Episode 209
Dan Pardi:Why Your Body's Repair System Is Slowly Failing You (And What to Do About It)
Dan Pardi:
Why Your Body's Repair System Is Slowly Failing You (And What to Do About It)
I'm excited to have Dr. Dan Pardi, the Chief Health Officer at Qualia Life Sciences, join me for a deep dive into stem cells and how we can support our body's natural repair mechanisms.
We explore what stem cells really are, how they work, and practical ways to optimize their function.
We explore what stem cells really are, how they work, and practical ways to optimize their function.
First Aired on: Sep 15, 2025
Episode 209
Dan Pardi:Why Your Body's Repair System Is Slowly Failing You (And What to Do About It)
Dan Pardi:
Why Your Body's Repair System Is Slowly Failing You (And What to Do About It)
I'm excited to have Dr. Dan Pardi, the Chief Health Officer at Qualia Life Sciences, join me for a deep dive into stem cells and how we can support our body's natural repair mechanisms.
We explore what stem cells really are, how they work, and practical ways to optimize their function.
We explore what stem cells really are, how they work, and practical ways to optimize their function.
First Aired on: Sep 15, 2025
Table of Contents:
Table of Contents:
In this episode:
In this episode:
Introduction
Dr. Dan Pardi is Qualia Life Sciences' Chief Health Officer. He holds a PhD from Leiden University and Stanford, and brings both scientific expertise and a passion for education to his role. In this episode he joins me to talk about stem cells and how we can support our body's natural repair mechanisms to counteract the effects of aging.
Episode Highlights
The Evolution and Function of Stem Cells
Dr. Pardi explains how stem cells emerged as an evolutionary tool to manage complexity in multicellular organisms.
- Stem cells can make copies of themselves and differentiate into other cell types
- They evolved 600-800 million years ago when cellular specialization began
- They serve as the body's renewable pool of undifferentiated cells
- Five categories of potency determine what a stem cell can become
How Stem Cells Know Where to Go and What to Become
The fascinating process of stem cell mobilization and differentiation is tightly choreographed.
- Stem cells rest in protected environments called niches
- Growth factors like G-CSF and GM-CSF wake them up when needed
- They follow chemical trails through the CXCR4/SDF-1 axis to find their target
- Local cues activate signaling pathways that determine their final cell type
Stem Cell Exhaustion as a Hallmark of Aging
Understanding why our repair systems decline over time reveals opportunities for intervention.
- Stem cells don't disappear much with age, but their niches become problematic
- Chronic inflammation is a major driver of stem cell exhaustion
- Senescent "zombie" cells create toxic environments that prevent activation
- The decline in stem cell function contributes to impaired tissue repair
Lifestyle Strategies to Support Stem Cell Health
Dr. Pardi shares evidence-based approaches to optimize your body's repair mechanisms.
- Sleep optimization and circadian rhythm support
- Regular exercise, particularly walking (10,000 steps daily)
- Anti-inflammatory nutrition choices
- Light exposure including red light therapy
- Temperature stressors like sauna and cold exposure
Qualia's Stem Cell Product and Protocol
The revolutionary approach takes a comprehensive view of the entire stem cell cycle.
- Four-day monthly protocol matches natural stem cell rhythms
- Supports mobilization, homing, and differentiation processes
- Can be used with or without clinical stem cell treatments
- Works synergistically with Qualia's Lytic product to clear senescent cells
Clinical Applications and Personal Experience
We discuss both medical stem cell therapies and accessible alternatives for supporting repair.
- Autologous stem cell treatments use your own cells
- Julie's personal experience with IV stem cells for rheumatoid arthritis healing
- Supplements can help mobilize your existing stem cells naturally
- The importance of supporting stem cell function regardless of age
Notable Quotes from this Episode
We are not curing aging, we're not looking to live to 190 years old, but we are looking to feel younger, much deeper into our life, into our actual lifespan for whatever that is.
Dr. Dan Pardi
The amount of stem cells that we have, they don't decline that much with aging. They do a little bit, but it's rather that the niche that they sit in becomes toxic so that they just can't really activate.
Dr. Dan Pardi
Think of all of these things, including supplements, as tools that make acquiring more natural signals more reliable in your life.
Dr. Dan Pardi
Other Resources:
Other Resources:
Connect with Dan Pardi
Connect with Dan Pardi
Watch this interview:
Watch this interview:
Dan Pardi has a gift for you!
Dan Pardi has a gift for you!
15% OFF any Qualia Order
Use coupon code JMCOACH at checkout to get 15% off your order of any product from Qualia
Episode Transcript
Dr Dan Pardi: the amount of stem cells that we have, they don't decline that much with aging. They, they do a little bit, but it's rather that the niche that they sit in becomes problematic so that they just can't really activate.
Julie Howton:(Intro) Welcome back to The Inspired Living with Autoimmunity podcast. I'm your host, Julie Houghton. Today we're joined by Dr. Dan Pardi, the Chief Health Officer at Qualia Life Sciences, where he leads education to advance, health span and peak performance. Dan is the founder of humanos.me and the host of HumanOS Radio, the official podcast of Sleep Research Society.
Dan has advised elite military units, fortune 500 companies and startups through his consultancy, Bendi Health. He holds a PhD in cognitive neuroscience from Laden University and Stanford, and speaks regularly at events like TEDx VC films and the Institute for Human Machine Cognition. In today's conversation, we are discussing the fundamentals of stem cells, the aging process, and the practical approaches to supporting stem cells through lifestyle and supplementation.
(Main Interview) Dr. Pardi, welcome to the podcast.
Dr Dan Pardi: Thank you, Julie, for having me on. I'm really happy to be here.
Julie Howton: I am. I'm so excited for our conversation and, and listeners already know that I am a huge fan of Qualia and, and have yet to, to meet a product that I didn't add to my arsenal. Yeah. Um, how you're fairly new to the Quaia team.
Yes. Um, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you came to, to become a member of the team and not just a member, but uh, the health officer.
Dr Dan Pardi: Yeah, so I've been, been at the company at this point for a little more than a month. And, but I've known the company for a long time and I've admired them. I met some of the founders way back in the beginning at a conference.
Uh, it was actually a after party of the conference that was at a friend's house and Wim Hof was there, Andrew Huberman was there, other folks. And it was really fun and casual, and it was a, it was probably probably one of the best networking events that I've ever been to at a conference because it just felt so real and.
People were really getting to know each other and hanging out and chatting. In fact, Wim h was chasing my, at that time, 2-year-old boy around the house. And I was really impressed with his energy for his age. That's what he did the whole time. So he might have just been avoiding, you know, other social engagements, but he, he was definitely a unique character, Uhhuh.
But at that time, uh, two of the people who had just been at the company, so it was probably, I don't even know what the size of the team was at that moment, probably less than 10 people. But Darryl and Vanessa were there and I was talking to them about this project HumanOS that I was working on, and they were talking about what they were doing.
And I think both of us were struck by the fact that we were perceiving in the other, an appreciation of the complexity of health and how we wanted to help in multiple ways. It wasn't simple products that solve simple, you know, that created a simple solution, right? Which, by the way, can be super powerful.
But we were wanting to do more and there was an excitement at that time with technology and how new technologies might be able to encourage what both of us were trying to achieve. So quantified self and biohacking, all that. So it was, it was cool. And anyhow, that led to me interviewing Daniel Achtenberg, one of the founders.
Julie Howton: Yep.
Dr Dan Pardi: Uh, on my podcast, HumanOS Radio, where he talked about Nootropics. That was their first product at that time called Qualia. And subsequently, later, of course, the company changed its name from Neurohacker Collective right to Qua Life Sciences. Uh, and I do like that name a, a lot. The new one, um, the, the old one felt right for the time, and this one feels like it's a better fit for more people.
And then, um, let's see. So then Daniel interviewed me over two podcasts where I talked about sleep. And at that time I was working on my PhD, working on it from Lighten University, one of the oldest universities in the world out of the Netherlands and then Stanford. So I had a collaboration where I was doing my PhD work at both institutions and also developing this startup.
Uh, and so a effective nootropic or cognitive enhancing product was needed because I was really, had a, a high workload. Uh, and since that time we stayed in touch. We got, we supported each other, cheered each other on Okay. And always reached out. Then last November, James was in Austin. That's where I live now.
And, uh. We went and got grabbed coffee and started to explore the possibility of me being, you know, in effect, like a scientific spokesperson. So somebody who's going out there and talking about the therapeutic areas that we hope to address the products and why, how we created them. And, uh, I just seem like a really nice fit because I think at the heart of it, I'm an educator.
I, you know, as scientists do experiments and while I am now a part of a company that does do experiments with the products that they te that they create, I am not doing experiments on a day by day basis. I am trying to help people have a really firm grasp of areas that matter for their health. And I am really motivated by that, doing just that.
And so it feels like a very, very good fit and so far, so good. Um, and I've also really like you admired their products and used them, so that was a great endorsement,
Julie Howton: right? Which is amazing. And like we need, they needed somebody to teach us, lay people, not only about these areas of importance, but also, you know, the, even in some of the interviews I've done with James, I mean, he does a great job of being relatable, but then he gets a little lot, he gets excited about the science and then can lose us sometimes.
So, um, so that's, it's, it seems like a, a fantastic fit and I'm excited today to talk about one of my absolute favorite areas of wellness, which is stem cells. And so, um, I'm. Really, really just looking forward to learning more from you and, and having listeners. It's funny, over the years, it's, it's been this almost taboo subject Yes.
In the United States. Um, and I I love where things are going now mm-hmm. With stem cell health and, and, um, so let, let's, uh, learn a little bit about stem cells and, and you know, like, let's start with, I love starting at the very, at the basic Yes. What are stem cells and why am I so excited about this conversation?
Dr Dan Pardi: It's a great place to start, Julie, because, uh, in the spirit of helping people understand there, there's two ways that you can communicate science. You can communicate it in a way that makes, tries to make your yourself sound smart, or you can communicate it in a way that helps other people sound really smart.
Right? Or feels feel smarter, right? Because they're actually picking it up. Right. And so with that, there's the information you share, but there's also the sequence in which you share it so that you can build upon an increasing degree of knowledge as you listen. So starting from the basics makes a ton of sense, and I agree with you, uh, before I launch into what's themselves are and what they're doing and why they're so cool.
It's been a topic that has garnered a lot of excitement and attention for a while. Mm-hmm. But it's also been controversial. Mm-hmm. So companies have come into existence and they've been shut down by the FDA because they were promoting them illegally. Uh, so there, there's, there's been some controversy here.
And rightfully so, uh, in some cases, uh, the companies were putting products ahead of what we know about the clinical science, meaning that you might have an indication that something related to stem cells is exciting, but you're, you're doing basically clinical trials, experiments on people without knowing as much as you should before you do such a thing.
So yeah. Anyway, I think now
Julie Howton: I have a theory Yeah. That I, I can say, and you shouldn't too maybe. Um, I, I think there's a lot of money focused on, you know, I'll just say it. I think the pharmaceutical industry has created a lot of resistance to some of these natural healing pathways. Um, because if we're.
Healing our bodies, we won't need the drugs. And, and I really do feel like that has played a really big role in this country too. You know, I, I think it's, it's, I I see bo both of it. Um, and so, uh, I'm glad hopefully that that will continue to shift in the, in the right direction. Um, so yeah. Yeah, that's my, my 2 cents of what, what I, I think also plays a part.
Dr Dan Pardi: And gosh, Julie, you know, we, we could spend the entire episode just talking about that because I know
Julie Howton: I used to
Dr Dan Pardi: work, I used to work in the pharmaceutical industry. Oh, really? Yeah. Um, I worked for a company called Orphan Medical. It was bought by Jazz Pharmaceuticals outta Palo Alto. I started their medical affairs department, and what that department did is to create education and provide research grants to support, uh, understanding of the product in different therapeutic areas.
It was a, it was a great job, and the people were wonderful, which is great. Yeah. And I always felt, I'll give you actually a, a sort of a counter example to the common narrative that, you know, the pharmaceutical companies are really, truly evil. Because about 35 years ago, it was considered, it was the heyday of the pharmaceutical industry and people in that industry were thought of as heroes.
Subsequent to that, because the innovation that was coming out, new medications, it seemed like such a wonderful place to be. Uh, then there were controversies driven by capitalism that made certain individuals within the industry that in high positions make bad choices.
Julie Howton: Mm-hmm.
Dr Dan Pardi: Choices that were much more for the bottom line than they were for the patient.
And that then started to create a negative shadow that over, that overshadowed the entire industry and it wasn't uniform, meaning that Sure, not all companies were making Oh yeah. Unethical decisions, but we jux juxtapose that idea with the fact that our healthcare system, when you go to your doctor, you think you are getting the best possible advice about how to take care of your health.
That's not true. What you're really, what's really happening is that you're getting evaluated for one of three different things. Referral to a specialist. Should they go to someone else? If you're like, let's say the primary care doctor, um, a proce, uh, should we get another diagnostic on you to find more information and then whether or not you are appropriate for a particular drug or drug combination?
Julie Howton: Sure.
Dr Dan Pardi: That's it.
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Dr Dan Pardi: Now, because the simple mention of. Should you like, you know that taking care of your health is hard. They don't have time to do that. The entire industry has been set up for a very narrow, per, uh, medicalized perspective on health. And you know what, it's not terrible. It's incomplete and correct.
