February 25, 2025 • 52 mins
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Join us as we delve into the fascinating world of regenerative medicine with Josh Kettner, founder of Dream Body Clinic in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. With a personal story that fuels his passion for innovation in health, Josh highlights the immense potential of stem cell therapy in treating chronic illnesses and autoimmune diseases. He explains the science behind mesenchymal stem cells, detailing their unique properties and how they differ from embryonic stem cells, emphasizing the ethical sourcing and applications of the treatments provided at his clinic.
Throughout our conversation, we explore real-life success stories of patients who have experienced remarkable transformations, including those battling conditions like multiple sclerosis and debilitating joint pain. Josh provides meticulous detail regarding the procedural aspects of stem cell therapies, dispelling myths and fears associated with such treatments while addressing nuanced concerns. By painting a vivid picture of each patient's journey and outcome, Kettner demonstrates how this seemingly distant science has become a beacon of hope for many.
To learn more about how stem cells can redefine health and healing, be sure to check out the Dream Body Clinic website. Don’t forget to subscribe for more transformative discussions on health and wellness!
You can find Josh Ketner at:
Website - https://dreambody.clinic/
Youtube channel - https://www.youtube.com/@DBCStemCells
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Marla Miller (00:00):
Welcome back to Open-Minded Healing.
My guest today is Josh Kettner,a pioneer in the field of
regenerative medicine.
Josh is the visionary founderof Dream Body Clinic, located in
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, andthe author of the Ultimate Guide
to Stem Cell Therapy.
Josh and his team specialize incutting edge treatments like
(00:23):
stem cell therapies, along withhuman growth hormone and other
innovative age-defying medicines.
Today, we are going to bediving into some exciting
results people are experiencingwhen they implement treatment at
this clinic, including thosediagnosed with multiple
sclerosis.
We'll also discuss the topicsof ethics, sourcing and why this
(00:45):
clinic chose to locate itselfin Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
There's so much to discuss, so Iwant to get right to it.
Welcome, Josh.
How are you?
I'm doing real good, yeah, Verygood.
I am very excited about thistopic.
This is definitely a growingarea for health the stem cell
(01:06):
therapy so I'm really curious asto how you're implementing it
at your clinic.
But before we dive into that, Iwant to know what would you say
your mission statement is, andnot even as a company, but maybe
why you started this company.
What were you hoping toaccomplish?
Josh Ketner (01:28):
Oh, we want to help as many people as possible.
I got into this because my dadhad Lou Gehrig's disease.
That was about 20 years ago andthat was up in Seattle where we
were living then.
And I don't know when you seefirsthand how bad this medical
system can be in certain cases,when you see firsthand how bad
this medical system can be incertain cases, it changes your
whole view on everything, andthat's what happened to me.
(01:49):
My dad had a big aerospacecompany I mean, he was a rocket
scientist, right so he did hisown research and with a muscle
wasting disease like ALS, well,they don't have anything for you
.
There's no cure, nothing.
So he did his own research andlooked into well, how do you
treat other similar musclewasting conditions?
And the closest one he couldreally see with any viable
(02:10):
treatment was HIV muscle wasting.
They will throw human growthhormone and testosterone at you
like you're a bodybuilder, andvery often it works.
Where with ALS, he asked for itand they told no, no, that falls
under the anabolic steroid act.
You can't have that.
He's like I'm 50 and dying, whocares?
But they wouldn't do it.
(02:31):
They gave him like a reallysmall dose, but nothing
significant that would matterand I don't think it would have
helped him.
But it just seems like when thelogic's there, why not pursue
it if the person's willing?
And unfortunately they don'tallow that in a lot of cases and
that kind of got me on thisjourney and ended up down here
in Mexico and started all thisabout 13 years ago.
Marla Miller (02:52):
So what, I would say, stemmed your interest in
the stem cell therapy inparticular.
What drew you to that?
Josh Ketner (03:01):
Well, that was.
We started with the growthhormone and other treatments
like that, first a legalfly-in-by program, and then we
got into stem cells because ofmy dad was sick.
We knew a guy who went over toChina and they were doing
embryonic stem cells there.
It's a big difference betweenthe different types of stem
cells.
It's a big confusion in thisindustry.
(03:22):
Embryonic stem cells back inthe late nineties, early 2000s
they were thinking this wasgoing to be the ultimate fix to
everything, because those cellscan turn into any other type of
cell which you'd think okay.
Well, if we can get them toturn into the cells you want, we
should be able to fix almostanything.
But this guy went over there andthey cut open part of his skull
(03:42):
, put in these embryonic stemcells.
And the problem there too isit's an ethical issue.
They come from aborted fetuses.
So here we are, like me and mydad and my family are all
Christian and we're like, ooh,what do you do?
And you start kind of bendingyour own ethics.
Well, it's already dead.
So unfortunately this guy didit.
They put it in and he came backto Seattle and for about two
(04:04):
weeks he started getting better.
He starts walking upright.
We're like whoa, this might bethe thing.
Then two weeks later he justkeeled over Massive brain tumor.
And that's the problem withembryonic stem cells you can't
control what kind of cell theyturn into, so they almost always
become teratomas and that's abig problem.
If you remember, back early2000s Bush got a lot of flack in
(04:27):
the media for banning stemcells, but he didn't really ban
them.
His advisors told him theydidn't think embryonic stem
cells would work and so he put afederal ban on federal funding.
The state of California stillspent $2 billion on research for
it and came up with nothing.
They found it didn't work.
Same thing they want to becomebabies, tend to become teratomas
(04:49):
.
So mesenchymal stem cells arequite a bit different and I
started hearing rumors that theywere doing that sort of
treatments here in Mexico about10 years ago and we tracked it
down, met a guy who did his PhDin cellular biology about 18
years ago, started working withhim, then went and did our own
thing, but to kind of yeah,those do work and there's over a
(05:10):
hundred thousand studies toback it up on Google scholar you
know well, over 30,000 onPubMed.
So it's very well researched.
It's been around since theearly nineties and it's very
effective for treating a lot ofdifferent things like joint pain
.
That can help with autoimmunediseases, chronic degenerative
issues so pretty wide range ofwhat they can help with.
Marla Miller (05:31):
So you're saying and maybe I missed this just now
the stem cells, so they're notcoming from aborted fetuses.
These stem cells are comingfrom where?
How are they being?
Are they being duplicated?
Josh Ketner (05:44):
Yeah, so we use what are called mesenchymal stem
cells.
These were discovered by DrArnold Kaplan in the early
nineties.
He was a professor of theskeletal muscle Institute at
Case Western University in Ohioand we worked with him in the
past actually, and he found thatthese cells that live on the
outside of capillaries arecalled pericytes and they look
(06:05):
like a little octopus hanging onto the outside of the capillary
and when you're injured theycome off and go to that area.
Well, he found in the lab hecould turn these cells into
chondrocytes, the buildingblocks of cartilage, osteophytes
, building blocks of bone,adipocytes, building blocks of
fat.
There were about five or sixtypes of cells he could turn
them into and he goes it's kindof from the mesenchyme system.
(06:29):
So let's call them mesenchymalstem cells.
He always pronounced itmesenchymal, you can say it
either way, but that's what hefound.
But then they started doingstudies.
They start putting them in rats, then in other animals, then in
people, and they found theyactually don't differentiate,
meaning they don't turn intoother tissues.
Because that's really what youthink of a stem cell.
(06:49):
These cells are becomingwhatever cell you want.
These he wishes he could haverenamed medicinal signaling
cells, because they really workvia the signals they send out
and they act like the manager onthe construction site.
So there's different types ofstem cells.
I guess is my point.
That's why we use these,because they help you heal, like
when you were a little kid.
(07:10):
You can take them from anytissue that has capillaries
right, and also from bone marrow.
In the United States, the mostcommon way they'll do it,
they'll take them from a fat,from like a liposuction, or from
bone marrow aspirate.
Or you can get them fromumbilical cord tissue called
Wharton jelly or the placenta.
That's what we do.
There are clinics that do thatin the States.
(07:31):
The big difference is in the U?
S you can't isolate andreplicate the cells.
Here in Mexico we can do that.
So we get much fresher cells.
We don't have to freeze them oranything and we can replicate
the cells to get very largenumbers to put in to help
ailments.
So we take them from tissue thatwould have been thrown away
(07:51):
otherwise.
So there's no ethical concerns.
The baby's perfect, grows up,it's happy, all that, and this
tissue that would have beenthrown away otherwise is used.
And the cool part is we don'thave to worry that it's from
another person becausemesenchymal stem cells lack
what's called HLA humanleukocyte antigen.
That's the marker that tellsyou it's from your body.
(08:13):
Let's pretend you needed akidney transplant and I'm a
perfect blood match, everything.
Well, your body's going to tryand reject that kidney forever
because our HLA markers aredifferent.
Where the mesenchymal stemcells don't exhibit HLA, they're
considered immune privilege, soyour body just thinks they're
your own and we get you back upto levels that you were at when
(08:34):
you were in your youth.
Because when you hit bonematurity usually about age 18
for women, 21 for men you lose90% of your capillaries.
Because you're not growingtaller, you don't need all that
extra blood flow, but you alsolose 90% of your mesenchymal
stem cells and as you age youlose more and more and that's
why we get worse and worse athealing as we age.
(08:55):
So we're able to put these backin you and again help you heal
like when you were a little kid.
Marla Miller (09:01):
So you're saying you're able to separate those
out in Mexico but not the US dueto the laws?
Josh Ketner (09:08):
Yeah, the laws are pretty dumb.
Are you familiar withplatelet-rich plasma PRP?
Marla Miller (09:13):
Yeah, I've heard of it.
I couldn't tell you about it.
Josh Ketner (09:16):
So PRP is considered a treatment, not a
medication, and all they'redoing is taking some blood out,
centrifuging it and separatingthe plasma from the red blood
cells, and it works really well.
If you were just freshlyinjured, it can help with
certain things.
Well, that's able to be donewithout it being considered a
medication because of theminimal manipulation.
(09:38):
That's what the US law states.
Same thing with the stem cells.
We could do a liposuction foryou.
Take out some fat or bonemarrow thing with the stem cells
.
We could do a liposuction foryou.
Take out some fat or bonemarrow and we could put it in a
cylinder with what's calledcollagenase and spin it up in a
centrifuge and it'll separatethe cells from the tissue.
So that's perfectly legal inthe US.
But the problem is it's notreally a stem cell therapy,
because less than 1% of thatsolution is actually mesenchymal
(10:02):
stem cells.
So that's as far as they can go.
And that's really where theproblem is, because you can't
patent a mesenchymal stem cell.
It's something that naturallyoccurs and in the US, to be able
to get a stem cell therapytruly approved, you would have
to go through all four phasetrials of the FDA.
That can cost you anywhere fromlike 40 million to a billion
(10:25):
dollars.
It can take up to 10 years andthe problem is no one will
invest that money because you'llnever get your money back,
since you can't patent it.
So the whole system in the USis inhibiting not just
mesenchymal stem cells but allkinds of really great treatments
that should be available,because they're not taking into
consideration just the profitfactor.
(10:47):
It's so controlled by theselarge pharmaceutical companies
that they want it to be onlypatentable.
They want control because theygot to get their money back.
The fact it costs that muchmoney to even get it through is
insane, but it's kind of a moatto protect these big companies
so no one smaller can come in.
So luckily here in Mexico wedon't have that issue.
(11:07):
We have a different medicalsystem.
We have socialized healthcareand private care.
So it's a bit of a mix betweenwhat you got in Canada and the
US and the fact that we get both.
But the socialized healthcarewas going broke because of
metformin for diabetics so manydiabetics in Mexico and
mesenchymal stem cells workreally well for type 2 diabetes.
(11:30):
So because of that they said,hey well, we'd rather you guys
offer these treatments andbankrupt our system giving us
metformin.
Yeah, go ahead and that's whatallowed us to do it here and get
regulatory approval and createregulations that actually allow
it, because they wanted to savesome money, and that's the big
difference there.
Marla Miller (11:50):
That's really interesting to me.
