Root Cause Medicine, Advanced Testing & Longevity | Danese Rexroad, MSN, FNP-C

What if the future of healthcare isn't treating disease but preventing it before it starts?

In this episode of the Vibrant Wellness Podcast, Dr. Brooke Stubbs sits down with Danese Rexroad, Family Nurse Practitioner and Chief Clinical Officer at Ways2Well, to explore how advanced testing, precision medicine, metabolic health, and regenerative therapies are changing the way we approach longevity.

They discuss why "normal" lab results don't always mean optimal health, the importance of fasting insulin and comprehensive biomarker testing, environmental toxins, inflammation, peptides, regenerative medicine, and the role of genetics in personalized healthcare.

Whether you're a healthcare practitioner or someone looking to take a proactive approach to your health, this conversation offers practical insights into finding root causes and optimizing long-term wellness.

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🔗 Dr. Brooke Stubbs, MD

https://www.rootedfemme.com/

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🔗 Danese Rexroad, MSN, FNP-C

https://ways2well.com/

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Transcript

Speaker: 0:09

Welcome to the Vibrant Wellness podcast. I'm your host, doctor Brooke Stubbs. Today's guest is Danese Rexroad, a family nurse practitioner and the chief clinical officer at Ways to. Well, Through her clinical leadership role, she helps oversee patient care programs that focus on areas such as advanced lab testing, metabolic health, peptides, hormone therapy, and other emerging approaches to health optimization. Danese is helping lead a movement toward proactive, data driven health care that aims to detect problems earlier, optimize performance, and empower patients to take greater control of their health. Welcome. I am so excited to talk to you today. I am in this field. I have studied Western medicine. But really entering this integrative field and you are doing all of the things. I can't wait to hear more about your practice and ways to well, in general, can you tell me? Give me an overview of waste? Well, if people aren't familiar with it, I'm sure many of our listeners are familiar with ways to. Well, but I want to hear in your words about the practice. So I say we do a little bit of everything. We're a whole person health. And so, you know, when you're looking at precision medicine, personalized medicine, it varies. So some people need our stem cells and people need peptides. Some people don't really need anything but just a little coaching and support. So it's a little bit of all of that. And we say whole person health because you know, functional medicine, holistic care on that side of it. We have a we do have a little bit of, a little bit of a twist in allopathic medicine because we're all allopathic trained on top of that. And so meaning like we needed thyroid support, we're going to take care of that too. But we're looking at root cause health optimization and just the precision of what your body needs. So it's hard to say, hey, I just do functional medicine or I just do allopathic medicine. It's a little bit of everything. So before we started we were like, oh, we do all this and it's we do all of it because there's a variety of needs and that's that's wonderful. I mean, I feel the same way being an allopathic physician myself, having gone to this traditional Western medicine, going through that training, you see so much of the benefits, so much of the science, all of this stuff that came through pharmaceuticals that can help a patient, but then also realizing that there's so many limitations in just that form of practice. Right. What do people so you say it's very personalized, you know, how do you determine if a patient needs stem cells or whether they need a different treatment? What are people coming to you for what is like a really typical complaint? Or maybe they don't have any complaints. How do they present in your practice? Yeah, it's a little bit of both. I have some that that are just looking for. I want to stay healthy. And I really think there was this huge bifurcation that happened after Covid and they saw just general population. I see some people that got really sick or and as we have the aging population and our age group, our parents are aging. They're looking at their parents going, I don't want to be in the nursing home. Like, what are you? I want to do something different. I want to change my health. And I can make decisions right now. So, you know, I think there's there's a. It's multifaceted. So it's a little bit of like, hey, I, I never want to go down this path. I'm already here. But we're getting a huge rush of people that the allopathic world has failed them. And we were both trained this way where, you know, if there's a if there's a symptom, there's a pill for it. And so and I jokingly tell people and lovingly tell people, you don't have an Adderall deficiency, you don't have a statin deficiency. So what's going on if your body is sending those clues, what's going on? Let's let's peel back the layers of the onion. Let's look at the root cause of your problems. And so sometimes just having a conversation with people, they're like, well, you know, only sleep four hours a night. That's not ideal. Or I only have a bowel movement twice a week. I'm like, hey, that's a sign that something is wrong. And so sometimes it's just having a conversation, talking to people and and highlighting what their goals are, what, where, how they want to feel, how they want to look. Because sometimes it's just I don't my skin is aging faster. I've gained 15 pounds. Like something is different. So it's it's really fun to be on this side. Yes. It is so fun. I'm glad you mentioned Covid. I don't think people actually realize how much it highlighted for us as practitioners. Who was you mentioned a lot about, like just in those few words, lifestyle related and proactive preventative health and versus those people who maybe weren't as well optimized in terms of their health and really how that split in terms of how they responded to Covid and how their immune system thought that virus. Yeah, that that was a was a big deal. And I think, you know, just seeing the comorbidities, it became more obvious and people became more aware of things. Like I said, just things that you can do right now that changed that trajectory. And even I ask people all the time, how's your sleep? How's your stress, how's your movement, how's your personal relationship? Because that's free health care. If you're addressing those