Digital Social Hour - Healing Brain Damage, Helping out with Paralysis & Importance of Stem Cells | Eric Stoffers DSH #338

Episode Date: March 8, 2024

Eric Stoffers comes on the show to talk about the stem cell industry and the miracles he has witnessed. APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://forms.gle/qXvENTeurx7Xn8Ci9 BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: [e-mail] SPONSORS: Opus Pro: https://www.opus.pro/?via=DSH Deposyt Payment Processing: https://www.deposyt.com/seankelly LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The one criticism I do see is it hasn't been around for a while. So there's no long-term studies. Is there any truth to that? If we were having this conversation in the early 2000s, I'd say, yeah, you're right. It's pretty young and we need a lot of studies. When you have safety and efficacy, there is no debate in the scientific community. If you know it's safe and effective, then you can go into human trials instead of starting with mice and animals.

Wherever you guys are watching this show, I would truly appreciate it if you follow or subscribe. It helps a lot with the algorithm. It helps us get bigger and better guests and it helps us grow the team. Truly means a lot. Thank you guys for supporting. And here's the episode. Welcome back, guys. Today, we're going to talk stem cells. Very excited to have Eric Stauffer here today. How's it going, man? Super good, man. Thanks for having me. You're looking good, man. You must have gotten some stem cells yourself. excited to have Eric Stauffer here today. How's it going, man? Super good, man. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. You're looking good, man. You must have gotten some stem cells yourself, huh? Yeah, I'm 82, so just a couple of gray hairs. Yeah, I do stem cell all the time.

Yeah. I'm a relatively healthy guy. No major orthopedic injuries or autoimmune disease, no neurological condition that I know of, but I do it for overall health and rejuvenation. Got it. So is it like an injection? How does it work? Yeah, for me, when I'm doing it just for what we would call kind of rejuvenation, but it's really an immune modulating process. It's just a simple IV. It's a simple IV. But, you know, we also stack, my company BioAccelerator, we also stack other alternative therapies. So, you know, I do ozone therapy quite often. I do, I try to do it at least once a week. What is that? So it's, it's essentially adding the O3 molecule to your

blood. So simply like to describe it, it would be just in a blood draw, just like you would take, you know, if you're getting a test, but this would take it out into a machine that's, you know, kind of right by you, the blood spins, but then it also uses an ultraviolet and radiation to introduce the O3 molecule and then you pump it back in and it filters it. So you, the blood spins, but then it also uses an ultraviolet and radiation to introduce the O3 molecule. Wow. And then you pump it back in and it filters it. So you see your blood coming out kind of, for me, you know, it's a little bit more like thick and more black looking at that first. And then, you know, after one or two passes, then it turns like fire engine red and super oxygenated. So it's like a transfusion almost. It is. Yeah. It's similar. And how long does that

take to fully? Uh, if I, if you go three to five passes, meaning you, you pull out, you know, one pass, two pass, three pass, um, about 45 minutes to an hour. Some people do up to 10 passes. So you're going to be there for a couple hours. And how long does that new O3 stay in your body? Um, only, it really only lasts 24 hours, but what it does is it stimulates the rest of your system essentially to produce more cytokines and growth factors and it's kind of just overall oxygenate your blood. Got it. And is that legal in the US or is that also in Colombia? Yeah, yeah, no, that one is legal in the US. And the reason I was saying that is that, you know,

that's one of the alternatives that we stack onto stem cell because we know that it helps proliferate stem cells. But yeah, if you're looking for the most advanced just stem cell, that's offshore. Interesting. Yeah. Gary Brekka looking for the most advanced just stem cell, that's offshore. Interesting. Yeah. Gary Brekka talks about the power of oxygen and how it almost every disease. So is that sort of the philosophy behind that? Yeah, for sure. Gary Brekka is one of our patients, by the way. Oh, nice. Yeah. Yeah. He's a bio-accelerator patient. So yeah, it's absolutely that. The absence of oxygen

