Peptides, Stem Cells, Exosomes, and More: A Look at Advanced Therapy Options (Performance & Longevity Series)

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Transcript: Peptides, Stem Cells, Exosomes, and More: A Look at Advanced Therapy Options (Performance & Longevity Series)

Season 12, Episode 23  | April 2, 2026

Jamie Martin

We’re back with another episode of Life Time Talks. And in this episode of our series on performance and longevity with MIORA we are taking a look at advanced therapies for longevity and performance.

 

And Jim, this was a category that I was like, what are these things? Honestly, this is pretty new to me. I feel like we’ve been covering health and wellness topics for a long time in Experience Life, on this podcast. But I want to make sure we delve into that. Also, I want to make sure people know who you are.

 

Jim LaValle is the chief science officer for Life Time, along with a long time clinical pharmacist and clinical nutritionist. I got you, there you are.

 

Jim LaValle

I’m all in.

 

Jamie Martin

You’re all in. All right. So let’s talk about these advanced therapies because there are things like peptides, stem cells, exosomes and plasmapheresis, which you had to teach me how to say before we hit record on this episode, but they’re among several that are revolutionizing regenerative medicine. So what are they? And what do we mean, I guess, first and foremost, what do we mean by advanced therapies?

 

Jim LaValle (00:43)

Yeah, I think these are therapies that people are looking for either because they have issues that nothing else has been working on and maybe prior to surgery or maybe a more in-depth treatment, they want to try and use more integrative or regenerative advanced therapies. So these are things that, you know, I don’t think it’s the first thing you go out and do.

 

But I do think as you progress and if you’re having significant issues, they can have tremendous impact Some of them are farther along Than others but at the same time we need to be thinking forward on you know, what’s coming down the horizon, right?

 

Jamie Martin

Well, we’ve talked one of them already that we’ve talked about our peptides, right? And just to like get it all level set in this episode, we want to make sure people go back to our previous ones, but what our peptides and kind of just in general why are they important for health potentially?

 

Jim LaValle

Yeah, peptides are basically small chains of amino acids that are smaller than a protein, but bigger than a single amino acid. Typically when you think of peptides, they’re under, and it depends on what you read, but honestly, it’s typically under 40 amino acids in length.

 

And those peptides, for example, you hear the, you hear about glutathione, right? Glutathione. Everybody hears about natural compound. That’s a peptide. It’s only got eight amino acids. Okay. Don’t realize that KPV, another peptide for the gut, three amino acids and take that are just chained together to create a specific signal that helps direct your body towards healing or repair or cellular function improvement, right? So whether it’s generating energy, rejuvenating the release of growth hormone, helping maybe an injury to heal, to get back from inflammation or scarring or those kinds of things. So that’s peptides.

 

Jamie Martin

And as I mentioned at the start of when I asked you that is like we’ve got two episodes that we really dive deep into peptides and what they are. So we want to make sure we’ll link back to those so we can go in depth there.

 

The other, we have three more. So stem cells. And I know we’ve been hearing a lot about stem cells for a long time, like they’ve come in and out of the news for years. But in terms of stem cells as advanced therapies for longevity and performance, what are we talking about?

 

Jim LaValle

Well, I mean, so, STEM cells can be derived from a lot of different areas, right? You’ve heard about initially, hey, you can take it out of your own fat tissue. Then there’s umbilical cord tissue, but what’s really the current thought process is plus actually placental derived STEM cells. And what you’re doing with STEM cells is you’re trying to provide your body with the building blocks of cells that can build into new healthy cells in order to repair an area of your body. So you hear about stem cells for injecting stem cells in a joint, for example, to try and help rejuvenate the tissue and the surrounding the, you know, the articular areas of your, of your joint. You could also utilize stem cells because they help with re-regulation of your immune system.

 

So if you have someone who’s, you know, chronically in an inflammatory state, using stem cells could also benefit that. So stem cells basically are this, once again, you make these. It’s just that either through aging or maybe toxicity, environmental burden, poor decisions, whatever you want to call it, you can start to damage your ability to, you know, make stem cells and do cell renewal.

