A Done-For-You "Shotgun" Formula For Fixing Your Digestion, Oral Peptides and Dealing With Mold

When taking peptides orally, buffering the pepsinogen to pepsin conversion with something alkaline like bicarb will save the peptide from the pepsin breakdown. The argonate form we use protects it against the acidity. But a buffer like you can use whatever you want to use as your buffer. You can even drink a heap of alkaline water or something before you take even the acetate form and you'll get a better absorption orally. Tablespoon of bicarb soda with your peptides. You know, you might get a bit of reflux or issues with the bicarb, but it'll protect the peptides from the proteolytic breakdown.

Hey, folks. So a few months ago I got this special package with some very unique and pretty inventive supplement formulations. And I get a lot of supplements. Obviously I probably get like eight different bottles of things to try on a weekly basis, maybe more. But this stuff was particularly for healing the gut or at least fixing some problematic digestive issues. I had been familiar with what many of you may have heard of in the past, BPC157 as a peptide a lot of people use for recovery. And the lesser known fact about BPC157 is your gut makes it at body protection compound157 and, and it's not just for injuries like as an injectable peptide. You can consume it orally and get some pretty impactful results as far as your gut stability and gut health goes. Now, when I began to look at some of these supplement formulations, there was one in particular that really leapt out to me and made me want to get the formulator of it on the show today. It was called the ultimate gut repair formula and it had a lot of French compounds you may not be familiar with, like lorazatide, acetate, tributarin, something called tudka. Things that we'll actually take a dive into today. But I was just intrigued. I took it and I'm sad because I ran out of my bottle, but I felt like my gut was just able to. I don't know, I tend to have a little bit of a princess gut, I think, but this seemed to make it a little bit more of a steel gut, meaning I could have the pizza that my wife makes slathered with cheese and the sourdough bread and a glass of wine on the side and feel just absolutely fine. Or go out to eat to a restaurant that probably puts vegetable oils on its food and eat a meal that likely didn't have a great nutritional profile, at least from a cleanliness standpoint and felt good. So anyways, the stuff is called the gut repair formula and the company is called LevelUp Health LVLUP Health. And my guest is Kyle Vanderliest. And Kyle's new to the supplement scene, but he has a background as a naturopathic physician, functional health coach, a nutritionist and and he's into finding orally bioavailable peptides, naturopathic botanicals, kind of some fringe and very cool nutrition supplement ingredients. He's done a lot of trial and error and he spent a lot of time studying up on this stuff. You'll get to hear his story today as you're listening. Everything that you hear I'll put shownotes for@bengreenfieldlife.com LVL I believe also, although I don't have it memorized or anything, that Kyle is offering some discounts on his supplements to you guys. So I'll make sure I put all that in the show notes as well. If you hear about some of this stuff, you want to try it at BenGreenfieldLife.com LVL Kyle, what's up man?

Hey Ben, thanks for having me on and thanks for the kind words about the product. And it's six in the morning over here and we managed to make it work with the time zone difference. Thanks for accommodating.

Yeah. All right, well, you're at least awake. What's your morning routine? Do you do like an energy pick me up or have coffee or jump up and down on a trampoline in the sunshine or anything or no sunshine. Skype and go.

Today it was a special day, obviously with the podcast. The nootropics have been stacked on top of each other. Acetylcholine with alpha gpc, some acuna priens for dopamine and one of your favorites, paraxanthine. That's incredible. Like I love it. Of all the nootropics I've tried, bar maybe some of the synthetic ones. That's one of the hardest hitting and the best feeling ones that I've ever consumed. So I do have access to iherb, which is global. So I got Sean Wells other paraxanthine products, the pre workout one. And yeah. Oh man, the swagger you get from that. I know that's sort of the key term they're using to describe it. It's so true. And yeah, my brain feels awesome at the moment despite the early start.

It's sick. That stuff's amazing. But. But you said you also take Choline and Mucuna and is that, is that a stack specifically that is meant to be taken together.

It's basically a stack to push dopamine and acetylcholine to get my brain working as well as possible. Muscle Tech I believe are the other company who have access to paraxanthine with the affinity and you can buy on IHERB globally that product. So happily that's how I managed to get onto it and I've been taking it for a good two months now and it's directly replaced all pre workouts for me. And like I'm barely even consuming caffeine anymore because of that. But yeah, taking that, the macuna and a heap of ketone salts because obviously you've spoken about it in the past. Magnesium beta hydroxybutyrate is my favorite form and yeah just that energy you get. So that's how I've started my day.

You know the thing with the ketone salts though, did you know that to actually get adequate levels of, of of your, your millimolar values of ketones high enough, the amount of salts you have to consume is actually either extremely acidic or an enormous amount of salts, almost like an unhealthy amount of salts. And and so the other problem with the salts is the, the configuration. A lot of them are using an isomer that isn't absorbed by the body that well and I'm convinced increasingly that when it comes to using ketones that esters are the way to go. Like, like beta hydroxybutyrate with 13 butane dial and these salts that which is like a ketone. For those of you listening in, we're getting all geeky here. Bound to assault like they if you, I don't know if you've compared the salts to the ester before, but I think the ester is just far superior.

Yeah, I agree. The ester I've had and used and it definitely there's a stronger mental pick me up is just accessibility. I only had the salts and they do a little bit, not a lot comparatively in. Yeah, you're definitely right there. And obviously with those potential side effects of taking the salt siesta just makes a lot more sense.

Yeah, yeah. All right, well at least you're awake now. That's good. Tell me, how'd you get into like supplements and formulations and biochemistry?

