← Biohack-it
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- [00:00]
A
I have a really interesting lineup of guests for you guys, all picked for different reasons. The guest I just brought on Right now is Dr. Robert Whitfield.
- [00:09]
B
Well, I'm surprised you found me because I've been blocked and censored on a lot of platforms now because of talking about this, you can have really a lot of aches and pains in the joints and in the muscles. You can have, like, tremors or vibration
- [00:21]
A
symptoms, all stemming from inflammation.
- [00:24]
B
From inflammation. I saw somebody yesterday in my office, and they had had implants for 40 years.
- [00:30]
A
What? The same implant for 40 years. And after 40 years, they decide to come see you?
- [00:36]
B
Well, they're having a little pain. I went back through all the notes and studies that we had available, and I did, you know, all of her consultation preoperatively and her examination, and there was nothing in any of that that would have given us a clue that she had.
- [01:00]
A
So, Dr. Whitfield, I found you because you are the explant guy. You got known for this, talking about explant illness and, well, implant illness, more to say, and all the things that go wrong in a woman's body. I should announce at the beginning of the episode that I actually have implants. So you can just judge me from the start. But it was before I got into the health and wellness space. So I got implants, like, four years ago. Thank God. I haven't seen any of the signs and symptoms, but now I'm interested to dive in and. And hear from you how you actually got into it.
- [01:31]
B
Well, I'm surprised you found me because I've been blocked and censored on a lot of platforms now because of talking about this. But so I mostly performed oncologic reconstruction for my career. And I started out wanting to do heart surgery. So I did a traditional general surgery training of in our program. It was six years, and then about halfway through, we had to decide what we were going to do as a year in the laboratory. And ultimately I spent a year in a vascular biology lab where I did a lot of microsurgery. I really was fascinated by doing surgery with a microscope. And that became just my passion. That's what I wanted to do. And there was not that many avenues if you wanted to do that. Plus, I was super interested in just oncologic reconstruction. So plastic surgery gives you a broader opportunity to treat all over the body and different age groups, males and females and kind of whatever. So it appealed to me more. Then I did plastic surgery, microsurgery, and then, you know, taught for several years. Did oncologic reconstruction for till 2019. In 2016, we had a breast cancer patient who came to us and we used to do the deep flap reconstruction, which is usually in the tummy tissue, sparing the muscle and the nerves of the rectus abdominis. And then doing a autologous. Or this person had decided over time after having a breast implant, that they just wanted to go flat and have an aesthetic flat gloves, which was absolutely fine. And I'd done that numerous times. She did ask me to remove all the scar tissue. And we always did that anyway when I did a case. So that wasn't really a interesting or novel thing. But she did ask me to do it in an en bloc way.
- [03:19]
A
Okay, what is that? What is an end block?
- [03:21]
B
So that's where all this got interesting. Because that would be the first time in my career a patient came to me and asked me to do an en bloc capsulectomy. So en bloc is a pathology term. It's just take it out undisturbed with a margin, because you're trying to protect basically the patient from tumor spillage. So you do it in cancer surgeries a lot. And I had done reconstruction for breast cancer, head, neck cancer, sarcomas, all sorts of things. And that was always the goal was not be inside of a tumor. You want to be out. So with that request, we did her surgery, and everything went well with her surgery. And about a week later, we were reviewing her pathology, which is the results you get to look for any recurrent cancer. And obviously, if somebody said cancer, you want to make sure they don't have a recurrence. And she did not. And then you look at cultures, and there's a variety of ways to take them. We can talk about that, but traditional ways take like a Q tip and swab the inside of the pocket where the implants go. Cause you want to know if there was an infection or anything. And you can also send portions of it and have it. So we did that. And when we looked at that, she had an E. Coli infection in her implant in the space around it. And so I went back through all the notes and studies that we had available, and I did, you know, all of her consultation preoperatively and her examinations and reviewed all the data personally, as I do with every case, and there was nothing in any of that that would have given us a clue that
- [04:48]
A
she had E. Coli infection.
- [04:51]
B
Yeah, there was one thing she told us, though, which is a very common complaint of cancer patients, is fatigue.
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A
Okay.
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B
So that was the only Thing that was potentially the tip off. And so I treated her for that E. Coli infection with a oral antibiotic and all of her fatigue went away.
- [05:09]
A
Do you think her E. Coli was representing signs and symptoms of developing cancer in her body?
- [05:15]
B
No. I think if you have a patient, especially a patient older, and the bladder and the bowel are kind of very easy ways that we get problems with infections when we're older, that would be the most likely, especially in a woman. Urinary tract infection is probably the most common.
- [05:35]
A
Right.
- [05:36]
B
So anytime we get. And maybe just for the audience. So we'll just back up a moment. Like you can get infection on a implanted medical device, a dental, cardiac, neurologic, breast, hip, knee, prosthesis, whatever, three ways. Somebody hands it to the surgeon in the operating room and in the process of unpackaging it and handing it to them, they contaminate it. So before you ever get it, it's somehow contaminated and then the surgeon can contaminate it upon placement somehow by the way they handle it. Now, there's all sorts of safeguards. These things are double and triple packaged. Everybody changes gloves multiple times. They use all these no touch techniques and different ways of handling things to, if not eliminate those first two, make them so low that it's not a problem. Now the third and the most common way is always something gets in your bloodstream and then that can attach to an implant because your body can't during the time of surgery, after, throughout your life.
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A
Okay.
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B
Yeah. So and we'll just say like out of the early wound healing phase, because if somebody got a skin infection or something, where it was placed, that would be an opportunity for get infected.
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A
Right.
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B
But outside of that, we'll just go through the course of life. You know, that is the most likely. Somebody gets a pneumonia, somebody gets a cut that gets infected, somebody gets a urinary tract infection, a bowel infection, what, whatever the thing is that they get, bacteria gets in the bloodstream. And then because the foreign body, the medical device is not, does not have your immune system, if you want to think of it like that, it can't respond. It just things attach to it and your body can't remove them.
- [07:13]
A
Right.