So the incompleteness of this has then also created a lot of negative perspective about, uh, the medical system because we've thought of them as the, like almost the entirety of our healthcare and right. But very smart people, you know, who are in society that are just trying to take care of themselves.
Everybody recognizes this is not everything. And so whether your doctor gives you a couple of tips out the door to eat, right, what does that mean? Or exercise more, those will never work as effective therapies to get a person to really do that well. And so in the mid, you know, 2000 tens to 2020, we now started to see, uh, very good public voices getting out there and talking about, yeah, scientific wellness.
And now, I mean, look at us, we're chatting about these ideas today and are contributing to a more full healthcare system by talking about things that the medical system won't address. So we need both arms, but Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I,
Julie Howton: I, and I'm not, I, I, I'm not, I, there's also a time and a place for medication and, and thank, thank goodness we have brilliant people working to create these, these, you know, pharmaceuticals for sure.
Yeah. And I have said it a million times on the podcast. God forbid I need emergency surgery or something like I'm going to the western system. Because for acute care, hands down. Yeah. This, that's what the system shines with. And then there's a reason why we have a functional medicine clinic where we can spend an hour with a patient and, you know, get, get underneath it.
So I, I've taken us way off track. I wanna steer us back. Um, 'cause I, I, yeah, I didn't mean to bash, you know, I, I just do think there is some resistance to some of the more natural, you know, tapping into the body's natural ability to heal. Um, and, and so with that, what are stem cells?
Dr Dan Pardi: Yes. So this is a, a very important subject in this area.
So we talked about that. It's, it's exciting and controversial, but, all right. What are they?
Julie Howton: Yeah, what are they? So
Dr Dan Pardi: we
Julie Howton: don't have 'em. So why is it controversial? Yeah.
Dr Dan Pardi: The, these are specialized cells in the body that can both make copies of themselves and turn into other types of cells. So take a moment as a listener to think you can make a duplicate, and they're called daughter cells.
And then you also make, so you're making two, a stem cell can make two different daughter cells. One is another stem cell and the other one is now gonna turn into a type of tissue in the body. And these cells are major part, uh, a major, major part of the body's repair system. They replace worn out and damage cells throughout our whole life, and they can supply whatever type of cell that we need, depending on the context.
And in fact, I think the origin is a pretty interesting story. So if we go back and look at how they even evolved during the single cell stage of evolution, which lasted 3 billion years, there were no stem cells. Individual cells were still figuring out how to become maximally efficient. And up until it took it 3 billion years to do that.
And at, at about 3 billion years after this process, then stem cell-like behavior appeared once we saw Multicellular life evolve. And this was about 600 to 800 million years ago. And after mul multicellular organisms began, we saw cellular specialization. So at first, independent cells came together like a fleet of cells, but they were still all doing the same thing.
Mm-hmm. And after some time, then they started to divide and conquer. So cellular specialization meant that this cell could take on certain behaviors and another cell in the fleet would do unique things. And so instead of them all doing the same thing, they would differentiate and take on unique functions.
And so once an organism had. Specialized cells, they needed a renewable pool of undifferentiated, which means they've, they haven't become a particular cell type yet undifferentiated cells to replace the specialized cells that died off. And that is where cell, uh, stem cells emerged into existence. And so this concept is ancient, and they, they're an basically an evolutionary tool to manage complexity of living systems.
Julie Howton: Amazing. So that is, see, and now I, I just learned things about stem cells. I didn't know, but, okay, good. It makes, it makes a brilliant sense, you know? Yeah.
Dr Dan Pardi: Yeah. I love looking at the origin, really into evolution and trying to understand from the beginning why did they, why did these things come into existence in the first place?
Julie Howton: Right?
Dr Dan Pardi: And that actually, you know, transcends justice themselves really, for all things in biology. But seeing that history is pretty cool in my mind.
Julie Howton: Yeah. Well, and I, I like Logic Brain, so it makes perfect sense. Of course. It's like we're not walking around with reserves of all of these types of specialized cells that we have.
It, it just, it's brilliant, right? Like nature is brilliant, so
Dr Dan Pardi: Completely, completely. And then if you look at stem cells, there are different types based on their potency. Now, potency is a word that describes what they can become. So as you move down potency categories, the number of cells that they can become will narrow.
So there's five main categories of potency and they are toti, potent and pluripotent. So you might have heard pluripotent before if you've been in anywhere near the stem cell space. And essentially these two categories are pretty close to the same. They can form all cells in the body. There are some important differences, uh, between them, like, you know, an embryonic stem cell as an example of a pluripotent cell.
Um, but so for all intents and purposes, we can think of those two in the same way. And, but you'll hear pluripotent discussed a lot more. And then you have multi potent, oligo potent and uni potent. Those are the five categories. So multi, multi potent cells can become multiple types of cells, but only within related lineages.
And an example is hematopoietic stem cells. So they generate many different types of blood and immune cells across these different lineages called myeloid and lymphoid. Myeloid lineages produces red blood cells and platelets, monocytes, macrophages, uh, and also granulocyte based blood cells like neutrophils.
Oph fills basophils. So you can see these bone marrow derived Mattie stem cells are now creating, uh, blood cells, right? Things that you can go measure on getting your blood done. Uh, blood tested. And then they have the lymphoid lineage and they're making B cells, T cells, natural T cells, natural killer cells.
Excuse me. So those are, um, in the immune system, right? Yeah. So we have, yeah, that's, that is how the, these multi uh, potent stem cells can't make everything, but they make certain lineages. And another example of that, which you do hear a lot of multi potent stem cells are mesenchymal stem cells or MSCs.
And they can become various forms of connective tissue. So like bone, cartilage, fat, and muscle. Um, those. Those two are used in clinic often, and they're probably the two types that you hear the most about. Um, and then just to move down, just to kind of quickly round this out, you also have then oligo potent cells and they can become only a few closely related cell types.
So an example would be an osteo progenitor cell. Uh, they're restricted to bone lineages, so forming osteoblast and osteoclasts specific bone cells. And then lastly, you have uni potent cells and they can only become one type of cell. Uh, but they can still self renew. So an example would be a muscle satellite cell.
So as you can see, you have different types of stem cells, all of which can self new and differentiate, but sometimes some types of these can differentiate into all types, like a zygote, it can become any type, uh, of cell in the body, right? And then some can only differentiate into one type, like a muscle satellite cell.
So that is, um, that's basically what, uh, how we define them is by their potency. And then we can, you know, think about how do they even differentiate, like you, so we talked about them dividing into a copy of itself. So you now have another stem cell, but then. What is the process of, how does
Julie Howton: it know?
Dr Dan Pardi: Yeah.
How does it know what to, what to become? And that is actually really cool. So, you know, stop me if it gets, like, you can ask questions along the way, but I need to see how things connect. Like, if it's a bunch of random information, it's hard to make sense out of it. Sure. But if you can really see the cycle of it, then it, it actually makes more sense.
Sometimes more detail is better. More is better. Yeah.
Julie Howton: Yeah. Can build the picture. Yeah.
Dr Dan Pardi: Yeah, yeah. All right. So, so differentiation. Um, that is the process of a cell becoming a specific tissue type A, a specific cell type that would be in a part of a tissue. Think of it that way. Alright. So how does it happen?
It's, it's triggered by external cues. Like growth factors or cytokines, um, signals from the extracellular matrix. Even physical forces can drive this. And then these cues will activate these signaling pathways with funny names like Wint Notch or Sonic Hedgehog. Um, these are, these pathways by the way, are 600 to 800 million years old.
They were there at the very beginning of Wow. When stem cells formed. Okay. So these ancient pathways, they've, they've been around and, and what they do is, um, they will trigger biochemical cascades. So the, the external forces like growth factors will trigger the signaling pathways, which could cause a cascade of biochemical effects inside the cell.
Wow. All right. So we piece, piece that together, right? External forces signaling pathways. Internal changes. And then one of those internal changes is they will influence transcription factors inside the cell. And a transcription factor is a protein that then binds to specific DNA sequences to turn genes on or off.
Mm-hmm. And thereby controlling which proteins a cell can make. So remember, every cell has all of your DNA, it can, it could become anything, but you don't wanna make every single protein that all that your DNA blueprint could, could possibly make. And so this is the process where the cell starts to become something specific, right.
So triggered by these external cues like the growth factors, activating signaling pathways like lint, uh, wind and notch and hedgehog. And then you have, uh, the specific activation of these transcription factors that will then shape the cell's identity. Wow. Yeah. And then once this different differentiation starts to occur, there are epigenetic changes.
Now, epigenetics sit above the DNA that stabilize the cell's fate, right? So unused genes are silenced, right? We don't wanna have a muscle cell become a neuron,
Julie Howton: right? Um,
Dr Dan Pardi: and that will further lock in the identity of the new cell. And all of this is then reinforced by these biochemical loops that maintain the chosen lineage.
A lineage is what is going to become, and then suppress alternatives. And so like one example, um, is in mu muscle differentiation. So there's a transcription factor called MyoD, and that turns on muscle genes like acton and myosin, which is part of the muscle tissue. Um, it also then that same transcription factor also turns, um, suppresses like neuron and fat genes, right?
So it's not gonna become those types of tissues, right? And there's a positive feedback loop. So interestingly, um. MyoD also activates its own gene to produce more myogenic. And so it's all, once it starts to go down that path of becoming a particular cell, it's all reinforced by epigenetics, these feedback loops.
Um, and that's how you wouldn't want a cell to d differentiate, which means it now becomes, all of a sudden you have a, like a, a, a neuron or a fat tissue cell in your muscle. Yeah. That would be problematic. Right.
Julie Howton: I, I remember years ago, and I won't, I won't throw him under the bus by using his name, but, but my, I was talking to my son's orthopedic surgeon mm-hmm.
Um, because he, you know, was recommending shoulder surgery and, and I was like, you know what, if we did stem cell and his, thank goodness, you know, we've got people like you educating even physicians. His, he literally, he said he could end up growing a tooth in his shoulder. If you and I was like, no, that's,
yeah. So yeah, we've come a long way since then. My son is turning 30 this month, so it, it, this was a while ago, but,
Dr Dan Pardi: okay.
Julie Howton: Yeah. So, so thank you for explaining how that can, does not happen. Just that, you know, um, yeah. It's, it's important for people to understand that you're not just, it's not like a roulette wheel where who knows what kind of cells you're gonna get.
Like, yeah.
Dr Dan Pardi: Yeah. Is isn't that, isn't that interesting that, you know, 'cause as I was learning about this, like how does all of this work where, you know, you have these pools of cells, um, that are in different areas, and by the way, some of the stem cells that do ultimately kind of find their way to a particular tissue.
And we, maybe we should talk a little bit more about that, the kind of high level, what that cycle is too. 'cause that's, that's kind of, that's actually part of what's interesting as well is that, you know, they usually start off themselves in these protected environments called a niche. And the niche is really important to like what we're trying to affect with our product.
Um, in fact. Irena Convoy at uc. Berkeley is somebody that I had interviewed years ago, and she's done some, a lot of really cool work in stem cells. And she says, you know, the amount of stem cells that we have, they don't decline that much with aging. They, they do a little bit, but it's rather that the niche that they sit in becomes, I don't you call it toxic.
It becomes problematic so that they just can't really activate. And so they're there. Uh, and yes, there are some changes and there are, there is some decline, but it, the niche is really important. So, okay, so these stem cells are, they're sitting in their niche, like bone marrow, um, and then they're receiving these signals from their neighbors.
Uh, there's adhesion molecules that keep 'em in place. Soluble factors, all of those keep them quiet. So they're sitting there and they're quiet. Don't, don't, don't bother them bleeding. They're not needed yet. Yeah. Uh, when they are needed for repair or to make new, new cells. Then growth factors like granulocyte colony stimulating factor or GCSF or GM CSF, which is granulocyte, macrophage colony, colony stimulating factor.
Um, those will activate the stem cells. They, so, so mag they're resting, then they're woken up by certain growth factors. And then these enzymes and signaling proteins kind of loosen their grip on the niche so that they can enter circulation. That's all. So now they've been, they go from sleeping to woken up and now they're going to mobilize.
Right. And that's this, this cascade. And they don't just wander aimlessly, but they. Imagine now picture yourself as a stem cell and you've entered into circulation. They follow a scent trail that is made by chemokines, and a really important axis is called the CXCR four SDF one axis. So SDF one is like a beacon.
Um, picture that scene in Jurassic Park, the first one where he was holding the flare to try to get the T-Rex away from him, right? And he was running to try to like save the child. So think of, think of that, that is SDF one that's in the bloodstream. It's a chemo kind. And then, um, CX CXCR four is a receptor on the stem cell.
Alright? So that is helping the, it's helping it find where it needs to go by following this beacon. And once it gets close adhesion molecules like L selectin and integrins. They slow down the stem cell and they help it stick to the, to the vessel walls nearby, and then move into the right tissue. So let's say you damage, you know, your, your ankle.
How do we get new tissue there? And this whole process of waking them up, um, from their nap, getting them into circulation and helping them follow to the right place, that's how it happens, which is completely fascinating to me. Like that we're, yeah. We can do that. It's amazing. Um, and then once inside the tissues, that's where stem cells receive local cues, like the growth factors like I mentioned.
