The Future of Healing: Stem Cells, Regeneration, and Longevity with Dr. Dan Pardi of Qualia - Episode 294

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Dr. Dan Pardi is the Chief Health Officer at Qualia Life Sciences, where he leads education to advance healthspan and peak performance. He’s the founder of humanOS.me and host of humanOS Radio, the official podcast of the Sleep Research Society. Dan has advised elite military units, Fortune 500 companies, and startups through his consultancy, Vivendi Health. He holds a PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience from Leiden University and Stanford, and speaks regularly at events like TEDx, VC Firms, and the Institute for Human Machine Cognition.

Think of your body’s repair crew as always on call, rarely on stage. Stem cells sit quietly in protective niches until growth factors wake them, chemokines guide them to damaged tissue, and local signals shape them into exactly what’s needed. We invited Dr. Dan Pardi, Chief Health Officer at Qualia Life Sciences, to break down that invisible choreography—why it weakens with age and how to support it without pushing the system into overdrive.

We start by making stem cells simple: potency tiers, key types like hematopoietic and mesenchymal, and what “exhaustion” really means. Dan explains how inflammation, mitochondrial dysfunction, and epigenetic drift—core hallmarks of aging—distort the niche and blunt self-renewal. From there, we map the full life cycle: quiescence, activation, mobilization, migration, and differentiation guided by ancient pathways like Wnt, Notch, and Sonic Hedgehog. Understanding this sequence clarifies the therapy landscape, from evidence-backed marrow transplants to targeted orthopedic injections, and why unproven IV offerings can be risky.

If you care about healthy aging, joint health, recovery, and evidence-based wellness, this conversation offers a grounded roadmap. We keep the science clear, the hype in check, and the focus on balance—protect, pulse, and let biology do its best work. Subscribe, share with a friend who lifts or runs, and leave a review to help others find the show. What would you most want to regenerate first?

Chapters

• 0:02 Welcome And Show Focus On Midlife Wellness
• 1:28 Introducing Dr. Dan Pardi And Qualia
• 6:46 Why Stem Cells Matter And Types Explained
• 20:53 Therapy Landscape: From Clinics To Risks
• 27:39 Aging, Exhaustion, And Hallmarks Of Aging
• 38:45 The Stem Cell Life Cycle Made Practical
• 51:50 Homeostasis Over Hype: Smart Activation
• 58:40 What Users Might Feel And Research Plan
• 1:05:09 Stacking Senolytics, Stem Cells, And NAD
• 1:09:31 Closing Thoughts And Listener Support

Transcript

Sandy Kruse: 0:02

Hi everyone, it's me, Sandy Kruse of Sandy K Nutrition Health and Lifestyle Queen. For years now, I've been bringing to you conversations about wellness from incredible guests from all over the world. Discover a fresh take on healthy living for midlife and beyond. One that embraces balance and reason. Without letting only science dictate every aspect of our wellness. Join me and my guests as we explore ways that we can age gracefully with in-depth conversations about the thyroid, about hormones, and other alternative wellness options for you and your family. True Wellness Nurtures a healthy body, mind, spirit, and soul. And we cover all of these essential aspects to help you live a balanced, joyful life. Be sure to follow my show, rate it, review it, and share it. Always remember, my friends, balanced living works. Hi everyone, welcome to Sandy K Nutrition Health and Lifestyle Queen. Today with me, I have Dr. Dan Parde, and he is the Chief Health Officer at Qualia Life Sciences. I've had numerous recordings with Qualia Life Sciences, and they're always so engaging. If I remember, I'm gonna put all the links to all of my other recordings with qualia in the show notes. There will also be a discount code Sandy Kay. I think it's Sandy Kay, is the code, but the link will be there. Now, this is a different discussion on stem cells than I've had before. The discussion that I had before was more about stem cell transplants versus stem cell activators. Oh, actually, I did do another show about stem cell activators as well. I find it really fascinating. I find the research really fascinating. This show is gonna have a lot of science in it with Dr. Dan Parde. So buckle up and put your thinking caps on so that you can really, really soak it all in because there's so much information in this episode. Last week was my first shorter episode. I am changing my style a little bit. I am having amazing guests like Dr. Dan, but I'm also doing more of the explorative wellness topics, not to dictate to you what is health and what you must do to be healthy and so on and so forth, but more about how can you think critically about what the health news says for you and if it's applicable for you. Because one thing I have noticed in this space of wellness is there are a lot of opinions and a lot of expert opinions. And it's great. We definitely need experts, there's no question. However, a lot of times it comes to us in a way that seems like it is blanket advice for everyone, which is why I do these more think about it short form podcasts. They also tie in with my Substack. So go find me there if you like to read short explorative essays. It's sandykruse.substack.com. Be sure that you are following me on Instagram. I've been a little quieter there lately, but that's definitely my most active platform. I'm also on TikTok, I'm on threads, I'm on Facebook. I have a private Facebook group as well as a page. I am also on Lemonate. I mean, I'm kind of everywhere, you guys. Just search for Sandy K Nutrition everywhere and follow me there. And now let's cut on through to this amazing interview with Dr. Dan Parti of Qualia. Hi, everyone. Welcome to Sandy K Nutrition, Health and Lifestyle Queen. Today with me, I have a special guest. His name is Dr. Dan Parde. He is the chief health officer at qualia life services, where he leads education to advance health span and peak performance. He's the founder of humanois.me and the host of Human OS Radio, the official podcast of Sleep Research Society. Dan has advised elite military units, Fortune 500 companies and startups through his consultancy, Vivendi Health. He holds a PhD in cognitive neuroscience from Leiden. Leiden University? Did I say that right?

Dr. Dan Pardi: 5:36

Leiden, yeah.

Sandy Kruse: 5:37

Okay, Leiden, thank you. He holds a PhD in cognitive neuroscience from Leiden University and Stanford and speaks regularly at events like TED Talks, VC Firms, and the Institute for Human Machine Cognition. And today our talk is all about stem cells and how this research can change the face of health and wellness as we know it. And most of you guys who have been following me for a while know I think this is maybe my third show on stem cells. As most of you know, I like to always have authentic conversations with integrity. And also things change. I mean, I've been around for a while. So things change. And this is new. I know it's new from Qualia. I'm excited. I've started using it. So I'm really excited to hear about the newest research on stem cell activation. So with that, welcome, Dr. Dan. Thank you.