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B
There's no blood flow, there's no way for that surveillance to happen. And we published a big series in September of 24 of 694 consecutive explant specimen sample. So we take like a thumbnail piece of the scar tissue, the patient's scar tissue off, and send it off and get it analyzed for DNA. So it's a PCR test that looks at 150 types of bacteria, fungus and Mycobacterium. Long story short is there's two bacteria that predominantly are responsible. One is Staph epidermidis, which is found in our skin. It's colonized. And the other is Cutibacterium acnes, which is commonly found in the face, shoulders, chest, and neck skin. Those are the two most common. They readily can stick to and form even a more difficult biofilm for your body to take care of. And that interaction between the bacteria that stick on the device inside the scar tissue with the breast tissue can cause an oxidative reaction in the breast tissue of the fatty acid called oleic acid. So long story short is that oxidative reaction. Remember, for the listeners, oxidative stress is bad. We want to be in a reduced state. Oxidation leads to more symptoms because it affects how our immune cells work. And that leads to more symptoms, which makes sense. It's just more inflammation.
- [08:32]
A
And then there was a third that you were going to name as well.
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B
There was a third one. Oh, of the routes.
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A
Yes.
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B
The third one is the blood.
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A
It's the blood. Okay.
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B
In the blood.
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A
So we basically went over the first one, which is basically around the.
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B
Yeah. That means somebody opens the package and contaminates.
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A
Correct. And that's how they get it transferred over.
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B
And then two is the surgeon contaminates. And then it's just something gets in your bloodstream over the course of your life.
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A
Over the course of your life. So you've basically said that standard labs miss about 29% of implant infection.
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B
So the standard labs would never show that. And then folks want to know, can I determine it beforehand? And I can't. So all of those things that we're learning are from what we send from the operating room when I do the removals.
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A
Right.
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B
And I mean, I wish there was a commercially available test that would answer some of these questions so that people would, you know, be able to be,
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A
you know, am I a candidate or not?
- [09:22]
B
Yeah. And it would just help put their minds at ease because they're worried about if I go through surgery, am I going to feel better? You know, it's a big deal. I saw somebody yesterday, in fact, yesterday in my office, and they had had implants for 40 years.
- [09:37]
A
What? The same implant for 40 years without ever thinking about changing or removing anything.
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B
Right.
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A
Wow.
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B
And they were asking me questions, and I was like, and after 40 years,
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A
they decide to come see you?
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B
Well, they have a little pain. And I said, you know, these These are first.
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A
Well, these are first generation implants, probably.
- [10:02]
B
Implants, yes. From the 80s. Think of the technology from the 80s, totally, versus what we have now. And I, you know, I let this person know, just, yes, these in my mind are ruptured devices because it would be very hard for me to believe they aren't. I've only taken out one set from that period of time in my career that aren't ruptured.
- [10:24]
A
And how come they weren't ruptured?
- [10:26]
B
So that is a great question. I don't have the answer. The original. I've only taken one set of original Dow Corning implants out that weren't ruptured. Every other set I've ever taken out from that era has been ruptured.
- [10:38]
A
Ruptured. Okay.
- [10:39]
B
This person has very firm areas of the, of the tissue, which usually is a result of rupture and irritation and almost a calcium deposition like eggshell formation. And so she has a capsular contracture. And it's very common with that problem. I thought I was like, you know, this is something you should get taken care of relatively, you know, soon. She's having. Not like your. She's having more pain. So there's mechanical symptoms, which are from scarring and what we're talking about, and then there's symptoms associated with inflammation. So those can be a laundry list. And from head to toe, you can have like brain fog and light sensitivity, sound sensitivity. You can have problems with swallowing, dryness of your eyes, your mouth, sinusitis type symptoms. You can have, you know, palpitations or feel a lot of heart racing type symptoms. Even though you're. When you go get that checked, it's not the case. It's more anxiety, maybe. You can have really a lot of aches and pains in the joints and in the muscles. You can have like, tremors or vibration symptoms. You can have all sorts of GI problems, constipation, diarrhea, bloating, swelling, cramping.
- [11:53]
A
All these things all stemming from inflammation.
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B
From inflammation. And then chronic problems with UTIs, vaginosis problems. Proctor, if you can name something I've seen it really recalcitrant rashes, dermatitis type conditions, and acne. Like, it doesn't matter what you can come up with.
- [12:12]
A
Yeah.
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B
Somebody has rolled into my office over the last.
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A
Has one of these, any of these?
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B
Yes. Yeah. It's pretty amazing the amount of things
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A
that it can cause.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And then is there any functional blood work markers that are a good telltale sign that if you have implants, your body's having a reaction to, you know, so you're developing implant.
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B
Traditional biomarkers for inflammation are highly sensitive CRP and sedrate. And those don't in our patients. Hold up.
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A
Okay.
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B
So we looked at all those, including other interleukin markers and things over the years, and they just didn't. They didn't show a difference. So the things that we found important I wrote about in. In the book I published, the Sharp Method. And it's looking at your personal genetics because you inherit genes from each biologic parent and that allows you to cope with whatever you get exposed to.
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A
Right.
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B
So you have the ability to detox based on certain pathways. And your antioxidant pathway has an enzyme called superoxide dismutase. And that allows you to handle some of that oxidative stress we talked about. So if you don't have a enzymatic function that's capable handling more and more exposures, when you reach your limit, you'll have more symptoms.
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A
Totally.
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B
So they talk about, you know, when the bucket gets full and you have more problems, more symptoms that we see that pretty routinely. We're working now to publish a paper about genetics because I published that PCR paper we talked about earlier. But I feel like this has a very specific genetic archetype. Now, you can't change your genes, which is fine, but you can do things to minimize, I would say, your exposures so that you have more resiliency. Right. Or more reserve. If you want to think of it like that, you can. And I think the way we created our supplement stack for this, which I. I continue to have patients use supplements throughout the time I operate on them, where a lot of people just stop them because they're worried about bleeding. We've adjusted our amount so that I am fine with our stack and operating on them. And I've done that for the last several years.
