Why Your Doctor Is Wrong About Testosterone, Peptides & Longevity | Dr. Ashley Madsen

What if the reason you feel exhausted, unmotivated, and stuck has nothing to do with discipline and everything to do with what is happening inside your cells? In this episode of the Success Formula Podcast, we sit down with Dr. Ashley Madsen, a leading expert in regenerative and functional medicine, for an unfiltered deep dive into the world of peptides, hormone optimization, NAD therapy, red light therapy, and the future of longevity medicine. 

We break down what peptides actually are and why they are not new despite the media hype. We talk about BPC-157, SS31, GHK-Cu, growth hormone secretagogues, and which ones are coming back on the market after FDA reclassification. Dr. Madsen explains why most people should not start with peptides before fixing foundational issues like micronutrient deficiencies, thyroid function, and testosterone levels. 

We also get personal about how a testosterone level of 90 nearly derailed everything and what the path back looked like. Whether you are a busy entrepreneur, someone struggling with brain fog, or just trying to feel like yourself again, this conversation is packed with actionable insight you will not hear in a typical doctor visit. 

Dr. Madsen also shares her work with Lumara Collective building regenerative homes designed around longevity principles. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Stop stop levels don't mean that you're actually well nourished.

SPEAKER_01 0:04

On this podcast, my guest is actually bad.

SPEAKER_02 0:07

You're only as good as what you guys got. Like this is gonna help you that much.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

She breaks both of these down in a way that actually makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 0:19

There's so many different areas that can get broken down.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

You're not gonna believe what she says about why your doctor has never once brought this. This podcast clears up what actually works.

SPEAKER_02 0:29

Everything starts in the gut.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

What is overhyped?

SPEAKER_02 0:31

If I just give you a cafe, it's great. It's perfect.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

And what most doctors will not tell you.

SPEAKER_02 0:36

It's not going to actually treat the underlying issue.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Because they were never cleaned.

SPEAKER_02 0:40

People deserve to understand what's their nutrition, what's their absorbing, how they're functioning.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

And you need to make sure you listen all the way to the end because you're gonna be shocked to hear what she has to say about.

SPEAKER_02 0:50

Don't just go to random clinics. You want someone who understands you.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

A lot of doctor well, traditional doctors, like it's like not a lot of health-focused life. Um, I think now it's it's starting to really become a little bit different. At least at least it seems like that to me. Yeah. But then whenever I go to like a place like the airport or something else, and you're like, you look at the majority of people. I guess maybe I'm just like around more and more people that are focused on it. And then the majority of people are still it's like pretty bad. And I took my kid to like this go-kart track the other day on Saturday. It's like Saturday afternoon, and I'm like looking around, I'm like, man, it's rough. Like just people are in just really bad shape. Like the like that, I guess just the average everyday people or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 1:38

I know. That's why, you know, you build your microcosm. And then sometimes, you know, that's why a lot of us get we get a lot of backlash from social media because they're like, oh, well, you treat a certain demographic who can afford these things, or they have the ability to do this, but what about the single mom who's working two jobs?

SPEAKER_01 1:56

That's actually the traditional system. That's not the people making content on social media. It's because they've they've been like trained to like medical as an expense, number one. And then health insurance is expensive and you don't really use it that much. And then when you do use it, you still come out of pocket. I remember I was I'm I'm in YPO or I'm I'm joining YPO. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So one of the guys at this meeting, like I had just joined, my friends have been pushing me, pushing me, and I went to my last little like third event that I had to go to before they let me in. And one of the guys came up to me and he's like, Man, I really appreciate you interesting to do something to Dr. Hogan, like changed my life. He's like, I tried to get my buddy to do it, and when he called, he was like, Man, it's pretty expensive. And and then like me and him are talking, it's like, what like the dude has all kinds of money? And it's like it's just weird how people like when you grow up, like the way the system is, I even people with money are kind of trained to wear like, oh, that's that's a lot of money. It's like, well, it's gonna change your life, number one. But I think they're looking at it as an expense.

SPEAKER_02 2:54

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

It's like even though it's like it's cultural, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:58

It's like, oh, well, you have health insurance, you're the same. That's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

So every time I have covered. So most people pay health insurance, and then now they're like, oh, I'm paying this too. It's like, yeah, kinda. I mean, it's just different.

SPEAKER_02 3:09

Like I will say this though, is that a lot of the out-of-pocket costs are less than with insurance costs. Oh, so even like MRIs and CAT scans, right? Of course, catastrophic, you know, if you have God forbid you knew surgery, that anesthesia build, me and my facility building.

SPEAKER_01 3:26

And I I own the company, so this is like the company paying for some of it. I think it's like $1800 a month.

SPEAKER_02 3:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

It's crazy. And of course, we never use it, but it's like only in the event of, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's for anything else, like the same thing. MRI is anything. It's like, well, insurance price, they're gonna bill your insurance like $2,700, or cash price is like $300. Like, okay. So it's like doesn't really make any sense. And if you're out of pocket's $500, like you just pay the $300.

SPEAKER_02 3:56

Well, I guess that doesn't go toward your even sometimes medications. Like, so you you know, like, people I think they get, I think they get you with that free thing.

SPEAKER_01 4:04

They're like, oh, it's free. Well, it will only cost three dollars and fifty cents, anyways. So, but I think people are like, Oh, I get my medications for free. It's like just generics, and those that I don't think they realize they're so cheap, anyways. It's not like it'd be affordable for everyone. Yeah, weird system. I don't know how you fix that. Like, I'm man, uh that's probably one of the hardest things to fix in a country is the the insurance model healthcare system. I don't know how you fix that because you do something like they do in Canada, and every Canadian I know says it's terrible. Everyone that comes here, they're like, it's the worst thing in the world. Like you and even if something happens, you can't get in for seven, eight months, even if you got in, like you don't even want to go to those places because they're really bad.

SPEAKER_02 4:47

And so I'm gonna tell you, Canada and the UK are actually worse off than we are because they are so restricted when it comes to some of these more extensive like even Canada, like you know, DHEA. Have you heard of the supplement? I remember because I used to be precursor.

SPEAKER_01 5:01

It's illegal. I I used to be legal. I used to be in the supplement industry. And for years I was in the supplement industry, early Amazon days, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:10

See the things that I just discovered as time.

SPEAKER_01 5:13

Yeah, I had a e-com, I had an e-com business and I had a supplement stores like all over Houston. And um, we were one of the larger like e-com businesses back like when Amazon was a bookstore.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

In my 20s, I started that or like that was one of my first businesses. And I remember trying to ship DHEA into Canada because a lot of we I mean, we were worldwide, of course, but of course we didn't know that in the beginning. And then all of a sudden it's like these items are getting returned. And it's like that's kind of weird. Like, you're lucky they got returned. Most of them, they just like confiscated or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. And so I I remember that from those days. That's the only reason I know that.

SPEAKER_02 5:49

No, I mean it's brutal.

SPEAKER_01 5:50

It was also, it was also it was also banned in like Brazil. Uh we were popular in a couple other weird little like pockets of the earth, and it was Brazil too, and somewhere else that it was like banned, Australia, maybe.

SPEAKER_02 6:04

Um, the fun thing about some of these other countries though, like Australia, is they have an FDA-approved testosterone for women. Like, you know, so you give and a take, right? Because in some places you can they're they're moving ahead in certain directions, but they're moving backwards in others. So you know, it's just it's we're living in a like I was telling Candace in the car, this is an odd time. This is a really interesting time because we have AI, right? So we have AI drug discovery, we have AI tools, right? We're shifting how we're looking at things, what's possible. But then also you're living in an unknown bubble because of COVID. So now you don't know how COVID's affecting people from the health standpoint. And then the vaccine versus the actual like what is it, right?

SPEAKER_01 6:51

Like and how it's affected.

SPEAKER_02 6:52

Because a lot of people had both damaging, causing neuroinflammation in people.

SPEAKER_00 6:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:56

So the immune system, it's all about the immune system in the central nervous system when we're thinking about long-term. Luckily, yeah, like mitochondria, immune system health, central nervous system. And now you have people with neuroinflammation in the brain when they're like, Well, what is this? And so there's so much coming out now from cardiovascular standpoint about COVID. And, you know, it's still a controversial topic.

SPEAKER_01 7:20

I know. Luckily, well, it's weird. Well, the all the all the theories aren't all the theories aren't really like theories anymore, though, you know. Like once you start like data comes out. Luckily, I I mean, me and my wife didn't get it. And we had COVID when it first came, like the first strain, so it was pretty bad, but we never got the vaccine.

SPEAKER_02 7:35

But that's where the plasma euphoresis, what we talked about last night, could be helpful.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 7:40

So even if you've had COVID, I mean, listen, COVID's not going anywhere, it's still around. You're gonna be exposed to different strains of it, just like the flu. But that's where plasma euphoresis can be helpful.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

I had a guy that I was in a car event the other day, and I think he was a radiologist, and we were talking about the whole plasmapharesis thing, and he was like, It's super interesting to me. But his theory, I guess, was he was like, if you pull out all these, I guess, like like you're gonna lose some antibodies. Yeah. So that's what he was like, I don't know if it's like better or worse, because I think there's some benefits, but he's like, is it worse because you're pulling out a lot of antibodies and then are you gonna get sick easier?

SPEAKER_02 8:19

He wasn't saying yes or no, he was just like, I just trying to think about frequency, okay, frequency of the treatment, because there are people that are just going crazy overboard, in my opinion, and they're also doing multiple therapies. So they're doing plasma euphoresis plus eBu, you know, you know, so they're doing like there's some people out there that I think are a little addicted to the regenerative therapies.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

But some of them do make you feel so good, you're like, oh, I just want to do more of it. It's like that's how I am. Sometimes when I start something, I'm like, oh, this is that's your dopamine-forward brain. Well, it's like it's like this makes me feel good. I need to do more of it. And so that's the nicotine thing's probably not the right path for me because that's how it'll be. It's like, oh, I have to take it every day to like be sharper and more functional.

SPEAKER_02 9:04

Yes. Yeah, no, no, no. I think so. I think that's going back to why you need like sort of a sherpa, like someone like you need a clinician who's overseeing it. You know, it was funny because I was listening to something the other day and there was a doctor saying, sure, people can scale Mount Everest by themselves, but you don't want to. You want a Sherpa with you. You want to be able to train ahead of it. So the same thing is like with these medical regenerative therapies, if it's peptides, if it's hormones, if it's whatever, these therapies, don't just go to random clinics. You know, you want someone who understands you. You want someone who understands your challenges, your body, your genomics, your blood work. And so when they're making these, you know, recommendations with you, because it should be shared decision making, it should be based off that, not an influence or TikTok or Reddit.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

Data, right? That's it's just like I, you know, in the business world, like you would never run your business without any data or any numbers or any cost of goods. And the medical is kind of the same way. It's just like we talked about earlier, the traditional way that we were brought up and the way the health insurance is, and like you're you're trained to think of it as an expense and then also not really looking at it. It's like I go to the doctor when I get sick, not to get data so I can make adjust make adjustments, right? And so it's so it, you know, I think a lot of people out there are understanding that, and the data thing with the tech mixed with the technology is like becoming pretty cool. So I'm excited. Like I I track everything. I mean, I do my I do my blood work.

SPEAKER_02 10:38

Except the aura.

SPEAKER_01 10:39

You don't do the because I think I'm gonna get too crazy. No, yeah. But I do my blood work my blood work once a quarter, and then like we kind of make super slight adjustments like based on that. It's pretty much better than it's ever been. And at 45, I definitely feel pretty much better than I did in my 20s. So I don't really know what else I could change without like messing up something else. But it seems like when I do change something, we try super just slight, slight adjustments. And I only do once.

SPEAKER_02 11:06

There are things that you could do because when you're looking at just again, maintenance, right? So, you know, there are things like we talked about SS31.

