This discussion is intended for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice or establish a doctor-patient relationship. Information shared on the podcast should not replace consultation with a healthcare provider. Always consult your physician or a qualified health provider with any questions about a medical condition or before making health decisions based on this content. 

Steven Sampson D.O. is an internationally recognized trailblazer in regenerative medicine, championing natural and noninvasive interventions to address physical injury and pain. Dr Sampson was among the world’s earliest adapters of platelet rich plasma (PRP) for musculoskeletal conditions, including authoring research and developing novel clinical applications.

John Shegerian: Get the latest impact podcast right into your inbox each week. Subscribe by entering your email [email protected] to make sure you never miss an interview. This edition of The Impact Podcast is brought to you by ERI. ERI has a mission to protect people, the planet and your privacy, and is the largest fully integrated IT and electronics asset disposition provider and cybersecurity focused hardware Destruction Company in the United States and maybe even the world. For more information on how ERI can help your business properly dispose of outdated electronic hardware devices, please visit eridirect.com. This episode of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by Closed Loop Partners. Closed Loop Partners is a leading circular economy investor in the United States with an extensive network of Fortune 500 corporate investors, family offices, institutional investors, industry experts and impact partners. Closed loops platform spans the arc of capital from venture capital to private equity bridging gaps and fostering synergies. To scale the circular economy, the fine closed loop partners, please go to www.closelooppartners.com.

John: Welcome to another edition of The Impact podcast. This is a very special edition we’ve got with us today, Dr. Steven Sampson. He is the doctor, owner and founder of the Ortho Healing Center and Physical Longevity Practice in Los Angeles. Welcome Dr. Steve to the Impact Podcast.

Dr. Steven Sampson: Thanks, John. It’s great to be here. Looking forward to sharing some insights with your audience today.

John: First of all, I got to just say this upfront for our, for our listeners and viewers, most of them have been with us on this journey over 16 years. I just want to say upfront, first of all, if you’re interested in the kind of services that Dr. Sampson has at his clinic, please, before you make any decisions about what you do with your own body and your health and wellness, please seek your own physician’s guidance before you make any decisions. This show itself is not for medical purposes, it’s for informational purposes only. And I also need to say for truth in advertising, you are also one of my great doctors. I love what you do. I’ve had tremendous success working with you today, and I’m more pain-free sitting here today talking with you because of you and your partner and all the great work you do. So I’m very grateful for everything you’ve done on me personally, historically.

Dr. Steven: Great. Thank you. I appreciate that.

John: One last thing I have to say at this show, as our listeners and viewers know, we don’t take any advertising, nor do we trade services for attention. So I’ve paid for all my services with you, and you’re not on the show as a freebie or anything. You’re on the show because you deserve to be on the show. And that’s why I’m really excited. I want others to learn about you, the practice that you have, the uniqueness of it, and how the great work you do and the results you can have when people come to you. So that’s the exciting part of having you today. Before we get talking about all the great work you do at the Ortho Healing Center in Los Angeles, I’d love you to share a little bit about your background, Steve. Where’d you grow up? How’d you get on this journey? Who inspired you to become a doctor and do this very interesting work that you’re doing in regenerative medicine?

Dr. Steven: Yeah, thanks again, John, for the opportunity to share my story and increase awareness in terms of opportunities for your audience to not only live long, but live well. I think we really want to flourish and take care of our physical self to be able to enjoy time being active and really get the most out of life.

John: Right.

Dr. Steven: So my journey in medicine is a rather unique path, and it started where I grew up in the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan. And my father was a physician, he was a GP, kind of jack of all trades, did a little bit of everything. But interestingly, my motivation to become a physician was by my father being a patient. He suffered with diabetes, heart disease, vascular disease. I grew up in a household with someone chronically ill and debilitated. And I think that had such an impact on my early adulthood that I realized no matter how much success you may have in life, if you don’t have your physical self and your function intact you have very little. It was his role of a patient interacting with different doctors where someone would come into the room and it would be a very serious moment, and the doctor just lacked good bedside manner empathy. And I just kind of questioned like, that could be done better, why is there this lack of empathy and being in the patient’s own shoes. It was really this motivation to help people live an active full life. And through that I found I didn’t really like dealing with death and severe illness and high risk type work. And I found I was, as we briefly discussed, I was a medical student during 911 and volunteered and went to Ground zero. And I was still trying to figure out what I wanted to do. And we went down to Chelsea Pierce and we were this medical team and some patients checked themselves out from the hospital. There was an OBGYN doctor, a variety of different people. And we were sadly waiting for people to help and nobody came that we could help, but we had all this time to kind of think about life and what we wanted to do. And at that point I realized, I really want to help people have a quality of life and stay active and well and function at a high level. I went through residency in my specialty is called Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PM&R) and I even decided late to go into medical school and had to figure out from my university, I went to Michigan State University and it was hard because I was a sociology major who wanted to be a doctor. And they said, it’s tough, but you could do it. And I was like, just tell me it can be done and I’ll figure it out. So I had to take like a lot of irrelevant courses that are like obstacles or hurdles, for example, algebra, trigonometry, physics that really don’t play a role in what I do every day, just make it hard to enter medical school. So I kind of clawed and found my way. And even during that time I was a bit of a pioneering spirit. I used to travel the world solo and visit countries like Papua New Guinea with a little backpack and interact with communities that had very few travelers and connected with the culture and just saw there’s another way to do things. And I think that pioneering spirit kind of carried me through medical school and through residency where I was a bit of an outlier, kind of questioning how things are and you’d rotate with a doctor and at first you just felt they had the white coat and oh, they must be so smart and everything they say is right. And at the time we had our palm pilots, which was very primitive technology that we thought was so advanced with the stylet, and you’d look stuff up and it was like, actually that wasn’t correct what that doctor said or did, or maybe there’s another way. I think I always had a critical way of thinking and a pioneering spirit to kind of question the norm. A lot of people go into medicine because it’s very safe, right? You take your exam called the mcat, you pass it, you get into medical school, you have a four year school, then you do an internship, a residency, a fellowship, and you get a job and you have a pretty safe life. And again, as we talked about these obstacles, it creates a culture of a mind that’s really good at like math and trigonometry and physics, but sometimes not really focused on connecting with human beings and what it’s like to be ill and how that affects a family. I felt like once I got through all the academics, I had a distinct advantage of really connecting on the human side with patients and thrived. And so that led me to this physical medicine and rehabilitation residency. And when I came out, my first job was in Santa Monica, California, working with the men’s World Cup soccer team.

John: Wow.

Dr. Steven: And during residency I had been injecting corticosteroids and you see someone with back pain or shoulder pain and you inject them and they feel great and they come back a month later, thank you, this is incredible. And then another month later, they come back to the clinic and they’re in worse pain. The pain came back and now it’s worse or it’s causing tissue damage. And I just felt like there must be a better way for people to heal. And my background, I went to osteopathic medical school, and it’s very similar to MD Allopathic School, which was founded on the concept that the human body is remarkable and has all of its own abilities to self-heal and repair. And our job as physicians is to kind of facilitate the body’s own inherent healing mechanisms. And the founder of this profession was a surgeon during the Civil War, and he found that patients getting surgeries were having more complications than those not. And he felt that the body had its own drugstore and we need to look into that. And so I’ve always liked the concept of natural healing. When I started working on the Men’s World Cup Soccer Team, one of my colleagues who’s a renowned orthopedic surgeon, he said, Hey, there’s this blood spinning going on in Spain and they’re getting good results. The light went on and why not look into this? And we had a patient who had an MCL ligament injury, which is a band on the inside of the knee that provide support. Those of you that follow sports, maybe a familiar, it’s classically a non-surgical injury, but it could take eight to 12 weeks to heal. And so we had a patient, we did the due diligence and we treated him on Good Morning America the first time ever doing it. And he got back in half the time and had a great result.

John: The pressure on national television.

Dr. Steven: Yeah, yeah. That’s how it always is. The stakes are high when you’re doing something new. And he did incredibly well. And then shortly afterwards I took a surfing lesson in Santa Monica and coincidentally had the same knee injury of an MCL, and so I became the patient.

John: Wow.

Dr. Steven: And it was such a powerful experience to see what it was like on the patient side and how it helped me recover and it was natural and healed so well. That really motivated me into looking into the concept of cellular healing or PRP called platelet rich plasma.

John: Is that also under the heading of what is also now being called regenerative medicine or biologics?

