EXOSOMES: Everything You Need To Know About the Darling Molecules of the Anti-Aging Industry, With JuveXO’s Brian Pla.

Ben Greenfield [00:00:00]: My name is Ben Greenfield, and on this episode of the Boundless Life podcast.

Brian Pla [00:00:04]: There are no stem cells and exosomes that are FDA approved for any indication. The FDA considers them a drug. So right now, the only compliant way that they're being promoted is for topical cosmetic use. I use them a couple of ways. I don't know if you can see. I have a way better coif of hair than I did before I did a hair transplant procedure. I came to Dr. Bauman and I said, look, we have a new formula that's just for hair.

Brian Pla [00:00:31]: Do you think we could do a procedure? I'll be your guinea pig. After, like, four months, I saw him at another conference and he came over and he goes, I'm blown away. He goes, I had no doubt you were going to grow hair. I just didn't think you were going to grow it that fast. He goes, you've accelerated your hair growth process by months. And not only that, your hair texture has improved. It's almost like your hair died younger.

Ben Greenfield [00:00:53]: Welcome to the Boundless Life with me, your host, Ben Greenfield.

Ben Greenfield [00:00:58]: I'm a personal trainer, exercise physiologist, and nutritionist, and I'm passionate about helping you discover unparalleled levels of health, fitness, longevity, and beyond. Well, I get a lot of questions. It seems like as many questions these days about these things called exosomes as I do about stem cells. They're like this newest, latest, hottest topic in the whole regenerative medicine and longevity field. I've never done a dedicated podcast all about exosomes. I've been looking around for somebody who could speak pretty intelligently. Hopefully pretty intelligently. We'll find out on the topic of exosomes.

Ben Greenfield [00:01:43]: And I met this guy at the American Academy of Anti Aging Medicine. I know that's a mouthful. A4M a conference in Vegas.

Ben Greenfield [00:01:54]: He.

Ben Greenfield [00:01:55]: He works with a company called JuveXO. As in like Ju Rejuvenation Exosomes, I guess. J U V E X O. And his name is Brian Pla. He agreed to come on my podcast and fill us in on all things exosomes and answer all my stupid questions about exosomes because I've been injected with them, I've been infused with them. I feel incredible when I use exosomes. I even have nebulized them for my lungs, which I just did when I got back from a recent trip to India. So I figured I'd have a chat with Brian.

Ben Greenfield [00:02:32]: So, Brian, welcome.

Brian Pla [00:02:34]: Thank you so much, Ben. Thanks for having me. Awesome to be here.

Ben Greenfield [00:02:37]: Yeah, for sure. Man. How'd you get into this whole field?

Brian Pla [00:02:39]: Well, funny enough, actually, I'm not a medical practitioner or a scientist. I actually got into this business as a patient. So about 12 years ago, a little more than 12 years ago, it was 2012. And the reason I remember is because Don Julio had just launched a new tequila brand, and I had stem cell treatment in Mexico. And to celebrate, which is obviously not the best thing to do, we had a sample of that new Tequila. That's kind of how I remember that. So we were doing a stem cell treatment down there. And Dr.

Brian Pla [00:03:10]: Gonzalez, who's really my mentor and really one of the pioneers in the space.

Ben Greenfield [00:03:15]: Wait, wait, are you. Are you talking about Rafael Gonzalez?

Brian Pla [00:03:18]: That is correct. Yes.

Ben Greenfield [00:03:19]: I've. I've come across him before. Like, a lot of people talk about him as being kind of like the man in the regenerative medicine industry.

Brian Pla [00:03:26]: The Yoda.

Ben Greenfield [00:03:27]: Yeah.

Brian Pla [00:03:29]: So he was doing a stem cell study down in. In Mexico with a bunch of MMA fighters to see a couple things. They're trying to see how well they recovered after a stem cell infusion. And then secondly, they were trying to see the effects of blood doping. I didn't know what a stem cell was at the time, but I. I was intrigued, and I went down there, had the stem cell treatment, and. And, man, really felt amazing. I mean, granted, I was in my early 30s at the time, but nonetheless, it was.

Brian Pla [00:03:58]: I felt it was a game changer, and it really started to set my path down into understanding more about regenerative medicine. And as I started to go down the path, about 18 months later, I asked, hey, is this something that I could do on my knee? And I had my knee injected. I had an old injury, had torn in. ACL was on the fast track to a knee replacement. My only option, a micro fracture rehab, surgery. None of the things that I wanted to do. So I said, well, look, I'm going to give this, the stem cell stuff an opportunity. I got it injected, and about four months later, I was playing basketball again, full court with, you know, with guys younger than me.

Brian Pla [00:04:38]: I was like, well, this is something that. That works. And. And that's it. I was. I was off to the races. And. And probably about a few years after that, I said, you know, I was turning 40.

Brian Pla [00:04:48]: It was no longer about the money, was about passion and purpose. And then I, you know, I founded a company, you know, based on cell therapy research. And then subsequently, seeing what Raphael had done with these stem cells and the exosomes being an evolution of them, we started JuveXO and, and that was, you know, fast forward 2019 and here we are today.

Ben Greenfield [00:05:09]: When you got that knee rehab done, were you doing or the knee injection, was that just stem cells or was that stem cells with exosomes?

Brian Pla [00:05:15]: That was just at that time with just stem cells. This is, you know, over 10 years ago. So it was just pure stem cells, which, you know, and I'll get into that, into the differences between the two in a, in a bit. But that's, it was pure, the pure stem cells.

Ben Greenfield [00:05:30]: Okay. I would actually love to get into that. Like, you know, you a lot of times hear exosomes thrown around in the same phrase as stem cells. They're not the same. But can you explain what exosomes actually are and how they're different? The stem cells?

Brian Pla [00:05:44]: Absolutely. So exosomes are part of the communication that transpires between all cells and they include stem cells. Right. So the exosome is really key to making functional changes in the, in your body to include an aiding in repairing and regeneration. And they're really very, very small. They're, they're tiny vesicles. They're actually measured in nanometers. Right.

Brian Pla [00:06:07]: So they're, they're about 30 to 150 nanometers in diameter. And they're secreted by various types of cells and they're called extracellular vesicles. Why? Because they're, they're not, they're not cellular. Right. So they're secreted by the cell and they're really taking that regenerative message from the stem cell and communicating it to the damaged cell to help it in the regeneration. So they're just small membrane bound structures that contain various bioactive molecules. I guess that's the best way to. And they contain things like proteins, rna, microrna, but they're really messengers.

