The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast Episode #280 - Christian Drapeau

TRANSCRIPT

(Note: This is generated by AI with 98% accuracy. However, any errors may cause unintended changes in meaning.)

Melanie Avalon

welcome back to the show. I am so incredibly excited and honored about the conversation I'm about to have. So the backstory on today's conversation about a year ago, I was just checking August of 2023 is when I aired the first episode with this fabulous human being. I'm here with Christian Japoe. He is the founder of an incredible company that we are going to talk all about called stem regen.  But backstory, so I had him on my show, like a year ago to talk all about stem cells. And I just went back actually yesterday and we listened to that episode. And it is honestly, I think it's the deepest dive of anything I've ever done on this show. I was listening back, I was like, Whoa, we, we went deep. So that episode was absolutely incredible. We talked all about stem cells.  So I definitely recommend checking it out if you want a really deep foundational knowledge for everything. But since then, so first of all, I've met Christian personally, a few times now we've seen each other at the biohacking conference, I'm friends with his beautiful wife, Stephanie. And we were just talking, we're going to see each other soon at the upcoming Unimonia conference as well.  But Christian is just a legend with what he is doing in the world of supplements to support stem cell release and function in the body, which we're going to talk all about when I saw him recently at Dave Asprey's most recent biohacking conference. He actually interviewed me for some really cool interview series that he has on his website. So we'll put links to that.  But I knew that I had to have him back on because they had a release of a whole new product line that I'm really excited to dive into. So Christian, thank you so much for being here. Thank you.

Christian Drapeau

Thank you, Melanie. Thank you, it's my privilege.

Melanie Avalon

So to start things off, like I said, the first episode was so, so deep. And I do have a lot of questions about the evolution of your company and what you're doing with your products. But to just give listeners, I feel like we need to like jump in and get and get a foundational education for refresh about stem cells.  So to start things off, I guess your personal story, and you did talk about this last time, but you are, I mean, you've been working on this for over two decades, you know, this whole world of stem cells, and you actually published the first like hypothesis calling stem cells, the repair system of the body, which actually, that's a question to start with.  Do most people is that how most people feel about stem cells now that it is the repair system of the body?

Christian Drapeau

I think there's no question. I'm not sure if academia, doctors, and the medical community will think about it just like you would talk about the immune system, which honestly not only I believe, but I can lay out all the science of it, literally, the human body as a system called the repair system.  I'm not sure if it is looked at that way, but I can tell you that probably just about half of the scientific literature, the newer scientific literature, let's say over the last 10 years about stem cells, in their introduction, they will always state something like it is now recognized that stem cells play a crucial role in repair, and it will phrase it however way, it's different from one article to another, but I would say right now it is something that is very, very broadly accepted. 

Melanie Avalon

That's pretty cool that you were the first person to, you know, put that terminology officially out there.

Christian Drapeau

I have to say, when you say this, when you say this, I just want to be really clear and also respectful for everybody who contributed into this. I base this new view on existing literature, so there are many, many scientists who actually develop the data.  The only thing I did, and it's probably because I had no reputation to protect or to risk, if you want, and so I really look at the data, and to me it was obvious that all the data was pointing in that direction, and scientists at the time could have said it's too early to say that. It was probably true. It was too early to say that it is definitely the case, but the data was already there.  What I did really was just an interpretation of the available scientific literature and pointing in a direction that appeared so clear to me in the early days. It's really sitting on the shoulder of a lot of the work done by other people.

Melanie Avalon

No, no, thank you for clarifying that. And you definitely in your book, which listeners, if listeners are interested in this topic, definitely get Christian's book. It's called Cracking the Stem Cell Code. And it dives deep into the entire history of, like you just mentioned, all these incredible people that their work really led up to, you know, our current understanding. So awesome.  So actually, just a foundational question about this repair system and stem cells. So does that mean every single sort of injury or repair in the body utilizes stem cells to some capacity?

Christian Drapeau

Let me answer your question by a little bit of a roundabout way. If you have a tissue that is damaged, regardless what it is, the smallest unit of that tissue are the cells. So if cells are being killed or destroyed, the cell cannot be repaired. What you need to repair is a new cell that comes in and fills that spot and then kind of heals the whole tissue. So the answer is absolutely yes.  Repair cannot happen without stem cells. To me, it's one of the biggest – I don't know if biggest is the right term, but it's one of the most amazing and fascinating topic if you want in the world of medicine because every single individual on this planet Earth has experience in their own life that the human body repairs.  However, in the medical scientific literature, there is no explanation for how that happens. There are quasi explanations. Some explain historically when I was in college, it's the immune system that repairs. But now, tell me what immune cell is responsible for repair. There's not one immune cell that is in charge of creating new cells.  So anyway, the short answer to your question is absolutely everything that is associated with repair in any way that we looked at it is stem cell based.

Melanie Avalon

And so these stem cells, how many stem cells do we have? And I realize that this can vary greatly, I imagine, by so many factors. But what are we talking about numbers-wise?

Christian Drapeau

I mean there is some we can tell others we cannot tell this field is moving forward at a speed that is amazing but I would say the biggest question is that we can determine how many you have in your bone marrow. We can determine how many you have in your blood circulation.  But if we ask how many stem cells you have, let's say in your muscles, in your liver, in your heart, in your brain, this is at this point in the day, it's really not possible to count. So let's say we leave these aside and we talk about the two main pools of stem cells, bone marrow and the blood.  I would say in the bone marrow estimation here, an adult, let's say 40, 50 year old adult will have roughly about 150 million stem cells in their bone marrow and in their blood circulation, roughly about 12 million. And if let's say you get older than 50, it will go down, you get younger, it's probably going to be a little bit higher.

Melanie Avalon

And all those stem cells in the blood, did they come from the bone marrow?

Christian Drapeau

They all, well, yes. Technically, the answer is yes. But could you have tissue in which the stem cells is migrating in the tissue, and then the stem cells detaches from the tissue, gets back into the circulation. So can you have the movement of stem cells in that way in the body? Absolutely. So are all the stem cells present in your blood, did they all come from the bone marrow?  I don't think it's an answer that we can provide right now. But generally speaking, yes. They are from your bone marrow. They mobilize from the bone marrow to the blood circulation. In the blood circulation, they migrate in various tissues and replenish the stem cell layer of these tissues, of most tissues in the body.  So that's sort of the general physiology and life process, if you want, of stem cells.

Melanie Avalon

There's the stem cells in the bone marrow into the bloodstream and they can go into the tissue. Are there already those stem cells in the tissue that did not come from the bone marrow?

Christian Drapeau

I mean, you're born with them. So it's a process that sort of constantly renews. So the one that we have today as an adult, yeah, they all came from the bone marrow to an extent.

Melanie Avalon

Okay. Gotcha. And we, we talked about this last time, but the actual, the actual process of stem cells, does it require an injury to stimulate the release from the bone marrow or are they, are they released, you know, anyways, and like going around the body? Like, like, what is that actual process?

Christian Drapeau

They are released anyway in the sense that a the life that they have life for the residents time of stem cells in the blood circulation is estimated to be anywhere between six minutes to six hours with an average of about one hour so if you did not constantly release stem cells then give it six hours and that's it you don't have any more stem cells in your blood circulation so given that they're always there that means you constantly release them what happens when you have an injury is that you have another signal in acute signal on top of that normal release that will then send a wave of stem cells and it's a signal that will last a few days so it's going to be like a multi day process with the peak in the number of stem cells in circulation will be roughly about three to five days after an injury. 

Melanie Avalon

Okay, is that the GCSF growth factor?

Christian Drapeau

Correct. Well, GCSF is the main one. There's a number of them, so GCSF, stem cell factor, interleukin 8, there are a few of them that are released by an injury and they will all play a role in stem cell release.

Melanie Avalon

Okay, so when these stem cells are going around the body and there's these potential signals that are calling them, is it just a matter of strength of the signal that determines where they go? Is it possible that you have them in your bloodstream and they would be going certain places, but then if you get a knee injury and it's a massive signal, do they change course and go over there?  I'm just trying to get a picture of what it actually looks like.

Christian Drapeau

They don't have fins, they don't swim, so they cannot go where they're needed. They just end up going where they're needed by the very process, the same way that an immune cell will go and end up in an infection. They circulate everywhere in the body, but they have a receptor on their membrane.  When they circulate into the fine blood vessels, the fine capillaries of a tissue that is in need of repair, locally, this tissue is releasing one compound called stromal-derived factor one, SDF-1. When they encounter that compound in this small vasculature, they have a receptor for that compound.  When that compound connects to the receptor, it triggers the migration of that stem cells out of the blood flow into that tissue. It's really just a matter of them circulating everywhere in the body. Whenever they pass in that tissue, they're captured by that tissue. That's the process. They will migrate where you have an injury.  It's very interesting because studies have shown that if you – let's say you want to have repair in your heart or you want to grow your heart or whatever, but you don't have necessarily a heart attack. If you inject SDF-1 in the heart, it's not going to call stem cells to the heart. If you have an injury to the heart, then it will. SDF-1 is not the sole factor or the sole signal.  It is that accompanied with something else that is associated with an injury that to this day I don't think has been identified.

