139: Stop Chasing Egg Numbers: The Truth About Egg Quality, IVF, and Ovarian Rejuvenation with Dr. Zaher Merhi

People think that women and menopause have no more eggs. That's not true. There is 1,000 eggs left in the ovaries of every menopausal woman. There is facts and studies and basic science level showing that high dose of medication is bad for a quality. Look, let me explain to you why. By listening to the Conscious Fertility Podcast, you agree to not use this podcast as medical advice to treat any medical condition and either yourself or others. Console your own physician or healthcare provider for any medical issues that you may be having. This entire disclaimer also applies to any guests or contributors to the podcast. Welcome to Conscious Fertility, the show that listens to all of your fertility questions so that you can move from fear and suffering to peace of mind and joy. My name is Lauren Brown. I'm a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine and a clinical hypnotherapist. I'm on a mission to explore all the paths to peak fertility and joyful living. It's time to learn how to be and receive so that you can create life on purpose. I have Dr. Zahar Mary on. He is a reproductive endocrinologist. He is really doing a lot of work around ovarian rejuvenation. So I'm hoping we're going to get to talk about PRP today, ozone therapy, low level laser therapy, everything under the sun to help support egg quality and real quality. Now I got to share a little story. I'm going to give you guys his bio, but I got to share a little story about Dr. Mary today. How we kind of connected. It happened to have he is doing a study using the gigalaser, which we haven't been cool. I think we're the only clinic in Canada has it. He's doing a study using it for egg quality, embryo quality, and Maya from the gigalaser paramedics said you guys should connect because he's doing a study. He should tell him what you've been doing in your clinic as he designs the study. I said, all right, so I text the good doctor and we're connecting. Same we're going to meet in chat. And I happen to be in Quebec at the time and at a conference, the CFESF conference where fertility and andrology society. And I said jokingly because he's in New York and this is a Canadian conference. And my Canadian listeners know that a lot of Americans don't know about us over Canada, our conference is at least. So I said, you wouldn't be happy. You wouldn't happen to be come into the CFESF conference and give back the fertility conference. Would you? Because I'm here. It would be funny if you were here. We could connect. And he says, I'm actually speaking on PRP at this conference. I go, are you kidding me? And he goes, I've at the bar over at the Hilton. So I walked across the street. Now, I was really glad drinks and talks, right? It's meant to it's meant sometimes honestly, just, you know, coincidence has happened so easily. And we connected. We spoke for hours at the bar. It was, it was really nice. I think it just duck around for the conversation because the beer was good, not so much the conversation. But, you know, all right. So we're going to chat here. Let me tell you a little bit about Dr. Zahir Miri. And then I'm going to ask some questions that I think my listeners want to hear about. So as I mentioned, he's in New York area. He's the founder and the medical director of Rejuvenating Fertility Center, RFC. He's an internationally recognized fertility doctor, lecturer, editor and grant reviewer. His training and faculty appointments included Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Medical Center, New York NYU School of Medicine and the University of Vermont. He was a professor at Sunny Downstate Health Science University and the director of the Reproductive End of Chronology and Fertility Fellowship Program. He is currently a professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Immodemies Medical Center in New York. He has three American board certifications in OB/GYN, reproductive end of chronology and infertility and high complexity laboratory director. Also interesting enough, he's also one of the few reproductive immunologists in the States and is an active researcher with an interest in women older than 40 with lower variant reserves. So we're talking here low AMH or high FSH stem cell. Yeah, we should talk about that stem cell, a variant of Rejuvenation, gentle stimulation IVF. I think they call that sometimes many IVF. We'll find out what that means for you. Natural IVF and IVF with even injectables. And he was named one of the top two percent scientists in the world. You know, your IVF, though, injectables reminds me of a colleague out here is a doctor that does scalpelists, the sectimies. So, you know, it's a safe thing with you, you know, no injectable IVF, right? So we got lots to talk about. In the Reproductive World, you know, the evidence isn't strong yet on LLT Ozone, PRP, even stem cell. Now, when I say strong as in, when I go into like the website Open Evidence, you know, it just says, you know, there's data, but we're not, it's not robust yet. But there's always leaders in the field, or I would say just because the study, the research is in there doesn't mean it doesn't work. Just means we don't have the data to support maybe what we're seeing in clinic yet. So I would like to hear what is the science and what is your clinical experience? So in your practice, you're doing a lot of over-armored Rejuvenation. Can you kind of just start off with what does that mean? And how many pathways are there to this over-arm Rejuvenation? Because I'm sure there's not just one process. Sure. Well, first of all, thank you very much, Dr. Rauhanse and I honor to have met you and be on your podcast really. I started following you. I'm listening to a lot of them actually these days. Very interesting. And like you said, you know, I am not just the founder. I'm co-founder of RFC because I have three co-founders with me, Dr. Marco, Margaret, butel and Jessica Haroon, our aunt, so they're micro-founders and partners as well. So I want to give them the credit. Second is our mission here at RFC or Rejuvenating Fractility Center is really to push the boundaries of fertility in as much as ethical and legal and conscious ways because we do know based on evidence-based medicine. There's a lot of studies, a lot of data, you know, PRP. If you Google, if you go to PubMed and look PRP and ovaries, Lauren, you'll find over 150 peer-reviewed articles. I think people pushes data or they look at data selectively and I'm not talking about anybody in person. I'm talking about the business world of fertility. For instance, genetic testing, PGT or