Dr. Steven: Yeah. So at the time there was no term regenerative medicine or awareness blood spinning or PRP and it changed. So what I had done at the time was I felt like I was a bit on an island where there were none of my colleagues doing PRP injections and there was no one to talk to. So I created a blog at the time and it started creating doctors from around the world that were finding it and we were connecting, communicating about cases and how we’re using it and looking up different articles. And some of my now good close friends from Spain were original pioneers. So for example, PRP is a treatment where you take one’s own blood and you spin it in a machine called the centrifuge. And our blood contains four components, every human being, white cells, red cells, platelets, and plasma. And each of these cells have a different density or layer. And so when you spin them in a centrifuge in a certain G-Force, like a record player, almost like oil and water, they separate out. When you isolate the platelets and some of the plasma and you re-inject it into an injury, it’s concentrated with proteins and growth factor, it can promote healing. At the time there were very limited publications for orthopedic use. So I published one of the world’s first reviews of PRP in orthopedic medicine or musculoskeletal medicine. And then there were no conferences where you could meet with other docs and share what you’re doing and the latest advancements. And without any experience in event management production, my wife had helped who had some background I created and founded what’s called the Ortho Biologic Institute, or Toby, which was the world’s first international regenerative medicine PRP symposium. And it was in LA.

John: What year was this doctor?

Dr. Steven: This was about 17 years ago.

John: Wow. Wow. Okay.

Dr. Steven: Yeah. And just around that time, my wife was pregnant with our son and I also started my own medical practice. So I left a large orthopedic group, which was like the firm where nobody left, everyone kind of stayed in line. But I saw this opportunity of non-surgical, minimally invasive ortho biologic cell therapy, which is using your own cells and tissues to try to facilitate natural healing orthopedically. I really kind of went all in, not understanding the magnitude at the time, but all the chips were in on this. Because I believed in myself and I believed in these treatments. And I founded the conference and a medical practice at the same time with about $10,000 in my bank account.

John: Doc, it’s nothing, it’s hard enough to be a singular entrepreneur. You started two ventures in unknown territory where the road was never traveled before at the same time. So you’re really not only a doctor, but you have a journey as also an entrepreneur.

Dr. Steven: Yeah. And I would say, the beauty of my intentions were not entrepreneurial. In that case it was, look, I’m so passionate about this field and I’m finding other doctors, my first Toby Comp stocks came from Singapore, Saudi Arabia, south Spain, you name it. They came from all over and they were so excited to connect. And then each year that grew. And we’ve had thousands of doctors from over 60 countries with hundreds and hundreds of exhibitors that get access to these docs and keep pushing the field forward. A lot of companies have been birthed and collaborations formed, and it really helped mold the field over the years. And then we found more and more medical societies have now integrated orthobiologics or stem cells or PRP than it’s become more mainstream. But it’s fascinating that it was really birthed from a physician, a singular doc, not like a medical society or organization.

John: Is the Toby Conference an offshoot of your blog and that’s how you were able to get the first visitors to come by? Just the connectivity?

Dr. Steven: Yes.

John: So you were really crowdsourcing before crowdsourcing became actually a term that we all…

Dr. Steven: Yeah, it was, yeah, the blog post, which is I think gone now, but it was prpinjection.blog spot.com and I even chronicled my PRP injection and like, it’s week four and I’m feeling great or I’m able to do this, or I added hyperbaric to my treatment.

John: Wow.

Dr. Steven: It was really an early time in terms of the internet and getting communication out. But it’s such a powerful tool at the time that you could now connect with someone. Nowadays, if you read an article that’s published day on stem cell or PRP, the author’s email’s in there and within minutes I can email and you get a response so we can start sharing and exchanging information. But when I founded Toby, there was no cross communication whatsoever. I had a colleague who was at Stanford, a good friend of mine, Allan Mishra, who was the first to do PRP in the United States on tennis elbow. And so to be able to connect with someone like Alan and say, Hey, I’m thinking about injecting blood in the elbow, but what about the knee for knee arthritis? I published perhaps the world’s first knee arthritis study of PRP, and it was with 13 patients. I had to draw the blood myself. One patient, we couldn’t even get the blood from their arm. I had to get it from his foot just to make sure we enrolled everybody. Science is really advanced with AI and communications, but in the early days we were just so motivated and starving to connect.

John: There’s a lot to unpack here. And I want to just go over now, so between 2007 and 2025, that’s 18 years talk. Let’s break it down and talk about both of the journeys. First of all, when did you found the Ortho Healing Center? Was that in 2007?

Dr. Steven: Yeah, around the same time. Yeah.

John: Right. So that journey started and how was it the first month, year. How were patients coming in because they had heard about you or was it a little bit of a slow go in the beginning?

Dr. Steven: Yeah, it started out just banging from the beginning. So what happened was, out of residency, I joined a large orthopedic group that had a great reputation in Santa Monica, in West Los Angeles.

John: Okay.

Dr. Steven: And that’s when I had learned about PRP and using ultrasound, which is image guidance and precision. So if someone has a knee issue, you can scan the knee in real time, suck the fluid out, target multiple structures. The light bulb went on for me that this is the way to heal and it just wasn’t the right fit for me long term to be part of 12 surgeons. And they were focused on surgery. And I saw this treatment gap where a lot of patients had problems that maybe were too advanced for physical therapy or steroids weren’t a great option, or there was short term and side effects and medications I didn’t like. Yet they weren’t bad enough for surgery or I was seeing the surgeries weren’t working so great. In some cases, like there’s this mindset in the states, just fix it, just have the surgery. And there are brilliant surgeons and there are indications for surgery, but there are also times when, look, surgery could be 50 50 and there’s no guarantees you can’t take it back. Is there something we could do with early intervention that might have equally or better results with less downtime? Or could you try something and if it didn’t work, no harm, no foul, no burn bridges. Over time we became more confident in this, but there was this gap. I realized the patients really liked me, not because I was at this practice. In fact, at the practice it was so overbooked that I’d have to, I was late because I had too many patients on my schedule to do quality consultations. And half of my energy was walking in the room like, I’m so sorry I’m late. And you’d have to like win that patient back for 10 minutes and then get into the consultation. I just felt it was better for me to start solo. I had a shoestring budget. I worked at a, he was a nephrologist office, it was a senior office. It had one small room and a closet for an office. And the room was so small that I couldn’t fit my ultrasound machine in if the patient had a left shoulder issue. So when I’d meet with the patient and I was like, it’s shoulder, which shoulder, and if they were like left shoulder, I’d be like, ah, like that’s going to be tricky for me. And I had a closet where the door came into the closet room. And I had to move like the chair around just to get it in. And I was selected as part of the world’s first and largest PRP tennis elbow study. It was 230 patients from 11 centers. And they were all major big orthopedic heavy hitter practices. And because of the Toby conference and the reputation I had made of doing PRP, I was selected to be a center and they came for the visit and they couldn’t believe like this little hovel was my office. So humble beginnings in terms of where I started. And then after six months, but getting back to your question, day one, my schedule was filled because my previous practice patients all followed up. And I was even concerned because my practice was in network took insurance, and when I started the new practice, I couldn’t get on the insurance plans quickly enough. But every one of my patients kind of flooded the new office and it was just such a great energy. And so after six months, I outgrew that closet of an office and took on my own lease and then it continued to grow. And after must have been about a year or so, I was super busy and I decided it was time to bring in an office partner that I could run the conference and have backup and had found a great office partner for life pretty much who’s been great, Dr. Aero, who’s also helped take care of you.

John: She’s also worked on me and she’s wonderful and I just can’t say enough great things about both of you and all the treatments you’ve both given me, you’ve saved me in so many ways. Talk a little bit about, okay, humble beginnings now, we fast forward 17 years and has it scaled to where you want it to be? Has it scaled to what you thought it would be? And where is it now? Because regenerative medicine is only now, and longevity medicine is only now with the advent of fountain life and Prenuvo[?], grail tests and this stuff is only becoming part of our vernacular and lexicon now. Even PRP isn’t talked about so much in the mainstream media and you’re too young to be called a godfather, but for sure you were the pioneer. Where is that journey going from what you’ve seen now because you were able to track it from ground zero and Genesis to now where we are here in early 2025?