So these stem cells, as far aspurity, you're saying you're
getting a large quantity of them.
Where are they coming from Ifit's not from that person, like
you said, because they can go inany person's body?
I know you said where they'recoming from, like the placenta
(12:10):
or the umbilical cord?
Josh Ketner (12:13):
I think this will answer your question.
I'll just explain the process.
So we start with a team ofgynecologists that we work with.
They only work with first-timemothers and we have a very
strict qualifications.
These women have to befirst-time mothers, they have to
be married.
We ask them how many sexualpartners?
Because a mesenchymal stem cellcan't carry a virus.
But if the donor had aretrovirus, which are mostly
(12:36):
sexually transmitted, there's aless than 5% chance of carry
through.
We even take it a step furtherand we ask if they've had any of
the COVID vaccines.
A lot of our patients didn'twant those or do them and
luckily there's a federaldatabase here.
So we ask and we verify withthe federal database and then we
select and we only need oneumbilical cord, maybe every two
(12:57):
to three months.
So we're not like this giantpool, it's not like we need all
these umbilical cords.
You know we're using maybe foura year, maybe five.
It's not crazy numbers.
So we're very strict becausethe health of the donor really
affects the health of the cells.
So you want really young,healthy women and with that
we're able to screen the women,do all kinds of blood tests
(13:19):
multiple times over those ninemonths, then we take the
umbilical cord from the birthingroom straight to the lab and we
send off samples to getanalyzed.
So we're doing a second check,then we do a third check, when
we then isolate the mesenchymalstem cells, and then we do
what's called culturing.
So we're chopping up theumbilical cord, we're then
(13:40):
putting it in the centrifugewith collagenase and we're
spinning it up and you're leftwith liquid that is filled with
cells.
About 70% of it is mesenchymalstem cells, 30% other types of
cells.
So we now have to filter thatdown.
You centrifuge that into thisthing we call the pellet.
It looks like a little whitepellet.
That is what we put into theflask.
(14:02):
So we use clear flasks and wefill them with what's called
culturing medium.
That's like the food for thesecells and we put them in the
incubators, which are imagine anoven that you can control the
CO2 levels, oxygen levels, thetemperature and we put them in
there.
It's almost like baking andthey start growing and
mesenchymal stem cells adhere toplastic.
(14:22):
So the flasks are the specialtype of plastic they hold on.
The other cells are freefloating and then they quickly
you know, over days or months,depending on how we set it up
start eating through theculturing medium and once we've
done that, we then put in anenzyme flush to flush out the
other cells and put in more ofthis culturing medium which is
(14:43):
their food.
So they're like in the gardenof Eden they got a perfect
condition, they got all the foodthey can want.
And we do this process up toabout five times Each time they
eat through the culturing medium.
They call it a passage andthey're replicating this whole
time.
They're growing, you're gettingmore and more cells and we're
fleshing out the others.
So by the third passage wefiltered out all the other types
(15:05):
of cells.
Now we just have pure, isolatedmesenchymal stem cells.
And we got a couple morepassages and we went from having
20 to 30 million stem cellswith the original batch up to
tens or hundreds of billions ofcells and we set it up with
different incubators.
So every day we've got newbatches coming up.
So, kind of like my bakinganalogy, you've got fresh
(15:26):
croissants every day.
You're making sure each patientgets the freshest cells
possible and we do a third-partylab analysis of that and we
give all this documentation toour patients.
It's not just us saying, hey,these are good, we send them off
to a third-party lab to analyzeand that way that patient knows
hey, these are pure, isolatedstem cells.
(15:46):
They've given you the number.
We're claiming they're free ofendotoxins, bacterias, any
problems, and they're safe touse.
And the good part is, sinceit's something you already have
in your body, there's no risk ofrejection.
There's really no downside toit.
You're just putting more ofsomething that you had more of
in the past back into your body.
Marla Miller (16:08):
Well, so this is going way back in the
conversation, but when you saidyou interview people and you
find out how many sexualpartners you had and do you have
any retroviruses or things likethat, you're just not counting
on them saying it.
You're saying you're doingblood work, you're analyzing
their blood and looking forthese things, because a lot of
people wouldn't even know theyhad some kind of retrovirus.
Josh Ketner (16:31):
So we need to verify everything and that's why
everything's quadruple checked.
You know, it's not like onetime.
We check the people tissue, thecells, multiple screening, so
it makes it super safe.
Marla Miller (16:43):
Well, that's great that you do all that work and
that you do share it with thepatients so they understand
exactly what the process is andthat it is a good, viable and, I
guess, clean type of cellthat's going into their body.
So well, I have a questionbefore we get into some of the
(17:04):
amazing benefits you've seen ofthis procedure Does it matter
the age?
Because I heard somewhere andmaybe it is a different type of
stem cell therapy, but, like, aspeople age, maybe it won't be
as effective if they were, say,90, as opposed to 60 or 30.
Does that change?
Josh Ketner (17:25):
A little bit.
I mean, it depends on thecondition, right?
So we're talking about a lot ofdifferent things.
Usually, older people have moredamage, so there's more to fix,
which means it's going to takelonger, or might take more cells
or more tries.
But the cells are nine monthsold, so our cells are young.
So what they're going to do,they're going to act the same
way whether you're five or 50,right, it doesn't matter.
(17:48):
So the cells will do their job.
But typically people are older,have more issues that need to
be dealt with.
Therefore, they might need moretreatments or more cells.
But it really depends on whatwe're talking about.
The most common treatment we doare knees.
Everybody's knees go at somepoint, right?
So we're seeing a lot ofcartilage, a lot of meniscus
tears, a lot of ACL tears.
(18:09):
So ligaments, cartilage,tendons as long as it's not
completely destroyed orcompletely torn, the stem cells
can get in there.
They start guiding the removalof scar tissue, which is usually
what's preventing it fromhealing, and then they start
healing, regenerating, guidingthe regeneration of the
underlying tissue.
So my first treatment ever wasmultiple meniscus tears,
(18:30):
partially torn ACL.
I've got before and after MRIsthat prove and did that eight
years ago and they're stillperfect from the regeneration.
So we will find someone younger, like maybe someone in their
thirties or forties, is going toheal faster because you don't
have as much damage.
You know they might be first orsecond degree arthritis, where
(18:51):
somebody who's 60 or 70 might bethird or fourth degree and
typically with cartilage likestage one, stage two or first
degree second degree arthritis.
It's usually not.
It doesn't matter how old youare, it's usually a one and done
treatment.
One shot will get you prettymuch, if not full regeneration,
pretty close to it.
But if you're at stage three,well we can probably only get
(19:13):
you down second degree or firstdegree.
I've seen a few people get ahundred percent, but it's pretty
rare at that severe damage.
Those people might need to comeback in six months or a year
for another treatment.
And at fourth degree, the bestI've ever seen is second degree.
In fact, just had a lady justlast week do an MRI and she was
(19:33):
fourth degree last year andshe's at second degree now and
that's awesome.
But yeah, fourth degree, howcan it get as far?
So yeah, the age matters andthat there's more damage.
Marla Miller (19:44):
So I'm curious about that knee issue.
It's such a common problem,common problem.
So have you been able toprevent knee surgeries by doing
this treatment, or you've beenable to improve the recovery
time?
How does it work?
Josh Ketner (20:01):
Yeah, I mean, usually if you're stage four
arthritis, they're going to tellyou you need to go get new
knees.
One of my favorite testimonialson the site we have is the
ladies of firefighter and Ithink Northern California.
She was bone on bone, she was afourth degree and we got her to
ladies of firefighter and Ithink Northern California.
She was bone on bone, she was afourth degree and we got her to
third on one knee and seconddegree on the other and saved
her career.
And she came back and did itagain but she's just continued
(20:22):
to get better and surgery wasnot needed.
So yeah, preventing surgery isone of the biggest things that
we do for people that they don'thave an option, and in the US
that's surgeons jobs they wantto cut right.
And this is another thing is inCanada they actually were
starting to do a lot of thesetreatments the way we do about
nine years ago and seven yearsago or so they shut it down
(20:45):
completely, like there's prettymuch no stem cells in Canada
anymore, not because it didn'twork, but because the orthopedic
surgeons threw too big of a fit.
And you know they do do privatecare stuff up there and it's
very, very expensive and theydidn't like that.
These people were going andgetting stem cells and not
getting surgery.
So you've got a lot ofdifferent big interest groups in
(21:07):
the way of what should behelping people, because the
profits get in the way,unfortunately.
Marla Miller (21:13):
Well, as they always say, follow the money to
see.
Whether it comes to teststudies or whatever it is, see
who's behind it, who's backingit.
Well, let's talk about.
I really want to get to some ofthese big things that you're
addressing.
The knee issue is very relevant.
Let's talk about something thatseems a lot, maybe tougher,
(21:35):
which would be multiplesclerosis, because I know you
have a particular program forthat.
So can you go into what thatentails and then the success
rate you've seen.
Josh Ketner (21:46):
Yeah for sure.
So with multiple sclerosis andthis applies to almost any
autoimmune disease most thereare some exceptions what we
found there is those people'simmune system is not working
properly, so it's attacking thespinal cord or it's attacking a
brain when it should beprotecting it.
So we need to fix that first.
(22:10):
So we always start with an ID.
We have found that doing atleast 1.4 million per pound of
body weight is ideal.
So if you weigh like, say, 150pounds or lighter, we're
probably looking like a 200million IV.
If you weigh over 150, you'reprobably looking like a 300
million IV.
And those cells will go throughyour system.
They go straight to your heart,then your lungs.
They get trapped in the lungsabout 70% of them for two to
(22:32):
three hours.
So a lot gets stuck in thelungs and the rest go through
the body.
But for autoimmune it's fine.
They don't get wasted becausethey're interacting with immune
cells that pass by them and theysend out these things called
cytokines.
These are specialized signalingproteins that when they
interact with these immune cells, it's like hitting the factory
(22:53):
reset button.
It's taking their softwarethat's telling them what to do
and reprogramming it to the wayit worked when they were a
little kid and that's a bigadvantage of why we take these
from nine month old tissuebecause it's had such a limited
exposure to an immune system.
It hasn't built up any of thesebad habits.
These people with MS or otherautoimmune diseases, their
(23:14):
immune system and their MSCs,they've got bad habits.
They're attacking things theyshould be protecting.
So this essentially reprogramsthat.
So right there, we're going tostop the progress of the disease
and for some people that'senough.
When we first got going, that'sall we did.
We had a lot of success.
But then, about four or fiveyears ago, we took it a step
(23:35):
further.
We said, well, we need to getthe cells directly to where the
damage is.
So we want to get them to thespinal cord, we want to get them
to the brain, and to get to thebrain is tough because the IV
by the time they get to thebrain it's like the last spot.
You got the blood brain barrierto pass and it's very tough, if
not impossible, for most ofthese cells to get by.
(23:55):
So what we started doing is wewent into the lower back into
the spinal cord fluid.
It's an injection called anintrathecal injection.
So the thecal sac is the areaaround the spinal cord and
that's what holds the spinalcord fluid in.
So we put this really tinyneedle it's like, I think, 25
gauge, so not much bigger thanan insulin needle.
(24:16):
It's kind of long and they gointo your lower back and if you
go to the treatment page you cansee me doing it Like I don't
offer things I haven't donemyself For me preventative my
dad had ALS Like I want to makesure my brain's good.
Most people usually do it ifthey've got a major brain issue
(24:37):
like stroke.
I think there's a patient todaywith spastic paraplegia.
We did it.
So these sort of issues and wego in and that allows the cells
to go up the spinal cord fluid.
We put 50 million mesenchymalstem cells and mesenchymal stem
cells are attracted toinflammation.
Well, when your spinal cord isdamaged, like it would be from
MS, they go to that area andthen they start recruiting
neurons to help regenerate thenerves.
(24:59):
So you'll hear, you're notsupposed to be able to
regenerate the myelin sheath yetwith mesenchymal stem cells in
concentration.