things and you're going outside, you're eating good food. I mean, that's the fundamentals. I, I can't give you a pill for that. Those those are action items that you can take. And sometimes people just need to hear that like, oh, okay, I need to put the screen down. I need to go connect with my family. I need to go go for a walk and get the movement in. And just hearing it is the first step. I I just got out of a patient appointment this morning where, you know, the patient's doing really well and all of these things, and then she's talking to me, of course, about her bowel movements. And I'm like, how are you doing on your foods? And she's like, that could be better. And I'm like, and that's what I'm here for. Mind you, of the basics. So that's wonderful. I think that the basics, the lifestyle, the the diet, the sleep, the stress management, you talk about social connections, you might as well have done that. You know, the training and lifestyle medicine, those are all the things that we talk about in lifestyle medicine for optimization and longevity, which also fits into functional health. And then you can go beyond that right into your supplements. And now we are getting these trends and peptides. And you do a lot of things beyond that. In terms of we we talked a little bit before we started recording about plasma for recess. You've got some exciting new things that you can talk to us about today. Yeah. Tell me about what I want to hear about it all. So tell me where you want to start because I want to hit all of those topics. Well I'm excited. Okay, so the plasma forests that's been a hot topic because, you know, we have some of our celebrities that come in and they take a picture with their bags of plasma. And it's like we had somebody asked me, what's the difference between the orange juice and the apple juice? Because one of them is really clear. One of them is really cloudy. Then Greenfield came in. You know, this is not HIPAA violation because they posted all of this stuff they posted. See all the pictures, all these treatments. It's really fascinating. It is. So plasmapheresis. It is. It's some people compare it to dialysis. It's not dialysis. You do have two IV lines. It's a big giant centrifuge. And so it's separating the plasma from the red blood cells and the white blood cells. And then we separate the plasma and we give back albumin. And so we're removing about 70%. So I give people the visual of a dirty fish tank. Now, you know I get some hate because people are like, oh, your body your liver and your kidneys. I'm like, yeah, absolutely. We're meant to heal ourselves. But we're also not meant to be exposed to the level of toxins that we're exposed to. If you think about the blue light, the new car smells, you know, it's unnatural for us to live the way we are right now. We're not eating food from our backyard. Everything is unfortunately processed or even our clothes are synthetic. We're not meant to have this much of an exposure. So I look at plasmapheresis as a way to deal with the toxins. And now specifically like the microplastics and the molds and just the junk that's floating around. And we both know that body's really good at taking it away. And, you know, we're storing it. We're just going to hold on to it. Exactly. Well, if I did load that volume and I forced you to make your own plasma again, you're going to be pulling that out. And then that's going to be much easier for your liver and your kidneys to get that out. Sweat it out, P it out, poop it out. All the things we need to eliminate. So I'm basically using the plasmapheresis to take that pressure off. And so the organs in their function to help clean up what's in your blood. Correct. And so it's I mean, it's a it's an invasive procedure because there's two large bore IVs. It takes about, you know, 2 to 4 hours depending on the person. And, you know, again, replacing it, we do a 1 to 1 with albumin. So we we do hemoglobin and adequate first to make sure we we're matching your values that you need. We monitor your blood pressure throughout the event and we feed you. It's actually really fun. And I have two of the most hilarious nurses that entertain everybody in Houston. Or do you have other locations here in Austin? Austin. This one's this one is in Austin. Yeah. So it's fun because, you know, it's a it's something you can do proactively. You know, also a lot of people were asking me this is something for the it's reserved for the really really really sick. And I'm like, listen guys, if my car if every check engine light went on and I just waited until every light was checked and then I take my car to the dealership, I'm doing myself no favor. So why would I wait until it's that bad? Why is it only reserved for the sickest of sick people? Why can't we use it right now? So everything I do is challenging the narrative challenge. I want to know, like, what can we do better? And this is something I've had great results. Talk to me about the results, because that was where I was wanting to go next. Because how do we know that this process works in a way that we can really feel in terms of health outcomes? So I have I have a famous chef here in Austin. And, you know, we did we did the vibrant test on him. We looked at all of his toxins that he was exposed to, and his BPA levels were off the charts, off the charts and everything. All of our plastics. You mentioned synthetics in our clothing. We are exposed to them all the time, right? Well, he's you know, he was a assuming I'm not to tell too much of his story, but, you know, he's a michelin chef, so he eats the highest quality foods and he knows how to cook well. And he had he has a great lifestyle. He's like, listen, I don't feel good. Something's not right. So that's why we did this. Testing. His testosterone was low. It was they were trying to get pregnant. We had all these symptoms and just weird things that were happening. So I get this test and I'm like, oh, we've got to detox. And at the time, I did not have my plasmapheresis yet. I only had my IBU, which is using we Do This. It's the same concept, but instead of separating and removing the plasma, I'm treating the blood with ozone and lights. So we're still filtered out all as much of the junk that we can. And so we did that treatment on him. We also have a hockett. And so it's a it's an ozone. It's an ozone detox. Oh my gosh that's my favorite one I love that one. You got to try it. You're gonna have to try it. So we did a little bit of detox changes. Diet not necessary. Not changed his diet. We changed how he was preparing his food and storing it in plastics