Dr. Steven: Yeah, it’s a great point, John. I think the concept of wellness and longevity is just exploding. Anyone on the investment side looking to get into like what sectors are going to blow up it’s longevity and wellness, all the statistics are aiming at it makes sense. We all want to live longer, live better. Even the younger generation in their thirties are getting wearables and doing full body Prenuvo scans and there’s functional medicine doctors and hormone optimization and Cryosaunas and IV therapies, NAD, it’s just everywhere and it’s not going toslow down. I think it’s an opportunity to create some legitimacy and standardization before it gets a little bit outta control. But I do see this as one of the hottest sectors available for anybody to get involved in terms of supporting. And it started with, when we do cell therapies and PRP and other cell therapies, we can talk about with bone marrow or fat or stem cells that now most of all orthopedic societies have meetings and speakers dedicated. Whereas in the early days, I had to scrap and fight to get speakers to kind of come to my conference. And it got to a point where if it became prestigious to be on the podium, and many of the fields luminaries and thought leaders all were kind of brought up and had a platform at the Toby conference. And now there are dozens of conferences throughout the year with overlap and similar speakers and content and all the new Doc’s want to get in and learn how to do this. But with the growth creates a lot of vulnerability and patients don’t quite know who to trust. That’s one of the challenges as you kind of scroll through Instagram and social media, there’s a lot of experts that they may not really know what they’re talking about. And I think the key is to understand it’s not chicken soup can’t hurt with these cell therapies and longevity treatments that you can get sick and you can run into some bad actors and you can’t take some things back. And you really want to do due diligence and make sure that you’re getting reputable info. I see that as one of the biggest challenges in the future is trying to disseminate solid science and realistic expectations to patients and not over promise and under deliver.

John: Well, what I’ve seen in your own office, an amazing and highest efficacy that this truly is part art and part science but let me just take a little station break here for our listeners and viewers who just joined us, we’ve got Dr. Steven Sampson with us today. He’s the doctor, the owner and the founder of the Ortho Healing Center and Physical Longevity institute in Los Angeles. To find Dr. Steven and his partner and his great healing center, please go to www.orthohealing.com. That will be in the show notes. Any other things we’re talking about today, the Toby Conference and other things. We’ll also be in the show notes, so you don’t have to have a pen out. But the doc is easy to [email protected]. Doc, talk a little bit about being a pioneer regenerative medicine. And as you know, back then you were the pioneer. You started the blog which led to the Toby conference. But as you say, 17, 18 years later, the world is caught on and now the gold rush is on and as well, anytime that a gold rush is on in any industry, whether it’s a.com boom, the industrial revolution, the EV revolution that we’re living through, as you said, there’s great actors and really great players, and then unfortunately theses others that have less efficacy and are just trying to make a money grab that really aren’t as talented at your level and other colleagues like you who work at your level. Talk a little bit about now where do we go from here, given that there’s more attention, we know the wind blows harder as you go up that mountain and it gets a little lonelier and the air gets thinner. How do you now build upon already a very successful career in regenerative medicine, but now go to the next level given that this is a trend that’s here to stay, it’s not going backwards and longevity wellness, regenerative medicine and all the protocols we’ve mentioned for prenuvo, grail, eating right. And then we can go into a little bit of CRP versus stem cell versus ozone and other biologics. Biologics versus ozone and biologics and also stem cells. Where is this going for you personally? Where is this going as an industry? What’s some of your thoughts?

Dr. Steven: Yeah, great question there. The first thing kind of came up is when I was starting this early on and I was met with a lot of resistance, as we talked about in medicine, it’s a very straight and narrow path. The mindset is, you know, do as you’re told, don’t question the system. This is just the way it’s done. And a lot of our guidelines are algorithms by insurance. So insurance will pay for the patient to get a steroid shot and physical therapy and Celebrex or medications, and that’s what you do. And to question it makes you an outlier. There’s this phrase, it’s not original by me, I believe it was a cardiologist who said, in medicine when you do something new and different, first they ignore you and then they criticize you and then they imitate you. And that could not be more true in my path and journey. I’ve literally seen doc’s in the community or professional teen doc’s that have kind of started where you can’t get their attention and then they’re outspoken in terms of what you’re doing and then they’re actually got on board and doing it. We’re really seeing this wave and this tipping point and a lot of the younger doc’s coming out of training are getting at that there’s a better way. And there’s actually, like, if you objectively look at the data of using your own cells and tissues for PRP, for example, dramatically outperforms the published literature and safety for steroids, but yet it’s not recognized by insurance carriers. Doc’s aren’t business minded and they’re kind of afraid of how do I ask my patient to actually pay for something beyond billing their insurance? And so there’s certain barriers and these doc’s need mentorship and examples of how to do it. And so getting back to your question in terms of where things are going with the conference, we found that there are so many other conferences that we continue to do a conference in partnership with other organizations, and that’s not my passion after so many years. It’s like been there, done that connected so many people influenced so much and put a lot of sweat and tears. That was a labor of love in terms of creating that. And so it ties into your next question in terms of where the field is going and what’s needed. And patients don’t know who to see, who to trust, what clinic do you have a friend in New York like, Hey, do you have a PRP doc? And I can say, yeah, go see X, Y, Z, but the average consumer doesn’t know and they might fall in the traps of, somebody who’s maybe not skilled in PRP and doesn’t do the optimal job. And what one of the challenges with new therapies is, one, people are really quick to judge, oh look, it didn’t work. Do you see, look at this article. And then when you take a deep dive and if the study, for example is PRP not effective, there was a study in the New England Journal of Medicine for a hamstring PRP, and it says PRP not effective for hamstring. And the same month an article in the American Journal of Sports Medicine says ERP effective for. So it’s like, what is it? And then you take a deep dive and you realize, wow, the study that did not show efficacy didn’t use an ultrasound to guide the needle. So there’s a eye probability when you’re going through three inches of tissue, you’re not in the lesion. Okay? Secondly, you look at the type of PRP and what we found over the years, it’s not a one size fit all and you need a specific dose and dose matters. And so a lot of times there’s this autologous condition plasma or a very diluted PRP. So when we take your blood for the plasma, we do the blood draw. Sometimes there are kits like little mouse traps that the physician purchases and some of them are really cheap or very quick and easy and you get like eight to 10 milliliters of blood and you spin it down to three to four. And so you’re not really concentrating the platelets, you’re really just isolating the plasma, the yellow in our blood, which has some benefit but not clearly as beneficial as a true ERP. And so different practitioners use different types of PRP to save money. There’s just different standards of it. We have a cell counter in the office, so we know each patient’s getting a specific dose and we customize and tailor the treatments. We use image guidance. Some doc’s do a lazy kind of dump and go where they’ll treat one spot and we like to target a few spots based on the MRI, the ultrasound and the exam and function, etc. And then it also varies in patient experience. Like some doc’s will just jam the needle in and the patient might pass out or they don’t use numbing medicine, they’re not using image guidance or, and then the patient has severe pain, they try to call the office, they can’t reach the staff, nobody told them it’s going to get worse before it gets better. And it’s just a frustrating experience. So we see a lot of patients come to us after they had injections. I had a patient the other day who came and she had had like five PRPs elsewhere and it was to her wrist and hand, and the doctor put 10 milliliters of PRP in this little joint of her thumb. And if you put more than 0.5 milliliters of PRP to one in the thumb joint, it’s going to blow up like a balloon and have like severe pain and maybe create more problems and entrapments. And so obviously this doctor wasn’t trained and used a palpation based PRP and put too much volume. Trying to create this concept of centers of excellence where patients know, hey, I’m in Denver, I’m in San Francisco, I’m in LA, I have an orthopedic injury, I’m curious if this could be healed non-surgically, any of this regenerative medicine. I want a trusted solid physician that can give me a good opinion. Because the key is not everyone can get better from these treatments and some just need surgery and we want to be transparent and say, look, we try to avoid it, but in this case you really need it. We’re going to set you up with the best surgeon in the country we work with, etc. So really trying to help create that pathway for patients, it really is my next journey of leveraging the Toby influence and brand and network that I have around the country to identify these centers of excellence so that patients can go to these clinics and we all kind of communicate from running our private practices, sharing expenses, sharing our HR, and cross referring, create strategic partnerships with a lot of these longevity and wellness companies that have these patients, but they don’t know where to send them. Hey, my patient wants stem cell, who do you send them to? And they end up going to Mexico, South America having a bad experience or no results and kind of wasting their resources. So trying to create this network of patients to be able to go to for reputable care.