They seem to be doing thatbecause you can see before and
after MRIs of patients on oursite where those lesions have
healed and we've seen it in thebrain also, where they'll also
get to the brain and they'llstart guiding that repair.
(25:19):
So we hit it from two differentways because we don't want to
just fix the immune response, wewant to help fix the damage too
, and it's been working reallywell for that.
And look, we always hope it'sone and done, but it's not
always.
And this again comes to your agequestion and the people that
have had it longer.
Typically once someone's had itmaybe for decades and their
(25:40):
wheelchair browned and they'rekind of end stage, I haven't
seen that much success.
But with younger people andpeople that have caught it
within the first few years ofbeing diagnosed, they're seeing
tremendous success.
We've got quite a few patientsin their 30s and 40s that, as
far as their doctors areconcerned, they're in full
remission.
Lesions have healed, symptomsare gone.
(26:01):
We don't know how long that'sgoing to last.
We've been doing this for eightyears.
I've got patients from eightyears ago that are still in
remission from autoimmunediseases.
Will that keep lasting?
I don't know.
So some of these patients willcome back for a smaller dose IV
every year or two just tomaintain.
I'd say, like the people thatare a good fit, you know we
always do a consultation first,make sure where we're at it's
(26:24):
usually around like 80% of thosepeople are going to get the
results they're looking for.
They're going to fix thelesions, get rid of the immune
response.
It's going to help a lot.
About 15% are going to seeresults, but maybe not a hundred
percent.
And then there's about 5% thatjust are non-responders and
that's pretty well across theboard for stone cell therapies.
Those stats, that kind of thing, and if you read through the
(26:47):
studies it always comes back.
There's this 5% of people thatjust don't respond and that's
just medicine.
There's no guarantees.
But we have a very high successrate.
When you consider if you give10 people an ibuprofen for a
headache, about four of them aregetting a headache relief and
that's considered the go-toright.
It's not a very good successrate.
(27:07):
So yeah, we're doing prettygood.
Marla Miller (27:10):
Yeah, that's impressive with the MS.
That's good that you do aconsultation and get more of the
facts for the individual to seeif you think it is beneficial
to them before they come outthere assuming it'll work for
them.
Josh Ketner (27:25):
Yeah, definitely.
Marla Miller (27:26):
So what are some other?
Well, first, I do have aquestion.
When you're talking about thisneedle going into the lower back
and you've had it before isthis a painful procedure?
Is it like an epidural which,by the way, I haven't had, but
I've only heard about it?
Josh Ketner (27:43):
So an epidural looks like I'm sticking this pen
into your back.
It's gigantic.
That is not fun but it numbsyou up right away.
That's why people don'tcomplain.
But I've been in the room withdocs, have administered those.
It's pretty brutal looking.
This is a really tiny needleand look.
Mentally it's really tough.
I've done it twice and thesecond time wasn't any easier
(28:04):
than the first, even though Iknew it wasn't going to hurt.
So you feel a little pinch,barely feel it break the skin,
and then once they're in thereyou really don't feel anything.
It's that simple.
It really doesn't hurt.
Every once in a while it mightbruise the fecal sac a little
bit.
People have a little pain andtightness there in the back, but
that's the extent of it.
(28:24):
You can get a pretty badmigraine from it because we have
to take out two milliliters ofcerebral, spinal or spinal fluid
and we're putting in twomilliliters of cerebral, spinal
or spinal fluid and we'reputting in two milliliters of
solution with stem cells.
We're trying to balance it butthe migraine comes from the
difference in pressure and we've.
It doesn't happen that often,but it's good.
People know, like, what thepotential side effects are,
(28:45):
because I got the headache bothtimes I did it it lasted about
half an hour.
The first time it is it is agood migraine, and the second
time I ran up and down threeflights of stairs here at the
clinic about 20 times, afterwhich was really dumb but had a
lot of patients and I had apretty good headache the whole
night.
But it goes away and thebenefits, far away the downside,
(29:07):
but the actual injectiondoesn't hurt.
There's no risk of, you know,severing the spinal cord,
anything like that.
It's such a tiny needle andstem cells regenerate nerves.
This is a really commoninjection for an
anesthesiologist to make, so wehave an anesthesiologist on
staff.
He's the only one allowed to dothat treatment, and that's
(29:28):
because here in Mexico, I think,only neurosurgeons and
anesthesiologists are eventrained to do that, so they're
the only ones really permitted.
So now we let the expert whodoes it multiple times a day
anyway, do it and it's realsimple, sounds much scarier than
it is.
Marla Miller (29:43):
Well, you said it's just as tough the second
time as a first.
Tough in what way other thanthe headache?
Josh Ketner (29:49):
mentally, mentally thinking that this needle's
going in your back and you, just, you keep expecting it to hurt,
and then it doesn't hurt it.
Mentally it's a bit tough, butthen you do it and it's so
anticlimactic you're like, yeah,what was I worried about?
Marla Miller (30:04):
well, you're right , it's good to know all the
different aspects of it, likewith epidurals.
I don't know if it's still thesame, but I remember in the past
it'd be like, yeah, they couldcause some real damage if they
put it in at the wrong point.
Josh Ketner (30:18):
It's because they're giant, I mean it's big.
Marla Miller (30:23):
Well, so what other?
Now you're talking aboutautoimmune.
What other autoimmuneconditions have you seen for
yourself in your clinic thathave improved?
Josh Ketner (30:34):
Yeah, we've seen a lot of rheumatoid arthritis.
That's probably one of the mostcommon ones that we treat.
We see a lot of Hashimoto's,thyroid and Graves' disease.
Like thyroid-related that onewe actually do the IVN, a little
shot to the thyroid and then wesee a lot of type 2 diabetes.
Type 1 doesn't work.
It seems to be a genetic factorthere.
(30:57):
Ulcerative colitis so you knowit's a pretty big list, but
those are the most common.
Fibromyalgia lupus see a lot ofthose, it works really well and
, yeah, a lot of differentautoimmune diseases.
Marla Miller (31:10):
Well, that's another big one, lupus so that's
good, you've had success withthat.
And what about something likecrohn's disease?
Have you done anything withthat?
Josh Ketner (31:22):
yeah, crohn's is tough.
Crohn's probably has the lowestsuccess rate of all of our
autoimmune type diseases.
It's just so much damage thatoccurs with that one.
We've seen, seen success.
It's just I'm always straightwith people we can try, but
that's the one probably going totake more than one treatment
and I don't know.
It's just a really tough onewith all the damaging gut things
(31:42):
where ulcerative colitis isvery similar.
We've hit so many home runswith ulcerative colitis.
It's worked so well.
Marla Miller (31:48):
So I wonder if that's a matter of like it would
require, say, 10 sessionsinstead of one or two, or if it
just does not affect Crohn's.
Josh Ketner (31:58):
It's pretty rare for that to be a one and done
type scenario.
People usually catch it soyoung that, like you've had it
for long enough, by the time weget in there's a lot of damage
to fix, so it's more difficult.
Marla Miller (32:09):
So it's more difficult.
So do you have any otherspecific success stories that
you can think of and how itaffected or changed someone's
life, like their ability to livethe life they want?
Do you have any specific story?
Josh Ketner (32:26):
We've got this and there's a video of this one,
like multiple videos of thispatient.
She had a heart attack prettyyoung and after the heart attack
about a third of her heart wasnecrotic like dead.
The fact she even survived is amiracle.
Her son's eight or so, and youknow, hey really want to help
this lady and the good news iswhen you do stem cells they go
(32:47):
into the bloodstream straight tothe heart, so they're
incredible for heart health.
We've helped so many peoplewith congestive heart failure,
post-heart attack issues andthey usually measure it in
what's called ejection fraction.
So you want to be over 55%,like 55,.
65% ejection fraction is anormal rate for most people.
I think she was down at, I wantto say, around like 30% and had
(33:11):
all this like dead tissue onher heart and we did treatment
and she came back about a yearand three months later and there
was maybe like a little piece,this big and necrotic tissue, so
it totally regenerated herheart.
Her ejection fraction wastotally normal and then she
didn't come back for quite a fewyears and she just was back.
This past year did anotherfollow-up video with us and
(33:33):
she's doing amazing.
She's still around to help herkid, raise her kid, do all that.
So I mean, when you see thosesort of things, it's just, it's
pretty incredible.
We've got another lady that Ithink visually is probably the
most striking.
It's a lady from Canada.
Empty nester starts hitting thebottle a little too hard, too
much wine starts hitting itevery day and ends up with
(33:53):
cirrhosis.
And when she came to us shelooked like she was nine months
pregnant and anorexic at thesame time.
And that's because your bellystarts filling up with fluid.
We're talking like end stagecirrhosis and she looks
perfectly normal, happy, healthy.
Now just from our IV treatmentcompletely fixed all the
fibrosis in her liver andregenerated her liver.
(34:16):
So with organ health we seeincredible results and I mean
it's life-changing.
If you have to get a hearttransplant or a liver transplant
, it's a whole different life.
Maybe you're buying anotherfive or 10 years, but it's a big
change to your life if you haveto do an organ transplant.
So seeing those people not haveto get transplants and get back
to normal, just it's incredibleto see.
Marla Miller (34:38):
That would be incredible.
So I'm curious.
I've heard about stem celltherapy where if they wanted to
hit a specific organ, they'veguided it with laser Right.
Do you use any kind of lasersthere or anything?
Josh Ketner (34:51):
You know we've tried for kidneys to go into the
OR and with our internist andyou can use deep field
ultrasounds and like see, but Imean lasers aren't going to go
through tissues, I don't knowhow that would work.
But with ultrasound guidanceyou can do it.
But you know what?
It never got better resultsthan the IV.
By getting it systemically,we've always seen better results
(35:13):
.
Same thing with the IV.
By getting it systemically,we've always seen better results
.
Same thing with the backs.
We treat probably backtreatments.
Lower back and neck is oursecond and third most common
treatments.
We see a lot of herniated discs.
I personally four years ago hada herniated disc at L4-L5 and
the sciatica felt like I had acattle rod than my femur.
I used to think people that hadback pain were just big babies.
Because I work out all the time, my back's always sore.
(35:35):
I'm like I'll walk it off andthen, man, you get real back
pain from a herniated disc andit ruins your life.
It's all you can think about.
I'm hunched over, walking likea 90 year old, I can't sleep and
stem cells can help fix nerves.
So I did the treatment.
We injected four shotsintramuscularly in my lower back
at 25 million.
So a hundred million there plusan IV of a hundred million.
(35:58):
Nerve pain was gone within 10days.
Lower back pain took aboutthree months to go away and it's
never come back.
And I've tried to hurt it again.
Jet skis, four wheelers, dirtbut dumb stuff Like I haven't
been easy on that and it's heldup and we tried for a while
going into the disc and withguidance you go in the OR, put
(36:20):
the patient like twilightsedation on their stomach and
you guide it in with fluoroscopy, with orthopedic surgeons and
it's brutal looking and youcan't be fully asleep and you
know what Like getting the cellsinto the disc didn't help
better than around it.
And again, it's because of howthey work.
They work via the paracrineeffect, the signals they send
out, so you don't have to getthem into tissues directly.
(36:42):
You want to get them around, sothey recruit the help to help
guide the healing process.
We've consistently seen thatwork better than going directly
into different organs.
Like we would never go into theheart because we're seeing too
good a result with an IV, samewith the liver.
We're keeping the cost downthat way less invasive, it's
(37:03):
just better for everyone.
Marla Miller (37:05):
So are these stem cells going where they know they
need to go, where your bodyneeds the most help?
How are you directing it?
If someone wants it, you know,for rheumatoid arthritis, versus
their heart or how is thatworking?
Josh Ketner (37:20):
Well, rheumatoid again, you're trying to fix the
autoimmune response.
It doesn't matter where they go.
They're interacting with theimmune system.
For the heart, that's the firstplace they go.
But stem cells are smart in thefact that they know where to go
.
We don't fully understand whythey know or how they know, but
there's a huge signal.
I mean, the communication goingon inside of your body is
(37:41):
mind-blowing.
The more they research it, themore they find out.
