133. Bioregulator Peptides with Nathalie Niddam

Nathalie Niddam 0:05

For me, one of the things that I'm always looking for is what are the things that we can introduce to the body that allows the body to do what the body does best.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 0:21

Welcome to the Your Longevity Blueprint podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Stephanie Gray. My number one goal with this show is to help you discover your personalized plan to build your dream health and live a longer, happier, truly healthier life. You're about to hear from Natalie NIMH. Today, we're going to be talking about bio regulator peptides what they are, what they do, how they work and how they impact our biological age and telomeres and how to best use them. Let's get started. Welcome to another episode of The your longevity blueprint Podcast. Today, my guest is Nathalie Niddam, who is a holistic nutritionist, human potential and epigenetic coach and she's also the host of the biohacking superhuman performance podcast. That focus has always been on the body's power to heal. And over the past several years longevity and healthspan have been added to that list. This is where a buyer regulators come in which we're going to talk about today. Once Nat discovered the she knew that part of her mission had to be to spread the word about this incredible resource that comes to us from nature. In addition to hosting her podcast networks with one on one clients, presents at conferences and leads a vibrant community of biohackers and health seekers on mighty networks, the BSP community. Welcome to the show, Nat.

Nathalie Niddam 1:31

It's nice to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 1:34

Well, I told you before we started recording that I heard about you threw me Horseman's podcast. So we have some friends in common here. So you've talked a lot about peptides on that episode. And so I had to bring you on my show. So let me ask you how you got so passionate about peptides and kind of, if they've changed your life,

Nathalie Niddam 1:49

Yeah, they've changed mine. They've totally changed my life in many different ways, both professionally and personally. And how I heard about them was at a conference, you know, I was at one of these kind of health conferences. And I've told this story before, actually, you know, it was one of those ones where I'd spent all my time in the exhibit hall connecting with the exhibitors and learning about the new stuff. And at one point, I just needed to take a load off. And so I went to sit down, and there was this guy on stage, talking any something he said, just kind of caught my attention. And I think the first thing that caught my attention was, you know, I have a 10. And he was quite tanned. And he goes, but I haven't spent much time in the sun at all. I achieved this with a peptide, and I was like, What's a peptide type? Right. And so then he goes on. And then the next thing he talked about, I think was BPC 157, which is incredible for gut healing. Now, I've liked the hook is in my mouth, I'm getting dragged through the water. And the next one he talks about is a pedal on which is actually a bio regulator peptide, which we'll talk about later. And by the time he was done with the list of benefits that the people experience had been through clinical trial, I was like, tapping the guy's shoulder in front of me going is this guy for real? Like, is he making this up? And he's like, this guy was a compounding pharmacist. And he's like, No, he is not making it up. This stuff is crazy. And so, you know, I was I walked away from there kind of scratching my head going, huh. And, and it was it became a bit of an obsession, right, just because for me, one of the things that I'm always looking for is, what are the things that we can introduce to the body that allows the body to do what the body does best? Right? I think one of the biggest challenges that we have in helping people to overcome their health issues or to live longer or healthier is that too many so often, a medication or a drug is going to exert its activity by blocking a pathway or changing something. And the problem with that is that the cascade of events that follows is not always either taken into account, or understood. And so then you end up with all those, you get that laundry list of side effects, and then you need another medication to offset the first medication. And which can get us into some trouble. And there's no doubt that drugs, you know, like, they're part of the landscape, and they can be really harmful. So there's a time and place for them. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Like your antibiotics. People are pooping over antibiotics all the time. I'm like, No, you know what some there's, there's, there's a reality, there's a benefit to being born at this stage of the world because antibiotics can really save somebody's bacon. But at the end at the same time, we, if we can find something that kind of flips on the body's own switch to do something better, and then allows those natural cascades to fall out as they're supposed to. Then were really to me were really onto something. And so that's kind of how I got into it. And my husband at the time was like, Oh my God, you have the worst shiny object syndrome. I'm like, No, it's not shiny object syndrome. It's lifelong learner syndrome.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 4:59

That's what I have What's up my husband? I have the are you comfortable sharing a little bit of a bit about how peptides have changed your life? Maybe your health? So for me,

Nathalie Niddam 5:07

I think well, so what I've done is over the last, it's been over a year now, I've been in a clinical trial using bio regulator peptides, which the goal is to see at the end of three years, what effect it's had on telomere length and DNA methylation. So your biological age. And when I came into the trial, I was actually already way ahead of the game. And I think it's because I'd already been using things like a pedal on and vestigial, like some of these bio regulators. But you know, on the peptide side, I've had a very mixed experience with peptides and soy, which I think people will find interesting. So VPC, 157, for me, which I like to call the Swiss Army knife of the peptide world because it does so many different things. I'm no different than the next guy, right? It's it's helped me to heal from injuries, it's helped me to recover from workouts. It's been like a really powerful tool in my arsenal. The other one that I've used quite extensively, particularly over the last couple of years to support my immune system has been thymosin alpha one. And that's been both for me and my family, you know, at a time when, you know, people are coming down with crazy bugs. If you have access to some of these tools, they can really help your body to deal with the challenge, maybe a little bit better. The first stack of peptides that I was ever put on by somebody else was what we would refer to now as a Wolverine snack. So it's your BPC 157 Your thymosin beta four and your CJC epimer Ellen and you know i Whenever I'm talking about peptides, I feel like I have to apologize to the audience because it's this freaking alphabet soup of it is compounds Right? Like it's like how do you even remember these things? I get people talking to me about CBP and BOC and like like they just they can't keep the letters straight. They don't remember what letters go where and I don't blame them because it's super confusing but unfortunately because these are technically still for the most part research chemicals there's no drug company that's picked them up except with a few exceptions and name them and given them a drug name right so we don't we don't have the name for these things that that makes it sound sexy or be accessible kind of thing so we're kind of stuck with what the researcher is who found it said oh, well this is and BPC actually is not that crazy. If you can remember that it actually stands for body protective compound then you can remember but anyway going back to my story on my Wolverine stack so the Wolverine stack is heal like a Wolverine right? Remember, in the X Men Wolverine gets an injury and he just spontaneously heals. So the promise of the Wolverine sack is pretty much that it will help you to heal and what it is is this BPC body protective compound 157 which is really really powerful for gut healing, but it's also extremely powerful for musculoskeletal injuries. And it can help with the brain like it really as you know, it's full spectrum in terms of the benefits for the body except for the few people who had DRS anxiety and and kookiness for and that we don't I don't really know why that is because BPC 157 on paper is supposed to normalize dopaminergic, serotonergic and GABAergic system as and for a very small percentage of people. It actually makes them crazy. They can't use it. Right. I'm