SPEAKER_00 11:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 11:15

I think SS31 is a phenomenal peptide. We have human data on it. You can run it like, you know, a couple times a year. It's really great. It's a repair peptide for the mitochondria. I actually like that better than the Matsy. But that's a good one because it's your mitochondria. We got to protect the mitochondria. That's what drives disease.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

And then also energy production, right? Yeah. Which I, you know, that one would be probably maybe next on my list because with all the other stuff I'm doing, I think it maybe could be an added benefit. Oh, just have to start super slow. I'm so sensitive to everything. Like it either makes me jittery or feel weird for a couple days. Like, have to start like ultra slow. I just I'm like that with everything. It doesn't even matter what it is. Just like I was telling you last night, like just taking methylated like B12 and and folate when I first started taking it made me feel super weird. It's like just but and then I felt amazing after like a week and a half, like once and I took three caps the first day and felt crazy too much and like super jittery and like really amped up. And so I backed it down and just did one for like a couple days, then two for a couple days, and then three. Yeah. And then I felt amazing after that. But I have to start out everything up.

SPEAKER_02 12:18

You could see, I mean, there's some people that get restless leg syndrome when they start methylated B vitamins. There's, I mean, again, it's slow controlled and you know, it's all cellular health.

SPEAKER_00 12:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:28

So everyone, that's why it's really cool to understand your genomics and your pathways, because then you can say, maybe I want to go higher on this or higher on this, or I want to go lower on this, or different routes of administration because even like magnesium, magnesium is such a critical mineral for our bodies for everything from cardiovascular health, mental health, everything.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

I didn't realize that early on until I met my doctor.

SPEAKER_02 12:51

And different formulations of it, right? There's different um substrates that it's connected to to tell it what to do and where to go. And so not a lot of people can absorb it well from the GI system. And so, you know, we test the red blood cells specifically to see what their magnesium levels are, not just your serum levels. So I usually say that is that's really it's important to know what to test. So if you're just ordering a test and you order a magnesium level in your blood, it's just telling you what's circulating in your bloodstream. It's not telling you what's actually in the cell.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

So, you know, you have to that's where what test does somebody order when they do that, or what test should a doctor order if somebody goes in there and they want to double check, I guess, their doctor's work and make sure they're ordering the right test. What is it?

SPEAKER_02 13:33

Yeah, so you can order a magnesium RBC level, which is your red blood cell, and it actually looks to see what the magnesium level in your red blood cell is. That's the best indicator if you're deficient.

SPEAKER_00 13:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 13:43

So of course you can ask symptoms, right? You correlate symptoms, you know, it's not a shot in the dark, you have to ask questions. But the RBC level is what tells me is this person actually pulling? Because it's only a matter of time. You're gonna pull from your cell, you're gonna pull from your bones, you're pulling from your tissues to keep your blood levels a certain level. So I think a lot of doctors and clinicians don't understand that your blood levels don't mean that you're actually well nourished or you're um you're at a sufficient or optimal level. So we have a lot of nutritional insufficiencies and deficiencies. So that's that's an area that can be really challenging to drive upwards. And so those folks tend to have a problem with absorbing magnesium through the gut because you think about it, you're only as good as what you choose to ingest, what your body can digest, how it actually moves and transports those particles or those molecules or those minerals, and then what your body can do with them in the cell. So there's so many different areas that can get broken down or get affected, and that's where personalized medicine really makes a difference.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

I agree. Change my life for the better, for sure. And I recommend it to everybody. Let's talk about peptides because they're all the rage, especially if you're on the internet anywhere. You know, you have either influencers or um doctors and really just everybody and people that have just started taking them, and everybody's like, this is the latest and greatest, right?

SPEAKER_00 15:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

Can you explain to people what they actually are? Maybe people that don't really know exactly and they're not they don't track data like we do, and they're not from this field and they just see what they see online.

SPEAKER_02 15:25

Yeah. And even you have uh different media outlets from you know, New York Times to all these different publications now talking about peptides, and people are asking me, they're like, What what are these peptides that they're talking about? So peptides are short proteins, basically. They're short chains of amino acids, and amino acids make up proteins, and everyone knows what a protein is. And depending on where you are in the world, is how you define it. So in the United States, we have a very unique actual definition, meaning that it has to be 40 amino acids or less to be considered a peptide. I'm sorry, peptide. Above 40 amino acids is considered either a biologic or a protein. Now, why does that matter? It controls us and what we can actually prescribe, compound, and actually utilize. So if it's above 40 amino acids in the United States, then the FDA says, uh-uh, you can't compound this. And this is where we're seeing some issues like with retitrutide or retatritite is another name to say it. And that one, originally the pharmaceutical companies were trying to make as a biologic, so you couldn't compound it. It's a GLP1 medication, but it has a triple agonist effect. It's very exciting. It's the newest one that's coming out. But in other countries, it's 50 amino acids. So it's very interesting, depending where you are in the world and what that definition is. So these peptides are what we make in our body. A lot of them we actually make our in our bodies. Some of them we don't, like the growth hormone analogs actually we don't make. And they help to communicate to different cell receptors in our body to turn up or turn down a function. And over time, we start to decline in these peptides that we're producing, just like hormones. So some peptides are hormones, some hormones are peptides. But generally speaking, like, you know, the common ones like the BPC157s and the TB500s and whatnot are that are talked about a lot. These slow down in production and our bodies over time. The BPC157, we've been talking about a lot in different areas from regenerative medicine to neurological medicine to gastric medicine. And they are generally well tolerated and safe, depending on how you're utilizing them. But also what makes a difference is dosing, frequency, and route of administration. So injection versus oral versus sublingual versus transdermal, you'll see a lot of different movement in this area to get around regulatory changes. But it depends on what the goal is. So it's not just, hey, I heard from this influencer that this could potentially be good for me. So I'm gonna take it. It really depends on the quality of the peptide, how you're actually giving it to yourself, the dosing strategy and the cycling strategy to make sure that it's gonna be most beneficial for you and also safe.

SPEAKER_01 18:17

And then just like anything else, you know, everybody's different. And that's what I realize the most about just either friends, you know, listening to my doctor, listening to um other patients that my doctor has that I'm friends with. It's just like every single person is different. So when they ask me, sometimes they're like, Hey, what do you take for this? I'm like, well, it's not, I mean, I can tell you, but it's not that easy. It doesn't mean that it's gonna be exactly the same for you. And the best way to do it is like go get blood work, like try to track your data, and then based on your goals, you can use some of your blood work, you can use some of your data, and then he's gonna be able to tell you, put you on the right protocol, right? To be the most effective. Right. So you're not like just taking a bunch of stuff either for nothing or for something that may be um not beneficial and may harm you. So I I think that's what everybody has to understand. It's like everybody's different, and so if you see something on TikTok, doesn't actually mean it's gonna work for you. It's not the best thing to do is like, oh, it worked for that person.

SPEAKER_02 19:16

Right. And you know, peptides have been around for a long time. These are not new, right? They're new in terms of the media attention that they're getting, but we've been using them in clinical practice for, I mean, myself, almost a decade at this point. In other countries, we have a lot of these peptides that are already approved for indications. So they're not new. Insulin's a peptide, oxytocin's a peptide, right? Um, GLPs, right? We have lots of peptides. But when we talk about the peptides that are more controversial, are the ones that are coming out more for regenerative medicine, uh, functional medicine, for really optimization. When we think about health optimization versus treating a specific condition or an issue, the way peptides are best utilized is to create the foundation first. So peptides are not the first step. And I'm very clear about this because I, you know, I was telling you, I teach a course and I really want to make sure that clinicians understand this and also people who are interested in improving their health and they are desperate and they don't know where to start. You have to already tackle the micronutrient deficiencies. You have to understand the hormones, what's going on in the body. I can't tell you how many times people are like, well, I just feel terrible. I'm tired, I'm exhausted. Well, did anyone ever check your testosterone levels? Did anyone ever check your micronutrients, your B12, your vitamin D levels, your magnesium? Where are we with your thyroid? I can't tell you how many people have never had actually thyroid function tested. They'll test just what we call a TSH, which is really a pituitary marker. And they're not actually looking at the active hormones, which are your free T3 and your free T4. And so a lot of people who come in and they they're like, listen, I just don't feel as good as I used to. And, you know, I don't like it. I'm losing my edge, wherever it might be in their life. Whoa, okay, well, let's take a look under the hood and understand, hey, what are other things that are contributing? If I just give you a peptide, it's a great disservice because number one, that peptide likely is not going to help you that much. It's not going to actually treat the underlying issue. So I say peptides are amazing, but they're kind of like the nice to have once the foundation is supported. And then, and people deserve that. People deserve to understand, you know, what's their nutrition, what's what's they're absorbing, how they're, you know, functioning. And then you add in these other peptides, can really accelerate and optimize over time.

SPEAKER_01 21:34

I think that a lot of people don't know where to start. So I my, you know, I went through a bunch of traditional doctors and went down all the same path and made the mistake of kind of doing what you said is like listening to other people. Oh, it worked for them. Oh, you know, I saw something online and nothing worked. And then I finally got a referral to my doctor. But people that are, how did they know what questions to ask their doctor to make sure that? With the right person, or if they're starting from zero and want to do look into some of the exact things that you just said, like who who where do they go? What do they Google? What do they, you know, they may live in an area where they don't know who to contact or what type of doctor.

SPEAKER_02 22:12

Right. That could be challenging because most conventionally trained clinicians are not, this is still very nuanced to them. And they anything that's new and it doesn't have random control, double blind, you know, studies, they're like, no. And I think that's just how we're trained.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

Oh, you saw the hormone thing for a long time, right? It was like really talk down.

SPEAKER_02 22:34

Devastating. Devastating. And, you know, gosh, I can't tell you how many cardiologists, I mean, when we're prescribing testosterone for men or even for women, right? We were doing hormone therapy before it was considered now safe and what we should be considering. Um, we were, you know, we were called, like, oh my gosh, you're gonna give this person cancer, you're gonna cause them a blood clot, you know. And so I think when you don't know something, it's very scary. And our system is designed that people are gonna sue you. Like, oh my gosh, I don't want to make a stake. I'm gonna get, have I hurt someone? Oh, I don't know, I'm gonna get sued. You know, our system is based off very serious algorithms.

unknown 23:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:12

And I think it's just a cultural conditioning that we have in our medical system. And so I hope that people just go back to thinking like scientists, start making connections physiologically, understand the crab cycle, understand how a cell works. And then all of a sudden start things start to make sense a little bit more when we start to think outside the box. So for most people, I say the the clinicians that are most likely the best trained in this area as of right now are going to be functional medicine, regenerative medicine, um, precision medicine, personalized medicine. Look at those types of practices. Don't just go to a random med spa, no offense to med spas, but most of those clinicians are, you know, they're not really highly trained in this area to the to the artistry that it requires.

SPEAKER_01 23:58

Yeah, I think a lot of them got into the space because of the GLP. And then so you have a lot of people that maybe haven't been practicing this way or don't really understand hormones, which is or it's not their focus.

SPEAKER_02 24:08

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:08

Listening to that doctor, like it it's so hard, especially on the women's side, to um get the women's hormones right. Like you can't just give them a couple things and then all of a sudden they're magically better. So it takes a long time, uh, sometimes, and you have to like make just super small changes and really be aware and like you have to see them a bunch of times. Like it's not just like a set it and forget it type thing.

SPEAKER_00 24:29

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

So I think that that's probably why you know, do your research and you know, maybe the random med spa, you know, doesn't specialize in this type of thing. Right. But I agree. Functional medicine, preventative medicine.

SPEAKER_02 24:40

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 24:40

It's probably the best thing to look for.

SPEAKER_02 24:42

And I think also ask questions. So, you know, I know a lot of people can find things online very easily, but you really want more than just like a blanket questionnaire. You actually want uh blood work or someone who at least looks at your previous blood work and asks questions. You know, these peptides should not be just dispensed without oversight. It's really important because that's what gives peptides a bad name. That's what gives anything a bad name, is that all of a sudden there's a side effect, there's a catastrophic event, and they're also difficult to dose. So, you know, you a lot of these peptides come to you, they're not reconstituted.

