January 3, 2019
https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/article/lifestyle-articles/cbd-thc/
[0:00:00] Introduction
[0:01:02] Fasting in the New Year
[0:03:23] Podcast Sponsors
[0:05:10] Picking up From the Previous Podcast
[0:09:05] Use of Beta Blockers in Preparing for Performance
[0:12:00] Plasmapheresis
[0:18:53] Use of Cannabinoids
[0:24:12] The Highly Potent Rick Simpson Oil
[0:25:51] What are terpenes?
[0:26:23] The Unicorn Brand
[0:28:04] Podcast Sponsors
[0:31:33] Dealing with Gut Issues
[0:41:34] Use of Antibiotic
[0:43:58] Use of Peptides
[0:51:21] What is “hyperthermia?”
[0:59:17] Approach to Treating Lyme Disease
[1:08:45] How Dr. Cook Teaches Other Doctors in These Practices
[1:10:52] Closing the Podcast
[1:12:27] End of Podcast
Ben: I have a master's degree in physiology, biomechanics, and human nutrition. I've spent the past two decades competing in some of the most masochistic events on the planet from SEALFit Kokoro, Spartan Agoge, and the world's toughest mudder, the 13 Ironman triathlons, brutal bow hunts, adventure races, spearfishing, plant foraging, free diving, bodybuilding and beyond. I combine this intense time in the trenches with a blend of ancestral wisdom and modern science, search the globe for the world's top experts in performance, fat loss, recovery, gut hormones, brain, beauty, and brawn to deliver you this podcast. Everything you need to know to live an adventurous, joyful, and fulfilling life. My name is Ben Greenfield. Enjoy the ride.
Welcome. Today's show is going to be good. It is going to be good. It's with my friend Dr. Matt Cook who came up to my house in Spokane and we recorded a really great podcast. You're going to absolutely love this one if you listened to Part 1 with Matt Cook. Perhaps your mind was blown by his knowledge of regenerative medicine and his blend of ancestral wisdom and modern science. You're certainly going to absolutely dig this one. Guaranteed. I don't know why I'm talking like a redneck.
Anyways, it is officially the new year. This is the time when most of us are joining new gyms and trying out fad diets and making plans to finally get abs. And of course, joining some kind of a challenge can be a good way to jump into the new year. Do you see where I'm going here?
Well, one challenge that I am challenging, to overuse that word, you to is the fasting challenge, the fasting challenge. So, I'm going to fast for five days. I'm going to fast from January 7th to January 11th. Now, the fast that I am actually doing, because you can choose from an intermittent fast which is very simple, 12 to 16 hours of not eating each day, to a fasting mimicking diet called an FMD where you get all the longevity benefits of a fast, maybe not all the fat loss benefits of a fast but all the longevity benefits of a fast by just reducing your daily calorie intake to 40% of what you normally eat. Then there's an alternate day fasting where you fast and then you eat the next day, and then you fast the next day then you eat the next day. There is a calorie fast almost like an elemental diet type of fast.
Anyways, though, so what I'm going to be doing is I'm actually going to be doing a liquid fast but what I've done is I've put together this in-depth comprehensive guide to fasting where you get to pick your poison. You get to choose what kind of fast you're going to do depending on whether you're a beginner, intermediate, advanced, depending on whether you want to pair this with a kick-ass workout that you've launched into for the new year. Anyways, you can choose your own adventure but it's all overseen by me and the team at Kion, and you're part of the entire community that is doing this fast along with you. And there are no recommendations or requirements for like special supplements or prepackaged meals or nasty drink mixes. You'll likely actually save money that you typically would spend on your groceries.
Anyways, though, if you want to get in on this fast, it's totally free. You get my free guide called Fasting Decoded that I'll walk you through the whole thing. I'll be leading a live Facebook Q&A during the entire challenge and you can get in on all the goodness at getkion.com/fast. Kion is my company that I'm doing this through, getkion, Kion is K-I-O-N. So, you go to getkion.com/fast to join the challenge.
This podcast is also brought to you by a really fantastic company. It's owned by my friend, Drew Canole. Seven years ago, he was eating fast food every day and drinking coffee and energy drinks just to stay awake at work and he got introduced to hippy food. He got introduced to green juice in this case and the dude just went on a freaking quest. I mean, I knew him back in the day and his entire body is transformed; his eyes, his smile, his skin, everything. So, he took a bunch of the juices that he was researching and he managed to put them together into a powder called Green Juice. It's got chlorella, mint and moringa and spirulina and matcha and beets, wheatgrass, turmeric, everything; but he managed to actually make it taste not like ass and it actually tastes pretty good. Get a little latte frother or you can blend it in with some water. You can throw it into a blender with your superfood smoothie. You could use it during that fast that I was just talking about. It counts; very low calorie.
Anyways, he's given all my listeners 20% off of all his fine fair at Organifi. So, you go to Bengreenfieldfitness.com/organifi. That's Bengreenfieldfitness DOT com SLASH Organifi with an I. And when you go there, you just use 20% discount code mentioned there and you're off to the races.
Alright, let's jump in with Matt.
So, about, I guess it was probably even less than a month ago. I was down in San Jose. I was at the office of Dr. Matthew Cook, BioReset Medical down there, and we recorded, based on the feedback I got, I think one of the more mind-blowing podcast episodes of 2018 when it comes to cutting-edge medicine, rehabilitating the body, recovery, and the thing that happened though as we recorded that podcast episode at Dr. Cook's clinic in San Jose is we didn't even touch on like half the stuff that we actually wanted to get into from like plasmapheresis to hyperthermia to a huge amount on cannabinoids, THC, CBD and far beyond.
We talked about ketamine. We talked about strange uses of nootropics like methylene blue. We began to touch on Lyme but really didn't unpack it much and his knowledge of Lyme and how to treat it properly and how to fix it is massive. Biohacking pain, if you didn't hear that initial podcast episode, it's not a required pre-req for what you're about to hear but you definitely want to listen to this as a two-parter for sure.
So, what I'm going to do is I'll link to that initial episode. If you go to BenGreenfiledFitness.com/bioreset2, that's bioreset, then number 2, that's where the shownotes for everything that we discuss during this episode will be and I intend to take copious shownotes. There, I got the word copious out of my system early in today's show when I'm interviewing Matt. So, I'll put all the shownotes over there at BenGreenfieldFitness.com/bioreset2.
Last night, a couple came knocking at my door trudging up through the snowy driveway, and it was actually Dr. Matt Cook and his wonderful assistant, Barb, who oversaw my mind-blowing ketamine therapy that I did down there at Matt Cook's clinic. They are here at my house. We're sitting down in my office right now and we've been talking all morning about all the cool things we want to tell you about. So, sit back and enjoy Part 2 brought to you from my turf rather than Matt's turf but Matt, welcome back for Part 2, baby.
Matt: Thank you so much. It's a total, total pleasure being here.
Ben: Yeah?
Matt: Yeah.
Ben: Are you feeling relaxed? Restored?
Matt: You have the coolest house I've ever been to in my life and I had the best cup of coffee I've ever had so it's going pretty well.
Ben: It was a good cup of coffee, Matt's coffee this morning. He did my workout with me. We did three rounds of five-minute high-intensity intervals on the Aerodyne with bodyweight exercises in between each. After the workout, we went trudging outside through the snow in the outdoor cryotherapy to the hot tub and we jumped in the hot tub, came back inside and made an amazing blend of mushrooms and coffee and a little bit of stevia, which I understand from Matt, is one way that you can actually protect yourself against biofilm in the gut. All sorts of crazy things but now we're podcasting. So, I should quit droning on and we should jump in.