Melanie Avalon

Oh, that's really, that's really interesting. Okay. So when you, maybe we'll bring this back a little bit back to your personal story. What happened with you and your, you know, your role and discovery with this certain type of algae that, that led to your interest in this whole world?

Christian Drapeau

Well i was working so this is blue green algae from klamath lake and it was very popular i mean it's still popular today but it was very popular in the nineteen nineties and i was hired by the main company that was selling this product at the time and i was hired with the task of documenting the mechanism of action of how this blue green algae was working in the body so we need to go back we are in nineteen ninety five the shade dietary supplement health and education act that just been passed in nineteen ninety four in the industry at three years to document.  The benefits of their product so that starting in nineteen ninety seven any claim that the company would make about their product needed to be supported by science so that's why i was hired so i started to study how this plant was working very quickly we identified that it contains phycocyanin which is a very very strong anti-inflammatory compound we identified a polysaccharide that was extremely potent at stimulating certain aspects of the immune system balancing the immune system and then it contains fennel ethyl amine very well known in in in neuro chemistry if you want is the molecule of love the molecule of joy anytime you're content you're happy your brain is making p we hear a lot about serotonin dopamine but the molecule of contentment in your brain is p and so blue green algae contain that so it explained all the benefits that people were reporting about increase in mental clarity and sort of mood elevation but as i'm doing all of this i came across people who reversed multiple sclerosis and by reverse i mean some of these stories were extremely extremely impressive the extent of the of of the transformation so multiple sclerosis heart disease diabetes and fissima severe injuries scars harkings and alzheimer's stroke to the point where at first they're just like interesting stories but they're just stories they don't have any scientific validity but when they start to grow and now you have a hundred of those stories they start to be compelling. 

Christian Drapeau

So there's a point where i can across that line where to me i really believe that there was something there that needed to be investigated we didn't know what it was so we did a number of studies but over the course of maybe three four years i really we had no idea what it was until early two thousand one january two thousand one i came across an article the title was turning blood into brain it was the first study to my knowledge documenting a stem cell going from the bone marrow to the brain and becoming a brain cell in two thousand one so my background is brain research neurophysiology we were taught probably still to this day that the brain does not really regenerate or repair and then we are told that stem cells are only precursors to blood cells they don't become other type of cell type the other type of cells in the body so to see a study reporting that a stem cell went to the brain became a brain cell that was to me like an amazing breakthrough so i went to the local medical library to see what else i could find and i found another article documenting stem cells going to deliver and becoming liver cells another one going to the heart and becoming heart cells so i simply thought so we were going back to what we talked about earlier you know how did i come with this idea that stem cells are the repair system so you look at this data and the thought was what if stem cells can become heart liver and brain what would be a physiological process that will make them become those three organs but not the rest in the body it's nonsense if they can become liver heart and brain that means they can also become pancreas skin long in the rest it was just a matter of time for scientists to document that and in my mind if a stem cell can become a brain cell a heart cell in the liver cell then it has to be that it has to be its function a stem cell cannot like retinal cells in your retina response to light and it's not random it's its function so if a stem cell can become cells of other tissue it has to be its function so they have to be the repair system of the body so we published that view in 2001 in a journal called medical hypotheses and in the back of my mind the thought was what if this this blue green algae works by triggering the release of stem cells from the bone marrow if indeed they are the repair system they will then go and repair the pancreas of the diabetic the brain of the Parkinson patient the lung of the enphysema patient so we should expect a broad variety of benefits which is what we had observed before so the hypotheses was it was working by triggering the release of stem cells from the bone marrow so we acquired a flow cytometer which is a machine to count stem cells at the time it was quite an investment to be done on just a hunch but it was it was to me a big hunch so we acquired the flow cytometer started to count stem cells in our bloodstream and very quickly discovered that that's how this blue green algae was working and from that point on pretty much everything I've done was in the field of stem cells

Melanie Avalon

So incredible. So this idea of stem cells becoming, you know, having the ability to become all different things and to clarify, can all stem cells become all different things or what limits are there? Like originally we thought it was just, you know, bone, blood, connective tissue. What limits do we think there are now? So

Christian Drapeau

Now, it really depends, I mean, the science has evolved so much on this, it really depends which type of stem cells we are referring to. But let's take your question and put it into a little bit of historical perspective. 1998, there's a group that successfully for the first time grew human embryonic stem cells.  So we have known since the 60s that embryonic stem cells are super powerful because in embryology, they are, you take one embryonic stem cell and you can grow an entire organ. So this had been done in mice, in different animals. People probably remember the sheep dolly, it was done in dogs, it was done in many animals. But nobody had ever been able to culture human embryonic stem cells in a lab.  So while this idea that these cells could have enormous potential for regeneration, not being able to do this in human, it was just kind of a dream. So when this group was successful at doing this, it just revived this dream, this view that wow, maybe we would be able to like basically regenerate and regal organs. So that's it, it's the end of disease.  So scientists started to perfect the method to grow these embryonic stem cells in Petri dish and be able to force them to become hard liver, whatever, you know, to help regenerate organs. And when that was happening, scientists wondered, because as this is happening, we discovered that while they have an amazing ability to transform into various types of cells, that's also their flaw.  Because they can become everything, that means they have a very, very high rate of tumor formation. And that's why there's still no treatment with embryonic stem cells because of the high risk of tumor formation.  So people turn around and they say, well, we do have stem cells in the bone marrow, they can only become blood cells, they're very puny stem cells, they're not very effective, but what if they could become more? So they applied the method developed for embryonic stem cells for adult stem cells.  And then we started to see that, yeah, it's they seem that they add more capabilities, but they were much lesser than embryonic stem cells until the science progressed.  And then we realized that if we use methods, not for embryonic stem cells, but methods for adult stem cells, and we treat them as the different animal that they are, then suddenly we discovered that these stem cells have a lot of capabilities at times comparable to embryonic stem cells. And now the field as it has evolved into the identification of various types of stem cells in the human body.  So all of this to give you like the punchline is that yes, there are a series of maybe four or five different types of stem cells in the human body that have capabilities very comparable to embryonic stem cells with the slight difference that they're not as wild. So if you take one of them and you put them in the heart, it will only become heart cells and not other types of cells.  So they will not become a tumor, but they can become pretty much everything in the body, even germ cells, which means oocytes and spermatozoa, which is amazing.

Melanie Avalon

Do they know or do you have a theory about what is the protective limiting factor in adult stem cells that's keeping them from not creating tumors like embryonic stem cells might?

Christian Drapeau

Yes, it is a series of genes and nature is well done. As an embryo, your cells are pure at the origin, so they can go wild in multiplication because an infant is growing so fast. You want that. But as cells are duplicating and DNA is being duplicated, then you start to have errors that accumulate in the genome of an individual in specific parts of the body.  If that becomes too significant, it can lead to dysregulation and that could be tumor formation. The protective mechanism is that as you get further and further away from birth, then cells get less and less capable of having this sort of wild multiplication. The cells are limited in their ability to multiply to prevent the formation of tumor, essentially.  The limitation of the adult stem cells compared to embryonic stem cells is a gift. We want that. That's what makes them usable. Otherwise they would be like embryonic stem cells and they could not be usable.

Melanie Avalon

So the actual moment where a stem cell, an adult stem cell becomes, you know, whatever other organ liver cell, heart cell, brain cell, whatever it may be, how does that happen? You talk in the book about two theories, one being fusion and one being I think like actual direct contact. Yeah. So what's happening there? Because honestly, it literally sounds like magic. The more I think about it.

Christian Drapeau

It does. It does. And there's more than one way. Right now, I know of three ways that have been shown to allow this kind of growth. In the muscle, it is by fusion. Anybody who trains to grow muscle knows that when you go to the gym and you induce to the muscles some trauma, that's what makes them grow.  So that sort of SOS signal for the muscles will make satellite cells, which are muscle stem cells, to fuse with muscle cells to grow these muscle cells, which means that by fusion, they gain more nuclei, and that's why a muscle cell is multinucleated. It has many nuclei. So that boosts the ability of that cell to make more protein to grow more muscle fibers.  So that phenomenon is very common in muscles. In other tissue, it will be oftentimes the presence of factors. And that is what is used the most in a lab. So you identify the kind of factors that will induce stem cells to turn into air as an example.  There is a epidermal growth factor that if you take normal stem cells and you put them in the presence of that factor, these stem cells will transform into keratinocyte skin cells.  And when they come in, sorry, in contact with these protein that are specific to a tissue, it will send a signal to the nucleus of that stem cells, and it will engage all the genetic coding that encodes for that cell being a liver cell or a heart cell, whichever tissue that they are in.  And then the third mechanism that is done by a novel type of stem cells identified in the body is that they work a little bit like a macrophage.  They see a cell that is injured, that is about to create a apoptosis, and they come and they engulf that cell, digest that cell, and use the content, the genetic profile of that cell to mimic it, and then they turn into a cell of that tissue, which I think is fascinating.

