Episode #120: Peptide Therapies with Dr. William Seeds, MD

Welcome to Better Health Guy Blogcasts Empowering your better health. And now, here's Scott, your Better Health Guy. The content of this show is for informational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose, treat or cure any illness or medical condition. Nothing in today's discussion is meant to serve as medical advice or or his information to facilitate self treatment. As always, please discuss any potential health related decisions with your own personal medical authority.

Hello everyone and welcome to episode number 120 of the Better Health Guy Blogcast series. Today's guest is Dr. William Seeds and the topic of the show is peptide therapies. Dr. William Seeds is a board certified surgeon practicing medicine for over 25 years. He is the founder and chairman of the International Peptide Society, faculty developer and lecturer of the A4M Peptide Certification Program and leading peptide therapy researcher. He is chief of Surgery and Orthopedic Residency Site Director for University Hospital Conneaut. He has been honored at the NFL hall of Fame for his medical expertise in helping professional athletes recover from their severe injuries and has served as professional medical consultant for the NHL, MBL, NBA and NBC's Dancing with the Stars. Today he's dedicated to bringing his mission to everyone. Athletes, moms, entrepreneurs and everything in between. His mission is simple help people feel better, operate at the highest functionality in their physical bodies, their brains, their bones and everything in between without toxic pharmaceuticals or temporary fixes that are inefficient to improve health. Spanish and now my interview with Dr. William Seeds.

The topic of peptide therapies has really emerged over the past couple of years in the chronic illness realm and peptides have become therapeutic interventions that may hold great promise for improving our lives. I'm very excited today to have Dr. William Seeds on the show to discuss peptides and how they might help those of us dealing with complex chronic illnesses. Thanks so much for being here today, Dr. Seeds.

Well, thank you for having me.

You've been practicing medicine as a surgeon for over 25 years. When did you start exploring peptide therapies and what was it about them that drew you to making them such a focus of the work you do today?

Well, I've been fortunate to be very focused on molecular signaling of the cell cell efficiency, cell biology. That's something I've been integrated with for over 35 years and it's a long story, but it really starts from back when I was younger and something that happened to me in my life where I lost somebody close to myself and it was a very difficult time to understand as being young and I just at that point in time, I started my own. My own research and looking into. I was very healthy, I was very fit at the time. And I focused on. Actually, it was a book put out back in the early, early 80s that was specific to clinical practices on understanding biochemistry and so forth. And it was a very revealing book to me to that actually set the standard for the rest of my life of investigating and looking at why the cell is so important to everything. And that really laid the groundwork for. As I began to understand how important peptides, which are really signaling agents in the body, we make over 7,000 of them, and how they're integral into controlling cell flexibility, metabolic flexibility of the cell, cell efficiency, cell senescence, the immune system, the microbiome. I mean, it's all integrated and it all comes down to one thing. And it's understanding the function of the cell and how it wants to be efficient. And that really has been. That took me. That was just. It continues to be an evolution. The peptides signaling was a very important way of. That's the way a cell communicates with other cells within itself, with organs. It is the master of. The peptides are the master of making everything happen. And so once we were able to, about 15 years ago, it got to a point where we could integrate actual synthetic peptides that were mimicking peptides that we make endogenously. These. We're not making anything up, we're just taking something that's already been made. And about 15 years ago, I was able to take advantage of that time of where we were starting to be able to stabilize these peptides and make them last long enough in the blood system to where we could utilize them in signaling. And that's how I got started. And it's been a tremendous process since then as far as where it's gone. And my ability to actually be in the space of what I see as the future of medicine in making a difference, not just in understanding diseases and understanding where they go, but looking at root causes and actually doing more than just protecting the cell. How about preventing these diseases? How about preventing all of these things that your listeners are concerned with? Unfortunately, they're living with this disease, and obviously we want to eradicate these things, but what about preventing them? And that's where I'm in a wonderful space right now, where I get to work with a lot of brilliant people around the world. And just because of that knowledge of the cell, you can talk to any specific medical silo. I can talk to researchers in cardiac efficiency and pulmonary efficiency and renal efficiency. And immune regulation, because it all is the same, it all comes back to that cell.

And in terms of side effects with peptides, would you say they are generally well tolerated if someone does have some type of a negative reaction to them, do those side effects generally resolve when they stop the peptide administration? Or is there a potential for longer term side effects with peptide therapies?

So the, that's a loaded question and it's a great question because the whole premise behind peptides is we're, we're doing, we're using something that the body's already familiar with because the body's utilizing and making its own peptides, whether they're enzymes, hormones, ligands, neurotransmitters, certain proteins, et cetera. It's a process that the body's familiar with. So we're looking at investigating new peptides and peptides that we know about that have no issue with, they shouldn't be toxic. And that's where drug development is, I think changing in big pharma. I mean, everything's being focused now on peptides because of that question you just asked. No toxicity or low toxicity because we're not making up a new molecule. We're not having to look at things where the body's not unfamiliar with it.

Beautiful.

But the other aspect of that is understanding how these peptides interact. The type of timing, because you are changing the way a cell may work as far as producing a different signal or different proteins or. So you have to understand how these peptides work because timing can be critical depending on illness. So you can have peptides that you're using that are, their function is to service an upregulation of say, the immune system. But it may be the wrong time to do that and you may overdrive the immune system and that could be a side effect. Now the beautiful thing about these peptides is there's never anything that's a long term effect. It's always very short term if it is a change and you can regroup and work your way around the problem. And that's the art of using peptides is knowing cell signaling, knowing what you're looking for as far as response. Because every patient's different. I don't care if they have a disease that everybody says is the same. I'm going to tell you, everybody has something a little different. And you got to know how to work around that to make these even more effective. So it's really, I think toxicity is a very minimal thing to be concerned with. It's certainly something you can't Ignore. And it's always. But it's what's so inviting right now with this field of peptides. And what has the attention where big Pharma has invested billions now into peptides, they've already developed for neurodegenerative disease, autoimmune disease, diabetes. I mean, it's coming and it's coming fast.