If you don't know who Dr. Cook is, you can, of course, listen to the previous podcast episode for the deep dive, but he is the founder of BioReset Medical Corporation based out on San Jose. They do extremely cutting-edge regenerative medicine, pain medicine, orthopedic medicine. He's a trained anesthesiologist, and at his clinic there, does stem cell medicine, nerve hydrodissection, pain management, ultrasound imaging, and a lot of the things that we're going to talk about today. He also trains physicians. If you're a doctor listening in and you want to bring yourself to the next level, I would also recommend you, probably towards the end of the podcast episode, we'll talk a little bit more about how Matt works with physicians too.
We have so many places we could start but funny story. We were talking, we're actually at A4M at the anti-aging clinic A4M and Barb and I are talking about beta blockers and how athletes–like I was talking about archery, right, how you lower your heart rate before archery. Tell me about your experience with beta blockers for situations like this where you might be anticipatory or nervous about the big show.
Matt: Yeah, exactly. I did publish a paper in Otolaryngology, which is ENT surgery when I was in medical school and I had to give a presentation to about 2,000 doctors and I'd never given to talk to more than 25 people at that time in my life. And so, the attending I was working with said, “Take one of these and it'll just chill you out and make you feel calm.” And it was a beta blocker. So, I took it and then I started to feel totally relaxed, but I was a little light-headed and I took my pulse and my heart rate was about 25. And so, that was–
Ben: Twenty-five.
Matt: And I could hear my heartbeat every time it beat as I gave the presentation but I totally got through it, but that was also the last time I ever took a beta blocker.
Ben: Wow. Yeah. I've heard about–like in the bowhunting industry, people will take these in between–well, they'll take them prior to going out doing like a 3D shoot. And what happens is you can literally like take a shot, snipers will use them too, in between heartbeats. Like your heart goes that slow that you can actually act in between a heartbeat. Twenty-five is pretty low. Beat every two seconds.
Matt: And so, then that gives you like an indication of how to think about things because there's a sweet spot for almost everything and if you start to biohack yourself too high or too low, that's when people are running into trouble. And then, interestingly, there was a lot of research looking at beta blockers to protect the heart before heart surgery or even big, what are called stressful surgeries like carotid artery surgery or brain surgery. And so, in my anesthesia career, I actually used beta blockers all the time. So, it's kind of interesting.
Ben: Oh, wow. Alright. Well, just in case any of you want to rush out there and try a beta blocker, this is not considered to be a medical advice but it's just interesting. The off-label use–there's another off-label use I actually want to talk about later on if we get a chance to dive into it. We'll save that for later because we were actually talking about bigger things in health and longevity during the time when we first met at a dinner in San Jose. And we were talking about the next big things in the health industry like CBD or keto or just like this whole obsession with longevity and anti-aging and transhumanism, just the whole industry.
But one thing that you mentioned, I asked you like what are some cool things that a lot of people don't know about that you think are kind of up and coming in the medical industry. And you talked about something called plasmapheresis. I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right. It's plasmapheresis, all right.
Matt: Plasmapheresis.
Ben: Thank you. I've been practicing. So, what is plasmapheresis and why should people care about that?
Matt: So, plasmapheresis is a procedure where blood is taken out of the body, and then the blood is separated into the plasma section and then the section that has cells like white blood cells and red blood cells. And then, the cell portion is given back, and the plasma portion is taken out, and then, it can be replaced with albumin, which is basically synthetic protein. And there's a couple of other things that can be replaced with it as well but when that happens, it's kind of like getting an oil change in your car because in the plasma section is where all the antibodies are.
So, people who are making–let's say, people with autoimmune disease that are making too many antibodies, if you take the plasma section out, then you're cleaning and rinsing it. And then, there's also sort of an inflammatory milieu in certain conditions. So, we're doing a clinical trial where we're treating people in our office using plasmapheresis and we're looking at things like neurocognitive and neurodegenerative conditions like Parkinson's and dementia. And then, also having a pretty strong focus on autoimmune disease, and then also looking at Lyme disease which can run the whole gamut in terms of physiological effects.
Ben: So, this is different then than parabiosis like taking like the blood of a young human and transferring that into an old human or like the studies they did at Stanford University on longevity. And then, I interviewed the guy from The Young Blood Institute and he's doing some kind of plasma procedure that sounds kind of similar to this where you're actually–it's almost like recycling your blood, like getting an oil change.
Matt: Yeah. So, I'm working with him.
Ben: Okay. So, this is that procedure?
Matt: This is that procedure, yeah. We're one of many sites where you can get this done in the United States and he's–Mark is just an absolutely fantastic guy. And he's developed a clinical research tool that allows physicians like me to start to do clinical research where we design a trial and then, we basically submit it to an IRB committee where basically super serious scientists look and make sure everything looks good. And then, once they give us the okay, that it seems like a reasonable thing to do, then we gather data and then we can publish then based on that. And so, we're trying to move to the forefront of looking at a lot of these integrative techniques and modalities that have been around for a long time, but then to sort of rigorously look and see how we can treat people with specific conditions.
Ben: So, what kind of people would actually come in and do something like this?
Matt: Most of the people who come in have fairly significant complex illness. And so, that's like —
Ben: Like a Lyme or something?
Matt: Lyme or dementia or Parkinson's. And then, there's a small cohort of people who are health optimizers who want to want to come in–
Ben: A lot of our listeners go like, “Well, what can I do? That would be great.”
Matt: Yeah.
Ben: What effect would it have when somebody's already healthy or relatively healthy?
Matt: So, that's what we're studying but then, a better or another way to think about that is, even if there's someone who's relatively healthy, then try to look under the hood, do a super complex physical exam. Do assessment of the labs and inflammatory markers and movement exam and then try to figure out if–sometimes people that are relatively healthy maybe we find something, and so then we can start to track and see if there's a change. If people do this, we're doing a very robust amount of biomarkers. Like each person that we do has almost like $20,000 worth of biomarkers that were looking at before and after.
Ben: Holy cow. I thought my $1,000-blood test was expensive. Wow.
Matt: I know, I know. This is like sort of the Rolls-Royce of clinical trials. But then now, we're going to actually begin to say these biomarkers were relevant, these are not. If I have people with neurocognitive problems, these biomarkers seemed to be more important, whereas in autoimmune disease, those ones aren't that important or maybe they are. And so, then this is what we're trying to find, and so I'm super excited about it.
Ben: Very interesting. So, that's called plasmapheresis?
Matt: That's called plasmapheresis.
Ben: How long does something like that take or if somebody shows up and they go through all the biomarkers and health screens, once you actually do the protocol, the oil change so to speak, how long does it take?
Matt: It's just only about two or three hours.
Ben: Oh, wow. So, it's just like give the blood, clean it out, put it back in?
Matt: Exactly. But then our protocol that we're studying is to do that once a week for six weeks. And so, we're cleaning a percentage of the blood every week. And so, then at the end of six weeks, the idea is this that you've had a full oil change and you're ready to go for your second–
Ben: Okay. So, would you see things like decreased CRP and inflammatory marker–let's say somebody is healthy already or would it be like something else–
Matt: So, that would be a great example like you might see a decrease in the CRP. And so, then what we're going to do is then treat people through a short window of time but then continue to track and test people. We're living in an inflammatory society, and so then we have to start to make better decisions and do stuff like you do here at your house so that that CRP doesn't creep up but then we want to be able to see, “Well, how long is that clinical effect going to last?”
