The Dr. Hyman Show - Innovative Treatments for Chronic Disease Not Available in the US with Dr. Isaac Meza

Episode Date: December 12, 2018

Many of you who have been following my journey know that last year I got pretty sick. A perfect storm of mold toxicity, babesia, and a few other insults came together that left me in bed for about five months. As part of my treatment plan I decided to go to Sanoviv, a state-of-the-art, fully-licensed hospital that offers a unique blend of conventional, alternative, and integrative programs to help maintain good health and treat a wide range of diseases. This week I interview Dr. Meza, the Chief of Medical Staff at Sanoviv. Dr. Meza played an integral part in my treatment protocol. He is trained extensively in many areas of integrative medicine, including natural approaches to the treatment of cancer and other chronic illnesses.   In this episode of The Doctor's Farmacy, Dr. Meza explains the innovative therapies that they use at Sanoviv, and how they look beyond the symptoms of a patient to deal with the root cause of their illness.

Hi, I'm Dr. Mark Hyman, and this is The Doctor's Pharmacy, a place for conversations that matter. That's Pharmacy, F-A-R-M-A-C-Y, and today is a conversation that matters to so many, because it's about chronic illness and people who just can't get better, a place to go where you can actually get better. It's something that I've been wanting to share about for a long time. In fact, I'm right here today at Santevive, which is the only functional medicine hospital in the world that I know of. And it's a place where people come to get all the best modalities and treatments available in the world today that can help people recover from

chronic illness. And I'm here with Dr. Isaac Meza, who's the chief medical staff. He's playing a leading role here in supporting an incredible team of practitioners, doctors, nutritionists, psychologists, chiropractors, nurses, an extraordinary team of energy healers. And he's been somebody who's focused on bringing together the best practices in the world in integrative medicine, functional medicine, to treat chronic illness and cancer. And we've helped with the Institute for Functional Medicine here to help them bring functional medicine here as well.

So he's an extraordinary doctor. We're going to have a great conversation. He really loves what he does. He's helped me personally. I'm going to share about that in a minute. But welcome, Dr. Meza. Thank you. Thank you. And welcome to Sanaviv. Thank you. So I've been sending patients here for a long time, probably over a decade at least. And recently sending a lot more patients who are the sickest of the sick. You know, there's a cohort of patients, a group of patients who really struggle. And these are patients that as a functional medicine doctor, I can get better, but not all the way better. I can get them 50% better. Sometimes they're really stuck. And I usually know what's wrong. I just

can't fix it with the tools that I have. So I send them here because you integrate a whole series of tools, everything from intravenous nutrition, to ozone therapy, to hyperbaric oxygen treatments, to hyperthermia, which is something we're going to talk about, all these therapies, and other modalities of energy healing, physical medicine, nutrition. I was pleased to see you serve the Pagan diet here at Santa Viva. And it's a pretty unique place. And the thing that really caught my attention was that these are patients that I've struggled with that other of the best doctors have struggled with. And with the tools we have in the United States, they just don't get better. And when they come back from here after two

weeks, I see remarkable things. people who've had chronic lyme issues chronic fatigue issues chronic uh issues with with mold and tick issues these people tend to get better and often dramatically better i had one woman come who'd been sick for 15 years she rated her basic life health score as about a one or two when she came back out of here she was at eight or nine or ten within just two weeks, which was kind of striking to me. So it really got my attention even more. And, uh, you know, personally, I've struggled with a few things. As some of you have listened to me know that, uh, last year I had a bad mold toxicity from

living in an old barn. It's 120 years old. Uh, and it really took me down. I was in bed for five months. I also had Babesia, which is a tick infection because I live in the Northeast and I got tick bites. And guess what? I got Babesia and I've had Lyme in the past. And I figured I would come down for a tune-up and see what they're doing down here, both for my patients and for myself. And it's been a really extraordinary experience. And when I got here, the first thing they did was they put me through

a comprehensive evaluation. So I saw the doctor, the nutritionist, the psychologist, the chiropractor, there's energy healers and had a very robust diagnosis, had lab work. And they put together a comprehensive plan for me that was personalized, that allowed the things that I have to be addressed very specifically. And I'm going to share some of those experiences with you because they've been pretty wild. But I feel like it's a place where if I could dream up a hospital or a healthcare facility, this would be it. It doesn't feel like a hospital. It's more like a hotel with a bunch of fun stuff to do in it, you know, with healthcare

services. And it doesn't feel medical in any way. And the staff is just so amazing. And I just really, I'm inspired by being here. I thought it was going to be more medical, but it's really intensely medical, but it doesn't feel like that. So Dr. Meza, tell us about your journey here,

how you came here, and why you're inspired to do the work you're doing. Well, thank you for this opportunity and for your audience as well. Number one, I graduated from medical school, Universidad Social Calcón, Tijuana, and I felt that most of the literature that I read, it was incomplete. There was something missing. And most of the books, you have to change diet and exercise, it was not enough even when we're