Brian Pla [00:06:43]: If I could give you one piece of how to best describe them in one word is they facilitate communication. So they're messengers.

Ben Greenfield [00:06:50]: So a lot of people, I guess, like thinking back to high school biology or whatever, when they hear about cells communicating, a lot of times there is some kind of a receptor on a cell surface. Something is binding to that receptor and causing some kind of a chemical signaling cascade that causes a reaction to occur. Is it kind of like that with exosomes? Are they actually binding to a receptor on a cell or are they so small that they're literally like going inside the cell?

Brian Pla [00:07:16]: Yeah, that's exactly. They're so small they're able to penetrate, they've been able to penetrate like the blood brain barrier Right. So. And for a long time, exosomes were not even being considered. They were being considered like cellular waste. Only as science continue to evolve and we got, we got a chance to understand, in fact, so few people. I mean, and like you said, exosomes are being thrown around right now in terms of, and they become ubiquitous in the space, primarily in the cosmetic space, that. How do you really know that there's an exosome in there? And we've even gone as far as we've taken images, live images or exosomes in the product, which no one's been able to do in the, in the field.

Ben Greenfield [00:07:52]: How do you take images of them under electron microscopy.

Brian Pla [00:07:57]: So it's, it's a very expensive component, you know, equipment. Sorry, I lost the magnifying. Right. So it's, it's a microscope. So it's meant, it's meant to, to really get the smallest types of images using, you know, kind of light and how they, they bounce off. So we have some pretty amazing pictures that we're going to be releasing soon to the market. In fact, at the A4M, when we met, you saw on the top, we had, hey, we've shown you ours, now show us yours. Because again, there's so many, so many people making these claims.

Brian Pla [00:08:29]: And, you know, we'll get a little bit more, a little deeper into the science and, you know, in terms of where exosomes come from, you know, what's the process and how to differentiate. Right. And so I'll go, I'll go into all of that.

Ben Greenfield [00:08:43]: Yeah. It's funny that you bring up exosomes as being thought of for a long time as extracellular waste. And this makes me feel old, but when I was taking exercise fizz at University of Idaho, I remember my exercise phys professor, his name was Dennis Dolney. I remember a lecture that he gave where you show these tiny little circles coming out of the cell. And he says something like, yeah, this is the cell poop. This is just like the waste that it discards after its metabolic processes. And those were exosomes. He used the word exosomes.

Ben Greenfield [00:09:14]: But 20 years later, when some doctor is telling me he could give me an exosome infusion for some ungodly price, at least for me at the time, I'm like, you're going to inject cell poop into me?

Brian Pla [00:09:27]: Yeah, yeah. No, it's, I mean, it's, it's come a long way. The equipment has, has gotten better. You know, we understand the, the whole chemistry and biology of cells and all these nanoparticles and what's responsible for the entire cellular process and what we're seeing is that when you have the stem cell, just the presence of the stem cell is not sufficient. It is, it is. What are they? How are they communicating to the damaged cell to be able to do that? And the exosomes have been, you know, are that catalyst.

Ben Greenfield [00:09:57]: Yeah, yeah. So how do you, how do you milk the, the exosome cow? Where do these things come from?

Brian Pla [00:10:02]: That's a, that's a good way to say it. That's the, or the most polite way to say it. So exosomes secreted by cells, you know, as it pertains to. And as it pertains to our proprietary exosomes, they're derived from umbilical cord lining stem cells, which are more like a superior source of mesenchymal symptoms. Right. So we know that you hear the word mesenchymal stem cells, people say MSCs, right? MSCs, correct. And these are ULSCs, which are umbilical cord lining stem cells, which again, because we've been in this space so long, we've tested every cell type, you know, and we feel that these are the most, if you think what the umbilical cord is meant to do. Right.

Brian Pla [00:10:43]: The umbilical cord is meant to give life. Right. Nine months caring life. So it is the most nutrient rich environment and that's where we find these cells. And so we call them superior MSCs in that front. And then exosomes are secreted from the stem cells.

Ben Greenfield [00:11:02]: Where else would folks normally get exosomes if it wasn't from the umbilical?

Brian Pla [00:11:07]: Exosomes are secreted by different types of cells, so. And other types of stem cells. So there's hematopoietic, there's progenitor, so there's different types of stem cells that. Producing exosomes. Like I could give you a cup of milk and there could be exosomes in there. And when we get into that, you'll see that just having exosomes present is not sufficient. Right. What really helps to contribute to the regenerative process is who are those exosomes coupled with, who are the teammates that are on the exosome team.

Brian Pla [00:11:38]: And that's why you're seeing the move from exosomes to secret homes where, which are in essence the cell secretions that include exosomes, but other things like other proteins, amino acids, et cetera.

Ben Greenfield [00:11:51]: When I've gotten exosomes most of the time, even though I actually am curious about this Someone has given me a bottle of exosomes before that seem kind of like stable at room temperature. You only got to keep them in the refrigerator, but usually they're frozen. And when somebody injects you, they take them out and they kind of have you hold them in your hand, or the practitioner holds them in their hand. Yeah, they hand thaw them. And then there's a bottle, and it's got the liquid in it that you then inject or infuse. But is it just exosomes in that bottle?

Brian Pla [00:12:27]: Well, look, I can't. I can't speak for what other people are putting in there, you know, in the product, because, again, because it's become so popular and being used more and more and primarily in the cosmetic space, then everybody's come in and just say, hey, we. We have exosomes. Here's our little vial. But so few could actually really vet what's in there. So it's so important and kind of like in real estate, location, location, location, when it comes to stem cells and exosomes. Source, source, source. Really understand what the source of the exosomes and the stem cells are, what testing has been done on this.

Brian Pla [00:13:06]: I mean, for instance, for us, we. We purify our cell population. We grow them up in a proprietary formula, and we've studied the appropriate method to get them to secrete these secretomes, which, like I said, it includes hyaluronic acid and collagen. Those are the top two ingredients in our body. So we get this naturally secreted along with our exosomes. Right. So everyone's like, well, we have the purest exosomes. Well, we're seeing that just having exosomes present is not sufficient.

