Stem Cells for Health & Longevity with Christian Drapeau

Music.

Welcome to the Biohacker's Podcast. My name is Teemu Arina and today we are diving

into a new system in the body that is an old system but that has not been discussed

enough for health and longevity.

We are all familiar with the immune system and the cardiovascular system and the lymphatic system.

Christian Drapeau is going to help us understand how stem cells are key part

of a system for longevity and health and our innate capability of healing and recovery.

So without further ado, welcome to the show. Thank you so much,

Teemu. Pleasure to be here.

So you really knocked my socks off during the Biohacker Summit 10th anniversary

in Helsinki when you guided me into your life's work and research into a system

in the body that consists out of stem cells.

So many people know about stem cells and stem cell therapies and all of this,

but the way you describe the role of stem cells in the body,

I think it's profound and important for everyone to pay more attention to.

So can you lead us into the topic of why you feel stem cells are so important to understand?

You're the first one ever to introduce the topic of the repair system in a question.

And I'm saying this just to underscore the fact that it's a reality.

Like you said, it's an old system because we've had it since humans are humans.

And yet it is not talked about at all.

Nobody talks about it. Nobody actually, for the most part, knows about it because

it was discovered fairly recently with the whole development of stem cell research.

And in a nutshell, the repair system is stem cells are, they are the body's

repair system. So just like we have an immune system.

Let's say we cut ourselves and then in the cut there are bacteria.

So bacteria will move in and your immune system will detect them.

Your immune cells will go to your lymph node, will activate your immune system.

Immune cells will be released. They will be attracted to where you have the

cut so that these immune cells can go beside the bacteria and then kill the

bacteria in the exact same way you have a repair system,

meaning the cut will release compounds that will go to the bone marrow,

will trigger the release of stem cells from the bone marrow,

then these stem cells will circulate everywhere in the body,

but they will be attracted exactly where there is a cut.

Stem cells will migrate into that cut, and then upon contact with cellar debris

of that tissue, they will become cells of that tissue and will repair that cut.

So we have a repair system just like we have an immune system,

and it has far-reaching implication for health, and I'm sure we'll talk a lot

about this during that discussion, but the impact are tremendous in terms of

not only our ability to repair when we have an injury or when we have a health condition,

but to repair, to develop disease as we age.

There's a direct link between how many stem cells we have in our blood and disease

formation and also longevity.

Because when you think of longevity, what will shorten your lifespan is the

development of all kinds of conditions with your cardiovascular system,

your heart, liver function, pancreatic function, your brain, whatever.

When any one of these tissues or system is affected, then it will shorten your life.

So to keep all these bodily system working better, then is obviously going to

have an impact on longevity.

So I'm thinking taking care of our stem cells right now is probably the primary

thing that we should do for both optimal health, wellness, and longevity.

Right now in the biking community, there is a lot

of discussion around around mitochondria and

the importance of the number of mitochondria in your body

and how different environmental aspects might reduce the number of mitochondria

and then there is also the whole conversation about NAD that you need to have

high enough NAD levels so what you are introducing is stem cells as one of those

things that you want to make sure you have adequate amounts amounts as you age,

so that your recovery out of ailments and different situations of injury is

more profound and faster.

That's very interesting. So how do you see these correlating or relating to each other?

Thinking about, you spoke about the immune system reaction, I spoke a little

bit about mitochondria energy production in the cells.

And you speak about stem cells. So how do you see all of this interacting with each other?

Everything that is being discovered and been documented with regard to mitochondrial

function, NAD, and all of it is obviously, it's still, it's not changed by the

fact, by everything that we're discovering with stem cells.

It's just added on. And what I mean is that when you talk about mitochondrial

function, this is affecting all cells in the body, including stem cells.

When we're talking about NAD, it's the same phenomenon.

So think of one stem cell migrating into a tissue. One stem cell is completely irrelevant in a tissue.

What is relevant is one stem cell then multiplying and becoming,

let's say, a million cells in your tissue.

So when you have one stem cell becoming a million cells, and if you have,

let's say, a million stem cells getting into your tissue, that becomes a billion,

if not more, stem cells into your tissue.

Then that is really the leverage of what stem cells can do in tissues.

So that implant in your tissue requires to have an enormous amount of micro-multiplication, biogenesis.

You need to have everything that is part of this electron chain transferred to make energy.

All of this is essential to these new stem cells, but I will go further than this.

I think that when really science starts to really dive into this whole phenomenon of stem cells,

I think we will realize that this phenomenon of amplification of stem cells

in a tissue is probably one of the greatest metabolic demand of the body.

We say your brain is using like 20% of your energy.

I think that the role of stem cells in the body is utilizing the same amount

of resources and energy in order to continue to renew our tissues.

So if you boost mitochondrial function, it's good for every cell.

But I like to say sometimes, I know it's a silly analogy, but let's say you've

got a soccer team where you've got a bunch of players.

Some of them are 60, 65 years old. They're still good players.

Do you want to take your 65-year-old and keeping it from another 10 years or

replacing him by a 15-year-old player?

You're going to get so much more out of replacing him by a 15-year-old player.

That's what stem cells do. It's better to make old cells kick the bucket,

be replaced by a young cell and rejuvenate your tissues than say,

I'm going to take my old cells and I'm just going to help them put along a little bit longer.

So I think the language in longevity needs to include all this knowledge about

stem cells, which means we continue to do everything that we know is good,

like mitochondrial function, NAD, all these things. They're all real.

They all have their place.

But if we apply them to stem cells and boost that with the role of stem cells,

then I think we leverage everything to a whole new level.

Another thing that came to my mind about you speaking about renewing

the cells in the body, making them younger, as you age, you accumulate these senescent cells.

And one of the longevity hacks right now is to basically trigger these senescent cells to die.

And one of those mechanisms is autophagy, which can be done through fasting

and heat alteration and certain phytonutrients and all of that.

So how does that renewal process play into stem cells?

And if I want to increase or sustain the number of stem cells in my body,

what kind of, I guess, like dietary or behavioral patterns would be most beneficial

or lifestyle like exercise?

Are those correlated as well? If I want to boost autophagy, is that also going

to boost stem cell production?

