Speaker 1 0:00
Kay, well, hello, hello, guys. You're listening to beauty bites with Dr Kay, secrets of a plastic surgeon, and today's podcast, you're not going to want to miss if you're a biohacker, if you're into longevity and wellness, this is my queen. It's Dr Elizabeth the Earth. Welcome to the podcast. Thank

Speaker 2 0:31
you, Kay. Feelings are mutual. Those you guys, Kay and I have known each other for not that long a time, but we came fast friends, and I love the opportunity to talk to you and your brilliance.

Speaker 1 0:40
It's so fun. I feel like everything you teach me, I'm trying to play clinically and vice versa, like the things I see clinically, we can teach back. Yeah, space. What's your favorite new thing that's trending and happening right now? What are you diving deep into in longevity at the moment?

Speaker 2 0:57
Well, I really am sort of passionate about trying to understand mitochondria more. We kind of got into this realm with the long covid people, right? And unfortunately, even those of you who think you might not be long covid, almost everybody unfortunately got adversely affected by covid or the spike protein, and we're seeing a lot of mitochondrial damage that occurs. So people are just fatigued more easily. You know, their energy wasn't what it was. Their endurance isn't what what it was that, along with probably a lot of other stress and things that we're dealing with in the world, we're just seeing a decline in mitochondrial function. We actually do some testing in mitochondrial function. Universally, it's just declining. So I'm really working on mitochondrial repair. What can we really do? These are the energy systems. They're what make all of our energy. They're actually in control of everything, the control of the nucleus of your cells. So we really have to focus on those as kind of a piece of longevity. So that's what I've been really deep diving, is all these pathways inside the mitochondria. How do we repair them?

Speaker 1 2:00
I love that. I think people are definitely not aware that they, even if they had an episode of covid, they successfully recovered from that. There's long term cellular impact. So what are we seeing? Is that responsible for chronic fatigue at some level, and just

Speaker 2 2:15
like the Epstein Barr Virus and the chronic fatigue people and things like that, but there's a great study Italian group out of Cyprus, along with Robin Rose is out of New York. They've been studying spike protein a lot, and they actually have now come up with a test that they're the only tests that will be able to do this. You can, you can do antibiotic spike protein. That doesn't actually mean much when you go to LabCorp and get that they actually can identify the spike protein. So they actually have now a test that can identify the spike protein and where it's where it really is. So spike protein seems to be lodged in our gut. Seems to be lodged in, you know, brain cells. There's a lot of places and what. So they've actually developed a test, and now we'll be able to actually measure, well, where is the spike protein hiding out. How can we, you know, do better to eliminate but they've also done some really, really quite frightening studies, because the spike protein appears to be producing what we call these toxin like peptides. And these toxin like peptides actually are attacking things like brain. And they looked at actually, the brains of young people who were asymptomatic, had nothing they were these were people in their 20s and 30s, had no symptoms. They were fine, but they ranulated brains on people who had higher levels of these spike proteins, even if they were completely asymptomatic, and almost 90% of them showed brain atrophy. So we know this is adversely affecting us, even if we aren't feeling it. So I think it's we're all gonna have to be aware it's actually terrifying. I mean, the stuff they are finding is terrifying, and then we have to sort of figure out, what do we do about it? Right? How do we get rid of this spike protein? I, you know, on my side, I, I'm going to try and keep the mitochondria as healthy as possible, because that's the reason for the decline. But eventually we've got to figure out how to get rid of, how to eliminate the

Speaker 1 3:57
spike protein. I think that people are not really aware that their brain fog and, like mild symptoms can actually be related to that. But, yeah,

Speaker 2 4:07
I mean, I got covid Pretty bad. I actually didn't get respiratory at all, but I got super, super, super fatigued. I literally could not get a bed for two weeks, you know. And, and I will tell you that, you know, I used to do a lot of running, long distance running, and I just can't do it anymore. It's really my endurance never came back to that state where I actually can do it to the point where I enjoy it anymore. It's just, you know, my endurance just has not improved in that state. So I know underlying there is, there's mitochondrial damage, and I I do a lot to fix it, but it's not, you know, it's not easy.

Speaker 1 4:37
So I want to dive right into peptides and peptide stacks, because, literally, I feel like now I need to ask every patient in their medical history. They don't list it on their med list, but I have to ask, what peptides are you on? And I'm freaking shocked at how many people are on random peptides given to them by their Jim bro buddy, or, you know, I order it from a guy like, what? Where? What kind of peptide? Diets you're using, what do they do? And they don't they have not even the littlest idea of exactly how they interact or what they're trying to do, but they just think it's the right thing to do. And I know you love peptides, you're very knowledgeable what. How can we guide the consumer that wants to get into using peptides, but also alert them to safeties and, you know, warning issues?

Speaker 2 5:21
This is a huge concern of mine, right? Because you're right, peptides are becoming very accessible through a lot of different research chemical sites. I don't know how many of you guys heard about the thing that happened at radfest, one of the big sort of biohacking conferences. Yes, you know where? Yeah, in the exhibit hall there was a doctor giving people a peptide concoction, research chemical peptide concoction, you know, 15 people got really, really sick. Two ended up on ventilators. I mean, we have to be really careful with what we're doing. Is it the right person we're doing it, and where are we accessing these things? I only get my peptides from compounding pharmacies. It's, you know, because we, even though the peptide can show you that it has what, what's in it, it doesn't, when you get to a research chemical site, which very well says not for human use on it, it's because they don't test it to the extent that we have to test things when the compounding pharmacy makes it so there's smaller amounts of toxins in there that for some people can be not good, right? So we have to be really careful with that. And I would say that's why we need to be using physicians with prescription who can give prescriptions for these things. And I know I'm there's a lot of people who disagree with that, who think the peptide research chemicals, and I guess all well and good until something bad happens, and we're seeing more and more of this stuff. I also think you're exactly right peptides don't have any value unless you use them at the right place, at the right time, and that you've got the foundation laid from other things, like, if your hormones are completely out of whack and you decide, oh, I'm going to take four different peptides, they're probably not going to do that much good. You need to have the foundation lay. You need to make sure that you have the nutrients you need. You need to make sure that you're getting the sleep you need. And then peptides are kind of icing on the cake. They're the next layer. And then you got to make sure, like, Okay, what am I? What am I actually trying to target, right? And not, you know? And if I'm trying to, for instance, using something called sloop, which is sort of a new, new thing in kind of the bodybuilding world, that stimulates mitochondrial function. But I have really sick mitochondria. I can actually cause more damage. I create more reactive oxygen species. It's like stepping on a car gas while you have the brake on. And so people are using these things. It's like, Oh, I'm gonna take all this stuff when they don't, honestly have the mitochondria that can do it. So I love peptides. I use them all the time, but they have a right place and a right time.