Brian Pla [00:13:39]: In fact, we've even found other things as we've continued to go deeper into what's in our product, these proteins that are called beta defensins 2. And you're going to start to hear a lot more about this soon because cosmetic companies, cancer companies, are starting to see the effects of beta defensin because of their antibacterial and inflammation mitigation. So we're going to start to see a lot more mention of that here soon. And that's something that we naturally secrete. And again, you can't just add this to the product. You have to be able to know what you're doing in the cell culture to have it secrete accordingly.

Ben Greenfield [00:14:19]: Is the one that you're making this bottle of exosomes, which it sounds like has these secretomes. You said secretomes, right? Am I pronouncing that right? Secretomes. And then maybe in the future, these beta defenses. Is this a product that would need to be frozen?

Brian Pla [00:14:38]: Well, so we ship it frozen because it's the best way to maintain it long term, but because of the base and how again, we've gotten the product to come to be our product, been once thawed, is stable in a refrigerator for up to 120 days and even at room temperature for 90 days. And that's something that most people will tell you it's impossible. And I'll say, yeah, it's impossible if your science hasn't evolved to that point. I'll give you the example. If tomorrow we find a race that is able to pass one star to the other. For us, it's impossible, but it's only because we haven't advanced to that point technology wise. Same thing with us and our cell process. We've advanced to that process.

Brian Pla [00:15:26]: So we are way ahead.

Ben Greenfield [00:15:27]: How do you use exosomes for yourself?

Brian Pla [00:15:30]: Well, it's very important to make the disclaimer that there are no stem cells and exosomes that are FDA approved for any indication. Right. Because the FDA considers them a drug. So they're throwing the exosomes along with the stem cells in the same consideration. So right now the only compliant way that they're being promoted is for topical cosmetic use.

Ben Greenfield [00:15:55]: Yeah. And by the way, that makes sense because I was just in India and I gave a talk there and there were some doctors there. One of the doctors runs a cosmetic beauty clinic. And she comes up to me afterwards, she's like, hey, you want to swing in for an exosome facial tomorrow? And I was like, well, sure, why not? So I went in there and I got the exosomes. And while she was doing microneedling before the exosomes, we were chatting and I said, well, do you also. Have you ever nebulize these? Do you inject them? Do you do infusion? She's like, no, no, no. We're only doing facials with them because apparently in India it sounds like similar to the US that's the only way that you can use them. And she said, Korea is where a lot of these facial exosomes are coming from that are using these cosmetic clinics.

Brian Pla [00:16:45]: Yeah, yeah. And Korea is really considered kind of the gold standard. No one takes their cosmetics more seriously. So there's a link to if you have a product from Korea, by default, it's going to be ooh. And they have different regulatory components here, but a lot of countries do follow the US's regulatory guidelines. So you're limited in terms of what you can and can't do. Now if you're doing it in terms of a study of some sort, you know, under physician supervision and it's consented, you know, you, you could, you could use it under, but again, you can't make any claims. It can't be used as a drug.

Brian Pla [00:17:25]: So it's extremely important that, that, that is distinguished because you don't want to take all the good work that companies like ourselves are doing and then just because, you know, it's becoming sexy and selling and people making all sorts and then that's what damages the industry for, for others. Right? And a lot of times you have one bad issue and then they're throwing everybody into the same. And what I can tell you is that, you know, we've been in this space for almost 20 years. We spend, you know, a lot of money on, on our R&D, millions and millions of dollars in our R&D. We have, you know, a pioneer in the space. We have a huge science team, a beautiful lab in, in California. We're working with the FDA in more multiple clinical trials with our stem cells. And soon we're going to have a clinical trial with our exosomes too, actually for osteoarthritis.

Ben Greenfield [00:18:15]: Well, maybe I'm confused because I've gotten exosomes in the US. I've gotten IVs and I've gotten injections. Is that illegal? Has the person that gave that to me breaking the law?

Brian Pla [00:18:26]: Well, as per the FDA guideline, you cannot administer an exosome systemically because it is in essence considered a drug. Even when you're getting infusion of vitamin C, there's a doctor that's technically signing or a mid level practitioner that's signing off on that, stating that you're okay to have that done. And I know a lot of times it makes it seem like it's super easy. I'm just going to go get an IV, but that's going intravenously, has to be under medical supervision. And, and if it's being used for an indication, if you're trying to treat something, then it has to be, you know, a drug. So I'm not going to speak under the conditions that your practitioner did it. You know, I'm sure you guys had discussed it. You know, I don't know what his consents were like, but if he's making some claims that he was treating you for something with that IV, then that's where, then that's where, okay, so.

Ben Greenfield [00:19:21]: So it's more about the semantics. It's like, I'm going to give you exosomes for XYZ would not be kosher or legal, but just like, this seems kind of dumb, but if they would just say, I'm just going to give you exosomes for no real defined good reason that technically would be allowed.

Brian Pla [00:19:41]: Well, I mean, again, allowed is if we're going strict interpretation, just to make it simple is topical cosmetic use. And that's what. And if you look at everything that we're promoting, it is for that. And a lot of times, and that's where I think initially the exosomes got added to throw in the same category because so many people were promoting them IV especially, you know, during the pandemic and etc. And if you don't have a vetted product that's gone through the exhaustive, I mean, just to give you an idea with the amount of testing that needs to happen before you're approving this to go, that we were able to put it into a patient, into a clinical trial, right? It has to go. And I'm talking about our stem cells. It has to go through exhaustive sourcing where we have to do viral testing. So we're testing from everything from CMV, EBV, I mean, those cytomegalovirus, Epstein Barr.

Brian Pla [00:20:34]: About 70, 80% of the population has that. So any source that came back with that or any umbilical cord that we got with that was discarded. Right. Then if it was positive for any sort of other infectious disease discarded, we then do genetic testing to make sure that there's no genetic aberrations if anything came back that was discarded. So it's an exhaustive process to find a cell line that you're able to work off of. And why it's impossible you can have all these people doing stem cells because that's extremely time consuming and expensive. So I always caution, people really understand, you know, make sure your doctor is asking whatever company they're getting anything from, what is the source, what testing's been done, where is my certificate of analysis so that your safety is first before any outcome.