genetic testing on embryos. The American Society for a Productive Medicine said it's not recommended for everybody, but yeah, there's a lot of clinics here. They only do PGT on everybody. So there is a lot of complex things and really people can choose what data they want. But the reality is there is plenty of data on ovary and rejuvenation. Yes, it is experimental, but yeah, a lot of things were experimental. Ac freezing was experimental for decades until the ASRM said it's not. So we really need to start looking at objectively what's coming on. And we know a lot of things work that are less chemicals, less costly and of more holistic way. Now you ask me about the PRP. The PRP is in summary, split-let's plasma. It's platelets and patients blood. You take that blood, you spend the platelets and plasma. And this PRP, Lauren, has been used for dentistry, joint injury, hair, you know, to grow hair loss, face, and the Greek people who are always give them credit because they're very smart people. They injected the PRP in women who are in menopause. 10 years ago, and a lot of these women started to ovulate and have babies. Well, people think that women in menopause have no more eggs. That's not true. There is 1,000 eggs left in the ovaries of every menopause of women. Those eggs can survive and can give healthy babies. So the Greek is what they work them up by PRP and they reported a lot of people getting pregnant. And this is when we started it here and we started a lot of trials and studies and we've published a lot of studies and we show how PRP could improve not just quantity of eggs but also quality. We get about quality more than quantity and we've helped a lot of people, hundreds of babies with PRP. Women with folgian never have baby with unorn eggs. Right, right. Now with the PRP because in Canada at the time of our recording, they're not doing it in the ovaries. They do it in the uterus and at the C-FAS, not the one you and I rap, but the one a year before the research in Canada showed that the evidence wasn't robust. They didn't see a different outcome. So at that time, they were saying that it's experimental. So don't charge for it in Canada if you're going to do it in the ovaries. Then I'll share that I talked to Dr. Amy, the egg whisperer, who trained under you, right? You taught her your PRP style. I did. Yeah. And then I talked to Dr. Sam Wood. And here's what I'm learning. And again, I think it's because it's still in the early stages. The sense I got was there's more than just doing PRP. Like Wood puts in other growth factors to help rejuvenate the ovaries and the follicles. And his experience was that the POI type of patient, so their premature variant sufficient patient, those in the thirties, he's found clinically, and I may be quite wrong. I have to relicit to our podcast, but I remember he quoted that these women in the thirties responded well to general PRP. And then the older women, he had to add other things in order to get that circle to you from our conversation that we had at the conference. I'm understanding that the type of needle makes a difference. Maybe how often or when you're doing the PRP makes a difference when you're, because some say, wait three months, then do IVF, some say do IVF for the right way and you have the next three months. So at the point I'm saying is PRP is not just PRP just like what somebody says I did acupuncture Well how often what points of the use exactly so different frequency of treatment during the week over months and the different points You may get a totally different outcome even though you did acupuncture. So I'm getting that PRP is a very general term But we haven't come to a this is how you should do it for these type of women There is an art to it still and it hasn't come to how to do it So I wanted to learn what you're seeing in your clinic. Can you tell us about does the needle matter? Does when you do it matter? Are you adding anything as it just straightforward PRP? So I don't add anything and by the way, I have a great respect for Dr. Woods very very smart person and he's pushing the boundaries as well And I like his stimulation IVF so kudos to him look Like you said PRP people say it's that it PRP is first of all the the process of PRP varies from clinic to clinic And I'm gonna tell you if you look at the trials or the studies or whatever it is they put PRP Some of them in the middle of the ovary what there is no eggs there You need to feed the eggs at their on the surface of the ovary so where you put the PRP is very important How much she puts is very important? You know what type needle the ovary is small right if I bake big needle and I inject it and I take out the needle It's gonna go ooze out because now I made a big hole in the ovary, but if it's tiny hole It's unlikely to do it was out and it's so you really need to have the needle at the outside of the periphery That's one but look just so you know that's that's acupuncture right? It's not a big needle Thin needle that creates a healing response big needle creates trauma and damage so I get it and it makes a big difference because a lot of clinics And he's they use big it's not gonna work But look PRP or whatever the donation you do is not magic what you do afterwards is very important and this is what drives me crazy About the trials or studies that showed oh no no difference They do PRP and then they pump them with high dose of shots you basically wiped out the whole Effect of PRP you can't why is that when you say shots you're saying the the injectables the Drugs correct, but those people have high FSH already and we give them FSH and we know Clant your studies. I'm not sure how many time I need to let these people know about it Shots are bad for a quality especially a woman with low-varion reserve You can't give them high dose of those shots. It's not gonna work You're not gonna find a difference. So what you do afterwards? That's why learn I have patient like I want to do I be I'll pay our P with you and do I be have some I'm fine. I don't care, but Just please tell them not to pump you with a lot of shots because Quality is more important than quantity and there's this misconception that shots create eggs. It doesn't Shots are food For follicles someone have If you have a lot of eggs Give them a lot of food because each one will have to eat if there is less eggs give them just a little bit enough for them to eat If you overfeed them, they're going to vomit and I'm happy to talk about mechanism, but there's plenty of studies So we need to be very very careful not to ruin the effect of the PRP By high dose. So that's my answer to you. Okay, and I'll just because I I'm after talking to you