to fall for the con will convince you that the doctors are trying to cheat the cure from you, which is the biggest load of rubbish. Because if you go to a hospital and you see what these overworked doctors are like, they would love to have a cure for everything. You know, and if you could just get those patients done so you could go home and have a sleep, a good night's sleep, then you would. No doctors are trying to keep the cure for anything away from the patients.

SPEAKER_01 39:21

Yeah, I had the same discussion with a breast cancer doctor on the same podcast. And she was also, we spoke about what was it? What is that horse trunk? That horse there, what is the Pony Cures breast cancer, so methylene blue. Yeah, that one.

SPEAKER_00 39:37

I mean, you know, if it did, why would we not use it? Yeah. I mean, I know bee venom apparently does do something. B venom, that's a venom. But I mean it doesn't mean you must now go and get stung by a bunch of bees. It's not that that's the right way to do it, but you know what it means is that there's possibly a future where somebody is able to take V B venom and produce some kind of medication out of it where they can now target those cancers. So it's not, you know, there's no magic bullet that will just fix everything.

SPEAKER_01 40:10

So you've spent a lot of time talking about ethics. Um about ethics, ethics, ethics. Where should ethical ethical lines sit in aesthetics?

SPEAKER_00 40:23

It's the most important part. After art, science, well, science first, art second, ethics. Because it's too easy to take advantage of people's insecurities and to just milk every cent you can out of them. And that's why we have laws that say that medical practices have to be owned by medical doctors, and those doctors must act ethically and in the best interest of the patient. So a lot of the times we will upset patients by saying no to things that they ask for. We have referred patients to psychologists because we say you are being unreasonable, and even though I've explained it, you still don't seem to understand. I'm maybe not the best person to explain this to you. I'm not going to inject you unless you go and see the psychologist first. And of course, how dare you tell me that. I've had patients leave and swear, but it's fine. I know I've done the right thing. I don't need everybody to like me. A lot of those patients will come back after they saw the psychologist and they'll come back and say, you know what? Thank you. You made sure that I didn't go down this road where I wouldn't look better, I wouldn't feel better. I could have been hurt, I could have been taken advantage of, but you looked after me. That's the doctor's job. We took an oath when we stood there in second year. We took that oath, and we have to stick by that oath. And that's why it's important that the doctors are the ones who are looking after the patients. And I can admit that not everybody takes that oath as seriously as they should, but you know, at least they've taken that oath.

SPEAKER_01 41:56

Yeah, it's a start. Someone chasing perfection. How do you spot that? Because that could also be a problem.

SPEAKER_00 42:04

I have a rule. You are allowed to touch the mirror with your arm, and anything you see from there that makes you unhappy is now life distance. Look at where we're sitting. Anyone who comes closer than that is in your personal space. Now, if you're in a public space and people come closer than this, you'll start to push them back. But uh the joke, which is not a joke, it's actually true. By the time someone gets this close to you, they already know what they want from you. And so you don't need to worry what you look like from here. So I discourage, I say to the patients, anything you see from arm's distance, I'll work on for you. If you have to get this close to the mirror to see it, it's probably not even a real problem. Because you then you'll start chasing perfection at that level. When you step back, now you look like a funny inflated uh soccer ball. And so that's kind of the easy way to get people not to be try to get to too much of a perfect face or body.

SPEAKER_01 43:01

Can improving appearance generally approve well-being?

SPEAKER_00 43:07

100%, yes. And it's not even just about how you feel about yourself, it's often you feel better because your whole life can be better. Now, there's a book called sometimes this seems uh debatable, but there's a book called Survival of the Prettiest by a lady named Nancy Etcoff. And in this book, she takes all of the different studies that have been done around attraction, around aesthetics, around good looks, and what that means for the person in their life. And they showed that if you fall into the category of a of a of an attractive person, you're likely to earn as much money as well, you guess. How much more? I mean, random, not a financial amount, but what is it like? If you were attractive, how much more money do you earn?

SPEAKER_01 43:57

Yeah, I think you would earn a lot more than an unattractive person. Person.