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A
What is your stack, by the way?
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B
So we just use liposomals because many of my patients have a lot of trouble with.
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A
But a lot of liposomal supplements on the market are not even true form liposomes.
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B
Yes, yes. That's a whole nother conversation. So we use D3K2, glutathione, methylated B and then vitamins.
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A
And what are some of the brands that you like that you recommend?
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B
Yeah, so I have felt comfortable with the folks with pure. We have our own line and then designs is good, I think quicksilver. I mean there's a lot of good ones that with liposomals, you know, I hope over time we can get like a more simplified, like just supplements in general. Supplements are very complicated to talk to patients about.
- [15:04]
A
Yeah. I think there's also so much they're not regulated. So one of the brands that I really like and I swear by is a brand called Body Bio. It's like been around for you know, 40 plus years, family made, manufactured and they, they manufacture all their products. They get third party testing and they really breaked in the science of what it means to be a true liposomal supplement. And I, because the supplement industry, like so many things in this country are so unregulated. So you get away with all these greenwashing terms and get away with certain stuff. And I always say to people when you are shopping for supplements, always look for practitioner quality supplements. That is essentially the gold standard which, you know, designs for health. Your supplements pure are those and this in this brand called Body Bios, practitioners are backing the supplements. Then it's at the quality level and it's not commercial grade. Like it's just like, you know, you know, standard and that, that's not to say you can't go to sprouts or an Aram or a whole food and find incredible supplements. But majority of these mass brand supplements that every average joe and influencer is promoting probably tend to stay away from those.
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B
Yeah. And I have patients who are in typically states where they've tried a lot of things and I always kind of give the same advice. If something has a lot of ingredients, proprietary blends, I would steer away from.
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A
Oh totally.
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B
Because that is code for you don't know what's. And then we have this problem with green tea extract. So that is leading to a lot of cases of liver. The need for liver transplantation because of liver failure.
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A
It's that common now?
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B
Yeah. And it started, I mean there have been problems with, as you mentioned, unregulated supplementation for a long period of time. And it started back in my, my training with ginkgo biloba when it first came to, because it completely anticoagulated a patient and caused a death.
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A
Oh my God.
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B
And nobody knew what had gone on. Each week we would discuss, you know, cases and complications and things of that nature. And this was brought, you know, to that, that conference and nobody knew what had happened. Nobody could explain it. And then two weeks later a letter came from the FDA warning us to make sure that we checked with patients because it was promoted as a therapy for cancer patients. And of course that's what we were doing with cancer surgery. So very dangerous to take Things. And, you know, the patients are just trying to survive. So if they're being marketed to that this will help them survive cancer, then of course they're willing to do whatever just to. So we are careful, honestly. And I have to react. Ask. And my team has to re. Ask people all the time not to do other things at the same time during a. Yeah.
- [17:47]
A
So I also want to talk about how. And you know, saunas are so incredible for the health and wellness and longevity zoos. However, heavy metal leaching at a certain temperature can be really dangerous for you. Yeah.
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B
So Lauren Bostick's my patient, and Lauren was, you know, really. She brought this to my attention and she used to joke with me all the time in the office. Dr. Whitfield, I think I'm melting my implants. And so I said that on her show, and oh, my God, did I get in trouble for that. So the correct scientific term is leeching leaching.
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A
Yeah. And it happens at around 200 degrees Fahrenheit.
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B
Hers did. Now, I don't know, because I think of what. I think basically what happened is because we said that on her show and her influence is significant, people just stopped. Because I didn't have anybody else come with the same exact problem as she had.
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A
Right.
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B
Because I think people just took it as like, I should calm it down with the saunas. Yeah. And so when I get asked, like, what. What's the right answer is? I mean, I think because of the show I did with her, we are not going to have that answer because people just stop. So my feeling is if you sauna and then you don't feel well, there's a telltale that's assigned to you. Do not. So just stop. And then that's when you should seek out either you. You talk to me or talk to somebody who at least understands the problem, because you're. You're creating basically a Herxenheimer reaction. You're exceeding your ability to detoxify.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And many of these are being done in the face of just like, no binder, no nothing. And they're just, like, going in and,
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A
you know, free balling it, basically.
- [19:24]
B
Yeah. And in those settings where people don't understand their genetics, toxicity, burden, gut health, maybe how food's triggering them and their hormonal balance, it's not a really. They're not set up for success. Like, you know, the people with the. The finished data argue with me and they're like, oh, it's so great. I'm like, well, okay, you don't.
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A
In the Right Conditions.
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B
You don't eat like you didn't grow up in this country. The food here is terrible. On whole, the hardest thing to do is get good quality food.
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A
Like if then environmental toxins, then you have air, then you have your water.
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B
So this is not Finland.
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A
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
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B
Basically, don't argue with me.
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A
You know, and isolated data in a way that they're.
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B
Your perspective is very different.
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A
Correct. Their environment's totally different.
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B
Yeah. I mean what we're. You're sitting in Austin, this is where I practice. And the entire country of Spain can fit in Texas, if everybody's curious. When people argue with me about the Netherlands or Finland, I'm like, well, you have to understand where we are, what surrounds us. Just the land mass of where we are right now is crazy. That's why it used to be its own country.
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A
It's insane. So I went to just to give perspective. And like most of us in this space, right. Besides my implants, we eat really well, we drink clean water, we are trying to get the right quality sleep, air purifiers, all the things. Right. There's nothing that most of us in the space if we can't have access to, we will not do. I literally go to Argentina for one week. One week, like 10 days, not even. And I eat whatever I want. I just walk around, I drink whatever I want. I came back lighter and less inflamed.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Not being so conscientious about all the different things. Probably like not getting all my deep sleep and all the stuff that I would normally get here.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And it just showed because when you can take the person out of the environment and then right around you is healthier. Where the produce is cleaner, water source is cleaner, less environmental toxins, air quality is better. The just, just everything is much more aligned. Being harmonious with how we're meant to live biologically as human beings, it can shift so drastically. So back to your point. Those studies that people call about from Finland and other places do not apply to the US because of the toxic soup of an environment that we live in.
