Recently, Dr. Lisa Tamati, who is a world-renowned longevity and health optimization expert. In this episode, we talked about her powerful journey from ultra-endurance athlete to passionate health advocate, sharing how she helped her mother recover from brain aneurysm and cancer using cutting-edge therapies. Lisa highlights why reclaiming your health starts with the right mindset, targeted nutrition, and smart supplementation, and more. If you would prefer to listen to the interview you can access it by Clicking Here.
Dr. Eric Osansky:
I am super excited to chat with Lisa Tamati, as we are going to be talking about a lot of different things: brain injuries, hyperbaric oxygen, genetic testing, I’m sure a few other fascinating topics. Let me dive into Lisa’s impressive bio here:
Lisa Tamati is a globally recognized expert in longevity and health optimization, a trailblazing educator, and a serial entrepreneur. As a former ultra endurance athlete with over 25 years of experience competing in some of the world’s toughest races, Lisa has transformed her passion for peak performance and resilience into a mission to empower others to achieve their full potential in health and longevity.
A podcaster for over a decade, Lisa hosts the globally top 200 ranked show in the functional medicine, longevity, and biohacking space, where she interviews world-renowned experts and explores cutting-edge advancements in health.
She is also the author of five best-selling books including Relentless, which shares her inspirational journey of overcoming adversity and achieving the seemingly impossible.
Lisa’s career extends beyond broadcasting and writing. She is the co-founder of the biotech company Aevum Labs, dedicated to developing innovative solutions for aging and immune health. She has also founded several other successful ventures, leveraging her expertise to bridge the gap between scientific research and practical applications in wellness.
In addition to her entrepreneurial achievements, Lisa is a sought-after speaker, documentary filmmaker, and former television host, known for her engaging storytelling and ability to simplify complex scientific topics for diverse audiences. Her columns and content focus on empowering individuals to take control of their health through evidence-based strategies, mindset shifts, and practical tools.
Lisa’s work embodies a unique blend of personal grit, scientific expertise, and unwavering passion. Whether she is addressing professionals in the biotech industry, coaching athletes, or inspiring everyday individuals, Lisa brings unparalleled energy and insight into every stage. Learn more about her work at www.LisaTamati.com. Welcome, Lisa.
Lisa Tamati:
Thanks, Dr. Eric. I know it sounds good when it’s all written on paper, but in reality, just average.
Dr. Eric:
A lot of this, I didn’t know, and I have listened to some of your podcast episodes. Your podcast for over a decade. That’s a long time. And a former television host. I didn’t know that. That’s pretty cool. You definitely have done a lot. Now we are going to learn even more about your background. Why don’t you spend a few minutes telling us: How did you decide to make that transition, helping others in the health and wellness field?
Lisa:
As you said in the bio, I had a background as an extreme ultra endurance athlete. I spent 25 years racing all over the planet, doing really long ultra marathons, in the Sahara, the Moroccan, the Arabian, the Libyan, the Niger, the Jordan, Gobi. Did the US a couple times. Ran right through New Zealand. At one point, for charity. Lots of adventures in the Himalayas and the Outback of Australia.
The funny thing was I wasn’t very talented as a runner. I was just bloody minded, and I didn’t have a lot of speed. I went fast. I was good at getting around obstacles, finding a way to do the things I loved. And I loved adventure.
When you spend so many years pushing the excellent boundaries of physical performance and mental endurance, it really teaches you a lot of lessons for life. You realize that all the limitations the world puts on you, “You can’t possibly run through this valley in the middle of summer. You can’t possibly run across the Sahara. You can’t possibly do this,” were wrong.
That gave me a mindset of “Just because someone tells me I can’t do something doesn’t mean it’s true.” If I dedicate myself to something, I usually find a way to work it out. I might not be very talented. I might not be the most intelligent. I might not be the fastest. When you have a lot of grit and determination, and you’re willing to grind things out, you can achieve a lot of things.
Having that ultra marathon background and doing expeditions and succeeding and having a lot of experience really set me up for what I’m doing now, which is in the longevity and health space.
I was thrown into this space because my mom, who is wonderful and always supported me through my crazy adventures, a decade ago, she collapsed on the floor at home and was rushed to the hospital. She had an aneurysm, and she was misdiagnosed from the get-go. They thought she just had a migraine. An aneurysm and a stroke at the same time, she had bleeding in the brain.
We were left there for six hours in the ED, being told it was a migraine, and she was dying at this point. After six hours of desperation, I rang a friend who was a paramedic because I was getting ignored. I knew something was majorly wrong.
She came up and took one look at Mom, and she knew her, and she said, “No, this is deadly serious.” She went to the doctor and told them to get a CT scan, which he finally relented and did. It came back that there was blood throughout the brain. We had to be shifted to Wellington because we live in a regional area in New Zealand.
That put me on high alert. My mom was fighting for her life, and I didn’t know what to do. I was caught out. I made a silent prayer to whoever is out there in the universe. If they gave me a second chance, and if they saved my mother, I would dedicate my life to helping others and getting her back and doing everything I possibly could. When you’re in that moment of desperation, and you promise the world.
I started to research. In that time, when she was in critical care down in Wellington and in and out of a coma, there wasn’t a lot I could do because she was in that critical situation. I started to observe everything. When you’re with someone 24/7, with a couple hours of sleep here and there, you pick up things that the doctors aren’t picking up necessarily. I started to have the oddest situation where I was missing something. I realized that I could make an impact. That grew over time.
After three weeks, my mother was out of critical danger. She’d survived. But she had massive brain damage. She was a baby with hardly any higher function. No ability to sit or put food in her mouth. Completely and utterly brain damaged at age 74.