So what I want to try to do now is many of my listeners are dealing with things like chronic Lyme disease and mold illness, chronic fatigue syndrome, autism. And so I want to try to see if we can overlay potential application of peptides into the areas that we often focus treatment interventions on in terms of recovering from chronic illness. So one of the more critical or important aspects of recovering from chronic illness is looking at the potential for environmental toxicity. Metals, chemicals, pesticides supporting the liver, the kidney, the lymphatics, those types of things to optimize the terrain. And so is there an application of peptides that can help the body to optimize its ability to deal with or get rid of environmental toxins?

Wow.

Okay. You asked great questions. They're like all like, I could write a book on every question you ask.

Let's do it.

Boy. So let's start with this. The answer is, I think number one, if I'm hearing this correctly, is first. Yes, but there's so much to this with. If we're just going to talk about environmental toxicities, okay? So the important thing about understanding and what we do very well, I think in teaching about peptides is you have to understand and this is where the big shift in, in medicine has to be. You need to understand why do these toxicities create issues in the cell and what are the changes? So then you can develop a plan to attack that process. And the better you understand what's happening in the cell, well, then it's a matter of just putting together the thought process and in how you're going to go about working against this toxicity, let's say. And let's start with this. Anything. So we look at this cell and we look at a cell and we say, okay, my end goal with a cell is to just keep it in a homeostatic pattern. I don't want to make it too active and I don't want to make it too under reactive. I want it just to. I want it to move along like it would like. It's intelligently designed to do through its genome where it knows what its functions are and how to respond to outside stresses. So outside stresses, let's say toxicities may be Something that can push back that homeostasis in a cell and make a cell's decision making a little more difficult, where it loses that efficiency of making decisions and it may be overwhelmed by that toxicity, hence toxicity of whatever it may be smoking, mercury poisoning, chromium, anything that could be toxic to where the cell and its function. And remember its function is ultimately to. It's to utilize oxygen that we take in from the world and make energy out of that so that energy can be dispersed throughout the body and throughout the cell and the organs to do their jobs. Basically, that's. That's just the basics. So if this toxin is overwhelming that efficiency, then that efficiency which is controlled by what we'll call chromosomes or genes, those genes can undergo changes. So it doesn't necessarily mean you have a genetic predisposition to something you just. Your genesis may transcribe or may produce different types of signals based on changes from those toxins. And we call that. We call those epigenetic changes and we call them. They're actually changes in methylation markers that we look at. But so an epigenetic change is basically just environmental things that are changing the signals of what a gene is going to create. And that at the end of that, we call those phenotypical changes. But all in all, you're losing that intelligence. The cell had to deal with a stressor to remain efficient. So if we understand that, and then we understand that if that cell is overwhelmed, it has the potential to totally change into something that we call senescence. A senescent cell, or viewers may. The best way to think of it is like a zombie cell. A cell that just all of a sudden becomes a bad player and it produces bad signaling agents like cytokines and chemokines and proteases that cause chaos. And that's actually what's happening on a cellular level. You know, we can say detox and all of these words of what's happening. Well, I'm going to tell you the cellular level. What's happening is you're having a buildup of senescent cells that are producing overwhelming bad signaling agents. And just depending on where they are, if they're in the gut, if they're in the brain, if they're in the heart, if they're, they're in the lymphatic system, depending upon where they are and where these insults occur, that changes the type of signaling, the bad signaling from these zombie cells. So it can be totally different in different areas. Hence, this is why you have disease. Hence, this is why you have immune problems, hence it's the beginning. So if you understand that, well, then you've got a much bigger way of looking at, okay, I've got the broad idea of what I'm working against. And let's say toxicity leads to dysfunction of a cell that starts creating problems around other cells. Well, depending, like I said, where they are, they could be influencing stem cells, which they typically do, because you have stem cells everywhere in your body and their job is to repair. And if you don't have stem cells working all the time, you lose the ability to fight disease. You develop immune disease, you develop chronic metabolic disease. I mean it, all you need to repair. If you can't repair, if you've lost that, then that process, you're in trouble. So that's one end of it. And then you have the immune responses. And the immune system we found is significantly integrated in everything. Whether it's injury, whether it's neurodegenerative disease, whether it's heart disease, whether it's a thrombus in a vessel. The immune system is intricately involved. So you've got a lot of communication happening. And if you can understand that, then there are ways you can precision, you can look at it in a precision oriented way of saying, okay, what if I look specifically, depending on what we're talking about, where do I go to try to offset, again, this toxicity? Is it based on, do I try to improve the ability of the cells to correct itself and to fix those DNA problems, those chromosomal problems that happen from the toxicity? Which we can do. And that's based on getting certain energy factors back into the cell, like NAD and ATP. So this is where you see places that, because all those things are affected by disease, so you have ways to try to improve what we call nucleotide cofactors that have everything to do with the control of Redox. And again, those are words that all they mean is things are going bad in the cell. And again, it's precision oriented approaches to where do I go after really the senescence? Do I modulate it, do I eliminate it? Or do I work on all sides of it? And the interesting thing is your readers and people will be very, I think, fascinated by. They're gonna start to see this word senescence over and over and over again. And everybody's trying to come up with the ideal senolytic of, you know, how do I get rid of senescence? Do I just, do I shoot it with a bazooka and blow everything out? Or do I become more precision oriented and that's where we're focused on the cell. Because guess what? The best senolytic you have in your armatarium is your immune system. Because your immune system knows how to deal with these cells every day, because that's what it does. So our approach really focuses right at the beginning on all spectrums of disease. Everything you mentioned today, it's, let's look at the immune system because we know there's been a breakdown in that communication between the innate and the adaptive immune system and how they work together to modulate the ability of the immune system to do its job. And if we can help it do that, then the power comes back to the patient, to the cell. And that's what it's about. It's realizing, you know, this goes back to understanding that there is again, I like to say the cell is so intelligent and if you let it naturally do what it's meant to do, it will help. You'll be able to give it the ability to take care of these type of issues. And so that, that's why peptides help us to give that cell back its decision making. And when I say decision making, and please stop me if I'm talking way too much because I get going and I could just go, but a cell wants the ability to decide, do I go and correct the DNA problems or the, what we may call chromosomal or histone issues? How does it, do I deal with that? Or is it time to go through a little bit of what we call autophagy? Or do I go through mitophagy? Or do I say, okay, we've had enough and just go through something called apoptosis where the cell just dies? Or do I bring the immune system in on top of that to help me make these decisions? The cell is perfectly capable of doing that. And the more you understand about that, then you start seeing the relevance of how this plays together and where you can go with all the things you've brought up. So that's a kind of a long, that's a 30,000 foot view of.