doing a rotation in different departments patients were taking so many pharmaceuticals and they're having interactions so i didn't like that experience and what patients were feeling and the opportunity came it was a call for me to come to santa vive and be part of this staff and what i saw in the first day is the collective intention that's what i love about it the vision of dr wentz under one roof in a health destination um i think is what makes the medicine um great and the results so i think it's collective intention we want to help people and with most holistic uh approach with the most natural approach and obviously use the most um you know scientific relevant therapies around the world and under one roof i i believe that's what uh brought me here and that's why i love about this place and so how do you how do you choose the

modalities because there's a lot of different modalities that are some of the things we use in the united states some of them we don't and are actually illegal yeah uh yeah i that's a very good question what dr wins um you know the opportunity that we have with dr wins is he sends us to uh around the world for training you know he sees and reads something that it's published in the literature, and it's worth to go and learn. So we learn in Europe and Germany and other parts of the world. And then we see if this technique is something that is

helpful, then we bring him here. The therapies, the tools, have to be validated, have to be scientific data, and obviously something that we think and feel that is worth trying. A lot of these modalities have some scientific backing to them. They may not be enlarged, double-blind, randomized, or files.

They may also threaten the orthodoxy of traditional medicine because they may be very inexpensive and cheap and yet very effective, which can undermine other medical procedures or medication. One of those is ozone which is you were explaining the other day that you train in cuba now in cuba you know they they have um i think they spend 184 a year per patient on health care we spend about 10 000 in the united states but they're better than us in terms of life expectancy and many health outcomes which is pretty amazing and they don't have a lot of money they they don't have drugs. So they use ozone.

And you were saying you were in a back clinic where you were injecting people's discs with back pain with ozone. And one after the other, people were coming in and were getting better. Can you talk about that? Yeah, I think it's a beautiful experience. I have my expertise here in Mexico, but then I moved on to Cuba and I was interested in what they were doing in herniated discs, back pain, and in palliative care for pain management. And they were, I was amazed.

They were in Hermanos Amijeira, that's the name of the hospital. It's a traditional hospital of the government there. And they have, you know, waiting lists to come and do procedures for pain management. And it's very accessible to use ozone for pain management. So it was a very interesting experience. People were not walking well or in a wheelchair. They just came with myosination. They did ozone in the disc or around the disc or in the facet to manage pain.

When patients were dealing with morphine or other type of narcotics, they were treating the pain with that. And when people get better, like they come in wheelchairs and walk out? Obviously, when they have a structural problem, they have to fix that with chiropractic kinesiology, but right there, the pain was managed. And then you have to go fix the problem structurally. But there are patients that there is a need to go and do a surgery. You can avoid surgery with minimally invasive procedures. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. I had back surgery when I was 32, a long time ago, over 25 years ago. And my back is degenerated

from that. I've limped for years and I have a lot of degeneration in the spine and it often causes a lot of back pain for me. And I've been traveling. I was on a lot of planes and my back was hurting yesterday. And I told you, and you looked at my x-ray, you go, oh my God, this is terrible. And you said, come on over. And I went through a procedure with you, and you looked at my x-ray, you go, oh my God, this is terrible. And you said, come on over. And I went through a procedure with you, which was pretty amazing. And when I walked in, my back pain was probably an eight or nine out of 10. It wasn't fun. And I had trouble walking.

And you laid me down on the bed and you basically drew up ozone gas. You numb my back up and you injected ozone gas along the muscles that were all spasming the area around where the pain was and the discs and the facets and literally i got up off the table and i was pretty much pain-free and uh it's a day later and i'm still you know uh where i was like an eight or nine i'm probably a two or three today which is pretty amazing in a short time and i've tried a lot of things yeah and i and i think you know there are a lot of techniques in the world out there that are very effective uh prolotherapy prolose on neurotherapy um you can use a lot of techniques but i think those techniques for some you know it's not uh economically you know

how do i say the word uh like they like to use pharmaceutical drugs but they have a lot of side effects i think these techniques can resolve the problem very fast and minimally yeah they're low side effect treatment and no side effects by the way they're low cost treatments yeah uh and they often have better outcomes than other treatments which is pretty amazing and i've had many because I've had back issues over the years. Like steroids. You know, I'm really, I have some controversies about steroids. They have a lot of side effects.

And you can use only one or two shots, and then you have problems to have ligament, you know, tear or weakness or including tear, completely tear, you know. I think this doesn't have side effects. Yeah, it's amazing. And, you know, I'm here working on the chronic tick infections that I've had. And it has affected me.