John: Well, it’s to convergence, like you said, of both your Tobi experience, but also your journey at the Ortho Healing Center to together. So if we’re trying to give today the listeners and viewers out there because of the beauty of technology, we have listeners and viewers not only throughout the United States, throughout the world, what would be some actionable items when they’re trying to themselves right now before there’s 15 or 20 knock on wood, I’m knocking on wood here for you doc. 15 or 20 great ortho healing centers or ortho healing related centers that are underneath your umbrella throughout the United States. What actionable items, what should we give should you give our listeners and viewers to look out for when they’re choosing? I’m very lucky, I’m a very lucky person. I’ve got Dr. Dallas Kingsbury and Dr. Jane Danford as my doctors, my primary doctors. They brought me to you. So you already came in already pre-vetted with one of the greatest reputations on the planet. So I’m a very lucky person to have the opportunity to have your services and Dr. Daniel’s services. But for our listeners and viewers who don’t live in LA or even do live in LA and way beyond, what should they be looking out for? Not just some in Instagram posts or Facebook post or Google, Yelp review or whatever it is going on on Google. What should they look out for so they get the highest efficacy and hopefully the best results when they go for either PRP or some other type of biologic opportunity to help make them get well instead of having to go all the way to surgery?

Dr. Steven: Yeah, that’s a great question, John. I think a few things that stick out is, one, trust your friends and your community. And so if you have a family member or a friend that had PRP or a cell therapy in your community and had a good result and a good patient experience, the office had a good staff, the doctor had great bedside manner, and they were accessible for any questions that came up. They were really transparent in terms of not over promising the results. That would be my number one. And what we’ve been able to do at Ortho Healing Center is we created this incredible community throughout Los Angeles and even throughout the United States, patients come in where they know they’re going to get a lot of one-on-one face time with the doc, a comprehensive empathic evaluation and really go through all the options. And so really trusting family and friends in your community would be kind of number one. Hey, someone had tennis elbow, it got better and they had a good response and they recommend this doc. That’s probably your best bet. Second would be making sure that the physician uses image guidance to deliver the injection, no matter what you say, like that’s the big red flag that tells me the doctor is probably just doing PRP and these cell therapies a little bit on the side and not as a focus to really do it well, because you want to kind of drive with the headlights on it night and you want to see where you are and having image guidance, make sure that you’re precise in terms of delivering the medication or the cell therapy in the exact precise region. It’s also less painful, so it’s a more comfortable experience. You’re not fishing around and trying to find the right spot or hitting bone or nerve or even worse side effect of injecting into a vessel. And if the doc for whatever reason was like, oh yeah, I don’t, I’ve injected thousands of knees, I don’t need it. To me that’s a red flag. That’s like saying I don’t need to adhere to the standards of practice and you know, the gold standard. So if they’re not using either X-ray or preferably ultrasound to guide the image, because I’ll see patients all the time that had PRP, I had one this morning and I’m like, did they just kind of do palpation based PRP? And she’d be like, yeah, yeah. I’m like, he didn’t have a machine. No. So that just tells me like, all right, well maybe we need to start PRP all over again, but do it right. Because chances are, if they’re not having the right machinery to deliver the cells, they’re probably not using the right type of PRP. Those would be my two main ones. And sometimes some of our informed patients do their research, they’ll ask like, what type of PRP do you use? What’s the concentration? There are other things you could look for. Have you published any articles? Do you tend any conferences? Have you had any certification or training in ultrasound or done cadaver labs on this? So at the Toby conference, we have a massive cadaver lab of 70 physicians come and faculty of 20 and there’s at least 15 cadaver labs and attendees are learning how to do these injections precisely. So those would be some of the main things. And then also to kind of not feel that it’s like, let’s make a deal. And it cost is becoming like, like to me, the physician should never be interacting about the cost in the consultation room. Just seems like too sleazy staff talks about it and hopefully they can provide affordable care to the patient, but if the doctor’s kind of talking about buddy at the same time they’re talking about an orthopedic injury, like that kind of doesn’t sit well with me.

John: I know out of the red flags that you’ve mentioned, I always come to your office and always we have such a fun and engaging conversation while you’re working on me. And I’m always in shock from what some of my friends that are so smart in all sorts of aspects of their life, and they come to me with situations where they’ve gotten PRP from very credible, legitimate, and wonderful either surgeons or other type of doctors, but they’ve gotten PRP with no success and then my friends tell me it was with no ultrasound and I just scratched my head and I always come back and I share those stories with you and I’m still always in shock that it’s still being done when ultrasound is out there to be used for this kind of practice and this kind of opportunity. And when it’s not being used, it’s just like, wow. I mean, it’s not a shock that they don’t get good results, that’s for sure.

Dr. Steven: Yeah, it sounds surprising, but after practicing for almost 20 years, I see it on a regular basis. I’ve been fortunate to treat some of the highest professional athletes on the planet and performing artists, and sometimes it’s a mixed blessing when you have a lot of resources and access and you don’t quite know who to trust and you don’t really know what you’re missing. For example, I saw one NBA all-star MVP and champion and he came in post-season with knee arthritis and he told me he had like 12 cortisone shots in a short period of time. And he came in just after retiring with bone on bone, knee arthritis and swelling. And it was like the team doctor was doing this and in sports sometimes the physician pays to be the team doc, right? For marketing, you’re the team doc of X, Y, Z team or a major university hospital pays that. And so that doc has their own practice and they help the team. They may be surgically minded and not versed in biologics or don’t have the time to go to a conference and learn ultrasound, or the ego is such where it’s like, oh, I can get in the knee joint, I don’t need image guidance, etc. So you have this whole combination of factors. And then you also have, where I find a lot of high net worth individuals and high performing athletes, like nobody in their circle challenges them, right? And they’re never willing to relinquish control. Like when they come to the office, you kind of almost have to say like, Hey, help me. Like for me, I’ve had a lot of patients ask like, can you come to my house and do a shot. And I just like to create that boundary of like respect and professionalism. Like this is my office, the way we do things the best way, and you just kind of need to let us drive and trust that we’re going to do our best job. And do your part in the healing. And sometimes highly professional net worth individuals and athletes, they’re not used to not being in control and they’re kind of making decisions and people in their circle don’t question what they’re doing. And it starts kind of amplifying where it becomes the norm, where some kooky doctor’s doing some weird treatment on a patient that like, I can’t believe this has been going on for so long, and they just, they didn’t know the difference.

John: Yeah. Like you’re saying, both with high performing individuals and then high performing athletes, they’re used to doing things their way. They’re also used to their own political structure and still being the head of that political hierarchy.

Dr. Steven: Yeah.

John: And there’s also a lot of dollars involved these agents and these business managers and these, like you say, team physicians. So there’s a lot of people in their ear and they get confused themselves and they’re people at the end of the day, like we all are. And I can see where so much confusion also happens. And I have to mention, listen and I’m not going break any HIPA rules, but when I’ve been up in your office, I’ve seen so many fascinating all stars up on the walls. Plus also I know that you’re also the medical consultant for the Lakers, the Clippers of Dodgers of Sparks, USC and UCLA. So for our listeners and viewers out there, not only is Dr. Steve the pioneer of PRP in so many ways, but you have the track record in the history of working with just regular folks like me and in some of the greatest high performing athletes and entertainers and other people out there as well. Talk about successful outcomes. You just said about turning yourself over. I know when I come to your office, I’m listening to you both what to do before, and I know there’s a protocol, what to do before, what to ingest and not ingest and also what to do after. Talk a little bit about coming to you is one thing and having that good boundary, healthy boundary and coming to you where you do your work, great work, but also how do patients optimize and try to get the best results working with great folks like you so they can get whatever the most successful outcome is, they can achieve it.

Dr. Steven: Yeah, it’s an important point you bring up. And I always like to say I’d much rather treat an active patient with advanced orthopedic injuries than somebody who’s relatively sedentary with mild pathology. There’s after practicing for 20 years and thousands of patients, I’ve really come to respect and realize the human body really needs motion and movement. It’s so critical to healing. And so if I’m doing a consultation with a patient and they ask me after I get my procedure, how soon can I get back to pickle ball? How soon can I hike, when can I go to the gym? It’s music to my ears. We treat the patient, not necessarily the MRI because I’ll see people, like I saw a guy today in his first big toe called the metatarsal joint, looked like, you know, almost like it had four knuckles piled up on it, snowballs or a snowman. And I’ll ask him, I was like, any discomfort with your big toe? No. And I just kind of move on. But if I were to MRI that toe, it would have what’s called Subchondral cyst, bone edema or bone stress fracture bone and bone arthritis, fluid edema. But it doesn’t bother him. And so you really have to understand like the human body is unique and you don’t necessarily rely specifically on the imaging. It guides us.

John: Yeah.