So my journey sort of began about nine, ten years ago now when my mom was diagnosed with cancer. Obviously one of these truck moments is a lot for a lot of people. You have to have these really difficult things happen to you, to sort of propel you into where you're going to be. I kind of compare Max Ludovir with his mum. His mum had Alzheimer's and that sort of set his trajectory forward and he became absolutely, absolutely obsessed with researching it and like, not say it. I'm like him, but with cancer. I did the same thing with my mum. I really felt like the need to help her because there really wasn't much being offered at the time besides, you know, the standard of care. So I dove deep into the work of Thomas Seyfried, Dom d' Agostino and looked at mitochondrial health. And then, you know, you can't help but become a biohacker when you start looking into mitochondrial health. And that led me to podcasts like yours and Ben Bukowski's and Dave Asprey. So it all, basically, most of my learning is a big part thanks to you and your podcast, but also, you know, there's dozens of fantastic resources online. So that was while I was studying to be a nutritionist. And when I finished nutrition, I got a job at a hyperbaric oxygen facility, which was an awesome place to start. That's the only time I actually practiced with clients was at that facility. I'm a naturopath now, but I've never actually been a naturopath and worked with people one on one, apart from while I was studying at a health food store. But the hyperbaric oxygen facility where I worked was just trial by fire and one of the most formative years of my life because we people who have hyperbaric oxygen treatments tend to either be elite performing athletes or very sick individuals with a chronic disease like cancer or.

Immune disease or like burns or wound victims, you know?

Yeah, exactly. So being the technician there, I really just lapped up everything I could from these patients to learn what have you tried? What's been helping, you know, chronic diseases, people with traumatic brain injuries, and the low hanging fruit for hyperbaric was the diabetes. So, you know, you learn about GDAs and people with Alzheimer's, so you'll learn about peptides like cerebralysin, and you learn the works of Max Ludovir and yourself. So that job combined with working at a health food store were really how I got into supplements, formulations and natural health.

Yeah. And how did you get interested, particularly in the gut? Because I think I even heard you use the term leaky gut at one point, which I think still kind of sort of gets laughed at in modern medicine, at least that's been my experience. But I'm curious for you, was it leaky gut that first got you going down this road? And if so, what do you think of that whole term? Leaky gut?

Yeah. So gut health is pretty much one of the core naturopathic tenets and principles. Hippocrates quote, all health begins in the gut. So that mindset of being studying naturopathy sort of got me thinking, oh, it actually really does all begin in the gut, and you are what you digest. And if you've got a dysfunction in any organ, most of it, or any disease process, most of it can be stemmed back either from the gut or. Or the gut being a contributing factor to said disease. So I got into that. And also I've had my own issues with leaky gut and food sensitivities and being exposed to mold as well. That's like a Stanley knife to your gut lining. It will just completely rip it open. So I've had horrible gut issues in the past from mold exposure, even while I had BPC at my. Just at my disposal. Like, if you're still around mold, it's not going to fix the problem. So I've definitely dealt with gut issues my whole life. But the main reason I actually developed the GI repair formula was for former housemate who had Crohn's disease and was getting pretty bad to the point where they were considering putting her on a stroma bag. And so I just thought, ah, I can't have this. I have to try and figure out something for her. And funnily enough, she actually was a nurse, so she'd never actually thought naturopathic stuff or nutritional therapies were of any benefit. So she never even took the product that I made for her. But since then, it's helped thousands of people. And, yeah, it's basically just an IBD formulation is why I made it.

Yeah, yeah. You know, back to that whole it all begins with the gut thing. I sometimes, I don't want to be contrarian because I already know I was talking about the benefits of ketone esters versus ketone salts. But, you know, I sometimes think in functional medicine and naturopathic medicine, that phrase is sometimes overused. Now, I would think, or I would estimate it's probably like 70 to 80% of stuff starts with the gut. If we say that the gut would include the mouth too, because I think that the oral biome, the shape of the jaw and the teeth and the mouth, the production of enzymes starting in the mouth, et cetera, is something that's Often underdiagnosed or under looked at. People who just have mouth issues before they have gut issues. But then like I have seen and experienced myself, profound shifts in health, energy, sleep, healing, et cetera, from things like addressing fascial adhesions and really good deep tissue work. Sometimes like months and months of deep tissue work to reinvent the body, especially in somebody who's been a former athlete or. Another example would be the brain. You know, neurotransmitter imbalances from improper use of nootropics and smart drugs or antidepressants or, you know, some type of issue with the blood, brain barrier, et cetera. Or even like another big one is emotions, right? There's whole books about that, like the Body Keeps the Score and the emotion code that dictate that someone could have like a pristine gut and a poor emotional profile or poor mood or not a healthy spiritual practice and still fight an uphill battle with their health. So my take on the gut is, I think a lot of it starts with the gut, but I don't think it all starts with the gut.

All right, sorry, that was a bit too much of a sweeping term. I 100% agree with that and even myself too. Like, I'm so gut focused. But I, after living in mold, had colonization of mold in my sinuses. So no matter what I did, even removing myself, I had to address the sinus cavity before I could actually heal and reduce.

The toxin release from the mold that was colonized in my sinuses. And then of course, your relationships with people, if you're chronic, chronically stressed with people, then that's going to affect catecholamine release and they're directly inflammatory to the gut too. So that's sort of. You're right, it is above that. And even, even as well. Like if we want to go a step further, your environment too, if you're being nuked with EMFs every day, if you've got Bluetooth headphones on and, or a laptop on your gut, the laptop on your gut is getting inflammation from. That's going to basically lead to leaky gut as well. So we can keep going back and back and go even to like past lives and things like the Dutch famine as well. There's the studies around that. So you can go back and back. But I feel like from the most practical perspective, if someone's going to take a supplement to work on themselves, then maybe the gut is where you start. But the free stuff, the meditations, the community, being a part of a community, that's definitely above gut health. And that's where we'd. Where I'd like most people to start and look at before they take supplements for their gut.

Yeah, ideally, obviously use a holistic approach and go after it all. But the, you know, the mold thing is interesting. Tell me about that. About you said it colonizes the mouth and you gotta break it down or something like that.

It actually colonized my sinuses. And when I started taking I did neti pots and sinus cleanses and small amount. I really gotta iterate a small amount of N acetylcysteine and a few biofilm busters in there. And when I did that over about a week of flushing, these just almighty. What are they called? Biofilms with candida, not candida with mold colonized in them would come out of my nose.

Oh, man.