Ben: Yeah. So, in addition to running around outside naked to control inflammation in the snow, you could also go in and just get your blood changed off.
Matt: But I think it's more fun to run outside in the snow naked.
Ben: It is, it is. It sounds more fun than a clinical blood exchange, but that's fascinating. So, plasmapheresis.
The other thing actually, and I named it once already, this idea of like CBD is one of the other growing interests in the health sector and I know that that's something you have some experience in as far as looking into kind of going beyond some of these cannabinoids that a lot of people already know a lot about like THC or CBD. So, tell me a little bit about if you use those in your practice or what your thoughts are on cannabinoids in general.
Matt: Physiologically, it's interesting because if you think about it, we have cannabinoid receptors in our brain. So, there's an entire part of our nervous system that's called the endocannabinoid nervous system. I think that over the next 10 years, we're going to see a huge surge in the use of these natural plant-based compounds to begin to help both health optimizers and then the constellation of people that we end up spending a lot of time with that have real significant problems from chronic depression to chronic illness.
When you look, there are compounds called terpenes, there are bioflavonoids, and then there are the actual compounds. It's the combination of those molecules and they call the combination of all of those different molecules the entourage effect because it's a group effect. So, I'm working with a company called Unicorn, and what they've done is they've been able to specifically isolate each one of the compounds. And so, then they can put them back together in exact formulations. And so, we're going to use the clinical trial platform that Mark has developed and start to then begin to take–
Ben: You mean Mark, this guy that runs the Young Blood Institute?
Matt: Yeah, Mark Urdahl.
Ben: Okay.
Matt: And then, we're going to take and actually start to do clinical trials where we give specific formulations where–because the problem with the entire cannabinoid industry is if you got a product and you took it last week and it was too much and then today, it was not enough. It, traditionally, has not been very standardized.
Ben: Yeah, especially with like edibles and all of these capsules like God knows if you're getting 10 milligrams or 5 milligrams and sometimes, I can wind up–when you're at dinner at a restaurant with people and you took some edible and all of a sudden, the world is spinning, it's a bad sign.
Matt: Exactly. And so, then I'm real excited to see what happens when you can dial in an exact–and it's just like everything that I did in my life. In anesthesia, we're using medications that have a very specific window. And if you give too much, you can have a big problem. If you don't give enough, you can also have a big problem.
Ben: You have a person getting their knee operated on and they can feel it, yeah.
Matt: Exactly. And so, we're coming into a space where the specificity is, I think–and I really changed the game for a lot of people in terms of–and there are so many side effects to traditional medication-based approaches to psychiatry and psychology. And I think once we dial in, for example, there's a THC is the thing that we think of as–
Ben: The more psychoactive component of marijuana.
Matt: Exactly. That's the Delta 9-THC.
Ben: Okay.
Matt: There's something called Delta 8-THC that has almost all of the benefits that we want from THC but it has a very mild euphoria. And so, Unicorn has one of those too.
Ben: How would that be different to CBD? Because CBD is talked about for its anti-anxiety and anti-depression and anti-inflammatory benefits without the psychoactive component of THC. So, how would the Delta 8-THC be different than that?
Matt: The issue is going to be in the entourage effect.
Ben: Okay.
Matt: They're going to be different but similar, and though sometimes one plus one is going to be four. I think as somebody who's interested in this stuff, the next 5 or 10 years, we're going to see more and more companies coming into the space. There's going to be more and more dial ability and then we're going to–the biohackers out there are going to be able to be testing this stuff and they're going to come back and they're going to really tell us what's happening.
Ben: Interesting. So, you could take any given strain and you can isolate using something like this technology this company Unicorn is doing, specific parts of that strain like Delta 8-THC or Delta 9-THC or CBD or any other derivative and then recombine them into some kind of medication or supplement or treatment that actually gives you the same synergistic effect as the whole plant component. But you can say, “Hey, we don't want this one to get you high so we're going to just remove the THC 9 but then you could test that to see if it's as efficacious.”
Matt: That's perfect. You said that perfectly. And so, then the interesting thing is just like–you heard about like the Rick Simpson Oil is something that was–you sort of —
Ben: That's the one where you just need like a tiny little grain of rice and it knocks you out for hours and hours and hours.
Matt: Exactly.
Ben: Yeah, yeah.
Matt: And what he did is–
Ben: I used that on an airplane once.
Matt: He created that because–and a lot of people anecdotally have said that it helped them with cancer. So, now, you bring up the whole cancer conversation. And so, then what my friends at Unicorn did is they figured out how to isolate everything that was in the RSO, the Rick Simpson Oil, but dial in specifically so you know what it is and you know exactly what you're getting and you can dial so you're not going to get knocked out like that.
Ben: Right. So, it's more precise than just like measuring a little grain of rice, approximately, depending on your experience with rice–
Matt: Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ben: Sitting back and waiting what happens. It's funny because I have a little syringe of that. That's like my emergency stash that I'd be, again, like traveling internationally and just need to knock myself out on a plane or need to push the reboot button in my circadian rhythm after traveling but you're super groggy the next day. You're completely out of commission. If your house catches on fire, you're not going to be–you'll be the person getting your ass dragged out of the house. I have friends who are very experienced with many drugs who I've given that to and their heads are spinning. One guy, in particular, was trying to claw off his face at about midnight. So, yes, I see the benefit in being able to dial that back.
The terpenes you mentioned, when it comes to the terpenes, can you do the same thing with those or the flavonoids or any these other components?
Matt: Yeah. So, you do exactly the same thing. And so, then like you talked about like a strain, so people talk about Indica or Sativa as being two of the main strains. And then, they have a profile of the effect that they have, and that profile largely is because of the profile of what terpenes are in there.
Ben: Interesting. Okay.
Matt: So, then —
Ben: And there's like hundreds of terpenes.
Matt: Exactly.
Ben: Yeah. Okay. So, with this company Unicorn, where are they based out of?
Matt: Seattle.
Ben: Okay. So, that company is now doing this. And will they be able to, basically now with this new farm bill that's passed, be able to grow, produce everything and can people, once they're starting to produce these, be able to buy them without living in the State of Washington?
Matt: I don't have an answer for that.
Ben: Okay.
Matt: But eventually, I think that's going to happen.
Ben: Yeah. I mean, I see it's only a matter of time before a federal legality kicks in, and honestly, it's the whole federal legality thing is kind of a joke right now because people are purchasing in any state they want and carrying it to any state they want, yeah. But for the actual manufacturers, I know people who produce stuff in Seattle and they just can't ship it anywhere except–well, they can't ship it period but they can at least sell it in Washington State dispensaries. But yeah, I mean this stuff is–it is very helpful medicine and I see a huge amount of value.
So, if people wanted to kind of follow what's going on with you–a lot of people listen to this podcast and they're either investors or they're people who just want to keep their finger on the pulse of this stuff, do they have a website or anything like that, this Unicorn company? Do you know?
Matt: I think it's unicornbrands.com.
Ben: Okay. I'll look it up and put it in the shownotes for those of you who are interested in or want to dig into that a little bit more. So, just go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com/bioreset2, BenGreenfieldFitness.com/bioreset the number 2. Did you find it, Barb?
Barb: Unicorncannabis.net.
Ben: Barb is our handy researcher in the background. What's it called? Unicorncannabis.net?
Barb: Cannabis.net.
Ben: Okay. We'll put that in the shownotes for you guys who want to keep your finger on the pulse of that because it sounds pretty cutting-edge what they're doing.