Dr. Steven: Unless it’s respect the problem, but there’s something about being really active and this patient today was super active in terms of his lifestyle. That’s really key. So you want to keep moving and get back to activity. We found, interestingly, aside from injections, machine-based treatments can boost healing. And so I know you’re familiar a little bit with shockwave therapy.

John: Talk a little bit about that though.

Dr. Steven: So there’s this realm, there’s orthobiologics, which is using cells and tissues to promote healing. And then there’s mechano therapy, which is machine therapies, which is using machine-based energy applied externally to the body to stimulate cell signaling and turn on our body’s own healing mechanisms, very similar to a needle and cells, you know, when you inject a needle into a tennis elbow, it’s signaling the brain like new injury, new trauma, creating blood flow in an area that’s restricted, and then platelets release growth factors. And so contrastingly, when you use a machine like a sound wave or a shock wave, you apply it and it’s delivering powerful energy that was developed in the seventies to break up kidney stones. The doctors accidentally found it regenerates bone, they were seeing pelvis bone regenerate. And so it’s used for non-healing or non-union fractures. It boosts stem cells and improves blood flow. It has a pain relieving effect we use in a lot of athletes. Some even use them in the locker rooms to kind of help patients or athletes kind of get through the day or the game. There’s a lot of much like PRP where I had to kind of bring awareness to the science and the efficacy of it with shock wave therapy. There’s a lot of data. I had a publication, the British Journalist Sports Medicine with my colleagues at Harvard University this past year looking at athletes and shockwave. And there’s really compelling data that it helps for conditions like plantar fasciitis or jumper’s knee or shin splints. So it’s a non-invasive tool. And what we found in nowadays with technology, I’m an advisor for a company called Data Biologics, and when I first started PRP, I’d inject a patient and they got better. I’d be like, that’s so that’s awesome. As we’re starting this, you know, oh, you had a partial rotator cuff tear, let’s see how you do. Oh, the patient actually did better and didn’t need surgery, that’s great. But then that kind of leaves your mind and that was like medicine 1.0. Now we have objective data. And so with data biologics, I have access to thousands of my patients and I compare my patients to a hundred plus clinics around the country that are doing what I do. And we have thousands of patients in the database. And so what we did, and I lectured at the NBA combine in May of last year, was if we shockwave and use machine-based therapies, like robotic laser is another word we use, we see significant, better, faster returns to activity and better results. It’s almost like a broad brush stroke where we injected a few spots to a shoulder, for example. But then you’re covering it with other modalities and helping with that host injection, you’re almost like holding the patient’s hand and guiding them through the wound healing process while they’re getting back to activity, while they’re doing rehab physical therapy. I’m a big advocate of using machine-based therapies post injection. And some patients don’t need, like I had a guy with golfer’s elbow, just didn’t have the opportunity to take downtime for PRP and didn’t want to get a little bit worse before he got better. And he is traveling and had a tournament and even five rounds of shockwave on the elbow. And it’s healed for two years now.

John: Doc, I’m such a true bel true believer. I don’t know if I ever shared this with you, but when I was young back in, you know, I’m 62 now. When I was in my teens, I was a trainer and driver of standard bread race horses on the east coast. And we used to buy from Germany, from the company that makes the shockwave therapy of machines back then, which looked archaic like from the Flintstones, but we used them on the race horses on their ankles.

Dr. Steven: Yeah.

John: On their hawks, on their their knees. And had tremendous results back then with that kind of therapy back then on race horses. And then we put it on ourselves and of course that does feel better as well. So it’s so fascinating that over 50 years now, it’s becoming much more commonplace to be used by doctors like you that really are trying to get the best results for their patients.

Dr. Steven: Yeah. And there’s a lot of synergy with the veterinarian community. I often have veterinarian speakers at my conference. In fact, in the early pioneering days, I had heard about this Dr. Aufiero[?] in San Yez near Santa Barbara, and it’s where all the elite race horses were going and getting treatment and getting bone marrow cell therapy.

John: Wow.

Dr. Steven: And so I visited with Dr. Aufiero[?] and he was super cool and I saw bone marrow and fat procedures on horses. And then I went to a veterinary stem cell conference and then I kind of had the light as well, like, maybe we should do this for humans. And so there’s a lot of blurred lines between humans and animals and equine or horses and humans. And there’s data on shockwave, as you mentioned, that it even boosts the effects and growth factors of PRP.

John: If you’ve just showing us, we’ve got Dr. Steven Sampson with us today. He’s the founder of the Ortho Healing Center of Fine, Dr. Sampson and his colleagues and all the great work they do in PRP stem cells and beyond. Please go to www.orthohealing.com. Talk a little bit about the tiers of different services that you have at the Ortho Healing Center. A person like me walks in just for our listeners and viewers, just to be very open, Dr. Sampson and his partner Dr. Danielle, have worked on my cervical C4, C5 on my shoulder with my wrist, my knee, my toe, my ankle with tremendous results. I mean results that are just so healing and so helping in my pain reduction and improvement of motion and the ability to go get back to my life and be, feel well and with the least amount of pain. Doc, talk a little bit about what services you offer. It’s not just about PRP.

Dr. Steven: Correct. And thank you for the kind words. So my office partner, Danielle Aufiero, who’s brilliant and almost an artist with the needle, so to speak, and very creative in terms of her approach. And I’ve always respected how she goes about her craft and it’s really unique and no two patients get the same type of treatment that they get with her. And so Dr. Aufiero or Danielle specializes in spine and a lot of nerve entrapments and fascial hydro dissection. So sometimes there’s squirrely cases where you can’t really figure out, well, why is the pain in this region? Structurally, it looks okay on an MRI, but there’s adhesions or it might be compressing on a nerve that we can’t see. And we do image guided ultrasound and you watch the needle kind of open up the scar tissue and free up areas and unblock the pain, so to speak. She does a lot of the spine and I handle a lot of the extremities. She also does some extremity work as well. So my focus is more like shoulders, hip, knee, foot, ankle, wrist, hand, and she does more spine, a little bit of everything. Not everyone needs PRP and PRP is kind of the first generation biologic and it’s best for mild to moderate orthopedic injuries and active people. If you had moderately severe arthritis, like I saw a patient today who has moderately severe arthritis and lots of swelling and she had five PRP shots and hyaluronic acid, which is like a viscous gel lubricant at another practitioner who did it palpation based and not optimally, but because her arthritis was more moderate to moderately severe, I suggested bone marrow is a more appropriate treatment. So there are three primary biologic options that were permitted to do in the United States because the FDA has made really clear lines in the sand of what you can and can’t do. So we can take your own cells and tissues and we can use them same day. It has to be minimal manipulation. So we can’t, you know, culture and grow the cells in a lab or freeze them and use them at another time.

John: Right.

Dr. Steven: Can’t inject them intravenously is off limits. And so you can take your own platelets and growth factors, spin them and inject them. You could take bone marrow from the back of the hip, which is a rich source of cells, kind of like PRP 2.0, they’re more anti-inflammatory. It’s actually has a low amount of stem cells. So it’s not appropriately market as a stem cell therapy. If I were to take your bone marrow, John, from the back of your pelvis as active and healthy as you are, but just as a human 0.1% of the soup taken from your marrow is a true MSC or mesenchymal stem cell. But bone marrow is still really valuable. All these proteins, when you inject them and concentrate them, you are communicating with the body’s own reparative cells and say, Hey, get to work. So there were studies where they looked at hips that were bone on bone during hip replacements, and what they found was at the end bones of cartilage that are bone on bone, it’s not that they’re missing stem cells and reparative cells, they’re just sick and dysfunctional. And so when you inject this bone marrow, it activates and turns on your body’s own cells that were kind of dormant and sick and dysfunctional. And so bone marrow can be of benefit and it’s comfortable if done properly. Same thing, it’s the Wild West. Some might have a dreadful experience. I went to St. Louis years ago and observed a case and I wanted to do bone marrow after doing PRP and the patient was screaming on the table and like it was just a bad patient to kind of demo and learn from. And so over time I realized perhaps we can use ultrasound instead of x-ray to comfortably do the marrow harvest without radiation, or we can use laughing gas, we can do certain types of numbing. And we pioneered, along with our other colleagues, different techniques to get maximal cell yields. So bone marrow is the second option for more moderate to severe conditions. Sometimes we’ll take adipose tissue or fat on the sides of the umbilicus or the back of the glutes or the flanks. And fat is a rich source of cells and it acts like a cushion for repairing tissues. And sometimes depending on the patient’s body habitus or if they have a defect, like a large hole in their rotator cuff, we like the fat as a scaffold and we may combine it with bone marrow or PRP in those cases. And everything is really customized, but those are the three kind of main biologic treatments. And then there are clinics that are illegally offering other cells like amniotic or birthing tissue or exosomes, which are cells from another human being. So like it or not, the FDA has really made it clear that it’s a drug if you take cells and tissues from another donor, another human being in the United States, and I’ve been an expert witness in cases and I’ve seen patients get sick with e coli and contamination because these aren’t regulated. The labs are low tier and they can easily either have dead cells or worst case contaminated cells and patients get sepsis, which is like whole body sickness where you go to intensive care and there was a widespread outbreak across the United States. Patients don’t quite know and they always think bigger is better, but any doc kind of providing that in the orthopedic world should know better. And even their malpractice carrier won’t cover their backs in the event of an incident because it’s really well known now that those are off limits. And there are reputable companies working with the FDA trying to get approval for some of these through those pathways. But for now, using cells and tissues from another human being is off limits. And that kind of segues into stem cell. We can broach that topic.