The relief you get when you pass one of those biofilms is like when you've taken the best poo of your life, but in your nose. So I would actually breathe for the first time in what was months for me after the exposure was just like life changing. And then the reduction in neuroinflammation I had after that because the sinus cavities, there's like a very small membrane between the brain and the sinuses. That's why a lot of people use intranasal as a delivery mechanism for things like peptides or even other compounds. So not having that small trickle of ochratoxin go into my hippocampus and affect my cognition was just probably one of the most profound health upgrades that I've ever been able to do for myself. And I just, for weeks prior to that were taking all the paracleanses and all the. All the binders internal mold. But I never actually got up here before all of the gut lining. So that was hugely impactful and it helped me. And yeah, it's. To this day I'm glad I can still breathe. And I've always got a neti pot handy in case I sort of go into a place with mold just to clear that out. And it's a very beneficial tool for a lot of people to have if they're unavoidably exposing themselves to mold spores.

Yeah, I have a similar approach when I'm traveling, especially in say in an Airbnb or even on an airplane. I actually use a glutathione nasal spray with some essential oils in it. It's made by my friend Dr. John Laurence at Mitozen. And it kind of burns, but you do a couple sprays into each nostril. And it seems to help out quite a bit also with just general immunity when traveling. But the neti pot trick, or just like a lot of people are doing this during COVID like, saline rinses can be pretty powerful. Just like a salt solution. Like, it kind of makes you wonder how many people are walking around with mold or biofilm, especially in the nasal cavity. You know, I, I, that same guy who I mentioned, John Laurence, he does cranial balloon adjustments in the nose where they, I don't know if you've ever had this done, Kyle, where they, they put a balloon up the nose, inflate it, and it's like almost a chiropractic adjustment for the skull. And after you do it, sometimes you get this huge release of like mucus and strangely colored flecks and specks coming from the nose and your head feels clear as a bell. But I've had it done a few times, and every time I wonder, gosh, and somebody who's never had this done, does that just mean you're walking around your whole life just kind of gummed up, you know, with things that have built up since childhood?

It could be, I know Mike Mutzel, he's done a video on YouTube where he actually has a scan of his sinuses and you can see just how congested and how backed up his sinus cavity was. And if it gets really bad, they can even get in there and remove it manually. But I think for most people just doing steam steaming, getting the steam up your nose is a really good way to dislodge it. But if those biofilms, you definitely need to do something that's going to break them down through the neti pot. So, yeah, that was a really beneficial thing. And, you know, getting rid of that sort of the systemic effects for my whole body was awesome. Like, mold is such an a shit thing to have happen to you in your body. Like, it's so disruptive to hormones, it's so disruptive to satiety, reduces MSH in your body. And that has a huge knock on effect at almost every system in the body. And it was really almost embarrassing for me to have gut issues as the formulator of what I call the ultimate repair and still have issues with my gut. But, you know, when I was in the mold, there was no amount of BPC that could fix it because it's just that damaging to the gut lining.

Yeah, yeah. Well, that's the whole wounded healer approach. I don't think there's anything wrong with having an issue. And I have to be dealing with that issue while it's simultaneously presenting the solutions you've discovered to the world. I think sometimes you have a little bit more of a practical, trench based approach in a situation like that. So I get where you're coming from. And this formula, I mean, I know we've alluded to it a few times, I want to get into it momentarily, but I had one more question about mold and this idea of biofilms because I've had to work with a few people and I'm not a doctor and I don't practice medicine. But some advice I've given to people that seems to have really moved the dial for candida and yeast and fungus has been high dose proteolytic enzymes like silkworm extract, serrapeptase, trypsin, chymotrypsin, papain, bromelain, et cetera, in high doses, multiple times per day to, from what I understand, break down the biofilm and then you combine that with an herbal antimicrobial or antifungal agent like oil of oregano. And that seems to be a really good one two combo. But the idea of using proteolytic enzymes to break down biofilm, do you think something like that would be effective for mold also?

It's almost as if you listed off a upcoming formulation that I'm going to make.

The enzymes are really like.

Chitosinase, which is breaks down actual mold and candida, nattokinase, glucomy, my base and lumbrokinase is another one that are really good. But it doesn't necessarily need to be really these specific forms like most of these proteolytic enzymes, if they can get systemic, if they're going to survive the gut lining, they get into a colonized gut, then they're fantastic. But having taken those, I didn't actually use them in the sinus cavity, which I wish I did, but I'm not really sure if there'd be any contraindications to taking proteolytic enzymes in your nasal cavity. It could potentially eat away at the tissue there. I don't think it would because there's plenty of mucus in there to sort of protect you. But I never did those. But I potentially, if I get it again, I might try that out and see how it goes. But I did have a friend who nebulized the proteolytic enzymes and definitely not a good idea to do that because the lung I don't think is meant to have any proteolytic enzymes. In it and it really burns the lungs and was coughing after.

So yeah, that's like ozone, right? Don't breathe it in. But that is interesting. And I guess I've only thought about oral consumption for getting into the bloodstream, et cetera. But yeah, I wasn't proposing spraying it up the nose but there's. Yeah, that's interesting. But you think the saline rinse will break down the mold biofilm pretty well.

The saline and maybe some of the botanicals like some citrus essential oils. There's a essential oil blend called Citri Cleanse or forgotten exactly the name of it. But yeah, it's just citrus based. You could use other things like grapefruit extract. That's a really good one. There's actually a product coming out from a company I believe that you know, Symbiotic Are you.

They're bringing out a para X one and it's got some very, very interesting new compounds. One's called caffeic acid, fennel, phenyl ethyl ester. And that seems to be like one of the best ingredients that you could use for taking care of both parasites and mold at the same time. And that's in this really big over. Almost. Almost overdone in what they put in it. But I really like that. Like it sort of fits with my philosophy of they've just made like an all in one parasite and candida mold cleanse product. And it looks absolutely amazing if you look at the ingredient panel on it.

Is that the Para X by Symbiotica?

I think it's called Para X. It might be something else, but yeah, it's symbiotic, it's new parasite.

I'll hunt it down and put a link to it in the show notes for folks. Actually I found the ingredient label right here. Yeah. Phytonoic andrographylide and phytosure curcuminous curcuminoids, ellagic acid bicycle and bisalin, luteolin and caffeic acid.

Phenolester along with like monolaurin from coconut oil oregano. Wow, this is a pretty intense formula. Interesting.

Yeah. I couldn't find like as I said, I was working on something for myself for my for level up and then I saw this one. I'm like oh damn, he bent me to it.