Dr. Stephanie Gray 8:29

Glad you said that, because I've had some patients report that. So I'm yeah, I'm glad you said that. But unfortunately, it sounds like we don't know why

Nathalie Niddam 8:35

We don't and you know, the problem is that because the narrative on BPC 157. And so many of these peptides is oh, they're totally safe, your body recognizes them. People allow some of these symptoms to go for quite a long time. And what I've seen with BPC 157, for those people who respond badly, too, and if they persist in using it, it can take quite a while for things to come back into balance. Sure. So one of the things I suggest to people is, at the end of the day, you've got if you're going to use these kinds of compounds, you have to be your own health detective, you have to be running your own and have one keep notes. Because it's you know, you might feel kind of depressed one day and you're like, okay, whatever, I feel depressed, right? But if you're not keeping notes, because you know, I started VPC 157 On Wednesday, and then you go back over your notes and you realize at the end of three or four or five or six or seven days that all of a sudden, you know, somebody turn the lights out. And it seems to coincide with when you started using this stuff. It behooves you to stop. Sure, see if things fall back into place, and then reconsider your options. Right. So

Dr. Stephanie Gray 9:42

I totally agree for some of those patients, though. It's almost like how, how bad is anxiety and that does the benefit of gut healing still outweigh the risk of the anxiety? And I think that's something each individual has to kind of weigh, right because the individual who maybe is negatively impacted or they still positively impacted? Is it still healing their gut? Right? Yeah, I guess that's The question I posed

Nathalie Niddam 10:00

Yeah, and the thing is there's there's many different ways to skin a cat. Yep. Right. So there are other peptides that help with gut healing nothing. Well, there's one that's as powerful as BPC 157. But it's not accessible in North America because there is a drug company that's caught in a hold of it called La Raza tide. And they haven't put it they haven't marketed yet. But they're running around sending cease and desist letters to anybody who's making it right. So it's kind of it's kind of made it inaccessible. There is one oral BPC 157 formula that is still includes it, but you have to order it from Australia. Anyway, back to the Wolverine stack. So thymosin beta four is the other piece of the Wolverine stack. And that is on paper. That's a thymus peptide. So it originates from the thymus gland. But it not only has immune properties, it has also massive properties in terms of reducing like it's anti fibrotic. It helps with reducing scar tissue, it also helps very much with musculoskeletal healing. There have been some animal trials both with BPC and T before that shows that you know healing of ligaments and tendons, that kind of stuff is really enhanced by these compounds. And they also have benefits for the nervous system for myelination. Like all the things, but TV four and BBC 157. It's kind of like your peanut butter and jelly, they just go together like beautifully because they really complement each other nicely. And then the third piece of the Wolverine stock, which I was using is CJC, 1295, and EPA, Merlin, these are two different things. CJC 1295 is one of them, EPA, Merlin is the other and they are referred to a known as growth hormone secreted gogs. And what that, you know, not to get too far into the weeds, what all that really means is that they are to compounds that stimulate the brain to produce and release your own growth hormone. And so they're a beautiful thing because more growth hormone, without excess can help you to heal faster. And it's really good for sleep, it's good for making muscle, it's good for losing fat, it's good for your brain, it's good for your skin, like it's kind of like a little bit of a magical elixir. So I use these for all three of them for I'm gonna say four to six weeks. And at the time, I was not keeping notes. So I can't tell you exactly how long I use them for. But I can tell you that the time that I was using them, I was doing CrossFit and heavy weight lifting. And it's like I never got sore. I became like, I started to think wow, I think I'm turning into Wolverine. This is super cool. And then one day, I noticed that and the way these are administered is by subcutaneous injection, right? So it's into the fat. It's very easy. It's with a little insulin needle. Anyway, one day I noticed Oh, wow. Like I think I got a mosquito bite. And then my mosquito bites started to get big and red and hot. And it was so itchy that I had to put a bandaid over it so that my T shirt wouldn't rub against it because it was so itchy. And my mosquito bite bunny there was another mosquito bite the next day and another the day after that. And they were getting really annoying. And then at this point, I'd gotten really confident. And I was combining all my peptides into one syringe and I was injecting it all together. And I found this really cool spot above my knee that's kind of fleshy and cushy. And that was a really great place to inject because it doesn't hurt and the whole nine yards. And I wake up one morning and it was like there was a golf ball right above my knee. And what had been building up until this point that I didn't know because the person who gave me the peptides are like 100% safe, there's never any side effect, you're totally fine, is that my immune system said wait a minute. We are not cool with this. And it had been getting progressively angrier and angrier and angrier until that golf ball happened. And it was like arms crossed. This is stopping right here now. And so to this day, I cannot touch thymosin beta four or CJC upper morale and my suspicion is the CJC Parolin was the worst troublemaker because now you know three and a half years in these are the peptides I see produce the most histamine responses in people. And then thymosin beta four. TB four is interesting because a peptide on paper is 50 amino acids or less in length. TV four by that definition is actually quite big. It's 43 amino acids. But what's interesting about TB four is that 43 amino acid peptide has all different docking areas, right? So it's not like a string. It's folded in different ways. And different folds produce different if you will docking sites for receptors in the body. And so if you can, if you separate it into its components, you can actually get TB for fragments that do different things to isolate different effects. There's one that's very anti inflammatory and another one that's T fibrotic there's another one that's really good for the heart. There's a question. You know, some people ask themselves, sometimes well, those little four amino acid chains, could some of those be bio regulators that haven't been discovered yet. But we'll leave that for a minute. We'll talk about that later. Needless to say, there is one fragment of TB four that actually drives histamine responses. And I never thought of myself as a person with any kind of histamine issues. But apparently, I might have some not crazy histamine issues like some people, but I can't use to before CJC a poor morale.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 15:32