is usually the presence of disease. Right. Yeah. And let's dive into the stem cell stuff. How did you get into that? Did you do a lot of research and you're in Columbia now? So how did that all happen? Yeah. So I'm a business guy. I have no medical background, no scientific aptitude. I was, I was very happy running a real estate company. I was the CEO of a kind of a small REIT in Arizona. And I, I was kind of disenfranchised with pharmaceutical and medical because my

girlfriend at the time was in the pharmaceutical industry. And she was coming home and we'd have dinner together and she would tell these crazy stories about what was happening at doctor's offices and what kind of pharmaceuticals they were pushing and why and the side effects. And so that was kind of in the back of my mind, but then what happened was I was marketing a, um, a piece of real estate in Mexico. It was this big, um, resort property in Cabo San Lucas. And, um, we were really getting, honestly, we're just getting terrible offers, right? So, um, as a function of marketing and thinking outside of the box, um, and being in a border state, right? So I'm from Arizona. And so there's a lot of family members in this kind of hot button medical tourism was floating around. You know, you'd see commercials

about medical tourism and friends and family would go get dental work in Mexico. So I kind of said, hey, why don't we just like focus in on trying to sell this to medical tourism providers? So we started going to plastic surgeons and dentists and that kind of thing. And this group of stem cell scientists kind of came across our plate and they were very that kind of thing. And this group of stem cell scientists kind of came across our plate and they were very interested in that property. That property didn't work out for them, but that was my first kind of deeper dive into stem cell.

So, you know, just as due diligence on whether or not they could take down the property and seeing, you know, if they were legitimate or not, I got to see some of their patient testimonials and what stem cell really was. And then I became kind of a quick study on my own. And over the course of a couple of years, there was just a light bulb that went off. I was like, you know, for one, it's not available in the US. The highest level stem cell is not available in the US and why? And I kind of dig

into that. But long story short is I ventured off and ended up doing that. And to the second part of your question, after founding the company in 2015, I was looking for countries that had three things. Number one was good regulation for stem cell therapy. You have to have the ability to produce and apply the stem cells in the country. But then number two, I was looking for really good medical doctors and with all sorts of specialties that are very well respected around the world And highly trained and credentialed and then I was looking for the medical infrastructure There was also, you know gonna be good for all sorts of other ancillary medical treatments and and as I was looking around South America

The last place I was looking was Colombia, you know, because I was I'm an American guy and I had you know Kind of just thought as Pablo Escobar and you know, because I was, I'm an American guy and I had, you know, kind of just thought it was Pablo Escobar and danger and, you know, all the shit that we all, everybody thinks about it. But the more and more I was looking for those great doctors and those great hospitals and the good regulation, almost all the other countries faded away. Panama was up there. They just didn't have as much of the medical infrastructure. But outside of that, Colombia was hands down the best. Interesting. Now, what is the science behind stem cells? The one criticism I do see is it hasn't been around for a while. So there's no long-term studies. Is there any truth to that?

Not anymore. No. If we were having this conversation in the early 2000s, I'd say, yeah, you're right. It's pretty young and we need a lot of studies. But now we have 20, 30 years in a lot of cases. As a matter of fact, stem cell therapy, a kind of a more rudimentary form is bone marrow transplant. We've been doing that since the 80s. And so we know that it's safe for some applications and we know it's very effective for many other applications. So when you have safety and efficacy that there is no debate in the scientific community, whether or not stem cell is safe and efficacious. But, you know, the FDA sure will tell you that, you know, that there needs to be more studies. And in a lot of cases, they're right, depending on the indication, because it is still medicine and you have to have some real proof.

But no, there's no debate in the scientific community. There's thousands of peer-reviewed studies. Now, not all of them have gone all the way through stage three of commercialization. But if you look at other countries outside of the US, you don't necessarily, you don't have to go through that whole process. Meaning if you know it's safe and effective, then you can go into human trials instead of starting with mice and animals, which is kind of a waste of time if you already know know it's safe and effective, then you can go into human trials instead of starting with mice and, you know, and, and animals, which is kind of a waste of time if you already know that it's safe because it's been proven all around the world. Interesting. And why is it so effective compared to other medical practices in the U S? Well, it gets to the systemic root

