167. Iman Hasan: How to Boost Fertility with Cellular Health Hacks

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka
Episode 167: Iman Hasan – How to Boost Fertility with Cellular Health Hacks
Release Date: May 20, 2025

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Introduction

In Episode 167 of The Ultimate Human Podcast, host Gary Brecka welcomes Iman Hasan, a renowned voice in women's health and fertility. Iman shares her transformative journey from a career in luxury branding to becoming a leading advocate for integrating longevity principles into fertility practices. Their insightful conversation delves into the intersection of cellular health, longevity, and fertility, offering listeners actionable strategies to enhance reproductive health.

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1. Guest Background and Personal Journey

Iman Hassan begins by recounting her extensive background in luxury fashion and lifestyle marketing, spanning over two decades across London, Dubai, and the USA. However, a personal health crisis six years ago pivoted her focus towards functional medicine and biohacking. After encountering a functional medicine doctor who introduced her to peptides, Iman embarked on a path to heal her body, which became even more urgent during the COVID-19 pandemic when her mother tragically passed away from an aggressive cancer shortly after receiving a booster shot.

Notable Quote:
Iman Hassan [00:00]: "The slower you go into menopause, the more life expectancy you can have."

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2. Transition from Luxury Branding to Health and Wellness

Motivated by her mother's passing and her own health struggles, Iman decided to redirect her agency's focus from luxury brands to health and wellness. This shift allowed her to collaborate with top-tier health practitioners, amplifying their voices and building brands that prioritize genuine well-being over profit.

Notable Quote:
Iman Hassan [05:05]: "Today, 95% of our portfolio used to be luxury. We still have a portion of that, but now 90% of our portfolio is health and wellness."

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3. The Current State of Fertility

Gary highlights alarming statistics indicating a steady decline in both sperm counts and female fertility rates. Over the past decade, sperm counts have decreased by 1% annually, posing a significant threat to future fertility rates.

Notable Quote:
Gary Brecka [09:32]: "We're going to be infertile in no time during our lifetime."

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4. Integrating Longevity into Fertility Practices

Iman emphasizes the importance of viewing fertility through the lens of longevity. By addressing underlying health factors such as insulin resistance, inflammation, and mitochondrial health, practitioners can enhance fertility outcomes significantly.

Notable Quote:
Iman Hassan [10:44]: "Insulin completely destroys your actual egg."

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5. Comprehensive Strategies to Enhance Fertility

a. Hormone Testing and Panels
Iman advocates for comprehensive hormone panels beyond standard AMH and FSH tests. This includes checking homocysteine levels, full thyroid panels, fasting glucose, and markers of inflammation to get a holistic view of one's reproductive health.

Notable Quote:
Iman Hassan [19:47]: "Run a full thyroid panel, not just a couple. Run the whole thing."

b. Addressing Insulin Resistance
Only 7% of Americans are metabolically flexible, leading to chronic inflammation that adversely affects fertility. Lowering insulin levels through diet, weight training, and supplements is crucial.

Notable Quote:
Iman Hassan [18:10]: "Insulin completely destroys your actual egg."

c. Enhancing Mitochondrial Health
Mitochondria are vital for cellular energy and egg viability. Practices like hyperbaric chamber therapy can boost mitochondrial function by increasing oxygen supply.

Notable Quote:
Iman Hassan [37:32]: "Hyperbaric chamber fuels your mitochondria by flooding it with oxygen and gets you firing."

d. Lipid Replacement Therapy (PK Protocol)
Iman discusses the PK Protocol, a lipid replacement therapy aimed at fortifying cell membranes, removing toxins, and enhancing overall cellular health. This therapy involves intense IV treatments containing phosphatidylcholine and sodium butyrate, which help cleanse and rebuild cell integrity.

Notable Quote:
Iman Hassan [40:23]: "Lipid replacement therapy literally takes your cell wall, refortifies it, pulls out any toxins, and cleans it up."

e. PRP and Stem Cell Treatments for Ovaries
Advanced treatments like Platelet-Rich Plasma (PRP) and umbilical cord stem cell injections into the ovaries have shown promising results in restoring ovarian function and reversing early menopause.

Notable Quote:
Iman Hassan [49:12]: "They inject your ovaries with stem cells, creating more follicles and improving fertility."

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6. Male Fertility: A Shared Journey

Iman highlights that male fertility accounts for 50% of infertility cases. She shares her husband's journey, where addressing insulin resistance, optimizing diet, and supplementing with Vitamin D and NMN led to a remarkable improvement in his sperm count and overall fertility.

Notable Quote:
Iman Hassan [25:51]: "We put him on supplements, cleaned out his gut, fixed his gut, got him detox, got him ready, got him firing."

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7. Lifestyle Modifications for Optimal Fertility and Longevity

a. Diet
Adopting Paleo and Keto diets can reduce inflammation and support metabolic health. Emphasizing high-quality fats, such as pasture-raised red meat, and eliminating processed foods and sugars are pivotal.

Notable Quote:
Iman Hassan [42:00]: "Keto and Paleo diets help break down food efficiently and cycle out toxins."

b. Exercise
Weight training not only builds muscle but also enhances insulin sensitivity, which is crucial for both male and female fertility.

c. Detoxification
Regular use of saunas, colonics, and coffee enemas can activate natural detox pathways, essential for eliminating toxins that impede fertility.

Notable Quote:
Iman Hassan [42:24]: "Sauna is incredible. I definitely recommend lymphatic drainage."

d. Supplements
Supplements such as NMN, NR, Vitamin D, magnesium, and selenium support cellular and mitochondrial health, further enhancing fertility.

Notable Quote:
Iman Hassan [27:01]: "NMN and NR paired with antioxidants are being researched for slowing ovarian aging."

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8. The Importance of Couples' Joint Health in Fertility

Gary and Iman discuss the significance of couples embarking on their fertility journey together. Shared health practices not only improve individual fertility but also strengthen the relationship and lay a healthy foundation for future parenting.

Notable Quote:
Iman Hassan [43:13]: "From day one, you're like, we're one team. We're going to birth a human together."

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9. Cultural Approaches to Fertility Preparation

Iman contrasts Eastern and Western approaches to fertility, noting that countries like Japan and Greece emphasize a year-long preparation period. This intentional preparation involves detoxifying the body, optimizing diet, and regulating the nervous system to enhance fertility outcomes.

Notable Quote:
Iman Hassan [21:53]: "Cultures in the East take a year to prep, being really intentional about the process."

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10. Iman's Experience with the PK Protocol

Iman shares her personal results from the PK Protocol, noting significant improvements in her hormone levels, reduction in inflammation, weight loss, and enhanced overall well-being. Her successful transition from a premenopausal state to normalized hormone levels underscores the protocol's efficacy.

Notable Quote:
Iman Hassan [56:55]: "My gut is firing correctly. I'm reducing the inflammation. My body feels better."

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Conclusion and Final Thoughts

The episode concludes with a reflection on the profound impact of cellular health on fertility and overall longevity. Iman emphasizes that what couples invest in their health now will directly influence the health and well-being of their future children. Both Gary and Iman advocate for a comprehensive, intentional approach to fertility that goes beyond conventional methods, integrating longevity science to achieve optimal reproductive health.

Final Notable Quote:
Iman Hassan [60:15]: "To operate with purpose and integrity in all things is what it means to be an Ultimate Human."

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Where to Find Iman Hassan

Listeners interested in learning more can follow Iman on Instagram @iman__hassan, explore her podcast Biohacker, and visit her agency IHC Agency. For more detailed protocols and client resources, Gary recommends checking the show notes for links to Iman's clients and additional resources discussed in the episode.

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Join the Ultimate Human Community

Gary invites listeners to join the VIP community at theultimatehuman.com/VIP for exclusive content, live Q&As, and personalized biohacking strategies to enhance health and longevity.

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This episode provides a comprehensive exploration of how cellular health and longevity practices can significantly enhance fertility outcomes. Iman's expertise and personal success story serve as a compelling testament to the effectiveness of integrating biohacking techniques into reproductive health strategies.

Transcript

[Iman Hassan]

The slower you go into menopause, the more life expectancy you can have. If we can slow down menopause, it extends women's life expectancy. I just want to help as many women as possible because the fertility industry is only booming, but they're missing so many key things which makes a woman live a happier, healthier life.

[Gary Brea]

You've really become a voice in women's health and fertility, and I think this is a very underserved area of the market right now.

