Applications for NAD+ and Growth Factor Injectables in Regenerative Medicine with Dr. Matthew Cook on Shades of Health Podcast

In my latest podcast, I had the pleasure of interviewing my friend and regenerative medicine expert, Dr. Matthew Cook who I fondly call the ‘King of Injectables’. Our conversation goes deep into the use of NAD+, peptides, exosomes and stem cells – and Dr. Cook shares his cutting edge approaches – a definite feast for all the biohackers and practitioners out there!

Dr. Cook began his medical profession as an anesthesiologist 20 years ago and transitioned to functional medicine and regenerative medicine 14 years ago after he became ill from fluorinated anesthesia toxicity. He is founder and president of BioReset Medical in Northern California and the Medical Advisor of the BioReset Network, a best in class platform for integrative medicine training and education. Dr. Cook and the BioReset medical team specialize in treatments for conditions ranging from pain and complex illness to anti-aging and wellness. He treats some of the most challenging to diagnose and difficult to live with ailments that people suffer from today, including Lyme disease, chronic pain, PTSD, and mycotoxin illness. Using next-generation applications like IV therapies, growth factor injectables, and special techniques including musculoskeletal ultrasound imaging and hydrodissection – Dr. Cook has facilitated the healing of thousands of patients worldwide.

In this episode we explore: 

  • The synergies around IV therapy, injections, and functional medicine (7:10)
  • Applications of NAD+ and NAD+ precursors (13:35)
  • Dr, Cook’s philosophy on how to introduce NAD+ supplementation for the best outcomes (15:12)
  • Why incorporating methylation support like TMG when taking NAD+ is important (16:33)
  • Dr. Cook’s approach to Lyme, mold, and other neurological cases (25:09)
  • Growth factors! Chris and Dr. Cook discuss peptides, exosomes, and stem cells (30:10)
  • Why mast cell stabilization is critical for Lyme, mold and long haulers (47:20)
  • Nerve hydrodissection supporting people with ALS – one of Dr. Cook’s focuses (51:20)
  • And more!

SHOWNOTES

1:15 Where Chris and Matt met

2:23 Matt’s experience as an anesthesiologist and how he became very ill 

4:05 Matt’s professional and evolutionary journey from anesthesiologist to functional medicine and regenerative doctor and how he healed himself from toxicity and expanded his holistic acumen through Eastern and energy medicine training.

7:10 Explanation of the synergies around IV therapy, injections, and functional medicine

10:15 Praying over the injectables – infusing intentions and wishes into liposomes and exosomes. The ‘invisible needle’ technique

13:35 Applications of NAD+ and NAD+ precursors

15:12 Matt’s philosophy on how to introduce NAD+ supplementation for the best outcomes

16:33 Why incorporating methylation support like TMG when taking NAD+ is important

23:10 Matt explains how NAD+ supplementation can drive senescence and why he chooses to include Quercetin supplementation. Why a balanced approach to therapeutic supplementation is critical

25:09 Dr. Cook’s approach to Lyme, mold, and other neurological cases 

28:47 Chris asks Matt if bringing up a patient’s energy and immune regulation is the key to getting them ‘over the hump’ to healing and Matt explains one of the most critical aspects of healing for his patients

30:10 Growth factors! Chris and Dr. Cook discuss peptides, exosomes, and stem cells 

33:34 From a regulatory standpoint – what makes exosomes worrisome?

33:58 Matt works extensively with nerve pain and he explains how exosomes are great for  peripheral nerve pain

36:40 Back Pain and discs. Dr. Cook talkies about the anatomy of the spine and how he treats it with injectables

39:15 Quality and safety of exosomes vs. Wharton’s Jelly and the evolution of injectables

43:05 Discussion of immune modulation and the importance of mast cell stabilization for autoimmune conditions like Hashimotos

45:32 Thymus peptides for active infections, acute and chronic viral issues, and immune dysregulation

47:20 Why mast cell stabilization is critical for Lyme, mold and long haulers – the use of OTC antihistamines and natural compounds like DIM, quercetin, and luteolin

49:59 Methylation support can be great for mast cell stabilization

51:20 Nerve hydrodissection supporting people with ALS – one of Dr. Cook’s focuses

55:23 Treating peripheral nerves is a way for Dr. Cook to treat the central nervous system and with ALS – turning nerves back ‘on’

57:10 Regenerating nerves to ‘wake up the body’ is the frontier for our future in practicing regenerative medicine

 

Connect with Dr. Matthew Cook:

Website: https://www.bioresetmedical.com/

Podcast: https://bioresetpodcast.com/

For Practitioners: https://bioresetnetwork.com/

TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Chris Shade:
All right. Welcome, everybody to the Shades of Health Podcast. This is episode number 230. No, it’s only episode number two. Can you believe it? Here I am too with my good friend, Dr. Matt Cook. I’m very excited to have Matt here. Let’s cheers our plastic VOSS bottles and not tell Jason Samoa that we’re using plastic or whatever his name is. He doesn’t like that stuff. But Matt has been a friend of mine for six, seven years now.

Dr. Matt Cook:
Yes.

Dr. Chris Shade:
It’s a long time. Matt is really known for his work in regenerative medicine, a lot of work with NAD, a lot of work with growth factors. We’re going to talk about his newest work, hydrodissection, very exciting. These are all radical medicine, radical interventional medicine. Sometimes it’s rehabilitative. Sometimes it’s regenerative. Sometimes it’s just good old feel good. So, Matt, welcome. Let’s start by talking about how we first met.

Dr. Matt Cook:
Oh, well, thank you so much. I’m delighted to be here. It’s awesome to see you and I’m so glad you’re in my neighborhood.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Yeah, yeah, we’re down here for a Biohacking Congress. You know who’s putting it on, but we’re down in Menlo Park. If there’s biohacking, I’m happy to be here. We’re 20 minutes from you. So, we get to do this.

Dr. Matt Cook:
You’re going to eat dinner at my house tomorrow night.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Which is awesome. I mean, I always love when I can go to somebody’s house. When you are over in Boulder County, you’re coming to my house. I’ll cook for you.