Dr. Dan Pardi: 6:45

Thank you so much for having me, Sandy. It's great to be here.

Sandy Kruse: 6:48

Yeah. So one of the things, of course, I always like to start with is asking my guests, how did you get here? How did you get into this space? I think it's always important to the conversation.

Dr. Dan Pardi: 7:01

Yeah. Yeah. I love that as a founding question. So I've been interested in health my whole life. And I've tried to pinpoint when that began. Probably when I was younger, I was into sports. I cared about performing my best. And I unfortunately got a couple of injuries early on. And I think that might have been fortuitous in a way, because it started me thinking about my relationship with my body at that time. How do I get back onto the playing field? How do I heal? And from that point on, after I dealt with those injuries, I almost became like the de facto sports performance coach for my entire team, whether it was soccer or basketball. So I was always reading about and researching ways to, you know, improve my performance. And then that led to a very authentic interest in physiology. I went on to pursue a master's in exercise physiology at Florida State. And then I did a variety of things. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I worked in bioinformatics, which is, I was a part of a company called Double Twist, really exciting company in the race to sequence the human genome for before anyone else. So we had, you know, raised $75 million and ended up creating these products that were where we'd work with pharmaceutical companies to help them use genomic data in the drug development process. So it was very technical, very cool work we were doing. Then I went into the pharma business for almost a decade. So I worked in sales for about a year, but my interest was really on the science side. So I ended up becoming the first member of Medical Affairs, which does post-marketing scientific support for products. And that where I worked was in sleep. And that's where my interest in sleep, I knew nothing about sleep. And all of a sudden I was fascinated by it. And so the condition that we were working on was narcolepsy, which is most people think of it as excessive sleepiness, but it is that plus some other symptoms as well. And there wasn't really great medications. And so we were trying to help improve their quality of life and reduce their symptoms. And so for that company, I ran a research grant program. Um, I started an outside organization called ISRA, where I created an executive committee with representatives from big names, and we petitioned the FDA to change um the guidance for how to employ best practices uh in these types of grants. And anyway, so that was great work that really loved it. But working in sleep, I then had my own questions. Like uh so I decided to pursue my PhD. And it was right at the time when quantified self-technologies were coming into the market and the ancestral health movement was taking off. So the idea of the paleo diet. Uh, and so I started my PhD, but I knew that I didn't want to become a lifelong researcher. I knew that I wanted to be working in more of the public health sphere, doing scientific wellness. So I finished my PhD. Um, and by the way, I did it because I also was so curious about like the answering some questions that I had around ecological sleep loss. So if a lot of sleep studies, what they'll do is they'll give you one full night of sleep deprivation to then see how whatever parameter of interest changes in response to no sleep. But what I was more interested in was, well, that's not a that's interesting because you can test the capacity here to, you know, does sleep actually affect this? But what's more practical is what if we just lose a couple of hours here and there? Does things like eating behavior and decision making, do those things change in response to what's much more normal in society? So that's those are the questions that I asked. Uh, and then all the while I had started to create my own behavior model. So I dissected well-known behavior models in the world. And I um then rebuilt my own called the loop model to adopt and sustain health behaviors, presented that at Stanford Medicine X and Health 2.0 and some other conferences, and that became the basis by which I tried to operationalize a health tool called Human OS to then make people smarter, more knowledgeable, wiser about their own health practices. And then that sort of did that for a long while. That's where the podcast came into play. Uh, and I started my podcast back in 2014 because at that time, what I was missing was a direct conversation with the researchers who did their work. A lot of times it was interpreted through a person who was a personality who, you know, um had varying degrees of knowledge in different areas, but was oftentimes a good communicator. And I wanted to go right to the source. So that's why I started my podcast and interviewed over a hundred professors in the health sciences. And it was great. Um, and then uh I grew up in Northern California, moved to Texas in um the early 2020s. I became the chief health officer for a large brand, half a billion dollar brand called Restore Hyperwellness. And we they were democratizing these ideas of like sauna and cryo and compression and red light, all ideas that I think have a lot of potential. And so that was great. Um now, company ended up going in a direction of performance medicine, which I think is really interesting and cool too. But I am firmly more interested in what I call scientific wellness. So that how lifestyle supports our health. Um, and then I joined Qualia less about a month ago, maybe a little bit more now, maybe two. Uh and I've been friends with the company for a long time and I've really admired how they do their job, uh, how they see their responsibility in the space, the products that they make. And they were looking for somebody who would be able to communicate the science around all the products that they're creating and beyond. And it just felt like a really good fit. So now I'm here and I'm the chance to talk with you.

Sandy Kruse: 13:12

Awesome. Wow, you've done a lot, Dan. And, you know, about qualia, I have a long-standing relationship with them and I love their products. And I've been also supporting them for many years. I've had many conversations with other doctors, practitioners within the qualia space. So wow, you've done a lot. I mean, and and you know, even the sleep, you see so much about sleep nowadays. And like almost, you know, if you're scrolling through Instagram, you're seeing all these like sleep coaches, sleep coaches. You can see I've got my devices on. Um, you know, I listen, I'm a big believer in not just tracking, but resolving, right? Like, so, and obviously I I know that you would support this. It's so bioindividual. Like, what works for you may not work for me. My like, you know, I'm a 55-year-old menopausal woman. Of course, sleep is gonna be a factor in my life, right?

Dr. Dan Pardi: 14:21

So anyway, I think that applies to just about everything. So I really appreciate your comment about our individuality.

Sandy Kruse: 14:31

I actually just posted about that today, Dan. Oh, nice. Because um, I'm like, I there's a new document documentary out, and it's really fascinating. I started to watch it and I'm like, oh my god, yes. You know, the scientific community, uh meaning also MDs, are catching on to the fact that not all pharmaceuticals work the same for all people, not all supplements work for this the same for all people, like it's just so bioindividual. And I think it's never gonna be a one size fits all, but that's all. And so um, I love the take that you have on wellness, and I think talking about stem cells, it's it's now a big topic, right? You see, and and I've actually done an interview a couple years ago. It was a live interview about stem cell activators. Um, I've done an interview about what was it? It was I don't even know. It's like placenta stem cells or something. But I think we need to begin with what are stem cells.