No, that's great, very good. So what I want to do now is kind of extending on the environmental toxicity. Many people with chronic illnesses are dealing with mold exposure in water damaged buildings. And in that chronic inflammatory response syndrome model, we often see low MSH or melanocyte stimulating hormone. We have not really had tools for addressing MSH historically in the United States. Oftentimes people will use VIP in that scenario. I'm interested in hearing a little bit from you around melanitan2 I know some people develop darkening of the skin or black spots, things of that nature. I'm interested in whether or not you've seen improvement in people with biotoxin or mold illness when they're using these peptides that can help increase msh and then secondly, are there ways to do that now without the risk of skin discoloration? So what role might peptides play in mold illness and is there a role for kpv which I've been hearing about recently?

Have you been to some of my courses?

I have not, but I've done my research.

Okay. Wow.

So.

Obviously, I mean mold is mold. Mold is a very, very difficult problem that everyone is still tackling. And if any of us say that we have it under control, they're lying because we don't. But we certainly have inroads and ideas of where we are seeing patient improvement in many ways. Neurocognitively, muscular, skeletally and, and in improving day to day function and even getting people back to the workplace. And I've been very fortunate in working with, through my society I work with a lot of doctors who deal with mold and toxicity issues. And so I have the ability to work and consult and give people ideas. So I get a lot of feedback and I'm able to participate in a lot of people's care. So I feel I have a pretty good understanding of where we're headed with this and what's driven me to. So, you know, the alpha melanocyte stimulating hormone issue is an issue that is something we've, we looked at years ago in the VIP is more typically used as a nasal spray. It's got its indications, it's had some improvements, it's another peptide that's used. But the melacortin system has so many other aspects of controlling inflammatory disease. And in particular you mentioned Melanitan 2, which is an alpha melanocyte stimulating hormone that has there's like five, there's five melanocortin receptors that we try to stimulate with depending on what we're going after. The melanocortins receptor ones and then the fives are in particularly some of them that we're going after for inflammatory type of problems. And we have found that melanitan 2 used in different depend different dosing scenarios has had a tremendous improvement in patients that have been chronically stricken with issues from neurocognitive to neuromuscular to gi. Because you have melanocortin receptors everywhere, specifically melanocortin receptor ones. You have them in the GI tract, they're in the periphery. And of course we then have the aspects in the brain too. But even more importantly what we realized is that there is this. What also seems to happen is you have an upregulation of the microglial cells in the brain and you also have problems with mast cells in the periphery where you have macrophage changes also where they become all polarized and they're all in this. This goes back to what I said before. They're all in these pro inflammatory states which also are intricately related to cell senescence. And it has to do with a lot of other aspects of what we call inflammasomes and how inflammasomes are the alarm system and create all of these cytokines and chemokines. And depending where they are, this is what the process as well with mold exposure it can have such significant systemic type of problems, not just in the brain, but all over and all over the body. And significant amount of senescent cells are made. And we've also learned that the cholinergic anti inflammatory pathway, which is a pathway through the vagus nerve from the brain into the periphery of the gut, that pathway has a significance in unpolarizing these mast cells and macrophages and working against that inflammatory state. Hence the name versus vagus anticholinergic inflammatory path anti inflammatory pathway. And in particular there's a receptor, it's alpha or nicotinic alpha 7 muscarinic receptor that's on these cells that specifically we can create. These melocortins can have a significant effect on their receptor and can phase change these inflammatory cells, turning them back into anti inflammatory cells. That's the process. It's one of the processes we look at in going at this disease systemically. Now the issue you brought up about tanning is a side effect because of the melanocortin 1 type of stimulation or the melanocortin receptor 1 receptor that has to do with hypermelanin and producing tanning. And depending on ethnicity it can make you darker. And those are side effects, as we say, when people are considering using this. Those are the big discussions we had many, many years ago as we started integrating this type of therapy. The nice thing about that though at the time was we could really gauge, because it happens so quickly, the skin color changes kind of give you an idea of the amount of the Melanitan II that you had to use because some people were sensitive, some people aren't. And you could kind of gauge how much you had to Use based on how they were changing skin color. It was, it was really a wonderful way to work with a patient who by the way most of them liked being turning tan for the time being. But it was always, it's always an issue, it's a difficult issue. More so with females because some of them get freckles and moles and things that they do not want any part of and that will over, you know, even though you have a way of helping them with a chronic inflicted problem, they will not give up their, the issues of how the, for some reason how they're, they're, they're losing that look of the skin. Anyways, point being made here is it's a powerful anti inflammatory. We're learning more and more about it, how to use it well, how to cycle it. A lot of tremendous success stories across the board. And that kind of led me down the road to fragmenting or finding fragments of Melanitan II that were more on the anti inflammatory side. And that's where you have the name kpv. And KPV I think is the next step where we can, where we can utilize this without the tanning issues and have more of an effect like we're looking for with this disease process itself. And we've had very encouraging results in just, you know, I think we just. I probably introduced that about a year ago or so and think it's becoming more significant now as people are becoming better adapted to utilizing it. It can be utilized orally and it can be utilized in a cream subcutaneously and it can be cream and it can transdermally and it can be utilized sub Q. So there are a lot of great things I see coming forward with that with KPV that I'm very excited about. But I still don't lose, you know, I can't say that we have, we have it all nailed down yet as to, you know, there's so many other aspects to mold disease and again it goes back to efficiency. So there's lots of things we do there besides the melocortins in working within that system because again you need to respect the immune system is a big part of this too. And that's gone awry. So we work with the thymosins in that area. We work with blood brain barrier integrity, GI integrity is very important too. And so we have peptides that we work in that area at the same time. So this is where it gets very, very detail oriented and very specific of where you need to know why you're using these, what you're doing to address the multitude of issues, as you know, that are so significant with this problem. And as I say, everybody's different. And so it's finding out what works.