To trigger autophagy, take spermidine, for example, or spermidine that stimulates autophagy.

I'm not aware of any information showing that spermidine will have an effect

on stem cells. This being said, if we use fasting to trigger autophagy,

fasting will also increase the number of stem cells and circulation,

boost stem cell function.

It has to be fasting for, let's say, more than three days. That's when you really

start to see the effect on the body.

And to an extent, I'll probably say it's probably the stress that is put on

the body that really leads to that stem cell release.

But there's not enough research here to conclude to that.

Other things that we can do in our lives to put more stem cells in circulation,

like severe strenuous physical activity.

And it's probably caused by the fact that we trigger microtrauma into our tissues.

And these microtrauma needs repair.

So they trigger the release of stem cells from the bone marrow to enhance that

tissue repair. So, these stem cells are taken for that tissue repair.

I'm not aware of the fact that stem cell release will necessarily have an impact

on other aspects of human health.

If it was the case, then athlete, for example, would not have any other health issues.

So, this not being the case, it does trigger stem cells.

I'm not sure that it has a strong impact on longevity or other kinds of health

issues. These are the only two things that I know. And meditation.

Meditation has been documented by Doris Taylor, not published as far as I know.

I remember her mentioning this in one interview that she gave,

but she's a solid researcher in the field of stem cell research.

So I don't doubt what she reported.

So meditation also increases within a few hours after meditation,

the number of stem cells in circulation. So, these are the three things that

are known so far to put more stem cells in circulation regarding lifestyle.

When we talk about consumables, and that's really the work that I have done

over the past 20 years or so, is I've identified plant and plant extract that

within a few hours after consumption can boost the number of stem cells in circulation.

So, these are the things that are known to put more stem cells in circulation.

What is the difference between these kind of nutraceutical approaches to stimulate

the production of stem cells versus injecting yourself with stem cells,

which is pretty typical therapy right now that at least as far as I understand

is regulated by the nutraceutical aspect is not?

It's a layered question in the sense that there are many variables in what you're asking here.

So let me kind of try to dissect it.

When you take a nutraceutical to trigger the release of your own stem cells,

these are your bone marrow stem cells.

So bone marrow stem cells are as old as you age, if you want.

So your stem cells at 70 years old are not as effective and as fresh as when you are 20 years old.

So that's something to keep in mind. So that's one of the difference.

If we inject adipose derived stem cells or umbilical cord stem cells,

then these stem cells will be younger and will be more effective.

This being said, when you get from a number standpoint, when you get an injection,

you increase the number of stem cells in circulation through an injection versus

increasing the number of stem cells by releasing your own from your own bone marrow.

So in that way, there's no real difference. The outcome of both approaches is

to put more stem cells in circulation.

The advantage to me of releasing your own stem cells is it is something that you You can do every day.

Understand that when we get stem cell injection.

It is estimated that you have a 10 to 15% survival.

So you get a 100 million stem cell injection and you get 10 to 15 million stem

cells that are surviving in your bloodstream.

You get two capsules, for example, of STEMREGEN, the product that I developed.

You will get within two, three hours, 10 million additional stem cells in circulation.

But you can do this every day or let's say a year if you want.

And after a year, you will have released literally about 4 billion of your own

stem cells. The cumulative benefit of being able to do this every day,

to me, is so much more powerful than getting a one-time injection.

Now, let's put that also into perspective.

When you release your own stem cells and you're older, I said they were less effective.

But we have two studies, for example, that are ongoing, many cases,

but two studies. So let me just talk about those two.

For people with, so the selection here is people with stable chronic congestive

heart failure. So the typical definition here is somebody that will climb,

let's say, one flight of stairs and need to sit down for about 10,

15 minutes to just catch their breath.

They use STEMREGEN for six months. After six months, they have normal heart function.

So far, all participants in the study, this is 10 out of 10,

have normal heart function.

These people are between 68 to, let's say, 74 years of age.

So yes, their stem cells are not as effective, but they're plenty effective to do tissue repair.

We have another study on Parkinson's where we're getting similar results.

So my point is that they're older, but they're still really effective.

Adipose stem cells are a great alternative. The only little caveat when we talk

about umbilical cord stem cells, and I want to be clear here, they're risks.

They're not a problem. They're risks that have not been really,

that have not materialized.

In the field, like we have not really heard about them, but in theory, they exist.

Number one, and this one has materialized, the greatest side effect of umbilical

cord stem cell injection is contamination of the sample.

So you get systemic infection just because of problem with the sample.

But if it is well done by a clinic that is doing their job well,

then it's not a significant risk.

The other risk is that you get stem cells that have some form of genetic mutation

or genetic material that can materialize as a disease in you after you receive these stem cells.

This is a risk that has been mentioned for many years as a potential risk until

about three months ago when a study was published.

It's still a risk because this is just an animal study. But in that animal study,

they inserted genes that codes for Alzheimer's in mice and then took stem cells

from these animals, injected these stem cells in other animals,

and these recipient mice developed Alzheimer's.

To show that if we receive stem cells that have some sort of genetic material,

that material, if it is deleterious to your health, could manifest itself in your body.

Just to say, and has not been seen right now, but there's evidence that it's

a reality that needs to be monitored.

Now, people who do clinics who do stem cell injection, umbilical cord will say,

all of this is tested for.

So they look for all these possible genetic problems. The question is then,

can you test for everything?

You cannot test for the things that you don't know. So there is a risk in there.

Is it big? I would say at this point, it's not.

People are also injecting themselves with peptides. Peptides have become quite popular.

And there's new companies and approaches that are trying to do the same without

injection delivery mechanisms just to increase the safety.

With peptides, it's the same thing with the contamination of the samples.

And even just injecting yourself with something, you are disrupting the layer.

You can introduce all kinds of things into your body. The contamination can

be caused by you also by mishandling the equipment.

These kind of nutricellular approaches where you are stimulating the production

of something on its own, that you are triggering your innate capability of increasing

the proliferation of stem cells. That sounds to me like the smart way.

It's like with injecting something, you're skipping key systems in the body

and trying to go straight into the goal, which can be really useful if you are

looking for a quick therapeutic intervention, right?