and drinking out of water bottles. We switched to glass, and a few months later, rechecked levels are almost non-existent. Testosterone went up to 1200. He's not on testosterone and now they're pregnant. And so it's it's amazing because I'm seeing this in testosterone or spermatogenesis would be linked to just that toxin. Correct. But it is. It is. And the way that your body reacts in terms of hormones is going to be so important, like reducing that toxin burden so that your cells can be more optimal. All of those chemicals are endocrine disruptors. And so the body will prioritize survival over procreation. And so when you have all of these toxins that are essentially assaulting and causing chronic inflammation, you're going to prioritize. I'm going to protect the brain. I'm going to protect the heart. I'm going to protect all of the vital organs. Procreation is not that's not on the agenda. We're just trying to survive. And, you know, we talk briefly about surviving versus thriving and that health span versus lifespan, you know, have people they're like, oh no, I'm good. My doctor says I'm good. I'm like, are you good? Are you optimal? Right, right. And that's important. I remember as a 30 something year old in the throes of residency and training and going to my, you know, my supervisor and attending who I really admired and going, I just not I'm not feeling great. Like, what can I be doing? She's like, your labs look good. And you're going, okay, well, what else is there? And I think you say allopathic medicine has really done us a disservice, or it's failed us in terms of waiting until all the check engine lights are on and we're in this acute state before we get to the hospital, and then we're trying to, you know, knock down all the symptoms with medicine as opposed to getting ahead of it. So talk to me about preventative medicine and how to get ahead of it. Like, what is it you're going to tell somebody who's listening, who's maybe 40 years old, they're feeling pretty good, maybe a few things are off. Where do they start? So I usually tell people, start with comprehensive blood work. Let's look at. And there's a big difference I talk about normal versus optimal. And insulin is my favorite reference for that. Because number one in the primary care world they don't necessarily check insulin regularly. It has to be specifically requested. Most of our insurance companies say, no, you don't need it. They're just going to check in A1. See. And so I check insulin with every book panel, literally every single time. It's a nonnegotiable for me because insulin resistance is your early predictor of chronic inflammation, which leads to chronic disease. And so, you know, I have people that come back when my doctor said my insulin is fine and it's 16, I'm like, well, it's not 19 yet, so it doesn't meet the criteria for being high, but our ranges optimal range. We like to keep it between 2 and 5. So if it comes back at 5.5, you've got my attention. We're going to start changing some things now. Sometimes it's just, you know, adjusting some things in the diet. Sometimes it's timing of the meals. Sometimes it's just, you know metabolic slow down. We got to figure out what's going on with your hormones and your sleep. Where's your cortisol. So there's all those things play together, which is why it's so important to get the comprehensive labs to look at the entire picture, because I can't stand when they do the onesie to like, oh, we'll check this one. He'll get a CBC and then we'll dry it again and they'll try it again, get a TS and then but you don't get in a patient. Yeah. The patients will send me like a year's worth of labs. And I'm like in total you had eight labs onesie Tuesdays. I don't know what's going on, especially with females, you know, different times of the cycle. And you want to look all together at the same snapshot. You want to see what your thyroid is doing with your hormones are doing how your lipids look. If there's inflammation in the through some of those specialized labs, you want to look at your onesie with your insulin and your fasting glucose. So you're getting a full blood panel. And is there anything like you mentioned, insulin, things that primary care doctors don't typically get, which you would know? I would know because we've been in those worlds that are really important to how you practice medicine. Sometimes I feel like if if I'm if I'm restricted by budgetary concerns or insurance, what? Let me order these labs. I feel like I'm working with my hands tied behind my back, and I don't really like you say I can't see the whole picture. What is it where people really should invest their, you know, their money to be able to give a bigger, clearer picture? Yeah. That's the beauty of a cash pay model. I don't answer to insurance. So we try to keep everything affordable and transparent so you know what you're paying for. We also spend 45 minutes with our patients first visit. So but you know, some of the testing that, you know, I'll have I love telling my stories about my patients. I have a surgeon, I love him to pieces. And he's like, I'm not a real doctor. I'm just a surgeon. And I laugh because he's like, I know how to cut and put things together, but I don't know how the chemistry works. And so we have a lot of fun with our banter. And he's he wanted to get some, you know, advanced cardiac panel. And you know, we've we've done all these testing and I'm like, listen, you're crp is fine. Like you're doing great. But there was a big shift. We had to change some things with his insulin. And I told him I said, watch this. We're going to get your insulin down. Because he was he came back at like I think it was like 21 or 22 the first time I tested it. And we're going to make some changes. I did put him on metformin for a little while. I love to use that one to to jumpstart the healing process. Sounds silly that it's metformin to heal, but I'm working on reducing the insulin resistance. And so I met with him a few months later as insulin went down 2122 and it was five. And he was like, listen, I lost 18 pounds. And I was like, great. And he's like, I. How did I do that? He's like, I didn't change my diet. You told me to eat better and I didn't. I didn't exercise more because I'm on call surgeon. And I was like, no, no, it's okay. I'm shifting the insulin resistance. And I'm like, now he goes, the big thing is, I feel better. And I didn't do any of my homework. I was like, well, you know, again, finding the things that were plaguing you is a huge issue. And so then, you know, because he was feeling better, he's like, I'm