And so were you cycling those? Or were you using them continuously? When

Nathalie Niddam 15:34

So I was doing a 12 week cycle? Okay, good. I never got through it. Right. Okay. I never made it to the end. Because when this happened, obviously, I had to cease and desist everything. So that was my, you know, I think it's an important story to share. Because I think it highlights on the one hand, the benefits you can get, but on the other hand, the things that can go wrong. Right. And I wonder if I hadn't been mixing them in the same syringe, if I hadn't, if maybe it would have been just the CJC up umbrella and, and not the tea before, that would have been the problem. But we'll never know. And so now, when people asked me for advice, I always recommend that they never combined more than one peptide into one syringe until they've established that they tolerate and that you have to wait. Yeah, yeah, you have to wait. In a best case scenario, I asked people to wait a month, because it can take that long for the immune system to kind of declare war.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 16:33

Sure, yeah, that's a good story. Thank you for sharing that I was gonna say, Let's rewind and kind of define what peptides are, which you kind of just did. So let's move on to some of your other favorite peptides, we have to talk about peptides for weight loss, because most of my patients always want to work towards improving body composition changes and you know, lose weight, whatnot. So thank you for sharing about those three, what are some of your other favorite peptides?

Nathalie Niddam 16:56

I would say one of my other favorite peptides is the copper peptide, GH K, it does a lot. It's incredibly beneficial for skin, it's very beneficial to reduce scarring when people are having surgery, it seems to have anxiolytic effects. It I actually think it helps with hair restoration. Now the interesting thing about that is just the other day somebody in my group posted a study that was saying that one of the ways the GH kcu in particular, helps with hair growth. And usually it's used topically in conjunction with micro needling and then a bunch of other stuff is that it inhibits DHT. And which is an interesting thing to think about when we're using it systemically for men, and I don't know what the fallout from that is. But to me, it's it's another little reminder that especially with compounds like hkcu, there's so much we still don't know about it, that it's really a good idea. Just Just be mindful when you're using it and stay curious, stay open and keep notes right Mallanna tend to is another peptide that I've used I haven't used in a long time, actually, but that I really liked. But you know, here's another good news, bad news story. So I'm using the Lana 10. Two, which is great for helping you to 10 with very little sun exposure, but actually it also has some appetite suppressing effects, it also helps to raise your resting metabolic rate it so it can help with fat loss, like it's, it helps to thicken skin, it's a really interesting peptide, the dark side of Milan attend to is it can make you super tired, because it acts on those alpha MSH receptors. And that 10 can be great, except if you don't have somebody else telling you, hey, you're looking really good. Or how many hours have you been sitting in the sun? Because what happens is, you see you every day, and you miss the part about how you start to just get to 10. Right. So since there's people, like you see people are like, Okay, that's a little scary. But the other thing that happened with me, and I didn't know this was a thing until it happened to me is that some people will hyper pigment at the injection site. So I got one blob, and I thought it was a bruise. Because every once in a while you do a subcutaneous injection, you hit a little blood vessel and you get a bit of a bruise. Then I got another bruise. And then shortly after that, I got a third bruise. And then I realized the bruises aren't going away. And that's when I dug into the research and learn. It's not a bruise. Yeah. But it's not a bruise. And it took a year for those spots to go away. So instead, I can I use if I'm going to use it, I use it. intranet easily. Why is the same, you get the same benefits, but you don't get the same thing. So, you know, so there's these little nuances and things that people don't tell you necessarily either because they don't know they forget or they they don't know. Right. So I'm so going to the weight loss peptides. I mean, there's a host so there's definitely people who do very well with the growth hormone secretagogues Mm. They, and these are people that are, I mean, actually, you can be someone with a lot of weight to lose or very little way to lose. But particularly if you've got your nutrition dialed in and you're exercising, and you're a good responder, not everybody is, I've seen people do really well with growth hormone secretagogues. for body composition, I have to Yeah. And then the next one is set Mallanna tide, which is a fragment of Mallanna tan. And the problem was set Mallanna tide is again it, you can get the tanning, which can be not great after a while, and it can make you nauseous. And it can also make you very tired, like you find yourself yawning a lot during the day. But part of that is a brain, it's hitting a brain reset brain section of your brain that makes you yawn. It's the weirdest thing. And it's annoying, especially when you're a podcaster. And trying to stay interested in what people are saying to you. It's not that you're not interested, but they think you're not because you're yawning. So and you've got this weird tan. So it's to me, it's, it was never like but but it can help with body calm to a point. And it helps a lot with appetite. And the people who do the best with it are people that have a genetic variant on the palm see gene, and those people are very rare. But for those people, it's almost like the thing that they need. Go down a little further. And now we've got these two new compounds that are the closest thing to a silver bullet bullet in fat loss that I think humanity has ever come across. And these are the GLP one agonists. And they're getting a lot of good press and a lot of terrible press. And I think part of the reason why they're getting terrible press is because once again, people are going for shortcuts, right? So set Mallanna tide, which is the first one that came out, is a GLP one agonist. And it's amazing because it does reduce appetite. But more importantly, it metabolically has a lot of benefits to the body. So it improves your glucose sensitivity. It increases your resting metabolic rate, it affects the brain centers that drive cravings and reduces those cravings people often find it's not so much that they're full as that they don't. They don't care. They don't seem to want.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 22:13