Dr. Matt Cook:
I can’t wait. Well, we met at a forum probably six or seven years ago. I realized quickly that you were the funnest guy at [inaudible 00:02:00], so that we were going to immediately get along.

Dr. Chris Shade:
But there must have been a professional reason too.

Dr. Matt Cook:
I would say it’s easy to say that you are the smartest, funniest person on the planet that I’m aware of.

Dr. Chris Shade:
I’ll go with that, absolutely will. Now, weren’t you at the time rehabilitating yourself from being an anesthesiologist and having fluoro-aided anesthesia toxicity?

Dr. Matt Cook:
God, it’s so true, because it was interesting. When you’re an anesthesiologist, the primary part of anesthesia is that people breathe these anesthesia gases. And then as soon as the case is done, you disconnect them from the anesthesia machine. And then they keep breathing and blowing those gases off while you take them to the recovery room. So, then basically, every day five or six times, you’re standing there breathing anesthesia gases.

Dr. Chris Shade:
They’re off gassing on you.

Dr. Matt Cook:
They’re off gassing on you. Exactly. I was telling somebody this, it’s funny the stories that you remember. I was telling somebody because somebody came in and was asking me what brain fog was, I go, “Let me tell you what went brain fog is.” I remember those last year that I did anesthesia. I went upstairs, and I’m the medical director of the surgery center. I stood there. I can’t remember what the code of the back door is.

Dr. Chris Shade:
The one you do every single day. All of a sudden, you don’t know your PIN code for your card.

Dr. Matt Cook:
Yeah. So, I’m convinced the anesthesiologists, I’m putting up the bad signal to anesthesiologists out there. I immediately started doing a lot of your supplements and a lot of the strategies and ideas you came up with. Immediately, that went away. So, then I recognized this was something that I needed to take seriously. So, it’s been this continuous evolving journey for me of learning and growing and understanding things, but fixing myself at the same time.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Sometimes we don’t see, because we’re in it day to day, you can’t see the transition you’ve made. I didn’t see you for a couple of years. I mean, peripherally, I did, but I knew you were gray, ashen. You weren’t looking good then. And then you disappeared from my sight. You emerged as this regenerative superhero. You look freaking great, full of energy. I’m like, “Oh, he fixed himself completely.”

Dr. Matt Cook:
Yeah. Isn’t that amazing?

Dr. Chris Shade:
That’s awesome.

Dr. Matt Cook:
I feel better than I did when I was 18 years old.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Yeah.

Dr. Matt Cook:
The thing about being a doctor is you got to figure out how to take care of other people, but you got to take care of yourself. So, then that whole journey has been just the highlight of my life going through this.

Dr. Chris Shade:
It absolutely is. I remember growing up this neighbor of mine, kid two doors down. His father was enigmatic. He was a doctor, and he was very authoritative. He died when he was 56 of cancer. It really hit me. I was like, “He’s a doctor. Why is he dead already? What happened?” That’s the story of mainstream medicine. They don’t know wellness medicine. So/ many of the doctors that get into this regenerative and functional world had to go through something themselves to fix themselves and learn what wellness medicine is.

Dr. Matt Cook:
Right, yeah. For me, I used to do 24, 48 hours all the time, stay up all night. I’d say up all night for a couple days in a row. I enjoy those times, because we used to say, “If you take call every other day, you missed half the cases.”

Dr. Chris Shade:
Oh, wow.

Dr. Matt Cook:
That was the mentality, which is still my mentality a little bit, because I’m a hard working person.

Dr. Chris Shade:
You are.

Dr. Matt Cook:
What happened is this, if you go to the anesthesia groups, all the guys that are in their 60s look like they’re going to die. They literally look like they’re going to die. I remember thinking that. I remember thinking, “This is hopeless. I’m not going to be able to keep doing this for 20 more years.” I basically would tell people that I’m going to do what I do now, which is very derivative of anesthesia. People are like, “That doesn’t exist.” But now it does.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Yeah, no, I mean, that’s what we’re going to get to a little bit later, but the use of the anesthesia techniques to get in and regenerate nerves instead of block them. That’s going to be real fascinating. But you got yourself out of it first by detoxification, and then it seems that you got into this regenerative work with NAD. Was that part of getting you back, stem cell work?

Dr. Matt Cook:
So, the stem cell regenerative work was amazing. The first thing that I did is I went and studied Chinese medicine and energy medicine. So, I got grounded in that. I put in probably 20,000 IVs in my career.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Into yourself?

Dr. Matt Cook:
Almost.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Half of those were into me, and half of them into my patients.

Dr. Matt Cook:
One for you, one for me. Anesthesiologists all get in trouble, because they ended up taking drugs themselves. So, the good thing about vitamins is you just end up giving yourself a lot of vitamins.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Oh, I know, being an addict to my own stuff, it’s no problem at all.

Dr. Matt Cook:
It’s really good. Doing IVs all the time in my life, I started to think about IV therapy and all of that stuff. So, I immediately got super into that. In parallel to that, I was doing injections. In parallel to that, I was doing functional medicine. And then in parallel to that, I was trying to figure out what I should inject and when and who and trying to sort through all of that.

Dr. Chris Shade:
You had a little bit of that X-factor of the Chinese medicine, the energy medicine, because I find, for me, that knowledge is always a guidepost as to where I should go. You got this menu of 12 things you could do for somebody, but what’s going to tell you which is the one? When you get to the energetic piece, then that tightens up your decision making.

Dr. Matt Cook:
Yeah, I’m going to steal that good immediately.

Dr. Chris Shade:
It’s a good line. I just made it up.

Dr. Matt Cook:
I’m going to listen to this podcast and steal that. So, yeah, that’s good. But interesting, you have to have a rubric of how to think and process your things. So, it was super valuable for me to go through that experience and cultivated the intuitive thoughtful aspect of it. Honestly, that’s at this point by far my favorite thing, because if I do nerve hydrodissection, which we’ll talk about later, if I’m treating a nerve, the whole time I’m doing that, I’m thinking about the energetic aspect of the nerve and the meridian, because the meridians are just following nerves.

