Liz Parrish is one of the bravest and most controversial figures in the exploding field of Longevity. She is not a scientist but may have more impact on geroscience than those who are. Liz is called ”Patient Zero” because she has used herself as a guinea pig for gene therapy to reverse aging and live better with her Type 1 Diabetes. The unapproved FDA procedure required Parrish to go to Colombia and other countries for treatment. The Result… look at her picture. Her biological age dropped five years every year after her treatments, done in 2015 and in 2020. She is biologically 25, chronologically in her forties, and started with a 66-year-old biomarker profile when suffering from Type I diabetes. She is an innovator, and an investor and promotor of Gene therapy for Longevity. Her company, BioViva, asserts that governments, including the US, must look at gene therapies to have a shot at healthy Longevity. Some say she is a profit of the future, and some that she is exposing people to undo risk. But Liz is now helping those interested in gene therapy by taking them off-shore for medical tourism to get procedures unavailable in many first-world nations, including the US. How do you feel about efforts for extreme Longevity? Get the picture on our Generation Bold Podcast: The Fountain of Truth as I interview Liz, a canny and sophisticated ambassador for transhumanism and radical Longevity.
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(00:08):
When I look in the mirror,I don't see wrinkles. When I look
in the mirror, I see hairon my head, not my shoulder.
Hello. Hello, Hello, Thisis Adrian Bergen. This is Generation Bold,
the Fountain of truth, the fountainof truth about aging. And today
(00:31):
we have a figure for I guessthe future, a person who is an
innovator, a person who I believepersonally is very brave. You'll see why
I feel that way in a moment, and a person who's certainly making waves
in the world of aging. Nowyou're going to hear about gene therapy,
(00:51):
and I was very careful to bringon a particular person, Elizabeth Parrish.
She's the CEO of Bioviva. Becauseshe's probably at the epicenter of gene therapy.
It's controversial, it is not regulatedhere in the United States. She
personally had to go to Columbia tobe what they called patient zero, the
(01:11):
first patient, real human being tohave gene therapy. She believes very much
in it. Other people feel thatshe's way over the tips of her skis,
that she shouldn't be doing unregulated researchand testing. But you know,
I wanted you to know about thisway before it got into the news because
(01:33):
I believe it will be. SoI'll tell you why innovative science has three
iterations. First, derision, everybodymakes fun of it. What do you
mean the world is round? Whatdo you mean we can get into outer
space? And then there's anger thefolks that the folks that have stake interests
(01:53):
in keeping things the same just geta little upset when things go well with
the innovative science. And then eventuallyacceptance and everybody says, gee, you're
a moron if you think that theworld is flat. So here we are
maybe we hear, maybe we're atthat tipping point in gene therapy. I
don't know, very controversial, butI do know who has an opinion,
(02:15):
and that is anybody. Elizabeth Parrish. So, thank you so much for
being with us today. Oh it'sa pleasure to be here. Thanks for
having me. So. I wasblown away by your presentation at Radfest,
and I covet in on a fewdifferent videos that are being disseminated now.
And the reason I was so blownaway was how clear you are about a
(02:36):
very very difficult topic. So I'mgoing to let you go on that one.
First, we have to start withby Oviva yourself. You're a humanitarian
their research organization. You're not ascientist. Let's say that upfront. You're
in business, you're a business leader, but you certainly are a very good
person to explain what gene therapy isto an average concern. They want to
(03:00):
know what it is. Tell usright now. Sure, so people are
going to hear a lot more aboutgene therapy in the future, so it's
good to know what it is.So gene therapy is essentially the insertion or
replacement of a gene in your cells. So your genes are hold the basically
(03:21):
the blueprint of who you are andwhat you look like and vastly how you
function. And with gene therapy,we have the therapeutic ability to put in
a gene that essentially makes you better. So today there are nine approved globally
gene therapies that treat what's called monogenicdisease. They treat a single gene mutation.
(03:45):
And then my company is interested inputting together what's called gene therapies for
complex disorders like aging. And that'swhy the controversy hits the road. So
don't think, folks that there isno approved therapies there are for particular diseases.
But like the normal situation here inthe US, we like to look
(04:08):
at diseases one at a time andgo regulation lots and lots of very important
not telling you that you shouldn't bedoing studies and testing and LAMB tests.
Then it gets regulated and then itgets approved. But aging is not a
disease in this country. And there'sin my world of agism. I don't
(04:30):
really want agism aging to be adisease. But here because it is not
an endpoint, because it is nota disease, it's very difficult to do
studies, LAMB tests, clinical testsand say this is going to cure aging
if aging is in a disease.So we're in this trope here. Now
you do believe that aging is adisease that could be cured, just controversy
(04:54):
around you. So let's hear aboutthat. Yeah, well, I mean
probably aging is the most stinth pathologyon the planet. Almost everyone with aging
eventually dies of the same symptoms.They are basically cordoned off into things like
heart disease, cancer, kidney failure, and dementia. It has the same
(05:17):
visual signs on the outside and theinside of the body. So even if
you look at the brain of aneighty six year old who doesn't have dementia,
you will see massive atrophy. Soit really is a distinctive condition.
And things like irritable bowel syndrome andcancer, which vary greatly at the core
(05:38):
of mechanism, actually are considered onedisease. So by considering aging a disease,
we can then target aging as anendpoint in clinical studies, and that
would greatly speed up the regulatory systemand approving therapies that can treat the whole
population. By the way, don'tget along, folks, there's a lot
(06:01):
of very important geoscientists like Near Brazillawho's been on our show, and many
others who are working right now withthe FDA to find better words and going
through trials on med foreman just fornot for diabetes, not for a specific
disease, but for aging itself.So I actually think that's going to get
worked out. But with gene therapy, you had to go out of this
(06:24):
country to get gene therapy and bethe first patient. And I think this
is why there's been so much pressabout what you personally did tell us about
that. Yeah, So you knowthat's the one thing that I definitely fight
for is patient's right and agency todo to their body what they need to
(06:45):
do in order to survive. Andcertainly aging being the greatest medical unmet need
and the biggest killer actually on theplanet. So noncommunicable diseases kill about seventy
four percent of the population of thewhole planet, and aging associated diseases are
the top four killers in the noncommunicabledisease area. So people need access to
(07:09):
new medicine. And you know,I was really a proponent of testing this
therapy and legally could not do itin the United States. And you know
now I'm pushing towards legislation that willallow patients to have access to this type
of technology. So now you knowwhy I said in my introduction to Liz
(07:29):
Parish, who's the CEO of Bioviva, We're going to give you an opportunity,
as we always do, to learnmore on your own, to get
the newsletter and so on. Youknow, always we endorse no one,
We take no money from anybody.This is the show for me giving back
to the world with regard to longevity, because I didn't have any in my
family, Liz. For those ofyou who don't know, I think my
(07:53):
listeners know. Most everybody who Ilove died before the age of sixty,
and my dad at seventy two,at forty two, i should say,
and my mom did live till ninetytwo, but very unhealthy at the end.
So agen was not I had thegenetics of a fruit fly, if
you want to do a little genetherapy. But you know, I know
(08:20):
it's true. But the fact is, I'm heading at seventy five and so
far, so good. So alot of this has to do with personal
giotherapeutics and personal interventions. I'm nota biohacker, but I know little things
that you can do to live longer. And that's why I'm a believer and
certainly interested in anything new. Sothis is why I said you a brave
Let me explain that this parish didgene therapy for aging, not for specific
(08:46):
disease, on herself in Columbia,with unregulated protocols in the sense of approved.
And I think that's weren't too afraidbecause you don't really know it.