Yeah, that's what my patients say they just have this freedom. It's just, they just want food. Yeah, I mean, it is important to still eat though to be clear. But yeah, especially protein. Yeah. So this is where

Nathalie Niddam 22:26

People get into trouble. Number one, to me, if you're going to use one of these peptides, don't lean on it. 100% to do the work, use it just enough to get you to that place where you have now control over your cravings and your intake. But do the work on improving your diet now. Right. So protein first, and then healthy fats, and then your vegetables, you're not going to be able to eat as much. So what you eat, you've got to make it count. Now you have to make it count. And so this is the time when you have when you're freed from oh, what I really want is a muffin. But she's telling me I gotta eat like a burger or not even a burger. But she's telling me I gotta eat a piece of fish, which I really don't want. I really want the chocolate chip muffin, you're freed from that kind of struggle. Now's the time to kind of lean into what does a healthy diet look like feel like set those habits, start exercising, that rebuild your lean mass. Because if you use whether it's set Milena tighter to his appetite, and you under eat, and you don't eat enough protein, and you don't exercise, you're going to lose weight, but you're also going to lose muscle. And then when you stop, you're going to be I can't remember who the actress was not that long ago who's like, oh, you know, I stopped the semaglutide. And my cravings came back, I started binge eating and I put on double the weight. Well, if you're losing your lean mass, and you don't have good eating habits, guess what? You're gonna balloon, right? So turns appetite is the newest entry into that world. And it came out it was made available by the FDA, I believe last July. So there's not quite as much data out on it. However they did the trials, it's the same thing as semaglutide, except that it also acts on another receptor. Right? So it's a GLP one and G I always forget as G one p or GL. I think it's a GN G one p is the other one. So it's two different receptors. So it's not only leaning on the GLP one, what happens with the GLP one receptor over time, is that it can start to kind of involute a little bit just from being used, overused, if you will. And so Tara's appetite number one doesn't drive nausea to the same degree, which is great. And number two, because it's it's exerting its effect on different pathways, not just relying on one. It seems to help people to break through the plateaus. They sometimes hit on the semaglutide Sure, and but it's got all the same same benefits. But it's got the same caveat. And there's an I think it bears mentioning that there are two a couple of really, there's a couple of black box warnings on both of these compounds. One is that in, in very few, but still, in some people, it can drive pancreatitis, which is horrible, painful and awful. And there's a blackbox warning on a very rare form of thyroid cancer. The only thing with that is that it's only ever been observed in rats. There's not been a human case yet. So, you know, but still, someone with a history of thyroid cancer needs to be aware of

Dr. Stephanie Gray 25:36

these things. In pancreatitis or something, we had a patient in our office, we've used a lot of this, I don't know 5060 People on the some semaglutide I never know how to say it. semaglutide semaglutide, whatnot. We've seen some pretty incredible results, but one patient we nearly prescribed it to had history of pancreatitis. And we had to say nope, nope. You know, unfortunately, it's just not worth the risk at this point. Let's try something else. For sure.

Nathalie Niddam 25:58

And yeah, sorry. The only other thing I was gonna say is some some practitioners will put people on BPC 157 At the same time. And the reason for that is body protective compound also is organic, protective. It protects Oregon's that makes sense. Yeah. And I would and I'm also if I'm ever talking to someone who's asking me about these things, I also invite them to really consider cutting down or cutting out the booths because the last thing you want to do is challenge the pancreas. In a situation because we don't know why the pancreatitis happens.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 26:33

Yeah, good point. I was really curious. When I started my patients on this peptide, I was kind of thinking I had patients in two buckets, right? We had the patients that were super compliant, they were already doing everything we had requested of them, they had healed their gut, they were hormonally optimized, right. And they just for whatever reason, we had tried to detoxify you know, their body, they just couldn't budge the needle and couldn't lose weight. And so I thought, okay, let's, let's try that, you know, cherry on the cake, let's try peptides and see if they would help. And then I have the other bucket of patients who aren't quite as compliant, who don't live such a, you know, clean lifestyle. And I thought, well, this is probably going to help them. I was curious to know which bucket of individuals it would help the most. If one bucket it wouldn't help Long story short, it did help patients in both buckets, right. But my concern is then long term when these patients wean down, then they may continue with a low dose maintenance. But if they weaned down and off, I think patients in the bucket that aren't living the healthy lifestyle aren't going to have the sustainable results.

Nathalie Niddam 27:26

Yeah, right. No, if they go back to the crappy habits, you're right, like they're just gonna end up right back to where they started.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 27:32

So yep. What else? Any others for weight loss? Or should we get into? What about brain function mood peptides? for that? I know a lot of individuals want to optimize their cognitive status, what are your favorite peptides for kind of mood and brain? So?