Then they said to me, “She is never going to have any quality of life again. Put her into an institution, and she won’t be with us very long.” I’m a fighter, so I wasn’t accepting that whatsoever.
My desperate search to find things that would help my mom led me in different directions. The first thing I picked up was I didn’t think she was breathing properly. I thought she had sleep apnea because I have done a lot of racing at altitude, and I knew the signs of altitude sickness. I was seeing those signs in my mother.
I tried to get the doctors to do a sleep apnea assessment. They wouldn’t do it. I smuggled in a consultant one night, who was a friend of the family. He came into the hospital, and we hooked her up to the machines to do a study. It came back with severe sleep apnea. She was stopping breathing hundreds of times a night. She was Cheyne-Stokes breathing, which is not far from not being on this planet. 74% oxygen stats, which is really deadly.
That was my first win. Then I was like, now we have oxygen, and we have a CPAP machine. I stated to realize I can make a difference, and I can do things. I dove further and further into the research.
One of the things that I came up with was hyperbaric oxygen therapy. I read about the work of Dr. Hodge in America, who is a famous hyperbaric specialist over there. How much this could help with massive brain injuries.
Then I went on a search for how I could get my mom hyperbaric oxygen therapy, and it wasn’t available in my town. Except there was a commercial dive company that did hyperbaric oxygen for their divers. I approached this dive company and said, “This is my situation. Can I please use your chamber as soon as my mom is out of hospital?” These amazing people said, “Yes, sign a legal waiver, and then we will let you use the chamber.” That was absolutely amazing of them to do that.
I remember the day we got out of hospital. I had a hell of a fight to get her home by the way, but I won’t get into that story. I took her straight down to this factory. Fragile, in a wheelchair, nobody home Mom. We put her on a forklift and stuck her in this big hyperbaric chamber. That was the only way we could get her in. We did this day after day after day after day. We did 33 sessions back to back with the weekends off.
After those 33 sessions, she started to respond. Now, she didn’t just get up and walk, but she started to have a couple of words. She was paralyzed on the right side. Her arm started to move. She started to have a little bit of flicker of intelligence behind her eyes. I knew that this was working.
After 33 sessions, we lost access to the chamber because it had to be taken off on a contract. How do I get her a hyperbaric chamber? I moved her to my house and bought one. I stored it in my house, and I worked out how to get her into it because she couldn’t move on her own. All of these obstacles we had to overcome. I got her into the chamber. I found a way. I put her through session after session after session.
In this time, I was also starting the keto diet and how that affects the brain and ketones. Different supplements and functional neurology and vestibular systems. Everything I could possibly study in order to stay one step ahead of her rehab journey. Slowly, a real grind.
After 2.5 years, to cut a very long story short, and I have written a book about this called Relentless, as you mentioned. We got her back to full health again, full power of attorney, full license, full driver’s license. You don’t get a driver’s license unless you’re fully there. Walking, up to 3ks, 4ks a day, going to the gym, going out and having an independent life again. It was thousands and thousands of hours of retraining her brain and working day in, day out. That taught me an awful lot.
That’s how I got into this space, Dr. Eric, to answer your question.
Dr. Eric:
That is some story. Definitely an inspirational story. When we think about traumatic brain injuries, this is obviously really extreme. I think it’s safe to say, in most cases, most people would probably give up. Like you said, you’re relentless. That is one of the books. An amazing story. Your mom is doing really good?
Lisa:
That was unfortunately round one. That was a decade ago. We got her back to full health, to doing everything again. Then she got hit with brain cancer. We had another similar experience at the hospital, where they refused to believe me that there was anything wrong. I spent three weeks fighting to get an MRI.
When they did finally do an MRI, they found that half of her brain was covered in cancer, probably from the effects of what she had been through earlier. Who knows. They said, “She had weeks to live, and there is nothing you can do. She is too old to do major bone marrow transplants. She is unable to take the chemo; she wouldn’t survive.”
I took my research to cancer. I didn’t accept that she had only weeks to live, and there was nothing I could do. Luckily, through my podcast, I have access to some of the most brilliant minds on the planet. This is one of the reasons why you and I do this, I’m sure. You meet some of the most incredible people.
I started studying this metabolic approach to cancer. Incredible discoveries in this space. I started to implement as much as I possibly could. I chased private oncology because our local oncology wouldn’t help us. I did advance genetic testing in regard to cancer. Worked out exactly what her particular type of cancer would respond to from a supplement, chemotherapy, and immunotherapy point of view. Then I threw everything in the mix.
I managed to get a mild form of chemo called temozolomide, which showed on her genetic testing that she would respond to. Then I did all the natural approaches. I was just going to get natural, but we had weeks to live, so I had to go hard on both sides of the fence.
I have now released an audiobook called What Your Oncologist Isn’t Telling You, which is an interview series with 21 of those experts who work a lot with cancer patients, teaching them about the side of cancer research that is not well-known and is beyond what-
The normal oncologist will be an expert in chemo and medication and surgery and things like that, radiation, but they don’t know about this metabolic side of the story. They don’t know that your metabolism- Sugar feeds cancer. At the very basic level, you want to be cutting carbs out. Then it gets more complicated. You can block different pathways with different drugs and do all sorts of things.
Long story short, it took us 12 weeks to get rid of the tumors on the MRI. We have been free of cancer, touch wood, ever since. You never want to say you’re cured because it’s a tricky beast. It can always morph and change its metabolism. I keep on my toes very much.
We’re now 4.5 years into that journey. She is doing well again. We have had other issues like bone fractures and osteoporosis and placements and things like that.
