The Most Underrated Anti-Aging Tool in the World (Boost Stem Cells Naturally!)

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1:30In the late 1990s, scientists discovered that bone marrow transplants could not only help blood cells, they were also accidentally mobilizing stem cells to repair patients' damaged hearts, skin, and even their brains and nervous system. And today we're going to be looking at how you can naturally boost your body's own stem cell production without expensive treatments or clinics. For example, studies show that fasting for just 24 hours can significantly boost stem cell regeneration and hyperbaric oxygen therapy can do the same. Even simple habits like exercise, sunlight, and eating more polyphenol-rich foods can help your body repair itself faster and age more slowly.

2:15And this is key because if you're struggling with any health condition, everything from diabetes to hypothyroidism to low testosterone to chronic pain, and you're looking to heal, well, stem cells can help create new tissue, help you regenerate and heal more completely. Living a life free of drugs, without medications, and living a long, healthy life, free of disease, free of pain. And stem cells are probably the most promising form of medicine to help you do just that. So on today's episode, I'm going to dive deep on the foods, the herbs, the lifestyle, the holistic treatments that can help you take your stem cells to the next level without breaking the bank.

2:55Welcome to the Dr. Josh Axe Show.

3:14So when people hear the word stem cells, they often think of high-tech medical treatments or controversial lab experiments, but your body actually makes stem cells naturally, and stem cells are your body's master repair cells. So if you have damaged thyroid tissue that's not healthy, your stem cells are what repair it. If you have major low back pain or knee pain, it's your stem cells that heal it and allow it to regenerate and create new and healthy tissue so the pain is no longer there. So no matter what condition you're struggling with, stem cells can help you heal. And this is especially true for things like autoimmune disease, which you'll find out here on the show.

3:56But stem cells, again, are your body's master repair cells. They are special cells that can divide and turn into many different types of cells, including muscle, bone, brain, blood cells, organ cells like liver or pancreas, which of course is key for diabetes, or thyroid, which is key for hypothyroidism, or reproductive organs, which is important for fertility. And think about them as your body's build-in maintenance team. When you get injured, sick, or simply age, stem cells rush in to replace the damaged or worn-out cells and keep tissues functioning properly. Kind of imagine remodeling a home.

4:38Okay, your body's constantly remodeling itself, creating new and healthy tissue. And if your stem cells are active and working properly, your body is coming in and putting in stone and high-quality wood beams and brick and marble, the things you want your house made of. But if your stem cells are low and not functioning properly, your body's putting in cardboard and styrofoam, and so your tissue isn't healthy, and so it doesn't function properly, which leads to disease. In short, stem cells are what make regeneration possible. And the reason why your skin heals, and sometimes we see these celebrities.

5:16And I was literally just talking to my mother-in-law about this because we were watching somebody on TV. I think it was like Kathy Ireland or someone like that. And I'm like, wow, I mean, she looks so young still for her age. And then we started talking about stem cells and how there are women in their 60s and 70s that look like they could be in their 40s, 20 to 30 years younger because of, now listen, I know there's other things out there as well, as my mother-in-law reminded me in terms of they are getting nips and tucks and things like that there with plastic surgery. But overall, I definitely have seen some celebrities, and I know they're doing stem cell treatments and following a stem cell-based diet, and that's how they've looked so young.

5:55In fact, I think about someone like Hugh Jackman, a male, and how he has continued to play this role in Wolverine and Marvel Move Me's and done what he's done while lifting heavy weights and staying really fit in his late 50s. And he's done it because he's used actually certain peptides and certain types of diets and treatments using stem cells to keep him physically younger. So again, stem cells are what make regeneration possible. They're what allows you to regenerate with new and healthy younger tissue, regenerate your skin, healthier new blood, your organs stay younger by doing this. You know, one of my favorite tests I've done over the past few years is an organ age test where you can actually test how old your organs are.

