[Transcript] – Is Ben Greenfield Going To Get Vaccinated, Which Vaccine Is The Safest, The Future Of Cutting-Edge Regenerative Medicine Therapies & More With Dr. Matthew Cook.

From podcast: https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/podcast/matthew-cook-regenerative-covid/

[00:00:04] Introduction

[00:00:53] Podcast Sponsors

[00:06:00] Guest Introduction

[00:09:18] The Circumstances That Brought Ben to Matt's Office Most Recently

[00:16:45] Why Ben's Knee Got Worse and Not Better With All The Treatment It Received

[00:21:00] A new protocol that allows joint healing without invasive surgery

[00:32:11] Podcast Sponsors

[00:34:27] Preview to Part Two

[00:35:50] Dr. Matthew Cook and his take on COVID and vaccines

[00:44:20] Concerns with Toxins And Microplastics In The Vaccines

[00:49:43] Dr. Matthew Cook and His Thoughts On Alternative, Non-Vaccine Treatments For COVID And The Vaccine

[00:56:38] How Effective Are Peptides at Preventing Or Treating COVID

[01:00:41] What are the best vaccination options available?

[01:12:09] Should someone who has had COVID be a pariah in society if they aren't vaccinated?

[01:15:24] Ben's Thoughts on Vaccines After This Discussion With Dr. Matthew Cook

[01:19:25] About False Vaccination Cards

[01:22:45] Will Ben Greenfield get the COVID vaccine, or will he not?

[01:27:46] End of Podcast

Ben:  On this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast:

Matt:  This is something amazing that's going to happen. Science is going to improve. And then, it's not going to be rich people. It's going to be everybody that's going to get access. That immune response, if there was already something else going on, can be more intense.

Ben:  And, you have all these other treatments, thymosin alpha-1 and monoclonal antibodies and Ivermectin. Again, I still–maybe, I'm not getting it. But, why would we need to get vaccinated?

Health, performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking, and much more. My name is Ben Greenfield. Welcome to the show.

This is a big deal I have changed my mind about essential amino acids. That's right. You heard me, forget everything I've ever told you about these so-called EAAs. Maybe, I'm being a little bit dramatic here. But, now that I have your attention, there's actually some new information in the realm of essential amino acids that I'm pretty darn stoked to share with you.

My company, Kion, we recently embarked on a huge undertaking. We worked with a third-party independent research firm. We conducted a meta-analysis of all the most recent amino research out there. And, lo and behold, we learned a thing or two about our ratios of our amino acids, as well as the ratios of every single product out there. And, most of them, including ours, we're not optimized as good as they could be optimized. 

Now, I just released a banger of an article about all this research. And, you can go check that out in a link that I'll put in the shownotes for this podcast. I'm going to summarize it for you here. There's an overwhelming body of research that pointed to one amino acid in particular for the incredible effect that it has on muscle protein synthesis, muscle repair, muscle recovery, and a whole heck of a lot more. And, that amino acid is leucine. So, that's the first thing that I did, was I adjusted the leucine content. I bumped up the dose of leucine. Then, I added histidine.

Now, histidine, the longstanding belief behind that is that your body could create histidine on its own in the presence of the other EAAs, the other essential amino acids. Well, it turns out that idea was based on an outdated method of testing. And, at Kion, we want to go for the best of the best and the most up-to-date stuff. So, when we looked at the new research, we used something called the tracer method, which observes amino acids directly inside muscle. And, we now know that the manufacturing of histidine inside the body isn't as efficient as it was once thought, and it isn't that efficient as the idea that most other supplement manufacturers are operating off of.

So, the last thing that we found in addition to adjusting our leucine and histidine content and ratios is that, as you may know, amino acid supplements aren't exactly well known to be tasty. They fall into the same category as ketone esters. Incredibly efficacious, not super tasty. So, the Kion Aminos, we had before cracked the code on making them more delicious than the average amino acids. But, being the overachievers that we are, we actually went ahead and improve the flavors even more. So, our new cool lime and mixed berry powders, I've been internally testing them, I guess, literally and figuratively. And, they kick the butt off of any amino I've ever tasted.

The flavor scientists at Kion, they spent months tinkering with only the best natural ingredients. We work with some of the best formulators out there. We really kicked those flavors up a notch for the cool lime and the mixed berry.

Not only that, but I've gotten some feedback from some people that the tablets we've been using leave a chalky taste in people's mouths. So, we figured out how to also encapsulate the tablets in a capsule, an easy-to-swallow capsule made of 100% natural plant-based ingredients, rather than the tablet. So, we adjust the histidine, we adjust the leucine, we made the flavor of cool lime in Aminos way better, and we changed the tablet into a capsule. And, the all-new Kion Aminos, I've been experimenting with these new ratios. You thought the other aminos were good. These things are even better. And, nobody else in the industry has even touched what we've done as far as the ratios and the flavor.

So, if you haven't yet tried essential amino acids, if you're already using them but you want the new upgraded version that we're doing at Kion, you're going to love this new formula. So, you can get them at GetKion.com/BenGreenfield. That's Get-K-I-O-N.com/BenGreenfield. So, check these new bad boys out.

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Matt, how does it feel to be back on the show, dude?

Matt:  It feels amazing.

Ben:  You don't even know how excited I am, A, because we get to record today's podcast walking in the beautiful Bay Area sunshine. And, I don't where we are–Los Gatos Trail?

Matt:  We're on the Los Gatos Creek Trail.

Ben:  Does that mean the cat?

Matt:  Yeah.

Ben:  Nailed it.

Matt:  Mountain lion.

Ben:  That's right. Everybody had no clue I speak French, but now they know, the Los Gatos Trail. If you're not familiar with Matt–and, Matt you're going to have to just blush here for a moment while I talk about who you are. Matt's been on the podcast five times before. He's a regenerative medicine physician who I hooked up with four years ago when somebody had introduced us. We wound up at a dinner together. And, as a matter of fact, what we talked about most of the time during dinner was ketamine, which is a super-hot topic now. And, everybody is in the ketamine. But, I was so intrigued.

And, we had so many of the things we want to talk about, I wound up just randomly going to your office. I happen to have my mics with me because I was in town anyways to record some podcasts. I brought my mics. We recorded a podcast. You gave me a ketamine infusion, which was interesting because I'd never experienced that particular drug, I guess, before. And then, since then, we have done–And, I'll link to all this stuff in the shownotes, if you guys go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com/Cook. That's Matt's last name. If you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com/Cook, then I'll put all the shownotes there for today's episode, as well as links to all the other episodes I've done with Matt because we've done episodes on ketamine, we've done episodes on regenerative medicine, plasmapheresis, young blood exchange. We've talked about a lot of stuff. I think we should end this podcast right now because we have nothing left to talk about.

Matt:  Easy. That makes it very easy.

Ben:  So, I happen to be in San Jose. And, you'll know why here shortly. I'll explain it to you guys. But, man, I've had a good time. Matt played tennis for the first time in 20 years yesterday.

Matt:  I've almost won two games, but I did win one.

Ben:  So, we've been playing tennis. We've been cooking up buffalo, bison, yak. We made some Rocky Mountain oysters last night, which are, for those of you unfamiliar with the term, testicles. Dredged those in egg. We dredged our testicles. If no one has dredged their testicles before, you must experience a good testicle-dredging. So, we did that with some coconut flour and some egg, and some olive oil. We have lobster tacos. So, we basically spend most of our time geeking out, enjoying the sunshine, and cooking amazing food.

Matt:  Which was super awesome. Thank you.

Ben:  And so, Matt's clinic here is called BioReset Medical. It's near San Jose, I guess. What town are you technically in, Campbell?

Matt:  Campbell.

Ben:  So, Campbell down here in the Bay Area. People fly in from all the world to see Matt and get treatments done by him. And, that's actually one of the reasons I'm here.

So, Matt do you want me to lay out the history for you of why I'm here?

Matt:  Yeah, tell me. Tell me everything.

Ben:  So, this will be really interesting for everybody listening in. So, six years ago, five or six years ago, I was teaching at a yoga retreat. And, no, I was not the guy in the stretchy pants taking people through down dog. I was there at this retreat. It was actually one of the early, early Runga retreats which still exists to this day. There's actually one coming up in Austin, Texas pretty soon. And so, at this Runga retreat, you do kettlebells and ice baths and yoga and meditation. And, I was there to do nutritional consulting with people, do Q&As, be the guy on staff who people could just have around during the entire event to ask questions to.

And, two nights in, I got stung by a scorpion in the middle of the night, literally. Felt the sting, saw the scorpion scuttled into the corner of the room. I wound up killing it later with a glass mason jar. I caught it and beheaded it. So, I got my revenge. There's a tiny little scorpion, which are some of the more dangerous variety, from what I understand. And, this retreat had me all the way up on top of a cottage at the top of the hill, super far away, a half-mile, not super far, but far enough to where, if you're stung, you need medical assistance, it was a little difficult. I had no radio. I had no cellphone reception. Nobody talked to you.

So, I laid there writhing in pain for two hours, feeling and watching my knee swell up, basically, almost to the size of a volleyball. And, I had no first aid, anything, with me. So, I eventually, just at about 5:00 a.m., crawled down to the main resort area. And, there was a medicine woman there. And, she had a fig poultice. She had some essential oils. I believe she had frankincense, was one thing that she used as a topical. Nursed my knee for a little while, but the next five days I was just hobbling, I was useless, I was pissed because I couldn't surf and take part in some of the more vigorous activities at the resort.

And, ever since then, that knee has been super buggy. It's as though some of the muscles got deactivated and quit protecting and supporting the cartilage in the knee the way that they were supposed to. And, the knee just got progressively low-level pain all the time, a 3 on a scale of 1 to 10. Playing tennis, cutting, playing noon basketball, whatever. It was like there was always, especially, during Spartan racing and triathlon, just that low-level, bearable, but back-of-the-mind kind of pain.