It affects my energy. It affects my sleep. It affects various symptoms that I have. And I manage okay, but I wanted to really go from okay to awesome. And I've gone through, I've been here, oh gosh, four or five days now. And I've gone through a number of here oh gosh four or five days now and i've gone through a number of different treatments i'd love to sort of talk about them the first one is um

uh is something you use called auto hemotherapy with ultraviolet light now ozone therapy is something that's been used around the world it was developed in fact nikolai tesla invented the machine which is pretty amazing it was used a lot in World War I for treating infections. It's basically ozone gas, which is a very powerful antimicrobial. It's the most powerful disinfectant on the planet. It'll kill anything. And you use it for a lot of people with various kinds of issues. So tell us a little bit more about ozone.

Tell us a little bit more about the rationale for using it, how it works, and why you have it such a fundamental use here in your clinic in San Jose. Well, it plays a role. It's one of our therapies that we use for microbial treatment, antimicrobial, and other modalities. But I think it's one of them. And the main principle that we have is do no harm. We learned that in medical school, do no harm. And this therapy, if it's used correctly, like a medication, it's going to be very helpful. So what it does is a combination of oxygen and ozone.

The three molecules are attached together, and they are like a free radical it's kind of like a so oxygen's o2 ozone's o3 correct so these molecules are very uh let's say unstable and they create a reaction when it's in contact with the red cells with the white cells with the platelets with the plasma inside of the blood we don't use it directly in this facility ozone direction directly um someplace in the world they do it and and and every everyone is different but ourself we extract the blood we um combine it together and during that passes it goes through uv light and uv light it's so uh strong to uh clean up all the microorganisms that could be in the blood because it reacts to it. It creates a damage of the membrane and creates reactive oxygen species,

and those are very powerful, including peroxide. It makes peroxide. So that is the most powerful treatment at the end of the product, the treatment that kills most of the microorganisms. So this is fascinating. You're talking about it. You sort of hinted at it and you talked about oxidation now most people out there listening going what even aren't we supposed to be taking antioxidants and eating blueberries and

taking our multivitamins and vitamin c and isn't what we want to be doing taking antioxidants so why would we be using oxidation which is basically like rusting or when your apple turns brown or oil turns rancid that's oxidation that's a bad thing causes wrinkles so why would we want to use that yeah that's a that's one of the questions that i think no one in the world can answer because right now uh the genomics are in baby diapers and we we need to identify what she which is your capacity and every patient capacity to deal with oxidation and which individual capacity to do an antioxidant.

So what we do is we do a low dose oxidation and then gradually we increase so the cells can adapt and they can create their own innate antioxidant enzymes. So our body has our own innate antioxidant enzymes. We're talking about glutathione peroxidase and a lot of the ones so those enzymes are the ones that protects our body from all the damage and again i think ozone or other oxidative therapies should be controlled and give it at the correct dose at the correct timing and the correct frequency we cannot do it too much or too little because then it's not it's not useful. So in our experience, we're talking about 20 years of experience at least, we have learned that the timing is what matters.

The dosage is what matters for every individual. So we use one day, we oxidize. The other way, we prepare or prime. It depends on each patient and their conditions. So it depends on the patient and conditions so depends on the nutrition status it depends on the genetic status and a lot of things factors so people don't realize is that the way your white blood cells actually kill bugs infections is because it produces things like hydrogen peroxide that's correct and hypochlorite which is like chlorine

to like bleach yeah out of your own white blood cells. It's how your body actually kills stuff. So when your white cells aren't working so great and your immune system's suppressed, these oxidative therapies can be super helpful. And they actually work in a way that has been described as something called hormesis, which is essentially a stress that creates a healing response in the body. So it basically kind of gives the body a little stress and it doesn't last very long. And then the body actually kicks in the immune system.

It kicks in the antioxidant enzymes, like you said, and allows the body to start to repair and heal. Yeah. That cycle, it's what drives chronic diseases all over the world. It's kind of we're living in a cycle and this is to break the cycle. It's a pulse. It's just a small pulse. And immediately you break the cycle, and then you create a cascade of antioxidants and cytokines that can modulate the immune system and inflammation so the body can respond by itself. Yeah. You know, it was fascinating looking at these oxytherapies because, you know, we use not just one, but you use many.

And I was saying I was sick a number of years ago, and I was so sick, and I used all my functional medicine tricks, and nothing got better. And there's something that's described as something called the cell danger response. Have you heard about this? It's essentially where the body, even after the initial insult the body gets stuck in a danger response and the cells keep on reacting as if there's some horrible thing happening okay and the body can't break the cycle and i felt like i was in that i felt like and these patients are you know sometimes you'll treat the lyme disease you'll treat whatever they don't get better why because they can't break that cycle so when i was very sick i did

a whole series of treatments over a few weeks by myself. And it wasn't as easy as at Santevieve. I did ozone. I did hyperbaric oxygen therapy, which we want to talk about. I did intravenous nutrition with high-dose C and glutathione. And I did stem cells all in two weeks. And it literally reset my whole system. Yes.

