Latest / The Joe Rogan Recap / Brigham Buhler (2026) - Personalized Medicine, Biotechnology & Peptides

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Brigham Buhler (2026) - Personalized Medicine, Biotechnology & Peptides · The Joe Rogan Recap

• 0:00
  Welcome to the Joe Rogan recap. And before we get going, please
• 0:03
  follow us right here on Spotify to make sure you get sight of
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  our latest episodes in your feed.
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  So usually when we talk about getting a medical diagnosis,
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  there's this, you know, expectation of total precision.
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  Oh. Absolutely.
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  Like it's engineering or something.
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  Right, like you fall off a bike, the X-ray shows this jagged
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  white line across your arm and the doctor just points at it and
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  says there it is broken. Yeah, we really crave that kind
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  of visibility in medicine. We want our biological problems
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  to just be neatly categorized, you know, easily identifiable
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  and mechanically fixable. But the moment you step into the
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  world of human longevity or preventative medicine, and,
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  well, the regulatory bodies that govern all of it, that X-ray
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  machine just completely shatters.
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  The picture gets incredibly murky.
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  Oh, it gets so complicated. It really does.
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  So today we are taking a deep dive into this massive paradigm
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  shift happening in human health. We're pulling the most cutting
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  edge and honestly sometimes controversial insights from the
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  recent Joe Rogan Experience featuring Brigham Bueller, who
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  founded Waze too well. Yeah.
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  And the mission for this deep dive is really to examine this
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  transition from what we call a traditional sick care system
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  into this entirely new era of predictive medicine.
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  We're talking genomics, revolutionary stem cells, all of
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  it. And the stakes here, I mean,
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  they affect you, the listener directly.
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  Whether you're actively trying to optimize your own health
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  right now, or you just want to understand this wild frontier of
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  modern medicine, you need this knowledge.
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  Exactly. You have to know what is
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  actually happening behind the closed doors of regulatory
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  bodies and these cutting edge private labs because it's a
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  fundamental rewriting of how we age.
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  Let's start with the standard primary care clinic, because our
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  current healthcare system isn't really a healthcare system at
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  all, is it? Not even close.
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  It's an insurance model that basically monetizes chronic
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  disease, right? It's literally a sick care
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  system. I mean, the average doctor gets
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  what, 6 minutes per patient? Just about 6 minutes.
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  Yeah, so if you walk into a clinic and you're overweight,
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  severely anxious, dealing with chronic fatigue, nobody is doing
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  a deep metabolic work up in 6 minutes.
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  No, there's just no time. You're getting a prescription to
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  mask the symptoms, and then you're pushed out the door to
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  make room for the next billing code.
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  It's just wild. And Doctor Marty Macary from the
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  FDA, he talks about this in his book Blind Spot, right?
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  Yes, he diagnosis the core problem in modern medicine as
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  dogma with consensus, meaning there is this immense pressure
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  in clinical medicine to just never stray from the herd.
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  Like if a myth is repeated enough times by guys in white
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  coats, it just becomes reality. Exactly.
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  The actual science, or the total lack of it, just stops
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  mattering. Well, the most stunning example
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  of this in the Bueller interview is the whole panic around TRT
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  testosterone replacement therapy.
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  Oh, the prostate cancer fear. Yeah, right.
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  For decades, men have been warned that optimizing their
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  testosterone could trigger prostate cancer.
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  But then you look at the foundational data for this
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  protocol and it traces back to a single study.
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  From the 1930s. 1930s I get this.
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  It involved exactly 3 patients. I know it sounds like a joke,
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  but it is the actual historical record. 3 patients in the 1930s
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  and it gets worse. How does it get worse than three
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  people? Well, one patient dropped out
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  completely, another patient was chemically castrated so his
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  natural testosterone was at absolute zero, and the third
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  patient was just a normal guy. OK, So what did they even find?
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  They observed that as they give testosterone to the castrated
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  patient, bringing his levels up from zero, there was this
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  theoretical concern that it could exacerbate an existing
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  cancer. Wait, but.