And those can be things like VEGF or NGF that then give further direction, um, to then create that psych, the signaling cascade, which triggers the transcription factors. And then that's where these stem cells will, um, kind of divide and now their daughter cells can move down this narrowing path. Right. So the narrowing path is like, ah, I'm, I'm moving from this undifferentiated cell and I'm becoming something that's more specific.
Um, some, the other daughter cells, like the, the member, the one that, the, the mold of clay mm-hmm. That could become anything. They can actually. Not all of the stem cells will leave the niche. They can remain behind and they can do this self-renewing process to keep the cycle going. And that's limited. But that can, that does happen.
And that actually is what, um, part of the process. So it's not like every time you need a new cell in a particular area of the body, that it has to come from far away that some do remain local and can continue that process for a while. It's indefinite. So you eventually you will need new stem cells from particular pools.
But yeah, that's, uh, that's an interesting way that by that, that where that happens. So, um, hopefully that's, you know, illustrative of like how it's all working. They, you know, they sleep in niches, they're activated, they tr travel along these chemical trails. They settle into the right spot and then local instructions reprogram into them, into the right tissue and it's, it's all tightly choreographed.
So, um, that's, that is basically how they're working,
Julie Howton: which is amazing. And, and. Why we think of them for healing and repair. 'cause that's how we heal and repair. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, so you mentioned that, you know, as we age Yeah. We may lose some of our, you know, we may have less than we had when we were younger.
Yeah. Um, how do we support, you know, optimal health when it comes to stem cells heal and healing and repair, um, to, I, I, I kind of think of like, to, to counteract the, the, what we think of as aging, which we tend to think of as decline, right. And we don't want to decline.
Dr Dan Pardi: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So the broader, you know, the, the idea, uh, of what happens with stem cells as we age is it's, it's called stem cell exhaustion.
That's what we refer to it as. Okay. And it is, it's basically the a, a decline in their ability to self-renew and to generate functional cells. So we have these stem cells, but they just can't do their job. And that does happen as we get older. Um, and this impaired tissue repair, it's why it's considered one of the 15 hallmarks of aging, uh, the hallmarks of aging for the listener, if you've not heard of them, uh, this is some work that was done in the, in between the 2000 tens, 2000 twenties.
It started there to try to catalog what are all the different effects that we see during aging. And a lot of folks will think of them as the causes of aging, but they're probably, uh, I would say proximal consequences. Yeah.
Julie Howton: Yeah. Yeah. Yes. And, um, I will highly encourage listeners to, to James Berger and I had a, we went through the hallmarks of aging.
Mm-hmm. Um, you know, I know that this is like quality's mission in life is, is to support us with all of that. And, and so if you guys wanna deeper dive for sure, check out some of the past episodes on that as well. Yeah. Um, and, but that's, that's why we're here. Right. This is why I have the podcast. You know, I know when I was diagnosed in my early thirties with rheumatoid arthritis, I was told I could not heal.
Like, period. Yeah. That is not healable. Yeah. Not true. Mm-hmm. So, um, mm-hmm. You know, by supporting different SY systems and including, you know, I, I, um. Stem cells were a part of my healing journey as well. Um, and, and so that's why I'm so excited that we're now in a place where we can talk about these things and there are ways for the everyday person to support, um, their own stem cell health and, and their ability to heal.
So,
Dr Dan Pardi: um, yeah. Julie? Yeah. Do, do you, do you mind if I ask how stem cells have played a role in your, in your healing journey?
Julie Howton: Yeah. Um, I was already, I had already made the lifestyle changes. It was already healing. Mm-hmm. Um, and improving and was just fortunate enough to be able to, you know, um, have an, an autologous stem cell treatment.
So my stem cells, so again, I was already, you know, in my forties, um, maybe even. My fifties, probably my late forties. So I was, you know, these were not baby stem cells, these were mine. Um, yeah. And I, I did basically just, I did right back in as iv. Um, and, and it really did just boost, you know, kind of got me past where I, I felt like I, I didn't, I, I won't, looking back, I think I was plateaued.
I don't wanna use the word stuck. I was probably, um, at a little bit of a plateau, and it was just kind of that final mm-hmm. Push. Mm-hmm. Of, and again, they're, they were in there already, right? Yeah. Sleeping, waiting. Um, and, and so, uh, and I did, we did a little, added some exosomes for sign signaling as well.
Yeah. So, um, but, but that's not something even back then that, that was available or affordable for most people. Yeah. Um, and, and so, and what I have learned as I, as I get wiser, is sometimes the day-to-day things that we do have a bigger impact. Um, yes. And so when there's something like a supplement that, that we can take to help the body do what we want it to do, um, uh, to me that's gold.
You know? Yeah,
Dr Dan Pardi: me too. It's, it's one of the reasons I was so interested to join Qualia, um, because, you know, as a scientist I love sharing information about different topics. Uh, but the idea of baking a lot of that wisdom and knowledge into a product that is really easy for a person to take
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Dr Dan Pardi: Just means that more people can access and benefit these, uh, a a lot of really good science and.
Yeah. I always support a healthy lifestyle. Uh, you know, you can think of supplements in like two different ways. You could think of 'em as a crutch that people use and they're gonna continue to smoke and drink and just do, do things that are not helping. Right. Okay. Well, in that particular case, maybe they are still helping.
Julie Howton: Mm-hmm. But I
Dr Dan Pardi: actually think of them more, not like a crutch, but a catalyst because we have more co you know, you're, what it'll promote is convergent behaviors. You're more likely to then, if you're already taking some action mm-hmm. To improve your health, you're more likely to take other actions that support your health too.
Yeah. Standing. Going for a walk, eating the right food, not eating the wrong food, getting to bed a little bit earlier. And, uh, you know, as you know, in truth, um, all of those little things, there are no silver bullets or smoking guns, right? It's really the, the sum total of numerous, uh, many, many different lifestyle factors that come together that create, uh, an environment inside your body that then enables better health to occur.
And supplements, I think, can play a pretty strong role, not only on their own right, but also in facilitating corg behaviors. And so what, Hey, take, take it all, take all that good stuff and yeah,
Julie Howton: I, I am a believer and, and it is, and I am always playing with, do I, you know, does my body still need this? Right?
Is, is, yeah. Um, but. People sometimes are like, oh my gosh, when they see what I take and I'm like, well, I feel amazing. I'm doing things I never imagined. I, I'd actually didn't think I would live past 50 and I'm 56. So to feel how I feel have the life that I have, I'll take that big bag of supplements in the morning.
When I was on the 10 prescriptions, I was almost bedbound. So to me it's, you know, it's a no brainer. Um, so share with us, so, you know, now that we have this, this picture of what stem cells are, you know, their role in the body and kind of how they work. Let's talk a little bit about qua stem cell and, and how incorporating that into your routine can, can support those hallmarks of aging.
Dr Dan Pardi: Yeah. So to start, I, I want to mention a few other areas that are related to stem cell exhaustion because mm-hmm. These are then the areas of opportunity, if you will. Gotcha. Sure. Yeah. So, uh, what are the drivers of the stem cell exhaustion? And a major one is chronic inflammation. Yes. And so when we were talking about all the, the numerous things that you can do, like going to bed on time and eating the right food.
Yeah. All of that. All the stuff that sounds like platitudes and boring, but we, you know, we, we acknowledge it works, but we. It doesn't excite us. An interesting way to think about it.
Julie Howton: It excites me, but
Dr Dan Pardi: yeah. Yeah.
Julie Howton: I'm a nerd. So,
Dr Dan Pardi: yeah, it excites me too, particularly when you uncover the details. So like, eat the Right Diet is a very, you know, as platitudes, but like of course there's so much interesting, interesting wisdom in there.
Um, and the same, it's like, you know, sleep and exercise and how, you know, how you are inhabiting space in the world on a day by day basis. What is your pattern of living? But the important part is that each one of these little areas create an opportunity to create more homeostasis with your inflammation.
And remember, inflammation has a negative connotation, but what we really care about is inflammatory balance because inflammation is playing, uh, critical roles throughout the entire fleet of cells that make you up that are, it's a part of a signaling system that we need.
Julie Howton: Sure.
Dr Dan Pardi: Chronic inflammation means that the best way to think of chronic inflammation is that the typical, the volume of my voice when I'm trying to communicate to you, you can hear it now, but as you get older, it's like going deaf and now I have to talk louder in order for you to hear.
That's chronic inflammation. The signals have to rise in order to try to maintain, um, efficacy in doing their job. Yeah, and we can actually do remarkably well, well into, you know, past our forties, fifties, sixties, even to our seventies and eighties by realigning the body into an environment that's the sleep, the exercise that is going to help to promote.
Inflamma inflammatory balance. So it's super, super important and that is a big goal of what we're trying to do with the product, of course. Um, but then, you know, things like generating too much oxidative stress, uh, all of that stuff ends up, um, creating that situation that I mentioned previously where the stem cells are there, but they just can't be activated.
Yeah. Okay. Yeah, so that's, you can see now, once you understand those mechanisms you have and you are like, okay, now we know what our task is as a company, we're going to try in part to sort of, how do we figure out how to make that niche better? And I could go through, you know, I think it would probably be too much for today, but all these different ways specifically like diet, exercise, sleep, circadian rhythms, temperature exposure, cold and hot sauna, cold exposure.
Um. Light. Light I'm fascinated
Julie Howton: by, yeah. By
Dr Dan Pardi: light.
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Dr Dan Pardi: Yeah. I gave a Ted talk on that. It wasn't specifically, it was more on the circadian effects of light, but red light is a whole other subject, hyperbaric oxygen that's moving more into like the medical therapies. But that essentially what that does is you, you put your body into pressure that is higher than barometric pressure.
So it's like it, they, it's like going under the water. So you, they measure it in what are called atmospheres that has very interesting effects on signaling stem cells to regenerate.
Julie Howton: Um, I used hyperbaric to recover from a significant head injury in 2020. Um, okay. And, and so yeah, I'm a, a believer it's, yeah, it's so, I mean, there's all these things, right?
And we can't all do all of. The things all of the time. But, but yes, like you said, it's the what are you incorporating, you know, but you can, everybody can incorporate sunlight. Everybody can, you know, there are things we can, that are free, that we can all do on a daily basis, um, as just part of our, our wellness routine.
Um, yeah. Yeah. So
Dr Dan Pardi: you, you're right. Um, it is. Overwhelming at times to think about all the things we have to do. Uh, you could think of it as, you know, like you look at some people An
Julie Howton: opportunity.
Dr Dan Pardi: Yeah. An opportunity. You know, look at people like Brian Johnson who's dedicated his entire life to Yeah. Testing and therapies.
And that can put a so much pressure on people that they feel like giving up entirely.
Julie Howton: Yeah. Yeah. No, and, and I really do think, I think a lot of that stuff is fun. You know, I found functional medicine via biohacking, so I, I am, I, I love it. Um, and I love, we have gadgets and, um, all kinds of fun tools, but we don't need those tools in order to create just really good daily routines that support our wellness and, and our inflammatory balance.
So, um, yeah.
Dr Dan Pardi: I have a four panel JoVE red light device in my closet.
Julie Howton: Mm-hmm.
Dr Dan Pardi: Now I could go outside every day and get, uh, an equal amount or more JUULs of red light from the sun. Right. Why do I have this super expensive device in my closet? Because it makes it more practical and more, it makes it easier for me to reliably get that health influence into my life because it's hard to get dressed in the day and then, you know, get undressed in the day, go outside naked, like, right.
Yeah. You could do it. And some people, your neighbors might not like it. They, yeah. They've, they called the cops. It wasn't big deal. It's not great.
Julie Howton: Well, and yeah, anyway, I, there's a, I have a, a friend who lives in Austin who posted somebody getting their sunlight at a, at a park in Austin, just middle of the day.
And I was like, wow, that's, that's hardcore. Um, so
Dr Dan Pardi: that's dedication. That's dedication. Yeah. That's
Julie Howton: something I think it might also be illegal, but it's something so Yeah. Sometimes. Yeah. There's definitely, sometimes the tools help you, you know, it, it just depends on, on, and I know I, I joke when I, I talk with clients and we, I live in Colorado and so it's, so it's much easier for me to help them create their sunlight exposure routine when it's not winter.
Yeah. Um, and then, you know, have to get them to where they're pretty hardcore. Then they're gonna go stand in the snow in the morning and, yeah. Yeah. The tools can be helpful, but again, not necessary. Um, just like somebody doesn't need necessarily IV stem cells to heal. Um, you know, and, and so that is why I love the things, like the supplements that can support Yeah.
Yeah.
Dr Dan Pardi: E exactly. Think of all of these things, including supplements that, like tools that make, uh, acquiring, uh, more natural signals.
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Dr Dan Pardi: Uh, more reliable in your life. That, that full stop, that's where it comes down to. And so we tend to position the, you know, these are magic. Um, and yeah, there is actually some magic to them because when you give the body more a closer magic what it needs,
Julie Howton: yeah.
Dr Dan Pardi: Then it can do remarkably well. So you have, you know, this ex very expensive red light device that seems sophisticated and this tech, you know, the technological, it's just helping the body get something closer to what it would, since we don't really live in nature anymore.
Julie Howton: Right. And that's what this is really all about, right?
Yeah. This circadian like, it, it's modern times is how we've just lost all of these innate. You know, we, we, we didn't need to think about grounding or sunlight or Yeah. Cold exposure, heat, you know, all of these things. Yeah. Um, intermittent, fa, I mean, you name it, if you just think back to how have humans lived for the majority of our time on this planet.