Melanie Avalon

The stem cell itself actually eats the macrophage and then does its work there.

Christian Drapeau

It's not the macrophage it's the cell of that tissue that you have that is this injury in the liver and then that's how that stem cell gets in there encounter a cell that is dysfunctional is about to create a pop toes because it's it's it's damaged then it will eat that sales and replace that sale.

Melanie Avalon

Nice. Okay. The delivery of the stem cell to that area, does that have to be done in like through the bloodstream or you were talking about skin cells. So like, can we put stem cells on our skin ectopically and have this effect?

Christian Drapeau

I know that you can put the growth factor topically and it will have that effect on the stem cells that are in your skin or in your blood circulation and attracted to the skin. But as far as I know, if you put stem cells on the skin, they are way, way, way too big, like immensely too big to be able to penetrate the skin. So it's not going to work.  So it has all to take place internally, unless you have a wound. So if you have an incision, then you can apply stem cells topically and they can integrate the wound, which has done a lot in surgeries.

Melanie Avalon

Okay, gotcha. So when you were developing stem regen, okay, so question because you have a whole new line now and I'm really excited to talk about it because it supports all these different steps of the stem cell process. So, you know, the release, the mobilization, signal is one of them. So do you still have the original stem regen or does this replace that?

Christian Drapeau

The original stem regen is now called stem regen release. It's the exact same product. It's now called release to fit if you want into this line of product.

Melanie Avalon

So developing release, what was the development process like for that? Because there's, there's, you know, multiple ingredients in it. Were you originally, like originally were you thinking you were just going to do that, that algae, what was that process like? And when did you start that originally? The release? Yeah. Like the original stem region that's now the release.

Christian Drapeau

The original stem region that is not released was starting in 2016 or created the first version of that formula was in 2016, but it was the result of more than a decade of work with different plants and evolving various formulas.  So essentially, the storyline behind this is that once we clearly identified that blue-green algae was triggering the release of stem cells from the bone marrow, it was first received by the scientific community with, I mean, let's put it this way, I was facing a wall. Anywhere I go, it was a wall.  And the wall was basically saying, that can be, that observation must just be an artifact, even if you see and it's reproducible until you have an actual mechanism of action, it means nothing. And even if it means something, even if really you put more stem cells in circulation, it means nothing for repair, and maybe it's bad for you.  So these were like invariably the kind of response that we were getting everywhere.  So we had to put about two, three years, four years of research into documenting the mechanism of action, the active compound, the proof of concept to show in an animal model that indeed, if you release stem cells with this blue-green algae, you can enhance tissue repair, we file the patents, we had to do a study on safety because in the early days, the fear was like, well, if you stimulate stem cells, maybe you promote cancer.  Remember what we talked about, about embryonic stem cells. So we did a study in which we implanted human breast cancer cells in mice and then gave them 10 times the recommended dose for humans. And we saw what we actually expected, which is a 30% reduction in tumor growth in the mice that receive this product.  But just to clearly, clearly state that no, releasing stem cells does not promote tumor growth in any way, shape, or form. So all that work went until about 2005, 2006. But all along in the back of my mind, it was hard to believe for me that having evolved in symbiosis with the environment, the human body, there would be only one plant that would have an effect on stem cells.  So what are the other plants? So immediately, the thought is, what else has been associated, just like AFA, to a broad variety of health benefits? I mean, if I ask this question, immediately, what will come to mind is medicinal mushroom, goji berry, seaweeds, ficoe down from seaweeds, adaptogens in general. So we started to test many of those.  And we tried to test at first, those that were more unknown, if you want, just because they were more interesting to study. So mushroom were known, but they were not as known in those days than they are today. So we tested Cordycep, Reishi, Shiitake, Lion's Mane. We tested goji berries. We tested ficoe down from seaweeds. We tested a number of these plants.  And we saw that they all had an effect on stem cells. But it's when we add the ability, I add the ability to go into remote areas of the world that I discovered really the coolest plants. What I mean is that as I'm looking for these plants, I'm asking questions everywhere I go.

Christian Drapeau

I'm asking questions on that journey. I came across a team that was traveling worldwide into places like Madagascar, the Congos, Papua New Guinea, South America, to find plants that would have exceptional properties for neurodegenerative diseases. And I asked that team, have you come across anything as you're traveling where the healers would tell you this plant is good for everything.  And they laughed, saying nothing is good for everything. I send them a copy of my book, Cracking the Stem Cell Code. They immediately understood what I meant, which was, no, a plant that will do one thing, which is release of stem cells. But it would then be experienced by people as a broad variety of benefits.  And they talked about this trip that they had in Madagascar on their way back to the airport. Their guide and translator basically stopped at a small market, a local market, and scooped a whole bag of these black beads. And he told them, that's what you need to test. But if you tell a scientist, test that. What are you testing it for? So if you don't have more data, you say, thank you.  You take the bag and you put it in your fridge, which is what they did. So that bag had been in their freezer for five years. So they said, we have something. Give it a shot. So they send us these small beads. And we are a little bit cowboy, you know, in the far west of R&D. So I don't think we even asked what it was.  So we just gooped, swallowed a few of those beads, and counted the number of stem cells before and after. And we saw the strongest release in the number of stem cells. So now we start to inquire what it was. And it turns out that in Madagascar, they have like 60 some species of aloe. But there's only one that has been used for centuries to make a product, a local product called Vahona.  This product is really not available outside of Madagascar. So it's only known there. And it's been used for all kinds of health issues. And but more interestingly, it's been used to keep like grandpa working in the field, you know, well into their 80s and 90s. So we looked at and studied how they were making that product indigenously there in Madagascar and derived our own extract that we tested.  And we're working on a paper that we should be able to publish soon. But it is so far the ingredients that trigger is the highest number of stem cells and circulations. It almost doubles the number of stem cells that you have in circulation. So we continue like this to study. And we have like the five top ingredients that we have discovered over the years.  And all of them have a different mechanism of action. So it really creates a very nice synergy between these ingredients. And that was as guided. That's what guided the development of stem region as we added today.

Melanie Avalon

these different compounds that increase the release of stem cells, are they all working or do you know if they're working by the same mechanism or is it a different mechanism?  I've always been really perplexed because presumably these compounds have a purpose in the plant and I, not that they have like a consciousness or anything, but I don't know that they were, you know, created with the purpose of releasing human stem cells. So is it just by happenstance and chance that it has the same mechanism of action in humans? Like, do you know how these are actually working?

Christian Drapeau

Yeah, we know how some of them are working. Now, how nature designed it would be a really good question to kind of brainstorm on and see where that goes.  But I would not have an explanation now of why a plant would develop something that happens to develop to trigger the release of stem cells, other than the fact that we evolved in symbiosis with that environment over, I mean, man, 100,000 years, but mammals, you know, over a long time.  So there is a lot of this kind of interconnection and synergy or interdependence if you want on how the body is working and nature. But if I put that aside, we know that the blue green algae contains an L-selectin blocker. So that will interfere.  Before I go there, the way to release stem cells from the bone marrow is to interfere between what is called interfere in something that is called the SDF1 CXCR4 axis. This is what we talked about before, that receptor that is on the surface of a stem cell that is being triggered to migrate into a tissue by the presence of SDF1.  When these two connects, the stem cells expresses adhesion molecule, it clings to the capillary, and then it triggered the migration of that stem cells out of the capillary into the tissue. That phenomenon that is taking place in an injured tissue only when there is an injury is always constantly present in the bone marrow. So your bone marrow is acting as if it was constantly injured. It's not.  It's just the way it works. It's not. But it's mimicking that signal to keep the stem cells in the bone marrow as your pool of stem cells. So if you interfere with that connection in one way or another, you will create the detachment of the stem cells from the bone marrow, and they end up in the bloodstream. So there are different ways of interfering with that connection.  Your natural way of interfering with this is that GCSF, which is released by the injured tissue, when it reaches the bone marrow, it will trigger the secretion of specific enzymes that will digest SDF1, which is a protein. It's a growth factor. So it will digest SDF1. So in the absence of SDF1, the stem cells stop being attracted to the bone marrow, and it detaches from the bone marrow.  That's your natural signal and mechanism to release stem cells when you are injured. You are also releasing interleukin 8, stem cell factor, and they all work in different ways to the same aim of releasing stem cells. We have in the blue green algae an L-selectin ligand, which is a signal on the stem cells to express the CXCR4 receptor that responds to SDF1.  So if you block L-selectin, that means you stop adding new receptors, so the stem cells who don't have enough receptors to really maintain their adhesion in the bone marrow get released. That's the mechanism behind the release with the blue green algae.  We know that Panax Norogensin acts by triggering in your bloodstream the release of stem cell factor, which is a compound known to trigger the release of stem cells from the bone marrow as well. And it also reverses the gradient for SDF1, meaning the amount of SDF1 in the bone marrow goes down, the amount of it in the bloodstream goes up.