Dr. Dan Pardi: 15:49

Yes, that's a great place to start. So they are special cells in the body that can the best way to think about about it without making using a ton of jargon is that they make copies of themselves. And one of those copies is uh just a duplicate, like a clone of the original stem cell. And then the other one be can differentiate and become uh it's a part of our repair system, and it could become any type of tissue in the body. And so this is how the body will regenerate when cells are die off, right? Because they don't last forever, even though we outlive our cells, right? We replace them at different cadences in different tissues, but we need to be able to re replace those cells, and the stem cell system in the body enables us to do that.

Sandy Kruse: 16:41

Okay. Now, different parts of the body have different stem cells, don't they? Yeah.

Dr. Dan Pardi: 16:47

Yes, that's right. So a term that we use when we talk about stem cells is potency. So we have different types of stem cells in the body, and they are based off of their potency. Now, potency is a word that describes what they can become. So if you move down the potency categories, the number of cells that they can become narrows. And there's five main categories of potency. So you have tody potent or pluripotent. Those two basically are stem cells that can become any type of tissue in the body. Okay. Uh, and there are some important differences between them. It's probably more than we need to go into. But the best way to think about those two is that it's a one-to-many relationship with todipotent or pluripotent cells. And you'll hear pluripotent discussed a lot more. But an example of a totipotent cell stem cell would be like an zygote. And of course, that is, you know, that becomes a full human, right? It can become any type of tissue. Then you have multipotent, oligopotent, and unipotent. Those are the last three types of potencies. And multipotent cells can become multiple cell types, but only within certain lineages. So, an example would be hematopoietic stem cells. They generate different types of blood and immune cells across these the lineages that I mentioned, so myeloid and lymphoid. And a myeloid lymph uh lineage produces red blood cells and platelets and monocytes, things that you get measured on blood work, uh, and also granulocyte-based blood cells like neutrophils, osonophils, uh basophils, things like that. The lymphoid lineage is making your immune cells, B cells, T cells, natural killer cells. So those you can see that what this multipotent lineage means is that it can become multiple things, blood cells or immune cells, but it can't become anything. All right. So another example of that would be mesenchymal stem cells. When we talk about stem cells in the clinic, you hear about those two the most hematopoietic from bone marrow and mesenchymal stem cells. And those form different types of connective tissue. So bone, cartilage, fat, muscle, things like that. To continue on the describing potency, you also then have oligopotent cells. They can become only a few closely related types. So an example would be an osteoprogenitor cell that can only become different types of bone, so osteoblasts or osteoclasts. And then lastly, you have unipotent stem cells, and they can only become one type. Um, but they can still self-renew. That is a key feature to stem cells, self-renewal. Uh, but an example of a unipotent cell would be a muscle satellite cell. So, as you can see, you have different types of stem cells, all of which self-renew and differentiate, but some can turn into anything, and some can only turn into one thing. So that, and actually, if you'd like, we can talk about even how cells differentiate. Because for me, when I see those connections, like, ah, how does this actually work? That helps me understand this sort of opaque topic a little bit differently. But you tell me.

Sandy Kruse: 20:13

Okay, okay. So most of the people that listen to my podcast, you know, they're like, I'm certainly not a scientist in nutrition college. I took science courses, of course. However, you know, high level, yeah. You hear in general the therm the term stem cell therapy. I want to break this down so people can understand it.

Dr. Dan Pardi: 20:42

Yes.

Sandy Kruse: 20:43

When people go and say, Oh, you know, my knee is wrecked. I want to do stem cell therapy.

Dr. Dan Pardi: 20:51

Yeah.

Sandy Kruse: 20:52

Okay. So that is very different from let's say I have a blood cancer, right? And and they they use bone marrow for some sort of therapy. Like there's different types of therapies that use stem cells. Yeah. So maybe if you could kind of break that down simply so that people can understand it. Because we see this all the time. Oh, yeah, I'm gonna go for stem cell therapy. But wait a minute, there's different types of stem cells that do different things. And I need to understand what that means.

Dr. Dan Pardi: 21:31

Yeah, yeah. So stem cells uh in the in the clinic have been used now for a while. Um, they're they're even tracking back to the late 1950s where some stem cell replacement therapy occurred. Uh, and so just looking at the the research history of that to as a starting place, uh, because that is interesting to look at first, because you can then see how it evolved. But in 1958, a French oncologist named George Mathey performed the first uh stem cell transplant. So he treated six workers that were exposed to high dose radiation in a nuclear accident in Yugoslavia, and Mathe transplanted bone marrow stem cells to restore their blood and immune system. So we were just talking about hematopoietic stem cells and how they can produce blood cells and immune cells. And so that's exactly what he was trying to do. And five out of the six ended up surviving long term, and one did die of complications. But this was really the first demonstration that stem cell transplants could rebuild human systems after damage. And it it marked the really the true beginning of modern stem cell therapy. Now, from there, we have, you know, the two groups that typically get anything new once it gets into the commercial area are very wealthy people and athletes. Right? Those are like the two groups. Um, you know, we learn a lot from athletics because what typically happens is that good scientists in that space start to use technologies prior to, you know, the the very slow time course that uh can sometimes occur with, you know, other types of therapies where they have to go through all these levels of validation uh prior to getting standardized, which would mean it's implicated uniformly through our entire healthcare system. And that can be really frustrating for a lot of people because there's a 20-year delay, oftentimes, if not more, between the science that shows promise in an area. Um, and I would actually say the timescale is even beyond that, like when we really know that something is efficacious. And so athletics will tend to start using those types of things much, much earlier than being spread ubiquitously through a healthcare system. So, yes. So then going back to your question, so that was really the first demonstration of stem cell replacement in the body, and you saw very positive outcomes there because it's likely that all six of those folks who were exposed to that radiation would have died otherwise. Um, but you were able, they were able to replace the stem cells, able to restore the immune system, and that had a very positive effect. Nowadays, you might go and get your own stem cells removed from your body, and there are various ways to do that. Uh again, they'll either be mesenchymal stem cells from fat or hematopoietic stem cells from bone marrow, and then they will be concentrated and put right back into the body where they can have a regenerative effect. So that is uh pretty exciting. And I've spoken with orthopedic surgeons who use this, and uh, the guy who I know here in Austin, who I have conversations with about this, he's really he's seen great things in the clinic. He really likes uh, you know, he's like, yeah, it really, really work. Like I've tried, it's not the first thing I try. They're pretty expensive. It might be four or five thousand dollars a therapy. And you've got, you know, let's say two sore feet that you need to have addressed uh for various reasons, then you know, it's getting close to ten thousand dollars. It's expensive. Um, and the this can be more expensive than that at other places. But you know, you are performing a little surgery. Um, so if you're trying to take stem cells out of bone, you usually go to the iliac crest, which is that prominence in the front of your hip area. And the reason why is because it's a very easy area to get stem cells, um, because there's not much distance between, you know, there's not much tissue between the bone and uh the outside. So you can aspirate uh the stem cells from your bone marrow. Again, you can concentrate them and then you can put them right back into the an area where uh you know you're you're dealing with an injury and you need some restoration. So, yes, so that is those are some ways that stem cell therapies are mostly occur. And then there has been uh a trend now, a movement towards injecting them IV and having stem cells theoretically repair damage throughout the body. And now, stem cells do kind of work in that way. And we we should talk about like what is the actual like life cycle of a stem cell, so people understand how they work naturally. Um, those types of therapies typically people have to go outside of the United States in order to get them because they are not approved by the FDA, and there has been several uh major uh issues with companies that were starting to sell unapproved stem cell therapies. And in fact, some some of the founders have ended up on the FBI's most wanted list because they were just you know not acting, I would say, ethically uh in this regard. So there is, you know, um working ahead of the curve. And then there's also being sort of grossly um immoral by making big claims that have no proof about, you know, sort of playing off of people's vulnerabilities, like saying that it can cure things where there's no evidence at all that it could cure that. And so that's you know, that's sort of the balance of the industry, uh, the promise, the excitement, and um maybe some of the hyperbole.