cause, uh, which is completely contrary to most of modern medicine in the United States. There's other countries that look at the the treatment of humans more holistically and this is something I love about Columbia actually in the way that that we treat patients there. But the point about the US is that you know we have some of the best doctors in the world. We certainly make some of the best advancements in science and medicine and technology and pharmaceuticals. But because of that, because the infrastructure is so focused in on that, a lot of times doctors, and most of the time here, these great doctors, they prescribe pharmaceuticals and they prescribe surgery first before going into a holistic approach and integrative approach and looking

at the systemic root cause. And with pharmaceuticals, in most cases, they're really just masking a symptom, creating potentially another side effect. They're almost never getting to the root cause. So stem cell therapy actually does get to the root cause. You take these mesenchymal cells that are designed to reduce inflammation, stimulate repair, and modulate your immune system. And then they also stimulate your body to continue the repair process on its own. And really your body is the miracle. We just kind of help accelerate that. Yeah. The body has the ability to heal itself, right? For sure. You get paper cuts and you watch it happen. Right. And what are some of the conditions that stem cells has been proven to be able to treat

or help? For us, what we focus in on is orthopedic issues. So this is why we treat a lot of professional athletes that you might've seen on our Instagram or whatever, but orthopedic issues is something that is very, very effective with autoimmune disease, depending on the autoimmune disease. And there's many, so, you know, things like diabetes, diabetes type two, great, great results. Diabetes type one, a little bit different. You know, you need many more ancillary treatments to help that. But rheumatoid arthritis, and there's many, many autoimmune diseases that it works very well with. Those are usually the autoimmune disease that have more of an inflammatory cause.

Yeah. And then also the last is neurological conditions. So things, you know, as severe as CTE and traumatic brain injury or also spinal cord injuries. That's great to know because it's been previously thought that brain injuries were permanent. You couldn't reverse the damage. Yeah, and it's still pretty early. So this is one of the things, Sean, that I would say that, you know, the people that are saying that it's too early to tell and you need more studies. Yeah.

This is one of those cases. We definitely need a lot more studies with neurological conditions and especially TBI. But like, are you a UFC fan? Yeah. Okay. So former, I think he was a middleweight champ, Matt Hughes. I mean, for one, he had probably multiple, multiple concussions just over the course of his career. But then he had this terrible accident where he was hit by a train. So this crazy, horrible story, uh, maybe, you know, one of the worst traumatic brain injuries you could have. Most people don't live after that, but he's a fighter. So he, you know, he got through and he survived. Anyway, he came to us and, um, and you know, he's not,

he's not fully recovered and he, and he never will be is probably the case, but, um, he, we, he did regain a lot of his motor function. Um, you know, so a lot of balance issues were, you know, were, um, rectified. And then also, um, some cognitive issues where he has, you know, short-term memory that he's getting back and, and, and some things that might be symptoms of CTE, like light sensitivity and, and mood swings that are starting to subside. So, um, there's a lot of promise, but in neurological conditions, it's still very early. Yeah. That's great. Cause there's a lot of fighters and a lot of football players later years, you could tell the damage adds up. It's crazy. Yeah. It's crazy.

What we see a lot of times we'll have our former, so our retired athletes are retired NFL and UFC, especially the high impact athletes. A lot of times it's their spouses that call us first. You know, he's kind of, he's got light sensitivity, he's got mood swings and it's not like angry. He's just crying. He's crying at like crazy movies, like not even sad movies and just the stuff that I've never seen before. So I'm kind of worried about him. And so we've seen the progression go from that to, yeah, I mean, look, I was, I'm friends with Sergio Brown who used to play with the Patriots and he just, you know, he's in jail right now for murdering his mom. Jeez.

And I can tell you unequivocally that is a CTE issue. For sure. No one would just do that without any. No, and this guy was a good guy. I mean, he was my roommate for a little while. Wow. Yeah. I mean, I just saw some brain surgeon.

