354: Peptides, Semaglutide, and Skin with Dr Sabrina Solt

All you have to do is type into Google benefits of growth hormone and you'll see it's going to make your hair better, you're going to lose fat, you're going to put on muscle, you're going to, like, have, you know, reduced wrinkles, you're going to more energy, like you're good.

Who doesn't want that? Yeah, right.

It's, it's amazing.

Hi, I'm Natalie Jill and I help women in their 40s, 50s and beyond redefine, rebrand and laugh with aging. Welcome to Midlife Conversations. On this podcast, I do what I do best, taking complicated information that is relevant in this point of our lives now, and break it down simply with actionable steps you can implement to level up your life. I also regularly interview some of the most inspiring people living their best midlife years. Now on this show, I cover topics about our shifting hormones, weight struggles, our mood and focus changes, raising teenagers, our relationships, career changes, beauty and more. If you are new here, I encourage.

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Sitting on Midlife Conversations, I've got my new friend, Dr. Sabrina Salt, who I actually met as soon as I moved to Scottsdale, Arizona. And what got my attention with her is, first of all, she's a mom of three, she's a doctor, she has the most flawless skin I think I've ever seen in my entire life. So I didn't even tell you I was going to ask you about that, Sabrina, but you know, I'm. I've got to have to ask you about the skin because she looks like I. How do I describe. I would describe you, Sabrina, as you look like you're photoshopped in real life. Your skin is so flawless. It is so flawless. That's not why I had her on the show there. The reason I had her on the show, I'm going to ask her about skin, but is we were chatting and we were talking about my explant. When I met her, it was upcoming and she had shared with me that she had done that too. And we started talking about scars and she showed me hers and you could like barely see them. Invisible. Now me just coming out of surgery, mine are super thick and not pretty right now. And she had told me that there is all kinds of therapy you can do around that with needles. With peptides, there's scar therapy, which got us into a whole conversation about peptides. And when I asked her more and more about her practice, she told me that she loves needles. Now, let me explain. She said that if she had an extension of a needle on her hand, she'd be happy. She tends. She happens to be a genius when it comes to needles and helping people fix muscle. Muscle skeletal problems, help them correct things going on in their skin, helping them reduce appearance of scars. All the things that we in midlife want to know. So thank you so much for being here, Sabrina.

I think that's the best intro I've ever had on a podcast interview. So thank you so much.

Okay, so I'm gonna back up a little bit just so people can know a little bit more about you. Like, how did you become a naturopathic doctor? Why did you go that path versus Western medicine? If we could just sort of start with that, where that even came from.

Yeah, I wanted to be a doctor for a very young age. And when I was in college, we actually had someone come in and give a presentation on what naturopathic medicine was. And the summary of it was, well, we get to the root cause of what the person's problems are and heal them. There I was like, well, this makes sense. Like, this sounds like exactly what I want to do. So finished my undergrad degree. You have to have a undergrad degree in order to get into naturopathic medical school. There was only six of those at the time when I was entering it, and they were all in kind of like miserable places except for Arizona. I was like, well, you know what? If I'm going to kill myself in medical school for the next four years, I'm going to do it somewhere nice. So I only applied there, got in, and really haven't looked back. I've been in Arizona ever since.

Now, I love what you said that about root cause, because I've, as you know, been on my own journey, especially this year, where I would see one medical problem in myself and try to, like, deal with that and realize there's a root behind that, and then there's a root behind that and there's a root behind that. And it really opened my eyes to especially all of the midlife women that we think. It's like this one thing. It's like it's my hormones or it's because I'm aging, it's menopause, or it's my blood sugar. I'm type 2 diabetic now. Or it's like it's this one label. And what is frustrating is most, not all, but most traditional doctors, they just don't go deeper. It's just. It stops right There. And I think it's so important for us to stop letting insurance dictate treatments and to start opening our eyes to more natural approaches. And do exactly what you just said is the reason you went to the school is to get to the root cause.

