Reclaiming Our Health Through Peptides – with Nathalie Niddam

Dr. Mindy  

On this episode of The resetter podcast, I bring you Natalie Needham, and we’re going to dive into peptides a topic, I have not brought you all yet. So a couple things to know about Natalie a, she’s a fellow biohacker, nutritionist. And this is really interesting. She calls herself an epigenetic coach. It’s fascinating to me how in this modern world with so much physical emotional stress, that we are needing coaches not only to help us overcome our genetics, but to help us under sought to understand something like what you’re about to hear, which is how to use peptides. So if you are not familiar with peptides, it’s really interesting. I’ve been watching within the biohacking community for some time now, people gravitating towards peptides and they were originally put out there as a potential tool for anti aging. But then when I got into the trenches of peptides and trying to understand them, I saw that the learning curve was huge. And many people told me, they worked for them. Some people told me many people told me they didn’t work for them. And it seemed like there was a lot of bio individuality. So partly why I haven’t brought you a discussion on peptides is because I haven’t found you the right person who can really simplify this for us. And in this episode, Natalie does an amazing job. So we talk about what is a peptide? How would you know you need peptides? What peptides can do not only for anti aging, but for burning fat for regulating hormones. How do you know the difference between orals, creams, shots, everything that you could potentially want to know about peptides from an introduction standpoint, will be covered in this podcast. So listen all the way through at the end, we talk about what happens in the body that would make peptides difficult for you to receive. And ultimately how you can tap into Natalie as a resource, to be able to start to dabble in peptides for yourself. I think there’s something really, really cool about this peptide conversation. And I think there’s something especially for those of us as we are getting older, that we really need to perk up and look at the potential of peptides as being a guiding light to slowing down aging, to balancing hormones and really ultimately living in the body that we absolutely love. So Natalie Needham, so excited to bring this conversation to you. And as always, if you love it, share it out into the world, and let’s get healthy together. Enjoy. Hey, Dr. Mindy here, and welcome to season four of the resetter podcast. Please know that this podcast is all about empowering you to believe in yourself again. And I want you believing in your body. I want you believing in your mind. I want you believing in your spirit. If you have a passion for learning, if you’re looking to be in control of your health and take your power back. This is the podcast for you. Enjoy. For starters, Natalie, welcome to the recenter podcast. I feel like I need to give you like a big a big hurrah welcoming you to this amazing podcast that I’ve created here. I’m so happy you’re here. Well, thank

Nathalie Niddam  

you. I am so honored to be here today. I mean, I love the recenter podcast. I love your backdrop that’s like you know for me, there’s goals in life. My goal is to you know, get it together. Thank you so much for having me though. It’s a pleasure. And it’s always a pleasure chatting with you anyway, so great.

Dr. Mindy  

I love super I know I love talking with you. And your this is a topic that I feel like I’ve been thirsty to understand. And every time I take a little sip of the peptide water of trying to have knowledge, I only find that I need like jugs and jugs full of information because there’s so much to learn about peptides. So, and I and I haven’t each time I dabbled in understanding peptides, I find myself more and more confused. But then you hear people who say it’s miraculous, and they have seen incredible changes. So can we start off by just helping us all understand what is peptide therapy and why has it taken off? Why is it such a big biohack right now?

Nathalie Niddam  

So let’s start with what is a peptide, right? I find that sometimes that’s a really good place to start because people will often confuse peptides with collagen peptides which we you know, whatever brand we use, we mix it in our water and it’s supposed to help our skin In our hair and our nails, and a peptide basically is a protein. And a peptide is a small protein. So depends on the definition you use, but for the most part peptides or proteins that are 50 amino acids or less, so that makes them really tiny. They are generally when we’re talking about peptide therapy, peptide therapy is tapping into these fragments of proteins that are actually naturally occurring in the body. But that have been synthesized in a lab, and put put together in a way that they can then be reintroduced to the body in a, in a therapeutic sense. So one of the things to remember about peptides and peptide therapy is it’s still not, it’s very not in the mainstream, most peptides are not approved for human use. That which is interesting, because the functional medicine space and regenerative medicine space, they are all over these things, because of the way that they work and what they’re able to do well, mostly because of the way that they work and what they’re able to help the body to do for itself. Right. And, and that concept of helping the body to do for itself, I think is one of the most key concepts in peptide therapy. With a drug, we’re coming in and we’re blocking a pathway we’re forcing a pathway, we’re, you know, we’re doing something for the body with a peptide, what we’re generally doing is we’re giving a signal to the body to, to perform a cascade or perform a task that it can do, but maybe it’s not doing