I think the moral of the story is to take control of your health. Be preventative in your mindset. Don’t outsource your health to any one person, any one doctor. Understand that we have at our fingertips now all of the knowledge of the universe, and even more so now with AI. We didn’t have AI a few years ago. We have everything at our fingertips, if we are willing to put in the work, if we are willing to do the hard work.
If you have some way out of the way rare disease, you can very much research that disease and be more of an expert than your doctor will be because they haven’t come across that particular disease. That puts the power in our hands to take control of your health.
I know with your story, because you are on my podcast, you were a chiropractor. You became a chiropractor because you had back issues. Then you had Graves’, so now you are a Graves’ expert and have written all of these books and are a thyroid expert. You are a living example of what I’m talking about, too. You’re capable of going out and finding this-
Of course, Dr. Eric already had a medical background. Yes, but I’m sure most people could take control to some degree. Maybe not to the degree that you’ve done where you have written three books on it. Perhaps you can do more for yourself than what you realize. I think that’s the gist of my story.
Dr. Eric:
I had my chiropractor background, but I had no experience with Graves’. I did pretty much what you did. I dove into the research. Wasn’t a whole lot of research on the natural approach on Graves’, so I went to seminars. I completely understand and agree. You want to take control of your health regardless of the situation.
Can I ask how long now has it been since the MRI? You said it took 12 weeks before the tumor was gone on the MRI.
Lisa:
That was 3.5-4 years ago. Four years of extra life we’ve had so far. She has an extensive protocol, and it changes constantly. I am researching constantly to make sure we stay there. I’m not saying it’s easy. I’m not saying that every cancer patient will get the same results. Every cancer is very different.
But I also am saying to never give up. There is hope. My mom had advanced cancer. This was not at the beginning of the journey. This was way advanced. Now, when I went to a brain surgeon a couple months ago, he was like, “I can’t believe she was on my list today. I didn’t expect her to be alive. I can’t believe she’s walking. I can’t believe she’s talking. I can’t believe that you’re here.”
Yes, she has some disabilities now. She has hydrocephalus, so she has balance issues. She has to be supervised now when she is walking because of the water on the brain. That is why I was at the brain surgeon, to see whether he could put a shunt in to take off the fluid. We have decided against it. We are trying alternative methods. It’s too risky to put her through another brain surgery. But that’s about the only thing that we haven’t managed to get back.
I have seen her brain go from completely gone, not much of a vegetative state, to fully there after the aneurysm, and then losing her again fully in the brain cancer journey, and then getting her back, and losing her again when she has had different infections. She is not able to talk or do anything. She is not there. Then bringing her back. Again and again and again. I have seen what the brain can overcome.
I work a lot with people with dementia and Alzheimer’s and neurodegenerative diseases, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s, that type of thing. A lot of people, when they get these diagnoses, they think it’s a death sentence, and it’s the end of the road. There’s only drugs, or it will just delay things. You could not be further from the truth.
I have done extensive interviews with experts from the likes of Dr. Dale Bredeson to Dr. Elizabeth Yoo. The experts in brain rehabilitation. We can do so much. We can see a lot of things coming like Alzheimer’s and dementia. We can see it coming years ahead. We can do something very early on. It’s a lot easier. If it’s later on, there is still hope.
I often get accused of giving people false hope. I see it the other way around. I don’t like it when people take away people’s hope. For me, life is binary. You’re either alive, or you’re dead. If you’re alive, fight. For me, it’s that black and white. If the person wants to fight. If they have a loved one who is willing to support them, or whatever the case is. If they don’t want to, then that’s a different story. But if they want to fight, never give up. There is a chance. Even if it’s a small chance.
The other thing is that medical knowledge is doubling every 79 days now apparently, according to some amazing statisticians. That means what used to take 100 years to double is now doubling every 79 days. There might not be a cure for what you have right now, but there may be next month. There may be somebody in the world who has got the answer for you. You just don’t know about it. Your local doctor doesn’t know about it. Your country doesn’t know about it. But you might be able to get it and access it.
Never underestimate when you are looking for things. There could be answers out there that are not on your everyday street corner. I feel that’s really powerful.
Dr. Eric:
I agree with you that if you address dementia earlier, there is a greater chance of getting good results. You also said, even if someone is advanced, there is still hope. If someone has had dementia, Alzheimer’s for 10-15 years, is it possible to completely reverse that? Is it just trying to maintain it, preventing it from getting worse? Or just reversing some of it?
Lisa:
There is a point of no return for sure. Having seen my mom’s brain go from completely black to full function again and again and again and again over 10 years, most people have given up way before they could have done something. Usually, we can get people at least reversed part of the way. We may not get them back to full baseline, but if we can get someone who is nonfunctioning, unable to dress themselves, go to the toilet, do those basic things, and get them to a level where they can do those basic things, they may not be able to work or drive a car or do everything they used to do, but they can function around their own house and talk again and do some interactions with their fellow human beings. That’s a win. That’s a huge win. Not only for the person, but for the caregivers.
As a caregiver myself, having been in this role for 10 years now with my mom, and now she has these disabilities where she can’t move on her own, so I have to supervise her all day. She can’t get up on her own since a hip break. I know what a sacrifice is. I know how it limits me in my professional capacity to work. I know the monetary implications of it from a business point of view. The stress on the marriage, the rest of the family. It’s huge.
If you can get someone who is completely incapable back to a level of functioning within the household, that is huge for a family. Yes, we may not be able to get them from completely full dementia to completely normal again, but we can maybe get them four or five steps back on the scale. That to me is gold.
When we can get people that are earlier on in the pace and just are starting to have brain fog, forgetting where they put car keys, they know they’re not quite there, we can do a heck of a lot and reverse disease.