Sandy Kruse: 27:37

Okay, I have a couple of questions.

Dr. Dan Pardi: 27:39

Yeah.

Sandy Kruse: 27:40

With is it true that you know, people who say, okay, I'm gonna go and get stem cell therapy, I have severe arthritis in my knee, I don't want to have knee replacement, you go, you have the whatever, it's like a small surgery. What's the success rate of that sort of thing? And aren't can't stem cells get too old? Like, meaning, like if I'm like 80, are my stem cells any good to do that with?

Dr. Dan Pardi: 28:12

Yeah, that's a really that's a really important question. Um, and the general thinking is that younger stem cells uh are going to be more effective because if your stem cells are exhausted, which is a term that is now used uh to describe what happens to stem cells as we age, and we can of course go into what that specifically means, then would simply taking out old stem cells and putting them back into the body really do much good, right? The older you get, the more you might need them for some osteoarthritic pain in your knee, as the example you used. Uh is that going to be helpful? And um so there are organizations that are looking to try to address this problem of can we bank your own stem cells? So you're young, you bank your stem cells, when you get older, you have a a knee in a knee issue, and then you use your own autologous, which means self stem cells, to then fix so you you you avoid the risk of immune rejection uh when you're using uh other people's stem cells. So that is uh definitely something that is of interest. There's also interest where you can take your own stem cells and in a way make them new again. So you go through this process where you would uh reverse the there's you can make them um young again in a way. And uh that is some very cool science that is taking place. And then there are also uh mu new types of cells called mu cells. I would say new in that they were discovered in the last 20 years by a Japanese scientist. And then they seem to avoid some of the immune rejection. So you could actually get stem cells from a different person. And they also, what you, if you take one thing that's been known for a long time, if you take stem cells and you inject them into the body, they can be tumorogenic. They can form tumors. And so that's something that, of course, we would want to avoid as well. But the mu cells do not do that. And so, yes, there's a lot of different companies that are working in this space. There's a lot of excitement here. And the main reason is because, you know, as we get older, our ability, the the ability to replace tissue that dies starts to lose out. So the damage outpaces uh the ability to renew. And then we really start to see the signs of aging. And it can start in the 40s where you start to notice, it can start before that, but you start to notice it more in the 40s. And by every decade, that process yields signs of aging that become more visible, more palpable. And so the excitement, I would say, high level, is that we might be able to tilt the scale. So we we either delay that curve, um, and then moonshot, we actually have a great impact to keep our bodies renewed well into the human lifespan and you know, possibly even extend the human lifespan too.

Sandy Kruse: 31:28

I think that's an important thing to note here, Dan, is what are the signs? Like, are there any specific signs that, you know, and and do we is it about losing stem cells, having dead stem cells? Because I know synolytics can come into play in this conversation. It's all kind of intertwined. So, you know, what are the signs? Number one. Um, I know I recorded a podcast on the hallmarks of aging, and that probably connects to this. So maybe get into some of that so that people can go, okay. So, how do I know? Like I know if I have a bad knee, that's one scenario. If I have a type of blood cancer, that's another scenario, right? So, what about just in general?