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B
In America, the EU has so many
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A
more restrictions on everything from personal care to all of it.
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B
And in South America they're a lot looser. So Monsanto did move into Argentina, so
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A
they had a lawsuit with them, I think. Yeah.
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B
It won't be forever before that.
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A
I won't be going to Argentina that much then. However, it was just, it was interesting, you know, because you can have a week somewhere and feel so different. And you're like, what is going on here?
- [22:00]
B
Well, you have to be careful, right? A lot of people have non celiac gluten sensitivity and if you don't understand what that is, if you eat gluten or gliadin, which is common in, you know, all the starchy carby type things, then you can be, you know, have digestive issues. So I have non celiac glutens and I don't methylate well, so everybody's heard of mthfr. It's one of the, you know, methylation genes important in our patients. You brought up environmental toxins. So the water bottle, the plastic water bottle, you shouldn't drink out of plastic. The reason is the phthalates in the plastic can get into the water and then that disrupts your endocrine system. So if we go back to the analogy of leaching, just not that complex. If you heat up the plastic water bottle, the phthalate, which is what makes the plastic hard, leaks into the water and you drink it. Now that affects a woman's endocrine system. And so things like thyroiditis, things like depressed testosterone levels, all sorts of weird things happen that I see in our patients and I never know exactly why, but we do see paraben levels that are elevated. We see phthalate levels that are elevated. We see lots of herbicide and pesticide levels that are elevated glyphosate levels, which is roundup. Lauren still holds the record for the most heavy metals ever in human.
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A
Really?
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B
Oh my God, not even close. And, and then a lot of.
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A
And what was a lot of her heavy metals coming from? From her implants or other things or
- [23:28]
B
so interesting on hers? I have her pre op heavy metal test and then all we did was her post op heavy metal test. She did not. At that point, we didn't have a integrated detox program, so she didn't do that. She actually went to and spent the summer, I think, at Lake Cuomo and then came back and redid the test. So kind of like you're saying nice, different environment, living experience, but having lived in the same zip code she did in Austin, she didn't get her heavy metal poisoning from there. So all I did was her explant. And so then her test completely cleared up. So I don't think it's a stretch to figure out that she was causing chemical leach by doing and using her sauna because she will tell you how terrible she felt after. Afterward.
- [24:12]
A
How long did she have her implants before she removed them?
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B
I think she had two different sets and I don't remember the Second. The longevity of the second set, to be honest.
- [24:19]
A
And for a lot of women listening, let's say they have implants. What are some telltale. We talked about some, you know, exhaustion, migraines, all that stuff. But what about some more subtle signs and symptoms that somebody might not pick up on or something that might come up in their functional labs or other things?
- [24:34]
B
I think the towels are very, you know, for our patients. And women push through a lot of things. They're just kind of used to being caregivers and managing families, businesses, relationships, all this. They just kind of do things at a very intense either pace or level. And then I get people that, like, fall off the cliff and they can't get out of bed and they can't think, they can't remember stuff. If you start all of a sudden, your 30s, having energy problems, memory problems, digestive issues, say joint problems, like pain in your joints and muscles, and you're not going through menopause. You're not old either. People tell me that in their 30s. They'll tell me they're old. I'm 56. I'm like, that's in my 30s. If I thought I had that going on, I would have probably sought help, because that's not. You're not going. You're not at a time of life where you're experiencing something like. You're not old.
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A
Like swing the pendulum.
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B
No, no, no, no. You should. You should be very. That should be your peak. Yeah. Your vitality.
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A
Yeah.
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B
You should be excellent at that point. I mean, look at the different athletes and where they're peaking now. They're not peaking in their 20s anymore. Many of them are peaking in the 30s.
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A
You also talked a little bit about the sharp methods. I want to get into that. And you always say surgery is only 50 of the cure.
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B
Yeah. The. The short method is interesting because I get asked a lot of, you know, there's this disenfranchisement with Western medicine. Right. Which is how I was trained. And there's this kind of excitement about all the new things and biohacking and genetics and kind of what can we do for longevity? Like, what does that, you know, look like? Well, in reality, like, everybody should understand neither of those is going to solve the problem. Right. Not the way I was trained and not the way you're thinking.
- [26:27]
A
It's somewhere in the middle.
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B
Exactly. That's why I wrote the book.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Because it balances the two. Right. I'm old enough to remember things like CD ROMs and books. Right. So those are how I was taught and trained and we used to go to the library at the medical school, read the books. And then what you guys are interested in now all day on your phones and computers is called the Internet. And that didn't exist when I was in school.
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A
Right.
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B
So it used to exist in a format on a CD rom. So if you know what a DVD is, CD is just a smaller version of that, not in size, but in memory. And you'd have to load up this five disk changer to look up scientific articles out of the National Library of Medicine. And we thought that was the coolest thing. Well, now you can just type all that stuff in and it just pops up.
- [27:18]
A
Yeah.
- [27:18]
B
So the beauty of like that is, you know, the genome project started in the 90s, finished in 03, and now we have commercially available genetic testing. And some people are afraid of that. You shouldn't fear your genetic testing. It's fine. So that is a big ad that we need to somehow incorporate into medicine in a way that takes you from listening to symptoms to make a diagnosis, to give somebody a prescription to, like listening to understanding how they detox and what their exposures are and their travel history, and then come up with maybe why they're experiencing life the way they're experiencing. That's kind of I. In a nutshell, that's how I think about it now, because I don't ever listen to anybody to try to make a diagnosis of breast implant on this. I mean, if someone's coming to me, someone shows up in front of me in Austin, they've already decided that they're
- [28:09]
A
going to do that.
- [28:10]
B
Yeah, I don't decide that. That's a big decision that they have to arrive at on their own. Now. They can listen to the 160 podcasts I've done, or 3,000 videos I've done, or two books I've written to figure that out on their own. They don't need to come talk to me about that. I will say that I would like to have both ends of the spectrum meet in the middle and do a bit more to help patients. So the system that we created that we run at our clinic called the Sharp Method, I think it is a nice blend of both because many people want to optimize how they feel and that it's not going to be on the regular blood work or the CAT scan or whatever, and then all the crazy longevity things, and some of them
- [28:49]
A
are crazy, I think is the craziest one.
