Plants Can Release Stems Cells For Healing: Which Ones

Christian Drapeau, MSc

It was my real pleasure. Thank you for having me here.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

You and I could have a telephone chat. I think I was in my car, and I dialed you up, and got to know each other a little bit after meeting at a major medical meeting. We spent a lot of time talking about stem cells, but we had a couple of other interviews and stem cells at this summit. We interviewed Dr. Pedro Gonzalez, who uses Wharton’s jelly from the umbilical cord to get mesenchymal stem cells. Those are not the same as what we have in our bone marrow, are they?

Christian Drapeau, MSc

Yes and no? I mean, they’re not coming from the umbilical cord, but in terms of what they are, in terms of stem cells and their potential, they are essentially the same, with the difference that from the umbilical cord, they are younger stem cells, and younger stem cells are traditionally and also scientifically known to be less effective than older stem cells. That’s the main difference.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Right. In our interview with Dr. Gonzales, it was amazing. Everybody should listen to it. But to get therapy with Dr. Gonzalez right now, you have to go to the country of Colombia. It’s not permitted to do what he does in the United States. There are major limitations to the audience listening right now. We also interviewed a cardiac surgeon who has a foundation, and he takes fibroblast skin cells from infants with complex heart disease and he uses these Yamanaka factors into pluripotent stem cells. He then tries to grow hearts and sheets to help these children with complex diseases. That’s another route. But how did it first come upon the idea that our bone marrow, at least our red bone marrow, we’re going to define that in a minute for the audience has that everybody listening right now has stem cells in their bone marrow? Is that true?

Christian Drapeau, MSc

Absolutely. Not only do they, but they would not be alive if they did not.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Why are they there? Why are they not doing much until there’s a need? What might activate the stem cells from our bone marrow to go do some work? 

Christian Drapeau, MSc

An injury. It’s as simple as if you were to say, Why do we have immune cells? Let’s say we discovered immune cells five years ago. Why do we have them? What are they doing? The answer will be, well, there they are since the day you’re born, and if you didn’t have them, you would not be alive today. We just discovered what stem cells in the bone marrow are. What they’re doing, which we did not have a full understanding of before, What this knowledge is telling us is that these stem cells are there from the day we’re born. They are the body’s repair system, and they are triggered any time there is anything that needs to be repaired in the body when there’s an injury. In the background, as we lose cells every day, the job of stem cells is to go in to replace these cells, keeping you healthy as you age.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

An injury could be that you cut your finger, but an injury could be a stroke, a heart attack, or Parkinson’s disease, right?

Christian Drapeau, MSc

The whole gamut from a scratch to a full-on face, a face-to-face accident on the highway to a stroke to a heart attack. At any time, there’s something to repair. That’s what your stem cells are doing.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Now, until I read your book and listened to some of your webinars, I was not focused on the red and yellow marrow in our bones. Why don’t you tell the audience a little bit about that? what happens with age.

Christian Drapeau, MSc

The red marrow is what makes stem cells. We are all born with red marrow in our bones. But very quickly, as we age, red marrow converts into fatty marrow or yellow marrow, which does not make stem cells. When I say very quickly, by age 30, we’ve lost almost 90% of our red marrow. That’s a huge decline in our overall amount of red marrow. That is reflected by a very similar decline in the number of stem cells in circulation. We have about 10% of the number of stem cells in circulation that we added when we were infants. There’s a direct link between how many stem cells we have in circulation and the body’s ability to repair. When we all discover in our thirties that we’re no longer Superman or Wonder Woman, that’s because of the decline in the number of stem cells in circulation.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Does our ability to repair injuries go down with age? Because of the very fact that our marrow is no longer as productive as it was when we were younger?