Everything's talking to eachother, communicating.
So Dr Kaplan used to explain hegoes look, those cells will go
to the heart because it'sinflamed.
I really doubt they knowthey're at the heart, but they
know there's inflammation.
Inflammation sends off signalsand they are attracted to that
and they get in and they startsending the signals out to
(38:03):
recruit help and start guidingthat repair process.
So when they're going throughthe IV, you know they'll get
stuck up in the lungs.
This is why we have to do crazyhigh numbers.
A hundred million, 300 million,it's a lot, but we have to get
enough through to help theseother issues and they'll get
there and they work.
The things they send out arecalled extracellular vesicles
(38:26):
and the new name for them in theUnited States is exosomes.
So you hear a lot of peopletalk about exosomes and
mesenchymal stem cells, again,are smart, they'll go to the
area, they'll send out thecorrect exosome.
And an exosome is like a singlepayload delivery system.
It can carry one cytokine, onegrowth factor, one chemokine,
and there's over a thousanddifferent type.
(38:47):
We don't even know what theyall do.
We don't even have any labeledthem all.
It's still in that infancy ofthe research on that end.
But there was a group calledChimera Labs that found a way,
because in the US you can't workwith expanded stem cells,
meaning replicated, it's notallowed.
So this group was really smartand they cultured the cells and
then forced them to release alltheir exosomes and then filtered
(39:10):
out all the stem cells.
They're like yeah, see, we'renot applying replicated stem
cells and it was a cool idea andthey're still doing it.
But the problem is some of thea lot of those create
inflammation, so it's not targetspecific.
So now they had to filter themout and the filtration process
is so rudimentary it's liketaking a pile of dirt and
(39:30):
sifting it, you know, through ascreen and you're keeping the
big rock.
So there are clinics in the USdoing exosomes, trying to
promote it like it is stem cells, but we're probably a good
decade away before they knowwhich exosomes to select and
send where.
Dr Kaplan would laugh at thosedoctors, he goes.
Well, we already have theperfect delivery device, why
(39:51):
wouldn't we just do that?
But if you can get the exosomesto work and deliver them
yourself, that you can patent.
So that's getting the funding,and I mean it just seems like a
waste of time and effort, butthe money's what drives it.
So that's the direction they'regoing with that, unfortunately.
Marla Miller (40:09):
Yeah Well, what would that look like if someone
came from another country, saythe US, to your clinic?
Are they staying there for acertain length of time?
What should they expect?
Josh Ketner (40:34):
prices, info, studies.
I hate it when you can't findthat kind of info on websites.
So I have it all there, but forlike an IV or a basic treatment
that doesn't require scans oranything.
It's four days.
Flights and hotels are up topatients, but we provide all the
transportation.
We've got eight drivers.
Everyone has their own Fordexpedition pick them up, bring
them all the back and forth andor, if you need, like a joint or
a heart or you know one ofthese more invasive procedures
(40:56):
that need some more analysis,like we have our own MRI machine
here on site.
So any joint we require, you doan MRI with us.
So day one's arriving arrest.
Day two, we're doing blood workand MRI.
Day three, we're sitting withthe doctor, and this is my big
complaint back home in the U Syou, you go to your doctor.
They're either pushing you offto their pa or taking out the
door in five minutes.
(41:17):
It's not what we do.
We've got three full-timedoctors, we've got two
cardiologists and interns.
We've got tons of doctors thatcan help out and they will sit
with you for as long as needed.
So they're going to go throughyour blood work line by line,
explain it all.
They're going to show you yourimages and explain what's going
on, because you get the choice.
You did the MRI.
(41:37):
But you can decide at thatpoint hey, maybe I don't want to
do treatment, or maybe we'regoing to see a reason.
I mean, there's certain thingswe can't fix.
If we do an MRI of yourshoulder and there's a ton of
osteophytes, well it's not worthdoing stem cells.
We're going to tell you that.
So day three is always analysisand then day four is treatment.
Day five is fly home.
(41:59):
So we're in Fort Lauderdale.
It's a big tourist town, supernice, super safe.
I always joke.
It's like cheap Hawaii.
You get down here, have alittle vacation and get your
treatment, and it's not a lot oftime at the clinic, so you
still get a vacation out of ittoo.
Marla Miller (42:15):
Yeah, smart, combine your vacation with your
health protocol there, that'sawesome.
Well, so are there anycontraindications for this
treatment?
Is there someone who justshould not do it because of a
health reason?
Is there anything that couldbackfire, whether it's with
medication or a particularillness?
Josh Ketner (42:36):
So the first thing is stem cells are attracted to
inflammation, so we want toavoid anti-inflammatories.
If you just did a cortisoneshot on your knee or your
shoulder, you need to wait threemonths before considering stem
cells because that confuseswhere the inflammation is, so
you'd be wasting the treatment.
Basically, post-treatment, wealways want people to avoid
(42:59):
non-steroidalanti-inflammatories or corticoid
steroids for at least two weeksto a month.
So, like no ibuprofen, noaspirin For hearts and lungs.
You have to be very careful.
We do full workups with ourcardiologists because we want to
make sure there's nopericarditis, which means too
much fluid around the heart,because when you're doing an IV,
the first place it goes is theheart.
If you already have too muchfluid, that could be a big issue
(43:20):
.
So we're very, very carefulwith heart and lung patients.
A lot of extra analysis on that.
And then the other is cancer.
So we don't treat cancer.
Stem cells are not a good fitfor cancer.
We've worked with one of thetop cancer experts in the world
If anyone wants to check him out, it's Dr Jason Williams with
Williams Cancer Institute, andthis guy is beyond genius.
(43:43):
He used to do stem cells in theUS 16 years ago, like we do
till the FDA came in and shuthim down and I mean they were
ready to throw the book at himand found out that he'd done it
all for free, so they couldn'treally go after him.
It's pretty crazy.
It got him to stop doing stemcells.
But he's even injected stemcells into tumors and seen them
shrink but never go awaycompletely and there just isn't
(44:07):
enough research to suggest thatthey would really help cancer.
We don't think they'd make itworse, but there's also not
enough research to know if theywould.
So we won't treat anyone ifthey've had cancer within the
past five years, just to be safe.
It's not going to give youcancer, because you know it's a
common question I get is thecancer question Stem cells?
(44:28):
This type of stem cell does notdifferentiate.
It does not turn into othercell types.
Dr Kaplan again wishes he couldhave named them medicinal
signaling cells, because they'renot really a stem cell in your
body, but the name stuck so likebecause they're not turning
into something else.
They can't cause cancer.
They can't turn into cancer.
So you don't have to worryabout that.
(44:49):
But cancer would be the thingwe avoid.
Marla Miller (44:52):
Well, that's very good information to know what
people should not be looking forthis treatment.
Yeah, very interesting.
So is there anything we haven'tdiscussed yet that you really
want people to know about thistreatment?
Josh Ketner (45:07):
It's just that it's super safe.
You know, I think it getsconfusing because these
different types of stem cellsout there, right?
So the good news is mesenchymalstem cells are incredibly safe,
incredibly easy to do thesetreatments and I don't know if
it's just people don't knowenough about them or because
they can't do them the same way.
In the US people aren't asfamiliar, but even that's
(45:29):
changing.
Like when we started doingthese eight years ago, every
patient I talked to was aconversation like this.
It'd take me a half an hour toan hour just to explain to
people.
And now people call up andthey're like yep, I want to fix
my knee.
I've heard about stem cells,sign me up.
So it's good for us.
You know, it gets become easier,but there's still a lot of
(45:51):
people that just haven't heardand it's been interviews like
this.
Joe Rogan famously interviewedMel Gibson, like about eight
years ago, and he brought DrRiordan, the guy from Panama
that has cell medicine, and thatinterview exploded and
everybody learned about stemcells because they fixed Mel
Gibson's dad who was dying.
The Mayo Clinic say he had nochance.
(46:12):
It was kidney failure, heartfailure, like all these issues
and the guy ended up living 10years.
Marla Miller (46:19):
So do you want to tell people just a little bit
about your book and what theymight find in that book?
Josh Ketner (46:24):
Oh sure, so we made our book the Ultimate Guide to
Stem Cell Therapy.
It's on Amazon.
You can pick it up there.
You can also go to our website,wwwdreambodyclinic.
Most of the info is there, ifanything, the website's more
technical than this.
This is like an intro guide.
This is a lot of the stuff wejust discussed and really like
(46:46):
simple, easy to follow format.
There's a lot of testimonialsin there, but you know our
YouTube channel has the actualtestimonials, so it's uh, yeah,
it's just everything's therepretty accessible for people.
Marla Miller (46:59):
So your YouTube channel?
What is that under?
Josh Ketner (47:02):
That is under you know they always they shut me
down like every six months or ayear or so.
Oh, it's changing the name.
If you search dream body clinic, a name now is DBC.
Dbc stem cells is what it sayson YouTube.
Marla Miller (47:18):
Okay, great, and then what is your website?
Josh Ketner (47:21):
It is wwwdreambodyclinic and that'll
take you to all the info there.
Marla Miller (47:28):
All right, yeah, I saw it and it does have a lot
of good information on there.
All right, yeah, I saw it andit does have a lot of good
information on there.
And I guess the last questionis so your dad, how did his
health turn out?
Josh Ketner (47:40):
No, it's terminal.
I mean he got diagnosed withina couple of years past.
Unfortunately, lou Gehrig'sdisease just your muscles waste
and you're trapped in your ownbody.
It's the worst thing ever.
So we, unfortunately, we'vetried stem cells for other
people with ALS and it doesn'tseem to work.
Same with Parkinson's doesn'treally respond well.
Both from my grandpa, my dad'sside, grandma and mom's side
(48:03):
both had that.
So two diseases I really wishwe could help and they're just.
It doesn't seem to make a bigdifference for those,
unfortunately, but for a lot ofthese other things like we
talked about, like MS andautoimmune diseases, just works
wonders.
Marla Miller (48:18):
So well, they say there's over 50 million people
with autoimmune diseases, sothis could really help a lot of
people.
I appreciate you coming on andsharing all this information so
people can understand it betterand also see how it might
benefit them or someone thatthey love.
And also I will say I saw youhave lots of great reviews.
Josh Ketner (48:41):
Yeah, we've been doing this for you know, like I
said, about eight years the stemcells, 13 years for the
medicine side of things.
And yeah, you help a lot ofpeople and they go tell their
friends and family and we treatabout 150 people a month.
And look, there's other clinicsthat do what we do, but they're
more focused on the celebrities.
We focus on real people sowe're able to keep our prices
(49:04):
way lower than these others.
We're not chasing celebrityendorsements, anything like that
.
I could care less about that.
So we help a lot of people and,yeah, they write good reviews,
they film videos with us.
We have a lot of testimonialvideos on there and that's not
even all of them.
Like I said, I mean YouTubedoesn't like us.
We get pulled about every yearor so.
They take our channel down,usually more on the medicine
(49:27):
side.
You know, even though it's alllegal, we do it all the right
way.
They don't like a lot of likehuman growth hormone.
They don't like people talkingabout that.
So I get my channel pulledevery year or two and it sucks,
but we do our best to get itback up there.
Marla Miller (49:41):
Well, that's good and I have heard you have a
great team that works with youand that the place where you're
located it's very clean, seemsvery safe and all of that.
So that's great and seems verysafe and all of that.
Josh Ketner (49:52):
So that's great and people worry about Mexico.
But look, I've lived here 17years and I've lived all over
the West coast.
Seattle, with the North County,is born in San Francisco.
There is a kid like Las Vegas.
I mean I've never seen aviolent crime here in Mexico.
I mean, you hear all the news.
You think it's so scary, but itreally is not.
(50:14):
Like the whole Narco thing, likethose guys keep it safer than
anything because they don't wantthings getting messed up in
tourist town, even in the cities.
I've lived in Guadalajara, likeit's super safe.
They don't allow drug dealingor anything.
There's no gangs, there'snothing like that.
But just because people doworry, that's why we provide all
the transportation and it's abig tourist town.