SPEAKER_00 44:00

So there's a number to it. Not a number. There's a specific description. That's why I couldn't ask this question nicely. Okay. But basically, it's the same as if you had an additional master's degree. Oh wow. So if you were uh if you had a if you were a doctor with a master's in law, it was like you had another MBA or a second master's or a third master's. And so that's the measurement that has been done. And so it's not also unwarranted. It's not just some kind of favoritism that bosses go here, you have more money. That's part of it. But part of it is that people who buy from you give you more respect, listen to what you have to say, believe you more, uh, trust you more, and are more willing to take what you're selling. And this is a fact. So if you are selling cars, the good-looking car salesman will sell more cars. And so that is why they'll earn more money. Because that's if you had to look financially, you'd say, well, oh, this person earns more because they sell more. But the reason is because they look more uh attractive and people are more willing to accept it. What's the reason they sell more? Yeah. So it says it does change your life, and there's certain things that are universal. You know, people might say, well, certain cultures or whatever, different countries have different ideals of beauty. But there's two important other studies in that in that book. There's two universal things. The one is good skin with a good skin tone, not the color of your skin, but a lack of imperfections in the skin. The other is hair. Good, healthy head of hair. The reason that's important is because you've evolved to realize that you can't fake that. You know, you can't uh fake a healthy full head of hair because it takes years of being healthy and looking after yourself to express it in that way. And so that's why it's some of the two biggest things we work on is hair growth and uh good skin, skin conditioning. Primarily with platelet-rich fibrin. It's one of the main ways we work on it. So that's universal around the whole world. Nowhere will you ever go where they say we want you to have bad skin. The second thing, which I now forgot, when it comes to time, Doctor, thank you. When it comes to attraction and oh exam papers. So there were some university professors, they got given exam papers. So it's not that they were trying to sleep with these students, but there was a picture on each paper, and they said it was for identification purposes. The better looking students got higher marks. No ways. Then they switched it all around. They switched the pictures around, and so that the papers, you know, it wasn't biased by the papers. The better looking students got higher marks again, and so it's not that that the professors were trying to carry favor with these students, they would never meet these students. They simply had a picture and their brain said to them, be nice to this person. And so it's something that we can hack into for our patients. And as unfair as it seems, we now live in all of history. The only time that we could ever change that is now, because we can use a mix of skincare, of injectables, of uh machines, of surgery to produce an effect that puts you back into contention with the other people who you otherwise would have just lost out to in the future or in the past.

SPEAKER_01 47:26

On that note, let's talk a little bit about AI in the future. How is AI changing aesthetics and medicine behind the scenes at the moment that we don't see?

SPEAKER_00 47:38

So there's good ways and bad ways that AI is changing the industry. The one is like we spoke about the illegal injectors using it to produce uh things, face app after results and fooling people. The good way, obviously, is how we and how patients and consumers can detect it by asking the same AI what's going on. When it comes to investigating things like medical cures, cures for certain conditions, uh treating gray hair, for example, AI can be very useful in exploring different avenues and different products and different molecules, things that could take humans, you know, thousands of years to do. So very useful. What we may see is also when AI it's already been done, where it can take a face and say, I think that these are the changes that need to be made to this patient for them to look their best. That's very useful for a doctor to take and then apply to their patient. Now, obviously, uh human tissue doesn't respond exactly the same way as a picture will. So it's not a hundred percent. But what we've been working on is robotic arms and how you can take those that information, transmit it into a robotic arm that could do the injecting and possibly do it safer than a human can do it, because you can do things like ultrasound and vessel detection so that you don't get filler-induced blindness and strokes, and uh replace then almost the doctor's hand. So you'd still be supervised, I would say, by a doctor, but you may not need uh a physical doctor to inject every single patient. That's where I think uh AI is going.

SPEAKER_01 49:18

So who's responsible? Because we've all we've all seen AI can make mistakes.

SPEAKER_00 49:23

Well, the doctor. The doctor would be responsible. It would be your arms and you would be responsible for what they did. Okay, so you're not against AI. No. AI is a tool. You're excited, like computers, like cell phones is a tool, like uh gym is a tool, you know, it's nothing to be afraid of.

SPEAKER_01 49:43

Where should the line be drawn though? When it comes to the technology and the human experience.

SPEAKER_00 49:51

Again, there needs to be someone in charge. So I wouldn't say set up a little vending machine in every shopping mall and let the people come in and tap their card and leave with a face full of filler with who knows what the outcome is. That's kind of where I would draw it. I wouldn't say exclude a responsible practitioner in the whole mix.

SPEAKER_01 50:12

With AI involving as it is, Doctor, what what type of training do you think doctors or yeah, experience do you think doctors are gonna need with it involving?

SPEAKER_00 50:24

Do you know when I was in med school we had to work with cadavers, people who were dead and have been preserved in formulin. And the problem is when you cut that skin open, it looks a lot like this desk. The nerves, the arteries, the veins, the muscle, they all look so similar. And to an untrained eye, it almost looks like just all the same stuff. Versus a few years ago, I went to the UAE to see a university because I wanted to bring uh a private medical school model into this country, which the Hauten government shot down. They said it was elitist. But I mean, I didn't understand that because the doctors would be working in their hospitals. I mean, I'd still be open to do that if it ever came up. But what I saw was augmented reality, working with computers. If you had a virtual reality, and now obviously we've got it on our phones and iPads with complete anatomy, you can see the entire human body in all its vibrant colors, looking like it looks in real life in a living patient. And you can learn and you can understand so much more, and you can induce different diseases to that, and you can see the pathology. And it's something that is so useful to teaching doctors that I think we'll be able to make better doctors. As long as they don't rely on ChatGPT to write their assignments for them, then it's a very useful tool.