I forget his name. He was on a podcast. If you take a couple hits to the head, even three, he said, there's permanent brain damage. Yeah, and these guys are, you know, the, especially kind of the older guys. And I, you know, I played a little bit of sports. I was never good enough to go anywhere, but, but I played as the point and, and, you know, used to get a concussion and they call it a stinger, you know, cause it felt like your body just got hit by lightning all of a sudden. And then, you know, you kind of get a pat on the butt and be like, okay, walk it off, get out there,

you know, next play. And, uh, you know, these guys that grew up in that era, man, you know, you kind of get a pat on the butt and be like, okay, walk it off. Get out there. You know, next play. And, you know, these guys that grew up in that era, man, they're experiencing some really tough times right now. Yeah, you can see the damage. He was saying even soccer players have permanent brain damage. We treat a lot of, not even MLB, but just from around the world, soccer players. And, yeah, they get a lot of concussions just from bouncing that ball off. Oh, dude, those balls hurt. And they're hitting it like full force. Yeah, and it's coming from 40 yards away.

Yeah. What about cancer? Can stem cells help with that? There are certain types of advanced cell therapy that it's very promising. Stem cells and what we do, no, that's not what we focus in on. There are some technologies like CAR-T therapy,

and yeah, there's some NK therapy that is promising for cancer, but still very young. So this is another case where, yeah, there are a lot more studies need to be done. Now, what are the risks with this? Because with surgeries in the US, there's some risk. Is there any big risk with this?

Yeah, it's still medicine. You're still treating humans and we're culture expanding these cells to be hundreds of millions of times more potent than they would be on your own. And that's why patients come to us because their stem cells aren't able to keep up with whatever degeneration is happening. But yeah, it's medicine. So in most cases, you have an auto, an immune response when you're getting a large dose of IVs. So like for me personally, I, I'd

say about five hours or so, I get very lethargic. I get a fever. I just kind of want to lay in bed. It's almost like you're getting a kind of a cold is starting to, to come on. And then it, for me, it drops away after a couple hours. And I, um, but some people that last for 24, 48 hours. Wow. Um, you know, but it's, you can, I mean, you can really. So there's different qualities of stem cells, right? Like there's high quality and then you could cheap out like what makes the high quality stem cells so good. Yeah. Good question. So this is definitely a case where you get what you pay for. You know, when you, when you're shopping stem cell, unfortunately, and look, one of my missions

when I was starting the company and looking at the sector was, you know, it's very expensive. And, you know, I thought, gosh, we need to bring down that price so we can get it to the masses because I don't see insurance covering this anytime soon. And so that was really a goal. It turned out to be, that was a moonshot goal that I haven't achieved yet because once I got in there and we have to, like from my perspective and the doctors that I work with, highest quality, highest safety, but it also turns into the highest potency. So that's the highest efficacy.

That's very, very expensive. So kind of the point is that you get what you pay for. So our three minutes are somewhere around $20,000, you know, kind of the point is that, um, it, you get what you pay for. So, um, our treatments are somewhere around 20, 25,000, um, for the, for kind of a overall package. And that's, you know, professional athletes that come in with multiple injuries and a big dose of systemic IV. So it's not inexpensive. Um, but if you really look at, uh, you know, what your health is worth and, and put you putting yourself in a mindset of, you know, what your health is worth and, and put your, putting yourself in a mindset of, you know, do I take the extra vacation this year? Or do I try to, you know, do something that's going to be really good for my lifestyle for

the rest of my life? Are you interested in coming on the digital social hour podcast as a guest? We'll click the application link below in the description of this video. We are always looking for cool stories, cool entrepreneurs to talk to you about business and life. Click the application link below and here's the episode guys. Or even the people that are doing this preventatively, which is what I, you know, I heard you out in the hall saying, I don't really need stem cell. I would argue with that because really as a preventative measure measure and even a longevity measure, it's something that should be

in your health regimen every year. Wow. Every year. Yeah. Yeah. We have politicians, we have kings of countries, you know, we have billionaires that are very educated on and trying to go after that longevity piece. And if you, you know, I know you're really well studied and if you're looking at guys like Peter Attia or Dr. Diamandis, Gary Brecka, you know, these guys that are thought leaders and especially in health and wellness, they're all doing stem cell preventatively every year. Interesting. Is there a noticeable difference when you get it? Yeah, for me. So it's very anecdotal. You know, I have varying testimonials, I guess, of what people have reported to us. For me personally, after the very first time I got treated, you know, I was a guy that was up in the middle of the night on my

computer at, you know, two, three in the morning and I didn't sleep all that great. And immediately I would say it was probably like three or four weeks after my first dose of stem cells, I'd been sleeping like a baby for eight hours through the night. Oh, so it kicks in like a month. Yeah. And that's actually fast. A lot of times it could take several months to kind of kick in. So it's not an instant thing. Nope. Interesting.