Dr. Matt Cook:
Really, the things that we put IV and the supplements and stuff are almost derivative of the Chinese herbalism. I did yoga for a long time. So, contextualizing and tying that in in terms of then my goal is to have a total approach, where you have control panels, where you can just begin to dial in aspects of biology to create harmony.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Right. And then I’ve seen you do with people, as I do myself, basically, praying over the injectable before you take it. Put your intention in there before you put it in. How do you create that spirit of healing and do the thing that’s going into your veins?

Dr. Matt Cook:
So, there was this [inaudible 00:10:28] who had this technique called invisible needle technique. So, then the idea is that you would set and then you would hold a needle. You do it if you have an acupuncture needle or a regular needle, or if you don’t have a needle, they had an invisible needle. So, then you would pray. And then imagine that a column of light from heaven comes down into you and then fills up the needle. And then they would take and put the needle in, whether that’s actual needle or-

Dr. Chris Shade:
Invisible needle.

Dr. Matt Cook:
… an invisible needle. And then you could drop that into the sea of marrow or the sea of blood or wherever or meridian. So, then still to this day, every time I do an injection, I take my syringe and then I do invisible needle technique.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Oh, good.

Dr. Matt Cook:
So, then I pray on that. And then that’s my consciousness of then approaching.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Yeah, but I’ve seen you also give exosomes to somebody to have them infuse their wishes into them before they put them in.

Dr. Matt Cook:
Oh, yeah. Anything that is liposomal can carry information.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Yeah. With the liposomes, I found as you take them from crude big ones down into small ones, all of a sudden, they sing. They sing the song of the supplement that’s in them, whatever if it’s Resveratrol or CoQ10 or PQQ or NAD. All of a sudden, they’re singing that song and their energy expands quite a bit. You put them through an X-ray machine and nothing changes. They’re constantly refreshing their field right around. So, then you can put your feeling into them too before you take them.

Dr. Matt Cook:
Yeah, that’s why I like your products a lot better than pills. I’m not a great pill taker anyways. But then you can hold your intention on the whole bottle and then you take it. And then it still has intention. It’s in your mouth. It’s like a hole.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Yeah, and then they go in. Because of these perfect spheres that have this dynamic of a center and a membrane on the outside and then they enter into you like that, that’s why I like to say they sing the song of the supplement, but they sing the song of that intention that you put into them too, because they go in intact and circulate through the body.

Dr. Matt Cook:
It’s amazing.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Well, so there’s our energy tie in.

Dr. Matt Cook:
That’s an energy tie in. So, then the other thing is so then they’re singing a song that goes in now. The interesting thing is and this is future direction, but then to do the same thing for things that you put around nerves. So, then they’re singing the song as they work their way through the fascia, through the meridian, and all the way through the body.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Especially if you’re doing it around a nerve, then that’s the ultimate transmission of the song through the rest of the system. All right. So, let’s come back to NAD. This is something that you do a lot. You use a lot of NAD. It’s really big in the biohacker world. I want to talk about some of the applications that you have and some of the differentiation between when we’re doing an IV versus an IM or if you do SubQ versus in a liposome. So, what are some of your biggest applications of NAD?

Dr. Matt Cook:
Good one. So, certainly, we have a lot of people who were doing the liposome orally with [inaudible 00:14:07]. Huge fan, I think it’s a great supplement. I think it’s a nice steady way to-

Dr. Chris Shade:
Yeah, everyday way.

Dr. Matt Cook:
Every day, you’re driving the salvage cycle. You’re facilitating biology on a regular basis. I think the key to a lot of problems is a nice, steady, regular consistency in terms of supporting biology.

Dr. Chris Shade:
We’ve seen that with the detoxification, with the gluta science system versus IVs of DMPs. They’re big and sharp, and then they go away. There’s nothing. The low and slow works better, but then when you can overlay that too, punctuate, you have the day-to-day, building the steadiness and the growth of the system, then you punctuate it with these IVs of something that really changes the system.

Dr. Matt Cook:
Right. Now, considering that, the interesting thing to think about is one thing that I found is I always start everybody orally. I always recommend people start orally. I recommend they start low and go slow in NAD. If you walked into my office, I could do anything and you’d be fine. Yet, what will happen is I started teaching all the local Lyme doctors how to do NAD. I gave them dosing. I’ll tell you how I got that. Immediately, they start calling me and going, “Guess what? These people can’t take this much NAD.” This is years and years ago.

Dr. Chris Shade:
There’s a lot of stories today.

Dr. Matt Cook:
So, then you realize that NAD can drive detox pathways. So, what I’m trying to do initially is just start low, go slow, and I’ll do relatively low. I’ll start orally. And then in terms of SubQ, we’ll do that. So, I have a fairly broad range that’ll go in terms of SubQ. So, sometimes, the traditional dose is 100 milligrams as a subcutaneous injection. I have some people that I’ll do 25 milligram injections. A lot of people don’t do even 12 milligram injections.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Wow.

Dr. Matt Cook:
So, these are very low and slow, but people can get a very nice and smooth steady response. Whenever I do NAD injectable, I always have them do trimethylysine before.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Huge, huge issue.

Dr. Matt Cook:
Which is great, because you end up with so much methylated-

Dr. Chris Shade:
Homocysteine.

Dr. Matt Cook:
… byproducts. Tell us about the homocysteine.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Yeah. So, this is what people were missing a lot in early NAD that was cowboy days, going and blasting NAD. People will be like, “Oh, yeah, I was so sick and then I got better. And then I felt better.” They would be really sick after the IVs. So, the NAD cycle is a Vitamin B3 cycle. Niacin and niacinamide can become NAD. But then when NAD activates, when it goes and it discharges its energy into something, it activates [inaudible 00:17:19], it goes through a PPAR or a CD38, it’s going to become nicotinamide. And then nicotinamide is going to prevent. It’s going to pull up and prevent the furthering of any of those reactions. So, it blocks your [inaudible 00:17:34]. So, you have to methylate it and get rid of it. You methylate it through SAMe.