Yeah, you're so right about that. And it becomes tricky. Right, because these doctors, you know, I'll tell you one thing, nobody goes to medical school because they don't want to help people. You just don't put yourself through that because. Right, yeah. So you get these doctors and they're out and their, their hands are tied by the insurance model and just, you know, who their employer is. And they actually don't necessarily have the freedom to do what they want to do to actually help you. So they're stuck with the five minute appointments, the quick prescriptions. And yes, while it's covered by your insurance, that's great. You have to pay out of pocket, but you're actually not getting the care that you need or deserve. So it sucks.

Yeah, it does. So there's a lot of different ways you could have gone in naturopathic medicine. Like you really could. There's so many things that you could focus on. What led you to this whole idea behind the needle and peptides and these fun things that are really more niche.

So, yeah, great question. When I was in school, I had the ability to be on a shift because you have to do your clinical rotations, where I had a patient come in with a shoulder injury and they were trying to prevent surgery. And we got to do a therapy on this patient called prolotherapy, which involves injecting a solution that's mildly irritating to the area to trigger the body to start to heal the area. And over the course of several treatments, we basically saw this guy go from being unable to lift his arm above parallel to full movement, no pain, and no longer having to get surgery. So as a former athlete, I played sports. You know, throughout my life, I've always been into weightlifting, all that stuff. I've done fitness competitions. I had my fair share of injuries myself, and I just kind of fell in love with, wow. We can actually stimulate the body to heal itself, get people back their quality of life and really do it in a meaningful way. So it just kind of like clicked for me that this was it. And then I realized I was really good at needles. Like really, really good.

She told me that I like, I said, what do you mean? Like cosmetic needles? Like, I was trying to. I understand what she meant by that, but that's so, so then you started going down I guess this path of learning more about those things.

Yeah. So start with prolotherapy. And prolotherapy is great because you really have to be technique driven when you're doing that because part of the actually irritating the area appropriately to get that healing cycle to start. After that I learned about prp which stands for platelet rich plasma. Something that we can pull from your own body so no more difficult than a simple blood draw. Then I started learning all about the other regenerative products so stuff that you can get from birth tissue. Also the stem cells that we can get from your own body from places like your own bone marrow or your own fat which does involve a minor liposuction. So people tend to love that combo.

I love that combo. How much liposuction does it require for something?

You know we're not talking about a lot. We're talking a couple, you know, equival of a couple of sticks of butter. So nothing.

Okay. We're not fixing and changing your whole body.

Yeah, we'll leave that to people like Dr. Brown. But yeah, well we're taking enough to work within a meaningful way as far as the stem cells go. But we're not mommy makeovers.

Okay, Got it, got it. Okay, so how do you decide on something like this and who is this stuff for it? And maybe let's start with the scars because that's like most relevant to me. So and people have been following this journey here and then we're going to kind of expand out. So people that are dealing with scars like me right now, like I know I need to come in for what do you. When is the appropriate time to start working on a scar and what can be expected and why is this better than doing like traditional therapy? And actually before you even answer that, what's interesting is I used to buy that gel, it was like silagel or something. And Dr. Brown said to me, he's like. I said how come you didn't prescribe a gel? And he said well we just took silicone implants out of you. Do you want to put silicone on the wound? And I loved it. He asked me that. I would have never thought about that. He wasn't saying don't do it. He's just saying hey, I'm just bringing this up to your attention.

Yeah. And it's, it's a very logical thing for sure. But yes, there is tons that we can do. And so scars are something that we all end up with at some Point. And depending on what the injury was or why you have a scar in the first place, multiple tissue layers can be involved. When we're talking about something like an explant or even a C section, a hysterectomy. These are, you know, the common scars that I see, especially amongst my middle aged women. We're talking about going through all the layers of skin plus down into the fat and through the muscle. So with that, when that scar, it read here is back together, you get all those tissues coming together and now they're kind of locked in place. In a perfect body, a normal body without scars, all those tissues glide on each other very nicely. Like the fascia glides over the muscle and you get all this really free movement. When we start binding up those in the scars, you get a lot of restrictions so people can start getting. I know personally when my scars from my explant were there, I was getting a lot of restriction in my upper back and neck. Some other women start getting pain in their hips and low back when they have the C section scars or the hysterectomy scar scars. Because you're binding up that fascial plane, your body can't move as well as it should.