Christian Drapeau

So now the stem cells are attracted to the blood compartment more than the bone marrow compartment. So they mobilize and they move to the blood compartment. So they are therefore released from the bone marrow. So you can call it almost like an injury mimicking response. Your body is not injured, but it triggers chemically a response that mimic injury.  Just like you have fasting mimicking compounds, that will be like an injury or a repair mimicking compounds. So you can also make the body and some of these plants, what they do is that they make your body release GCSF, which is another version of repair mimicking response. So these are like the main mechanism to release stem cells.  And there's another one behind all of this, which I don't have the documentation that any of these plants are doing it, but it's important to keep in mind that if you use any of these methods to trigger the release of stem cells from the bone marrow in animals while giving these animals a blocker for noradrenaline, you do not get stem cell mobilization, meaning there's a component from your nervous system that participates to this whole process, which is not very well documented.  All we know is that it is necessary. So there is a brain compartment component to this whole process as well that has not been well defined.  But it just it just brings this sort of umbrella of hypotheses that wherever your mind is, whatever your state of mind, your peace of mind is, it also plays a role if you want in your ability to repair, which we all know, we all know by experience, you know, we repair, we don't have the same disease, our health is much better when you leave when you live with peace of mind.  But one component of that is that aspect as well.

Melanie Avalon

So to clarify, you said blocking nor a gentleman blocks the stem cell process.

Christian Drapeau

blocks the release of stem cells from the bone marrow so i'm not saying you use that as a tool i'm saying is that as part of the study it just shows that there is a component coming from the nervous system that plays an essential role in releasing stem cells which is not here in any of the mechanism that i talked about.

Melanie Avalon

Because I think when people hear noradrenal and they're thinking like the intense response, so that mental state during the injury process might be encouraging the release of sim cells as well.

Christian Drapeau

No, let me position this differently. You have components, compounds like noradrenaline, for example, that can be released by the adrenal glands, and that is your fight-or-flight response. But in the brain, it's not what norepinephrine or noradrenaline does. What it does is that it plays the role of a neurotransmitter. Actually, I go one step further.  We talk about dopamine and serotonin to be associated, if you want, with joy, good feeling, but there's a place in your brain called the medial forebrain bundle. The name is not relevant. But if you put an electrode in that area of the brain, which is an area where neurons, they're working by releasing noradrenaline. That's their neurotransmitter.  If you stimulate these neurons by plugging the stimulation to that area with a pedal on the ground, if you feed a rat, you give water, food, whatever, the rat will die of exhaustion by not being able to stop the tap on that pedal because he's experiencing a level of ecstasy that he cannot let go of. That's the power of norepinephrine in your brain.  So it is a powerful, powerful neurotransmitter for just a state of joy, if you want, in the brain, which has nothing to do with fight-or-flight.

Melanie Avalon

Okay, so another question, because it sounds like there's, you know, like you said, a lot of different mechanisms by which these compounds, these plant compounds are helping to release stem cells from the bone marrow in humans. So it seems like they have different, you know, potential percentages that they can increase stork-killing stem cells.  So like in my notes, I have like AFA can increase by up to 25%, the Stemola, which is that the Pahona plant that you talked about, an average of 80%, Stem berry by around 35%. My question is, are those additive or does it plateau?  Like if you're already releasing an average of 80% by that, you know, that cool plant that you found that Pahona, does adding in these other ones still increase more or do they kind of cancel each other out? No, no.

Christian Drapeau

It is my belief that they're working in synergy, but it's something that is extremely difficult to test because some of these plants, two of them in particular, the blue green algae and the seabug tone berry, have a biphasic response. What I mean, let me go back a little bit into the agony of sometimes being a researcher. You see something and it just does not make sense.  We are studying blue green algae and then we see that when we give this blue green algae to people, we see an increase in the number of stem cells in circulation within about an hour of consumption. But we know with all the other plants that we have used later on, the increase is actually much longer. It goes for two, three hours, but we got that information later.  AFA, one hour, it peaks and after that, it goes back to control. So we had already published before that that the polysaccharide in AFA was stimulating the migration of stem cells out of the blood into tissues. So we thought maybe the active compound here is the polysaccharide that it has an effect on NK cells, but its effect on stem cells is to trigger their release.  So we concentrated that polysaccharide and when we tested that polysaccharide, we saw the same thing that we saw in NK cells, meaning within 20, 30 minutes, there's a sharp drop in the number of stem cells in circulation. So that means just like in NK cell, it triggers their migration into the tissues.  So we use the other fraction that is not the polysaccharide fraction because in there, we should have the compound that triggers the release of stem cells on the bone marrow. And we got about the same response that we have when we use all AFA. So when we look at all this data, what it's telling us is that this polysaccharide is effective at an extremely low dose.  We cannot, when we separate these fractions, make them pure. They're a little bit contaminated by the other fraction as well. So we concentrate a component, but we do not purify and isolate it. So that means that when we use the extract that triggers the release, the migration is also in that component. So they're acting at the same time. So the best example is like a bank account.  I can only count and look at how much money I have in my bank account. If I have $1,000 coming in a day and then $1,000 leaving that bank account, I have not changed the amount of money in my bank account. But if I have a million dollars coming in and a million dollars going out, I still haven't changed my bank account, but your lifestyle has improved dramatically. So that's what we're looking at.  We're looking at how many stem cells can I count in the bloodstream, which is the sum of how much I put in and how much leave the tissue. So if I have a product that does both, it's kind of complicated to be able to say, how many really did I release? So now we have that with two compounds, the blu-renalgy and the sibactone berry. We have these biphasic response.  In some people, it decreases before it increases. In other, it increases before it decreases. So they don't react in each people with the same dynamic. So now you take all these blended together with different individuals.

Christian Drapeau

The response of all these plants gets really, really complicated. Like the curves, we would have to do this maybe on 100 people to statistically really show the impact that it gives us. So because of the complexity of it, we moved to test it in clinical trials.  So instead of testing the product itself, we worked with doctors we had been using before, the blu-renalgy extract alone, for example, and we said, now use this blend and tell us what you see. Everybody is coming back and saying, oh, this formula is so much better because I get better results faster and in more people.  So now we've started to use clinical trials with heart disease, emphysema, liver failure, colitis, stroke, Parkinson, things like this to show the improvement of the conditions. And it's how we can document the real impact on release of stem cells by the outcome on some of these different ailments if you want.

Melanie Avalon

I really like that banking analogy. So basically, these different compounds, they both encourage the release of stem cells into the bloodstream, but they also encourage the tissues to take up the stem cells. And it's different for, based on the individual, it's different how that might actually look as far as the timeline and- The dynamics.  Yeah, so it's really hard to measure or even quantify or interpret the actual stem cells in the bloodstream because of all those factors.

Christian Drapeau

Correct, correct. Whatever you do, you cannot rely on the number because all you know is how many stem cells are in the blood with no data of how many left and how many were released. But I can add to this whole story also the fact that when we started to test, for example, medicinal mushroom, goji berry, a lot of these products worked by triggering the migration of stem cells.  The first time that we saw this from the mushroom, we thought it was a mistake. Maybe we have, I don't know, the machine is dirty. We need to clean it up. It's contaminated. Maybe our regions are contaminated. Maybe our antibodies are not working well. So we kind of cleaned everything, replaced everything until three, four months later, it was clear that it was a real response.  And as we started to dive a little bit more into this, we realized that a lot of these polysaccharide-based products, what they do is that they very quickly increase the density of the CXCR4 receptor that makes stem cells much, much more effective at listening the signal that is the SDF1 signal coming from an injured tissue. So they're more effective at leaving the blood and going to tissue.  So they disappear from the bloodstream. So the moment that I saw this with mushroom, then I started to blend them. So I would take the blue-green algae, blend it with cordyceps, and then I send that to some of my colleagues working and say, okay, tell me about that one. And then they came back and said, oh, yeah, this one is working much better. So that's how a lot of these formulas were developed.  And it became clear earlier, early on, I see early on, like 2007, 8, 9, it was clear that it's much more effective when I start to blend the mobilizers, like the releasers with the migrators, because it doesn't mean anything to put more stem cells in your circulation if they cannot migrate into tissues. So if we can push them into tissues, now it really means something.  So from that point on, it made it very difficult to document the actual release of stem cells in the blood flow, because now whatever you measure in the blood, it doesn't mean a whole lot.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah. Wow. This is complicated stuff. Oh my goodness. I'm curious just because I'm so interested in product development. So the HONA compound that you're talking about, you call it Stemolo, you know, with like a registered sign. What is required or what does it mean when you take a natural compound like that and then you're giving it a name and registering it? What do you actually like registering?  Did you do something special to it?