And then, what happened was I saw you, Matt. And, we talked about some of the cool protocols that you do, like placental matrix and ozone and a lot of these regenerative medicine therapies that we've done previous podcasts on. And, you would do injections on occasionally. And, the pain would subside for a while, but then come back. It was like a temporary fix. And so, then what happened was I decided to get stem cells injected into the knee about three months ago. So, I went to a regenerative medicine doc, not you but a different person who was near to my hometown because I didn't have time to get down to San Jose and the knee was really starting to bug me.

So, I got these stem cells injected in my knee. And, the doc also did everything in the kitchen sink. He used placental matrix. He used ozone and used exosomes, all darlings of the regenerative medicine industry. And, literally, by that night, the knee was swollen back as big as it had been swollen with that scorpion sting, massive swelling, inflammation, redness. And, it was so concerning that I'm like, “I need to get an MRI on my knee.” I actually called you, and you helped me schedule an MRI.

So, I went and got an MRI. And, I went to one hospital. It took three hours laying inside that MRI tube. And, for everybody who's never got an MRI before, you're literally just inside a tube with this loud hammering. There's no phone. There's no TV. You just lay in there. And, they kept trying over and over again to get pictures and they couldn't. Eventually, they came in and they apologized. They gave me a $10 gift card to Red Robin, which is fantastic because everybody knows how much I love cheesy, curly fries. I don't even know what you get at Red Robin. But, anyways.

So, I got my gift card. And, they rescheduled me for a second MRI. I went to another hospital, different MRI machine because they thought, maybe, it was their machine. Same thing. It was something about the swelling or the oddness of that knee. They couldn't get good pictures. They finally got images of the knee. And, those images indicated, of course, no surprises here, massive swelling, effusion, what's called a Baker's cyst in the back of the knee. Explain to people what a Baker's cyst is real quick, Matt.

Matt:  So, if the knee joint starts to get really inflamed, then there's a potential space between the hamstring muscle and the calf muscle. And, fluid can leak back until. Basically, the fluid leaks into the back of the knee. And, if you imagine what a baker used to do, they would lean into a big bowl and then throw their hands in to do the dough, and they would hyper-extend their knees. And so, they were famous for having fluid leak out the back.

Ben:  Oh, my gosh. I didn't know that. I thought it was named after Dr. Bake —

Matt:  Dr. Baker [00:15:15] _____.

Ben:  –like Tom Jone's surgery or something.

Matt:  No.

Ben:  So, it was actually bakers. And so, you get this pocket of swelling in the back of the knee. It's a palpable swelling. And, even after those, in the past three months, I've had that cyst in the knee drained three separate times and literally pulled 60 to 90 ccs of fluid out of my knee, nasty yellow fluid. And, this MRI showed, not only was that occurring, but it showed degeneration of the cartilage on the back of my patella and degeneration on the surface of my femur, probably, because I've just been using my knee so funny for five years that it had really taken a beating in a way it wasn't really intended to take or in a pattern it wasn't intended to take.

So, anyways, I talked to Matt. And, he said, “Alright, I had some cutting-edge shit we can throw at this. Let's go ahead and tackle this thing once and for all.” So, now, I'm going to shut up now that I've given you guys the history. And, by the way, today's podcasts, Matt and I decided we don't only want to talk to you about the latest regenerative joint therapies because there's some really cool minimally invasive stuff you can do now, but Matt's got some super interesting and surprising takes on COVID and vaccination. And, we're going to talk about those, too. So, sit tight because that's coming up also. But, anyways. So, I flew down here.

And, my first question for you, Matt, is why the heck do you think my knee, after all those cool cutting-edge things got injected into it, got worse and not better? What's the mechanism? This is going to be for anybody who's considering stem cells.

Matt:  So, Ben, this is the interesting one that I've discovered, which is that, when you throw several techniques that all have a regenerative and healing potential, the synergy of them sometimes can be a little too much, and you can get swelling. And, the other doctor I have infinite respect for and is amazing. But, sometimes people can have a very exaggerated response. And, the interesting thing is you've had a moderate amount of inflammation in that joint for quite a while.

Ben:  You think.

Matt:  And so, then, you got a little bit unlucky by creating this super crazy immune response. And, interestingly, because you've had real long-term inflammation in the joint and it's interesting to hear the story because I injected you with placental matrix which was a pretty simple five-minute procedure that I've done a couple times.

Ben:  That's literally derived from a placenta.

Matt:  And so, then, that's a very safe and easy and very anti-inflammatory procedure, but I think when I did that before, it only lasted a month or two.

Ben:  Everything works, but it works temporarily.

Matt:  And, that's because that joint was so profoundly inflamed. But then, the other problem is that you have edema in your bone marrow. And, if your bone marrow hurts, your knee is going to hurt. And, sticking something into the knee joint is not going to heal that bone marrow because the bone marrow is on the other side of the bone. Does that make sense?

Ben:  It makes total sense. But, why would the knee have acted like it got hit by a semi-truck when you'd think stem cells and exosomes and ozone and placental matrix all at once would just be a miracle infusion cocktail into the knee?

Matt:  You would think that, but, often, if the joints already inflamed, part of the way that all of these things do their healing is by creating a little bit of inflammation. And, that inflammation creates a healing response. And so, if you combine four things that all have a little potential for inflammation and then you add them all up together, one plus one plus one plus one might be 10. And, in the setting of a joint that's already inflamed, and interestingly, the whole scorpion thing is interesting, this has been long-term inflamed. So, you were set up for an exaggerated immune response. And then, now, what we have to do is calm that down. And so, then, interestingly, what we did is, normally, we don't inject a lot of steroids. But, I had them inject some steroids.

Ben:  That's right. So, three weeks ago, I went in for a corticosteroid injection into the knee, which was probably the first time in years that, for a few days, I had almost no pain. And, the swelling, which came back a few days later, not quite as bad, but the swelling subsided after that steroid injection. And, that's because of the anti-inflammatory activity of the steroids, right?

Matt:  Right. And so, then, this is I'm going to telegraph later in our conversation. But so, then, steroids turned inflammation down. And so, then, they can turn the inflammation down, starting at COVID or in a setting of exaggerated immune response in a joint.

Ben:  So, pretty much any inflammatory condition steroids can help out with that. But, are there downsides to just using that as a long-term strategy, like every time something starts to hurt just get injected with steroids? Let's say you're an athlete playing through your season?

Matt:  Steroids are hard on connective tissue. And so, then, for example, even in my literature, in my anesthesia literature, steroids can be helpful for back pain. But, a lot of times, a couple of years later, people are worse. So, they're a Band-aid, and a Band-aid that we'd loved to use in certain situations, but not all the time.

Ben:  Alright. So, now, I come here and you're like, “We have this brand-new protocol,” which is really interesting, because three days ago, the Wall Street Journal published an article about all sorts of new cutting-edge minimally invasive protocols that are allowing people to get remarkable joint healing without an invasive surgery. Now, that article, which I'll link to in the shownotes if you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com/Cook, it included talk about a couple of drugs that are currently, I think, under trials that show great promise. I forget the names of these. Do you recall those two drugs?

Matt:  So, then, these are basically early drugs that are going to help promote cartilage cells and help adhesion of cartilage cells, so that they can stick together and create a more functional joint, essentially.

Ben:  Alright, got it. But then, the article went on to describe almost this concept that you can, and you might be able to describe the protocol, but I'll give a preview of the way I understand it, it's called an intraosseous procedure where they drill little holes in the surface of the cartilage and then put something in those holes that patches it up, almost like fertilizing a lawn, to induce new cartilage growth. That's the basic idea I got from the Wall Street Journal article. Is that right?

Matt:  Right. So, then, there's two components to this. One is what's called micro-fracture, and then one is an intraosseous procedure. Micro-fracture is something that orthopedic surgeons do. And, I used to do anesthesia for this all the time. And so, then, with that, they stick scopes in the knee. And then, they look and they see a defect in the cartilage. And then, they take an instrument. And then, they poke holes. And, when they poke holes, they poke holes from the joint into the bone marrow. And, the bone marrow is in the middle of the bone, basically. And then, when they do that, you see bone marrow leak into the joint. And, their goal is to start to heal and let that bone marrow start to come.

Ben:  And, the bone marrow is not bone marrow they're getting from somewhere else. It's literally just leaking from right there in the joint as a response to the micro-fracturing.

Matt:  And, the goal of that is to start to heal that defect in the cartilage. If that doesn't work, then they try to do something called an OATS procedure where they'll put a little graft to fix that cartilage defect.

What we're going to do is we're actually going to stick a needle into the back of your hip into your iliac crest. We're going to pull some bone marrow out. And then, we're going to spin a needle into your bone marrow and then inject that bone marrow to try to heal. Because, right now, you've got inflamed bone marrow edema situation going on in your femur. And, what's happening with that is that's causing a lot of pain and dysfunction. And then, that inflammation and lack of–The bone marrow serves as a nutrition source for the cartilage. So, we're hoping that by doing this, and this is probably the first in a series of several steps to try to create a healthy bone marrow and then start to rebuild cartilage there.

Ben:  Now, for someone listening in and hears about all these needles and everything, I called this minimally invasive. Now, talk to me about how big–Are you making incisions? Are you using ultrasound digital imaging to guide the needles into where you want them to drill the little holes and inject the bone marrow? Or, how is this working from an invasiveness standpoint?

Matt:  So, there's two ways to go. One is more invasive and one is more minimally invasive. And so, we're going to start with the more minimally invasive just to see how you do. The minimally invasive thing that I'm going to do is I'm going to spin a needle into the bone marrow in the hip. And, that's just a relatively small needle. And so, then, that's going to be very comfortable for you. I'm going to pull some bone marrow out–

Ben:  It sounds comfortable, spinning a needle into my hip.