6:44And probably the single greatest factor that will keep your organs younger is supporting your body in creating more unhealthy stem cells. And when you get older, your stem cell production naturally declines. So it's natural, your body produces less, but you want to keep it as high as possible to stay younger and to fight disease. And when your stem cells decline, it typically leads to slower healing, tissue degeneration, aging. And you might notice this, of course you notice this, if you're in your 40s, 50s, 60s, beyond, you notice that compared to 20 years ago, you don't heal as quickly or completely.

7:21What may be a sprained ankle or a little twinge in your knee might have taken three days when you were 18 years old. Now it takes 30 days or three years or it just doesn't go away at all. That's because your body isn't producing enough stem cells. And by supporting your body's own stem cell system, you can help your body create way more of these stem cells, which leads to longevity and greater healing. And I want to go through the really fascinating history of this. In the 1960s, two Canadian scientists, one was named Dr. Ernest McCullough, the other is Dr. James Till, they made a groundbreaking discovery.

7:57They found that certain bone marrow cells could regenerate your blood and help heal your blood. And this was the first real proof that stem cells existed in mammals. And it was a concept that would completely, as we now know, reshape medicine. And in the 1990s, researchers learned how to isolate embryonic stem cells, which are capable of becoming any type of tissue in the body. And it was hailed as the most exciting discovery in modern biology. But of course, as I agree, it became majorly controversial because these stem cells came from embryos, which I and many people believed is unethical. And then by 2001, among this heated debate in the public and political arena, the U.S.

8:42government restricted federal funding for new embryonic stem cell lines. And overnight, the break was slammed, as it should have been, because this is unethical in what they were using as the tissues for stem cells. But there was a newer discovery and they found, okay, many of these same stem cells that are found in embryo are also found in areas of the body like umbilical cord or in bone marrow of adults. And so many people viewed that as a setback, but scientists began looking elsewhere for where are stem cells in adult bodies. And they found that there were these stem cells are called mesenchymal stem cells in our bone marrow.

9:21And so those could be extracted from bone marrow and used for healing. And then they also found another source when mothers donated their umbilical cords after pregnancy, the umbilical cord also had incredibly high amounts of these stem cells that could be used for healing. And that pivot transformed the field. Instead of relying on these unethical embryonic stem cells, researchers started using stem cells from our own body, like our bone marrow, and from donated umbilical cords. And these are the very types of stem cells that are used today and injected in people with major orthopedic issues.

10:00This is a type of stem cell I've had where they pulled my own bone marrow and an umbilical cord was then cultured. And then this is what I've used to get back to 100%. You know, I had a serious spinal infection and other major injuries in the past. And I use this sort of stem cell therapy to help me completely heal. And this sort of research also led to, though, other discoveries on how we can boost our own stem cell production with things like fasting, nutritional and dietary therapy, peptides, and even things like hyperbaric oxygen therapy that naturally stimulate new stem cell production. Now, there are a few types of stem cells I want to talk about today.

10:40One are called mesenchymal stem cells, and these are found from adult stem cells from bone marrow. They're also found in a younger version in umbilical cord tissue. And these are the body's natural maintenance workers. They are tissue specific. Again, they're best from bone marrow or umbilical cords even better. Now, they're also found in things like your fat cells, but bone marrow superior. and even superior, that would be umbilical cord. And they're less versatile than these embryonic stem cells, but they're much safer, they're fully acceptable, and they have been shown in scientific studies to have major, major benefits for tissue repair, reducing inflammation, immune balance, and so much more.

11:28And I can tell you, these are the type of stem cells that, again, I used for healing myself, and I've got many friends and colleagues who have used in healing themselves using stem cells. A really close friend of mine, Gary Brecka, has used these types of stem cells. In fact, him and I have gone to the same clinic in Cancun, in Cabo, Mexico, and had treatments. Dr. Mark Hyman, Chris Williamson, Dan Pompa. And there's a lot of doctors out there and well-known fit public figures that have used these sort of stem cells to help them overcome and heal from chronic health issues. And I've also used these sort of stem cells to help many patients I've had with, with chronic health issues, heal and recover when nothing else worked.