Ben Greenfield [00:21:21]: That's actually really good to know because I think at least I get the impression that in the regenerative medicine and whatever you want to call it, the biohacking industry, people kind of think of exosomes as a lot safer than stem cells because stem cells seem like tissue. A lot of people say that you can get an immune response or flu like reaction to stem cells. People's joints swell, they feel kind of lethargic afterwards. Whereas it seems like the prevailing claim that a lot of people make is exosomes are just pure and clean and all they are these little vesicles. But it sounds like since they are derived from tissue, you have to be just as careful with them as you would need to be with stem cells.

Brian Pla [00:22:01]: Correct. Any cellular derived product, you have to be. You have to. And again, that is a narrative that's been spun by people that are selling it to minimize questioning around what homework they've done or what science they've done on their product.

Ben Greenfield [00:22:18]: Okay, so it's kind of the wild, wild west.

Brian Pla [00:22:21]: It's been a bit of the wild west. But fortunately, I think the narrative is changing. Doctors are becoming more educated and I think now with new MAHA initiative and I think we're gonna really start to see a push more towards these biologics and more companies stepping forward to invest the money to get, get these products across the goal line for different indications, which is really, really what we want it to be. You know, the second we get one, you know, one or two stem cell products approved and then, and then subsequently derivatives like exosomes, then, hey, so many people are going to be able to benefit because it's unquestionable the benefits you have on the, on the immune system, inflammation, you know, et cetera.

Ben Greenfield [00:23:06]: When you and I were in Vegas, I literally got an email from a doctor about an exosome party. Like they were literally throwing an exosome party where a bunch of people came into the hotel room and got their injections and their IV infusions. So I don't know what kind of product they were using, but it is interesting how prevalent they are and perhaps how much more caution people might need to take based on what you're saying. But you still didn't answer my question, dude. How do you use them?

Brian Pla [00:23:33]: I use them a couple of ways. First is, I don't know if you can see. I have a way better coif of hair than I did before. So I did a hair transplant procedure with Dr. Alan Bauman down here. One of the top guys in the country.

Ben Greenfield [00:23:50]: I've heard of him. He's like the goat for hair.

Brian Pla [00:23:53]: Yeah, exactly. So I'm always making sure that anything I do, I have to try myself first. And I know you're much the same, Ben. I know you guinea pig a lot of things over the years. You know, just, it's important to have that first person knowledge. So, you know, I came to Dr. Bauman and I said, look, we have a new formula that's just for, for hair. It's our, you know, our same JuveXO formula, but we've added a couple of proprietary recombinant proteins triggering, you know, hair growth in the follicle.

Brian Pla [00:24:22]: Do you think we could do a procedure? I'll be your guinea pig. You know, we'll, we'll, we'll do this. And, and he was, he, you know, he laughed because he's getting sold to stuff all the time. He had used other Exosome products and when, and you know, after like four months, I saw him at another conference and he came over and he goes, he goes, I'm blown away. He goes, I had no doubt you were going to grow hair. Right. And I, you know, and if you go on the website, you can see some of the before and afters and whatnot, but I just didn't think you were going to grow it that fast. He goes, you've accelerated your hair growth process by months.

Brian Pla [00:24:56]: And not only that, your hair texture has improved. It's almost like your hair got yellow younger and to the point where I had a lot more white hair before and now my hair is dark again. We don't know why, I mean, but there's like, seems to be a catalyst component that if you're making the hair fall younger to a degree, then you potentially are even maybe helping the, you know, the melanocytes in hair or the pigmentation of the hair. Right. So I was extremely depressed, very happy. And that's what I knew that we have something special and we launched the hair product line and it's, I mean we have tons of the really high end practitioners across the country using this complementing it either a hair transplant or less invasive. So that's one and the other one I use in combination with any aesthetic procedures I've done. I've done it with microneedling, I've done it with Morpheus, which is like an RF micro needling, all complement recovery and regeneration.

Brian Pla [00:26:01]: So there's a couple ways that I've used it.

Ben Greenfield [00:26:04]: Yeah. And I'm sure there's a few bald dudes or women with receding hairlines driving in their cars right now maybe, or listening in and wondering, okay, I'm ready, I want to order some Exosomes. You can just go to a website and order exosomes to your house and self apply. These are for people who maybe aren't familiar with Exosome protocols. You go to a doctor to do these, right?

Brian Pla [00:26:25]: Yeah. This is not you can't find these on Amazon or what. These are not to consumer because they still have to be, you know, driven by a procedure. We have to also understand what the dosing is and what the frequency is. You know, when would you need to come back and all that. And only, you know, a licensed practitioner who understands what you're looking for and understands the product could do so. So we have practitioners all over the country, actually in many parts of the world using our exome and we've grown it truly organic. I mean we haven't gone out there and promoted, we've just gone on and had, you know, you know, some key practitioners using it.

Brian Pla [00:27:01]: And it's grown organically, driven primarily by, you know, the science, which is the way it should be.

Ben Greenfield [00:27:08]: Yeah. I had the opportunity to have exosomes nebulized into my lungs when I got back a few weeks ago from a two week tour of India because my lungs were just blasted, man, I could only hold my breath for half the swimming pool. And usually I can go down and back. I felt like I'd been smoking all day long. I couldn't take a deep breath without this weird pain and pressure in my chest. Maybe it was placebo. I don't think it was. But maybe you can tell me.

Ben Greenfield [00:27:38]: The first time that I nebulized exosomes and I actually did it three times when I got back from India, I felt within 20 minutes like I could breathe better. Do they act really quickly? And kind of as a second part of that question, what's going on? Like in the case of, let's say like damaged lungs, someone nebulizes, what are the exosomes actually doing to cause such a dramatic healing effect?

Brian Pla [00:28:01]: Well, if you think that intranasal delivery is, you know, is the nasal mucosa is very well vascularized area. Right. So it provides a direct pathway to the bloodstream and even the central nervous system through the olfactory nerve and the trigeminal nerve pathways. Right. So.

Ben Greenfield [00:28:18]: Oh, I didn't even think about the nervous system effect. That's interesting.

Brian Pla [00:28:22]: Yeah. So unlike injections, Right. Intranasal delivery is obviously painless. It's non invasive, way more patient friendly. So that's something that, you know, could improve on the compliance, especially for patients that are requiring know, repeated treatments. But internal delivery allows for faster absorption and it bypasses the digestive system. So it's a more direct route into the bloodstream. And since you're targeting specific tissues, particularly in the upper respiratory area, which was the issues that you had, that's where Things like, you know, if you have rhinos, sinusitis, or other severe upper respiratory conditions, it's going to mitigate it better.