To just bypass a bunch of systems and get into the end result.

But often it's the same with a lot of things like some liposomal delivery mechanisms,

for example, make some compounds more effective,

but they can also then skip key bodily functions and systems,

digestion, et cetera, to deliver it.

And IVs, people do IV vitamin therapies, and that's something that I'm not doing

very often because I'm worried about bypassing the self-regulatory systems in

the body and the contamination of the samples and all of this.

I know it's very popular, but if you want also lasting results, IV is a good example.

It gives you a few weeks of a nice buzz, but then you need to be packing for

the IV compared to having a lifestyle and nutrition diet and all that.

It's like stimulating and supporting adequate amounts of certain activities.

Now, what do you think about...

This. I think if we really want to have mass market adoption of stem cells or

peptides, we need to come up with new delivery mechanisms that are also safer,

consumer-friendly, and are less invasive in the way we try to trigger the end result.

You boost your body's ability to do vitamins, so you don't need the IV.

So you really boost the body's ability to repair, because that's something we

come back to what you mentioned in the introduction.

It's the repair system. I find it fascinating.

And it's a reality of science. When you're deep in the science and you get into

some of the philosophy of science, these are realities, like phenomenon,

or it's reality that we rarely really look at.

And it's the fact that everybody has in their life the experience of healing and repair.

Everybody has broken the bone, has had a cut, has had a big bruise.

Something has happened when they were a kid.

Today, they've completely forgotten about these injuries because they have repaired.

So everybody has witnessed repair in their body. Go to med school today.

Even today as we speak, speak to any student who graduated as a med student.

Nowhere have they heard about how the body repairs. You go back and you break a bone.

The doctor will put you in a cast and will say, come back in six weeks.

And then we take off the cast and that's it. It's repaired. But there's no language

about that process because in science, we don't have a language for the things

that we don't know or we don't understand.

And now we discovered that the body has indeed its own ability to repair.

So to me, whatever the problem that you have with your health,

it's just like when you have a cold.

You have a cold, what are you going to do? You're going to boost your immune system.

If you have something that is not functioning properly, you go and you boost your repair system.

So it's that paradigm shift of bringing in people's mind the fact that the body has a repair system.

Sometimes it makes me think of, I'm sure you've heard the story of this Hungarian

on days where you go from the autopsy room to the delivery room,

then on those days, he had a very high rate of mortality, child mortality and mother's mortality.

And he thinks that there's a debt factor that he carries with his hands.

So he starts to scrub his hand really well between the autopsy room to the delivery

room. And then he gets rid of the problem.

So he tells his colleagues to really wash their hand.

But it takes 25 years for his peers to start washing their hands.

And it took another century for hand washing to be adopted in hospitals.

Something as simple as hand washing. So I'm looking here, everything that we're

discovering with stem cells, it's so obvious.

Your body has a repair system. Is there something more obvious?

Than tapping into your repair system when something is broken in the body.

But I think it will just take time for this to sink in, because if it's not

taught in med school, if your doctor doesn't know about it, if it is something

that appears so new, then how can this be true?

And I think it will take some time for this to sink in, but the message is very simple.

Your body has a repair system, tap in that repair system, and it's probably

the best thing you can and do the repair.

And I think it is really important to understand that.

Once you have symptoms, once you are trying to repair something,

some part is already too late.

Just like with immune system, we try to boost your situation with vitamin C

when you are getting symptoms, like it might help a little bit,

but most of the work is actually done before you get sick.

Like basically like constantly stimulating the immune system,

the macrophages, the white blood cells and all of that so that you're more prepared,

you have more resources when you actually do meet an adversary.

So you can basically bounce back faster. And I would say it's the same with stem cells.

You want to stimulate the proliferation of stem cells and support their production.

And just like with regular cells, you want to support healthy functioning of cell membranes.

A lot of the things that are anti-inflammatory, antioxidant,

or that are supporting cell membranes can also be very beneficial for,

in this case, stem cell production.

We get into some of the compounds that people are probably like intrigued now.

Okay, I thought stem cell therapy is like something where I need to fly to Colombia

for some injections or wherever, Cuba, wherever they do these therapies.

Or I need to do like these expensive treatments, but this is something that

anyone can do with key nutrients.

Now in STEMREGEN, you have certain ingredients. And one thing that catch my

eye is for example, green tea extract, epigallogallate.

It's a powerful antioxidant in green tea, and it protects cells,

including stem cells, from damage.

And that's one. You also mentioned spermidine earlier, which has quite similar effects.

Also sulforaphane, I know, which is in broccoli sprouts as is known to stimulate

the production of and protect from oxidative damage the the stem cells one one

particular plant that i found interesting in stem region is plant,

which has side or that is believed to enhance the proliferation and differentiation

of stem cells especially in the cardiovascular system it also has anti-inflammatory and.

Immune system boosting effects and when

people take NAD supplements they take NR precursors

the form of vitamin b3 that may enhance

also the function of stem cells so a lot of the the kind

of things that we talk about in longevity are actually correlated and linked

that's why i really wanted to tap into the senescent cells topic and all of

that that's also what has been discovered about and fisetin which are two of

the kind of and resveratrol has been also studied for its effects on stem cell production.

Most of the ingredient that you mentioned there, Teemu, are in the product called

Signal, not in the original product, which is now called STEMREGEN Release.

The release, I'm sure you have it there, is blue green algae extract,

seabuck tornberry extract, aloe macroclata.

We have panaxnotilgensin extract, fucus extracts. And these are all plants that

we have discovered one after the other.

I was hired by a company that was selling this blue green algae that grows naturally in Klamath Lake.

And as I'm studying it, I come across cases of people who reversed all kinds

of condition touching the liver, the pancreas, the heart, the lung,

the brain, the skin, joints.

And the question was, what is this plant doing that is supporting so many different

aspects of human health? And we had no clear hypotheses, understanding until I came across papers.

marrow to the brain, to the heart, to the liver.

So out of these observations, then I realized, okay, stem cells are not like

what we were told in med school.

They're only capable of producing blood cells, which was really the belief at

the time. They can become other types of cells.

So my thought was if they become heart, liver, and brain...

