Stopping inflammation, anti-aging, and reversing menopause (!?) These are some of the potentials being explored and realized in the world of stem cell therapy, and because Brain Warriors stay informed on the cutting edge of science, this information gives us clues as to what’s possible now and what will be in the future. This episode, the last in a series with Dr. Todd Ovokaitys, illustrates many of the implications regarding the use of stem cells for achieving human potential.
For more on Dr. Todd Ovokaitys, visit his page at: http://drtoddo.com/
Daniel Amen, MD:
Welcome to the Brain Warrior’s Way podcast. I’m Dr. Daniel. Amen.
Tana Amen, BSN RN:
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Daniel Amen, MD:
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Welcome back. We are here with Dr. Todd O., and we’re just having so much fun talking about STEM cells. Before we get started, please, if you have any questions or concerns, or just what you’ve learned, post it, you can take a picture of yourself and post it. You can also go to brainwarriorswaypodcast.com. You can leave us a review, or questions, and we will enter you into a drawing for one of our books, either The Brain Warrior’s Way Cookbook, or Daniel’s book, The End of Mental Illness. We just love hearing from you.
But I’m just really enjoying this and we’ve talked in our last episode about some of the practical applications. And off-air, Dr. Todd, we were talking about some of the anti-aging implications. Now for me, I also would love from a health perspective, as someone who had 10 medical surgeries, I’m thinking, going down the checklist. So I can do it for this and this and this and this. But beyond at that age, I’m 51. And everyday I look in the mirror and I’m like, “Eh, I should probably get my eyes done, or I should get a facelift.” But I don’t really want to. I’m afraid to, because I see some of the botched jobs or I also worry about anesthesia. All of those things, there’s many things that can go wrong. And we were talking about the anti-aging implications of this. So tell us about that. And then afterwards, I’d love to hear about some of the risks as well.
Dr. Todd Ovokaitys: Sure. So, our biggest vortex is general anti-aging. And when we do that protocol, when we inject the cells IV, they do go everywhere from [inaudible [00:02:14] the body, through head to toe. However, we focus the cells on the parts of the body that are slower to regenerate. So we focus on the brain and spinal cord, as well as the endocrine system. So we send cells into the pineal, pituitary, thyroid, thymus, and adrenals plus or minus gonads. Now what’s really interesting is that the V-cells have been proven and now the only type of STEM cell that would be safely used, [inaudible [00:02:46] come new eggs and sperm.
Tana Amen, BSN RN: Wow.
Dr. Todd Ovokaitys: So if a woman is say near menopause, or just crossed over, at least in theory, these cells could repopulate the ovary and turn that back.
Tana Amen, BSN RN: Wow.
Dr. Todd Ovokaitys: And there is work done in this area, using a somewhat different protocol than ours, where the cells are actually injected intra-arterially into the ovarian arteries with improved fertility.
Tana Amen, BSN RN: That’s [inaudible [00:03:16] interesting.
Dr. Todd Ovokaitys: So the overall anti-aging potency is pretty great and the concept of photoacoustics is just like any other quantum physics, it’s about probabilities. So when we, say for anti-aging, direct the cells to the brain, spinal cord, and the endocrine system, the hormonal system, that the cells are circulating everywhere and they do go everywhere and they will tend to go more to parts of the body where there is an inflammatory process, because that attracts the cells there. Yet, they will also be distributed so there will be an antiaging effect from head to toe, with an augmented effect where the signal has been given for the cells to increase the probability of going there.
Tana Amen, BSN RN: Wow.
Daniel Amen, MD: How many of these cells do you think you’re injecting? Because it sounds like you’re not growing them, you’re just isolating them. And do you have a sense of how many are actually… what’s the size of the army?
Dr. Todd Ovokaitys: Well, it’s interesting. This is a controversial area and the numbers kind of differ throughout the literature. In the work that we confirmed with my colleague in the UK, and are about to publish, we’re planning to submit this paper potentially early as the end of this month, the numbers that we got were higher than are reported in the literature. So many of the articles will say the numbers are about a thousand of these VSELs per milliliter of blood. And when we did our process, what was different is that the cells were also photoacoustically awakened. So what we believe is happening is that we gave the cells a stimulus to express the markers typical of V-cells, so that there are actually more cells recorded. In a typical 60cc, a draw of blood, the approximate number is about 20 million cells. So you got it before the publication.
Daniel Amen, MD: And side effects? Are people having any side effects from this?
Dr. Todd Ovokaitys: The most common side effect, if you want to call it that, is that, and I’d say it’s about 10 or 20% of people getting the procedure experienced an increased need for [inaudible [00:05:50]. So it can feel like a mild flu, it can be a few days of being somewhat fatigued that last for a week or so. And I believe this is a so called cytokine effect, that the new cells are releasing chemistry, growth and repair and regeneration factors that may put the body into a state of rest and repair. Some people experienced that, other people may actually feel more energized right away. And even if people have that fatigue feeling for a few days or a week, generally the energy recovers quite nicely and is higher than before. Other than that, we don’t tend to see what you would call an adverse effect.