John: Right. Which I want to go into because obviously, again fact from fiction stem cells have become one of these highly discussed issues. When you have the new media and let’s just say Joe Rogan’s, the new media, talking about the efficacy of stem cells and his experience and his friends in the UFC’s experience with stem cells. That’s one side. And then you have others out there advertising doing stem cells in the United States, which like, as you just pointed out these all sorts of legalities in and around those issues. What is happening today? What state of state-of-the-art with stem cells and where is it evolving to in what you’ve seen? Because you have great visibility to these important issues.

Dr. Steven: Yeah. At 10,000 feet for anybody, doctor and arm doctor, inherently it makes sense, right? If the human body is made of 37 trillion cells trafficking constantly going through our body, in fact, every second we’re on this podcast, 15 million blood cells die and are being regenerated. So we’re cellular beings. And so if we shift towards, hey, how do we target treatments from an orthopedic as well as immune? And there’s a whole slew of potential applications towards cellular therapy instead of pharmaceuticals. It makes sense and then it also makes sense. Well, if you look at a newborn and their ability to regenerate and repair and that immune system is just so hyper active and just geared for success, how do we put that in a bottle? But the reality is what the doctor is injecting in 2025 is not what we want it to be and validated at that point in time. It’s the future, but bigger isn’t always better and there can be harms and you can get sick. So there are different sources of stem cells. So we talked about autologous stem cell, which are cells from your own body that are permitted with minimal manipulation in the United States. Fat bone marrow, PRP. PRP is not really a stem cell. It has proteins and growth factor. But none of those classically have true MSC or mesenchymal stem cell, which is the body’s mobile repair unit. So there’s umbilical cord cell, there’s fat or adipose and bone marrow. Those are the three main sources. There are like other sources like teeth, skin, menstrual blood, but they’re not really commercially available.

John: Understood.

Dr. Steven: So umbilical cord has the highest ceiling, Holy Grail, like look at a newborn. They’re growing limbs, they’re building organs. Why don’t we just put that in a body? But by its inherent nature, umbilical cord has what’s called tissue factor, which is a clotting agent. And so if you were to take umbilical cord tissue and then you administer it intravenously, 98% of those cells go through the IV and into our lungs. That’s just how our body takes intravenous fluids in these cases. And it’s been well documented, no debate whatsoever. And it goes through our pulmonary capillaries and then it can create a systemic effect on the body. But the challenge is because it’s high in tissue factor, there’s a risk of blood clotting or what’s called pulmonary emboli. The challenge is these patients are going to Central South America and going to some of these clinics, they’re putting themselves at potentially an unnecessary risk for longevity wellness purposes. And maybe not being fully informed that hey, this contains a clotting agent and you may have a blood clot that could cause permanent issue hospitalization or worst case even death. And you know, there have been some deaths and there have been emergent situations and well documented complications. And then furthermore, to combat the risk of blood clotting, sometimes clinics will add a steroid with the umbilical cord cells that reduces the risk of a blood clot. But it can also potentially give the patient a false sense. Like the first few days they feel brilliant. Like I had one high net worth individual who went to a Central American clinic spent thousands of dollars, got the IV and like texted like all his high net worth colleagues. Like, you got to come down here. This is amazing. I feel like invincible. He basically had the effects of dexamethasone, which is a systemic steroid used for inflammatory diseases and then it kind of bottoms out. And it’s just something to be mindful and aware of that there’s a lot of promise with umbilical cord cells, but the science just isn’t fully there in terms of where it needs to be in terms of safety and efficacy. And it’s just important to people to be aware and really feel trusted in the physicians. The clinic you’re going to, if God forbid there’s a complication, are they equipped medically to manage it? How much experience does that doctor have? If they’re injecting their knee, are they even in orthopedic or physical med rehab or sports medicine or is it somebody totally unqualified just sticking a needle in their knee. So that is umbilical cord. And then there’s fat, which also has high cell yields. Fat also has high tissue factor and clotting agent and there’s some challenges with that but promise. And then lastly, there’s bone marrow. And bone marrow is the most published and safest form of mesenchymal stem cell available that does not have much of any tissue factor in it and has lower clotting risk. And it has these mesenchymal stem cells that when you inject them intravenously, they go to the immune system through the pulmonary capillaries and try to shift what’s called M1 to M2. It’s almost like a default anti-inflammatory shift to the body and may potentially have systemic benefits. The origin of how I got involved in this was we have what’s called pioneering patients. So people like yourself that are always asking, can you try it for this or what do you know I heard about this therapy, is this legit or not? So I had, and I can speak because it’s public, I had a pioneering patient, Brian Johnson, who’s really kind of put a spotlight on the concept of accepting do we just die or is there something we can do to mitigate the risks and live longer, live better. And he had approached us with a cell therapy based in Sweden. And initially I was skeptical as I’ve told you about this whole world in the Wild West. And I met with their PhD who’s had 20 plus years of experience studying mesenchymal bone marrow cells with this protocol. And they have a clinical trial where they take a donor from 18 to 30 from Sweden and they do a bone marrow harvest. They screen that individual for all types of various diseases like hepatitis, HIV, etc. And then they isolate the mesenchymal stem cell, that 0.01% that we do here in the states and they create a hundred percent of mesenchymal stem cells to a dose of 50 million and 100 million MSCs. And then they’re cryopreserved or frozen under liquid nitrogen at 200 degrees below zero. And they’re sent to The Bahamas where they have an agreement with The Bahamas government and stem cell ethics committee and a clinical trial. And so patients can get that treatment for either cardiovascular disease, potential prevention and or musculoskeletal disease orthopedic injuries. Myself and our team at physical longevity treat patients for orthopedic injuries with these types of cells and what separates them, that made me really comfortable ’cause I’m bringing my own patients from Los Angeles and patients around the world coming for the highest level in precision of cell therapy available that I’m aware of is we check the cells within two hours of administering them to make sure the cells aren’t dead, that they’re sterile, they’re not contaminated, and they have a specific dose. And so that’s what people really want to get when they’re going to these clinics, is making sure that they know what’s going in the patient. Because much like those cases, I was an expert witness, the doctor by his best intentions was injecting these umbilical cord cells in the patient’s spine and had no idea that the cells were contaminated.

John: Wow. Or do you believe The Bahamas is, is wonderful. I’ve been there before, but it’s kind of far. Do you believe in the years to come, you’ll be doing more of these type of stem cell protocols with this Swedish clinic in a more localized area, either in the United States or closer to the west coast of the United States?

Dr. Steven: Yes. We’re at the moment working on having a clinic in Mexico, which will be accessible for West coast patients to get the same level of care and the same access to those high level cells and safety. And the greatest part of it is part of a clinical trial where most of the clinics providing these treatments are not part of a clinical trial. So there’s no transparency. God forbid a patient gets sick or dies or has an infection or a complication or how do you know it’s working? Let’s say a clinic treats a hundred patients and two out of the a hundred have a great result and it’s kind of a placebo or it just helped them. And you go online, you’re like, oh my God, it cured ALS and I’m going to go send my family member there. There’s no transparency in data. So the nice thing in why some of our US board certified docs got involved with this, this trial is the transparency. It’s part of a formal trial and we collect data. And so we do follow ups at 1, 3, 6, and 12 months with everybody to understand is it helping? And we’re seeing interesting things early on where some patients depression and anxiety is improved or their sleep’s improved their energy. It’s just fascinating when it’s part of a trial that you’re getting that data. Much like when we do treatments in the US we now have the optics to see what’s working and what doesn’t and compare it.