There is a doctor called Dr. Dayan Goodenowe. I am doing his training at the moment. He is an expert in something called plasmalogens. They are a particular type of phospholipid that sit in the membrane of the cells. They are absolutely crucial to life. When we get sick, a virus or bacteria or have an insult, our bodies use these plasmalogens to put out the fire, putting it very oversimplified.
If we don’t have a leg full of plasmalogens to draw back in from, it’s like the firefighter having a hose without any water in it. If we are low in plasmalogens, we are not going to have good synaptic transmission in our brain. Our sheaths will start to unravel.
We can have problems with our heart because these plasmalogens are not just in the brain but elsewhere as well. These plasmalogens are absolutely crucial to life. They are in breast milk. Breastfeeding infants gives a lot of plasmalogen to infants through their milk. This helps with their organ development.
As we get older, we get less and less of these plasmalogens because we have used them up to fight fires in the body. We can now replace them. Dr. Dayan Goodenowe has spent decades working out how to get plasmalogens through the digestive tract and into the cells to replenish these reserves. I am probably butchering his science nicely, so listen to my episodes on it.
These plasmalogens are regrowing brain cells. They are regrowing the neurons. They are rewrapping the myelin sheaths around the nerves and the neurons. They are increasing the transmission between neurons.
He is having actual reversals of Alzheimer’s, reversals of Parkinson’s, reversals of multiple sclerosis, of ALS. People with dementia. He is absolutely astounding. Highly recommend people check that out.
I have my mother on high levels of these two types of plasmalogens. One is called Glia, and one is called Neuro. They are not cheap unfortunately. It costs me a lot of money to keep her on plasmalogens. That is one of the major factors that has saved her brain. Alongside other things like peptides and hyperbaric, which we can get into in a moment.
Please check that out. I have no monetary connection to Dr. Dayan or anything like that. I am just passionate about his work because I have seen the results. Not only in my mother but also with some of the clients I work with. It’s astounding. If you look at some of his testimonials.
Endless cancer. It helps prevent the return of cancer. Once again, I have these on high levels for my mom. That is something I wanted to put on people’s radars today because it is still a relatively unknown thing.
He did a study on a 95-year-old with high plasmalogens. They have the same five-year mortality rate as a 65-year-old with low plasmalogens. In other words, that is 30 years’ extra life span you have just gotten back. Pretty astounding. If you can get your plasmalogen levels up, even for healthy people, I am in my 50s. You can prevent a lot of these things from happening perhaps. I think it’s a really good thing.
Dr. Eric:
How are they administered? Is there a way to test your plasmalogen levels?
Lisa:
Good questions. There is a test called the ProdromeScan. Unfortunately, there is not that many practitioners who are trained in it yet. But you can do a scan, and it will tell you exactly what is the makeup of the fats in your membranes.
Your membranes are like the brain of your cell. It’s not actually the DNA that we think of as the brain; it’s the membrane that is the most crucial. You could take DNA out of a cell, and a cell will survive. You take away the membrane, and it’s dead instantly. It’s what allows things in and out.
When this becomes hardened, and when it becomes clogged up with cholesterol or whatever the problem is, or it has low plasmalogens, you’re in trouble.
Your membrane is what separates your cells within your body. Otherwise, we would just be a big bag of fluid. It’s the membrane that separates the different things within the cell. Really crucial that these membranes are healthy. They are very complex. If you look at a diagram of a cell, you will see how complex the membrane is, as well as the cell.
You take it as an oil. It’s a capsule, or you can have it as a straight oil. There is one called Glia, which helps with the myelin sheath. If you think of it like an insulation tape around an electric copper wire. The tape is unraveling in our brain basically when we get things like MS and any neurodegenerative disease. That helps with that one. We usually put that one in first.
Then there is another one called Neuro. That increases the transmissions.
One tunes the station, and one makes the station volume louder. We usually start with the Glia and then the Neuro later. That is usually the way it’s done. Pretty easy. A couple capsules a day. High doses. You can go up to- Mom has eight capsules a day of the Glia and six of the Neuro. It is a few hundred dollars a month, but he is working on bringing that down. Hopefully he will be successful because it needs to get out to more people. It is a very complex process to make these things unfortunately.
They are not available in our food chain per se. They are in things like green lipped mussels and sea squids. They get digested in the digestive system, so they get broken down. He has developed a way to get them through into the body, so they are reassembled back in the cell. Go and listen to him speak about it rather than me.
That’s plasmalogens, so that is something to put on people’s lists. I put that in every single case of any brain injury if they can.
Dr. Eric:
How about hyperbaric oxygen? Do you also recommend that, if someone can do it, for any type of brain injury?
Lisa:
Oh yes. That was the cornerstone of my mom’s recovery. I have a hyperbaric oxygen clinic. I sell them. I am a huge fan of them. Hyperbaric is basically you are compressing the oxygen molecules. You are on an oxygen mask in a chamber that has more pressure than we have at sea level. Even with the divers, they use these hyperbaric chambers. When they come up fast, we stick them in a hyperbaric chamber and bring them up slowly.
What they have found is when you put someone on oxygen and go the opposite direction, putting them under pressure, the oxygen molecules are compressed in size. They dissolve into the plasma of the blood. As opposed to being attached to the red blood cell.
When they are on the red blood cell, it is quite big itself, and then it has an oxygen molecule attached. That means it’s difficult to cross into areas, like through the blood-brain barrier and through inflamed tissue, where there is inflammation and a lot of damage going on. Think about wounds, cuts, ripped ligaments, anywhere where there is inflammation or systemic inflammation. You are also hypoxic, which means you are not getting enough oxygen to those particular tissues.