the doctor Do the mini IVF would being one thing was chong also in San Diego. I got a Remember now. I didn't review before the song is amazing. I love so does him right when I talked to some of the local clinics They said the science isn't there that high dose FSH won't damage the eggs because in our conversation I thought hey those that are doing acupuncture low-level laser therapy Anti-flammatory diet poke you 10 all these supplements Do you think that it's giving the eggs some support lower in the antioxidant? So there's some resilience so when you give the ovaries a lot of drugs They're not being negatively impacted as much because they have the resilience He says oh, that's any interesting theory possible when I brought up to the local clinics They're saying high FSH isn't damage in the eggs, but you say there's some data and science on that I just because it's not I'm sorry to interrupt you. It's not a question anymore I'm sorry There is facts and studies and basic science level showing that high dose of medication is bad for Equality there's a study in endocrinology if you go on my website or tell anybody the references medical references Everything I said is there look. Let me explain to you why I'm gonna explain to you why the FSH the egg has receptor which is a mouth Now we know if there is a lot of hormones a lot of on the receptor they get down-regulated and they hide It's a it's a biology 101 when you give high dose those receptors Goes inside that I want any more you actually the follicles die Go ask a lot of people they start with 10 follicles at baseline They end up with one or two eggs all the time, but I'm gonna keep you out of examples I'm gonna give you three examples to convince you I don't not convince him I want more examples, but I want to highlight for our listeners is because there are people that I know in my city that are Traveling to different places for PRP and so what I'm hearing from you is After you do the PRP you don't just go and do a general IVF You're saying that mate so I just run because I'm trying to tease out you do the PRP But it's not like you're gonna you would not hit them aggressively with with IVF drugs They would get and many IVF for low stem I don't know what terminology you call, but I'd love to know a little bit about what that looks like But tell me more pretend you're convincing me Because I want to hear news, but I was just thinking about the list I'm thinking about the people that are spending money doing all these things Thinking they're doing the right thing with PRP and then they go and do an IVF and they don't get the response and maybe It's not that the PRP didn't work. Maybe it's what they did after the PRP Didn't take them to the goal of healthy embryo and library So that's what I really want to get out for my listeners. No problem Now I'm going to convince you if you're a patient or a doctor or anybody and I'm happy to have the conversation with anybody I'm gonna give you three examples They're most stating that high dose is the IVF drugs are bad for equality, but before I start in just for listeners He's an IVF doctor not an acupuncture, so he's allowed to say these things Just to make sure I'm the acupuncturist he the IVF doctor First of all most women before I start with the three examples. I'm not getting to their yet I'm gonna tell you what drives me crazy is most women who do PRP They have lower virion reserve and high FSH let's stop there women with high FSH have high FSH in the urine and LH And men are pure men are as men oppose your urine Manipure is medication coming from the urine of women with high FSH from postmenopausal Let me ask you one thing if someone has high FSH and they can produce men appear in their urine Why do I need to give them someone else's men in urine and put it in their body? It's already high If this makes sense to anybody please convince me Lot of those people they actually need suppression because the FSH coming high from the brain But let's go to the three examples so I can convince you Yeah, then you gotta sign me chocolate. Yes The first example is this a lot of people Having miscarriages they go to fertility clinic and they say you're having miscarriages You need IVF so he test the embryo genetically because the miscarriages are from a chromosome in abnormal embryos They do IVF now they cannot make any embryos to even get tested. I see this all the time But let me ask you one thing if someone naturally was getting pregnant and having miscarriage This means that a woman is releasing one egg Best fertilized by the sperm They made a blastocyst which is a fully developed embryo they made it to the uterus and stuck now They can't even reach to stage three an IVF. That's example number one to show you that the IVF drugs Hurt the equity example number two. All right. I want to I want to summarize make sure her example one He's saying they're having natural conception. They're actually having an egg and sperm meat And there's even an implantation and then they have that chemical pregnancy miscarriage So they're actually getting to blastocyst and beyond because they got the chemical pregnancy test But you're saying then you take this woman and put it through an IVF cycle and they don't even get to the blastocyst stage To test for chromosomal screening. Okay. I'm with you. So I stopped the patient I'm like you did better naturally than with the IVF somewhere else and they're like that's true I see this every other patient by the way, okay, that's why example so if this doesn't convince you I'm gonna give you the second example two Lot of couples are doing gender selection In the state can't do it in Canada, but that's true. That's true. They're doing gender selection Actually, there are four girls. They want a boy fair? The people get pregnant in a heartbeat. They make girls They go to do IVF somewhere else before they come to me. They come. I see the record They haven't made one embryo to even get tested was that their problem? No They can make it but I've lost the system now to even get tested That tells you that the IVF drug actually is back for equality All right, let me unpack Example number two this person does not have infertility this person does not have problems getting pregnant or going to life birth They've come to the clinic because they're doing gender selection. They want to have a different sex because they already have three of one They want a different one. So they go and do the IVF and this time they don't get blastasis And you're saying because you're giving them such heavy dose of medications You're they're not able to make embryos and you're saying it's because of the IVF drugs, okay? And example example