Christian Drapeau

No, it's just a trademark. The main reason here is because if you tell aloe to just about anybody on the street, it means aloe. They'll say, oh, I have an aloe plant that is growing in my garden, but it's not the same. Of 65 species of aloe, there's probably 3, 4, 5 maybe that are edible, aloe ferox, aloe barbidensis, which is aloe vera, and there's a few others.  So, they suddenly transferred the data to any other aloe, and we tested other aloe, and for reasons that are not yet clear, it's really aloe macroglata from that aloe that has been interestingly used for centuries. It's only that one that gives us the kind of results that we see. So, if I call it aloe, there's confusion.  So, by giving it another name, then it allows to tie up the data to that species. So, that's really why we did it.

Melanie Avalon

Okay, that's super helpful. Can you do that with anything? Like, can anybody do that to any plant?

Christian Drapeau

You can do that with anything the only step is if you want to call it on the label then what you would have to do that you would have to register it with the FDA as an actual ingredient and we're in the process of doing all these things but until that is done the label will say ala macroclara but we call it in any of the promotion any of the explanation that we give just to avoid the confusion.

Melanie Avalon

Okay, I'm so fascinated by by product development. Okay, so when you decided to expand the line, did you work on everything at the same time like that the signal product and the and the mobilize or I guess before that, what made you decide to create more products to add to this line?

Christian Drapeau

The development of these two products is something that started probably, I would say, in 2007. It is not a new thing. I have made other formulas in the past that were similar, but much less effective than these two products, to try them. What I mean by this is that we're releasing stem cells in the blood circulation with those plants that are releasing stem cells from the bone marrow.  You would expect, based on the scientific literature, that people would repair better, would get benefits. But it's not 100% of the people who get benefits, and it's not everybody who get the same results in the same amount of time. We've got star cases. For example, we have published a case of a severe Parkinson patient, which, within six weeks, basically, had resumed relatively a normal life.  It was pretty impressive. We don't get that in a lot of patients with Parkinson. It takes oftentimes more time, and the extent of the benefit will vary. Why? Why do we get that variation? Two of the hypotheses that came out of, and I can get into the detail if you want, it's true. It's the Melanie Avalon deep dive into science. Maybe it's the place to go through this. You tell me. You can ask the question.  But on the basis of observations that we did years prior, it was clear to me that systemic inflammation is a signal in your bloodstream that fools stem cells. It messes with the radar of stem cells to find where they need to go in the body. It almost deafened them. It neutralized them so that when they reach the area where they can migrate in the tissue, they have lost their ability to migrate.  They're there in the bloodstream. They cannot contribute to tissue repair. We developed a product to correct that aspect. It's to basically harmonize signaling in the blood so stem cells can be more effective at circulating everywhere and identifying properly the tissue. When they circulate in the tissue that is signaling for repair, they're ready and primed to respond to that signal.  That's the product that is called signal. It is a number of plant and plant extract that have all been documented over the years to affect various pathways of the secretion and the synthesis of inflammatory compounds that all accumulate in the body to lead to systemic inflammation. By reducing that, we improve the ability of stem cells to properly hone where they need to go in the body.  The other one is circulation. It is something that really, to be honest, comes from my class of physiology when I was maybe 20 years old in college. I was fascinated in these classes of emodynamics.  When we were studying the flow properties of blood, when the blood is going through from an arteries to arterioles dividing into smaller arterioles to capillaries, the emodynamics like the fluid property of blood, what would make the blood create vortices, for example? A vortex that would make a cell spin and not penetrate the capillaries, for example. You develop a plaque, for example.  The plaque will kill the laminar flow of your blood and it dramatically reduces the ability of cells to go in an area of your body beyond the fact that your arteries now are damaged.

Christian Drapeau

It affects full property. In any case, I will make the story short. I was fascinated by all of this. One thing that I retained from all that study is that we are there going to the doctor, getting a blood sample. You analyze your blood and out of that blood analysis, we draw tons of conclusion about your health.  The thing that we absolutely never look at is whether that blood, good or bad, can reach your capillaries, which is the only place that it matters. The rest of your body is plumbing. It means nothing. Nothing in your arteries and vein means anything in your health if they cannot reach your fine capillaries.  If you don't have proper, effective microcirculation, it doesn't matter if you put stem cells in circulation, they won't be able to reach where they need to go to repair. We have to improve blood circulation. I had an earlier product, probably 10, 15 years ago, that was based on two components, natokinase to increase blood flow and then bioflavonoids to help capillaries be stronger and healthier.  Right there, immediately, we saw results. People that had taken an equivalent of stem region release, so plans that release stem cells, the moment they add this and did not have all the results that they would hope for, the moment that they added this circulation product, they started to get better results. I knew that the moment that we coupled these products, we would get better results.  With stem region, it was really a matter of adding the funds to be able to build the inventory and release these products, the marketing team to wrap the right marketing around this and the team to be able to really push that out. Until I had that, I was sitting on these products. They've been ready for about two, three years.  The circulation product, which is called Mobilize, which supports the movement of stem cells, which is the mobilization of stem cells, is essentially natokinase to support the fluidity of the blood, the rheology or the emodynamics, so that we can train stem cells in all your fine vasculature, nitric oxide producer to dilate your capillaries, bioflavonoids and plant extract like ginkgo, gochicola, that have been well-documented to help strengthen the structure of capillaries and polysaccharides that help rebuild the glyco calyx that basically supports the flow of cells into all your fine capillaries.  All of this under the general umbrella, that if you have a chronic condition somewhere in your tissue, the chronic inflammation that has been there for a while has affected your microvascular in that area. One of the reasons why it remains chronic is because the area is deprived from the circulation of your repair power, which is your stem cells.  Let's reduce inflammation so that stem cells can see where the problem is, and let's open microvascular so that they can have access to that area. I know it was a long answer, but that gives you the overall concept behind these new products.

Melanie Avalon

Speaking to things I love, the first supplement I launched was Serapeptase, which is also a proteolytic enzyme. And I just think proteolytic enzymes are incredible for reducing inflammation. And these different compounds, especially in signal, are they actually getting rid of inflammatory compounds in the body? How are they reducing inflammation?

Christian Drapeau

Yeah, that's how they're doing. Essentially, there are a number of pathways, if you want, where you can affect inflammation. So there is COX-2, which is an enzyme that is going to transform arachidonic acid into a bunch of inflammatory and anti-inflammatory compounds.  But COX-2 specifically, inflammatory compounds, then you have five LOX that will take the same arachidonic acid and will transform it into other types of inflammatory compounds. So we have ficosynin that is a specific COX-2 blocker. We have an extract from eryotaki, terminolicibula, that has been shown to be a specific blocker of five LOX.  Then we have also the pathways that will make various kinds of inflammatory cytokines, like tumor necrosis factor, different kinds of interleukins. So we have plain extract that has been shown to suppress the synthesis of these various compounds. Curicumin is one that is very well known.  And then we have bromelain that is going to digest any of these existing growth factor in your blood to remove them from your blood as a source of inflammation. And we need to understand systemic inflammation, the cause of it in 95% of people that have systemic inflammation is something called damp, damage-associated molecular patterns.  It's a fancy word just to say the place is in your body where you're releasing compounds that are inflammatory because there's a form of damage that is there. That form of damage does not get repaired because in older individuals, you don't have enough stem cells to repair everything. So it lingers and it kind of leaks these inflammatory compounds.  They accumulate into your overall bloodstream and it creates this environment of systemic inflammation that now creates a lot of noise in your body.  So signal is a bunch of plant extracts that essentially harmonizes that noise, increases what we say your signal-to-noise ratio, meaning your stem cells now not being affected by that noise in your bloodstream can better see the signal coming from injured tissues.

Melanie Avalon

It's so unfortunate because basically, you need the stem cells to repair, but you can't repair because of the noise and that just creates more noise and... Absolutely.

Christian Drapeau

So now that you reduce the background noise, you have stem cells that can now reach these tissues. So now you can actually repair the damage. When you repair the damage, it stops releasing that noise. So now, as a loop, you have now a greater impact on systemic inflammation. So by all means, these two are very, very closely interrelated.

Melanie Avalon

Would that mean that the stem cell repair process functions better in the fasted state in general because of its anti-inflammatory potential of the fasted state? I mean, yeah.

Christian Drapeau

Yes. Yes, with a little bit of caveat to understand, but the answer is totally yes. It's to show that there's not tons of research on this, but what is available right now is telling us that when you fast for, let's say, more than three days, you will have more stem cells in circulation.  Interestingly enough, during your fasting, those stem cells are kind of more dormant, so they're not as effective for actual tissue repair. As soon as you resume feeding, they are more active than they were before. You have enhanced your ability to repair post-fast.  Another thing that is coming up out of some of the studies in scientific literature, it's probably too early to state it as a fact, but there is indication that if you take stem cells from the bone marrow before and after a three-day fast, and you look at their ability to proliferate, to differentiate, they are more active.  They have the level of activity of a younger stem cell, so they seem to rejuvenate your stem cells. So fasting seems to give to your bone marrow kind of a euthing impact, which I think is fascinating.  That is one thing that we should really study because we're looking at ways to tap into stem cells for anti-aging, for longevity, and if fasting really does that to the bone marrow, it would explain to a large extent why fasting has been associated with so much anti-aging properties.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, that's so cool, okay. And so these three different products, it's interesting because we were talking with release how the timelines can be so different for different people. So what is the role of timelines of taking these three products? Do people take them together? How does that work?