One of the main things it was used for was diabetic wounds. People who are going to lose their legs if they don’t get the nutrients delivered to the legs, which are dying from the damage to the blood vessels from having high blood sugars. Or their eyes.
Hyperbaric has been used for that for a long time, but it also helps with wound healing, tendons. It speeds up the healing process. It lowers inflammation in the body, so it lowers all of the inflammatory cytokines.
It produces more stem cells out of the bone marrow. Stem cells are cells that can come out of the bone marrow, look for damage in the body, and become the replacement tissue. The body that you have now is not the body you had when you were 20 or as a baby. Obviously, you can see those changes. As we get older, the stem cells start to deplete. We don’t get as much stem cell release.
Hyperbaric oxygen helps release more stem cells out of the bone marrow. That helps with the repair. That is one of the major things.
It can create new capillaries. I have seen this on a patient who had heart issues. He actually came into the hyperbaric to heal a broken leg. Later on, he had a problem with his heart. When they looked at his heart, his heart had a blockage that had created blood vessels around the blockage. That is hyperbaric. It is creating new roads around the block. It can do that.
In the brain, it can help set oxygen across the blood-brain barrier, so oxygen can get delivered to the damaged cells. In a case like my mother’s, you have areas of dead tissue in the brain. You can’t do anything to save those. They’re gone. But the brain is very resilient and can pick up the pieces, and other players can come in to replace the A team, if you like. You have a reserve bench.
Often, around the dead tissue is an area called the ischemic penumbra, which is the damaged areas that are still alive. The neurons are still alive, but they are not firing properly. Those are the ones that we can rescue.
We can see it on SPECT scans. We don’t have SPECT scans in New Zealand, but over in America, if you look at the work of Dr. Hart or Dr. Daniel Amen, they have hyperbaric SPECT scans. This is a type of scan that shows the improvements after you’ve had hyperbaric and can see the holes in the brain disappearing. They have been reestablishing these neurons, so they are working.
What you want to do if you have brain damage is actually exercise those cells. You need to do brain training and exercise and physical exercise as well. When you put together a program like that, you can do extraordinary things.
I like to stack as well. I use hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Say someone has an unhealing wound or a broken leg. They come into the hyperbaric after they have done what they need to do at the hospital. They have session after session.
You do need a lot of sessions. It’s a block of sessions, depending on the ailment, somewhere between 20-60 sessions. It’s not a quick fix. When they are coming in, they are speeding up that healing process.
Then I like to stack it according to their nutrient profiles, their microbiome assessments, with different supplements that can actually be synergistic with the hyperbaric. I often do red-light therapy as well because I’m a fan of red-light therapy. That works synergistically as well. There are also peptides.
When we start to stack those things, you can have extraordinary results. Unfortunately, all of those cost money. I wish it was democratized. I wish that everybody had access to everything, but unfortunately, we are not living in that world yet. Hopefully, these things will change. As these things become more and more accessible, and they are. It used to be more than it is now to buy a hyperbaric chamber. Things are slowly coming down. All those things do cost. The one limiting factor.
For people who don’t have a lot of money to be able to do this, there are still things you can do. You might not be able to do it all. If you have the funds to do things, then you can go to town. It’s really how much you are wanting to.
The biggest thing I find though is mindset. If I have a person who is determined, come hell or high water, to find an answer to their problem, and they are willing to fight, I know with that person, I will get further than with someone who has been dragged along by their spouse and really doesn’t want to be there and is not interested. They don’t believe it. They will never get better because it takes effort and time.
Biology is not one of these things that you fix in two seconds. It takes time and a concerted, ongoing effort. If there is anything I learned from ultra marathon running, it’s how to do that. How to grind it out day after day after day.
Dr. Eric:
I do have a question with the hyperbaric oxygen chambers. I dealt with chronic Lyme in 2018. That was one of the options that was given to me. I ended up getting IV ozone. I took herbs and homeopathy as well. I didn’t do the hyperbaric oxygen. But it’s intriguing.
I believe they said that their hyperbaric oxygen chamber is different than the one that would be at antiaging clinics or the ones that you would have at home. Was that one more powerful? Can you still get good results? Apparently, you can get good results with a home chamber because you recommend the home chambers.
Lisa:
The only difference is the pressure that it can go to. The home ones now can go up to 2atm. They have worked out the technology. The one that you see behind me is a 1.5atm chamber. The one I have in my clinic is also a 1.5, so exactly the same. They are as powerful, but there are 2 atm, 2.5 atm, 3 atm.
Usually in the clinic setting, we might go up to 2atm. Only in the hospital setting or in big hyperbaric centers, then they might go to 2.5 or 3atm. For most ailments, a 2atm is all you will ever need. For cancer, it would be better to be in a 2atm than in a 1.5atm. However, 1.5 is much more accessible for people. It’s also a safer level to go at.
Once you go over 2atm or 1.75, I’d say, you really need to have clearance from a hyperbaric doctor. There are certain contraindications once you go up to those higher levels. Even at 1.5atm, there are certain things we won’t do it for.
For example, when you are having chemotherapy, and you are actually having the chemo, we don’t do the hyperbaric. The reason is it will make the chemo more powerful, so we don’t want to make it more toxic. We want it to do its job but not that well that it does it more. We don’t touch that.
If someone has COPD, we’d have to get a special hyperbaric doctor to say it’s safe for you to come in. There are certain things because oxygen can be an irritant to the lungs to a small degree. There is a thing called oxygen toxicity that happens at the much higher atmospheres, 2 and above, where you can get too much oxygen in too short a time, and that can cause seizures.