And is that pretty incident or is that an overtime thing?

It can be over time, but some people notice pretty quickly.

Because when you just brought that up, I actually just messaged my surgeon yesterday. I was telling him my right scar, which is a lot thicker, they did more work there. I have this really bizarre shoulder and arm thing happening. Is that makes sense? Is that connected?

100%.

Wow.

I would, I would bet on that, yes.

Okay.

Once we get in there, we can really help it out. So there's, there's different things that you can do for scar therapy. You can use just like a basic, like a prolotherapy dextrose based solution which will again still irritate it, but again re stimulate the body to heal it. Okay. My personal preference is using platelet rich plasma or even platelet poor plasma. Both of those are going to be useful. So it's great to use those because we're actually taking the growth factors that are present in your body and we put that, we put it in the centrifuge. The settings that we use on the centrifuge allow these to actually multiply by tens of thousands or even millions sometimes. So we get a lot to work with. And when we inject, the needling technique is basically what we'll call a hydrodissection. So we're injecting in a way that lifts and separates up the tissues and liberates the scar itself. So you have a. Like a plane in between of that fluid, but then that fluid itself is actually going to re. Heal the area. So great time to. A great time to do it. You know, if you had scars from a long time ago is always now. We can always remodel the scars. But if you're coming right off of like, like a surgery like you are, six to 12 weeks is going to be fine. Because we want to let your body get through one of its own healing cycles before we start to kind of reignite things.

Got it. Okay. Because I had asked him yesterday, I said, how soon can I start, like, doing. I called it peptide therapy. I didn't know what it was. He said, you can start now, but now based on what you just said, wait six to 12 weeks. Do it somewhere in the middle, the injections.

Now, if we're talking about a topical peptide, which. The one that I would recommend, it's. It's called ghkcu. It's referred to as the copper peptide. This stuff is fantastic for any type of wound healing for scars. You can also use it topically for loose skin and for hair loss.

Oh, wow.

You can get it as a topical foam. It does require a prescription, but it is widely available through a lot of compounding pharmacies, but phenomenal for helping the skin remodel, especially on those scars. So definitely something you could start with now and then see how things progress. It's something you could also continue safely long term. And then, of course, the actual injections with the scar therapy, especially if you're starting to get that the hypertrophic scars that are really like bumpy and lumpy.

That's mine. Yeah, right now. Okay. On that side. On that side. What about now when people say just things like use put vitamin E on there, just break it open, or just put coconut oil or castor oil, like, what are your thoughts there? Is that waste? Is that doing anything?

It's. It's hard to say because what you're basically doing with those is you're providing nutrients to the skin. You're not necessarily starting a new healing cycle, so to speak. So it's a matter of, is your body going to use it to do what you want it to do? Probably. Probably neutral. But someone like you, who probably wants to see better results sooner, faster, and just get rid of it, especially if it's starting to cause that referral pain. I don't know if I would waste your Time telling you, okay, so it's.

Like it's not hurting you, but it's not like doing anything. So. Okay, everyone that's sending me your oils, let's stop with the oil. I've heard all, I've had all the castor oil, coconut, and to just get vitamin I, E and break it open. So I've done it all. I did it all. It's doing nothing.

And it's not to say that, right, that it wouldn't do something or how long it might take, but at the same time, you're relying on stimulating your body at whatever point in the healing cycle that it is right now. And it might not even be receptive to it at that point too. Like it. Yeah, there's just, there's a lot of factors that can go into it now. Castor oil, vitamin D, like those have other uses that people can totally use for. I'm not bashing those at all. I love castor oil packs. Like, there is a time and a place for these things. But when it comes to new scars that are already starting to get the lumpies and bumpies, we made it to a little bit heavier.

Okay. Okay, Now I'm going to ask. Before I get into peptides, I want to ask about your skin because seriously, your skin is insane. Has it always looked like that? Are you, are you a freak of nature? What's happening?

I actually had.

If you could see her on video. You see what I'm. She like on video. If you're looking at her, you're going to be like, she has a filter. There is zero filter. This girl looks like this in person. Her skin is perfect.

Thank you.

I noticed about you.