[Iman Hassan]

I made it my mission on the podcast to interview the best doctors on the east and west coast. I realized that they're applying the lens of longevity to fertility and is getting their patients better results.

[Gary Brea]

I think most people, when they think about improving fertility, they're talking about how do we better harvest the eggs, not actually what is the quality of the egg itself.

[Iman Hassan]

Insulin completely destroys your actual egg. If you have an unregulated nervous system and your body's in chronic fight or flight, how are you going to get pregnant?

[Gary Brea]

I think there's a real paucity of understanding for non obgyns that don't in female hormones. Where do they start?

[Iman Hassan]

You can start with a basic female hormone panel and work with the right practitioner who can read that and say.

[Gary Brea]

Ultimate human. Hey, guys, welcome back to the Ultimate Human podcast. I'm your host, human biologist Gary Brea, where we go down the road of everything anti aging, biohacking, longevity, and everything in between. And today's guest is a very special guest, not just because she's my neighbor. She only was four minutes away from me in the grove, I just found out, but because she began her career on the marketing side of things in the health and wellness space and now has become deeply interested and embedded and a voice for women's health in this industry. And I had a fascinating discussion with her before the cameras started rolling. In fact, we did half a podcast today in my condo before we came on. So welcome to the podc. Iman Hassan.

[Iman Hassan]

Thank you, Gary, for having me. I've been such a fan of your work for so long, so it's truly a pleasure for me to be sitting here across you.

[Gary Brea]

Thank you. That's. That's really kind of you. You know, I'm always. I'm always. It gets exciting to me when people say that because some. Some of the mentors that I've had over the years, like, you know, Mark Hyman, some of these other guys have, when I see them walk into my condo, I'm like a little starstruck. You know, my. My heroes are not like celebrities and athletes. My heroes are like the big movers in this space. And, and so I deeply appreciate you saying that. For my audience that's not familiar with you, I think you have a really interesting history. I also think that like a lot of my guests, you solved the problem in your life and it is probably the reason, the foundation for your level of passion and commitment to this industry. I, I, you know, heard the story about your mother. I'm very sorry to hear about that, by the way. But there's so many people listening to this podcast that are living similar lives and have been on similar journeys, but you turned it into your purpose and it seems that that was a major shift in your, in your life and, and a level of dedication and sort of commitment, focus, passion that maybe didn't exist before. And I think very often we find our purpose in our pain. And so I'd love it if you would just share your journey with my audience and then I have a litany of questions that we're going to get into, especially for my female audience. You know, fertility, what have you. I think this can be such an.

[Iman Hassan]

Exciting afternoon, so thank you for taking that up really nicely for me. So I have a background. I've been working in luxury fashion lifestyle for almost 20 plus years. I lived in London, Dubai and now the US. Been here for about almost 12 years now. And so I knew how to build luxury brands, I knew how to use that voice, I knew how to get you to the next level, how do you reach your consumer, how do you market to them? And all my life I was actually a really sickly child. Now you'd look at me and be like you had health issues. I had a lot of health issues, actually a lot of Riverian problems. And it was only six years ago that I met a functional medicine doctor and he got me into peptides and I started trying to heal my body and piecing all of this together while I went down that whole peptide rabbit hole. A few years into it, the pandemic hit and my mom, who was already immune compromised and who was not leaving the house, I don't know why, her GP, as they call them, General Practitioner in the UK, told her to get vaccinated and boosted within 90 days of her getting the booster, she got turbo cancer, which is like a cancer that spreads really rapidly through your body. Before you know it, that's it. Within 90 days of receiving that booster, she passed away.

[Gary Brea]

Wow.

[Iman Hassan]

And my agency, we had been around for almost five years at this point. I'd Worked at really big companies prior to that being their VP or director at other agencies. And I called my managing director who still works with me and said, lauren, I love you and I know we've been doing this for a long time. We're really hyper focused on luxury. But I think there's such a disconnect happening with, with humanity on. They're being lied to. And I really want to build brands, practitioners, clinics, experts in this space that I'm passionate about.

[Gary Brea]

Wow.

[Iman Hassan]

And today we were obviously 95% of our portfolio used to be luxury. We still have a portion of that. But now 90% of our portfolio is health and wellness.

[Gary Brea]

So amazing.

[Iman Hassan]

You know, a lot of us and.

[Gary Brea]

In 2024, you, you, you, you guys won an award for the huge award.

[Iman Hassan]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Inc Magazines power players of 2024. We're an all female company, by the way.

[Gary Brea]

Really?

[Iman Hassan]

Yeah.

[Gary Brea]

That's amazing.

[Iman Hassan]

All female. We're 15 going on 20 employees this year and we're opening up offices in the Middle east, which we spoke about and very passionate about that entire region. And it's been an interesting journey. And we're really, I would say our clients are some of like the best voices in the space. And we work with like Dr. Will Cole, Jess Pietros, who you interviewed. Body Bio is a company that I spoke to you about. We've worked previously with sweetgreen, so we really think do a really good job at curating. We're not just looking for mass brands. We're not just looking at you because you have money. We want to work with the best to amplify their voices and build them into the next brand, the global voice of the.

[Gary Brea]

You know, it's interesting. I feel like that's a part of the responsibility of the platform of the ultimate human. You know, when I look at the ultimate human, I, I don't feel like it has any competitors. And, and I mean like, not that somebody's not competing with me in the podcast space. I mean that I don't feel like there is a competitor that I wouldn't feature if they had the right product or service. You know, one of the things that a partner of mine sent to me a while ago that was, that made a lot of sense, but it was troubling to me was it doesn't really matter what the best brand is. What matters is the best known brand. And very often you see the best known brands, especially in food and health and wellness and supplements and even a lot of biohacking modalities. The best known brands aren't necessarily the best for you or the best brands. And so I feel like one of my responsibilities is to find the best brands and give them a voice, sort of help push them up through the noise. Is that what you're talking about?

[Iman Hassan]

That's exactly what we do. So when you apply to us, we really look into your ingredients. I'll give you a little bit of a personal story. Yeah, we had a brand. My husband actually got contacted. He's like, I'm gonna invest in the supplement company. Can you please take them on? And I was like. He's like, the founder is great. The branding is great. The marketing seems really good. Can you take them on as a client? Give the guy a bit of a discount as a startup, but I think he'll do well. I said, okay. Cause my husband was investing in the company. Gary. We got the products that came to our house. And I said, this brand has ingredients that shreds your gut. It's typically one of those brands that the guy said, I want to start a longevity company. Went to a manufacturer. Manufacturer was like, I'll put this. This, this in, including natural flavors, which we know are not good for you. And I called the founder and said, I can't. And they're paying client. I said, I can't work with you guys till you change your formulation.

[Gary Brea]

Wow.

[Iman Hassan]

She said, can't change the formulation until I sell out of the units. I said, then you need to come back at a different time, because I cannot put my name and get you in front of my community. Cause I have so many friends in this space and endorse this brand. Because me endorsing it means, okay, I've signed off on it.

[Gary Brea]

I feel the same way. Like, if I do, if somebody's watching your podcast or my podcast, and a commercial comes on for Avis Rent a Car, I mean, they kind of realize, okay, YouTube is pushing that commercial to your audience. But if you do an ad read yes. Or you take an endorsement or sponsorship from them, that's. That's an endorsement. I mean, that's you endorsing that product. And I totally agree with you. We have the same philosophy at the Ultimate Human is to try to have the message be as authentic as possible. So maybe we just developed a little hack. We'll. We'll follow who. What brands your agency represents and go in that way. Just go in. It's like a little secret hack of the biohack backdoor community. Yeah, a little back door. But know what I. What I find really fascinating is that, you know, the movement from fashion to wellness. That makes perfect sense to me, especially given, you know, the. The incident with your mother. But you've really become a voice in women's fertility, women's health and fertility. And I think this is a very underserved area of the market right now, because if you look at the rates of, you know, sperm decline, sperm counts, and you look at fertility rates in women, these are both plummeting massively. In fact, for last more than 10 years, sperm counts have dropped a percent every single year. Now, that might not sound like a big deal until you realize, wow, in 10 years from now, 20 years from now, 30 years from now, at this rate of decline, which if it's declining at a percent per year, it's probably going to accelerate. We're going to be infertile.

[Iman Hassan]

Correct.

[Gary Brea]

In no time during our lifetime. And so I'd love to back up because there's so many women listening to this podcast now that are either engaging in IVF or thinking about IVF or. Or maybe they're. They've gotten to a certain age and they're thinking, maybe I should harvest my eggs and just pause the clock for a while. So let's talk a little bit about the state of fertility.