Dr. Dan Pardi: 32:21

Yeah. So maybe we'll start with the stem cells. Like, what happens to the stem cells? Um, so looking into the petri dish, if you will, and then we can think about well, what is the experience? Okay. So we'll move in that direction. Uh so the term is called stem cell exhaustion, and it is this decline in their ability to self-renew and to generate functioning cells. So remember, that is what stem cells do, right? They have ability to copy themselves and then make a clone of itself. And then also, that's the self-renewal part, and then also to generate cells that become new tissue. And just as you mentioned, this basically leads to uh reduced tissue repair. And that's why it's considered one of the now 12 hallmarks of aging. And uh just for the audience, if they missed your podcast on this, the hallmarks of aging are basically the main biological processes that drive how we age. And they include things like genomic instability from DNA damage, shortened telomeres, um, epigenetic changes uh that alter how genes are expressed. There's a variety of things that are occurring reliably that we can track when a person ages, and they can occur at different rates. Um, but generally they do happen. And a stem cell exhaustion is one of those hallmarks. And so if we then look at, all right, so what does um what happens with stem cells in particular? I mean, another major hallmark of aging is chronic inflammation. And so this elevation. Now, I do want to say something about inflammation. It has, it's sort of thought of as a dirty word. Inflammation plays an extremely important role in the body, right? It is doing something functional in the body. So what we really care about is a dyshomeostasis of inflammation, which means our inflammation system, our inflammation communication system is out of balance. And the reason why we notice higher levels of inflammatory markers is because they're having to try to speak louder to get their message across. We're developing resistance uh at cells that are hearing those signals. And so the the volume of those signals has to rise. Now, why is this problematic? Well, you know, for example, in aged muscle satellite stem cells, which we talked about earlier as unipon stem cells, when you see an increase elevation in inflammatory markers like ILL6 or TN alfalfa, then that will cause stem cells to differentiate into myoblasts too early. Now, a myoblast is a precursor muscle cell. Um, and so they can, it's like, you know, on the way from a stem cell to a fully functional muscle tissue cell, there are these intermediate steps. And that precursor cell is one of those steps along the way. Um, but what ends up happening when inflammation causes them to differentiate into that liminal step too soon is that it prevents them, the self-renewal process. So they can fuse into fibers, but what it ultimately does is reduces the stem cell pool and impairs regeneration. So that's one issue that is related to uh stem cell exhaustion. Inflammatory markers cause dysregulation and reduce self-renewal. Another factor would be increases in oxidative stress that can damage DNA. Another hallmark of aging is uh mitochondrial dysfunction. So when you have mitochondrial dysfunction, and mitochondria are the internal organelles in your cells that make energy. Um, and when those get impaired through a variety of mechanisms, then that is going to increase the amount of oxidative stress, which increases the amount of DNA damage. And then that too is going to harm self-renewal of stem cells, and it's also going to impair existing stem cell survival. So it makes the ones that are alive not be able to replicate and not be able to survive. All right. So that's another aspect of the exhaustion that we experience. Another key one is that if you repeatedly activate stem cells, then that's going to cause a depletion of your stem cell reserves over time. You do not want to be constantly driving new stem cell creation because they have their own life cycle. So we're not trying to override the natural system. We're trying to support it. And I think that actually kind of will come back to how we formulated our product, right? Constantly driving the proliferation of stem cells, it can itself lead to stem cell exhaustion. All right. And then there's even things like epigenetic drift, which is these random marks to the epigenome that disrupts the stable gene programs that will kind of reduce the identity of stem cells and the regenerative capacity. And so I know that there's some terms in there that we haven't really described yet. Um, but that's, you know, there's even more things, and I think more would be too much, but that you can now see lots of stuff that are occurring, that's occurring during aging, that is also now aging stem cells themselves, which is a part of also the experiential effects of aging too. So you can see all of these hallmarks of aging aren't acting independently, but they're influencing each other as well. And stem cells is involved in that mix.

Sandy Kruse: 38:02

Yeah, and it and it does get complicated. So, you know, that's why for me, I think it's important that people listening just have the basic knowledge and understanding and know how it would apply to them and where it would apply. One thing I and maybe this is jumping around, Dan. I know we talked about this. We don't want to jump around too much, but you said something that just triggered this question in my mind about like almost like an overactivation. Yeah. So it's almost like too much of a good thing is too much or can be.

Dr. Dan Pardi: 38:42

Yeah, that's exactly that's exactly right. So um, I think this would probably be a good time to just talk about like what is the natural life cycle of a stem cell. So we under it puts things in context because if you don't understand what the natural process looks like, then you might take out a portion of it and say, we're gonna just drive this one portion of it, and that might seem good in the absence of a full understanding of how they really work.

Sandy Kruse: 39:07

Right. I think this is important because for anybody who's listening, I'm a big fan of pulsing things in and out because I also know what my needs are. So go ahead. Let let's let's talk about this. This is important.

Dr. Dan Pardi: 39:25

Okay. So we talked about different types of stem cells, their potency, which means what you know that they can become different things. Uh, and they also reside in different parts in the brain. You have intestinal stem cells, you have your hematopoietic bone stem cells, mesenchymal stem cells and fat and tissues. So, right, they're they're all out neural stem cells, they're all throughout the body. So we have these different pools. And they usually start in this protective environment called a niche, uh, such as you know, bone marrow in for blood stem cells. And in that niche, they're receiving signals from neighboring cells, uh, adhesion molecules, even the soluble factors that keep them quiet until needed, right? That is part of the natural state, is that they are in quiescence or they are dormant. They're just they're hanging out and they're ready to be activated. So when the body does need new stem cells, it receives growth factors. Some of those growth factors are um basically the different types of colony stimulating factors. And the colony refers to the stem cell colony, right? And they are activated by these things like GCSF and GMCSF. And then enzymes and signaling proteins loosen their grip um of the stem cells in their niche. So remember, they're they're in there, imagine like a little stem cell in bed, sleeping, under the covers and happy. And now we got to get them out of bed and we got to get them active, right? So we're waking them up. And that that is a the first step there. So once they are active, then they need to enter into circulation, right? That's if they need to go from some reserve place in the body to where they need to fix tissue, they need to get there, right? They need to go from point A to point B. How do they do that? Well, they are guided by chemical gradients. And so they don't just wander aimlessly, like, oh, I'm just gonna, you know, circulate until I land in a particular place. This is actually an orchestrated activity. And so what they do is they follow a centrail by um compounds called chemokines. Um, and there's an axis that's important for this. And it's a it's a technical term, but I'll explain it. So the axis is called CXCR4 SDF-1. Now, SDF1 acts like a beacon. And I don't know why, but this image popped into my head. So remember that scene in um Jurassic Park where I can't remember who the actor was, but he was trying to save the child who was about to get eaten by a T-Rex. So he grabbed the flare and he started to, he got the attention of the T-Rex and he started running away from it, and then the T-Rex started to follow him.