It never used to be truly. I had acne, like severe acne through most of my childhood. I remember there was this like traumatic time where, gosh, I must have been in like first or third grade. Like, it started really early for me and I got this like massive pimple that scarred and flaked off and it was like the size of a quarter scar on my chin. It was a disaster. And it was actually even up until two years ago that I was still getting random breakouts. I actually switched my diet. So I'm a, I'm a naturopathic doctor. I'm just going to put that out there. We were basically raised to worship plants. It was, you have to eat plant based. You have to eat all the vegetables, everything. Everything should be the plant alternative if possible. And I would double down. Like I was aiming for 10 servings of plants every single Day.

I still do that, by the way. I still have like 10.

Anybody needs to. I'm not saying anybody needs to know to do what I'm doing, but if you're asking what I did.

Yeah, I know. I'm very curious.

Absolutely. So I, I was like, you know what? My skin sucks. I was getting terrible digestive concerns. I had really bad ibs. I would get anxiety. And I was like, you know what? This doubling down on plants doesn't seem to. So I switched to the carnivore diet.

Wow.

I really have not looked back. I haven't eaten any meaningful amounts of vegetables in almost two years.

Okay, so let me ask you this. Do you think for you, and I believe it's working for you, but for sure, do you think. And I'm genuinely asking. I'm not trying to lead you down a path of anything. Okay. My thought process is everyone's a little different, so sometimes that's amazing for them. I think there's a lot of variables like your blood type, there's a. What else is going on in you? Like, like for me, I happen to thr. I, I need protein. For sure. I'm not a vegan, but I do thrive on a lot of vegetables and low glycemic fruits. When I take those out, I want to kill someone. I don't feel like myself. I don't feel good, I don't thrive. My skin doesn't look good. But then I see someone like you and your husband and your carnivore and you're thriving. Do you think that, do you really believe that that's ideal for everyone or do you think it's about finding what's for you? I'm curious about that, yes.

And the carnivore police might come after me for this, but no, I don't think that carnivore is great for everybody all the time, no matter what. I. So I think that for some people it can be a great elimination diet to see where you're at, to see what you can heal without. With taking these things out. I think some people do well with like a seasonal carnivore, you know, eat what's in season. Right. So if you're in an area that's really cold in the winter and you don't have access to things like bananas and pineapples, like maybe you just stick to things like that. But yes, I actually, I have seen many patients just like you who thrive with. Including vegetables. Not me. They may be worse. Like, I, if I look like I look at a Vegetable. Like I know I'm gonna get bloated. I know I'm gonna get joint pain. Like it's gonna be disaster for me.

Could be oxalates. Yes. I mean, I used to make like spinach smoothies and spinach pancakes. Like I would. I was all into the vegetables. Anyta. Any way I can get them in. But no, it's like I. I'm on O blood types. Like you were saying. Could blood type be a thing they do? They do say that those people do better with mostly meat in their diet. So could be. I also think that there's other stuff that has to do with it too. Like what is your gut health? Like, what kind of upbringing did you have? What are your goals? And right now this is working for me. Do I know if it's going to be what I do forever? I don't know. But I feel great doing it. And what's if it's not broken? I'm not going to, you know, try to fix it. And like you said, my skin looks great. I feel the best I ever felt in my life. I don't have anxiety anymore. I don't have gut issues anymore. My chronic pain's gone. It's. It's been great.

So in addition to the diet, because I get that that's a big part of things for people, what, what you're eating and what you're consuming. What do you do topically? Do you do anything topical on your skin? And are you a fan of traditional things like retinoids and hydra? I can't pronounce it. Hydroquinone or whatever. I don't use any of that anymore. Or do you use more of the natural stuff? Like what do you do topically there?

So I do PRP facials usually once or twice a year. And that I think helps with just overall collagen production, evening out skin.

You know, reducing scars, things like that. The. I used to use the Alo Turo line. I use them for many years. And then over the summer I switched to a line called Skin Better. I don't have an affiliation with them. I probably should because I actually have grown to really like them. I wouldn't say that it is a super quote unquote clean line, but they are all fragrance free. But they're designed to be the type of things that you would use as you want to correct things in your skin, so to speak Week. Like I said, I've only been reading those for the last few months. No affiliation. I'm still waiting to see, like what really Changes, but so far so good.