And I think that if we do a lot of oxidation at once, it's too much sometimes for each individual, so we need to identify what treatments are the best and the timing. What we do is, when patients arrive, we do an evaluation, nutrition, biochemical, we evaluate cholesterol molecules, we evaluate electrolytes, we do a lot of metabolic analysis, and we identify what is the biggest priority. Because when they arrive, they're already sick. They're in that stuck mood. So we need to first open the channels of detoxification, allow the body to be ready to receive the treatments.

So that's why we have a meeting. In that meeting, the nutritionist, the chiropractor, the psychologist, energy practitioners, body coach, we all brainstorm ideas. What is the biggest priority to do? Do we start oxidating or we start first breaking that cycle by doing energy work or a massage or acupuncture or maybe just the emotions? She's not ready or that person or maybe she's not ready for it to do all this. Those kind of tricky experiences has allowed us to learn. Yeah, it's very, very powerful. So let's talk about another one of these therapies that you use, which is hyperbaric oxygen. And this is something that's used in the States a lot.

It's used for patients who have wound problems, amputations or in healing. And it's an improved therapy by Medicare, but only for very few indications. And there are people using it for all sorts of other things that are called off-label, like Alzheimer's or autism or cerebral palsy or autoimmune disease or Lyme disease, with varying effects. What's interesting here is you combine it

with all these other therapies. So I think it's much more effective. So what is hyperbaric oxygen therapy? Yes, it's a combination of pressurized oxygen. And like you said, every individual is different. So the dosage for that hyperbaric is going to be different sometimes we put patients in a chamber where pressurized oxygen from 1.5 atmosphere at us or atmosphere or 2.5 depends on the diagnosis the higher the atmosphere is because they have some infection and the lower is because they have chronic diseases. The same goes with ozone or vitamin C. We normally give a low dose for one intention, medium dosage to another intention,

and the highest dose is for microbial, you know, more like antimicrobial. That's what I'm getting. Exactly, yeah. And what it does is just, with the pressure of the atmosphere, of the pressure, it opens the microvasculation or

the capillaries to improve the blood flow where it normally doesn't go because it's biofilm, because it's, you know, some vascular endothelial dysfunction. There is a problem. And so this is spread the oxygen molecules to another. And it also reacts with iron and other molecules and creates peroxide as well. But one of the interesting latest research is stem cells. It stimulates the bone marrow to produce your own innate stem cells. So when we combine probably three, four, five sessions with hyperbaric B4, and then we can

harvest and do autologous stem cells, it's better for our guests. And that's, and then... It's kind of a stress on the body that then creates a healing response which is making more stem cells reducing inflammation dealing with infection uh it's basically you taking 100 oxygen in a pressurized tank which you use for scuba divers who come up with the bends because they come up too fast it takes them down to pressure so like one atmosphere two atmosphere under sea level and so you kind of like kind of blow your nose like you're gonna like you're on an airplane going going down and it it actually increases circulation which is where there's often a problem because blood flow can't get somewhere to get

with the infection or to treat the things that are really going on yeah and increase and sometimes if you for divers you want to reduce other molecule toxic gases. You want to increase oxygen and reduce the toxic gases. It's very powerful. And then you also do therapies that are a little more out there. They're being done a lot in Europe for cancer. I've heard about it for years and years. And as far as I know, in North America, this is the only place.

And it's really sort it sort of sounds scary, therapy, but they basically heat you up to 107 degrees, which sounds kind of scary. They give you like the sedation so you're not awake. And what's the idea of this treatment? Why is it so effective? Well, we've been doing hyperthermia for 20 years or more. And I believe this hyperthermia modality, whole body,

we're talking about whole body hyperthermia, it works as an immunotherapy. It enhances some cytokines and some heat shock proteins at the correct level that it turns on the immune system. It helps to improve cytokines that are helping to for the immune system to get stronger natural killers t-cells macrophage and everything gets better with with that's why we have fever um so it's like inducing a fever to do what fevers normally do but often people who are sick can't actually mount a fever exactly yeah it's they have a stuck they're stuck stuck, they're blocked.

The immune system is not able to detect it. So the natural fever opportunity is to have that immune effect. For Lyme disease patients, whole body hyperthermia with sedation, it's another topic. It's more into having an effect to the spirochete or other microorganisms like mycoplasma that are hidden in the immune system or other parts of the body that are not allowed to be detected.

When we put patients in this heat modality, they are weak and vulnerable, those microorganisms, and we have a window of opportunity to use antibiotics that are targeted for a specific cycle of that infection. So it's like you light the house on fire and they all come running out, right? Exactly. Sometimes we do a massage before doing a hyperthermia so we can release... Oh, can I sign up for that?