All of the side effects would beThat's why the FDA's all attible all about
this thing didn't scare you it allto try this, well, you know,
(09:07):
there there were some concerns, butwe had spent almost two years looking
at these two gene therapies that Itook, and looking at all of the
animal data. The genes that mycompany works with all have what's called meta
analysis, meaning they have been observedand tested in multiple labs that are not
(09:28):
associated with one another. So we'retaking the lowest hanging fruit that's been in
research the longest in translating it tohumans. So even though we did not
know all the risks, we didlook at the data the best that we
could. But of course, youknow, when the day came to take
the gene therapy, everyone was alittle nervous that was involved, and I
(09:52):
was worried, you know, formonths afterwards. And so far, so
good. When we can back,we're going to talk to Elizabeth Parrish about
bioviva and what it's doing right now, but also how she is doing after
that gene therapy. She says,a okay, and we'll bring back a
(10:13):
word that we've discussed many times onmany shows, and that's tell ameres h
and how you know I used toend the show by saying, may your
telemeres be long and prosper but we'llsee if that's still an important biomarker of
the aging. But that doesn't botherme, not even because I am happy
(10:35):
and I'm inappropriate for my age.Dad, you may think that I'm all
that, don't bother me, noteven because I am happy and I'm inappropriate.
(10:58):
Oh my, and hello, Hello, Hello. This is Adrian Berg,
and this is Generation Bowl, theFountain of Truth, the fountain of
truth about aging. And this showis about many things because aging is for
all of us. This is definitelynot one of those podcasts about being old
and how to take care of yourolder parent or caregiving. All very important,
(11:20):
and we have many, many podcaststhat you can see archived on adrianberg
dot com, iTunes, iHeartRadio,BizTalk radio, We're all over the place.
We've just been picked up by theNational Association of Baby Boomer Women and
you can see on baby boomer dotorg all of our work. So it's
yes, indeed, we talk aboutpickleball, or at least I'm the anti
(11:41):
pickleball. Apparently there's a new bookcalled Pickleball for Dummies, who had the
best title I've ever heard for abook. But in addition to lifestyle,
in addition to how to look good, in addition to where to travel,
we really get into the bones ofthe future of aging. And that's what
we're doing here today. We're speakingwith Elizabeth Parish. She is the CEO
(12:03):
of Bioviva. She is a patientadvocate, no doubt. She is patient
zero, meaning the first human thatwe know anyway to take gene therapy,
not for a particular disease, butto see if it could reverse aging right
or delay aging. Unapproved, controversial. She had to leave the country to
do this. But I feel rightnow is as if I was interviewing an
(12:31):
astronaut in the early days of spacetravel. Because it's innovative. I don't
know what's going to happen, Butyou actually did it. So you came
back, You're alive, you lookgorgeous. I saw you on stage.
What are you measuring in yourself tosee the result of this gene therapy and
(12:52):
how's it working out? That's areally good question. So before you do
any sort of an intervention, andyou want to take a bunch of pre
analysis, right, So we tooktilomere test, we took blood work,
we took MRI images for my bodyso that we could get a better view
(13:16):
of what was happening, and we'vecontinued to take those tests now since then,
people who are looking to treat aging, there's a whole slew of new
testing available that wasn't available when Ifirst took gene therapy in twenty fifteen,
and that's things like DNA methylation andDEXA scans and things like that. So
(13:37):
so what we did is we lookedat tilomere length, we looked at muscle
mass via MRI imaging, and thenwe did a lot of blood work.
And that's the kind of work thatwe continue to follow and we can use
to report upon what happened to mebecause we have the pre analysis. But
of course I participate in all ofthe tests that are available around biological aging.
(14:00):
So I'm going to talk about telomeresin a moment. But first,
people are fascinated by this. Howdo they find bioviva, which, believe
me, is not for the consumer. Vide myself to bring to the consumer
things they'd never know about. Butyou do have also a wonderful newsletter that
is consumer oriented, so tell usabout to find that. So, yeah,
we're a research and development company andyou can find us at bioviva dash
(14:24):
science dot com and sign up forthe newsletter, and then the newsletter is
much more layperson friendly. Let's youknow what we're doing, what we're up
to in any studies that we mightbe involved in around gene therapy. So
let's let's get back to telomeres.A few years ago, probably around twenty
fifteen, it became a big thing, and I read one of the first
(14:46):
books on telomeres, which is whencells get shorter and shorter and eventually too
short. It's a huge sign ofaging and the US a huge cause of
the deficits of aging. So wouldtake stuff for it. They would take
over the counter stuff or nutraceuticals.Is that still a measure? It seems
to me. You do think so, and you're telling me is relented to
(15:09):
explain it. Yeah. So.Tilomeres are the caps at the ends of
the chromosomes, and so every timeyour cell divides, mRNA goes and that
reads down the entire chromosome and thena little bit of the cap is lost
with each cell division. And thereis a myriad of species now I think
twelve different species that are linked tothe cellular division or the replicative division based
(15:33):
on tilomere length, So it's notreally the length of your tilomeres, that's
how fast they shorten. Some animalsare born with super long tilomeres, but
they shorten fast, like mice,and some are born with short tilomeres,
like one species of sea urchin thatthe tilomeres actually erode very slowly and they
live a very long time. Sowhen we look at treating aging with gene
(15:54):
therapy, we look at the hallmarksof aging, and tilomere attrition is one
of those hallmarks. So in orderto reverse aging entirely in a human being,
we believe that you need to targetall nine of those hallmarks, but
tilomere attrition. By targeting that andlengthening the tilomeres, it has an impact
(16:15):
on other hallmarks of aging, whichis pretty exciting. So I don't think
that one gene therapy or one geneand a gene therapy will cure all of
aging, but I do believe thatlengthening tilomeres has the biggest effect on most
of the or many of the hallmarksof aging. So you know, our
(16:36):
company is actually focused on combinatorial genetherapies now based on my results and other
studies and animals. So I wantto alert everybody, including including you,
Liz. We've had a lot ofshows and they're all archive. That's why
I archive all in one place,including an iTunes where we have dead the
(16:57):
whole blocks of aging, and wehave doctor near Brazilla lecturing on eight of
the halelocks of aging. The otherday, I just interviewed Phil Newman Longevity
Technology, who says they are nowfifteen. Yeah, wholelocks of age,
including glaciation which we're talking about.So for you personally, you say,
(17:21):
oh, I did this, itworked for me. I feel twenty years
younger, or I am twenty yearsyounger, I feel I am twenty years
Is it the tilomeres? What elsedo you feel was affected by your measuring
your own results? Yeah, Sothat's an important thing because when you look
at my tilomere results and the associatedage with my tilomere results, now they're
(17:42):
actually quite young, but you haveto realize that these are this is just
one hallmark of aging. So itdoesn't mean that I am twenty two years
old in biological age by every hallmarkof aging. It means that my tilomere
length is and I think that that'sone thing that the media has had a
hard time coming to terms with,is that you can reverse one biomarker of
(18:06):
aging, but it doesn't mean thatyou have reversed all of your aging.