 

Interestingly, there are lifestyle factors like fasting. So autophagy, the breakdown of compounds that your body, byproduct of your body metabolism to clear that. And then if you fast, it turns out that at 48 hours, you actually, your body turns on its ability to make its own stem cells. Sometimes just not enough to say repair your knee, right? So use the knee as an example, fix that joint, know, heal that shoulder. It could be muscle tissue, whatever that is. Exosomes are somewhat of a mirror purified version. Um, that, you know, once again does the same thing, creates signals. The biggest for healing. The biggest issue that’s been so far is that they’re not well characterized. So if you ask somebody that, you know, a stem cell provider. Hey, what’s in it?

 

Up to now there wasn’t really good consistency out there in the marketplace about how clean it was. did the person that you got these from that they have, you know, did they have a history of infection themselves or is there any viruses in those stem cells? Is there anything there that would be negative when you, you know, go to do a stem cell therapy? And so now where we’re getting to the point why I think this is really timely is now there are

 

groups, entities, companies that are making stem cells and exosomes where they’re fully what we call characterized. They tell you exactly what’s in them. So which cytokines, which growth factors, what’s not in there. Do have any viruses in there? Anything that doesn’t belong in there, in there, right? So once we get to that threshold, that then starts to create the ability to utilize them safely in large populations, which I think is really the times coming. I for example, the state of Florida approved the use of stem cells and now doctors can do stem therapies in very specific ones, in specific ways in the state of Florida without it being a research or a risky type of event.

 

So there’s different states where stem cells now and exosomes are allowed and then of course there’s the anti-aging side of by putting these stem cells into your body that All your tissues you’re going to start to turn on cellular renewal for all your tissues right, right? So that’s the advanced therapy for longevity standpoint of where You know exosomes stem cells play a role is that you know? The thought is hey if you infuse these that it’s going to allow for new cell, youthful cell renewal.

 

Jamie Martin

So let’s talk a little bit. You mentioned that stem cells, and I’m assuming them because they’re related to exosomes, they’re connected in some way, but they’re placental derived. What does that mean? And like if somebody who said, hey, I’m going to do this, how would they know where the stem cells they’re getting are from?

 

Jim LaValle

They have to ask.

 

Jamie Martin

So proactive, being proactive.

 

Jim LaValle

Otherwise, you don’t know. I mean, people are going to look people are flying out of the country to do stem cells. And I would say that depending on where they go, it could be good. I’m not going to mention good or bad. But depending on what country you’re going to, you may not be getting what you think you’re getting. I mean, I’ve actually look, I have to talk about him as a word of caution, because I think we’re just getting out of the Wild West of stem cells and exosomes now. I mean, there’s some good, really good literature. There’s state approval and now there is reliability, right?

 

But in the past, I mean, I had a couple of colleagues, both of them were healthcare providers, they’re both docs, it got stem cells in their knees and one got something called a compartment syndrome where the, you know, basically the circulation kind of got walled off around the, you know, around the joints and I mean, they had to have major surgery and didn’t walk for about six months and it didn’t quite accomplish what they thought it was going to accomplish. That’s why I think it’s important. I’m so happy that when I brought this up to you that you were willing to talk about it with me because you know, this is one of those things that’s on the horizon now that I think is incredibly promising, especially now that there’s some, clear improvement in what they’re able to do.

 

Jamie Martin

Right. Well, and that’s where it’s like even just that I’m going to keep kind of delving in from a very newbie standpoint on this topic because it’s like if they used to be like you can get stem cells from your own like fat pockets, right? What is more common getting them from yourself, getting them from other sources? Like what should you be asking about in that regard?

 

Jim LaValle

Yeah, that’s a great question. You know, I think, look, the older you are, I’m not sure I want to use my stem cells. I got 65 year old stem cells, right? So I think that depending on how good of health you’re in, if you think about trying to do your own stem cells and maybe you’re 30 pounds overweight and your body makes a lot of inflammatory compounds, what’s your stem cells going to be like?

 

Jim LaValle

Right, you probably want to introduce something new.

 

Jim LaValle

More clean.

 

Jamie Martin

Okay, more clean. Yeah.

 

Jim LaValle

More pure, more clean, more potent. And they have ways of separating out all these different compounds now to really create potent and safe stem cells and exosomes, before that was, this is an evolving science. It really is.