Dr. Chris Shade:
And then you make methyl nicotinamide and you pee it out. But then you’re left with S-adenosylhomocysteine and then homocysteine. So, driving NAD actually builds up homocysteine. So, then you have to regenerate the methionine, which means you can use the short path with TMG. The longer path uses methyl B12, B2, B6, and some B9. So, all these methylation factors help you integrate with the NAD. Now, back in the old days when Ben Lynch and Amy Yasko were driving methylation, everybody was into the MTHFR gene. You’re a motherfucker. I’m a motherfucker. They would drive all these methylation factors.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Now, if you overdrive the methylation, you’re going to suck down the NAD by sucking down all the NAM, which would go through the salvage pathway back to NAD. So, those people would feel good right at first, because the methylation factors tighten up the mast cells and you stop having so much histamine and proinflammatory release. Your brain fog goes away. You feel better. You got a lot of B vitamins in your brain. But then you crash your mitochondria, because the two have to balance. So, you’re sucking off all the NAD, and then the mitochondria crash. They would say, “Oh, I just turned on detox. I’m detoxing too much. I’m crashing from that.”

Dr. Chris Shade:
Conversely, if you start taking nitrogen, you’re just blowing down nitrogen or NMN, and you’re not balancing it with any methylation factors. Or you’re doing IV NAD. Now, you’re going to suck down all your methyl groups. First, your mitochondria are going to go super high and you’re going to feel great. And then you’re going to start getting all foggy and the stuff’s not going to work for you anymore. So, you got to do both at the same time. So, guys at Q found that the TMG, trimethylglycine is the easiest way to balance that with the NAD inputs.

Dr. Matt Cook:
Right. So, then I’ll give them a shot of that and we’ll send them home with that. So, if they do subcutaneous shots at home, we’ll let them do that. I’ll typically have them do the oral along with it to create a balanced result. When I do IVs, I’m always giving a B complex and a B12 and methyl support. Typically, they’re doing Vitamin C as well. Typically, they’re doing glutathione. So, that’s a balanced IV.

Dr. Chris Shade:
The C and glutathione, they work in, because as you bring up NAD, you tend to hyper activate NADPH oxidase. On your way up to a balanced NAD and NADPH system, NADPH oxidase starts revving up and creating free radicals to create superoxide. So, the C and the glutathione help balance that. So, as we start bringing up NAD, we get the C and the glutathione too.

Dr. Matt Cook:
Right. So, traditionally, out of the gate, the first place that I started doing NAD for was addiction, which is where everybody was. Because for the concept that if you’re drinking alcohol all day long, you’re going to use up all your NAD to facilitate alcohol dehydrogenase in terms of breaking down alcohol. So, you get these guys with catastrophically low NAD. So, then we were giving… The traditional was 1,000 milligrams of NAD.

Dr. Chris Shade:
IV?

Dr. Matt Cook:
IV. So, then these people would come in, and then they would do that. They would do an 8- or 9- or 10-hour IV of these sagas. When I first heard about NAD, I was like, “I’m going to do that, because I’ll help you with addiction.” It’s related to anesthesia. Interestingly, as time has gone on and we’re getting better and better and more balanced and thoughtful about our IVs, I’m doing much less NAD. I’m doing a much smaller dosing. I find I don’t need to do it as much because everything is getting dialed in. So, we have supplement things. We have energy things.

Dr. Matt Cook:
And then in terms of NAD, what I’m doing is for people who come in with real low energy, I give them NAD. And then I’ll stop NAD and then I’ll go peptides. So, then I’ll use some of the mitochondrial peptides, like MOTS-c and humanin. So, then I’m using peptides, and then I’ll cycle those out. And then I’ll bring NAD back in. So, then there’s a diversity of biochemical approaches to supporting mitochondria. I use your product every single day, the one. So, then I’m using that to help with mitochondrial. I’m giving them CoQ10 and really building up a balanced, thoughtful approach.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Yeah, the body likes this. It gets used to one input all the time. The rotation tends to really help it expand and get more stable in its reactions.

Dr. Matt Cook:
Now, it’s interesting. I got to tell you that I fixed myself with NAD. I mean, NAD was crucial. So, I did like a lot of NAD. I gave a lot of NAD to friends of mine and fixed a lot of friends of mine. I talk about it almost like a bank account. So, you’re trying to build it up inside your body. I give a lot of quercetin with NAD, because the one thing, NAD can drive a little senescence. So, I think quercetin really balances that as this analytic.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Yeah. That’s the new NAD platinum. It’s the NAD with the methylation factors and resveratrol and quercetin and the quercetin as this analytic. We have quercetin and all kinds of different products. So, I’m a huge fan. It’s also a PGC-1α activator. So, it’s helping drive more mitochondrial biogenesis. But I didn’t know that about NAD driving senescence.

Dr. Matt Cook:
Yeah. So, I’ll find that for you. A bunch of people told me that. That’s the general conversation that you hear on the circuit.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Yeah. So, that’s probably one of the downfalls to using too much.

Dr. Matt Cook:
That’s a downfall. It’s a downfall to having an unbalanced approach. Interestingly, even for I think about myself, if I do an IV, the most NAD that I ever do now is 100 milligrams.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Isn’t that awesome? Not a 1,000.

Dr. Matt Cook:
I never give myself SubQ NAD anymore. I might, but I have so much energy all the time now.

Dr. Chris Shade:
It’s all set. And then there’s some discussion now that maybe if we’re doing IV, we should be doing precursors, because some people, they’re saying, “If there’s raw NAD in the blood, that means that you’ve just ruptured a bunch of cells. That’s a cell danger response.” I mean, that can’t be too true, because it’s just worked so well.

Dr. Matt Cook:
Yeah, it can’t be that true because people feel phenomenal when they do it.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Exactly.

Dr. Matt Cook:
I’ve done it hundreds of times. Performance goes up. Cognition goes out. So, I don’t think you’re killing cells. [crosstalk 00:25:04] to happen.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Or eliciting some cell danger response, it wouldn’t make sense. So, tell me how do you use it in mold and Lyme?