In.

Going through that process. And it's, you know, it's a, it's a tremendously rewarding and humbling experience in working with all of those patients because I think they're so in tune with their bodies. Even though they're all negative things, they're feeling, they're very good at giving you feedback and understanding all the little gains you make because that's the way it goes. Some of them are dramatic off the bat and then they're little gains, but they're continued gains. And I think that's what's so exciting in this field, is that you've got something else now that you can add to the traditional way of what people have been doing to treat this disease.

Yeah, I'm so jazzed about these new tools, kpb, particularly that you mentioned. I myself have dealt with chronic Lyme disease and that is in the past at this point, but have also dealt with mold illness. And so having tools like this is just amazing to see the progression of having new tools and new interventions. Let's do a few rapid fire. Let's talk about sleep. So I've heard of DSIP and Epitalin. We know sleep is so critical for people dealing with chronic illnesses. What would you say are kind of the winners in terms of peptides for sleep support at this point?

Okay, so again, so this comes down to again understanding how does sleep play a role in disease, how does sleep play a role in repair? How important is sleep and what parts of sleep are demanded for repair. And I kind of look at it in a couple of ways. And not just sleep, but I look at the circadian clock of the body and respect the fact that the cells are under autonomous circadian rhythms also and that there's a super control, but there's also autonomous control in the cell. And you have to know that. And that is vital to realizing, even with disease, how important sleep is in, you know, in controlling repair. And so without getting too detailed, you brought up some things like dsip, deep sleep inducing peptide or delta wave inducing peptide. It's a great, it's a peptide that is really, I think has a couple of focuses. One is working on that circadian rhythm. That's really what that peptides focus is on looking at different ways of improving gene transcription factors that are specific to like these alkyl carbon genes that are Regulating circadian rhythms that are very important in reestablishing that. Best case examples of that are where I see dsip where you can really make changes in circadian problems are, you know, people that are night workers or people that travel around the world. It's a wonderful initial way of where you can use DSIP and respect this circadian clock and understand that, okay, this is the, this is. There's really something to this. So that's number one. Number two, with sleep, the big focus is if you're looking at repair, which is so important with all of your neurodegenerative diseases, with your mold patients, with really every immune problem, that issue centers around slow wave sleep, which is stage four sleep, which is deep, is the deepest part of sleep. That is right before rem and that if you can measure it, you realize that people lose that window and they lose it. Your biggest window for that is right at the beginning of sleep. But you want to see that all the way through the night. So DSIP is something that can help improve working on that stage of sleep. Again, it really depends on. It's a very, it's a peptide that is, that involves again, an artful way of working with it. Because for some people you can utilize it right before they go to bed. And it works very well. For other people. You have to start maybe after dinner or middle of the day or even some people have to take it in the morning to be effective at night. And you just don't know who those people are. But they have to have the ability to work with you to understand, you'll figure it out and how this can work best for them eventually. But for the most part, for the most part, if it's going to work well, most people take it before bedtime, about an hour before bed, and it will, you know, it can help with that aspect. Now the importance of stage four sleep, just not only in repair mechanisms of improving your own natural growth hormone release, which is so important also in disease and in mold and all those issues. There's always a decrease in growth hormone and IGF1 that are produced from the growth hormone. So there's lots of other things that are happening. So this is a way, a potential way to improve growth hormone release. It's another thing that people don't appreciate that stage four sleep is so important for glymphatic drainage from the brain. That's when it happens, it happens during stage four. And so you talk about toxins, you talk about these issues that are neurodegenerative. If you're losing stage four. You're losing that ability to drain from the brain. You're losing that glymphatic drainage. And that's very, very important. So that's an issue from that side of how we look at potentially working as a sleep agent, but also more so. I like to think of DSIP more as a circadian tool because circadian rhythm is so important in tissue healing and tissue repair. You know, if you have someone who has it. We know historically if somebody has an injury at night versus an injury at day, that injury at night is going to heal slower than that injury that happened in the day. And that's. People don't know that, but that's a fact. And it has to do with the circadian, autonomous circadian clocks that are affected in the local tissue, whatever it may be. So it's a very valuable tool in trying to reset and work with a tool that goes way beyond sleep. The epitalin you brought up is. It's another. Epitalon is a very interesting peptide. It's a tetrapeptide, a four amino acid peptide that has, I think, very significant influences on a lot of disease processes. And interestingly enough, if it's used at nighttime as a standalone, in a small dosage, with or without the sip, it can be very helpful for people sleep also. And again, it just. There's many sides of this story, but it all goes back to working on. So epitalon has a place of working in the cell cycle. When a cell is making a decision, when it's injured and it has to kind of stop and reassess, it stops the cell cycle. And in what we call the G1 phase, where things. Where metabolites and all kinds of things replicate to get ready for the cell to kind of regenerate, that G1 phase is where epitalon is noted to have its effects in helping repair mechanisms that need repair. And you could almost think of it as an autophagy phase where the cell's cleaning up so it can continue back on its cycle. If it can't clean up, it gets rid of itself. So epitalin has a place there. But epitalin also has tremendous effects on that stem cell thing I talked about. It works through histone modifications. That research has been really very relevant lately of how it has such an effect on repair through those mechanisms. And so when I talk about repair, we're talking about something also that is real important with sleep because that is a mechanism. If we're losing sleep, then there's something that's happening. There are things that are happening in the brain that don't allow that because the brain may be in some low grade type of inflammatory state. So like DSIP UP regulates certain nucleotide cofactors that are thermodynamic ratios are cofactors that affect redox. So like superoxide desmutase, glutathione peroxidase are two important antioxidants that DSIP works with to calm the brain. And that's a whole other issue of getting back to what I was talking about, the inflammasome. The inflammasome is very important for people to sleep. But if it's overreactive, it's creating these things that are overreacting the brain. And you got to kind of think of it like an air conditioner. You know, if it's just not working well and it's not cool enough, then it gets too hot. And these. That's just, that's a way I kind of talk to patients sometimes about issues. It's like we're not keeping it cool enough and we're not calming it down. So how are you going to sleep if those issues are going on? So again, those are just some generalities around issues of how we try to go about in a tax sleep. And then on the other side of it we have other peptides that we try to utilize on cell efficiency because self efficiency is so important. And again, getting back to the basics of just nutrition and exercise make a big difference in cell efficiency. Those issues have everything to do with the right amount of growth hormone and IGF1, amount of growth hormone that's released from the anterior pituitary, the IGF one that's then produced by that release of growth hormone either through the liver or through peripheral cells and then the secondary responses of that efficiency. Are we getting enough NAD compared to nadh, and are we getting enough nadph, which are reducing equivalents that you need to calm down the free radical and the reactive oxygen species. That's what's important. Those are the issues that make such a difference. So getting back to your question, why did I go through all this? For some people, if you're just going after self efficiency and let's say we don't even consider using the dsip, I can correct so many people's sleep issues by just making the cells a little more efficient by utilizing things like ipamorelin or which is a GHRP or a cjc, which is a ghrh, that really work on more of those functions. Of cell efficiency. And they're also psynomodulators. So there's lots of ways to go at it.