- [28:51]
B
Most of the shit Brian Johnson does is stupid. So he's neither a scientist and should not be looked at as a role model for anything. To me personally, he's done some very questionable things and I don't know who's helping him, but it's borders on stupidity.
- [29:07]
A
What do you think out of all the crazy things he's done because there's so much besides the fact that he's a vegan is one of the craziest things he's done that you're just like,
- [29:14]
B
this is just, just injected himself with stuff from his kid. Yeah, okay, all right, so this is a good discussion. It helps people understand why implants do what they do. So Joseph Murray's plastic surgeon, he's the first person to transplant a kidney successfully and he did it on a genetically identical twin. It's important because if you're genetically identical, you don't need any drugs to prevent rejection of an organ. So he did that first. They transplanted a skin graft onto the twin and it lived. So they're like, oh, okay, well I guess we can just do the kidney because the skin would definitely have sloughed because skin is so antigenic. So the operation, he did it and it worked. And the patient survived both the operation and for I think a year after, and then passed away from other issue. And then they said, well all right, next we have to do a non identical. So that's going to require some form of immunosuppression because you're going to get rejection. And so they did total body irradiation. They don't do that anymore for obvious. And then the next would be a cadaver kidney trap, which is basically the, the kind of whole beginning of transplant surgery. So the ethics around it, the medications involved around it. So you have to have the right blood type and you have to have a negative cross match because your HLA type, if it's going to have a positive cross match, it'll be hyper acutely rejected. So you have to have a negative cross match. So anyway, when I hear somebody as stupid as that injecting themselves with somebody else's tissue and saying it's going to be okay. No, it's not going to be okay. You're going to react to it doesn't matter if it's your kid.
- [30:52]
A
Now you have to check, yeah, it's
- [30:53]
B
not your genetically identical twins. Yeah, that's the only way that works. So you can take fat out of one person and put it into another if they're identical. And there's been breast cancer operations done by Dr. Allen, he transferred a Deep fat from one patient to another, and all these things because they're identical, that's the only way that works. Like, you can't circumvent that. And you're always going to get a reaction. You're going to get inflammation rejection at the tissue level because your body is going to recognize it.
- [31:18]
A
Right.
- [31:19]
B
And try to reject it. So similarly. Now, a paper out of Denmark last year showed that at the tissue level, patients who have more problems with capsure contracture. So firmness, tightness of the scar tissue around the implant is really a combination of factors that we didn't otherwise appreciate. So instead of just a T cell response, which is responsible for breast implant associated anaplastic large cell lymphoma, there are other responses from the B cells and the plasma cells. So you're getting more of a rejection type response in some patients. And this makes perfect sense to me because it's not your own tissue. And so when a patient comes to me and they're like, Dr. Wuf, I have all these symptoms, like, well, have these symptoms ever gotten better? And the one tell is I asked them, has anybody ever thought to try you on steroids? Have these gotten so bad you got steroids?
- [32:05]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [32:07]
B
And then I just stopped them and backtracked them to the point where they got the steroid. I say, how did you feel after you took the steroid? Like, tell me exactly, did all the symptoms go away? And many times they do. And so if they do, to me, that's the perfect tell that they're having such a response that if I immunoresponse. Yeah. Their immune response is heightened. So if I do the explant surgery, then I'm very confident that's just gonna,
- [32:29]
A
gonna go away completely.
- [32:30]
B
Yeah. And so is that a perfect, you know, situation? Is that the right thing all the time? Probably not. But let me see. I've done a couple thousand explants, probably done another 15,000 operations, and listen to all these different stories and things. It makes sense, right?
- [32:46]
A
It's just, it's just what's adding up.
- [32:48]
B
It makes sense. And, you know, I try to do things that make sense.
- [32:52]
A
Yeah. For a lot of women, like, like myself, I've never had. So I got into health and wellness. I got my implants in 2020, and I kind of dived into space a couple of like years later, started getting kind of into it. I haven't had per se, like, any like, signs and symptoms and stuff that have shown up. But because of your work and other, you know, people's Stories and people who have had, you know, things like Hashimoto's is all of a sudden showing up. Brain fog is starting to develop in women all of a sudden getting really lethargic and tired. And then the doctor never tells them, hey, why don't you also check your implants to see maybe if there's something going on over there. But is there ever an instance in somebody comes to you and it's never been implant related, they come to you and they have stuff and it doesn't tie back to the implant, it's something else.
- [33:35]
B
Oh yeah, sure. So I go back to the genetic part. So when we publish this paper, I think it'll be very, very eye opening. I think you'll see that 83% of my patients have mutations in all of
- [33:47]
A
those pathways and which are the common mutations.
- [33:51]
B
So there'll be problems in vitamin D metabolism, methylation. You know, everybody's heard of mthfr, but there's a whole host of methylation genes. And then in the glucuronidation pathway, GSST and GSTP1 will have mutations or absence of copies of genes. And then there'll be SOD two activity issues. So those are like the most common. And then if you really want to have the worst case scenario, you add in somebody who has poor estrogen metabolism. So maybe they have elevated levels of estrone just because of how they metabolize. That is by far the worst scenario. Now that person is typically going to have such little reserve that a problem with the device or a problem with parasite everything or Lyme or they're going to have the worst set of symptoms.
- [34:37]
A
Right.
- [34:38]
B
So it's not so much that and people can run my program. And I know the program lowers inflammation. I have plenty of examples of that. Now can someone use it to avoid getting surgery? So you know, I don't have the answer to that question. You can tell by the way I talk about it. I have thoughts about. But there's a lot of people who secretly stalk me and do things so that they can avoid coming to see me, which is absolutely fine. I think it's smart to be informed. So why only want patients to make the best possible informed decisions for themselves? So people ask me all the time, they're trying to pigeonhole me. They know I have a daughter. Would I let my daughter get implanted? First of all, my daughter's a Leo like me. You're not going to tell Leo.