What do you feel about like traditional dermatologists when they say everyone should be on retinoids and everyone needs sunscreen? How are your, what are your thoughts around those?

I am not a sunscreen fan. I actually don't use sunscreen basically ever. I will remove myself from the sun before I will put sunscreen on. All of our cells on our bodies have photoreceptors for the full spectrum of UV light. So we do get benefit from it. I also don't know if everybod should be on. I don't love the blanket term that everybody should be on something all of the time. I think it depends on what your goals are and what you can tolerate.

Okay.

Yeah.

For me, I noticed changes in my blood numbers when I was on things like that. So I'm like, I just don't want my liver processing more things like that. So because we do, all of that goes through. So I personally decided not do the bleaching cream or retinol. Retinoids. Even though dermatologists say they're great for me, I didn't find that. Do you think with sunblocks when they say it's mineral based or it's natural, still a no go?

I think that if you had to pick the lesser evil, those are going to be the ones to go for. Ones that are just less toxic?

Yes.

Funny story though. I actually had a patient who showed up with toxic levels of zinc in their system from a zinc based sunscreen that they were wearing daily. And they had just started it like it was a relatively new addition. So yes, your skin does absorb everything. Let's just like put that out there. And zinc toxicity can be a real issue for some people. People.

That's wild. That just makes me want to go check my zinc now on my, on my stuff. Do you? But also I want to be clear, you're not out there baking in the sun either. So you're not saying go get like this super dark tan and be sunbathing either.

I am about safe sun exposure. And like I used to be. I used to work at a tanning salon when I was in college. Like I was.

I can relate to that person.

But now I'm like, I'm safe sun exposure. Right. You get the dosage that you could or should be getting without burning. Because this is the part that I like to like. Whatever the tanks on what I would tell people, the burn is a pathological process. A tan is a physiological process. Okay. It's just the changing of your melanocytes Right, got it. So we don't want to do anything that's going to be pathological. Right. That burn, that's oxidative damage happening to your skin, that's of course going to set up issues like DNA damage possibly that could turn into.

When you see that leathery old, like crinkly that that is, that's a problem. That's not, that's from over sun exposure. That's not from walking outside for a few minutes sunblock on.

No. I think that the average person with safe amounts of sun exposure is probably going to be fine and you don't need to overdo it on the sun. That being said, there are certain things that can make any amount of sun exposure worse for you, and it has to do really with the integrity of the, your each individual cell membranes. So if a person has a diet high in seed oils or polyunsaturated fatty acids, this can make your lipid bilayer of each of your cells way more sensitive to getting ox damage from something like this.

Okay, tell me that in a little bit more basic terms because I know people are gonna ask me because we keep hearing seed oil is bad and we know seed oil is bad, but I, I'm not sure I understand the correlation of. I get the seed oils are bad, but what, how is this working with the sun to create this problem? That's my first question. And then two, are all seed oils in small doses bad? Like if I understand, like canola oil bad. But like, what if you go to Whole Foods and you happen to buy something that has a little bit of, of sunflower oil? Like, is that bad? So I guess if you could help with both of those questions.

So I think the dose matters. So the thing we need to really pay attention to, the most basic way that I can put this is we're at room temperature and our fat is solid. We have saturated fat that we're generally made up of. Right. Polyunsaturated fatty acids are always liquid at room temperature. They are not as stable as our natural fat fat. When we are consuming these things, they are going to influence how we then rebuild ourselves because that's the, those are the fats that are coming in. And you know, if anybody, if you have providers listening who have done liposuctions, like, you can tell there is a difference in the quality of fat, but you pull it out of people depending on what their diet is like. So when those, when those fats go into your system and they're making these new cells, they are a little Bit less stable than, say, the regular saturated fat that we should be making. And that can make them more easily damaged by something like radiation from the sun because it increases that oxidative or that inflammation.

Got it. Okay. Thank you for explaining that because that has been a source of complete confusion for me and others.