Dr. Mindy 

So what baffles me is that, like, I’ve been studying nutrition and detoxing for, you know, most a large part of my life. And I’ve never heard of peptides until recently. So when I start to see that there’s a trend, like all of a sudden everybody reaching for peptides, what my brain says is, why is the body not making it itself? Is there a cellular breakdown that’s going on? That is requiring us all to do these exogenous peptides? Now,

Nathalie Niddam  

that’s a great question. The body does make them the body makes fewer as it goes. And it’s it’s a little bit like, you know, your RDA of vitamin C or whatever. If you’re healthy. You don’t need to necessarily take vitamin C or the RDA, whatever you’re getting it in your diet, or you’re getting it from where you need it. And this is where again, you know, in the biohacking community, people get really excited about stuff. Yes, I’m of the mind that peptides are incredibly powerful. They’ve seen I’ve seen them do amazing things. But it’s not the kind of thing that we should just be using willy nilly. Right. Okay, if you don’t need them, don’t use them. Right.

Dr. Mindy  

So with the amino acid, what’s really interesting when because I am mildly obsessed with amino acids, as you should be. Yeah. And I’m thinking, Well, gosh, they’re, you know, if they’re made up of around 50 amino acids, then we can get amino acids in meat and a lot of our foods, couldn’t we just go to a more bigger root and get eat aminos? Make sure we’re getting our amino. So those aminos can make peptides.

Nathalie Niddam  

Right? Well, is it rats? It doesn’t. So it’s a really good question. And it doesn’t having said that, there is a category of peptides called Bio regulator peptides. So these are a subset of general peptides, these are only two to four amino acids in length, we naturally produce them in our body, we produce fewer of them as we age. As matter of fact, Dr. Kevin sin who is the the researcher and physician in Russia, who has been studying by regulators for 40 years now, he’s he has the peptide theory of aging, which is that as we age, we make fewer of these peptides. And what these peptides do is they actually are epigenetic switches. So they bind to DNA inside the nucleus of the cell. And they up regulate the production of proteins that enable for cellular renewal in specific tissues, glands and organs. Interestingly enough, when they are when there’s two ways to get those bio regulator peptides, you can get them synthesized from a lab, but you can also get them as a food supplement, and that food supplement our extract of the tissues, glands and organs from animals. So you can see where I’m going with Yeah, so now, if you’re eating organ meats, as a regular part of your diet, then guess what you’re getting access to those bio regulator peptides.

Dr. Mindy  

Wow. So our choice is eat organ meats or take some peptides you get you get to choose one or the other. Yeah, and

Nathalie Niddam  

I mean, the tricky thing is that you know, in the bio regulator peptide world, we have a bio regulator peptide for the pancreas for Liver, for the stomach for the lungs for the thymus gland for the thyroid gland for the adrenals for the kidneys for the bladder for the ovaries for the testes for the prostate for the pineal gland. So we’re unlikely to eat all of those bits and bobs, right? Even if we could find them, not to mention the fact that when we’re using a bio regulator, it’s a little bit like, again, with those vitamins and nutrients, we’re looking for a therapeutic effect. So we’re going to need a much more concentrated source. God will right so for me eating organ meats is just smart. It’s a foundation of our E I,

Dr. Mindy  

do you eat organ meats? Or do you take supplements for origami, so

Nathalie Niddam  

I do both right and the next level, because to your point, we may not have access, it’s a bit of a pain to be cooking all of these different organs. And there’s some of them, I don’t actually like that much anyway, we have the desiccated organ supplements, right? So like the heartland soil, guys, the ancestral supplements, there’s a new company called MK out there right now. And these guys are taking organs from grass fed animals, and desiccant, drying them out, stuffing them into capsules, and now we can get the benefit of our organ meats. Through these capsules, I actually think we’re probably getting a higher concentration of bio regulator peptides through those than you would from just eating a portion of liver interest because it’s traded, it’s more concentrated. Yeah. And then the next level up from there might be your bio regulator peptide supplement. So

Dr. Mindy  

how would I know if you know because I don’t even know in my own health or in other people listening? How would I know? If I was missing these peptides?