number three. This is great. I'm I close to get a chocolate from I'm gonna think for example number three then I'm gonna ask you a question and then you're gonna say yes sir But look number three is this Women and deep studies two studies one from Harvard one from NYU They looked at all people who have frozen eggs and the past those women froze them Then they come later on to use them to make babies, right? There's that what people freeze eggs Most of these clinics freeze eggs the shampoo them with shots and get eggs only one third of women Who had frozen eggs in the past? Who come to use them now and the future? only one third They make babies first of all those clinics don't tell patients you just are one third before They freeze the eggs that's one two is let's say you froze 20 eggs in 2018 Now you have baby number one baby number two you want baby number three or you met a new partner now 2025 you come to use the eggs that are the youngest you thought them Two-third don't make babies, but guess what they made babies naturally in between and with older eggs If this doesn't tell you that IVF drugs that created those eggs are bad for equality. I'm not sure it is But I'm gonna ask you one last question Those are the three example would you like to recap it? recap number three before I start asking you a question three was just that they froze their eggs when they were younger and They met their partner and they had babies as they got older and then later in life they Went to use the frozen eggs which were much younger thought them to create embryos But only third of those became babies, but even in a natural pregnancy What is it on average when they're young 20% every month turns into a baby? So we wouldn't expect 70 or 80 or 100% of those frozen eggs to turn into live births would we? That's not accurate. I agree with you naturally because naturally is one egg Okay, when you add the 20% for each egg that's 20 eggs most clinic would say you need one for one egg for one baby 10 eggs to 15 maximum will guarantee one baby at least we shouldn't be saying that we should be saying that 66% would not have babies and there's plenty of articles at why actually look again I'm challenging the status quo here, and I hope I'm not offending anybody But I'm not saying anything that's wrong. You can look at it. Those three examples will give you that now I'm gonna ask you a question and there's no answer for it We Everyone I know and you know someone who did IVF took $10,000 off shouts and developed one follicle and the cycle was canceled If you don't know anybody like this correct me, let me ask you one thing Those people develop one follicle naturally. So what did the drugs do? nothing right I am I against talking people think many IVF is less eggs. That's not true with many IVF It's an art no offense. I see some protocols. I lack you need to give the body the dose that needs to grow the follicles without Giving them the more dose of it. We're gonna talk about mechanisms But did I convince you a little bit? I'm convinced today. So and by the way everybody You put 10 REIs in a room and you'll get 10 different protocols and answers same thing with acupuncturists They think we've worked I get that's what we all do But for the patients perspective what I wanted to highlight is we're gonna go into what you can do to support a quality What's going on? What's out there and to me the takeaway and you didn't need convincing because I've always thought you know Like I like the mouth analogy of overeating like you know drink from a hose versus a fire hose two different results will come from that So you're suggesting for these women with lower-varum reserved less eggs They already have high FSH that there's other IVF protocols that you can do where you're not going after Quantity you're going after quality and so the high dose of drugs from the the ideas that you just gave Suggest that we're seeing it clinically that it's not necessarily the protocol you would use and I want to hear Some of the ideas that what you would do then because again a lot of the listeners we have are Those that are in a place with lower-varum reserve or repeated IVF failure or high FSH or all the above and I'd like to let them know what other resources are available and what you're doing so they can look into it because We have to our patients have to advocate for themselves and there is not a lot of fan of a one size fits all The other thing is you did say you hope you don't want to offend everybody is 2025 So you're definitely fending somebody so don't worry about that So look brought those this tells what you think that's what I want to know. What do you think look? Yes, I'm I'm thinking and patient you can you can I'm happy again to sit with 10 R.I.'s and I'm happy to sit with them But look first of all and call me crazy, which I'm bored online 40% of women doing IVF and the United States I'm not sure about Canada. I don't know if Fred can I do because I love Canadian people 40% Of women undergoing IVF do not need IVF. Let me repeat that they measure the MH. Oh you're accurate All along the problem is Implantation if I tell you that every day I do restore our scalp and I cut some scars or septum from a patient Who all along her issue was implantation that not need IVF? They bummed them with drugs they can make eggs and they say you have bad equates. You need donor act They do donor act they're not pregnant Why because the problem all along is a plantation? That's why people do donor act it doesn't work a lot of time. It's not 100% Well 65 70% so a lot of those people and I can I tell my patient I just today either His soroscopy is on to a patient. I said try naturally for three months if you don't get pregnant call me because we fixed the U.T.ers your tubes are open and there's a sperm why do you need IVF? IVF is not always the answer long. I'm telling you that true. Yeah, I lose a lot of money by telling people this but I'm proud of it I'm gonna help my clinic because the we're acupunctures here low-level ladies are you do IVF? No, I know I'm I'm terrible business, but listen that's the truth They don't need IVF. Yes, and there's always gonna there's always gonna be somebody that can benefit and needs it So if there's enough people that you're allowed to do this and share this kind of information to help these people There's other ways because I know joking aside There's enough people that will benefit and need IVF and what you're sharing is a lot of these people though They're going through IVF didn't need to go through IVF No, let's talk about then this embryo quality You know when you talk to the uterus I mean the implantation get it like that issue I always think