John: Doc, as you said, you now treat folks at your Bahamas clinic on an ortho basis. But are you doing both orthopedic injections with the stem cells and also IV or IV or what’s the balance look like in terms of orthopedic injections and also IV therapy as well?

Dr. Steven: Yeah, so we’re part of the musculoskeletal clinical trial and that allows for local injections, for orthopedic joints, tendons, soft tissue injuries throughout the body, the failed conservative treatment. And they can also potentially receive a systemic iv, which I like as the kind of holistic approach. It’s like gardening, getting good soil, you talked about John, what can you do after the treatment? We talked about like exercise and machine modalities, but what if you prep the soil? Yes, it’s important to have a good diet and going into the treatment and an anti-inflammatory state, but in theory, giving an IV of these cells to kind of help reduce old body inflammation and kind of prime the immune system would help when also treating a joint. We don’t believe that just doing an IV can be a great option for knee arthritis, for example. You’d want to deploy the cells in the knee, but it might further support the systemic healing or give that patient potentially more energy to then exercise and ramp up their rehab. And some patients do the IV alone if they’re not, like I had a 92-year-old woman who wasn’t a good candidate for local injections on blood thinners, and so we just did the IV and start with that. And I’ve seen some interesting things where some patients have interesting feedback where one guy, I did his knee and he felt his hip improved and he never even mentioned to me that he had chronic hip issues. So the nice thing is it’s part of a trial. We study everything, it’ll all be transparent, but it’s key to promote, like it’s not magic pixie dust, there’s no guarantees. And so much is dependent on the physician in terms of diagnosing the patient and knowing what areas. So when we inject the knee, for example, sometimes we target the meniscus or the ACL or the ligament and a comprehensive approach based on what they need. And so that can also play a role. And it’s not just the cells or magic pixie dust.

John: You know, doc you mentioned earlier that well let’s go back to, I’m probably going to say this wrong, autologous how do you say o the self beat stem cells from either my fat or my bone marrow. What’s that called?

Dr. Steven: Autologous.

John: Autologous.

Dr. Steven: Autologous.

John: Okay. As a layman, those stem cells, I’m 62. So now you take a 30-year-old patient of yours and a and me a 62-year-old patient of yours. Does this make sense? Is this science back that really it’s better to use the stem cells that you’re using from Sweden because they’re from 17 to 30-year-old people, so they’re going to have a better efficacy. My stem cells, if you’re taking them from me, spinning them and putting them back in me, mine are probably a little older, a little more beat up because I’m 62. So we’re probably potentially going to have a better result using the younger person’s stem cells.

Dr. Steven: The answer is we don’t know yet. And a lot of that comes with being a pioneering doc is accepting that and really trying to siphon in all the available science and literature and then projecting what we think will work best. And in general it tends to come true and we modify and chisel that sculpture as we navigate the process. And the thought would be as we mature with time, we know the stem cells circulating in our body are diminished and just like, I’m sure you’ve had an injury or a cut, recently aggravated my elbow on vacation in the past, like what a healed so quick. Now it’s like I got a shock wave in, I got a sleeve on it, it’s better, but it’s like, come on already, like it’s taking, or you get a cut and usually like my kid who’s 15 or 13, they heal so fast.

John: Right.

Dr. Steven: Or their injury looks severe and like my daughter’s got a volleyball injury and I’m worried like, is she going to, you know, and like a week later she doesn’t talk about it. So it makes sense as we mature with time, our ability to repair and our cells are compromised. And so one would think that if you took cells from a younger healthy individual that would have a greater effect on our body. But we don’t know that yet. And when we first started and that wasn’t even available, we kind of promote to our patients, taking your own cells and tissues is best. There’s nothing better for you than you in your own DNA. But over the years I’ve seen patients where they’re not great candidates for PRP or they’re kind of sickly and fatigued, or they have one kidney and they’re immune compromised and they’re platelet counts are terrible or they just don’t have good wound healing or they have diabetes that maybe using their own cells are not the best. But there are patients where my oldest patient that I’ve ever done a bone marrow treatment was 106.

John: Wow.

Dr. Steven: And it helped her knees and like I said, those cells have pretty much no stem cell and she probably had minimal cells at the end bones of her joints, but it was enough to create a pain relieving effect to improve function. So we really don’t know. And there are also cells in clinics where they can take one’s own bone marrow or one’s own fat and it’s a two-step treatment. So they harvest your bone, marrow your fat, and then they process it in the lab over three weeks plus time culture the cells to these same doses like we do in the Sweden protocol and then inject one’s own cells. And so it’s really just a future that we’re not sure yet. But the greatest thing is there’s optics now where we can really look and see what’s working and where the data is. But for me, I feel that taking an off the shelf product where I know it’s sterile, I know it’s a specific dose, I know it’s been proven to be safe and we’re monitoring its efficacy is where I feel that we need to be going.

John: I want to just circle back to successful outcomes. One of the things as you talk about being not only a pioneering doctor, but being a pioneering patient as well, is being a good patient. So you give a protocol prior to showing up to your office, but there’s also a very detailed written protocol you give to me and all of your patients as they leave as to what they’re doing to be post. And again, I’ve seen great friends of mine who are very health-minded, smart individuals, successful in whatever expertise or industry they’re in, but they leave a clinic, they get PRP or some other type of biologic treatment, they’re told lay off that area for two weeks and they’re in the gym the next day going hard at it. And I’m like, what’s, no, no, I feel better today. I’m going to go for it. And I’m like, that’s not, how important is it to be a good patient if they’re going through the effort and the expense of coming to you and now you are one of the best in the industry to listen to both the pre and the post procedure instructions to have the most successful outcome.

Dr. Steven: Yeah. That’s a key, a key part of getting a good result is I can only control so much in the room and things can tactically go beautiful. And even though I’ve been doing this so long, I still get this little dopamine surge of when the needles like right in the sweet spot and you suck on a little fluid, or oh, did you see that? Like you still have this like novel enthusiasm. And you think like, how could this not help this patient? Like you literally went deep into their body with a little needle. You found the spot, you injected what you know, the science of how it can work and then sometimes like that patient didn’t respond well and you’re kind of like, what happened? And then you start digging in and you find like, oh, like, you know, they did a golf tournament too soon or they went back to the gym or they were dancing or they wore heels and they shouldn’t have done that. For the most part really blessed that I’ve created this avatar, this culture in West Los Angeles where people really, I call them vision, action, personality types. Like they need motion movement, they want to exercise, they want to be fit, they want to be strong. It’s a part of their identity, their balance. And so they really take it seriously when they invest in this kind of treatment, usually people kind of surrender where like you realize you’re not getting better and we don’t always get easy cases. They’ve seen multiple docs or they’re told there’s no options or they need surgery. And so we’re kind of catching them at their last kind of minute, so to speak, and their last part of the rope. And they really respect when we say, look, I think I can get you better, but it really takes a partnership or all hands on deck. We recommend some modalities and shockwave or I’m recommending rehab with this person. And once in a while you’ll get a patient that’s like, ah, they skipped the rehab. Like they’ll invest in the treatment and then they won’t invest in the rehab, which is so critical to kind of piece it all back together and get that like dove to fly again, so to speak. So there’s certain things you just can’t, I’ve just accepted over the years. You can’t fix and control everything. I try to, and that’s a, you know, a weakness of mine is I feel like everybody that comes to the door, I really want to fix. And I find peace that in some cases if there’s somebody I can’t get better, usually I can find somebody that will like, Hey, you need surgery, go see my top surgeon, etc. But there’s definitely like that small subset of outliers, John, where they’re just not going to listen. They’re non-compliant and they’re their own worst enemy.

John: We’re three or four days, we’re into January, 2025 when you and I are taping this show, and it’s about three or four days after the inauguration of the new president. Now this is an apolitical show. We don’t talk politics here, but we do talk people. And RFK Junior is an important person who’s going to be part of the new administration. Talk a little bit about his vision. Of course we know or at least we think we know red dye is toast. Okay. So that we know is coming but beyond red dye and some of the other things that he’s talked about, talk about with regards to your industry stem cells, biologics and other great protocols that you’ve proven to be great over the last 20 years. How is RFK going to affect the scaling and the visibility of all the things you’ve been advocating and doing for the last 20 years? And is it going to be just for lack of better terminology, gas to the fire of what Ortho healing’s doing and other great high efficacy places, but like the clinic that you run are doing across the planet?