Nathalie Niddam  

Yeah, so you’re not missing them? Right? Here’s the thing, the theory or the use behind the end, you know, we’re so now we’re leaning more into the bio regulators. So guys, just so you know, we have the BPS, like most, not most, some of you may have heard about BPC 157, thymosin Alpha One thymosin, beta four CJC uppermill. And those are kind of the most common or even semaglutide writers appetite. We’ll talk about those maybe later. Those we will call long chain peptides, the short chain peptides, which are the bio regulator peptides, we don’t generally have a deficiency of them. But the theory that Professor Kevin Watson puts forward is that every every living creature has what he calls a 40 to a 30 to 40% Biological Reserve. So call it think of that as an untapped potential. Okay. Now, let’s say as we’re moving through life, there’s regular normal wear and tear on our parts, just as you would lose tread on the tires of your car, or you would, you know, your brakes wear down, it’s normal. It’s not pathological. It’s just normal wear and tear. The way he kind of would approach using bio regulator peptides from a longevity and healthspan perspective, is basically just kind of restoring, and recently, refreshing and giving a signal to the body, hey, let’s do a little give that pancreas a little love and rejuvenate it a little bit, or the liver or the stomach. So that would be from the perspective of, you know, someone who’s basically healthy, who might do a couple of rounds of these bio regulators once or twice a year. And I would I think of it as just, you know, kind of tapping into that reserve,

Dr. Mindy  

reservoir and keeping you keeping you’re keeping your levels at age appropriate is what you’re trying to do there.

Nathalie Niddam  

And even better, right? Because if I’m 60 I’d love to be like for me if I’m if I’m 60 and I can present more like a 40 year old or a 45 year old. This is good, right? So I want my biological age, ultimately to be lower than my chronological age if I can make that happen. And peptides

Dr. Mindy  

are helping us do that. So it’s like a new type guy breed that it’s again, it started off as more like an anti aging then or a longevity tool.

Nathalie Niddam  

But you know, the first people that really tapped into peptides like the longer Chen peptides, or the bodybuilders, oh, bodybuilders, bodybuilders are the ultimate and the original biohackers if you think about it, yeah, these are people obsessed with with controlling the outcome that they were getting from their bodies.

Dr. Mindy  

So interesting. So okay, then my, the biggest question I have after I heard that is, well, why did my Why did my mom and my grandma not need peptides? And now I’m 53 Thinking about peptides. Is it because it’s accessible? Is there something that’s going on in my body? Like, what is the craze around this and why are so many people gravitating towards peptides when years ago? We didn’t even hear the word?

Nathalie Niddam  

You know, it’s a really good question. And let me ask you a question. How often did you hear your mother and your grandmother stressing about their biological age? Not is very good

Dr. Mindy  

point, you know, actually, on that one When I had really bad menopausal symptoms, I went to my mom. And I asked her and she was how her menopausal journey was. And she was like it was easy was it was a no brainer. And for years, I’ve been like she’s lying. She was so blind. She’s not telling the truth. But what I realized is actually, when she was 53, stress levels were so significantly different, that they just didn’t have the same stress levels that we have now. And I’m wondering if so much of this biohacking stuff is coming to us because of the physical, the emotional, the chemical stressors, it’s more than just stress in the mind its toxicity. And so we’re having to reach for these other resources.

Nathalie Niddam  

I 1,000% agree with you. And also, our expectation of how we’re going to look and perform in our 60s 70s and 80s is, I think, very different than even theirs was actually our grandmother’s, you go find your grandmother at 65. The odds are that she looked very different. And her expectations of how she was going to move through this world. Were not the same as ours. Are we wanted all, so you want to live long and kick ass the whole time? Yeah.

Dr. Mindy  

So So do you think I mean, I think about that a lot. Because I don’t think we even know what normal aging is. We don’t we just don’t have any litmus test for what should a 53 year old body and face and brain look alike, and everybody’s biohacking something different. So can Is there a way for us to understand peptide use? If we want to slow the aging process down? Are there certain bio peptides that we would want to go in on? And how do we decide that because I’ve danced around peptides trying to understand them? And it’s like, understanding another language? So are there certain ones are like the door into anti aging?