[Iman Hassan]

Right.

[Gary Brea]

And then talk a little bit about women's fertility.

[Iman Hassan]

So I'm a woman going through, you know, kind of. I decided. Me and my husband decided last year. Okay. We're start trying for kids. We're in our 40s. Like, I'm gonna. I'm 42 this year.

[Gary Brea]

I can't believe it either.

[Iman Hassan]

And, yeah, I told her when she.

[Gary Brea]

Walked in, I'm like, your skin is amazing.

[Iman Hassan]

Well, thanks to Body BioPC.

[Gary Brea]

Yeah, I just started it today, by the way.

[Iman Hassan]

It's amazing. So I'm a geek. I'm a nerd. You know, I'm not a doctor, but I'm really curious and interested in everything. So went to get all my fertility testing done, and I'm pretty healthy and all this stuff. Turns out my levels were terrible.

[Gary Brea]

What levels?

[Iman Hassan]

AMH and fsh. There are two levels with which they measure. Fertility is. So AMH means how much ovarian reserve do you have left? And FSH is a hormone that kind of tells your body how to produce eggs every single month. Right. So those are the two main key markers of fertility they test you for. Right.

[Gary Brea]

Okay.

[Iman Hassan]

I go in to get this test done, and the higher your AMH is, the lower your ovarian reserve. The lower your fsh. The lower your FSH is, the better it is. For you, Right? So you basically. My two numbers were basically in the gutter. And I start looking into fertility. I meet with a bunch of fertility doctors and stuff, and they're like, we'll just do a round of ivf. We'll just do a round of ivf. And I'm like, something's not making sense to me. So I made it my mission on the podcast to interview the best doctors on the east and west coast. I interviewed, like, nine fertility experts. And I just went on this tour being like, I'm going to meet you. I'm going to learn. I'm going to learn, I'm going to learn. Finally, through two incredible doctors that I met, I realized that they're applying the lens of longevity to fertility and is getting their patients better results. So they're not telling you straight. Go into. And go get your IVF done. They're like, I'm putting you in rapamycin, which is recently studied in Columbia to lowers women's fertility. It can decrease, like, ovarian aging by 20%, which gives you five extra years on your fertility.

[Gary Brea]

Five extra years.

[Iman Hassan]

Five extra years.

[Gary Brea]

Wow.

[Iman Hassan]

Rapamycin. It was studied in Colombia. They did a cohort with these women. They put them on rapamycin, Rapamycin on low dosage, 2.5 milligrams once a week. Not overdoing it. And that is the research that they got back then. There's things like PRP for the ovaries. It's experimentative. But also the field of IVF has only been around for 45 years.

[Gary Brea]

Right.

[Iman Hassan]

They're doing umbilical cord stem cells. Stem cells is a huge thing. They don't do in the US Yet. But the doctor I see is based in the US but he has a clinic in the Bahamas. So I go, I'm a guinea pig. I was like, I'm going to try this stuff on myself first. I started with the whole thing with a PK protocol, lipid replacement therapy, started cleaning out my system, started getting rid of the toxins because. And we'll get into the whole mitochondria piece of it. But then I go into doing the PRP and the stem cells for the ovaries. And today I'm ovulating naturally. My range is completely fixed.

[Gary Brea]

Wow.

[Iman Hassan]

My AMH got into, like. I got out of menopausal range into a normal range. My FSH completely, like, got into a normal range as well. I think it's like a 3.2 now, which is amazing.

[Gary Brea]

Wow.

[Iman Hassan]

And so I was like, okay, I'm gonna try this stuff on myself. Then all the supplements they technically you should be taking for fertility. Nmn. And I'll get into why it's better than nad. We talked about rapamycin, magnesium, vitamin D. All of this stuff is actually geared towards longevity.

[Gary Brea]

Right. Yeah.

[Iman Hassan]

These are the main protocols.

[Gary Brea]

They're mitochondrial protocols.

[Iman Hassan]

And so we'll talk about the mitochondria. There are 100,000 to 500,000 mitochondrial, essentially cells in your eggs.

[Gary Brea]

That is incredible. We talked about this in the Hyperbaric when you first got here, and I was like, we cover this in the podcast because. And that's not even anything that I knew. I thought the distribution of mitochondria was relatively consistent. But you're saying it's 100x or 100,000x to 500,000.

[Iman Hassan]

And you can look this up, and in muscle tissue, it's 1,000 to 5,000. So huge. And why is it so high in your eggs? Because you're creating an embryo.

[Gary Brea]

Yes.

[Iman Hassan]

But it's all fueled by your mitochondria. Right. So everything comes down to that. So most people are walking around chronically inflamed. Mitochondrial health is not good, which is why I did the PK protocol to fix that.

[Gary Brea]

That's what started doing.

[Iman Hassan]

Yeah. And started building my mitochondrial health again. So if your gut health is not good, you will have infertility issues 100%. Or you will be going through these multiple rounds of IVF. Now, IVF alone is a $43 billion industry as of today.

[Gary Brea]

Wow.

[Iman Hassan]

By 2034, it is gonna be $100 billion industry.

[Gary Brea]

Incredible.

[Iman Hassan]

But what are they not doing? Most doctors are not looking at it. You go in, it's like a factory. You come in, do a round, do a round and a round. One round of IVF. It can be anywhere from 15,000 to $35,000.

[Gary Brea]

Wow.

[Iman Hassan]

So wouldn't it make more sense for those.

[Gary Brea]

Those folks that don't know what you mean by a round of ivf? What is. What does that mean?

[Iman Hassan]

So essentially, a cycle of ivf. So every month, you get to do a cycle based on your hormone levels, based on what they. When you go in for a scan, how many follicles do they see? And what they do is they blast you with these. With these drugs to get your body to produce more follicles so they can extract the follicles, which become the eggs, and the eggs then get fertilized, and they create an embryo. And then they put it. Whether you're carrying or a surrogate is carrying, they figure that out and they kind of put it back in. Now that whole all these steps are so out of the body to begin with. It's not normal. That's not a normal way to have a kid.

[Gary Brea]

Right.

[Iman Hassan]

So it's putting additional stress on your body. So when you're going through a round of ivf, right, if your baseline is not fixed, all you're trying to do is take low quality eggs, right. Shoot yourself with a bunch of drugs. And a lot of times for women in their 40s, our bodies will shut down and say, we're done. So to reverse engineer the problem is get your body really clean, reduce inflammation. Inflammation is a really big part of infertility as well.

[Gary Brea]

It's part of everything. It's the root of all evil.

[Iman Hassan]

And really get your gut health fixed, set yourself up for success. And I personally have decided I'm not even doing ivf. We're only doing trying naturally now because it's able to do the stem cells and all this stuff and the biohacking and also hyperbaric chambers is incredible.

[Gary Brea]

That's amazing.

[Iman Hassan]

So this is a route I've decided to take and I'm like, I'm like a walking science experiment.

[Gary Brea]

So, yeah, if you want protein to build lean muscle, but without the caloric impact or need to cut, you need perfect amino. It's pure essential amino acids, the building blocks of proteins in a precise form and ratio that allows for near 100% utilization in building lean muscle and no caloric impact. So we build protein six times as much as whey, but without the excess body fat we normally get during bulking. This is the new era of protein supplementation and it's real. If you want to build lean muscle without having to cut, you need perfect amino. Now let's get back to the ultimate human podcast. I mean, you were telling me earlier and I, I found it fascinating about the difference in mitochondrial density between, you know, you're a female egg and the balance of your body and how things like hyperbaric chambers.

[Iman Hassan]

Yes.

[Gary Brea]

Can improve that density, even improve the health of those eggs. Because I think most people, when they think about in vitro fertilization or they think about improving fertility, they're talking about how do we better harvest the eggs, not actually what is the quality of the egg itself. And I think there's a notion that, because we know that your number is constant and you know, it's, it's. You're not manufacturing them, but you are harboring them.

[Iman Hassan]

Correct.

[Gary Brea]

And so I believe that there is a sentiment that there's not much you can do to improve the health of the egg. There may be something you can do to improve its release or its collection, but it's more than that. What you're saying is there are things that you can do to actually improve the viability of the egg itself and.

[Iman Hassan]

Improve your fertility levels and. Absolutely.