I think dose does matter, right? Like, if you're just, you know, if you're going out to eat at a restaurant once a month or whatever, and you're having something that may have been cooked in a little bit of, you know, canola oil or whatever, it's probably not gonna be the end of you. Like, you're not gonna walk outside and instantly fry up. Like, not, you know, it's. It's the net, right? Like, are you making good choices the majority of the time? You're probably going to be fine. I am not one of those people that's like, you need to go super, super strict.

Yeah, it's.

Yeah.

Okay, that makes sense. Okay, I'm going to get into some peptide stuff. I don't know that I fully understand the difference. I know at one point I was given BPC157 in a digestible format and it was told it would cope my gut health. It gets very confusing with what's a peptide? What should we be taking? What shouldn't we be taking? I'm also concerned about some of these peptides that are about being like growth horm hormones. I don't know if you even know if I'm saying this right, but I wonder about, like, if somebody doesn't know what's actually going on with their health and they've got some underlying cancer brewing, would that make that worse? Like, how do you know? And how do we use peptides smartly? Because I see people doing really things that I think are a little crazy, like they're going to these shady websites and ordering things because they heard it on a podcast. Like right now, don't do that. Don't just go online and they don't know what they're doing with them. And I feel like we can create more problems. So can you give us kind of like a peptide 101, some basic information there?

Oh, absolutely. And I'm so glad that you, like, brought that up right right away. So peptides are cool. And I like to call them. They're like the cherry on top of a person who's already doing the things. So somebody who's got a good diet, somebody who's exercising, somebody who's sleeping well, managing their stress because peptides they're going to augment a process that's kind of already happening in the system and make it a little bit better. So let's, let's do the example of the growth hormone one, right? So you can get different peptides that can help your body to produce more growth hormone. And growth hormone is phenomenal. Like all you have to do is type into Google benefits of growth hormone and you'll see it's going to make your hair better, you're going to lose fat, you're going to put on muscle, you're going to like have, you know, reduced wrinkles, you're going to have more energy. Like you're good.

Who doesn't want that? Yeah, right.

It's amazing. And the benefits are totally there. But you're never going to like out peptide a diet that is really rich in like Coca Cola and tacos every day. You know what I'm saying?

Like exactly.

You have to have the basics dialed in first and you can use the peptides to kind of take things to the next level. And that in my experience has been the best way to use them is we dial in the hormones, we dial in your sleep, we make sure you're eating, you're eating right for you, we're getting physical activity and then we just take you to another level. And it's so fun when we get to do that.

Got it.

The peptide websites that you're talking about, it sucks because the FDA recently, like beginning of November, they took away a lot of the lot of the ones that, that we were currently working with for basically no reason besides just because they're at the fda. And it was really frustrating. So people are learning about these peptides. They might be hearing podcasts from years ago where some of these things were, were available and now the only place to get them are these, are these places, these websites, shady sites? And you know, shady is a, is a good word but it's more like you can't necessarily trust exactly what you're getting and whether it's going to be safe long term. Because these websites, they're research only websites so we can't guarant necessarily purity, sterility and there's no recourse should anything happen to you because they brandish on there not for human use and you can, you know, if you use it in a human, you could get in pretty deep trouble. So it's something that I personally wouldn't gamble with, but I know a lot of patients do because you know, there's certain peptides, there's One that we used to use, it's called cerebralysin, and it was being used in, like, places in Europe, like Germany to actually reverse things like dementia. And so there's people that, you know, end up in these situations. They hear about things like this and they're like, you know, what, what do I have to lose at this point? And they really just kind of make that, that decision for themselves, like, could I try this? Could I get better? And is it worth the, you know, could something worse happen? At that point, it's up to the individual. But, like, legally speaking, as a, as a provider, we can't make recommendations on things that are on those websites. But that said, there's still a lot of cool ones we can use.

So, like, when you're working with a patient, when does, when do peptides come into the equation? Like, after you've done all the other things at the beginning, like, when does that, and how do you figure out who would use peptides?