Hey, I want to interrupt today's podcast to tell you about something very woo-woo, very spiritual, something I do every day, every day without fail. I wake up in the morning and I write down three things: What am I grateful for? What truth did I discover in my reading? Because I always read something devotional or spiritual or sometimes even one single Bible verse because every page of my journal that I write this in just has one inspirational verse that me and actually my mom chose to put together this really special collection of inspirational and helpful verses. And then, the final question I ask myself rather than, “Who am I? What can I accomplish?” Me, me, me. I, I, I. I'm good. I'm great. I'm wonderful and gosh darn it people like me. It is instead, who can I pray for or help or serve this day?
It's called the Christian Gratitude Journal. You don't have to be a Christian to use it. I am and I think it's great to be a Christian but you begin each day with this basic inspirational scripture, practice of gratefulness, a call to help somebody each day. It's very others facing. It's changing my whole life as far as volunteering and empathy and just a deeper meaningful more connected way to start every day. And you can now get 20% off of this gratitude journal exactly what I do each morning that I created for anybody else to follow along, beautiful little hardbound journal that arise at your house, small enough to fit in a little briefcase or bag or whatever.
The coupon code for you is GRATEFUL2019. That's GRATEFUL2019. You get a journal for you and someone special in your life and start 2019 off right by building a daily habit of gratitude that gets you 20% off. You need to buy two or more journals, meaning for you and a family member, you and a spouse, you and your kid. My twin boys, they're 10. They do it every day. My wife does it every day. It's fantastic if I don't say so myself. Go to christiangratitude.com, christiangratitude.com to get this. And again, the code is GRATEFUL2019.
Also, here's a news flash from my friends at Clearlight Saunas next month due to rising manufacturing costs. They're actually increasing the price on their saunas. This is the same sauna I have in my basement, the same one I use. I was just in there like a half hour ago getting my sweat on, detoxing, doing some yoga. Anyways though, so if you want to get this sauna, if it's part of your New Year's resolution and start doing more heat therapy, then this is the time before the price increase. It feels like manufactured scarcity but they actually are increasing their prices.
So, the deal is that their saunas have a lifetime warranty. They have full-spectrum, near infrared, mid-infrared, far infrared, very low EMF. Again, with the upcoming price increase next month, you can now simply go to their website. It's healwithheat.com, healwithheat.com, or you can check them out on Instagram @clearlightsaunas. And all you need to do is mention, when you get your sauna, put the code, BENGREENFIELD and they'll give you all the original pricing, they'll give you an extra discount, they'll give you a free gift, and they'll ship your sauna for free anywhere in the USA and Canada. Very simple. So, you go to healwithheat.com. You mention code, BENGREENFIELD to get the discount, free gift, free shipping, original pricing. That's the bee's knees if you ask me. Alright, check it out, healwithheat.com. Code is BENGREENFIELD.
Now, when it comes to another area that I really want to learn a little bit more about, like I touched on for example biofilm and stevia, and in biofilm, you could probably define that a little bit better than I could and I feel like maybe you should for the purposes of some of the ways you treat the gut. But a lot of people have gut issues, a lot of people. And as a result, also brain issues and sleep issues, just life issues based on what's going on in their gut. So, when somebody comes to you with gut issues, I know that you have a pretty comprehensive protocol that you dive into, so what's your approach with a gut?
Matt: The gut's like the most important thing to me to fix because it's where most of your immune system is centered. And so, regardless of whether you're a biohacker or somebody with the worst case of Lyme, if you don't fix the gut, you're not going to be able to fix everything else. And if things are going on in terms of problems in the gut, then it often starts to influence the brain, and then, things start to go downhill from there.
And so, in terms of treating the gut, I try to get a sense of what's going on. And so, I talk to people and try to get a sense of their symptoms and we do a lot of testing. We'll test for parasites, we'll test the microbiome, we'll actually take a stool sample, and I have a pathologist that will actually look under it with a microscope to look and actually see if there's any parasites or worms–
Ben: So, this is different than a microbiome analysis like you get at–
Matt: He'll actually look at it and he'll see if there are any protozoans, if there are any metazoans, will tell us–
Ben: It's a fun job.
Matt: Yeah, exactly.
Ben: [00:33:27] ______.
Matt: Candida. So, then after trying to take a full assessment, a lot of times, we'll do something called a breath test where we look to see if somebody has SIBO. This will be kind of interesting too because I tell a lot of people this. When you eat, food goes on your esophagus, it goes to your stomach and then it goes to the small intestine. Now, the small intestine is sterile. Nothing is in there. And then, the digestive juices are put into there from the liver and then the food starts to get digested and it goes all the way through the whole small intestine, and then it goes into the large intestine. Once it gets into the large intestine, then there's trillions and trillions of bacteria there. So, small intestine, nobody's there–
Ben: That confuses a lot of people who take a probiotic and they just visualize it going into their gut somewhere but it has to go stomach, through the small intestine, somehow make its way into the large intestine intact having survived the acidic nature that it came through to get there, and then populate the large intestine after it passes through all that stuff you just described.
Matt: Exactly. So, then imagine, let's say that somebody that goes on vacation and then they pick up a parasite. And so, because of that parasite, and the parasites live in the small intestine, and so the parasite starts to live there and it starts to secrete–have you ever seen the edge of a pond? It's almost like that kind of collagenous scum type of thing.
Ben: Mm-hmm.
Matt: So, the parasites will start to secrete a little film. They're called a biofilm. Now, that could be caused by parasites or it could be caused by candida that are living there. They're not supposed to be living there, or some bacteria from the colon could decide to take a little bit of a road trip and come all the way up and they start living in the small intestine.
Ben: It's kind of vague. They would describe you take a road trip. Is there an actual trigger for them to do so?
Matt: A trigger could be inflammation.
Ben: Okay.
Matt: If your GI system isn't working then people are more likely to have that happen.
Ben: Okay.
Matt: When I say, “Take a road trip,” and so they come up and now I have bacteria from the colon living in the gut, that's called SIBO or Small Intestinal Bacteria Overgrowth.
Ben: Yeah. I've talked a little bit with, actually a guy from your neck of the woods, Dr. Michael Ruscio. He wrote a book called, “Healthy Gut, Healthy You.” And we talked a little bit about SIBO on the show.
Matt: Right. So, now, if you imagine as a full constellation of small intestinal problems, and so then the idea is that first of all, you have to figure out what's going on, and then depending on what you have to deal with, then creating a coherent plan to fix that. There's a lot of stuff that you can do from the biohacking side in terms of going on an anti-inflammatory diet and trying to heal the inflammation in the gut. We have a product that has immunoglobulins that are from cows actually, and they bind onto toxins, they bind onto C. diff., they bind onto bacterial cell walls. And so, we give this powder and then we give colostrum, and so then–
Ben: I was going to say I take colostrum and it has some of the same things. It has immunoglobulins and a–
Matt: Exactly.
Ben: Yeah.
Matt: And so, then we do a lot of that stuff to try to move all that stuff out. We use biofilm busters to try to break that biofilm down. It's interesting. I had a woman who came to see me that had diarrhea for 36 years. And so, I started her on biofilm busters, started treating her for about a year. And I was making a slow, steady progress up, down; up, down. And then, I found out about two weeks ago that she finally started to release the biofilms and she just said huge mucousy things were coming out every day. She's been sending pictures to us.
Ben: Holy cow. What's a biofilm buster?