Sandy Kruse: 42:16

Yes, I remember that. Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Dan Pardi: 42:18

Great scene, great visual. That is SDF one. Okay. That is that is a, hey, follow me. Okay. Then CXCR4 is a receptor on stem cells that helps to follow that gradient. Okay. That's going to help it follow the signal. And then once it gets, once the stem cell gets close to uh an area of need, it has to slow down, right? It's in the circulation. So there are then these adhesion molecules like L-celeptin and integrins, and they help them stick to the vessel walls, where then they can move into the right tissue. All right. So they're in their bed, they're activated, they move into the bloodstream. Now you're the T-rex chasing the beacon, and now it's gotten to the right place and it slows down, and now it has to move into the right tissue. And at that point, it starts to receive local cues like growth factors, um, factors from the extracellular matrix, uh, all sorts of things that then start a really interesting process in my mind. So they they will, these growth factors will now signal these signaling pathways that have very, they're very ancient. They came, these pathways have been around for 600 to 800 million years, right during when stem cells first developed um in evolution. And those signaling pathways now will affect what's happening, and they have funny names like wint, uh, sonic hedgehog, um, notch. They will now affect what's happening inside of a cell, and they will affect what are these transcription factors. And if you remember, a transcription factor is binding to our genes and telling it which proteins to turn on and off. Because every cell has all your genes, but you don't want all your genes to be activated, making all sorts of proteins all the time. You want it to make, if you're a liver tissue, you want those cells to make liver tissue-specific proteins. If you're a neural cell, you want it to make those specific ones. Muscles, the same. And so, in this, in this process now, you now have these transcription factors that are doing several things. They are activating the right genes and turn and silencing the wrong ones. And then that whole process gets locked in. So it now, all of a sudden, this stem cell that could be anything, just about, I mean, at least theoretically, right? Remember, we it depends on the lineage, right? Some can only become certain things, but they now start to take on characteristics specific to the tissues that we want them to become. And then as that happens, epigenetic changes occur at the same time that lock in that identity. And now that's how you have a stem cell that goes from its niche sleeping in bed, now into a tissue and turning into a very specific type of cell and not another type of cell. You do not want a muscle to muscle cell to be created in your neural stem, in your you know, neural tissue, right? And that can be used in all sorts of contexts. I love, I just love going through those details because now I understand stem cells a lot better. Like when you sort of like, okay, we see now this is a process. There's proliferation, making more stem cells, activation, mobilization, migration, differentiation, all of those things are occurring. It's not just about making more. What we really care about is stem cell homeostasis, which is the balance of that entire system that continues to create healthy tissue and not create, you know, cancerous tissue or other problematic, you know, things that can occur, right? We do not want excessive proliferation. We want targeted, directed, healthy tissue repair.

Sandy Kruse: 46:15

That was a brilliant explanation. And by the way, the t-shirt that I made like over five years ago, it says it's all about the balance. And I have scales. Because that I'm a big believer in all of that in life, period. So what you just described is really fascinating. So let me ask you this question.

Dr. Dan Pardi: 46:37

Yeah.

Sandy Kruse: 46:38

Because I mean, you I feel like I love your passion. We could probably talk for two hours. But what I want to ask is if you're 80 years old, yeah, do you have more of those stem cells in bed that just don't get up?

Dr. Dan Pardi: 46:58

Yeah. So it's a really important question. Is do we see a major decline in stem cells? Or do we see that there are is there something else happening? And Irena Conboy at UC Berkeley is somebody that I interviewed in my podcast probably in 2017. And what her work, she's done work related to this area very specifically. So she did these experiments called parabioses, and in that they're they're sort of horrific, but they tie, they sew an old mouse to a young mouse. And the I know brutal. Yeah, yeah. But what ends up happening is that the the young mouse becomes older, and the old mouse becomes younger. Why? You know, what is the what exchange is taking place? And that has led to a line of investigation into what are the factors that are driving regeneration or stopping it. And what she has commented on is that we don't see major declines in stem cell pools. Like you might have, there is a decline, but it's not major. So, you know, by your 50s, you might have only 90% of what you had when you were younger. So still plenty. So there is a decline, but not dramatic. What happens with stem cell exhaustion has more to do with the niche. Remember, the niche is the environment in which they live. And when you do have a rise in inflammatory factors, you then will start to see that the stem cells are there. They just can't differentiate into new tissue, right? They can't become the new healthy tissue that you want. And the all the things that I just talked about, the system can break down at almost any point. The net I the net effect of it is you're not replacing tissue at the pace that you once were. And that pace accelerates. And that's why we see these reliable signs of aging as you get from decade to decade. And again, we're not, you know, at this point, we're not going to stop that process entirely because remember, it's not just stem cells. Like even if we were to fully solve the stem cell issue, that actually could have a very powerful effect on how we age over time, but it's not the only issue. And so, you know, what we're interested in now, the whole field of geroscience, is what are all the drivers? And are there ways that we can influence them? And all of the smartest minds in this area realize that it's not going to be a silver bullet. It's not going to be one pill that does it all. But rather, we're going to have to try to address these one by one. And hopefully we can work at the most consequential uh hallmarks of aging and influence them in a positive way. And we already know we can do that through lots of things related to lifestyle. And that's why we talk about it so much, because it matters. So what we really care about is can we then do things that go beyond that? Like I'd never want to give short shrift. I mean, even if you recall from the beginning, my interest lies in scientific wellness, like understanding how to use lifestyle in a way, you know, foundational almost feels like it's not giving it credit it deserves. It's so powerful, and it's, but yet it's hard to do. And yet at the same time, I'm still interested in how we can go beyond that, right? How can we then take it to the next level? And and that's where the science of this stuff is so exciting, particularly, you know, with stem cells. But I just wanted to make that comment that it's going to be a suite of solutions that get us closer to where we want to go.

Sandy Kruse: 50:44

So, you know, just to kind of fast forward, I think most people who listen to my podcast already got that down in terms of you want to sleep, you want to eat whole real foods, you want to move your body, you want to limit alcohol and smoking. Like we kind of all have that down. So I think it's a really good time just to kind of you know touch on stem cell activators because that's kind of going above what you were saying.

Dr. Dan Pardi: 51:17

Yeah, yeah.

Sandy Kruse: 51:18

How they work. And so for me, you know, Dan, like I I think of it as like, what? You know, you can actually take a supplement and you swallow it like it's like whatever. So I know that qualia's formulation is six capsules a day for only four days, because it goes back to what you were saying about not overstimulating that activation, but just helping it along, maybe helping the ones that need to get out of bed to get out of bed and do their thing. Does that make sense, Dan?

