Transcript
Speaker: It's sort of this this slow allowance of autonomy over time as they earn it, but they have to develop it. We have to help them develop it by shedding good examples and turning our own screens off and maybe turn off the Wi-Fi in the house at certain times to help reduce the EMFs. You know, it'd be nice. They're off. You can look at it, but there's nothing going on there. You know, turn it off. The screen's not good for your stimulation of your brain. We need to have that downtime.
Speaker: Welcome to the Positively Healthy Mom podcast, where positive parenting meets wellbeing. I'm your host, Laura Onger, teen life coach and founder of Positively Healthy Coaching. Today, I'm super excited to introduce you to Dr. Jeff Gross, who is a board certified neurological surgeon with degrees from UC Berkeley and George Washington University School of Medicine. He has two decades of treating spine and athletic injuries in the operating room, and he has founded ReCelebrate, which I'm super excited to learn more about, which is a regenerative medicine practice focused on helping the body heal so that surgery becomes a last resort. And so welcome to the show, Dr. Jeff. Thanks for coming today.
Speaker: Thank you so much for having me. I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, yeah. So let's start with that, right? Like I have ah four teenagers. um Two of my boys are football players. My girls are athletic on the tennis court, volleyball court, other kind of, they actually my oldest loves to power lift. um She's super buff for her little tiny frame. And so let's start there. Like a kid, a teenager has an injury. um It used to be kind of, it's like, oh, we need surgery. Right. Like how has this evolved where um there are other treatment options available like the ones you provide?
Speaker: Yes. Great question. So we obviously we want our teens to be active. We want to set an example so that physical activity and sport of some kind is part of their life because it is something they can learn about longevity and being healthy And the downside is, especially in the competitiveness of sports, maybe using sports as a leapfrog to help get them into college, right?
Speaker: um We get injuries because some of these kids are performing at like the utmost of their ability, their physical ability and the demands on them. You talked about powerlifting, which is a fantastic exercise for muscle maintenance, which is a great, most important longevity organ. Right.
Speaker: but you can get injured. So there are tools short of surgery, short of a lot of drugs and pharmaceuticals like pain medicines and steroid medicines we'd like to avoid if we can because they have always been the go-to.
Speaker: you know, too much Advil being thrown around out there, too much Tylenol. We now have a better understanding of natural cellular signaling that can enhance healing for young people trying to avoid surgery but want to get back into their sport quickly.
Speaker: And that could be through peptides. It could be through biologics like something in the stem cell family. And those are the kind of options we make available to people who want to try to avoid surgery.
Speaker: Yes. Yes. Okay, great. And I do have to say, I have had a stem cell treatment myself. I had terrible tennis elbow years ago. And i mean, he said that was going to be a kind of a painful spot. And I have to say, it was a little bit painful going in on in my little elbow there. um I guess there's not a lot of space. So tell us more about that. Like, what is it actually like? And and how can kids who might be afraid of needles address getting that type of treatment? Yeah.
Speaker: Listen, surgery is a big, scary, open thing. We have smaller surgeries, but now injections are even less invasive. But it does involve a needle. Sorry. So we'll have to you know address that.
Speaker: But you know we can deliver these regenerative biologics usually in a one and done injection. And if it's if it's a big deal, we can do a twilight, although we try not to.
Speaker: um We can use topical numbing agents. But the most important thing is to target the root cause. And that might require an MRI done at the highest quality to understand exactly where that pain or that tennis elbow is coming from.
Speaker: Or a muscle tear, a partial tear, a ligament tear, which are the typical things you see that end up often having surgery, which might not always need surgery.
Speaker: So that's one thing I find so interesting. Like I always, I didn't know tears could kind of heal on their own. And so that's kind of what you're telling us is like, this can help the healing process to happen. Just your body's own way of, um you know, kind of speeding up that process without yeah opening up a body and cutting into it. no Yeah, and these these are natural ways too. and the but The body sometimes needs a little extra to get it done faster.