That's happened, that's happened to me at Kion before.

I didn't actually answer one of your questions before. You sort of were touching about leaky gut, you know, if the term's even accepted. And.

I think it's Gradually getting more accepted by people. But it's still like a colloquialism, just something people use. Just in general speak more so than you would at your doctor's office. They use the term intestinal hyperpermeability and I think that's way more accepted. And if you use Google Scholar or PubMed and search Intestinal hyperpermeability, you're going to get substantially more results if you're looking into condition. So that's the key term to use. But leaky gut's definitely a thing whether whatever you want to call it, Zonulin is a huge factor in leaky gut. That zonulin protein is triggered by stresses like gliadin from gluten, pesticides like glyphosate. These and certain toxins trigger. They bind to the outside of the enterocytes of the of the intestine. And then once they, once those molecules bind to it, your epithelium release this molecule called zonulin. Zonulin is something you can test for in both blood and fecal. But this is basically a marker of leaky gut because the more zonulin you have, the more permeable your gut membrane will be it the gut membranes like a mesh. And zonulin basically increases the, the pore size of your mesh to, to let things in. It has a physiological role. It's not all bad. Like we need certain amounts of zonulin to increase absorption of certain, certain things from the diet. But too much is and too in chronic release of this is what we would, what is what would lead to something like leaky gut and can actually lead to things like food sensitivities. A lot of the time people who eat the same food almost every day for a whole year will develop a sensitivity to the food. It happened to me with eggs. And this is because some of the fragments of the egg that you've eaten, some of the amino acids of that in due time will actually cross that membrane barrier and then interact with your immune system. And then you might get like an IGG response to even healthy foods. It just happens when you don't eat seasonally.

Okay, interesting that that can go away.

It won't end up as like a long term, you know, immune response to that, like an allergy. It's just like a accumulation effect. And you know, zonulin is one of the key contributors to things crossing the.

Gut membrane. But it the only thing. There's plenty of other things that contribute to leaky gut, but I think the main thing to focus on is how do you actually fix this if you have, like, if you've tested your gut, you can test it, as I said, in fecal or in serum and see your zonulin levels. But you can also do something called the GI map, which is a fecal microbe test. I believe you've done one of those before.

Yeah, yep, I have. Multiple times. Yeah.

Oh, they're so fun to do, digging through your poo.

Yeah. With a little hot dog tray and a little spoon and the tubes that they include with it. Yeah. I think the, the three day panel by Genova Diagnostics is a good one because a lot of times if you're looking especially at parasites, you know, you're not going to catch them, so to speak, with just one snapshot of a measurement. You got to do multiple days in a row to really get a good profile of the bacteria and the biome and the critters in the gut. But yeah, I think anybody who hasn't done a gut test yet, back to the reason that you were indicating, many health issues arise, you know, beginning with the gut. I think anybody who's concerned about their long term health should test it. I don't even think you need a full biome bacterial profile, like a gut biome or a biome or something like that. I think even just getting, you know, like a Genova diagnostics that's going to give you parasites, yeast fungus, Candida, et cetera is a, is a good way to go. And for those of you listening in, zoning, it can be confusing, but zoning would increase the permeability of the tight junctions between the cells. And so a, if you're talking to your doctor, don't use the term leaky gut. Like Kyle just said, if you want to take you seriously and sound smart, use the term high intestinal permeability or something like that, something more multisyllabatic. And then the other thing is, with Zonulin, you technically want to, you'd want to decrease the activity of zonulin. Have you ever looked into colostrum for that, by the way, Kyle?

Yeah, I have. I love colostrum. It's a lot of coaches that I work with use that in their protocols. It's just one of those things that certain people might have a reaction to it being a dairy that it's sort of like it's hit or miss. But yeah, in theory it's fantastic.

Yeah, I'm sensitive to dairy, but I feel great on colostrum. So I'll do typically a couple of colostrum smoothies each week. That'll just, you know, make my usual smoothie, but just put boatloads of colostrum in it. And I always feel amazing with that. Now the gut repair formula, I want to get into that because it's kind of complex. So tell me about the gut repair formula and the actual ingredients that are in it and what they're actually doing. I realize that's an involved question because there's multiple ingredients, but I'd love to hear what you fill me in on the details of it.

Yeah, sure. So there's basically a combination of peptides and then combined with some of the most powerful nutritional and naturopathic compounds that I could find that you can fit in a capsule. Obviously there's things like marshmallow root, there's things like L glutamine, but you need a really high dose of those and sort of long term use to get benefit from those. The ingredients that I've used in this formulation, peptides are huge, like huge potential for what they can do for people, not only for gut health but for medicine. I'm not the first, and I won't be the last to say this, but peptides are the future of medicine. They don't have, most of them don't have toxicity, especially if they're found somewhere in the body like bpc. As you mentioned at the start of the show, that's found in your stomach acid. It's a stomach acid secretion. And the reason why your stomach secretes it is to protect your stomach from the hydrochloric acid. If you get something like an ulcer or if you get H. Pylori or something that's affecting the integrity of the stomach, that can be catastrophic for the body. If, you know, if you have a leak of hydrochloric acid into your torso, that would be the end of it for you. That's not a good situation in acid burning through your body. So your body has a heap like it's a really thick organ in the stomach. So that's one contingency. There's a heap of mucus in it. So there's another. But I believe this peptides produced in there to heal that organ as fast as possible. Because as I said, that's, that's game over if that, if that organ goes wrong. But yeah, so BPC is not compound.

A quick question about bpc. Obviously for the purposes of repairing the gut or affecting the gut, oral administration seems to just make like intuitive common sense. But if someone were to inject BPC157 using the traditional Peptide administration route of like using an insulin syringe to inject. Do you think if they didn't have access to oral BPC157 there'd still be an effect on the integrity of the gut?

Yeah, because it ends up in circulation. This is something that I've sort of mused with, with other people in the space, whether oral versus injectable, like does it actually matter when it all ends up in circulation anyway? And it Jean Francois said peptides are like, they're smart in the sense that they will go to areas of inflammation, they're not going to just enter cells that don't need them. The term bioregulator is one that's been used and I think peptides definitely fit that description as well. They don't do anything if they're not needed.