started exercising every evening with my wife, and now we're doing this. And all of a sudden the hamster, I call it the hamster wheel effect, the hamster wheels turning and spinning and he's dropped 40 pounds. He looks ten years younger. He's like, I am having great sex again. This is so much fun. And he's like, how? How did I get here? You know, like, how did I get how did it get that bad? And so it's interesting that even as a physician, you know, he he's on call and he's in the hospital late at night. He's like, I know how much that affects my cortisol and my stress. And now we have stress management activities. I call that free health care. You know, just manage your stress. And so, you know, if you have a hefty dose of cortisol right before you go to bed, it's going to affect your metabolism. But if you're not checking if you're not looking at I like to look at the correct protein. That's what's one of my biggest inflammatory markers. Triglycerides are a big clue for me to, you know, sometimes it's it's really it's okay. And it falls within the normal range. And you look at somebody and you're like, they are so tired and they're trying. They're living on caffeine. They don't know, you know, they're really doing their best. So sometimes it's just, okay, stop fasting until 2 p.m., eat breakfast because this is affecting you. And little changes like that. You just you don't know what you don't know until you know. And so having having this open conversations are huge and something as little as a little bit of help with the cortisol and the stress and the circadian rhythm and getting on that front and for the insulin and radically change somebody's life. But then you have all these other wonderful treatments. I want to talk to you about peptides, how often you're using them, what are your favorites? What are you seeing with your patients? So I've been collecting data. So I've been prescribing peptides for about ten years, almost ten years. And I've been collecting data on it because, you know, working directly with the Secretary Kennedy and trying to get these peptides, different peptides approved. And we've been working very hard to get information to them about safety. And so that's what people if you don't know what people fear it. And, you know, it's just about education. No. Peptides themselves are short chain amino acids. I look at them like text messages. So if I send my husband a text message and I said, we need milk, understood. He knows he has to get in his car, drive to the grocery store, bring his wallet, purchase said Milk Cascade. Exactly. I don't have to give him all the details. I just need to give him that information. And so that's how peptides work in the body. It's a signal of information we need to repair. We need to improve the metabolism, stimulate the brain, reduce inflammation. So there's a lot of things that the peptides do. I have my favorites my personal favorites, my non-negotiables. Personally I you know, at my age I'm like I'm using the copper peptide because it has anti-aging. Yet it's not the only thing that it does, but it has some anti-aging benefits. I also do BPC 157. So right now I'm on the oral. I was I do the injections periodically, mostly because I don't like to be sore after exercise, but I do the oral ones just because I had some upper GI issues recently. So I'm still trying to heal that. And then I my nad I that need is a game changer. I actually do the NAD capsules when people ask what's your regimen for it? And I don't. I'm not a big fan of protocols because I feel like protocols are missed opportunities to actually treat a patient. But when I'm starting NAD, I'll tell people, go get an infusion and then do the injection and then the pills. That way we're loading your system and you're able to maintain it. That's a if I miss it, I forget to take the pill in the morning. I can actually feel it. Like I feel a little mental fatigue. So I get tired, you know, 4 p.m. I'm like, I'm checked out for the day. So those are those are very helpful. The, the copper peptide I take at night. And those are my favorites. And I also like I flex test Maryland and have you heard of that one. It's a it's a secret. Yeah it's my favorite it I call it my chiseling peptide. Gets a tone. Yes. It kind of leans out a little bit. Helps with that six pack in the summertime. I have a patient yesterday who was on combo Tasha Moreland and Epi Moreland or Moreland. And I think people say them all kinds of ways. But and he's like, this is the first time I've ever had a six that. Yeah. You know, and his muscle mass is incredible and his body fat percentage is very minimal. You know, it's still in a healthy range, but, I feel like my now this is just between clinicians. I feel like my men respond better to the growth hormone secreted dogs than my women. Do you find that? Yeah, I would agree. And I think it has to do with muscle mass and just body. Percent of body fat with women. The test Maryland tends to lead to a little higher water retention. So I just adjust the dose. So a little lower. Yeah. And maybe a little less frequent. But also I tend to use a little more IGF with women versus men. Women. Yeah I see that. It's not a direct 1 to 1. I'd use IGF a lot. But if, you know, getting ready for summertime, I want the skin to glow, lean out a little bit. I'll actually use them together for a little while for about a month, and then I play with it. That's the beauty of peptides. You know, short chain amino acids. You're there in and out of your system. I wrote the prescription, we did the stats on it, and I wrote the prescription over 1800 times. We did like a year value, and we were looking at side effects, over 1800 prescriptions. There were four people that reported side effects. So this one was specifically BPC 157. And so I was just looking into it because I wanted to see and I pulled up their complaints. And three of those that were reported side effects were actually just injection site reactions. And with peptides. Yeah, you get a little sometimes you get a little red. And the fourth one got hives and we weren't sure even in the report, he was like, I was at a party and several other people got hives, but it was right after my injection, so I think it was related to it. So we're going to just count that as related to it and not use that peptide. But we're seeing mostly with BPC. So I'm thinking in my head I had a patient who came in, we put our MBC injections, not the oral, but she was having some back pain and we wanted to see if it would help with her back. And so and so I want to talk about like the indications that