Beautiful. The next thing I think about is healing requires us to be in a parasympathetic state that when we're constantly stuck in this fight, flight or freeze, this sympathetic dominant state, we're not resting, we' not digesting, we're not detoxing, we're not draining. So are there peptides that can help kind of calm and shift the nervous system to more of a parasympathetic state? And then taking that one step further, when we think about the limbic system and the amygdala, Are there certain peptides that can calm A hyperactive alarm center, hyperactive fear response to promote healing of the body.

Yes.

Awesome.

Yeah. So. Oh, boy. So the parasympathetic sympathetic. So that again, is. Those are issues of. So those are secondary responses, usually to issues that say. I follow what you're saying. And the answer is, yes, we are trying to. Again, it's the yin and yang. You know, you want sympathetic parasympathetic stimulation to be pretty equal, Just like you want everything equal in self efficiency of, you know, anabolic, catabolic, meaning ampk and mtor. I mean, they're all the same principles. It's homeostasis. So what you said is correct. That's a generality and a great way of overstimulation with the sympathetic system can lead to increased androgenic stimulation. And the alpha receptors can affect the kidney, can increase renan, that can increase angiotensin, that can increase neuroinflammatory disease, kidney disease. So there's definitely ramifications through all that. But the issue again goes into the cell that sets off those stimuli. And that has more to do with things like intracellular cortisol, where cortisol, we look at it from the adrenal gland, and certainly it has aspects of. Of increased cortisol. Systemically can have issues, as we know, and can increase sympathetic response. If you decrease cortisol response, you'll decrease the sympathetic response. Well, even more so. But it's very hard to measure. It's what's happening in the cell and the cell's response. Well, the cell always will respond to stimuli by increasing cortisol in the cell, and it can be overridden and things can happen just like we said of where the cell is making decisions, how does it react? And it can make too much cortisol. And that's where these issues come into play of do we have ways to offset intracellular cortisol production, which is very, very important because has everything to do with every disease and metabolic problem and viral and bacterial and fungal infections, everything. And it's so important in starting the innate immune system, but it's just as important in turning off to make sure the innate immune system doesn't go crazy. So that has to do with these what we call nucleotide cofactors or ratios of again, NAD, NADH, NADP to NADPH, Acetyl CoA to Acetyl Co, and ATP to ATP. And again, it's getting those ratios right, so the cell can figure out, okay, let's slow down and not produce, we don't need to produce all that cortisol. That can then have an effect on the sympathetic system and the parasympathetic system can come back. So that's kind of a generality of looking at it in a sense of how do signaling agents affect the neuronal transmission of noradrenaline and acetylcholine and things like that. And that's very significant and has everything to do with disease also. So the more you appreciate that interaction, then yes, the answer, again, is yes, there are ways that we go about that to improve vagal, you know, because when parasympathetic system working through vagal tone works on improving acetylcholine release, which is working again on that alpha nicotinic muscular 7 muscular receptor, which is going to phase change the macrophage peripherally. All right. Or lots of other ways to do that. But yeah, so it all, it's all interrelated and it's all fascinating when you, when you can put all those pathways together, you start thinking through these problems. And that's what's been, I think, the breakthrough of why we all, why we all sought to jump into this area of helping and understanding. How do we, how do we, you know, how do we just not only focus on, fix or help people, but how do we prevent it? Your question, your first statement about balancing sympathetic parasympathetic. Well, I'm going to tell you that exercise is one of the best things you can do in the world to balance that system. It could be only walking. And walking can have tremendous benefits on the limbic system and the hypothalamus. And I mean, when we're talking about what happens with issues of loss of depression, which is still a big problem in the world, it all again has to do with these, how the signaling of making certain neurotransmitters goes awry and how do you correct it? And in particular, just exercise is something that improves. So just an aside, if we looked at, let's say depression or anxiety or those type of issues, we would find that a lot, a tremendously high percentage of people have very low brain derived neurotrophic factors that's being produced. And just exercise can improve brain derived neurotropic factor. That's a powerful statement right there. And that's also something very important for people to understand. We've learned a tremendous amount from peptide signaling just based on the prolific literature out there on exercise and nutrition because they've done so much bench work on all these things. And that's where we come up with certain peptides that we can go right at improving brain drive. Neurotropic factor that can make a significant difference right off the bat in depression and sleep. And so it's multifaceted, but again it all comes back to the cell.