Brian Pla [00:29:05]: Right. Because you're getting right to the. Quickly getting to that area in that proximity.

Ben Greenfield [00:29:10]: Yeah. It's like they're. It's my understanding they're attracting a host of growth factors to that area that rapidly accelerate healing.

Brian Pla [00:29:17]: Right. And if you think that we have. Our product contains, it's very rich in high molecular hyaluronic acid and collagen, it's hypothetically triggering these respiratory benefits.

Ben Greenfield [00:29:29]: Yeah. Now, when you say intranasal, are you synonymizing that with nebulizing? The reason I ask is I actually have gotten. They're like $6.99 on Amazon. These little atomizers, which you put one up one nostril, you draw whatever solution you're going to inject, you push it through the syringe, it atomizes that into very small particles. And in the case of, let's say, a lot of people with mold issues these days, they'll do that with a peptide called vip, Vasoactive Intestinal Polypeptide, I think that stands for. And it has great effects on the sinuses in terms of fixing mold issues in the sinuses. I've done that with exosomes. And it feels like you're literally just putting a nootropic or a smart drug directly into your brain.

Ben Greenfield [00:30:15]: But that's obviously different than breathing via mask and nebulizing. But when you say intranasal, are you saying that even nebulizing, you get a lot of intranasal delivery?

Brian Pla [00:30:24]: Yeah. Yes, that is correct. Because, you know, what are you doing when you're. When you're breathing? Right. You're coming, you know, in through your nose.

Ben Greenfield [00:30:30]: So I kind of alternate. I do one deep breath from my nose and then out, and then one deep breath through my mouth. Mouth and then out.

Brian Pla [00:30:37]: Right. But, you know, similar. And of course, the direct atomize is obviously you're going just nasal and it's. It's probably the most direct. Right. And more. More concentrated.

Ben Greenfield [00:30:50]: Yeah.

Ben Greenfield [00:30:51]: What.

Ben Greenfield [00:30:51]: What is the idea behind that and the effects on cognition? Have there been any studies looking into exosomes used as a sort of. Not to use too street of a term, but like a smart drug?

Brian Pla [00:31:01]: You mean like a. Like Limitless?

Ben Greenfield [00:31:04]: Yeah, because I've done it before, and you do feel kind of limitless if, you know nootropics.

Brian Pla [00:31:10]: Right. So nootropics is a growing, you know, space. You see a lot of peptides that are that are used like, you know, the Selank, Semax, you know, there's, there's cognitive benefits. Right on, on that. We feel that for the same reasons that it sounds like we should be able to have. And again, we haven't, we haven't tested this, but just by the ingredients and the immune benefits that it should have. And again, it's a cumulative effort. And I'm not trying to be evasive.

Brian Pla [00:31:43]: I'm just trying to my words carefully so it doesn't seem like I'm trying to sit here and sell this as a drug, because I'm not. But I do want to show that of the potential benefits and why there's so much excitement in the space and why there should be continued investment in the exosome space to do things the right way. Because I think in cognitive function, like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, dementia, and, you know, like, that's a very, very promising space. And if we know now Alzheimer's is in essence, you know, it's a type of diabetes, right? Diabetes type 3. Hey, what are we able to do? If we're able to kind of bring down that systemic inflammation, if we're able to help, you know, create new neurogenesis and angiogenesis, are we able to improve that? And I'm hoping in time will tell, but it is, it is promising.

Ben Greenfield [00:32:35]: Yeah. You're going to hate this story, but I have a friend who had chronic hip pain and inflammation and he happens to be pretty well connected and had access to a good source of exosomes that he had shipped to his house. And he pulled a bunch of syringes with the long, the pretty thin, high gauge needles into each of these syringes, laid them all out and got a massage. And during the massage kind of laid his leg out over his body to open up the hip surfaces and basically told his massage therapist to just plunge the needles and inject all over around his hips. And he said he stood up and hasn't had any hip issues since. That's obviously not a recommended way to do exosome therapy. However, proceed with caution. The reason I bring this up is that a lot of doctors in a medical setting are injecting exosomes into joints.

Ben Greenfield [00:33:35]: Is this very similar to a stem cell injection when done properly? Not having your massage therapist cowboy it. But when you're at a medical clinic, is it kind of similar where they're doing like an ultrasound, they're looking at the joint and they're kind of putting the needle in the right spot similar to stem cells or is it more like peptides where you just got to inject close to the area where it hurts and you're good to go?

Brian Pla [00:33:55]: No, well, I, I mean, I think it was the former, not, not, not the latter. Right. And, and if you think of, if I told you, if I asked you the question, what would, what are the top, let's say two ingredients you'd love to have for anything joint related, what would you tell me?

Ben Greenfield [00:34:12]: I'd say probably collagen and some type of an anti inflammatory like a turmeric extract or ginger or something like that. Like that. That's, that's what comes to mind for me.

Brian Pla [00:34:25]: Yeah. So collagen, you're spot on. And then the other one will be ha, hyaluronic acid. Right.

Ben Greenfield [00:34:30]: Is that, is that bioavailable though, when consumed orally?

Brian Pla [00:34:33]: When consumed orally, no, but I'm saying, you know, you're seeing, you're seeing the HA used obviously, you know, topically, you're seeing it injected, you're seeing. But those are the two ingredients you'd want to have. Right. And that's what our product is most abundant. And again, not that we added to it, it's that it is secreted by our products. Back to the, the secret room being kind of sitting higher on the hierarchy than the exosome and, and, and the other, and the other ingredients. Right. So think of it this way, right? If I, if I took Lionel Messi and, and, and, and I put him on a, and I put him on a basketball court and I put a jersey on him, how well is he going to play soccer? Not too well.

Brian Pla [00:35:12]: Right. But if I put him on a soccer field with a good team, the right equipment and then I'm putting him in a position to win. And that is the same thing. It's. Who is accompanying these exosomes to the party for what they're trying to address? And in this case we know what the answer. In fact, one of the clinical studies or the first clinical study we're going to do with our exosomes for osteoarthritis. And we have a formula for that because important. HA, collagen, Chondroitin Sulfate.

Brian Pla [00:35:51]: Right. That's something you'll see, you know, in supplements as well. How well those work for the, for the joint because since you're generally delivered directly to the affected area.