Matt:  Well, you're going to be under the influence of Versed, ketamine, and nitrous oxide.

Ben:  What's Versed?

Matt:  Versed is a benzodiazepine that's similar to Valium. And, it's a very incredible anti-anxiety medication that I used every day for 12 years in the–15 years in the operating room.

Ben:  Alright. So, if we play Trivial Pursuit after this protocol, I'm going to be a little bit useless?

Matt:  Probably.

Ben:  But, it sounds to me, in terms of, compared to let's say a scoping or a resurfacing, this is incredibly less invasive.

Matt:  And so, then, what I'm going to do is we're going to look and we're going to find a spot where we can spin a needle into the bone marrow of the knee. And, we're going to spin right by where your bone marrow edema is and by that defect. And then, we're going to inject bone marrow from the hip to heal the bone marrow in the knee.

Ben:  Now, let's say somebody is listening and they got elbow issues, knee issues, joint issues, etc., and they're like, “That sounds dope. I would rather try that before surgery.” Is this a common protocol? Are there doctors now that do this? Or, how new is this type of thing?

Matt:  There's a lot of people that are starting to do this, and I think doing a great job with it. And so, there's people all over the country that are doing this. The question for them is going to be, do you have inflammation in your bone marrow, or do you just have a problem with your joint, or do you have a problem with some of the nerves and arteries going to the joint or the fascia? So, then, basically, what you're going to want to do is have somebody look and try to figure all of that out.

Ben:  Would that be an MRI, or would that be an ultrasound? When you say have somebody look, what do you think is the gold standard way to look for something like that?

Matt:  So, the only good way to look for bone marrow edema as with an MRI. And then, the best way to look at everything else is with ultrasound. 

Ben:  And, that's a lot of what you do in your office. We've talked in the past about, speaking of the nerves, another really cool protocol you do. And, I've literally seen people sit up from your procedure table who have had tennis elbow for years or golfer's elbow or chronic issues that they thought were related to joint degradation. And, with that nerve hydro-dissection, which we have a whole podcast on, we won't get into it now because we've literally talked an hour and a half about that before, sit up and feel like–I saw one guy sit up and start crying on your table because they're just gone.

Matt:  Now, question for you, compared to your left knee or your right knee, do you feel like you don't activate your VMO as much on the affected side?

Ben:  Well, that's the thing. Ben Patrick, very popular guy right now in the fitness industry, has a program called Knees Over Toes to strengthen the VMO, the tibialis, and some of the toe muscles. Fantastic program that gets really great results in people who have a lot of muscle deactivation due to poor biomechanics or muscle detraining. I have a master's degree in biomechanics. I've worked with a ton of people, specifically, to strengthen areas around their particular joints. I have paid, for the past five years, particularly, my VMO training, my utilization in the past few months of Ben Patrick's Knee Over Toes program, my use of electrical muscle stimulation to keep stabilizing musculature, like the VMO, activated has been honestly, probably about the level of what I'd be doing if I were working with a physical therapist. In addition to that tons of deep tissue work, IT band work, really keeping the fascia nice and supple, using lots of traditional anti-inflammatories, tumerosaccharide. And, all that stuff helps, but it's one of those things where, at the end of the day, and I'm sure other people have experienced this, you know there's something deeper going on. But, that stuff seems like it's helping, and that the problem would be a lot worse without. But, that still isn't providing lasting relief. Does that make sense?

Matt:  Yeah. So, then, I'm going to examine you and look at the femoral and [00:29:39] _____ nerves and obturator nerves. And, there's a chance I may do a little bit of hydro-dissection with this procedure. And so, then, step two would be potentially to do a bigger procedure where you stick a needle into the hip, pull out a little bone dowel, and then spin a needle into the knee, and then stick that bone dowel, and that bone dowel becomes a graft that good bone marrow can grow on. But, I think that's a little bit bigger of a procedure.

Ben:  Is that similar to the expanded stem cell procedures that they do? Or, is that something totally different? Because I know in Mexico you've done expanded stem cells before.

Matt:  Right. So, these are just treatments that are taking bone marrow from the hip into the bone marrow to the knee to fix it. The other thing you can do and I've done with quite a bit of good result is to take PRP, which is just platelet-rich plasma that you got from the blood, and you can spin a needle into bone marrow. And, PRP can be quite effective for bone marrow edema.

By comparison, what happens with stem cells, most stem cells that people, and all stem cells that you can get in the United States, are just basically some stem cells that were harvested when somebody had a baby from around the umbilical cord, for the most part. Those have some potential. The downside —

Ben:  That would nonautologous umbilical amniotic placental jelly, etc.

Matt:  Yeah. The other thing that you can do is you can actually take a cultured expanded stem cells. These are stem cells that are grown in a lab. And so, they're very healthy. They have a little bit more regenerative potential. And then, you can put them in the joint. The only thing is, just like what happened with your stem cells in your knee, they can cause quite an inflammatory response. And so, that's on my roadmap for you because this is going to be a pretty substantial problem. And so, I think I'm going to treat it again, but I want to make sure that the knee really calms down before I do that and it's not in an exaggerated inflammatory response.

Ben:  And, it's illegal to really expand stem cells in the US. So, a lot of those protocols need to be done internationally, right?

Ben:  Exactly. That's why we take people to Mexico.

Ben:  You, as part of your practice, have a set up in Mexico and you take people down there who want to get the full-on expanded stem cell treatment.

Matt:  Yeah, we do that all the time.

Ben:  Interesting.

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What I'm going to do, and Matt, you and I talked about this a little bit, is we'll do a part two later on for you guys, where we talk about what's going on with this whole realm of regenerative medicine for joints. But, I wanted to give you guys a preview of the type of things that a regenerative medicine doc will do that's unique. And, in my case, I'll be able to give you guys updates, and of course, related to these type of joint protocols, if you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com/Cook. You can leave your comments and your questions and your feedback there and pipe in with your own thoughts or things that you're wondering about this type of protocol.

Matt:  And then, remember, we're at the very beginning of a super amazing journey about joints and bone marrow edema and this type of stuff. There's protocols where people are putting human growth hormone into joints. There's actually some protocols where you put testosterone into joints. There's protocols where you put peptides of different kinds into joints. Just I encourage people to be careful and not go crazy in combining. In general, almost all of these things do better when they're done individually. But, the future, I think, is super exciting in terms of eventually preventing joint replacement. That's the goal.

Ben:  Okay. Got it. So, this is going to be super cool. And, I just had to get a little news flash out to you guys about regenerative medicine. And, it's really interesting because, the pivot here, big time, when I was talking with Matt a couple of nights ago over, whatever, eating bison ribeye or it's got all sorts of stuff in his freezer, we've been smoking up on the Traeger, he started talking about COVID and vaccinations, as people inevitably talk about these days when they huddle over dinner. And, Matt's interesting take on it I wanted to share with you, because a lot of times, I guess what you see in the functional medicine space in many cases in naturopathy, in what we might call alternative medicine or non-standard medicine, sometimes, you'll see a real black-and-white approach. And, in many cases, in the alternative health community or the naturopathic community or the functional medicine community, people are basically, vaccinations are horrific and they're unproven and come with a lot of potential side effects. You'll see some people focused on just targeting a specific high-risk portion of the population, such as the elderly and the immunocompromised, which I've always thought seems to be a reasonable approach. And then, people will propose a lot of alternative remedies. You'll hear people talk about Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. And, that's honestly what I did when I personally had COVID. And, it worked out for me. And, I never did actually get vaccinated yet. I'm not an anti-vax. It's just I haven't been comfortable yet with some of the safety data that I've seen. And so, I haven't got it, not because I'm against the idea of vaccinating. I'm vaccinated. My kids are vaccinated. We did an extended schedule vaccination with my children. We chose not all the vaccines but some of them, particularly, those that we felt comfortable getting for international travel.

I don't know if I'd do things differently if I go back over again. But, regardless, I'm not anti-vax. So, I'm one of those guys who's super open-minded, and let's just look at the research and see what's working and what's not. 

So, it perked up my ears when you said that you had had some interesting takes on COVID and vaccination. So, where do you want to start, Matt?

Matt:  Let's start with the vaccination. And so, then, it's super interesting because, for me, all the people that I love for the most part of my practice told me we're going to get vaccinated. And, a lot of them were on the fence. And, I talked to them and I talked a bunch of them into it.

Ben:  You talked a bunch of the people, your patients, your employees, etc., into getting the vaccination?

Matt:  So, I've talked 100% of my employees into getting vaccinated. And, it turns out, if you're vaccinated as a healthcare provider, your patients are less likely to get COVID if they come see you. And, interestingly, I live with Barb who's immunocompromised. She had a kidney-pancreas transplant.

Ben:  Your CEO at BioReset Medical?

Matt:  CEO.

Ben:  Definitely falls under the category in immunocompromised person.

Matt:  And, of all people who have a super hard time with COVID, they're almost at the top of the list. And, she's taking medication that blunts her immune system. But, it turns out, if you're vaccinated as a healthcare provider, and there's data on this, you're less likely to come home if you got exposed to COVID at work and infect somebody in your family.

Ben:  Alright. Were you concerned–I'm curious what vaccination you got and kind of what concerns you had or do have about what a lot of people are talking about, which is the lack of what seems to be long-term safety data on the current vaccination options for COVID.

Matt:  So, this is a one in a 100-year pandemic. And so, we're on a very accelerated schedule with the vaccines. I chose the mRNA platform, and I chose the Pfizer.

Ben:  Moderna and Pfizer are both the mRNA vaccines.

Matt:  And so, then, basically, I've got quite a bit of experience with the immune system and immune problems and stuff like this. And, what the mRNA vaccines are is it's some mRNA that encodes for the spike protein. And so, when you get the vaccine, that vaccine has mRNA. And, it's wrapped in a little casing to protect it because it's pretty unstable.