Christian Drapeau, MSc

Correct. It’s a very normal process. If we look back through our evolutionary history, we evolved over the past 50,000 years with a life expectancy of 30 years of age. We have added 50 years of age up to about 80 years of life expectancy over the past 150 years. But as a biological entity, the body has evolved with a need for only 30 years of powerful ability to repair. that is reflected in the conversion of red marrow into yellow marrow. We historically did not need the ability to repair much past our 30s, so the experience of our lesser ability to repair past 30 comes from that decline in the number of circulating stem cells, which comes from the conversion of red marrow into yellow marrow.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Okay. Lots of people who are watching this Reversing Heart Disease Naturally Summit do that because maybe they have heart disease, maybe they’ve had a heart attack, maybe they’ve injured their brain with a stroke, or even brain trauma. I shouted out to Parkinson’s and other neurologic syndromes, and all of a sudden they’re wondering if they have enough stem cells to repair their bodies. I mean, what did you uncover 25 years ago about natural plant products that have led you on a journey that is now resulting in the first natural stem cell stimulator that people can just take? I got a letter right now about how that journey began.

Christian Drapeau, MSc

I was hired in 1995 to study a plant. You may have heard of it: blue-green algae from Klamath Lake, generally known as AFA, stands for Aphanizomenon flos-aquae. I was hired to study that plant and understand how it works in the body. More specifically, how could it work in the body to lead to so many different kinds of health benefits that had been seen, observed, and reported benefits on liver function, pancreatic function, the heart, and the brain, in so many different aspects? We had no understanding for several years until in 2001, I came across an article whose title was Turning Blood into Brain, and it was, to my knowledge, the first study documenting how stem cells from the bone marrow could go to another tissue, in this case the brain, and become a brain cell. Not only the brain we know does not regenerate. To find that a stem cell could become a brain cell was quite amazing. But to observe that stem cells from the bone marrow, which were known at the time to be only precursors to blood cells, could go to the brain, becoming brain cells, Then I went to the literature and found another study talking about stem cells going to deliver and becoming liver cells, and another one going to the heart and becoming heart cells. 

If stem cells can become the liver, heart, and brain, what I thought at the time, 25 years ago, what if stem cells could also become the pancreas, lungs, skin, and the rest? It’s just a matter of time for scientists to discover that which would mean that stem cells are likely to be the repair system of the body. What if we had a plant that stimulates the release of stem cells? Just a plant that stimulates the immune system? This would be a plant that stimulates the repair system. They were completely far-fetched ideas and hypotheses 20 to 25 years ago. But that’s all that we had for the first time. We had hypotheses to explain the problem that we were looking at. 

We acquired a flow cytometer to be able to count stem cells, and we started to count stem cells in our blood. Take the product and count stem cells an hour or two later. We very quickly discovered that this AFA, this plant, was acting as a stem cell mobilizer or a stem cell releaser, or that within about an hour of consumption, there was an increase of about 25% in the number of circulating stem cells. That’s opened a whole new direction for me to go into this whole field of stem cell research, because my background is brain research, originally.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Just in case the audience isn’t quite keyed in, there is a lake in Southern Oregon. The lake is Klamath Lake. K-L-A-M-A-T-H. You can walk into a vitamin shop and see bottles that say Klamath Lake Blue Green Algae. You were working with a great company that you and I have mutual respect for. We talked about that on the phone a couple of days ago. You discovered that a chemical in blue-green algae that goes by an abbreviation, AFA, wakes up these dormant stem cells in their bone marrow and puts them into the bloodstream where they can do work because they’re not doing much for us in the bone marrow, right?

Christian Drapeau, MSc

Well, we release them every day. This is a very natural process. We always have stem cells in our bloodstream. What AFA has is that it contains and enables select and blockers that interfere in the system that stem cells use to cling to the bone marrow environment. We triggered their detachment from the bone marrow.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Excellent. For anybody wondering, you can’t just go to Quest Lab or LabCorp and get a blood stem cell level, correct?

Christian Drapeau, MSc

Correct. It’s not yet available. We’re working on a method to be able to quantify stem cells in a way that is quicker and cheaper than what is available right now. But right now, a flow cytometer is a machine that is essentially utilized in cancer treatment and cancer research.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

I want to ask about some of the other plants that you discovered that also shake up that bone marrow. They put bone marrow and stem cells into our blood—endogenous stem cell mobilization, as you call it. But you talk often about a couple of other things that might also release stem cells into the blood that people could do, but they’re not as easy as necessarily taking a science-proven supplement. What are a couple of other things that are known to mobilize stem cells in humans?