Why not lung, pancreas, skin, and the rest? Makes no sense that it would become

only those three and not the rest.

And then if they become all these cells, then it must be the repair system of

the body. So these are like, at the time, it was a far-fetched hypothesis.

But in my mind, it was the only hypothesis. Stem cells must be the repair system.

And maybe that plant, that blue green algae was triggering stem cell release.

So we bought the flow cytometer to count stem cells. And then we studied that

plant. And then after that, the quest was, what else is probably working by

stimulating stem cells? Nobody has ever looked at this.

So that's how we identified all these other ingredients now in STEMREGEN.

They're all working as stem cell mobilizers.

What I find interesting about this, like ginseng, which is ginseng solides,

galos, and the other thing we mentioned is EGCG, but then there is cordyceps even.

Given many of the so-called adaptogenic herbs or plants that are strong adaptogens

that help your body to adapt to stress, seem to also have links to supporting stem cell production.

It's just like my guess, like hunch feeling, is that that's something that really

helps you to deal with, I guess, like excess environmental stress might actually

help cell integrity and the survival of stem cells.

Yeah, no, you're right. And actually, I would even go one step further.

Or I'll twist a little bit what you said.

I think that we have this whole concept of adaptogens.

I wouldn't say wrong. I would say incomplete.

What I mean is that what is an adaptogen? It's a product that is going to help

you regardless of what your problem is.

It seems to help many different aspects of human health.

And that's exactly what a stem cell mobilizer does.

So when we discovered the effect with AFA, my next round was to go and look

at other products that have been associated with many benefits and that included.

Goji berry, medicinal mushroom, ginseng, a lot of those so-called adaptogens.

But my thought process was these adaptogens, we've given them a lot of potential

effect and mechanism of action.

But at the end of the day, none of these mechanism of action have been like proven.

It's just like they behave like something that would help various aspects of the body.

So I thought maybe the actual core mechanism of action is stem cell release. is.

So we went back and we looked at them in the lab. And what we discovered is

that many of them actually do not release stem cells.

What they do is that within about 20 to 30 minutes after consumption,

they increase the density of the receptor at the surface of stem cells that

make stem cells respond to the SOS signal coming from an injured tissue.

So by making stem cells more responsive to an injury, then suddenly they migrate

more effectively in these tissues and repair them.

And that is why in STEMREGEN, after we discovered this, I started to blend

the plants that release stem cells with plant extract that stimulate their migration

so that we boost both their release and then their migration into tissues.

So far, the adaptogen that I have tested for stem cells, their effect is mostly

on stimulating the migration of stem cells into tissues.

I'm sure they do other things, but to me in my world, it's one of their core

mechanism of action.

It's basically like helping your cells to pick up the phone in a way.

Another thing that is in many of these nutraceutical interventions or stem cell

production is vitamin D3.

And vitamin D3 influences hundreds of different metabolic pathways in the body. It's so essential.

People take it for immunity, but it actually has also a role in the stem cell.

Production, to my understanding, in the differentiation. Differentiation and proliferation.

That is another step where down the road we might develop another product.

So right now we have essentially three products.

One is to release stem cells. The other one is to boost their circulation.

Because when we see people taking stem regen release, that releases stem cells,

we don't always see the benefits that we're expecting. Same thing with stem cell injection.

You'll have 30% of the people who get stem cell injection will tell you that

it was miraculous for them. Another 30% will say, I was great.

I didn't get everything that I wanted to, but it was great.

And 30% will tell you it was a waste of my time and my money.

But your stem cells, they do the work. Stem cells do what they're supposed to do.

So why is it that some people don't get the benefits?

And one of them is they need to be able to circulate into the microvasculature.

So we have Mobilize that makes the blood more fluid, helps capillaries to extend,

extend and also make some stem cells slick or circulate more easily.

Then we have Signal that you talked about that suppresses the noise that makes

stem cells better identify the tissue.

And the other one would be to support stem cell proliferation and differentiation.

And you have ingredients like what you mentioned, if you get a Gallogatichin

gallate, who is one of them from green tea, vitamin D3, resveratrol.

These are all compounds that have been documented to support stem cell proliferation in tissues.

What I find interesting is that you spoke about the blue-green algae alpha,

and there's also bladderwrack, another seaweed that is often included,

and then ermidine, which is often spirulina, right?

Was that correct? We tested spirulina. We didn't see the effect on stem cells with spirulina.

It would have been a much, much cheaper product to work with,

so we didn't see the effect.

You mentioned bladderwrack, sophucus, kelp. The first research that I

And it was the fucoid from bladderwrack that when it was injected in an animal,

it increased the number of stem cells.

So we then contacted a company producing these seaweeds.

And we tested the fucoid on from various types of seaweed.

Ondaria, what is the other one?

Eclonia cava we tested. We tested one that comes from Tonga.

I forgot. Cordaria. area. And they all had an effect on stem cells.

So ficoidin has an effect on stem cell release.

And we use fucus simply because of all these seaweeds, fucus is also a source

of fluorotannins, which is the main polyphenols that you find in Eclonia cava

that has been associated with longevity.

So by using that source of ficoidin, it gives us like an additional leverage.

I don't have any information to say that fluorotannins trigger stem cell release,

but I would not be surprise if they did.

So this complex polysaccharide, which is in the cell walls of seaweed,

seemed to have effects on not just only on the stem cell side,

but very strong anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer, antioxidant effects.

And in Japan, like Okinawa, they leave,

quite old and in japan they have the oldest living and it's a huge population 125 million people.

And they eat seaweed with seafood

all the time and i thought from a kind of if you think of like these diets that

evolve through people using them i believe that people copy each other so if

someone is someone who is older healthy is eating in a certain way like the

young people are curious and want to learn.

And in this way, you give a couple of thousand years and you build a cuisine

that has like beneficial adaptations,

like the use of spices in the Middle East or the use of colors in the Mediterranean

or the introduction of seaweeds and different foods from the ocean in Japan.

Now, one of the things is that when you eat sushi, heavy metals is of course

a big issue nowadays with fish.

Seaweeds do bind some of the heavy metals. Actually having always seaweed when

you eat especially predatory fish makes a lot of sense.