12:07Now, I also want to mention there's a new type of stem cell out there that's unproven at this point, but you're going to see a lot of information coming out in the future. And I talked about these sort of stem cells with another colleague of mine, Dr. Darshan Shah. And Darshan is the founder of Next Health Clinics. He's been a guest on this podcast. And we've talked a lot about stem cells together and a lot of other things that support cellular longevity and healing. And so one of the types of stem cell treatments we were discussing is called mu cells. And mu cells are one of the most exciting frontiers in regenerative health and longevity because they're safe and naturally occurring stem cells in the body.

12:46Now, this is a newer discovery out of Japan. And these are stem cells that are found naturally in adult tissue, such as bone marrow, blood, and fat. And the research on mu cells are showing that these sort of cells might be the most beneficial stem cells for helping repair and regenerate certain organs like the heart. But as of today, the most promising stem cells are those from your own bone marrow and from umbilical cord that is then cultured. Have you ever felt like you're doing everything right? Eating clean, working out, taking all the right supplements, but your body just won't cooperate.

13:25Maybe you're tired, you're foggy, you're gaining weight, you can't sleep, and your doctor says your labs are normal. Here's the truth. Normal blood work does not mean your body is operating normally. It just means the levels in your blood work look okay. Not that your cells are actually using them the way they should. It's like using the wrong map and wondering why you're lost. Or putting gas in the tank but the engine still won't turn over. Because if your cells are inflamed, stressed, or in survival mode, nothing you do will work the way it should. Your body's been whispering for years. Now maybe it's screaming and you deserve someone who's actually listening.

14:02Go to mybloodwork.com and see what your blood work missed. What's really going on beneath the surface. Because you're not crazy. You're not lazy. You're just stuck in a system that was never built to find the problem. It was built to diagnose disease, not restore your health. At mybloodwork.com, we'll show you how to finally get your body and your life back. And so the way stem cells work is they travel to the damaged air. So whether you're getting them injected or you're eating a diet that supports it, here's an example. Your body will take stem cells from your bone marrow, and it will be then sent into the blood to heal something in the blood, or then from the blood to an organ like the lungs or the heart or the digestive system or that old injury you have in your low back.

14:52your body will send stem cells there, which will then help regenerate and heal. And actually it will become that tissue. So stem cells can become healthy back tissue, healthy knee cartilage, healthy heart tissue. So they become whatever type of cell you need in order to heal and function properly. As another example of this, they can turn into neurons after brain injury or heart muscle after a stroke or heart attack with cardiac damage. And as you can see on this graphic, stem cells and mu cells can migrate directly to sites of damage and differentiate into many types of tissue, everything from muscle to nerve to liver to heart to skin and become that new organ tissue, which is true healing and regeneration.

15:40And early research suggests it could help with one is neurological disorders. They're showing promise in repairing damage from a stroke, spinal cord injury, and neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. Also, cardiovascular disease. You know, I know somebody who had a heart attack, had major damage to their heart tissue, and has had stem cell a couple times. And now, all their markers for the health of their heart are much, much improved. Medical studies have shown it's been shown to help liver and kidney disease, supporting regeneration, reducing fibrosis. It's been shown to help heal skin and wound issues, reduce scarring formation.

16:21And the thing that I've probably recommended the most for, along with orthopedic issues, which I'll get into in a minute, are autoimmune and inflammatory conditions. A friend of mine who's a doctor actually struggled with inflammatory bowel disease like Crohn's and colitis. I had him go and get treatment, and the results he saw were phenomenal at helping him completely reverse. He completely reversed his inflammatory bowel disease with this. And so this is also great for Hashimoto's thyroiditis, rheumatoid arthritis, and any type of autoimmune disease. But again, the great news is you can start boosting your body's own stem cells using foods, herbs, and lifestyle medicine.