So in chronic illnesses like Lyme disease, there's a focus on killing bugs. I think much more important is the immune modulation and not so much killing a bug. When we have this TH2 dominance, we're more allergic, inflamed, autoimmune. We have what you referred to earlier, mast cell activation syndrome. And a lot of the are the result of this immune system imbalance or dysregulation that then allows for chronic infections to persist. Given that we don't have enough TH1 activity to respond to the pathogens. Things like thymosin alpha 1, thymosin beta 4, I've heard of those being discussed in this realm. Can you share some insights on how we might use peptides to support immune modulation for people dealing with allergy, inflammation, autoimmunity, mast cell issues and as a result chronic infections?

Yeah, absolutely. And that's kind of some of the things I hinted at the beginning of our discussion. And I have to give you a lot of credit, I love how you use the word immune modulation because I have a real problem when people talk about upregulating the immune system, because that makes no sense to me. I agree it doesn't. And if you talk to immunologists and biologists, they mostly agree also I think with us that it's not about up regulating, it's about because you don't want one part dominant versus the other, but you want it to be able to modulate between the innate and the adaptive system because they are so integrated in communication. And that's why the thymosins, which are significantly integrated in, in helping to. Because Thymus and Alpha 1 is something you make in the thymus that we all depend on in helping the immune system dismodulate itself, basically. And that means we're good that TA1 can help upregulate these things called like Treg cells, which are like the, they're on the TH2 spectrum, but they help control the TH1 spectrum. And if the Treg cells aren't functioning well, then the TH17s which are on the innate side can become dominant. So it's always this seesaw of issues that if you start to understand the modulation of how these work and how T reg cells help produce interferon that help up regulate natural killer cells and gamma delta T lymphocytes that are very important in going after pathogens, viruses, bacteria, fungi, or. Things that are DNA fragments that can also cause issues damps, we call them dams and pams, but that gets more confusing. It's just. The answer is yes. So thymosin is an amazing peptide. And I'd say Thymosin Alpha 1 is one of our. It's one of mine. If I'm trapped on an island somewhere, it's like, you better load me up with thymus and alpha one and I'll be very happy. So it's something I can utilize. It has so much utility for it that I, you know, I'm. I've. I've just finished a book on peptide protocols and I realized, you know, on thymus and Alpha one, I could probably write three books just on that. I could probably write six or seven books because it's so integrated, like you said in everything. Thymosin beta 4 is another thymosin peptide that is also integral in working with, assisting the immune system and synergizing again with TA1, but assisting the immune system in modulating. And again, I like to think of it as cell senescence and what the immune system is doing to work against senescence. And that's. I hope I don't, I hope I emphasize it enough that I really, really believe the more we become familiar with cell efficiency and cell senescence, then you're going to have the keys to the kingdom of understanding. Everything about how it influences disease, immune, metabolic, cancer, everything makes sense then. And so you can see how Thymosin Alpha 1 is integral in modulating the immune system, whether it's the innate that's overactive or the adaptive, like the TH2 that you're talking about, where it can come in and it can help equilibrate and give the cell again its decision making in correcting that. So That's a phenomenal. It's just phenomenal to see what you can do in that realm of treatment protocols when you start to put these things together and. And just the broad base of understanding and respecting, respecting and always being humbled by the immune system.

Beautiful. Yeah. I had my thymus and alpha one this morning right before our conversation, so I'm glad that's one you really like. The next thing I think about is gut health. Minimizing leaky gut, minimizing endotoxemia from lipopolysaccharides, supporting the gastrointestinal tract, diversifying the microbiome. Many people have heard of BPC157. Talk to us a little about the peptides and your thoughts around upregulating the gastrointestinal system, which has indirect or even direct effects on our immune system and so many other systems in the body. Wow.

Yeah, you're right on it. I mean, so my feeling is the GI tract, the gut is intricately involved in everything because the immune systems, because of Meyers patches, and the immune system is very big and diverse within the bowels. If people don't know that, that's where the big part of the immune system is in your GI tract. And, and the GI tract, when you have this microbiome in there that, you know, all of these bugs that are there that are so important in producing the fuel for the colonocytes, basically, which is where most of all these bugs exist. And it's really, really there to be an anaerobic environment. So the whole key to this is having a, again, having a microbiome that is appropriate for that person. And what do I mean by that? There's vast. Depending on where you are in the region of the world. There are different aspects of these anaerobes in their makeup and meaning the two people can have different makeups of the microbiome, but they can be in perfectly good health. And it's why we all have different type of microorganisms in our bowel, because they're specific to us. That can be like 146 different species with, you know, multiple millions of those microorganisms that function together to give us our specific identity in the bowel. So I'm a bigger advocate of. I'm not real big on the. And I'm not saying it's the wrong way to go. I'm not a big advocate of the probiotic side. I'm a bigger addict advocate of the pro. Prebiotic side of giving your microbiome what it demands to Maintain that anaerobic area, meaning low oxygen, along the colonocytes, because the colonocytes live, the colonocytes need oxygen. And they have this thing called ppar gamma, which is this metabolic, which is this gene transcription factor that is going to make all the difference in how that cell stays healthy. And then what it does to regulate the immune system. And it all has to do about oxygen, has to do about those facultative anaerobes and having the appropriate amount. Because if that changes, then you get opportunistic microbes that come in and they change that environment of where oxygen that's supposed to be utilized in the cell becomes more available outside in the intestine. And then that's what wreaks havoc, because nitrates get turned into nitric oxide or nitrites. And you get all of these issues of how you get breakdown of the cell barriers. And you lose very important antimicrobials that are peptides like LL37 that your colonocytes make that are vital to that barrier. And so, in a nutshell, there's so much importance there. And BPC is an amazing peptide that has everything to do about helping with cell integrity and really working on actin filaments that are important in repair, because the GI tract's constantly going through repair. And if you don't have those actin filaments working appropriately to help repair, you're going to be deficient in keeping these barriers where you need them. So you don't have the lipopolysaccharides or all the other things that can. That can get across the barrier of the one cell barrier of the intestine. So those are. This body protection complex peptide has had such a significant influence in having relevance in working through multiple disease issues within the bowel, of keeping bowel integrity of that barrier. And that has become a workhorse for us in having it synergistically work with other ways that we, besides diet and prebiotics and other modalities and things people use. It's become a big player in helping us do a better job at controlling that.