Yeah. It wasn't like this. And so we're just, we were looking to compensate and reconnect with our natural cycles and state.
Dr Dan Pardi: Yeah, that's right. And I, I'll just, I'll say this too, that, uh, every, everyone has the opportunity to calibrate their own health practice to what feels right for them. Yeah. So does that mean you need to do, do take part in absolutely everything?
No, because for a lot of people, as I was alluding to before, that makes people feel like, I, I just can't do any of this. I just don't have the time. Right. Don't worry about that. Just do the things you can do that feel good, shape your own health practice in a way that feels healthy, that feels good, that, that, that fills you up.
And if you can add, there are times where maybe you can't do all of it because of time pressure or money or whatever. And there are times where you can do more, just do your best. Feel good about that.
Julie Howton: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I, I love it.
Dr Dan Pardi: Okay, good. Really good
Julie Howton: advice.
Dr Dan Pardi: Yeah. So to come, go back to the, you know, the stem cell product and how, yeah.
We could, a, a lot of, you know, a lot of formulas focus on a single dimension like mobilization alone, so we talked about that. Right? They're resting in their niche and then they gotta get out into the bloodstream and go find their target. We built stem cells to increase the availability of stem cells, but also to improve how they function once they are active.
Uh, and so that is like really looking at the full cycle of how stem cells operate. And they do operate in cycles. They alternate between active phases of, and then of, you know, of mobilization, uh, the undergoing renewal, self-renewal, uh, differentiation. Um, and so we created this four day protocol that sort of matches the rhythm and prevents exhaustion by balancing activation with rest.
That's not how the body works, which is to constantly pump out new cells. Uh, and so we created the idea behind this product is that you take it for four days in a row. It supports a, a lot of aspects of the stem cell cycle. It does promote mobilization, but it also is gonna help them home Homing is the term that is used to help them find their targets.
Where do you need new tissues? And then to support the whole process of differentiating into healthy, functional tissue. And I think that is why this product is so revolutionary. In fact, in my mind, you could use, you could use this product without ever getting any medical stem cell injections, but if you were to do that, I would especially use this product because we also want to support, you know, think about it, if you get stem cells, so auto autologous stem cells out of your own body mm-hmm.
You can take them, you know, out of bone marrow, out of the iliac crest or outta fat tissue, which in mm-hmm. Increasingly is being used. And then you concentrate them and you put 'em back into the body. Right.
Julie Howton: Right.
Dr Dan Pardi: In a way, part of what our product does is help to mobilize the stem cells that you have. So now you have two situations where you have increased stem cells in the body.
Um, and typically what people will do is they'll put them into the specific area where they have Sure need, or you can do IV and that's gonna, you know, go throughout the whole whole body. And there's some interesting innovations there, particularly with muse cells, which we may or may not be have time to talk about.
But anyway, the science is advancing.
Julie Howton: Yes.
Dr Dan Pardi: But then you would want to support, especially if you're paying for an expensive stem cell therapy, you, you really wanna support maximal efficacy.
Julie Howton: Absolutely. So you can
Dr Dan Pardi: use our product with or without. Uh, you know, getting stem cell injections, um, in fact, so the idea is that you use it once a month, 12 times a year.
Mm-hmm. And then, you know, it actually works really nicely with our, with our lytic product. Uh, and the way that that one works is actually to clear out what are called, like zombie cells. So, seno, uh, lytic cells real quickly, they are cells that have partially died and they're not fully dead. They're using resources and they're spitting out a lot of inflammatory substances over 120 into the surrounding niche.
So remember we talked about, about how inflammation is mm-hmm. A key driver of, uh, stem cell exhaustion? Well, as your body ages, you develop more, um, more and more senescent cells. And the reason why senescent cells, it, it's actually. Uh, adaptive. The reason why senescent cells send out all these signals is to tell the immune system, Hey, there's an issue here.
Julie Howton: Yeah,
Dr Dan Pardi: send molecules to clear it all out. But as we undergo thymic evolution or immune system decay and ages, we have, we develop immunosenescence. The immune system is not as good as it was before at doing its job.
Julie Howton: Yeah. Okay. So, and I, I would offer for listeners that we, for check out episode 63, um, on lytic and, and zombie cells.
Uh, James did an amazing job of giving us a, a deeper dive as to like, why that is so important to help clear those cells out. Um, and I love that the two products are, not only are they synergistic, uh, it makes perfect sense, right? You wanna get rid of those zombie cells and support the, the stem cells. But I also love that neither one of those products are, are daily.
Like yeah, they're, you know, um, how, how is, and then I will circle back to, to quaia stem cell, but how, so Quaia stem cell is four days. Yep. How, how do you use, if you're using both products, which I am, so I wanna know. Yeah. What's the best way As far as when, like, I take lytic the, the first of the month just so I remembered it.
You know, I have a time, right. So I remember. Um, that's my routine with that one. Is there an optimal, like how far apart to take them, when to take them?
Dr Dan Pardi: Yeah. We have, uh, theory on how to do that now based off of what we know about the science of the individual products and how they work and some of the pharmacokinetics of.
Debris, clearance, et cetera. Uh, but we also are gonna put this to the test. So we're in the ideation stage at the moment to look how to combined, uh, for a study to combine our products. Uh, so the latest thinking in general is that once a month
Julie Howton: mm-hmm. You
Dr Dan Pardi: would use the two day lytic product. Mm-hmm. So it comes in a package.
There's one day, two days. It's a combination of a variety of different compounds that tell a zombie cell to actually die. Yeah. That's what you want. And that helps to clear out. And these are natural compounds like flavonoids. And so what you do is you look at different vulnerabilities of those cells, you target them, and you create synthetic lethality.
So you're actually doing it with multiple mechanisms and it causes them to go into apoptosis, apoptosis, or cell death. And then the debris can be cleared, but. For a period of time, at least 24 hours, you're gonna actually see some more damage, uh, markers. So the idea is that you do two days of the lytic product and then wait at least one day, and then you do four days of stem cell, and that's gonna promote renewal.
Okay. Um, Greg on our team, who is our chief product Formulator Yep. Uh, chief Product Officer, he is, he, he also is doubling his dose of our NAD product during the four days of ah. Okay. And then going back to his, the normal, um, the normal dose and, uh, for the rest of the month. So that product is something that you take every day.
NAD, right? And then these other two products, lytic and stem cells, those you take once a month and ideally you would take 'em in this fashion, okay. Where you do sly first, then stem cells. And that is a very advanced, um, health span augmentation protocol. And I'll, I'll say this, that because the hallmarks of aging are numerous and distributed, you know, there isn't a single source of aging in the body that all future product, all future solutions will be multi-pronged.
Sure. You'll, you'll be using different products at different times to do different things. And so, you know, the most advanced right now from us is. What I just mentioned. Yeah. So those three products take in that sequence.
Julie Howton: Yeah. Which is amazing. Thank you. That was, it was a little selfish of me. I wanted to make sure I was doing it right.
Oh, yeah. Um, yeah. Which I, I, I think is, is amazing. So que stem cell is, is you're pre-sales right now, right? It's not totally available.
Dr Dan Pardi: That's right.
Julie Howton: Um, but by the time this airs, hopefully it'll be, it'll, it'll, it'll be coming. Um, yes. And I, I wanna highlight because I, I, again, I'm such a fan of the company and the products and the humans in the company.
Um, I, if you are on the beginning of your healing journey, and you haven't even started with the other things we were talking about, diet, sleep, sunlight, and, and, and lifestyle stuff. This is not. Going to, you know, if you're in the fast food line every day, this isn't where you start. I would say, um, yeah, I, I am certainly not gonna hurt anybody for sure.
But I mean, I, I, I think, again, as we up level and, and which happens on, on healing journeys, right? First we just wanna feel better and then it's like, oh, and now I wanna feel better, better, best. Um, yeah. And so, yeah, I, I'm not discouraging anybody from, from, but it's not a step one in improving health, um, because in my mind then it is still an uphill battle inside your body if you're not doing other things to help reduce that chronic inflammation.
Dr Dan Pardi: Yeah. And, and what I would say is that you don't have to feel like you, you're, you have to do everything right. That this can fit in and it also can promote convergent behaviors.
Julie Howton: Mm-hmm. But
Dr Dan Pardi: if you're simply, you know, frankly looking for something to serve magic as like a, a vaccination against bad diet, um, then that's going to probably get less results.
Yeah. Um, but still could be beneficial. But you know, that's, you always want to try to line 'em up and just do, do what you can. Right? Yeah. If you're traveling a lot and it's hard to eat right. Just, just do your best and, um. Well, and those
Julie Howton: are the times too. That's like, okay, then maybe you are, you know, up leveling your supplements because, you know, I'm always adjust, we're always adjusting Right.
As, as humans and, and life is not the same, thank goodness, day in and day out. And so even those of us that, that have a really dedicated health routine, it it, you're, it needs to shift sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And so, you know, I, I think that's amazing. And so I love this idea. I, I think of like, talk about really simplifying and not being a scientist.
I think of the lytic product is like the broom. Like I wanna get rid of those cells. Yeah. You know, and, um, you guys always are ahead of the curve. I feel like, you know, and then there's all these other, nobody, I think nobody does what Quaia does as far as. Really creating these synergistic blends in their pro.
You know, there's, you guys aren't just bringing like an ingredient. I know, I remember when we were talking about magnesium, 'cause I was like, oh my gosh, there's a million magnesium products. You know, I, I'm sure that means you're doing it better. Let's, let's learn about magnesium. So yes, same thing. Um, and, and, and so, you know, I'm super excited for, for the stem cell product to, to be widely available for everybody.
Um, yeah, me
Dr Dan Pardi: too.
Julie Howton: And, and where can, where's the best place? I know listeners are gonna get a discount using Code JM Coach, um, but where is the best place to A, find out more about the product B, get the product.
Dr Dan Pardi: Yeah, so I would, you know, go, go to our website, quality of life.com. You can find the product there and then.
You can set up a subscription where you receive it at a particular time every month. What I would also suggest people do is in their calendar, put in a recurring event
Julie Howton: Yep.
Dr Dan Pardi: For when they take lytic. Um, so then they're gonna get it in the mail. They're gonna put, they know that Saturday and Sunday, uh, the second Saturday, Sunday of the month, they're going to take lytic and then put stem cells into their calendar for Tuesday through Friday, and then have that be recurring so that it's, it's on your calendar as you see it.
That simple trick makes a huge difference. Um, absolutely. And what's nice about subscription is that you're just gonna get it in the mail. You don't have to go and reorder, I forgot to order it this month. Now I'm behind. All, all of those little things. Yeah. Those little details completely can throw you off and get you out of your routine.
You're trying to create a simple routine where you get it and then you know when to take it and it's gonna happen each month and that's how you're gonna really benefit from it. Um, I'll say one other thing is that because stem cells are influencing hematopoietic stem cells, which not only affect, uh, various markers of, you know, blood cells, but also your immune system.
Mm-hmm. You would imagine, and there is preclinical evidence for this, for some of the ingredients that we use, that your body is going to get better at clearing out senescent cells. Right. If you use this routine. So you are truly. You know, theoretically elevating your health span, which is the extension of higher level of health, longer into the lifespan.
And that's exactly what we're looking for. We're not curing aging, we're not looking to live to 190 years old, but we are looking to feel younger, much deeper into our life, into our actual lifespan for whatever that is. So that is the strategy that I follow, which is why I feel really good about promoting it and to others and like the rationale for why.
But you can now see how all of these products are actually, um, reinforcing the other ones. Right? And they all are playing a really important role '
Julie Howton: cause we're integrated humans and you guys are, are looking at us as such and not just, you know, picking an organ system and, and targeting that one. And, and so yeah.
Um, uh, so amazing. Dan, we're at the point where listeners are leaning in 'cause they know I'm gonna ask you for one step that they can take starting today. Okay. To support that health span. Could be anything. You could have already said it. Anything.
Dr Dan Pardi: Yeah. Sure. Uh, so let's see. The first thing that comes to mind, um, I will say, we mentioned this multiple times, there isn't a silver bullet.
Find something that you love that a lot, a lot of health behaviors are reinforcing, which means that when you do them, you want to do more of them. When you start to eat better, if you give it a couple of weeks, your taste buds change. My, your composition of your bacteria and your gut can change and it can reinforce, it can make that food taste even better than before.
Right? Um, when you walk, you know, I have maintained over 10,000 step average per day for the last 12 years. I'm super proud of that. Yeah. Uh, I just, it's, and it's also my mental health routine, getting out there and going for a walk. So allow your own ambition to shape your behavior. Like prioritize it, like try walking.
If you don't wanna do 10, if you can't do 10,000 steps, don't let that get in the way of you going from five to 6,000 steps.
Julie Howton: Right,
Dr Dan Pardi: right. Because you can almost imagine that the value of the steps doesn't start at 10,000. It actually each, each step you take gets less important. Is that weird?
Julie Howton: Right. Yeah.
Dr Dan Pardi: Because when you go from, let's say 2000 steps a day to 4,000 steps a day, enormous, the steepest benefit that you can occur. Yeah. So find your goals, have fun with them. Let them Yeah. You know, fill your life and then, you know, keep learning. Um, it's a lifetime challenge that we have and it's a life, and the more that you lean into it, the easier and more fun it becomes.