But this is new information for me that seaweeds would be awesome for stem cells as well.

Fucoidan, you said, is the compound? Yeah. Fucoidan is a... So the polysaccharide

that comes from brown seaweed, this is specifically brown seaweed,

is a long chain of fucos, mostly fucos.

So this big chain is called fucoidan. There are different types of ficoidin.

It's really, as we would say, starch.

It's the starch of ficoidin. Let's put it that way. So it's a mega molecule,

but it has a lot of effect on the immune system, on stem cells now we know.

And as you mentioned, anti-cancer, lots of research, anti-cancer properties,

anti-inflammatory properties for arthritis, but also at the time of,

let's say, what, 10 years ago with the avian flu, they did a lot of research

to show that it prevented catching avian flu. So it's also anti-viral.

I love like wakame and kelp and all of these amazing seaweeds.

I think people don't have enough of them. And my favorite way of using them,

I learned from Sami Tallberg, who is a chef that works with us on the Upgraded Dinner always,

is to make like a base that tastes almost like animal-based stock.

When you use like seaweeds and you make a stock out of it, it's absolutely delicious.

And many people know these, for example, as one kind of things that they often

offer in Asian restaurants and especially Japanese.

But I think everyone could benefit of introducing more seaweeds in their lives.

And one of the favorite ways that I learned from my co-author,

Jaakko Halmetoja, who is crazy about all these superfoods, is to use these like

seaweed powders in salad dressings. So you would introduce something like, you.

Powdered kelp, for example, in Vinegar

Amazing, where it's absolutely mind-blowing flavors you can create.

So people don't use enough seaweeds.

But what else? In this product, you also have, I think you're L-carnosine?

Yeah, I believe this is in either the Mobilize or the Signal.

So that's sort of the companion product to STEMREGEN Release.

One of the key ingredients of Release that is novel on the marketplace is aloe macroclada.

And so that's when I came across, I met, I was 11 or 12, I met a pharmacist

and she had a pretty interesting life.

She traveled in the Congos, Papua New Guinea, South America,

Madagascar to look for plants that would have an effect on neurodegenerative diseases.

And then with the aim of bringing this to pharma and develop these as pharma.

When I met her, I basically asked her, have you come across a plant that the

healers are telling you this plant is good for everything?

So at first she laughed and she said, nothing is good for everything.

So I gave her a copy of my book, Cracking the Stem Cell Code.

And then she called back two weeks later and she says, now I understand.

So it's not a product that does everything. It does one thing,

triggering the release of stem cells from the bone marrow.

And it's the person's stem cells that will do everything.

And she said, Our last trip to Madagascar, the guide and translator on the way to the airport.

Stop at a market and scoop the whole bag of these black beads. And he says, test that.

That's what you need to study. What do you do as a scientist when somebody tells

you, test that? You test it for what?

It stayed in her freezer for five years. So she sent me some of these black

beads, we tested them, and we got the strongest response that we had seen so

far on stem cell release.

So I asked what it was. And of all the species of aloe that are in Madagascar,

there's one species, Aloe Macrolada, that is utilized to make a product called Vahona.

And these were these black beads. So they take the gel, they boil it to reduce

it to some sort of very, and then they char the rest of the plant after cutting

the leaves, and then they blend the ash with the gel.

And they roll that into small beads and they sun-dry them.

So that's how they produce it. So knowing how they're producing it,

we went and we collected our own gel, we took the pure gel, we dried the pure

gel, We tested it and we got the strongest response.

So you take something like, I don't know, 100 milligram and you roughly double

the number of stem cells in circulation in two, three hours.

But because it was Madagascar, Vahona was available in markets,

but there was no large scale harvesting of Aloe Macrolada.

With John, who became a friend of mine, he moved to Madagascar and

basically developed the whole operation there.

So now we have a co-op of harvesters because it's on the CITES list in Madagascar.

So we cannot touch aloe macroclada.

So it has to be Malagalese people touching the aloe macroclada.

So they harvest it. They walk from the mountains two, three hours,

sometimes walking in flip-flops with 30 kilos of leaves on their head.

And they carry this five to 10 tons of leaves every month out of the mountains.

It's just an amazing organization that has been developed there just to be able

to provide that ingredient. This is a really cool ingredient.

That sounds amazing. Never tried that in its original form. I'm really looking forward to it.

I'm wondering also about the role of individualized variations,

genetics or microbiome.

I know that probiotics, prebiotics can also contribute to stem cell health.

What is your take on nourishing specific gut bacteria or taking certain genetic

pathways into account on these kind of formulations?

I think that to really state something definitive here, the science is not there.

It's too young. I will take your question and turn it a little bit.

And I will say right now, most of what is done with stem cells appears or is

presented as something like it's a discovery.

It's new. Oh, maybe the probiotics will have an effect on stem cells.

And we discover that as new.

And I think at the end of the day, we just need to really let that sink in.

It's just like your immune system.

Almost everything that you will do or so many things that you will do in your

life will end up having an effect on stem cells. Let me put it the other way around.

Think of anything that is going to support repair, that we already know is going to support repair.

And I'll add to this the fact that repair always takes place because of stem cells.

Without stem cells, you don't have repair. There's a lot of things that you

can do to support stem cells to do repair.

But the unit in your body that accomplishes the repair are the stem cells.

So rest will have an effect on stem cells. Drinking water will have an effect on stem cells.

Think of anything in your world that you know that supports repair and likely

it has an effect on stem cells.

So instead of looking at it as one or two things exceptional that may have an

effect on stem cells, I think we will end up discovering that a lot of what

we do in our lives actually has an effect on stem cells.

Is there some specific drugs that you find interesting for more like pharmaceuticals,

things like rapamycin, for example, that would be.

Longevity biohackers take that would be beneficial for stem cell health? I am not aware.

It could be because one thing, so we're starting a new line of research and

there's not a whole lot I can say about it because it's right now,

it's completely blank in the world of research.

And it's the fact that we're born with red marrow and that red marrow converts

into fatty marrow, yellow marrow, fairly early in life.

By age 15, we've lost 50% of our red marrow. By age 30, about 90% of our red marrow.