Dr. Matt Cook:
Carefully and thoughtfully. So, mold and Lyme is a hell of a thing. So, I take care of a lot of people with ALS. I take care of a lot of people with big neurological cases of Lyme. What I’ll tell you is, is that mold and Lyme is all over the map. So, there’s a lot of people that may have gotten exposed to Lyme. They’ve got a positive test, but basically, they’re totally fine. And then you got other people that can’t get out of bed. A lot of times, those two people happen to be married to each other. They probably got exposed at the same time. One of them has a whole bunch of things that dysregulated their immune system. Often, that thing, that dysregulated immune system is mold. So, then what I do is I try to sit down and talk and figure out.

Dr. Matt Cook:
So, then the first thing I do is I figure out if they’ve got GI issues, what’s going on with that. I figure if they got chronic viral things. I talk to them and use systems biology, functional medicine, Chinese medicine rubric to look at things. And then what I’ll do is I’ll put them on protocols and a lot of protocols that you have, that I love. I’m super big fan of things like Push-Catch and all that stuff. Then I’m talking to them and getting a sense of, “How do you feel? How is energy? How’s that working?” And then I’ll start to introduce NAD. So, when they’re doing IVs, often, I’ll do an IV like I said, but then often there’ll be some ozone as part of that. So, they’ll do an ozone first. And then we’ll do a suite of things. It’ll generally will include NAD and those IVs.

Dr. Matt Cook:
If you were a new patient that had Lyme and mold, I would start with maybe one pass of ozone. I might start with 50 milligrams of NAD. I might even do a balanced IV without NAD and the first time. I might give them 100 milligrams. I might do that the first one or two or three times. I’m building a supplement stack around that. I have a lot of people who will come in. They’re like, “I can’t get out of bed, I can’t get anything done.” A lot of those people, I’ll have them start doing subcutaneous NAD. A lot of times, they’ll be using an insulin syringe, because then it’s more efficient. You waste less. And then 50 units on insulin syringe is half a CC. So, a full 50 units is what people would traditionally think of as a full subcutaneous. I’ll tell you that a lot of people do fantastic with 25 units.

Dr. Matt Cook:
So, then now I’m spreading it out. And then I’m using it as a way to support energy and get them detoxing. But then while I do that, generally, almost all those people are taking peptides. So, I’m supporting them in that way. And then from there, I’ll build them up. And then I’ll start to combine peptides with NAD. And then we’ll start to do this thing where we’ll rotate per cycle’s on and cycle’s off. I got a lot of people who were going to cycle off of NAD between Christmas and Thanksgiving.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Yeah. So, it sounds like you’re gently trying to bring up the energy and the immune regulation. You find that you get to a little hump that you get over, where suddenly, they’ve got some stability, and then you can lay more stuff on and get them really doing better. Is getting over that energy immune hump the biggest problem with them?

Dr. Matt Cook:
Yeah. It’s amazing, because I’m getting people there quicker than I ever had before. Part of it is, I think, I’m better at talking people into changing their lifestyle, because I’ve fundamentally 100% changed my lifestyle. I have the healthiest lifestyle of anybody I know. So, then what I do is I just say, “Look what I did. I was an ashen doctor, dealing in an operating room. I got free and I’m totally fine.” You can do 25 units of this. You’re going to do that and this. It’s almost like showing people what the roadmap is. Generally, the awesome thing about it is it’s not that hard.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Yeah. Yeah, you just have to get back into caring.

Dr. Matt Cook:
Yeah.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Yeah. All right. So, let’s talk about growth factors now. So, we have this continuum. We’ve got peptides as the hottest things now. In the stem cell type growth factors, there’s exosomes. There’s all the different cord growth factors. There’s amniotic fluid and Wharton’s Jelly. Then there’s cord cells that you get from a cord bank, and then there’s expanded cells. So, we got this continuum of things. You obviously use a lot of peptides. You use a lot of exosomes. Do you use any of the others?

Dr. Matt Cook:
Yeah, I use and have used everything.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Where do you see the primary uses for all of those?

Dr. Matt Cook:
Well, it’s such a regulatory question.

Dr. Chris Shade:
It’s outside of the regulatory question. There’s no getting outside of it, because you can’t use expanded cells.

Dr. Matt Cook:
So yeah. So, we’re in an interesting and special moment. This is an immune moment for the world.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Yeah, it is.

Dr. Matt Cook:
So, I’m watching and thinking about how that’s going to play out. What exosomes are is exosomes are these small vesicles that are secreted by a stem cell. So, I like to say, you’re a stem cell. You send a lot of messages out. You make a lot of liposomes.

Dr. Chris Shade:
I do. When he says they’re little vesicles secreted by stem cells, they’re little liposome.

Dr. Matt Cook:
Yeah. Whenever I talk to people, I try to figure out what the analogy is. You are a stem cell.

Dr. Chris Shade:
I’m a stem cell.

Dr. Matt Cook:
So, you’re making these. So, you actually coordinate a lot of care, but you actually don’t do all that much. That’s how I think of a stem cell. So, then Caplan, which is the guy who came up with the term ‘stem cell,’ actually tried to take it away, because he said, “Stem cells actually are not really stem cells. They’re primarily signaling cells that make these little exosomes that have mRNA. They have messages in them that code and then go tell another cell like a fibroblast to do healing.” So, it turns out in terms of nerve hydrodistillation, which is one of the-

Dr. Chris Shade:
So, the healing factors are really coming from the second cells. The stem cell really only is coordinating the messaging for fibroblasts and the like to do the healing. So, the growth factors are secreted really by the second cells?

Dr. Matt Cook:
The growth factor is secreted by the stem cell, and then it’s inside a little liposome. And then it goes over and it sends a message. It tells the other cell how to fix the tendon.

Dr. Chris Shade:
So, the factor is really a message to the fibroblasts and similar cells. It tells it, “Now, do this on the tendon.”

Dr. Matt Cook:
Exactly, exactly. So, I always say that a stem cell is like a general contractor. It’s sending messages to everybody, “Hey, go fix that.”

Dr. Chris Shade:
Right, yeah. But the fibroblast’s actually the carpenter. He’s doing the work.