Can we use peptides to support energy levels, improve the mitochondria, support the adrenals? How do we get more lasting energy throughout the day? And can peptides help with giving us that additional energy?

Okay, yeah, so. So the answer is absolutely, yes, they can. And that kind of gets to the crux of aging. And if you can look at aging as a number one risk factor for all disease, for diabetes, for osteopenia, osteoporosis, sarcopenia cataracts, cancer. I mean, it's aging. And aging. What happens if we just look at it that way? And we look at. And anybody you talk to as they go from their 30s to 40s to 50s, they'll tell you they're losing. They feel like they're losing energy, they're losing zest, they're losing how they work through the day. And that has everything to do with mitochondrial efficiency and how the mitochondria utilizes oxygen to make ATP. And ATP is the energy. So you look at the mitochondria as the battery. The battery needs oxygen to make its power. And so what can we do to enhance the mitochondria? Or better yet, what hinders the mitochondria? What is it that's working against the mitochondria? Well, as we age, we lose endogenous growth hormone production and endogenous IGF1 production, which are two master molecules or hormones that have everything to do with mitochondrial efficiency. Meaning when I say mitochondrial efficiency, I'm talking about the regulation. Now here I am talking about the cell again, being able to be flexible and how it uses glucose and fatty acids to maximize the respiration of the mitochondria, using oxygen to make ATP. And that is so important to understand and respect because there's so many variables that can go wrong in that mitochondria not being able to do that. Well, it has to do with lower levels of growth hormone, IGF1. It has to do with lower levels of NAD. It has to do with lower levels of, or higher levels of immune issues that are going wrong. Because when the immune system is a little bit active in a chronic state, it's sucking in nad, it's taking up energy that is so vital for the mitochondria to do their job. So you've got all of a sudden all these competing entities that are competing against the mitochondria or the cell to want to utilize important nucleotide cofactors like NAD, NADPH, Acetyl, CoA, and ATP. So if you understand that and you do a better job of controlling redox will, all of a sudden you can change the energy output of a cell. And that's exactly the good. Getting back to efficiency and senescence, those are the things you're working to improve. And that's some of the most gratifying work that we have here with peptides is absolutely changing that energy state for most individuals that are in that decline. And that's just part of aging. And so that is the power. One of the most powerful things I think in this peptide process of education is, you know, number one, when you're teaching physicians and you're working with them to utilize them, you need to get across the example of, hey, you've got to walk the talk. So you need to under. If you're in any of these issues, you're the first one to be that should be utilizing these to see where they. How they work effectively to help you. And I'm talking about. I'm going to make a profound statement. But, you know, these peptides are so important not just in, like you're referring to energy and upbringing in mitochondria, but they're so vital to protection. Let's protect the cell, let's protect the heart, let's protect the kidney. I mean, we're looking at, I think, medicine in such a different way now of where we're again trying to offset disease later. So if you do. The best responses I get from physicians when we start down this road is, wow, Dr. Sees. I cannot believe my day. I can think through my day better. I can. I have more energy. At the end of the day, I don't feel like taking a nap. I really feel that difference. And that is something across the board that is just spectacular. When you have physicians that are critically evaluating and critical thinkers and always looking out for the best for their patients, they're your toughest. They're your toughest audience player right there. So if you get past that, then you've got an advocate and you've got someone who really is. Again, it's your belief in what you're doing to improve the outcomes of anything your patients have. And that's such a powerful process when you have that working.

I would say that all of your statements are profound from our conversation. So really having a good time. I want to talk a little bit about cellular hydration. So many people with chronic illnesses have this hypothalamic pituitary dysfunction that leads to low antidiuretic hormone. They drink lots of water, they constantly pee it out, and yet they're still dehydrated. And things like vasopressin or desmopressin oftentimes aren't well tolerated in this community. And so I'm interested in, is there a role for peptides in terms of helping with cellular hydration?

Yes.

Okay.

So that's a really complex issue also. And typically it works in the other direction. So when we talk about cellular hydration, we're really talking about this ability to stimulate the production of Renan, where adh, the antidiuretic hormone known as vasopressin is something that is in the posterior pituitary that's released and it has an influence on the kidney producing renin, which will typically, this is the opposite of what you're just talking about. It will improve blood volume and it makes up for and creates problems with hypertension and all these issues of where you're pulling the kidneys, pulling water back in. So when there's low adh, the kidneys are not producing enough renin and we're losing water through the kidney and you're getting what we call more of a hyper osmolality in the system. So, so that is an issue of where like the nasal vasopressin can be actually very helpful if you use it. Sometimes people just go too fast, too hard with that and they get very, they don't get good responses. But when you're utilizing vasopressin, you have to respect the fact again, well, there's something happening. And typically you'll see that more in your like mold issues and you'll see that more with some of those type of chronic diseases. I mean, you see it with alcohol. I mean, alcohol is, you know, causes a decrease in ADH and that's why people go to the bathroom. But so there are toxins too. So the issue here is we're again thinking about the cell and what's happening in that posterior pituitary, just like in anterior pituitary, when people are losing the ability to produce growth hormone. I mean, are there issues with cell senescence? And are we going after that senescence aspect in the brain? And it gets back to the whole thing about, well, you typically there's these activated microglial cells that are releasing interleukin 1 beta, interleukin 6, tumor necrosis factor alpha, which have an effect and can be causing issues specific to decreasing antidiuretic hormone. So we're going after the causes again of what may be hampering the release. So when you can hit it multifaceted like that, you've got a much better approach of trying to make things work. And you don't have to use as much as the nasal vasopressin, you're gonna get more of the effect of what you're looking for. And there's a lot more to this. I mean, what doesn't make sense is when you really look at these disease in particular with, sometimes with mold and so forth, sometimes you're in a. Some people say you're in a hyper sympathetic state, but yet increased noradrenaline increases renan production in the kidney. So there's other issues that are happening that are not specific to the nervous system and this has to do more with cell signaling from that side. So it's very complex. But the answer is yes, I think there's a lot of play.

