4.6 • 7.3K Ratings
🗓️ 9 April 2019
⏱️ 49 minutes
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In this episode of Bulletproof Radio, Dave talks with neurosurgeon Dr. Marcella Madera about innovations in the field of integrative, regenerative spine care, and how she’s using stem cells in her treatments. She’s currently one of the only spine surgeons in the country to offer stem cell treatments using a patient’s own harvested cells to promote healing.
Listeners may remember that she was the third set of six hands during Dave’s whole-body stem cell makeover. (For those new to the show, more on that here and here.) In today’s episode, Dr. Marcella describes—in detail—what she did with stem cells along Dave’s spine. She also makes exosomes fun: “They are little nanoparticles full of awesome, regenerative juice,” she says.
Understanding and treating spinal disease is the focus of Dr. Marcella’s professional medical practice. She approaches that work by combining surgical and holistic perspectives. Her expertise comes from rigorous training and background, including a Johns Hopkins fellowship, as well as extensive travel throughout Europe and the U.S. to learn progressive techniques and regenerative medicine practices.
Today’s conversation also pivots into preparing patients for surgery and caring for them afterward in ways that are unconventional, and this is where Dr. Marcella’s integrative approach really shines. She addresses sleep, inflammation, nutrition, movement, stress management, and energy modalities for pain management—not just the nitty gritty of the surgical procedure.
You’ll be captivated by Dr. Marcella’s viewpoint: “We're on the verge in the next 20-50 years of having a totally different understanding of the biology of the body,” she says. “I think that's where we're going—figuring out how to use external energy plus regenerative medicine together.”
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0:00.0 | You're listening to Bulletproof Radio with Dave Asprey. |
0:16.3 | Today's cool fact of the day is that signs of new nerve cells have been spotted in adult |
0:21.3 | brains. |
0:22.3 | I like to say brains like that because it's like pinky in the brain. |
0:25.2 | You know what I'm talking about. |
0:26.5 | Now a tweef laboratory protocol revealed signs of thousands of newborn nerve cells |
0:32.0 | in the brains of adults, including someone who was a hundred. |
0:37.7 | And those immature neurons mark the latest data points in this debate that's lasted for |
0:41.8 | decades over whether people's brains develop new nerve cells as adults. |
0:46.6 | And that process is called neurogenesis. |
0:49.0 | Happens with the brains of some animals and scientists have been a bit divided over |
0:52.0 | whether human brains as adults are capable of this thing. |
0:56.6 | And what these researchers did that must have been great fun was they sliced or they viewed |
1:00.6 | slices of post-bored and brains of 13 formerly healthy people aged 43 to 87 under a microscope |
1:07.8 | and saw these newborn nerve cells. |
1:10.7 | And they were part of the hippocampus called the dentate tyros, a suspected hot spot |
1:15.6 | for these new neurons. |
1:18.4 | That's kind of cool because they used some new procedures where they did really fresh |
1:22.6 | brains and they soaked them only for a little while in chemicals that preserve the tissues |
1:28.1 | so they're able to see more than they normally do. |
1:30.8 | And that's really cool because well, it looks like we really can make new cells in our |
1:36.2 | brains. |
... |
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