And so, yeah, the hallmarksof aging are expanding. I think that
the hallmarks of aging is a bitof a wish list, you know,
it's things that we want to target. And some of the newer hallmarks of
aging, yes, they're targets thatthat's fine, But things like inflammation and
things like that I think are stillsome of the downstream effects of the initial
(18:30):
hallmarks of aging going wrong. Sothere are things that are symptoms of aging,
and then there are things that areactually driving aging, like telomere attrition
and mitochondrial dysfunction. So with telomerace, by lengthening the caps at the
ends of the chromosomes, we targeta few things on the hallmarks of aging,
whether you whether it's fifteen or nine, and that's telomere atrition, cellular
(18:56):
senescence, and mitochondrial dysfunction. Andso that in itself is pretty powerful for
one gene. And then of course, you know, the big research is
finding all of the genes that areresponsible for settling up. You know,
now all fifteen. I imagine ina couple of years there'll be twenty five
(19:17):
hallmarks of aging. But again,by targeting one often you can then have
a net effect of targeting multiple others. So do I think that by targeting
telomere attrition and epigenetic alterations will seea decrease in inflammation? Yes, yes
I do. Well, so youknow, we'd get coming to the end
of rest segment, and I'll tellyou a little joke that I usually stop
(19:41):
my speeches with. Now, rememberi'm speaking to the consumer. The average
person usually a little older, andageism is a huge cultural issue, and
people don't think there's a connection betweenscience and this ageism. But I explain
that in very layman's terms what youjust said, which is, different parts
of you age differently, different hallmarksof aging. Some may be very strong
(20:04):
with a person and like they don'thave a lot of inflammation, but in
others might be very weak. SoI usually start my speeches with I'm seventy
five and some parts of me arestill good. Because you don't really know
not only does everybody age differently,but different parts of you age differently,
(20:25):
and that means it makes no senseto talk about your chronologic age. Yeah.
That's what's been so great about thesetests in different areas, the DNA
methylation, the tilomere tests, andother aging associated tests is that they allow
us to look at different parts ofaging to see what your shortest fuses and
hopefully in the future will have atreatment for that. Right. And of
(20:48):
course when we come back, I'mgoing to ask you what everybody asks me
and every geoscientist in the world,even though again Liz is not a scientist,
but she's deep into the science.What do you use? But they
always say what do you do?We'll be back in just a moment to
hear what Liz Parish has to saythat all. But that doesn't bother me,
not even a because I am happyand a freely admit I'm inappropriate for
(21:17):
my age. DA you may thinkthat I'm all of it. That doesn't
bother me, not even because Iam happy and adm I'm inappropriate. Oh
my hello, hello, Hello,this is Adrian Berg and this is generation
(21:41):
about the Fountain of Truth, aboutit agent and there are you know,
I don't know what the Fountain ofTruth is I just named it that because
I did not want to. Ofcourse, I'm making the allusion to the
fountain of youth. I'm not sosure I would like to go back to
being all that young. I reallyhad a lot of problems when I was
younger. And when you look atthe U curve of happiness, if we
(22:04):
can believe in social science with regardto that, younger people are not so
happy. So what we really wantto do here is not get younger.
We don't want to stop aging.We want to keep the good parts,
the wisdom part, the part wherewe know ourselves better, the part where
we can make bitter informed decisions becausewe've had more experience, and at the
(22:26):
same time keep up the energy thecontribution to the world that we had when
we were younger. So it's acomplex issue. And making it more complicated
is that the biology going on aroundus while we are working on our psychology.
And one of the people working onthat biology is Elizabeth Parrish. She's
the CEO of bio Viva. We'vebeen riveted fascinated by her story of looking
(22:52):
into gene therapy for the whole body, looking at aging as curable. Let's
say, at the very least reversibleand her own experience. So for all
of us, we kind of wantto ask, what do you do,
Liz with regard to your own personalprotocols, and that we're not endorsing it.
(23:14):
You're not endorsing it, We're justcurious, to be honest, what
you personally do. I have totell you, folks, go look her
up. She's gorgeous. Not supposedto say it. That's now, you
know, sexist in some way.But the fact is you're very, very
beautiful and you are in your forties. So does this have to do with
gene therapy or there are other protocolsof nutrition and exercise that are in your
(23:37):
life. Well, actually, I'mfifty one now, and thank you for
the confay that you kind you know, I mean, I have been a
test subject for gene therapy to treatbiological aging since twenty fifteen, so I
don't really do that much around it. I you know, I believe in
(24:00):
a healthy lifestyle that you know,you need to get activity and exercise,
and I'm a vegetarian. I'm notsure if that plays into it. I
was a vegetarian before the gene therapyand after I occasionally would take some vitamin
C. I mean, I don'treally have a regiment, I'm afraid to
(24:23):
say. But that's been important tome is to live a pretty average life
after the gene therapy because we wantedto see how much we could get out
of it. I am a proponentof exercise and a good diet, but
outside of that, I don't reallyhave any any big secrets. You know,
(24:44):
this is the usual answer, whatare the leaders in geroscience at Stanford?
I asked, what does he do? And he says, I do
what my mother told me to do. I just eat very good soup.
I'm a kid. I exercise andI just try not to eat a lot
of meat. And again Phil Newmanand Longevity Technology told me last week,
(25:08):
Oh, I don't exercise at all. I just but I I'm a vegetarian.
So I'm hearing certain patterns from people. But the fact is you have
to know your own body, doyour own thing, and it will happen
because what you focus on expands,and if you focus on your longevity,
(25:30):
then your lifespan expands. I trulydo believe that if you keep thinking you're
old and you've had it, youwere old and you had it. That's
it. That's the deal. Yeah, and I and you know, as
far as the gene therapy, thisis you know, the most powerful medicine
in the world, and we wantto see if you can set it and
outside of moderation forget it. Youknow, the baddest, the biggest quality
(25:53):
of health improvement and be least spendingwe would do is by using therapies that
you might only need to take onceevery ten years. And that's what this
type of technology is, which wouldgive you a healthier stands point to work
from. So if you want towork out, you know, I gain
(26:14):
muscle rather quickly now when I workout, and and you know, if
you want to, you know,fudge a little on your diet here and
there, it wouldn't cost you know, society the amount of money that it
does and the amount of suffering thatit does to the human population, which
is when someone gets sick and becomesdiseased. So you know this the power
(26:37):
of the gene therapy is you know, a long term expression of a general
protecting gene. And and so youknow, I'm very much a test subject
to that. So you know,I haven't done anything outside on the periphery
around that. I just see howwell this will work. Well, so
let's go back, tell everybody headto find bio Viva and those people.
(26:59):
It just so it really ought totake a look at because it gives you
that golden thread from now to thefuture of what might be going on.
Let us first know about bioviva,how to find it again, and then
I want to talk about what youguys are doing within the company right now.
So first, how to find Bioviva. Sure, so you can find
Bioviva at bioviva dash science dot comand join our newsletter and it'll give you
(27:25):
all sorts of information about what thecompany is doing and what's happening in the
gene therapy space. Right so you'regoing to Columbia and so on. It's
already old news and you never somebodywho stays in one place. So what
is happening now that you're allowed totell us? It's probably a lot of
stuff you don't want the world toknow because it's a confidential when you're working
on it. But for the consumer, what are if they were going to
(27:47):
be following what you are planning anddoing? Now, what's the excitement?
Well, I think that the biggestthing that we're doing is trying to create
better gene therapy delivery methods so thatpeople can get precision medicine in one gene
therapy. So over the years,I've taken four different genes, four different
general protecting genes that help hopefully staveoff the effects of biological aging, and
(28:12):
we wanted to use a delivery methodin which you could get those into one
treatment, and if somebody had somethinglike hemophilia A, you could also put
the gene that they need into thisgene therapy as well. So creating precision
medicine. We had a paper comeout in May of this year in PNAS
(28:32):
about what's happening in that development,and we're really excited about it. We're
excited to bring a new gene therapydelivery method to the world and which will
make their lives easier. So insteadof going for four treatments, you would
just go for one or you know, depending on how many genes that you
would need for the best outcome foryour cells and your body. So when
(28:56):
we come back, we're going totalk about and I say this very crazy,
sleep the money, honey. Uh. You know, my background is
as a financial advisor and a lawyerfor many, many years in the elder
law space. And one of theproblems of being older and needing more and
more care is how much it costs. So you are certainly somebody who is
(29:17):
hoping that what you're doing is goingto reduce Alzheimer's, reduced Parkinson's, all
these long term chronic diseases and thereforesaved billions. On the other hand,
somebody's got to pay for the genetherapy. Uh So, let's talk about
longevity equity when we come back,and don't you guys go anywhere. But
(29:38):
that doesn't bother me. Not becauseI am happy and I'm inappropriate for my
age. You may think that don'tbother me. Not even oh hello,
(30:10):
hello, Hello, This is AdrianBergen. This is Generation Bold, a
thousand of truth, A little bitof housekeeping. We just came off two
major conferences, Radfest, which wasa live conference and that is very fascinating.