Nathalie Niddam 27:48

Yeah, for the brain, for me, again, like we have to be working on all the other pieces, right. And, you know, there's definitely there's a couple of there's SeaMAX. And sea lions are two peptides that are kind of anxiolytic. Like, they're great for anxiety, they're great for brain function, that kind of thing. You wouldn't use them at the same time, you would kind of alternate between them, like weeks and four weeks. Again, those are cool also, because you can use them into nasally. And those guys, you know, they're they can work really well for some people, and they're not so great for others. There's another one called AI and I would say on the brain peptides for the most part. There's some they're showing real promise, but it always depends like, what's the and this is the question people have to ask themselves before they use a peptide. Like the question that I get asked the most often in, in the communities that I run is, what's the peptide for? Right? What's the peptide for X or Y or Z? And I'm like, Well, do we know why X, Y or Z is happening? Because if you don't understand the pathway that's happening to get you there, we can't figure out what the peptide is that's going to fix or try to address that pathway. So you know, brain dysfunction could be any number of problems, right? It could be bad nutrition. It could be I'm not sleeping, it could be I have the beginnings of dementia, it could be vascular issues, it could be thinking. Yeah, exactly. And so for mold toxicity, well, you might use some of the some of the intranasal peptides, to you know, from our cons for as matter of fact, it's Mallanna tan is really interesting for sirs, chronic inflammatory response syndrome and use the inter nasally because Mallanna tan in addition to all the other things we talked about, also has antimicrobial effects. So, you know, there's just

Dr. Stephanie Gray 29:47

there's more to the story. It's not that easy. Yes, what you're saying

Nathalie Niddam 29:51

it's never that simple. But I think for me, like with the with, in terms of Yeah, I mean, I'm gonna leave it at that just because there's you know, we could keep going for another time as

Dr. Stephanie Gray 30:03

well, we talked a little bit about peptides, ones that are popular ones you like using the ones you've tried yourself, let's specifically move on to bio regulator peptides. So what are those and what differentiates them from just kind of regular peptides? Yeah, so

Nathalie Niddam 30:15

Bio regulator peptides are, by definition they are, they're no fewer than because they have to be more than one, two amino acids and no more than four amino acids long. Right. So these are, these would be referred to as short chain peptides, as opposed to the other peptides, which are, by definition small, but they're called long chain peptides, because by comparison, they're longer, except that you will find in the long chain peptide group, some three amino acid peptides, like KPV, or GH K. But we can't talk about those because now we're going to talk about why regulators and we don't have that much time left. So bio regulators, by definition, are two to four amino acids long, and they modulate, by and large, so they don't boost, they don't depress, they are always in a world of trying to restore balance to the tissue glander organ that they are specific to,

Dr. Stephanie Gray 31:08

to via gene expression or via like how,

Nathalie Niddam 31:11

okay via gene expression. So they are so tiny. So both because of their tiny size and the polar charge that they carry, they are able to cross through the cellular membrane, cross through the nuclear membrane. So that's get into the nucleus, they bind to binding sites on DNA, and upregulation, the production of proteins made by that genetic material, and in doing so they restore function and form to the target tissue, gland and organ. So they're super interesting, both in a therapeutic sense. And in a longevity health span sense, right? Because if we think about ourselves, as we age, there's a natural wearing down of parts, for lack of a better term, right? And this is oversimplifying, but you wear things out, right? Things don't work as well. You know, your stomach, your stomach, the chief, the parietal cells in the in the stomach may not produce as much HCl, the islet cells in the pancreas may not produce insulin quite as efficiently or they may get damaged. Well, what if we had a way to help the body to repair some of that damage? And that's the offer of the bio regulator peptides?

Dr. Stephanie Gray 32:25

Yeah, not what if we do? Well? Yeah, we do. We do.

Nathalie Niddam 32:29

And so on a therapeutic level, when we're talking about people who are actually sick. The the medical doctors, and the practitioners who integrate them into their practice, will use them in conjunction with quite often conventional therapies. Like they're not only they're not going to throw everything out the window and say, it's only the bio regulators. Yeah, they will, you know, for example, there's some immune bio regulators where they can be used after someone has had cancer treatment, and their immune system has been trashed. Well, what if we could bring in these compounds that helped to restore function and form to the immune to different parts of the immune system? Like, wouldn't that be amazing to have and get back on their feet? Right? Absolutely. So. So there's one that the one that is the most, I would say, if there's one bio regulator that is the most popular and well known, is a piddle on which is the Pineal Gland bio regulator. And it has many claims to fame. It's one of the three peptides that got my attention when I was sitting in that lecture, right. And what really gets people's attention when they kind of clue in here is that there's over 40 years of research behind these by regulators, but it was all done in Russia, and Croatia, and the Ukraine, right, that whole part of the world is where all this the biggest body of research lives. And it was started by a Russian doctor who was in the military called Vladimir cavesson. And he did both animal computer generated modeling, and many, many, many human clinical trials using the bio regulators, because when the military came to him and said, You need to figure out a way to make sure that our soldiers don't get blinded by lasers or don't get, you know, don't age before their time from going up into space or sitting in a poorly built nuclear submarine. They gave him fully cap blush. And in those days, you got to do whatever the heck you wanted. You then said to him, You know what, we have factories full of people that we could try the stuff on. For the most part, I mean, and we the cool thing about bio regulators is you literally can do no harm, which is really fascinating. So there's

Dr. Stephanie Gray 34:45

no I haven't used a pedal on so there are really no side effects.