[Gary Brea]

And secondarily improve your. Your fertility levels. Can you talk a little bit about that? I mean, let's just say that young menstruating female, or a female that has decided that she, it's time for her to freeze her eggs, so then needs to harvest them and wants the highest quality, you know, most potentially viable egg that she can have. What are some of those steps and tests?

[Iman Hassan]

And one of the biggest thing is you need to check your insulin res. Insulin resistance. Insulin completely destroys your, your actual egg.

[Gary Brea]

So many stressed out women are insulin resistant too.

[Iman Hassan]

Well, only 7% of us are metabolically flexible in America. Right. So if you look at that statistic alone, that means most of us, 90, you know, plus 90% of people are walking around chronically inflamed. So what insulin essentially does is when you have a lot of insulin circulating in your body, your follicles actually have these insulin receptors in them. So when the insulin receptors hits your follicles and you have access, you know, kind of insulin that cannot get rotated out of your body, what ends up happening is it starts damaging your follicles and therefore it compromises your egg.

[Gary Brea]

Wow.

[Iman Hassan]

It also affects your sex binding hormone capacity. So your globulin does not work correctly. So what it does is overall that's a cascade of like, just infertility kind of going around and nobody's looking at it. So PCOS and endometriosis is both caused by metabolic disorder. Right. It is caused through insulin resistance. But most fertility clinics do not cover it. They don't talk about it, they don't bring it up. And then everyone's like, well, why are GLP1s being so successful when you're going through a fertility journey? Well, why is it being successful is because you're lowering insulin's body, you're improving their insulin sensitivity. And the other big thing is I think women need to start weight training because what does weight training do? It helps grab out all the excess insulin you have in your body and kind of weeds it out. So there's a lot of little changes you can make by understanding your baseline, where your hormone levels are at, just beyond what they test for. It's beyond AMH and fsh. Right. Because that's the two markers they really look for understanding your homocysteine levels. Running a full thyroid panel, not just a couple. Running the whole thing, then checking thyroid.

[Gary Brea]

Antibodies, looking for potentially Hashimoto's or other.

[Iman Hassan]

Yeah, fasting glucose. What is your fasting glucose levels and checking how inflamed you are and reducing the inflammation, reducing the level of toxins, getting yourself really fit and healthy. And then if you decide, hey, I want to do IVF or I want to try naturally, then you take that route.

[Gary Brea]

You know, I think there's also a misnomer that, because I saw this in our patient community in my previous clinic, and that was that there's a notion that insulin resistance has to go along with obesity or morbid obesity or some kind of body morphic expression, and it's actually not true. I mean, a lot of, I would say young, fit women, especially younger women, can be significantly insulin resistant but appear to be healthy. Now, they're having other symptoms that they'll tell you that they're having. A lot of times it. It follows gut dysbiosis. It also follows poor sleep schedules, cortisol imbalances, high levels of stress, anxiety, what have you. But outwardly, you're looking at this woman and you say to yourself, that does not look like the picture of someone that would have insulin resistance. And I think it's good that you're highlighting this because these are some of the underlying issues that, you know, younger, healthier women might not be thinking about.

[Iman Hassan]

Right.

[Gary Brea]

Because they look in the mirror and they're not. Okay, I'm not morbidly obese. I would naturally think that if I had this underlying metabolic condition, I'd have this physical expression. But. But what we're finding now, especially in metabolic syndrome, is that it's happening at younger and younger ages. The majority of it, as well as autoimmune, is happening in women, not men. Sometimes almost two or three to three to one. And you don't necessarily have to have the expression of that in order to be there. So if. If there's a. A woman that's listening to this podcast right now and is considering going that route to either, you know, freeze their eggs or is just trying to get pregnant naturally and wants to have the best experience, how far out do you start and what are some of the ways that they can condition themselves to?

[Iman Hassan]

So we have a lot to learn from the east when it comes to fertility. And I'll tell you why they. If you look at countries like China, Japan, Korea, they prep their bodies for one year this is a really one year prior. So in America, we'd like to do everything. Brush. We like to have a magic pill.

[Gary Brea]

For you, like, yeah, I want to have a baby.

[Iman Hassan]

Yeah, let's choose it. You know, and so we're like, wait, we're doing this completely wrong. So removing toxins from your. From your, like, the food you're eating. A lot of women have personal care products that are, you know, leaching out all these toxins into their body. So prepping a year being really intentional. What are you storing your food in? What are you actually consuming? Eating whole food, unprocessed food, removing the seed oils, it's not just a fad. It makes a massive difference. So starting a year prior, removing a lot of toxins, Understanding if you. If you can afford it, obviously it comes down to resources, but pushing your doctors, if you're going the fertility route, to test you for a full thyroid panel, test your, you know, fasting glucose, all of that stuff, cleaning out the toxins in your body and then kind of getting into regulating your nervous system. If you have an unregulated nervous system and your body's in chronic fight or flight, how are you going to get pregnant?

[Gary Brea]

And there's so many women, guys too, that are stuck in that chronic fight or flight. I mean, social media, lack of social connection, poor sleep, poor circadian cycle, poor biorhythm, you know, stresses the body out, and we stay in this sympathetic state, which, it sounds misleading because sympathetic sounds like you should be very calm, but sympathetic is the fight or flight state. And in that state, it is astounding to me how many of our basic biophysiologic processes are. Are hampered, one of which is the waste elimination cycle from. From cells, which makes that environment that the eggs are in toxic. Right, Right. So I want to be specific here for a moment. First of all, I love what you're saying, because. Excuse me, I talk about this on my podcast all the time, that there are these underlying toxins that are in everybody's blood. Yours, mine.

[Iman Hassan]

Yeah.

[Gary Brea]

You know, we've all got them. We don't identify them, and we do nothing to remove them from our bodies. You know, I use this vibrant wellness test. If you're using.

[Iman Hassan]

Yeah, they're clients of ours.

[Gary Brea]

Yeah. No, they are.

[Iman Hassan]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Gary Brea]

I should have known it. Thank you, everybody. I'm putting a list of her clients in the show notes below. And you could just blatantly use. Use those companies and those products. And. And I, I have no aff with them at all whatsoever. The reason why I bring that test up in particular is because I was shocked when I got my own results back. And my wife and my daughter and now my son have, have all done this test. And the amount of microtoxicity we're giving ourselves, glyphosates, the bisphenols, the microplastics, the phthalates, the aflatoxin A, aflatoxin B, the percentage of clients that have chronic mold, chronic mycotoxin. And this sounds so sinister and like we're all fear mongering, but the truth is we're not, because such a high percentage of the population has this. And once you know, you can now fix it. That's the really cool thing. And most of the protocols to get rid of these things are not onerous and they're not horrifically expensive. Right. So can you, can you talk a little bit about how they would begin that journey? I mean, what kind of testing do you think?

[Iman Hassan]

First and foremost, if you can afford it, I would. Before you and go to a fertility expert, you can go get your levels checks from your obgyn, find a functional medicine doctor or really well trained nutritionist to work with because they can check for a lot of these biomarkers on you and they will clean out your system. Clean terrain means better chances of fertility, whether naturally or through ivf, all of that stuff. When my husband started. I'll give you a little bit on male fertility for anyone listening. When my husband started, we did fertility testing together. His sperm count was in the trash. He was shocked. He was so personally impacted. He now has gone into HRT and stuff and no, he was on it and we took him off because testosterone destroys your sperm.

[Gary Brea]

Right? Right.

[Iman Hassan]

And a lot of these functional medicine doctors, you know, kind of put you on this peptide, put you on testosterone and what it does, it destroys your own motility, basically gets destroyed. So we put him on a bunch of supplements, cleaned out his gut, fixed his gu, got him detox, got him ready, got him firing. And now he went back and did a test, he's like, wow. His fertility levels were super high. Like his sperm count was incredible. His fertility levels, you're talking about his sperm count? Yeah, his sperm count was amazing. So now he was like, wait, why did I not know this earlier? So him also removing ultra processed food, getting his, you know, kind of getting on this anti inflammatory diet, cleaning out any plastics in the house, all of that made a huge difference to him. And then we put him on supplements, Vitamin D, magnesium, selenium, we put him on NAD precursors, you know. And there's another thing that people don't know. So there's a whole fad going around, this whole longevity community about nad. Now, the NAD molecule itself is too big to actually get into the tissue. So when you're getting these NAD IVs, the Buck Institute of Longevity has come up with this research. They actually spoke about it in Mark Hyman's podcast. The molecule is too large to get into the tissue. That is why the precursors, NMN and NR either OR are nicotinamide riboside. That's why it's much better.