SPEAKER_01 51:42

But just take out the iPhones.

SPEAKER_00 51:46

People were cheating before Chat GPT. For sure. They were putting stuff in their phones, they were putting it in their watches, they were writing. I mean, do you remember people used to write in a small piece of paper and they have to put it in there? So you can't blame uh AI for cheating. Cheating comes from cheaters.

SPEAKER_01 52:01

Yeah, you you're making the decision at the end of the day. Exactly. We're running out of time here, Doctor. And I've got one or two more questions. Go ahead. What questions should people ask before any procedure? What do you think is the first question people should ask?

SPEAKER_00 52:17

Risks and limitations. How far can this get me? What should I expect? What could possibly go wrong? So I wrote a paper that we published in the aesthetics journal, and it was about the risks posed by fillers as far as blindness and strokes are concerned through vascular obstruction. So then giving uh pointer to the doctors on how to reduce or minimize that risk, such as small needles, small injections, careful placement, that type of thing. And then also how to deal with it if you do run into the problem. What drugs to administer, how to get them to the doctors for a cath lab to get it in, and you know, things like hyaluronidase, how we work with those problems. But it's not, you know, that's the thing that that not everybody understands. And again, this is why if you let a beautician inject filler, you're not just getting a good deal, you are probably risking your life. You know, they don't know where to put that injection. You could kill someone very easily if you put the filler in the wrong place. But it's a very, very, very rare event when it comes to a medical doctor doing that type of thing and having a lasting consequence. I mean, it's it's extremely rare, almost that you would probably never encounter it in your life if you went to a medical doctor. But it's the same way, I would never let my beautician fly my plane and take me to Durban in the 727 or 737. I'm very happy with the pilot, and I know that he's qualified. I know that I'll get there. The chances of something going wrong are teeny tiny. But if I let a non-pilot fly us there, we know what's going to happen.

SPEAKER_01 53:57

For sure. I like that analogy. Guys, remember that when you're choosing your next injector. Injector. There we go. What breakthrough excites you the most over the next decade?

SPEAKER_00 54:11

Well, right now, I think we spoke, we touched on stem cells. And what I'd like to start doing, we'll be exploring more uh with the stem cell labs of how we can direct those cells into specific tissue types and then how we can accumulate them and create different organ or organelles or actual organs, and then have off-the-shelf organs to supply to people. So what you'll do is people won't be dying because they couldn't get a liver transplant or a heart transplant. And because you're making them from stem cells, stem cells are agnostic, which means that we all share the same stem cells, basically. There's no typing when it comes to that. So it's not a rejection of a foreign object. But obviously, this is to come in time to come. The Department of Science and Technology has been forward-thinking and kind enough to give us a tax rebate, 150% tax rebate on any research for stem cells. So very excited to take that process forward. And of course, then you kill the uh human trafficking for organs industry. So it's a nice thing to do. And the other thing is uh with what we've been doing with platelet rich fibrin, how we've been using it to fill faces, fill boobs, uh, we want to start using it more in the body for things like cellulite, for other types of skin conditioning work. And that's kind of my excitement. And I guess the one other thing I would like to see more is a treatment for gray hair, because I'm starting to get some. And so I I thought, what can I do about this? And we've actually found a nice formula that's been studied to produce this uh treatment for gray hair, and so I'll be working on that. So that's kind of where my excitement is right now.

SPEAKER_01 55:49

Oh, that's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 55:50

Well, let me know when you're ready for that gray thing.

SPEAKER_01 55:52

I might need it. We'll be we'll we'll let you know for sure. What does healthy self-improvement look like to you, Doctor?

SPEAKER_00 56:00

Last question. It looks holistic. It looks like somebody who makes sure that they're tracking their sleep with their little watch and making sure they get enough hours of sleep, that they are focusing on self-policing their thoughts so that they're not ruminating, that they're not allowing the negative side of the of human nature to take them down, that they are eating properly, paying attention to what their body tells them. You know, I did a DNA test, which tells me what types of food I should eat, what vegetables I should eat. It tells me things like carbohydrates are more likely to increase my cholesterol instead of fats, which is what we always knew is that saturated fats raises cholesterol. But in my body, it's carbohydrates. So it's it I can't follow the same rules that everybody else does. I have to change that a little bit. And it means then looking after yourself. And then, of course, we do the injectables, we look after the hair, the rest of the body. And it's just kind of if you're living in that way, you will live longer, you will um look better when you get to that older age. Nobody wants to live to 120. If you look 120, we want you to be healthy, happy, attractive. And so that's kind of where we are, I would say be holistic, make sure you keep your friends, you know. After when you leave school and you leave university, you lose touch with your friends. And it's almost a recipe to feed into a road of loneliness and dementia. It's where it goes if you don't keep your friends and keep those positive human interactions on a daily basis.