Nathalie Niddam  

I think that first of all, one thing, I think that’s important for all of us to really get our heads around is that as magical as peptide sound, and as powerful as they can be, they’re still only one piece of the puzzle. Yeah, yeah. Right. And I mean, and I’d say this to people all the time, whether I’m working on them with them one on one, whether they’re in one of my groups, whatever the case, it’s like I’m a broken record. If you’re not taking care of everything else, the peptides can only do so much. Yeah, so from an anti aging perspective, or from a healthy aging perspective, like however, we want to position that for ourselves, I think it’s looking at what are the processes in our body that are driving aging that we want to address. So if we have a lot of inflammation in our system, if we can do something that helps to bring the inflammatory processes in the body back into balance, that’s going to be a benefit. So for example, thymosin alpha one, which is an immune peptide, which is actually an illegal drug in about 30 or 40 countries around the world. And for some reason, it’d be it’s becoming harder and harder and harder to get your hands on in the US and, and from what I can tell Canada’s kind of in lala land on this stuff, which is good for us in Canada, but in the US, like the FDA has, like pulled it out of compounding pharmacies like it’s been. It’s been a war on why is that tied? Why

Dr. Mindy  

do you think that’s? Honestly, I

Nathalie Niddam  

can’t give you a good answer. And I mostly because I don’t like to devolve into negativity around all these things. All I can tell you is that it’s become it’s it’s an unfortunate because with people who have autoimmune conditions, people who whose innate immune system is very depressed, which we know happens a lot. It’s, it’s a compound that helps to bring up the innate th one immune function and balance it out with th two. So that would be a peptide. It’s not a traditional anti aging peptide, but it’s definitely, you know, when we’re looking at things that age us, helping the immune system to be balanced is a big piece of the puzzle. Oh, yeah. Yeah, right. For sure. The, for me, the anti like the Healthy Aging peptides is where the bio regulators really shine because they are. They’re adaptogenic, if you will. So for example, with the thyroid bio regulator, we can we can give it to someone who’s either hyperthyroid or hypo thyroid and all it’s going to do is try and normalize thyroid. I love that. Right? So it’s not it’s not pushing or pulling anything. It’s just saying, Hey, we’re at a balance. What can we do to bring balance back? Yes,

Dr. Mindy  

so smart because and that’s one of my biggest beefs about supplements, is that everybody uses them like medications, and I assume they’re in you actually have me thinking a little bit deeper on peptides. I think we’re doing the same. It’s like an exogenous something I put into my body that makes me feel and in this case look better. But what you’re saying is that actually, it’s just bringing something back into balance. And so then is there a time you are supposed to get off that’s off of that peptide?

Nathalie Niddam  

Yeah. So this is the bio regulators. So the bio regulators, as far as we can tell, from those 40 years of research that Kevin sins put in and a lot and if you go on to PubMed, you will be blown away at how much is there. And most people just don’t even know to look for it. The safety profile of these things is, is rather spectacular. The other interesting thing about the bio regulators is they can be used in conjunction with conventional therapies to help outcomes. So imagine there’s a really good study, where they took two groups of people with COPD, they gave them both a medication, but one group also got the lung by a regulator at the same time, and they had a way better outcomes than the guys with just the drugs. And if we think about this logically, what if you’re giving a stimulus to the body while you’re helping to mitigate the symptoms and the expression of COPD? If you’re also able to give the body a signal? Hey, let’s rejuvenate. Let’s restore the tissue in the lungs at the same time.

Nathalie Niddam  

Yeah, that makes that makes so much sense because that’s one of my complaints about medication is there’s often a consequence, so you have an immediate up upside of it in many cases, but then later on, there’s there’s a consequence that you had to endure because it is a synthetic chemical. Yeah. So what I’m hearing is that in many cases, we could pair a peptide with a medication, get more out of our medication, and then get off our medications. Certainly, in some cases, for sure. Like imagine the liver bile regulator, right, helping with the body’s detoxification processes and healthy lipids, like you know