Four days that combine geroscience, thenew breakthroughs in aging, merchandise things
that you can buy effective not effective, you be the judge, and also
(30:34):
certain attitudes about aging. Can wereally live forever? Should we pretend we
could? And would that make adifference in the way we live. So
I covered it in three different sectionson for YouTube and for our podcast,
and you'll find all of that.If you would like a private copy with
(30:55):
some of my private ideas, justgo to Adrianberg dot com contact me and
say yes, please send me theinformation on radfast. The second conference was
one that I had a lot todo with, and that is the Catalist
Institute. I helped founded it andwas the executive director for two years.
It's mostly all geoscientists and a lotof it is not so easy to understand,
(31:19):
but a lot of it is andwe have it recorded for you and
I will be covering the parts thatare totally understandable and for the public,
and again I will be publishing that, but with some private thoughts. So
you can go to Adrianberg dot com, go to contact Adrian and say yes,
I would like to know more aboutthe metabesity conference that took place in
(31:41):
October that was online, and you'llget an invitation to go to it lar
I hope in Washington, DC.Okay, we'll go back to our fascinating
guest, Elizabeth Parish. Now justto recap. She is the CEO of
Bioviva. Bioviva is a research company. It's particularly looking into gene therapy.
She is the controversial Braveheart that actuallywent to Colombia in twenty fifteen, was
(32:07):
a patient zero for gene therapy thatdidn't relate to a particular disease. In
these several years, she feels thather age has been reversed or younger than
it would have been without that genetherapy. And she's pretty committed to have
everybody have the best kind of healthcarethey can. But I asked the question,
(32:30):
I asked you to all innovators,Liz, this is not cheap.
What about the average guy? Arewe ever going to be able to afford
this? And under what circumstances mightit be covered? Which is the magic
word of medicine is covered. Yeah. So gene therapies are considered the most
expensive medicine on the planet. Theyare expected to actually triple in development over
(32:57):
the next few years, and Ithink that we can solve a lot of
those problems. So the reason thatgene therapy is the most expensive medicine on
the planet today is because the wholesector, the early sector, was all
focused on monogenic diseases, rare diseasesthat were the cause by one gene mutation,
(33:19):
and what happens is a lot ofresearch and development is put in and
the population to treat is very small. But with aging, we'll be treating
the entire population. As a matterof fact, even these people who are
going through genetic gene therapies will needand aging associated gene therapy as well.
And so by treating the greatest medicalunmet need and most of the entire population
(33:44):
of the world, we should beable to have an affordable therapy. So
not affordable today in the future,should be very affordable. So associated diseases
cost the US government about thirty eighttrillion dollars and if you you know,
pin that out to ten or fifteenyears, it's an astronomical amount of money.
(34:07):
So certainly that money can be repurposedto ensure that people get access to
these type of technologies. You know, the nih OUR National Institute on Health
has a National Institute on Aging whichdoes a lot of the research, and
the government funds research on aging.Well. A lot of people are renaming
NIA as the National Institute on Alzheimer'sinstead of Aging y because it's spending so
(34:31):
much money on one disease, whichis Alzheimer's, and it is a terrible
scourge. So what is the connection, if any, between gene therapy,
let's say, and preventing Alzheimer's.It seems like we would have a direct
connection. Sure, So when welook at genes, we look at genes
that target some hallmarks of aging.And therefore, if we're able to target
(34:55):
all of those again with my data, it's in the tilomere so you know
in tilomere length I'm younger, andsome other biological markers I'm not. We
want to target all of them,and the whole point to doing that is
to eradicate the disease is associated withaging, which are really just a symptom
of aging themselves. So dementia orAlzheimer's disease gives us a great ground in
(35:22):
order to explore medicine. And thisis why you see it so much.
It's a very, very unrelenting disease. It's a disease that takes a personhood
away from a person and their lovedones. People tend to understand how terrible
that disease is, and so itbecomes a playground, if you will,
(35:45):
for drug companies to come in andtry to create technologies that will affect that.
The gene therapies that we use tolook at dementia are PGC one alpha
clotho in telomera, reverse transcript tase, and but these genes would also work
at the core level of other agingassociated diseases. So you go into something
(36:08):
like dementia, people understand that peopleneed access to this medicine. You can
get an expedited route to get accessto patients, and then if you can
have a net benefit effect with atherapy that would actually treat all of aging,
you know, that's the hope isthat then you can use that drug
(36:30):
off label for other aging associated diseasesas well. Now you know what you're
actually saying is what a genatic doctorMantic, who deal with replace in many
other emptors said is what the FDAapproaches. Their current approach, which has
moved the needle, is that ifyou can use a disease, let's say,
(36:52):
like Alzheimer's and show that something iseffective for that, and then showing
it's active it's something else like Parkinson'sor heart disease or other indices of aging,
they would be willing to say thisparticular protocol or therapy or pale or
drug is anti aging. So itdoesn't sad to the public like this is
(37:17):
moving the needle, but it actuallyis moving the needle. It's an incredibly
slow process. I mean, it'sa painful process. So if we applied
today to do something that you couldget access to very quickly in medical tourism,
you know, it might take youthree to five years of working with
the USFDA just to get into ourfirst clinical trial, and then you know,
(37:40):
it's another ten years to get adrug approved for the population. So
all the drugs that you have todayare old drugs. And so you know,
this is why I've been pushing forsomething called best Choice Medicine, where
terminally ill patients could get access tothese type of technologies now, and the
data from those outcomes could feed directlyinto the us FDA de risking their platform.
(38:07):
The USFDA requires an enormous amount ofanimal data that is not predictive of
human outcomes, whereas we have millionsof people dying. Forty one million people
will die this year of aging associateddiseases globally, So you know that that
is a criticism. Criticism is thatit's a mass model and without mice.
But that is the way both leaptesting clinical testing is done. First of
(38:30):
we all know that because we're alllook at what's doing with the vice and
what you're saying is that that's alittle bit on its head. Yeah,
yeah, we're we're way beyond that. All four of the gene therapies that
we look at right now have hadenough basic data to be in humans,
and yet you know, there's stillthis requirement of an enormous amount of animal
(38:52):
data that really doesn't tell us whatwill happen in a human. So let's
go back to best choice medical play, because this is something that a medicine
plant, something that you feel stronglyabad Now, is this only for folks
that are terminal so that they couldget what is currently unapproved therapies, or
(39:14):
is this a bigger overall or shakeup of the way we look at our
medical system. Well, this wouldbe initially for terminally ill patients to get
access to technology that terminally ill isdefined as no other treatment for your condition,
and so most of the aging associateddiseases would fall into that category because
(39:35):
there is really there has been traditionallyno curative medicine for a myriad of these
diseases. So this is could beopened up wider for people who want to
get access to drugs, but initiallyit's it's you know, just for terminally
ill patients, people who have beendiagnosed with a condition in which there is
(39:57):
no other curative treatment for So wevery sadly have come to the end of
our show, but I am goingto reinvite you or somebody that you work
with, whoever you would like.You would be my first choice for sure.