(50:36):
So we pick you up at theairport, we take you to your
hotel, we take you to the clinic.
You don't even have to leavethe hotel.
If you don't, you can stay atthe Hard Rock.
You could stay the four seasonsdown the road.
You're missing out on amazingfood if you don't go out.
But you know whatever you want.
Marla Miller (50:53):
Thank you so much.
I think that wraps it up nicelyand people, I think, are
well-informed after thisinterview with you and then they
go to a website to find out anylast bits of information.
So thank you for your timetoday.
I know you're busy over there.
Got patients over there to betended to, so I appreciate your
(51:15):
time.
Josh Ketner (51:16):
Oh, thank you.
Welcome back to Open-Minded Healing.
My guest today is Josh Kettner,a pioneer in the field of
regenerative medicine.
Josh is the visionary founderof Dream Body Clinic, located in
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, andthe author of the Ultimate Guide
to Stem Cell Therapy.
Josh and his team specialize incutting edge treatments like
(00:23):
stem cell therapies, along withhuman growth hormone and other
innovative age-defying medicines.
Today, we are going to bediving into some exciting
results people are experiencingwhen they implement treatment at
this clinic, including thosediagnosed with multiple
sclerosis.
We'll also discuss the topicsof ethics, sourcing and why this
(00:45):
clinic chose to locate itselfin Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
There's so much to discuss, so Iwant to get right to it.
Welcome, Josh.
How are you?
I'm doing real good, yeah, Verygood.
I am very excited about thistopic.
This is definitely a growingarea for health the stem cell
(01:06):
therapy so I'm really curious asto how you're implementing it
at your clinic.
But before we dive into that, Iwant to know what would you say
your mission statement is, andnot even as a company, but maybe
why you started this company.
What were you hoping toaccomplish?
Josh Ketner (01:28):
Oh, we want to help as many people as possible.
I got into this because my dadhad Lou Gehrig's disease.
That was about 20 years ago andthat was up in Seattle where we
were living then.
And I don't know when you seefirsthand how bad this medical
system can be in certain cases,when you see firsthand how bad
this medical system can be incertain cases, it changes your
whole view on everything, andthat's what happened to me.
(01:49):
My dad had a big aerospacecompany I mean, he was a rocket
scientist, right so he did hisown research and with a muscle
wasting disease like ALS, well,they don't have anything for you
.
There's no cure, nothing.
So he did his own research andlooked into well, how do you
treat other similar musclewasting conditions?
And the closest one he couldreally see with any viable
(02:10):
treatment was HIV muscle wasting.
They will throw human growthhormone and testosterone at you
like you're a bodybuilder, andvery often it works.
Where with ALS, he asked for itand they told no, no, that falls
under the anabolic steroid act.
You can't have that.
He's like I'm 50 and dying, whocares?
But they wouldn't do it.
(02:31):
They gave him like a reallysmall dose, but nothing
significant that would matterand I don't think it would have
helped him.
But it just seems like when thelogic's there, why not pursue
it if the person's willing?
And unfortunately they don'tallow that in a lot of cases and
that kind of got me on thisjourney and ended up down here
in Mexico and started all thisabout 13 years ago.
Marla Miller (02:52):
So what, I would say, stemmed your interest in
the stem cell therapy inparticular.
What drew you to that?
Josh Ketner (03:01):
Well, that was.
We started with the growthhormone and other treatments
like that, first a legalfly-in-by program, and then we
got into stem cells because ofmy dad was sick.
We knew a guy who went over toChina and they were doing
embryonic stem cells there.
It's a big difference betweenthe different types of stem
cells.
It's a big confusion in thisindustry.
(03:22):
Embryonic stem cells back inthe late nineties, early 2000s
they were thinking this wasgoing to be the ultimate fix to
everything, because those cellscan turn into any other type of
cell which you'd think okay.
Well, if we can get them toturn into the cells you want, we
should be able to fix almostanything.
But this guy went over there andthey cut open part of his skull
(03:42):
, put in these embryonic stemcells.
And the problem there too isit's an ethical issue.
They come from aborted fetuses.
So here we are, like me and mydad and my family are all
Christian and we're like, ooh,what do you do?
And you start kind of bendingyour own ethics.
Well, it's already dead.
So unfortunately this guy didit.
They put it in and he came backto Seattle and for about two
(04:04):
weeks he started getting better.
He starts walking upright.
We're like whoa, this might bethe thing.
Then two weeks later he justkeeled over Massive brain tumor.
And that's the problem withembryonic stem cells you can't
control what kind of cell theyturn into, so they almost always
become teratomas and that's abig problem.
If you remember, back early2000s Bush got a lot of flack in
(04:27):
the media for banning stemcells, but he didn't really ban
them.
His advisors told him theydidn't think embryonic stem
cells would work and so he put afederal ban on federal funding.
The state of California stillspent $2 billion on research for
it and came up with nothing.
They found it didn't work.
Same thing they want to becomebabies, tend to become teratomas
(04:49):
.
So mesenchymal stem cells arequite a bit different and I
started hearing rumors that theywere doing that sort of
treatments here in Mexico about10 years ago and we tracked it
down, met a guy who did his PhDin cellular biology about 18
years ago, started working withhim, then went and did our own
thing, but to kind of yeah,those do work and there's over a
(05:10):
hundred thousand studies toback it up on Google scholar you
know well, over 30,000 onPubMed.
So it's very well researched.
It's been around since theearly nineties and it's very
effective for treating a lot ofdifferent things like joint pain
.
That can help with autoimmunediseases, chronic degenerative
issues so pretty wide range ofwhat they can help with.
Marla Miller (05:31):
So you're saying and maybe I missed this just now
the stem cells, so they're notcoming from aborted fetuses.
These stem cells are comingfrom where?
How are they being?
Are they being duplicated?
Josh Ketner (05:44):
Yeah, so we use what are called mesenchymal stem
cells.
These were discovered by DrArnold Kaplan in the early
nineties.
He was a professor of theskeletal muscle Institute at
Case Western University in Ohioand we worked with him in the
past actually, and he found thatthese cells that live on the
outside of capillaries arecalled pericytes and they look
(06:05):
like a little octopus hanging onto the outside of the capillary
and when you're injured theycome off and go to that area.
Well, he found in the lab hecould turn these cells into
chondrocytes, the buildingblocks of cartilage, osteophytes
, building blocks of bone,adipocytes, building blocks of
fat.
There were about five or sixtypes of cells he could turn
them into and he goes it's kindof from the mesenchyme system.
(06:29):
So let's call them mesenchymalstem cells.
He always pronounced itmesenchymal, you can say it
either way, but that's what hefound.
But then they started doingstudies.
They start putting them in rats, then in other animals, then in
people, and they found theyactually don't differentiate,
meaning they don't turn intoother tissues.
Because that's really what youthink of a stem cell.
(06:49):
These cells are becomingwhatever cell you want.
These he wishes he could haverenamed medicinal signaling
cells, because they really workvia the signals they send out
and they act like the manager onthe construction site.
So there's different types ofstem cells.
I guess is my point.
That's why we use these,because they help you heal, like
when you were a little kid.
(07:10):
You can take them from anytissue that has capillaries
right, and also from bone marrow.
In the United States, the mostcommon way they'll do it,
they'll take them from a fat,from like a liposuction, or from
bone marrow aspirate.
Or you can get them fromumbilical cord tissue called
Wharton jelly or the placenta.
That's what we do.
There are clinics that do thatin the States.
(07:31):
The big difference is in the U?
S you can't isolate andreplicate the cells.
Here in Mexico we can do that.
So we get much fresher cells.
We don't have to freeze them oranything and we can replicate
the cells to get very largenumbers to put in to help
ailments.
So we take them from tissue thatwould have been thrown away
(07:51):
otherwise.
So there's no ethical concerns.
The baby's perfect, grows up,it's happy, all that, and this
tissue that would have beenthrown away otherwise is used.
And the cool part is we don'thave to worry that it's from
another person becausemesenchymal stem cells lack
what's called HLA humanleukocyte antigen.
That's the marker that tellsyou it's from your body.
(08:13):
Let's pretend you needed akidney transplant and I'm a
perfect blood match, everything.
Well, your body's going to tryand reject that kidney forever
because our HLA markers aredifferent.
Where the mesenchymal stemcells don't exhibit HLA, they're
considered immune privilege, soyour body just thinks they're
your own and we get you back upto levels that you were at when
(08:34):
you were in your youth.
Because when you hit bonematurity usually about age 18
for women, 21 for men you lose90% of your capillaries.
Because you're not growingtaller, you don't need all that
extra blood flow, but you alsolose 90% of your mesenchymal
stem cells and as you age youlose more and more and that's
why we get worse and worse athealing as we age.
(08:55):
So we're able to put these backin you and again help you heal
like when you were a little kid.
Marla Miller (09:01):
So you're saying you're able to separate those
out in Mexico but not the US dueto the laws?
Josh Ketner (09:08):
Yeah, the laws are pretty dumb.
Are you familiar withplatelet-rich plasma PRP?
Marla Miller (09:13):
Yeah, I've heard of it.
I couldn't tell you about it.
Josh Ketner (09:16):
So PRP is considered a treatment, not a
medication, and all they'redoing is taking some blood out,
centrifuging it and separatingthe plasma from the red blood
cells, and it works really well.
If you were just freshlyinjured, it can help with
certain things.
Well, that's able to be donewithout it being considered a
medication because of theminimal manipulation.
(09:38):
That's what the US law states.
Same thing with the stem cells.
We could do a liposuction foryou.
Take out some fat or bonemarrow thing with the stem cells
.
We could do a liposuction foryou.
Take out some fat or bonemarrow and we could put it in a
cylinder with what's calledcollagenase and spin it up in a
centrifuge and it'll separatethe cells from the tissue.
So that's perfectly legal inthe US.
But the problem is it's notreally a stem cell therapy,
because less than 1% of thatsolution is actually mesenchymal
(10:02):
stem cells.
So that's as far as they can go.
And that's really where theproblem is, because you can't
patent a mesenchymal stem cell.
It's something that naturallyoccurs and in the US, to be able
to get a stem cell therapytruly approved, you would have
to go through all four phasetrials of the FDA.
That can cost you anywhere fromlike 40 million to a billion
(10:25):
dollars.
It can take up to 10 years andthe problem is no one will
invest that money because you'llnever get your money back,
since you can't patent it.
So the whole system in the USis inhibiting not just
mesenchymal stem cells but allkinds of really great treatments
that should be available,because they're not taking into
consideration just the profitfactor.
(10:47):
It's so controlled by theselarge pharmaceutical companies
that they want it to be onlypatentable.
They want control because theygot to get their money back.
The fact it costs that muchmoney to even get it through is
insane, but it's kind of a moatto protect these big companies
so no one smaller can come in.
So luckily here in Mexico wedon't have that issue.
(11:07):
We have a different medicalsystem.
We have socialized healthcareand private care.
So it's a bit of a mix betweenwhat you got in Canada and the
US and the fact that we get both.
But the socialized healthcarewas going broke because of
metformin for diabetics so manydiabetics in Mexico and
mesenchymal stem cells workreally well for type 2 diabetes.
(11:30):
So because of that they said,hey well, we'd rather you guys
offer these treatments andbankrupt our system giving us
metformin.
Yeah, go ahead and that's whatallowed us to do it here and get
regulatory approval and createregulations that actually allow
it, because they wanted to savesome money, and that's the big
difference there.
Marla Miller (11:50):
That's really interesting to me.
So these stem cells, as far aspurity, you're saying you're
getting a large quantity of them.
Where are they coming from Ifit's not from that person, like
you said, because they can go inany person's body?
I know you said where they'recoming from, like the placenta
(12:10):
or the umbilical cord?
Josh Ketner (12:13):
I think this will answer your question.
I'll just explain the process.
So we start with a team ofgynecologists that we work with.
They only work with first-timemothers and we have a very
strict qualifications.
These women have to befirst-time mothers, they have to
be married.
We ask them how many sexualpartners?
Because a mesenchymal stem cellcan't carry a virus.