Nathalie Niddam  

what to call it, cholesterol. That’s right, check my call

Dr. Mindy  

to see, like, you know, everybody

Nathalie Niddam  

talks about it a lot. But now on the other side, on the long chain peptides, which is a whole other kettle of fish. So now we look at something like for example, like a BPC 157, which BPCs and the nomenclature on these things to be clear sucks. They’re crazy. They’re not to It’s like another language. Soup. Yes, brutal. But BPC 157, which is body protective compound 157. And I think that 157 that those numbers are not actually random. It’s the it’s from number one to 57 or something it has to do which segment of the amino acid the full protein Wow, that is naturally occurring in your gut. Wow. So so it’s naturally occurring in your gut. It’s magic when it comes to healing the gut. So when we’re talking about healthy aging, imagine that leaky gut or a damaged gut lining is going to cause all kinds of problems. We can’t absorb our nutrients properly, we can assimilate them, we can’t. So imagine if we have a therapy that we can tap into periodically, that says, let’s give that that impetus to the gut while we’re also providing the other nutrients by the way that the gut needs to heal, right to be clear. But what if we have something that helps to heal the gut and is anti inflammatory. And by the way, if you happen to have a sore knee or a bad back, it might actually take care of that too. Because our body protective compound 157 is also really amazing for musculoskeletal injuries.

Dr. Mindy  

Interesting. Okay, so the other mystery in my brain has been that there’s injectables, there’s creams, there’s pills. And it seems like when you start to understand these peptides, you have to first understand which one to use for what symptom or organ process you’re trying to improve. And then you have to decide how do you want to get it into your system. So help us understand what the difference between the all three forms of bringing a peptide into your body and why would we choose one over the other? Well, there’s

Nathalie Niddam  

actually more there’s sublingual. There’s transdermal. There’s eyedrops. Why,

Dr. Mindy  

why do we have to why we don’t know how to get it in? Well, no. So

Nathalie Niddam  

here’s the thing number one, most peptides are only availa bioavailable through subcutaneous injection. Most of them with the finger at it their proteins. What happens when you eat protein? They get that you digest them you break them you digest them, right so now BPC 157 gets a buy because it originates in the gut. So for whatever whatever wisdom that there is in our body goes Oh, hey, I know you. You get I’m not gonna break you down. thymosin beta four, which is a thymus peptide. Add, which is a much bigger peptide, I think it’s 43 amino acids long thymosin beta four you eat that it’s going, you’re not going to get the benefits. So it has to be introduced typically, by subcutaneous injection, the thymus and alpha one is another one. So people are working really hard to figure out ways of making peptides bioavailable without needing that subcutaneous injection, but right most part right now, most of them are sub q. Having said that BPC 157 can be used topically on burns and wounds, it can be used in specially formulated eyedrops in the eye. It can be taken orally and again, for musculoskeletal issues. The subcutaneous injection is the most powerful, and it can even be used in to nasally Hmm, oh, right. Like, oh, crazy. Now, BBC 157, I want before everybody runs out in places in order wherever they can find it. Think about this, BBC 157 also is very brain protective, it’s really good for the nervous system, it helps to balance the GABAergic dopaminergic and serotonergic systems in the brain. However, there’s a small percentage of people who have some pre existing imbalance condition, we haven’t really figured out what it is yet. For them, it’s a dead opposite. And it it can make them like really anxious, very upset, you know, it can be very disruptive to their mental state. So we have to be like this is this is the gray area of peptides, right? So for, I would say the lion’s share of people, it’s really beneficial. But you’ve got to be you know, you’ve got to be either very aware of working with practitioner and, and the one thing I tell people, the bio hackers who are gonna go out and self experiment and stab themselves with all kinds of stuff. Keep it keep a journal. Yes. Yeah. Like, and don’t do more than one thing at a time. Like, like, all those rules that we teach people even when you start a new supplement, right start.

Dr. Mindy  

Bang. Yeah,

Nathalie Niddam  

exactly. Don’t start seven supplements. Well, I know the protocol is seven supplements. What’s going to take us a while to get there? Because you know, you start doing your BPC, your TV for your CJC up and rollin which is our classic Wolverine stack. You do that all at once you start breaking out in hives or whatever. You’re not going to have any clue?

Dr. Mindy  

Yeah. Which one? Which one moves the needle? Do you feel like there? I hear BPC 157 all the time. I’ve I’ve had great results watching it with patients. I’ve never used it on myself. Do you feel like there are certain you talked about the Wolfpack? That’s interesting. Are there certain peptides that you’re like this is a good door and these are these are some good solid peptides that everybody could benefit from and here’s why. Yeah, so again, I

Nathalie Niddam  

mean, we’re on thin ice here right BPC 157, for all of the magical things it can do. And I’ve seen it all like constantly I see it. It’s not approved for human use. So that’s crazy. It’s nuts. It’s nuts. And it’s available what pretty widely available as an oral supplement was gonna

Dr. Mindy  

say it’s easy to get. I mean, all you got to do is Google BPC 157 And you can get it sent to you.