Dr. Matt Cook:
He’s actually doing it. He’s your guy. So, in terms of the growth factor products, I think from the regulatory side, the worry about exosomes is they’re so great that they can be a little bit of a cure all. So, you have people saying, “Okay, you can use exosomes for anything,” which is, to some extent, a viable thought. In terms of nerve and nerve pain and peripheral nerve pain and neuropathy, I can tell you, I’ve been for years using a lot of exosomes to treat people with peripheral nerve pain.

Dr. Matt Cook:
I like to say, I spent the first half of my life putting people to sleep. I’m spending the second half waking them up. I was putting nerves to sleep actually in the first half. So, what I would do is I would put an ultrasound down. And then I would look at somebody’s nerves that would go to their arm. And then I would literally take a needle in and go a millimeter away from the nerve and then put 20 CC’s of ropivacaine, a local anesthetic around the brachial plexus. And then they go to sleep.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Without knocking them out.

Dr. Matt Cook:
Yeah, and then they’d be wide awake for the shoulder surgery and look at it on the screen. So, then I do the same thing to wake nerves up and fix nerve pain with exosomes. Exosomes are really wonderful for peripheral nerve pain. So, I’ve got a lot of experience with them and I like them a lot.

Dr. Chris Shade:
You said, you’re also doing that for a knee that doesn’t work anymore.

Dr. Matt Cook:
Right. In the sports medicine case, a lot of times people will have nerve pain either because the nerve is pinched, because it went underneath the carpal tunnel or something like that; or they can have neuropathic pain for a wide variety.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Like a damage to the nerve.

Dr. Matt Cook:
Like a damage to the nerve or some people will have something complex regional pain syndrome. So, there’s all of these different nerve diagnoses. So, one thing that I use a lot of exosomes for is that you can put exosomes in a joint. So, then go back to my analogy of the general contractor, if I’m putting a message into the joint and that message to use your analogy is singing a song of healing. So, then we’re singing the song of healing in a joint.

Dr. Matt Cook:
Exosomes tend to be extremely anti-inflammatory. So, for somebody that comes in with a real hot inflamed joint, exosomes can be great. It can be great in the capsule. It can be great intraartically. It can be great for the nerve that goes to it. For people who have arterial pain, I will hydrodissect or I’ll put fluid around an artery. So, then I did that a couple times today.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Now, there’s a lot of people that have disc pain. So, they’ve got a herniated disc. Some places like myself, I went to Columbia to a place called Bio-Accelerator. I had a neurosurgeon put needles right into the disc under fluoroscopy-guided needles and dropped live cells right in there. But a lot of people now, they’re getting stuff just injected around the joint. I mean, that’s really serious work to go into a disc around the spine. Now, how much does it work if you’re doing injections either SubQ around say, you got 04 or 05 or just laid down around the disk? Can that work for those?

Dr. Matt Cook:
So, it’s an expensive product. So, I think SubQ can be very low likelihood to work.

Dr. Chris Shade:
What about ultrasound guided but not going into the disk?

Dr. Matt Cook:
So, the idea is if you stick a needle into a disc, you can get discitis, which you would hate. So, then there’s a lot of thought about how to prevent that. Interestingly, I think probably of all product known to man, exosomes would be by far the best thing to put into a disc. I think, interestingly, if you put them around a disc or even close to a disc… For me, if you think about the anatomy of the spine, in the front, you’ve got a vertebral column and then you’ve got the spinal cord in the middle. In the back, you’ve got two facet joints and a huge ligament that’s complex.

Dr. Matt Cook:
So, you got a structure in the front and a structure in the back. Interestingly, I treat the structures in the back all the time for people with big disc problems. So, I’ll treat the facets. I’ll do nerve hydrodissection around the paraspinal muscles and laterally. I’ll do nerve root hydrodissection with exosomes. And then I find 85, 90% of the time, I fix all the pain. I don’t end up having to go intradiscal.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Intradiscal.

Dr. Matt Cook:
Intradiscal is a little bit more risky, has a little bit more risk of infection. Surgically, we go intradiscal all the time also.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Somewhere down at 04, 05 you’re just going to treat the back.

Dr. Matt Cook:
Well, it depends and each case is different. So, we’re looking at imaging and making a thoughtful approach. But usually, I don’t end up having to go intradiscal. We generally pick stops.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Right. I’ve seen a friend of mine sent me something recently where she was getting a cellular Wharton’s Jelly injected probably somewhere around the back like you do. Have you seen those approaches?

Dr. Matt Cook:
So, the Wharton’s Jelly is basically tissue from around the umbilical cord. The idea is that it has mesenchymal stem cells. This is the idea. I’ve used a lot of Wharton’s Jelly. A lot of times, the two things that I’ve used the most of is placental matrix and exosomes. Now, the reason I like exosomes is that they’re grown sterile. They’re sterile filtered. The probability that there’s a problem with that is some number close to zero if you have a good lab that you’d like. I do. Now, the nice thing about placental matrix is it’s a sterile product. So, it’s been radiated. So, there’s new live cells in it.

Dr. Matt Cook:
So, with those two products, you can do thousands and thousands and thousands of injections and never have an infection or problem. Now, Wharton’s Jelly, now we’re moving into the cell products. So, you got live cells. Within that, it’s all over the map the quality of product. Now, I’ve had a lot of people come and bring me cells. They said, “Okay, can you use this company? Can you try this company out?” I’ve had some just unbelievable out of control results that were wonderful from Wharton’s Jelly.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Oh, good.

Dr. Matt Cook:
I’ve done a ton of Wharton’s Jelly injections over the years. I like it. The idea is that those cells come from the No Man’s Land between the baby and the mom. So, they’re not expressing the MHC that says-

Dr. Chris Shade:
They’re not differentiated. Yeah, they don’t have MHC.

Dr. Matt Cook:
So, you’re not going to react against that. So, because of that, you can take those. That being said, we don’t totally know what the risks are. It’s a little bit early. So, I think it’s probably safer, the exosome placental matrix Model of that. Interestingly, you can also take those cells and create a cell line. That is what would be culture expanded. That’s FDA no fly zone.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Yeah, that’s why I went to Colombia for that.