Christian Drapeau

I would like to say I developed it that way, and I aim at developing it that way, but it just happened that way. They seem to all work within the same kind of timeframe, meaning you will peak with the number of stem cells in circulation after, let's say, two hours. That peak will remain probably for another two, three hours, and it comes back down to normal level.  As you take these plant extract that reduces this background noise, you can start to pick that up in the blood within a matter of an hour, but it will build over time, so it will be better after a month than it was on the first day, but on that day, when you've taken the product, immediately the effect will start to be felt in your bloodstream within about an hour, 90 minutes, and the opening of the blood vasculature in terms of the effect of nitrokinase and nitric oxide producers, you will have an enhancement of circulation in your bloodstream within about an hour, 90 minutes.  There will be a long-term impact with the polysaccharides that help rebuild the glycocalyx to rebuild the integrity of capillaries, so there's again here both a short-term and a long-term effect, but all within, let's say, 90 to 120 minutes, you will have almost like the peak effect of these products.  Now, the effect on inflammation and the effect on the nitrokinase effect on the emo dynamics will last longer in the bloodstream. So, that's why we would say take, mobilize, and signal in the morning, and you can take more release during the day, and you don't necessarily have to take again more mobilize and signal.  But we have some people that have tried it because they really wanted to test the product, and they're kind of reporting that when they take, mobilize, later in the day on an empty stomach and signal as well, they do see the benefits. So I would say it probably depends on where you are in your life.  If you are at a place that you would say, yes, systemic inflammation is really part of my physiology, then you probably want to take signal also later in the day on an empty stomach always and mobilize. I would think that mobilize once a day, twice a day is probably plenty, but once a day for somebody that does not have any kind of big problem of circulation is probably enough.

Melanie Avalon

And for the signal and release, is there a limit to how many you can take, and is there an increasing benefit? Is there a certain curve on the graph about how much to take and benefits from that?

Christian Drapeau

I think it's pretty clear, not through studies, but through experience, 20 years of working with these plants and having people taking all kinds of amounts that we have seen historically the better results in people who take more. This being said, we have seen at time spectacular results in people who took one capsule a day. So it's really an individual thing.  But if somebody is not getting all the results that they would like to see for that person taking more, yes, it's almost like undeniable, more is better. Because of that, all of the clinical trials that we are doing with stem regen release, we take two capsules three times a day.  Not to say that four capsules three times a day would not be better, but it's just to say that with the years of experience of working with stem regen right now, I'm pretty sure that if I don't get the results at two capsules three times a day, I'm not saying that I may not see something if I take more, but I've got to see it with two capsules three times a day.  So that's what we're doing in our clinical trials. I would say if somebody really wants to give it a try, let's do that. Two capsules three times a day. For signal, I would say it's really just a matter of really looking at what is the condition. If it is a condition that is associated with a component of systemic inflammation, then you may want to try for maybe a month or so to double the dose.  You cannot do too much of either release or of any of those products, you cannot do too much. When we talk about nadocynase, for example, studies published not long ago are showing that if you take 10,000 fibrinolytic unit, 12,000 fibrinolytic unit for two, three months, it has had phenomenal impact on atherosclerosis, plaques and things like this.  This is like three, four times what we have right now in Mobilize. So you can take a lot of Mobilize and you're still totally fine. So I don't think it is needed, but yes, you can take more.

Melanie Avalon

And as far as this idea of seeing results, I'm assuming people are, you know, many people might be taking it for a specific purpose, like they might have some sort of ailment that they're hoping it addresses.  Do you find that the stem cell timeline tends to address first the things that we are most aware of, or is it possible that they repair other things first and then it takes longer for them to get to the issue that we're looking at, if that makes sense?

Christian Drapeau

Absolutely. Stem cells will always go where they're called the most. The only thing that will mitigate that is if they are unable to circulate in the area that is signaling the most, which goes back to what we talked about before.  If you are taking stem regen release and then for whatever problem, and then you say, yeah, I saw the benefit, like my skin looks better, I'm taking it for, I don't know, my diabetes, but my knee is feeling better, but I've still not seen things in my glycemia, then you have the response right there that you are releasing the stem cells.  They are doing their job, but there's a reason why they're not doing the job where you want to see them. You want to make sure you add signal and mobilize, and you may want to add other things. Pulse electromagnetic frequencies will be phenomenal to further boost the ability of stem cells to work in one specific area. Red lights can help use that area.  If you say it's for my knee, well, squat, take a walk, do something that will generate some form of discomfort so the area starts to increase its signaling so stem cells can better see where to go. Find a way to really pinpoint that area. We can even go, like years ago, I remember somebody had a stroke, and he's saying, what can I do to help repair the stroke? It was at the time really hypothetical.  I said, well, try drawing. He had aphasia and he had paralysis in his hand, and he became mad because he was kind of trying to tell me, well, I can't draw. That's my problem. I was explaining to him, I don't care whether you can draw or not. I just want you to try so that you make that area signal because it's incapable of doing what it's supposed to do. You're telling stem cells where the problem is.  Within a matter of three to six months, he was indeed able to move his arm and he was actually able to go and return to acquire. He was a singer and he returned to acquire, able to sing. Very interestingly, he was still not able to speak well, but he was able to sing.

Melanie Avalon

Wow. Wow. Yeah. And I think we talked about this last time. I think I asked if this was the mechanism behind things like dry needling and such where you're, you know, pinpointing areas with needles.

Christian Drapeau

Absolutely. Like we talked about before, if you inject SDF1 in a tissue that is not injured, you don't get the migration of stem cells in that tissue. You don't enhance the migration of stem cells in that tissue. But stem cells migrate in tissues, even in the absence of SDF1, because they are part of this process of tissue renewal every day. It just happens, but to a smaller extent.  When you want repair and you want to boost the migration of stem cells in a tissue, it has to be coupled with an injury. And that is why microneedling, like anything that you do to your tissue, it reminds me of prolotherapy. It was popular years ago where you would use a needle to trigger injury locally, and it worked.  It's just because you enhance the injury to a place where you already had a problem, but it triggers a repair response, and now you're better after.

Melanie Avalon

I remember I did that because I remember I paid like a lot of money and I was like, I'm paying a lot of money to inject saline here, you know? Did it work? Maybe there was a lot going on at that time. It probably helped. That was my first. I don't even remember where we did it. Goodness gracious. Okay, so another question, the sport version. What's special about that or what is that?  Is that just a sport version of release? It's...

Christian Drapeau

It is a sport version of released with one difference, is that we needed to certify it with NSF. As we went into that certification, we wanted to make it a little bit more focused for athletes. There is one compound that we can add to this whole formula that will then support the proliferation of stem cells and tissues. We have the plant that we release stem cells.  We have the plant, the beta-glucan, that will support their migration into tissues. When stem cells lend into tissues, we want to support their proliferation and their differentiation.  Tirostil being like resveratrol, these are compounds that have been documented to help stem cells transform, proliferate, but transform also into muscle cells, tendon, ligament, joint cells, which is really what the main injury for an athlete is always linked to muscle, tendon, ligaments. It was to give this extra boost to that population, and it is NSF-certified.  Now we have a product for professional athletes.

Melanie Avalon

For people who, people like biohackers listening who don't have any, you know, certain injury or a thing that they're aware that they're working on or even, or, or that they're even athletes just, they feel good. What might they expect to see? You mean for an athlete? Like a non athlete, non injured, acutely person, a biohacker, you know, listening.

Christian Drapeau

Yes, absolutely. I think that what we'll be talking about now is to me the most relevant of everything that we talk about stem cells. I oftentimes say that, obviously, stem cells is one of the most important scientific discoveries in the world of medicine, but probably the most important of our lifetimes. It's not the treatment, it's not the injection, it's not any of that.  It's really the fact that stem cells are the repair and renewal system of the body. What that means is that as stem cell research developed and scientists studied the role of stem cells in repair, one of the type of studies that was done was to take stem cells from an animal and inject in these stem cells a gene that will code for green fluorescent protein.  That means these stem cells will make that green fluorescent protein, so they will be green. You take these stem cells, you inject them into a recipient animal, so now that animal, its bone marrow, is made of green stem cells. Then you trigger an injury.  This is done to see if the repair that is going to take place in the heart and the muscle and the liver, wherever you do the injury, if the repair is going to be stem cell driven. If it is stem cell driven, the area where the repair is taking place will be green. You just have to shed a light on it and it glows. It became very easy to visualize and reveal this repair process.  As scientists were doing these studies, they confirmed that indeed stem cells will primarily go where there is an injury, but almost every single group realized that while they go primarily where there is an injury, they also go everywhere else in the body to a lesser extent, which revealed this whole phenomenon in the body that we experience aging as a very slow decline.  Every year, we're just a little bit older. It is not how aging is taking place. Aging is taking place. Let's go back to our analogy of the bank account. You're born with a million bucks in your bank account. It doesn't matter what is your expense because you still have a million dollars a day coming because you have tons of stem cells in circulation.  As you age, your bank account goes down and your income is going down as well. You have less and less money getting into the bank account, but your expenses are more and more because of the wear and tear. There's a point where you really are running out of money in your bank account and there's nothing you can do because your income is too low. When that happens, now you start to face a problem.  You don't have enough money to live. You're still not bankrupt. You're still living on reserves, but there's a point you will have a bankruptcy down the road. This is the same phenomenon with stem cells. You're born with red marrow that makes stem cells. Your red marrow converts into fatty marrow that does not make stem cells early in life.  By age 30, we've lost 90% of our red marrow, which corresponds to a 90% decline in the number of circulating stem cells.