Matt: Well, there are different products that are herbal products and herbal, basically, concoctions that help to break down those collagenous structures where all of these different organisms are living and another one to remember that can live in there that is a nightmare is mold. What happens is these things are accumulative. Often they're going on for years and years and years. And then, you've got a girl that's been overall pretty healthy and not too many symptoms and then she goes, “I just had this case,” and moved into a super moldy apartment. And so, then now you're breathing mold right above your bed and you're breathing it all night and then some of that comes in and then it starts to live in the biofilm and then secrete mycotoxins.
Ben: Yeah. When it comes to mold and mycotoxins, a lot of people think you just switched to a mold free diet but that stuff just pretty much will live in there forever until you knock it out, right?
Matt: Yeah.
Ben: Interesting. So, are there any other things that you do when it comes to the gut besides this process of testing stool? One thing I actually did want to ask you was the mold and mycotoxin piece with this stool analysis and your official stool inspector who you have looking over people's poop. From what I understand, mold and mycotoxin usually you'd look for that with a urinary analysis or something like that.
Matt: Right. So, they're all sort of living in that same spot but you're not going to see the mold come out on the other side. So, the mold, we do a urine test with a couple of different companies. We do essentially almost all herbal approaches to fixing the gut because the issue is there are antibiotics that you can take like rifaximin. And if they work often, it's amazing but if they don't work, a lot of times rebound worse than it ever was.
And so, our concept is to break down the biofilms, do different concoctions of herbals. And I typically will have a long-term herbal protocol that's punctuated with surges that we put on top of that. You can do things like rectal ozone, an ozone therapy, to help to reset. There's the entire constellation of prebiotics and probiotics to begin to support and reset what's going on in the gut as well. A lot of people will have developed food allergies as a consequence of these things. And so, then you can test for those and then try to eliminate the foods that you found to be allergic to. Alternatively, if you don't have the wherewithal to do that, then you can go on anti-inflammatory diets and do your best. And then, in terms of healing the gut, things like collagen, bone broth–I'm a huge believer in bone broth.
Ben: Right. Glutamine, colostrum too.
Matt: Glutamine, yes. I always combine glutamine with the SBI protect, the immunoglobulins. Basically, putting together an entourage of everything that you need to heal the gut and reset it. And then, interestingly, that's why I called my company BioReset, every system in the body, once you reset it, it typically goes back to acting normal.
Ben: Yeah. Like we were talking about dinner last night, everything is fixable.
Matt: Yeah.
Ben: Yeah, yeah. And that's like your approach with everything. You look at somebody and you're like, “Hey, that's fixable.” I want to talk about that on Lyme too in a little bit. I had one other question for you that related to the gut and the biofilm and that would be the use of antibiotics. We were talking about off-label uses of things like beta blockers for athletes. But another one that we were talking about was the Z-Pak, which of course is vilified in the wellness industry as a way to press the nuke button on all the good bacteria in your gut, but you were telling me about a very interesting off-label use for the Z-Pak antibiotic that you've discovered.
Matt: Yeah. There's some evidence that Azithromycin has the ability to affect senescence and basically help takes senescent cells out of circulation. Now, that term senescence is really interesting because we have a bunch of cells that are floating around in our bloodstream and some of those are active and then some of them quit doing their job and they become senescent. Now, the older that we get, more and more of our immune system becomes senescent and that may be one of the most important reasons why we age.
Ben: But you want a certain amount of senescence, right? You don't want to kill all your senescent cells.
Matt: Right, but we generally, probably have too much.
Ben: Okay.
Matt: And so, then a lot of modalities have the effect of decreasing senescence. This just kind of came up for us, a couple weeks ago and then this famous cell biologist, he's a friend of mine, texted me and said he needed a prescription for Azithromycin. And I texted him back and I said, “Are you sick or senescent?” And he laughed and he said both.
Ben: So, you knew already that there could be a use for this. But of course, I would say that that's something you'd want to proceed with caution with. There are other ways to reduce senescent cells without necessarily affecting your gut bacteria.
Matt: Exactly, like quercetin is really good for senescence. And I think that antibiotics are vastly overused. And so, I think we want to shift away on the spectrum from antibiotics as much as possible although they've certainly been good to us over the years.
Ben: What about peptides? Do you use peptides? Because when we were at the A4M–for those of you listening in, there's this big conference in Las Vegas every year. It's called A4M, the American–what does it stand for, the American Academy of Anti-Aging?
Matt: The American Society for Anti-Aging, something like that.
Ben: Yeah, yeah. Anyways, everybody [00:44:11] ______ was showcasing some Morelin and Ipamorelin and BPC-157 and TB and cerebral L-lysine and the one that gives you boners and the tan. What's that one? Melanotan.
Matt: Yeah.
Ben: Peptides are just all over the place. It seems to me like we're probably going to see those–somebody sent me a bottle a few weeks ago, I think I was telling you this, of a tablet form of BPC-157 that you can take orally. So, what's your take on peptides? You use those?
Matt: Yeah. I've been using the oral version of that.
Ben: Of BPC-157?
Matt: Of BPC-157. That's for a body protection compound, 157. A peptide is a shorter version of a protein. Imagine a protein as something like the size of a dump truck and the peptide might be like the wheel on that dump truck. So, it's a small segment of it but it still might be able to have much of the same function of the bigger protein. BPC-157 I think is the most interesting one because it helps almost any tissue system heal.
Ben: Yeah. I mean, it's found naturally in the gastric mucosa of humans, right?
Matt: Exactly, exactly. That's the protein that it was developed from, BPC-157. I'm using it in combination with stem cells but I forgot to mention I'm using it for everybody now with GI problems because I'm using it for its ability to begin to help heal leaky gut. And so, I think that one is super interesting and I know of no side effects like I've known of hundreds of people that have been working with lots of people using BPC-157. And so, I think that that one is going to be over the long term, just based on the clinical experience that I have so far, a very safe peptide for people to be working with.
Ben: Yeah, yeah. A lot of folks who are just kind of like cowboying their own injury management at home, they'll get BPC-157 and then this other peptide called TB-500 and the BPC seems to act more on the inflammatory pathways than the TB-500 on like the actin-myosin fibers so you can come at an injury from two different standpoints. You get those in the insulin syringes and you can just inject subcutaneously around the joint and that's very efficacious for a lot of people.
Matt: Right, right. Yeah, I know. I loved that you told me that because that's opened my mind up to a whole new way of–when I started the practice of medicine, patients were profoundly not empowered and then, with–
Ben: Now, they've got Bitcoin and the dark web and you can get anything.
Matt: Exactly. Exactly. We empowered them with the internet but now people are actually beginning to take matters into their own hands. Interestingly, you're doing a lot of the same thing. So, when I'm doing a hydrodissection procedure now where I'm treating a nerve and potentially even doing an ultrasound-guided therapy into a joint, then I'll give them a bottle of the BPC-157. I'm trying to do, basically, the same thing that you're doing and the synergy is sort of in that doctor-patient relationship and what's happening is a lot of great things are coming that I think are going to help people be healthier.
Ben: Yeah. Are there any other peptides you're using that are quite notable right now aside from BPC?
Matt: Epitalon is interesting because it appears to increase the length of telomeres but it also seems to affect the hormonal system. Then TB-500 is a segment of thymosin and there are a variety of different peptides that are thymosin-related, thymosin alpha 1, thymosin beta. They have quite a bit of potential to help with chronic infections. I've been using the thymus and peptides for people with chronic infections and almost everybody in the space has migrated to adopting peptides as part of the milieu of their treatment algorithms. Then you can think of different components and then we're going to get better and better and better.