Tana Amen, BSN RN: Well, obviously they’re not going to reject it.
Dr. Todd Ovokaitys: Right.
Tana Amen, BSN RN: Because it’s their own cells.
Daniel Amen, MD: Because it’s theirs, right. And what does it typically cost? Or what’s the range? I mean, I’m sure it depends on-
Tana Amen, BSN RN: Right, how much you’re doing and… right.
Daniel Amen, MD: … each person and so on. But just to give people a sense-
Tana Amen, BSN RN: And is it one treatment or do you need multiple treatments? What’s the…
Daniel Amen, MD: Protocol.
Tana Amen, BSN RN: Yeah.
Dr. Todd Ovokaitys: Well, it’s a lot of questions.
Tana Amen, BSN RN: Welcome to the Brain Warrior’s Way.
Dr. Todd Ovokaitys: So the full price for those with lots of resources would be $10,000 for a treatment. And we adhere to a sliding scale concept or it’s actually called Reynolds Rule where those that can’t afford to pay the full price in a sense subsidize those that don’t have the means to pay the full price. So often we reduce it to $7,500, even less than that, depending on the circumstances. And some cases, we do procedures at no charge because there are circumstances for that person and we can assist them and we have the ability to do so. So it ranges but that’s sort of a typical fee and that allows us to keep doing what we’re doing. Not only technically providing the procedures, but also continuing with the research and the IP stuff that goes with it, et cetera. And we do have two granted us patents. The most relevant is US 10202598P2 which describes localizing a STEM cell and tissue by applying a laser from at least two directions.
Tana Amen, BSN RN: That’s awesome. So it’s not like you’re going to come in and they’re going to go, “Oh, we’re going to sign you up for a package of 10.’ Or do they? Are there some people who want to keep doing it?
Dr. Todd Ovokaitys: What the key factor there is the individual variation in response.
Tana Amen, BSN RN: Hmm. Okay, so it makes sense.
Dr. Todd Ovokaitys: Yeah. And probably our best example is what we’ve studied with heart failure, because there’s such a clean objective measure of the response with the cardiac ejection fraction. So a normal heart pumps out 50 to 65% of the blood when it’s at rest. That’s the so called normal ejection fraction. Whereas severe end stage heart failure, the ejection fraction is less than 30%. And in the study that we did in Armenia, which was 10 subjects, everybody improved, but the low end of improvement was a 15% increase in function. But the highest end was 115% increase in function.
Tana Amen, BSN RN: Wow.
Dr. Todd Ovokaitys: So 20% of the subjects with just one application improved to a nearly normal ejection fraction. So the answer is because of so much individual variability, we usually do one application at a time and give it some time to express the full regeneration effect that that particular application is going to have, and then decide if another one is required.
Tana Amen, BSN RN: Right. And when I think about the cost of someone who’s had 10 medical surgeries and been pretty sick at points. I’ve gone out of my way to do some different treatments to feel better. Concierge or things that are not just mainstream, they’re pricey. But feeling awful and not being able to work is pricier.
Dr. Todd Ovokaitys: Right.
Tana Amen, BSN RN: And its miserable. And cosmetic surgery is really pricey. So you kind of have to weigh it out, I mean, I don’t want to minimize what the cost is for some people but at the same time, what is the cost of feeling really good and productive and being healthy?
Daniel Amen, MD: Well, and we’re really grateful to you to help bring this information to people in our community.
Tana Amen, BSN RN: [inaudible [00:10:44].
Daniel Amen, MD: We’re going to follow your work closely over time.
Tana Amen, BSN RN: I’m going to follow it really closely.
Daniel Amen, MD: All right, well I think [inaudible [00:10:54] my office to make an appointment. You can learn more about Dr. Todd Ovokaitys, you can go to drtoddo.com. I’m really excited to bring you to the Brain Warrior’s Way podcast. If you learned anything, please write it down, take a picture of it, post it on any of your social media sites. Go to brainwarriorswaypodcast.com, leave us a comment, question or review. We’ll enter you into a raffle to win one of our books, The Brain Warrior’s Way Cookbook or my new book, the End of Mental Illness. Thanks Dr. Todd so much.
Tana Amen, BSN RN: We’re so grateful.
Dr. Todd Ovokaitys: My pleasure. Thank you.
Tana Amen, BSN RN: If you’re enjoying the Brain Warrior’s Way podcast, please don’t forget to subscribe so you’ll always know when there’s a new episode. And while you’re at it, feel free to give us a review or five star rating as that helps others find the podcast.
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