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  What about the normal guy? The normal patient showed 0
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  increased risk. That is insane.
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  So a scientific field that prides itself on peer reviewed
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  data built an entire protocol on a three person study from the
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  Great Depression where one guy quit and the normal guy was
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  totally fine. Yep, it's essentially urban
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  legend dogma. That's like building a modern 80
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  story skyscraper based on a napkin sketch of a log cabin
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  from 100 years ago. How did this survive?
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  Well, to understand why it's so unfounded, you have to look at
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  androgen receptors. Think of your prostate receptor
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  sites like a sponge holding water, right?
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  OK, Sponge. A.
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  Sponge can only hold so much liquid.
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  Once you saturate those receptors with hormones, they're
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  full. They literally can't take in
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  anymore. Right, so giving more
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  testosterone doesn't just infinitely grow cells?
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  Exactly. Pushing your levels to an
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  optimal range doesn't increase cellular proliferation in the
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  prostate. Actually, maintaining optimal
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  levels seems to provide protective benefits against
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  cancer. Because if TRT really caused
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  prostate cancer with the explosion of hormone clinics
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  lately, we would be seeing a massive epidemic among
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  middle-aged men right now. And we aren't.
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  The cancer rate for men on hormones is identical to the
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  general population, but this myth survived for almost a
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  century. Didn't a urologist completely
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  debunk it in the 90s too? Yeah, Doctor Morgan Tyler, he
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  actually treated men who already had prostate cancer with hormone
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  replacement and found no increased risk of it spreading
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  the. Doctors just kept repeating the
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  1930s dogma. Well, thankfully, the FDA is
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  finally working to remove those black box warnings on hormone
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  therapies. Yeah, but because the
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  traditional system is so bogged down by this old dogma,
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  desperate patients are taking matters into their own hands.
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  Right, which leads us to this massive turf war over
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  alternative cash pay models. And that brings us to the
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  absolute Wild West right now, Peptides.
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  Specifically, the GLP 1 weight loss drugs this is the biggest
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  battleground in medicine today. It really is.
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  It's pitting Big Pharma against compounding pharmacies and the
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  black market. And hey, just a quick note to
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  the listener here. When we discussed this FDA
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  regulatory landscape, we are strictly reporting the facts
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  from the source material. We are taking absolutely no
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  political sides whatsoever. Exactly.
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  We're just laying out the timeline and looking at that
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  timeline. The popularity of these GLP ones
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  created a total shockwave. Because they work so well, they
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  mimic hormones that signal your brain your full.
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  Right, they slow down gastric emptying.
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  But then, under the previous administration, 19 of these
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  highly sought after peptides were suddenly placed on a
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  category 2 dangerous list. Which basically banned legal
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  compounding pharmacies from making them.
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  Yeah, and Buehler's clinic actually submitted 17 Freedom of
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  Information Act requests asking for the safety data justifying
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  the ban. And what did they get back?
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  Zero response, Absolute silence. Wow.
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  But now, under the new administration, guys like
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  Secretary Kennedy and Doctor Mccary are trying to unban them
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  to create what they call a life raft for patients.
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  Yes, but they are up against a massive pharmaceutical lobbying
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  machine. Big Pharma spent like $31
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  million on lobbying last year. And Eli Lilly, I mean, these 7X
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  devaluation, they're worth around $800 billion now, mostly
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  off GLP ones. It's arguably the most
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  profitable molecule in history, and they are fiercely lobbying
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  to shut down compounders, even though the FDA officially lists
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  these drugs as being in a national shortage.
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  Because pharma literally can't make enough to meet demand.
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  So if you cut off the legal compounders, people don't just
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  stop wanting to lose weight. No, they turned to the black
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  market. Right now, 4 out of five
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  peptides sold in the US are from unregulated sources.
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  That is is terrifying. People are just buying raw
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  chemicals online and injecting them at home without any doctor
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  oversight. No sterile labs, no purity
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  testing. It's incredibly dangerous.