On medical tourism. We are havemany times had shows on medical tourism
dental tourism, and they've all beenI would say, fascinating to the listeners,
(40:22):
but also dealing with traditional kinds ofmedicine, knee replacements and beauty treatments
and things that already approved here.But mostly they are to save money as
well as to go to a niceenvironment. But your kind of medical tourism
is completely different, and I thinkit should be part of a series on
(40:42):
medical tourism. So I invite yeah, because you just mentioned it again and
I part of my ears. Sobefore we say goodbye, tell us again
we had to find Bioviva. Youcan find us at Bioviva Dash science dot
com and we thank you so much. You know what I'm going to say,
because I want you to want tobe active agers, not just pick
(41:02):
a ball. That doesn't mean youcan't play pickaball, but think about other
things you can do for other people. Because it's not that you could have
been somebody. It's not too lateto be who you could have been.
So get out there, kids andmake it happen.
When I look in the mirror,I don't see wrinkles. When I look
in the mirror, I see hairon my head, not my shoulder.
Hello. Hello, Hello, Thisis Adrian Bergen. This is Generation Bold,
the Fountain of truth, the fountainof truth about aging. And today
(00:31):
we have a figure for I guessthe future, a person who is an
innovator, a person who I believepersonally is very brave. You'll see why
I feel that way in a moment, and a person who's certainly making waves
in the world of aging. Nowyou're going to hear about gene therapy,
(00:51):
and I was very careful to bringon a particular person, Elizabeth Parrish.
She's the CEO of Bioviva. Becauseshe's probably at the epicenter of gene therapy.
It's controversial, it is not regulatedhere in the United States. She
personally had to go to Columbia tobe what they called patient zero, the
(01:11):
first patient, real human being tohave gene therapy. She believes very much
in it. Other people feel thatshe's way over the tips of her skis,
that she shouldn't be doing unregulated researchand testing. But you know,
I wanted you to know about thisway before it got into the news because
(01:33):
I believe it will be. SoI'll tell you why innovative science has three
iterations. First, derision, everybodymakes fun of it. What do you
mean the world is round? Whatdo you mean we can get into outer
space? And then there's anger thefolks that the folks that have stake interests
(01:53):
in keeping things the same just geta little upset when things go well with
the innovative science. And then eventuallyacceptance and everybody says, gee, you're
a moron if you think that theworld is flat. So here we are
maybe we hear, maybe we're atthat tipping point in gene therapy. I
don't know, very controversial, butI do know who has an opinion,
(02:15):
and that is anybody. Elizabeth Parrish. So, thank you so much for
being with us today. Oh it'sa pleasure to be here. Thanks for
having me. So. I wasblown away by your presentation at Radfest,
and I covet in on a fewdifferent videos that are being disseminated now.
And the reason I was so blownaway was how clear you are about a
(02:36):
very very difficult topic. So I'mgoing to let you go on that one.
First, we have to start withby Oviva yourself. You're a humanitarian
their research organization. You're not ascientist. Let's say that upfront. You're
in business, you're a business leader, but you certainly are a very good
person to explain what gene therapy isto an average concern. They want to
(03:00):
know what it is. Tell usright now. Sure, so people are
going to hear a lot more aboutgene therapy in the future, so it's
good to know what it is.So gene therapy is essentially the insertion or
replacement of a gene in your cells. So your genes are hold the basically
(03:21):
the blueprint of who you are andwhat you look like and vastly how you
function. And with gene therapy,we have the therapeutic ability to put in
a gene that essentially makes you better. So today there are nine approved globally
gene therapies that treat what's called monogenicdisease. They treat a single gene mutation.
(03:45):
And then my company is interested inputting together what's called gene therapies for
complex disorders like aging. And that'swhy the controversy hits the road. So
don't think, folks that there isno approved therapies there are for particular diseases.
But like the normal situation here inthe US, we like to look
(04:08):
at diseases one at a time andgo regulation lots and lots of very important
not telling you that you shouldn't bedoing studies and testing and LAMB tests.
Then it gets regulated and then itgets approved. But aging is not a
disease in this country. And there'sin my world of agism. I don't
(04:30):
really want agism aging to be adisease. But here because it is not
an endpoint, because it is nota disease, it's very difficult to do
studies, LAMB tests, clinical testsand say this is going to cure aging
if aging is in a disease.So we're in this trope here. Now
you do believe that aging is adisease that could be cured, just controversy
(04:54):
around you. So let's hear aboutthat. Yeah, well, I mean
probably aging is the most stinth pathologyon the planet. Almost everyone with aging
eventually dies of the same symptoms.They are basically cordoned off into things like
heart disease, cancer, kidney failure, and dementia. It has the same
(05:17):
visual signs on the outside and theinside of the body. So even if
you look at the brain of aneighty six year old who doesn't have dementia,
you will see massive atrophy. Soit really is a distinctive condition.
And things like irritable bowel syndrome andcancer, which vary greatly at the core
(05:38):
of mechanism, actually are considered onedisease. So by considering aging a disease,
we can then target aging as anendpoint in clinical studies, and that
would greatly speed up the regulatory systemand approving therapies that can treat the whole
population. By the way, don'tget along, folks, there's a lot
(06:01):
of very important geoscientists like Near Brazillawho's been on our show, and many
others who are working right now withthe FDA to find better words and going
through trials on med foreman just fornot for diabetes, not for a specific
disease, but for aging itself.So I actually think that's going to get
worked out. But with gene therapy, you had to go out of this
(06:24):
country to get gene therapy and bethe first patient. And I think this
is why there's been so much pressabout what you personally did tell us about
that. Yeah, So you knowthat's the one thing that I definitely fight
for is patient's right and agency todo to their body what they need to
(06:45):
do in order to survive. Andcertainly aging being the greatest medical unmet need
and the biggest killer actually on theplanet. So noncommunicable diseases kill about seventy
four percent of the population of thewhole planet, and aging associated diseases are
the top four killers in the noncommunicabledisease area. So people need access to
(07:09):
new medicine. And you know,I was really a proponent of testing this
therapy and legally could not do itin the United States. And you know
now I'm pushing towards legislation that willallow patients to have access to this type
of technology. So now you knowwhy I said in my introduction to Liz
(07:29):
Parish, who's the CEO of Bioviva, We're going to give you an opportunity,
as we always do, to learnmore on your own, to get
the newsletter and so on. Youknow, always we endorse no one,
We take no money from anybody.This is the show for me giving back
to the world with regard to longevity, because I didn't have any in my
family, Liz. For those ofyou who don't know, I think my
(07:53):
listeners know. Most everybody who Ilove died before the age of sixty,
and my dad at seventy two,at forty two, i should say,
and my mom did live till ninetytwo, but very unhealthy at the end.
So agen was not I had thegenetics of a fruit fly, if
you want to do a little genetherapy. But you know, I know
(08:20):
it's true. But the fact is, I'm heading at seventy five and so
far, so good. So alot of this has to do with personal
giotherapeutics and personal interventions. I'm nota biohacker, but I know little things
that you can do to live longer. And that's why I'm a believer and
certainly interested in anything new. Sothis is why I said you a brave
Let me explain that this parish didgene therapy for aging, not for specific
(08:46):
disease, on herself in Columbia,with unregulated protocols in the sense of approved.
And I think that's weren't too afraidbecause you don't really know it.
All of the side effects would beThat's why the FDA's all attible all about
this thing didn't scare you it allto try this, well, you know,
(09:07):
there there were some concerns, butwe had spent almost two years looking
at these two gene therapies that Itook, and looking at all of the
animal data. The genes that mycompany works with all have what's called meta
analysis, meaning they have been observedand tested in multiple labs that are not
(09:28):
associated with one another. So we'retaking the lowest hanging fruit that's been in
research the longest in translating it tohumans. So even though we did not
know all the risks, we didlook at the data the best that we
could. But of course, youknow, when the day came to take
the gene therapy, everyone was alittle nervous that was involved, and I
(09:52):
was worried, you know, formonths afterwards. And so far, so
good. When we can back,we're going to talk to Elizabeth Parrish about
bioviva and what it's doing right now, but also how she is doing after
that gene therapy. She says,a okay, and we'll bring back a
(10:13):
word that we've discussed many times onmany shows, and that's tell ameres h
and how you know I used toend the show by saying, may your
telemeres be long and prosper but we'llsee if that's still an important biomarker of
the aging. But that doesn't botherme, not even because I am happy
(10:35):
and I'm inappropriate for my age.Dad, you may think that I'm all
that, don't bother me, noteven because I am happy and I'm inappropriate.