Speaker: i mean, we see this in professional athletes. Now, professional athletes are a little bit older than teens, but not that much older. You know you take ah a young NFL player, they might be 22, so you know five years older than a teen maybe. But um these are things we can apply to teens with the right informed consent, go over the options, and something worth looking at. Okay. Interesting. Okay. So I was given some peptides because if I have ridiculously terrible arthritis in my thumb. Yes. But this is a big topic amongst teenagers. I'm seeing it in all the mom Facebook groups, moms who are concerned, moms who are asking questions like, I don't know what this is. My teen saw this on TikTok or Instagram and Instagram. They're like getting this information that I don't have. And now the moms are like looking for some reassurance. um So what can you tell us about peptides and what they do and yeah um also what concerns a mom might want to have?
Speaker: Yeah, and I think I've become popular guest on shows like yours because of all the wide array of information on social media. And we have to bring it down where there's some coaching, some clinical guidance for moms, for anyone who wants to look at a peptide. But peptides are small protein fragments that are arranged by amino acid that have some type of signaling capacity to a cell that's natural. These are made by the body.
Speaker: Almost all of them. A couple of them are slightly modified, like the GLP-1 weight loss medicines. um They're slightly modified to last longer. So they have some slight modifications. But most of them can be used strategically when when done cautiously and sourced cautiously. But moms should be aware that these are natural. So to the extent you would give your child chicken soup to get over over the flu,
Speaker: you're really given giving that child some regenerative biologics. You're giving that child stem cells from the chicken marrow, this chicken stock, delivering exosomes to that body's immune system.
Speaker: Colostrum, you might give your child colostrum, right? It's got stem cell derived signaling. ah You might give your child creatine. You heard creatine is a great way to a protein supplement. It helps build muscle and good for the brain. You're giving your child a signaling molecule. Peptides are just more specific biomolecules that signal.
Speaker: Okay. Are there any, I know, obviously, with anything there there might be concern. um One thing I saw, which I am curious, is um because it's like kind of increasing blood flow and increasing like potential, I guess, healing and environment of healing, I saw something about a potential higher risk of cancer. Is that a possibility? Or or what do you, so um how do you respond to that?
Speaker: Yeah, so so currently is's absolutely no evidence that the you know the the peptides I think you're talking about, typically BPC-157, which is body protection compound 157 found in your stomach juice.
Speaker: It's good for the gastrointestinal tract, but also anti-inflammatory and angiomodulatory, meaning it helps develop new blood vessels in an area where you're healing and you need that. It's like bringing in new resources. Right. And TB500, thymusin beta 500, which is from the thymus gland. It's a a synthetic version what we call thymusin beta 4. And that also has synergistic benefits. Those two together, those two peptides, are sometimes referred to as the base of the wolverine stack, which the wolverine is the character that can heal himself. And it is thought, it is not known, but it is thought that if you put that in a cancer environment... where there's already cancer, you may give those tissues and cells a growth benefit. Now, that's not known. In fact, there's some evidence that the it's tissue-specific, and the cancer cells may actually be worse in that environment. may work against them.
Speaker: So that study has not yet been done. We're watching it. So if anyone has active cancer, I would not use these, just out of caution, for now. Right, right. Okay. Well, thank you so much for clearing that up for me because I actually stopped taking mine from my arthritis just because I'm like, I don't know enough about this yet. I mean, my doctor um did prescribe it, but I, you know, as a cautious consumer, just like to know what I'm getting myself into. So thank you for clearing that up for me because personally I was unsure. So are you saying, is there any um age limit that you wouldn't um cross as far as like going down to like tweens or children? Like where do we draw the line?
Speaker: Yeah, that's a great question. I i haven't treated any children. We have teens, athletic teens on GLPs, weight issues, and athletic injuries. Those are probably the two things I might see a teen for, even though there aren't many.
Speaker: And it depends on how how big they are for their age and how injured they are. And if they're not healing by normal means, because the younger they are, the more likely they'll heal naturally. Because again, these are naturally occurring biomolecules in the body We're just giving a little extra in a specific area potentially or systemic. Okay.