Why does it take that amount of time? Your body has to adjust? No, it's because like we talked about earlier, it is a systemic root, you know, totality that we're trying to cure essentially. I mean, we don't really say that it cures anything in, but it's definitely a treatment. So what the stem cells do is when we introduce them into your body, they start stimulating the repair of your own natural healing process. Um, and so that, that, um, that stimulates cytokines and growth factors and, and, uh, extracellular vesicles like, um, like exosomes. And it really just has a long repair process, but it stimulates your own body.

Interesting. So there's rapid advancements in the medical space. They're artificially making organs now. Do you see it getting to the point where they will be able to create stem cells artificially? Stem cells? No, not, they're not going to create the stem cell artificially. The stem cell is so it's, it's crazy intelligent and it's really one of the master cells of our body. And so even though we've done a lot of studies on it, there's still a long way to go in the sense that we know that it's safe, and we know that it's effective with a whole wide variety of ailments, but we don't know how the mechanisms completely work. So for instance, we used to call them, the acronym is MSCs for mesenchymal stormal cells. And we're kind of changing that to medical signaling cells because what we used to

think is that these cells would differentiate once they were in your body. But now what we're finding is that are actually just signaling your own body to stimulate the own repair system. I love that. So it's pretty holistic. Yeah. Yeah. It's the most holistic organic, you know, for, so for these, these people that are, um, you know, kind of woke biohackers, um, this is, it's the ultimate, um, you know, it's the ultimate systemic treatment. That's great. Do you see the U S ever legalizing this in our lifetimes? Gosh, I wish I, you know, I really had a better opinion of that when I was starting. I, um,

I go to these conferences with, you know, the, there's stem cell conferences and there's these really brilliant scientists from all over the world that have, you know, produced these amazing research studies and that, you know, are sharing this global evidence with other scientific companies like ours. And they're presenting to the scientific community and medical doctors. And then you have the FDA that comes in and it'll be, you know be really high level, like the commissioners, like Janet Woodcock or Scott Gottlieb. And these guys are there participating

in these conferences and they're hearing these hundreds and sometimes thousands of testimonials and they're hearing these great thought leaders and doctors that are talking about their fantastic results. And so they seem like they're kind of behind us and then absolutely nothing happens.

Wow. And then it's just like crickets again until the next conference so it just kind of stalls out and and i don't see it happening anytime soon you know especially with um you know with things like the the recent band on peptides saw that yeah yeah it's it's crazy we're going in the wrong direction um so no i don't see it happening anytime soon unfortunately unfortunately. So what is a way to improve the FDA process? Why are they taking their time? Do you think it's just lack of research? No, there's, I mean, yes, that's part of it in the sense that they haven't really decided on whether or not they're going to look at stem cells as a drug, which it shouldn't be because it's not

really. It's a biologic. And so even if that's the position that they're taking, that this is going to be a drug, there's some logistical issues with having to ship these cells. So that's why you actually see hundreds of clinics around the country that are operating, but what they're doing is they're buying these stem cells from maybe even a good laboratory. And in some cases, there are good ones and there's bad ones, like there is in any industry, but they're buying these stem cells from maybe even a good laboratory. And in some cases, there are good ones and there's bad ones like there is in any industry, but they're buying these stem cells and then they're shipping across the city or the state or the country. And we know that those stem cells lose viability within minutes of the activation process. So that's why for our company in Colombia,

it's very important to have the laboratory with the treatment facility where we are the experts in the science and we have a relationship with the patient from the minute that we collect the umbilical cord and start the culture expansion process and then go to the injection site. Wow. So you're collecting the cord like within minutes of the client receiving surgery? Not that. Okay. So the cord is where we harvest the stem cells.