But if the donor had aretrovirus, which are mostly
(12:36):
sexually transmitted, there's aless than 5% chance of carry
through.
We even take it a step furtherand we ask if they've had any of
the COVID vaccines.
A lot of our patients didn'twant those or do them and
luckily there's a federaldatabase here.
So we ask and we verify withthe federal database and then we
select and we only need oneumbilical cord, maybe every two
(12:57):
to three months.
So we're not like this giantpool, it's not like we need all
these umbilical cords.
You know we're using maybe foura year, maybe five.
It's not crazy numbers.
So we're very strict becausethe health of the donor really
affects the health of the cells.
So you want really young,healthy women and with that
we're able to screen the women,do all kinds of blood tests
(13:19):
multiple times over those ninemonths, then we take the
umbilical cord from the birthingroom straight to the lab and we
send off samples to getanalyzed.
So we're doing a second check,then we do a third check, when
we then isolate the mesenchymalstem cells, and then we do
what's called culturing.
So we're chopping up theumbilical cord, we're then
(13:40):
putting it in the centrifugewith collagenase and we're
spinning it up and you're leftwith liquid that is filled with
cells.
About 70% of it is mesenchymalstem cells, 30% other types of
cells.
So we now have to filter thatdown.
You centrifuge that into thisthing we call the pellet.
It looks like a little whitepellet.
That is what we put into theflask.
(14:02):
So we use clear flasks and wefill them with what's called
culturing medium.
That's like the food for thesecells and we put them in the
incubators, which are imagine anoven that you can control the
CO2 levels, oxygen levels, thetemperature and we put them in
there.
It's almost like baking andthey start growing and
mesenchymal stem cells adhere toplastic.
(14:22):
So the flasks are the specialtype of plastic they hold on.
The other cells are freefloating and then they quickly
you know, over days or months,depending on how we set it up
start eating through theculturing medium and once we've
done that, we then put in anenzyme flush to flush out the
other cells and put in more ofthis culturing medium which is
(14:43):
their food.
So they're like in the gardenof Eden they got a perfect
condition, they got all the foodthey can want.
And we do this process up toabout five times Each time they
eat through the culturing medium.
They call it a passage andthey're replicating this whole
time.
They're growing, you're gettingmore and more cells and we're
fleshing out the others.
So by the third passage wefiltered out all the other types
(15:05):
of cells.
Now we just have pure, isolatedmesenchymal stem cells.
And we got a couple morepassages and we went from having
20 to 30 million stem cellswith the original batch up to
tens or hundreds of billions ofcells and we set it up with
different incubators.
So every day we've got newbatches coming up.
So, kind of like my bakinganalogy, you've got fresh
(15:26):
croissants every day.
You're making sure each patientgets the freshest cells
possible and we do a third-partylab analysis of that and we
give all this documentation toour patients.
It's not just us saying, hey,these are good, we send them off
to a third-party lab to analyzeand that way that patient knows
hey, these are pure, isolatedstem cells.
(15:46):
They've given you the number.
We're claiming they're free ofendotoxins, bacterias, any
problems, and they're safe touse.
And the good part is, sinceit's something you already have
in your body, there's no risk ofrejection.
There's really no downside toit.
You're just putting more ofsomething that you had more of
in the past back into your body.
Marla Miller (16:08):
Well, so this is going way back in the
conversation, but when you saidyou interview people and you
find out how many sexualpartners you had and do you have
any retroviruses or things likethat, you're just not counting
on them saying it.
You're saying you're doingblood work, you're analyzing
their blood and looking forthese things, because a lot of
people wouldn't even know theyhad some kind of retrovirus.
Josh Ketner (16:31):
So we need to verify everything and that's why
everything's quadruple checked.
You know, it's not like onetime.
We check the people tissue, thecells, multiple screening, so
it makes it super safe.
Marla Miller (16:43):
Well, that's great that you do all that work and
that you do share it with thepatients so they understand
exactly what the process is andthat it is a good, viable and, I
guess, clean type of cellthat's going into their body.
So well, I have a questionbefore we get into some of the
(17:04):
amazing benefits you've seen ofthis procedure Does it matter
the age?
Because I heard somewhere andmaybe it is a different type of
stem cell therapy, but, like, aspeople age, maybe it won't be
as effective if they were, say,90, as opposed to 60 or 30.
Does that change?
Josh Ketner (17:25):
A little bit.
I mean, it depends on thecondition, right?
So we're talking about a lot ofdifferent things.
Usually, older people have moredamage, so there's more to fix,
which means it's going to takelonger, or might take more cells
or more tries.
But the cells are nine monthsold, so our cells are young.
So what they're going to do,they're going to act the same
way whether you're five or 50,right, it doesn't matter.
(17:48):
So the cells will do their job.
But typically people are older,have more issues that need to
be dealt with.
Therefore, they might need moretreatments or more cells.
But it really depends on whatwe're talking about.
The most common treatment we doare knees.
Everybody's knees go at somepoint, right?
So we're seeing a lot ofcartilage, a lot of meniscus
tears, a lot of ACL tears.
(18:09):
So ligaments, cartilage,tendons as long as it's not
completely destroyed orcompletely torn, the stem cells
can get in there.
They start guiding the removalof scar tissue, which is usually
what's preventing it fromhealing, and then they start
healing, regenerating, guidingthe regeneration of the
underlying tissue.
So my first treatment ever wasmultiple meniscus tears,
(18:30):
partially torn ACL.
I've got before and after MRIsthat prove and did that eight
years ago and they're stillperfect from the regeneration.
So we will find someone younger, like maybe someone in their
thirties or forties, is going toheal faster because you don't
have as much damage.
You know they might be first orsecond degree arthritis, where
(18:51):
somebody who's 60 or 70 might bethird or fourth degree and
typically with cartilage likestage one, stage two or first
degree second degree arthritis.
It's usually not.
It doesn't matter how old youare, it's usually a one and done
treatment.
One shot will get you prettymuch, if not full regeneration,
pretty close to it.
But if you're at stage three,well we can probably only get
(19:13):
you down second degree or firstdegree.
I've seen a few people get ahundred percent, but it's pretty
rare at that severe damage.
Those people might need to comeback in six months or a year
for another treatment.
And at fourth degree, the bestI've ever seen is second degree.
In fact, just had a lady justlast week do an MRI and she was
(19:33):
fourth degree last year andshe's at second degree now and
that's awesome.
But yeah, fourth degree, howcan it get as far?
So yeah, the age matters andthat there's more damage.
Marla Miller (19:44):
So I'm curious about that knee issue.
It's such a common problem,common problem.
So have you been able toprevent knee surgeries by doing
this treatment, or you've beenable to improve the recovery
time?
How does it work?
Josh Ketner (20:01):
Yeah, I mean, usually if you're stage four
arthritis, they're going to tellyou you need to go get new
knees.
One of my favorite testimonialson the site we have is the
ladies of firefighter and Ithink Northern California.
She was bone on bone, she was afourth degree and we got her to
ladies of firefighter and Ithink Northern California.
She was bone on bone, she was afourth degree and we got her to
third on one knee and seconddegree on the other and saved
her career.
And she came back and did itagain but she's just continued
(20:22):
to get better and surgery wasnot needed.
So yeah, preventing surgery isone of the biggest things that
we do for people that they don'thave an option, and in the US
that's surgeons jobs they wantto cut right.
And this is another thing is inCanada they actually were
starting to do a lot of thesetreatments the way we do about
nine years ago and seven yearsago or so they shut it down
(20:45):
completely, like there's prettymuch no stem cells in Canada
anymore, not because it didn'twork, but because the orthopedic
surgeons threw too big of a fit.
And you know they do do privatecare stuff up there and it's
very, very expensive and theydidn't like that.
These people were going andgetting stem cells and not
getting surgery.
So you've got a lot ofdifferent big interest groups in
(21:07):
the way of what should behelping people, because the
profits get in the way,unfortunately.
Marla Miller (21:13):
Well, as they always say, follow the money to
see.
Whether it comes to teststudies or whatever it is, see
who's behind it, who's backingit.
Well, let's talk about.
I really want to get to some ofthese big things that you're
addressing.
The knee issue is very relevant.
Let's talk about something thatseems a lot, maybe tougher,
(21:35):
which would be multiplesclerosis, because I know you
have a particular program forthat.
So can you go into what thatentails and then the success
rate you've seen.
Josh Ketner (21:46):
Yeah for sure.
So with multiple sclerosis andthis applies to almost any
autoimmune disease most thereare some exceptions what we
found there is those people'simmune system is not working
properly, so it's attacking thespinal cord or it's attacking a
brain when it should beprotecting it.
So we need to fix that first.
(22:10):
So we always start with an ID.
We have found that doing atleast 1.4 million per pound of
body weight is ideal.
So if you weigh like, say, 150pounds or lighter, we're
probably looking like a 200million IV.
If you weigh over 150, you'reprobably looking like a 300
million IV.
And those cells will go throughyour system.
They go straight to your heart,then your lungs.
They get trapped in the lungsabout 70% of them for two to
(22:32):
three hours.
So a lot gets stuck in thelungs and the rest go through
the body.
But for autoimmune it's fine.
They don't get wasted becausethey're interacting with immune
cells that pass by them and theysend out these things called
cytokines.
These are specialized signalingproteins that when they
interact with these immune cells, it's like hitting the factory
(22:53):
reset button.
It's taking their softwarethat's telling them what to do
and reprogramming it to the wayit worked when they were a
little kid and that's a bigadvantage of why we take these
from nine month old tissuebecause it's had such a limited
exposure to an immune system.
It hasn't built up any of thesebad habits.
These people with MS or otherautoimmune diseases, their
(23:14):
immune system and their MSCs,they've got bad habits.
They're attacking things theyshould be protecting.
So this essentially reprogramsthat.
So right there, we're going tostop the progress of the disease
and for some people that'senough.
When we first got going, that'sall we did.
We had a lot of success.
But then, about four or fiveyears ago, we took it a step
(23:35):
further.
We said, well, we need to getthe cells directly to where the
damage is.
So we want to get them to thespinal cord, we want to get them
to the brain, and to get to thebrain is tough because the IV
by the time they get to thebrain it's like the last spot.
You got the blood brain barrierto pass and it's very tough, if
not impossible, for most ofthese cells to get by.
(23:55):
So what we started doing is wewent into the lower back into
the spinal cord fluid.
It's an injection called anintrathecal injection.
So the thecal sac is the areaaround the spinal cord and
that's what holds the spinalcord fluid in.
So we put this really tinyneedle it's like, I think, 25
gauge, so not much bigger thanan insulin needle.
(24:16):
It's kind of long and they gointo your lower back and if you
go to the treatment page you cansee me doing it Like I don't
offer things I haven't donemyself For me preventative my
dad had ALS Like I want to makesure my brain's good.
Most people usually do it ifthey've got a major brain issue
(24:37):
like stroke.
I think there's a patient todaywith spastic paraplegia.
We did it.
So these sort of issues and wego in and that allows the cells
to go up the spinal cord fluid.
We put 50 million mesenchymalstem cells and mesenchymal stem
cells are attracted toinflammation.
Well, when your spinal cord isdamaged, like it would be from
MS, they go to that area andthen they start recruiting
neurons to help regenerate thenerves.
(24:59):
So you'll hear, you're notsupposed to be able to
regenerate the myelin sheath yetwith mesenchymal stem cells in
concentration.
They seem to be doing thatbecause you can see before and
after MRIs of patients on oursite where those lesions have
healed and we've seen it in thebrain also, where they'll also
get to the brain and they'llstart guiding that repair.
(25:19):
So we hit it from two differentways because we don't want to
just fix the immune response, wewant to help fix the damage too
, and it's been working reallywell for that.
And look, we always hope it'sone and done, but it's not
always.
And this again comes to your agequestion and the people that
have had it longer.
Typically once someone's had itmaybe for decades and their
(25:40):
wheelchair browned and they'rekind of end stage, I haven't
seen that much success.
But with younger people andpeople that have caught it
within the first few years ofbeing diagnosed, they're seeing
tremendous success.