Yeah, we can release this infection from the fascia, depends on the situation, and then the heat. Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure, but it seems to me that's one of the modalities that is the most effective for the chronic fatigue Lyme. The other modalities also work, but together it just seems like a powerful combo, like a bunch of superheroes all working together, like the Avengers. Yeah, and exactly the timing.

I think the fine part is the timing and what do you do prior to that treatment. You hydrate, you prepare the body, you detoxify, you open the channels of drainage, of the lymphatic drainage. So there's kind of like a preparation and timing. We do meditation so patients can be ready for that because you're going to be sedated. And four hours of the hypothermia, you get that temperature very high. So we have a staff of experts, anesthesiologists, experts in that room that are ready for each patient. After they finish that,

we have probably the only hospital in the world. I think there is only two places that do whole body hypothermia in this modality, but we are probably the only ones that are thinking functional. What happened after that? What is the stress on the hypothalamus and pituitary gland so we do on the med bioenergetic device to reset that hypothalamus

so it can come back to normal so energy medicine exactly so um you're going to be publishing soon the outcomes of some of your work here um can you can you share with us just in general terms what what those are and what you're finding well yeah thank you uh that we often you know we cannot compare to functional medicine or holistic medicine it's always criticized that doesn't have validation and we we don't want to be we want to be we want to have the validation for us and for patients to see how we were before and after uh if we have biological markers or biomarkers before and after if we have imaging before and after um i think those are are the strongest evidence that is working but we are going to share soon what we have done

at least in 100 patients in the last two years or so. That's amazing. So you're going to actually have objective data, not just the patient says, I feel better, but it's actually objective data of their immune system, inflammation, biomarkers, which are basically various kinds of tests you can do to check the outcomes,

and also x-rays of tumors and various things you're saying? If it's needed, yes. We want to minimize toxicity from PET scan, CT scan, MRI, but if it's needed, we will definitely use any type. Most of the patients, they already have them, so we will use that before and after. One of the other modalities used, which is very interesting, and it's used quite a lot in the United States,

there's clinics popping up all over, is IV nutrition, intravenous nutrition, which sounds kind of weird, why would you stick a vein and eat? But it's actually not food, it's actually nutrients. And I don't know if most people realize this, but there are 37 billion billion chemical reactions in your body every second. 37 billion, billion, that's 21 zeros.

That's a lot of zeros. Now, every one of those reactions requires nutrients. They require vitamins and minerals, which are actually the cofactors or helpers for all those chemical reactions. So you use a host of different kinds of intravenous support here. Can you talk about why it's important, what it does, and share some of the kinds of different things you use? Yeah, beautiful. I love that question. Thank you, Mark.

I want to, you know, Dr. Wentz, when he began his journey in his research, he- Dr. Wentz is the benefactor who built this hospital, funded this, and has supported it, which I'm sure ran at a loss for a long time. Yeah, and he started giving nutrition for each cell for his research, and he noticed the importance of cell nutrition. And we're talking about a Petri dish in a cell lab. When we turn this to a whole body, the biochemical body and all the reactions that you just said, we need the nutrition.

So not only patients receive oral supplements at home or daily life, but when they are here in chronic diseases, they're not absorbing the nutrition as well. Most of them have GI issues. So bypassing the GI absorption and give them IV nutrition to go as a cofactor to each mitochondria or each cell to produce ATP and do what they're supposed to be doing or replace the nutrient deficiency for patients who have chronic diseases or chronic deficiencies, I think we have seen enormous results just by giving the cofactors what they need to create energy. So what are the kinds of IVs you give here? Mainly it's partial parental nutrition, which is the name. But we have a consultant, external consultant, Dr. Paul Anderson, naturopathic doctor, well-known around the world. And he and I and the rest of the medical staff, we sit down and start doing algorithms

and finding what is our needs. And our needs, it's hydration formulas that has B-complex, minerals, electrolytes, and a special similarity, special elements that can help the patient to get better. And the cells, especially the cells functioning. And you use those B vitamins, magnesium. Magnesium is the number one.

Yeah, magnesium, which 48% of Americans are are deficient and if you're sick you're probably almost everybody yeah we're talking about uh you know good fats uh ivs uh we're talking about b complex as you mentioned uh and a lot of them glutathione alpha lipoic acid and a lot of other things that if you use it correctly in the time it's going to help enormous yeah so glutathione is helping to help your body detoxify and lipoic acid also is great for energy production detoxification protection so it's a powerful antioxidant therapy to use and again i think it's it's a dosage the correct you know frequency is what matters and the other thing you know is great here is almost like a spa every day you get spa treatment you they get you know reflexology or massage or various kinds of therapies which is pretty amazing

it's all built into it and helps you sort of heal and repair and there's a whole room called the quiet room which is you know all these therapies you you we've been talking about are fairly intense medical therapies and then there's this kind of room out there which is called the quiet room which is a little weird and there's a lot of room out there, which is called the choir room, which is a little weird. And there's a lot of these machines that, you know, kind of funky, but they seem to really help people. I did something called the Rife machine yesterday. I'm going to do something called the Accuscope today. Tell us about how these fit in and how energy medicine fits into this whole paradigm.