Ben:  Which is why it need to be kept cold.

Matt:  That's why they got to keep it super cold. So, then, that gets absorbed into themselves. And, they take and they put a little bit of spike protein on. That only lasts for about two weeks. But, when that happens, it stimulates your immune system, and it stimulates, actually, your whole immune system. So, it stimulates the B-cells that make antibodies, but it also stimulates the T-cells. And then, what happens as a result of that is you create an immune response. The immune response is not as intense as with the other vaccines. And so, you got to get two of them. So, you get, one,  it creates a little bit of an immune response. You wait somewhere between a of couple weeks and a month, and you get a second one.

Ben:  Now, a lot of people are concerned about the idea of mRNA, the idea of that, somehow, affecting your genetics or causing longer-term exposure of the spike protein or many of the side effects that we seem to be seeing with some people who have gotten vaccinated, Are those fears unfounded, or is there risk in terms of genetically altering the human body when you use something like mRNA?

Matt:  That is a fantastic question. mRNA does not get encoded into your DNA. So, mRNA is just an instruction to print a protein. So, that mRNA vaccine is going to live for a few weeks inside you. It's going to instruct cells to make a protein. It's going to cause your immune system to go, “Wait a minute. Let's make some antibodies and let's focus on this, and let's memorize this.” Then, you're going to make a bunch of antibodies. And, we test to see if you make antibodies in our clinic. But then, what happens is that you create some long-living cells that now know how to recognize that.

Ben:  Those are the B-cells and the T-cells?

Matt:  Yeah, the long-living ones are the plasma cells. And then, the long-living ones are going to live for the next 10 years. And so, then, they're just hanging out in your bone marrow. They're happy. And, they're just waiting but, if another horrific COVID came around in two years, your immune system is primed and it's going to be able to react to it better.

Ben:  If that's the case why are people who get the Delta variant who are already vaccinated having issues? Do we have to get a new vaccine every single time a new variant pops up and eventually be getting 10 different vaccines?

Matt:  So, then, what happens is, you know about antibiotics, people use drugs. They use drugs like antibiotics to treat a bacterial infection. And, we've had antibiotics for 90 years. And, the bacteria slowly, over a long course of time, start to have an ability to outmaneuver the drugs. Viruses, on the other hand, can rapidly change. But, still, if you've been vaccinated, we still have some protection against Delta. And so, most of the people that we see that are getting Delta, if they were immunized, they have a much less intense COVID, less likely to go to the hospital. And, they may have a little bit of a breakthrough infection but it's nothing like what would have happened to them if they hadn't been vaccinated.

Ben:  And, are there any concerns about adjuvants in the vaccines? I realize that's a difficult question because I believe there's adjuvants in the vaccines that we're getting these days. And, that's a platform a lot of the anti-vaccine community stands upon is aluminum and albumin, all these other things. Is there any concern about–Because you and I, I know you're aware of this because you don't like the concept of sous vide cooking, which we were talking about last night, and the idea that plastics from those bags might degrade. And, that's one of the reasons I use the Stasher brand, higher grade. It's not a plastic but it's similar to it withstands heat.

But, I know you're aware of and concerned about things like microplastics in the human body or toxins or metals. You got molecule air filters in your house, etc. So, with you being aware of all that, is it for you an issue where the benefits outweigh the drawbacks of any adjuvants in the vaccine?

Matt:  So, we're on mRNA, and then we'll go to the other ones next. There's no adjuvants in the mRNA vaccines. And so, then, for me, on the good side–There's going to be a downside. But, on the good side, the mRNA vaccines, I think, come into the body. The mRNA is very unstable. So, it's going to get broken down and be gone. But, it does create an immune response, and it creates some cells that can be ready to protect you. And, I think long-term, there's no adjuvant, there's no anything in there that's going to be triggering any long-term thing.

I think what you're getting at, and maybe we talked about this a little bit, but what happens is when you create a big immune response, just like what happened in your knee, that immune response, if there was already something else going on, can be more intense. So, if you already had a scorpion bite when you have a big immune response in your knee, and it could be a scorpion bite or something else, you're more likely to have a bigger reaction.

Ben:  To a vaccine?

Matt:  Yeah. And so, the classic ones is we see if somebody is going to have a crazy reaction to the COVID vaccine, almost always, those people, we test them, and they either have mold, Lyme one of another handful of viruses, like Epstein-Barr, herpes, [00:46:49] _____.

Ben:  Really? Not a lot of people are talking–So, these stealth co-infections that people have, which are quite common, mold, Lyme, heavy metals, mycotoxins, etc., if you get vaccinated, you're far more likely to experience these deleterious side effects?

Matt:  Yeah, because what happens is those populations of people, and that's a lot of the anti-vax community, I've taken care of tons of those patients. Because often, they had a vaccine that triggered a crazy reaction. That was because their immune system was in 10 out of 10 stress. And so, when your immune system is in 10 out of 10 stress, or even 7 out of 10 stress, and then you get something that taps on the shoulder of your immune system and says, “Let's go. We got to make antibodies and turn the immune system on.” Sometimes, that can be a little too intense. So, if you don't have a way to turn it off, then you can be stuck in an inflammation cycle kind of like you were in your knee. But, the same thing can happen in your entire body.

Ben:  So, do you think it's prudent for someone who was going to get, let's say, an mRNA vaccine to do a screening beforehand for some of these stealth co-infections, as annoying as that might be, and as big of an extra step as that might be? Wouldn't you say that'd be a prudent approach in terms of best practices?

Matt:  It's intriguing, but the testing for all of that stuff is pretty expensive. And, if you don't have a clinical indication for that, I probably wouldn't do that. And, in general, what happens is the other side of the equation, which is a little bit of a problem, is that COVID was somewhat, I would say, somewhat–and, don't take this the wrong way–somewhat infectious. But, the Delta variant is massively more infectious. They say it's more contagious than smallpox.

And so, what's going to happen is, as this virus continues to grow and replicate in, primarily, the unvaccinated population, what's going to happen is there's going to be a potential for it to get dramatically worse. And, we don't know when that's going to happen. And so, I think, from an immune perspective, if you can, I think the best course, probably, is to think about getting vaccinated. But then, I think what's going to happen is, and know that there's going to be an evolution of this stuff, but the platform is pretty good. And, we may end up needing boosters for the next couple of years, even once a year. But, that may not be that bad of a thing. And, may end up with a very robust immunity against coronaviruses from a vaccination program.

Ben:  Now, similar to the already existing argument pre-COVID about, for example, amping up a child's immune system with vitamin D and feeding them a Weston A. Price's diet and then exposing them to good flora variety to support the biome, the gut biome, and the skin biome, etc., people say, well, that's just as good as getting a vaccine. My kid has never gotten smallpox or polio, or anything. I've fully protected them. And, you'll hear a lot of people now similarly saying, “Well, why can't we do–“

So, Joe Rogan was a recent figure. He did Ivermectin and he did sauna. And, he got some, I think, he may have done some peptide bioregulators like thymosin alpha and a lot of things that people are using as a treatment for COVID. But, many people are also using those as an alternative to vaccine, saying, “Well, I don't need a vaccine because Ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine or some of these things negate the need for it because if I get sick, they'll just crush the virus,” and therefore, don't get vaccinated. What's your take on that? Because, I know people are going to say in the comments section, why the hell would you do a vaccination, especially, people who are more libertarian or conservative or who wouldn't like the idea of a forced vaccination, they'll come in and say, “Well, why wouldn't we just use more natural means to knock this out and, perhaps, just vaccinate the immunocompromised and the elderly?”

Matt:  So, I don't know Joe, but I would be a fan. And, I think he's totally hilarious. And, I think what I read in the paper is that he also got the monoclonal antibody.

Ben:  What do you mean the monoclonal antibody?

Matt:  So, then, what happens is, if you get a vaccine, the idea of the vaccine is that triggers your B-cells to make antibodies. Those antibodies basically bind onto the virus and then activate it and help your body locate and eliminate the virus. And, the monoclonal antibody–And so, then, what a monoclonal antibody is they actually take cells–they're hamster cells–and then they induce those cells to secrete an antibody that is active against COVID. And, actually, to be honest, that's super effective treatment for COVID.

Ben:  Then, why get vaccinated?

Matt:  Well, the issue is all the people that you talk about that don't have smallpox, that's because, back in the day, we were better at just getting everybody vaccinated quickly and eliminating something so that it didn't really exist anymore. So, we, for the most part, eliminated smallpox. We, from the last part, have eliminated these infections. But, what's happening now is that virus is going to continue to cycle.

And, I'm getting–It's interesting. I would get calls from, basically, friends of friends. And then, with the mRNA platform that came out, I didn't get any calls. So, it's relaxed, like, “Hey, this is me.”

Ben:  You mean you weren't getting calls about the mRNA vaccines.

Matt:  No, about COVID. Now, I get five calls a day from VIPs and just people. What's happening is people are getting COVID right, left, and center. And, if you get it, I always tell people, there's problems with the vaccines, there's problems with COVID. The problem with COVID is 100 to 1,000 times worse than the vaccine. I've seen a handful of small problems from the vaccines.

Ben:  The problem is worse in the immunocompromised and elderly, or the problem is worse in everybody?

Matt:  In everybody. I've got NFL football players. I've got all kinds of high-end, incredibly young, healthy-ish people that ended up having crazy long-term problems from COVID. And so, then, you may be able to get them out [00:54:06] ____. You may not. You may be in a position where you can't get it. And then, even then, you're fighting an uphill battle. Again, I don't treat COVID anymore. To be honest, if there was no regulations, I'm just afraid somebody would come shut me down, but if I could, I would literally go open up a hospital tomorrow and treat COVID full-time, just because it's so interesting to me. And, I think we have a lot of good things to help it. But, from a regulatory perspective, it's so crazy. We're not doing that. But, what I can tell you is COVID is super for real.