Speaker 1 7:54
How does a provider even get into learning or prescribing these things? Because California is ridiculously

Speaker 2 8:01
California is tough, right? And, yeah, a more difficult entity there, right? This conference I'm lecturing at in New York in a few weeks, I actually am trying to sort of formulate, okay, what is just sort of a because we do have a lot of providers who want to do this, and it takes a lot of emphasizing peptides for 10 years. It takes a lot of understanding of cellular pathways. And a lot of people don't want to go that deep. They don't want to look at the pathways. They just want to know, okay, I just want a protocol for this. So I actually tried to just come up with a sort of simplified, if I just had a longevity protocol, what would I do to keep people's lives simple, a couple of peptides here and there. And I think that that, that that actually kind of works pretty well, is to sort of think about replacing the few things that we are losing over time. So I think that, yes, you can go and try and learn all this stuff. It takes time. It takes a lot of reading, and also takes a love of actually understanding where these peptides are fitting into these pathways. And that's not for everybody, you know. I mean, I love going down rabbit holes of pathways, but not everybody does. So we need to have some sort of more kind of approach of, okay, well, if you want to simply use these and you know, one of the ways I look at them is just like hormones, what peptides are we losing as we age we naturally make and we lose as we age, right? Just like you make less testosterone, you make more less estrogen, we also make less of certain peptides. For instance, growth hormone, right? That's a hormone we make less growth hormone. Less growth hormone creates. Growth Hormone creates a peptide called insulin, like growth factor, IGF. So we know that IGF levels drop, and we know that IGF levels at a when they get very low, affect muscle mass, they affect bone density, they affect brain health. So we want to we can measure IGF levels and we can say, Oh, this has dropped. This is low in you. We can give you something to simulate i. IGF, and we use what are called growth hormone secretagogues For that things that just get your pituitary to make its own growth hormone. The problem with growth hormone is you have to be careful with it. So people can just take growth hormones just like they can take other hormones, but it's very easy to take too much to get side effects. And one of the things about growth hormone is because it's a super physiologic dose, meaning a very high dose, it'll affect like the organs will keep growing. So you'll get these big spleens and big livers. Remember the pictures of old bodybuilders and those big protruding bellies? It looked like muscle on it, but it was big old protruding bellies. That's actually because the organs had grown because growth hormone. So that's why the secretotics are better. So again, we know we lose growth hormone. We know we lose IGF. Let's replace it periodically. You don't have to be doing it continuously, kind of periodically, replacing it. And then the other peptides that go away are thymic peptides. So our thymus gland, huge gland in our chest, when we're babies, at puberty, it starts to atrophy by time you're old like me, it's a little fatty nubb. It's not doing anything. But the thymic peptides are things like thymosin alpha one and thymosin beta four. And what they do thymus and alpha one is responsible for our immune system. So puberty, you've got this great immune system. At 70, you have a very crappy immune system, and people at 80 die of a virus, right? Because their immune system, their T helper cells, cells that make antibodies aren't activated, and that's what thymus alpha one tells the body to do. So we can't give back a thymus gland yet. There's some crazy people trying to do thymus transplants, but we can't, but we get back with the thymus gland makes thymus alpha one is going to help my immune system stay healthy, which is really at the root of almost every bad disease. And then thymus and beta four helps me to regenerate. So you can use that periodically. So again, you cycle these things in a few times a year. They don't have to be used all the time in somebody who's sort of healthy. And just look at longevity. So we can sort of teach people, okay, this month, do this, this month, do this, this month, do this, and protocolize it from that approach. And then the other, the other couple of peptides that drop as we as we age, our BPC body protective compound, 157 remember, it's a gastric peptides made by the gut. The gut makes it to repair not only itself, but everywhere else. And so as those levels drop with age or unhealthy guts, then we can't repair our gut as well, but nor can repair anything else, including our brain. So let's give back BPC again, periodically. You don't have to do all these things continuously, unless you're really sick, but for you know, just health purposes, let's replace again, just like I'm replacing testosterone, estrogen, progesterone, I'm going to replace the thyma peptides, the growth hormone secretagogues and BPC, and the last one is one you know, you're, you're, you're definitely familiar with. Well, I won't say the last one. Give me two more. It's GHK copper. So GHK copper, which you guys know for skin, is incredible, right? It's great for skin collagen production, but GHK is really imperative for a lot of other repair processes in our body. And if you look at age related levels of GHK in our body, it drops as well. So we don't heal as well. Wounds don't close. Collagen gets saggier. That's all related to GHK. So GHK modulates about 500 different genes that are related to our skin, collagen, our collagen in our joints, things like that. And so give me a little bit of GHK copper you can use on your skin externally, but you can also inject a little bit in to work on everything else.