(10:58):
Oh my, and hello, Hello, Hello. This is Adrian Berg,
and this is Generation Bowl, theFountain of Truth, the fountain of
truth about aging. And this showis about many things because aging is for
all of us. This is definitelynot one of those podcasts about being old
and how to take care of yourolder parent or caregiving. All very important,
(11:20):
and we have many, many podcaststhat you can see archived on adrianberg
dot com, iTunes, iHeartRadio,BizTalk radio, We're all over the place.
We've just been picked up by theNational Association of Baby Boomer Women and
you can see on baby boomer dotorg all of our work. So it's
yes, indeed, we talk aboutpickleball, or at least I'm the anti
(11:41):
pickleball. Apparently there's a new bookcalled Pickleball for Dummies, who had the
best title I've ever heard for abook. But in addition to lifestyle,
in addition to how to look good, in addition to where to travel,
we really get into the bones ofthe future of aging. And that's what
we're doing here today. We're speakingwith Elizabeth Parish. She is the CEO
(12:03):
of Bioviva. She is a patientadvocate, no doubt. She is patient
zero, meaning the first human thatwe know anyway to take gene therapy,
not for a particular disease, butto see if it could reverse aging right
or delay aging. Unapproved, controversial. She had to leave the country to
do this. But I feel rightnow is as if I was interviewing an
(12:31):
astronaut in the early days of spacetravel. Because it's innovative. I don't
know what's going to happen, Butyou actually did it. So you came
back, You're alive, you lookgorgeous. I saw you on stage.
What are you measuring in yourself tosee the result of this gene therapy and
(12:52):
how's it working out? That's areally good question. So before you do
any sort of an intervention, andyou want to take a bunch of pre
analysis, right, So we tooktilomere test, we took blood work,
we took MRI images for my bodyso that we could get a better view
(13:16):
of what was happening, and we'vecontinued to take those tests now since then,
people who are looking to treat aging, there's a whole slew of new
testing available that wasn't available when Ifirst took gene therapy in twenty fifteen,
and that's things like DNA methylation andDEXA scans and things like that. So
(13:37):
so what we did is we lookedat tilomere length, we looked at muscle
mass via MRI imaging, and thenwe did a lot of blood work.
And that's the kind of work thatwe continue to follow and we can use
to report upon what happened to mebecause we have the pre analysis. But
of course I participate in all ofthe tests that are available around biological aging.
(14:00):
So I'm going to talk about telomeresin a moment. But first,
people are fascinated by this. Howdo they find bioviva, which, believe
me, is not for the consumer. Vide myself to bring to the consumer
things they'd never know about. Butyou do have also a wonderful newsletter that
is consumer oriented, so tell usabout to find that. So, yeah,
we're a research and development company andyou can find us at bioviva dash
(14:24):
science dot com and sign up forthe newsletter, and then the newsletter is
much more layperson friendly. Let's youknow what we're doing, what we're up
to in any studies that we mightbe involved in around gene therapy. So
let's let's get back to telomeres.A few years ago, probably around twenty
fifteen, it became a big thing, and I read one of the first
(14:46):
books on telomeres, which is whencells get shorter and shorter and eventually too
short. It's a huge sign ofaging and the US a huge cause of
the deficits of aging. So wouldtake stuff for it. They would take
over the counter stuff or nutraceuticals.Is that still a measure? It seems
to me. You do think so, and you're telling me is relented to
(15:09):
explain it. Yeah. So.Tilomeres are the caps at the ends of
the chromosomes, and so every timeyour cell divides, mRNA goes and that
reads down the entire chromosome and thena little bit of the cap is lost
with each cell division. And thereis a myriad of species now I think
twelve different species that are linked tothe cellular division or the replicative division based
(15:33):
on tilomere length, So it's notreally the length of your tilomeres, that's
how fast they shorten. Some animalsare born with super long tilomeres, but
they shorten fast, like mice,and some are born with short tilomeres,
like one species of sea urchin thatthe tilomeres actually erode very slowly and they
live a very long time. Sowhen we look at treating aging with gene
(15:54):
therapy, we look at the hallmarksof aging, and tilomere attrition is one
of those hallmarks. So in orderto reverse aging entirely in a human being,
we believe that you need to targetall nine of those hallmarks, but
tilomere attrition. By targeting that andlengthening the tilomeres, it has an impact
(16:15):
on other hallmarks of aging, whichis pretty exciting. So I don't think
that one gene therapy or one geneand a gene therapy will cure all of
aging, but I do believe thatlengthening tilomeres has the biggest effect on most
of the or many of the hallmarksof aging. So you know, our
(16:36):
company is actually focused on combinatorial genetherapies now based on my results and other
studies and animals. So I wantto alert everybody, including including you,
Liz. We've had a lot ofshows and they're all archive. That's why
I archive all in one place,including an iTunes where we have dead the
(16:57):
whole blocks of aging, and wehave doctor near Brazilla lecturing on eight of
the halelocks of aging. The otherday, I just interviewed Phil Newman Longevity
Technology, who says they are nowfifteen. Yeah, wholelocks of age,
including glaciation which we're talking about.So for you personally, you say,
(17:21):
oh, I did this, itworked for me. I feel twenty years
younger, or I am twenty yearsyounger, I feel I am twenty years
Is it the tilomeres? What elsedo you feel was affected by your measuring
your own results? Yeah, Sothat's an important thing because when you look
at my tilomere results and the associatedage with my tilomere results, now they're
(17:42):
actually quite young, but you haveto realize that these are this is just
one hallmark of aging. So itdoesn't mean that I am twenty two years
old in biological age by every hallmarkof aging. It means that my tilomere
length is and I think that that'sone thing that the media has had a
hard time coming to terms with,is that you can reverse one biomarker of
(18:06):
aging, but it doesn't mean thatyou have reversed all of your aging.
And so, yeah, the hallmarksof aging are expanding. I think that
the hallmarks of aging is a bitof a wish list, you know,
it's things that we want to target. And some of the newer hallmarks of
aging, yes, they're targets thatthat's fine, But things like inflammation and
things like that I think are stillsome of the downstream effects of the initial
(18:30):
hallmarks of aging going wrong. Sothere are things that are symptoms of aging,
and then there are things that areactually driving aging, like telomere attrition
and mitochondrial dysfunction. So with telomerace, by lengthening the caps at the
ends of the chromosomes, we targeta few things on the hallmarks of aging,
whether you whether it's fifteen or nine, and that's telomere atrition, cellular
(18:56):
senescence, and mitochondrial dysfunction. Andso that in itself is pretty powerful for
one gene. And then of course, you know, the big research is
finding all of the genes that areresponsible for settling up. You know,
now all fifteen. I imagine ina couple of years there'll be twenty five
(19:17):
hallmarks of aging. But again,by targeting one often you can then have
a net effect of targeting multiple others. So do I think that by targeting
telomere attrition and epigenetic alterations will seea decrease in inflammation? Yes, yes
I do. Well, so youknow, we'd get coming to the end
of rest segment, and I'll tellyou a little joke that I usually stop
(19:41):
my speeches with. Now, rememberi'm speaking to the consumer. The average
person usually a little older, andageism is a huge cultural issue, and
people don't think there's a connection betweenscience and this ageism. But I explain
that in very layman's terms what youjust said, which is, different parts
of you age differently, different hallmarksof aging. Some may be very strong
(20:04):
with a person and like they don'thave a lot of inflammation, but in
others might be very weak. SoI usually start my speeches with I'm seventy
five and some parts of me arestill good. Because you don't really know
not only does everybody age differently,but different parts of you age differently,
(20:25):
and that means it makes no senseto talk about your chronologic age. Yeah.