Christian Drapeau

There's a time in our 30s when we discover we're not repairing as fast and as well as we used to, but we're still fine. At some point in our 40s, we realize that some injuries are really lingering more than they used to.  When there's a place in our 40s, we cross that line where we don't have enough stem cells to really offset all this ongoing process of tissue renewal because what stem cell research has revealed is that everything is a process of tissue turnover. As I said before, aging is not a slow decline.  Aging is not adding enough stem cells in circulation to offset the normal process of cellular loss that is taking place in the body. If you lose cells making insulin, that becomes diabetes. If you lose too many cells making dopamine in the brain, that becomes Parkinson. If you lose too many cells making thyroid in your thyroid gland, thyroid hormones, it's hypothyroidism.  You can think of any age-related disease, it's always the loss of a type of cell or a type of cellular function that can be replaced by a stem cells, but it's not because you don't have enough in circulation.  The moment that we understand that any aspect of aging and the development of health problem is driven by not adding enough stem cells in circulation, that means that becomes the cause of aging and the cause of death eventually.  If we can put more stem cells in circulation every day to support that replacement process into tissues, we've got in our hands an amazing strategy to basically age with a great health span. It's probably one of the greatest tools for longevity and staying healthy as we age.  That to me is the greatest discovery in the field of stem cells because at the end of the day, it's a very small proportion of the population that can afford stem cell treatment, but everybody can release their stem cells. If people start to do this every day, I think we change the face of the earth in terms of health and wellness.

Melanie Avalon

two important questions there. One, and we talked about this last time, but I think it's really important to talk about again, does stimulating the release of these stem cells decrease our overall pool of stem cells?

Christian Drapeau

Not at all. That's one of the properties of stem cells is that they are immortal. The bank of stem cells shrinks. Your red marrow shrinks into yellow marrow. But whatever bank you have can continue to release as much. So the reason why you don't have as many in your blood circulation is just because you don't have as much red marrow releasing stem cells at that rate.  But if you ask your bone marrow to release more, it won't change the state of your bone marrow. It'll just release more and it will stay stable.

Melanie Avalon

That's really good to know. I definitely think that's, you know, a concern of people out there. And I mentioned this last time as well, but people will say that in the fasting world that you're releasing stem cells, but you know, you only have so many stem cells. So it's good to know that they keep regenerating. So is it possible that the cause of death is stem cell depletion?  People debate, you know, the people debate if there actually is a cause of death. I interview a lot of longevity people on this show, and there's so many different ideas out there.

Christian Drapeau

I mean, I will venture to say that most people tell you that they don't know, probably are not aware of all the information that we're talking about right now on this podcast with you. Once you start to really sink in into all that information, there is no doubt that it is the cause of dying, but we need to understand what that means.  What that means is that you've got your bank of stem cells that is shrinking, but it is releasing stem cells that will go to various tissue, replenish the stem cell layer of these tissues and keeps these tissues and organs healthy. They are declining as we age because you have fewer and fewer stem cells available to do the job. So it's declining.  At 90, you will realize you don't run as fast as when you were 20. You can still be considered a healthy 90-year-old, but you're just not as effective. So, your organs are suffering from the fact that they cannot fully renew, but they're doing it because you have a good bone marrow and you're a good stem cell mobilizer.  I have zero doubt in my mind that if we were to count the number of stem cells in people, centenarians and supercentenarians, we would discover that one of their criteria is that they happen to be naturally good mobilizers because at the end of the day, there's only one of all the factors that have been studied with centenarians and supercentenarians, genetics and epigenetics.  There are some trends, but there's only one that applies to all of them. It's the fact that they did not develop a disease a few months before their death and they left with maybe they had that problem maybe for just a few months. What will delay the onset of disease is your ability to maintain your organs and tissues to prevent them from developing the problem and that's your stem cells.  There are other factors that will contribute to this whole thing.  Mitochondrial function, telomere length, there's a lot of factors that will have an effect at the end of the day, but the last element like the straw that is going to break the back of death is that you no longer have enough stem cells to support the proper renewal of organ and suddenly organs just all start to fail together and then you get this very quick death at the end of a person's life.  There's no doubt in my mind that that is the reason why we end up leaving this planet is because our ability to stay healthy has been exhausted.

Melanie Avalon

I'm so haunted by what you just described, you know, this concept of centenarians and super centenarians, even where, you know, they're healthy right up until the end, and then they just, you know, they die. And I'm just really curious what happens there. And I was so curious to hear what your answer was going to be. So that was, that was fascinating.

Christian Drapeau

to add one spin to what we just talked about because when we see stem cell depletion, it's a term that is utilized a lot, or stem cell exhaustion, but it means more than one thing. And I think a lot of people using the term don't realize that it means more than one thing. And we need to clearly understand what they mean.  If we're referring to stem cell exhaustion by the fact that the bone marrow is shrinking, there's nothing that you can really do about this. At least today, we don't know what it is. Fasting might have an effect on this. There's just no studies. And that's a field of study that with a colleague, we're just fascinating to dive into this.  What can we do to slow down the conversion of that red marrow because it would probably be the strongest thing that we can do for longevity? So that process is actually called conversion. So let's not confuse them.  It is oftentimes referred to stem cell exhaustion, stem cell depletion, because it is what at the end of the day will be the main reason why centenarians die eventually is because you really deplete your source of stem cells. But it's not because you're doing anything wrong. It's just because it's nature. You want to do this because otherwise your stem cells will become wild. You can develop cancer.  So your time is done. Leave. Go into the afterlife. Take another body. Come back and continue your journey. So it's just a normal process. But stem cell exhaustion is a thing, meaning that if you happen to be a poor mobilizer, meaning you don't release stem cells very well, or your conversion is going faster, you don't have enough stem cells in circulation to replenish your tissues.  So as your tissues and organs are utilizing their own tissue stem cells to maintain their own repair of that tissue, they become exhausted. If that exhaustion is not replenished with new stem cells, that tissue now has reached stem cell exhaustion, and that tissue, no question, will develop a significant decline. So we need to replenish those tissues by releasing stem cells from the bone marrow.  That is a real phenomenon that is associated with various problems. Where it's probably has been the most documented is something like colitis. When you have an acute phase of colitis, it's because that area of your intestine has lost its ability to repair because the stem cell layer is depleted in its attempt to constantly repair. You put more stem cells in circulation, or you inject stem cells.  These stem cells will go everywhere, including that area, to replenish the local layers of stem cells. And then suddenly, your intestine can repair, and you got rid of this acute phase that you had. Nothing has been resolved about the cause of the problem, but you have helped the area to repair, so at least the problem is not as acute as it was.  So that's the relationship with exhaustion or depletion in tissues related to the bone marrow. Does that make sense?

Melanie Avalon

So, basically, we can have these acute issues in different parts of the body where a local injury or damage and the stem cells are not enough to properly prepare it. It gets worse and worse. There could be a local exhaustion of stem cells to that area and that could happen, I guess, presumably at any time.  And then the bone marrow is our bank of stem cells and we slowly, as we age, lose kind of like bank accounts. We can always release an indefinite amount of stem cells from each account, but we like lose sources of accounts as we age.

Christian Drapeau

Correct. Let's put it this way. If we address these topics by saying, let's name them, but with the ability to do something about it. Mitochondrial function declines with age. It's one of the all marks of aging, but you can do something to improve mitochondrial function. The same is true for DNA methylation. The same is true for disruption of protein synthesis with autophagy.  There's a lot of things that you can do. But if you're talking about stem cell exhaustion is by being the conversion of the red marrow into fatty marrow. As far as I know, there's nothing that is known to do something about it. So you point to the problem without having leverage to do it.  So I prefer to point to tissue stem cell exhaustion because that you can do something about it by stimulating the release of stem cells from the bone marrow. So that's why I'm saying it's important to really understand the difference and what we're referring when we talk about stem cell exhaustion as something that is actionable.

Melanie Avalon

So basically, the importance is we can take agency and do things to get more stem cells to different areas of the body and fix things. As of right now, though, we don't know how to actually stop the ultimate loss in the end of stem cells that's going to happen from the source in our body, in bone marrow. Man, so if they figure that out, well, it'll be a game changer for mortality.