Nathalie Niddam 34:49

I've yet to see the only thing you could call a side effect from a pedal on is I've seen occasionally women who are postmenopausal experienced some breakthrough rebleeding Sure,

Dr. Stephanie Gray 35:01

which is a good thing that's taking their hormones back into gear. Yeah,

Nathalie Niddam 35:03

it's taking. So what does it piddle on do through the pineal gland, it restores melatonin production, it normalizes melatonin production. It is the it is the master endocrine regulator of your body. So it's kind of like the orchestra conductor for all the hormone systems in your body. So it's gonna, it's going to seek to restore balance, wherever there's imbalance, it's not going to be able to do it all all the time. But that's kind of like the end game. And then the other thing that it does, that's super sexy and very interesting is that it lengthens telomeres,

Dr. Stephanie Gray 35:36

explained

Nathalie Niddam 35:38

To me, so yeah, so telomeres are the kind of like little shoelace do hickeys on the ends of your DNA. As your DNA as you know, your DNA replicates and replicates and replicates. And every time it replicates, those telomeres get a little shorter, shorter, shorter, shorter. If we can restore or maintain the length of the telomeres, that means that our DNA can replicate longer. Now, it also means that we need to be doing our work, we need to be using senolytics Every once in a while. So we get rid of damaged DNA we're using, I like to use something called spermidine. That's really important, because it enhances my toffee, G and a toffee G. And so these are all the processes that the body uses to clean out damaged proteins damaged DNA and get rid of, of the take out the trash as it were. But if we can lengthen our telomeres, it's not like there's a straight line between longer telomeres and longer life or healthier life. But you're sure you're going to do better with longer telomeres and shorter telomeres.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 36:36

Agreed? Well, back to spermidine. Tell the audience a little bit about that. I know you have like probably complete episodes donated to that on your your podcast, but explain to the audience a little bit about that. So spermidine is

Nathalie Niddam 36:47

A fascinating, kind compound. And it's it was I want to say that I can't remember. Leslie Kenny is the person that I interviewed. And I'm actually about to have her back on the podcast because we haven't done one in a couple of years. But spermidine is this compound that is naturally occurring in sperm, hence the name. And its kind of job in sperm is It's speculated, but its job in sperm is to protect genetic material, right. And so what's fascinating about spermidine, and it can be extracted from wheat germ, or for people who really can't tolerate who are like celiac can't tolerate any gluten, you can also buy spermidine that's extracted from chlorella, but that's specially grown to be high and spermidine. But spermidine hits not. I think it's six of the nine hallmarks of aging. And it supports those cellular cleanup processes in the body that are so important.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 37:47

And how the stern, oral, okay,

Nathalie Niddam 37:51

it's all right. So it's a capsule, the company that I really liked, for a lot of reasons is a company called Primatene by Oxford healthspan. And so they have both the gluten free and the non gluten free version. And they end what people So what's cool about this supplement and we're completely off topic here because it's not even a peptide or a by regulator. But what's really cool about this supplement is that there's it does all these under the hood things right and it helps to regulate protein, folding misfolded proteins, it helps to protect DNA, it, it triggers my toffee, g a toffee, all the OFA G's you can imagine, it helps with cellular signaling, like it's just really important. But what people will notice when they take it regularly is that their hair skin and nails improve. No, Sign me up. Exactly. It's like you actually there's, there's so few supplements where you can visibly see the effects, right? And and then the third thing that it does, that people will notice is that it can really help to improve deep sleep. And there are some people who are like, Oh my God, this stuff is bomb. So it's really, it's a really cool one. But getting back to what do you want to go back to?

Dr. Stephanie Gray 39:06

I have to ask, I have to ask if there are bio regulators, which I shouldn't say ask I know there are can you share with us some bio regulators for thyroid?

Nathalie Niddam 39:15

So there's one and it's called fibrogen. And so there's a thought so let me go through a few of the majors. So we've got the pineal gland bio regulator, which because it's at the the head of the classes that were we never leave it out, right? There's a bio regulator for blood vessels that helps to restore the integrity and the health of the lining of your blood vessels. Then we have the next one that I think you know, I'm gonna order go in descending order of importance, I mean, you know, depending on your issues, your order may not be the same. The next one is the thymus gland. Bio regulator is super important because we know that the thymus gland starts to involute once we get past 30, so anything we can do to restore function to that thymus gland is going to improve our immune system. I'm in addition to what a pidilite is doing to improve our immune system because it does all these different things. Then we have, there's a bio regulator for the heart. There's a bio regulator for the pancreas. There's an organ specific, yes. Super organ specific, in addition to thyroid gland, adrenal gland, ovaries, prostate, testes, the central nervous system.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 40:22

So for fertility, are these helpful? Yeah, for sure.

Nathalie Niddam 40:27

So again, as much as I've seen breakthrough bleeding, and women who are postmenopausal, not often but on occasion, I've also seen younger women who are still cycling, two and two or three in particular, in my groups who had lost their cycle prematurely, like it's not from menopause, they started taking a pill on the ovarian, ovarian bio regulator, and their cycle came back. Right. So it just, it just kind of helped to bring things back into balance. It's not always that easy. And they were probably doing lots of other things as well. So here's the other thing about the bio regulators, like don't forget, you still have to be doing the work. It's like anything else, right. And it's also they work better almost in teams, or in stacks. So we almost never use a bio regulator by itself. So if I had those,

Dr. Stephanie Gray 41:15

you know, subcutaneous injections, or how are the bio regulators administer? Oh,

Nathalie Niddam 41:19

that's a really good question, actually, before I talk about anything else, so there's really two ways to get a bio regulator. One is the natural extract from the actual tissue glendan, Oregon, from calves that have been raised very, in a very particular fashion. And I think a lot of them are either in Switzerland or France or Italy, like you know, the fact that the manufacturer is really one major manufacturer of the Kevin's and bio regulators. And so they're very particular about where they're getting their bio regulators from. So those ones are

Dr. Stephanie Gray 41:54

sound like they're glandulars like we can give an A dri article or a thyroid glandular is very similar concept.

