Stem Cells, GLP-1s, Peptides & The Faith-Based Case for Longevity | Dr. Josh Axe

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Dr. Josh Axe walked into this conversation on Dr. Cole's birthday, which the team revealed at the end of the episode in a moment I didn't plan and didn't know was coming. It's a good way to describe the whole thing, actually - a lot happened that I didn't plan.

We started with the story that most people don't know about Dr. Axe: three and a half years ago, a stem cell treatment for a ruptured disc in Puerto Rico led to a 1-in-250,000 complication. An infection in the disc, spreading into the vertebra, then an abscess growing near his spinal cord. He couldn't sit up. He couldn't move. They put him on a gurney onto a private plane and flew him to Florida. An infectious disease doctor told him his best-case scenario was chronic pain for the rest of his life. For 24 hours, he said, he felt like his life was over. And then he prayed, and he went to work.

The protocol he built is the most thorough clinical account of healing from a serious spinal infection I've heard outside of a medical textbook - and it worked in a way that shocked the doctor. Zero back pain now. Fully regenerated bone. No spinal fusion, which is the standard treatment for what he had. The specific things he credits: hyperbaric oxygen therapy every day (bone has no blood supply, HBOT floods it with pressurized oxygen), natural silver and methylene blue as antimicrobials, BPC-157 and TB500 for angiogenesis (creating new blood vessels in an area that desperately needed them), and everything he could do nutritionally to support healing. He didn't walk for ten months. He was on a walker for another two. And then he came back fully.

We also got into something that doesn't get enough space in the longevity conversation - the grief piece. Both Dr. Axe and I lost our dads to sudden cardiovascular events within a similar window of time. His father-in-law Joel was at the gym every morning. Ate clean. And then gone. We talked about what it's like to know the health world inside out and still not have caught it - and why running advanced panels on the people you love, while it can feel like anxiety or hypochondria, is actually love expressed in the language of medicine. Jordan Peterson has said it differently but the math is the same: if your parent is 75 and you see them four times a year, you might have 20 visits left. What do you want those visits to look like?

The Bryan Johnson section of this conversation is the one I want people to hear most carefully. Not because Dr. Axe dismissed him, but because he was precise: there are elements of what Bryan does that are commendable, and there are elements that concern him deeply. Taking his son's blood for transfusions is one. Uploading consciousness to a cloud is another. The goal of physical immortality - not aging well, but literally not dying - is a theological and philosophical position that collides with a faith-based worldview in ways worth examining. The truth, as Dr. Axe put it, is somewhere between "we're all gonna die, who cares" and "let's pretend to be God." That middle is where functional and longevity medicine actually lives.

A few of my favorite things we cover in this episode: 

• Dr. Axe's spinal infection: stem cell treatment in a disc, a freak 1-in-250,000 complication, waking up unable to walk in Puerto Rico - and a 10-month recovery that ended with zero back pain and a fully regenerated spine without fusion
• The HBOT protocol that changed everything: hyperbaric oxygen floods bone (which has no blood supply) with pressurized oxygen - used for burn victims, stroke, brain trauma, mold toxicity, Lyme, cancer support
• Peptides as food-concentrated biology: BPC-157 is found naturally in gastric juice - gut dysbiosis means you're already deficient. Creatine is a peptide. Insulin is a peptide. This isn't as exotic as it sounds.
• BPC-157 + TB500 stack for the spinal infection: angiogenesis (new blood vessel formation) was exactly what the bone needed - and it worked
• GLP-1 at one-tenth the standard dose, with protein/fiber/resistance training - that's a completely different conversation than what's happening clinically
• Muscle loss from GLP-1s: losing weight too fast causes disproportionate muscle loss - slower is dramatically better for long-term body composition
• Stem cells: boost your own first (pomegranates, berries, astragalus, reishi, fo-ti) - then if needed, culture-expanded umbilical cord stem cells at ReHealth in Cancun
• ME cells (Dawasa) - the newest and most promising for reversing chronic organ conditions, coming soon to US states that have passed new laws (Florida first, Tennessee pending)
• The shared loss: Dr. Axe's father-in-law Joel - gym every morning, healthy, cardiovascular event, gone overnight. Same pattern as Dr. Cole's dad. "Did that really happen?"
• Men and proactive health: women drag their husbands to the clinic. Longevity shouldn't require someone else forcing you to look at your own labs.
• Adding life to years, not years to life: Bryan Johnson vs. Matt Walsh - two extremes, neither is the answer. Your body is a temple. Physical training has value. Don't make it a god.
• COVID as a blood stasis condition: a Chinese medicine doctor told Dr. Axe in early 2020 - "I see it affecting the blood" - before anyone was talking about clotting, myocarditis, or nattokinase
• The most important quality in a doctor: a Christ-like mindset - humility, compassion, urgency to help, no God complex

Products Mentioned:

• Heal Your Cells by Dr. Will Cole & Dr. Josh Axe - available now at drwillcole.com/books, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, independent bookstores
• The Dr. Josh Axe Show
• ReHealth - Cancun and Cabo (culture-expanded umbilical cord stem cell therapy - Dr. Axe, Gary Brecka, Dr. Dan Pompa)
• Protocols/Peptides Mentioned: 
  • Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) - soft home chambers available on Facebook Marketplace and eBay; hard chambers at clinics; can also rent
  • BPC-157 + TB500 stack (peptides - clinical guidance required for sourcing and dosing)
  • MOTs-C (mitochondrial peptide)
  • Semax, Selank, Cerebrolysin (brain health peptides)
  • Epitalon (sleep peptide)
  • Astragalus, reishi mushroom, fo-ti, ginseng, dong quai, rhodiola (stem cell-supporting adaptogens)
  • Ozone therapy / EBOO / MAH (chronic infection support)
  • Therapeutic plasma exchange (mentioned in context of advanced therapies)
  • ME cells / Dawasa (newest stem cell type for chronic organ conditions - coming to US via new state laws)
  • High-dose vitamin C (cancer integrative support)
  • Hyperthermia + mistletoe (integrative cancer support stack mentioned)
  • Methylene blue (antimicrobial - part of Dr. Axe's spinal infection protocol)

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Happy listening, and we hope you learned a little bit more on the art of being well!

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In Health,

Dr. Will Cole