That does not happen in the 1.5atm. The home chambers have what’s called an oxygen concentrator. That is only taking out the nitrogen and other bits out of the air and leaving you with about 93% pure oxygen, as opposed to 100% medical-grade oxygen that you will get in a hospital setting.
100% is more irritating. In the clinic setting, you don’t want to have 100%. The commercial dive company, they had 100% oxygen because they were working with dive accidents. They had to have specialists. 100% oxygen is a bomb. It needs a lot of regulation around it. When you have these oxygen concentrators, there is no risk of any of that. It’s a lot safer.
When you hear often the hospital, 2.5, 2atm clinics, they will poo-hoo the soft-shell chambers because they are protecting their territory. They will charge a lot more per session than the clinics that are offering the soft-shell chambers that might be 1.5, maybe 2atm. There are soft shells that now go to 2atm. They are protecting their territory. Take that with a grain of salt. It’s the same pressure, and it’s going to do a lot of the same things.
There is a difference between 1.5 and 2 and 2.5atm. You would have a better effect when it comes to wound healing and cancer at 2atm than you will have at 1.5atm. Most people will only be able to access 1.5, and it will still be very beneficial. That is the only thing. Does that make sense? It’s a little bit complex.
Dr. Eric:
I think so. You have one at your home. Besides your mom using it, do you use it just for wellness? Like sauna? I go in the sauna three days a week, not because I’m feeling bad, but for prevention, to increase circulation, detox. Do you do the same thing?
Lisa:
Absolutely. I use it for longevity, anti-aging, sport performance, detoxification, all of that. I typically do a block three or four times a year. I have it in my clinic, so I can use it. I also have the one at home. I rent them as well. I can get in them at any time.
I usually do a block of 20 and then have a break and then a block of 20. It’s better to do things in a block. You get more epigenetic changes when you’re doing them close together in a block than when you’re having them spread apart, if that makes sense.
Dr. Eric:
When doing a block of 20, is it multiple times per week?
Lisa:
I do a block of 20. That might take me a month to do that. Then I might have a month off. then I might do another 20. Or two months off, depending on life. I try to do them in blocks of treatments. Sometimes, I will just do one here or there because I want to get away for an hour and hide. There is a bit of that, too.
You won’t feel much different. When you hop in a chamber, you’ll have pressure change in your ears, so you need to equalize your ears in order not to get baric trauma. That is like you do when you go up in a plane. You chew or move your jaw and try to equalize. Otherwise, you don’t feel any different. You will get out and go, “Is that it?”
On a cellular level, these changes are happening. You’re turning on and off 8,000 different things. When you do that repeatedly, you are getting epigenetic changes over time. Stem cell release happens after about 20 sessions. If you have something serious, you might want a block of 40 or 60 sessions. If you really are dealing with something like Mom was.
In the first instance with Mom, we were doing a block of 40, a month off, a block of 40, a month off. That protocol, in the time off, is where we would see the big gains. It’s like the body catching up. When you go to the gym, you don’t see the gains the moment you go to the gym. It’s a week later that you start to notice that you were able to lift a bit more, or you were able to go a bit further. After a couple of months, you really start to see the difference of going to the gym or running.
It’s the same with hyperbaric. It takes a little bit of time to get that momentum going. But changes are happening from day one just like they are at the gym. You don’t see that you’re fixed right away. You have to believe in and trust the process.
Dr. Eric:
I’m pretty sure you’re the first one to get in depth about hyperbaric oxygen.
Lisa:
My mom wouldn’t be alive without it. It’s that crucial. It’s a cornerstone of these things. Time and time again, both with the cancer and the healing of different injuries that she has had, the concussions she had and the aneurysms, all of it. It was an absolute key. That’s why I have the clinic because I needed it for my mom. Why don’t I open a clinic?
Dr. Eric:
I’ll admit, when I dealt with chronic Lyme, first of all, I learned a lot about IV ozone, so I was set on it. Also, I’m not completely claustrophobic, but a little bit. When they were talking about going into the hyperbaric oxygen chamber, if I had to get out, I had to alert them.
Lisa:
Most of the chambers, you can control it from the inside. Honestly, everybody feels that the first time. Once you get over yourself, the first or second time, when you are in the clinic setting and are in a hard shell chamber, it’s a lot easier. There is a big viewing window. A two-way phone.
The soft shells, it’s more. You have to release the pressure, and you’re out in a minute or two by the time the pressure comes down. If you intellectually work it through, you can usually overcome the claustrophobia.
Millions of people use this around the world, and it’s safe. It’s worth that little bit of fear for the huge health benefits that you’re going to get. Some people can’t get over that hump. For me, it’s sad because they are foregoing something that could be super beneficial to them.
Dr. Eric:
If I know I can get out on my own, it’s fine.
Lisa:
You can.
Dr. Eric:
If I have to rely on someone else…
Lisa:
There is always a way for you to get out. All the chambers have a way for you to control the things to get out. You shouldn’t be left alone in the room when you’re in a hyperbaric chamber. Ideally, we always have someone in the room with them. Eye contact with them. They are able to take phones in there as well. They also have a two-way phone. There is a lot of safety things you can put into place and comfort things for people. it is a little bit of an issue.
Getting in and out is a hard thing. If you have someone with a stroke, trying to get my mom, who was paralyzed. We had to get a hoist. With the soft shells that we had back then, it was a mission. We would get her in, and she would pull the mask off. We would have to decompress the room, open it back up, put it back on, and do it again. But we persevered. That’s hyperbaric.
Dr. Eric:
I’ll need to give it a try. I won’t do one on my own yet. I’ll go to one of those anti-aging centers. Try it out before I make that investment. Make sure I’m willing to-
Lisa:
Listen to a podcast. Then you’ll need to do it. Put it in your clinic. It’s the sort of thing you could do in your clinic as well. It’s hugely beneficial.