17:00I also want to mention a case study here on healing the brain after stroke with mu cells. In 2023, Japanese researchers made headlines with a clinical trial using mu cells to help patients recover from strokes. The study included 35 stroke patients, all with significant movement and function loss. participants received a single IV infusion of mu cells between two to four weeks after their stroke. No surgery, no immunosuppressing drugs were used. After just 12 weeks, 40 % of patients treated with mu cells regained meaningful mobility in daily function compared to only 10 % in the placebo group.

17:43And then MRI scans showed after this, cells migrated to damaged brain areas, And it's actually showed healing of nerve tissue, which is amazing and typically takes 10 years or longer or it never happens. So the fact that they saw this sort of healing regeneration is extraordinary. And this was the first randomized placebo-controlled trial on this sort of stem cell therapy and showing that it safely restored brain function after stroke. Now, here's something to note that's really important about stem cell therapy. It's not FDA approved. Now, I think it might have FDA approval possibly for certain types of stem cell for knees, actually for things like ACL tears, or we're very close there.

18:28But for a lot of these treatments, especially with things like autoimmune disease and other sort of things impacting the nervous system or organ systems, it's not FDA approved. And stem cell therapy, though it has huge potential, it's one of the most tightly regulated areas of medicine. And that's why many so-called stem cell clinics operate outside of the United States. This is why myself, I have traveled to Cancun and Cabo to Rehealth to their stem cell clinic, as is Gary Brecka and Mark Hyman and these other docs have gone there because, first off, their clinics are amazing there, but they can do the things that make the most difference in terms of what they're doing with stem cells.

19:11And a big part of that is culturing stem cells. So what they do is they will pull your bone marrow or use umbilical cord cells. They'll culture them and expand them, which means you might get 10 to 100 times more stem cells by doing that. It's just it's similar to the process of fermentation where you create more a few bacteria. Now you have a lot more bacteria. Very same. You can culture and create more cells. And that's what's not legal in the United States today. Even though I will say the state of Florida is now challenging those laws thanks to RFK Jr. and people like Ron DeSantis, who are more on the forefront of wanting to get this sort of extraordinary medicine, have more approval for it.

19:50So people aren't having to travel to other countries to get these types of treatment. So what's currently allowed in the United States of America is stem cells that come from your own body or from other sources that are not changed whatsoever. OK, what is illegal is you taking even your own cells or these umbilical sores and multiplying them. That's what's not allowed, even though it's completely safe and effective in something that literally thousands of functional medicine doctors have had treatment on themselves in other countries. Now, what I want to dive into now, though, is how you can boost your body's own own stem cell production naturally.

20:27Your body is already producing stem cells. The problem is for many of you, your body's not producing enough or not the right quality. And if your body can start producing more stem cells and mobilizing those stem cells, you can heal much more quickly and completely from every medical condition you can think of. Step number one is this, stop blocking cellular regeneration and stop blocking your body from producing stem cells. The single biggest thing today that's absolutely destroying our stem cells is highly processed foods, refined sugars, highly processed oils. These are driving chronic inflammation and oxidative stress.

21:07Oxidative stress and inflammation damage and destroy your stem cells and shorten the lifespan of your stem cells. And a nutrient-dense diet full of whole foods, especially rich in antioxidants, has been shown to increase your body's stem cell production. Toxins are another big issue. Heavy metals, plastics, pesticides, environmental pollutants, also infections like Lyme and parasites and mold are very toxic to the body. They damage your DNA, they damage your cell membranes, and they damage your stem cells. So reducing your toxic exposure is another key to support stem cell production. Chronic stress, not getting enough sleep at night and chronic release of cortisol suppresses stem cell activity and slows tissue regeneration.

21:55Learning to regulate stress and sort of boost your parasympathetic nerve system through things like prayer, spiritual meditation, deep breathing techniques, time in nature, and as I mentioned, restorative sleep. These are the greatest ways to restore your stem cell activation. Are you interested in functional nutrition tips to burn fat, reduce inflammation, improve your brain and energy levels, and heal naturally, then I want to encourage you to listen to my friend, Dr. Dave Jockers' podcast, The Functional Nutrition Podcast. This podcast is designed to help you with easy, actual steps to improve your nutrition and lifestyle, understand your lab work, and address the root cause factors that may be driving up inflammation in your body.