That's the umbilical cord, which typically was medical waste at one point. But this is a healthy mom and a healthy baby. They go home and live healthy lives together. So there's no controversy in the sourcing, like you might have heard of back in the early 2000s, when scientists were messing around with embryonic stem cells. And that's not what we do at all. But we take this cord that was medical waste at one point, and the mothers donate it to scientific companies like ours,

and now we can help thousands of people with that cord. So we take the Wharton jelly piece of that cord, and we harvest those stem cells, and we separate all the non-useful stem cells or cells in general. We only focus on the MSCs, mesenchymal cells, and then we culture expand those. So we multiply those to be hundreds of times more pure and potent. And then that, once that expansion process is happening, when we know they're viable, we know they're live, they're thriving, they're pure, they've

been tested, then it's within minutes they're injected into a patient. That's fascinating. So one cord can treat thousands of patients? Yeah, in some cases. Wow. You're really reusing. Cause they used to just throw those out. Like you said, right? It was just, it was waste. Dang. And as soon as they give birth, they have minutes to get the cord to you. No, we actually see, this is another thing that kind of sets our clinic apart. We actually don't let the OBGYN do the cord process at all. We take control. So we're actually in the delivery room. Wow. Whereas other companies, you know, they just kind of, they purchase.

Yeah, you're really hands on. Yeah. That's fascinating. Yeah, because we have a relationship with the patient from the very minute, you know, the laboratories that are selling cells are a business. They're in the business of selling cells. And in like any business, you know,

as being an entrepreneur, you want to increase production at a lower cost. And so you have the ability to do that with stem cells. You can lose, you can increase production by using, um, lower cost products and culture media, um, which also gets into kind of some controversy because there's bovine serums, which use animal products, um, which helps expand these cells quickly, but you're, you know, you're an animal, right? And you're introducing this bovine product now into a human at some point, and they might not even know it. Yeah. But so, you know, there's a lot of ways to cut costs.

And that's what these laboratories do. And so, yeah, that's sketchy. So let's say eventually it does become legal in the US, stem cells and peptides. Do you see the human lifespan being able to get to 100 years eventually eventually? This is a component of it. Yeah. Yeah. We absolutely think that this is a small component of it. It's not the component, but yeah, it's, you know, it's like what Gary Brekka talks about also, you know, you got to look at the nutritional products that you're putting in. You have to supplement for the right reason, not just for the sake of supplementing. You have to watch, you know, what you're being told from the FDA about the food that you're

eating. Oh, yeah. You know, and my friend Joey, he kind of puts it in perspective where he kind of goes, yeah, well, if they really cared about us, they wouldn't let, you know, they wouldn't let the food source be poisoned from the minute that you're spraying grains to. But anyways, yeah, it's a component. But all these other holistic treatments is, you is, is a piece of the puzzle. Have there been any studies yet? Cause I know it's only been 20, 30 years on longevity improvements.

This is a tough one and this is the worst thing because so yeah, yes, there's studies right now. There's dozens of studies, um, that are with things like sarcopenia, which is kind of like the, the loss of muscle and it, it loss of muscle and it's a factor of death in the long, you know, in the long run. And then, you know, the lengthening and shortening of telomeres. Right. So there's lots of studies going on. It's really, it's a tough, it's going to be a tough study because there's so many variables where a lot of these people that are also being studied, you know, maybe they live in a blue zone. Right. And they're getting stem cell and they're doing, you know, they're grounding every day and they're meditating, you know, so it's, if they're using all of those components, then yeah, there'll be good results.