Ben:  Yeah, there's no denying that. What I just don't understand, though, is if you say you could open a hospital and you have all these other treatments, thymosin alpha-1 and monoclonal antibodies and Ivermectin, again, I still–Maybe, I'm not getting it. But, why would we need to get vaccinated?

Matt:  Because as this continues to mutate and become more lethal, it may become more lethal very fast. And then, there's going to be a large percentage of people that end up–Right now, we get a lot of long-term COVID people. I got another one yesterday who can't sleep at all. We just get people who are otherwise healthy where, all of the sudden, the immune system gets quite inflamed. And, just like me trying to go in and turn off the inflammation in the knee, we're going to do our best. And, we tend to have pretty good results with that. But, when inflammation starts to go haywire in the entire immune system and the entire body, and COVID can fundamentally go anywhere. What can happen is you're behind the eight-ball. And, sometimes, you don't catch up. It's the biggest problem of our lives.

So, I would strongly encourage people to consider the vaccinations because I think there's been a lot of crazy press against them, but I think, A, you're probably going to do better. And, this thing may mutate to get a lot worse. And, if you've been slowly building your immunity, I think you're going to be prepared. B, from a public health perspective, I think we protect–I've become an advocate for the immunocompromised, A, because I have a lot of them.

Ben:  Yeah, and you live with someone who's —

Matt:  B, I love one of them, so crazy.

Ben:  –who's immunocompromised.

Ben:  So, it sounds to me like what you're saying basically is we've got all these–Let me use this as an analogy. We've got all these amazing things that we can do for TBI and concussion that, maybe, we weren't aware of 50 years ago: hyperbaric oxygen and ketones and fish oil and infrared light, all these things that can assist with an issue like that, both long-term and short-term. And, that still does not negate the encouragement to put on a bicycle or motorcycle helmet or your seat belt to potentially decrease the risk of that occurring in the first place, despite us having some pretty cool tools to ensure that there's less damage that occurs if a head injury does happen. Is that what you're saying?

Matt:  Exactly. And then, this has been the hardest time to interpret science also of my life, just because of the politicized nature of it. But, my general sense from reading the articles has been that Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine are not as effective as we initially thought. You read the initial studies. And then, what happens in peer-reviewed literature is, then, other people start reading it who are super smart and start poking holes in it. And, there's some pretty big holes for both of those.

And so, yeah, peptides I think can be incredibly helpful, particularly LL37, thymosin alpha-1. I think those are your best two.

Ben:  LL37 and thymosin alpha-1 as peptides?

Matt:  Yeah.

Ben:  Are those legal to get in the US?

Matt:  It's a rapidly evolving and changing landscape with those. And so, it's hard to say what's going to happen with those. A lot of people are just trying to order them themselves.

Ben:  Is that a bad idea to order from a website?

Matt:  Well, it's just the difficult situation that people are in because they don't have access to things and they feel things are being taken away from them. And, I understand where they're coming from. And, there's some great producers out there. So, BPC 157 has have a lot of anti-inflammatory effects and some very good beneficial effects for blood vessels. So, that can be helpful. There's another peptide that's been pretty helpful that a lot of people have used, called thymosin beta-4.

And, interestingly, as people are out there, thinking about it, in terms of preventing exposure, you can take LL37 and do some topical administration of that and sublingual. And, it's a pretty good antimicrobial peptide. Some people are also —

Ben:  I've heard it's amazing for SIBO as well. And, you were even telling me about somebody who had they'll use a Xylitol nasal spray and put the LL37 in there and use that when they're in crowded places as like an intranasal spray.

Matt:  Yeah. And, because it has anti-microbial and some antiviral effects, then when that's in a nasal, basically, film in your nose, it could be helpful. It turns out LL37 is actually good for breaking down biofilms. There's a bunch of articles on the internet about it. And so, I'm one of the bigger fans on the whole peptide conversation. And, I'm cautiously waiting to see what's going to happen with the regulatory landscape.

Ben:  Honestly, anybody who ask me about peptides, I typically tell them to call your office because you usually know what you can and cannot get and what's legal and what's not. And, usually, at this point, I just tell people, “Go talk to Matt and get them from BioReset,” or from this guy named Jean Francois in Canada. He's good, too.

Matt:  He is, fundamentally, I think one of the greatest luminaries in the world. And, he's taught me a lot. I call him all the time. And, he's incredibly, incredibly helpful. 

Ben:  Yeah. And, I'll link, by the way, those listening out, I'll link to my podcast with Jean Francois. His company is CanLabs, right?

Matt:  Yeah.

Ben:  CanLabs Peptides.

So, back to the vaccination piece. So, do you think that, if someone were to get vaccinated, that doing something like the mRNA is the best way to go? Because you said that there were some other vaccination options you'd look into.

Matt:  Well, yeah. And so, then, one is–You're going to love this one. One is that I'm going to be a fan of that category.

Ben:  The mRNA category?

Matt:  The mRNA category. But then, the question is, let's say most people are going to get it and they're going to do fine, and I've had hundreds and hundreds of patients that I often had counseling and I would counsel them all, and almost all of our patients got the mRNA. Now, let's say somebody got that exaggerated runaway inflammatory response from a vaccine, what are you going to do? One of the things I've been working pretty hard on is we submitted a IND, an Investigational New Drug application for Kimera exosomes.

Ben:  Kimera is a company that makes exosomes.

Matt:  And so, then, as a protocol to treat long-haul COVID. And so, we're waiting on that. But, it turns out that exosomes that are derived from stem cells are, basically, what stem cells do is they secrete exosomes. I always say, bees make honey, stem cells make exosomes.

Ben:  They're like the signaling molecules via the so-called a paracrine effect. That's how stem cells work so well, right?

Matt:  Yeah. And so, then, what happens with stem cells is they're floating around the body. And then, when they find inflammation, they start to secrete stuff to turn that inflammation off. And, one of the things that they secrete is microRNA. So, microRNA is different from mRNA. And, microRNA cancels —

Ben:  Remind people what the other “m” in mRNA stands for?

Matt:  Messenger.

Ben:  Messenger. So, there's messenger RNA and microRNA.

Matt:  Yeah.

Ben:  And so, messenger RNA encodes for proteins. And, it encodes for proteins to be made. MicroRNA modulates how messenger RNA works. And so, basically, you remember Yin and Yang?

Ben:  Mm-hmm.

Matt:  The body at all times, if it turns inflammation up, it's got a way to turn it back down. And so, then, there's been cases of doctors that I've talked to all over the country who had people who had an exaggerated immune response, and then they gave them exosomes, and then they turned that immune response down.

Ben:  As a way to treat an exaggerated immune response to vaccination?

Matt:  Yes. Here's the thing. This is crazy. By turning down the immune response to that vaccination, it could be that what's going to happen is you're going to make that vaccination less effective. 

Ben:  Oh, okay.

Matt:  But, let's say you've got somebody that had it and they've got a blood clot and they've got inflammation out of control, that's the type of person you're going to want to do that on. You're not going to want to do it on everybody. And, it's going to have to be a very thoughtful strategy and algorithm of how to do this.

But, right now, what people are forced into is they're being told every company over 100, it's going to have to get vaccinated, and you definitely can't practice medicine if you're not vaccinated, for the most part, as far as I can tell for how it's going. And so, then, what's going to happen is people are getting pushed into getting vaccinated, but they don't have any way to turn that down.

Ben:  That's my concern. And, pardon my verbiage here. There's all the rich efforts who are going to go to their crazy good doc or have you in their back pocket. They're going to say, “I'll get back vaccinated because we can totally just hack our way out of any scenario where there was accelerated response or anything.” Great, but for each one of those people, if we decide that we're just getting forced vaccinations for everybody, there's hundreds of thousands of people who are going to get injured due to that exaggerated immune response, who don't know what to do and who could potentially die.

It seems like we need to really scale these solutions for controlling that accelerated response prior to requiring vaccinations. Wouldn't that be prudent?

Matt:  Well, so, I think you got to get the vaccination thing going because you might have 100,000 people with a vaccine reaction. We might have 20 million people die.

Ben:  Of COVID?

Matt:  Yeah, if it gets a lot worse.

Ben:  You're saying the number of people who are going to die of COVID if we don't get some type of herd immunity setup will outnumber the number of people who are going to have an exaggerated immune response and vaccination issues. Therefore, continue to roll out vaccinations, but simultaneously continue to work on these solutions for the problematic response to the vaccinations.

Matt:  Exactly. And, what I'm talking about is hypothetical. We don't know how this is going to go. We didn't know if you were going to get a Delta variant that comes out that's hundreds of times more contagious. If you get something that comes out next spring that's hundreds of times more contagious and hundreds of times more deadly, you've got a catastrophic problem. And, if you're somebody like me, you're not that worried about getting a little bit of an mRNA because I know how to deal with mRNA problems.

Maybe, this is something amazing that's going to happen for our planet. Science is going to improve. And then, it's not going to be rich people. It's going to be everybody that's going to get access that would have the technology.

Ben:  Yeah, this might accelerate that, but it's unfortunate the way that it's having to happen. And, the politics and the mistakes made along the way and the lack of proper testing protocols, like a really good antigen test ruled out early on in the process have dictated that we've painted ourselves into this corner, so to speak. And, now, we're almost having to choose the lesser of two evils, which is difficult. But, don't you think it's odd from an evolutionary virology standpoint that the virus would be getting more lethal, or more transmissible is understandable, from an evolutionary virology standpoint. But, more lethal is odd because, as a parasitic type of compound, wouldn't you think that the evolution of the virus would result in it becoming less lethal so that the host stays alive?

Matt:  Well, that's just been a crazy journey to watch how this is unfolding. We're on a roller coaster. I'm not sure why it's happening. I don't understand the deep in this level. But, I think there are scenarios where it can get more lethal. 