22:41Now, I've been friends with Dr. David Jockers for 20 years, and he's truly a world expert in functional nutrition, cellular healing, and so much more. If you want to learn the best nutrition and natural healing tips, tune in to the Dr. Jocker's Functional Nutrition Podcast on Apple iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever you can listen to podcasts worldwide. So now I want to walk you through nine science-backed ways to boost your body's own stem cell production. And again, this is something that I've been very conscious of is I had this major injury where doctors told me I might be permanently disabled.

23:15And so I dove deep into the research to discover how can I support my body in creating the greatest level of tissue regeneration repair that was possible. And one of the first things I discovered was fasting and caloric restriction. Short-term fasting triggers cellular cleanup and regeneration. And researchers have discovered that autophagy, the body's built-in cellular recycling process, is triggered by fasting and is the key to protecting aging stem cells. There's a 2024 study from Columbia University that found that 24 hours of fasting followed by refeeding can reset old blood stem cells, helping them behave more like young ones.

23:58And MIT researchers found that a 24-hour fast doubled intestinal stem cells and supported your body's regenerative capacity. You know, the other unique thing in that study that they found was is that it also supported your body from going from burning carbs for energy to fat for energy, which, of course, if your goal is weight loss and supporting insulin resistance and really reversing almost any condition, You know, excess body fat really is a major cause of inflammation, and it's connected to most disease processes, but especially heart disease, diabetes, and hormone imbalances and weight gain are definitely up there.

24:39So there are benefits of fasting. Now, I always encourage people to moderate their fasting and listen to their body. If you are very weak and you've got an issue like hypothyroidism or major hormone imbalance, I typically recommend not doing intense fasting. Now, if you've got more of an issue such as certain types of cancer or you're overweight and need to lose weight, then fasting is tremendous. Loads of benefits. They're doing a 24-hour fast or taking a day a week and fasting regularly, lots of benefits. But even doing intermittent fasting where you're fasting maybe around, let's say, your 10 hours you're eating or a 9-10 hour eating window, and then you're fasting 14 hours a day, that can have benefits there as well.

25:24But I would say just for most people, doing an intermittent fast one day a week where you skip breakfast and lunch, you spend that time more focusing on spiritual growth. This is what the early church fathers did. The early church did continually as they focused on one day a week of fasting. I think that's a great way to regularly fast one day a week and get tremendous benefits for boosting your body's own stem cell production. Number two way to boost your body's own stem cell production is consume a high quality diet, a diet rich. I would say a diet that's biblically based or Mediterranean based, but a diet that's rich in wild organic meat, lots of vegetables, lots of things like fruit and things like healthy fats.

26:06That is the diet you want to follow. Foods rich in polyphenols, antioxidants, and omega-3 fatty acids and collagen protect stem cells from oxidative damage and aging, also called stem cell senescence. And there are certain antioxidants in studies such as resveratrol, which is found in grapes and blueberries. They help your stem cells live long and recover faster. Again, when we're looking at your diet, a diet rich in omega-3s is fantastic. Lots of wild-caught fish like salmon, sardines, sea bass, halibut, mackerel. A lot of these omega-3 rich fish are at the very, very top of the list. In addition to that, vegetables of all colors, beets, which support nitric oxide, carrots, and beta-carotene is amazing for stem cells.

26:58Green leafy vegetables, cruciferous vegetables, but vegetables of all kinds, the full spectrum of the rainbow. doing those ideally steamed, some raw, but doing lots and lots of those vegetables is sort of the number two along there with those omega-3 rich foods. And then foods that are rich in high quality protein like collagen. So drinking bone broth, doing grass-fed beef, those sorts of things regularly. And then lots of fruit, especially those that are high in antioxidants. Pomegranates are maybe the best because how they support mitochondrial function. They can be turned into that allegic acid into your lithin A.