If there's a site of inflammation, then they'll just attract themselves to it and stimulate all these repair processes. But if there's actually no need for it, it'll just circulate and then be broken down in circulation by hydrolyzed enzymes. But to answer your question, if someone had injectable form of bpc, you can inject that and it would elicit some benefits. But it's sort of like you want to get as close to the side of injury as possible. If you have gut issues, oral is just made sense. It's going to go directly through your GI tract, all of it, and get to wherever it's needed to. Another way that you can do it is if you have like large bowel pathologies like ibd, Crohn's or colitis is there are BPC suppositories which is another way you can do it that bypasses the chance that all the BPC you take through the mouth might get used up earlier in the small intestines or in the stomach. So for people who have large bowel pathologies, you almost need to do a higher dose to sort of oversaturate the earlier parts of the digestive system to actually let it get down there. But then that, that has actually worked in practice. But this is sort of where it's a bit contradictory. It enters circulation. So do you even need to do that anyway? That's something that I think needs to be studied a bit better by people in the space. But unfortunately I'm not seeing too much new BPC research coming out. And that's obviously because it's a non patentable natural compound that, you know, unless there's millions to be made and millions to be made, the Money that it costs to study this. It's not really being pushed.

So, yeah, not a lot of financial insight. Now, what about the other peptide? And I want to hear about the other ingredients as well because, you know, many people will find great results from just taking oral BPC157, which, by the way, I think you have that available on your website. Just BPC 157 all by itself. Right.

I really hate function, I really hate useless fillers in products. So I've added palmitool, ethanolamide, PA as the filler along with hyaluronic acid, which would synergize with BPC157's effect on collagen networks. So I piggyback those two together and put a bit of sodium bicarbonate too. Because when taking peptides orally, buffering the pepsinogen to pepsin conversion with something alkaline like bicarb will save the peptide from the pepsin breakdown. The arginine form we use protects it against the acidity. But a buffer like you can use whatever you want to use as your buffer. You can even drink a heap of alkaline water or something before you take even the acetate form and you'll get a better absorption orally. But yeah, just buffers for tablespoon of bicarb soda with your peptides, you know, you might get a bit of reflux or issues with the bicarb, but it'll protect the peptides from the proteolytic breakdown.

Wow, that's an amazing tip. That's really good to know. See, so if you were to take oral BPC157 all by itself, the acidic environment combined with some of the CO factors not being necessary for a high enough bioavailability would dictate that, like you mentioned, it's not going to reach the collagen that works as effectively or have as great an impact on the gut.

Exactly. Yeah. There's two. Most people use injectable, they tend to use the acetate form. This form is about eight times cheaper than the arginine form. The arginate form is the one they call the stable form, the form that has this 90% bioavailability and it's capable of withstanding the stomach acid. But the other thing, the thing with that is it does withstand the stomach acid. And when they test it, they basically just put it in acid and. Correct, it does withstand it, but not factored into that are the proteolytic enzymes. So whenever you're taking any oral peptides, I Recommend people take it away from a high protein meal. If you've just eaten a big chunk of steak or a piece of chicken, your stomach acid is going to drop as close to one as it's capable of doing and it's going to upregulate a heap of the proteolytic enzymes to break down that chicken or that. And then if you put like GI repair or regen bpc, kpv, any oral peptide after that, you're not really giving it a good chance to be absorbed.

Okay. And you use the arginine form in, in both your formulas that have bpc.

Yeah, yeah. Nothing but the best form. I'm not going to waste people's time with the acetate.

Yeah, okay, cool. So the BPC157 is the first ingredient and obviously one of the major staples of the gut repair formula. But what else do you have in there?

The second peptide in there is KpV. This is a fragment of melanocyte stimulating hormone alpha MSH.

Which is the parent peptide of quite a few different peptide fragments. So There is Melanitan, Melanitan 1 and 2. They both come from MSH. I believe you've used them in the past to quite interesting effect. Kpv, kdpt, there's all these fragments of this main MSH peptide and by only using a fragment, you basically selecting. It's like a selective peptide modulator rather than like a sam, which is a selective androgen. You can have a breaking them down to a fragment like the KPV is a three amino acid fragment of msh. It basically makes it more specific to certain receptors. We've got five key melanocortin receptors, MC1 receptor that's responsible for your tanning, for hair color. That's where melanitan shines. It really has a strong affinity for that one. Melanitan actually works on most of the receptors. But something like KPV will work on the other benefits of the melanocortin system in the body. It'll bind more to the three and the four. And the three is responsible for energy homeostasis. It's responsible for the two it also binds to, which is responsible for adrenals and steroidogenesis. And I believe PT141 is another one of these MSH fragments and that has more of an affinity for the two. And that's why a lot of people use it as a sexual arousal peptide. And it works.

That's the side. Well, like a bodybuilder who would use melanitan for increased Skin pigmentation. The side effect is often, what do you call it? Priapasm, like erections that will not go away. I had a similar experience that you just alluded to where I'd take it because I wanted to just see what it did and how it worked. But the problem is trying to sleep with an erection, it's just. It's nearly impossible. And so I didn't like the way I felt on that stuff very much either way. But this kpv, that's more of something that's found in or makes up part of the larger melanitan, but by itself it's actually having more like antimicrobial, anti inflammatory, antifungal type of effects on the gut.

Precisely. It just removes those unwanted side effects of. I mean, I wouldn't mind if it tanned me without giving me uncontrollable erections. Like that would be good. But it basically removes the binding to the one which is responsible for the tanning. It has a lower affinity for the ones that stimulate sexual arousal and it's more focused in on the immune. The immune system, the immune cells. Certain immune cells have melanocortin receptors too. And that can. That's why KPV is a fantastic peptide for people who've had Lyme disease or who have chemical sensitivities. And the big reason why I included it too was it comes back to mold. People who have been exposed to mold, their melanocortin, MSH is substantially reduced, like up to a 90% reduction in endogenous MSH production. So KPV basically is like supplementing MSH in the effects that you want from msh. So that was really beneficial in bringing my energy back up, helping my immune system for mold and I think Lyme disease, chronic fatigue syndrome, it's really beneficial for that because the, the cascade of effects the melanocortin system have and brain too. You got a heap of heat MC receptors in the brain, so.