SPEAKER_01 25:17

They have that's a random white powder. That's probably the biggest white problem with people because they don't understand the reconstitution part, and it is kind of hard. To this day, my wife's like, she is one of the smartest people I know. She's like, I can't figure this out, just do it. Like, I I'm like, this is giving me a headache. And so it's like no matter how I explain it to her, she just doesn't understand it. And so you multiply that times like just you know, 10 million people across the country. Of course, people are gonna have adverse reactions, like putting the wrong liquid in there or trying to look something up online and having the wrong amount and just sourcing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:51

You know, I think we have to be really thoughtful about the sourcing. You know, most really responsible clinicians out there who I know, they're not randomly getting something, you know, from the internet and then passing it off to their patients. You know, we have to be really thoughtful to make sure that you're using, if it's not an FDA approved medication, you're using 503A compounding pharmacies. In 503A coming compounding pharmacies are FDA regulated, and people don't know that because they're like, well, it's not a CVS or a Dwayne Reed or a World Greens. It doesn't matter. Yeah, they have to go through license rigorous oversight, they have to meet criteria, sterility, they have to be testing for endotoxins, they have to be looking after compounding it. So they bring in the raw ingredients, most raw ingredients still are coming in from India or China. There are now um a lot of work being done to create the raw ingredients here in the United States or have factories here, but you know, that's still just because the raw ingredients coming from another country, fine, but it must be must be tested before and after compounding. And so these compounders are really strict on that.

SPEAKER_01 26:55

Do they are they allowed to do that now? I thought that they were buying from American like source APIs.

SPEAKER_02 27:03

I thought most of them were No, most raw ingredients are still coming over from India and China. And that's just because they're coming from India and China. It doesn't mean that it's bad. But the issue, they are doing work now in the United States, but they're not it's not widely accepted. Um we're hopeful that it's gonna move in that direction, but it's not as easily accepted.

SPEAKER_01 27:23

But when they get here, I guess the ones we work with, they at least there's no way to know for sure, but they tell us that they're sourcing from the suppliers in the US. It depends what the peptide is. Maybe the suppliers in the US are the ones sourcing it, and then all of a sudden everybody's buying from this US supplier, but they're getting it in from somewhere else.

SPEAKER_02 27:40

So what I would say is it also depends on the peptide, right? So, you know, is it a GLP, is it a cerebral lysin, is it a syrmorlin, is it a tesmoralin, is it a CJC, is it a hippermoralin? You know, it depends on the peptide. There's really a hard-to-say blanket statement. But what happens is the compounders have a very strict regulatory component. They get visits from the FDA, they have to make sure their you know, COAs are in check. Um, now there are some research use companies out there that have COAs or um they have different sterility benchmarks, but you don't really know for sure. And what they'll do on the vial is say it's not for human consumption or usage. So the onus is not on them anymore because they're saying you can't use this for humans. So if you use it for a human and you have an adverse reaction, well, not us. I told you not to do it. And then you have some companies that will say physician only or professional use only. And those are the companies that put the onus on the clinicians, saying, you guys are the ones deciding. So I don't like either of those from a malpractice standpoint, because then the company that's actually manufacturing or sourcing it or compounding it doesn't take any liability. And that's the problem.

SPEAKER_01 28:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:56

And so, and you have actual compounders who are now taking some of these very popular research use companies and testing them and saying what do you actually have in them? And a lot of them do have arsenic or lead in them. Some of them are not at the potency level that they are saying they are.

SPEAKER_01 29:11

Yeah, I know compounders also had to, don't they have to do a um a potency test? Like so, hey, they test it and quarantine it for 15, 24 days, whatever the number was, I can't remember. And then they can release it. So it's not like they compound it and just send it out. They compound it and then they have to test it and then they send it out.

SPEAKER_02 29:28

Right. And then you what I would say is that you in my so any of the compounders that I work with, I have an actual conversation with them. So I typically know the owners of the pharmacies. We do too. We do too. Yeah, exactly. And they also like to know the pharmacists. Now, some of these larger compounders, it's impossible to know every single pharmacist. But I like to be able to get on the phone with somebody and have a conversation. And I want to say, like, if I have a patient with an autoimmune condition, I want to make sure, okay, if it's an oral delivery, I want to make sure that the capsule does not have any dyes in it. I want to make sure that you check for heavy metals because if I give this to my Lyme patient or if I give it to my patient with MS and they have a reaction, well, that's a problem. And unfortunately, your assumption is that they're doing these great things, but it doesn't always mean that. So each, and listen, every compounder is different. I don't want to just say every compound, there's always bad actors in the space. But the majority of the ones that are, you know, fighting with the FDA, they're really trying to put their foot forward, they're trying to do the right thing and staying with regulatory guidelines, they want peptides to work. Yeah, I agree with that.

SPEAKER_01 30:31

All the ones we know to are are like they're trying to do the right thing. Yes. And they, again, they probably do follow more strict guidelines than a lot of these other places that you're getting them from.

SPEAKER_02 30:41

Yeah. Because if you have a patient with an anaphylactic reaction from taking a peptide and it comes from your pharmacy, you're going to be under the look looking glass. So I think integrity is very important.

SPEAKER_01 30:52

So medical school doesn't teach you all this stuff. No. How did you start going down the path of, you know, metabolic health and nutrition and peptides and like all longevity and all this other stuff? If you don't learn, I mean, did I hear there's is there one nutrition class in medical school or like zero? Or there used to be zero. Maybe there's one now?

SPEAKER_02 31:13

Yes. Well, they're trying to change a lot of that now. Um, and the nutrition is very uh it's very superficial, right? The diabetic diet, cardiovascular diet. And it's like this very blanket thing, saturated fats are bad, you know, you know, low-carb diet, you know, whatever it might be that you're taught, you're not really going into the intricacies of, say, you know, what are the different types of carbohydrates? How do we pair carbohydrates? And I think when uh we talk about drivers for disease, metabolic dysfunction is there, right along with mitochondrial function. And metabolic dysfunction is personal. And this is why also when I talk about weight loss journeys or the obesity crisis that we have, it's specifically in the United States, it's not just one thing. Obesity is actually a very complicated area because it's driven not just by the energy balance model, which is what we were always traditionally taught, which is just calories in and calories out. It doesn't matter what you eat. It just at the end of the day, it's just calories. And then we realize actually there's a carbohydrate insulin model that is really important. And then, of course, your toxins, right? So every single person has their own burden and own sort of bucket. And my bucket's gonna look different than yours, than everyone else in this room. So when your toxin bucket starts to fill up, that's also gonna affect your ability to metabolize and actually detox properly. And your body stores fat very uniquely. That's why in our fat cells and our fat tissue, we have a lot of heavy metals, we have a lot of issues. So sometimes, like when people are detoxing from metals and whatnot, or they're going through a weight loss journey, they may actually feel worse because when they're losing that fat, um, they actually detox a little bit more too. So we have a really interesting paradigm ship of metabolic health and what drives it in our country. And every single person is different, which is why the GLPs were such a huge hit because they really conquer a lot of those problems in a really nice way.

SPEAKER_01 33:11

I agree, I agree with that. Like all the people that I've known that use them, or like some of the main people I know that have have made a ton of progress in their life, they they wouldn't have probably ever like made it over the hump. And once they started losing a little bit of weight, then they started getting a personal trainer, then they started like changing their whole lifestyle, and they stopped smoking. Like, I mean, I know a bunch of people within our own company, and I've watched them change their whole lives, like their lifestyle and everything. So I definitely think it's a a positive thing. I know you see there's always when something is as popular as that there's always gonna be some negative, like when so many people are using it, and you also don't have the context, right? Like these people are already in bad shape, and then you give them some type of peptide or some type of something. I mean, it might not have been the peptide, it might have been what you did the last 30, 40 years of your life. Right. Um, so it's kind of hard, it's kind of hard to say. I definitely the net positive is like way more because we were going down a serious, like, like you said, epidemic and bad path. And that's where most disease comes from, right?

SPEAKER_02 34:15

Yeah, and GLPs work really beautifully also on behavior. So when we talk about lifestyle, this is why I really have a problem with a lot of doctors who shake their fingers.

SPEAKER_01 34:24

Oh, alcohol too, right?

SPEAKER_02 34:25

Like alcohol dependency, um, obsessive compulsive disorders. Um, we see it also affect sometimes in a negative way, like sex drive. Um, but in general, we can even use these and leverage them for behavioral change, which is what I love. Because again, we talk about when people are starting something, it's so frustrating, which is why 98% of diets fail. Because people are just like, I'm not seeing the needle shift and it's so hard. And then you fall back into and you're getting the food noise and the hunger and you're stressed, and you're reaching for carbohydrates because it helps with your serotonin production. And then you add in hormones, right? Women, especially when they go through perimenopause and menopause, it's a very different ball game than when you're 22 years old. So, what I say is GLPs are so amazing because number one, they work on that carbohydrate insulin model, but they also work on the food noise, the compulsivities. So sometimes we reach for something because we're stressed. And it also helps with the uh energy balance model of calories in, calories out. So it really hits in multiple areas and it also helps independent of weight loss inflammation. So people will start to notice their joints smell better. If they have an underlying thyroid disease like a Hashimoto's, which is an autoimmune thyroid, if they have rheumatoid arthritis, MS, any of these types of disorders, they end up feeling better, even independent of the weight loss. So as you imagine, if people are feeling better, they're more motivated to go to the gym. They're more motivated to be social and build community, they're more motivated in general to show up to life better. And I want to be very clear too is that GLPs do not cause muscle loss. It's weight loss that causes it. The actual peptide in and of itself does not cause muscle waste.

SPEAKER_01 36:08

It's the malnutrition part is where people have a problem. The only, you know, I've all out of all the doctors I've talked to, they said the only side effect that they've seen is when people women in particular. Yeah, they stop eating. And then of course, the side effects come from the malnutrition, not actually giving someone the peptide, right?

SPEAKER_02 36:29

Clinician oversight.

SPEAKER_01 36:30

Yeah, it happens over time. And so he said it it's definitely a more of a woman thing than than a man thing, as far as like out of all the patients he sees, men don't generally have some of the same problems. Like I think when women are already trying to eat less and then they have that, and then they just don't get enough nutrients.

SPEAKER_02 36:48

I think, and that is for a couple of reasons too. I think from a cultural standpoint, we were always, you know, and I I I was brought up in the realm of like, you know, skinny is the goal, right? Skinny, skinny, skinny, like, you know, Cosmo and Vogue and you want to look a certain way, right? Social media, right? And now social is like, gosh, your your appearance is totally blasted all over everything, right? The idea is that, oh, feminine is small, feminine is skinny. But what I will also say is that for men is different because men have always been encouraged muscles. Yeah, you want to be strong, you want to be more alpha. So there's sort of a cultural thing too. And then when you actually look at hormones, men have much higher testosterone than women do. Women still have testosterone. It's actually our most abundant hormone when we are pre-menopausal. So it's we have three to four times more testosterone than we actually have of estrogen. But what happens is testosterone helps you maintain your muscle mass. So when men go on a GLP versus a woman goes on a GLP, muscle retention for a man is much higher because their testosterone generally is much higher. So it's gonna help you maintain your metabolism, but also maintain your muscle mass. While women, depending on where they are in their stage of life, especially if they're on birth control or if they're perimenopausal or they're menopausal, postmenopausal, they're definitely not gonna have as much testosterone in general. And so they're gonna be working much harder to maintain that muscle mass. And as we all know, is muscle is actually the organ of longevity. It's what actually helps us maintain our metabolism. So my goal is to obviously small titration up, and then we get to a goal and then we start to titrate down, and then we get that lowest effective dosing. But you got to think of protein as a supplement. And so for my patients, this is where I'm very specific that you must have a direct route of communication. You must check in with your patients. I use body composition in my practice. I do body composition all of my patients, but then I also have them have a body comp scale at home. So you can get like smaller ones and then they are in my portal.

SPEAKER_01 38:58

Do those work okay now? Yeah. I mean, I know that like when you go to some offices, they have the in-body stuff now.

SPEAKER_02 39:02

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 39:02

But the scales actually do pretty well. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 39:05

Yeah, there's some really good ones that are out there that are good for technology. And the great thing is they connect to my portal so I can help them. And so when I check in with them, and also this is a great place where you have nutritionists on your team. You, you know, you you can't, you know, you don't have to be everyone for everything. I think that's where a lot of doctors and clinicians get really overwhelmed because like I can't be everything for everyone. This is a great spot. Like, use functional, you know, nutritionists, use you know, registered dietitians, get people, health coaches, to help and you know, be there for your patients, check in with them about side effects, say, hey, what are you eating? A lot of people think they're eating enough protein and they're just not.