SPEAKER_01 57:36

Something I wanted to ask, which I did forget and I remember it now, based on you telling me keep my friends. Um alcohol and what it does to your body.

SPEAKER_00 57:46

So we used to have uh an understanding or an acceptance that there was a safe amount, and we used to have an acceptance that there was sometimes a useful medical um treatment. So as far as reducing uh cholesterol is concerned. For example, we thought, well, red wine has got resveratrol, and well, now you can get resveratrol in a pill. So it kind of takes away that almost excuse. And new research is showing that there is no safe amount. But if you do drink, I would say keep it responsible, keep it to, you know, one or two a day, don't go overboard. There's definitely no benefit at all to having 10 drinks on a Saturday night and driving your car or thinking that you're tougher than you are and getting into a fight. So if you are going to use it and have it with your meal, you know, that's normal, it's part of many cultures, you know, you can still enjoy it, but they don't fool yourself into thinking that it's somehow good for you.

SPEAKER_01 58:42

And someone who has, let me see how to put this someone who has one glass of wine every single night to someone that then goes on a Saturday and drinks three bottles that night. What is what is worse?

SPEAKER_00 58:57

Is it the same? The binge drinker will suffer more because the one who has it every day in a limited quantity kind of builds up a tolerance and their body is able to deal with it. Keeps themselves oiled. So, but if you do it as a binge, your body doesn't know what to do with it. Okay, and again, DNA-wise, for example, I'll give you uh me as an example. I have a problem. If I had to drink, it would get stuck along the pathway, it would turn into DIM, which is um it's part of the uh is it DIM? I might be wrong. It turns into a toxic byproduct and it stays there for a long time because my liver wouldn't be able to convert it effectively like the average person does. So I have a genetics that hates smoke, which is why I hate public smoking. It's almost like uh a physical assault, literally, according to my DNA, and I can't drink alcohol because it will get stuck in my liver and make me sick.

SPEAKER_01 59:49

I have no doubt, and I know this is the last question, but I've no doubt I was talking about DNA now and all of that. Where do you go to to test that?

SPEAKER_00 59:56

Well, we do it, we send it to a lab uh called Fagron, but we will do it for patients. Okay, so we could come to the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:02

Patients can come to you. They can guys, Dr. Riza's on all the Instagram, he's uh got a website, and you can reach out to us and we'll connect you.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:10

Yes, happy drisa underscore Mia. That's our Instagram name. But you can Google me if you want to find me, you'll find me.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:18

Yeah, well, and we can help you. Thank you. Okay, so they can come to you and do this DNA testing, which gives you it sounds like a shitload of information.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:27

Yes, and it's true and it's factual, and you know why you have to do certain things. Okay. Like the hair. You know, there's 350 active ingredients as far as hair loss is concerned. But, you know, some of those medications may work for you, but they may work not for your cousin. And you always wonder why. And it's because number one, you identify the causes of the hair loss. Number two, it will identify receptors in your scalp. So, for example, fenesteride. It's a tablet, it's meant to grow hair and block testosterone. I have no receptors for, I have no receptors for the topical monoxidol, but I have receptors for fenesteride, which means I can avoid taking a pill, I can rub it on my head and my hair will grow, which is almost as crazy as saying I can rub paracetamol in my head and my headache will go away. Yeah. So, I mean, but it's because of the DNA that we know. And this lab then produces those products for the patients. And so it's a very easy way of then dealing with uh treatment and prevention of hair loss.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:27

The information you get from this um is it a full set of uh of info, or do you choose I want to know about this or this, or do you get everything?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:37

Well, so for example, hair will be one. This one I told you about with eating will be another one. Because it's all different tests. Yes, yes. Okay, yeah, okay. But it's quite um you know, the the food one is a hundred pages long. Wow. And so you can use it though. Like I give it to my PA and I say to her, buy food based on this. And she knows that she needs to buy, you know, strawberries instead of tomatoes.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:01

Yeah. Interesting. Good, Doctor. Thank you. So much for your time. I've got so much more to ask. Uh ask you. Well, I can always come back. We'll do this again. Um I've sended a few other guests every three months. We look, we look, we check in with each other again and we do an episode.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:17

This has been really good, and I've been happy. I've been able to say everything I wanted to get off my chat, so I'll definitely come back.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:23

Please do, please do. And next time, maybe what I'd like to do is is dive into the aesthetic thing with regards to mental health. Yes, we will. Because I think that makes a big thing. But doctor, thank you very much. God's pleasure. Reach out if you to Dr. Risa for anything, reach out to us, we'll connect you. We're out.