Yeah. I think you'd need probably millions of people to even have an adequate study. Yeah. Yeah. At this point it's, you know, it's people that are, it's looking at the individual piece. So you look at the individual stem cell piece and you go, okay, we know it's really good for anti-inflammation, which is crucial to, you know, having health. And then it stimulates repair and it modulates your immune system. So we know it stimulates repair in your internal organs. Like what we see with like, for instance, I talked about diabetes earlier, you know, that's diabetes type two is mostly lifestyle. You can keep that under control by just, you know, the food and the exercise and some of the other nutraceutical components. But then what we know and why we administer stem cell with those patients is because there's long-term effects of the synthetic insulin, right? Like the vascular

problems, you have diabetic neuropathy. And so these are things that we see stem cell helping with very well. And so you go, okay, well, if that helps in the most severe cases where these guys have these terrible neuropathies, why wouldn't it just be good overall for a healthy person? So that's kind of the thought process, but it's going to be very hard to prove. Absolutely. Do you see this getting to the point where someone that's paralyzed can walk again? Yeah, for sure. We've seen some crazy, crazy success stories. Now you have to put it in the barometer of like, what a success for, and I'm talking about spinal cord injury patients.

Yeah. So we, we, we treat, uh, SCI patients and I'll tell you a story about this. So there's a guy, uh, Dustin Bunch. He was, uh, he's a friend of mine at this point now, cause we, uh, these spinal cord injury patients have to come down several times because it's not a one shot and done. These are the most severe injuries you can even imagine. But Dustin was a former firefighter. He was still kind of in the fire industry. He was out at Lake Havasu in between Arizona and California for the 4th of July. And like he did every year for 20 years with his family, he was on his boat. This year, the lake was pretty low, but he dove in and was immediately paralyzed. Whoa. Quadriplegic immediately.

He almost drowned. All his firefighter buddies kind of recognized it fast, and they resuscitated him. They rushed him to the hospital. But he came to us pretty quickly, and I was there during his first treatment, and just kind of walking through the hall, introducing myself. And I said, hey, Dustin, I know, I, I, I heard about your story and I'm, I'm sorry. And, you know, but you know, tell me, tell me what my doctors have given you as an expectation and what are you looking to get out of this? Because you have the most severe injury on the planet. And he said, well, number one,

Eric, um, I, I'm not going to, I'm not going to succumb to what my doctors in the U S said. They said I was going to be in a, in a bed for the rest of my life. And I don't want that. And he said, but look, I'm in a chair. And so I've got good community around me that are pushing me to the stem cell clinic here. They said, but what I really want is I just had a baby daughter. I'd love to be able to hold her again. But more than that, I don't want my family. I don't want to be so embarrassed that my family is now having to take care of me. I have to beg. I'm not begging, but I have to call my wife every time I'm thirsty. I just want to drink a water, but I have to have somebody else do it for me.

And you can think about the other stuff where, you know, I have to have this 24 hour, seven day a week care when I go to the bathroom. You know, I want some dignity in life. I want to be able to, you know, go to the bathroom by myself. So I'm glad to report that Dustin is, you know, he's never going to be running marathons, but he has some, he has feeling in his legs.

He has some mobility. He has use of his hands. He's eating on his own. He's holding his baby daughter. That's amazing. So that is real dignity and quality of life. And that's why I say good results. Yeah, dude. That's incredible. Cause 20 years ago, that would have been a lifelong condition. A hundred percent. Yeah. And you know, you've got, you've got guys like Elon Musk that are doing Neuralink, um, that, that, that could be a component of that with stem cell. And so you start combining all these things. Yeah. I think people are going to be walking again. Love it. Eric, it's been inspirational, man. I can't wait to see where you take this thing. Anything you want to close off with or promote? You know, I kind of said it earlier. I would say, you know, if you're interested in stem cell,

definitely do your research. The stuff that you find in the US is garbage. I'm sorry to tell you. So you're going to have to take a little trip to Panama or to us. But, you know, for your audience, what is your health worth? You know, start thinking about that. And then also proactively start thinking about your immune system. That was really good for us in the sense that people really started being proactive and not just saying, oh, you know, I'm going to go get stem cell because I have a knee injury or whatever. They're like, hey, you know, I'm going to look into this as part of my health regimen. Maybe it's not every year. Maybe you can afford every five

years. But yeah, so I'd like people to start being proactive about their health and not reactive. Love it. Great advice. Thanks so much for watching, guys, as always, and I'll see you tomorrow.