Christian Drapeau, MSc

Very intense physical activity, like running a marathon. I believe I did see work documenting that half a marathon is not enough. Just to give you an idea, we’re talking about very significant and severe, intense physical activity that will put more stem cells in circulation. I believe that the mechanism of action is just that intense physical activity triggers a lot of micro lesions, micro tears, and tissues, which are micro injuries so they essentially trigger the repair system and the repair process in the body. However severe, intense activity will put more stem cells in circulation, and fasting for more than three days will also put more stem cells in circulation. There might be other things, but as far as I know, this is the only kind of activity that we can do or things that we can do to put more stem cells in circulation.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

All right. So extreme, that most people listening are probably not going to complete a marathon this year. They’re also not going to get a bonus of stem cells daily. Even most people listening are probably not going to complete a three-day fast right now. Although we have interviewed people from the L-Nutra Prolon Fasting Mimicking Diet group, Dr. William Sue, who’s one of the people on this summit and their very first publication, showed that the five-day fasting-mimicking diet did increase stem cell metabolism. That consists of what you just said. 

You found that blue green algae from Klamath Lake in southern Oregon, which contains AFA, and you identified the mechanism. You set it up quickly. But through the mechanism by which stem cells are no longer trapped in the marrow and are released, what about Sea Buckthorn and berry extract? How did you come across that?

Christian Drapeau, MSc

Well, the moment we documented the role of this blue-green algae, it was clear to me that we evolved in symbiosis with the environment. We need to understand and think about the repair system. Stem cells—just think about the immune system, the cardiovascular system, or the nervous system. There are many plants you want to support in your nervous system. Caffeine, for example, is one such molecule. Some plants will affect the repair system. How do we find them? To me, the question was simple: let’s go back and look at the plants that have been documented historically to be associated with a broad variety of health benefits. That means that’s probably a plant that works essentially at the core by releasing stem cells. When you release stem cells, stem cells will go into the pancreas of the diabetic, the heart of the heart patient, the lung of the emphysema patient, and so on. These plants should be associated with many kinds of benefits. 

As I started to look at these plants, sometimes they’re known, sometimes they’re less known. But one that I quickly came across was Sea buckthorn berry, which is very utilized in Mongolian medicine, Tibetan medicine, and Chinese medicine for a disease of the lung, lung cancer, disease of the heart, cardiovascular problems, diabetes, liver issues, digestive issues, and to help accelerate the repair of injuries from burn or bone fracture. When you look at the spread of the benefits, the thought is that maybe this plant works by stimulating stem cell release. I went into the Tibetan plateau, met with a form that is harvesting these berries derived from an extract from Sea buckthorn berry, tested it in the lab, and we saw a very significant increase in the number of circulating stem cells within about two or three hours after consumption. That is another ingredient.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Then you identified that there was an Aloe called Stemaloe, or Macroclada. That’s another plant. That’s plant number three. That had a huge impact on releasing stem cells in the bone marrow, right?

Christian Drapeau, MSc

Yes. That’s probably the coolest plant if I can say so because it was associated with a pretty extensive project. It’s an aloe that is used. It comes from Madagascar. It’s the only place where, I wouldn’t say, it exists, but where it grows in quantity and where it is utilized. In Madagascar, they have this product called Vahona, which has been used for centuries, Vahona is used for all kinds of health issues, including old age, to continue to be strong and healthy as people in their 60s, 70s, and 80s are working in the field. I had a chance to get some of these Vahona, they are little black pellets. At the time, I did not even know what it was. I was given these black pellets, and I was told what they were doing in Madagascar. We consumed them. We tested our stem cells, and we saw the strongest response that we have seen so far. As we started to dig into this product, we learned that it was this very specific, species of aloe called Aloe Macroclada in Madagascar, but it does not exist in the marketplace. We had to develop a co-op of harvesters. It is a protected species in Madagascar, it can only be harvested by Malagasy people. We have a network of harvesters. We’ve developed a system of collection and production. Now we have that ingredient available. The reason to do all of this is that it is the most potent ingredient that we have studied so far. It is one of the ingredients that we use.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

In case anybody wants to write it down, it is Vahona, V-A-H-O-N-A from Madagascar. Then, without going into great detail, you have a seaweed, a brown seaweed extract, a ginseng extract, and a beta-glucan. You created a supplement that put six powerful elements together, and you brought it out. How long ago did you bring this plant-based stem cell, or at least a powerhouse, out so a person could purchase it?