Dr. Matt Cook:
Exactly. So, I’ve been taking people to Mexico for years. So, I have a pretty robust experience of that. Once again, I have a ton of unbelievable results there. In COVID times, here we are, a brand new era and a brand new day, I find that I’m doing so well with the combination of the regenerative things that we have here legally, peptides and the total approach. And then the supplements have all gotten better. Your products are all better. So, I don’t go to Mexico. We’re incorporating that less. So, then it’s just interesting to watch the evolution.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Yeah, the evolution of all your tools. And then you’ve just plugged in all the expanded cells, but now, you got all these other tools that can fill in for this.

Dr. Matt Cook:
We’re doing a lot of immune modulation with the expanded cells. So, I take care of a lot of people with autoimmune conditions. But interestingly, exosomes is another way to modulate the immune system. We may lose that, but then what’s going to happen is I’m going to find another way to modulate the immune system.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Yeah, yeah. So, what do you find best for Hashimoto’s? It’s probably the most common autoimmune thing.

Dr. Matt Cook:
So, I’m always trying to get people to change diet lifestyle on that one. So, getting to avoid gluten. A lot of times they get a lifestyle change. They start taking some Nature-Throid and support themselves. And then with that, interestingly, I’m doing that stuff. And then I’m doing some ozone for those people. Ozone is a great immune modulator. So, I enjoy that. Sometimes we’ll do the regenerative stuff. All of those people, we’re raising peptides.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Okay. So, say, you’re changing the diet. You’re working on the gut, and it’s still recalcitrant. For the immune modulation, do you find the peptides better than the exosomes?

Dr. Matt Cook:
So, then this is a chicken and the egg conversation, because the thing that I like about the peptides is it’s something that you can do every day. It’s a nice, steady, even thing that you can do. And then thematically, I’m going to do one thing and I’m going to rotate. So, you’re continuously working through. You’re continuously rotating what you’re on.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Yeah. Exosomes, you’re generally going to do every couple of months anyway since you’ll pulse in those and then you send them home with the peptides and let them do SubQ.

Dr. Matt Cook:
Yeah. Nobody loves exosomes, I don’t think, more than me in the world probably.

Dr. Chris Shade:
I don’t know. You should see my freezer.

Dr. Matt Cook:
But I’ve given you exosomes.

Dr. Chris Shade:
You have.

Dr. Matt Cook:
But interestingly, the price point of peptides is so low. It’s easy and it’s approachable. I also think that the daily regular immune regulation… I also have a little bit more safety window, I think. For example, thymosin alpha-1 is anti-cancer. So, it immune regulates without the growth potential. So, then I think, as a long term strategy for supporting a lot of patients in a safe way, where you can onboard people with things, I really like the peptides.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Yeah. You said the thymosin alpha-1, you like?

Dr. Matt Cook:
Thymosin alpha-1 and thymosin beta-4 are the two great immune peptides. Thymosin alpha-1 is, I think, especially good for people who have active infections. It really helps people fight infections and has immune modulating. Thymosin beta-4, also good for infections. Both are really good for viral both acute viral and for chronic viral. People that have that classic immune dysregulated picture, which is they have a bunch of stuff in their gut and they may or may not have Hashimoto’s. They may or may not have two or three or four or five other things. Maybe it was all under wraps until their marriage fell apart and the whole thing goes sideways, which is the typical type of people that we see.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Yup. So, they have all these infections, yet they have all these reactivities, all the foods and antigens and stuff. So, they need that mast cell activation calm down too.

Dr. Matt Cook:
The mast cell activation is, I think, one of the defining things that is so confusing to people, because they have all of these symptoms. I did a phone call with a guy who I just really. Every time a new podcast comes out, he texts me and says, “Okay, this is what I thought about this.” I was thinking about him and thinking about his case. I realized that he had a component of mast cell. So, then we spoke for about an hour this morning about that. So, coaching people in terms of that stuff relatively quickly, all of a sudden, a whole bunch of symptoms go away as soon as you start to manage that.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Do the thymosins work for the mast cell?

Dr. Matt Cook:
I think the thymosins help to stabilize it, but I think you got to get H1/H2 blockade for that. So, we’ll give people Zyrtec, ranitidine, Pepcid, Benadryl, Ketotifen. I’m an anesthesiologist. So, I’m equal opportunity for drugs.

Dr. Chris Shade:
That’s what a lot of them use and then they want to go to something else. I mean, we made the Hista-Aid product. It’s quercetin, luteolin, a little bit of DIM, which are muscle stabilizers.

Dr. Matt Cook:
It’s an amazing product.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Yeah. So, you’ve seen that working for you there.

Dr. Matt Cook:
I use that product every single day. I had a friend in my clinic.

Dr. Chris Shade:
You should just know, it works really good, but the pharmacokinetics of it, see this is thing with pharmaceuticals, they build these things to last for a long time. The quercetin, luteolin go in and they’re out in an hour and a half. So, you have to hit it a couple times a day, but it works like a gem when it’s in there.

Dr. Matt Cook:
Right. So, then just like with NAD, what we’re talking about, I have a gigantic thing of that. And then every single person that has muscle issues, that’s the first thing that I give them. So, I say, “Try this and just carry this around with you. And then take it before you eat.”

Dr. Chris Shade:
Yes, you have them doing Hista-Aid just all through the day.

Dr. Matt Cook:
All the time. So, then what happens is 25% of people are never going to have to go beyond that. So, then I’m trying to do the least amount of intervention that I can.

Dr. Chris Shade:
And then with the others, you got to go a little deeper.

Dr. Matt Cook:
But I do want to say, I’m deeply, deeply into understanding and getting to the bottom of this mast cell thing. Part of the reason and this is a good conversation is because the Lyme and mold people have it. So, then interestingly, you have to get on top of the mold detox and your binding and all of that type of stuff. Because if you don’t manage that, then you’re not going to be able to manage the mast cell. So, part of it is that, but then interestingly, we’re seeing all these COVID long haulers. They will have a lot of mast cell activation. So, this is a topic that is going to be with us for a long time. So, we need to really deeply understand this and then have some great tools to work with that.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Yeah, I think that the methylation helps with that a lot. So, I’d like to get your feedback as you start working with these people. For me or the general person, we do NAD+ Gold and Methyl Charge+, about two to one ratio in terms of pumps. So, four pumps NAD+ Gold, two pumps of Methyl Charge+. Now, when people are more mast cell, I start bringing up more and more methylation. It seems to stabilize that a little bit more. So, I’d like to see long term, how the methyl groups versus the NAD and if their ratio should be different than your average person. Like your alcoholic, well, they probably need a lot of SAMe too. So, I think the ratios might be different in these different pathologies.