Ben Greenfield [00:36:01]: Right.

Brian Pla [00:36:02]: And you're right, image guidance is important because even the best injector is going to miss, you know, 30% of the time.

Ben Greenfield [00:36:09]: Yeah. It's waste of money, you might get a little bit of effect, but in my opinion, it's a waste of money to get some kind of a joint injection without ultrasound guided imaging.

Brian Pla [00:36:18]: Correct. So and then once they're delivered to the joint, they initiate several key regenerative processes.

Ben Greenfield [00:36:25]: Right.

Brian Pla [00:36:25]: One is promotion of cartilage regeneration. Right. Growth factors carried by the exosomes, like for instance, not to get too scientific, but TGF, right. Which is transforming growth factor beta and VG, VGEF, which is vascular muscular endothelial growth factor. Right. They can stimulate the repair and regeneration of damaged cartilage. Right. They also carry a matrix which is a mmps and their enzymes that break down damage extracellular matrix and they help in remodeling that cartilage.

Brian Pla [00:36:57]: Secondly, there's an anti inflammatory benefit, you know, so usually you'll get an inflammatory and, or an inflammation first.

Ben Greenfield [00:37:05]: Right.

Brian Pla [00:37:05]: And then you'll get an anti inflammatory event.

Ben Greenfield [00:37:09]: Right.

Brian Pla [00:37:09]: So usually as big as one is, the, the other will be. So you want a good inflammatory response to have a good anti inflammatory response. And that's, that's one of the things that's key to helping with, with the, with, you know, joint issues. Right. And we have cytokines like IL10, TGFB beta that they help reduce that inflammation in the joint. Right.

Ben Greenfield [00:37:33]: I think that confuses a lot of people who kind of freak out if they go in for injection because a lot of times it's kind of like one step backwards to take two steps forwards because stuff swells. Sometimes you feel a little shitty. Like I mentioned earlier, you get flu like symptoms. In some cases with stem cells, there's this acute inflammatory cascade, which is also why it's a good idea to take a few really easy days after an injection or protocol like that and sometimes not load the joints heavily for up to a few weeks. But the result then is a post inflammatory anti inflammatory rebound during which a lot of the healing takes place during the inflammation. But basically people just need to be warned. Sometimes you actually don't feel that great right away. It doesn't mean the physician messed up.

Ben Greenfield [00:38:18]: It means your body is engaged in a healing process that's been reinitiated that should have taken place in the first place or maybe did, but was ineffective. And so just be forewarned if you're listening, in some of these protocols, they kind of suck for the first few days.

Brian Pla [00:38:33]: Yeah. And I always tell people, I mean look, we have, even if you think of something as basic as PRP, right, because there's, you know, there's growth factors, they're going to generate an inflammatory response. So I would say, look, for the first, for the next two, three days, you're going to hate me, but after that, you're going to love me.

Ben Greenfield [00:38:51]: So when it comes to the idea of exosomes in the longevity field, I think it's been in the past year, at the time of this recording, that that big study came out in which they infused mice with exosomes and via, I think, a mitochondrial signaling pathway, they saw, meaning, like an increase in mitochondrial biogenesis and mitochondrial density. They saw, and I'm misremembering it was something like somewhere between 13 and 17% increase increased lifespan in rodent models with an exosome infusion. Did you see that?

Brian Pla [00:39:27]: Yeah, we see that. We see that all the time. But what I could tell you is that, look, it is possible that they could help save mitochondria. And as we know, the mitochondria is imperative in cellular function. That's why NAD works well. Right. Because if you're not getting enough people from the cell, you know, then all, you know, other issues, you know, come down. And ultimately, if you're looking at inflammation down to the cellular dysfunction.

Brian Pla [00:39:56]: So if we're able to control that cellular response, then. And increase blood flow. Yes. However, only about 5% of studies done in mice translate, so it's that it's a very promising first sign, but you have to continue it to go from, you know, what you see in vitro to, you know, in animals.

Ben Greenfield [00:40:21]: Yeah, dosing too, by the way, like, I have no clue. The human equivalent, like, what if the human equivalent was like 10 trillion exosomes? Which is a little hard and expensive to hunt down.

Brian Pla [00:40:32]: Right. And like I told you, but more important, and I think that the exosome narrative has been taken in the direction that more exosomes is better, and that is true. In secondary to what are the other ingredients? And you're going to hear me say this multiple times, as I have throughout the podcast, is that the other ingredients that are there, that are meant to help trigger the indications that it's meant for. Right. So just because I have exosomes present doesn't mean it's going to be the optimal for osteoarthritis or optimal for a skin condition is what else are the exosomes there's there with, you know, who's in that party and the HA. The collagen, all these. So all of these other present in combination with the exosomes, they combine, they make the music that we need for the intended indication.

Ben Greenfield [00:41:24]: Yeah. So it's HA, collagen secretosomes, you said beta defensins.

Brian Pla [00:41:28]: We've even found glutathione in our product. We found biotin in our product.

Ben Greenfield [00:41:33]: Not because you put it there, but because the umbilical tissue was expressing that.

Brian Pla [00:41:37]: That's. That. That's the stem cells. We're expressing that. That is correct. So I would, I would, I would want to see other companies that are able to have done this amount of extensive studying. So I really know it's kind of like if I, you know, I started serving you, you know, food and I only, I only gave you like the here, the, you know, top three ingredients, but the rest, I just label it proprietary. And you don't know what's in it.

Brian Pla [00:42:02]: You know, I need to know. I need to know what. So we continue to push the envelope because. And that's where we're seeing things are starting to make a lot more sense. Why is it working so well for conditions like acne? Why is it working so well for hair growth? Because now as we're starting to find these other ingredients, it's like, wow. And none of it was added, none of it. It was all secreted. That's why we feel secretomes is the driver.

Brian Pla [00:42:25]: And within the secretomes, exosomes are one of the components.

Ben Greenfield [00:42:30]: Yeah, you hear about, say certain things that are good in some cases, but in some people are contraindicated. Like high protein and a decent amount of carbohydrates support healthy physical activity. But those can also accelerate tumor growth if cancer is present or NAD, like you mentioned, it has a longevity enhancing effect, but it's definitely contraindicated. Based on recent research in breast cancer patients, you can come up with a laundry list of items. But are there people who should avoid exosomes for whom research or otherwise has indicated it's not a good idea for these populations, whether cancer or something else?