Speaker: And the next topic is just affordability for some of these treatments because I don't believe that insurance covers some of these things um as far as the stem cell. What is your advice? I mean, obviously a surgery is going to be extremely expensive as well, whether you have um insurance or not. So how would you advise a mom who is doing her research? And maybe, you know, you could tell us the location of your clinics in case anybody's in the vicinity, they could get there. But, you know, i have listeners literally all over the world, so um that might not be as feasible for them. So how would a person, A, afford this and B, find a reputable provider?
Speaker: Great questions. um So, you know, do your homework always, get second opinions always um when you're looking at something cutting edge. Speak to more than one doctor and and see who you, you know, jive with best. It could be a personality match.
Speaker: Just so happens, you know, that that's a thing. So um like any relationship, right? Yeah. So as in terms of affordability, most peptides, most, not all, most peptides are looking at $100 or $200 a month. And and again, for for teens, if we're using them, it's going to be probably something short-term.
Speaker: The only alternative I can see to that is if they have a chronic inflammatory disease ah that they might need some help with, might use as an adjunct some anti-inflammatory peptides to help their body fight that, help their body heal.
Speaker: okay So i would say generally you're looking at a short-term cost. If you do have a health savings account or flexible spending account, you can always use those.
Speaker: But you're right. Most health insurers are in it for their profit, not your recovery. So you have to look at that. Surgeries are more expensive, but they're often covered minus whatever copay or percentage you have. So it's sort of ah you have to weigh those things. Yes. Yeah. And I can say with, again, for athletes in my own family, I'm always kind of like figuring out like what's the best way to get treated, what makes sense, just affordability wise, but also their recovery. Like my son, his first football game is this week.
Speaker: He has a minor hamstring strain. We're trying to get him recovered as quickly as possible. And so it's just like one of these things where we don't want to force him into it, where he's out for a you know, a few more games, we want to get them recovered. And it's just always like, as far as just being a consumer, being a mom, having to make all these like little decisions that end up to be something big. So any like advice for moms who are just trying to like navigate, like how to manage your athlete's body and helping them stay healthy? Yeah, well, I mean, a lot of these young people aren't doing anything for flexibility, right? You have to maintain flexibility. And it's even more so with us old people. So, you know, we we want to be strong, have muscles, movement, exercise, all that, cardio. But we have to include that flexibility piece. And the earlier you start, the better you can maintain it. So I would say...
Speaker: a recovery, restorative yoga class at the end of the week or twice a week or some home stretches and and really sit in that stretch for three minutes. This isn't just a, you know, the old, the old you know, pull it this way, pull it that way. Okay, I'm loosened up. Let's go. yeah that Like in the nineteen seventy s no it's not like that.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. And it's funny because even I can see my kids' different personalities. The one I'm referring to, he's a little more more like, let's get it done. You know, I got it. I got things to do. And my older son, he he does take his time more, right? And he's using his foam roller and he's doing different things and he has this whole process. And so what else is a way that we can support kind of an optimal environment for our athletes to just, again, have that recovery time? You're saying make sure they have flexibility. What else can we do?
Speaker: Well, you've got hydration, you've got you've got nutrition, protein, protein, protein. We've got good protein, hopefully. Maybe we stimulate the autonomic nervous system. They call vagal stimulation. you know Maybe they listen to very relaxing music. they all have Kids all have these fancy headphones now that we never had.
Speaker: So they learn to chill. screens off, chill, you know, ah close your eyes, learn some mindfulness, some meditation, listen listen to some kind of music that isn't revving up their system, but slowing down the body and the cells.
Speaker: um Maybe some red light therapy at home, would be good, ah but a good one, a good higher radiance, red near-infrared recovery panel. The mitochondria, the battery of batteries of our cells need that, especially if we're pushing them to the limit every day. you know You know, the right vitamins and supplements that we might not be getting in our food source because our food source is sort of watered down these days to some extent.