Nathalie Niddam 41:59

I think it's the exact same concept. I think they're just processed in a different way to really maximize the the concentration of these amino acid sequences in there. But I actually think the next level over down if you will, from the bio regulator, is your is your glandular supplement. That's why with glandular supplements, you sometimes see such incredible stuff. The only thing is that with the glandular, I feel like there's different concentrations of different elements that you might not want to give the thyroid glandular, to someone who's hyperthyroid, right. Whereas with the bio regulator, you can use the bio regulator with the hyper aura hypothyroid person, it'll just bring them back into balance. So it's in some ways, it's just a more refined product than the than the than the glandular. Sure. Then there's the synthetic bio regulator. So now this is where they've isolated that two to four amino acid chain. And they're able to now recreated in a lab. And that synthetic bio regulator can either be used by subcutaneous injection, or increasingly, you've got a couple of companies that have now produced sublingual drops, nasal sprays, or even transdermal now the transdermal I'm, I don't know, maybe I'm just being old fashioned. I'm not buying it 100%. But the sublinguals have been tested and are very effective. The challenge on those is that are quite expensive.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 43:32

Okay, are these then cycled? Also? Are they taken continuously?

Nathalie Niddam 43:36

No, you recycle them. So so. So the way to use by regulators again, like you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of art to the science kind of thing. But depending on what you're dealing with, and how long it's been and what else you're doing for your your patient. In your case, I have clients who have patients is that you might start with like a 30, or 20 Day induction phase of every single day. And then you might do 10 day cycles for for the next two to three to four to five months kind of thing until you start to see that movement. And so hopefully, you're following them with labs and bloodwork and all the different and even the the subjective cues that the body's coming back into balance.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 44:20

So you mentioned you're under currently under a clinical trial couple year trial where you're taking by regulators, is that what you're saying? Yeah,

Nathalie Niddam 44:26

I cycled through anywhere from seven to nine by regulators. Wow. Wow. Just like a full system rebuild, right?

Dr. Stephanie Gray 44:33

Yeah. Did you I'm just personally curious. Obviously, the trial is probably measuring down telomere length, like you mentioned, but did you check hormone levels or anything else? Just for your own personal data pre? Throughout? And will you post Do you have some other data that you're gathering? Yeah, so

Nathalie Niddam 44:50

that's a really good question. I I watched my hormones and the the the intention behind the protocol that I was put on, was to read Your telomere length and DNA methylation patterns. I have not seen that much of a shift in my like thyroid figure that, you know, my thyroid is not quite optimal, like it could be better. In my second year of the trial. Now, I'm now bringing more attention to that. So I may skew my protocol a little differently to direct more directly address. And because I'm going to be working on my thyroid, I'm also most likely going to be looking at my adrenal glands, right. So really leaning into, and that's what I was going to say before, when you're addressing thyroid, we know that you also want to be addressing the adrenal glands. You also want to be addressed when you want to get at that whole HPA axis, right? So it's definitely it's, it's a really interesting thing where you want to start to really think about this stuff holistically. And what are the other things you can be doing to support those systems and those processes?

Dr. Stephanie Gray 45:57

Totally, we have a very heavy hormone replacement therapy practice. And I always wonder, like, if I were to incorporate some of these bio regulator peptides, right, would that lessen the amount of hormone replacement therapy that is needed? Or like even in the younger population? Can we delay the need to initiate Yeah, moans. And so I just haven't used enough of them to kind of know where that I don't know, sweetspot is and whatnot, but it sounds very promising.

Nathalie Niddam 46:22

I think it's going to vary. And I think that in your practice, if you decide you're going to get into these, what's going to happen is you're going to deep dive, you're going to read the research Baba Baba, and then you're like, Okay, let's try this. And the beauty of the bio regulators is, the biggest risk is to someone's pocketbook, it's going to cost them some money. They're not going to get hurt. But it's going to be a journey for you and your patients to say, you know, how are we going to move the needle and the and the big thing is, it's going to vary from person to person.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 46:52

Totally, I want to come back to what you're just saying to on the safety profile. So again, for the most part, you're saying these bio regulators are just bringing the body back into balance. So they really shouldn't cause any harm. What about contraindications, with medications, naturally interact again,

Nathalie Niddam 47:08

none. Because again, like, think about what they're doing, right? They're not shutting down a pathway or turning up a pathway. Like they're not interrupting any of the chemical processes in the system. All they're doing is they're trying to bring that organ, like they're almost trying to bring the computer back online.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 47:26

Mm hmm.

Nathalie Niddam 47:27

I like that. So I think the only thing that could happen again, you have someone who's very hypothyroid, and they're on thyroid medication, and you've got them on a thyroid, vital prior regulator protocol, whatever that looks like in your world, you want to watch their numbers, because you may have to listen to nomination. Yeah, it's not outside of the question that they might have to lessen their medication, right, or someone with blood sugar issues, and you're working on pancreas and liver and all the things and all of a sudden, you know, that dose of blood sugar regulating medication you have them on is too strong, and they start having hypoglycemic events. So do you do what the one doctor says? And says to their patient, well just go have a Gatorade? Or do you say to your patient, hmm, I wonder if things are starting to kick in? Let's reduce that dose of medication and see how you do

Dr. Stephanie Gray 48:14

orally? In your experience? How quickly do the by regulators seem to work?