Speaker 1 13:30
What's so tricky, I always when I've been injecting it feel like it's quite acidic and stingy. And yeah, my body likes yet,

Speaker 2 13:40
yeah, GHK, copper can burn a little bit, so you don't want to use a very small amount, you know, and sometimes buffer it a little bit, and then, and the last thing is, what we talked about mitochondria. Mitochondria have their own peptides. And if my mitochondria are declining, they make less of these peptides, these mitochondrial peptides. So now I have less of those. What are those peptides do? Well, number one, they repair mitochondria, like SS 31 which is a drug called a lampretide, it repairs the mitochondria. And the modest C gets the mitochondria to move a little faster, revs it up a little bit, right? So first thing I want to do is periodically do a little repair to my mitochondria. Because if I take a damaged mitochondria and try and rev it up, not so great, and then I can rev it up a little bit. So you can use those two kind of off and on, depending on what you're trying to address. So with those five peptides you've replaced, there's tons of other peptides that are out there, but those are the ones that we replaced what we naturally make, that we lose, with age.

Speaker 1 14:44
I love that strategy. I think that's very feasible. And I think it's challenging for people to know, like, how do you cycle what dosing? You know what levels, how often cycle on and cycle off. And honestly, you have to really just. Plan a clinician who's been working with I think

Speaker 2 15:02
you want somebody who understands these you know? I think it's very hard to figure out on your own. When do you cycle on? When do you cycle off? What, what peptides potentially can cause too much growth, like diamonds and beta four, it's great causes growth. I don't want too much growth if there's cancer cells around, right? So there's little nuances like that that become important. Certain peptides don't play well together. Each peptide has to be injected separately. And I see this all the time with doctors. Everyone's putting them in combination. What? Yeah, in combination. And it doesn't work. They create a new peptide. These are, these are fragile amino acid bonds. And when you mix two different compounds together, they can make a whole different compound. So people need to be sort of wary of that. And that's why you can't, you know when, when you have somebody taking five peptides at one time, it becomes ridiculous. And we're doing five injections every day. That's just not sustainable. So this approach of sort of cycling through a couple of peptides, you know? And what I tell people is, we sort of change off in seasons. We kind of follow seasons and and that way we can sort of keep that health, but not ever overwhelm people, either monetarily or from a just exhaustion of injections. It

Speaker 1 16:07
does build up. The cost is there? Yeah. So you've we talked about mitochondrial peptides like modesty, and have you also been learning more and using human at all? I do

Speaker 2 16:17
use human a lot. It was very interesting, actually, in this long covid study they did so these, these, these people with symptoms of long covid, they actually looked at all the different mitochondrial peptides. And modest C was actually very high. It was not low. We always kept treating with modest C. What was really low was human in. So human in is another mitochondrial repair peptide, but much more specific to neural tissue, to the brain. And so we saw that human was really low and modest. He was probably reacting trying to kind of Rev things up a little bit, but it was reacting to this depletion of human. So we keep giving more modest C, which most people actually already had ample amounts of. So what we're targeting now is in these, in some of these more severe, both people with cognitive decline or more severe cases of long covid or severe fatigue, probably you want to fix human in first, like even just a 10 day course or four week course of human and first, and then you could add in a little bit of SS 31 or minus c, so human and may be playing a much bigger role than what we once thought.

Speaker 1 17:26
Yeah, I think so I've been learning a lot more about that, and that's kind of I'm really focusing on for my own health and wellness, neurodegenerative

Speaker 2 17:35
Right, right? Yeah, the guy who developed human was this Japanese researcher, and he named it human, and because he said, This is going to bring back the human. To all these demented people. And then, unfortunately, he passed away, and a lot of the research starts halted on human but that really it is. It is my go to for any neural problems, so any neurocognitive decline, even for brain fog, it can work better than some of the other mitochondrial

Speaker 1 17:59
peptides you recently told me about plasmologens, which are very also super important lipids that are found only in the brain tissue and responsible for myelination of nerves. And I was freaking shocked,

Speaker 2 18:13
because nobody knows about them, right? I've done neurology. Oh, my God,

Speaker 1 18:18
it's crazy. I asked the Director of the Stroke Center at Huntington Hospital here like they've never heard a human. I mean, they never heard of plasmologens.

Speaker 2 18:26
And you know, when you look them up, plasmalogens in almost every disease, you'll see the relation to low plasmalogens. But particularly for neurocognitive, plasmalogens are not focused on the brain. They're found everywhere. They're ample in heart tissue, you know, in kidneys. They're in our retina of our eye, and our levels decline as we age.

Speaker 1 18:45
Explain what a plasmalogen is and how it's so impactful for people with neurodegenerative especially

Speaker 2 18:51
so think about plasmalogen Simplistically. So it's a specialized lipid, type of lipid, but it acts, I like to sort of think of it in a simplistic way. It coats all of our cell membrane. So you've got this phospholipid membrane, and then over that sort of protecting or embedded into it are these plasmologists, this specialized lipid layer, and it's kind of protecting the cell membrane, particularly our myelin in our nerves and our brain. So I like to think about like insulation on a wiring right? And when we have traumatic events or illnesses. We this plasmalogen is the first thing to get stripped away. It's kind of the protective thing. It's trying to protect everything else. So it's, it's sort of like the, you know, the fire hose for a fire, it's going to help put out the fire. Well, at the expense now that you have this bare wiring, you have this, you know, now these cells that are naked, these my neurons that are naked, and you have to replace the plasmalogens. When that happens, covid was a huge detriment. Here. Also ApoE, four people have much lower levels of plasmalogens. The problem is, you can't just eat plasmalogens. You have to make them. Your peroxisomes make them. And the problem is, when you have low plasmalogens, the peroxomes don't function very well, so they can't make. More plasma allergens. So Dr Dane Good, now has done the most research on this, and he worked with, he actually worked for a drug company to help treat this disease in kids that they have no plasmalogens, and they died early. And they actually came up with this precursor, that if you ate this precursor to plasma allergens, it would turn into plasma allergens in your brain and in other tissues, and that would act to replace the plasma allergens. And then he left the drug company and he turned it into a supplement, which was great for all of us. So So plasmalogists actually are really, really critical, especially anybody who's fighting any kind of neurodegenerative disease. His study of people with apo e4 he's been study since 2006 at Rush University. So 8.4 people who have a much higher propensity right of developing dementia. As long as the plasmalogen levels stay high, they were equal risk to everybody else.