Yeah, so a lot of it comes down to two things. What's their current health state at, and what are their goals? So a lot of times people are coming to me and they want to either get their hormones in place, they want to just, you know, heal their body from various things. And we usually start with, okay, what do we have to do to dial in to get your physiology to a place where we can then take it to another level? So a lot of the time we have to get hormones under there, right? So guys, especially if they say, though, I want to put on a whole bunch of muscle mass, they want to do the growth hormone stuff. I'm like, well, you need your testosterone at adequate levels to support that process in the first place. So let's start there.

Okay, so we go through that first. Okay, now I want to talk about the big one now, the big peptide, the semi glutamate peptide. I remember first hearing about that in the peptide biohacking world. And now it's become this whole thing that everybody in weight loss is talking about and people are using it to extremes. What can you educate us about that? And do you see that in your practice? And is this like, I, I, I think I feel like naturopaths and biohackers knew about this before the whole world started using it, but you were using it for different reasons. So can you give us a little education on that?

Yeah, so I've actually been prescribing semaglutide for probably about two years, something like that. It's been a, it's been a While and I have prescribed it differently than what a lot of doctors are doing right now. I feel like they're dosing really high. And it's. I think that's where we're seeing a lot of the side effects from is it's too high of dosing. And in inappropriate populations where they're just kind of giving it to anybody who's overweight and obese without talking to them about things like, well, what is your diet? How are your hormones? Do you have any other, you know, any other variables coming to play here? And the picture, the person that I like to prescribe this for is a patient that I've been working with for a while. We've dialed in their hormones. I know their diet is as good as we could possibly get it. And they still have that weight that is just not coming off despite the best efforts we've had. And when we do prescribe it is that it's low doses. It is like it is microdoses, like a ten or a quarter max of what you might start with with at the other doctor, giving us plenty of room to go up while we're monitoring you in the meantime. And when it's done safely, I've seen great benefits in my patients. I've even seen patients who have experienced the. So what? One of the things that it does is it reduces your appetite, but it does so in a way that it takes away not only the desire to like the appetite suppression itself, but it's the desire to consume anything bad. So I've had patients that have actually benefited who have had addiction, things like drug and alcohol addiction, because it takes that away. So they're no longer consuming food for emotional reasons. They're only going after drugs and alcohol. It has been life changing.

Okay, that makes sense to me. Here's my concerns and maybe I'm completely off base here, so correct me if I am. I. My understanding is that one of the reasons it makes you less hungry is it slows your gastric emptying and it also manipulates your insulin. Is that accurate?

It.

And what are the consequences of those two things?

The gastric emptying thing can go both ways. Some people go h experience a slowdown. Some people actually experience a speeding up where they start getting diarrhea. Okay, what my guess is from this is that because of how it secretes insulin and it changes your blood, how your body is managing your glucose is that you're actually starving off certain bacteria in the gut microbiome. And that's what's actually causing either the Diarrhea or the transitory issues because I found that my pat have, that are more on the carb heavy side and they have the higher sugars and they have more of the, we'll call it a robust microbiome versus my patients that are more low carb keto carnivore, they don't seem to get those side effects from it. They actually do fairly well. But that being said, there have been some studies done that actually show that it can change. That it can change like neuron, neuronal development in the brain. So we can't actually see positive changes in that. So I actually think that there is some chemistry changing there in a, in.

A good, a positive way. Okay.

Yes.

And then because it's manipulating your insulin some is that get dangerous if you.

Ever stop, A lot of the time, especially people get older, you can actually get a deficiency in what's called the GLP1, the glucagon like peptide one. And that's what we're augmenting with this. These are, these are what these peptides are doing. So do I think that people will experience the change in their insulin once they stop? No. If they're healthy, if they're generally in, in good shape. Do I think that if somebody was on their way to pre diabetes or they diabetic or they already had insulin resistance issues, could those issues remain if they stop? Absolutely. Right. But could were they the right candidate in the first place? You can argue that, right, because this, this medication was technically designed for diabetics to manage that insulin secretion and to increase that. So will they be fine with insulin secretion when they stop? Probably not because that was the shape they were in the first place. For somebody who's relatively healthy, again has all the stuff dialed in already. Do I think you could start and stop? Absolutely. I've had patients that have stopped and they haven't had the rewakening but they've kept the habits warning.