Brian Pla [00:43:09]: Well, I mean, look, anytime there's an active incidence of cancer, you don't want to take that risk. Just like if you're a pregnant woman or breastfeeding, rather, steer clear of that. But I would say other than that, especially if we're talking about topical cosmetic uses, hair, there's no other contraindication, and in fact, the side effects are extremely mild.

Ben Greenfield [00:43:37]: Have you ever seen studies that actually indicate exosomes could be helpful for chronic disease besides a musculoskeletal disorder, like, say, arthritis or joint pain, which you've already established exosomes would be a good idea for? Have you seen anything related, like Heart disease, Alzheimer's, diabetes, anything like that in.

Brian Pla [00:43:56]: The context of autoimmune. And if you, if you take a step from what, you know, kind of the studies we have ongoing with, with our stem cells, and primarily what we're. Really, what we're targeting is aging and the immune system. Right. So I think we're really the only company that's going after this, you know, senescence. Right. So we're able to restore the immune system to a younger state. Right.

Brian Pla [00:44:21]: Really we're starting at. And we really feel that wiping out senescence. Right. Which is, you know, getting rid of these zombie cells or senescent cells. Right. And so if all of these conditions are attributable to aging. Right. Then by mitigating the immune system, you're able to make that better.

Ben Greenfield [00:44:45]: Right.

Brian Pla [00:44:46]: And what I'm saying there is that we're seeing a massive. An epidemic, a real epidemic of autoimmune conditions across the board. And we could speculate as to the whys. Right. We know there's a lot of whys, primarily the source. Right. We know that we're being intoxicated every which way, shape or form. So, you know, we have to navigate that field and be able to.

Brian Pla [00:45:11]: Yes. Minimize the exposure to toxins so that we can, you know, minimize what it's doing to our body. Because even the best cellular therapy will not be able to overcome an overwhelming intoxication of the system. Right.

Ben Greenfield [00:45:28]: Yeah. Yeah.

Brian Pla [00:45:29]: And I think that that's. That's extremely. But with autoimmune conditions, I mean, RA. Rheumatoid arthritis, we're, you know, we're in clinical trials for a study called polymytositis and dermatomyositis, or IIM for short. Right. Which is an autoimmune condition. You know, very rare, but with no, with no cure. Most of these people have to get on cortical steroids for life.

Brian Pla [00:45:51]: And we know what the. What the downsides of those corticosteroids and long term are. Right. So. So if we're able to bring down the inflammation where you don't need that corticosteroid right there. I'm helping because, you know, all the. Other than all the other drugs. Yes.

Brian Pla [00:46:08]: Started taking on top of that because certain things start, you know, then stop working. That. We were seeing amazing results. In fact, we just got awarded a fast track status, you know, at the. At the parent group with, you know, with our phase two, three now, which means we can get to a drug approval way faster.

Ben Greenfield [00:46:30]: Yeah. It's interesting. I have a stem cell I have a podcast next week with a guy who claims to have developed certain herbal and plant based ingredients that could improve your stem cell count or increase stem cell mobilization and health. It kind of makes you wonder how long it's going to be before the supplements industry has products that are something like whatever, Exosome plus plus or the Exosome booster capsule or whatever. Do you think that's kind of coming down the pipeline?

Brian Pla [00:46:58]: See now if we're getting into plant exosomes and then we're moving a little bit further in terms of if it's just for the sake of having the exosomes, we still may not be, we still may be too premature in getting to that indication because we'll need to protect the exosome to assure that it can penetrate all the way through and get absorbed into the body in sufficient quantities to go after what we're trying to accomplish. And so usually anything that has to go through the digestive system is the least efficacious way to do so. I would love it. I mean, we'd all love there to be a pill, a magic pill that you could take, right? And you get better stem cell proliferation, you bring down systemic inflammation, you could improve your A1C. Hey, we're getting there. I mean, if you see what the GLP1s are doing, right? I mean, and there's, hey, there's, first you had semaglutide, then you have tirzepatide, now you have retatrutidin. We keep pushing and pushing because hey, we're onto something. And we may see that that even in a micro dosing component will have anti aging longevity benefits.

Brian Pla [00:48:06]: Because if you're able to really bring down A1C and sugar glucose in the body, you may minimize a lot of these other conditions, right? As we know, processed and processed sugar is a big problem, right? Cancer feeds off of that. So many things are fed. Like we were saying, Alzheimer's is diabetes type 3. So if we're able to bring down that A1C to a real low level and keep that in a homeostasis, is there a longevity benefit there? Maybe.

Ben Greenfield [00:48:38]: I actually, I interviewed Dr. Tyna Moore about the pleiotropic effects of small doses of GLP1 agonist. And I think you could definitely make a case for the system wide effects that you're talking about when used in, I think smaller doses than is being prescribed as a medical standard. But yeah, there's some definite positive effects both exosomes. You also hear about lifestyle practices that might increase, say NAD like fermented foods or sauna or certain things that could even improve stem cell mobilization, like high intensity exercise or some people say things like hyperbaric oxygen. Are there lifestyle interventions that might allow for better activity of the exosomes that you've had infused or just a, a better ability of exosomes to communicate that you know of?

Brian Pla [00:49:27]: I think the first, first thing I'm going to go back to before anything you're doing post treatment is what have I done pre treatment? So if we identify that there's any sort of major triggers, toxins, molds, you know, glyphosate, you know, plastics are now big. If we see that we have heavy metals. Right. If we're able to see that we have, we're systemically intoxicated with, with any one of these or a combination of them, then we have to first do our best to eliminate that source or greatly minimize it. Otherwise you're putting in good money after bad money. And it kind of like right now you have your headphones on, right. So if you, if you turn on the volume, how likely are you to hear any of the surrounding, anything going on around you? Probably not very well. You know, same thing now if I take off those earphones, you're going to be able to hear everything around you.

Brian Pla [00:50:29]: And that's, and that's the same, same concept here. We have to be able to let the cell, you know, breathe and take away, you know, this, this toxic environment. So it's, it's in an environment that it's happy so it can optimize. Right. Because cellular dysfunction is the base of where everything starts to go wrong.