Christian Drapeau, MSc

The Stemregen was developed in 2016, but it continued to evolve until probably about 2019 as I was testing the product with different colleagues and different markets in Europe and Asia until we finalized the formula that we have today. That formula has been in the United States for about three years.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Okay, very good. I’ll just show people that are wondering and let me make sure that I do this correctly, because sometimes Zoom is a blurry little beast, let me do that. But there is a box called Stemregen, and I know you won’t be able to read it, you have a wonderful audience. But here’s the six ingredients we ran through—three in detail, three just mentioned—and it was capsules in there, and it says to take 2 to 4 a day, and I know that there are instances where people might even take more. I’m sure you take it yourself.

Christian Drapeau, MSc

Of course, every day.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Any observations that you came into this healthy and you’re just doing it to maintain your health?

Christian Drapeau, MSc

I’m doing this just to maintain my health.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Very good. 

Christian Drapeau, MSc

The part that is important to understand here is that while stem cells repair at the same time, they also replace the cells that are being lost. When you do a study where you do an injury and in that in an animal, for example, and then they look at how stem cells released from the bone marrow go into that injury. If they keep some of these animals alive for several months later, you realize that stem cells from the bone marrow have gone everywhere in the body, predominantly in the short amount of time after the injury. But outside of that, over time, they go everywhere in the body just to constantly replace the cells that are being lost. Studies in animals and also observations in humans tell us that we have, and these are just approximations here, a new liver every two or three years, a new skin every month, and half a new heart every 25 years. This idea that we mature when we are kids and then we are left with the heart that we have, study is clear right now. The heart itself continues to renew itself during the entire life of an individual. But if we have lost 90% of our stem cells by age 30, there’s a point in our lives where we lose that balance. Taking it every day as a healthy person is just to make sure that I give my body every day. This ability to fully renew every day as I age.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Now, a lot of the audience favors a plant-based approach to life just because of the nature of our topic. Dr. Joel Fuhrman and myself are both plant based and I always love a supplement that’s not in a gelatin capsule because gelatin generally comes from beef or pork. This is in a vegetarian capsule. Vegan. I thank you for doing that, Plus, of course, the actual contents are six plant-derived substances. Is anybody wondering is available? What is the website that one would go to read about?

Christian Drapeau, MSc

Stemregen.co

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Dot co. Not dot com. Dot co.

Christian Drapeau, MSc

That’s correct.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Very good. Just to shout out, maybe somebody is intrigued and will go to study your Web site because of what we’ve discussed. But maybe somebody is in optimal health. What would be two, three, or four examples of an ideal candidate to add Stemregen.co to their program?

Christian Drapeau, MSc

I mean, given what we’ve talked about so far in this short exchange, understanding that any time is okay, let me put it this way. What causes diabetes is not having enough cells to make insulin. If your pancreas renews every 4 to 6 years but is past age 30, you don’t have enough stem cells to fully replace them. The cells are being lost in a person’s condition. The pancreas is more stressed. That’s where the problem shows up. In the same way, that’s where the problem can show up in the heart. In a person with a series of risk factors—genetics, whatever—the whole package of what a person is, maybe the heart is the weak spot. These are the organs that will suffer the most from a deficiency in stem cells, or this decline in the number of circulating stem cells. Putting more stem cells in circulation just gives more stem cells be ability to go and do what stem cells do, which is to repair all these different organs and tissues. 