I will say I actually have some friends that I did not think were overweight that did this. Not through you and not micro doing. And they were definitely ordering from like they would get it from a practitioner verse and then do it on their own. And I don't think they look so good right now. I'm just going to be real like they did lose weight initially and then they gained it all back and now they're more miserable. So it's. I, I've just seen a, a kind of a abuse of it with people and people I know and it makes me sad to see and I think feel it's becoming a shortcut in a quick fix society and it's not being used right. That's just my opinion. I also will say that about a year and a half ago from this point, I weighed 20 pounds more than I do now and I wasn't overweight. I feel like there's a lot of, like nobody would have looked at me and said, you're overweight. I felt bigger for myself, but I would have said all the things like it's my hormones, it's my age, it's all these things. And my, my lab tests weren't anything crazy or extreme. There was nothing like that. Glaringly stood out off. But my blood sugar started being a little different and I was recommended from a western medicine doctor first. First metformin, which I said no. And then somebody else offered semiglutide and I said no to both of them. And I'm glad I did because I ended up learning I had parasites which took the first ten pounds out right away. Then I thought I was great and then I removed my silicone implants and I'm back to the weight I was pre any of this. So to me, I still think it's like a root, root thing. Like I. And I'm assuming you take your patients through these questions. I'm not saying you specifically, but I think too many times and I hope people listening, really listen. Like if you try to do the quick fix for the wrong reasons without like really doing the work first, it can backfire big time. But if like you do go through all those other processes first and you've done the detoxes and you've done the nutrient, you're doing all those things first, then it would maybe make sense to me what you're saying about some kind of microdose with this. But when we try to do it and skip those steps, I, I just, I see so many red flags there.

Exactly. And that goes back to like my whole, my peptide, I guess rule is that these are your cherry on top therapies. They are not necessarily your first line. Now there are some that can be, I will call it like neutral as a first line. Like the BPC157 people can take that. It's like you don't have to be really dialed in for much to start taking that one. We call it, you know, the healing peptide because it has multiple benefits to it. It's great for gut health. So people have ibs, ibd. If you have any joint, joint degeneration, starting it's great for that. And you can get it in an oral version. You can. And it's perfectly absorbed that way because it's actually something that's naturally made in the gut so it can be absorbed through as well. But that's one that like, you know, neutral to start here and there, we start really trying to manipulate other things in the body. And this is the part that I think, you know, that I don't love about the research sites is that there is an art to manipulating the physiology of a human being and being able to understand the implications of how you can push different pathways up or downstream and being able to handle what comes out on the other end should be done by a provider that knows what they're doing.

I agree. Okay. And, and I can't stress this enough. I mean I'm so flipping anti insurance right now. Medical insurance. I have so many reasons I don't like it. But I will start with when I worked in medical device sales. I really saw this in, in a bad way that people let insurance dictate treatments. And it is so dangerous because. And I understand people think they're in a financial situation so they've got to where they, they may be legitimately are in a financial situation, so they're letting insurance dictate treatment. But it comes back and bites us later because we're not doing our best options for ourselves. Insurance providers are not doctors. They are not caring doctors at all. They are a business and they are dictating things that could hurt our health later. So I highly. I'm a huge fan of naturopathic medicine. I love what you do. I highly advise people listening do what you can to get in with either a functional medicine doctor that really is. Has a holistic approach or a naturopathic medicine doctor like Sabrina. Because this is really, really important to understand root, root cause of things and use things smartly versus just going to pharmaceuticals and going off what insurance dictates for us.

Yeah, I could not agree more. You said that beautifully.

Well, thank you so much for being here today. Where should people find you? Where do you want them to go? You've got a great Instagram. Is there a specific site you want people learning more? Where do they best learn more about what you do and how can they work with you?

Yeah, my Instagram is Justault. I'm by far the most active on that platform. My goal in 2024 is to be more active on others.

But s o lt by the way, at Dr. Salt. S o lt not s like not salt like we eat.

Yes. And then my clinical website is stemcell therapy pro.com and that is the best way to inquire about becoming a patient. Learn more about the different things that we offer. Yeah, we we're open Monday through Thursday. You can get a hold of us from 9 to 5, so normal business hours.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

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