you use for these things, but it really made her feel achy. And so we lowered the dose and it was a little persistent. So just not knowing enough about the medications and their potential long term side effects and not having FDA approval, we decided to stop the medication. But then I've had other patients who have extremely great results on this. And they, you know, they say life changing. They'll do a round of it once a year, maybe once a quarter, and it will help with joint pain or wound healing. Tell me what the indications you see. Tell me about some of your patient results on VPC. I've had phenomenal results. Like I keep people from having to have surgery or get people off of narcotics. That's my favorite is like because of the pain, chronic migraines I've had great success with. Yeah, with CJC and migraines. Just because the way it improves the capacity for the brain to to drain the fluid to drain. So the neuroinflammation is significantly better. So the city of migraines is likely because of neuroinflammation. Or if that's the cause, the CJC of Maryland has been very effective. But with BBC, yeah, I've had it where it wasn't as effective as I expected it to be. When I've had a couple of situations like that where they felt a little worse. And that's a clue for me that I'm not addressing the correct inflammation. So I will pull it off. I go back and let's let's do some comprehensive labs. Let's work on your sleep. Let's build a solid foundation. The thing about BBC is it does cause angiogenesis. And so it's stimulating your body to make something that wasn't there. So you're going to pull in extra fluid and you're going to pull in those ingredients. You know I tell people it's like baking a cake. You got to pull in all the ingredients to make this. And so that process, if you're already inflamed and especially with the back, if it's on a nerve or, you know, in a disk space, she's going to feel it. So let's go back to reducing inflammation. That's what I'll bring in thymus and beta instead. Instead or in combo instead if they're having issues, if instead if they're having issues I do use them in combo a lot. I like to use BPC and time and and beta together a lot. I call that my Wolverine stack. And then. Yeah, yeah. And the and then the glow stack. We call that one the glow stack with the copper peptide. And but you know, there's not a one size fits all. That's why the protocols I think it's so important you say that because as the trends are happening, you see so many influencers online pushing, you know, the ones that they're using. People come and they ask for a specific stack. And so I stopped. What is it we're trying to treat and yeah, what is it that you're trying to accomplish with these stacks or these peptides and really trying to, you know, optimize them personally? So I love that you mentioned that it's fun because, you know, they're like, oh, my buddy got this. And I'm like, hold on. That's not the best one for you. Let's do this in this instead. And then especially when a husband and wife, both of them, they're like, oh, I got this. How come he got this? And I'm like, hold on, that's not our goal. Our goal is something different. It's really important, though. Whenever you're doing peptides, get them from a legitimate pharmacy where they can prove sterility. Certificate of analysis. You know, a molecular way, all the things. The quality is huge because the side effects, you know, unfortunately when they reclassified peptides, they moved everything over to the gray market. That's where everybody just got to put research purpose only. And it was a free for all. You don't know where you're getting I know and it's very scary out there. It is. And that's what we were pleading with Secretary Kennedy about. We're like, this was such a disservice. All we're asking is to have the option and let's do it right, and then let's have a quality measurement so that here's the standards, just like any other medication or supplement or anything else here, here are the standards. And we're going to maintain those standards and make sure that if I write a prescription for this, you as a patient should expect that I've done my due diligence on selecting the right pharmacy. And I've I've looked at all the quality aspects of it. And so the, the pharmacies that I partner with, you know, we do that and you know we get batch testing every time third party testing. So there's no excipients, no junk in it. And so it that where are you on that with Secretary Kennedy. Where is the process? I know things are slow in government, but where do you see that going? And tell us more about it for people who don't understand, like your process, what you're trying to achieve. So some of the, some of the almost all the peptides were moved over to, they were reclassified and considered dangerous because they had not been studied. And so the hard part is, you know, with big pharma and they're going to if you're going to do a study like that, somebody's got to fund it. And then a lot of money. Exactly. So they want to make their money back. And there's not a whole lot of money and peptides unless they're patented. And as short chain amino acids that are naturally occurring in your body, it's really hard to patent that. And so there's not a lot of interest in doing those studies. So then we have to go back to active practice anecdotes, you know, pulling information and data. And there are there are some studies. Everyone says there's no studies. There are some studies. It's just they're not widely published. And the sample size is small. So what we're trying to do is petition for individual peptides to be reconsidered. Let's study them. Let's look at what is what makes up this exactly what what amino acids are in here, what's available to the patient, what side effects have we experienced so far. And then let's classify them to a way where the patients can have a choice and they're guided with a clinician that's so important to, you know, I'll have people. They'll pop in a visit and they're like, I'm taking this, this and this and this. And I'm like, oh, pump the brakes. Where did you get that? That's not a good combo, you know. And I tell people, you know, it's it's fun when you're going to make spaghetti. You have pasta, you have meat and you have sauce individually. Great. When you put them all together, make spaghetti. And it's amazing. It also makes something different. So when you're taking multiple peptides together, you have to understand that there's a potential that those amino acids shift into something else. Yeah, exactly. And there may be making a different