We have a study now on congestive heart failure. We have one that we’re starting in Parkinson’s. We have a series of studies starting on colitis and different kinds of conditions in humans and animals to be able to document mechanisms and mechanisms of action. But essentially, the answer is that anything that’s broken has been repaired since the day you were born with stem cells. When we put more in circulation, we just enhance the ability of the body to repair. It could be about anything that’s broken.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Okay. A lot of people have bad hips, bad backs, bad shoulders, and bad joints. That’s certainly common, even though that’s not the focus of our summarizing here. But I think people are intrigued. I’ve also just wanted to give it a shout-out. You’re very creative on social media. Is that predominantly Instagram, where you’ve been posting?

Christian Drapeau, MSc

Both Instagram and TikTok. I’ve been doing quite a bit of video on both. 

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

I’m not a. 

Christian Drapeau, MSc

I’m starting. I’m not a social media aficionado either. But I’m starting to do it.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

I’m absent from TikTok, but where on Instagram can people find you? What are the names?

Christian Drapeau, MSc

@stemcellchristian, I just thought that most people would not spell Drapeau correctly. So, @stemcellchristian 

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Very good. I think the company also has an Instagram. 

Christian Drapeau, MSc

Correct. Stemregen.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Christian, don’t go anywhere. We’re going to come back and talk a little bit more. I just want to thank you for your expertise. I think one of the most exciting topics of a 25-year journey is a classic story. Overnight success to come up with something. But when you read your book and study what you’ve done from Klamath Lake to now, it’s not been a simple goal. I hope it blows up and is very successful for you because you put a lot of energy into it. 

We’ll be right back and ask a few more questions. We’ll say goodbye to our general audience. Thank you. A few more moments with our premium members.

Christian Drapeau, MSc

Thank you so much.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

All right. We’re back with Christian Drapeau. That’s going to chat a little bit more, as we’ve been studying this fascinating topic about Endogenous Stem Cell Mobilization. That’s a mouthful for most people, but releasing stem cells from your bone marrow more than would have occurred and using plants to stimulate it. But absolutely. You’re sure it’s not a t-bone steak that stimulates or something like that.

Christian Drapeau, MSc

I’ve been tried.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

I got another piece of ammunition there to debate my carnivore and paleo, as we’re always discussing. But you, right at the end of our general discussion a moment ago, you brought up, and I don’t want you to go where it’s uncomfortable, but you brought up congestive heart failure, and I brought up clinical trials that you’re working with clinicians and medical doctors and the like to at least test the waters that we can measure improvement in congestive heart failure, which is a serious disorder. Usually, with a weakened heart, typically from a heart attack, it’s something else. What might you hope to see using the Stemregen in the six plant-based stem cell releasing factors in a patient with congestive heart failure? What would be the ideal kind of measurement response?

Christian Drapeau, MSc

Well, the reason we’re doing that study on congestive heart failure is that it’s a blend of different things. Number one, it’s just the number of times where we have had reports of people getting benefits from these kinds of conditions with the heart. In 2012, we published the case of one individual with a series of heart attacks and an ejection fraction of 13%. I’m sure you don’t want to live, and you don’t live very well with an ejection fraction of 13%. He was put on a heart transplant list, and within a matter of just a month or two of taking a product that I had back then, he was removed from the heart transplant list because his heart was essentially normal for a 65-year-old. 

We have had a number of these cases over the years. There are cases where, quite frankly, if I had been asked before in the early days when I started this whole journey with plant-based stem cell mobilizers, I would not have picked up those kinds of conditions. These are hard ones to have an impact on, like Parkinson’s or congestive heart failure. But it’s the conditions under which we did have some cases. We wanted to be able to document this and provide some sort of data on the extent of the improvement that we could see. 

We started a study about two years ago on congestive heart failure. It was affected, in part, by the COVID. But in any case, we have restarted that study. It’s ongoing, and we tested the effect of the Stemregen on patients with at least two years of stable, chronic congestive heart failure with an ejection fraction of less than 43. So far in that study, we have had 10 patients go through it right now. Out of these 10, we have 10 of them that have normal cardiac function. After six months, Now they are taking a significant dose, which is two capsules three times a day. That study is ongoing. 