And I think everything began when, before we got sick, before we got any type of symptoms, there wasn't emotion before. There was something going on in our body or in our life that activated the milieu or the matrix to get stuck. So that affected the nutrition that goes to the cells and the cells is not able to detox. And we're talking about the meridium, if we're talking about energy level uh that organ is going to get sick and then we get symptoms and then it's going to be expressed in the labs and then it's too late already but i think the quiet room is the essence of uh our hospital because it's it's intended to treat

that level the the cellular level the membrane the energy if we go to a molecular everything is made of energy everything is moving like uh the space you all the planets and if we take that uh you know physics we take that uh level of physics from the space take it to the cellular level it's the same so we should be treated like a whole body. Biochemical aspect, the bioenergetic aspect, nutritional aspect, and the structural at the same time. So everything has to be in harmony and peace. I mean, when you think about it, we are energetic beings, right? Our heartbeats are electrical, our brainwaves are electrical, the mitochondria, our energy factories, these little things in our cells that produce energy.

The membrane. The membranes. Everything runs through energy in our body, just how you do everything. And yet we don't pay any attention to that in medicine. We kind of ignore it. So that room, answering the question, I apologize. So that room, it is especially designed in a place of the hospital

that has the best core energy, the best vibration. The whole intention is to treat our patients holistically holistically and in a way where energy structural with the spa and the whole timing it's it's matter so we have in that room sorry we have a pulse magnetic field we have uh light therapy sound therapy, microcurrent therapy, which is nanotechnology. We have other types of relaxation therapies, but all with one intention. So when we have a meeting, and that meeting is all the decisions, you know, brainstorming ideas, how we can help each patient, a guest. We brainstorm ideas and we take that energy from that meeting to each department so everybody knows what we need

to focus and treat and help very impressive i mean i when i came here i met with a psychologist i met with the person who sort of valued my energy to a various kind of machine was very interesting and uh you know you you put a lot of emphasis on the emotional and psychological aspects of health too. And I attended one of your physician practitioner meetings, which was great to see. I mean, it should be how every healthcare system is designed, where all the people who are involved in taking care of that patient talk together about that patient. We did that when I was at Kenya Ranch. We don't really do it in medicine very well.

We do it at our practice in the Ultra Wellness Center and at the Center for Functional Medicine in Cleveland Clinic where we do functional medicine. But it's pretty unique. And the emphasis on the sort of the emotional psychological aspect is huge because we often ignore that in medicine. You know, yes, you have all these physical treatments, whether it's hyperbaric or hyperthermia or intravenous medicine or other things but they're they're they're important and often very very important but the the psychological aspect is a key part of it yeah and in my 13 years of experience seeing patients uh and asking the experts psychologists and body code and all the experts say if you can tell me which is your top three priorities that you have seen in most of our chronic diseases and i can guarantee 90 or 95 percent of all the diseases that comes through the door and we do a medical history and the

most important are relationship issues either with wife or partner depends on the situation relationship issues economical severe issues and nutritional deficiencies or some type of environmental factors so the combination of three and what I have seen with this is that the first symptom that started is insomnia they just don't sleep and if you don't sleep then you all you know you don't repair and so i think that that was like amazing when i start collecting data i say so what is the most important is relationship issues and then the next one sometimes the relationship issues is not at home it's sometimes at work yeah those things are like oh my god so we should share this information the money is and i think this is

what starts everything if we find well most of it, we have helped the patient coming in, and we find that and we fix it, they have better longevity. They turn on the genes of disease. So that's what we have felt that we helped them. Yeah, I mean, even this year when things got rough for me, it was, you know, my mother died, my father died. You know, it really affected me. And it was those losses and the grief,

and it certainly affected my immune system, which allowed the tick infections to kind of come back up and the mold stuff to kick up. Um, so you also have, uh, nutrition is a big part of what you're doing here and everybody sees a nutritionist and the diet is pretty amazing. You have no sugar, no dairy, no gluten, no processed food, uh, no caffeine, no alcohol no alcohol it sounds terrible but it's actually really good the food is really good and it's designed to create a whole healing response in the body it's an anti-inflammatory diet it's detoxifying it's an antioxidant rich diet and

it's i think a key part of the healing for people because they've probably never done that yeah under one roof if you're able to control the environment, it's beautiful because you see responses that you don't see often in a small clinic. And then you move from here to here and then from here to here and then you are moving around. But under one roof, you control everything and then you teach them. Because it's important to teach your guests to know how they have to change their lifestyles so you can have better prognosis or longevity or or to take care of other diseases we follow your work and we really are a fan of you so but it's everything like trends you know sometimes it's this diet and this diet and this diet so what we have learned is that everyone is unique. We should find out what works for each patient,

if it's palliative, if it's this. So I think we have done an elimination diet, and that works most of the time. Some 10% of individuals, we have to do a little extreme diets, but most of them, they have to do an elimination diet because we really eat, you know, a lot of junk outside sometimes. No, it's true, it's really true. It's like the Pagan diet, which is, and then people customize it depending on what they need, but it's a very key part of it because you provide a very peaceful environment.