We've got quite a few patientsin their 30s and 40s that, as
far as their doctors areconcerned, they're in full
remission.
Lesions have healed, symptomsare gone.
(26:01):
We don't know how long that'sgoing to last.
We've been doing this for eightyears.
I've got patients from eightyears ago that are still in
remission from autoimmunediseases.
Will that keep lasting?
I don't know.
So some of these patients willcome back for a smaller dose IV
every year or two just tomaintain.
I'd say, like the people thatare a good fit, you know we
always do a consultation first,make sure where we're at it's
(26:24):
usually around like 80% of thosepeople are going to get the
results they're looking for.
They're going to fix thelesions, get rid of the immune
response.
It's going to help a lot.
About 15% are going to seeresults, but maybe not a hundred
percent.
And then there's about 5% thatjust are non-responders and
that's pretty well across theboard for stone cell therapies.
Those stats, that kind of thing, and if you read through the
(26:47):
studies it always comes back.
There's this 5% of people thatjust don't respond and that's
just medicine.
There's no guarantees.
But we have a very high successrate.
When you consider if you give10 people an ibuprofen for a
headache, about four of them aregetting a headache relief and
that's considered the go-toright.
It's not a very good successrate.
(27:07):
So yeah, we're doing prettygood.
Marla Miller (27:10):
Yeah, that's impressive with the MS.
That's good that you do aconsultation and get more of the
facts for the individual to seeif you think it is beneficial
to them before they come outthere assuming it'll work for
them.
Josh Ketner (27:25):
Yeah, definitely.
Marla Miller (27:26):
So what are some other?
Well, first, I do have aquestion.
When you're talking about thisneedle going into the lower back
and you've had it before isthis a painful procedure?
Is it like an epidural which,by the way, I haven't had, but
I've only heard about it?
Josh Ketner (27:43):
So an epidural looks like I'm sticking this pen
into your back.
It's gigantic.
That is not fun but it numbsyou up right away.
That's why people don'tcomplain.
But I've been in the room withdocs, have administered those.
It's pretty brutal looking.
This is a really tiny needleand look.
Mentally it's really tough.
I've done it twice and thesecond time wasn't any easier
(28:04):
than the first, even though Iknew it wasn't going to hurt.
So you feel a little pinch,barely feel it break the skin,
and then once they're in thereyou really don't feel anything.
It's that simple.
It really doesn't hurt.
Every once in a while it mightbruise the fecal sac a little
bit.
People have a little pain andtightness there in the back, but
that's the extent of it.
(28:24):
You can get a pretty badmigraine from it because we have
to take out two milliliters ofcerebral, spinal or spinal fluid
and we're putting in twomilliliters of cerebral, spinal
or spinal fluid and we'reputting in two milliliters of
solution with stem cells.
We're trying to balance it butthe migraine comes from the
difference in pressure and we've.
It doesn't happen that often,but it's good.
People know, like, what thepotential side effects are,
(28:45):
because I got the headache bothtimes I did it it lasted about
half an hour.
The first time it is it is agood migraine, and the second
time I ran up and down threeflights of stairs here at the
clinic about 20 times, afterwhich was really dumb but had a
lot of patients and I had apretty good headache the whole
night.
But it goes away and thebenefits, far away the downside,
(29:07):
but the actual injectiondoesn't hurt.
There's no risk of, you know,severing the spinal cord,
anything like that.
It's such a tiny needle andstem cells regenerate nerves.
This is a really commoninjection for an
anesthesiologist to make, so wehave an anesthesiologist on
staff.
He's the only one allowed to dothat treatment, and that's
(29:28):
because here in Mexico, I think,only neurosurgeons and
anesthesiologists are eventrained to do that, so they're
the only ones really permitted.
So now we let the expert whodoes it multiple times a day
anyway, do it and it's realsimple, sounds much scarier than
it is.
Marla Miller (29:43):
Well, you said it's just as tough the second
time as a first.
Tough in what way other thanthe headache?
Josh Ketner (29:49):
mentally, mentally thinking that this needle's
going in your back and you, just, you keep expecting it to hurt,
and then it doesn't hurt it.
Mentally it's a bit tough, butthen you do it and it's so
anticlimactic you're like, yeah,what was I worried about?
Marla Miller (30:04):
well, you're right , it's good to know all the
different aspects of it, likewith epidurals.
I don't know if it's still thesame, but I remember in the past
it'd be like, yeah, they couldcause some real damage if they
put it in at the wrong point.
Josh Ketner (30:18):
It's because they're giant, I mean it's big.
Marla Miller (30:23):
Well, so what other?
Now you're talking aboutautoimmune.
What other autoimmuneconditions have you seen for
yourself in your clinic thathave improved?
Josh Ketner (30:34):
Yeah, we've seen a lot of rheumatoid arthritis.
That's probably one of the mostcommon ones that we treat.
We see a lot of Hashimoto's,thyroid and Graves' disease.
Like thyroid-related that onewe actually do the IVN, a little
shot to the thyroid and then wesee a lot of type 2 diabetes.
Type 1 doesn't work.
It seems to be a genetic factorthere.
(30:57):
Ulcerative colitis so you knowit's a pretty big list, but
those are the most common.
Fibromyalgia lupus see a lot ofthose, it works really well and
, yeah, a lot of differentautoimmune diseases.
Marla Miller (31:10):
Well, that's another big one, lupus so that's
good, you've had success withthat.
And what about something likecrohn's disease?
Have you done anything withthat?
Josh Ketner (31:22):
yeah, crohn's is tough.
Crohn's probably has the lowestsuccess rate of all of our
autoimmune type diseases.
It's just so much damage thatoccurs with that one.
We've seen, seen success.
It's just I'm always straightwith people we can try, but
that's the one probably going totake more than one treatment
and I don't know.
It's just a really tough onewith all the damaging gut things
(31:42):
where ulcerative colitis isvery similar.
We've hit so many home runswith ulcerative colitis.
It's worked so well.
Marla Miller (31:48):
So I wonder if that's a matter of like it would
require, say, 10 sessionsinstead of one or two, or if it
just does not affect Crohn's.
Josh Ketner (31:58):
It's pretty rare for that to be a one and done
type scenario.
People usually catch it soyoung that, like you've had it
for long enough, by the time weget in there's a lot of damage
to fix, so it's more difficult.
Marla Miller (32:09):
So it's more difficult.
So do you have any otherspecific success stories that
you can think of and how itaffected or changed someone's
life, like their ability to livethe life they want?
Do you have any specific story?
Josh Ketner (32:26):
We've got this and there's a video of this one,
like multiple videos of thispatient.
She had a heart attack prettyyoung and after the heart attack
about a third of her heart wasnecrotic like dead.
The fact she even survived is amiracle.
Her son's eight or so, and youknow, hey really want to help
this lady and the good news iswhen you do stem cells they go
(32:47):
into the bloodstream straight tothe heart, so they're
incredible for heart health.
We've helped so many peoplewith congestive heart failure,
post-heart attack issues andthey usually measure it in
what's called ejection fraction.
So you want to be over 55%,like 55,.
65% ejection fraction is anormal rate for most people.
I think she was down at, I wantto say, around like 30% and had
(33:11):
all this like dead tissue onher heart and we did treatment
and she came back about a yearand three months later and there
was maybe like a little piece,this big and necrotic tissue, so
it totally regenerated herheart.
Her ejection fraction wastotally normal and then she
didn't come back for quite a fewyears and she just was back.
This past year did anotherfollow-up video with us and
(33:33):
she's doing amazing.
She's still around to help herkid, raise her kid, do all that.
So I mean, when you see thosesort of things, it's just, it's
pretty incredible.
We've got another lady that Ithink visually is probably the
most striking.
It's a lady from Canada.
Empty nester starts hitting thebottle a little too hard, too
much wine starts hitting itevery day and ends up with
(33:53):
cirrhosis.
And when she came to us shelooked like she was nine months
pregnant and anorexic at thesame time.
And that's because your bellystarts filling up with fluid.
We're talking like end stagecirrhosis and she looks
perfectly normal, happy, healthy.
Now just from our IV treatmentcompletely fixed all the
fibrosis in her liver andregenerated her liver.
(34:16):
So with organ health we seeincredible results and I mean
it's life-changing.
If you have to get a hearttransplant or a liver transplant
, it's a whole different life.
Maybe you're buying anotherfive or 10 years, but it's a big
change to your life if you haveto do an organ transplant.
So seeing those people not haveto get transplants and get back
to normal, just it's incredibleto see.
Marla Miller (34:38):
That would be incredible.
So I'm curious.
I've heard about stem celltherapy where if they wanted to
hit a specific organ, they'veguided it with laser Right.
Do you use any kind of lasersthere or anything?
Josh Ketner (34:51):
You know we've tried for kidneys to go into the
OR and with our internist andyou can use deep field
ultrasounds and like see, but Imean lasers aren't going to go
through tissues, I don't knowhow that would work.
But with ultrasound guidanceyou can do it.
But you know what?
It never got better resultsthan the IV.
By getting it systemically,we've always seen better results
(35:13):
.
Same thing with the IV.
By getting it systemically,we've always seen better results
.
Same thing with the backs.
We treat probably backtreatments.
Lower back and neck is oursecond and third most common
treatments.
We see a lot of herniated discs.
I personally four years ago hada herniated disc at L4-L5 and
the sciatica felt like I had acattle rod than my femur.
I used to think people that hadback pain were just big babies.
Because I work out all the time, my back's always sore.
(35:35):
I'm like I'll walk it off andthen, man, you get real back
pain from a herniated disc andit ruins your life.
It's all you can think about.
I'm hunched over, walking likea 90 year old, I can't sleep and
stem cells can help fix nerves.
So I did the treatment.
We injected four shotsintramuscularly in my lower back
at 25 million.
So a hundred million there plusan IV of a hundred million.
(35:58):
Nerve pain was gone within 10days.
Lower back pain took aboutthree months to go away and it's
never come back.
And I've tried to hurt it again.
Jet skis, four wheelers, dirtbut dumb stuff Like I haven't
been easy on that and it's heldup and we tried for a while
going into the disc and withguidance you go in the OR, put
(36:20):
the patient like twilightsedation on their stomach and
you guide it in with fluoroscopy, with orthopedic surgeons and
it's brutal looking and youcan't be fully asleep and you
know what Like getting the cellsinto the disc didn't help
better than around it.
And again, it's because of howthey work.
They work via the paracrineeffect, the signals they send
out, so you don't have to getthem into tissues directly.
(36:42):
You want to get them around, sothey recruit the help to help
guide the healing process.
We've consistently seen thatwork better than going directly
into different organs.
Like we would never go into theheart because we're seeing too
good a result with an IV, samewith the liver.
We're keeping the cost downthat way less invasive, it's
(37:03):
just better for everyone.
Marla Miller (37:05):
So are these stem cells going where they know they
need to go, where your bodyneeds the most help?
How are you directing it?
If someone wants it, you know,for rheumatoid arthritis, versus
their heart or how is thatworking?
Josh Ketner (37:20):
Well, rheumatoid again, you're trying to fix the
autoimmune response.
It doesn't matter where they go.
They're interacting with theimmune system.
For the heart, that's the firstplace they go.
But stem cells are smart in thefact that they know where to go
.
We don't fully understand whythey know or how they know, but
there's a huge signal.
I mean, the communication goingon inside of your body is
(37:41):
mind-blowing.
The more they research it, themore they find out.
Everything's talking to eachother, communicating.
So Dr Kaplan used to explain hegoes look, those cells will go
to the heart because it'sinflamed.
I really doubt they knowthey're at the heart, but they
know there's inflammation.
Inflammation sends off signalsand they are attracted to that
and they get in and they startsending the signals out to
(38:03):
recruit help and start guidingthat repair process.
So when they're going throughthe IV, you know they'll get
stuck up in the lungs.
This is why we have to do crazyhigh numbers.
A hundred million, 300 million,it's a lot, but we have to get
enough through to help theseother issues and they'll get
there and they work.