sometimes when we're having the embryo not implant I always wonder the sperm because it takes two to make a baby so I always think and maybe there's something we're not aware of the sperm Now with PGTA and not seeing those implant then it makes me think more about what's going on in the uterus or One day we're gonna learn to measure one more thing in the embryo like oh this was missing and we you know So as we'll evolve and we'll find out maybe why those didn't implant but I'm curious we talked about PRP So I got some specific question because these are questions that patients asking when they're traveling around looking for PRP So you're sharing that the type of needle is important so a big needle like you take a Pen like a pen you're right with and poke it in the ovary you're gonna create a hole you it's trauma to the ovary probably not going to increase quality If you take a very thin needle I think of like acupuncture because where when we do acupuncture It's a thin needle that creates a healing response and there's all these mechanisms we understand when we do this It's not that bad trauma. It's a good thing. I can totally get using a thin Smaller needle would give you a different result. So needle matters What about is it like a one and done thing because I don't I'm not at the place where I give one acupuncture treatment and Their fertility is corrected or one low-level laser therapy treatment and their fertility is corrected I need to treat them over a hundred days. So it's a two-part question Is it just one PRP or will people need a series of PRP and then I've heard two Different responses of when to try and conceive whether naturally or IVF to give the PRP a chance One school of thought I heard is Wait a hundred wait three months and the other school of thought is start right away And I'd love to hear what your thoughts are on this. Okay, so look though We're gonna first of all based based on studies we've done and based on our experience The PRP has acute effect and long term effect the acute effect which 90% of people benefit from last four three months After three months has come The long term effect is PRP induces ovarian stem cells to become a new younger eggs because the ovary have actually stem cells all over in stem cells When you put PRP you activate those OSC or ovarian stem cells to become a new younger eggs That's the long term effect. That's why you see people with the PRP and then after a year they have baby Or after nine months the PRP is really gone people think yes, oh you need three months to make new eggs True, but you can actually improve the quality of that particular month in two weeks. I'm gonna tell you how I Like to give this example the egg. I like food. I'm Lebanese will of food the egg of a woman is yolk Which is a DNA it doesn't change and The white which has mitochondria and the way I describe it is the egg when someone has her period before she ovulate, the egg is still full chromosomes, 46, full-thed, but we only need a half because we need a half from the father, right, the sperm. So the egg, the white is the knife that cuts the yolk. Now as the egg grows around the eight of her cycle, day nine, when it's 12 minutes after the white is what cuts the yolk into half to 23, 23. Now the error happened that as women get older or they have issues, it's not the yolk that's a problem, Jordan. It's the white. The white is weak. It's like a not sharp knife that's cutting the yolk unequally instead of 23, 23, 24, 22, 24 plus 23 sperm. This is 47 and extra chromosome. So putting PRP vitamins acupuncture, human growth hormone, human growth hormone on the trop is given for two months and you see benefit, PRP, all those, why act directly on the white in that particular month to sharpen that knife and then I have to cut the yolk and see what they, so it doesn't need three months, so within three months usually. So I hope I answered questions. Back to the high dose of medication. When you are stimulating somebody and today it's day one or three of their cycle and again, the white, the yolk is 46 chromosome, right. Like we said, once it becomes 12 millimeter, this is one split, the high dose of medication alone, you're pushing the follicle to grow faster to 12 millimeter. You're rushing that white to cut the yolk. It's more likely to do mistake and cut unequally if I'm making sense. That's why there are studies showing the high dose of shots causes more genetically abnormal embryos. Why? Because you grew this follicle and you rushed it to cut unequally. Did that make sense? You do it. Actually, it's the theory I've had but I've never can have confirmed it, but you're stating there's some data on this and your metaphor is aligned with it. So I'm going to share what my thoughts are is, you know, we talk about with the aging ovary that we get airs. What is it? Is this my toses or myosis that we're talking about? Males. Males, right? So we got, Males has happened here where it's got a separate and I like your analogy of the white part is like it's sharp knife and if it's not sharp, it doesn't cut properly. You get less or too many chromosomes when it splits. I always thought that, you know, so that it's getting naturally dull, this sharpening, dulls with age and you're saying the high dose of drugs even makes it more dull, right? Of course. And I've been sharing that, you know, we always say this 100 days to pre-conception during that follicular genesis to use your metaphor. We're sharpening the knife with acupuncture by increasing blood flow, improving mitochondrial function, lowering inflammation, oxidative stress with low level laser therapy. Same thing, improving mitochondria function, blood flow, inflammation, oxidative stress with herbs, with supplements. And I know you've used ozone in your practice. We'll get to talk about hopefully stem cells. So it goes back to at the very beginning where I shared with you that I think a lot of these holistic approaches are giving the egg resilience. So they can conceive naturally. Or handle the high dose of drugs better. Now what I'm coming away with from our conversation is, yes, we're doing that. But why I'm trying to sharpen the knife. Don't let somebody else dull the knife. Exactly. So continue doing all these things to sharpen it and then use an IVF approach that does not go against the sharpening. So you get. Thank you. You got it. Thank you. I couldn't. I'm so glad. I'll send you chocolate. And if people don't know just so you know, I, after my interviews, I send my guests the NIMO bars that are vented apparently in the NIMO British Columbia, they're chocolate. So I send. So now I'm going to get lots of requests to be on the podcast so they get