Nathalie Niddam 48:19

It really varies. Like I've seen people with major sleep issues with a pedal on experience a change in days. Others notice that they do the whole cycle. And it's not until after the cycle is done that they start to see a difference. And others need many, many different cycles. So it has everything to do with how far down the road. How much damage there is how much work there is to be done. And what else are you doing to fix it? Yeah, I just had, I just had a meeting with a client just before this. And, you know, she's like, well, I'm having these major blood sugar events in the middle of the night and I can't sleep and I wake up and the pedal and didn't do anything for my sleep. And I'm like, Well, okay, well hold on a second. Because you know, until you fix the blood sugar problem, the A pedal on can't it's not going to fix your blood sugar problem. So you got to put all the pieces together, right and people people just forget that

Dr. Stephanie Gray 49:14

my analogy and my book your longevity blueprint is where we really compare how you would rebuild and really maintain a home right to the body. And so I think it just sounds like these peptides are just one other piece and one other foundational tool that would help repair rebuild the home aka the body. So yeah, yeah, awesome. Well,

Nathalie Niddam 49:32

and to your point, I love the home analogy to your point like another piece that people kind of forget is you have raging inflammation if your house is on fire nothing's gonna really

Dr. Stephanie Gray 49:43

we're not gonna rebuild until we put out the fire. Yeah, there are some priorities that have to happen. Absolutely. Yep. Yeah. Anything else you want to share that we didn't quite get into on peptides or by regular peptides? We kind of talked all around but this was great.

Nathalie Niddam 49:57

Yeah, I am I you know, we could I could go in Like 1000 different directions, I think, I think that the bio regulators, as much as they're not as well known, probably have more. And I mean, it's changing because there's, if you go on PubMed, you can find a ton of trials that are happening with peptides, but not as, but the bio regulators have way more human clinical trials behind them, even though nobody has the money to do them anymore. There'll be that. But the the other peptides, the big challenge, of course, is that there's not those human clinical trials going on, because the only ones that are going to happen are going to be the pharmaceutical company, who said, who believes, and this is what happened with semaglutide into his appetite, is they've altered naturally occurring peptides in the body, so that they work better so that they have a certain effect. And so it's a tweak, and as soon as they can make that tweak, and I mean, to their credit, the Tweak they made made all the difference in the world. Right, it turns something that was nothing into something that really moves the needle for people. So I just I think that I all I would say to your audience is, you know, if you have a physician like you who's curious and open and looking at this stuff, you have the best ally in in this journey with peptides because you're able to pull from all the different fucking all the different toolkits around you to get your best outcome.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 51:27

Totally. Well tell listeners where they can find you. I know you have Facebook group of community, so share that with us.

Nathalie Niddam 51:33

Yeah, so the Facebook community, like I said to you earlier, it's a bit of the Wild Wild West, it's a massive community. It's over 14,000 people. So it's called optimizing superhuman performance. And you know, as it gets bigger, it gets harder for me and my admin to kind of stay on top of everything, but we do our best and it's it's a very vibrant community. The So what's happened is in November of last year, I started a new community on mighty networks called BSP so as in biohacking superhuman performance, which is the name of my podcast, which is the other way to kind of learn more about this stuff. And the mighty networks community is tighter, it's smaller, but I do a lot more in person stuff there. So I do live q&a is in there, I invite other experts to come in and do live q&a s will sometimes do special offers with no one experiments with different supplements and protocols. Like it's actually a really fun group. And then people who join for a year get my peptide crash course included in their membership. And so to learn about that, you just go to my website, net net m.com. And there's a tab at the top that says VSP community, and that's where you would join up if you wanted to do that. Like I said, there's the podcast, the biohacking superhuman performance podcast, and then I'm on Instagram just under my name, Natalie Niddah.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 52:48

That's awesome. Yeah, awesome. Okay, last question. What's your absolute top longevity tip? I know it's hard to narrow down one. And you may have already mentioned it on the show. But

Nathalie Niddam 52:58

my top longevity tip, a top longevity tip is to remain curious and open. And, you know, to avoid being rigid, I think that in this health journey that we're all on, it's so tempting to become dogmatic when we learn certain things. And if there's one thing we know about the human body is that there's a whole lot we don't know. So, you know, do the best you can take care of the basics, right? The sleep, the nutrition, the stress management, the movement, the getting outside, all, like, take care of that foundation. And then when it comes to the fancy stuff, you know, layer it in as you need it. But always maintain that aspect of curiosity so that you're not you're never kind of you never become so rigid that you believe that this is the only way. There's always going to be another way.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 53:54

The very unique answer, no one has said that. So Oh, right answer. Thank you. Yeah. Well, thank you for coming on the show and really sharing how effective peptides can be. I know I am curious, more curious than I was before I interviewed you and I'm sure the listeners are as well. And I think the listeners also may be a little hooked as are you and dice. So are they know so thank you so much for your time today. This was awesome.

Nathalie Niddam 54:18

Thank you, Stephanie. This has been great. I really, really enjoyed the conversation.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 54:22

Another super interesting show. There's always just so much more to learn. I love how peptides can help the body do what it's supposed to do best. If you're interested to try some buyer regulators mentioned on today's show, Natalie recommends purchasing from profound hyphen health.com and use her discount code longevity 15 for 15% off. Notice some of these may have Russian names which can be a little confusing so opt for the nature's Marvel brand names of which are easier to understand and select. Be sure to check out my book your longevity blueprint and if you aren't much of a reader, you're in luck. You can now take my course online where I walk you through each Chapter in the book. Plus for a limited time the course is 50% off. Check this offer out at your longevity blueprint.com and click the Course tab. One of the biggest things you can do to support the show and help us reach more listeners is to subscribe to the show. Leave us a rating and review on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen. I do read all the reviews and would truly love to hear your suggestions for show topics guests and for how you're applying what you learn on the show to create your own longevity blueprint. This podcast is produced by Team podcast thank you so much for listening and remember, wellness is waiting

the information provided in this podcast is educational. No information provided should be considered to be or used as a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always consult with your personal medical authority.