Ben:  I suspect that, probably, one of the reasons that might be is due to the gain of function research and the fact that the virus may not have evolved in an entirely natural manner. You know what I'm saying?

Matt:  Yeah. I didn't want to say it, but you said it. That was a good one.

Ben:  I was not supposed to say that on a podcast?

Matt:  Well, no.

Ben:  I didn't even know. This is actually the most I've talked about COVID on a podcast for a while. So, hopefully, I'm not going to get a band on YouTube, I suppose.

Matt:  Well, here's the thing. The trajectory of this conversation is super vaccine-positive from my perspective. And, I thought about it. I was like, “Well, should we just talk about the type of stuff that we do, or should we actually try to delve into the problem of our day?”

Ben:  We have to delve into the problem of our day because the way I see things going, you're either going to need to make the decision to be an isolated and potentially scapegoated person or get the vaccine. And, let's set aside all issues because I've always said, if I'm comfortable getting the vaccine, I want a T-shirt that comes along with it that says, “I did it because I wanted to, not because you told me to,” just because I don't like the whole concept of forced vaccinations. It just rubs me the wrong way because I'm pro-choice when it comes to one's body as long as the pro-choiceness is involving the ethics of your body only.

So, I think it's really tricky. But, the other thing I want to ask you that I didn't quite get an answer to yet was, you talked about the mRNA vaccine. What about Johnson & Johnson? What about some of these others? Do you think that you do mRNA because you think it's just the best option out there right now?

Matt:  Well, yeah. And so, then, I looked into it, and this is what I found. Now, the AstraZeneca and the J & J vaccine are adenoviruses. And so, then, what they did is they took and actually put DNA into those viruses. But, that's the traditional virus platform.

Ben:  Isn't that what polio was, an adenovirus?

Matt:  I think so. And so, then, we've had experience with those. You and I have both gotten a bunch of that genre of vaccine. And, those vaccines are holding up to do quite a bit of good. And, that's the technology that's been in the world for the last 50 or 60 years. And so, I think that there's a lot of good things to be said about it. But, the thing that I like about the mRNA vaccines is that thing is going to be in there and then gone. So, it's going to do something. It's going to have an effect that you can either live with or turn down. Then, time goes on, and then you can get another one. And so, I really like the concept of that.

There are some people who are suggesting that we may want to have different types of vaccines. We may want to rotate between them.

Ben:  I heard that before, that there might be a better response if you, for example, get the Moderna and then, for your second booster shot or something, do a different vaccine. Is that what you're talking about?

Matt:  I've heard about that. But, now, just where I'm coming from is I would just pick with one and go with that until there's good data on that. I wouldn't make that decision on your own, because there's smart people looking at the data and the science on this. But, I have seen, of all of the crazy reactions that I've seen, they've all been on the J & J side or the AstraZeneca side. And so, I think that those vaccines potentially have more problems. And, I have a good logic for where I'm coming from, at least, I'd like to think. So, that's why I'm encouraging people.

Ben:  And, real quick, I personally would never endorse the J & J because I know I just said I was pro-choice when it comes to living soul inside of a mother, I believe that life begins at conception. And, because the research for the Johnson & Johnson relied upon aborted fetal tissue back in 1985, I just can't ethically endorse that one. So, that's off the table for me, anyways.

But, that relates to another question I want to ask you is, I've had COVID. I'm not immunocompromised. I've produced antibodies. My immune system is good to go. Do you think that societal restrictions, being able to travel or go to concerts, whatever, all that aside, which I think is just, I don't know, personally, I think it's silly, do you think, from a health standpoint, that I or others in society would still benefit from me getting vaccinated if I've already had it?

Matt:  Yeah, because when you have it, you generate an immune response. But, it looks like, I just read an article, that the immune response that you get as a result of the vaccine is better than the immune response that you get from having COVID. But, if you have had —

Ben:  See, that's not what I–I've heard the opposite. I could be wrong.

Matt:  I've read an article today. We'll find out because I didn't close it down on my browser.

Ben:  And, we'll link to that in the shownotes, by the way.

Matt:  And then, this article said the immune response that you get from having COVID plus having had the vaccine is the best.

Ben:  Yes, I have heard that. But, what I haven't heard is that, if you've had COVID–So, what I've heard is that if you get COVID and then you get the vaccine, that's the very, very best immune response scenario you can be in. However, if you've had COVID, you still have an immune response that dictates that it wouldn't necessarily be crucial for you to get the vaccine.

Matt:  I'm going to disagree. And, the trip on this one is, and this isn't just my clinical practice, with Delta coming out here, I've been getting phone calls almost every day of VIPs that have already had COVID that thought they were good and didn't get vaccinated because they were like, “I'm fine.” Somebody calls me, “I got COVID again.” And so, I think the protection that people get from having had COVID is not going to long-term be as good as the vaccines. It's going to take a little bit of time for the data to play out on this. So, I'm encouraging people to do it.

And then, I think the other thing is, if you've been vaccinated, you're less likely to be an asymptomatic carrier and were more likely. So, that's just going to slowly lead to this progression, to herd immunity. And then, once that happens, then everybody is going to be able to get back out there and start going to [01:14:46] ____ and Willie Nelson concerts.

Ben:  Exactly. I know what's your favorite. So, if I've had COVID, there's a possibility that I could, for example, contract the Delta variant, be walking around not having been vaccinated. I could be fine, but I could potentially get somebody else, let's say, like Barb back at home, super sick.

Matt:  Or, your kids.

Ben:  Or, my kids, okay. This is an interesting discussion. We didn't really talk about much of this before at all. So, folks who are listening or hearing me in real-time soak up and interpret what Matt is saying.

But, as we are nearing the end of the time that we have for today's show, can I share what my thought pattern is after having this discussion with you, Matt?

Matt:  I would love it.

Ben:  So, look, as I said at the beginning, I'm not anti-vax. I'm probably, after this discussion, although I still want to see some of the comments come in and hear other people's take. I always listen to a lot of people before I make as important decision about something I'm going to inject into my body. So, I would encourage everybody to go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com/Cook and pipe in with your thoughts. But, where I'm at is, A, if I were to get the vaccine, I'd probably do something like this mRNA vaccine that you've alluded to. And, honestly, it wouldn't only be because of the efficacy that you've described about, but it would also be because I ethically am against any vaccine that was developed by research on aborted fetal tissue. And so, I would encourage my audience, just from an ethical standpoint, to consider that. Somebody in the audience, if you're listening in, you decide, “Well, this discussion has left me comfortable enough to go out and get Moderna or Pfizer.” I would say, if there is any remote possibility that you're able to set yourself up in a scenario where, A, you can identify or at least ensure you don't have signs and symptoms or even tested evidence of a stealth co-infection or some type of inflammatory condition that could cause a deleterious response to that vaccine, you should do that first if there's any chance that you can. And, B, I think that you should also, if you have access to a doctor who can equip you with things like LL37 or thymosin alpha or some of the other solutions that will be laid out in the shownotes that Matt talked about, that you should also, perhaps, make sure that you're set up with those at home before you get the vaccine, just so that you're not added to the count of people who have that problematic reaction. That's where my mind's at right now.

Matt:  Now, LL37 is antimicrobial to COVID. I don't think it's that helpful for the COVID vaccine.

Ben:  So, the anti-inflammatories, like BPC 157, thymosin alpha —

Matt:  Would be probably very good because they regulate and modulate, just like exosomes regulate and modulate.

Ben:  Let's say you were fortunate enough to have in your fridge or pantry back home your first aid kit for if shit goes south after you get the vaccine, review for people what you have in your back pocket.

Matt:  So, then, we have an entire sheet. And so, I'm going to give you that for the shownotes —

Ben:  That's amazing.

Matt:  –that we give people. But, there's a whole bunch of things. We give people vitamin C. We give people a lot of glutathione. We give people…

Ben:  Before or after they get the vaccine?

Matt:  Before the vaccine. And then, people are taking those afterwards. People are taking binders. It turns out a lot of the binders will bind on to inflammatory things that combine activated charcoal.

Ben:  Activated charcoal, something like that?.

Matt:  Exactly. And, I have had a lot of people come in and tell me, “Hey, I took that afterwards. And, it really helped me to calm down my symptoms after the vaccine.” Because you're creating a calmer state in your body while your body is ramping up this immune response against the virus.

Ben:  Well, that's going to be super helpful. And, don't worry, everybody listening in. I will ensure that I follow through what I'm going to get from Matt is not only some of the studies he mentioned that he'd looked into or the discussions, at least, about the potential non-efficacy of something like Ivermectin. I'll get some data from him on the idea that being vaccinated, plus having had COVID, is going to make you a safer person to be around. And, I'll also get that, you said it was a PDF or something like that that you give to people?

Matt:  Yeah, we have done an awesome PDF.

Ben:  That's excellent. So, I'll put all of that at BenGreenfieldFitness.com/Cook.

Hey, folks, I'm going to jump in right now. You may have noted that, on this podcast, I mentioned false vaccination cards. And, I'm totally not one of the guys who endorses living a lie or walking around lying to people. And, I didn't want to just throw out that off-cuff comment and leave you guys hanging with that. This idea that, what if you have a false vaccination card and you could just use that to slip into a grocery store to buy toilet paper, if it turns out you got to have a vaccination proof to go buy toilet paper, or you want to go to your favorite concert, so why not just have a blank vaccination card that you have filled out to be able to go to a concert? But, Matt had a thought on that, too. And, he told me after we recorded, and I just wanted to throw this in there for you guys just to close the loop on that piece. So, Matt, thoughts on false vaccination cards.

Matt:  Yeah, I strongly recommend against that. And, the reason is you've got all kinds of people with shades of being immunocompromised to poly-immunocompromised. And, some people are going to go to events where they expect everybody is vaccinated. And, the data says vaccinated people would be less likely to spread. You could create a super spreader event. And, I think that it is just unfair to people. And so, I think that if you don't want to get vaccinated, probably, just don't go to concerts.