So my last big question before we have a couple of short wrap up questions because I know you have a busy schedule today. I want to talk a little about the management of pathogens. So we've talked about modulating the immune system. There may still be scenarios where we have a microbial burden, whether that's Lyme or parasites or fungal organisms or viruses and so on. Talk to us a little about the application of peptides, maybe LL37, maybe others, in terms of minimizing microbial overgrowths that can contribute to chronic illness.

Okay. Yeah. So depending on where that's occurring again, it's the approach. Yes. So you can have super infections that are secondary to the immune system not going right or other aspects, or you could have primary infections that just overtake body. So we, we like working with the immune system at that time, you know, working in helping to upregulate the immune system or not upgrade modulate the immune system. I just almost used the wrong word like working with TA1 and sometimes TB4 in in that aspect. But at the same time using an antimicrobial peptide that's a Catholic, which is called LL37, which is your. You only make one Catholic and it's LL37 and it's an amazing peptide in working against not just gram negative, gram positive, but also anaerobes and fungal and viral and even some parasitic infections. It's your first defense. It's something that you have and you may not again can be affected by nutrition. You can be deficient in making your own LL37. Either you make a lot of it in your colon, you make a lot of it in your lungs. And we find that those are some of the primary areas that become affected by different type of disease processes that you need to offset that. So, so yes, antimicrobial peptide L37 used in the right places can be very valuable in conjunction with other immune modulators like TA1 or by itself. Again, it just depends on what you're trying to treat and how you're going at it and respecting the utilization of both of those.

There have been some recent questions around peptides from an FDA perspective. I'm interested in your thoughts on where you think this will go. Does, does it concern you at all that peptides might be seen as a threat to big pharma. And do you think we will have continued access to these critical tools?

Wow. So I'm going to say one, I don't know and two, I know. So I look at it like this. I mean, big pharma now is definitely in play and intricately involved now in developing peptides. And peptides are here to stay. This is where the future is. And we already see that thymosin alpha 1 is FDA approved peptide GLP1 receptor agonist, liraglutide, semi glutide. They're all their FDA approved peptides. Insulin. You know, nobody knows this, but insulin's a peptide and was approved back in 1920s, so. And so there's lots of these peptides that are out and are coming. And so the groundwork's already being laid. The area right now is, I think, in play for us to either bring everything to the forefront like I'm doing in trying to make enough noise and show the world that this is where we need to be and they need to be more accepted as part of routine care in medicine. And I think that's becoming very, very, very evident. So it's just a matter of letting everybody play in that space and it can't be over controlled by big pharma. You know, there has to be. Everybody has to be able to play there. And I think we're making the case for both, for all of us to be there in utilizing these peptides. And that's what we're trying to do with our groups here. In education, it's all about education and producing the data and the information of showing how valuable. I mean, look where we were five years ago when. Which is just probably for me the most humbling part of this is, you see, look at where chronic diseases were there and look at where we are now, where we really have options, where people are coming back and, and we're giving success stories. That wasn't happening five years ago, it's happening now. And you can't stop that. Patients and people will continue to demand that. It's not going to be, it's not going away. We just have to find that way to continue to work together. And that's my mission.

So as we wrap up, tell us a little about your book, how people can get it. Your podcast mentioned the International Peptide Society. Lots of practitioners listening that might want to connect and learn more about this topic as well.

Okay, well, I'm not. Thank you for bringing all that up. So my book is the first book that's been written on protocols and just introducing the basics of peptides to the medical world and to the high end people who are into understanding molecular biology and pathways and how I bring it together. I think to look at where modern medicine needs to go to be relevant because I think we have a system that's failed right now. I don't think we have the right system and it can't sustain it. We can't sustain it this way. We have the ability, we have the knowledge move forward. And that's the type of statement I'm trying to make in the book but to give to empower physicians and people alike. And you can actually that is at my Seeds that SEDS MD site and that's coming out here. It was supposed to be out before this month because of the COVID crisis. Everything shut down and so actually I've been shut down a couple months, but it should be out this month, which I'm really excited about. And yeah, we're all about education and moving this, the pendulum further for people interested. And that's the beauty of this, is that if you really look at this space that we're in and the physicians that keep joining this process of learning that I'm trying to push forward is I see neurologists, pathologists, radiologists, immunologists, virologists, infectious disease oncologists. I mean it's. We're all seeking the same information. And that's what that's, that's really, that's a privilege to be able to see all of those people so integrated in wanting to. Where is this going? Because this is making sense to me. When you can pull that many different doctors together that are agreeing on something, I mean, right. It's like, wait a second, something's happening and that's powerful.

My last question is the same for every guest and that is what are some of the key things that you do on a daily basis in support of your own health?

Oh, geez. My. Probably my number one to support my own health is to make sure that I'm a good listener to my wife. I had to say that. It's so true because I'm my worst enemy. When you've got such valuable people around you, your family, you know you better than anyone else, but they're the integral parts of your life that really make it so that you can do the things you can do and there's always power behind that. So becoming a really good listener, which I continue to work on and I continue to fail at. So that's a lifelong process. But, you know, I live and walk the talk. I'm. It's all about nutrition, it's all about exercise. I commend all of those people out there, the nutritionists and the trainers and the strength trainers, everybody out there trying to gain space and just inform people. It's so valuable and they're all so part of this team that I just think it's amazing because people need to be empowered with understanding. You have that capability. I think the biggest wake up call right now is the.