SPEAKER_01 39:41

Yeah, I don't think they most people are not. And most people just don't understand nutrition. And me, even coming from like the supplement and protein world back then, I still didn't understand what I was supposed to be eating. And in my 30s, I was over-training and definitely under-eating for how much I was training. But I mean, I was like a crazy amount of like high intensity stuff and CrossFit and boxing and like twice a day, like and I was eating what a normal man would eat, but not what I was supposed to be eating. And just me in the industry, I still didn't understand exact nutrition until I got with the nutritionist and my doctor, and they're like, Whoa, hold on. Number one, like we need to get the data and see what you need, but number two, like you're you know, you're not eating all the right nutrients. Uh I was I was eating enough protein, but that was it. I wasn't eating enough carbs, I wasn't eating enough fats, like everything else was extremely low. Other nutrients, but right.

SPEAKER_02 40:31

But what actually can be detrimental to a lot of people too, because again, a lot of people steer clear from one food group because they demonize it.

SPEAKER_00 40:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:39

Like, you know, a lot of people went super keto when it was hot and trendy, and Dave Asprey was bulletproof coffee.

SPEAKER_01 40:45

I did the sensor, yeah. I tried all that.

SPEAKER_02 40:46

And it could be super good for someone who has like epilepsy or Alzheimer's. Oh my gosh, when you increase our ketones, you put someone on a ketogenic diet, it can be super life-changing with someone with, you know, more of a neurodegenerative disease. But it could also be super detrimental if you're a high absorber of cholesterol. So I've had people who really tanked their health because they're like, I thought I was doing the right thing by cutting out carbohydrates and eating bacon and lard and you know, all this stuff. So I say, listen, these extremes are not really always for everyone, right? And then I think that's where personalized nutrition, and I love CGMs, they're continuous glucose monitors. I put all of my patients on them, regardless if they're diabetic or not. And it's a beautiful tool in real time. They can say, I normally have this for lunch, I normally have this for dinner or breakfast or whatever. And then you can see how your body individually reacts to that food. And then how do you feel after it? So I think a lot of people don't understand, like, what's your and it's interstitial fluid, so it's not direct blood. It sits in your interstitial fluid in your arm or in your belly, and it connects to your phone. I have all my patients connected to my phone.

SPEAKER_01 41:54

Another physician told me about that. So how do you put who puts it on? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:58

Oh, you could do it yourself. Super easy. A lot of them are over the counter now. They're actually making them more over the counter.

SPEAKER_01 42:02

What do you do? Just like sticking out.

SPEAKER_02 42:03

Um, it's a little tiny dial. It basically like a little disc. I typically use the ones that are going on the back of your arm. It's super easy. They typically last on all the time, take a look at it.

SPEAKER_01 42:11

Yeah, they stick on, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:12

You can you could swim with them. You could do it. If you are like a big swimmer, that's where sometimes like you can cover it. There's a special little bandage that goes over it to keep it waterproof. Um, they typically last about any about two weeks. And um, it's great. It connects to your phone, it runs it. It says, you know, you can turn the alarms off, you can turn alarms arm, you can set the range specific to what your goals are with you and your clinician. And it's beautiful because you can see what your what your numbers are in the morning when you first wake up, which is very important. And then if you are a person who's really restless that night, I can't tell you that a lot of times it's because they're becoming hypoglycemic. So I've had a lot of women who do intermittent fasting and they stop eating at like five o'clock in the night. They go to bed and they're like restless. And one thinks, oh, maybe they're in perimenopause. No, they're actually becoming hypoglycemic. And so all of a sudden we switch their diet around. We say, actually, you could fast here, but not here. Or at night, we're gonna give you a little bit of a carb refill, or these are the things that we're gonna do right before you go to sleep. And all of a sudden they're sleeping through the night and they're not becoming hypoglycemic and they're not getting woken up. Because think about it, when you are hypoglycemic, meaning your blood sugar is low, your body wakes you up by increasing your cortisol levels, which increases your glucose and then increases your insulin, which is a far uh, a fast, you know, a fat-storing hormone. So then we have this like vicious cycle of I thought I was doing the right thing, but I'm actually not. And I feel like chat, you know, like I'm not eating, I'm not sleeping, I'm not doing this, and I just don't feel good.

SPEAKER_01 43:36

Goes back to the data, having the data to make the right decision.

SPEAKER_02 43:39

And not every diet, not every intermittent fasting is the right protocol for every person. So I think that's really important.

SPEAKER_01 43:46

Does it is everybody different to where from what I understand, if you have that on, somebody would react differently to foods, right? So if I ate what some type of carb as opposed to somebody else, yeah, like mine could be more slow. And then somebody else's could good could go up, right? Yeah. So having the right amount of data, then you can say, Oh, well, for some reason, when I eat this one food, it always like raises it. And so you can control what you're eating. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 44:11

And food pairing. So this is a great place where people say, well, you know, this is a cultural food that we eat a lot. I have a lot of patients who are, you know, like I eat a lot of rice or I eat a lot of rice and beans or whatever it might be. Um, I was treating a lot of patients in Miami, and you know, a lot of those folks are from Cuba and from other Latin countries, and they're like, Well, this is this is part of our culture. Like, I'm not gonna give this up. So, like, okay, let's think about this differently. So, why don't we start with a fat or a protein first and then we can layer in this? Or people who are entertaining, right? They're going out for business dinners all the time. Ash, I'm traveling all over the world. I'm jumping on a plane to Hong Kong. I'm in New York this week. I'm in, I'm going out to I I have to be able to entertain. And maybe that includes wine, or maybe that includes pasta or something. So let's sit down and let's say, okay, what are some appetizers or things that you could start your meal off with? Or before you even go to the meeting, what's something that you could start with just to help so we can blunt that glucose spike that's going to happen? What are some tools or tool kits that I can do to help guide you so you feel better and your body feels better?

SPEAKER_01 45:14

Yeah, it makes sense. I eat out a lot. Well, me and my wife eat out a lot, and I pick, I just pick what I think would, you know, still fits in my diet. I mean, in most places, outside of like if you're just on the road and like they're just fast food restaurants, like most restaurants like have some option where you can pick is semi-decent.

SPEAKER_02 45:34

Yeah, I mean that's a good thing, part of today. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:37

Hey everyone, real quick, I just want to let you know this podcast is 100% independent. No ads, no sponsors, just real. If you're finding value in whatever we're doing here, the biggest help that you can give us is hitting subscribe and sharing this with someone who you think needs to hear it or someone that it will provide value to. That's how we continue to grow. And if you did that, I would really appreciate it. Let's talk about the peptides that I guess the most recent news is the a lot of the peptides that were the most popular, they had categorized in a different category. And then now RFK come out has come out and said, Hey, you know what? We're actually gonna relook at these, I guess it was. Like what's the status of the new peptides coming back on the market for compounding?

SPEAKER_02 46:22

Yeah, so that's a great question. So what's going on now is that we have a committee meeting, uh, which is a an advisory to the FDA on compounding. They are meeting at the end of July, July 23rd and July 24th. And it's basically an open hearing, and they're going to look at um not all of the peptides, and they usually start off with a few. And the first ones that they're gonna look at are the ones that we think are the most safe, the ones that have been around for a while. I saw that on the list. Exactly, right. And we're gonna take a look at, you know, and they basically are gonna listen to people for researchers, uh, people that are for it, against it, and they're going to really look at the data and say, is this something that we can allow as a legal compounded drug?

SPEAKER_00 47:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:09

Peptide. And that's really exciting because this is probably the fastest that I've ever seen the FDA move in that direction. And that will be a really big win for us. And I say that because it's going to put the onus back on the clinicians to be able to have these conversations with their patients without being fearful that something's going to be, you know, that's, you know, you're going to get in trouble. Or it allows the clinicians to write a prescription through 503A compounding pharmacy legitimately to prescribe these instead of having these people go to research use sources. And so I think it's actually a huge win for safety, but also the way that the world is changing and how we are now we're reassessing. We're reassessing people want to live better, not just longer. You know, it's not just about, you know, keeping someone alive. It's about how do we keep the most functional.

SPEAKER_01 48:04

Quality of life. That's what I'm after every day. Cognitive. I don't know. I'm not getting people are like, oh, you're trying to live forever. I was like, I don't think that's gonna happen, but I'm trying to have like the best quality of life as long as prior preservation coming up. As long as possible. Yeah. And then maybe one day there might be some weird stuff out.

SPEAKER_02 48:18

But I mean, who who don't like I don't know anyone. I've never met anyone that says, oh, I would love to live longer but feel terrible or not have my cognitive faculties, right? The whole point is people want to continue moving if they can. They want to do things that they love to do. They want to be able to pick up their grandchildren and their great grandchildren. They they want to feel cognitively sharp. And I say physical, cognitively, and also emotionally, right? Because your emotional health should be part of this equation. And also sexual vitality. That's a big marker of what I talk to my patients about because I think that's the canary in the coal mine. Usually when we start to notice that change in libido or sexual function, it's telling me we actually have an issue that's deeper and we need to investigate that because that's going to turn into cardiovascular disease or diabetes or something bigger down the line.

SPEAKER_01 49:04

What if what peptides are available legally that a physician can prescribe right now? I know, isn't there? I mean, six or seven or so, maybe.

SPEAKER_02 49:14

So you can technically prescribe them as long as the 503A is compounding them. Um certainly you have like the GLPs that are already branded. So those, you know, you can prescribe in either direction, and that was kind of up for discussion. So more 503As are becoming more comfortable offering them. Um, so you can still get a good amount of peptides still. So I'd say like even like your like Surmorlin's been has not been taken off the table. That's been around, which is why people kind of turn to that one during even the category change. But you have like Tesamorlin is still, it's actually an FDA-approved drug for lipid dystrophy in HIV patients. Surmorlin does have human studies. We actually studied it in growth hormone deficiency in children, although they pulled it as a drug because it just wasn't financially, it didn't financially make sense. It wasn't because there were safety issues with it. Um and you have alternatives to BPC 157. You they were allowing you to orally compound it. So go, but it again, oral dosing of BPC 157 is really going to be more for your gut dysfunction, like your celiac, your ulcerative colitis, um those types of issues. It's not gonna be as beneficial as the injection for musculoskeletal issues. But we were able to use something called PDA, which is kind of basically a BPC fragment. Um, it's kind of like the same thing, but that was allowed in in some areas, but so you there are ways to get around it at the time. But nowadays you can actually get a lot of peptides because the 503As are being less um less affected.

SPEAKER_01 50:47

Yeah. I know this isn't technically a peptide, but NAD has been really beneficial for me. Can you explain like what it's actually doing and then um you know the benefits and maybe the negatives?

SPEAKER_02 51:00

Yeah, sure. So so NAD is basically a substrate. It's it's important for your mitochondrial function. It's something that's naturally occurring in all of our cells. And as we get older, we start to lose NAD. And um the cause of why we lose NAD can be different. And so that's why the route of administration of it, you know, a lot of people ask, can we use precursors versus giving NAD?

SPEAKER_01 51:26

That I didn't know because I've heard argument both ways.

SPEAKER_02 51:28

Right. And it's it's some kind of like the same thing as like, well, if you have a deficiency, is it because you are deficient in the precursor and your body knows what to do once it has the precursor? And the precursor basically is the sort of like the foundation, like the like the actual ingredients for the pie to be actually baked. So if you give someone NR or NMN, does your body then be able to produce its own NAD? Is it helpful? So there's a lot of different reasons.

SPEAKER_01 51:55

Then there's also Is there a benefit to taking both? Like if it if like because I take the injectable version, I feel much better that way. I remember a long time ago when I first started, I tried the NMMN, and I didn't really see the It's not like that.

SPEAKER_02 52:09

Because you're not giving so it's almost like a testosterone injection, right? If someone, you know, you can't.

SPEAKER_01 52:14

You're not gonna feel it that day.

SPEAKER_02 52:15

You're right, but if you give testosterone, you're gonna feel it.

SPEAKER_01 52:17

I took it for about a month or so, maybe, and I just didn't really notice. And so I stopped taking that and eventually started taking NAD, which worked great. But do I take both? Like, is there a benefit to take both, or is it just doesn't even it actually just stick with the NAD?