And, I think following your integrity and following doing the right thing is important. And, we just heard a news story about a doctor that may go to jail for 20 years for giving patients false vaccination cards. So, I think this is something that we should be super careful about.

Ben:  So, basically, it puts your doctor or your pharmacist, or whoever would be doing a false vaccination card for you, in an awkward position. And, the more that Matt and I've been talking about this, the more I think, well, it's obviously convenient if, let's say, you're not allowed to go to the grocery store unless you're vaccinated or have proof of vaccination, you want to get toilet paper, you get a false vaccine card, you go in and you get your toilet paper, great. But, at the same time, based on what we're seeing about the potential for somebody's grandma or somebody who's immunosuppressed or someone who you run into at said concert or said grocery store, the whole idea here is that, you'd probably feel pretty bad if that person wound up getting COVID or getting super sick or having their life altered in a pretty dramatic fashion from you tooling around with those fake cards.

So, I would say that it's probably prudent to not delve into that category. Plus, it also ensures that you're not putting a medical professional into a scenario where you might be that person that has them getting their license revoked because of you, and therefore they're not able to help people out in the way that God has called them to do so. Again, it's probably better safe than sorry in a case like that. That's basically what you're saying, Matt?

Matt:  Yep, given.

Ben:  Alright. We just had to throw that in there for you, guys. Thanks.

Matt:  And, now, I got an appeal to you.

Ben:  Yeah, I was going to say. I would love to hear any final thoughts you have.

Matt:  My final–I appeal to you that this is a worldwide epidemic that's not going to go away and it's going to escalate for the next couple of years. And so, I think that you actually getting vaccinated, I wasn't going to go here, but now at the end of this talk, my takeaway is my goal is you're going to do amazing when you get the vaccine. I'm going to support you and get you through it. And then, I think that you are such an influential person that influences people's judgment and their decisions in how they do things. And, I think that you have a great potential to begin to show people, hey, there's been a little bit of an irrational fear about some of these vaccines. And, these are actually relatively safe. They have some problems. We've got ways to deal with them. And, we have to band together as a human race and do something amazing to heal ourselves.

Ben:  Well, like I've already said, I'm not going to kick this horse to death. Really, I'm very open-minded about this entire situation. Politics aside, I've had people say to me, “Well, even if it was healthy, I'm not going to get it because they told me I had to. And, I just don't like that idea of appearing as though I'm jumping through a hoop or being forced to be vaccinated.” I don't care about that. If I get vaccinated, it's going to be because I want to get vaccinated and it's for the good of society and for my own health and other people's health. It has nothing to do with whether or not I can go and do a concert. Because I'm going to be totally frank with you, I can get a fake vaccination card and get into a concert. That's not an issue.

The thing is, as you've just alluded to, this is about the health of the planet and the health of the world. And, this discussion has certainly got me thinking. What I'm going to do is I'm going to pay attention to some of the comments and some of the things that people pipe in and talk about or bring any data into the discussion that I may have been unaware of or that didn't come up during our discussion. And, I'm going to sit with that. And, I could probably tell people that, from the time that this podcast gets released, I will probably, within 30 days after this podcast gets released, make a decision. And, whatever decision I make, I will make sure that, on my platform, I'll let people know about it. Does that sound fair?

Matt:  This is my favorite conversation I've ever had about this whole topic because it's so been so controversial. But, the reality is we love each other. And, I respect where you're coming from.

Ben:  Even though I kicked your ass in tennis yesterday?

Matt:  I know. But, basically, what happened is I sat there, and I realized every single game I played better. And, I'd basically started feeling sorry for you by the end because I realized how much I'm going to beat you in the future.

Ben:  Well, you just totally de-platformed your credibility for the entire past hour and a half.

Well, Matt, first of all, you know I respect you. You know I appreciate you. You know that you're a guy I look up to. Probably, the top physician who I go to for advice when something goes south with me or my family or I need help with any medical condition for myself or my family or even my extended family. You've helped my dad out. You've helped my mom out. You've helped my brother out. You've helped close friends and clients out. Most of my clients have gone to you at one point or another for some form of treatment. Obviously, you're the guy I turn to as a final solution for my knee. And so, this is definitely one of those discussions that I'm taking quite seriously.

So, anyways, I feel like we're starting to kick the horse to death now. But, what I would tell people is that, again, the shownotes are going to be at BenGreenfieldFitness.com/Cook. I would encourage you to go there, leave your own thoughts, whether you're a professional, scientist, a physician, a layperson. I just want to hear from you. I want to hear your thoughts over there. And, I'm going to be looking at all that. That's going to be a great place for you to go through and see what other people are saying. And, you have my word that I will get a decision out to you that I personally made very soon after I sit with this and as I walk on things, I sleep on things, I pray on things. And, this has certainly been a super, super informative discussion. So, Matt, I want to thank you.

Matt:  Thank you. It's totally awesome. You're the greatest of all time.

Ben:  You ready to go punish some bison ribeyes?

Matt:  Yeah, I was born ready for that.

Ben:  Alright, folks. So, I'm Ben Greenfield, along with Dr. Matt Cook. I'll link to all the previous podcasts that we've done, everything we discussed in today's show, including what I'm most excited about that sheet for decreasing the problems that might occur in being vaccinated. And, I'll put all that in the shownotes at BenGreenfieldFitness.com/Cook. Have an amazing, amazing week, everybody. Over and out.

Well, thanks for listening to today's show. You can grab all the shownotes, the resources, pretty much everything that I mentioned over at BenGreenfieldFitness.com, along with plenty of other goodies from me, including the highly helpful, “Ben Recommends” page, which is a list of pretty much everything that I've ever recommended for hormones, sleep, digestion, fat loss, performance, and plenty more.

Please, also, know that all the links, all the promo codes that I mentioned during this and every episode helped to make this podcast happen and to generate income that enables me to keep bringing you this content every single week. So, when you listen in, be sure to use the links in the shownotes, to use the promo codes that I generate, because that helps to float this thing and keep it coming to you each and every week.

 

 

He's back…

…one of my most popular podcast guests of all time.

I recently flew down to Dr. Matthew Cook's office in San Jose, at a location called BioReset™️ Medical, for a cutting-edge knee repair protocol, similar to the type of new knee and cartilage fixing science you can read about here.

Of course, we just had to get on the mics to record a podcast for you, and in addition to talking all things cutting-edge joint therapy, peptides, and regenerative medicine, we also delved into what I consider to be one of the most important discussions I've ever had on my show—particularly related to worldwide health, Covid, vaccinations, long-haul Covid syndrome, and perhaps the most important consideration of all: whether or not I personally plan to get vaccinated (I think you'll be quite surprised at the ultimate outcome of the discussion, which begins about the 38:00 mark).

Dr. Matthew Cook has been a previous guest on the shows:

• Dr. Matthew Cook & Ben Greenfield Get Put In The Hot Seat: Favorite Books, Best Anti-Stress Tactics, Pig-Based Nootropics, Best Billboard Advice & Much More!
• Kiss Gas & Bloating Goodbye With Dr. Matthew Cook: The Complete Done-For-You Guide To Eliminating SIBO Once & For All (Along With Sex, Trauma, PTSD, Ozone Dialysis & More!).
• Immortal Cells, Biohacking Pain, Killing Lyme, Stem Cell Confusion, How Ketamine Works & Much More With Dr. Matt Cook.
• Killing Mold & Mycotoxins For Good, The Craziest IVs You Can Get For Energy, Fixing Knees & Back Without Surgery & Much More With Dr. Matt Cook.
• What You Didn’t Know About CBD & THC, Fixing Lyme Disease, The Full Body Blood Change Reboot, Peptides 101, Hyperthermia & Much More!
• Everything You Need To Know For Antivirus & Immune System Enhancement: A Special One-Two Podcast Episode With Dr. Matt Cook, Dr. Matt Dawson, & Dr. Michael Mallin.

He is President and Founder of BioReset™️ Medical and Medical Advisor of BioReset Network. He is a board-certified anesthesiologist with over 20 years of experience in practicing medicine, focusing the last 14 years on functional and regenerative medicine. He graduated from the University of Washington School of Medicine and completed his residency in anesthesiology at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), and has completed a fellowship in functional medicine.

Dr. Matthew Cook’s early career as an anesthesiologist and medical director of an outpatient surgery center that specialized in sports medicine and orthopedic procedures provided invaluable training in the skills that are needed to become a leader in the emerging field of regenerative medicine.

His practice, BioReset™️ Medical, provides treatments for conditions ranging from pain and complex illness to anti-aging and wellness. He treats some of the most challenging to diagnose and difficult to live with ailments that people suffer from today, including Lyme disease, chronic pain, PTSD, and mycotoxin illness. Dr. Cook’s approach is to use the most non-invasive, natural, and integrative treatments possible.