That's what makes stem cells. And that's why we have such a drastic decline

in the number of circulating stem cells between our birth and 30 years of age.

Which is when we finally discover that we're not Superman anymore.

We don't have enough stem cells to repair like we used to. And then that decline

in number of stem cells leads over time to actually to the development of age-related

diseases, degenerative diseases.

So our longevity is tied to the number of stem cells. So that conversion,

could we slow down that conversion?

Could we lead the bone marrow to reconvert from yellow marrow to red marrow? That one is.

Problematic in the sense that if you see reconversion of yellow marrow to red

marrow, normally that's a sign of leukemia.

So let's put that aside. Could we slow down that conversion of red marrow?

And in that process, I'm thinking that we could start to study compounds like

rapamycin, for example, as a potential tool to slow down that conversion.

But it's purely hypothetical at this point, so I don't know.

Aside from this, very little research has been done on specific compounds and

their effect on the behavior or metabolism of stem cells.

Now, would there be like a diet, like going from like supplements.

Would there be like a diet that would be supportive of stem cells?

Would that be like a calorie restrictive diet?

Would that be fasting occasionally three days plus, as you mentioned?

Would that be elimination of seed oils and like all kinds of inflammatory crap,

or would that be like something that is basically drinking bone broth all day

long with red marrow or what is the way how you would support?

Dr. I mean, if you do a bone broth, you've really killed all these stem cells,

even these growth factor, everything is gone.

So I'm not sure, aside from the sort of the field of morphism,

you know, you take bone broth, bone marrow, and then it stimulates your bone marrow.

Aside from that sort of correlation, I'm not aware of any effect that bone broth would have.

Anything that is inflammatory is going to basically, I wouldn't say suppress,

it will blind stem cells into their ability to find where in the body there's

something that needs to be repaired.

So anti-inflammatory diet is going to be supporting stem cells a lot.

So far, I would suspect, think of any diet that has been associated with longevity,

like Mediterranean diet, for example, no doubt in my mind that it supports stem

cell function. But if we go in the literature.

And I did it. You go on PubMed and you put stem cells diet.

And so far, the only article that I have found was an article concluding that

keto diet is probably the best at supporting stem cell function.

I'm not sure that I would conclude that, but that's what is available in the

scientific literature.

I will say, if we think along the lines of some of the things that we talked

about before, this amplification of stem cells into tissues,

one stem cell is becoming like a million stem cells.

So that level of amplification means an enormous amount of protein because you

need to make not only the structure of these cells, but their enzymatic machinery,

like everything. So you need protein.

You need good lipids to be able to duplicate and structure all that cell membrane.

You need all the components that will support mitochondrial function.

So everything that we know that is the basic structure of cells,

it will all support stem self-functioning tissues

so these things are they've not been demonstrated

but they're just like simple common sense i would think that the kind of compounds

that are also used in these supplements like omega-3 oils like you could have

or the seafood side of things so like having a diet rich in antioxidants and

polyphenols combined with rich sources of food

from the ocean, freshly cooked, very little processed, I would say,

with a lot of omega-3 fatty acids.

That sounds amazing to me.

My hunch, my gut feeling is that would be the stem cell diet in a sense,

and anything that really provides the...

And maybe introduction of certain adaptogens and spices in the whole mix,

anything from curcumin to gene zenzonides, would be probably a very interesting

diet, having a bunch of adaptogens mixed up with your fish and antioxidants.

No, I agree with you. I think that there's something that is not talked enough.

It's talked about, but I don't think it's talked enough, is that we talked about

so many aspects of a cell function, mitochondria and all these things,

gene transcription, but we don't talk a whole lot about cell membrane.

And the cell membrane of a cell is its solid part. It's the The part that is, it's so interactive.

There are so many organelles, protein, receptors, transducers that are embedded

into the cell membrane. And a cell membrane is not unified.

You have areas that are more solid with more saturated fat than others.

And a stem cell is about 20 micron or could be up to 20 microns.

Your capillaries are 12 microns.

You need to have a proper fluidity and flexibility of your cell membrane for

these cells to be able to squeeze themselves and go into these capillaries.

So everything that you mentioned here in terms of a diet that is rich in omega-3,

I will be careful, and I don't know the answer to this, but I'll be careful

to say omega-3 supplements will compensate for this because in the way that

these kinds of oils are manufactured through large-scale manufacture.

Oftentimes they end up into your gel caps, very likely oxidized to a significant extent.

So they may not really have the same effect as omega-3 coming from your diet.

And omega-3 in fish is great, but the fish does not make them.

The fish absorbs them from algae. So they come from algae.

So putting more algae, seaweeds, algae, microalgae, and fish in your diet is

probably the best way to include all these fats into your diet.

And it's an enormous component, I think, of stem cell function.

I would also add one food group that is not often mentioned when we talk about

seafood, that's shellfish.

My personal opinion is based on the

research is to have if you are avoiding red meat

if that's your thing but you are pescatarian or

you are okay with seafood going for shellfish

is a good choice and it's also if you have ethical reasons or whatever it actually

makes a lot of sense because shellfish usually don't have a central nervous

system if you're like trying to avoid the pain in the world that's one thing

to go for and what you get is a great source of minerals also like zinc and

selenium and iron you get the B vitamins,

you get omega fatty acids, you have high quality protein, iodine, things like this.

So maybe combine that with some seaweeds and dark leafy vegetables and all of that.

So I think that would be going into the right direction for sure compared to

the complete opposite, which is the Western diet, typical Western diet.

Yeah, definitely. Which is associated with so many health issues.

And I think the places like Japan that you're talking about with extreme longevity,

they're losing that longevity the more they adopt the Western diet.

It's the same in Latin America.

Immediately when you get roads, you get Coca-Cola trucks, you get French fries,

you get pollo alla brasa, you get mass-produced sushi.

Mass-produced sushi is probably the worst thing ever.

And they use, when they make, let's say, have a crab, it's not the crab,

it's or whatever, which is basically just waste packed

act into looking like some kind of seafood thing and it's just horrible how

far fetched you can take it from if I really think about like that the ultimate

experience with seafood I've had this is actually in Tokyo in the Tsuki fish

market going there very early when.