 

But, but I think we’re, we’re near that point of it being mainstream that everybody’s kind of gotten to that point. Now we’re going, wow, the value to stem cells and exosomes is pretty significant because it does create that new palette for your body to re-engineer itself. Right. Right. You’re re-engineering your tissues because you’re making newer, healthier tissues. That’s, that’s, mean,

 

I would never even thought of that. Like when I started in healthcare 42 years ago, actually more than that, if I think my internship, you know, it’s like, it’s been almost 50 years for me. You just weren’t thinking about these things. So that’s where I think those have value. And then there’s the fact that, you know, look, as you’re aging, your body, the process of aging, depending on how hard you are on yourself. And I don’t just mean, oh, how much alcohol you drink or G did you, you know, you’re a, you know, a casual drug user or something, you know, I’m not talking about that kind of hard. I just mean, if you are making a lot of inflammatory chemistry, and so your byproducts of your cell metabolism, you have a lot of old worn out tissues and say, for example, you’re not exercising and you’re not getting a good night’s sleep.

 

Even there’s something called the glymphatic system, the glial lymphatic system, which clears the byproducts. You got to think about your body needs to go through a process of cleansing. The byproducts of your metabolism need to be cleaned up. And so if you aren’t able to do that, basically it’s like clogging a bunch of filters.

 

It gets clogged when it’s in gets clogged the immune system reacts even more and you create more damage to your tissue so over time your body has You know this clogged sink effect at the cellular level waste products from immune function waste proteins that brings up our next topic which is plasmapheresis, so they call it, you know total plasma exchange or plasmapheresis. You know, this is, and you think of stem cells and exosomes and total plasma exchange or plasmapheresis, they kind of can work hand in hand together, really cool, right? Because in plasma exchange, what they’re doing is basically filtering your blood. Getting rid of these waste products of your metabolism, but also getting rid of some environmental burdens. So there’s some evidence that, you you get rid of microplastics, which is apparently, you know, as we know, yeah, it’s hard to avoid it. So I think that’s incredibly interesting that you can filter out all these waste products, maybe even old drug therapies that have been around.

 

I think there’s a caution and it’s not, you hey, I just go get my blood filtered like an oil change and it’s all over. I mean, I think there’s some things that stored in different tissues and you got to work on cleaning things up. But this has created a very big jumpstart in people feeling better when they’ve been chronically ill. And then so you, if we think about this in simple terms, you filter everything out and then you think about the stem cells or exosomes after to reprogram those newly freshened cells that have, you know, kind of been beat up. And now you’re saying now we can reprogram and rebuild.

 

Jamie Martin

Because what you’re saying is like, I’m just, because layman’s terms here, it’s like really, if you’re saying, if I were to do stem cells, and this wouldn’t necessarily be the case, but like, I haven’t done plasmapheresis, for instance, and there’s a lot of stuff that’s just circulating around, but then I do stem cells that may not be as effective as it could be if you did that filtering out first. Because again, it’s like that cleansing, that filtering, you’re kind of getting rid of those things that are preventing more optimal.

 

Jim LaValle

Exactly and there’s some things, look I’m a huge I’m a huge advocate for doing things naturally wherever you can but sometimes people are just past that or we have to also have to think about the fact that the environment has created a tremendous amount of burden on us for example the plastics right but just like that pesticides things like glyphosate, you know Roundup is everywhere. Things, you know like you know environmental burden from metals. So that could be very difficult at times to get that out, or years, using just natural compounds. And so it really ends up being one of these situations where, yeah, this can hasten the process to get someone feeling better quickly, great. But then you also wanna back that in with, okay, how am I gonna change my lifestyle? What am I going to do that’s going to start to promote health? Because the things that I was doing probably wasn’t.

 

Jamie Martin

Well, it got you to that point potentially. Especially if it’s like a lifestyle related chronic condition versus an acute injury to a knee or something like that.

 

Jim LaValle

Totally different. That’s exactly right.