SPEAKER_02 52:30

Well, so there is I am okay. I'm gonna go off my personal how I how I feel and what I know as of right now with the data is that I like to cycle things. I don't like to just blast your body with the same thing all of the time. So with my patients, more or less, I do. I usually do like precursors and then I will cycle them to NAD and they bring them back to their precursors. And there's also different routes of administration for NAD. I also use something called 5 Amino 1MQ, which actually stops the degradation of NAD to begin with. Okay. So it kind of helps upstream. And so it prevents the downstream issue of actually the degradation. So I don't always use NAD in my patients, and especially with people who have methylation problems, I'm very cognizant and understanding of make sure that you're taking, you know, methylated folate, B12, you're you're taking something, you know, B6, also TMG, which is also very important for your methylation cycle. And because a lot of times when you take NAD, it upregulates your methylation. So if you don't have great methylation to begin with, if you don't have those really important nutrients, you actually can cause harm to your patients. So I also teach about that. Then I get questions about well, what about IV versus injection versus a pill versus a powder, a sublingual? The point of NAD is to try and get it into your cells. And so it's hard to say, like the IV is like you're basically blasting your body with high dose of NAD, but there's really no data right now that says it actually gets into your cells. But it can be helpful for some people. They sometimes do feel energized. It's usually a short duration effect. And we can use it in, say, situations like addiction medicine. We have had good findings in some like Parkinson's patients and Alzheimer's, but it's also difficult. It's a long, it's a long duration IV. And, you know, not a lot of people have time for that. And it also needs to be in a controlled setting. Injection is a great way. You can either do subcutaneous or intramuscular. It's a nice slow absorption into the body. Again, some people feel really turned on. They feel like you know, they feel really focused, they have more energy. Um, it can disrupt sleep in some people. So I typically tell them to take it in the morning. Don't take it at night because it can disrupt your sleep cycles. But I don't love just giving NAD continuously. I have people take breaks in typically like eight to 12 weeks, then we take a break for at least a month, and then you can actually cycle in the precursors, or you could do something like 5 amino NMQ, which is uh what I actually like, so it stops the degradation of NAD, and then maybe you actually don't need to take the NAD injections.

SPEAKER_01 55:07

Okay. I've never taken the 5 amino yet.

SPEAKER_02 55:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:10

I'll look into it. Another peptide that I've got to do.

SPEAKER_02 55:15

Oh, intranasal too.

SPEAKER_01 55:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 55:16

NAD, sorry. NAD intranasal is awesome. So I've had some people with brain fog or cognitive issues, like, you know, again, like uh we call it mild cognitive impairment, MCI. So some people do really well with NAD up the nose because it goes to the brain. And that can be very helpful for focus and cognitive function.

SPEAKER_01 55:36

Another one that people have a lot of questions or I get a lot of questions on is ipamoralin. Can you explain that and what it's doing?

SPEAKER_02 55:45

Yeah. So ipamorlin is different than say your CJC, you know, 1295, Surmorlin, or Tesamorlin. Those are growth hormone peptides cretagogues that actually say they try and send a signal to the pituitary to produce more of its natural growth hormone. And all of us produce growth hormone. It doesn't go away just because you're an adult. It's just that you have less of it as you go on with time, right? So growth hormones are really important when you're a kid. It helps you obviously with growth, muscle mass, bone density, all of those things. But as an adult, you still need it. It's very important. It's actually released during your deep sleep phase. And it's very important for your sleep, for your muscle mass, for your cognitive function, for your bone density. As time goes on, we produce less and less of it, especially if you're more metabolically unstable, which is most people in this country. So you're certainly going to see like low IGF-1 levels. And IGF 1 is a really important biomarker that everyone should have tested. It is really important, especially before you start any of these peptides, because if you have a high level of it, we have to understand. Well, certainly we're not going to give you more of this type of peptide to stimulate further, but we want to understand why. Because if you have high IGF 1 levels, if they're really, really high, it could also be a message to us that you have a tumor or cancer. So make sure if you are taking these, get your IGF 1 tested.

SPEAKER_01 57:05

What about the? Because that's the other question is does it cause cancer? Does it cause a tumor? Or if you have a tumor, does it cause it to get bigger faster, cancer grow faster? And same thing with NAD. Like I've heard both sides of that for the growth hormone and the NAD.

SPEAKER_02 57:20

Yes. So, okay, you just opened a whole can of words. I love it. I'm curious because I'm Now, and it's not just these, right? So we can say the same similar to GHK copper, TB500, TB4, or BPC157 because they cause angiogenesis or new growth of blood vessels, right? That feed that potentially could feed cancer. When we think about growth hormone, right, it's meant to be pro-growth, right? That's what growth hormone is for. So if we are giving you something to stimulate growth hormone production, tactically, if you have a tumor or you have active cancer, it can actually make it proliferate. Right. And that doesn't mean the key the tumor is cancer. Some people have tumors, a pituitary tumor. This is also why you don't want to give a growth hormone peptide to someone who has a pituitary tumor. That's why you should be looking at blood work, looking at their hormones, looking at their prolactin levels, looking at your free T, your DHD, all of that stuff. Um, but yes, these are pro-growth, right? So you're not giving growth hormones specifically, but you're stimulating the gland in your brain to produce more growth hormone. And yes, these can actually proliferate the size or acceleration of a tool. Yes, exactly. Now, in terms of NAD, if you there's some really good research that's coming out. My good friend Dr. Holland Chen is one of the leading researchers in NAD, and he's doing human trials right now. And so as of right now, I still we sometimes will still give, and we say we, meaning this field, will sometimes still use NAD or NMN or NR in in situations where people have had previous cancer. We don't want to give it right now, at least based on the data, to anyone who has active cancer. And of course, anyone that's active cancer, there's other things that we are probably thinking about to give that person to support them. Um, because again, it can also cause, it's almost like you know, fuel to the fire in some thoughts. Um so I think you have to understand cellular biology if you're prescribing these and understand how they actually affect the cell, what their job is in the body, and um understand why NAD degrade to be in with something called NMNT. That's what Five Amina 1M Key works on, and that's what prevents a degradation. So I would say is that if you are if you have a history of cancer or you have active cancer, it is something you definitely need to be aware of, and you should only be working with super experienced providers for those things. But and then back to the growth hormones, ipimorelin is kind of like like the really the press of the gas tank of growth hormone. So that's why we pair it really well with the other uh peptides like CJC, Surmorlin, or Tesomorlin. So those guys will communicate to the battery, hey, I need more growth hormone, and then the ipomerelin comes in and like flops you on the head and says go. So if you want to think about a cars, because we have car lovers, you know, the the other types of peptides, they're like the fuel. Okay. And then ipomorin's like step like stepping on the gas pedal and saying, Go. So that's why we pair them together.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:27

So uh in the most popular one, the one that they're trying to recategorize, BPC. Can you explain that one? I know I've heard, I guess, that it comes from the gastric juice in your stomach. And so it's already in your body, you're just telling your body to produce more of it and speed up healing and anti-inflammation. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:45

Yes. So BPC157 stands for body protection compound. It is an endogenous, meaning endogenous where body produces itself, as you said, in our gastric juicy. And just like with hormones, it goes down with time. BPC 157 is awesome because it helps to stimulate something called fibroblast activity and it helps with healing of tissues. It does a really great job when it's injected closest to the site of injury.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:15

So if someone has that's the that's what everybody always asks me. I'm like, I don't know. I've heard the argument both ways. So is it is the data there to where if you inject it closer to your shoulder or whatever? Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:27

Now, just because you inject in your body, it is circulating. But if you have a muscular skeletal reason, so you have a labrum tear, you have uh of the sh, you know, the hip or your labral tear of the shoulder, you have a rotator cuff, you have Achilles tendon, right? That's what we studied in rodents. If you inject closer to the site, we typically see anecdotally also in our practice that people do really well. You can also inject it intra-articularly if that clinician is trained and you can actually combine it with like PRP, you can kind of other things, stem cells, exosomes, et cetera. Now, if you don't do it closer to the side of injury, it still is going to have a benefit in the body. Injection is always going to be better than, say, taking a pill form for musculoskeletal reasons. But we also see a benefit in neuroinflammation. So people who don't have actually a musculoskeletal injury, but they have, you know, they have inflammation in the brain, then we can actually see there's benefit from BPC 157 in that regard. As an oral capsule, it's great for, again, as I talked to you, more of the mucosal issues. So again, if someone has peptic ulcer disease, if they have celiac disease, if they have any autoimmune condition, everything starts in the gut, even mental health challenges, because again, serotonin, the majority of it is produced in our gut. And our gut is the second brain. So we can use BPC 157 in the many different cases to support treatment.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:51

Would it make sense to take oral and injection?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:54

Or you can take both.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:55

Is it, is it, or is the injection still gonna provide you with some benefit?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:00

Like you would, but if you really do have a gut issue, uh, if that's a big problem, the oral is gonna be better than the injection. So you can do both. So a lot of times what we'll do is we start you off with an injection. So say someone has a tear in the office and they can't do the injection because, again, category changes. Um, again, the injection was what got re-categorized. So that was restricted in the United States, but the capsule was technically still allowed. Um, what we do is sometimes in some settings where someone will receive uh an intra-articular injection with the BPC 157 or PDA, or they'll do an IV of it, and then they go home with an oral capsule to kind of help maintain or to help support them. Um, but I would say the majority of people have some sort of gut dysfunction or gut inflammation, IBS, all these other things that diet, nutrition, you know, eating the wrong things. Yeah. And then you compare it really beautifully. There's something called KPV, and there's also larrazotide. Uh, those are really great peptides also for the gut.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:58

What is KPV?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:59

So KPV works also on the immune system. So it's a really good one to turn down inflammation. It works on some inflammatory factors in the body. You can also do it as an injection, it helps to decrease mast cell activation too. So some people will inject it before an injection. It's like a side eye, you know. This is not medical advice.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:19

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:20

Um, not medical advice, but there are people who will even inject it prior to say, you know, a high histamine uh producing uh peptide. So they'll do it before SS31 or MOT C or before uh GHKCU, and it helps to decrease mast cell activation.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:35

Well, let's talk about the SS31 because I am I'm interested in that myself. So explain that one. I know it's a mitochondrial peptide.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:42

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:42

And I already like NAD, so I'm like, hmm, could that be helpful and give me more energy and have more mitochondrial function?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:50

Yes. So SS31, all otherwise named lamiprotide, it is actually an FDA-approved medication as of this past year for a condition called Barth syndrome. It is a very, unfortunately, very severe genetic congenital defect in affects children. And um, it's a mitochondrial disease. And so we don't have a lot of treatments for mitochondrial diseases. So they studied SS31 to see if it improved function and muscular skeletal because we, if people don't know, mitochondria are the powerhouses of our cell, right? That's what we're taught in biology, eighth grade biology, seventh grade biology. But they are in every cell. And there are certain organ systems that are highly concentrated of mitochondria, heart being one of them, which is why SS31 is also being studied for cardiomyopathy. The muscle tissue, right? So athletes, right, we're always thinking about uh, and also some sort of mitochondrial dysfunction will affect your ability to walk your muscles from firing and working. We have liver, we have and then also reproductive organs and your brain. So there's a really high mitochondrial site areas. So fertility medicine, this is also a consideration when people are on their fertility journey because. Because it helps also support mitochondria, which is very much for women in their ovaries and men in their testes. So, what they found in Bar syndrome is that it helped to improve the muscle strength of the lower extremity of the legs in these children, which was huge. Because again, if it can function better and if it's working the mitochondria in the muscles, well, why wouldn't it be helpful in other tissues in the body? So if something is helping mitochondria in general, even if it's only in the muscle tissue initially, the thought is, well, if those mitochondria are potentially being supported, then it's going to help their heart, it's going to help their brain, their liver, all of those areas. So what's really cool about SS31, it is actually tackling the structure of the mitochondria. So it's not just like, hey, firing up the mitochondria to function better, or what we do in medicine is called biogenesis, where we stress the mitochondria enough where your body produces more of its own mitochondria. And so if you have a whole bunch of crappy mitochondria, well, we're just gonna make more of them and it'll off, you know, off play the ones that are not functioning as well. This is really cool because it actually takes the inner membrane of the mitochondria and it helps to repair it. It's called cardiolipin. And so it works on the structure of mitochondria, which is super unique and exciting. Because if you have better structural mitochondria, that means you're gonna respond to therapies better, your ATB is gonna be better, you're gonna do your red light, you're gonna respond better. And then also it's different than MOT C because MOT C, if you have mitochondrial dysfunction and your mitochondria are actually the structure of them is not great, and giving someone MOT C actually can make them worse. It's not always gonna be beneficial for them. So when we think about mitochondrial peptides, I usually start with SS31. I think it's a phenomenal peptide. Um, there's good safety data, right? We have human safety data. And if you're able to use it in kids, that's pretty darn good, right? And um, so it's expensive, it's a little bit more pricey, but I think with time it's gonna be more democratized. And I think it's gonna be a really great one to cycle in a few times a year just to support our general mitochondria.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:04