Dr. Matt Cook:
If you’re going to do methyl support, how do you work that in throughout the day? What’s your timing on this?

Dr. Chris Shade:
I do it generally at the same time as the NAD. So, you take them, two pumps of NAD, one pump of methyl. And then I might do more through the day if they’re getting fogginess. I’ll do Hista-Aid and the Methyl Charge+, but usually, I’ll take them with the NAD. So, they’re hitting at the same time.

Dr. Matt Cook:
Interesting.

Dr. Chris Shade:
So, there’s obviously some research for us to do. So, I’d like to just finish up and hit one more time on the nerve hydrodissection. So, you talked about it a little bit, but here’s the really cool part. So, he was trained to go in and ultrasound guide and needle right next to a nerve and shut it off. Now, he goes in. The ultrasound guides the needle right next to the nerve and turns it back on. They’ll inject the peptides and the exosomes and other growth factors in. He’s working on neuropathy as he mentioned. He’s working on ALS. I think you’d said it at some point, when there’s just a joint that’s not regenerating, going upstream into the nerve and getting the nerve impulses back on helps restore the fundamental physiology in there. Did I just cover it?

Dr. Matt Cook:
That is perfect. It’s the greatest thing in the world to me doing it. And then interestingly, I do it all the time to myself, because I’m still constantly doing it. So, interestingly, for me, this is an ALS week for me. So, I’ve got people here for the whole week. So, we’re just injecting them every day all day. So, I’m actually going in, and then I’m putting in peptides. I’m putting peptides around every big nerves. I’m putting them around the brachial plexus. I’m putting them around the femoral nerve, the sciatic nerve, the obturator nerve, the median nerve, the ulnar nerve, the radial nerve, basically, every big nerve there is in the body. I’m treating their facet joints. Interestingly, ALS is a good example. So, the spectrum that I take care of is from that to I had a pro baseball player last year. So, we’re treating that spectrum.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Very different.

Dr. Matt Cook:
But it turns out I’m doing exactly the same nerves and I’m putting the same stuff in. So, whatever is good for you is good for you, whether you’re a pro athlete or we’re trying to figure out if we can get you to walk again. Now, interestingly, if you damage a nerve, the first thing that happens is there’s no electrical supply to the muscle. So, what happens is that muscle starts to get fat atrophy. It gets marbled. The idea is it just goes into spasm and holds you in space. So, it was good, right? Because there’s no nerve going in there, now what happens in ALS is that just happens to every nerve in the body. So, then what we’re trying to do is go in and then put fluid around these nerves and start to turn them back on.

Dr. Matt Cook:
So, I’ve got people that are doing things that they couldn’t do before they met me. So, they’re walking better. All kinds of things are starting to slowly change. Interestingly, it’s a great example because we’re doing functional medicine for them. We’re doing regenerative medicine. We’re doing ozone. We’re doing interventional stuff. So, then my overall concept is applying the best of the interventional anesthesia techie stuff that we have in a comprehensive thoughtful way to basically-

Dr. Chris Shade:
Addressing some of the things that turned off all of that nerve function.

Dr. Matt Cook:
Right.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Yeah, there’s a modern Alchemist and Cabalist. He would talk about the circulatory system is the tree of life. The nervous system is the tree of light. It’s the tree of light you’re trying to turn back on. You’re trying to take all the things that suck away from life in the tree of life. That’s the chronic infections and biofilm infections and stuff. You’re just hitting the whole thing at once.

Dr. Matt Cook:
Right, yeah. Interesting to think about this, because when I was mentioning with acupuncture, the idea is that if you can stick a needle in, you can stick that needle into the sea of marrow. So, in Chinese medicine, they were always trying to connect and then connect to the central nervous system. So, then interestingly, my current belief system is that the peripheral nerves are a delivery location for me to the central nervous system. So, I’m putting peptides around those nerves to try to get them to be absorbed by those nerves and then start to affect the central nervous system.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Bring the signals back up to the central nervous system to regenerate it.

Dr. Matt Cook:
I’m almost trying to tap into the roots of that tree of life. But interestingly, in Qigong, we used to always do energetic things, where you’re trying to move energy through channels. Interestingly, what will happen and I’m beginning to see this on a lot of the big defining neurological conditions is that we start to turn those nerves on and the fat atrophy goes away. So, then the idea is that I’m alternately more humbled, because it’s just so staggering what there is to know and yet wildly excited about when I walk in and then these guys are showing me their… He’s going like this. He’s like, “Look at this.”

Dr. Chris Shade:
I got some movement.

Dr. Matt Cook:
I can move my arm again. So, it’s just trying to then put that together, but then for the guys like us, just to realize just everyday people, this is going to be the future. This is going to be what we do. Realistically, 50 is the new 30 or the new 25.

Dr. Chris Shade:
That’s how I feel.

Dr. Matt Cook:
Yeah.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Well, I mean, that’s really the frontier there. I mean, working on something like ALS, regenerating the nervous system, regenerating the whole system through all these different techniques and bringing that sea of life, that sea of light, the song of life back into the system. It’s awesome to see you doing all this work. It’s awesome to be your friend. It’s awesome to watch it all and be a part of it. So, thank you so much.

Dr. Matt Cook:
Oh, thank you, man. It’s delightful to be with you.

Dr. Chris Shade:
Absolutely. All right. I hope you enjoyed our talk with Dr. Matt Cook. You can find out more about Matt Cook on bioresetmedical.com and the BioReset Podcast. If you liked what you heard here, please like us and subscribe. So, you can get more Shades of Health.

 

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