Oh, really?

Yeah, I think a lot of the one, I think it's C Max is one of the brain peptides and I think that's an A. Yeah, I think that's one of the. It binds the melanocortin system in the brain too and that's where it has really potent anti inflammatory effects and anti Alzheimer's effects too. So yeah, in the gray matter there's a lot of receptors for melanocortinine. So that's a really. That's a benefit of going in the sun for one. But it's also, you know, benefits to MSH and why mold is so almost like a prerequisite for chronic conditions. Like if you've been exposed to it in the past, you are increasing your chances of things like Alzheimer's because you're not making msh. Therefore MSH isn't binding to these anti inflammatory pathways in the brain and there's things you can do from there. But if you don't know, and as we said, if people are going along with colonized mold in their sinuses for years unknowing, then you're just getting this slow little trickle and this gradual reduction in MSH production. So yeah, KPV is fantastic for that and that's why I included it in the formula.

Now, now in America, one really popular peptide it seems right now is LL37, which is like an antimicrobial peptide. A lot of people swear by that. For example, for SIBO particularly. Have you heard of that or is there a reason that you didn't include that one in the formula?

I've heard of it. I didn't include it because A, it was very difficult to get, like I don't think I could have could get it at the time. But B, it can cause really severe die off reactions to people when you.

Oh yeah, like a Herxheimer reaction.

Exactly, exactly. And if people need it, then it's fantastic. But I wouldn't add it to something that's for the general population because I don't want people to feel like shit after they've had the product. I want people to feel good. And that's sort of what most people get from it. Unless they have a reaction to zinc, Zinc carnosines, another one of the ingredients. And I put a heaped dose of that in there, like a really clinically, clinically dosed amount of it. But some people get nausea from zinc. I don't know if you experienced any of that.

Yeah, yeah, I think it depends on the form. Like at Kion for our immune formula I use zinc bisglycinate, which seems to be a form that doesn't cause gastric upset in people, that the dose is necessary for immune support. But yeah, some forms of zinc can cause issues. The bisglycinate seems pretty well tolerated though. So BPC157 and KPV, those would both be considered peptides. KPV obviously a little bit of a smaller peptide, like a tripeptide, which means it's just for those of you listening in, it's just like three peptides or three amino acids bound together. And then I notice you also have something called lorazatide. Lorazatide acetate?

Yep.

What's that?

It's codenames at 1001 for people who want to research it. This is a very simple.

Sounds like a secret agent.

License to stop zonulin. That's what its function is and it's very specific. Unlike the other two, there's like a plethora of benefits to BPC and kpv. And when you take BPC to heal your gut, you'll actually notice reduction in neuroinflammation. It might help. It's organo protective. So you've got these pleiotropic effects from BPC and kpv. But lorazatide is more specific. This is. We spoke about Zonulin earlier and how that's sort of like the leading, one of the main factors in leaky gut. Well, lorazatide is simply an antagonist to Zonulin. It's derived from endotoxin, I believe. I can't remember exactly, but it's an antagonist to Zonulin. It binds to the receptors in which zonulin would bind to in the cells and basically prevents that hyperpermeability from even happening. The analogy I use when I describe why I use lorazotide in the formula, it's like if someone has a wound on this, on their shoulder, for example, and you've got. It's the equivalent of putting staples in the wound or stitches, it seals it up, while on the other end you've got the two anti inflammatory, pro angiogenic, pro growth factor EGF peptides working from within to heal it. The lorazotides, like the staples holding the gut lining or the wound together in the gut. And it's being studied mainly for celiac disease. Obviously zonulin and celiac gliadin triggering zonulin is the mechanism for that. So it's being studied quite heavily for celiac disease and it's code, it's nicknamed the anti celiac peptide as well.

Really?

That. Wow. Yeah, yeah, that's like colloquially, colloquially what they call it, but yeah, it's one function is to inhibit Zonulin and you know, the other effect that you can get from inhibiting zonulin is systemic too. It's not just in your gut where zonulin has effects. Zonulin can actually open up the blood brain barrier, it can cause neuroinflammation. So by inhibiting the gut, we inhibit its absorption into the, into the circulation and then we want to prevent it from going into the blood brain barrier because I personally Believe a lot of people's brain fog is caused by leaky gut. And the mechanism for that would be zonulin opening the blood brain barrier or things like lipopolysaccharides or endotoxins or even toxins generally that are circulating should not end up in the brain. But I believe leaky brain is a big issue at the moment. That lorazatide and all these, anything, gut healing, anything that's going to seal the gut lining is going to benefit for the brain as well. And that's sort of the gut brain connection there through the circulation.

Yeah, yeah. Okay, got it. And then there, gosh, I mean, those are only three of the ingredients. We've barely scratched the surface here. But, but I, I know that you have the zinc in there, like you mentioned, zinc, carnosine and. And then the other three that you have are quercetin, tributyra and tudka. And although we may not have time to cover every single ingredient in this formula, the tudka particularly, that's one I've.

Heard a lot about.

A lot of people seem to be very into this tudka thing. Tell me about Tudka.

Tudka is actually not in the GI repair formula. It's its own standard product.

Do you stack that with this product sometimes or.

Yeah, it's the bile salt. You can stack it with it. It really is beneficial for sibo. Like bile acids have a really great modulatory effect on bacterial overgrowth. Bile in a high enough dose is capable of wiping out the grammar negative bacteria for sibo. So that's one of the benefits to it. But its main benefit is promoting drainage and phase three detoxification. It has a ceiling effect on the gut too. And as I said, anything that's going to positively influence the microbiome, like KPV and like even some probiotics or some prebiotics, they're going to be beneficial for the gut lining. But Tudka is its own standalone product because most people need between 250 milligrams. And if people have taken oral steroids, oral testosterone, that really has an ability to clog up the bile. And Tudka is a water soluble bile salt and it thins the bile and gets it flowing a lot better. This prevents things like cholestasis. If people have elevated liver enzymes, it's just one of the quickest acting compounds for lowering those. And when again, like, bring it back to when I was in mold, mold congests and clogs up the bile. So when I took a large dose of that. Again, I had almost a Herxheimer reaction to the tudge because it finally cleared. Cleared the liver out, which is a big thing that a lot of people overlook. And I think when it comes to detoxification, we need to start from the gut, work our way back to drainage phase three, and then we start to actually modify the phase one and phase two of the liver detoxification. Rather than starting with something like milk thistle, which it upregulate phase one and then can actually, if you don't have drainage open, if you don't have essential amino acids or glycine or NAC to support that phase two of liver clearance, you can actually end up with an accumulation of these intermediate intermediary metabolites and cause actual liver inflammation rather than helping it. So, yeah.