Dr. Eric:
Maybe something to consider. Thank you for discussing this.
I know you have longevity supplements. You have an immune one you wanted to talk about because a lot of people listening to this have thyroid autoimmune conditions, which are more immune system conditions than thyroid conditions. If you could talk a little bit about whatever you want to talk about with your line of supplements.
Lisa:
Appreciate that. Once again, everything that I do, I’m looking for an answer for my mom. She had an immune system compromised. She is 83. Everybody’s immune system, as we get older, you get something called immunosenescence, which is the aging of the immune system.
The more I researched this, the more I dug into this, the more I understood that absolutely foundational to all of the diseases of aging is a healthy immune system. It’s the reason we get a lot of these things.
Cancer survivance goes down; you get a lot more cancers in older age because your immune system is not operating. You get more autoimmune as you get older because you’ve had all these insults, and your immune system is confused, so it starts to attack itself. This is all in the immunosenescence.
When we have senescent cells, these cells are also known as zombie cells. The cells are alive, but they are not replicating properly or doing their normal cell life cycle. They have been trapped in a state with us, fueling our inflammatory cytokines that are causing systemic inflammation, and are not doing their job. Immunosenescence is the aging of the immune system.
Stanford University has done this thing called the 1,000 Immunomes Project, led by Dr. David Furman, who I have interviewed on the show. For the past 15 years, he and his colleagues have been studying the immune system. It’s the largest immune system study ever done on the human population. Huge study. 15 years. Millions of dollars gone into this project from Stanford.
What they discovered is that all of the hallmarks of aging are influenced by your immune system. When I was looking at longevity supplements, and I was putting in 100 different supplements quite literally for all of the 12 hallmarkers of aging, to try to cover all your bases. Studying this work actually, if we went to the immune system and worked on a formulation that helps stop the aging of the immune system, or slow it down, or reverse it even, could we then influence all of those hallmarks of aging? Indeed, that is the case.
Dr. Furman and his team have identified a lot of proteins. They have a test coming to market called the iAge Test. This is a test to see how well your immune system is aging. By correlation, if you like, how you are aging. This is the key thing. They have identified things all these different proteins they can measure in the blood. They definitively know how well you’re doing after 15 years of this research with your aging immune system.
We started to put a formulation together, working with teams around the world that have special ingredients that were aimed at fixing the immune system. When we get older, we have this thing in our chest called the thymus gland. When we’re young, it’s this huge gland in the chest. In the baby, it’s huge. This is where our T cells get their education. They become mature T cells when they go through the thymus. They go out into the bloodstream and can look for the baddies, the pathogens, the bacteria and viruses, and can help mount an immune response.
As we get older, that thymus involutes, which means it becomes useless. It becomes a fatty little nub. It gets fat infiltrated into it. It no longer does this. By the time you’re our age, it is pretty buggered.
Scientists have been working on how to replace the thymus, and we haven’t worked out how to regrow thymuses yet. There are peptides we can use to give back thymic function, things like thymosin alpha 1, which can be very powerful in a younger immune system. Peptides are a bit inaccessible to get to.
We started working with a combination of products. We put four products into a formulation that has over 15 years of clinical research behind each of these ingredients. One is called Immune Defense Protein. It comes from New Zealand cows. Extract from the whey fraction of milk.
We use whey a lot for body building and muscle building. It’s great for you. There is a tiny fraction, like 5% of the actual protein fraction, which is 1g in every 10l of milk, that has a suite of 50 bioactive whey proteins. They are there to protect the cow. In this case, it comes from the cow, from inflammation and infection.
They include things like lactoferrin. If you look this up, it’s quicker to look up what it doesn’t do. It’s an amazing molecule that helps with iron binding, tight junctions, all manner of things. Lactoferrin makes up 40% of this Immune Defense Protein. There is something called lactoperoxidase and a suite of 48 others.
The synergy of these together is much more powerful than the pure lactoferrin. A lot of people know about lactoferrin. There are conferences held every year on the wonders of lactoferrin. IDP is much more powerful.
We have paired that with something called Immunol, which is an extract of colostrum. It is the first food that a mother mammal produces for her baby. It gives the baby in the immunoglobulins, the transfer factors, the growth factors for that baby to develop really quickly and get an immune system up and going.
Human babies are born with some immunity that they get through the placenta. In cows, the calves are born with no immunity. If they don’t get colostrum, they don’t survive. 100% their immune system is dependent on it.
We have taken this extract of colostrum, which has a lot of other things, because it’s a whole food. It has fat and other things we don’t necessarily want in our humans. We have taken the extracts out of it, the stuff that actually does the good things for you, and put that into an extract that is going to help with your immune system. It gives you back growth factors, like IGF1; transfer factors; immunoglobulins. It helps with tight junctions, gut and repair. It’s antioxidant, antimicrobial, antibacterial.
The IDP and this together is just an absolute powerhouse. It’s colostrum times 50. Much more powerful. It helps with gut integrity. We have barriers right throughout our body, through our GI tract. Have you heard of leaky gut? As you know as a thyroid specialist, when you have leaky gut, you are exacerbating your possibility for getting autoimmune diseases because you are letting the bad stuff into the bloodstream, which is causing accelerated aging of the organs, damaging the brain, and can lead to autoimmune and all sorts of problems. We want to fix those barriers and get those tight junctions tight again. That is what this formulation does. It is clinically proven to do so.
We also have two other ingredients. One is called carnosic acid from the rosemary plant. Rosemary has been used for centuries in traditional medicines. It is a very powerful NRF2 upregulator. The NRF pathway helps upregulate your andogenous antioxidant capacity. It is also antibacterial, antimicrobial, antioxidant, and so on.