We’re doing another one on Parkinson’s with a very similar protocol, and then we’ll study. We’ll continue with other types of degenerative diseases, but there’s not much to prove. I want to be clear, not to prove that Stemregen is a remedy for congestive heart failure. That’s not the point at all. The point is to show that the Stemregen is a plant-based blend of plants that trigger the release of your stem cells, giving back to your body its innate ability to repair. As an example of what your new stem cells can do, let’s see what they do when we talk about heart repair. When we talk about brain repair in different conditions, the conclusion being to show is to look at the amazing capability of the body’s innate ability to repair. That is the aim of those studies.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Really exciting stuff. Hopefully, we’ll see your study presented and then published in the medical journal. You can take all these incredible concepts of Stemregen and show people that there’s, think of the implications of congestive heart failure and seeing the ejection fraction rise and the need for medication go down, and probably the quality of lights go up and maybe the very quantity of your life go up, too. Very helpful. We just need a little bit more data and all. What about stem cells in general, aging, and any speculation? If you could do a study on aging, what would you find?

Christian Drapeau, MSc

It’s a really good question. My expectation, if we do a study on aging, is that we might not necessarily extend life, although if life is cut short because of the degeneration of an organ, I could see an organ that is essential for life. Then, of course, if you remove that degeneration, you could extend your life. But let’s say we put that aside. I think the main thing that we’re going to achieve with stem cells, at least endogenous mobilization of stem cells, is that we’re going to increase the quality of life within our lifespan for the simple reason that we provide a daily supply of new stem cells that are going to repair their tissues. 

Let me answer differently. This understanding of disease formation is because we lose stem cells, the red marrow converting into yellow marrow, resulting in a decline in the number of stem cells, meaning that there’s a point in our lives where we don’t have enough stem cells to offset the cellular loss. From that point on, we start to develop a deficit, and it is that deficit in some tissues that leads to a view of disease formation based on the decline in the number of stem cells. This is something that I published in 2013 as just a new understanding and new hypotheses. 

In that article, I was saying there’s a way to test if that is true. We can go and count the number of stem cells in people who have developed a whole slew of age-related diseases and compare the number of stem cells in the circulation of these individuals with normal, healthy people of the same age. By now, many of these studies have been published, probably about 50 of them. If you count the number of stem cells in people with erectile dysfunction, atherosclerosis, heart disease, COPD, diabetes, liver failure, kidney failure, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, lupus, and arthritis, the list keeps growing. All these people have, on average, 50% or less than the number of stem cells that you find in a healthy person of the same age. There’s a direct link here. The fact that we don’t have enough stem cells every day is the cause of not repairing and allowing the development of the dysfunction that shows up down the road. 

Now coming back to your question about the role of stem cells in longevity, if every day you put more stem cells in circulation and you add another day in your life where you don’t have that deficit and the tissue is not accumulating a deficit, then the next two, three decades that we have to live our lives with a much higher performance, physiologically speaking, which means a higher quality of life. In that way, I think stem cells can make an enormous difference in the quality of life as we age. But we will have to see if it changes longevity because your red marrow continues to convert into yellow marrow. That will not change. There’s a point where we run out of stem cells today. We don’t experience this as a condition because we normally die of the dysfunction of an organ before we run out of stem cells. But if we maintain organs throughout our lives, we might experience death down the road. So for now, I would say an increase in quality of life.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Well, I think everybody will agree that this has been fascinating. It’s not just theoretical. We’re talking about people who can grab the Stemregen.co and start on the product. It’s not; there are no embryos in here. There’s no stem cell in here. It’s just herbal plants that have been studied and a fascinating 25-year journey from Klamath Lake, Oregon, to worldwide. 

Thank you for your time, and this is an exciting topic. I will say I am taking the product now, and I have it in my clinic. I’m excited. I read your book, I read your website, and I read every YouTube video that you’ve created including this link to your website and the original papers, and it’s super exciting. I hope people understand what a revolution this is in health care. Thank you so much, sir.

Christian Drapeau, MSc

Thank you so much.