It's on the ocean, it's quiet, it's peaceful, it's beautiful, serene, you've got amazing food, you've got all these healing practitioners. It's a really holistic environment and it would be the dream for me to have this be the hospital the future all around the world and i and i think you just you know mentioned a very important point of dr wen's vision he really wants this to be the model of future medicine even though we use techniques that has been used for the first world war or a long time ago.

But the way that we do medicine, it's personalized, it's individualized for each patient. And mindfulness is what I was going to say. When you are in one area drinking a tea in the morning or lemon water, you just look at the ocean and make sure that you just close your eyes and find peace and relief and enjoy that moment uh we were running around with the cell phone we were running around with data by the way there's no cell phones no wi-fi there's no ems here i think we have to listen our body and then our body so smart is going to tell you what's wrong and then when you're here in this environment you're going to say oh now i understand headache it was not normal to be there so it's a lot of things that goes along with with mindfulness the other thing you

have here is you know surprisingly you go see the dentist oh so tell us why people go see the dentist when they're here oh they they don't we force them i know you know actually i had a jet like when i got here i felt so bad i was i kept falling asleep and biting her finger yeah i don't know how I could fall asleep in a denture, but I flew all the way from Asia, so it was pretty far. It is well-known and described in literature the first reason of heart disease. One of the first reasons is gingivitis, infection, gum disease. And we know there's a huge connection

between the systemic circulation uh with uh infection chronic infection and we believe that as well with lyme disease is another co-infection it starts also in the mouth so there is a huge link between hidden infection like uh root canals uh cavitations or or bone infection that are hidden there. And normally we don't see that. And we don't correlate that with the digestive symptoms or other symptoms. So I think it plays a huge role. And we have seen here when we deal with that, patients get better.

So like psychiatry and dentistry are kind of separate, right? Don't affect disease. But in fact, they are so connected. It is huge. It is amazing. And we have done studies with thermographies but let's say they have breast problem and then we do a they have a root canal in the breast meridian we do a neurotherapy and the breast gets less inflammation less stress

if they have a cancer well we have to deal with that but it's just a way to to see how important the meridians are connected and but speaking about dental, some patients have phobia and we do so great in personalizing the treatments that sometimes they need sedation. We can do a conscious sedation for them to have a nice experience, one that they have never had before.

You're asleep through it, like I was. Completely. With medication. Or if you don't want medication, it can be done through hypnosis or other modality. So you have one other treatment here, which is interesting, and it's emerging around the world, and there's so much research going on, but you do stem cell therapy. And tell us about the kind of stem cells you do, why you do them, and what you're seeing as a result of that. Yes, and we've been at least six years already looking and researching and i honestly will say that it's it's still uh growing very fast

the technique the technology of harvesting and guide the cells to specific areas that you want to heal um so we use mesenchymal cells adult cells they're already in the process of uh that works as a reduced inflammation and cytokine in the system it depends which stress area you are you want to treat and we use the specific cells that can go to that specific organ we do use them intravenously and once it's specific cells that can go to that specific organ. We do use them intravenously. And once it's used like that, from 50 million to 100 million of cells, of mesenchymal cells, they go directly to every area that has stress signals. And they're going to reduce inflammation and stress.

And by that, the cells can repair. Yeah, it's a powerful treatment. And I think there's so much more we have to learn about it, but it's, and I had a patient the other day who had chronic fatigue, autoimmune disease, and she went and had stem cells and she said she fully recovered, which was pretty amazing. Yeah. And joint, you know, stem cells is well used in orthopedia and other, you know, chronic degenerative structural issues. And I think it's what we have seen the best outcomes, regenerate cartilage, reduce degenerative structural issues. And I think it is what we have seen the best outcomes, regenerate cartilage, reduce inflammation and stress signals.

And I think if we can do anything we can do to prevent surgeries or hard, you know, severe interventions and prolong the quality of life of each patient, I think it's better if we do it with a more conservative approach. So tell us about the types of programs you have here, because you have many different kinds of programs you offer patients. Our goal and our vision, and when we created this project, I felt that it was for healthy people. Healthy people, they just want to be better and prevent.