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  But let me play devil's advocate for a second here.
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  If a pharmaceutical company spends, you know, 1 to $3
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  billion to invent a drug, shouldn't they have the right to
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  protect their patent and crush the compounders copying them?
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  On the surface, that makes perfect capitalist sense, and
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  it's what the lobbyists argue. But The Dirty secret in the
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  source material is that most Phase one trials are actually
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  funded by American taxpayer dollars.
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  Wait, really? Through the NIH.
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  Exactly. We fund the foundational
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  research and then big Pharma swoops in, buys the rights,
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  finishes the FDA approval and slaps a massive price tag on it.
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  So we pay to invent it and then pay a premium to buy it back.
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  That is wild. And the corporate warfare is
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  just ruthless like that telehealth company has.
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  Called the Super Bowl ad. Right, They ran this huge ad for
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  compounded weight loss drugs, but they used Novo Nordisk's
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  actual trademarked brand name. Which is incredibly illegal for
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  a compounder to do. It triggered a massive
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  regulatory backlash. Pharma used it as proof that
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  compounders are out of control. It made the whole industry look
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  bad. But then get this a week later,
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  Hymns inks a backdoor deal with Novo Nordisk to supply their
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  patented drug. And their stocks skyrocketed.
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  It was a brilliant but totally ruthless maneuver.
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  And it just shows how messy this turf war is.
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  But look, while the peptide wars are all about chemical fixes,
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  the real future of longevity is moving past blood work entirely.
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  We're talking gene sequencing. Yeah, moving from the hardware
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  to the biological software, blood work is just a snapshot of
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  a single day. Right.
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  Like, did you sleep bad? Did you eat a burger yesterday?
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  Exactly, but genetic testing reveals the literal code your
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  body was programmed with. And their search STARP is doing
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  is just mind blowing. They're finding natural human
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  mutations that basically create X-Men like the.
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  LRP 5 gene mutation. Right this gene, it increases
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  bone mineral density by 8 * 8 times.
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  It inhibits A pathway that normally tells your body to stop
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  building bones, so your body just keeps laying down this
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  incredibly dense tissue. There's always a catch, a
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  biology, right? Always.
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  The side effect is you become so incredibly heavy and dense that
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  you literally sink like a rock in a pool.
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  You physically cannot swim. You literally lose buoyancy and
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  we see these genetic trade-offs in real life, like with that
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  grappler Gordon Ryan. Yeah, his genetic sequencing
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  showed he won the statistical lottery for combat sports.
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  Extremely resilient tendons, high bone density.
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  But he also has a genetic Achilles heel.
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  Right. His code gives him a highly
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  acidic gut and a severe predisposition to staph
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  infections. Which is terrible if your job is
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  rolling around on sweaty mats with other people.
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  But here's my question. We all know what iOS our iPhone
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  is running, right? But less than one in 1000.
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  People know their own genetic code, it's true.
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  So if our genes are locked in at birth, what is the practical
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  point of knowing our software if we can't just, you know,
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  download an update to fix a bad gene?
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  That's where epigenetics comes in.
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  You can't easily rewrite your base DNA yet, but your
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  environment and behavior can physically alter how your genes
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  are expressed. So your genes aren't just a
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  rigid destiny. No.
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  Think of them like a massive sound board of volume knobs and
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  switches. Your body uses a process called
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  DNA methylation to physically attach chemical tags to your
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  DNA. Like putting tape over a switch
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  so it can't be flipped. Exactly.
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  So just because you have a gene for Alzheimer's or weak bones
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  doesn't mean it's turned on. If you know your code, you can
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  change your diet or sleep to keep those bad genes dormant.
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  OK, so that's the software. Let's talk about the ultimate
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  fix for the body's hardware, the era of revolutionary stem cells
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  and blood purification. So for a long time, traditional
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  stem cells or MSC's were the goal standard for inflammation.
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  But they have limitations right now.
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  Severe limitations. They only have a three to 5%
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  engraftment rate and they aren't pluripotent.