Dr. Dan Pardi: 51:58

Absolutely. That's how we see it. So the reason I think it's so important to discuss that life cycle of stem cells is because we not only does it help you avoid overfixating, over-indexing your solution into just one aspect, which if your focus is entirely on you know improving proliferation and activity, remember that's one of the things that can cause stem cell exhaustion, overusage. You don't want that, right? That's not how stem cells work, right? They they have to stay quiet in their niche. So again, going back to our goal is more about how do we maintain stem cell homeostasis or health, right? Now, health is the ability for the body to maintain an evolutionarily derived function. And so this the body knows how to maintain stem cells. We just lose that ability as we age, right? In the process of homeostenosis, which is this general decline that we all experience and we know. And, you know, some animals, as soon as they reproduce, they die, like salmon, right? They live up to a week and then they're totally dead. We have this protracted period where we stay alive after reproduction window, whether we reproduce or not, but the window in which is most common that humans do reproduce, and that is because we continue to play a vital role in the survival of offspring, even if they're not our you know direct descendants. It could even be within the tribe. That's the evolutionary context. And as a result, you know, this is important to mention the body doesn't actually necessarily it has different priorities across the common life history, which is a life every animal has its own life history, and a part of life history is how long we tend to live. So, you know, we live around 80 years, some people can live more, some people less, but that's like the average uh, you know, approximately maximum human lifespan is can thought to be 125 years old. So that means that we can't live beyond that. Um, I believe the oldest surviving person lived up to 122 years, uh, Gene Celmont, which is amazing. Uh, but that's well beyond what most of us, how most of us live. How long? But you know, a house mouse lives a year and a dog lived maybe like 13, right? So is it because our biology is so much better? No, it's because our life history, our lifespan is shaped by evolution to live a particular time. And all of that comes back to the successful reproduction of new versions of humans, because evolution doesn't want our bodies to live forever. That's not a failure of evolution. It could if it wanted. Rather, it's trying to just renew the cycle of being. So reproduction is important. Now, I say that because whether that doesn't mean that you have to have children. That's just evolution's goals. Your goals as a human can be totally different, right? Totally different. But it's important to understand these things because it does shape what we understand about like why how we live and when we age. Now, aging, yes, these things do decl occur, these declines, but we still have enormous value to society by accumulating wisdom and knowledge. Our body is just no longer putting that much energy and resources into maintaining full health, which is really useful for signaling health for reproduction. Now it starts to prioritize other things like accumulation of knowledge so that we can share that with younger generations. That's a really cool outlook. And you still have to work hard at it, uh, you know, at being healthy so that you can do your job and take care of society. So that's a little extra context there, not exactly related to your question. But going back to stem cells and what we do is that we are trying to maintain balance. We're not trying to say we know better than the system and we're gonna constantly push out stem cells. And so, yes, there are things in our formula that will improve proliferation, which proliferation expands the numbers of stem cells through division. And then this is gonna maintain a steady pool of stem cells to meet our ongoing repair needs, of which we have many. Okay. Then there is the activation side, and that's gonna wake up the dormant cells in their niche and put them into action. And that means that basically more stem cells are ready to repair tissue after stress and injury, right? So there's making more, and now there's waking them up, and now we have to mobilize them. So there are there's there's enough of them there, they're ready to go, and now we got to get them to where they need to go. And so mobilization moves the stem cells from, let's say, bone marrow into circulation or from their like resident pool into the circulation. Um, and then that means that they can have much wider distribution. So the repair signals can actually reach the tissues. Then they migrate into the new area where it's needed, and then they differentiate. We talked about all of that. And then, of course, there's protection, right? So another thing that we considered in the formulation generation in creating our formulation is how do we protect and shield those stem cells from oxidative damage, DNA damage, cellular senescence, other hallmarks of aging, and keep them healthy, right? And the real effect there is basically longer lasting and healthier stem cell function across the lifespan. And then, of course, we also want to support and promote self-renewal, which is, if you remember, the two hallmark characteristics of stem cells is their ability to make a make a copy of themselves, and then the other is to differentiate into tissue. Well, we also we've already talked about and seen areas where this step, the stem cell, because of inflammation, can actually make a new differentiated cell. It can make a tissue cell, but it can no longer self-renew. That's going to shut down the repair capability of the body. So those are all of the things that we considered when we thought about making our formulation. And four days a month is a time, you know, like you said, we don't really want to be doing this in perpetuity day by day. We want to have a pulse that stimulates all of these functions. And then we go back and let stem cell homeostasis maintain itself. So our vision is that 12 times over the year, you take this product and the net result of which is better repair and renewal.

Sandy Kruse: 58:30

Okay. So that's that's really the key there. So if I'm somebody uh with I'm 55, of course, I've got some things that, you know, little things here and there that may not work as efficiently as they used to, or some old injuries. Um, I can take this. Really, the goal is to take it once a month, four days a month, and I should overall feel what? What should I feel?

Dr. Dan Pardi: 59:05

Yes. So this is a uh an important question to address because with I've been thinking about categorizations for our products since I've been here. And there's really three categories that I see. So there are the first category is what I what I call health perform performance promoters. And what that means is that you're trying to do something now, and our product is going to help you do that thing that you're trying to do now. So quality of mind helps you think today, right? Quality of night helps you sleep tonight, right? So that is helping you in the health related performance of a particular activity. Health span is now looking to affect more of the longer term effects of elevating health longer into the lifespan. So that you might say, all right, well, my I have a higher level of health than I would have if I was not doing these activities, right? Of which stem cell support can be one of them. And what might you feel? Well, you actually if you're having achy feet or you know, sore knees or sore joints, you might feel that they are not barking at you, you know, that you feel um that you feel more youthful in that regard. Um, you might notice your hair, skin, and nails feeling more vibrant, youthful, less old. Um, because what remember, you know, the the decline in repair means your body is going to then start to wear the signs of aging. And if you can bolster repair, you might actually start to see some of these tissues that look right back at us in the mirror, start to look younger again. That is, you know, our our hope and goal with this. Now we have done um one thing I'm very proud about uh for my company is that we uh always try to do research on products that we introduce into the market. So instead of just making claims, we say, all right, how can we test this to see if our ideas like the the science science fills every aspect of our development process? So what are the what are the ideas upon which the formulation we make is created? We talked about that, right? Do we want to always be stimulating stem cells or do we want to possibly be like look appreciating and respecting the full life cycle, right? That was a part of the scientific process. Then it's the all right, well, what ingredients can do that and why we have 15 different ingredients in our product, all of which, you know, some of which are affecting more, most of which are affecting multiple stages of the stem cell balance. Um and so that was a whole, you know, we screened hundreds of compounds. And then we have to make it's sort of the art of formulation, some determinations that say, okay, I think the this group uh is really well supported for our purposes. And then with the last stage of that is then saying, all right, well, now we're gonna put this to the test. And typically what we do is we start with, like with all research, you start with something that is uh easier to implement, like a survey, and which would at this point we have conducted that, which is really important. Get it to the hands of people and see what they say about it. What do they feel? Did they like it? Did it cause any untoward side effects that we should know about? Um, and then we might go into a pilot trial, which is like an open label type of a research study where we it has more controls over it than a survey. And then we move into a double-blind placebo control study where now we are using the gold standard methods to assess the efficacy of our products. And that is a process that builds over time. But I'm very proud that we do this and we do this for all of our products. And in fact, Qualia just won the Science and Innovation Award from the National Um Nutrition Business Journal. And we feel really proud about that. Um they gave it us that award is because of the of the approach that we take to uh formulating and testing the products that we bring to market.