Fishermen bring the fish in and if anyone

has seen shiro who makes sushi like this

amazing documentary of this old sushi master

like he has like this special connection with the fisherman and he's there to

pick up just the right ingredients and i've been to the tuki market and it's

incredible when you're having a piece of sushi like sashimi freshly cut on the

spot bought straight from the ocean and you're having it like,

there's like nothing like that in the world.

It's just like after that, anything you buy from a supermarket in terms of seafood,

like there's absolutely nothing.

So we have to also start appreciating the quality and the freshness and the

sourcing of our food in a sense that we're getting the best things into our system.

Now the same goes for supplements, right? There's a lot of stuff out there,

which is just purely like chemical productions.

Even the NAD supplements, if you take NMN in the production,

they use, if I remember, a very specific bacterial or fungal process to produce it.

E. coli. E. coli, sorry. Yes, exactly. So do you really want to have a compound

that is made out of E. coli in your system?

So it's like, what about contamination, bro?

Instead going for things like seaweed extracts or going for probiotics.

I've been a long, not probiotics, but the genetic herbs.

Like I've been a long, long lasting fan of adaptogens.

Like I've used like functional mushrooms for over 10 years.

I'm a big fan of rhodiola rosea, and astragalus you mentioned.

That's the longevity tea.

Like it is also rumored by science to increase the length of telomeres.

So the end strands of your DNA, like there's very few things that we know.

But these are superpowers that have been used for thousands of years in Chinese

medicine, in indigenous use, you mentioned the black beads and whatnot.

That's where the real secret sauce is, in my mind.

Absolutely. Nature is the ultimate chemist. We can try to do stuff in the labs, but in the end,

It's right below your feet if you look carefully. It doesn't need to be.

Yeah, I think that so much of the top 10 diseases right now that is plaguing

the world is actually the direct outcome of the mass production of food.

Mass production, mass distribution of food pretty much all come from the cause

of all these health problems.

Precisely. But what can we do about it? It's aside from doing something as an

individual, when you go and you grow your own vegetables and you do all your

things, these things yourselves, which does not fit easily in today's lifestyle.

So it's such a difficult thing to correct in today's world, but it is nevertheless

the cause of so much of it.

Now, in terms of your products, the protocol or STEM region,

you have release, you have sport, you have mobilize, and you have signal.

And that's like when you put those all together, you have a kind of a protocol

for specific functions.

So can you like walk us through like the reasoning between release and signal

and what's going on there?

Okay. Release is what was before the release of the two new products was STEMREGEN.

So now it's called STEMREGEN Release. And it is five plants that are stem cell mobilizers.

They put more stem cells in circulation. circulation, and two ingredients,

one is beta-glucans from mushroom, that's the work that we did with medicinal

mushroom, and then colostrum, highly fractionated colostrum.

These two were the top ingredients that triggered the migration of stem cells

out of the blood into tissues.

So stem regen release are those compounds, putting more stem cells in circulation,

driving them into tissues.

Now we see, like I mentioned before, that sometimes we don't get all the results that we would expect.

We need to understand when we release stem cells, do their work.

If they did not do their work, we would not be alive today because the bodies

constantly go to a process of tissue turnover.

And it's the role of stem cells to replenish the cells that have been lost.

So it's essential for survival to have stem cells. So they do their job.

Why is it that they don't do their job for one specific thing that we want?

I want them to go to my heart. I want them to go to my knee,

wherever that we want them to go. And the two reasons is one is systemic inflammation.

I won't have to go into all the detail, but we had a chance to study Alzheimer's

patients about 20 years ago.

And the data that we had really was pointing to the fact that the problem why

stem cells were not repairing in that group of individuals was because of systemic inflammation.

It creates, let's call it a background noise in your blood circulation that

makes it difficult for stem cells to see where is it that they need to migrate.

So Signal was developed for that. It's a bunch of plant extract that have all

been documented to have an effect on various aspects of inflammation.

OX2 inhibitors, 5-LOX inhibitors of secretion of various cytokines.

So overall, the product is aimed at reducing all that background noise in the

blood so that stem cells can better see where the actual signals for repair is coming from.

Now that we've cleared all of this, the other thing is stem cells need to be

able to circulate into fine capillaries because in order for stem cells to go into a tissue,

it has to go through the capillaries and the place where they will have all

the machinery to effectively migrate in the tissue is the area that is the post capillary venule.

So it's where the capillary turns into a small vein.

That's the area. So essentially, if your stem cells cannot penetrate a fine

capillary, that area that does not have good microcirculation will be deprived

from the power to repair.

So you have a chronic or somebody has a chronic condition, that means that area

has been deprived of healing and repair for a long period of time.

How can we restore that? It's by opening the microvasculature.

That's what Mobilize does. So Mobilize is natokinase that will digest fibrin,

will make the blood more fluid.

So when your blood is more fluid, it can entrain stem cells more easily to go

from a bigger vessel to a smaller vessel.

When they enter these fine blood vessels, we have.

Nitric oxide producer to dilate these capillaries.

We have a bunch of bioflavonoids and plant extract that have been documented

to support the structure of capillaries.

And we have the polysaccharides from seaweeds that help rebuild the glycocalyx

that will make stem cells and all cells to really circulate more easily in capillaries.

So you take the three together and we take them at the same time.

They all have over time an NMA, how could I say, the peak effect around the same time.

So you take the product that suppresses your background noise at the same time

as you take mobilize, that opens your circulation.

And if you take stem regenerate release at the same time, the number of stem

cells will peak after two to three hours, which is the time that the peak effect

on the background noise and on microcirculation will take place.

Some of the effect of signal and mobilize will be long-term,

like the strengthening of the capillaries, the rebuilding of the glycocalyx.

This could take a a month or two to have their effect.

So the product have a short-term effect, but also a long-term effect.

So that's the overall protocol to really give back to the body its full ability

to not only be able to repair by releasing stem cells, but fully utilize these

stem cells once they have been released.

When I look at the formulations, they look absolutely amazing and they definitely

have their own kind of stacks and benefits.

For example, when you mentioned now this mobilize with all the nitric oxide production boosters.

There's several ones. There's citrulline, there's beetroot in it.