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  They don't actually become new tissue.
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  But then in 2010, this Japanese scientist Mari Dezawa
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  accidentally discovers muse cells.
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  Multi lineage stress enduring cells and the story is amazing.
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  She literally left a Petri dish of cells out overnight because
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  she wanted to go eat sushi and drink sake.
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  Yeah, a total human oversight that changed medicine.
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  She expected them to be dead the next morning, but they survived
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  the stress. And what makes them so special?
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  They're completely safe, no tumor risk, and they naturally
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  bypass the human immune system. Wait.
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  How do they bypass the immune system?
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  It's similar to pregnancy. A fetus is technically a foreign
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  Organism, but the placenta produces stem cells that cloak
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  the fetus from the mother's immune system.
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  MU cells use that exact same cloaking mechanism.
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  That is incredible, and unlike traditional stem cells, MU cells
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  have a 15 to 30% engraftment rate and they are pluripotent.
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  Meaning they can turn into anything.
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  Using the sources analogy, traditional stem cells are like
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  adult professionals with a set career, but MU cells are like
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  kindergarteners. They can grow up to be whatever
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  the body needs. And when they find a damaged
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  cell, they use vagocytosis. It's basically a microscopic
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  game of Pac-Man, right? Exactly like Pac-Man, they
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  engulf the dying cell, read its genetic instructions, and become
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  a brand new, youthful version of that exact cell.
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  They literally replace damaged tissue with youth.
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  It sounds like sci-fi, but it's happening.
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  And Speaking of reversing age, we have to talk about
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  plasmapheresis. Right, therapeutic plasma
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  exchange. It's a 50 year old dialysis tech
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  now being used for longevity. Because aging is basically just
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  the accumulation of microscopic trash, right?
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  Yeah, your blood plasma acts like a biological trash can.
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  Over the decades, it fills up with inflammatory markers, heavy
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  metals and microplastics. Like the story of chef Philip
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  Franklin Lee, he came into a clinic with chronic fatigue and
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  a testosterone level of like 80 or 90, which.
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  Is of the of a frail elderly man.
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  Right, and they found massive amounts of microplastics in his
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  blood, probably from decades of handling sushi packaging.
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  So they used plasmapheresis. They hooked him up to a
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  centrifuge, removed the sludgy plasma with all the
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  microplastics, and replaced it with sterile human albumin.
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  It's literally like taking a classic car in for a total oil
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  change. You drain the gritty black oil
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  and pump in fresh synthetic oil. And his results were insane.
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  Without any external hormones hormones, his natural
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  testosterone skyrocketed to 1200.
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  Just by cleaning the trash out of his engine.
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  It really makes you wonder how much of aging is just decades of
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  garbage clogging up our cells. A massive percentage, according
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  to the clinical data. When you remove that burden,
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  your body just reboots. So bringing this all together
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  for you listening, the ultimate take away here is you have to
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  claim autonomy over your own health.
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  Right, The traditional sick care system is great if you have a
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  heart attack or a car crash. With the cash pay life raft of
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  preventative medicine, tracking your data with DEXA scans, VO2
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  Max gene sequencing and using these biologics that's all about
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  making sure you never have the heart attack in the first place.
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  Exactly, you have to take the wheel before the check engine
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  light comes on. But I want to leave you with a
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  final thought to really chew on. We've just talked about X-Men,
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  gene edits, Pac-Man cells that reverse aging and washing
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  plastics out of our blood. All of which are incredible.
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  They are, but the traditional insurance system actively
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  refuses to cover almost all of this.
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  So if the future of healthcare relies entirely on a cash pay
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  model to access these miracles, are we heading toward a future
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  with a literal biological class divide?
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  That is a dark thought. I mean, will society soon be
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  split between the wealthy who can legally biohack their way
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  out of aging and everyone else who is left relying on a 6
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  minute sick care insurance model?
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  It's something we really need to think about as the science
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  explodes. Thank you so much for joining us
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  on this Dee dive Kee questioning the consensus and we will see
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  you next time.