Speaker 1 20:51
That's incredible. And I I just started taking some last month, and I really honestly feel like it. I felt much more mental clarity. So it's kind

Unknown Speaker 21:00
of, yeah, it's funny, we can measure levels

Speaker 1 21:03
mountains as you age. So like, what we call brain fog, I think is actually losing, right?

Speaker 2 21:08
Our neurons can't, can't communicate very well anymore. That myelin is stripped away, you know? So you get more numbness and tingling. You get

Speaker 1 21:15
more brain fog. Yes, when you can't remember that person's last name, and it takes it can't make that connection all day for the neurons to connect, and then finally, and we can

Speaker 2 21:23
measure levels. It's a test called prodrome test that we can measure levels. And it's funny, I have a guy who I just remeasured his levels. I've had him on high dose plasmalogens, and he's a super healthy guy. Does most of this stuff just because he wants to stay you know, on the top of his game. He's very athletic, 75 year old, and his plasma knowledge were horrible. And you could see we could actually measure myelin, and it was low. So he's a lot of destruction, and he felt okay, right? Well, then we replaced his plasmalogies. He's like, Oh my god. He's like, I cannot tell you the difference, you know. So we actually got him up now, where his myelin levels are nice and high, his plasmid lakes are full, and he's and he's, he's kind of a super athlete. He does this very amazing stuff, and he's like, I just feel like a completely different person, because, you know, we got these levels restored.

Speaker 1 22:10
It's funny that humans have that ability to perceive these super subtle changes that are so hard to quantify, but like you can, you can tell that you are deteriorating, and that is sort of the whole drive of biohacking in this right, right subtle eyes and stop the deterioration and wear and tear of life, right? And it's

Speaker 2 22:28
always kind of this, like you would just kind of accept our new normals, right? You know it's coming. And so, so they subtly happen. And

Unknown Speaker 22:36
also medicine tells us to, like, it's part of life that you age out

Speaker 2 22:40
and like, oh, you see it all that. I watched it with my parents where, you know, like, after the age of 80, like, they'd come in with the they show me their labs, and I'm like, Oh, my God, those are horrible. Like, no doctors are fine. I'm like, defined for an 80 year old, you know? And I'm like, not fine for anybody, right? So we do that medicine too. We sort of just accept that people should decline, and that's

Speaker 1 23:04
human deterioration and old age and like, you know this, yeah, reversing the senescence is something that I'm really passionate about, because

Speaker 2 23:12
it's so important for what you do, too, for beauty, right? For

Speaker 1 23:16
cellular senescence. And the more we study actually senescence in the face and fibroblasts, we realize that it's echoing like these genetic changes that are reflective of the overall organisms health. You know, that's right. Really good outer warning sign. There's a lot of buzz about NAD and precursors like NMN and nr and also one MNA, all these initials. The whole audience is confused. But what do you think of taking all the precursors? Where do you see 1m and A fitting into the strategy? Let's talk a little bit about, should we be pulsing it? Are we overdoing it?

Speaker 2 23:54
What we need to understand is why NAD levels decline. We know NAD is critical to health, right? It's part of that NAD converted NADH and then back again, is what one of the things that drives the electron transport chain and makes energy. So we absolutely know it's critical to life, and we do know that it declines. Interestingly, it's not that we make less NAD, we don't. So in they've done models where they looked at blocking the enzymes that are depleting it, and the NAD levels stay fine. So the problem is that we're actually just depleting more, mostly because we get up regulation of a couple of bad enzymes as we age, or if we're sick or if we have trauma. So there's two enzymes, one called CD 38 one called NMT, that that sort of take the NAD and take it down different pathways, right? So instead of staying in this NAD NADH cycle, it takes it's taken down into different pathways. For instance, one of the pathways that it goes to is into what's called a Puritan and for puridone is a really bad metabolite. So. So if I'm giving a bunch of NAD, right, and it's just spilling out, it's like a bucket with a hole in it. It's just spilling out on the floor, making mess on my floor. And I keep putting more in, because I feel good once in, but it's spilling out. You know, as fast as I'm filling it, it's spilling out. And in this case, it's forming bad metabolites, if you if you Google N and MT or CD 38 and almost any disease, they're linked to bad diseases. So if I'm feeding into them, is that a good thing? Probably not. So what probably is a better approach is to block the things that are utilizing it right block CD 38 which you can use apigenin for, or block this methylation enzyme called N and MT, which you can use one methyl nicotinamide for. And if you block it, the NAD levels should stay good. Now, if periodically, you just ran a marathon, you just had covid, then you can refill the bucket, right? But while you're patching the hole so the bucket may decline because you still had a little bit of, you know, you needed more energy. So what I would say is that people should be blocking the things that are degrading it first and then periodically adding some NAD or its precursors and a men in and not just randomly doing NAD infusions. And the problem is we can't really measure NAD inside the mitochondria, which is where it matters. We can measure serum levels. People go, oh my NAD levels went up. Means nothing. You have no idea what is going on inside the mitochondria. And that's where that ratio of NAD NADH is really, really critical, and we can't measure it. So NAD measurements are silly. They're not in the cellular compartment we care about, and those cellular compartments can be an 80 fold different from the serum. So I think we don't know what we're doing. I think that we're starting to see some of the studies come out, like people took a lot of niacin, started to see more cardiovascular disease, and those people who took high doses of niacin, I think we'll start seeing that. I think we'll start seeing more cancers in these people who are doing this. I think we better be very cautious. Look at the pathways. You always have to go back to the pathways and see what you're doing.