 

Jamie Martin

So when we hear about these, I’m just thinking about how accessible they are. Because like you said, they’re not quite mainstream yet, a lot of these. I are people getting these? You said some people go out of the country to get this right now. It’s starting like in Florida. There’s certain you know, docs that are doing this, or it’s been approved for use there. how accessible is it to kind of the general population? I think about how unhealthy as a general population Americans are. It’s something like, what are even the stats around, like, what is it, some 30% or more are obese, almost three quarters are overweight. Most people, like almost 95% plus of us aren’t doing one basic health habit, which is one of them being not smoking, right?

 

So it’s like, how do we, you know, like if we want true change in our health, like how do these things become more accessible or at some point will they? That’s a long convoluted way of saying all that.

 

Jim LaValle

Yeah, I don’t even know where I started or where I’m gonna end on that one. No, honestly, no, I got it very clearly. One is they’re absolutely becoming more more accessible. You know, in the previous years, if you’re gonna use exosomes or something like that, you would just be a part of an IRB and you would have to record that vial.

 

Jamie Martin

What does IRB mean?

 

Jim LaValle

It would be an institutional review board. You would have to do a part of a research. And then you would record, this was the vial. Here it is. Here’s the number. Here’s the treatment. Here’s the result. So that created a lot of ability for more and more practitioners to utilize it. So I wouldn’t say that, you know, it’s stem stem cells, if you want to find them or not rare. I think that consistency of the material is what needs to improve no. So it’s like that quality piece needs to improve.

 

There’s obviously there’s states that have approved it and therefore there’s a lot of drugs that are you know, there are a lot of stem cells being used by doctors, you know because it’s approved in the state. So for example in Florida, I’ve got several colleagues they’re using stem cells like crazy now because they’re allowed to, makes it easy.

 

And then are we anywhere near where it’s going to be? No. Stem cells, exosomes are going to absolutely be an explosive part of care. The rate limiting step on them right now is cost. As all things, as procedures are improving and the manufacturing’s created to be as efficient. I think cost will come down, making it more available, I think a little more easily for folks. And then total plasma exchange, right now there’s already groups coming out where they, we’ll set up a doctor’s office, have the device in there, have a trained nurse in there running it for a doc. So that’s on its way. And you’re seeing a lot, obviously, in social media, people holding up their bag of their filtered blood, which I think is a little interesting. Look what I just filtered out.

 

Jamie Martin

It feels like a trend versus something that’s proven and got more data.

 

Jim LaValle

Yeah, you know what? There’s one colleague of mine I’ve known. He’s been doing this for 15 years and researching it and leading the way on it. So there’s good evidence about it. But, know, I think, you know, with social media, of course, everybody’s looking for a hot, cool news story. So if you’re the if you’re the one, if you’re the patient sitting in the chair and you’re going to hold your bag up, I think you’re thinking it’s kind of cool. But the reality is there’s some real science behind it that I think can be transformational.

 

So when we think of these advanced therapies, I mean, we haven’t talked about, you know, red light therapy or ozone, right? There’s a lot of different things that you can do. I think these are the few that are at top of mind right now, because you’re, you know, I know, Jamie, you’re all over looking at, you know, what’s being posted and how many TPE total plasma exchange, you know, little short spots have you seen over the last, you know, I’d say three to six months, right? It’s really heated up. That’s why, you know, just kind of getting people familiar with it.

 

But once again, you’re going to be hooked up on a machine, your blood is going to be taken out of you. You’re going be exchanging your plasma. This is not, you know, it’s different than, I’m going to eat better and exercise. It’s a next level advanced therapy that you can choose to do because, you’re an athlete that’s really pushed yourself hard or just somebody who’s trained really heavy for a long time.

 

And now you’re not recovering or you notice more aches and pains. This may apply really well for you because you’ve tried everything else and it didn’t, right? But it’s just important to recognize that’s moving up the tier, you know, diet, nutrition, lifestyle, nutrients, bioidentical hormones, peptides. Now we get into other therapies, right? So you think about your moving through this transition as you’re looking for more and more answers or you’re being incredibly proactive.

 

Jamie Martin

Right, it’s kind of like you’ve got the foundation, you need to have those lifestyle foundation pieces, those things, and then you kind of keep, it’s like getting that kind of optimal point, right, to that peak, and these are things that you can do. You mentioned the circumstances in which somebody might want to do any of these advanced therapies. Is it that they’re an athlete, or is there a long chronic condition that there’s just been no relief from? What are other circumstances in which people might consider any one of these potentially.