Both of them are great. I also love gotu kola as a nootropic.

So there's like stuff here that can have a brain enhancing properties.

And you also include n-acetyl cysteine, NAC. So that's one of the longevity supplements

that if you take on a repeated basis can create support.

I'm also a big fan of olive extract for, and also for immune system health actually as well.

Then like the different ginsengs, panaxinotogen, beta glucans, like all of that.

I see there's like also like in this whole formulation, it's not just good for

stem cells, it's good for immune system, it's good for cardiovascular system,

it's good for lymphatic flow.

There's all synergistic support. It's good for cognitive health.

Probably will enhance your exercise performance. It will definitely increase your resilience.

We are now finalizing the Resilient Being book, and we talk a lot about this,

like different compounds that support resilience.

Now, this stack is an absolute resilience. If there is a resilient being, it's coming out of this.

The strategy that we use to make people discover what really their stem cells

can do for them is we will tell somebody, go to the gym, trash yourself.

Do something that the day after you will be sore.

And there's just a two stem regen release after mobilize, signal,

two stem cell regen release, two before you go to bed, two when you get up in the morning.

And as you release these stem cells, see what these stem cells can do for your repair.

Your experience of that soreness will be completely different.

And you can see what stem cells are doing in your body. Because other than this,

unless you have something significant to repair.

Stem cells have been doing their job since the day you're born.

So all we do is that we enhance something that your body is already doing.

Sometimes you don't necessarily feel the difference.

Wow. So much. I love this podcast. This is great because it's touching so many different topics.

Now, we didn't really go into your story, but if people want to learn more,

if they want to understand more of your research, you started 25 years ago already,

already like over 25 years ago and studying this, you mentioned the alpha and

like all these other things.

And that led you to a journey of discovering all these things and putting this into a product.

Like if people want to learn more about your studies, your writing,

your wealth of knowledge, like where can they head into? Have you written books?

Do you have like social media channels and so on? Yeah, I'm using on both TikTok,

Instagram, @stemcellchristian, thinking that a lot of people may not be able to spell Drapeau.

So @stemcellchristian. But really the story as we've talked about it today is

in my book, Cracking the Stem Cell Code.

So you can see it on Amazon and our website is stemregen.co.

Stemregen.co. And there's also quite a bit of articles that summarize a lot

of the things that we've talked about.

And soon down the road, let's give it another maybe six months.

And there's another book that I'm working on information that really was not

really there in the scientific literature when I wrote the first one,

which is a part that we did not touch a lot.

But I think to me is probably even the most important part of everything in

stem cell research is to realize how stem cells are actually part of disease

formation in the sense that the body goes to a constant process of tissue turnover

that has been revealed by stem cell research with actual time frame.

If you have a new skin every month and you liver every two, three years,

half of a new heart every 25 years, everything is in turnover.

Turnover mean you lose cells and you need stem cells to replace what has been lost.

But if you have lost more than 90% of your stem cells by age 30,

and that continues, there's a point where you don't have enough stem cells to offset cellular loss.

And that deficit starts to accumulate.

And if you lose cells making insulin, that's diabetes.

You lose cells in your lung, that's emphysema.

You lose cells making dopamine, that's Parkinson. You lose cells in your heart,

that's cardiomyopathy.

Every single age-related diseases is the outcome of the loss of a specific type

of cell or cellular function that stem cells can replace.

the number of stem cells was actually the fundamental core cause of disease

formation as we age. And I was writing, there's a way to test for this.

Let's go and count the number of stem cells in people who have developed various

kinds of age-related disease, and we should find fewer stem cells than what

we find in healthy people of the same age.

And now there's about 50 of those studies out there, and across the board,

every single one of them, atherosclerosis, erectile dysfunction,

heart disease, emphysema, liver failure, kidney failure, diabetes.

Prediabetes, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, lupus, arthritis, the list keeps growing.

Growing and all these individuals have 50% or less than the number of stem cells

that you find in a healthy person.

Just to tell us that from the day that we start aging around age 30,

in our 30s, that's the time that we start to accumulate that deficit.

So for me, if we start to put more stem cells in circulation from that point

on, then you keep the health that you have and you can have a much,

much better aging, if you want, by keeping your ability to renew your tissues.

And so that's the topic of the next book to come.

That's definitely on my reading list. So basically, the stem cells are this

nature's innate silent healers.

That's the innate repair system that is in the core of resilience and birth.

And it's rebirth, I would say. day. It's like the Phoenix bird rising out of the ashes in a sense.

Much younger, like you said, 15 year old football player.

So that's what we want to invite into our bodies and into our lives.

And there's all these nature's superheroes that can help us reach there from

the seafood to the most notorious plants in the different medicinal systems around the world.

And now we have the science also and the theory and the practice of like how

to stimulate help them to differentiate.

Proliferate, and also how to protect them, guard them against ailments so that as we age,

we have all the tools to fight the degenerative diseases that are the silent

killers of our times, because it's less likely people like me in my forties are going to die of,

let's say, just like being eaten by a lion or a sudden infection.

It's more likely that I will develop of degenerative diseases,

and it's all linked to slowing down and losing the capability of healing,

which can be restored by stimulating stem cell production. Did I get your message correct?

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. The problems that we develop in our 50s and 60s,

we did not have them in our 20s.

And there's one major difference is that you had about two, three times,

four times more stem cells in your 20s, five times, maybe 10 times than what

you you have when you are in your 50s and your 60s.

So all that we're doing is that by putting more stem cells in circulation,

we give you back the repair capability that you had, let's say, 10, 20 years ago.

That's really what we're doing

to the body. I'm not saying we're turning back your biological clock.

What I'm saying is that we're giving back to your body its repair capacity that

it had 10, 20 years ago. Love it.

Thank you so much, Christian Drapeau. People can find more information about STEMREGEN.

they are going to be there.

You will have the opportunity to try out their products, their protocols.

And if you can't wait, learn more from, what was your Instagram? @stemcellchristian.

Amazing. Cracking the Stem Cell Code book is available on Amazon.

Check it out. This was a fascinating conversation. Thank you so much.

Thank you. All right. but let's keep those stem cells proliferating.

Music.