Unknown Speaker 27:06
That's probably difficult news for a lot of people

Speaker 2 27:09
to hear they've been getting. It never goes over. Well, people love their NAD IV

Speaker 1 27:13
infusions, and that you do get a feeling of energy, for sure, do. Yeah, it's some

Speaker 2 27:18
of the reason for that is actually not good. Some that sort of, you know, hype you get is because you actually are feeding senescent cells. Senescent cells don't create all this blast of these proteins that you're like, oh well, so I'm kind of revved up, right? It's actually not necessarily a good thing. It's not real energy. It's actually this senescent cell sort of burden extensively amplifying. So we actually think some of that feeling is actually not a good thing. It's actually a sign of sort of activating senescent cells, which we know. Senescent cells love NAD. Cancer cells, senescent cells like NAD a whole lot better than your normal cells. So where's it going? It's going to the bad places, fat cells. Fat cells love NAD.

Speaker 1 27:58
So for people to not be scared, what's a good strategy? Because

Speaker 2 28:02
strategy is, you know, use it periodically. If you love it, it's okay to fill the bucket now and then. But I would be taking epigenin. When you do it, you would take epigenin and one methyl nicotinamide, block it from going anywhere bad, right? So you can do that periodically. And then I just stay on one methyl nicotinamide all the time, and epigenin, so I'm always blocking the bucket from leaking, right? And I'm not a big believer in taking the precursors, but if you love them, and you love your NAD, then go ahead and do it, just be on the cautious side of how frequently you're doing it, and that you're blocking these enzymes using epigenetic and one methyl nicotinamide.

Speaker 1 28:37
Theoretically, if you were taking the one like for NMN or nm, shouldn't that get shuttled down these pathways until the point of saturation and then stop? Or do you think that that just drives excessive production?

Speaker 2 28:51
I mean, you don't know, yes, if you knew exactly how much to take. But the problem is, you really don't, right, how much do you need? We have no idea. So, when have you overloaded? Have you? Have you filled the bucket too far, and it's all leaking out? Right? We don't know that, and we don't really, at this point, have a way of measuring it, so I think you just have to err to the side of caution, because you don't, you really don't know what is the right amount.

Speaker 1 29:12
I think that's one of the biggest problems in biohacking in general, is that we don't have great ways to track and

Speaker 2 29:18
measure right. There's lots of things we can't measure very effectively, right? If we had to

Speaker 1 29:22
come up with some biomarkers that you wish that every patient and person listening would get tested for longevity tracking, beyond just glucose and lipids and like the usual primary care health panel, what would you suggest?

Speaker 2 29:37
Well, I think that you know things that you when we look at, when we look at, how do we look at cell membranes and things like that, ideally, you definitely want to look at things like to monitor your methylation, like homocysteine. So you really should know your homocysteine C reactive protein is a given. You need to know what your inflammatory markers are. So everybody needs another highly sensitive C reactive protein. Everybody needs to know what. Homocysteine is uric acid is another really good marker, because it actually is a marker of what is that sort of energy store we always think of. You know, uric acid is bad. It creates gout, creates kidney uric acid crystals in the kidneys. But too low of uric acid levels is a low energy state. It means you're not making enough energy and and so you guys too much energy, that's high uric acid, too little energy is low. So if you look at people who have uric acid levels below 3.5 they have much higher levels of neurocognitive decline. The brain needs energy the most. So people don't look at uric acid levels sort of the right way, and that can be a really, good marker of what, where is my energy system. When you talk about NAD, that can actually be a little bit of a marker. So if I see somebody who has super, super low levels of uric acid, that may somebody where I give them a little bit of NAD, along with some of the blocking agents along with it, because I know they're in a sort of a low energy state. So it's an underutilized marker of kind of overall, you know, overall health. You know, the other thing is looking at things like your Omega three to six ratios, because that's a sort of a really good key on how your cell membrane is doing. Is looking at this omega three to six ratio. You want to have high omega threes, low level six or or even better in arachidonic acid to EPA ratio, because that just gives you a nice sense of what's going on with the lipids that are making up your cell membranes and act as anti inflammatory. So that's something you know, Omega profiles are really helpful in us. You know, making these decisions too

Speaker 1 31:36
interesting. And hemoglobin a, 1c

Speaker 2 31:39
I think obviously hemoglobin C, but I think people under so hemoglobin Amos C, there's a lot of things that can actually raise hemoglobin Amos C, right? You know, even testosterone can survive race hemoglobin C, and that's independent of glucose. So, so remember that what hemoglobin would see is is glycosylated red blood cells. There's other things that cause glycosylation besides glucose. So not everybody with a high hemoglobin C necessarily needs to be on, you know, treating for type two diabetes. Some of those people, it's other causes. So always look at an insulin level, right? You need to know the insulin level. If somebody has a really low insulin level and a high hemoglobin C, then look for other reasons that they're glycosylating red blood cells, because there is a lot of other reasons, oxidative stress, glycosylation is through the roof from some other reason. So we have to, we have to look at at insulin along with hemoglobin C. If you're not doing that, you're not getting the full picture. Because you know, if insulin levels are staying super low. What am I doing by putting out something on a drug that lowers insulin? It's not helping them, right?

Speaker 1 32:45
Yeah. The other interesting thing, I think that I hear a lot is micro dosing of semaglutide and all of the weight loss peptides. And I don't see any randomized, controlled studies suggesting what the correct levels and dosing and intervals are and everybody's just doing it a little bit on the side. So including myself.

Unknown Speaker 33:05
I mean, I'm

Unknown Speaker 33:07
what you're doing, what you're thinking.