Christian Drapeau

Honestly, at this point, I'm just going to wild hypotheses here. Just like when we discovered the plans that had an effect on stem cells, it was not like a new thing in the world. It's just our understanding of it that became more clear. These plants have been there all along, and people who have consumed C. buttonberry for the past 2,000 years benefited from releasing their own stem cells.  The mechanism of action has not changed. We just know about it. We just start to think about what has been associated with longevity, and maybe these things have an effect on the red marrow. We simply have never looked at it. When we look at fasting for more than three days and see the rejuvenation of the bone marrow with stem cells that are more active, nobody has quantified the red marrow.  If I were to start somewhere, I would start with fasting. I would start to quantify am I changing the amount of red marrow when I start to do regular fasting. There's a limit to how much fasting you can do. There's a point where it becomes damaging as well for the body, but it's there like a fine balance. I absolutely would not be surprised that that's what it is.  Then we need to continue to look at other things. There are drugs that have been developed and have been used in the lab under certain circumstances to do what we call reconversion, to take the red marrow to reconvert to red marrow. It has been seen, but oftentimes, in a study environment, it's done associated with leukemia.  At this point, it has not been done with the intent to study the anti-aging properties of it, but it exists as a phenomenon just to say it's out there. We're not talking about something here that has never been seen. The science is wide open, and I think we can do something eventually.

Melanie Avalon

Are stem cells in all animals as well? Like the immortal jellyfish, does it have stem cells? Do we know?

Christian Drapeau

All of them. It is what makes any organism to be what they are in terms of immortality and regeneration. It's their stem cells. The salamander, all of these, it's their stem cells.

Melanie Avalon

Like the immortal jellyfish, is that what is happening there?

Christian Drapeau

I would have to look at it, but I would say I'm not 100% sure until I read about it, but I'm 99.999% sure.

Melanie Avalon

And that's so interesting that, like you mentioned salamander, that their stem cells have the ability to actually regrow. I wonder why they can regrow entire limbs and we can't.

Christian Drapeau

Well, hypotheses here, there is something in higher animals that that is very threatening to their survival. So one of them is an open moon, you get an open moon, it's systemic inflammation, and then and then you die. So we want to seal that moon quick. So if you cut a limb or a finger or whatever, the moment that it is sealed, you've got the opportunity for repair. So that is one thing.  So when I'm saying this, because years ago, I had a colleague that accidentally cut the tip of his index finger right below the nail. We were coming up with the first ingredient, the blue renology. And so we had this, how could I say, genius idea of testing our hypotheses. Let's release stem cells and see if we can regrow a limb, because there is some research that has been done in that area.  I'll come back to that in a second. So so but the only thing that we had to do is that we we had to fight against the body's first reaction, which is to heal that wound.  So what we what he did is that he put around his finger, a little contraption that will make the tip of his finger like, like he wrapped it with a little bit of like a cone of plastic cone that would made his finger not touching anything, but be open to the open air and you would every few days with a sandpaper, it would break the healing of the skin.

Melanie Avalon

Whoa, that is dedication. Oh my goodness.

Christian Drapeau

And honestly, I don't know if he had pain, I don't know. But he would do that, and he would put back this, and the last time that I spoke with him, which was probably, what, about three months in that process, three, four months in that process, and the finger was about halfway in the nail. Not halfway to the nail, halfway within the nail. So the finger has grown about half of what had been cut.  And we left it there, but I thought it was absolutely fascinating. And if I come back now to the studies done in Salamander, is that if you plug an electrode into the wound, and you take reference somewhere else in the body, if you measure the electrical charge, and I would have to go back here if it's positive and negative, but the charge is reversed from anything that you see in mammals.  So there's somebody that did a study this, this is more than 20 years ago, like it's 30 or 40 years ago, where he basically used an electrode in a mouse, and then inverted the electrical charge of that wound, and he was able to regrow the limb in that animal, in that mouse.  So there's something that could be done by tapping into the migration of stem cells in an area, preventing the wound, and calling stem cells in that area, and it seems to have taken place with that charge. So, I'm still baffled to this day why not more work has been done in that area. There's probably the complete disbelief that a limb in a mammal could regrow.  So nobody really has gone there, but there's some work that has been done that is opening the door for something, I mean, I wish that I have some free time in the not-too-distant future and the money to do that kind of stuff.

Melanie Avalon

That is so fascinating and what about something which I know a lot of people are concerned about especially women like bone loss like osteoporosis and osteopenia like we're told you can't regrow bone after a certain amount of age might that also involve stem cells?

Christian Drapeau

I'm surprised. It's like you cannot regrow heart cells. That is traditional cardiology and cardiac physiology. We know today completely untrue. I think it's the same for bone. You can totally regrow bones, but by regrow, I want to be clear. I'm not saying you have a bone that is cut and now you regrow that bone.  I don't have any data that you could do that aside from what we just talked about before, but regrow bone density, absolutely. There are many things that have been documented to help regrow bone density, and it is to a large extent stem cell base. It is your stem cell that will contribute to the whole process.

Melanie Avalon

And speaking of that, just really quickly, like men versus women, because women seem to have longer lifespans, are they better at, do they have more stem cells in general or are they better at utilizing them, maybe?

Christian Drapeau

I am not aware that that women have more stem cells in circulation so when it comes to stem cells. I don't know what would be the difference between a man and a woman i don't know if i can tell.

Melanie Avalon

Oh my goodness. Well, this has been so amazing. Was there anything else you want to draw attention to for listeners about all of this? I bet listeners are dying to get your products. We were so kind. You have a discount. Listeners can go to stemregen.co. So S-T-E-M-R-E-G-E-N dot C-O. And you can use the coupon code Melanie Avalon, and that will get you 15% off your first order.  So thank you so much for that, Christian. Was there anything else you want to draw attention to for listeners about this topic?

Christian Drapeau

I mean, we really covered almost everything. There's one thing, and it's just like a little snippet here just to show. I'm so fascinated by the speed at which stem cell research is developing. I came across papers recently that opened another door that I was absolutely unaware of. And it's the stem cell that I told you at this phagocytic activity, like they eat cells like macrophages.  So there's this new type of stem cells that have been developed. And there's about like five different types over the past 10 years that have been well documented that are working in the body with just about the same effectiveness as embryonic stem cells. And they're not the one that we normally talk about. They're not like your fat-derived stem cells. They're not necessarily your bone.  They are in the bone marrow, but they're not the bulk of what we call bone marrow stem cells. They're a very, very small population of cells, but they have absolutely amazing regenerative powers. When we harness the ability of really tapping into these stem cells, concentrating them enough to be able to utilize them for therapy, they are absolutely amazing.  So that, I would say, is one of the frontier in the development of stem cells. So there's more to come. Let's put it that way. And we already know that some of the plants in stem regen actually has an effect on at least two types of these stem cells by activating them.  So we continue to science on these plant extract because as we discover these new stem cells, it just turns out that our product has an effect on these stem cells, which could be an explanation why sometimes a product like stem regen gives results that are oftentimes superior to just injection or drugs that release your own stem cells because it seems to have a broader effect on many types of stem cells.  Anyway, just a snippet for our next conversation in a year from now.

Melanie Avalon

And yeah, what I love about this conversation and everything you're doing is stem cells are, I mean, they're very hot topics in the conversations of longevity and biohacking and all the things. But I think when people hear them, like we didn't even really talk about exogenous stem cells that much in this conversation or, you know, stem cell treatments.  And I think that's what most people think of when they think of stem cells. And I know those can be amazing and I mean, I've had it done as well. But there's not, I mean, I feel like you're like the person who's talking about this other avenue of just really, really encouraging our endogenous production. And we have so much agency there and you're making it so much more possible with stem regen.  So thank you. And I'm really excited. Yeah, we'll have to talk again in a year, especially with how quickly the everything develops the science. Last question, I promise you might remember it from last time, but I'd ask every guest this at the very end. And it's just because I so appreciate the role of mindset. So what is something that you're grateful for?

Christian Drapeau

My wife, she's the best.

Melanie Avalon

No, it's so funny about that. So when I re listened to our first episode, I got to this point. I've met you guys at the conference, but I've gotten to know you more since then. I was like, I know he's gonna say Stephanie. I just know it. So, so, so wonderful. That's awesome. Does she work much like with like the science and everything with the company with you?

Christian Drapeau

not really the science but she's deeply deeply involved in everything that touches branding so she's it's actually she's she's that it's just one of the things that she does but she's a brand manager and then she's she has her fingers and almost everything.

Melanie Avalon

Well, thank you so much, Christian. Can't wait to see you guys both in a few weeks at the Udaimonia conference. Thank you so much for all you're doing. Again, listeners, go to STEMregion.co, use the code MelanieAvalon for 15% off. This was so amazing, so enjoy the rest of your day, and I will talk to you later.

Christian Drapeau

Thank you. See you there. Bye bye.

Melanie Avalon

Thanks, bye.