Make it fun.
Julie Howton: Yeah. I love that because, because if it's fun, you'll keep doing it. And like you said, then it, you get into this loop where it's then it's reinforcing itself and then you're looking for the next thing, or you're adding more steps. Yeah. Or you're, um, so I love that, and I can't encourage listeners enough like, go to kuia life.com and, and get the subscription set up.
And again, such great advice to just set the recurring reminders, um, because just take the, the, the band like get your bandwidth back. Then you don't have to think about it and, oh, did I, you know, and when am I gonna take it? Am I just make it easy?
Dr Dan Pardi: Um, make it easy
Julie Howton: and, and, and then make it fun. So I love that.
Yeah.
Dr Dan Pardi: Make it easy, make it fun. I like that. It's become a new, new catchphrase. There you go.
Julie Howton: Dan, thank you so much for your time, your expertise, your sharing, your, your knowledge with us. I know you had a lot more you could have shared. Um, and we'll let listeners chew on this one and then hopefully we'll get you back in for another conversation.
Dr Dan Pardi: Oh, I'd love that. Yeah. I mean, each one of these subjects you could go on for, uh, you know, hours and hours. Yeah. If not days. Um, but hopefully people picked up some valuable tips.
Julie Howton: Oh, for sure. Yeah.
Dr Dan Pardi: Deeper understanding and, and even some clear ideas about how to take advantage of this cool science.
Julie Howton: Amazing.
For everyone listening, remember, you can get the transcripts and show notes by Visiting Inspired Living Show. Hope you had a great time and enjoyed this episode as much as I did. I'll see you next week.
Julie Howton:(Intro) Welcome back to The Inspired Living with Autoimmunity podcast. I'm your host, Julie Houghton. Today we're joined by Dr. Dan Pardi, the Chief Health Officer at Qualia Life Sciences, where he leads education to advance, health span and peak performance. Dan is the founder of humanos.me and the host of HumanOS Radio, the official podcast of Sleep Research Society.
Dan has advised elite military units, fortune 500 companies and startups through his consultancy, Bendi Health. He holds a PhD in cognitive neuroscience from Laden University and Stanford, and speaks regularly at events like TEDx VC films and the Institute for Human Machine Cognition. In today's conversation, we are discussing the fundamentals of stem cells, the aging process, and the practical approaches to supporting stem cells through lifestyle and supplementation.
(Main Interview) Dr. Pardi, welcome to the podcast.
Dr Dan Pardi: Thank you, Julie, for having me on. I'm really happy to be here.
Julie Howton: I am. I'm so excited for our conversation and, and listeners already know that I am a huge fan of Qualia and, and have yet to, to meet a product that I didn't add to my arsenal. Yeah. Um, how you're fairly new to the Quaia team.
Yes. Um, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you came to, to become a member of the team and not just a member, but uh, the health officer.
Dr Dan Pardi: Yeah, so I've been, been at the company at this point for a little more than a month. And, but I've known the company for a long time and I've admired them. I met some of the founders way back in the beginning at a conference.
Uh, it was actually a after party of the conference that was at a friend's house and Wim Hof was there, Andrew Huberman was there, other folks. And it was really fun and casual, and it was a, it was probably probably one of the best networking events that I've ever been to at a conference because it just felt so real and.
People were really getting to know each other and hanging out and chatting. In fact, Wim h was chasing my, at that time, 2-year-old boy around the house. And I was really impressed with his energy for his age. That's what he did the whole time. So he might have just been avoiding, you know, other social engagements, but he, he was definitely a unique character, Uhhuh.
But at that time, uh, two of the people who had just been at the company, so it was probably, I don't even know what the size of the team was at that moment, probably less than 10 people. But Darryl and Vanessa were there and I was talking to them about this project HumanOS that I was working on, and they were talking about what they were doing.
And I think both of us were struck by the fact that we were perceiving in the other, an appreciation of the complexity of health and how we wanted to help in multiple ways. It wasn't simple products that solve simple, you know, that created a simple solution, right? Which, by the way, can be super powerful.
But we were wanting to do more and there was an excitement at that time with technology and how new technologies might be able to encourage what both of us were trying to achieve. So quantified self and biohacking, all that. So it was, it was cool. And anyhow, that led to me interviewing Daniel Achtenberg, one of the founders.
Julie Howton: Yep.
Dr Dan Pardi: Uh, on my podcast, HumanOS Radio, where he talked about Nootropics. That was their first product at that time called Qualia. And subsequently, later, of course, the company changed its name from Neurohacker Collective right to Qua Life Sciences. Uh, and I do like that name a, a lot. The new one, um, the, the old one felt right for the time, and this one feels like it's a better fit for more people.
And then, um, let's see. So then Daniel interviewed me over two podcasts where I talked about sleep. And at that time I was working on my PhD, working on it from Lighten University, one of the oldest universities in the world out of the Netherlands and then Stanford. So I had a collaboration where I was doing my PhD work at both institutions and also developing this startup.
Uh, and so a effective nootropic or cognitive enhancing product was needed because I was really, had a, a high workload. Uh, and since that time we stayed in touch. We got, we supported each other, cheered each other on Okay. And always reached out. Then last November, James was in Austin. That's where I live now.
And, uh. We went and got grabbed coffee and started to explore the possibility of me being, you know, in effect, like a scientific spokesperson. So somebody who's going out there and talking about the therapeutic areas that we hope to address the products and why, how we created them. And, uh, I just seem like a really nice fit because I think at the heart of it, I'm an educator.
I, you know, as scientists do experiments and while I am now a part of a company that does do experiments with the products that they te that they create, I am not doing experiments on a day by day basis. I am trying to help people have a really firm grasp of areas that matter for their health. And I am really motivated by that, doing just that.
And so it feels like a very, very good fit and so far, so good. Um, and I've also really like you admired their products and used them, so that was a great endorsement,
Julie Howton: right? Which is amazing. And like we need, they needed somebody to teach us, lay people, not only about these areas of importance, but also, you know, the, even in some of the interviews I've done with James, I mean, he does a great job of being relatable, but then he gets a little lot, he gets excited about the science and then can lose us sometimes.
So, um, so that's, it's, it seems like a, a fantastic fit and I'm excited today to talk about one of my absolute favorite areas of wellness, which is stem cells. And so, um, I'm. Really, really just looking forward to learning more from you and, and having listeners. It's funny, over the years, it's, it's been this almost taboo subject Yes.
In the United States. Um, and I I love where things are going now mm-hmm. With stem cell health and, and, um, so let, let's, uh, learn a little bit about stem cells and, and you know, like, let's start with, I love starting at the very, at the basic Yes. What are stem cells and why am I so excited about this conversation?
Dr Dan Pardi: It's a great place to start, Julie, because, uh, in the spirit of helping people understand there, there's two ways that you can communicate science. You can communicate it in a way that makes, tries to make your yourself sound smart, or you can communicate it in a way that helps other people sound really smart.
Right? Or feels feel smarter, right? Because they're actually picking it up. Right. And so with that, there's the information you share, but there's also the sequence in which you share it so that you can build upon an increasing degree of knowledge as you listen. So starting from the basics makes a ton of sense, and I agree with you, uh, before I launch into what's themselves are and what they're doing and why they're so cool.
It's been a topic that has garnered a lot of excitement and attention for a while. Mm-hmm. But it's also been controversial. Mm-hmm. So companies have come into existence and they've been shut down by the FDA because they were promoting them illegally. Uh, so there, there's, there's been some controversy here.
And rightfully so, uh, in some cases, uh, the companies were putting products ahead of what we know about the clinical science, meaning that you might have an indication that something related to stem cells is exciting, but you're, you're doing basically clinical trials, experiments on people without knowing as much as you should before you do such a thing.
So yeah. Anyway, I think now
Julie Howton: I have a theory Yeah. That I, I can say, and you shouldn't too maybe. Um, I, I think there's a lot of money focused on, you know, I'll just say it. I think the pharmaceutical industry has created a lot of resistance to some of these natural healing pathways. Um, because if we're.
Healing our bodies, we won't need the drugs. And, and I really do feel like that has played a really big role in this country too. You know, I, I think it's, it's, I I see bo both of it. Um, and so, uh, I'm glad hopefully that that will continue to shift in the, in the right direction. Um, so yeah. Yeah, that's my, my 2 cents of what, what I, I think also plays a part.
Dr Dan Pardi: And gosh, Julie, you know, we, we could spend the entire episode just talking about that because I know
Julie Howton: I used to
Dr Dan Pardi: work, I used to work in the pharmaceutical industry. Oh, really? Yeah. Um, I worked for a company called Orphan Medical. It was bought by Jazz Pharmaceuticals outta Palo Alto. I started their medical affairs department, and what that department did is to create education and provide research grants to support, uh, understanding of the product in different therapeutic areas.
It was a, it was a great job, and the people were wonderful, which is great. Yeah. And I always felt, I'll give you actually a, a sort of a counter example to the common narrative that, you know, the pharmaceutical companies are really, truly evil. Because about 35 years ago, it was considered, it was the heyday of the pharmaceutical industry and people in that industry were thought of as heroes.
Subsequent to that, because the innovation that was coming out, new medications, it seemed like such a wonderful place to be. Uh, then there were controversies driven by capitalism that made certain individuals within the industry that in high positions make bad choices.
Julie Howton: Mm-hmm.
Dr Dan Pardi: Choices that were much more for the bottom line than they were for the patient.
And that then started to create a negative shadow that over, that overshadowed the entire industry and it wasn't uniform, meaning that Sure, not all companies were making Oh yeah. Unethical decisions, but we jux juxtapose that idea with the fact that our healthcare system, when you go to your doctor, you think you are getting the best possible advice about how to take care of your health.
That's not true. What you're really, what's really happening is that you're getting evaluated for one of three different things. Referral to a specialist. Should they go to someone else? If you're like, let's say the primary care doctor, um, a proce, uh, should we get another diagnostic on you to find more information and then whether or not you are appropriate for a particular drug or drug combination?
Julie Howton: Sure.
Dr Dan Pardi: That's it.
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Dr Dan Pardi: Now, because the simple mention of. Should you like, you know that taking care of your health is hard. They don't have time to do that. The entire industry has been set up for a very narrow, per, uh, medicalized perspective on health. And you know what, it's not terrible. It's incomplete and correct.
So the incompleteness of this has then also created a lot of negative perspective about, uh, the medical system because we've thought of them as the, like almost the entirety of our healthcare and right. But very smart people, you know, who are in society that are just trying to take care of themselves.
Everybody recognizes this is not everything. And so whether your doctor gives you a couple of tips out the door to eat, right, what does that mean? Or exercise more, those will never work as effective therapies to get a person to really do that well. And so in the mid, you know, 2000 tens to 2020, we now started to see, uh, very good public voices getting out there and talking about, yeah, scientific wellness.
And now, I mean, look at us, we're chatting about these ideas today and are contributing to a more full healthcare system by talking about things that the medical system won't address. So we need both arms, but Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I,
Julie Howton: I, and I'm not, I, I, I'm not, I, there's also a time and a place for medication and, and thank, thank goodness we have brilliant people working to create these, these, you know, pharmaceuticals for sure.
Yeah. And I have said it a million times on the podcast. God forbid I need emergency surgery or something like I'm going to the western system. Because for acute care, hands down. Yeah. This, that's what the system shines with. And then there's a reason why we have a functional medicine clinic where we can spend an hour with a patient and, you know, get, get underneath it.
So I, I've taken us way off track. I wanna steer us back. Um, 'cause I, I, yeah, I didn't mean to bash, you know, I, I just do think there is some resistance to some of the more natural, you know, tapping into the body's natural ability to heal. Um, and, and so with that, what are stem cells?
Dr Dan Pardi: Yes. So this is a, a very important subject in this area.
So we talked about that. It's, it's exciting and controversial, but, all right. What are they?
Julie Howton: Yeah, what are they? So
Dr Dan Pardi: we
Julie Howton: don't have 'em. So why is it controversial? Yeah.
Dr Dan Pardi: The, these are specialized cells in the body that can both make copies of themselves and turn into other types of cells. So take a moment as a listener to think you can make a duplicate, and they're called daughter cells.
And then you also make, so you're making two, a stem cell can make two different daughter cells. One is another stem cell and the other one is now gonna turn into a type of tissue in the body. And these cells are major part, uh, a major, major part of the body's repair system. They replace worn out and damage cells throughout our whole life, and they can supply whatever type of cell that we need, depending on the context.
And in fact, I think the origin is a pretty interesting story. So if we go back and look at how they even evolved during the single cell stage of evolution, which lasted 3 billion years, there were no stem cells. Individual cells were still figuring out how to become maximally efficient. And up until it took it 3 billion years to do that.
And at, at about 3 billion years after this process, then stem cell-like behavior appeared once we saw Multicellular life evolve. And this was about 600 to 800 million years ago. And after mul multicellular organisms began, we saw cellular specialization. So at first, independent cells came together like a fleet of cells, but they were still all doing the same thing.
Mm-hmm. And after some time, then they started to divide and conquer. So cellular specialization meant that this cell could take on certain behaviors and another cell in the fleet would do unique things. And so instead of them all doing the same thing, they would differentiate and take on unique functions.