Speaker 2 33:08
I'm a big believer in low dosing the GLP ones, because we know the mechanism. Again, let's go back to our pathways. We know that there are GLP one receptors on neurons. We know they're on immune cells. We know the kidneys are dependent on GLP, so up regulating GLP has huge advantages beyond weight loss, huge right? That's why we were in Phase four trials now for looking at a GLP one agonist for treating neurocognitive decline. So so we do have studies that show there is an effect far beyond weight loss that is at a lower dose. Now the hard thing is, what is that dose? Right? You know? What is the right dose? And for me, it's actually simply the dose where people, you know, so I'll kind of dose them up to where they have some appetite loss, you know, you know, feel like they're not as interested in food. And then I start bringing I bring them down, and I bring them down to the point where they have zero symptoms at all. They can't tell they're taking this drug. But I think that probably you want them on the highest dose possible that's not creating any weight loss effects, any side effects, any any disinterested food, any disinterest in drinking. You know, there's water. So I think that that's, that's, that's the way I'm doing it right now, as opposed to just saying, Okay, everybody just needs this much. And some people it is a tiny amount, like in myself, even a little bit will make me sort of not want to eat. I don't have a great appetite anyway, so make me not want to eat. And so I have to kind of bring it down to a pretty low dose, but that dose is different for everybody. And until we have, like, when this neurocognitive study gets published, we'll have a little bit more sense as we look at and there's a lot of studies going on with the GLP ones and different diseases, like kidney diseases and things like that. So I but I right now, yes, like a lot of things, we don't. Know all the answers, but it makes sense from a pathway perspective.

Speaker 1 35:05
It does. It really does. When you go to Mr. Olympia and the muscle muscle meetings, what have you learned about muscle building and muscle mass that we can think about and use clinically?

Speaker 2 35:18
Muscle is is tough. I mean, the biggest thing is really a lot of protein, right? Which is hard to do. How much protein you need to really put on muscles is one up to two grams per pound of lean body mass. And that's a lot. I mean, I, you know, I weigh about 130 pounds. I'm pretty skinny. It's even getting 130 grams of protein in for me, and I probably need even a little bit more to put on more muscle. So so it's a hard thing to do, but it's absolutely critical. And if you look at some of Bill Campbell's studies, even just eating a high protein diet, even without changing exercise at all, people put on muscle. So we know that that's probably critical thing. Number one, we also know that there's some interesting work going on. A lot of you guys have heard about the fall statin gene. Falstatin gene therapy. Falstatin gene therapy. So falstand is basically when we exercise, or really all the time, we produce something called myostatin. Muscles stop. So our bodies are only designed to put on so much muscle, right? And then it stops. If you block myostatin, you can just keep putting on muscle. So these people are going and getting falstatin therapy, which blocks myostatin. Here's the problem. The muscle you create with false dentin therapy, with inhibiting myostatin is very abnormal. Is acts more like fat. It's glycolytic only. Has no power. It's just a fancy looking thing on you that has no benefit and is actually detrimental, because it's using a lot of just like fat, using a lot of energy stores that are not going to your brain or your heart. So if you look at the Belgian blue bulls, who have who have high levels of fall of statin those were bred for meat, they actually would die at a very young age, because they can't even hardly move on their own if they weren't killed early. So we know from even the animal experiments on this and people are going and spending $25,000 for falls to end gene therapy. It's ridiculous. As you can mod, if you can sort of modulate myostatin a little bit, you know, maybe lower a smidgen, then that's probably going to be helpful. So I use what's called fortotropin, called Myos, MD, that's got fortotropin is from from fertilized egg yolks, and that modulates myostat so that you can actually put a little bit more muscle on, especially in people who have trouble putting muscle and I don't find it works as well in my big bodybuilder guys, you know, but in my people who are putting more muscle on. And then obviously hormones are, are critical there too, right? All three of the hormones.

Speaker 1 37:47
I think that's like the biggest deficiency, like 90% of women over 50 are not on hormone replacement

Speaker 2 37:54
therapy. Still that much? 90% is shocking to me.

Speaker 1 37:58
Yeah, I was talking to some menopause experts, and it's really high proportion of post menopausal.

Speaker 2 38:03
I was, I just saw a woman who's, you know, like she's a celebrity. She could go to any doctor she wants, and she was having having uncontrolled bleeding for a whole month, right? And so her doc said, well, we need to do a hysterectomy. And I'm like, when you look to her labs, her estrogen levels were sky high, through the roof, and she had no progesterone. But, or we could just put you on a little progesterone, right? And in fact, another doctor, because she was 50, had just put her on estrogen, because he's like, Well, you must be low in estrogen. Here's estrogen. And her estrogen levels were 500 and something that was through the roof. So what she needed was a detox the estrogen beyond progesterone. So people really need to look closely at hormones, and not, you know, and not everybody needs the same approach either. It's not every woman over 50 needs estrogen. Some don't. Some need less estrogen. So we have to really be careful with everybody needs to be monitored, checked, treated as soon as levels decline. But remember, progesterone levels are dropping in our 30s. They drop very young.

Speaker 1 39:00
I think, like, yeah, you taught me this, that, like, you can't fix anything till the hormones are right. So right, getting all fancy with peptides and right, all these mitochondria rely

Speaker 2 39:09
on hormones. Estrogen is critical to mitochondrial functioning, the calcium signaling the mitochondria So and, you know, and vice versa. Hormones are made inside the mitochondria of our, you know, of our, of our sex or sex glands. So the mitochondria are essential to make hormones, and hormones are essential to the mitochondria. So you have to do both. You got to get back the hormones, which is easy to do, and then we got to help the mitochondria repair so they can make make more. Are

Speaker 1 39:35
you still a proponent of metformin? Any, anybody you know, taking oral rapamycin or a carbide

Speaker 2 39:42
I have, I've been a anti metformer for quite some time, since the data started coming out about it and sarcopenia and muscle loss and muscle wasting, we have so many better options now. It's, it's a nice, inexpensive option. If people can't, you know, have uncontrolled, you know, diet do.