So, I've got the anti-inflammatory component with like BPC-157, I've got a hormonal effect and lengthening of telomeres with Epitalon and then I've got with thymosin, I've got the ability to have an effective stimulating or potentially modulating immune and immune response. So, many, sort of, modern conditions have an aspect of immune over-response or immune under-response. And so, the concept of immune modulation–and many, many therapies worked towards affecting immune modulation in terms of balancing the effective immune response. And really, we want a balanced and rational approach from the perspective of our body to any problem.
Ben: Yeah. It's really interesting how these can be stacked. One of my friends emailed me, this was two days ago, and he was like, “What do you think about this stack?” It was ipamorelin for growth hormone, tesamorelin for cognitive functioning, CJC-1275 is a muscle builder and fat burner and then AOD-906 is a fat burner and energy enhancer, DSIP for deep sleep enhancement, and then BPC-157. This is what his physician, his functional medicine doc, had prescribed him as his stack. I just find it fascinating how we can use peptides in so many different ways now to address all these different variables and compare it to another big one that's similar to peptides that's been popular in the bodybuilding industry are these selective androgen receptor modulators or SARMs. But peptides appear to be far more safe, resulting in far less neuroendocrine imbalances as something like SARMs.
Matt: Exactly. And then, also, there's a whole category of nootropic peptides like Seamax, Sealance.
Ben: Yeah, Cerebrolysin.
Matt: Yeah. We're looking at those for things like concussion and traumatic brain injury. Imagine stacks where you begin to do complex things like plasmapheresis to purify the blood and then combining that with peptides, combining that with healing the gut, and then taking a fairly comprehensive approach to any one problem.
Ben: It's so cool. It's like the doctor of the future, baby.
Matt: That's it.
Ben: I like it.
Matt: It's crazy.
Ben: And then, I want to address Lyme but there was one other thing that you were telling me about that I found intriguing and it might be even something you use in some of your Lyme therapies and that's hyperthermia, hyperthermia. Can you explain what that is and where that would fit in?
Matt: Hyperthermia is not an FDA-approved therapy, whole body hyperthermia, but it's something that we've been studying actually for quite a while. I'm in the middle of like a 3-year program test starting a clinical trial outside of the United States looking at hyperthermia. The main areas where people are studying hyperthermia is actually for treating chronic infections and then cancer.
Ben: Yeah. I mean, I have a BioMat from where those made Korea or something like that up on my bed. I nap on it every day but when you get it and you open the manual, I mean that's one of the main things they start to pull out is all the research on hyperthermia and cancer. And I actually know a lot of cancer patients who have purchased just that alone like a BioMat and they'll wrap themselves in Mylar blankets and get a sweat and get the infrared therapy and the heat all at the same time. So, again, kind of like a DIY cowboying form of hyperthermia. I just wasn't sure how we're using like a clinical setting.
Matt: The clinical setting is there are a couple different ways to do it and we're looking at both. So, imagine a super high-tech sauna that warms you up. And then, the other one that we do is called Venovenous Hyperthermia. We take blood out from the body and then we run it through basically a warmer, that's like the same thing that I used to use when I used to do open-heart surgery is that we warm the–instead of cooling the blood down, we warm it up and so then we put it back in. And so, that's called Venovenous Hyperthermia.
Basically, what happens is we give sedation and then we warm the body up to 107 degrees or 42 degrees Celsius. The concept is that cancer can't live at that temperature and neither can a lot of the infections that people are dealing with including spirochetes. There's a real entertaining story about the history of hyperthermia that I could go into.
Ben: Yeah.
Matt: The idea is you warm them up and then the things that can't live then start to die or they become weakened and so they become much more sensitive to other therapies that we give.
Ben: That's interesting. The deal with hyperthermia is kind of related to what I was discussing when I had Dr. Thomas Callan on my show and how much of an error he thinks it is whenever someone gets sick and comes down with a fever, do everything that you can to get rid of the fever because that's the body's own built-in version of hyperthermia.
Matt: Right, yeah. The story is a crazy story.
Ben: Yeah, I want to hear it.
Matt: Imagine the 1800s, early 1900s, there are no antibiotics. If you got an infection, it was like a disaster, okay? Syphilis was a disaster in Europe and what would happen is a lot of people would get it and then it would progress to something called neurosyphilis and people would become partially paralyzed and they would become psychotic. And there was no way to treat this. So, there was this guy and he's a psychiatrist and he's in the school of thought that–he's German. And so, the idea is either you think that your problems are psychological, it was your mother, or you think that it's physiological. And so, he's in this group. So, then what he does is he's very young in the late 1890s and he sees this woman and she gets a skin infection. As a result of the skin infection, she becomes super high febrile and gets really sick and almost dies, but then her neurosyphilis just totally goes away.
I had things like this happened to me when I was young and it becomes very influential on you. You're always looking at those early cases and thinking about it. Then he proceeds to try to treat people with infections for the next 20 years and he treated typhoid and all kinds of things. Eventually, somebody accidentally got admitted to his sanitarium that had malaria that had come back from the war.
And so, they were like, “Can we treat him with quinine?” And he goes, “No.” So, then he isolates this guy's plasma when he was having a fever and then he infected a bunch of the patients there. I mean, so this is definitely like before the Geneva Convention also and this guy was a little controversial.
Ben: Yeah. No kidding.
Matt: But then some of them get all the way better and then afterwards, he cures all of their malaria with quinine.
Ben: Holy cow.
Matt: And so, then he ends up treating like a series of nine people and a bunch of them actually totally just go back to living their normal life and nobody ever had that kind of result. It was repeated by some other people and it was called Malaria Therapy and he ends up winning a Nobel Prize in 1928. This is the foundation of the idea of using fever to try to treat people. It's very interesting in both the cancer side and the infectious disease side.
Ben: That's interesting that you and I were talking about this detox retreat that I'm leading over in Switzerland at one of these Paracelsus Clinic and in the Swiss Alps and I think hyperthermia is one of the things they do over there. I believe it's more readily available in Europe.
Matt: Exactly, yeah. I talked to two people who were going on the trip with you.
Ben: Yeah. That's going to be an interesting–I think it's full. If people are listening in, I'll put a link in the shownotes just in case but yeah, it's like we're just going to go to Switzerland and reboot our bodies and hike in the Alps.
Matt: I have a guy that had metastatic to his bones, prostate cancer. And both was told by his urologist here in San Francisco, super high-end urologist, well he's like over–and he went to Germany twice. I just saw him for back pain and we got a PET-CT to make sure that the back pain wasn't because the cancer had come back and the cancer is totally gone and his PSA is zero. It's super exciting, the idea, and that's why we're starting these clinical trials so that people don't have to go all the way to Europe and we can basically–because I do almost everything that they do over there but this is one thing that I've got to do outside of the country.
Ben: Yeah. That's all bullshit, man, that whole, “You can cure cancer,” stuff and cancer is fixable. You can get laughed at by the medical community, I'm just saying. I'm being facetious.
Matt: It's a journey.
Ben: Yeah.
Matt: It's interesting I always say, and I don't even really ever talk about cancer because if you're helping people with Lyme disease, nobody really cares because they're either really happy you're helping them or they don't believe Lyme disease exists. Either way, they're kind of neutral to you.
Ben: Yeah, exactly. Actually, I want to talk about that. I want to talk about Lyme disease so thank you for that perfect segue into Lyme disease, which is very complex and I know it's also something that you've worked with successfully with a lot of patients. So, I'd love to hear kind of similar to your approach with the gut or your approach to Lyme would be.