Wow. Okay. So the tudka, arguably, if you were to eat like a higher fat diet, maybe a carnivore diet, a ketogenic diet, et cetera, it sounds to me like that would actually help quite a bit with the production of bile to support the digestion of that, because a lot of people get fatty stool and digestive distress from a diet like that. But it sounds like tadka could fit in pretty well in a scenario like that.

Absolutely. The lowest hanging fruit for toco is it's basically a direct replacement for people who take ox bile. It'll give you all of the benefits for fat absorption, as ox bile would, but then it has all these other effects such as helping the liver, which ox bile doesn't do. And then it also has beneficial effects for reducing endoplasmic reticulum stress. So it helps with protein folding as well, helps mitochondrial production, and also helps with the conversion of T4 to T3. It helps the deiodenize enzymes for the thyroid conversion in the liver. So one of my friends who's a coach in Australia took it and he asked me if there was any. If I'd laced the product with anything because he had such an uptick in energy and he was. He had a little bit of mold in his environment, but taking the tud cleared out his. His. His liver, and then also really positively affected his thyroid conversion through to the active T3. And he felt amazing from it, really energized purely from something that, you know, that's one of the side benefits of the side reason why someone would take tudka rather than the primary. So as a direct replacement for ox bile. It's fantastic. You had Dane Johnson Crohn's colitis.

Yeah, Crohn's colitis lifestyle. He's fantastic.

Yeah, he's awesome. He loves tudka. He uses that for most. He's most of his patients with GI issues and anyone who's been exposed or anyone who's got problems with drainage, which is a lot of people nowadays. So Cellcore also have a good Tutka as well. And I think they've got a proprietary blend of tutka with some melatonin and a few other things. But yeah, yeah, that's Turka. That's not actually even part of the GI repair, but that's just one of my favorite products.

What are the other ingredients in the GI repair then, besides the BBC157, the KPV and the Lorazatide?

Well, that's where the naturals come in. The zinc carnosine, I've got a dose, I think it's at 50 milligrams. I think you get a zinc carnosine from that, which is. That's why people end up with gastric distress. I think the average supplemental dose of zinc is about equivalent to 10mg, which most people is fine. But 50 is a big dose and that's why maybe one out of 10 people might have some degree of upset stomach from GI repair, in which case you just split the dose and that'll, you know, only give you 25. But again, still, if people have issues with that, then taking it with some fats or some carbohydrates will prevent that.

That's fantastic for soothing the stomach. Carnosine in and of itself, just a fantastic amino acid. But when you combine it with zinc, which has a strong healing effect on the gut lining and very important as a reason why people with IBD really struggle to fix their gut is because of the damage to the gut lining, you don't get very good absorption of dietary zinc. So zinc is like one of the key minerals that we need for healing the gut lining. So zinc carnosine just. I couldn't think of a better form to use for healing the gut. Then there's tributerin, which is a really bioavailable form of butyrate. And butyrate, it's just a short chain fatty acid which feeds the enterocytes and the colonocytes. Really potent anti inflammatory too. It's a histone deacetylase inhibitor. So a lot of people with colon cancer are taking big doses of this to sort of help them. And it inhibits the NF Kappa Beta Inflammazone and it's a COX2 inhibitor as well. So there's a few different forms of butyrate you can supplement. I think it's body bio have calcium, magnesium, butyrate. But the tributerine form I think is the best.

And provides the most butyrate. I think there's three butyric acid molecules down to glycerol and it's capable of getting through this, through the stomach acid and through the entire small and large intestine.

Okay. Now butyrate, it's very, very much a part of the colonic environment and I know part of a healthy large intestine. Have you ever heard of people using these butyrate enemas like taking butyric acid up the other end?

Yeah, I think Dane just mentioned it to me that he was using like most of what's in GI repair he's given to people as suppositories or enemas or got them compounded that way. So it would be good. I can't imagine it would be the most pleasant thing to have because tributerine tastes and smells like fermented cheese.

Yeah, it doesn't smell that great.

No, I don't think any of the butyrates forms are great. Tudka is another one which is horrible. It took its sort of smells and tastes like nail polish remover because it's an acid. But back to butyrate. Yeah, you could definitely do it as an enema. I would suggest for people with large bowel pathologies, Crohn's and colitis, doing things as suppositories or enemas is going to get these compounds as quickly and as efficiently as possible to the side of inflammation. But you can definitely do them orally as well. I've had thousands of customers, many of which have large bowel pathologies and they've definitely noticed a huge improvement in their, in their conditions. Taking the formula, taking things like and just general anti inflammatories on top of that too. It's really as far as gut healing goes, BPC is the powerhouse of the formula.

Yeah.

But when you combine bpc which stimulates all these growth factors with other things which synergize with those growth factor stimulations with the anti inflammatory effects with the procedure, gut healing effects of these compounds and even just the energy substrate for the colonic cells as well, with the butyrate you're getting, you're overlapping on so many mechanisms which are important to hit if you really want to nourish the gut and help heal the gut lining.

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. I mean it seems like you can cover so many bases. This formula. And then. And then you mentioned you have kercetin in there also.

Yeah, I've got two forms of quercetin. There's Anhydrous, which has terrible bioavailability. I think it's only 2%, but I kept that in there because it's actually really good. If it's embedding itself in the mucosa of the stomach lining and not getting systemic, then it's having a local effect. It's preventing.