Speaker 1 40:00
Diabetes. Can you talk about that data a little bit? Because I still go to conferences where everyone is on Metformin and they haven't caught up with the studies.

Speaker 2 40:08
Yes. So Metformin is a very powerful mammalian target rapamycin inhibitor, an mTOR inhibitor and and it's okay to inhibit mTOR now and then, right? That's what cycling rapamycin does, but to keep it inhibited all the time, we need mTOR accelerated for growth. So if I'm blunting it all the time, our goal is to sort of have this balance of muscle building and then endurance. Muscle Building endurance. So this balance between mTOR and what we call AMPK. And it should be AMPK should usually be higher, but you gotta surge mTOR up now and then to make muscle so by blocking inhibit all the time, you are actually inhibiting somebody's ability to put on muscle. And the study, especially in elderly people, show that that there was significant muscle loss in people over the age of 50. I believe it was when they were taking Metformin. So I do think it has some benefits. Blocking mTOR probably has longevity benefits, but at what expense? It's at the expense of, you're going to be frail and sickly looking, and, you know, and not be able to walk, right? So maybe you'll live to be 8090, under, but you can't move. So we have to keep that balance in mind, right? We can't just blunt mTOR. We have mice, and on the other hand, remember, we're blocking mammalian target of rapamycin. So rapamycin does block mTOR, but it is cycled. So you're doing it like, once a week. I sort of like to think about it like, Okay, once a week I'm gonna take out my trash, right? So, so by blocking mTOR pretty completely, then, then we can, we can allow AMPK to surge, and we do that once a week, and we can potentially get the benefits of mTOR and negate some of the bad effects. Have you started it? Are you on it? So I took rapamycin for quite some time, and I put a lot of my patients on ice. I still use it, but I actually think now and again, we'll wait. There's always, you know, the parole study is going to come out, we'll have more information. But here's my opinion, if I look at longevity drugs now, there's other drugs surpassing it. And so I that we have great data on like the GLP ones, like the sglt inhibitors, like Jardiance, stLt inhibitors that probably are surpassing rapamycin. And because I have no idea how to dose rapamycin, right? And I, you know, six milligrams once a week is kind of standard dosing, I sort of decided that maybe I'll put my attention over to these other things. I will tell you. The group I do use it in is my women who are in their 30s, who are delaying meeting the right guy, having babies, because it does, at least in animals, have pretty have a pretty compelling effect. We're doing some research, actually right now on that, but a pretty compelling effect on preserving ovarian function. So I think it might be a group where we do want to use it, but I am finding, you know, again, can you throw all these things into the mix? Yeah, but I sort of changed my tune a little bit more to going after these glps and the Sgt inhibitors, because I think rapamycin may have some new consequences that we haven't yet revealed.

Speaker 1 43:09
Yeah, studies, so there still needs to be some more studies on how to use it properly. Yeah, exactly, yeah. What doses? Some of the biggest researchers in the rapamycin field, and they themselves, are not on it because they're waiting for these they're waiting for more, more data,

Speaker 2 43:23
right? And you see a lot of people, I see a lot of who you put on the six milligram, kind of standard dose, and then they have side effects. They get immune suppression, they get cold sores, they their labs show drop in lymphocytes. So it's not the right dose for everybody, you know. And what is the right dose, I don't know. Is it two milligrams? Is three milligrams, you know what? And even the long term consequences of that, is that going to be a problem? I don't know. I do think probably we'll find rapamycin has benefits. But right now, it's not ranking in the drugs that really have shown significant benefit, whereas the sglt inhibitors have,

Speaker 1 43:57
yeah, in terms of, like, we talked in the beginning about community and ritual and sort of like, let's get away from all the gadgets, devices and supplements for a minute, because that can feel very overwhelming, like, to the average person that wants to bring longevity into their life. Is there kind of a simple, let's say, three step regimen that you could do a daily longevity ritual for yourself? How would that look?

Speaker 2 44:18
I think it's, you know, your daily longevity ritual should look at, you know, getting up at sunrise and going outside and doing some gratitude stretches, where you just stand outside with the morning sun and express gratitude for everything that's around you and everything that's happening and, you know, and Then you go exercise somewhere in your day, right? And, and you get some light during the middle of the day, and you get some light at dusk. And so the simple first step is, you've got to have that foundation, we know now, I mean, we're just learning, right? We kind of think, oh, you know, circadian rhythm, that's all important. Now we're actually learning that mitochondria, you. Communicate through quantum energy stuff. We had no understanding about these quantum tunnels that allow the mitochondria to rapidly communicate with each other. That's all light and energy dependent. So there's a lot more going on when we do these things that seem like, okay, yeah, I got that. That's stupid. I want the next best supplement. So I think that number one guys you got to go back to there is a reason for the basics, and now we're figuring it out. It's like we had to understand quantum physics before we could understand why these things are so helpful. But they are and and so you really have to sort of prioritize that. It's really hard. I mean, you probably get this there's days I don't see the light of day, right? I see in the morning.