That's what's been so great about thesetests in different areas, the DNA
methylation, the tilomere tests, andother aging associated tests is that they allow
us to look at different parts ofaging to see what your shortest fuses and
hopefully in the future will have atreatment for that. Right. And of
(20:48):
course when we come back, I'mgoing to ask you what everybody asks me
and every geoscientist in the world,even though again Liz is not a scientist,
but she's deep into the science.What do you use? But they
always say what do you do?We'll be back in just a moment to
hear what Liz Parish has to saythat all. But that doesn't bother me,
not even a because I am happyand a freely admit I'm inappropriate for
(21:17):
my age. DA you may thinkthat I'm all of it. That doesn't
bother me, not even because Iam happy and adm I'm inappropriate. Oh
my hello, hello, Hello,this is Adrian Berg and this is generation
(21:41):
about the Fountain of Truth, aboutit agent and there are you know,
I don't know what the Fountain ofTruth is I just named it that because
I did not want to. Ofcourse, I'm making the allusion to the
fountain of youth. I'm not sosure I would like to go back to
being all that young. I reallyhad a lot of problems when I was
younger. And when you look atthe U curve of happiness, if we
(22:04):
can believe in social science with regardto that, younger people are not so
happy. So what we really wantto do here is not get younger.
We don't want to stop aging.We want to keep the good parts,
the wisdom part, the part wherewe know ourselves better, the part where
we can make bitter informed decisions becausewe've had more experience, and at the
(22:26):
same time keep up the energy thecontribution to the world that we had when
we were younger. So it's acomplex issue. And making it more complicated
is that the biology going on aroundus while we are working on our psychology.
And one of the people working onthat biology is Elizabeth Parrish. She's
the CEO of bio Viva. We'vebeen riveted fascinated by her story of looking
(22:52):
into gene therapy for the whole body, looking at aging as curable. Let's
say, at the very least reversibleand her own experience. So for all
of us, we kind of wantto ask, what do you do,
Liz with regard to your own personalprotocols, and that we're not endorsing it.
(23:14):
You're not endorsing it, We're justcurious, to be honest, what
you personally do. I have totell you, folks, go look her
up. She's gorgeous. Not supposedto say it. That's now, you
know, sexist in some way.But the fact is you're very, very
beautiful and you are in your forties. So does this have to do with
gene therapy or there are other protocolsof nutrition and exercise that are in your
(23:37):
life. Well, actually, I'mfifty one now, and thank you for
the confay that you kind you know, I mean, I have been a
test subject for gene therapy to treatbiological aging since twenty fifteen, so I
don't really do that much around it. I you know, I believe in
(24:00):
a healthy lifestyle that you know,you need to get activity and exercise,
and I'm a vegetarian. I'm notsure if that plays into it. I
was a vegetarian before the gene therapyand after I occasionally would take some vitamin
C. I mean, I don'treally have a regiment, I'm afraid to
(24:23):
say. But that's been important tome is to live a pretty average life
after the gene therapy because we wantedto see how much we could get out
of it. I am a proponentof exercise and a good diet, but
outside of that, I don't reallyhave any any big secrets. You know,
(24:44):
this is the usual answer, whatare the leaders in geroscience at Stanford?
I asked, what does he do? And he says, I do
what my mother told me to do. I just eat very good soup.
I'm a kid. I exercise andI just try not to eat a lot
of meat. And again Phil Newmanand Longevity Technology told me last week,
(25:08):
Oh, I don't exercise at all. I just but I I'm a vegetarian.
So I'm hearing certain patterns from people. But the fact is you have
to know your own body, doyour own thing, and it will happen
because what you focus on expands,and if you focus on your longevity,
(25:30):
then your lifespan expands. I trulydo believe that if you keep thinking you're
old and you've had it, youwere old and you had it. That's
it. That's the deal. Yeah, and I and you know, as
far as the gene therapy, thisis you know, the most powerful medicine
in the world, and we wantto see if you can set it and
outside of moderation forget it. Youknow, the baddest, the biggest quality
(25:53):
of health improvement and be least spendingwe would do is by using therapies that
you might only need to take onceevery ten years. And that's what this
type of technology is, which wouldgive you a healthier stands point to work
from. So if you want towork out, you know, I gain
(26:14):
muscle rather quickly now when I workout, and and you know, if
you want to, you know,fudge a little on your diet here and
there, it wouldn't cost you know, society the amount of money that it
does and the amount of suffering thatit does to the human population, which
is when someone gets sick and becomesdiseased. So you know this the power
(26:37):
of the gene therapy is you know, a long term expression of a general
protecting gene. And and so youknow, I'm very much a test subject
to that. So you know,I haven't done anything outside on the periphery
around that. I just see howwell this will work. Well, so
let's go back, tell everybody headto find bio Viva and those people.
(26:59):
It just so it really ought totake a look at because it gives you
that golden thread from now to thefuture of what might be going on.
Let us first know about bioviva,how to find it again, and then
I want to talk about what youguys are doing within the company right now.
So first, how to find Bioviva. Sure, so you can find
Bioviva at bioviva dash science dot comand join our newsletter and it'll give you
(27:25):
all sorts of information about what thecompany is doing and what's happening in the
gene therapy space. Right so you'regoing to Columbia and so on. It's
already old news and you never somebodywho stays in one place. So what
is happening now that you're allowed totell us? It's probably a lot of
stuff you don't want the world toknow because it's a confidential when you're working
on it. But for the consumer, what are if they were going to
(27:47):
be following what you are planning anddoing? Now, what's the excitement?
Well, I think that the biggestthing that we're doing is trying to create
better gene therapy delivery methods so thatpeople can get precision medicine in one gene
therapy. So over the years,I've taken four different genes, four different
general protecting genes that help hopefully staveoff the effects of biological aging, and
(28:12):
we wanted to use a delivery methodin which you could get those into one
treatment, and if somebody had somethinglike hemophilia A, you could also put
the gene that they need into thisgene therapy as well. So creating precision
medicine. We had a paper comeout in May of this year in PNAS
(28:32):
about what's happening in that development,and we're really excited about it. We're
excited to bring a new gene therapydelivery method to the world and which will
make their lives easier. So insteadof going for four treatments, you would
just go for one or you know, depending on how many genes that you
would need for the best outcome foryour cells and your body. So when
(28:56):
we come back, we're going totalk about and I say this very crazy,
sleep the money, honey. Uh. You know, my background is
as a financial advisor and a lawyerfor many, many years in the elder
law space. And one of theproblems of being older and needing more and
more care is how much it costs. So you are certainly somebody who is
(29:17):
hoping that what you're doing is goingto reduce Alzheimer's, reduced Parkinson's, all
these long term chronic diseases and thereforesaved billions. On the other hand,
somebody's got to pay for the genetherapy. Uh So, let's talk about
longevity equity when we come back,and don't you guys go anywhere. But
(29:38):
that doesn't bother me. Not becauseI am happy and I'm inappropriate for my
age. You may think that don'tbother me. Not even oh hello,
(30:10):
hello, Hello, This is AdrianBergen. This is Generation Bold, a
thousand of truth, A little bitof housekeeping. We just came off two
major conferences, Radfest, which wasa live conference and that is very fascinating.