In this discussion with Dr. Matthew Cook, you'll discover:

-The circumstances that brought Ben to Matt's office most recently…09:20

• BioReset™️ Medical
• Ben got stung by a scorpion at a Runga retreat 6 years ago
• Fig poultice and frankincense essential oils (save 10% on with code ben)
• The knee has been problematic and has grown increasingly worse since
• Stem cells injected into the knee 3 months ago (at a clinic near Spokane, WA)
• Knee blew up after the above-mentioned procedure
• Baker's cyst: knee joint inflamed so that fluid leaks into the back of the knee
• MRI showed inflammation, degeneration in patella, and femur due to misuse of the knee
• Have had cyst drained 3 times in the past 3 months after stem cell injections

-Why Ben's knee got worse and not better with all the treatment it received…16:50

• Synergy of separate techniques can throw each other out of whack
• Super crazy immune response due to long-term inflammation
• A bit of inflammation is part of the healing response
• Exaggerated immune response, need to calm it down
• Steroids are hard on connective tissue in spite of immediate benefits

-A new protocol that allows joint healing without invasive surgery…21:00

• The Wall Street Journal article Ben mentions
• Drugs that promote adhesion of cartilage cells to create a more functional joint
• Two components: Micro-fracture, intraosseous procedure
• Marrow is a nutrition source for the cartilage
• Begin with more minimally-invasive procedure; the more invasive if necessary
• Do you have inflammation in the marrow, or is it the joint
• Best way to look for marrow edema is MRI; everything else is ultrasound
• Knees Over Toes program, Ben Patrick
• Platelet-rich plasma (PRP) from the blood into the bone marrow
• Most stem cells used in procedures come from baby's placenta when they're born

-Dr. Matthew Cook and his take on Covid and vaccines…38:05

• Vaccinated healthcare providers are less likely to give Covid to their patients
• Dr. Matthew Cook got the Pfizer vaccine (mRNA)
• Accelerated schedule for vaccinations
• Spike proteins in the vaccine last for 2 weeks; stimulates the whole immune system
• Immune response is not as intense as other vaccines; why you need two of them
• mRNA does not get encoded into the DNA; only instructs cells to make a protein that will be an antibody to the virus
• Immune system will be better prepared to react to another Covid-type virus
• Vaccinated folks have a much less intense reaction to the Delta variant
• Bacteria, over a long time, start to have an ability to outmaneuver drugs; viruses, on the other hand, can rapidly change

-Concerns with toxins and microplastics in the vaccines…45:00

• No adjuvants that will trigger long-term issues in the mRNA vaccine
• A previous injury or condition will trigger a bigger reaction to a vaccine
• People who react poorly to the Covid vaccine almost always have Lyme, mold, Epstein-Barr, etc. (stealth co-infections)
• Testing for stealth co-infections prior to taking the vaccine would not be cost-effective
• Covid was somewhat infectious; the Delta variant is far more infectious (more contagious than smallpox)

-Dr. Matthew Cook and his thoughts on alternative, non-vaccine treatments for Covid and the vaccine…49:45

• Joe Rogan got the monoclonal antibody
• Takes hamster cells, induce them to secrete an antibody that is active against Covid
• Smallpox was eliminated
• The problems of Covid are infinitely worse than the vaccine
• Would treat Covid full-time if there weren't so many regulations
• Covid may become far more lethal very fast if measures aren't taken
• Vaccination gives you the ability to do better as the virus mutates into something a lot worse
• Advocate for the immunocompromised

-How effective are peptides at preventing or treating Covid…56:40

• Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine are not as effective as we may have first thought
• Peptides can be helpful, especially LL37 and Thymosin α-1 (legality is a bit ambiguous)
• BPC 157 has anti-inflammatory effects and good beneficial effects for blood vessels
• Thymosin β-4
• BGF podcast with Jean Francois Tremblay:
  • The Peptides Podcast: Everything You Need To Know About Anti-Aging, Muscle Gain, Fat Loss & Recovery Peptides.

-What are the best vaccination options available?…1:00:45

• mRNA (messenger RNA) vaccines encode for proteins to be made
• Submitted an IND (Investigational New Drug) for Kimera Exosomes
• Stem cells excrete exosomes
• Stem cells float around the body and secrete stuff when they encounter inflammation; turns off inflammation
• µRNA is one of the stuff secreted
• µRNA modulates how mRNA works
• Turning down immune response to the vaccination could make the vaccination less effective
• AstraZeneca and J&J vaccines are adenoviruses (put DNA into the viruses in the vaccines); traditional virus platform
• Maybe a better response to use a different vaccine for booster shots (wait until more data is available)

-Should someone who has had Covid be a pariah in society if they aren't vaccinated?…1:12:15

• The immune response you get from the vaccine is better than from actually having Covid
• Immune response from having had Covid plus having had the vaccine is the best
• Vaccinated are less likely to be an asymptomatic carrier

-Ben's thoughts on vaccines after this discussion with Dr. Matthew Cook…1:15:25

• Do the mRNA vaccine if he chooses to do it for efficacy and ethical concerns
• If there is any possibility you can ensure you don't have signs of a stealth co-infection, do that first
• Consult a doctor who can advise on proper peptides before taking the vaccine
• Recommended to take before vaccination:
  • Vitamin C
  • Glutathione (use code BENGREENFIELD10 to save 10%)
  • Binders like Activated Charcoal

-Will Ben Greenfield get the Covid vaccine, or will he not?…1:19:40

-And much more!

Resources mentioned in this episode:

– Matthew Cook:

• Pre- and Post-Vaccine Support Strategies

• BioReset™️ Medical
• Previous podcasts with Matthew Cook:
  • Dr. Matt Cook & Ben Greenfield Get Put In The Hot Seat: Favorite Books, Best Anti-Stress Tactics, Pig-Based Nootropics, Best Billboard Advice & Much More!
  • Kiss Gas & Bloating Goodbye With Dr. Matt Cook: The Complete Done-For-You Guide To Eliminating SIBO Once & For All (Along With Sex, Trauma, PTSD, Ozone Dialysis & More!).
  • Everything You Need To Know For Antivirus & Immune System Enhancement: A Special One-Two Podcast Episode With Dr. Matt Cook, Dr. Matt Dawson, & Dr. Michael Mallin.
  • Killing Mold & Mycotoxins For Good, The Craziest IVs You Can Get For Energy, Fixing Knees & Back Without Surgery & Much More With Dr. Matt Cook.
  • What You Didn’t Know About CBD & THC, Fixing Lyme Disease, The Full Body Blood Change Reboot, Peptides 101, Hyperthermia & Much More!
  • Immortal Cells, Biohacking Pain, Killing Lyme, Stem Cell Confusion, How Ketamine Works & Much More With Dr. Matt Cook.Pre- and Post-Vaccine Support Strategies

– Podcasts And Articles:

• The Peptides Podcast: Everything You Need To Know About Anti-Aging, Muscle Gain, Fat Loss & Recovery Peptides with Jean Francois Tremblay.
• How To Use BPC-157: A Complete Dummies Guide To Healing The Body Like Wolverine.
• The Secret Darling Of The Nutrition Supplements Industry & Why Ben Greenfield Has Changed His Mind On Amino Acids: Myths, Deception & Truth Of BCAAs vs. EAAs.
• Q&A 430: How To Fix Bad Knees (Without Surgery), What *Really* Works For Weight Loss, Minimal Effective Dose Of Exercise, Carrot Cake Smoothies & Much More!

– Other Resources:

• Ben Patrick And His Knees Over Toes Program
• Frankincense Essential Oil (save 10% with code ben)
• Baker's Cyst
• Kimera Exosomes
• The Future Of Everything: What's Next For Health- WSJ Journal Article
• A Knee Or Hip ‘Replacement’ Without Surgery? It's On The Horizon
• Covid-19 Vaccine — Frequently Asked Questions
• Reduced Risk Of Reinfection With SARS-CoV-2 After COVID-19 Vaccination — Kentucky, May–June 2021
• Study Shows Why Second Dose Of COVID-19 Vaccine Shouldn’t Be Skipped
• The Single-Cell Epigenomic And Transcriptional Landscape Of Immunity To Influenza Vaccination
• The Human Immune Monitoring Center (HIMC)
• Effect of Vaccination on Transmission of SARS-CoV-2
• COVID-19 Vaccines & Fetal Cell Lines
• Recommended to take before vaccination:
  • Vitamin C
  • Glutathione (use code BENGREENFIELD10 to save 10%)
  • Binders like Activated Charcoal

– Studies Matt mentioned with his highlighted takeaways:

• Covid-19 Vaccine —
  Frequently Asked Questions:  Here is the FAQ they talk about vaccinated people being less likely to transmit to others
• Some of the people who participated in the clinical trials had evidence of prior SARS-CoV-2 infection (based on a positive antibody test), and the vaccines were safe and efficacious in this group. A subsequent population-based study. opens in new tab demonstrated that among people who had recovered from Covid-19, the likelihood of reinfection was 2.34 times higher for those unvaccinated versus vaccinated.
• Because reinfection after recovery from Covid-19 is rare in the months following infection, some people may wish to defer immunization for a few months — however, if they wish to be immunized sooner, there is no contraindication. Patients who were treated with monoclonal antibodies or convalescent plasma should wait this long, however. These treatments might inactivate the vaccines, making them less effective. Deferral of immunization for 90 days after treatment with monoclonal antibodies or convalescent plasma is recommended.
• The second shot has powerful beneficial effects that far exceed those of the first shot,” Pulendran said. “It stimulated a manifold increase in antibody levels, a terrific T-cell response that was absent after the first shot alone, and a strikingly enhanced innate immune response.” Unexpectedly, Pulendran said, the vaccine — particularly the second dose — caused the massive mobilization of a newly discovered group of first-responder cells that are normally scarce and quiescent. First identified in a recent vaccine study led by Pulendran, these cells — a small subset of generally abundant cells called monocytes that express high levels of antiviral genes — barely budge in response to an actual COVID-19 infection. But the Pfizer vaccine induced them. This special group of monocytes, which are part of the innate museum, constituted only 0.01% of all circulating blood cells prior to vaccination. But after the second Pfizer-vaccine shot, their numbers expanded 100-fold to account for a full 1% of all blood cells. In addition, their disposition became less inflammatory but more intensely antiviral. They seem uniquely capable of providing broad protection against diverse viral infections, Pulendran said. “The extraordinary increase in the frequency of these cells, just a day following booster immunization, is surprising,” Pulendran said. “It’s possible that these cells may be able to mount a holding action against not only SARS-CoV-2 but against other viruses as well.”
• Effect of Vaccination on Transmission of SARS-CoV-2.  This is the article on vaccination and preventing infections in the family.

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