Ben Greenfield [00:50:49]: Yeah. It's kind of the paradoxical nature of traveling internationally for a stem cell infusion is it's very stressful in the body. And I tell a lot of people, hey, if you can hang around for like three or four days after your protocol and hunt down some hyperbaric oxygen and red light therapy and go outside and do some grounding and maybe a little bit of light swimming and some hot cold therapy, do it rather than jumping right back on the plane into radiation and inflammation and disconnection from the surface of the planet. Right. After you've put all those fragile baby cells into your body.

Brian Pla [00:51:19]: Yeah. And I think. And then also before that. Right. So prep your body as best you can so that you're. It's going to be the best opportunity for, for it to succeed.

Ben Greenfield [00:51:31]: Yeah. Like if you go to Bioreset Medical, one of my friends clinics, Matt Cook, who's been on the podcast in San Jose, he'll do stem cells. But the. But the day before you do them, you're doing like, nad Vitamin C, you know, the, the ozone. Plasmapheresis. Basically a full day of essentially cleaning up the body before you even move on to doing something like stem cells, which I think is a really good idea.

Brian Pla [00:51:53]: Yeah. And he knows our exosomes well. He. He uses them. So. So that's good. You know, that. That's.

Brian Pla [00:51:58]: That's. That's exactly right. That's. That's a good protocol. Good protocol to follow. Then I would think that that's the biggest thing that you could do more than anything that you could do after. Yes. You know, you don't want to.

Brian Pla [00:52:11]: Like you said, you don't want to smoke, drink, you know, all of those obvious, you know, factors. You don't. You don't want to add. That's extremely important. So that's why the diagnostics aspect is. Is key. Right. So the more broader the diagnosis we have on the patient as they're trying to continue to improve, and there's twofold.

Brian Pla [00:52:31]: There's the people that are coming to you because they already have an autoimmune condition or some other condition that's chronic. Right. That's one path you have to take. But then now, fortunately, we're starting to see that the younger generation is starting to become educated and surrounded by how important it is to be proactive and preventative with your health. And as the diagnostic rules improve, then we should be able to identify conditions way sooner and, and mitigate them way. So it's way easier to treat something in an early state. So these advanced diagnostics, you know, full body MRIs, you know, heart scans, etc. Then, hey, now I'm able to put a more personalized protocol together, which one of the components will be cellular therapy.

Ben Greenfield [00:53:24]: Yeah, yeah, I just mentioned Bioreset in San Jose. I love Matt. He's. He has a great clinic there. But do you guys have, like. Do you personally have a, like a JuveXO clinic or a place where people go boots on the ground, or are you just providing to physicians?

Brian Pla [00:53:39]: We sell primarily. Yeah, we sell exclusively to the physicians. I happen to have a clinic that's. That's. I have a center in Miami called Gentera Center for Precision Medicine. So we're there in Coral Gables, Florida, and we incorporate all of these modalities.

Ben Greenfield [00:53:54]: Was it called Gentera, Like G E N T E R A?

Brian Pla [00:53:56]: G E N T E R A. Correct. And that's kind of how, you know, that was my first after my. I wanted to find a way to get cellular therapies, you know, into. So I started doing autologous stem cell treatments, you know, hormone replacement peptides, etc.

Ben Greenfield [00:54:12]: Oh, so you guys, you guys do this stuff at the clinic?

Brian Pla [00:54:14]: Yes.

Ben Greenfield [00:54:15]: Oh, okay. That's in Coral Gables?

Brian Pla [00:54:17]: Coral Gables. Yep.

Ben Greenfield [00:54:18]: I should come say hi. I'll be in Miami next week.

Brian Pla [00:54:20]: Oh, definitely. And in fact, we're working now with Prenuvo and we're going, you know, we're sending a lot of patients over to them to get the full body MRIs. We're seeing that it's the best technology right now for full body diagnostics.

Ben Greenfield [00:54:37]: I've heard fantastic things about the Prenuvo. So if a doctor is listening and they heard you say that you do need to be careful with your sourcing of exosomes, and not that I want to turn this into like a giant commercial or something, but if they, if they wanted to try your exosomes or work with you guys, how's that work?

Brian Pla [00:54:57]: So juvexo.com is our website. So all practitioners have to, you know, they have to sign a Practitioner Use Agreement. So it's very simple agreement so they can read and. Exactly. Because we're educating the practitioner, we're showing them the science, we're giving them certificate of analysis, all the stability testing. So you're walking in before you buy anything from us. You already know what you're getting.

Ben Greenfield [00:55:20]: Brian, this has been really interesting. It's actually, I think my number one takeaway is just because of me being in the industry. I have people offer me products like right and left. And I think that I was under the impression that exosomes were way cleaner, generally safer, and offered a lot less risk because they were so simple compared to stem cells. But I've, I've learned a lot on this podcast that, that now makes me think otherwise. So thank you.

Brian Pla [00:55:49]: My pleasure. I mean, and even, even, like, even down to, you know, the feeding of the cells, you know, and I know there's so much talk about, you know, not having sugar. I just, you know, I'll finish with this thought, but our proprietary stem cell tech, we actually feed the cells a particular diet. And guess what that diet is that.

Ben Greenfield [00:56:07]: You feed the cells a particular diet. I don't know. Pig slop.

Brian Pla [00:56:11]: It's a keto diet. So if they secrete the exosomes along with all this extracellular matrix, that is meant for these cosmetic indications. So look at, even at the cellular level, we're giving them keto or no sugar. So that's something that's extremely interesting. So that goes to show how important it is, the entire process of how you're sourcing it. And just because I give you a little brochure that says I have infinity minus one exosomes doesn't mean that I have the best product.

Ben Greenfield [00:56:42]: Yeah, so probably also suggest don't do exosomes and stem cells and go eat a bunch of cotton candy. I'm generally a fan of carbohydrate mitigation to a certain extent within moderation for many reasons and sounds like there's another one, your stem cell and your exosome health. So that's super interesting. So yeah, the show notes is going to be at BenGreenfieldLife.com/EXOSomePodcast Sounds like the link if you're a provider of practitioners juvexo J-U-V-E-X O.com/Ben and I'm Ben along with Brian Pla and this has been incredible. Brian, thank you so much for sharing.

Brian Pla [00:57:20]: Thank you so much for having me on. And we'll see you soon then.

Ben Greenfield [00:57:23]: All right, have an incredible week everybody.

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