[Gary Brea]

Carotenic acid or.

[Iman Hassan]

And paired with antioxidants. Because if you take NMN or NR and put it into your system, but you have a lot of oxidative stress in your body, it will break it down, so it can't do its job. Now, NMN and NR are also being researched when it comes to women's ovarian aging, helping slow down women's ovarian aging. Again, a longevity drug like rapamycin, and it's actually a supplement, and it slows down ovarian aging. The more we slow down our ovarian aging, the better chances we have of fertility.

[Gary Brea]

Yes. Makes a lot of sense.

[Iman Hassan]

And there was a 2019 JAMA study done that showed that if we can slow down menopause and go into natural menopause later, it ex. Extends women's life expectancy. So the slower you go into menopause, the more life expectancy you can have.

[Gary Brea]

Wow. We knew that in the mortality space, too. There's a really interesting. And maybe I'll link it in the show notes, because you. You probably find this very interesting study that looked at the incidence of cardiovascular disease between men and women. And you see that women lead men by a huge margin until women stop menstruating. And then there's this parabolic hockey stick spike, and they approximate men in the incidence of cardiovascular disease. And it's been a while since I read the study, but I. I remember thinking, this has to have something to do with menstruation, right? You know, turning your blood over because it's very healthy. I mean, a lot of men that go on trt, you know, are really recommended by their doctor to do therapeutic phlebotomy.

[Iman Hassan]

The weird thing about hormone replacement therapy, by the way, infertility, when it comes to men and women is men should not be on it, but women should be, if you need, on not synthetic bioidentical hormones. So one of the other things is, nobody tested me for this prior, and I Go see one of these fertility doctors who's more like looking at it from a longevity lens. She's incredible. Her name is Dr. Amy Azadeh. Her Instagram handle is the eggwhisperer. She said to me, at the Egg Whisperer.

[Gary Brea]

She's at the Egg Whisperer.

[Iman Hassan]

At the Egg Whisperer. She literally is an egg whisperer at Egg Whisperer. She's the one who got me on rapamycin. She's like, you need to go on rapamycin. You need to go do stem cells and PRP for your ovaries. And I was like, wait, you're the only person who saved me.

[Gary Brea]

PRP for your ovaries.

[Iman Hassan]

That is amazing. Stem cells, umbilical cord stem cells, and PRP for the ovaries.

[Gary Brea]

That's incredible.

[Iman Hassan]

And there's a lot of research, and I'll get into it coming out of Greece, because they've really been leading the charge, and that is slowing down women going to menopause. It's extending fertility. There are more live birth rates because that's how they calculate it all out.

[Gary Brea]

Wow.

[Iman Hassan]

So it's newer to the U.S. but other countries are doing it. And so she said to me, you need to get on bioidentical hormones. Like, you need to go on hormone replacement therapy. And she started me with these estradiol patches that I now wear. And then, you know, according to my cycle, when we're calculating it, because we're obviously trying, she then puts me on progesterone, and it's actually good for you. And then there was other research that came out that women have been lied to about going. Because there's a lot of things in the female health community about, should I be on hormone? Should I not? You are actually supposed to be on it.

[Gary Brea]

Right.

[Iman Hassan]

You are actually supposed to take it. Because that whole study that came out that women in their 60s should not be on a hormone replacement therapy was a lie.

[Gary Brea]

Yeah.

[Iman Hassan]

Now the obgyns are pissed off.

[Gary Brea]

Yeah. So, you know, it's really interesting, too. Men, same thing. We. We. In 2018, the Journal of American Urology updated their testosterone guidelines, and it flipped everything on its head. Because people think, well, if you start hormone therapy, you're going to increase your risk of cardiovascular disease, heart attack, stroke, an embolism, a dvt, what have you, Some kind of clotting event. It turns out that they dispelled all of those myths for men. And I have to think it's the same thing with women, because in women, there are certain ratios of hormones that have to be maintained or number one, you guys go nuts. So, oh, yeah, I'll pay for.

[Iman Hassan]

Let me get out of here.

[Gary Brea]

Yeah, I'll pay for the hormone therapy. You know, there are certain ratios that have to be maintained. And I think there's a real paucity of understanding in the community for non OB GYNs that don't actually specialize in female hormones, where you just look at this panel and you're like, well, everything's in range. Right. But in range for a woman could be 17 for estrogen. It could be 410 for estrogen. I mean, you have that much of a range. So where do they start? Do you recommend Dutch test? Do you recommend basic female hormone panel?

[Iman Hassan]

You can start with a basic female hormone panel and work with the right practitioner who can read that and say. Because also functional doctors have tighter ranges. General practitioners have really big ranges because they're not looking at healthy, optimized people.

[Gary Brea]

Yeah. Just want you to not be diseased.

[Iman Hassan]

Correct. And so the range is so wide. I think you should pair yourself. I really think it comes down to starting with the right practitioner, whether you do a just. Or you can do a general, like, you know, kind of test and test your levels, and then they can put you on a protocol. Okay. What do you have to do to remove toxins from your body? I'm a big fan of Body BioPC, which we spoke about earlier. And so a lot of us, like you said in your personal journey, are rocking around like a toxic soup and don't even realize it. We're like, we're doing all these biohacks and these gadgets. Why is it not working? Well, it's just because of. Our environment is so toxic. You have chemtrails in the sky, your water is polluted. You know, there's so much going on. Our soil doesn't have minerals in it anymore.

[Gary Brea]

So true.

[Iman Hassan]

And so it's like, start steady and slow, clean out your body, figure out your inflammation levels, and then go on the fertility journey. Don't fire that gun before you're even ready because you're only going to end up with a lot, a lot of disappointment. And because every month when you're doing these rounds of ivf, you're like, oh, I might be getting an embryo out of this one and getting it up. But if you don't have strong eggs, how are you going to create strong embryos?

[Gary Brea]

Right.

[Iman Hassan]

And 50% of infertility is caused by men. And they don't talk about that enough either, because men are 50% of the problem. And a lot of clinics are not testing men. So the thing should be you go in for a fertility checkup, the husband and the wife both has to be tested at the same time. So then you can start your journey together the way kind of we did.

[Gary Brea]

I mean, I think that's, that's better for the relationship anyway that you're on that journey together. Together. I mean, probably nothing more important that.

[Iman Hassan]

You'Re going to do, do it together. Right?

[Gary Brea]

Yeah. Than, than have a child. How about on the male side? You know what, what does male preparation look like for, for men?

[Iman Hassan]

I think losing a lot of like vessel body fat because men also listen, men have a 24 hour hormone cycle. Women have like a full month. Right. So getting your body kind of really not inflamed, gaining more muscle mass. The more muscle mass you have, the more testosterone you'll have, right?

[Gary Brea]

Yeah.

[Iman Hassan]

So eating more and the better you look. Yeah, the better you look, but also the better you feel. But a lot of men are also really low on testosterone and their bodies are not firing correctly. Well, they're not lifting enough weights, they're not eating enough red meat. And this whole fear around red meat, guys, I just want to correct this. High quality red meat is actually incredible for you. It's all about sourcing. And people have actually done research and studies to show if it's pasture raised, pasture finish. And you know, the farm it's coming from, it actually reduces inflammation in the body, which is completely opposite of what we were taught.

[Gary Brea]

Wow, that is so true. I mean we've been taught, you know, to fear meat, to fear all kinds of things because they're causing these massive inflammatory responses in the body and then.

[Iman Hassan]

Putting going on the right supplements. So vitamin D is really, really important also to sperm health, which is a big thing. I put my husband on NMN as well. Yeah, we, we're both on it. We take a brand called Wonderfeel and I just. It's actually one of Mark Hyman's favorite NMN companies. And I'll tell you why dosage matters. No matter what product you're taking, the dose has to be right. These guys are doing 900 milligrams of NMN, which is incredible. It's the highest form on the market. It's actually one of the cleanest. And they have other antioxidants mixed in the formula. It's called Wonder Feel Younger. And what I love about it is you're getting also your daily dose of vitamin D. Less is more. Right. So I got him on all this protocol, we cleaned out his inflammation levels. We fixed his gut health. His gut health was not as bad as mine. And I'm surprised because I feel like I live a lot cleaner in some ways and I'm doing so much more. But his levels got adjusted. We put him on this really tight, rigorous diet protocol, really increased his red meat intake. You'd be surprised by that. We introduced raw dairy, raw butter into our house.

[Gary Brea]

Good for you.