Four days that combine geroscience, thenew breakthroughs in aging, merchandise things
that you can buy effective not effective, you be the judge, and also
(30:34):
certain attitudes about aging. Can wereally live forever? Should we pretend we
could? And would that make adifference in the way we live. So
I covered it in three different sectionson for YouTube and for our podcast,
and you'll find all of that.If you would like a private copy with
(30:55):
some of my private ideas, justgo to Adrianberg dot com contact me and
say yes, please send me theinformation on radfast. The second conference was
one that I had a lot todo with, and that is the Catalist
Institute. I helped founded it andwas the executive director for two years.
It's mostly all geoscientists and a lotof it is not so easy to understand,
(31:19):
but a lot of it is andwe have it recorded for you and
I will be covering the parts thatare totally understandable and for the public,
and again I will be publishing that, but with some private thoughts. So
you can go to Adrianberg dot com, go to contact Adrian and say yes,
I would like to know more aboutthe metabesity conference that took place in
(31:41):
October that was online, and you'llget an invitation to go to it lar
I hope in Washington, DC.Okay, we'll go back to our fascinating
guest, Elizabeth Parish. Now justto recap. She is the CEO of
Bioviva. Bioviva is a research company. It's particularly looking into gene therapy.
She is the controversial Braveheart that actuallywent to Colombia in twenty fifteen, was
(32:07):
a patient zero for gene therapy thatdidn't relate to a particular disease. In
these several years, she feels thather age has been reversed or younger than
it would have been without that genetherapy. And she's pretty committed to have
everybody have the best kind of healthcarethey can. But I asked the question,
(32:30):
I asked you to all innovators,Liz, this is not cheap.
What about the average guy? Arewe ever going to be able to afford
this? And under what circumstances mightit be covered? Which is the magic
word of medicine is covered. Yeah. So gene therapies are considered the most
expensive medicine on the planet. Theyare expected to actually triple in development over
(32:57):
the next few years, and Ithink that we can solve a lot of
those problems. So the reason thatgene therapy is the most expensive medicine on
the planet today is because the wholesector, the early sector, was all
focused on monogenic diseases, rare diseasesthat were the cause by one gene mutation,
(33:19):
and what happens is a lot ofresearch and development is put in and
the population to treat is very small. But with aging, we'll be treating
the entire population. As a matterof fact, even these people who are
going through genetic gene therapies will needand aging associated gene therapy as well.
And so by treating the greatest medicalunmet need and most of the entire population
(33:44):
of the world, we should beable to have an affordable therapy. So
not affordable today in the future,should be very affordable. So associated diseases
cost the US government about thirty eighttrillion dollars and if you you know,
pin that out to ten or fifteenyears, it's an astronomical amount of money.
(34:07):
So certainly that money can be repurposedto ensure that people get access to
these type of technologies. You know, the nih OUR National Institute on Health
has a National Institute on Aging whichdoes a lot of the research, and
the government funds research on aging.Well. A lot of people are renaming
NIA as the National Institute on Alzheimer'sinstead of Aging y because it's spending so
(34:31):
much money on one disease, whichis Alzheimer's, and it is a terrible
scourge. So what is the connection, if any, between gene therapy,
let's say, and preventing Alzheimer's.It seems like we would have a direct
connection. Sure, So when welook at genes, we look at genes
that target some hallmarks of aging.And therefore, if we're able to target
(34:55):
all of those again with my data, it's in the tilomere so you know
in tilomere length I'm younger, andsome other biological markers I'm not. We
want to target all of them,and the whole point to doing that is
to eradicate the disease is associated withaging, which are really just a symptom
of aging themselves. So dementia orAlzheimer's disease gives us a great ground in
(35:22):
order to explore medicine. And thisis why you see it so much.
It's a very, very unrelenting disease. It's a disease that takes a personhood
away from a person and their lovedones. People tend to understand how terrible
that disease is, and so itbecomes a playground, if you will,
(35:45):
for drug companies to come in andtry to create technologies that will affect that.
The gene therapies that we use tolook at dementia are PGC one alpha
clotho in telomera, reverse transcript tase, and but these genes would also work
at the core level of other agingassociated diseases. So you go into something
(36:08):
like dementia, people understand that peopleneed access to this medicine. You can
get an expedited route to get accessto patients, and then if you can
have a net benefit effect with atherapy that would actually treat all of aging,
you know, that's the hope isthat then you can use that drug
(36:30):
off label for other aging associated diseasesas well. Now you know what you're
actually saying is what a genatic doctorMantic, who deal with replace in many
other emptors said is what the FDAapproaches. Their current approach, which has
moved the needle, is that ifyou can use a disease, let's say,
(36:52):
like Alzheimer's and show that something iseffective for that, and then showing
it's active it's something else like Parkinson'sor heart disease or other indices of aging,
they would be willing to say thisparticular protocol or therapy or pale or
drug is anti aging. So itdoesn't sad to the public like this is
(37:17):
moving the needle, but it actuallyis moving the needle. It's an incredibly
slow process. I mean, it'sa painful process. So if we applied
today to do something that you couldget access to very quickly in medical tourism,
you know, it might take youthree to five years of working with
the USFDA just to get into ourfirst clinical trial, and then you know,
(37:40):
it's another ten years to get adrug approved for the population. So
all the drugs that you have todayare old drugs. And so you know,
this is why I've been pushing forsomething called best Choice Medicine, where
terminally ill patients could get access tothese type of technologies now, and the
data from those outcomes could feed directlyinto the us FDA de risking their platform.
(38:07):
The USFDA requires an enormous amount ofanimal data that is not predictive of
human outcomes, whereas we have millionsof people dying. Forty one million people
will die this year of aging associateddiseases globally, So you know that that
is a criticism. Criticism is thatit's a mass model and without mice.
But that is the way both leaptesting clinical testing is done. First of
(38:30):
we all know that because we're alllook at what's doing with the vice and
what you're saying is that that's alittle bit on its head. Yeah,
yeah, we're we're way beyond that. All four of the gene therapies that
we look at right now have hadenough basic data to be in humans,
and yet you know, there's stillthis requirement of an enormous amount of animal
(38:52):
data that really doesn't tell us whatwill happen in a human. So let's
go back to best choice medical play, because this is something that a medicine
plant, something that you feel stronglyabad Now, is this only for folks
that are terminal so that they couldget what is currently unapproved therapies, or
(39:14):
is this a bigger overall or shakeup of the way we look at our
medical system. Well, this wouldbe initially for terminally ill patients to get
access to technology that terminally ill isdefined as no other treatment for your condition,
and so most of the aging associateddiseases would fall into that category because
(39:35):
there is really there has been traditionallyno curative medicine for a myriad of these
diseases. So this is could beopened up wider for people who want to
get access to drugs, but initiallyit's it's you know, just for terminally
ill patients, people who have beendiagnosed with a condition in which there is
(39:57):
no other curative treatment for So wevery sadly have come to the end of
our show, but I am goingto reinvite you or somebody that you work
with, whoever you would like.You would be my first choice for sure.
On medical tourism. We are havemany times had shows on medical tourism
dental tourism, and they've all beenI would say, fascinating to the listeners,
(40:22):
but also dealing with traditional kinds ofmedicine, knee replacements and beauty treatments
and things that already approved here.But mostly they are to save money as
well as to go to a niceenvironment. But your kind of medical tourism
is completely different, and I thinkit should be part of a series on
(40:42):
medical tourism. So I invite yeah, because you just mentioned it again and
I part of my ears. Sobefore we say goodbye, tell us again
we had to find Bioviva. Youcan find us at Bioviva Dash science dot
com and we thank you so much. You know what I'm going to say,
because I want you to want tobe active agers, not just pick
(41:02):
a ball. That doesn't mean youcan't play pickaball, but think about other
things you can do for other people. Because it's not that you could have
been somebody. It's not too lateto be who you could have been.
So get out there, kids andmake it happen.
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