We've been told for years by doctors to watch our cholesterol. Cereals have become synonymous with breakfast and often boast being "healthy" or at least part of a nutritious diet. There are certain "givens" that have pervaded the health and nutrition space for decades. But what if they're not true? Or only partially true? In this interview with Dr. George Shapiro, the Chief Medical Innovation Officer at Fountain Life, we explore some of the common thinking people have around heart...

We store our financial assets in a bank; should we be storing our biological assets as well? This episode's guest and I think so. This week's episode was filmed on location at Peter Diamandis' A360 event and features returning pod guest Andrew Hessel. If you missed his last episode, we discussed the ability to fax living organisms. This episode is just as fascinating. Andrew discusses the importance of bio-banking and what it means for your ability to combat serious disease in the...

Why do drugs like Ozempic work? In this episode of Piloting Health, Dr. Frank Dos Santos joins me once again for an in-depth look at the most talked-about drugs on the market right now: GLP-1 agonists. We break down exactly why the drugs cause weight loss, but also how that weight loss can lead to a reduced change of certain types of diseases. What is it about caloric restriction that can help stave off disease? In this vein, we also talk intermittent fasting and I even espouse my theo...

Do the secrets to combatting disease already reside within our own bodies? We rely heavily on vaccines for serious disease, but this week's guest talks about the power of unleashing our own immune system. Lou Reese is the Board Chair and Co-Founder - along with his wife Mei Mei - of Vaxxinity, a company that focuses on active immunity medicines. I had the opportunity sit down with Lou for a pop-up podcast at a recent Abundance Platinum conference hosted by Peter Diamandis, at which Lou ...

Have we created an operating system for life? How close are we to cloning humans, and what would that even look like? You're in for a fascinating episode as the line between science and science fiction gets blurred. My guest is microbiologist and geneticist Andrew Hessel, the CEO and Founder of The Genome Project-Write, and author of "The Genesis Machine: Our Quest to Rewrite Life in the Age of Synthetic Biology." In this episode we discuss: ➡️ How protein engineering has go...

What if you had access to your own healthy stem cells, but from a version of you 20, 30 or even 60 years earlier? Stem cells that had the potential to fight diseases you're current self is dealing with... or with skin restoration... or hair loss? It sounds like something out of a science fiction movie, but this is a new reality, and it's here! Now! Dr. Frank Dos Santos has joined me on the pod again. For those that didn't see his previous appearances, I would encourage you ...

The subject of physical and cognitive performance is what everyone is talking about right now. Maybe not overtly, but the headlines grabbing the news are the Olympics in Paris, and President Joe Biden ending his campaign for re-election. The centerpiece of both is about performance. Maybe not overtly, but when people watch the Olympics, they're observing athletes at the peak of human physical performance, and noticing how the difference between medaling and not can come down to th...

How do you maintain high cognitive, physical and emotional performance as you age? In this second of a two-part episode with Dr. Frank Dos Santos, we talk best practices for doing just that, from everyday habits to finding cutting edge therapies. Dr. Frank Dos Santos is the Chief Medical Officer at RWJ Barnabas Health. Previously, he was the Chief Medical Officer for the US Navy East, where he was responsible for a Global DOD healthcare spanning four continents, and prior to that ...

How much is it costing us to wait until illness or disease before taking action? And when should people begin preventative screening? In this first of a two-part episode with Dr. Frank Dos Santos, we dive into some of the flaws in the current healthcare system, as well as what's being done to fix them. Dr. Dos Santos also lost his wife to lung cancer several years ago. He discusses some of the current shortcomings in detection, and highlights important charity work being done in the l...

We've talked a lot about the opportunities and possibilities of how regenerative therapies can work, so today I wanted to get into the nuts and bolts how it all works. In this episode, we'll be discussing: ➡️ Inflammation and how it causes both functional repair and dysfunctional repair. ➡️ Regenerative therapies for osteoarthritis, irritable bowel syndrome and colitis. ➡️ How a small population of people immune to HIV may be the secret to completely curing it. ➡️ Chimeric cells and their rol...