Matt: So, the approach to Lyme is similar to the gut. First of all, we do a lot of testing and interestingly Lyme is a tick-borne illness. And so, there's a whole bunch of–it's like a gang. So, there's this one bacteria that's the main bacteria that causes Lyme disease and it's called Borrelia. It's a spirochete-like syphilis and so it has a lot of crazy effects like syphilis and also can be real hard to diagnose like syphilis.
Both conditions have been called The Great Masquerader. The interesting thing as syphilis just was like one thing, if you had syphilis, you had syphilis. With Lyme disease, there's a parasite called Ebezina. And then, there's a whole bunch of other things. Bartonella, anaplasma, ehrlichia. There are some viruses that seem to go with it. And then, there's often a susceptibility to other problems. So, a lot of people with Lyme disease actually have mold. A lot of them have biofilms and a lot of them have mold in there biofilms. And so, then what I'm trying to do before I go into treating is stepping back and trying the broadest possible level trying to say, of all of those things, what do they have? Did they have a lot of food allergies? And then, within that, do they have pain? A lot of people have pain in them. Sometimes that's in their joints. And so, I do diagnostic ultrasound to look in their joints and see if they have fluid in their joints. A lot of people have more neuro Lyme and a lot of them have concomitant viral infections. And so, at the beginning of sort of doing this full assessment, we do a bunch of questionnaires and then try to really establish where we are before we'd kind of go on.
Ben: What modalities have you found to be relatively successful with Lyme?
Matt: At a broad level, once we do the full assessment, then I start people on a year-long or two-year or three-year-long journey where I start them on herbal antimicrobials and I tailor that towards what they have. And so, now, I'm going to just start chipping away with herbals that are going to break and fight–these are tailored specifically so if you've got Bartonella, I've got one for that. If you've got Borrelia, I've got one for that. I do that. I do the whole gut thing. So, we're trying to break down the biofilms and make sure that there's–because if you don't fix the gut then you can't reset the immune system and get everything else working.
Ben: So, some of this stuff goes in conjunction with what you've already explained regarding your treatment with the gut.
Matt: Exactly. We were putting almost everybody on peptides. Then I do a lot of IV therapy. So, I use IV NAD which is great for biohackers but a lot of times seem to reset the mitochondria and turn on the ability of the immune system to start to fight.
Ben: Yeah, we talked about that in the last podcast, how you combine that with things like quercetin for senescent cells or even pre, you have like a cocktail, you do pre-ketamine as well.
Matt: Yeah. I do that for the Lyme people. But interestingly, it depends because we should almost stage a Lyme in Stage 1, Stage 2, Stage 3, Stage 4 because if you said Stage 4 was the worst, I have to be real careful with them because if you give them NAD and it starts to turn their immune system on, a lot of times it's too much. And so, I have a little bit of a start low, go slow where I layer on the herbals, I lay around the fixing the gut. I start with IV therapies to begin to reset and heal things and get that working. If they've got pain, I'll do ketamine. If they have the joint infections, Lyme people tend to respond really well to ozone and placental matrix injections into the joint and because ozone's antiviral, antibacterial, antiparasitic.
Super off-label but there's IV ozone and that's something that's done a lot in Germany and they're studying both IV ozone and rectal ozone to treat Lyme disease, which is super interesting. We like to use the peptides to try to treat it. To me, probably by far, the most interesting thing on the Lyme front is the regenerative medicine applications for Lyme. In the first podcast, we talked a lot about exosomes?
Ben: Yes.
Matt: I personally think in the future, probably there's going to be 10 exosome treatments for everyone's stem cell treatment because exosomes are all the benefits of a stem cell without a stem cell. I've been doing work treating Lyme patients with exosomes, and that's been a profoundly positive experience for me.
Ben: Like injecting them?
Matt: IV.
Ben: Or intravenous exosomes?
Matt: Intravenous.
Ben: Okay, yeah. I've had that before.
Matt: Yeah, it's–
Ben: Dr. Harry Adelson.
Matt: Oh, great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like him.
Ben: Yeah.
Matt: He's a fantastic doctor and I went to his clinic, and it was really great–
Ben: Yeah, in Park City.
Matt: Yeah.
Ben: Yeah, I tried the full-body stem cell makeover that he does, not inexpensive but if you just want to do everything, that's where to go.
Matt: Yeah, it definitely is.
Ben: And then, if you imagine that the IV exosomes that he gave you have an effect of modulating, so I'm going back to this concept of modulating your immune system. And so, I think they seem to modulate the immune system and have a very profound anti-inflammatory effect. And so, there's this initial effect that happens that's short-term that's from the effect of the anti-inflammatory effect and potentially a little bit of immune modulation. But then there's a longer term, three to six-month effect, that comes from an epigenetic and then the immune modulating effects of that.
And so, then what we're doing is we're doing a series of therapies with those. But the key to me is that those treatments are resting on top of a real coherent long-term comprehensive plan and a long-term comprehensive plan both to reset and heal the immune system, what you're fighting in the gut. So, then there are a lot of people that have been doing stem cell therapy for Lyme. I have done that and I feel that it's a good idea. The conventional wisdom in the Lyme community is if you have somebody who is 20% better, don't give them stem cells because it's probably not going to work. If they're 70% or 80% better, a lot of times people do real well with stem cells. My feeling is that no matter where you are, you got to do a complex thing, a comprehensive care, layer in exosomes. And then, I'll go to stem cells next and then we're going to start a clinical trial looking at a culture expanded natural killer cells.
Ben: That's the one in Mexico that we talked about in the last show?
Matt: Yeah, that's another one in Mexico. But that one is where we take your own blood and then grow natural killer cells. Now, interestingly, there's a little theme running through this conversation of things that are good for cancer and also good for infections. It's always nice if you treat someone for an infection but it has a side effect of having an anti-cancer.
Ben: Absolutely.
Matt: With the killer cells, there are actually several clinical trials going on right now looking at using culture-expanded natural killer cells to treat colon cancer, for example, and I'm referring people into that trial. And they're giving people a series of these therapies. And so, I personally think that in the next decade, it has amazing effects but it's going to be a while before regulatory-wise that comes on board.
Ben: Interesting. There's a lot of stuff and I think a lot of–especially a lot of physicians and health care practitioners listening in, these are things they may not have been exposed to before and I know that you help people walk through this like especially healthcare practitioners in terms of learning how to use and how to do some of the stuff that you're talking about. Tell me a little bit about that.
Matt: Oh, yeah. We created something called the BioReset Network. You came down to the office, we actually built out and entire training center.
Ben: It's a cool office. Like a sound healing area and yoga room.
Matt: Yeah. So, the yoga room, this is hilarious because Barb calls that the Yoga Room but I call that our teaching center. We have people come in almost every week to be trained in a lot of these techniques and strategies. And so, we built that both to do therapeutic movement and yoga and stuff like that but to teach people. If you're interested, definitely check out the website and we would be delighted to have you join us and–
Ben: That's just the normal BioReset Medical website?
Matt: No, that's BioResetNetwork.com.
Ben: Okay. I'll find it. I'll link to it in the shownotes for people over at BenGreenfieldFitness.com/bioreset2. The other thing I know that you're big on and that you're one of the main guys in the country who teaches this is the acoustic sound wave therapy, the GAINSwave stuff.
Matt: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. We're a teaching center for them and for the O-Shot and P-Shot as well.