[Iman Hassan]

And it really helped clean up our gut overall and got his levels to be better.

[Gary Brea]

Happy is an award winning digital wellness company and we invite you to join us in transforming the way people rest, renew, and focus. The goal is to help people take control of how they sleep, how they feel, and how they perform, all without taking drugs, supplements, or high caffeine energy drinks. The neuroscientists at HAP B have created a set of mood enhancing programs. They're called vibes. So each vibe uses ultra low frequency signals to mimic the effects of relaxants or stimulants in the body. When the brain detects these signals, it reacts as if you're actually taking the substance, giving you all the benefits without the downsides. So it puts you in control of how you want to feel, when you want to feel it naturally with no chemicals, pills, or side effects. Just select a vibe on the Happy app and let the soothing electromagnetic waves wash over your body. At Happy, we believe a more rested world is a better world. It's time to change the vibe. Now let's get back to the ultimate human podcast. I mean, it's amazing to me, and before, before the podcast too, we were talking about the increase in mitochondrial density and, and I want to go down the mitochondria, you know, band road for a moment. Because aging and cellular health are highly dependent on our mitochondrial function. It's the battery house of the cell. The battery for the entire body produces something called ATP, adenosine triphosphate, which powers an enormous variety of cellular structures where we would essentially be dead without it. Without it. And when you're caring for the eggs, then you also are caring for the mitochondria. And what are some things that, you know, men and women, I guess, both could, could do to improve their mitochondrial health.

[Iman Hassan]

So one of the things is removing toxins. The second is hyperbaric chamber. That's one of the things good. My fertility doctor literally said that when you're trying and it's your time for conception, and whether you do IVF or not, you need to do every other day. Hyperbaric chamber for 90 minutes. What does that do? It fuels your mitochondria by flooding it with oxygen and gets you firing. And as we age, obviously ATP production comes down. ATP production comes down. Less mitochondrial energy to go around. So it's the right supplementation and then doing things like getting in the right foods, getting in right oxygen supply, really making sure your body is a vessel, it's cleaned up.

[Gary Brea]

Yeah, I totally agree with that. You know, very often I think we. We overlook that cellular energy component that you can cater to with mom exercise, diet, red light therapy, hyperbarics, and, you know, hyperbaric medicine in particular. I was. I'm halfway through the book Hyperbaric Medicine right now by Dr. Saunders. There are chapters in there on mitochondrial density. And what's astounding to me is that you can actually change the number of mitochondria in your cell over time.

[Iman Hassan]

Absolutely.

[Gary Brea]

I just never. I mean, as. As far down the physiologic band road as I've been, I've never realized that you can. I've understood that you can improve their condition. You can actually improve their function. So you might be able to upstage them. From staying out of the anaerobic cycle to ATP into the aerobic cycle. 36 ATP. But the fact that you can actually increase the number of mitochondria to me brings you back to your original point, which is the antithesis of aging. Youthful biomes have a higher proliferation of mitochondria. In fact, I just got my glycan age test back. I was so excited. I'm 54, so I'm in my. I'm in my mid-20s now. I think I yelled it coming into my unit today. Like an age test, in case anybody wants to know.

[Iman Hassan]

That's amazing. One of the other things they didn't talk about is eating enough healthy fats. And I want to talk about that. So we were told in the 70s and 80s, fat is bad for you, fat is bad for you. It is the devil. It's actually the opposite. If you're trying to conceive whether you're a man or a woman, you need to be taking in enough healthy fat. So omega 3 omega 6 ratio is extremely important. Taking it other ways, through polyphenols, avocado, whatever you may do. But you need to have enough fats. And if you eat high quality protein and enough fats, it's actually not only will you look and feel better, but it's great for your fertility overall.

[Gary Brea]

Yeah. You know, I wonder if you might even talk about this PK protocol. Because you've done it.

[Iman Hassan]

Yes.

[Gary Brea]

And PK stands for the woman.

[Iman Hassan]

Yeah, the woman who found it. So Body Bio is a company I'm passionate. They're one of my clients as well. But.

[Gary Brea]

So everybody's getting love from you today? They're loving it.

[Iman Hassan]

No, but. So Body Bio started about 30 years ago by a guy called Ed Kane. And Ed Kane was married to this woman called Patricia Kane. And when they started the company, they came up with this whole thing about PC and how PC is essentially what phosphatidylcholine is. So you have your cell, and you have your cell membrane around it. And the gushy part of the cell membrane should be nice and gooey, and it should be able to be bouncy. Right. With the levels of toxins, seed oils, of water, we're drinking all of that stuff. It's eroding our cell membrane. So when our cell membrane is not healthy, pollutants can get in. We're tired, we're exhausted. So no matter what supplements, what you put into it, if your cells can't hold it in, stay healthy, then that's it. Right. It's all about cellular health. That's where really it starts.

[Gary Brea]

Yeah.

[Iman Hassan]

And so they came up with this thing called the PK protocol, which is actually like lipid replacement therapy. It's all therapy. And what it does is they're these really intense IVs that go into you, and they can be. It's a phosphatidylcholine sodium butyrate. Other things that are mixed into depending.

[Gary Brea]

I literally did one this morning.

[Iman Hassan]

Yeah, we spoke about it.

[Gary Brea]

Right.

[Iman Hassan]

And it completely deep. Cleans your insides. It actually, sometimes it can be really uncomfortable. I don't know if you've had one of those reactions like a Herc's reaction, where yet I have. And it was super, deeply uncomfortable. But it's incredible for resetting your mitochondrial health, getting your cells, you know, obviously firing. And then also things like mold or autoimmune disease. People who have chronic Lyme, they have put these people on these protocol, autism and adhd, and completely reverse the signs and symptoms.

[Gary Brea]

Wow. Autism and adhd.

[Iman Hassan]

Autism and adhd. Especially with children, because a lot of times they have a methylation problem and other things going on. So when you get in there and you get into cellular health, it cleans out those levels. And people who are non verbal, literally, kids, will start being verbal again.

[Gary Brea]

Wow.

[Iman Hassan]

They're moms who put their kids on PC, the liquid PC. And let's say these are real case studies. From, from. And people have come to them and say, hey, my kid is non verbal. I don't know what to do. They're like, put a little bit of PC even on their wrist if they don't wanna drink it. Wow. Putting on their PC and they've seen a complete reverse in their autism symptoms.

[Gary Brea]

You know, I got some interesting questions in from my audience, which we're gonna get to in my VIP group. There's one here that's, you know, particularly of interest. I wanna read it before we go over to the vip. It says, what type of nutrition do you recommend for helping detox mold and parasite infections from your system?

[Iman Hassan]

Keto and Paleo.

[Gary Brea]

Wow. Love that cleaner.

[Iman Hassan]

You eat less complicated body can break down the food it can process and get it out. So people who tend to be more Paleo and keto will see that they're less inflamed, less bloated, and they actually have regular bowel movements as well. When you're working with mold and parasites, you need to have regular bowel movements to cycle everything out.

[Gary Brea]

Yeah. And then are you a fan of activating your natural detox pathways? Like, like sauna.

[Iman Hassan]

Sauna is incredible. I definitely recommend a lymphatic drainage and. Big thing, guys. When you're doing any parasite work, you need to do a lot of like coffee enemas and colonics. They're really, really big. And so I, for example, do this pharmaceutical grade with my doctor, Parasite cleanse. She gives you four different pharmaceutical drugs over a course of a week. You take them and you pair it with the colonics and the coffee enemas. And you literally see what is this?

[Gary Brea]

Like an ivermectin, Fenbendazole. Yeah, some.

[Iman Hassan]

All of that difference. Yeah. It's mixed in, depending on what you need, and she tests you for that and then you pair it and then you're not obviously supposed to eat certain things and they allow you to obviously clean, high quality meat is a big part of it.

[Gary Brea]

Right.

[Iman Hassan]

Don't eat processed food. Do not have sugar, because sugar will completely get the parasites actually firing. You'll feel even worse. You'll have the herx reaction. So that's the best way to avoid it.

[Gary Brea]

Yeah, Candida too.

[Iman Hassan]

Yeah, Candida is a big one.

[Gary Brea]

I totally agree with that because you're talking a lot about having couples, especially that are trying to conceive, go on this journey together. And how important is it that they do this together rather than separately?

[Iman Hassan]

Separately, energetically. If you just think about the thought of starting a family and bringing A child into this world, you have to be on the same page. And this is such a connective process because from day one you're like, we're one team. We're going to birth a human together.