It lowers something that the Stanford team identified as being one of the most important proteins in blood. When this is elevated, it means you’re going to have more immune problems, more cardiovascular problems. It is a protein called CXCL9. It is a chemokine.
Carnosic acid, which is an extract of rosemary, helps lower that particular CXCL9 in the blood, which is a very powerful thing.
The fourth component, and I could talk for an hour on each of these ingredients, is something called cara cara. Not cava. It’s related to cava, which you may have heard of from the Fijian. Cara cara is a native New Zealand plant that is of Maori descent. The native population here. We have used cara cara for centuries for a tonic, for everything. It’s one of those fix everything type of plants, in particular, for pain relief and gut health.
It is a COX2 inhibitor, like your nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories. It does that without all the negative side effects. it also upregulates the NRF2, that endogenous antioxidant capacity. It also has all these antimicrobials and antioxidants. It also upregulates something called Interleukin 10, which is an anti-inflammatory cytokine that you produce in the body, which gets lower as we get older.
They all lower Interleukin 6, Interleukin 1 Beta, TNFL and NF Kappa B. These are all inflammatory cytokines that go up as we age. The Stanford University project, they identified systemic chronic inflammation as being at the core of all these aging diseases and the immune system breakdown.
Our formulation, which has been done with a world-class scientific team behind this, who spent the last two years bringing this product to market. It’s now available. My company is called Aevum Labs. The website is AevumLabs.co.nz.
You can look at your zonulin levels in the microbiome, which should be going down when you are on the supplement. Things like your lymphocyte counts. We don’t have clinical evidence for this, but anecdotally, we are seeing lymphocyte counts going up.
We have clinical studies that say it activates natural killer cells, which are the ones that go out and kill things like cancer cells and pathogens that are infected. Natural killer cell activity is activated through this formulation.
Without going on forever, because I could, this is a super powerful, really foundational supplement that is safe for nearly everybody to take. We don’t give it to pregnant ladies, and we don’t give it to children. We are bringing out a second product that doesn’t have the cara cara and rosemary, so we can give it to these two populations as well. Otherwise, it is really safe.
It is safe for someone like my mom, who is elderly, fragile, and has a bunch of complications. It’s what I wanted for her. It is helping protect her from infection and helping her bounce back when she does get an infection. Recently, she got a portacath infection. She got a port, which they stick in your chest to help you take IV and stuff when you get older. That got infected because of the plastic in the bloodstream.
Giving her Rejuvenate meant she bounced back way faster than would be expected for someone having had sepsis from such a bad infection. I was glad to have my own product.
It’s called Rejuvenate Pro. We are really proud of the work that has gone into this. This will really help people stay healthier for longer, and it’s all about health span and lifespan. Most importantly, health span, so we don’t have all these diseases. Thank you for letting me share about that. I am really excited about it.
Dr. Eric:
You’re welcome. It is available outside of New Zealand, too? For those in the United States?
Lisa:
It is coming to the United States. We have a team who will be getting it shortly in a few weeks’ time. They don’t have it yet. If you want it at the moment, hit the Shop button on my website, and you will see it there. That is the best way to get it. But it is coming to the States. Watch this space. It will probably be there in about two months’ team. We have a team in Colorado, Longevity Launch, who are going to be distributors in the States for it. Really excited for that.
Dr. Eric:
Wonderful. I might need to give that a try as well. Always open to trying different supplements.
Lisa:
Unless you’re pregnant, everybody should be on it. If you’re over 40, then it’s a no-brainer. If you’re autoimmune, then it’s a no-brainer. If you have gut issues, immune system issues, this is the thing.
Dr. Eric:
Wonderful. You provided so much amazing information. I know we could talk easily for another hour or couple of hours, but any last things you want to say before we tell people where they can find out more about you?
Lisa:
No, I just want to thank you for the work you do. I was so glad to have a thyroid expert on my show. They are few and far between, people who really understand thyroid. It’s something I’ve been studying for the past couple years and still haven’t gotten my head around. As you know, it’s very nuanced. To have your expertise has been so wonderful. You have a good man here if you have anything thyroid and chiropractic, of course.
Dr. Eric:
Thank you for the kind words. I appreciate that. Same with you.
You said you have a physical practice, so anybody in NZ, they can come visit you. Do you also do remote calls as well?
Lisa:
Yes, I do. I work with people all over the world. I have a concierge health consultancy. People can hop over to my website, LisaTamati.com.
Check out the podcast and YouTube channel. I’d love for people to subscribe there. Pushing the Limits is the name of the show. If you’re on YouTube, type in “Lisa Tamati,” and my channel will come up. It’s an incredible privilege. You will find that, too. It’s wonderful to learn from these people, isn’t it?
Dr. Eric:
Agreed. I have listened to some of the episodes you’ve had, and I need to listen to more. Your books, where can we find them?
Lisa:
A couple of them are still available on Amazon. They’re all on my website. Running Hot and Running to Extremes were my two running books I did. Relentless. Then the other two are e-books available on my website: the cancer book and another one for athletes on mindset. The first three should be on Amazon, I believe. I haven’t looked for a while.
Dr. Eric:
Thank you so much, Lisa. It was great being on your podcast and amazing having you on mine. So much great information that hasn’t been touched upon before on my podcast. Appreciate you taking the time. Look forward to keeping in touch with you in the future.
Lisa:
Exactly. Let’s stay connected, Dr. Eric. You’re in my network now; you’re on my radar.
Dr. Eric:
Same here.
Lisa:
Thank you so much, everybody.
Dr. Eric:
Thank you.
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