their chocolate. Oh, we're having another session, right? Just. Yeah. But this is back to the mitochondria. This one drives me crazy about fertility doctor telling patients or diet of vitamins. Because you can't improve quality. It's bullshit. There is 6,500 articles on how diet and proof fertility. There is hundreds of studies on how cook you then at the mitochondrial level is improving the function of mitochondria and helping meosis get better. Those things are super important and we should not treat patients as an egg. It's a human being. Now you're talking like a Chinese medicine doctor. Don't treat the condition, treat the individual. Right. But that's true. So yeah, you just don't realize it, but you're inherently a Chinese medicine doctor. And I pressed up as an area. I pressed this off as an area. Listen, I was impressed by China. I went to Shanghai. Let me tell you. I had a headache. I showed a god long. I went to pharmacy. I said, I need more. Turn. She looked at me. No, she gave me her. Yeah. I'm like, what is this? I ate it and 20 minutes of my headache was gone. And my headaches, my, my grand headaches are sometimes are really bad because of the jet lag. So why we take all this? If her that's come from nature can, can treat my headaches. So that's why I'm impressed by Chinese. She probably gave you white willow bark, which is aspirin. Probably. I don't know. I'm sorry. I want to ask, you're doing research on low level laser therapy. So this just started. So a little background because I want to hear about kind of what you do to sharpen the knife to support or a quality like you're doing all the holistic approach. So and people can reach out to you. Like we talked about this many IVF. I can hear my patient saying, but what's the protocol? I need to tell my doctor. Can people reach out to you and discuss your IVF process? People around the world? You see people from around the world? Yes. Okay. First of all, 60% of our patients are outside New York area. By the way, I held a lot of patients in Canada. I just had patients who came for a second adipose PRP. We posted a video today for a second baby naturally at 47 years old. But we also manage patients. For example, a lot of patients in Dubai, Australia, we manage their IVF cycle. We tell them what to take and then their doctor, they do the retrieval. Okay. But you need doctors or open minded because we have those. We have those in Canada. We have those at our end, but we definitely have those that do. And I can help direct our patients here in the Vancouver area anyhow with the Canadian doctors to work with. But I just want to know that they can reach out to you. And in the show notes, we'll put all your contact. I want to talk about low level laser therapy. It's one of the things I used to we're using in our new metaphor now to sharpen the knife as in to allow the chromosomes to separate in myosis. So we don't have those errors because that's what happens when we have aging, oxidative stress, toxins, all the poor blood flow. We start to get errors and we're trying to reverse the risk of that. So low level laser therapy, there's the mechanism behind it, which people are excited about, which we don't have a lot of fertility data yet. It increases blood flow and angiogenesis, regulates inflammation, regulates. So it doesn't shut down inflammation. Down regulates the inflammation we don't want to up regulates inflammation for health and healing, improves the mitochondrial function, which is important when we think about egg quality, it supports the gut microbiome. And there's so many more things that we're learning about low level laser therapy. The gigalaser, the reason that's gotten a lot of press and I'm really impressed and people are interested in it is, Anne Marie Jensen started just reporting case studies and her reports are pretty impressive and she's reported more recently. She's on my episode somewhere in the Consciously Podcast. And it's not research, she's just having women do this and just falling up with them six months later, finding out how do they do. And the gigalaser is a big laser, it's 500 centimeters squared, so it covers the gut microbiome, it's 5 nodes, over ease, it's over the whole lower abdomen, it's got some powerful lasers, both LED and laser diodes that does both red and infrared and it's a 23 minute treatment. And she would do it three times a week in the follicular so people get six treatments on average three to four cycles. So that's 18 plus treatments they got. Now you have this little level laser therapy. What was your interest and kind of how are you doing this study? What are you looking to measure, understand in this? I don't know, is it a big study or like a pilot study? Like can you tell us a little bit about what you're up to and why you're interested in this? Sure. So first of all, we have an add on Instagram, this is the gigalaser, this is Jessica sitting and this is the machine. We have a trial. If you can't find it. Can you put the picture up? I just want to let people know one thing because when we put things up on Instagram, it's not always real life. It can't go through clothes so she would have to have her belly exposed in her own reason all that stuff. I show this because people will totally mimic a picture but you got to get it. It's getting exposed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm looking at it. Now we have, first of all, there is a study from Japan. Very basic study showed that LLT help women with lower vision of get pregnant and outcome. So that was Dr. Shiro from Japan. That one. Yeah. That's the only study we do now. What we did, and I'm very interested in stuff like this because again, not everything is, I really think we need to do something different than just IVF drugs and to improve equality. Now we're doing trial. We got an IRB approval. IRB is a situation review board. This is an ethical approval. from a company that reviewed the application and we have concerns and well designed, we have a full-time coordinator if someone was interested, please apply. But what we're doing is we're doing patients, we're looking at blood ultrasound AMH at baseline, then patients are doing sessions of laser therapy, and then we're following up those ovarian reserved markers over time. That's one. Can you share what are the other markers, like you said blood, but what are you measuring in blood? AMH on antimilladian hormone, FSH, estradiol, LH progesterone, we're also doing an ultrasound to measure the number of follicles. Okay. Now, there's the trial has multiple phases. Phase one is to look at the ovarian reserved markers over time before and after. Two is we're going to look at qu- but that doesn't