- [35:20]
A
Yeah, she's gonna do what she wants to do.
- [35:22]
B
Exactly. Kids are gonna when their mind's made up. You're not gonna tell them anything.
- [35:25]
A
Yeah.
- [35:26]
B
Who. Who could tell you anything when you were 18? Yeah, I'm not gonna be able to tell my daughter anything. She already is a little bit sassy with me, which is kind of a window in how I used to be when I was younger. Like, I was always right. You couldn't tell me anything. I was very stubborn, very dug in. And I only dug in harder the more you messed with me. So it's fine. So, you know, what you want is to read the book I wrote about breast implant and read the patient's stories and what they experience, because I can share what I know and what we've done and what we've published. But, you know, you have to decide. I can't decide if it works.
- [36:01]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [36:02]
B
And implant companies are probably pissed at me, and plastic surgeons are probably pissed at me. It's fine. Whatever. I mean, the whole point is just to make patients better, more informed so
- [36:11]
A
they can have informed decisions about their bodies. You also do a fat transfer, right? That's another thing you.
- [36:16]
B
Yes.
- [36:16]
A
And there's a way that you talk about how you do the fat transfer. So a lot of traditional surgeons. And I'll back this up a little bit. A lot of plastic surgeons, when they. Patients come to them and say, hey, we don't want. We want a breast lift and we want a fat transfer. A lot of them don't apply the same method that you do and how you're doing it. So the results can vary. Because the thing with fat is it's temperamental. If you lose weight, the fat goes away. If you have fluctuation in body weight, the fat goes away. And fat is extremely sensitive because it's a live organism. So people don't necessarily get the same results. You can't get the same volume, but you have a specialized technique of how you're doing the fat transfer.
- [36:52]
B
I think it goes back to what we were talking about. Right. So I've gotten really sticky about who I'll operate on and when I'll operate on them.
- [36:59]
A
Okay.
- [37:00]
B
So a lot of people get devices, implants place when they're young. Right. They don't have a lot of body fats, and they couldn't have a fat transfer. So that's one peak of, you know, when people get implants. And then the second one would be, like, maybe after children. Then they're doing what we would refer to traditionally as a rejuvenation procedure. Like a mommy, mommy makeover.
- [37:22]
A
Yeah.
- [37:22]
B
And so we'll focus on that group, because typically, over time, we gain body fat. We don't lose body fat. And after children, women will have typically gained weight and not lost it as easily. And so in that instance, there's like, I think of it as kind of a fork in the road. That group can go get implants and a tummy tuck if that's what their desire is based on, you know, their decision making. Or you could come to me and we could take fat from the different areas and then use it to augment the breast. Now, I do it a little bit differently in terms of preparation. So we already talked about my book, the Short Method. So everybody gets worked up according to that. So they look at genetics and toxicity, burden, gut, health, food sensitivity, and cleaning
- [38:08]
A
all that out first.
- [38:08]
B
Yeah. So we want to definitely look at things and understand your history. Like, we're in Austin. A lot of people go to Cabo and vacation, and I always ask people if they go off property, and they're like, oh, yeah. And I'm like, well, you have a parasite, so you probably should look at that because there's a reason. Like, you may have gut trouble. And it's probably. That is part of it. So parasitic overgrowth has to be looked at. Mold has to be looked at. Mold's an extremely bad actor, especially in Texas, anywhere.
- [38:36]
A
Yeah.
- [38:37]
B
Yeah. So I look at that. We have specific protocols for that. We like a lot of treatment. If you have mold up front and I get a DEXA scan. So DEXA is like the traditional old machine. You lay on it, they have your weight in it, and you basically get a combo of what's your lean body mass, body fat. So you have a good body comp analysis, plus bone density, which you should know anyway in your patients. My. My patients, I want them to avoid osteopenia. Of course, when I get all that information, and many times people don't know, they have zero idea about any of that. And I was never taught to do any of that. I just feel like if you're going to embark on a procedure like this and try to get people the best results, then you really need to select them as carefully as possible, educate them about their sleep hygiene, their diet, their exercise patterns, and know as much about them to help them maintain a result. Because it's not. I'm not the problem. I can move fat from all over the place. But maintaining it, as you pointed out, like in the era of GLP1s, you mentioned saunas and the general stress that
- [39:53]
A
women face in life.
- [39:54]
B
Stress and the obsession with working out at high intensity. Those are not the combos for successful fat transfer.
- [40:02]
A
Absolutely.
- [40:03]
B
So if you want to embark on any of those, you're not my avatar.
- [40:07]
A
Yeah.
- [40:08]
B
So I just tell people, like, here's how I would suggest you think about resiliency and longevity. Maintain your thigh strength, which means lift weights and walk, eat protein, healthy fats, avoid, you know, carbs, and, you know, as it relates to sauna. I have no idea. But I just tell you, like, the year I'm taking care of you during a fat transfer.
- [40:30]
A
Do not.
- [40:30]
B
Don't sauna.
- [40:31]
A
Yeah.
- [40:32]
B
And I'll get that dex at the end of it to compare to the pre. And we have your pictures and your weights. So if you then F it up afterwards, you have to be accountable for yourself and your result. Like holding me accountable for a lifetime. I had somebody write a negative review two years after I did their case, and I was like, okay, so you want to blame me for something that happened? Two years.
- [40:56]
A
What have you done in those two years since you left my office? I mean, accountability.
- [41:00]
B
You can already tell I'm pretty sticky about what I want. I've got plenty of experience, the best instrumentation, really good understanding and feel for everything we need to do. And I just want to help people have the best results. So I don't compromise what I want to do for patients to meet their habits. So if you want to do Hyrox CrossFit, if you want to do calorie restrictive diet, hot as yoga. Yeah, great. You know, a calorie deficit, all these weird things, then it's not the right procedure for you.
- [41:28]
A
Yep. Like, that's just not what you should.
- [41:30]
B
Not worth it.