chemical that you might not be expecting. So having someone look over that for you and give you some guidance and even timing or, you know, we call them stacks and we rotate, you know, I flex things in and out. That's important because, you know, you don't want anybody to have a disadvantage or hurt or and then sometimes we get surprises, like your patient. That's like, I feel worse on it. I'm like, okay, that answers a clue for me. Let's go back to let's go back to inflammation. Let's go back to what's going on. And you asked about stem cells. Sometimes I'm like, hey, this is let's talk about oh yeah, I that's what I wanted to talk about because I see online. So BPC is one way to help with tendinitis. But then we see an Rogers on the waist well, website and he's getting an injection somewhere around his Achilles is what I could tell. And it's it's labeled stem cell therapy. But it's not exactly it's not exactly stem cells going in there. Tell me about stem cell therapy that you administer with ways to well, so so yeah Aaron tore his Achilles and I did Wharton's jelly product on him. So we loosely say the term stem cells. And I'll say it. Yes. It's not real stem cells like we're taking, you know, it's perinatal tissue but it's not fetal tissue. So the difference is yeah, it's discarded from elective C-sections there plan to C-section. So we have everything is sterile and processed, but it's not fetal tissue. And so we know that if we're taking fetal tissue that is going to turn into an ear lobe or an eyeball, we don't want to use those cells. I'm not injecting those. So people get that confused. So MSCs were initially labeled mesenchymal stem cells. And then they were changed to medicinal signaling cells. And you know, as I'm continuing to challenge the narrative, what's out there, what's out there, what's out there, I work with two amazing scientists. One of them is a Harvard trained. He is the guru on regenerative cell therapy starter Ian White. He is he's he's one of my partners on this. So he is he's doing the PhD side of it, the science side of it. And I make a joke that I do the hokey pokey. And so this is how we work together. He gives me the highest and best quality ingredients and I get it to the patient. So with Aaron, we use Wharton's jelly. And that's all I had available at the time. So Wharton's jelly is the Gustav in between, between the blood vessels of the cord tissue. And so we also use purified amniotic fluid to again from electric sections. But within the Wharton's jelly you have the cells. You also have mu cells, you have the exosomes, you have the hyaluronic acid. I call that the chicken noodle soup. Yeah. That's amazing. I didn't realize all those components were in there. A lot of times you hear like the word exosomes and people think there's stem cells. And those are actually like the growth factors and things around the stem cells that help the stem cells activate new, their process. Okay. So keep talking. Sorry I interrupted. You know, I look at so I talk in visuals and analogies. So when I'm explaining it to a patient, I talk about like if you're going to build a house and someone just dumps all of this material and you've got shingles and sheetrock and you know what? Okay, well, who's going to put it together? You have to have a contractor. So the contractor says this is where everything goes. That's what an exosome does. That's that's how I explain it to people. Yes. The cells are the material that you need to heal, but you also need the contractor to say what to do to to bring in your ingredients, to bring in your proteins, to bring in your own growth factors and to tell your body to heal. So sometimes I get amazing results with just exosomes or just purified amniotic fluid, the cloth that's in it, you know, all of the goodies that are in there, I get pretty good results with with that and I, I do decide what I'm going to use on a patient based on need. So again, not a one size fits all. I love my Wharton's jelly products I have had. I had excellent results with Aaron Rodgers. We shot that Netflix special about it. And most people know that I, you know, take care of Joe Rogan. After he tore his rotator cuff. He didn't want to have surgery. That's not a secret. He talked about it multiple times in the podcast and he's. Yeah, yeah. Oh, he's sponge in the bag. All the things. You know, I have a lot. You know, we just did one with Sean Strickland the other day. So we have a lot of people that we can help with just Orton's Jelly product. It's pretty awesome. And but again that's me challenging the narrative. I've been doing this for a long time. I'm like, okay, what's next? What can we do? And that's we got introduced to Murray Desert for the Desert Mussels. She's a scientist that accidentally discovered Muse cells. And. Yeah. So okay, so when people go, I want to say this because a lot of people go out of the country and they're they're getting their stem cells, they're getting MSCs. And when they say that these cells are expanded, you know, we in the US, we cannot expand these cells that we call it colonial. We're not allowed to do that because it's not it's too, it's too risky. And now that I understand why what we were being protected from totally makes sense a few years ago, I was like, I just don't understand why we can't, you know, expand these cells and force them to replicate, as in, you take the initial source from the amniotic fluid or from the cord blood, and you can't replicate them. You have to use them from their original source. Correct. And so you need in order to get a lot of volume, you have to take a lot of samples. Correct. Okay. And so what people are doing outside of the US, as they're taking those, they're extracting the masses and the cells, they're starving them of oxygen and doing force mitosis. So they're replicating these cells by starving them of oxygen. And I explain that to people, is telling someone, you have two hours to pack and get out of your house, you're going to leave some things behind and you're going to be pretty stressed. Exactly, exactly. So when these cells are starved of oxygen and forced to replicate rapidly, there's going to be some mitochondrial breakdown. And we break in code a million times. I'll replicate in your incorrect, erroneous fashion. Correct. That's what leaps cancer. Exactly. And so then I'm like, pump the brakes. All these people running out of the country to get the only stuff that's not available to us. I'm like, hold on. You don't understand what you're being. Yeah. What we're protecting you from. And so when I explain to people, I have to use