Dr. Vass on Stem Cells, Hormones, and Longevity: Here's Why Your Healing Is Failing
The Gabby Reece Show
Dear Media
4.8 • 954 Ratings
🗓️ 4 May 2026
⏱️ 81 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Most people assume the treatment is the problem when it doesn't work.Dr. Vassily Eliopoulos, MD, a Co-Founder & Chief Medical Officer of Longevity Health Clinic, says it's almost never the treatment. It's the body that wasn't ready for it.
In this episode we get into stem cells, hormone panels, lab testing your doctor isn't running, and why so many people never actually feel good, not because the tools don't exist, but because the foundation was never built.
What we explore:
- Why tissue readiness determines whether stem cells and hormone therapy actually work.
- How optimizing your physiology before any treatment is the step most people skip entirely.
- Why the full hormone panel looks almost the same for men and women, and what most doctors get wrong about ordering it.
- How sleep deprivation accumulates over a lifetime and why it is one of the most underestimated drivers of aging.
- How chronic low-grade stress quietly erodes your hormones, your recovery, and your ability to think clearly.
- Why training the parasympathetic nervous system is a skill, not a personality trait, and how to actually build it.
- What morning sunlight and grounding do to your hormones, your circadian rhythm, and your energy for the rest of the day.
- Why most athletes are underfueled, underrecovered, and headed for early injury despite doing everything their sport demands.
- How early sport specialization is creating a generation of athletes whose bodies break down before they peak.
- How physical healing opens the door to deeper personal change, even when people are not looking for it.
- What microdosing psychedelics is showing in clinical practice and why it matters for people who feel stuck despite doing the work.
Chapters
00:00 Intro
05:20 How Stem Cells Actually Work
10:08 Optimizing Your Body Before Any Treatment
15:00 Pleasure vs. Joy and Self-Love
19:22 How to Find Your Real Purpose
29:42 What Really Happens When You Sleep
35:27 His Personal Health Wake-Up Call
41:40 The Lab Tests Your Doctor Skips
53:44 Morning Sunlight and Grounding Basics
58:22 Stress, Cortisol, and Your Nervous System
01:04:22 Hormone Disruptors in Athletes
01:12:39 Psychedelics and Physical Healing
01:18:28 Stem Cells for Skin Regeneration
About Dr. Vass, MD:
Dr. Vassily Eliopoulos, or simply known as Dr. Vass, spent years as an ER physician before walking away from a system he felt was treating symptoms, not people. Today he is the Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer of Longevity Health, where he combines functional, regenerative, and traditional medicine into one integrated approach. His work sits at the intersection of stem cell therapy, hormone optimization, and full-panel diagnostics, built around a simple premise: if the body isn't primed to heal, no treatment will perform the way it should.
Connect with Dr. Vass:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr.vassily/
Website: https://longevityhealth.clinic/
–
The Gabby Reece Show
This is where I have real conversations with the people I find most worth listening to: scientists, athletes, coaches, parents, and thinkers who are doing the hard work of building a life that holds up over time. No hacks. No quick fixes. Just honest, practical conversations about performance, longevity, relationships, and what it actually takes to show up well at every age.
If you are here, you probably already know that health is not a destination. It is how you live. I am glad you are along for it.
Connect with Gabby Reece:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gabbyreece/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@gabbyreeceofficial
Website: https://gabriellereece.com
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | At 56 years old, the only reason I still train and can do all the things is because I have a relationship with my reason. |
| 0:06.4 | And it's my reason. |
| 0:08.0 | What is longevity? What is real health? |
| 0:10.6 | What is real wellness? |
| 0:11.8 | I would argue you cannot get there without asking yourself these deeper questions. |
| 0:16.8 | So many people don't even know what it feels like to kind of feel good. |
| 0:20.5 | How do you get them? |
| 0:21.4 | What's your goal? Why are you here? I'll tell you pain is a fantastic motivator. |
| 0:25.5 | Oh, I know. I've been there. I still even need that reminder from time to time. Like, oh, I'm heading to an injury. I'm paying attention. I'll do the homework. I just did an event. Okay, I just learned this today with 30 women. All kinds of experts. I ran them through a couple workouts. But what I heard is that they wanted me to tell them what to do. I can't tell you what to do. |
| 0:37.9 | I can tell you what I do. I would never have the audacity. And what you realize is sometimes people |
| 0:44.9 | just want to be told, do this, but that's why they never stick to it. Try to get out in the morning. |
| 0:49.6 | Stand there with your coffee and like, go look at the sun. The key thing that most people just |
| 0:55.2 | don't understand. Dr. Voss, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. This is, you know, |
| 1:00.0 | the thing is one thing I love about having |
| 1:09.7 | these conversations is I can, it can always benefit me, right? Like, especially this type of day |
| 1:11.2 | for me is like, I have good practices, but it's really diving and deep and really learning |
| 1:16.4 | about some of the levers that are available to pull, especially hormonally. As we get a little older. Before we get going, maybe you could |
| 1:22.1 | just share a little bit of your background so people know that, you know, you don't work for good |
| 1:31.4 | year and you have a keen interest in hormones. Yeah, I grew up for some reason. I just thought I wanted to be, you know, really, I think |
| 1:36.6 | that the right term is a healer, which, you know, we can get into that, but because medicine |
| 1:47.0 | is not necessarily the answer for the, or the right place even for those kinds of people, |
| 1:54.5 | but that was sort of who I was. |
... |
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