And so once an organism had. Specialized cells, they needed a renewable pool of undifferentiated, which means they've, they haven't become a particular cell type yet undifferentiated cells to replace the specialized cells that died off. And that is where cell, uh, stem cells emerged into existence. And so this concept is ancient, and they, they're an basically an evolutionary tool to manage complexity of living systems.
Julie Howton: Amazing. So that is, see, and now I, I just learned things about stem cells. I didn't know, but, okay, good. It makes, it makes a brilliant sense, you know? Yeah.
Dr Dan Pardi: Yeah. I love looking at the origin, really into evolution and trying to understand from the beginning why did they, why did these things come into existence in the first place?
Julie Howton: Right?
Dr Dan Pardi: And that actually, you know, transcends justice themselves really, for all things in biology. But seeing that history is pretty cool in my mind.
Julie Howton: Yeah. Well, and I, I like Logic Brain, so it makes perfect sense. Of course. It's like we're not walking around with reserves of all of these types of specialized cells that we have.
It, it just, it's brilliant, right? Like nature is brilliant, so
Dr Dan Pardi: Completely, completely. And then if you look at stem cells, there are different types based on their potency. Now, potency is a word that describes what they can become. So as you move down potency categories, the number of cells that they can become will narrow.
So there's five main categories of potency and they are toti, potent and pluripotent. So you might have heard pluripotent before if you've been in anywhere near the stem cell space. And essentially these two categories are pretty close to the same. They can form all cells in the body. There are some important differences, uh, between them, like, you know, an embryonic stem cell as an example of a pluripotent cell.
Um, but so for all intents and purposes, we can think of those two in the same way. And, but you'll hear pluripotent discussed a lot more. And then you have multi potent, oligo potent and uni potent. Those are the five categories. So multi, multi potent cells can become multiple types of cells, but only within related lineages.
And an example is hematopoietic stem cells. So they generate many different types of blood and immune cells across these different lineages called myeloid and lymphoid. Myeloid lineages produces red blood cells and platelets, monocytes, macrophages, uh, and also granulocyte based blood cells like neutrophils.
Oph fills basophils. So you can see these bone marrow derived Mattie stem cells are now creating, uh, blood cells, right? Things that you can go measure on getting your blood done. Uh, blood tested. And then they have the lymphoid lineage and they're making B cells, T cells, natural T cells, natural killer cells.
Excuse me. So those are, um, in the immune system, right? Yeah. So we have, yeah, that's, that is how the, these multi uh, potent stem cells can't make everything, but they make certain lineages. And another example of that, which you do hear a lot of multi potent stem cells are mesenchymal stem cells or MSCs.
And they can become various forms of connective tissue. So like bone, cartilage, fat, and muscle. Um, those. Those two are used in clinic often, and they're probably the two types that you hear the most about. Um, and then just to move down, just to kind of quickly round this out, you also have then oligo potent cells and they can become only a few closely related cell types.
So an example would be an osteo progenitor cell. Uh, they're restricted to bone lineages, so forming osteoblast and osteoclasts specific bone cells. And then lastly, you have uni potent cells and they can only become one type of cell. Uh, but they can still self renew. So an example would be a muscle satellite cell.
So as you can see, you have different types of stem cells, all of which can self new and differentiate, but sometimes some types of these can differentiate into all types, like a zygote, it can become any type, uh, of cell in the body, right? And then some can only differentiate into one type, like a muscle satellite cell.
So that is, um, that's basically what, uh, how we define them is by their potency. And then we can, you know, think about how do they even differentiate, like you, so we talked about them dividing into a copy of itself. So you now have another stem cell, but then. What is the process of, how does
Julie Howton: it know?
Dr Dan Pardi: Yeah.
How does it know what to, what to become? And that is actually really cool. So, you know, stop me if it gets, like, you can ask questions along the way, but I need to see how things connect. Like, if it's a bunch of random information, it's hard to make sense out of it. Sure. But if you can really see the cycle of it, then it, it actually makes more sense.
Sometimes more detail is better. More is better. Yeah.
Julie Howton: Yeah. Can build the picture. Yeah.
Dr Dan Pardi: Yeah, yeah. All right. So, so differentiation. Um, that is the process of a cell becoming a specific tissue type A, a specific cell type that would be in a part of a tissue. Think of it that way. Alright. So how does it happen?
It's, it's triggered by external cues. Like growth factors or cytokines, um, signals from the extracellular matrix. Even physical forces can drive this. And then these cues will activate these signaling pathways with funny names like Wint Notch or Sonic Hedgehog. Um, these are, these pathways by the way, are 600 to 800 million years old.
They were there at the very beginning of Wow. When stem cells formed. Okay. So these ancient pathways, they've, they've been around and, and what they do is, um, they will trigger biochemical cascades. So the, the external forces like growth factors will trigger the signaling pathways, which could cause a cascade of biochemical effects inside the cell.
Wow. All right. So we piece, piece that together, right? External forces signaling pathways. Internal changes. And then one of those internal changes is they will influence transcription factors inside the cell. And a transcription factor is a protein that then binds to specific DNA sequences to turn genes on or off.
Mm-hmm. And thereby controlling which proteins a cell can make. So remember, every cell has all of your DNA, it can, it could become anything, but you don't wanna make every single protein that all that your DNA blueprint could, could possibly make. And so this is the process where the cell starts to become something specific, right.
So triggered by these external cues like the growth factors, activating signaling pathways like lint, uh, wind and notch and hedgehog. And then you have, uh, the specific activation of these transcription factors that will then shape the cell's identity. Wow. Yeah. And then once this different differentiation starts to occur, there are epigenetic changes.
Now, epigenetics sit above the DNA that stabilize the cell's fate, right? So unused genes are silenced, right? We don't wanna have a muscle cell become a neuron,
Julie Howton: right? Um,
Dr Dan Pardi: and that will further lock in the identity of the new cell. And all of this is then reinforced by these biochemical loops that maintain the chosen lineage.
A lineage is what is going to become, and then suppress alternatives. And so like one example, um, is in mu muscle differentiation. So there's a transcription factor called MyoD, and that turns on muscle genes like acton and myosin, which is part of the muscle tissue. Um, it also then that same transcription factor also turns, um, suppresses like neuron and fat genes, right?
So it's not gonna become those types of tissues, right? And there's a positive feedback loop. So interestingly, um. MyoD also activates its own gene to produce more myogenic. And so it's all, once it starts to go down that path of becoming a particular cell, it's all reinforced by epigenetics, these feedback loops.
Um, and that's how you wouldn't want a cell to d differentiate, which means it now becomes, all of a sudden you have a, like a, a, a neuron or a fat tissue cell in your muscle. Yeah. That would be problematic. Right.
Julie Howton: I, I remember years ago, and I won't, I won't throw him under the bus by using his name, but, but my, I was talking to my son's orthopedic surgeon mm-hmm.
Um, because he, you know, was recommending shoulder surgery and, and I was like, you know what, if we did stem cell and his, thank goodness, you know, we've got people like you educating even physicians. His, he literally, he said he could end up growing a tooth in his shoulder. If you and I was like, no, that's,
yeah. So yeah, we've come a long way since then. My son is turning 30 this month, so it, it, this was a while ago, but,
Dr Dan Pardi: okay.
Julie Howton: Yeah. So, so thank you for explaining how that can, does not happen. Just that, you know, um, yeah. It's, it's important for people to understand that you're not just, it's not like a roulette wheel where who knows what kind of cells you're gonna get.
Like, yeah.
Dr Dan Pardi: Yeah. Is isn't that, isn't that interesting that, you know, 'cause as I was learning about this, like how does all of this work where, you know, you have these pools of cells, um, that are in different areas, and by the way, some of the stem cells that do ultimately kind of find their way to a particular tissue.
And we, maybe we should talk a little bit more about that, the kind of high level, what that cycle is too. 'cause that's, that's kind of, that's actually part of what's interesting as well is that, you know, they usually start off themselves in these protected environments called a niche. And the niche is really important to like what we're trying to affect with our product.
Um, in fact. Irena Convoy at uc. Berkeley is somebody that I had interviewed years ago, and she's done some, a lot of really cool work in stem cells. And she says, you know, the amount of stem cells that we have, they don't decline that much with aging. They, they do a little bit, but it's rather that the niche that they sit in becomes, I don't you call it toxic.
It becomes problematic so that they just can't really activate. And so they're there. Uh, and yes, there are some changes and there are, there is some decline, but it, the niche is really important. So, okay, so these stem cells are, they're sitting in their niche, like bone marrow, um, and then they're receiving these signals from their neighbors.
Uh, there's adhesion molecules that keep 'em in place. Soluble factors, all of those keep them quiet. So they're sitting there and they're quiet. Don't, don't, don't bother them bleeding. They're not needed yet. Yeah. Uh, when they are needed for repair or to make new, new cells. Then growth factors like granulocyte colony stimulating factor or GCSF or GM CSF, which is granulocyte, macrophage colony, colony stimulating factor.
Um, those will activate the stem cells. They, so, so mag they're resting, then they're woken up by certain growth factors. And then these enzymes and signaling proteins kind of loosen their grip on the niche so that they can enter circulation. That's all. So now they've been, they go from sleeping to woken up and now they're going to mobilize.
Right. And that's this, this cascade. And they don't just wander aimlessly, but they. Imagine now picture yourself as a stem cell and you've entered into circulation. They follow a scent trail that is made by chemokines, and a really important axis is called the CXCR four SDF one axis. So SDF one is like a beacon.
Um, picture that scene in Jurassic Park, the first one where he was holding the flare to try to get the T-Rex away from him, right? And he was running to try to like save the child. So think of, think of that, that is SDF one that's in the bloodstream. It's a chemo kind. And then, um, CX CXCR four is a receptor on the stem cell.
Alright? So that is helping the, it's helping it find where it needs to go by following this beacon. And once it gets close adhesion molecules like L selectin and integrins. They slow down the stem cell and they help it stick to the, to the vessel walls nearby, and then move into the right tissue. So let's say you damage, you know, your, your ankle.
How do we get new tissue there? And this whole process of waking them up, um, from their nap, getting them into circulation and helping them follow to the right place, that's how it happens, which is completely fascinating to me. Like that we're, yeah. We can do that. It's amazing. Um, and then once inside the tissues, that's where stem cells receive local cues, like the growth factors like I mentioned.
And those can be things like VEGF or NGF that then give further direction, um, to then create that psych, the signaling cascade, which triggers the transcription factors. And then that's where these stem cells will, um, kind of divide and now their daughter cells can move down this narrowing path. Right. So the narrowing path is like, ah, I'm, I'm moving from this undifferentiated cell and I'm becoming something that's more specific.
Um, some, the other daughter cells, like the, the member, the one that, the, the mold of clay mm-hmm. That could become anything. They can actually. Not all of the stem cells will leave the niche. They can remain behind and they can do this self-renewing process to keep the cycle going. And that's limited. But that can, that does happen.
And that actually is what, um, part of the process. So it's not like every time you need a new cell in a particular area of the body, that it has to come from far away that some do remain local and can continue that process for a while. It's indefinite. So you eventually you will need new stem cells from particular pools.
But yeah, that's, uh, that's an interesting way that by that, that where that happens. So, um, hopefully that's, you know, illustrative of like how it's all working. They, you know, they sleep in niches, they're activated, they tr travel along these chemical trails. They settle into the right spot and then local instructions reprogram into them, into the right tissue and it's, it's all tightly choreographed.
So, um, that's, that is basically how they're working,
Julie Howton: which is amazing. And, and. Why we think of them for healing and repair. 'cause that's how we heal and repair. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, so you mentioned that, you know, as we age Yeah. We may lose some of our, you know, we may have less than we had when we were younger.
Yeah. Um, how do we support, you know, optimal health when it comes to stem cells heal and healing and repair, um, to, I, I, I kind of think of like, to, to counteract the, the, what we think of as aging, which we tend to think of as decline, right. And we don't want to decline.
Dr Dan Pardi: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So the broader, you know, the, the idea, uh, of what happens with stem cells as we age is it's, it's called stem cell exhaustion.
That's what we refer to it as. Okay. And it is, it's basically the a, a decline in their ability to self-renew and to generate functional cells. So we have these stem cells, but they just can't do their job. And that does happen as we get older. Um, and this impaired tissue repair, it's why it's considered one of the 15 hallmarks of aging, uh, the hallmarks of aging for the listener, if you've not heard of them, uh, this is some work that was done in the, in between the 2000 tens, 2000 twenties.
It started there to try to catalog what are all the different effects that we see during aging. And a lot of folks will think of them as the causes of aging, but they're probably, uh, I would say proximal consequences. Yeah.
Julie Howton: Yeah. Yeah. Yes. And, um, I will highly encourage listeners to, to James Berger and I had a, we went through the hallmarks of aging.
Mm-hmm. Um, you know, I know that this is like quality's mission in life is, is to support us with all of that. And, and so if you guys wanna deeper dive for sure, check out some of the past episodes on that as well. Yeah. Um, and, but that's, that's why we're here. Right. This is why I have the podcast. You know, I know when I was diagnosed in my early thirties with rheumatoid arthritis, I was told I could not heal.
Like, period. Yeah. That is not healable. Yeah. Not true. Mm-hmm. So, um, mm-hmm. You know, by supporting different SY systems and including, you know, I, I, um. Stem cells were a part of my healing journey as well. Um, and, and so that's why I'm so excited that we're now in a place where we can talk about these things and there are ways for the everyday person to support, um, their own stem cell health and, and their ability to heal.