Another popular one is GHKCU. Yeah. So I know when when I first think of it and when people ask me about it, it's skin, collagen, hair, but I guess there's all kinds of other anti-inflammatory properties. Can you explain that one?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:19

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So GHKCU is a copper peptide. So you can also get GHK by itself and then remove the copper from it. Um, but ultimately the that coupling is what really is very beneficial. It can be used transdermally, which is very cool. So in the aesthetics community, you can use it on your skin and it helps, again, with collagen production. It helps with just rejuvenation of the tissue. It pairs really well. So a lot of my ladies, I put them on a combination compounded formula that has GHKCU and it has estradiol or estriol in it, because again, as we age, that estrogen is really important also for the plumpness of our skin and also with collagen production. And then there's another peptide I like to throw in there, which is like agrylinox, which is a um almost like the Botox peptide. So also topically, and you can make a combination that's really nice there and you put it on your skin. You can also inject it. Injecting it is also nice. You can pair it really beautifully with BPC157 or TB500. It's great also for collagen production, wound healing. Um, it's really good for acne. Um, just general, there's a lot of benefit. The thing you have to be a little bit thoughtful is because it is a copper peptide, you have to monitor zinc levels because some people, if they don't cycle it properly or they're not under medical care, again, being under medical care is key, then you can um affect some of the copper balance and the zinc balance. Um, it's not common, but it is something to be considerate about. And it also can kick up your histamine levels. So a lot of times when people inject it, they get a slight reaction. And if people have something called MCAS, which is mast cell activation syndrome, or they have high histamine in general, those folks, it may not be the best formula to give them. You can try something else, or you may just want to kind of set the groundwork with KPV or another type of harm uh peptide.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:16

What about on the cognitive side, CLANC? I know that is anti-anxiety, or is it the other one?

SPEAKER_02 1:10:25

So CLANC and C Max work really well together for cognition and anxiety. So we actually like to pair them together. And they're really good as nasal sprays because it goes to the brain. You can also inject them. There are oral formulations, but I I don't think they work very well. But the nasal spray work really well. I think I would say those are really good also for neuroinflammation. They're also good for cognitive performance. I would say I don't I don't use them a lot. I would say in patients, I think there are some better modality, depending on what the goal is. I think they're really good to be. I think I think my question about them, yeah. I think they're good to try. I find them to be probably about 60% effective. Meaning, like, do people feel a difference or they don't? But if you have someone who you know has some autoimmune issues or they have cognitive function problems, or they have neuroinflammation, or they're really prone to inflammatory issues, then it's it's a good consideration because they're also anti-inflammatory and they work on some of those inflammatory uh markers.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:37

So if just taking them for like ongoing cognitive function is probably not the smartest then.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:44

Well, I mean, I think it comes down to feel and effect for myself. I think I think they're worth a try. They're generally well tolerated. I don't think they, you know, I don't really have a big side effect profile. No, no. I think it's good to try them, but I think they're again, it's it's what's the goal at the end of the day. So I think if you tend to be more inflamed, it's something good to kind of keep in the arsenal continue on. Um, you know, I I think there are some people you can actually check like PTAL levels. PTAW is like a new like marker for neuroinflammation, and we we're using it in conjunction with the Apo E lipoprotein, you know, like um ApoE4, which is for Alzheimer's, it's a genomic risk marker for Alzheimer's, and then also looking at like your lipoprotein A and looking at some of these other markers that can put you at risk for more vascular and cardiovascular issues because you have to think about blood vessels from the heart and the carotids, and then you've got these little tiny blood vessels that go up to the brain and go down to the different organs and different, you know, areas of your body. So we want to keep all of those little blood vessels nice and patent and happy. I would say, you know, so if someone has more of a uh predisposition for some of these issues for the blood vessels, I think it's also something good to do. I like tadalafil too, which is um brand name Cialis.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:59

I've heard that too. Yeah, tadalafil is really good. Even people saying for exercise, is that a thing?

SPEAKER_02 1:13:04

Well, think about it. So most people who are big exercise performers will take something like they'll take a beetroot, they'll take like a pre-workout. And those pre-workouts typically have some sort of amino acids like a citrulline or an argyline. Those basically work on nitric oxide in the body. So nitric oxide, very important gas in the body. It's very complicated, but you have to be able to produce it in the blood vessel lining. And so what happens is if you have good nitric oxide, you're going to have vascular, you know, diameter.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:30

So the increases?

SPEAKER_02 1:13:33

Yes. So cialus or tadlophil, you can actually take for longevity. So I actually have most of my patients on tidallofil, low dose, um, not just for erectile dysfunction, which is a big misnomer. Guys and girls? Yeah. Girls is actually women, it actually works really well if women have a hard time with orgasm. And so, especially if they can't take hormones. So, women who are survivors of cancer and they are having a hard time sexually and they have also low nitric oxide levels, tidalophil can be really great. And you can, the great thing about todallopil, you can have it compounded into a topical and you can actually put it over the clitoris, you can put it in the around the labia, which is really nice for women. So they can take oral or they can actually do a transdermal. We actually have human studies too, because you can use it for um different conditions.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:18

Yeah, I know it's been around forever, and I've heard the whole It's very well tolerated. So it that it's doing the same thing, it has an effect on nitric oxide. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:26

So it's dependent on nitric oxide in their body. So you still want I I test people, you could do a little strip to see what your nitric oxide level is.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:32

But I guess thinking back to like the muscle building days, like you you take more arginine so you can have more nitric oxide. How does Cialis work? Like, or how does Tidal work?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:41

So I don't I shy away from arginine and citrulline because there's a lot of steps that it has to do. And you have to have the ability to actually convert it into creating nitric oxide. And when you're younger, it's a little bit easier, but when you get older, it everything gets a little bit harder for the body because your cells are just not functioning as fast. So why not? Why are we using that versus use something else? Beetroot, I think, is better. I think beetroot extract tends to have a better effect on increasing nitric oxide. But tidalophil, Viagra, all of these, all of these types of drugs, they were are conditioned and dependent on the nitric oxide that you have in your body. So you still want to eat well. No, it's utilizing it more it more efficiently.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:22

And so what you and also to note is tidalophil is great at low, and I like todalophyll because it has a longer half-life.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:30

And at low dosing, it's really powerful for cardiovascular benefit. And, you know, when you think about vascular dementia, we want to keep those blood vessels nice and open and firing.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:39

Maybe that for cognitive function. Maybe I don't need all this other stuff.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:42

Well, I think low dose tadalophil, and usually I'll start like between 2.5 milligrams and five milligrams. You want to be thoughtful if someone does have low blood pressure.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:50

How how do what does that do for people that like what do people, what's the starting dose for somebody that has taken it for erectile dysfunction?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:58

Erectile dysfunction usually we start around five milligrams.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:00

It can go so for longevity, all of these other purposes.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:03

It can go down as low as 2.5 to 5. Yeah. Again, because I go off of blood pressure, heart rate, age, you know, there are things that are going on in their body. But typically for longevity, I prescribe it, you know, uh typically for my patients, anywhere between 2.5 to 5 milligrams as a starting, and then we see how you're doing. But I think it's a really great um, it's a great uh therapy for so many reasons.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:27

Yeah, I've heard that from multiple physicians. What about dihexa? I hear about this one and it seems super interesting because from my understanding, doesn't it help you form new connections in your brain? Helps the neuroplasticity. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:43

Yeah. So you know, I actually I like dihexa. Dihexa is another one that you can also think about with Celing and CMAX. Um, I actually like dihexa with tesopensine. It can help.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:55

Um but that's more like methylene blue, right? Like where it is in testofensine's increasing all the pathways of your neurotransmitters.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:03

It does. It works on cognitive function, but it also helps to reduce your appetite. So it helps so the two of them work really well with focus and then just in general performance. I think they work really well. The one thing about testofensine, it can cause a little anxiety. So I don't give it to people if they have a baseline anxiety, but I like sometimes I will couple these two together. I think they're they're cool. Dyehex is also a good one for helping with cognitive performance. Again, it's like a hit or miss one where I think that some people do well with it. They they notice an improvement, and then a lot of people they might not. And so it's one to cycle in and cycle out, in my opinion. And then you can see how someone is noticing. If you start too many things at once, also, you don't want to spiral someone. So you don't want someone to be like, oh my God, now I'm like, I'm really like I'm I'm super anxious.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:51

I've learned not to do that because I also want to figure out what's actually working or not working. Like I saw only ever start like one thing at a time now, or and I start super low. Because if I take two things and I'm like, well, what was it? Like, what was making me feel weird?

SPEAKER_02 1:18:02

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, but dihexa is also a very well tolerated one, typically is a great one to consider.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:09

Um it just made in my when I read about it, it makes sense. Well, it's like, okay, well, maybe this would be beneficial because it's helping you long term. Yeah. So like when you do stop taking it, it's it's like forming new neuropla neuroplasticity, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:23

Yes, yes. So I I think I like to when I start these peptides, I also like to encourage people to work on learning a new skill too.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:32

Somebody else told me that.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:33

So again, because these things don't work in isolation. You know, you have to put the work in a can't take it and just like sit on the couch and just get smarter. Some people obviously like you have increased when we talked about certain things like methylene blue or like parasanthine, those can help with with you feel like a little bit more alert. But the whole point is to use these to function better. And your body just doesn't function better unless you're actually trying, right? You're not going to build muscle mass by just taking testosterone. You have to actually apply and work and build muscle and progressive overload and do those things. But now you have the base ingredient to do it. So the same thing with the peptides is it kind of helps your ROI and it helps you feel better, helps you be more motivated, but you have to then apply yourself to create that neuroplasticity.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:20

Learn a new stuff. I heard you mention methylene blue. We should talk about that one because it got super popular. And a lot of physicians I know are like really behind that one. So explain what that does to people.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:32

Yeah. So methylene blue is actually was used as a lab dye, which a lot of people are like, oh my gosh, it's a lab dye.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:39

So that's the negative that I hear people talk about. It's like, ah, I just feel a little bit weird, you know, taking a dye.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:44

And then it was used in certain conditions in the emergency room, uh, which is why I brought up to you is that people should get a genetic test called G6PD to see if you have a G6PD deficiency, because those folks should not be touching methylene blue. Um, it can cause hemolysis of the red blood cells, which is not something that you want. The other thing is you have to be cautious because it does affect your neurotransmitters. And so if you take an SSRI medication or an MOA inhibitor, um, so if you have depression or if you're on an antidepressant, that it's considered contraindication, but it's it's like a soft contraindication depending on the practitioner who's prescribing it. It does affect your dose and why we'd want to use it, I think at the end of the day, is like why would we use it in that patient? Like, are you using it to try to improve their cognitive performance, their mental health, you know, where you're at?