- [41:31]
A
How much is generally an average? Because you're picking your patients, you're educating them, you're informing them, you're getting their body prepared pre and then post. You have all these, like, you know, you're basically telling them you're going to go home and live like this. This is your protocol. That's what you're going to do. What is the retention rate? Because that's very different to a lot of other plastic surgeons, right?
- [41:47]
B
Yeah. So when you check the DEXA scan at a year, if their BMI has been stable or goes up a point or two, if you're up two points, the latest data says you'll keep about 80%.
- [41:56]
A
Okay. And so you're taking about a year from when somebody walks into your office to when you do an explant, to when you do the fat transfer, about.
- [42:04]
B
No, I do simultaneous fat transfer. Okay. Yeah, I get all that information up front. Because if you're coming to see me and you're not local, it's going to take you several weeks to months to get here.
- [42:14]
A
Okay. And so when somebody walks into your office the first time, has a consult, sits down, you're like, you know what, you could maybe be one of my avatars. How long do you have to give them to collect all the data? And you monitor the data when you actually be like, okay, you know what, I'm willing to not only do the explant surgery on you, but I'm willing to do the fat transfer. And I think your results will be great.
- [42:33]
B
Yeah, simultaneous fat. You have to have all that information up front, especially the tox test. So we do a two week challenge with supplements and then the tests. Takes you another week or two to turn tests around, especially a tox test. At that time they've already got adexa. And really it's like the tox burden test really tells you how good or close someone is in terms of timing. So if someone shows up and has a really poor tox test, think of like Florida people. Y' all have the worst talks test known to man. It's almost not going to happen simultaneously. Or they get it and they're like, oh, in fact, I have a client in Miami. She had a really. She had a lot going on on her tox test and she was wanted a simultaneous fat transfer and wanted me to do it. So she said, you know, can you talk to my functional doctor? And I said, sure. And had a call with them and they said, you know, what do you need this to be? And I said, I need all these microculcans out of the 95th percentile. Right. So there's like green, yellow, red marker.
- [43:36]
A
Are you talking about the vibrant lab?
- [43:38]
B
So you want to have all the mycotoxins back in the the middle or off? And so she did all that. She put in all the work. She came and had the treatment. We did her simultaneous fat transfer. She had a very good response and she went back because you all have the Centner set up in Miami. So we'll give a shout out to them. They run and do a lot of things for my patients. She did hyperbaric and lymphatic massage there, as well as some of the other modalities. And I don't think they have a human regenerator there. I have one in my office.
- [44:08]
A
Yeah, they're great at the human regenerator.
- [44:11]
B
So that's kind of the best case scenario. Right.
- [44:13]
A
And how much did she retain? Like 50, 60, 80.
- [44:16]
B
She created a calorie deficit.
- [44:18]
A
Oh, God.
- [44:19]
B
Because she started feeling good and training. And so that was not. And she knew when she reviewed her own photos before we got on the call, she's like, I've lost some of the result. Not because it was not intended. Like, I think everybody has to understand when, when you've suffered with chronic inflammation a long time, you don't feel well and you start feeling good, then you want.
- [44:40]
A
You think you're superhuman.
- [44:42]
B
And you women train to hoard in general, so what you always have to think of is if you're feeling good and you. You're gonna push, you have to match the calories so you don't create a deficit.
- [44:53]
A
Correct.
- [44:54]
B
And whether it's with your. I'm specifically talking about proteins and fats, because I don't, I don't consider the other things important.
- [45:00]
A
Right.
- [45:00]
B
That's what she didn't do. So she, on her own changed her result. That was absolutely. Was going to be like, excellent. And that goes back to what we talked about. So the accountability on the patient side. And that's why I spend a lot of time talking to people about, hey, if you're going to do this, this is what we expect. And you got to be really careful about creating the calorie deficit from training. So the walking and lifting weights is.
- [45:28]
A
Okay.
- [45:29]
B
Is easier if you can get high interval training. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [45:33]
A
Kind of the berries and the soul cycles.
- [45:36]
B
And, and when people are younger and they start feeling good again, like, oh, boy.
- [45:41]
A
Yeah.
- [45:41]
B
You can't control them.
- [45:42]
A
Yeah. Because they're on a high. The dopamine hits, you're feeling so good about it.
- [45:45]
B
That's right.
- [45:47]
A
So what is the average BMI of a woman who wants to withhold her results? What should it be?
- [45:52]
B
It's.
- [45:53]
A
Everybody's gonna be different, obviously, because of height.
- [45:55]
B
You know, people ask me, like, what's, what's too low? I've done a really successful fat transfer on someone under 20. As a BMI, you would say, you know, that's probably risky.
- [46:05]
A
I've done several thousand of them and it stayed.
- [46:08]
B
It's just the volume is different.
- [46:09]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [46:10]
B
That's all. And some people really need whatever volume I can get them, especially post, because they had very little to begin with. And it's going to be a problem with scarring or asymmetry. Maybe they're too big of an implant to begin with, which is very common.
- [46:26]
A
And are there any things that when you're removing the fat and Preparing the fat to be input in things like red light or. I don't know, nowadays.
- [46:35]
B
Oh, in the opera.
- [46:36]
A
I don't know. Yeah, I don't know what else.
- [46:38]
B
There's an FDA rule that you can only minimally manipulate.
- [46:42]
A
Okay.
- [46:43]
B
So I can't do anything to augment it. I can't talk about stem cells. I can't do anything like that because it's not legal.
- [46:49]
A
Well, hopefully in the future it becomes legal. So you can taper. It should be in the. Improve the quality of fat. You know, even exosomes should improve the quality of that baseline fat.
- [47:00]
B
Yeah, the thing with. So the hierarchy is always the same. Your own stem cells always win.
- [47:05]
A
There's a term for your own stem cells now, I think they're called not NK cells, but something you're talking about muse mu cells. That's what it is.
- [47:12]
B
Yeah. That's become novel. But it's still, you know, your stem is better than those are your stem cells.
- [47:19]
A
Yeah.