tell you the quality because ovarian reserved markers are great, but doesn't tell you the quality because there's no test for a quality. Then we're going to look at another cohort of patients who, trying naturally, we're going to do that for them and then we're going to see if they get pregnant naturally. And finally, we're going to see patients who did IVF and laser then did IVF to compare the quality of eggs before and after. Like you said, back to the egg and the mitochondria, the LLT works through mitochondria and activate the mitochondria. And then putting it on the ovary could help the egg bear- you cannot sharpen the knife better to cut it. By the way, there's a study published in a neural production. What they did, they did egg collection, they sucked those eggs, those eggs, remember at earlier stage, the immature one, the 46 chromosome ones, and they split them in half, have control and half, they put laser on the egg, not on the ovary, for one minute and they've showed that the eggs exposed the better, more embryos and better quality. So those are the things how it works. So what we're trying to find out is that clinically significant or not. I don't know the answer right now. It's trial and progress. And if you're happy to qualify, but you need to be in the office to come to us to Simmanhattan. Yeah, we should try and do a multi-center because we have a gigalaser here. I would love that. What are your different groups? A group that's doing the gigalaser, low-level laser therapy. By the way, people are searching also known as photo-buy modulation. And in the public red light therapy, but just giving people the terminology, they're doing it and trying naturally over a series of cycles. Is that a group? And there's a group that you're doing it with that are also going to go through IVF. Is there a, I know when we look at doing a study, you don't necessarily for the early pilot studies need a control group because your control group is all your data of people that have never done LLT that you put through IVF. Right. Exactly. So we're going to match patients. We have patients who are irregular period or very low reserve or no period at all and we're doing this. By the way, for disclosure, I want to thank you, Galaser, but also we have a group who's doing the firefly LLT. It's another machine. Yeah. It's differently. You have to hold it. Yeah. And I want to thank Ani Eza, our core manager to help us with that study. We're looking at that as well. So for, you know, I want to make sure I'm thanking both companies. What's the frequency of treatment that you're going to, because, you know, we try to replicate like, Amory did it three times a week for those two weeks, right? For the follicular phase, not in the luteal phase in case they were trying to conceive that cycle. So do you have it that they have to do it so many times as it just twice once three? What is your protocol going to be? So for people of regular period, like you said, and like three times in the follicular phase, then after ovulation, nothing for patients who don't have period, we're doing twice a week, continuous. Seriously. Gotcha. Okay. Now the LLT is at between 660 and 800 nano the wavelength. The fireflies between 859, 450 something like that. What is it? The firefly? The fireflies between 850 and 940. Okay. So it's infrared. And the giga, it has the 810 laser diodes infrared. And then it has the, I see there's 630 or 660 red LED. So it has both. That's how you're getting both in the giga. When you have it on, it's doing program six. It's 810 lasers and 660 LEDs at the same time. That's what's coming up. Well, you're the expert of those things. I'm not going to pretend I know. I played around with a little bit. Yeah. I played around. And I'd have to relook at the, because you know, I have multiple systems as well. I could be totally not correct because it's ongoing by memory. But those are good. You know, you're in the wavelength that's that that we know for so far, so far as good. It would be interesting when you're collecting your data, collecting the weight of the woman, like the girth and BMI, because I would assume, assume, because I don't know, because nobody's done the study. But if you're overweight, it would be less photons making it to the ovaries if it's the ovaries. So they, and then skin color, you know, very dark black to somebody very pale Irish, you know, the skin different amount of photons get absorbed also based on that. So I think knowing the ethnicity color of this, like, so color of skin and body mass probably is important because we may find that thin people may need a lower dose heavier people may need a higher dose. Because again, just like everything, it becomes, you know, this from your drugs right from doctor, dose dependent, right? And then one day we'll probably find out certain wavelengths for certain people. But, you know, we're at the beginning of all this. So it's really interesting that you're doing the laser study. We'll, we'll stay in touch. And I'm serious about if you need, but I'm serious too. We will, but thank you so much. See, I learned a lot from you. Honestly, you know, these are the things that we need to tweak because studies, like you said, the color of skin, all that may be an important choice. And play a role. We look at different things. One of the laser systems, where I learned a lot, they train me a lot, they're manufacturing of a laser, but it's the bio flex laser system. And they have it where you can program it based on age and color and all that stuff because they change the power that they're putting out, whether, you know, if you've got very dark skin versus very fair skin, they would change the protocol a bit for them. So they've made on that. And the founder of that was a vascular surgeon, Fred Khan. He's passed now. But when I do it in our practice, even with the giga, we have multiple systems, but the giga, but I always use what's called the Oshiro technique where we do laser around the vertebral artery, crawled vagus nerve and stalagmally, because that's what is a big part of his protocol to engage the principal, to me, that would be the cool study to do that combined with the giga. And I only confirm this. We have a few other areas. We go along the T9 T12 to get nerve intervention that goes to the ovaries off the spine and the uterus like we do stuff in the sacrum. We move the laser around a little bit, locations, not just the lower abdomen. And I talk to a doctor, Nakhmera, he's in Japan. I had a translator talk to us just so you guys know he talked him directly. I had a translator. And this was pre-COVID, but he had already 10 years of data. He's an acupuncturist working in an