The things they send out arecalled extracellular vesicles
(38:26):
and the new name for them in theUnited States is exosomes.
So you hear a lot of peopletalk about exosomes and
mesenchymal stem cells, again,are smart, they'll go to the
area, they'll send out thecorrect exosome.
And an exosome is like a singlepayload delivery system.
It can carry one cytokine, onegrowth factor, one chemokine,
and there's over a thousanddifferent type.
(38:47):
We don't even know what theyall do.
We don't even have any labeledthem all.
It's still in that infancy ofthe research on that end.
But there was a group calledChimera Labs that found a way,
because in the US you can't workwith expanded stem cells,
meaning replicated, it's notallowed.
So this group was really smartand they cultured the cells and
then forced them to release alltheir exosomes and then filtered
(39:10):
out all the stem cells.
They're like yeah, see, we'renot applying replicated stem
cells and it was a cool idea andthey're still doing it.
But the problem is some of thea lot of those create
inflammation, so it's not targetspecific.
So now they had to filter themout and the filtration process
is so rudimentary it's liketaking a pile of dirt and
(39:30):
sifting it, you know, through ascreen and you're keeping the
big rock.
So there are clinics in the USdoing exosomes, trying to
promote it like it is stem cells, but we're probably a good
decade away before they knowwhich exosomes to select and
send where.
Dr Kaplan would laugh at thosedoctors, he goes.
Well, we already have theperfect delivery device, why
(39:51):
wouldn't we just do that?
But if you can get the exosomesto work and deliver them
yourself, that you can patent.
So that's getting the funding,and I mean it just seems like a
waste of time and effort, butthe money's what drives it.
So that's the direction they'regoing with that, unfortunately.
Marla Miller (40:09):
Yeah Well, what would that look like if someone
came from another country, saythe US, to your clinic?
Are they staying there for acertain length of time?
What should they expect?
Josh Ketner (40:34):
prices, info, studies.
I hate it when you can't findthat kind of info on websites.
So I have it all there, but forlike an IV or a basic treatment
that doesn't require scans oranything.
It's four days.
Flights and hotels are up topatients, but we provide all the
transportation.
We've got eight drivers.
Everyone has their own Fordexpedition pick them up, bring
them all the back and forth andor, if you need, like a joint or
a heart or you know one ofthese more invasive procedures
(40:56):
that need some more analysis,like we have our own MRI machine
here on site.
So any joint we require, you doan MRI with us.
So day one's arriving arrest.
Day two, we're doing blood workand MRI.
Day three, we're sitting withthe doctor, and this is my big
complaint back home in the U Syou, you go to your doctor.
They're either pushing you offto their pa or taking out the
door in five minutes.
(41:17):
It's not what we do.
We've got three full-timedoctors, we've got two
cardiologists and interns.
We've got tons of doctors thatcan help out and they will sit
with you for as long as needed.
So they're going to go throughyour blood work line by line,
explain it all.
They're going to show you yourimages and explain what's going
on, because you get the choice.
You did the MRI.
(41:37):
But you can decide at thatpoint hey, maybe I don't want to
do treatment, or maybe we'regoing to see a reason.
I mean, there's certain thingswe can't fix.
If we do an MRI of yourshoulder and there's a ton of
osteophytes, well it's not worthdoing stem cells.
We're going to tell you that.
So day three is always analysisand then day four is treatment.
Day five is fly home.
(41:59):
So we're in Fort Lauderdale.
It's a big tourist town, supernice, super safe.
I always joke.
It's like cheap Hawaii.
You get down here, have alittle vacation and get your
treatment, and it's not a lot oftime at the clinic, so you
still get a vacation out of ittoo.
Marla Miller (42:15):
Yeah, smart, combine your vacation with your
health protocol there, that'sawesome.
Well, so are there anycontraindications for this
treatment?
Is there someone who justshould not do it because of a
health reason?
Is there anything that couldbackfire, whether it's with
medication or a particularillness?
Josh Ketner (42:36):
So the first thing is stem cells are attracted to
inflammation, so we want toavoid anti-inflammatories.
If you just did a cortisoneshot on your knee or your
shoulder, you need to wait threemonths before considering stem
cells because that confuseswhere the inflammation is, so
you'd be wasting the treatment.
Basically, post-treatment, wealways want people to avoid
(42:59):
non-steroidalanti-inflammatories or corticoid
steroids for at least two weeksto a month.
So, like no ibuprofen, noaspirin For hearts and lungs.
You have to be very careful.
We do full workups with ourcardiologists because we want to
make sure there's nopericarditis, which means too
much fluid around the heart,because when you're doing an IV,
the first place it goes is theheart.
If you already have too muchfluid, that could be a big issue
(43:20):
.
So we're very, very carefulwith heart and lung patients.
A lot of extra analysis on that.
And then the other is cancer.
So we don't treat cancer.
Stem cells are not a good fitfor cancer.
We've worked with one of thetop cancer experts in the world
If anyone wants to check him out, it's Dr Jason Williams with
Williams Cancer Institute, andthis guy is beyond genius.
(43:43):
He used to do stem cells in theUS 16 years ago, like we do
till the FDA came in and shuthim down and I mean they were
ready to throw the book at himand found out that he'd done it
all for free, so they couldn'treally go after him.
It's pretty crazy.
It got him to stop doing stemcells.
But he's even injected stemcells into tumors and seen them
shrink but never go awaycompletely and there just isn't
(44:07):
enough research to suggest thatthey would really help cancer.
We don't think they'd make itworse, but there's also not
enough research to know if theywould.
So we won't treat anyone ifthey've had cancer within the
past five years, just to be safe.
It's not going to give youcancer, because you know it's a
common question I get is thecancer question Stem cells?
(44:28):
This type of stem cell does notdifferentiate.
It does not turn into othercell types.
Dr Kaplan again wishes he couldhave named them medicinal
signaling cells, because they'renot really a stem cell in your
body, but the name stuck so likebecause they're not turning
into something else.
They can't cause cancer.
They can't turn into cancer.
So you don't have to worryabout that.
(44:49):
But cancer would be the thingwe avoid.
Marla Miller (44:52):
Well, that's very good information to know what
people should not be looking forthis treatment.
Yeah, very interesting.
So is there anything we haven'tdiscussed yet that you really
want people to know about thistreatment?
Josh Ketner (45:07):
It's just that it's super safe.
You know, I think it getsconfusing because these
different types of stem cellsout there, right?
So the good news is mesenchymalstem cells are incredibly safe,
incredibly easy to do thesetreatments and I don't know if
it's just people don't knowenough about them or because
they can't do them the same way.
In the US people aren't asfamiliar, but even that's
(45:29):
changing.
Like when we started doingthese eight years ago, every
patient I talked to was aconversation like this.
It'd take me a half an hour toan hour just to explain to
people.
And now people call up andthey're like yep, I want to fix
my knee.
I've heard about stem cells,sign me up.
So it's good for us.
You know, it gets become easier,but there's still a lot of
(45:51):
people that just haven't heardand it's been interviews like
this.
Joe Rogan famously interviewedMel Gibson, like about eight
years ago, and he brought DrRiordan, the guy from Panama
that has cell medicine, and thatinterview exploded and
everybody learned about stemcells because they fixed Mel
Gibson's dad who was dying.
The Mayo Clinic say he had nochance.
(46:12):
It was kidney failure, heartfailure, like all these issues
and the guy ended up living 10years.
Marla Miller (46:19):
So do you want to tell people just a little bit
about your book and what theymight find in that book?
Josh Ketner (46:24):
Oh sure, so we made our book the Ultimate Guide to
Stem Cell Therapy.
It's on Amazon.
You can pick it up there.
You can also go to our website,wwwdreambodyclinic.
Most of the info is there, ifanything, the website's more
technical than this.
This is like an intro guide.
This is a lot of the stuff wejust discussed and really like
(46:46):
simple, easy to follow format.
There's a lot of testimonialsin there, but you know our
YouTube channel has the actualtestimonials, so it's uh, yeah,
it's just everything's therepretty accessible for people.
Marla Miller (46:59):
So your YouTube channel?
What is that under?
Josh Ketner (47:02):
That is under you know they always they shut me
down like every six months or ayear or so.
Oh, it's changing the name.
If you search dream body clinic, a name now is DBC.
Dbc stem cells is what it sayson YouTube.
Marla Miller (47:18):
Okay, great, and then what is your website?
Josh Ketner (47:21):
It is wwwdreambodyclinic and that'll
take you to all the info there.
Marla Miller (47:28):
All right, yeah, I saw it and it does have a lot
of good information on there.
All right, yeah, I saw it andit does have a lot of good
information on there.
And I guess the last questionis so your dad, how did his
health turn out?
Josh Ketner (47:40):
No, it's terminal.
I mean he got diagnosed withina couple of years past.
Unfortunately, lou Gehrig'sdisease just your muscles waste
and you're trapped in your ownbody.
It's the worst thing ever.
So we, unfortunately, we'vetried stem cells for other
people with ALS and it doesn'tseem to work.
Same with Parkinson's doesn'treally respond well.
Both from my grandpa, my dad'sside, grandma and mom's side
(48:03):
both had that.
So two diseases I really wishwe could help and they're just.
It doesn't seem to make a bigdifference for those,
unfortunately, but for a lot ofthese other things like we
talked about, like MS andautoimmune diseases, just works
wonders.
Marla Miller (48:18):
So well, they say there's over 50 million people
with autoimmune diseases, sothis could really help a lot of
people.
I appreciate you coming on andsharing all this information so
people can understand it betterand also see how it might
benefit them or someone thatthey love.
And also I will say I saw youhave lots of great reviews.
Josh Ketner (48:41):
Yeah, we've been doing this for you know, like I
said, about eight years the stemcells, 13 years for the
medicine side of things.
And yeah, you help a lot ofpeople and they go tell their
friends and family and we treatabout 150 people a month.
And look, there's other clinicsthat do what we do, but they're
more focused on the celebrities.
We focus on real people sowe're able to keep our prices
(49:04):
way lower than these others.
We're not chasing celebrityendorsements, anything like that
.
I could care less about that.
So we help a lot of people and,yeah, they write good reviews,
they film videos with us.
We have a lot of testimonialvideos on there and that's not
even all of them.
Like I said, I mean YouTubedoesn't like us.
We get pulled about every yearor so.
They take our channel down,usually more on the medicine
(49:27):
side.
You know, even though it's alllegal, we do it all the right
way.
They don't like a lot of likehuman growth hormone.
They don't like people talkingabout that.
So I get my channel pulledevery year or two and it sucks,
but we do our best to get itback up there.
Marla Miller (49:41):
Well, that's good and I have heard you have a
great team that works with youand that the place where you're
located it's very clean, seemsvery safe and all of that.
So that's great and seems verysafe and all of that.
Josh Ketner (49:52):
So that's great and people worry about Mexico.
But look, I've lived here 17years and I've lived all over
the West coast.
Seattle, with the North County,is born in San Francisco.
There is a kid like Las Vegas.
I mean I've never seen aviolent crime here in Mexico.
I mean, you hear all the news.
You think it's so scary, but itreally is not.
(50:14):
Like the whole Narco thing, likethose guys keep it safer than
anything because they don't wantthings getting messed up in
tourist town, even in the cities.
I've lived in Guadalajara, likeit's super safe.
They don't allow drug dealingor anything.
There's no gangs, there'snothing like that.
But just because people doworry, that's why we provide all
the transportation and it's abig tourist town.
(50:36):
So we pick you up at theairport, we take you to your
hotel, we take you to the clinic.
You don't even have to leavethe hotel.
If you don't, you can stay atthe Hard Rock.
You could stay the four seasonsdown the road.
You're missing out on amazingfood if you don't go out.
But you know whatever you want.
Marla Miller (50:53):
Thank you so much.
I think that wraps it up nicelyand people, I think, are
well-informed after thisinterview with you and then they
go to a website to find out anylast bits of information.
So thank you for your timetoday.
I know you're busy over there.
Got patients over there to betended to, so I appreciate your
(51:15):
time.
Josh Ketner (51:16):
Oh, thank you.
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