So,
Dr Dan Pardi: um, yeah. Julie? Yeah. Do, do you, do you mind if I ask how stem cells have played a role in your, in your healing journey?
Julie Howton: Yeah. Um, I was already, I had already made the lifestyle changes. It was already healing. Mm-hmm. Um, and improving and was just fortunate enough to be able to, you know, um, have an, an autologous stem cell treatment.
So my stem cells, so again, I was already, you know, in my forties, um, maybe even. My fifties, probably my late forties. So I was, you know, these were not baby stem cells, these were mine. Um, yeah. And I, I did basically just, I did right back in as iv. Um, and, and it really did just boost, you know, kind of got me past where I, I felt like I, I didn't, I, I won't, looking back, I think I was plateaued.
I don't wanna use the word stuck. I was probably, um, at a little bit of a plateau, and it was just kind of that final mm-hmm. Push. Mm-hmm. Of, and again, they're, they were in there already, right? Yeah. Sleeping, waiting. Um, and, and so, uh, and I did, we did a little, added some exosomes for sign signaling as well.
Yeah. So, um, but, but that's not something even back then that, that was available or affordable for most people. Yeah. Um, and, and so, and what I have learned as I, as I get wiser, is sometimes the day-to-day things that we do have a bigger impact. Um, yes. And so when there's something like a supplement that, that we can take to help the body do what we want it to do, um, uh, to me that's gold.
You know? Yeah,
Dr Dan Pardi: me too. It's, it's one of the reasons I was so interested to join Qualia, um, because, you know, as a scientist I love sharing information about different topics. Uh, but the idea of baking a lot of that wisdom and knowledge into a product that is really easy for a person to take
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Dr Dan Pardi: Just means that more people can access and benefit these, uh, a a lot of really good science and.
Yeah. I always support a healthy lifestyle. Uh, you know, you can think of supplements in like two different ways. You could think of 'em as a crutch that people use and they're gonna continue to smoke and drink and just do, do things that are not helping. Right. Okay. Well, in that particular case, maybe they are still helping.
Julie Howton: Mm-hmm. But I
Dr Dan Pardi: actually think of them more, not like a crutch, but a catalyst because we have more co you know, you're, what it'll promote is convergent behaviors. You're more likely to then, if you're already taking some action mm-hmm. To improve your health, you're more likely to take other actions that support your health too.
Yeah. Standing. Going for a walk, eating the right food, not eating the wrong food, getting to bed a little bit earlier. And, uh, you know, as you know, in truth, um, all of those little things, there are no silver bullets or smoking guns, right? It's really the, the sum total of numerous, uh, many, many different lifestyle factors that come together that create, uh, an environment inside your body that then enables better health to occur.
And supplements, I think, can play a pretty strong role, not only on their own right, but also in facilitating corg behaviors. And so what, Hey, take, take it all, take all that good stuff and yeah,
Julie Howton: I, I am a believer and, and it is, and I am always playing with, do I, you know, does my body still need this? Right?
Is, is, yeah. Um, but. People sometimes are like, oh my gosh, when they see what I take and I'm like, well, I feel amazing. I'm doing things I never imagined. I, I'd actually didn't think I would live past 50 and I'm 56. So to feel how I feel have the life that I have, I'll take that big bag of supplements in the morning.
When I was on the 10 prescriptions, I was almost bedbound. So to me it's, you know, it's a no brainer. Um, so share with us, so, you know, now that we have this, this picture of what stem cells are, you know, their role in the body and kind of how they work. Let's talk a little bit about qua stem cell and, and how incorporating that into your routine can, can support those hallmarks of aging.
Dr Dan Pardi: Yeah. So to start, I, I want to mention a few other areas that are related to stem cell exhaustion because mm-hmm. These are then the areas of opportunity, if you will. Gotcha. Sure. Yeah. So, uh, what are the drivers of the stem cell exhaustion? And a major one is chronic inflammation. Yes. And so when we were talking about all the, the numerous things that you can do, like going to bed on time and eating the right food.
Yeah. All of that. All the stuff that sounds like platitudes and boring, but we, you know, we, we acknowledge it works, but we. It doesn't excite us. An interesting way to think about it.
Julie Howton: It excites me, but
Dr Dan Pardi: yeah. Yeah.
Julie Howton: I'm a nerd. So,
Dr Dan Pardi: yeah, it excites me too, particularly when you uncover the details. So like, eat the Right Diet is a very, you know, as platitudes, but like of course there's so much interesting, interesting wisdom in there.
Um, and the same, it's like, you know, sleep and exercise and how, you know, how you are inhabiting space in the world on a day by day basis. What is your pattern of living? But the important part is that each one of these little areas create an opportunity to create more homeostasis with your inflammation.
And remember, inflammation has a negative connotation, but what we really care about is inflammatory balance because inflammation is playing, uh, critical roles throughout the entire fleet of cells that make you up that are, it's a part of a signaling system that we need.
Julie Howton: Sure.
Dr Dan Pardi: Chronic inflammation means that the best way to think of chronic inflammation is that the typical, the volume of my voice when I'm trying to communicate to you, you can hear it now, but as you get older, it's like going deaf and now I have to talk louder in order for you to hear.
That's chronic inflammation. The signals have to rise in order to try to maintain, um, efficacy in doing their job. Yeah, and we can actually do remarkably well, well into, you know, past our forties, fifties, sixties, even to our seventies and eighties by realigning the body into an environment that's the sleep, the exercise that is going to help to promote.
Inflamma inflammatory balance. So it's super, super important and that is a big goal of what we're trying to do with the product, of course. Um, but then, you know, things like generating too much oxidative stress, uh, all of that stuff ends up, um, creating that situation that I mentioned previously where the stem cells are there, but they just can't be activated.
Yeah. Okay. Yeah, so that's, you can see now, once you understand those mechanisms you have and you are like, okay, now we know what our task is as a company, we're going to try in part to sort of, how do we figure out how to make that niche better? And I could go through, you know, I think it would probably be too much for today, but all these different ways specifically like diet, exercise, sleep, circadian rhythms, temperature exposure, cold and hot sauna, cold exposure.
Um. Light. Light I'm fascinated
Julie Howton: by, yeah. By
Dr Dan Pardi: light.
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Dr Dan Pardi: Yeah. I gave a Ted talk on that. It wasn't specifically, it was more on the circadian effects of light, but red light is a whole other subject, hyperbaric oxygen that's moving more into like the medical therapies. But that essentially what that does is you, you put your body into pressure that is higher than barometric pressure.
So it's like it, they, it's like going under the water. So you, they measure it in what are called atmospheres that has very interesting effects on signaling stem cells to regenerate.
Julie Howton: Um, I used hyperbaric to recover from a significant head injury in 2020. Um, okay. And, and so yeah, I'm a, a believer it's, yeah, it's so, I mean, there's all these things, right?
And we can't all do all of. The things all of the time. But, but yes, like you said, it's the what are you incorporating, you know, but you can, everybody can incorporate sunlight. Everybody can, you know, there are things we can, that are free, that we can all do on a daily basis, um, as just part of our, our wellness routine.
Um, yeah. Yeah. So
Dr Dan Pardi: you, you're right. Um, it is. Overwhelming at times to think about all the things we have to do. Uh, you could think of it as, you know, like you look at some people An
Julie Howton: opportunity.
Dr Dan Pardi: Yeah. An opportunity. You know, look at people like Brian Johnson who's dedicated his entire life to Yeah. Testing and therapies.
And that can put a so much pressure on people that they feel like giving up entirely.
Julie Howton: Yeah. Yeah. No, and, and I really do think, I think a lot of that stuff is fun. You know, I found functional medicine via biohacking, so I, I am, I, I love it. Um, and I love, we have gadgets and, um, all kinds of fun tools, but we don't need those tools in order to create just really good daily routines that support our wellness and, and our inflammatory balance.
So, um, yeah.
Dr Dan Pardi: I have a four panel JoVE red light device in my closet.
Julie Howton: Mm-hmm.
Dr Dan Pardi: Now I could go outside every day and get, uh, an equal amount or more JUULs of red light from the sun. Right. Why do I have this super expensive device in my closet? Because it makes it more practical and more, it makes it easier for me to reliably get that health influence into my life because it's hard to get dressed in the day and then, you know, get undressed in the day, go outside naked, like, right.
Yeah. You could do it. And some people, your neighbors might not like it. They, yeah. They've, they called the cops. It wasn't big deal. It's not great.
Julie Howton: Well, and yeah, anyway, I, there's a, I have a, a friend who lives in Austin who posted somebody getting their sunlight at a, at a park in Austin, just middle of the day.
And I was like, wow, that's, that's hardcore. Um, so
Dr Dan Pardi: that's dedication. That's dedication. Yeah. That's
Julie Howton: something I think it might also be illegal, but it's something so Yeah. Sometimes. Yeah. There's definitely, sometimes the tools help you, you know, it, it just depends on, on, and I know I, I joke when I, I talk with clients and we, I live in Colorado and so it's, so it's much easier for me to help them create their sunlight exposure routine when it's not winter.
Yeah. Um, and then, you know, have to get them to where they're pretty hardcore. Then they're gonna go stand in the snow in the morning and, yeah. Yeah. The tools can be helpful, but again, not necessary. Um, just like somebody doesn't need necessarily IV stem cells to heal. Um, you know, and, and so that is why I love the things, like the supplements that can support Yeah.
Yeah.
Dr Dan Pardi: E exactly. Think of all of these things, including supplements that, like tools that make, uh, acquiring, uh, more natural signals.
Julie Howton: Yeah.
Dr Dan Pardi: Uh, more reliable in your life. That, that full stop, that's where it comes down to. And so we tend to position the, you know, these are magic. Um, and yeah, there is actually some magic to them because when you give the body more a closer magic what it needs,
Julie Howton: yeah.
Dr Dan Pardi: Then it can do remarkably well. So you have, you know, this ex very expensive red light device that seems sophisticated and this tech, you know, the technological, it's just helping the body get something closer to what it would, since we don't really live in nature anymore.
Julie Howton: Right. And that's what this is really all about, right?
Yeah. This circadian like, it, it's modern times is how we've just lost all of these innate. You know, we, we, we didn't need to think about grounding or sunlight or Yeah. Cold exposure, heat, you know, all of these things. Yeah. Um, intermittent, fa, I mean, you name it, if you just think back to how have humans lived for the majority of our time on this planet.
Yeah. It wasn't like this. And so we're just, we were looking to compensate and reconnect with our natural cycles and state.
Dr Dan Pardi: Yeah, that's right. And I, I'll just, I'll say this too, that, uh, every, everyone has the opportunity to calibrate their own health practice to what feels right for them. Yeah. So does that mean you need to do, do take part in absolutely everything?
No, because for a lot of people, as I was alluding to before, that makes people feel like, I, I just can't do any of this. I just don't have the time. Right. Don't worry about that. Just do the things you can do that feel good, shape your own health practice in a way that feels healthy, that feels good, that, that, that fills you up.
And if you can add, there are times where maybe you can't do all of it because of time pressure or money or whatever. And there are times where you can do more, just do your best. Feel good about that.
Julie Howton: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I, I love it.
Dr Dan Pardi: Okay, good. Really good
Julie Howton: advice.
Dr Dan Pardi: Yeah. So to come, go back to the, you know, the stem cell product and how, yeah.
We could, a, a lot of, you know, a lot of formulas focus on a single dimension like mobilization alone, so we talked about that. Right? They're resting in their niche and then they gotta get out into the bloodstream and go find their target. We built stem cells to increase the availability of stem cells, but also to improve how they function once they are active.
Uh, and so that is like really looking at the full cycle of how stem cells operate. And they do operate in cycles. They alternate between active phases of, and then of, you know, of mobilization, uh, the undergoing renewal, self-renewal, uh, differentiation. Um, and so we created this four day protocol that sort of matches the rhythm and prevents exhaustion by balancing activation with rest.
That's not how the body works, which is to constantly pump out new cells. Uh, and so we created the idea behind this product is that you take it for four days in a row. It supports a, a lot of aspects of the stem cell cycle. It does promote mobilization, but it also is gonna help them home Homing is the term that is used to help them find their targets.
Where do you need new tissues? And then to support the whole process of differentiating into healthy, functional tissue. And I think that is why this product is so revolutionary. In fact, in my mind, you could use, you could use this product without ever getting any medical stem cell injections, but if you were to do that, I would especially use this product because we also want to support, you know, think about it, if you get stem cells, so auto autologous stem cells out of your own body mm-hmm.
You can take them, you know, out of bone marrow, out of the iliac crest or outta fat tissue, which in mm-hmm. Increasingly is being used. And then you concentrate them and you put 'em back into the body. Right.
Julie Howton: Right.
Dr Dan Pardi: In a way, part of what our product does is help to mobilize the stem cells that you have. So now you have two situations where you have increased stem cells in the body.
Um, and typically what people will do is they'll put them into the specific area where they have Sure need, or you can do IV and that's gonna, you know, go throughout the whole whole body. And there's some interesting innovations there, particularly with muse cells, which we may or may not be have time to talk about.
But anyway, the science is advancing.
Julie Howton: Yes.