[Gary Brea]

We're going to birth a human, we're.

[Iman Hassan]

Going to birth a human. We're going to bring a life into this world. So are our intentions matched? Are we going to be able to be on the same page? Are we going to be. Yes, everybody will have get frustrations and stuff, but are we able to do something for the better of a soul that we're going to bring into the world versus putting ourselves first? So I think from an energetic perspective, I'm extremely spiritual and believe deeply in God and faith. You're sending the right signal to that soul that we're ready to receive you and we're going to do the best job that we can.

[Gary Brea]

I think it's, you know, I, I always go back to the longevity research when, when it talks about sense of community and purpose and how none of the centenarians in any of those regions lacked sense of community and purpose. And I think community and purpose isn't just I know exactly what I want to do in life and I love all my friends like you know, I have the coolest tribe. Community is just a sense of belonging to something and purpose is like my life has meaning beyond just what I'm doing on it on a daily basis. What I found really fascinating, I did this a few years ago and it was very sobering for me was I, I wrote my eulogy virtues. And instead of your resume virtues. Yeah, it's, it's very intense and it's very introspective. But what it will do is it will rattle you. It sort of shakes you out of the present moment and makes you really think about what do I want my life to mean. And it makes you look at your relationships, it makes you look, look at your, your, your career. Whether or not your wasting time with something that you actually really don't want to love and it's not serving you and you know, especially with the journey as, as intimate as it, you know, bringing human in, into this world. I, I just found it was, it was a major shift for me. My wife and I built a business together and we read this book called Rocket Fuel and it helped our relationship a lot because it taught us the difference between an integrator and a, and a visionary. And I was the visionary, she was the integrator. But this exercise of going through your own eulogy Helps you really craft this vision of what do I want to leave behind? And am I living the life that I want to live to get to that destination? It was really a powerful thing for us. And especially with something as intimate and, like I say, as fertility, I think people will find it powerful.

[Iman Hassan]

And I'll add onto that. If you just look at conception as a whole, right. Couples share each other's microbiome. So if you're not both working on yourselves, right. You're having this exchange going forward, you share your microbiome with your partner that you live with. When you also conceive a child, you inherit the mitochondria from the mother, but you also inherit so much stuff from the father. So it's very important for both people to be in the same place. So you're setting your child up for success. It's really thinking about the life that you're about to bring into the world and setting them up for success in every way shape possible.

[Gary Brea]

Yeah. You know, and there's. There's a lot of data now showing two things. Number one, younger females, prepubescent children, I call them children, are entering their menstrual cycles earlier. And there is a trend towards older women entering the menopause cycle much, much earlier. Sometimes, you know, even 10 years earlier than what you.

[Iman Hassan]

Well, I was one of them almost. I was going into menopause. I was perimenopause.

[Gary Brea]

Yeah. And what do you think is the cause of this? I mean, why are we seeing menstruation beginning in an earlier age and menopausal also beginning at an earlier age, which to me is age reversal. Right.

[Iman Hassan]

It's three things. Chronic inflammation, number one, first and foremost, environmental toxin overload in your body, the way that you can't clean it out so your cells are not getting what it needs to support to do the cleanup. And unregulated insulin levels, three things that are causing you and forcing you to go into menopause sooner? So that's why I'm so pushy to say, guys, if you're going to start a fertility journey, you need to look at your body and how are you actually aging? And look at all the longevity markers, because they will tell you the longevity markers are going to tell you your overall health picture, and it will tell you the picture of health for your fertility.

[Gary Brea]

Yeah, I totally agree with that. And again, getting back to. Sometimes it's the simplest things that you can do that have the most dramatic change. You know, I always tell people to draw their attention to their sleep to their morning routine, but a couple that's going on. On this journey together, I mean, this. This. This not only will improve their chances of conceiving or conceiving, possibly even set them up for extending their lifestyle.

[Iman Hassan]

And at the end of the day, you have to remember that what you put into this journey is a byproduct of what you're gonna get. Right. So the cleaner you are, the healthier pregnancy is going to be, the healthier the embryos you're going to create, the healthier your child will be. Right. It is so much that goes into. And why you look at what we said earlier about cultures in the east that take a year to prep, because they're really intentionally going into this process.

[Gary Brea]

Yeah.

[Iman Hassan]

And a child will have less health issues later, the healthier their parents are.

[Gary Brea]

Yeah. You know, it seems like Greece is leading the charge. Yeah, the charge.

[Iman Hassan]

Fertility. Yes.

[Gary Brea]

In ovarian research. Yeah. So can you talk a little bit like, what are. What are they?

[Iman Hassan]

So they were the guys who originally started the research around PRP and umbilical cord stem cells for the ovaries. And they built these cohorts of women they gave them. So they had women who were menopausal, and they did the PRP and the stem cells for the ovaries and saw these women come out of menopause and stay that way.

[Gary Brea]

Are these PRP injections?

[Iman Hassan]

Yes, into the ovaries. So what they do is. No, no, no, no, no. They go in three through your vagina, essentially, with an ultrasound machine. And not everybody, by the way, if you're listening to this and somebody's promising you prp, the way you inject on the ovary is very important. You need to know the right sites to do. You need to know just the length of the needle even really matters. So what they do is they kind of give you light sedation if you want. If you're a little queasy and they go in through your vagina, they go in with an ultrasound machine, and they look at it, and then they basically go in and inject both your ovaries.

[Gary Brea]

They inject through the abdominal ovaries.

[Iman Hassan]

They inject your ovaries. And what they've seen is within 90 days, it takes about 90 days to take effect. Women who were doing STEM PRP for the ovaries and then going around for a round of ivf, we're seeing better results. They're creating more follicles, therefore having more embryos being created from. And healthier embryos were coming out. So there's that research when it comes and they were having live. Higher live birth rates. The reverse of it was women had gone into menopause, it was taking them out of early menopause and raising their ovarian reserve as well as. Wow. So there's a lot of good things that are coming out of it. Same thing with the umbilical cord stem cells that they do now. They are FDA approved in America, but they're not letting you do that over here. Other countries, like I went to the Bahamas to do mine with a doctor that's based in the US and he is basically, you go to him, you have low ovarian reserve or you've gone into menopause earlier, but you want to go through a fertility journey. He tells you, do this with me. And you might not even need IVF because the guy is so committed to helping women.

[Gary Brea]

So he's taking menopausal women out of menopause and putting them back into being fertile to the point where they can conceive.

[Iman Hassan]

Conceive. One of these two doctors that I'm kind of seeing, one of their oldest patients to have a live birth was 47 years old, where she, you know, 47. They're like, what do you mean? She went into these treatments, came out of it, conceived and gave birth naturally and had a really healthy pregnancy at 47 and gave birth actually at 48. So she conceived at 47, gave birth at 48.

[Gary Brea]

I know that the platelet rich plasma is available in the, in, in the U.S. i imagine that that's probably this, the PRP you're talking about the mesenchymal stem cells.

[Iman Hassan]

Yes.

[Gary Brea]

And we can use. Because I, I'm associated with the NFL Alumni Association Athletica, we see a lot of those folks that have repetitive use injury. So I know that we do stem cells into joints, knees, hips, shoulders, rotator cuff. Topically, we use different cosmetics, hair restoration. Systemically, you have to leave the country. But even for these. Are these stem cell injections intravenous?

[Iman Hassan]

No, they're also. No, they're actually going onto your ovaries. So again, they're sedating you. You're going under for 10, 15 minutes. And again they're doing an ultrasound machine. Basically they're going in and they're injecting your actual ovaries. So they're giving your actual ovaries of stem cells? Yes. You can put it in your, in an iv, but it's, it's going to go all over your body.

[Gary Brea]

Right.

[Iman Hassan]

This is very intentional to do it for you know, creating more follicles, creating a higher egg count, and taking you out of menopause and giving you a better chance at fertility.