The type of stem cell matters. There's no question that cells taken from the blood of the placenta or umbilical cord immediately after a pregnancy are going to have the greatest capacity for therapeutic use. The therapeutic use of mesenchymal stem cells does diminish with age. In this brief, but important, episode, I want to talk about why banking stem cells could have a profound impact on health and longevity later in life. And while adults can bank stem cells, possibly the bigge...

Last week, I talked about the four pillars of healthy aging. Last on the list - but definitely not least - was youthful aesthetics. Stem cells can have a tremendous impact on the health of our skin. We're seeing it with regard to the treatment of burns. In fact, my company, Celularity, has a product that utilizes stem cells for the treatment of burns. We're also seeing more and more skin care companies use stem cells for everyday products and therapies. The health of o...

I often talk about what I consider to be the four pillars of health aging: ➡️ High Performance Mobility ➡️ High Performance Cognitive Function ➡️ High Performance Immune Function ➡️ Youthful Aesthetics In this episode, I dive deep into how stem cells can help in each of these four pillars by connecting the dots on stem cell research and application. I believe we're on the verge of massive breakthroughs in stem cell therapies - therapies that will have a significant impact on each of the pilla...

For this episode, I decided to have a little fun and see what the most asked questions on Google searches were about stem cells. As the placenta is my world, I also looked up some of the questions people are Google searching about placental stem cells. What people are searching for is pretty interesting. Questions ranged from aging to the legalities - and even hair loss. If you're curious about stem cells at all, and what they may be capable of, this is the episode for you. ...

This was a particularly personal episode for me. My guests are Mary Webb and her son, Quentin Murray. Quentin - diagnosed 17 years ago with Leukemia - was one of the first recipients of cell therapy derived from the placenta. I got to know to know Quentin during this treatment, as well as his mother, Mary Webb, who tenaciously explored options for treatment for Quentin. As it just so happened, Mary was pregnant with Quentin's sister at the time. Using stem cells from his sister's ...

We may not be far off from the end of hip and knee replacements, at least if this week's guest has anything to say about it. Nina Tandon is the co-founder and CEO of EpiBone, a biotech company that grows bone and cartilage for skeletal reconstruction. Under her leaderhip, EpiBone has raised millions in investor funding and conducted the first human implantations of bones grown from stem cells. In this episode, Nina talks about the process of growing bones from stem cells, and the impo...

Why are we so far away from finding a cure for different types of cancer? Do tests run on mice have any relevance to the efficacy on people? Is the medical community getting it all wrong and where has cancer treatment failed the patient? My guest today is Dr. Azra Raza, the Chan Soon Professor of Medicine and Clinical Director of the Edward P. Evans Foundation MDS Center at Columbia University in New York. She is a practicing oncologist, seeing 30-40 cancer patients weekly, and has ded...

Let's explore aging, and what some of the advances in the delay - and someday even reversal - of aging could entail. It's interesting, but the biology of aging mirrors the biology of cancer. As we learn more about the advances in the prevention, delay or reversal of cancer, we are - in effect - learning about about these same things in aging. It's possible stem cells could hold the secret. In this episode, we'll discuss: ➡️ How the body is like a computer, and why stem cells...

Every day, hospitals are literally throwing away a treasure trove of natural resources that have potential life-saving possibilities. I'm talking about the placenta, and the placental stem cells contained within. What makes placental stem cells unique? In this important episode, I talk about: ➡️ Therapeutic and commercial opportunities that placental stem cells provide. ➡️ The adaptive nature of the placenta, and why a woman's body doesn't reject a fetus in the case of surrogate p...

"The health insurance model, the hospital model, the doctor's office model is all predicated on the sicker you are, the more money the system makes. And right now we don't pay doctors to keep you healthy unless you are fortunate enough that you can afford a functional medicine doctor. So the system has to change." - Dr. William Kapp In this episode, Dr. William Kapp explains some of the flaws in the current health care system, and how people are taking back control of their own health. ...