Ben: And what's the GAINS enhancement thing you were telling me about?
Matt: So, I'm working with them on developing a technology where we take stem cell technology i.e. exosomes and then combine that with platelet therapy as an upgraded ability to do an injection into the penis for rejuvenation.
Ben: I've done that too. It actually works really well.
Matt: It works amazing, doesn't it?
Ben: Yeah, yeah. It's pretty cool. I think, actually, at the same time I did–Harry, he had me out for like four hours on that table. So, I think everything known to man that you could do with stem cells legally, they did.
Matt: That's awesome.
Ben: Very interesting. Okay. So, what I'm going to do is for those of you listening in, again I'll link to the first episode that we did or you can just go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com/bioreset, if you want to go listen to that first episode. This episode is at BenGreenfieldFitness.com/bioreset2. The only thing that I have left to do really is figure out what else I'm going to beat Dr. Cook up with today. We could do snow angels. You need to experience what my children call sugar cookies, which is where you get in the sauna and you heat up in the sauna, hang out with your buddies, whatever. And then, you run through the snow in your bare feet out to the cold pool. You take a dip in the cold pool and then you get in the hot tub and then go to the snow and you make snow angels in the snow or you roll down the hill in the snow. So, you're just covered in snow, then you get out of the snow and you go back and you sit in the hot tub and you get like pins and needles and this huge release of nitric oxide and you do a couple rounds of that, and you'll feel it feel amazing. You'll sleep like a baby tonight.
Matt: I'm down, yeah. I feel amazing because I grew up about three hours from here. Missoula, yeah. So, I feel like I'm coming home.
Ben: Yeah. That's right, baby. Home that involves running outside in your underwear in the snow and playing like a little kid. So, we'll do that, we'll have an amazing dinner. And for those of you who want to learn more about Matt and what he does, go see him in San Jose. I'll put a link in the shownotes. Also if you're a physician, a practitioner who wants to soak up his body of knowledge, look at this physician training program. And Matt thanks for being at round 2 with me, man.
Matt: Thanks so much.
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Dr. Matthew Cook, of Bioreset Medical, is one of the smartest, most cutting-edge physicians I've ever met, and this is part 2 of my amazing two-part interview with him, recorded from my home in Spokane, WA.
You can listen to part 1 at “Immortal Cells, Biohacking Pain, Killing Lyme, Stem Cell Confusion, How Ketamine Works & Much More With Dr. Matt Cook.”
During that first episode we discussed:
…how he's used the nootropic methylene blue to solve a difficult medical case…
…how he's upgrading stem cells to make them far more potent…
…how he's treating depression effectively in as little as 20 minutes with a special brew that includes ketamine, NAD and vitamin IVs…
…how he's reversing musculoskeletal disorders using something called “hydrodissection”…
Dr. Cook founded BioReset Medical Corporation and as acting President, operates a Regenerative Medicine and Pain Medicine practice that offers leading-edge non-surgical solutions in orthopedic medicine, sports medicine, regenerative pain medicine, and stem cell medicine.
He is a board-certified anesthesiologist with over 20 years of experience in medical practice. Currently, Dr. Cook is President of California Anesthesia and Medical Director of the National Surgery Center, Los Gatos, CA.
In addition, he sits on the scientific advisory board of several high profile medical companies including BM DOC, FREMEDICA & VASPER SYSTEMS. Dr. Cook’s early career as an anesthesiologist and medical director of an outpatient surgery center that specializes in sports medicine and orthopedic procedures provided invaluable training in the skills that are needed to become a leader in the emerging fields of Musculoskeletal Ultrasound imaging, nerve hydrodissection, and stem cell medicine.
During this Part 2 discussion, you'll discover:
-Dr. Cook's Opinion on the use of beta blockers in preparing for performance…9:30
- Gave a talk to over 2,000 doctors early in his career
- Was given a beta blocker by an associate; Heart rate went down to 25 bpm.
- Never taken another beta blocker since.
- Sweet spot for everything.
- Biohacking too high or too low is problematic
- Has used beta blockers with anesthesia to calm the heart rate.
-Plasmapheresis, what Dr. Cook considers to be one of the “next big things” in the medical industry…11:58
- Plasmapheresis
- A method of removing blood plasma from the body by withdrawing blood, separating it into plasma and cells, and transfusing the cells back into the bloodstream.
- It is performed especially to remove antibodies in treating autoimmune conditions.
- It has also been studied as a treatment for neurocognitive and neurodegenerative problems like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.
- It’s kind of like an oil change in your vehicle.
- If there is systemic inflammation, often that inflammation is in the plasma of the blood.
- Different from parabiosis
- Same procedure as Dr. Mark Urdahl and I discussed on the podcast a few months ago. (Listen to the episode here.)
- Most people who seek plasmapheresis have serious conditions like Lyme, dementia, Parkinsons, etc.
- Effect on a healthy person:
- No negative effect. Nothing wrong with a thorough examination
- Length of the procedure: 2-3 hours, 1x/week for 6 weeks.
-Dr. Cook's thoughts on the use of cannabinoids in his practice…18:50
- We have cannabinoid receptors in our brains.
- Part of our nervous system is called the endocannabinoid system.
- Expect a surge of use in the next 10 years among health optimizers and chronically ill people.
- “Entourage effect”
- Unicorn: a company that is purifying cannabinoids and get all the solvents out
- Delta 8 THC vs. Delta 9.
- Rick Simpson Oil: highly potent
- What are terpines?
- The terpines are the flavor the smell and much of the effect.
- The effect of sativa or the effect of the indica is from the terpines in that strain.
- Can be up to 100 terpines in a strain. Can also control flavonoids…
- Unicorn can make them bioavailability
- We are going to be studying these blends
- Do you give a f*ck? Here's how to follow what's up with the Unicorn brand: http://unicorncannabis.net
-Dr. Cook's approach to dealing with gut issues…31:40
- Get a sense of symptoms
- Test for parasites, the microbiome, stool sample
- Food goes through the stomach, to small intestine.
- Small intestine is sterile
- Goes into large intestine, trillions of bacteria
- Parasites live in the small intestine
- SIBO: small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (Listen to my podcast with Dr. Michael Ruscio here)
- Anti-inflammatory diets
- Collagen, bone broth, colostrum is efficacious in healing the gut.
- Everything is fixable. “Bio Reset”
-What Dr. Cook likes and uses in his practice with peptides…43:55
- Peptide is a smaller version of a protein
- BPC 157 used in combination with stem cells and treating GI problems
- TB 500
- Thymosin used for chronic infections
- Peptides becoming common for treatment of chronic illnesses
- Immune over response and under response – Immune modulation
- Nootropic peptides: Semax, Selank
-What is “hyperthermia”?…51:22
- Used for treating chronic infections and cancer.
- Two options under consideration:
- High tech sauna
- Venovenous
- Malarial treatment: German doctor discovered a way to cure malaria using hyperthermia in the 1920s after WWI.
-Dr. Cook's approach to treating Lyme disease…59:17
- Similar approach as to the gut.
- Tick-borne illness
- Effects similar to syphilis
- Step back, get broadest possible level. Full assessment
- food allergies
- pain in joints
- Neural Lyme
- What modalities have been successful?
-How Dr. Cook teaches other doctors in these practices…1:09:00
-And much more!
Resources from this episode:
–Young Blood Institute podcast
–The Swiss Detox Retreat Ben is leading in summer 2019
–Podcast with Dr. Harry Adelson
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Would Love to hear where I can buy BPC 157 in Tablet form. Thanks