Histamine in the lumen. Histamine is another thing that can cause a flushing reaction in the body. Your body. If people have histamine intolerance or mast cell activation syndrome, they have chronically high levels of histamine. And this can be due to something like a parasite or food sensitivities or whatever the cause is. Yeah, the effect is the histamine opens the permeability of the gut lining to try and get stuff out of your body to flush it out. And then you end up with something like diarrhea or. And then systemically, histamine 2 gives you the effects of, like, itchy eyes, runny nose, and. Yeah, so quercetin is the best. One of the best mast cell stabilizing ingredients that I could use, and mast cells definitely contribute. It also has a direct ceiling effect on. On the. On the gut as well. And then the other form of question I used is one called enzymatically modified ISO quercetin Emiq.

Okay.

This works on the other side. So this works on the other side of the. Of the. Of the. The gut lining. So anhydrous is sort of in the lumen. And Emiq has 40 times the absorption, supposedly from the manufacturer, but 40 times more bioavailable form of quercetin. So this gets systemic, this gets on the other side of the gut lining, and this is gonna have antihistamine effects in the body. It's one of the best anti histamines, maybe bar something like diamine oxidase. Dao. It's probably the second best of the mast cell stabilizing ingredients, and you really don't need much due to its high bioavailability. And this is just such a great compound. You can get it on iHerb, you can get it in GR repair. And for anyone who has seasonal allergies, there's nothing better than Emiq, in my opinion.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, when you look at gut issues, everything from the mast cell and histamine sensitivities that you've described to intestinal permeability, to candida yeast or other fungus, to the mold that you talked about, to sensitivities to certain things like gluten or lactose, to poor bile production or gallbladder or liver function. There's so many reasons, but in your description, and correct me if I'm wrong, it sounds like this formula is kind of like a shotgun formula that's just covering all the bases for each of those different issues that could cause problematic gut issues.

Exactly. Its key goal is to fix leaky gut. The hyperpermeability. There are times when it won't work. If someone has horrible dysbiosis or candida overgrowth like KPV has an effect on the immune system, which then the immune system might be able to take care of the overgrowth. But a lot of the time I find this, this product will work really well for anyone with leaky gut issues. But when it doesn't work, it's usually dysbiosis or poor environment like I had with mold. But one thing it the butyrate is also fantastic. And quercetin as well. It's stimulating mucus release. And that mucus membrane, that mucus layer is. If the gut lining is only one cell thick, the mucus lining can be up to like 50 to 100 times thicker than that. It's not an actual cell, but it's basically the moat for which the castle stomach lining. So building that moat with products like I think another company have one called Mega Mucosa. And even the colostrum you take is really good at helping stimulate the mucus production. But if you've got dysbiosis in your gut, then these gram negative and these pathogenic bacteria actually eat away at the mucus and thin that out to the point where you don't really have much of a line of defense against other things that might be wanting to get into your circulation and invade and attack your own gut lining.

Wow. Wow, man. It's such a good formula. I know we're running tight on time because you've got skin peptides and some anti aging skin care products, whole bunch of other stuff. Your site's gonna be super fun for people to explore and I'll link to it BenGreenfieldLife.com LVL but one question I did want to ask you before I let you go, Kyle, is as far as the usage of this thing, do you take this with the meal? Do you take it on an empty stomach, do you take it multiple times per day or what's the best way to use it once you get a bottle.

I recommend people try first away from food. But as we said, with the zinc carnosine at such a high dose, it might be unavoidable that you have nausea. So taking it with fats or carbs is a really good way to prevent that nausea, but just not a high amount of protein. The other formula that has BPC or the kpv, the standalones, they don't have that zinc in it. So most people aren't going to react to them. The only time someone might react negatively is if they have. I have issues with fats because the other two have palmitool ethanolamide, pa, which is a fatty acid. It's not in a huge amount, but I have heard maybe one out of a thousand people might react negatively to the pea and any, any fat. But yeah, taking it before meals is good too. If, especially if you know you're going to go out and be exposed to something that's going to trigger leaky gut, like if you know you're going to go out for some crap food or have a pizza or burger, having lorazatide as that zonulin antagonist in circulation, it's going to prevent and reduce the damage that you would otherwise sustain from a cheat meal.

Yeah, maybe that's why I noticed the big effects when I'd use it when eating out. Like it's perfect for date night or going out to a restaurant or traveling in my opinion, like that's, that's where I really seem to notice the best effects on gut stability because I eat pretty clean at home. But man, like just to have this in, in your back pocket, your first aid kit for travel is amazing. So I know we're running short on time and I have another podcast coming up here so I gotta get going pretty soon. But what I'll do for folks listening in BenGreenfieldLife.com LVL I'll put more information about the supplement, the label, some of the details about it and I think we have a discount code somewhere. I'll hunt it down, I'll put it in there as well so you can go check this out. I would also encourage you to surf around and look at some of Kyle's other products, particularly if you get the gut repair formula to get the tool tud cut to go along with it if you want a little bit better bioflow if you're in a high fat diet. For some of the other reasons that we mentioned, I feel like we're gonna have to Do a round two, Kyle, because like, you, you go deep on this stuff and I would love to geek out with you again if you're game.

Yeah, sounds good. We didn't even touch on skin peptides. I've got GAA, which is 18 precursor, coming out. Dihydromycin, which you've mentioned as well, is like an anti hangover, anti alcohol one. There's just the backlog is pretty. Pretty endless. As well as the skin peptides. So sweet. Your codes are Ben 10, Greenfield, BGL or Greenfield. You've got all of them. Anyone that you've used or they just all work.

Just type them all in. All right, well, cool, man. I'm excited for people to get their hands on this stuff and give me feedback. And if you guys have questions for me or Kyle, leave them in the show notes, go to BenGreenfieldLife.com LVL you can leave your questions, your comments, your feedback there. We'll be happy to hop in and help you out. If you have any issues with ordering or anything like that, you can let us know too. And again, that's BenGreenfieldLife.com LVL and Kyle, I want to thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing all this stuff with us, man. You're a wealth of knowledge.

It's an absolute honor. And as I said during my cancer journey, Ben, your podcast gave me so much invaluable information into helping my mom way longer than she would have otherwise. So a big thank you to you.

You do, dude, that, that. That makes my day. Thank you so much, man. Well, folks, I think that's a good note to end on. So. BenGreenfieldLife.com LVL and until next time, I'm Ben Greenfield, along with Kyle Vandalise signing out from Ben Greenfield Life. Have an amazing.