Speaker 1 45:39
And all this travel that we're doing on air, right, right, right, using radiation and dehydration and all right? And

Speaker 2 45:44
you're on an airplane and, you know, and you're in these conference rooms with the baby, you never even see a window, you know. So I think that's got to be sort of priority. And then that sort of gratitude piece, and then you need to and then, obviously, the next step, once you've got the gratitude, you've got the energy forces you around people, all those things that really nourish us now. Fix the hormones. That's your second step, right? Everything else is based on sleeping. I'm around people. I'm socializing. I'll add to that, I have purpose, one that I give a whole talk on purpose. And if you can't wake up in the day and go my purpose today is, then something's wrong, and there's a lot of people who can't right, like, it's why retirement is not good. Because people wake up in the morning retired and they're like, oh, today. Oh, you know, today, I can just do whatever I want. You actually have to have a purpose, and it has to be driven by something outside of your own desire. It has to be driven by something else that's a bigger purpose if you really want the longevity benefits of a purpose is huge, and I watched it and my dad, who really sort of died when he had no purpose anymore. His kids were taken care of, and his grandkids were taken care of, and his wife had died, he really felt like he had no purpose anymore. So keep working. It could be volunteering at school, but you have to have that purpose. So take make your day focused around whatever that purpose is, fix the hormones, right? Get your your adequate nutrients and hydration. One of the big things that glps cost, right? People thought, Oh, why am I getting all this, you know, like salad and things that a lot of that's hydration. People stop drinking water when they're on the glps, yeah, water is still critically important

Speaker 1 47:19
and interesting, to all the glps being treated, used, being used to treat things like depression and addiction, and I think they curb alcohol. Yeah, very much. So yeah, it's very interesting. Like, I really can't even enjoy a margarita anymore, but micro dosing, it's funny. It's I can drink one, but I don't get any fun buzz out of it. So why give myself actually

Speaker 2 47:44
taking it's funny, like, you know, this whole kind of, you know, addiction thing, I have to take in a GLP, and I haven't taken it at a high dose for a long, long time. But I used to drink a lot of coffee, and for some reason, ever since I do GOP, like, I have no desire to drink coffee anymore. So it did some brain switching me, you know,

Speaker 1 48:01
so funny. The same exact thing happened to me. I stopped my morning coffee. I start with just a kombucha or something. Yeah, so it's crazy. It's

Speaker 2 48:10
weird, yeah, because I used to, you know, and I don't think it gave me a big buzz, but I just liked it, you know, just for every reason, made me feel better, and now I literally hardly ever drink coffee,

Speaker 1 48:19
yeah, something about the caffeine and the little cortisol surge is just your body doesn't need that anymore. Yeah, so it's awesome. Well, I think this has been a really important and productive conversation. Everyone's got now a solid foundation, like super practical and from such a great expert, Betsy, where can people find you if they want to reach out with questions? And what's your next conference that you're going to lecture

Speaker 2 48:42
at? So our clinic is border longevity Institute. It's in Boulder, Colorado, but I'm licensed in every state, so we see a lot of people virtually, for hormones, for peptides, for Regenerative, orthopedic things, for just longevity counseling, for mindset counseling. We have a whole mindset department. We do a lot of wobby studies for the brain, so we can do a whole lot of that stuff. You guys come, come here and get a wobby study, so your brain's doing so border longevity Institute, so it's just border longevity.com we also have an academy where we do teaching and monthly Q and A's. If you go to bli dot Academy, can join that group. It's really fun. Q and A's are amazing. People ask most remarkable questions. It started out as being primary for lay people. Now it seems to be mostly physically. Mostly physicians who have joined, but we sort of treat, you know, address both and and then you follow me, find me at Dr earth or at border longevity Institute, and join my YouTube, all those social media pieces, just look for Dr Earth. And then my I'm actually lecturing this weekend at a at a hormone conference in cancus. I'm lecturing about peptides at a hormone conference, and which would be nice if I was actually going to be outside instead of in a conference room, but we better get in some conference room. And then I go to New York to lecture on peptides, and then I go to Mr. Olympia to be on panels about kind of hormones. And. Strength, yes,

Speaker 1 50:00
yes. And don't forget, you're gonna come into lecture at one two of my conferences this year. We're gonna

Speaker 2 50:05
do bio about that too. Kay, I love this merging of esthetics, and I have a lot of learn to learn about esthetics. And, you know, esthetics and longevity, because it's been two worlds that were kept so distinct, and they shouldn't be right,

Speaker 1 50:23
all the growth factors, polynucleotides, peptides, exosomes, everything that we're Yeah, and esthetic, I

Speaker 2 50:28
know it's right. And yet, and yet, the esthetic people, most of the plastic surgeons and, you know, estheticians, people, don't really understand the southern mechanism behind it. You're sort of unique in that realm, right? So I love that you're bringing these worlds together because you're one of the few people who's really kind of doing that. That's

Speaker 1 50:44
something. That's my passion, that's my wake up everyday passion. Yeah, well, we have to do a whole another podcast so we can talk about platelet derived growth factors and also using products that, like the ray gel that you've used, yeah, yeah, incredible stuff. And also like PRP and all the injection, injectable things, all the regenerative stuff, is fun, right? Really fun. Bioregenerative is everything, Nana, too. So that'll be the next third podcast, which I'm having fun learning together as we go. So thanks for coming on the podcast, and I can't wait to give you a big hug in person, right? Soon, I hope. Yes, very that's it for now. Guys, don't forget to find me on my instagram. It's Beauty by Dr Kay, doing amazing things with people's faces. And our website is the same. It's Beauty by Dr kay.com and guess what? I have a new skin longevity line. I'm going to send you some. It's amazing with color, excited, collagen, elastin, peptides, GHK, copper, glutathione and NAD precursor boosters.

Unknown Speaker 51:46
Andy is good for the skin. That's

Speaker 1 51:48
okay, yes, it's great for the skin, and transacteamic acid for pigmentation. So it's like a

Speaker 2 51:52
whole, wow, all in one formulation. Or is this multiple

Speaker 1 51:56
little there's several steps, and then you'll love it. It has full of botanical great ingredients.

Speaker 2 52:03
Oh, wow. Well, if I can look as good as you, then I'm golf work, I'm well

Unknown Speaker 52:08
love you to the moon. Thanks.

Speaker 2 52:11
Bye guys. You Hey.

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