Dr Dan Pardi: But then you would want to support, especially if you're paying for an expensive stem cell therapy, you, you really wanna support maximal efficacy.
Julie Howton: Absolutely. So you can
Dr Dan Pardi: use our product with or without. Uh, you know, getting stem cell injections, um, in fact, so the idea is that you use it once a month, 12 times a year.
Mm-hmm. And then, you know, it actually works really nicely with our, with our lytic product. Uh, and the way that that one works is actually to clear out what are called, like zombie cells. So, seno, uh, lytic cells real quickly, they are cells that have partially died and they're not fully dead. They're using resources and they're spitting out a lot of inflammatory substances over 120 into the surrounding niche.
So remember we talked about, about how inflammation is mm-hmm. A key driver of, uh, stem cell exhaustion? Well, as your body ages, you develop more, um, more and more senescent cells. And the reason why senescent cells, it, it's actually. Uh, adaptive. The reason why senescent cells send out all these signals is to tell the immune system, Hey, there's an issue here.
Julie Howton: Yeah,
Dr Dan Pardi: send molecules to clear it all out. But as we undergo thymic evolution or immune system decay and ages, we have, we develop immunosenescence. The immune system is not as good as it was before at doing its job.
Julie Howton: Yeah. Okay. So, and I, I would offer for listeners that we, for check out episode 63, um, on lytic and, and zombie cells.
Uh, James did an amazing job of giving us a, a deeper dive as to like, why that is so important to help clear those cells out. Um, and I love that the two products are, not only are they synergistic, uh, it makes perfect sense, right? You wanna get rid of those zombie cells and support the, the stem cells. But I also love that neither one of those products are, are daily.
Like yeah, they're, you know, um, how, how is, and then I will circle back to, to quaia stem cell, but how, so Quaia stem cell is four days. Yep. How, how do you use, if you're using both products, which I am, so I wanna know. Yeah. What's the best way As far as when, like, I take lytic the, the first of the month just so I remembered it.
You know, I have a time, right. So I remember. Um, that's my routine with that one. Is there an optimal, like how far apart to take them, when to take them?
Dr Dan Pardi: Yeah. We have, uh, theory on how to do that now based off of what we know about the science of the individual products and how they work and some of the pharmacokinetics of.
Debris, clearance, et cetera. Uh, but we also are gonna put this to the test. So we're in the ideation stage at the moment to look how to combined, uh, for a study to combine our products. Uh, so the latest thinking in general is that once a month
Julie Howton: mm-hmm. You
Dr Dan Pardi: would use the two day lytic product. Mm-hmm. So it comes in a package.
There's one day, two days. It's a combination of a variety of different compounds that tell a zombie cell to actually die. Yeah. That's what you want. And that helps to clear out. And these are natural compounds like flavonoids. And so what you do is you look at different vulnerabilities of those cells, you target them, and you create synthetic lethality.
So you're actually doing it with multiple mechanisms and it causes them to go into apoptosis, apoptosis, or cell death. And then the debris can be cleared, but. For a period of time, at least 24 hours, you're gonna actually see some more damage, uh, markers. So the idea is that you do two days of the lytic product and then wait at least one day, and then you do four days of stem cell, and that's gonna promote renewal.
Okay. Um, Greg on our team, who is our chief product Formulator Yep. Uh, chief Product Officer, he is, he, he also is doubling his dose of our NAD product during the four days of ah. Okay. And then going back to his, the normal, um, the normal dose and, uh, for the rest of the month. So that product is something that you take every day.
NAD, right? And then these other two products, lytic and stem cells, those you take once a month and ideally you would take 'em in this fashion, okay. Where you do sly first, then stem cells. And that is a very advanced, um, health span augmentation protocol. And I'll, I'll say this, that because the hallmarks of aging are numerous and distributed, you know, there isn't a single source of aging in the body that all future product, all future solutions will be multi-pronged.
Sure. You'll, you'll be using different products at different times to do different things. And so, you know, the most advanced right now from us is. What I just mentioned. Yeah. So those three products take in that sequence.
Julie Howton: Yeah. Which is amazing. Thank you. That was, it was a little selfish of me. I wanted to make sure I was doing it right.
Oh, yeah. Um, yeah. Which I, I, I think is, is amazing. So que stem cell is, is you're pre-sales right now, right? It's not totally available.
Dr Dan Pardi: That's right.
Julie Howton: Um, but by the time this airs, hopefully it'll be, it'll, it'll, it'll be coming. Um, yes. And I, I wanna highlight because I, I, again, I'm such a fan of the company and the products and the humans in the company.
Um, I, if you are on the beginning of your healing journey, and you haven't even started with the other things we were talking about, diet, sleep, sunlight, and, and, and lifestyle stuff. This is not. Going to, you know, if you're in the fast food line every day, this isn't where you start. I would say, um, yeah, I, I am certainly not gonna hurt anybody for sure.
But I mean, I, I, I think, again, as we up level and, and which happens on, on healing journeys, right? First we just wanna feel better and then it's like, oh, and now I wanna feel better, better, best. Um, yeah. And so, yeah, I, I'm not discouraging anybody from, from, but it's not a step one in improving health, um, because in my mind then it is still an uphill battle inside your body if you're not doing other things to help reduce that chronic inflammation.
Dr Dan Pardi: Yeah. And, and what I would say is that you don't have to feel like you, you're, you have to do everything right. That this can fit in and it also can promote convergent behaviors.
Julie Howton: Mm-hmm. But
Dr Dan Pardi: if you're simply, you know, frankly looking for something to serve magic as like a, a vaccination against bad diet, um, then that's going to probably get less results.
Yeah. Um, but still could be beneficial. But you know, that's, you always want to try to line 'em up and just do, do what you can. Right? Yeah. If you're traveling a lot and it's hard to eat right. Just, just do your best and, um. Well, and those
Julie Howton: are the times too. That's like, okay, then maybe you are, you know, up leveling your supplements because, you know, I'm always adjust, we're always adjusting Right.
As, as humans and, and life is not the same, thank goodness, day in and day out. And so even those of us that, that have a really dedicated health routine, it it, you're, it needs to shift sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And so, you know, I, I think that's amazing. And so I love this idea. I, I think of like, talk about really simplifying and not being a scientist.
I think of the lytic product is like the broom. Like I wanna get rid of those cells. Yeah. You know, and, um, you guys always are ahead of the curve. I feel like, you know, and then there's all these other, nobody, I think nobody does what Quaia does as far as. Really creating these synergistic blends in their pro.
You know, there's, you guys aren't just bringing like an ingredient. I know, I remember when we were talking about magnesium, 'cause I was like, oh my gosh, there's a million magnesium products. You know, I, I'm sure that means you're doing it better. Let's, let's learn about magnesium. So yes, same thing. Um, and, and, and so, you know, I'm super excited for, for the stem cell product to, to be widely available for everybody.
Um, yeah, me
Dr Dan Pardi: too.
Julie Howton: And, and where can, where's the best place? I know listeners are gonna get a discount using Code JM Coach, um, but where is the best place to A, find out more about the product B, get the product.
Dr Dan Pardi: Yeah, so I would, you know, go, go to our website, quality of life.com. You can find the product there and then.
You can set up a subscription where you receive it at a particular time every month. What I would also suggest people do is in their calendar, put in a recurring event
Julie Howton: Yep.
Dr Dan Pardi: For when they take lytic. Um, so then they're gonna get it in the mail. They're gonna put, they know that Saturday and Sunday, uh, the second Saturday, Sunday of the month, they're going to take lytic and then put stem cells into their calendar for Tuesday through Friday, and then have that be recurring so that it's, it's on your calendar as you see it.
That simple trick makes a huge difference. Um, absolutely. And what's nice about subscription is that you're just gonna get it in the mail. You don't have to go and reorder, I forgot to order it this month. Now I'm behind. All, all of those little things. Yeah. Those little details completely can throw you off and get you out of your routine.
You're trying to create a simple routine where you get it and then you know when to take it and it's gonna happen each month and that's how you're gonna really benefit from it. Um, I'll say one other thing is that because stem cells are influencing hematopoietic stem cells, which not only affect, uh, various markers of, you know, blood cells, but also your immune system.
Mm-hmm. You would imagine, and there is preclinical evidence for this, for some of the ingredients that we use, that your body is going to get better at clearing out senescent cells. Right. If you use this routine. So you are truly. You know, theoretically elevating your health span, which is the extension of higher level of health, longer into the lifespan.
And that's exactly what we're looking for. We're not curing aging, we're not looking to live to 190 years old, but we are looking to feel younger, much deeper into our life, into our actual lifespan for whatever that is. So that is the strategy that I follow, which is why I feel really good about promoting it and to others and like the rationale for why.
But you can now see how all of these products are actually, um, reinforcing the other ones. Right? And they all are playing a really important role '
Julie Howton: cause we're integrated humans and you guys are, are looking at us as such and not just, you know, picking an organ system and, and targeting that one. And, and so yeah.
Um, uh, so amazing. Dan, we're at the point where listeners are leaning in 'cause they know I'm gonna ask you for one step that they can take starting today. Okay. To support that health span. Could be anything. You could have already said it. Anything.
Dr Dan Pardi: Yeah. Sure. Uh, so let's see. The first thing that comes to mind, um, I will say, we mentioned this multiple times, there isn't a silver bullet.
Find something that you love that a lot, a lot of health behaviors are reinforcing, which means that when you do them, you want to do more of them. When you start to eat better, if you give it a couple of weeks, your taste buds change. My, your composition of your bacteria and your gut can change and it can reinforce, it can make that food taste even better than before.
Right? Um, when you walk, you know, I have maintained over 10,000 step average per day for the last 12 years. I'm super proud of that. Yeah. Uh, I just, it's, and it's also my mental health routine, getting out there and going for a walk. So allow your own ambition to shape your behavior. Like prioritize it, like try walking.
If you don't wanna do 10, if you can't do 10,000 steps, don't let that get in the way of you going from five to 6,000 steps.
Julie Howton: Right,
Dr Dan Pardi: right. Because you can almost imagine that the value of the steps doesn't start at 10,000. It actually each, each step you take gets less important. Is that weird?
Julie Howton: Right. Yeah.
Dr Dan Pardi: Because when you go from, let's say 2000 steps a day to 4,000 steps a day, enormous, the steepest benefit that you can occur. Yeah. So find your goals, have fun with them. Let them Yeah. You know, fill your life and then, you know, keep learning. Um, it's a lifetime challenge that we have and it's a life, and the more that you lean into it, the easier and more fun it becomes.
Make it fun.
Julie Howton: Yeah. I love that because, because if it's fun, you'll keep doing it. And like you said, then it, you get into this loop where it's then it's reinforcing itself and then you're looking for the next thing, or you're adding more steps. Yeah. Or you're, um, so I love that, and I can't encourage listeners enough like, go to kuia life.com and, and get the subscription set up.
And again, such great advice to just set the recurring reminders, um, because just take the, the, the band like get your bandwidth back. Then you don't have to think about it and, oh, did I, you know, and when am I gonna take it? Am I just make it easy?
Dr Dan Pardi: Um, make it easy
Julie Howton: and, and, and then make it fun. So I love that.
Yeah.
Dr Dan Pardi: Make it easy, make it fun. I like that. It's become a new, new catchphrase. There you go.
Julie Howton: Dan, thank you so much for your time, your expertise, your sharing, your, your knowledge with us. I know you had a lot more you could have shared. Um, and we'll let listeners chew on this one and then hopefully we'll get you back in for another conversation.
Dr Dan Pardi: Oh, I'd love that. Yeah. I mean, each one of these subjects you could go on for, uh, you know, hours and hours. Yeah. If not days. Um, but hopefully people picked up some valuable tips.
Julie Howton: Oh, for sure. Yeah.
Dr Dan Pardi: Deeper understanding and, and even some clear ideas about how to take advantage of this cool science.
Julie Howton: Amazing.
For everyone listening, remember, you can get the transcripts and show notes by Visiting Inspired Living Show. Hope you had a great time and enjoyed this episode as much as I did. I'll see you next week.
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My Guest For This Episode
My Guest For This Episode
Connect with Dan Pardi
Dan Pardi
Dr. Dan Pardi is the Chief Health Officer at Qualia Life Sciences, where he leads health education, protocol design, and health-improvement strategies. His work centers on translating cutting-edge science into actionable information and programs that support healthspan optimization and peak performance.
Previously, Dan founded humanOS.me, a digital health platform developed with over 100 health-science professors. Its podcast, humanOS Radio, became the official podcast of the Sleep Research Society and a content partner of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging. He also served as Chief Health Architect at Restore Hyper Wellness, where he led new product strategy and served as key authority for intervention sciences.
Through Vivendi Health, Dan provides bespoke consulting to individuals and organizations facing unique health challenges. He holds a PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience from Leiden University and Stanford, and a Master’s in Exercise Physiology from Florida State.
Previously, Dan founded humanOS.me, a digital health platform developed with over 100 health-science professors. Its podcast, humanOS Radio, became the official podcast of the Sleep Research Society and a content partner of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging. He also served as Chief Health Architect at Restore Hyper Wellness, where he led new product strategy and served as key authority for intervention sciences.
Through Vivendi Health, Dan provides bespoke consulting to individuals and organizations facing unique health challenges. He holds a PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience from Leiden University and Stanford, and a Master’s in Exercise Physiology from Florida State.
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