it in its purest form, I can only use it on manipulated. And once I get that argument out and people here and they see the difference, they're like, okay, I understand now, but doctor accidentally discovered muse cells because she she tells the story that she went out and had some. Saki realized that she left her cells in the petri dish, came back and they were still living cells. And she was like, whoa! So these, this, these stress enduring cells actually survived. And even though they were starved of oxygen. And so her process of getting these cells is what's patented. That's why the muse cells are patented. And that's what we started using, just recently. So we have access. We've partnered with her. We have her science, we have her studies. So and and legally injectable in the US. Yes. So in Texas we have the capacity. The patient has a choice. And you know, we have to meet and discuss and agree that. Yeah. And all the things and I'm not billing your insurance for it so there's no risk of fraud. And this is how much it costs me to do it. And this is what we agree on. This is you know, but also it's not universal for everyone. I have some people that are like, oh, I want to do this. And I'm like, you know, let's do the words jelly. Yeah, yeah, I'm so sorry. This is going to be a better treatment for you. And I say that I've been injecting for 25 years. That's just because of what I've seen and done. So when I make those decisions, it flows easy for me because I've been doing it so. And, you know, people are like, no, I want to do this one thing that someone got. And I'm like, yeah, it's not going to work that way. But also, again, going back to environment, you have to build a great environment for those products to do what they're supposed to do. That goes back to the fundamentals solid foundation, deep sleep, good nutrition, getting that sunlight, getting that movement, getting healthy. And I have people that want just give me stem cells and it'll cure it. I'm like, it doesn't work that way. Your body will assign. We kind of make a joke. I, I had someone she was like, it was a friend of mine. She was like, I'm going to use your muscles to help my hair grow back and make my skin glow. She's giving me this laundry list. And I was like, do you think I go, hey, do this and then send them in your body? And does it work that way? Your body will assign them based on inflammatory cytokines and the need. And so if some people have my athletes, bless them, they're banged up from head to toe and they're like they're coming in for their, you know, a shoulder. But also they have all these other issues and they'll tell me I shoulda got a little bit better. But man, my knee was so much better. I didn't even inject the knee, injected the shoulder because that was bothering them the most. The products move, so the blessing and the curse is they respond to inflammatory cytokines and where your body assigns that highest priority the beauty of these cells. And now I want to go back to mix are found in the umbilical cord tissue. Mu cells are a subset of those MSCs. So it's about 1 to 3% of that also found in the jelly tissue. So if the mother is injured during pregnancy those cells will travel to the mother or they're going to travel to the baby. They're there to help. So if they're able to travel, you know, the FDA doesn't want me to say that they're going to help systemically. They're only going to help in the area. Yeah. But what I'm seeing is that other things are better. So that's always fun. You know? It's so exciting. Okay. What else? What have we missed? What other things that are exciting you right now in your practice? Well, like I said, the plasmapheresis is I'm having so much fun with that one. Especially because everybody's holding up their bag of junk and they're like, do people feel bad or do they feel better right after they feel pretty rundown right after? Now I will tell people, you know, it lowers your vitamin D, it lowers your cholesterol, so you actually feel a little run down and tired. I had this weird thing, and I hadn't really shared this very much because it was kind of embarrassing. When I wake up in the morning, my feet hurt and I just my first few steps, I hurt so bad, I'm hugging the wall and I just hurt and I, I do something like that. I had that when I was pregnant and I just like it was awful. I don't I don't know what it is. Yeah. I have these special shoes I wear around the house. I don't know, I just it's only in the morning and it's only for about five minutes. I know what I eat, I know what I like, I like, I can't find out what I'm doing that's causing that. And I had not planned on doing the plasmapheresis, but I went ahead, did a toxin test. I'm like, it's not too bad, you know, it's environmental stuff. Sure, I could clean up a little bit and somebody canceled and we were going to film, and I was like, well, okay, load it up. Let's do it. I guess I got to experience it if I'm going to talk about it. And so I did, and I was again, I was a little tired, but the next day my feet didn't hurt. And I was like, well, this is weird. And then my feet didn't hurt the next day. And I knew the the next morning. I knew it because I was mentally prepared for how much pain I was going to be in for five minutes. And I know like two years of that. And I didn't want to tell anybody. I'm like, listen, this is what I do, and I can't even fix myself. I don't know what's causing it. And so I don't know what was in there that was irritating or causing that much inflammation while I was sleeping. So that is so fast. But it's gone now, so. And it's funny to me, it brings me back to a concept that I try and share with my patients. Like inflammation is systemic. It wasn't just happening in your feet. It was probably traveling systemically, but your body recognized something in the feet. And it is. Those cytokines went there and impact there, even though those immune cells were circulating throughout your body. And so I say to patients, like when you eat those inflammatory foods or you're not sleeping well or you're not doing those things, and there's inflammation brewing in the system, it's not just where you ate or right. It's it goes to your thyroid if you have autoimmune thyroiditis. Right. Because you have a memory, your immune system has that memory for your thyroid or it goes to your vascular spaces if that's what you're predisposed to. Or maybe it causes your migraines if that's what you're predisposed to. But it's not different things for each individual disease process. It's the same things that cause all of it. And so if we can, like