SPEAKER_01 1:20:35

Maybe to help get off the drugs, possibly.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:39

To get off the drugs, there's a whole other there's other things of trying to figure out you can use like 5 HTP, look at their either pathways to understand, okay, do they have a problem again with the precursor? Do they have a problem with actually the production of serotonin? Like where in the pathway are we having a little glitch? And so then we can think about different methods. Or maybe they are hormone deficient, right? Maybe they have low testosterone, which is so important for neurotransmitter production. They are doing studies already on mental health in men who are on SSRIs, and a lot of those men have low testosterone. So it's like, gosh, like what happens if we give these men actually optimal levels of testosterone? A lot of them can come off of their antidepressants.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:17

Actually, that I know that for personal reasons because on the testosterone side, I had anxiety since I was 15. Nothing caused it. There was no traumatic anything. I just had it all the time. And the one thing that testosterone did, the reason, like the main benefit for me was it got rid of like the majority of the anxiety. And of course, I was I was I started taking it and then I started getting into this other stuff. So along with nutrients and all this other stuff, but like finally, the one thing that like calmed it down a little bit where I didn't feel so anxious all the time, like right when I got up in the morning.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:52

Because there wouldn't be anything, there wouldn't be any reason. I could be having the best day in the world, and I would just already be having anxiety. It was terrible. It was like I wish that upon nobody because for years it was like a little prison.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:02

I know. So I'm gonna tell you something. A lot of people think that testosterone is gonna make a man crazy, like he's gonna be violent.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:09

Man, it like he's gonna be aggressive. It was far from that for me. It was the opposite.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:13

When you give a man back his optimal levels of testosterone, and that's gonna differ across the board. And I just want to say one thing too, is a lot of practitioners are only testing a total testosterone. It's not free testosterone. You have to check the free testosterone, which is the bio-available level of testosterone. And that's also for women. Look for a free, because that's gonna also correlate with symptoms. And the other thing is to understand is that certain levels are gonna affect men differently. So it it depends on what your antigen receptor sensitivity is. So for one man, and I'm gonna go over totals in in the endocrine world right now, if a man has less than 300 of a testosterone, then they're considered hypogonad. You know, they have hypognadism, and then okay, now we're going to supplement their testosterone. A man to have a total testosterone of 300, he would be feeling I mean, why like it's absolutely absurd to me.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:04

Mine was 90 when I first got tested.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:07

And I would want to know why.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:09

I so I know why.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:10

You know, wait, that's your total or you're free.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:12

That was my total when I first got tested. This is six years ago, seven years ago. But I know why. It it I don't think I think it was probably already low. And then again, like I told you, way over training and way under eating. So I'm sure I like really messed up my hormones and everything else along with it, and my uh neurological, like everything. It was terrible. So that was probably the cause. Was it already low? Probably already low. But to get it to 90, I think it was like just I finally gave out because I was just a way over stressed on my body, like way over stressing, heavy lifting, high intensity exercise, and not the right nutrients.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:50

Exactly. So I mean, burnout is real, and sometimes that was real.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:53

That was like I I just thought I was being uh P-word, but you know, like you just get up and just go. Like I feel like I would always keep it.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:01

I'm actually surprised that you were able to do that.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:03

I didn't, it finally gave out. I made it, I made it that way, and then when it got to that level, that's when I started having all those issues, and I started seeing every doctor on the sun because I'm like, am I dying? What's wrong with me? Like I really felt like I was like, something's not right. Like it it felt way worse. And I didn't I didn't ever think of that was gonna be the thing because it felt so bad. And so that's what started me off on this whole path, even down this road of all this longevity and you know, trying to feel better.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:27

But yeah, that was testosterone is incredible. It was so important, and it's so important for both men and women, and it's so important for cognitive. I can't tell you how many and I I see this more in women than men. They have suicide ideations, they're depressed, and all of a sudden you start to give them their hormones back, and women are like, oh my gosh, like my lights turn on. I can't tell you that like people don't pay attention to that. All of a sudden a woman hits her late 30s or her 40s, and then she says, or men. I'm telling you, I have so many men that are just like, I have no motivation. I don't like I can't to get to the gym is so hard for me. I need a 3 p.m. nap. I just I can't, I don't feel social, I don't feel like this. You know what it is?

SPEAKER_01 1:25:11

I think it because it happens over such a long period of time. I don't think like my case is a little different, but I think you don't just wake up that day. It's like it happens so slow. So you're not like, oh, my testosterone must be low. It's just like you're like, I'm getting older, I guess. I don't know, it might be this, it might be all these problems in my life, it might be this. But um, I think that's why people don't like that's not the first thing that comes to mind is like, oh, my hormones are messed up. Because it's like a long, like slow death. And then you wake up one day and you're like, I really can't do anything.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:39

And there's there's a slow decline of testosterone, regardless. And I want to say this is that a lot of it is affected by modern society. Yeah, right. Right? It's so affected by you know, comorbidities, which is the acquisition of other diseases. So insulin resistance, if they have a high toxin burden, it, you know, all of these factors, stress, overtraining, under training, you know, all process foods, like all of that will speed up or control the severity of the decline of testosterone. So there is something called andropause, but it's not exactly the same as menopause. Menopause is that when a woman's ovaries stop producing eggs and they're they're not producing hormones anymore, it it's pretty like serious. Like I think we've really undervalued that. Men don't have a full sense cessation, meaning that they can still have babies potentially in their 80s, their 90s. We've seen that in a lot of different people. But what happens is it, you know, insulin resistance, they're become more unhealthy, right? The higher visceral fat accumulation, and that causes more and more decline. Decline. Yeah. Right. And those lytics cells in the testes that are really important to produce testosterone just tinker out. And that's the cellular health of the testes just it tinkers out and they're not producing. So a lot of men in their 30s, their 40s, their 50s may still have good lytic cell activity, which is why a lot of them could go on, instead of just exogenous testosterone, they'll go on something called HCG, or they'll go on N clomophene or clomid, because basically it's a synergistic signal to your brain, to your pituitary, hey, let's produce more hormones, right? So they'll produce LH and FSH, which goes to the testes to help increase production of testosterone and uh spermatogenesis. HCG works really as LH. So you'll see like LHG is a huge thing that a lot of guys will be prescribed as an alternative to testosterone, especially if they're younger.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:33

And then also for fertility, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:27:34

Like, and the reason is because it doesn't shut down your fertility, it helps to improve it.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:39

Yeah. I know that with TRT, a lot of doctors will say, Hey, you're gonna be on this, you know, forever, right? And if you want to continue to have babies, you take HCG along with it. Is that the right move? Or I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:54

I uh just so this is this is a complicated answer because.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:00

I don't take it, but I'm also not trying to have any more kids. So it's uh kind of irrelevant to me.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:05

But a lot of I I just hear a lot of guys saying that, like, hey, my doctor put me on you know, if I'm 35 still and I cycle guys, so a lot of times so and that there's also something to be said is that when your own cells are continuously able to work, they're you know, it correlates with longevity, right? So instead of just shutting down your own cellular activity and overriding it, let's see if we can still communicate to the cell to produce. And also, with all due respect, I mean, like this is a big complaint from guys is that when they go in testosterone, they're you know, they have testicular shrinkage, so they have atrophy. So because their testes are not working, producing anything. So a lot of guys will come in and be like, oh gosh, I don't want that, or I'm really, you know, it's it bothers me. So then that's also a reason why you may want to cycle or have HCG on. I don't put HCG at the same time as testosterone because it's almost like the signals, it it you know, your testosterone is going to override it. So what I usually will do is I'll do a certain amount of weeks on testosterone and then rotate them to HCG for two to four weeks and then put them back on testosterone.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:07

I had a friend that had testicular cancer when he was very young, like 20. And when he went to go have kids uh later in his life when he they were 33-ish, 34-ish, and they tested him and it was zero. Like his because he had been on testosterone replacement for so long. His sperm count was zero, like zero. So he was like, Man, I don't know if I can have kids. He got off uh testosterone after like 15 years or whatever when he since he had the cancer. And then they gave him a combination of multiple drugs that stimulate your own testosterone, and he came back just like normal and he had kids and he has two health kids. Amazing super young kids. Yeah, it's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:45

Yeah, no, I mean, and that's the the thing is that not every guy has that ability to come back from that. So what we this is why we were a little bit thoughtful of that sometimes these TRT clinics, you've got young guys in their 20s, their 30s getting testosterone, and it's I understand, but it's not the best route because those are guys who are probably gonna be hyper responders to actually HCG or enclomaphene.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:09

And then you're going to increase your testosterone, but you're not going to shut down your own production of lytics selectivity.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:13

Is it genetic, or if they're just young in their 20s and they have low testosterone, could it be a lot of other stuff like outside issues, processed food, and just like maybe a little bit overweight? Is that why their testosterone is low? Like why else would you have it? Or is it genetic and you just would have low testosterone?

SPEAKER_02 1:30:29

No, not genetic. I would say is well, there could be a different reason. They could have a pituitary tumor, there could be some pituitary issue, there could be something, right? But a lot of it is stress, poor diet, and not sleeping, you know, modern society, 20-year-old, you know, drinking a lot of alcohol.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:44

That is the 20-year-old diet.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:45

Really, you know, um, and I think the again, your body, you have to think about your body. Why is your body making these hormones? Ultimately, our body thing is like evolutionary, right? To procreate. And the same thing is for women. Like you'll see less in athletes, right? All of a sudden, women will stop having a menstrual period, right? Because their body is under this incredible amount of stress, or someone goes through a super stressful event and they lose their menstrual cycle, or a guy becomes like, you know, um, a little bit like less motivated or whatever. And that's really because evolutionary-wise, it's saying, hey, this is not the time that we want to procreate. So we're gonna stop this. And also, your hormones are not a priority at this moment. We want to keep you alive. So if you have chronic stress, right, you have to think of like what's going on in the body. But nowadays, I would say modern society, the guys are coming in with lower testosterone in their 20s and 30s because they have metabolic dysfunction, they have insulin resistance, they have poor diets, they're, you know, they're not typically the athlete, they're not typically the, you know, they are, you know, they're the new MBA candidate and they're working like 36 hours in their office and they're not, you know, doing, or they come in and they have a lot of visceral fat already, they have obesity, they have high fat content versus muscle mass, right? And so you almost have to think about the chicken or the egg theory, because if you have worsening metabolic function, you're not gonna produce as much in terms of your hormones. But if you don't produce your hormones, you're gonna have worsening metabolic function. So your testosterone is gonna make you more metabolically healthy. It's gonna help you hold on to your muscle tissue, which is where about 60 to 70% of your glucose is stored. It's also gonna keep you strong, it's gonna keep you metabolically active and feeling good and everything. So if you continue to lose and you continue to put on visceral fat, your testosterone is gonna continue to drop. So you'll see a lot of those issues where we we try to obviously get them in a healthier stage because when you increase their testosterone from a mental health standpoint, but also from a physical standpoint, their metabolism is gonna be better. They're going to be working out more, their ROI in the gym is gonna be better. And so my goal is great, if we can get you off the hormones, because then we're getting you in a better state overall of your health. But those are the guys that you don't want to give them exogenous testosterone, you want to give them HCG or clomide or enclomophene. So you're not shutting down their own production. Um, and then, you know, there's kaisotrax, which is an oral formulation of testosterone. That's the newest testosterone that's out. And that can be a nice alternative for some men, especially if they don't want to do injections. And I don't love creams for men for for testosterone. I don't there's a lot of DHT activity, so we don't love that as much. Um, but chiotrax is shown to be a little bit more protective to fertility as an exogenous testosterone source. So that's nice. It's also an oral formulation.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:28

All really exciting. I'm super excited to where well I'm super excited to where the longevity space is going. Where do you think it's at in five years?

SPEAKER_02 1:33:36

Oh gosh. I think we're gonna have personalized peptides, meaning that they're based off of your DNA and RNA sequencing. Um I think you're going to have a tremendous amount of drug discovery because of AI. You know, studies that are trials that would take 10, 20 years are now gonna be much faster.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:52

And you're gonna be able to do that thing to me because hopefully in five years we look back and like, remember, we had this cancer issue for so long and nobody can figure it out. And if they can solve that, it'll be a huge win.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:04

Personalized treatments, we're already seeing a starting of that for certain tumors and cancer treatments, right? We're able to actually come up with a very custom drug therapy for that individual. I think that's gonna really bloom. Uh, I think it's all gonna come down to really personalized approaches. And as the tech advances because of AI, I think we're gonna see a huge bloom in that. And also predictive in terms of like we already see, like with pancreatic cancer, that we're using, if we're going back, we're looking at people's records that the AI is picking up that this person's probably on a trajectory of pancreatic cancer years ahead. So that's huge. Pancreatic cancer is one of the big failures in medicine that we can't, a lot of those patients we can't save. Uh, and we have very little that we can do to prolong their life. So if we're able to pick up cancers like that ahead of the curve, huge. You know, we have uh AI technology now for breast cancer. This came out, uh, there's something called Clarity that just got released this week. I think we're going to be able to predict um using algorithms and looking at these trends to say, okay, these are people who are on a much higher trajectory for these types of diseases. And I think that, you know, I am not against pharmaceuticals, and I want to be really clear, I'm conventionally trained. I just want them used in the way that's best for the person. So I think, you know, instead of just a blanket statement of, okay, you have a high LDL, I'm gonna give you a statin, well, it's not really what the LDL is. Like, let's look at the particle size, let's look at the apolipoprotein B.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:33