Speaker: Okay. Those are all great tips. And I love it because um these are things i share a lot of the times, but coming from like a medical doctor, I'm like, see, I told you, i right? I love to have like the the proof source. um and And sleep is something that I feel like is such a challenge with teenagers. And for example, ah not to rat out our specific team, but my kids have to be on the field or arriving at the locker rooms at about 6 a.m. Yep.
Speaker: yeah Almost most days of the week, um unless say it's a game day or a recovery day. yeah That is hard, right? They're not getting the highest quality sleep. And especially if they are taking, you know, challenging academic classes, yeah kids are getting four, five, six hours of sleep. And we just know that's not enough. So yeah as a medical doctor, like, is there anything you can share about how to make this a priority?
Speaker: Yeah, you got to get into deep sleep sooner. So screens off you know and an hour or more before bedtime, maybe the red light therapy to last 20 minutes before bed, maybe a hot shower just to turn off most of the senses, you know just listen to water, you know dry off, brush your teeth, get into bed and dark room, cold room, learn how to get restorative sleep.
Speaker: you know, early, maybe not listening, not texting on your phone, your friends, but you know, you really have to turn off the EMS and the social media and stuff like that. I'm guilty of it too. But, you know, we sleep better when we put that aside earlier.
Speaker: o Yes. And I could go on a whole tangent about the kids who are drinking energy drinks. um I don't know if you want to chime in on that because that is certainly disrupting their sleep. And what else do you have to say about that? Well, it sounds like you set me up that I have to say they're bad, but I think that, and ah you know, there's a role for nootropics and energy in the morning.
Speaker: and to help get up and get going pre-workout, whatever you want to call it. You know, I might have my cup of coffee or my caffeine to get going, get my brain going. But I know my cutoff is 3 p.m. Okay. Everyone's a little different. So if I have caffeine after 3 p.m., I do not sleep well. And as an adult, of course, i I recommend melatonin not just to go to sleep, but to support deeper restorative sleep and dreams and that kind of thing.
Speaker: So, you know, most kids don't need melatonin, but maybe they do. So you could try a little melatonin supplement at at nighttime, maybe some magnesium, especially using the muscles at nighttime.
Speaker: And then the more data you have, the better you can improve things. So do they wear any health tech, any aura rings or Apple watches? Or I don't mean to show brands, but I have an app on my phone that actually listens to me sleep and can tell me about deep sleep and light sleep and in that kind of thing. So I use that to learn about what affects my sleep so I can then improve it.
Speaker: Hmm. Okay. It's so funny. I'm glad you said that because I kind of gave up on those a while ago because I'm always like, what am I supposed to do with this information? I didn't know how to apply it. Yeah. Yeah. We're supposed to learn from it and do something. But yeah, I mean, you try different things and and I learned about the caffeine that way. And I, you know,
Speaker: other other If I exercise that day, I sleep better. Of course, your kids are exercising every day. so yeah you know, I like to wind down and and I learned that try to turn the TV and the screens off earlier and just get in your head a little bit and listen to yourself. Kids don't do lonely well. They don't, you know, when we were kids, we didn't have all the...
Speaker: you know, the constant something to do. Like we we learned how to be bored for a minute. We hated it, but we learned how to do it. Sit in the car and look out the window on a long drive, you know, or maybe you listen to a Walkman like that. That was the thing, you know. Right, like right.
Speaker: Now they have other, and you may be younger where where you had an iPod, right? So, but right now kids are are constantly having neurological stress because they're always stimulating something neurologically and then the brain needs that rest. That's part of deeper sleep.
Speaker: and we repair and we restore if you get that deeper sleep. Right, right. Yeah, which is just, again, a constant battle because getting into college, right? Because if they if they're not doing a sport, they're doing their homework or, you know, my kids, they're very social. They don't spend a lot. They do video games maybe on the weekends or something, but they're not the ones who are locked down in their rooms in the dark for endless hours at a time. if they're If they're not socializing, they're doing school or they're doing a sport. So I feel pretty confident about that, but that's not the case for everybody. And so I always just love to like remind, remind, remind. And some parents do feel like they've kind of lost that battle because, you know, kind of one of the things I talk about is like,
Speaker: Allowing your team to be autonomous and not controlling them um because they'll just do the opposite. But at the same time, we still have to be in charge. Right. We still have to have some type of a leadership role in our family. And as a leader of, you know, a company or or a medical team.