you say, eliminate the toxins or improve the overall foundation, that inflammation will subside. And then, of course, now you can feel great because you never knew or was causing the foot pain, but you know that your systemic inflammation is suppressed now. All of it. Yeah. And it it's every day I'm like, okay, okay, here we go. I'm fine. Look up. I was staying in a hotel last night. I was like, nope, I'm still good. So I was worried about that being in a different environment, is it gonna come back? So it was, you know, again, it was embarrassing because I couldn't. I didn't know what it was and there wasn't. And then did your lab test follow that? Like, did you follow up with blood work to show that the toxin burn have come down? Well, it wasn't the toxin burden wasn't that bad. Yeah. So that's why I was like, well, you know, that had a couple of things that I'm like, oh, I could just do better. So that's why it wasn't like off the charts. Like my friend that the chef, you know, I knew exactly what his problem was. So, so what I believe is that there are things that we don't know about in our environment that we can't necessarily test for, and that's what was removed. So I may not have seen it in a test because I didn't know what to test for. So, I think that that's really insightful to know that there's limitations to where we are now and that things are going to keep progressing. Where do you think regenerative or longevity, all this, these medical treatments, where do you think they're going in the next five minutes? Oh, very soon. Sooner than that. I'm working on a project right now with the with with human genome. So I want to do I want to run the human full human genome. Granted, we don't have all the information yet, but there are key markers that we can identify early, like risk for Alzheimer's disease and cancer. We have some things that we can identify and tell you. Hey, this is you know, we make a joke that genes load the gun and lifestyle pulls the trigger. So this is what your gun is loaded with. These are the things that I can do right now so that you do not develop Alzheimer's disease later in life. Let's control your insulin. Now let's make sure your brain is well fed. You know all the things that we're talking about. Let's get sleep and stress management. Let's protect you as much as possible because you know that's what your gun is loaded with. That is so insightful to me. So I'm working on a program right now. I don't have it formally finalized yet, but I'm really excited about just being able to offer someone the capacity to come in on a Monday, swab their cheek. We'll run it in our machine in 40 hours. I'll have your entire genome, and I'll be able to give you a report on what you have and what you're things to pay attention to. Yeah. So it's it's exciting. There are a lot of companies that are starting to do it, but there's no action items with it. It's like here, here's your here's your predisposition. I'm building the action items. Like what can we do to prevent that. So I'm I'm really excited about that. Reminds me of vibrance oxidative stress panel because it has all of those SNPs and it tells you, okay, these are where you're going to see that breakdown in terms of whether it's own or, you know, how you methylated this or the you know, all of those things. So yeah, it's like it's all exciting, like the amount of knowledge we have in order to gain. It's almost a like it's hard to say. Where do you start? It's really important to have people like you who can help guide you into, like the proper treatment and that foundational piece. So you don't get so overwhelmed because you could test. You could test endlessly. Yeah, yeah. We find out more about the genome. You know, literally I think every day they find out something new about what it means. So just, you know, plugging in this information and learning something new about yourself every day is I think that's fun. And, you know, we talked briefly about this. There's a difference between lifespan and health span. And, you know, time on the Earth versus you know, how healthy you are. I make a joke that I don't want to be. The 85 year old crinkled up in the nursing home dependent care. I want to be the 85 year old in the gym, living my life, enjoying my grandkids. So if that means that I need to make some sacrifices now and, you know, adjust my lifestyle now because what I do right now affects me when I'm 85, me when I'm 75, me when I'm 65. So, you know, that's the mindset is different with our generation versus, other our other predecessors were like, oh, I'll let me get there. We'll yeah, yeah, yeah. Until something becomes so bad that then I have to address it. Now the culture really is to address it early. It's like, oh, I've got the diabetes. I'm like, no, you've been been on that road for a minute. You didn't just. It didn't just jump in your lap one day. Let's, let's pull back a little bit. You've been building that for years, but once you know the foundational pieces, it's never too late to start helping or reversing or improving. Correct. Or those levels or, you know, outcomes in general. Absolutely. Never too late. Or at least the best time to start is right now. Okay, well, we need to know how to find you. Where do people go to maybe learn more from what you have to offer to get your education or to come to your practice? The best way is through our website, ways to welcome the number two. Welcome. All of our information is up there. We actually you can schedule consultation. We can talk about whatever you need. We have a phone line on the website to an email address, and you are seeing people via telehealth in the entire US. We are in technically 47 states right now, I believe, and then I'm licensing all 50. I can't see everybody, so we have to tailor it down to we have 55 providers now. And so yeah, across the nation, mostly telehealth. We have two locations, one here in Austin and then one in Houston. How does a provider get on board with you? Just reach out to us on the website. Because we are hiring. We are needing we definitely need more people. Yeah. Sounds like it. Very good. Good for you. Well, thank you for coming today. And thank you for talking to me. We'll be keeping an eye out for all of your work, both in government and with the human genome. Thank you all for tuning in to the Vibrant Wellness Podcast. If you found this episode valuable, please be sure to subscribe so you never miss a conversation like this. And don't forget to follow us on Instagram at Vibrant Wellness for more insights, education and updates. We'll see you next time.