[Rhonda]: You mentioned the multiple sclerosis with your fasting-mimicking diet, and also
the fact that this diet, sort of, shifted to a more fat-burning state, which is, sort
of, it's definitely in line with ketosis, which you can get from fasting, but also in
line with people that are doing a more ketogenic type of diet.
And in your clinical study with people with multiple sclerosis, or was it in the mouse,
one of the studies you had.
I think it was the human study, do you wanna talk about that?
You had a ketogenic diet, you had the fasting-mimicking diet.
[Valter]: Yeah, we did the same in mice and human, right?
So, it was a fasting-mimicking diet and ketogenic diet in both cases.
And in the mice, of course, we could demonstrate some things, and there's very clear effects.
Which was, the fasting-mimicking diet causes the white blood cells, so the immune cells,
as I mentioned earlier, to be destroyed, partially destroyed.
And then, it turns on the stem cells.
And when you make new cells, of course, they're no longer autoimmune, right?
So, the original cells are autoimmune, they're attacking the oligodendrocytes in the spinal
cord.
The new cells, we've shown they're no longer immune.
And these leads to about 20% of the mice being disease-free, right?
So, I mean, 20% of mice are cured from this autoimmunity, which is very much like multiple
sclerosis.
And the other thing that happens is that the oligodendrocytes with the inflammation goes
down, right?
So, I mean, the general inflammatory state, around the spinal cord particularly, goes
down.
And so, this is very important because it allows the progenitor cells or the ones that
give rise to new myelin, so they rebuild the spinal cord.
They can now do their job and regenerate the system.
So, now, again, as I mentioned earlier, for cancer, you have this coordinated effect,
which you take the bad cells, replace them with the new cells, and then block the inflammation,
rebuild the spinal cord.
Now, you can say this is incredible, this is magic, right?
[Rhonda]: Right.
[Valter]: Well, again, it's not, it's just that the body has to have this ability.
Like you cut yourself, the system that goes to work is incredible, right?
[Rhonda]: Mm-hmm.
[Valter]: And so, it's like saying, you know, if I found a way to regenerate part of my
arm by fooling the system into thinking that it just got cut everywhere, right?
If you wanna see fasting, you can see it like that.
And that's why it looks so magical, is because it is an evolved process that has been, you
know, been evolving for billions of years, and so, it knows exactly what to do to fix
a series of problems.
[Rhonda]: Yeah.
[Valter]: I mean, if you can see the wound, you know, in the spinal cord as you would
think of as the cut in the skin, so...
[Rhonda]: I have this thought I wanna say, but also you should the people with multiple
sclerosis had improvements according to some tests or something as well, right, with the
fasting-mimicking diet, and also the ketogenic diet, which...
[Valter]: Yeah, and also the ketogenic.
Last saw with the ketogenic diet, and this is Markus Bock, in Berlin, that was the lead
person in the study.
But, I mean, the amazing thing is that a week of fasting, followed by Mediterranean diet,
which is really a regular diet, did better than six months of ketogenic diet, right?
[Rhonda]: Oh, wow.
[Valter]: So, continuous, right?
[Rhonda]: Okay.
[Valter]: And that's what makes it very impressive...
[Rhonda]: So wait, it was one week of fasting-mimicking diet.
[Valter]: One single time, right.
[Rhonda]: Five days, and then 25...
[Valter]: Seven days.
[Rhonda]: Seven days, and then the rest of Mediterranean...
[Valter]: And then, the rest of the six months, a regular Mediterranean diet.
[Rhonda]: Oh, really, just one?
[Valter]: Yeah.
[Rhonda]: Wow, that is...
[Valter]: This is what makes it remarkable, you know.
So, now, we're approaching the FDA, and I think we're going to propose one cycle every
two months.
And, you know, so hopefully that...
[Rhonda]: For another trial, for another clinical?
[Valter]: Yeah, a much larger trial.
[Rhonda]: Is this something that can be available to physicians that are treating people with
multiple sclerosis, or oncologists that are treating cancer patients?
Because you've, kind of, shown, you know, you've shown that this is a very powerful
metabolic therapy that can be used to...honestly, it seems like if we're talking about getting
rid of damaged cells and replacing them with a new fully functional ones, it can be applied
to a lot of diseases.
[Valter]: Yeah, there is no doubt, yeah.
So, we're now doing mouse working many autoimmune diseases.
For example, we're doing in cognitive diseases, and so, yes.
What we're saying now to clinicians is the following, and to patient is the following,
and sometimes we get attacked for this, but I really feel that this is the way to do it.
Which is, if you feel, if there is a treatment, whether it's multiple sclerosis, another autoimmunity,
or a degenerative disease, or diabetes, or cardiovascular disease, I mean, all these
things that we tested in some way clinically.
But if you can wait because there's something that works already very well for you, then
wait, right?
You shouldn't try something, "This is not fully tested," meaning that we don't have
a, "Yes, this works."
You only get that when you do 2,000 patients, or, you know, let's say at least 1,000, right?
And then, you have to look at the statistics, you have to look at the response, etc., etc.
We're not there yet.
So, we're saying, "If you can wait, wait."
If you cannot wait because, you know, you have multiple sclerosis, and you cannot take
it anymore, or you have cancer, and you're stage four, or even you're stage one and you're
getting devastated by the side effects, so go to your oncologist, your cardiologist,
your diabetologist, your immunologist, whatever, and say," I can't take this anymore.
This is not working."
And, of course, there's gotta be a decision made by the clinicians together with the patient
saying, you know, "Should we take a risk, you know, in adding to this fasting-mimicking
diet to the treatment?"
And that's together, they have to come up with an answer, is a worth the risk?
And to some people, it is.
You know, we've had some people with Crohn's disease, they said, you know, "I can't wait
anymore," and they did it, and they did extremely well, you know, after the fasting-mimicking
diet.
So, we haven't published that yet.
And so, I think same for multiple sclerosis and all these diseases, you have to see where
you're at, can you wait, can you not, is there something that is working that they make the
decision, and is it for now or is it for five years from now?
[Rhonda]: Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense, Valter.