Sandy Kruse: 1:03:22

Yes, and safety too. Because you know, okay, Dan, I know you're extremely, you know, scientific. I respect that. I am very much that person most people who follow me, they know I'm like, I'm a little bit science, I'm a little bit woo, you know. I'm I kind of I I sway and I actually test, you know, muscle test for supplements. I have never ever, I I've had situations where I'm like, no, my body doesn't like that. And um because I'm such a big believer in bioindividuality, and I will say I muscle test extremely strong. That's not to say anybody else will like I'm I'm just saying for me, because my audience knows I'm gonna be honest with integrity and talk about quality of supplements. I have had other situations whereby I'm like, I will not touch that, I won't put that in my body. I'm very choosy about what I put into my body. So I trust qualia's formulations. I've been connected with you guys for many years. And you know, we're we we gotta wrap up because we're like, I don't know, an hour and 10 now. So, and and I am running out of battery. My husband was working in my office and I think he unplugged something.

Dr. Dan Pardi: 1:04:47

Uh-oh.

Sandy Kruse: 1:04:48

This is why I don't like people working in my office. Um, but I do want to ask you if there's uh if there's anything, because I I just want to quickly touch on the the synolytic with the stem cell, because I've used both and people like to stack. Yeah. How do you stack with the two? Because I know Cynolytic maybe quickly describe what a Cynolytic cell is. I don't know if you can do that quickly though, Dan.

Dr. Dan Pardi: 1:05:19

I will do my best.

Sandy Kruse: 1:05:21

You know, yeah.

Dr. Dan Pardi: 1:05:22

Uh, I think you could tell just how interested I am in all of this stuff, and sometimes that means I can be a little wordy, but it's amazing. I really think as as I mentioned previously, that the the best effects are likely going to become are going to come from stacking, not likely are going to become from stacking different product products that target uh different hallmarks of aging. So I think that this combination of our synolytic followed by our stem cell product makes great sense. Here's why. Senescent cells are aptly described like zombie cells. They partially die, but not fully. And that actually has there's a biological cause for that. So they release a lot of inflammatory markers into the surrounding. Uh, and then that triggers to the immune system to come clean them up. But as we as we get older, we undergo immunosinescence, which means our immune system is less good at doing its job. So now you have what do you think that leads to? An increase in senescent cells that then rise the state of inflammation in the body, that then suppress stem cell regeneration. Okay. So what we do, what I do every month is I take qualia synolytic. It's you take it two days in a row and then you wait a month. So I do the first Saturday and Sunday of every month. I take synolytic and then I wait two days, right? And that what that does is without going into all the details, that actually is a combination of nine products that is designed to cause stem cells to be cleared. A synolytic is a senescent cell killer. Okay. And we want that. So we want to get rid of those, particularly since our immune system is not doing it as well. After that, inflammatory, you know, the because you're killing them, that's going to release contents into their surrounding space. That's going to rise your elevate your inflammation for a couple of days. So you let a couple days go by. So two days later go by, and then you start stem cells. So you've now lowered your inflammation overall after getting rid of those stem cells, or excuse me, the synolytic cells. And that's a perfect time to now boost your senescent cell regeneration. And what's a what's a potential benefit here that's not been shown in research, but the uh, you know, conceptually it makes great sense, is that when you have better functioning stem cells, that is going to improve your immune system. Right. So you're going to get sick less often, but you're also going to help clear out senescent cells better. So just like the hallmarks of aging create this vicious cycle, counteracting them can create a virtuous cycle, where now you're promoting better function, which is, of course, extending the higher level of health deeper into how long you live, which is awesome. And so during that time, we also, so NAD is a product that we have, which is supporting NAD. NAD levels is this crown jewel of our metabolism. And we have massive amounts of these reactions that are taking place in our body every single day. And our those levels decline. And so our energy levels start to decline. And when so NAD boosting products help to raise those levels back up. So what uh Greg Kelly, our chief product officer, does is he actually takes double the dose of our NAD product during the days he takes our stem cell product and then goes back to a normal dose for the rest of the month. So you can see that some of our products you just take once a month in varying days, synolytic two days in a row, uh, stem cell product four days in a row, and then NAD every day. And I have those on subscription, so you don't have to even think about it. You just get it in the mail a couple of days before when you're going to take it. You take it, and then you wait for the next month. So that protocol, I think, is a very advanced protocol for helping us age better.

Sandy Kruse: 1:09:29

I love it. I love all your wisdom. Oh my God. And and passion. Thank you so, so much for spending time with me today. I'm really, really honored to have met you. You're wonderful.

Dr. Dan Pardi: 1:09:44

Oh, thank you so much, Sandy. It's been a delight. I hope this information was valuable. I really care about helping people. And um, you know, kudos to the listeners for you know showing up, paying attention, learning. Keep doing it.

Sandy Kruse: 1:09:58

Yeah, yeah. Thanks, Dan. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Be sure to share it with someone you know might benefit. And always remember when you rate, review, subscribe, you help to support my content and help me to keep going and bring these conversations to you each and every week. Join me next week for a new topic, a new guest, a new exciting conversation to help you live your faster life.