Speaker: Right. You're there to set the tone. You're there to set the environment and say kind of these are the expectations of the family. um I see you nodding. What are your thoughts? Yeah, I mean, not that I was the most successful at this, but I learned from my mistakes is it's sort of this this slow allowance of autonomy over time as they earn it, but they have to develop it. We have to help them develop it by shedding good examples and turning our own screens off and maybe turn off the Wi-Fi in the house at certain times to help reduce the EMFs and I know there are parental controls, probably the last thing they want on their phones. You know, it'd be nice. They're off. You can look at it, but there's nothing going on there. You know, turn it off. The screen's not good for your stimulation of your brain. We need to have that downtime.
Speaker: Okay, so you've mentioned it a couple times, and I have heard about how our phones give off. and It's electrical, magnetic. you Tell me what yeah EMS stands for and what it does. yeah EMF, electromagnetic field.
Speaker: Okay, field. And some of them are okay. We use them medically and some of them are too high frequency like 5G. And they they stimulate our cells in a way that's supposed to not be healthy, probably at the mitochondrial level.
Speaker: And they certainly increase brain and neuronal activity. So you can't settle. You can't get into that repair restorative state at night. So if if you really struggle, they make devices that you wear the headphones and they have the goggles and it puts you into a...
Speaker: a different brainwave state, you know, if you if you really struggle with that, it's almost a way of saying, hey, put this on because you got to put your phone down. you know, that is something you could look at. Of course, kids want their phone, right? They're socially connected by their phones. That's how they get information and news and what have you. So...
Speaker: Not that the news is always correct or the social media is always correct, but that's how they connect with their friends. But listen, when when we had a phone when I was young, right? You you made your phone calls. It's late in the evening. You're done talking. It's over. a hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. And you there wasn't even really a private spot. It was a big deal when I got a phone in my bedroom. I remember when I was a teenager, I'm like, I finally have my own phone. Yeah. Um, okay. So Dr. Jeff, um, kind of wrapping up here, is there anything that we didn't cover that you find is important as far as moms getting this information is about, cause we did start originally, you know, the idea is healing and, and I love the direction it went because it's, you know, near and dear to my heart to like create these healthy hate um habits and behaviors in a household, just kind of from a holistic perspective. Um, is there anything that I didn't ask you?
Speaker: Well, I'm sure, but I don't know that it we could do do justice to it in a minute or two. But there are options outside of traditional medicine, outside of traditional drugs and surgery. And you know if you're seeking natural biologic ways to try things, peptides, stem cell-derived biologics like exosomes, healing, repair, quicker repair, potentially, most often, ah weight loss, fat loss, muscle gain are all part of ah tools in our toolbox without having to go to, you we'll call the big pharma or big surgery, big implant.
Speaker: Yeah. Thank you so much for your time. And so um we will be putting the link to We Celebrate, obviously in the show notes. Is there any last tidbits you want to give about your clinic or your center?
Speaker: Well, we love to meet new people. So if anyone needs coaching on peptides or a consultation for any reason as a second opinion, looking at a joint or spine or something, or they're offered surgery and they want to talk about alternatives, ah we would love to help you. we can talk and coach from anywhere.
Speaker: um if if it's something we're going to do in person, you have to come visit me in Las Vegas. Yeah. Okay. So that's the time they have to come. But other than that, they can reach you from anywhere. Fantastic. Well, thank you so much, Dr. Jeff. I appreciate it. And I know the moms do too. I certainly got a lot out of this. um So we appreciate you.
Speaker: Thank you so much.
Speaker: When you get a chance, please go to the show notes and click on the link ratethispodcast.com slash TPHmom to give my podcast a rating and review.
Speaker: And if this episode resonates with you, be sure to share it with your mom friends who are going through the same things. Be sure to tune in for next week's conversation. Until then, keep up the good work.