- [47:19]
B
So autologous stem cells. And we've done this, we've moved fat around for ages. We have the devices to do same setting stem cell treatments, but they're not approved right now because of the stance.
- [47:33]
A
And why is it that I always find this really fascinating that BBLs hold in people so much better than a breast transfer.
- [47:40]
B
Yeah. I'm glad you brought. Oh, that's great. Perfect. So this would be a great way to round this out. No pun intended. So the face holds fat the best. Yes, because of the blood supply and the lymphatic drainage. So the least is necessary to get a visible change face. You never want to put it superficial. You always want to have it deeper. And you don't want to have too much because over time it will get
- [48:07]
A
bigger the fat in your face so
- [48:09]
B
you'll look more like a bulldog. We don't want that. And then the butt. Right. All right, so the butt. And I wrote a safety paper on buttock augmentation because a bunch of people in Miami and LA died and I wrote a paper about the safety of that. So to get a visible change in the butt, I used to tell patients you want about a half a liter, 500 cc's per butt cheek and not in the muscle in the fatty layer. I don't do the butt augmentations anymore, but that is such a big space that you need enough volume to get a change. Plus you got to clean out the waist and do the inner outer thigh and reshape and fix the hip dip, hip dip and all that. So that gives you the shape. So if we're just changing, you know, zip code, so to speak, from the butt to the chest. There's a big muscle in the butt, the gluteus maximus. There's a big muscle in the chest, pec major. There's a skin and fat layer. Obviously it's not as thick, neither on a male or female. So what's the big difference on the chest versus the buttock? It's space and you don't have the same laxity of skin. It's always more stretchy in the, in the, the buttock like is more sag. So you have the breast tissue. Males and females both have breast tissue of varying amounts. Obviously females have more. So you don't stick it in the breast. We already said you don't stick it in the muscle. So it goes with its fatty friends. That's beneath the skin and in this case above the breast tissue.
- [49:31]
A
Right.
- [49:32]
B
So if you put it where it belongs with its friends, it should be fine now. Then it becomes how much is the right amount? And that's, you know, the. That's Goldilocks. Right. It has to be just right.
- [49:41]
A
Yeah.
- [49:41]
B
And that's what you do. So you can't over graft. I know people talk about that. I've seen plastic surgeons post about it. I think it's a stupid thing to tell people because over grafting people, and my background's in oncology. What do you think happens when you over graft the cancer patient and you get fat necrosis or cysts or lumps or bumps? They think they have cancer.
- [49:59]
A
It hardens up as well. Yeah.
- [50:01]
B
So that's not appropriate. We would never do that.
- [50:03]
A
Yeah.
- [50:03]
B
So if I went and do it for cancer patient, I'm not going to do it for cosmetic patients. So don't call me or come to me and ask me to over graft you, because I won't, because I find it to be unethical. So why won't it work? Well, I don't think I've said anything here that makes me think it doesn't work. That's why I do it. And I do it the way I do it to prove that point. Because it should work just as well as a butt face, provided the things we spoke about. And I think, you know, if you're talking about the butt augmentation crowd or actually not doing Hy Rox, CrossFit, running marathons, cycling, doing high intensity interval training, so I don't have to worry about that with them. Diet probably not a big concern for them. Because it's a different group.
- [50:45]
A
Yeah.
- [50:46]
B
So you're already kind of patient selection is better is the, the issue between the two groups.
- [50:52]
A
Right.
- [50:52]
B
You already have a higher bmi, typically in the other group.
- [50:56]
A
This all being so informative, I was so curious to sit down with you and learn more about explant illness. But also, you know, how you select patients, which we went through and all the things that can lead to better outcomes in a area where women are two times more likely to obviously develop like autoimmune disease. And a lot of autoimmune disease now being linked to a lot of women having implant.
- [51:17]
B
And this is, you know, that's the thing. Like I, I know that's a problem. And I used to have a very fundamental thing I would not do in cancer reconstruction if somebody had a pre existing autoimmune condition like you already knew it. I would not, if I could avoid it, do a breast reconstruction with an implant because I didn't want to worry about it. Now, autoimmune conditions are documented in the late 1800s. So the first implants were placed in Houston in 1962. So autoimmune conditions predated. But we've already talked about environmental toxicity, poor food quality, air quality, fluid quality, like all these other things coupled to poor detoxification pathways genetically probably make the environment for an autoimmune problem, you know. Yeah. And so if you add any device into it, hypny, breast, dental, cardiac, neurologic, like it's just more for your body.
- [52:10]
A
Right.
- [52:10]
B
So I always, you know, I think it's complicated and I always had a very healthy respect doing reconstruction with my colleagues that, you know, the orthopedic surgeons I worked with, they did incredible reconstructive work. But if any of those things got infected, which occasionally those things will happen, it was a big deal. And same with a heart surgeon or a neurosurgeon. I helped or anybody. I helped out. Like nobody wants to have a problem. They're just trying to do the best for themselves.
- [52:39]
A
And that's clearly like the patients have to come in also knowing, am I a candidate for this procedure?
- [52:44]
B
Yeah.
- [52:45]
A
Is it going to give me the results I want? And just be mindful of the lifestyle parameters that come around having to sustain those results.
- [52:52]
B
Yeah. It can't be this. You should look after yourself. Right. You can't have a procedure done, put a foreign body on yourself and forget about it for 40 years. Right. That's not gonna work out.
- [53:03]
A
Yeah.
- [53:03]
B
You need to, you know, be mindful of it. Checkups and and things like teeth cleaning, colonoscopies, infections, pneumonia. All these other things could lead to a bloodborne infection that could affect your implant, hip, knee, breast. Done.
- [53:18]
A
I've loved having you on the show. Thank you so much for making time on a Saturday. I'm really glad that I was in Austin to catch you at the right time, and I'm really excited to take your information and all your work to my audience and educate women on their options. Thanks for it's all about having options. Right? It's all about being educated, knowing about your choices and making better choices for you, for your individual body and health.
- [53:38]
B
Got to make the best decision.
- [53:39]
A
Thank you.
- [53:45]
B
Sam.