 

Jim LaValle

Well, I mean, one is just straight out longevity, because I mean, if you’re aging, once again, there’s two principal times that you age. So in your early 40s and in your early to mid 60s. So I’m in that category where I would be interested in total plasma exchange to knock out that transition that is known in humans at age 62 to 65. That happens that creates a lot of damaging molecules out of your chemistry.

 

Obviously, depending on what you’re doing, you probably already are maybe fighting back that inflammation, but just the sheer fact that I’ve lived this long, I wouldn’t mind having an oil change. Right, I wouldn’t mind getting that kind of complete filtering of the old out. In addition to that, gosh, doing something that would create great signals for my immune system, exosomes. Stem cells to help reprogram my tissues. So the longevity piece is big.

 

And then there’s injury, right? We about kind of injury. Hey, my knee, my shoulder, my labrum, whatever. You know, I tore a muscle. I hurt myself. It’s not repairing. What could I do? Some people start with PRP, peptides, PRP, and then they go, I’m going to move to the next level with exosomes, right, to inject into the affected area. And then there’s I’m chronically ill. My immune system is really compromised. My ability to rejuvenate is low. So I’m kind of moving down a chronic disease funnel. So those are those three categories that I really look at it.

 

I mean, I kind of look at that with all therapies, to be honest with you, is do you have an acute thing that you’re dealing with, an injury? Is it because you’re trying to live your best possible life as long as you can? And those things should typically be less heroic. And then it’s, well, I have a health challenge. And I want to try to do everything I can. And I haven’t been successful. Even on the medication side, wasn’t successful, right? Traditional didn’t work. I tried some other things in the integrative care side. It didn’t work. But now I want to step it up. And that’s where I think that there’s a lot of value in these advanced therapies.

 

Jamie Martin

Oh, I have so many more questions. I know we’re going to run out of time here. I’m going to ask one more, and then we’re going to wrap up this episode. You just mentioned, you kind of alluded to this. So there’s any one of these plasmapheresis, exosomes, stem cells, peptides, are they utilized as complementary to traditional therapies? Or are they usually therapies, treatments, I should say, orr are they usually used after those haven’t worked? You were kind of just getting into that.

 

Jim LaValle

I think it could be done either way. You look at a lot of orthopedics now, they’re offering exosomes or stem cells as part of their treatment plan. You know, when they’re dealing with an injury on an individual. So I think it can be a compliment. I think that TPE, total plasma exchange or plasmapheresis, it’s probably, that’s not as matured as the, you know, in terms of docs thinking about doing it. Not in a hospital base, they’ve been doing it, right? This is more, hey, I’m walking into a doc’s office and they’re gonna do this, right? I think that’s a lot newer concept. So that could be, typically right now, that’s gonna be one of the things aren’t working.

 

Jamie Martin

Yeah, so, right. It depends on what’s going on with you.

 

Jim LaValle

Exactly. And then the third, in regards to peptides, I think now there’s just become this general acceptance that it literally was a tsunami of consumer acceptance and interest in peptides because it helped them to accelerate through a problem they were trying to solve with their health. Whether it was weight loss or gaining lean mass or immune issues.

 

I’m just healing, you hey, I don’t want to have that pain in my knee anymore. So, and that, the FDA is catching up with that. And I think there’s going to be a lot of, I’d say more freedom around peptides over the next year, you know, based on everything I’ve heard and, and, you know, been to Washington a few times to listen. So I think, you know, I think bright times ahead for all things, longevity and performance health.

 

Jamie Martin

Yep. I love that. Well, I mean, as always, we want to encourage our listeners to do the research, ask questions, talk to your health care providers. And you have to be your own best health advocate, but you have to be informed to do that. So more content and more information is available at miora.lifetime.life. Jim has a lot of content, articles, other podcasts that he’s been on with me. So if you want to hear more from Jim and learn more about MIORA, you can check out our show notes or visit miora.lifetime.life. Jim.

 

Thank you, as always.

 

Jim LaValle

Always fun to be here.