Like I guess if somebody, it always goes back to the root cause, like, hey, how can we hopefully prevent this from continuing to happen? And then if you have to use, I mean, I'm not anti-pharmaceutical either. It's just like instead of trying to mass something, which was a traditional system, you go in, insurance, five minutes, take this, and then you leave, and like that's the system. And so I think it preventative medicine in general is just hopefully continues to like outweigh the old system that everyone has been trapped in for a long time.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:03

Yeah, and I do think also beyond just the doctor's office, and we talked about this, is the home space, the office space, the gym space. How do you create your life to be health supportive and not fight against all of the measures that you're trying to do? And that, you know, includes everything from air, water, materials, EMFs, technology. What can we do? Because you spend your life way beyond the doctor's office, right? So my patients come see me quarterly or every six months, and I might prescribe them their hormones or their supplements, but most of their time is spent in their environment in their day-to-day life. So, what are some of those things that we can leverage? If it's technology, if it's looking at near infrared, red light, what you're swimming in, you know, mold toxicity, heavy metals, where microplastics, right, are everywhere now. We have them in the brain, we have them in the organ systems. What can we do in our natural environments to support our health goals? And I think that's key.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:58

Hey everyone, real quick, I just want to let you know this podcast is 100% independent. No ads, no sponsors, just real. If you're finding value in whatever we're doing here, the biggest help that you can give us is hitting subscribe and sharing this with someone who you think needs to hear it or someone that it will provide value to. That's how we continue to grow. And if you did that, I would really appreciate it. The only thing we did talk about before we go, the red light thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:27

I know it's expensive for a full bed, which I have, but I have a lot of questions like, hey, what brand should I get? Or what should I look for when buying one? Just real quick, like I know there's probably tons of research and it could be super deep, but for people that are out there just wanting to get some benefit and may not have $10,000, $20,000 to spend on a bed, like what should they buy? Maybe Amazon. I know, I know. I I know. I order mine from overseas, so it's like $20,000 on a bed. I tried to order mine from overseas.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:57

Um I would say so. There's some really great panels.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:01

Yeah, where like which what's cost effective? What can still they get benefit from, but also not cost $100,000?

SPEAKER_02 1:38:08

Right. So you want to look for something that has red light and near infrared light, which are two really important spectrums.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:15

And they um And is there a certain like number that they go by?

SPEAKER_02 1:38:19

Because I know when you see them on Amazon or six hundreds to the eight hundreds range is usually like the six seventy, they you know, you'll see that big range of spectrum of life. So you want to make sure you capture like the six hundreds to the eight hundreds. And that's important because that's the red light versus the near infrared. And the near-infrared light is the type of light that goes a little bit deeper into the into the body. So red light is more superficial, it's great, it's good for acne, it's good for collagen production, it's good for just general waking you up, right? Saying, hey, I feel a little bit brighter and I ready to go. And the near-infrared goes a little bit deeper, so it helps to penetrate, especially if you're healing from surgery, if you have an autoimmune disease, if you are more generally fatigued. I love red light. I actually have a lot of my patients put red light over their thyroid, especially if they have Hashimoto's or Graves' disease. Um, but I think you can do really well with the panels. It's about how much surface area you can get. Okay. Um, so when you have smaller panels, right, you're gonna have it concentrated on certain areas of your body, which is why the red light bed is at that 360 and it's beautiful. And one of the red light beds that we use actually has a foot and head panel specifically. So it actually penetrates. It's great for plantar fasciitis, it's great for athletes, it's great for people with cognitive impairment. There are also specific devices like for the head that are being engineered for people who have Alzheimer's who have TBIs, and those are again, because it's really about where you're concentrating the light. So that's why the larger panels, if you have the means, I think are better. Because then you do like front and then you do the back.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:51

So somebody wants near infrared and infrared in the same panel, red light and near infrared. Red light and near infrared, okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:58

Yes. So you and it's kind of standard now. So I say the most of the panels that you get are gonna have red light and near infrared light combined.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:06

For that person that's at home, they're gonna buy something, a panel uh off the internet. How long do they use it for when they get it on each you said you're moving it around on different sections of the body? Like, do they do it every day? Do they do it twice a week? Like, how long do you do it for a week?

SPEAKER_02 1:40:20

Yeah, I mean, you can actually use it daily, depending on like the beds sometimes get really high powered. The irradiance is really high on those. So we don't typically do those every day.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:30

My doctor said three two to three times a week.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:31

Two to three times a week, because you actually don't you do you you can actually hurt like you're overstimulating to at a certain degree.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:37

I do it two to three times a week.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:38

Right. The panels are weaker, so typically, a lot of times people would like to do the panels daily. So they'll it's almost like a part of their morning routine. I like to have it in the morning because I think it can really boost your energy. Sometimes people will complain if they do it at night, it actually stimulates them and then they don't sleep well. Um, so it really depends on the person, but in the morning is usually a great way to start. And I like to have, especially in the face, you don't want your eyes directly looking at it because you can hurt your eyes. There are little goggles that you can wear. Uh, there are studies being done about macular degeneration and red light. That's a very specific indication.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:12

So I wear, I wear the goggles, but I I see stuff online.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:16

Again, it's online, I don't know what to believe, but that that improves your eyesight and your depends on the duration and the irradiance. So you don't want to hurt yourself either.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:26

So if you I've never I've never like just laid in there with nothing on my eyes.

unknown 1:41:30

Good.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:31

Don't start there. But no, we do see improvements with macrodegeneration because we have so much mitochondria in our eyeballs. And so we we actually can use red light. They're studying it now for macro degeneration, which is big because it's one of the leading causes of blindness. Yeah. And it's it's really there's not much that we can do for those people. SS31 can also be helpful. Okay. Um, but no, the red light, I like start with the the front. If you have the time to do the back, typically they're anywhere between 10 to 20 minutes, depending on what you're doing. Even five minutes will be beneficial. So I say if you have five minutes and you're able to, you know, you know, just have the panel in front of your face, it can make such a difference. It makes such a difference. And then if you are using it at night, I find that, you know, putting on the back of your neck. So if you have a smaller device, like I travel with one, um, I just put the near infrared, which is a little deeper. It's not as bright, but it's deeper. And I'll put it on the back of my neck, and I find it to be super relaxing, especially for us who are always on our phones and texting and on our computers. It's so relaxing, can really calm you down.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:32

What about those sleeping bag type things that I've seen online? Like where the infrared or the infrared or whatever is inside the little bed, it almost looks like a sleeping bag. Are those beneficial?

SPEAKER_02 1:42:41

Sometimes they they will combine it with sauna.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:43

Yeah, I've seen that too.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:44

So you kind of get your sweat on with the red light. That could be helpful for some people. Again, I think it comes down like it I think the sleeping bag is fine, but most people probably don't, they don't, it's they don't like it because they feel like they're trapped. But I do think that some of them are high quality. Um it's harder to, I think, getting the sleeping bag to be a bright enough light. I think you tend to have to be in there longer to get the benefit. The panels tend to be a little bit stronger, and so that it's your ROI. It's like time that you can get it done. You can also get in sauna, right? We have far infrared and you have near infrared. So sometimes people will combine those two actually in a sauna. So you're in the sauna getting your detox on. You've got the far infrared, which heats your core body temperature faster, and then you've got the near infrared light that helps you with mitochondrial function. So you sometimes you can find different uh saunas that are like that as well if you are into that. But I think in general, the panels are typically a great option if you can't get a red light bed. Or you can use a facility, you can, you know, get a membership. There are a lot of places, gyms now that are getting red light beds.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:49

I do see them popping up. We're putting them in a boutique hotel where we're remodeling right now. So kind of cool.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:54

Yeah, but you want to, and if you are looking to buy a red light bed, you have to be careful that they're not just taking old tanning beds out and replacing the lights because you have to have a certain distance. Okay. So the red light beds and even the panels, you should be within a certain amount of difference depending on the irradiance of the bed. But most beds are not. Uh, there are a few brands out there that are really good, but most beds are actually, they just take old tanning beds, and especially if you're getting them from overseas and you don't know who's actually doing it, you don't have like a direct understanding of who the engineer is behind or the physicist, they're just basically switching out the lights and it's not you're wasting your money.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:31

What do you look for in a bed? Like what what it what needs to be in there? That's how do you know that it's not an old tanning bed?

SPEAKER_02 1:44:38

Yeah, I mean, I asked them how what the difference the distance from the patient to the bed is. So if it's like a huge distance away, then it's not. It's usually between six to you know 10 inches, is usually around that. Um, what's the bed made out of? You know, like where is it, like how old, like when was it manufactured? The company that we use is actually manufactured in the United States. It's a steel bed. Um, and he actually used to make ICU equipment. Uh, so I love it. You can actually visit his factory, which I'm I love when I have the opportunity to actually see where something is manufactured and I understand who's behind it, it makes a difference. Just like with 503A compounders, I like I love to have that personal relationship where I understand the quality and sourcing. So I like to understand like how is this bed made? How's it manufactured? You know, what's the quality, the irradiance? You can test the irradiance, you can test the bed to see if it actually matches to what they're saying. Um, you can buy the little device to do that and um just see it matches, you know, because a lot of times fancy marketing is fancy marketing. And you can also get beds that have multiple different um wavelengths of life. You can also have different colors like green wavelength of light versus red wavelength, like green can sometimes be a little bit more beneficial for pain management. Uh, red light is really good for mitochondrial function. It can also help with pain, right? Because mitochondria is all, you know, is important. Um, but red light's gonna be really good for collagen production, for healing, for energy, mitochondria. Green light's really good for pain. Blue lights, you don't want to, you know, whole blue light because it's UV light, but that can be really good for acne. So we'll use like blue light masks for people who have chronic acne or cystic acne. So you can also get beds with different um wavelengths of light. And again, you just want to make sure that they have enough of the wavelengths of light that you want. But sometimes I'll see the green and the red as a good combination.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:27

Well, awesome. I think this was gonna be super helpful for a lot of people. Seriously, because I think we I know that's what I feel like between hormones and peptides and just longevity and it's exciting.

SPEAKER_02 1:46:38

Yeah, and I mean, I know you a lot of people may have questions after this. So if you is there's a specific question about how do they get a how do where do they find it? You can totally reach out to me. I have a website, but you also my Instagram, I do a lot of education on my Instagram. It's free. We just we go over a lot of peptides. We I do a lot of education on there. Um, you know, and uh guess if you have questions about the red light too, you know, give them your Instagram name. Yes, it's Ashley Madsen official. And then we also have Lumara Collective, which is our regenerative home um company. So we work and we actually create regenerative homes, longevity, real estate, you know, from switching out chlorine in your pool to hyperdissolved oxygen ozone, EMF protection, red lights from all the good stuff. So I think that's the wave of the future is really thinking about your environment, air filtration, water filtration, hydrogen. Those are really important components, but they can be also really overwhelming because you don't know what brands or what to do or what's even available. Even a lot of builders don't know. A lot of builders or developers are like, what's available? I have never, you know, what's the new thing?

SPEAKER_01 1:47:40

You know, if you're building a luxury house, you definitely need to put it in there. Like you by far for sure need to be.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:47

And it's always nice when you start at the infrastructure versus like, you know, you can always do retrofitting, but you know, if you're building something, man, do it the right way. And also like, think about your air quality because usually the indoor air is two to five times more toxic than it is outside, you know, in terms of what you have. Because if you think about all the materials you have giving off, like the plastics, everything. So and you have to think about mold. So mold is a big deal, and a lot of people think, oh, I just have a regular, you know, carbon filter or whatever. And I'm like, it doesn't kill mold.

SPEAKER_01 1:48:17

So one of those like the UV light things, and then I forget what else we have. We have a couple different things, but I don't know much about it. I just remember the AC people telling me.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:28

Yeah. Yeah, and UV light is used a lot of in operating rooms as an antimicrobial usage tool. But you actually, there's better stuff now. So you know, that that's the technology, right? The wave of longevity is you're constantly innovating. There's always so many cool technologies that are coming out. And that is again, tech longevity and health span or beyond just a pill or a supplement or an injectable. It's the full lived environment. It's what you're taking in your body, what you're experiencing, your emotional, your social, your, you know, you're interacting with your environment all day long. Think about everything that you're touching, right? And technology is not going away, right? So we have to understand okay, how do we live with technology? Because this is a really unique time of our lives.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:11

I think so too.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:12

And it's exciting. So thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:14

All right. Thanks for coming on.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:15

Thanks for having me. Super fun.