[Gary Brea]

Most people don't realize this, but your energy, mental clarity, and even your sleep, they're all impacted by toxins every single day. You're breathing in, drinking, eating, and absorbing mold spores, heavy metals, pesticides, and even plastics. Over time, they hijack your health. And that's why I created the ultimate detox challenge. As always, it's completely free and it's happening live June 23rd through the 25th. On day one, Dr. Will be will be here on gut and immune health. Day two, Dr. Jessica Petross on mold, metals and parasites. And day three is Dr. Josh Axe on full body detox and rebuilding your resilience. And of course, I'll be there the entire time. You'll get real tools at home, lab testing options, detox protocols, even supplement guides and actionable steps to help you reset your biology the right way. This isn't about crash diets. This is real lasting transformation. Head over to detox.theultimatehuman.com your body was built to heal, so let's help it do what it was designed to do. Now let's get back to the ultimate human podcast. Yeah, you know, we've talked a lot about fertility on my previous podcast, and I really appreciate you sharing this. A lot of what I believe goes overlooked by women is their methylation cycle too, and the importance of not taking folic acid, but taking things like folinic acid methylfolate. Interestingly, a lot of women are also using these lipid IV therapies prior to pregnancy with pretty impressive results. My, my former clinic director was a board certified OB GYN, Dr. Sardis, amazing woman. And there was times where, you know, young, healthy women were doing these livid.

[Iman Hassan]

That's what I'm doing.

[Gary Brea]

Yeah, you are too.

[Iman Hassan]

Yeah, yeah, that's, that's what PK protocol is essentially. Right.

[Gary Brea]

I want you, I want you to explain it because I just started this PK protocol too. And interestingly, you know, as, like I say, as woke to wellness, whatever you want to call it, as I am, I was first, I was shocked when I did this different wellness test. And I, and I found the level of toxicity from bisphenols and from all of these other things in my blood. And I've done several treatments to get that out. But then I did this lipid metabolism and the cell wall test. And looking at the integrity of my cell walls, looking at this phospholipid bilayer, looking at its capacity to shuttle nutrients in and out. And it certainly wasn't a disaster, but I just sort of expected to go through the motions and then come back and say there's nothing you can do for you.

[Iman Hassan]

And then you're shocked at the levels.

[Gary Brea]

When you test, you're shocked. So can you talk a little bit about this protocol and what it means? Because I think it's not just applicable to fertility.

[Iman Hassan]

I think it's overall longevity. Yeah, it goes back to the longevity conversation. Right. So. So lipid replacement therapy, if your cells are not functioning correctly, nothing really in your body can function well. So lipid replacement therapy literally takes your cell wall, refortifies it, pulls out any toxins, any mold, any glyphosate levels, anything sitting in there, cleans it up and refortifies it. The stronger your cell wall is, the less toxins can break through it, the healthier you're gonna feel, the better you're gonna run. Your mitochondria will be better. You will not have brain fog, you'll have more energy, you'll have better quality sleep. Sleep and lipids, essentially, you need high, you need a certain amount of lipids if you're going to carry a child and conceive. So lipid replacement therapy also preconception is incredible for babies. Brain development and embryo development. Wow.

[Gary Brea]

You know, I. I love the concept of women thinking about fertility as, you know, a long game and maybe prepping their bodies a year, a year out from now. My, my chief operating officer for the Ultimate Human is pregnant right now, and she's super healthy and she's super conscious of it now. Now that first she was worried about getting pregnant, now she's pregnant, now she's worried about having the baby, now she's worried about vaccines.

[Iman Hassan]

It just never ends.

[Gary Brea]

The ball moves. But I think there's at least a lot of good information out there. And so you're. You're on this journey. You're. You're sharing the journey. Have you noticed, what have you noticed on this BK protocol? What did you see in your labs? How did you feel? Conscientiously? Yeah.

[Iman Hassan]

So I had.

[Gary Brea]

Is it an ongoing thing?

[Iman Hassan]

It is. So I'm not fully done with my protocol yet. So prior to me, starting before I started, I got all my testing done pretty much like you have. I use Vibrant labs and I used a company called Mosaic. It's another really big testing company.

[Gary Brea]

Is that urine?

[Iman Hassan]

Yeah, urine and blood. They do both. They mix it. And prior to that, I did this thing out of Europe called the IGL test, which now that lab has shut down. Some mosaic has kind of stepped in. And they check. They check for every single heavy metal, pesticide, herbicide in your body. Make a full chart of everything. And there's really interesting from when I started the PK protocol, started the PC IVs, started the microbiome, IVs, did a round of IBU. And at the time, like, this is why I've looked at my fertility through a lens of longevity, right? My body wasn't firing correctly. It was not producing hormones correctly. I was starting to have hot flashes. I'm like, things are falling apart. Like, this house is falling apart before this is even getting going. And I was like, wait, let me fix this. Removing the toxins, getting it to that place. My markers just came back. I am so clean. There were only two tests that came back. It was a little bit of mold exposure that I'd have to figure out where it's coming from now. And I think it was one more marker that was off. So I have the actual science. I have the two tests to compare next to each other. And so you do that, right? You clean out your body. You're removing levels of inflammation in your body. My mitochondria started firing better. I still have insulin sensitivity, but it's improved drastically. I'm not feeling chronically inflamed, Gary. I shrunk. I'm already a little girl. Like, I'm not never being big, but I was carrying so much inflammation. I literally love water. I was poofy, and I didn't realize, but my face shrunk, my body shrunk. And I was like, wow, this stuff actually works. My gut is firing correctly. I'm reducing the inflammation. My body feels better. It's being supported through the, you know, methylation process, drainage. Everything's working again. Then I went on the hormone replacement therapy. Then I did the stem cells and the PRP for the ovaries. It's been a sequence of things, you know?

[Gary Brea]

Yeah, yeah.

[Iman Hassan]

And you see it just. Your body alone will shrink with inflammation. You can just tell.

[Gary Brea]

Yeah. And you're kind of, like, beaming with energy, so that's good. You can't be like that when you've got all that toxic.

[Iman Hassan]

You don't feel good. You can't think straight. You can't think straight. You don't feel good. How are you planning to carry a pregnancy? Yeah, that's what I. Women should be at their best and healthiest in their body, in their mind, when they conceive. Is that ideal? Yes, that's ideal. Because then you can really set up the tone and intention with which you're going to carry a baby.

[Gary Brea]

Yeah. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to link a lot of these into the show notes because I know there's going to be a lot of curiosity in this. We're going to shift over to the next part of the podcast. I have a VIP community that I leak the guests that are coming on my podcast too. And they are so excited for you. They have a whole list of questions for you. But before we jump to this next part, if you're interested in becoming a VIP, you can just go over to theultimatehuman.com VIP you can sign up to VIP at one of my VIPs. We're going to do live Q and A. We do challenges, we do private podcasts, which we're about to do with Iman. So join my VIP community. I promise you it's the best $97 a month you've ever spent. But, you know, before I end each podcast, I. I ask all my guests the same question, and there's no right or wrong answer to this question. If you've seen the podcast, you know that it's coming. What does it mean to you to be an ultimate Human?

[Iman Hassan]

To operate with purpose and integrity.

[Gary Brea]

Wow.

[Iman Hassan]

At all things in my life, everything in my life, whether it's the supplements I take, the people I interact with, what I do for work, it's purpose and integrity. If those two things are not aligned, then I'm not operating correctly.

[Gary Brea]

Iman, amazing. Thank you so much for coming on the Ultimate Human podcast. Now that you are my neighbor.

[Iman Hassan]

Yes.

[Gary Brea]

I need to have your husband over so we can do a day of biohacking with Sage and your husband and I and you. But we're definitely going to do a follow up to this episode and I'm going to let my audience know how this PK protocol has gone for me and I'll share pre and post testing. But thank you for coming on the Ultimate Human podcast.

[Iman Hassan]

Thank you for giving me a platform to talk about my fertility journey. And I just want to help as many women as possible because like we discussed, the fertility industry is only booming, but they're missing so many key things which makes a woman have the best possible outcome, more birth rates, and just live a happier, healthier life.

[Gary Brea]

Where does my audience find you?

[Iman Hassan]

So Instagram. It's Iman Double underscore Hassan, and they can follow our podcast, Biohack. Yeah, don't ask. You know, my team is yet to change it. They've written to meta. They better make this happen. They're working on it. We're trying to change the name because somebody has Iman Hassan on Instagram.

[Gary Brea]

Okay.

[Iman Hassan]

And they're not responding to me.

[Gary Brea]

I don't know a lot of Iman Hassan.

[Iman Hassan]

Right. Just have somebody from the Middle east has it. Our podcast is called biohacket, which I just did a swap for you, and I'm excited to release the episode. And our agency is called IHC Agency.

[Gary Brea]

IHC Agency. I'm just gonna go there and look at all your clients and do business with all of them. Thank you so much for coming on the Ultimate Human podcast.

[Iman Hassan]

Thank you so much.

[Gary Brea]

And as always, that's just science.