IVF center. They had shown that using this approach, using laser around the abdomen, the sacrum, the Oshiro technique, they had doubling blastocyst rates in their data. So they would show, they did three. And he found three to six months is what you kind of needed, like how they did it. As in he said, after six months, he just stopped seeing that benefit. Like, there's just we're not able to correct it. He said, of course, there are people that come for nine, 10, 11 months, they don't give up and they do get the baby. But he says, in general, so there is no general average person, just to let you know, but in general average, he found if we did it diligently over six months, that's that you would see it by then, right? Not necessarily after a month, but within that six month window, you would you would see that change. They're an interesting population because my understanding Japan is they won't do donor eggs over there. I don't know if that's changed. So they're always looking for creative ways to improve equally because donor eggs are not an option for them. And so that's why they're the acupuncture, the nutrition, the low level laser therapy, seems to be they're always looking for ways to do it because they don't have what we'll just do donor eggs. It's not an option. So so I like this to know, I like to see what they're doing there. Stem cells, let's talk a little about stem cells. I don't think that's being done in Canada. Can you guys do that in the States or you're doing that off of the outside outside of the States? So there is multiple types of stem cells. Right. First of all, we have the body, the stem cells come from the fat, bone metal, um, medical cord, placenta, all those things. In the United States, we do use from the fat of the patient. We do PRP plus adipose and then we put them. We cannot manipulate them with any enzymes, right? But that the fat has a lot of misenchemal stem cells. So we do that here. And the Bahamas, we do umbilical cord stem cells and exosomes. The umbilical cord stem cells come from newborn babies from companies in the United States who remove the cord blood from newborn babies by C-sanctions. They extract the stem cells, purify them, they follow FDA regulations and they sell them to a lot of doctors. We ship them to the Bahamas because they're not FDA approved yet. They'll never be, I don't know if anybody in the FDA cares, but that's what we do. Now some people say, I don't want stem cells from newborn baby. That's easy. Well, companies are doing now to solve that problem that extracting the exosomes from those stem cells, which are bubbles within those released by those themselves. without the DNA. So those are super, super effective and they are the hottest thing now. Also, we offer those. So the exosomes and unbilically called stem cell, we offer in the Bahamas. Here, and we can do anything that we can also do the PRP and the adipose PRP and we have ethical approval. Here, we do PRP and adipose stem cell with a PRP. This is awesome. So awesome as I'm just learning lots and we got to have you back to discuss more. So I get chocolate twice. You get, well, you know, I usually just do the chocolate once because then it seems too much, you know, like people are like, what, unless you really want the chocolate twice, it's kind of like, all right, thanks for the thank you, but hey, you don't let somebody say, "Thank you, thank you, Carter," then you send them a thank you card back for the thank you card. So, listen. I'm buddy Gigi. I'm buddy Gigi for the chocolate event. It, you know, it takes away from the effect. Like, I enjoy doing it. It's like a nice, you won't now it's not as a prize for you, but I don't usually tell them. I just, so many of my team gets your address and they're like, "Why?" You know, and then all of a sudden they get a box of the mail saying, "Hey, thanks." So I spoiled my own surprise, what I mean. Yeah, so you'll get a what? If you're on Twites, I'll have to get creative and think of what we'll do for a second time. Hey, if you're on Twites, you can sit in chocolate. All right. How do they? So, Dr. Zahab Mahari, where do they find you? What is your website? Instagram channel. Because if people want to ask questions, have consults with you. I'm sure they want to reach out with you after this episode. How do they find you? Please don't find me. I don't want more questions. But if you have any questions, you can go to at edgivinatingfertility.com or you can go to my Instagram. It's dr_merhi_mehrhi. So we'll put that in the show notes too. Sure. Everybody, that's in the show notes. You and I will keep in touch on the low-level laser therapy. We probably have a follow-up on ozone and stem cell therapy. It's really cool. Sure. Here more about this PRP. Patients are asking about it a lot. Low-level laser therapy. I mean, we see people coming from all over to our clinic to learn about it and experience it. Glad that you're doing a study on it. I'm curious how that goes. I really enjoyed the idea around mini-IVF. I think that's another conversation. I think I want to go into more detail and learn about this. I want to go look at some of the research because I haven't done this. Just ask you questions about this or that. As I said, there's different opinions out there of other IVF clinics. But you've given an interesting argument, I would say, of why you may want to do a low medical, low drug approach. So thank you for giving me something to think about. Thank you so much. It really is a pleasure. I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed meeting you as well. Yeah. That was nice. Thank you. My pleasure. All right. If you're looking for support to grow your family, contact Accubelance Wellness Center. At Accubelance, they help you reach your peak fertility potential through their integrative approach using low-level laser therapy, fertility acupuncture, and naturopathic medicine. Download the Accubelance fertility diet and Dr. Brown's video for mastering manifestation and clearing subconscious blocks. Go to Accubelance.ca. That's acubelance.ca. Thank you so much for tuning into another episode of Conscious Fertility. The show that helps you receive life on purpose. Please take a moment to subscribe to the show and join the community of women and men on their path to peak fertility and choosing to live consciously on purpose. I would love to continue this conversation with you. So please direct message me on Instagram at Lorne Brown official. That's Instagram Lorne Brown official. Or you can visit my websites LorneBrown.com and Accubelance.ca. Until the next episode, stay curious and for a few moments, ring your awareness to your heart center and breathe.