Dr. Steven: Yeah, it’s a very timely question. And when we get off you mentioned a lot patients will bring up, and I think inherently I’m an optimist when it comes to medicine and when I first started doing PRP I had this like insecurity and vulnerability of could PRP go away if there was a negative article on it in the New York Times and oh my, I’m building this conference and this career and I wholeheartedly trust and believe in the science of this. And here’s a major media outlet like trying to take it down. And I came to realize over time, it’s such a strong movement that is so accessible with so much data and science, it’s not going away. And pivoting to the RFK, role and potential, the worry is could it go too far and is it just release the floodgate stem cells for all and now you’ve got every like wellness center in Brentwood offering IV stem cells and longevity live forever and patients are getting sick in sepsis and paying thousands for dead cells and then suddenly it’s like, this stuff is crap, it doesn’t work. And there like the genie got out of the bottle too fast. So again, getting back to where I’m an optimist, I think overall it’s going be really good. And I think in a global level it’s spotlighting our healthcare system’s broken. Like it really sucks. It drove me to go self-pay cash and not follow those algorithms of insurance companies that don’t recognize prevention. Prevention is so critical that I try to educate my patients and intervene early. Your body’s giving you feedback, whether you’re having shortness of breath, get your heart checked out, you’re gaining a lot of weight, maybe something’s off, check out your hormones, you’re having a fracture, make sure your bones are strong. Get a bone density test, look into your diet or your knee’s hurting it’s swelling, it’s not going away. You’re now not doing your activity. Go see the doctor, you know, start doing some preventative care. There’s studies that show, for example, PRP has been shown to prevent arthritis and prevent joint replacement, for example, in the hip has been published. So why not create this mindset of intervening early? But the problem is the broken system only rewards patching people up almost like an ER type mindset where only come to us when you have an emergency. And our system’s incredible and taking care of trauma and saving people’s lives, but there should be more of an emphasis on prevention and not just cardiovascular and everything else. It’s your physical self. That’s what we call this physical longevity. Taking care of your skeletal system is so critical. And so I’m hoping that this make America healthy again and stem cells and peptides and that hopefully it ushers in a new way of thinking of, Hey, can we be more preventative minded here and really look at the way we’re doing things and make certain therapies that are natural based more accessible. But I really think hopefully they bring in the right team members to keep the guide rails on and do this responsibly ’cause there’s tremendous potential, but it could easily go haywire with so many. Because there’s so much business opportunity within the space and I’ve met with different people. I’m constantly proposed various entrepreneurial options and longevity, and the key is really getting through the science and you realize like most of these individuals have no idea of the science and they’re just kind of chasing the shiny object. And so I really hope it ushers in a preventative approach that cell therapies become more accessible, but in a safe way that doesn’t open Pandora’s Box.

John: You brought up peptides. Talk a little bit about your thoughts about peptides, BPC 1 57, TP 550 and a whole new generation of peptides that are coming out. Something that you gets you excited, something that you deploy as one of the tools in your tool chest at your clinic. What’s your thoughts in and around the rise in the visibility of peptides now being used in combination with the other healing protocols that you’re using at the Ortho Healing Center?

Dr. Steven: Yeah, in theory, peptides have a lot of potential and promise, but much like ERP and other therapies, there’s a lot of variability in terms of quality control and oversight. And it’s a bit of a gray area in terms of FDA, are peptides kosher? Are they not? Are they drugs? Can you get them to a compound pharmacy? Who are you getting them from? And then what are the quality of those? So if you’re not getting it from a reputable source, could it be contaminated? Are they just dead cells or liquid? Not really cells or amino acids or proteins. But anecdotally, a lot of my patients, I don’t prescribe them myself just because we have a very conservative line with what we do from a cellular point of view. But my patients are free to go out in the community and do what they want. I counsel them that there’s some promise and there’s ones like BPC 157 where I’ve heard some really good reports for healing of tendon and soft tissue injuries. The key is just to make sure you’re finding a reputable source so that you, you trust where they’re coming from, there’s been no reported issues or complications and you’re kind of using them at your own risk. There’s not a lot of studies and data on peptides yet. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t help. When we started doing PRP and I was injecting knee arthritis, there were very little studies, but it made sense to me and I would be honest and transparent with my patient and then over time it grew and we studied it. So I think much when you talked about RFK, he mentioned that peptides are on his initiative that I think that could also have a lot of promise and potential, but hopefully there’s also some safety guidelines and criteria versus just opening it up for everybody to start rolling out peptide products without any safety standards.

John: You know, doc there’s not a day that we could read the Wall Street Journal of the New York Times or watch Bloomberg or CNBC and not hear the terminology AI and you’ll listen to yesterday’s press conference with Sam Altman and the folks from the White House talking about the new Stargate project and Peter Diam Menez talks about the beauty of AI and, and medicine and what that’s going to do. How is AI coming from your extraordinary humble beginnings when you started the Ortho Healing Center and also the Toby Conference and at a blog talk about taking the blog and now AI, how is AI going to further enhance the healing protocols and the technology in and around on what you do, giving you more access to more information and other doctors that are practicing highest efficacy work like you are that same information?

Dr. Steven: Yeah, I don’t think John like our human minds and maybe there are a few out there that can really conceive what it is, I don’t think few people are going to conceive what this is going to do to change the landscape of medicine and just our lives almost like what you do with ChatGPT and how it just spits out information. Today I was dictating a note on a patient that had a treatment and documenting their success and with future AI they can look at all my records, kind of siphon all that out and create reports and analytics that we were never able to do before and determine of all these clinics who are the responders and non-responders. So this data biologics company we’re working with, they’re working on AI and trying to take their existing data and then put it all together of thousands, tens of thousands of patients and create algorithms in terms of who benefits from what treatment and who’s a candidate and who’s not to kind of grade their candidacy going into treatment. So I just think it’s such a big opportunity, but it’s so hard to conceive its magnitude, but will certainly be a game changer in terms of our field.

John: So Doc, in 2007 when you were starting the Ortho Healing Center and Toby, you are on the way, we’re going to use a baseball analogy here. Since you treat so many athletes and high-performing people, you are on the way to the stadium to play baseball, and that was just the beginning. Where are we now in the beginning of 2025, now that you have 20 years underneath your belt of massive success and great treating and helping patients heal. Where are we in the baseball game? Are we in the top of the second inning, bottom of the fifth? Where are we in everything we were discussing today and how the rise of biologics and the rise of regenerative medicine and longevity medicine is to what you do. And what’s your vision on that?

Dr. Steven: Yeah, that’s a great analogy and point. I think we’re probably around like the third or fourth inning.

John: Okay.

Dr. Steven: In terms of when you look back where medicine started and I had the opportunity, I went to this clinic in Bologna, Italy for a conference, and it was the world’s first orthopedic hospital. And I looked at some of the earliest manuscripts of anatomy and drawings of the human body and some of the early tools they had. And I used that in lectures and compare it to the machinery we use now. But without a doubt in the future, they’ll look back at like what we’re doing now and kind of laugh and say, look, that was an important stepping stone, but like very primitive in terms of the advancements that will be offered. We’re just starting to scratch the surface of the human body and what is capable in terms. I really believe it’s about our ability to self-repair and utilizing our own chemistry and with AI and advanced science communication software. And I think also driven by patients. The PRP movement was patient driven, these pioneering patients, there must be more, I need surgery. Can I avoid it? They push the doctors to really change the way we think about medicine. I think there’s so many people in this Wellness longevity movement, they’re going to push the science forward.

John: Well, we know there’s a long journey ahead and what I want to do is thank you for taking the time out of your very busy schedule doc for sharing your thoughts and views on longevity and regenerative medicine and all the great work you’re doing at the Ortho Healing Center with us on the Impact podcast. You’re always welcome back. Maybe next time you come back and you bring a patient with you and you get to talk about what you do with the patient and the success and our listeners and viewers get to enjoy something like that. For our listeners and viewers that want to find Dr. Sampson and his partner, Dr. Danielle Aufiero, please go to www.orthohealing.com, orthohealing.com. Again, this episode was for informational purposes only, not for medical direction. Go see your primary physician before you make any decisions on what to do and what path to take with your own life and with your own body. Doc, thanks again for your time, but more important for that. Thanks for everything you’ve done for my own life personally to make me the healthiest I could be and thanks for making the world generally just a healthier and a better place.

Dr. Steven: Great. Thanks, John. And to end it, you are one of those patients who’s very compliant and very motivated, and we’re grateful to be working with you as well.

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