Later on, as the years go by, we felt that people were knocking our doors with diseases uh neurological diseases cancer cardiovascular and we have like most of the place in the world we have upgrades and we've been upgrading and to the point that right now we have a program for diagnosis you know people who are completely asymptomatic they are healthy they are vibrant and they just want to know their current status and how they can prevent any disease in the future because they have good genes in their family and they just want to prevent and so this is a great place it calls integrative physics it's a short program three days four nights it's great because you connect with all the stuff that I mentioned. It's really a functional medicine comprehensive evaluation.

It's functional. We do the matrix. We do a whole medical history, standard medical history, but we identify what are the antecedents and the triggers that predispose each patient to certain diseases. So we do that, and we integrate all of it, and then we make a plan. If we need genomics, we do genomics, but right now I think it's more clinical. And if a patient has a specific disease from neurological,

then we have a program for a specific condition from two weeks to three weeks. It could be from cancer, it could be from Alzheimer's, it could be infectious diseases from all lines. Each patient can fit in one of our programs and once they are here we uh plan the strategy of the treatment and then we can tell them when you go home is the most important is how we're going to take care of them home and the plan and you also have a general detoxification program which is sort of a reboot for people yes i one of our our i will say our one of our best program uh it's detox because we use modalities of um using uh starting with a diet cleansing colon cleanse liver flushes

liver cleanse um you know energy treatments emotional detoxification there's it's huge it's all about keeping ourself uh in peace it's so great you know the um the beauty of this place is that it's it's gives you everything in one place where you i mean just all the things we mentioned whether it's you know medical therapies that you can't get anywhere else like hyperthermia and hyperbaric and IVs and ozone, whether it's all the psychological support, the nutritional support, the diet, the peaceful environment, the dental support, the psychological aspects. I mean, it's even stem cells and beyond. You really have put together a place where people can come and have an extraordinary experience. And then when they leave, they just had a biological upgrade. And then they can continue after with

aftercare programs. Now, part of the challenge is that this is stuff that if you did on your own, well, first of all, you have to fly all over the world to get different places and go here and there and everywhere. Second, it doesn't really exist anywhere. It was one place. And it's also very expensive. So I did similar things in New York, which actually were probably more expensive than coming here for two weeks and getting far more. And I think that there is a high price for some of these programs. But when you look at the cost benefit in terms of your health and your life and your outcomes, I tell my patients, look, your quality of life is so poor. And your ability to function, to work, to be in relationships,

do what you want to do is not very good. And what's that worth? And how, you know, if you can't even work, you know, so sometimes people have to take a loan or get help from family or friends. But, and of course it's not for everybody, but for those people who really hit the wall and have tried everything and done everything, they haven't because there's something they haven't tried because it doesn't exist anywhere really except for Santa Viva. And I came here because I saw the effects on my patients. I came here because I wanted to see what was going on and also came for myself to see how I can get from good to phenomenal. And I'm excited being here. I will report more on this as I go through the program. I'm here in my first week. I got report more on this as I go through the program.

I'm here in my first week. I got another week to go. And it should be pretty amazing. So any final thoughts or things you want to share about Saniv? Oh, yeah. I think there are probably only two places in the world that has in-house patients with functional medicine, like you said. I think it's in Germany, I believe. And we have good correlation. We have a relationship with other hospitals.

We like to open up and help patients and send them back to home so they can find functional doctors too as well. I think we are so open to collaborate and to share our knowledge so more people can be benefited. And I think if we can help with our model, I think it should be reproduced in the world. Yeah, that's pretty awesome. I mean, I have no financial relationship.

I have no consulting relationship. I'm just here as a physician who sends patients here and want to learn about it. And it's for myself as well. So if you want to learn more about it, go to sanoviv.com-a-n-o-v-i-v.com you can learn all about it you want to say one more thing yeah yeah and uh this opportunity is thank i think also all the staff uh sanavi because right now they are working hard and i'm here with you having fun with this presentation uh and interview but uh we have uh amazing staff and they all been selected um and they have a beautiful intention so everything that we have

seen a success in our testimonials is because uh from housekeeping from security from everyone that interacts here with making this place so clean and so beautiful, all the way to Seth Miller with the president and everything. Everybody plays a role. And collective intention is what matters. And I think we pray for our patients every day. We do it after a meeting and also for the staff. Well, you feel it.

I feel it here. Everybody just is incredible. And the staff. Amazing. Well, you feel it. I feel it here. Everybody just is incredible, and the staff is extraordinary. You've been listening to The Doctor's Pharmacy, a place for conversations that matter, and I hope this conversation mattered to you. Thank you, Dr. Meza, for joining us. And if you like this podcast,

please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, share with your friends and family on Facebook, and leave a review, because we'd love to hear from you. And we'll see you next time on The Doctor's Pharmacy.