Nathalie Niddam  

So number one, watch your source. Ah, okay, so that’s that’s I’m gonna say that’s number one. So in the oral peptides like BPC 157. There is a company in Australia that makes a gut healing formula called Ultimate gi repair with BPC 157, another peptide called KPV. Another peptide called La Raza tight, so BPC 157. Heals KPV reduces inflammation. La Raza tide literally seals tight junctions. And then he’s and then if that wasn’t enough, he’s added zinc carnosine and a little bit of copper and some glutamine and try Buterin created the ultimate gi healing stack like that is it is one of the most amazing supplements. That would be a good source. But people go on Alibaba and say, Oh, look, I found a vial of 10 milligrams of BPC 157 for $7.99. Yay, me, right. And I’m sitting there going? No, no, no,

Dr. Mindy  

I would just like to point out for all supplements, peptides. anything cheaper is not better. In fact, never. I get worried if it’s too cheap, because I know how supplements need to be made. And then the cheap ones are usually the worst ingredients. Yeah, so yeah. So there so what I hear you saying is there is a door in Yeah, you want to start to experiment with those supplement with those peptides, for sure.

Nathalie Niddam  

And with the bio regulators, I would say that there’s three bio reg laters. So, Professor Kevin’s son did a really, really seminal, like incredible study with older people. And so he took and he had, I think it was 260 people, he followed them for 12 years. And they were at the beginning of the study, I believe they were 65 to 75 year olds. And all he did is he gave half the group A piddle on the pineal bio regulator. Now, he was using an injectable form of the extract called the epithelium one. And I’m making that distinction because people not making that distinction has been a miserable experience and trying to explain people about dosages. But we’re not going to go there right now. Let’s just say he use the pineal bio regulator. And he was able to show after six years, and and then after 12 years that the group that got the vitamins had a much higher mortality rate than the group that was given the bio regulators wow, like by half by 12 years, then he took 75 to 85 year olds, and now he’s like, okay, you know what, we’re not going to follow them for 12 years, they’re going to die. So we’re going to just do a six year study. And what he did is he had his first cohort, just get the poly vitamins, his second hope cohort got a piddle on. And the third one got the pineal bio regulator and the thymus bio regulator. And these guys had only 33% mortality rate, the vitamin group were dropping like flies, there was none of them left, virtually, I mean, not none, but very few people left. And then the people that got the pineal bio regulator did better than the poly vitamin, but not as well as thyroid. So imagine that just by impacting helping the pineal gland to function better, or restore its function, and helping the thymus gland to restore its function, which is the seat of our immunity, that he was able without changing anything else in these people’s lives, he was just able to help them to live longer. And their bone density was better, like there were all these different metrics that they were able to check the boxes on. So I would say, if you wanted to do nothing else, you could do a couple of rounds of the pineal gland and or pineal and famous or if you want to really go crazy, you do Peniel famous and blood vessel blood because yeah, well imagine if we can improve the condition of our blood vessels that’s getting nutrients to every place in your body and removing waste products right away. We’re ahead of the game. Wow.

Dr. Mindy  

So those would be three different peptides. Yeah. And so is there an age that you would say, hey, when you hit this age, you’re crazy. If you’re not thinking about peptides? Yeah, I would say

Nathalie Niddam  

on the bio regulator front, by the time we’re 4045, it would be a good time to think about bio regulator peptides and even to do like those three, do them for a month, once or twice a year. Yeah, I think I think and, and you could add the bio regulators, you can take orally, because don’t forget that they come in food. So they can be taken in capsules in like, and it’s a nutritional supplement.

Dr. Mindy  

Wow. Wow. Yeah. And I like that approach. It’s kind of you know, it works for me in terms of like, how I think about fasting, which is like the goal with fasting is to have flexibility with it and to lean into longer fasts every once in a while. And so my belief system is twice a year, everybody should do a three day water fast, get rid of the cells that are no longer serving you. And I think what I fear in some of these trends, is that we start taking looking at instead of medication being the hero, yeah, we start going, Oh, the peptides, the hero or the supplements, the hero and it takes all the power away from our own innate healing ability. And so I love what you just said, because what I heard was come in three times a year with these with these peptides. And then the rest of the year, I assume you’re saying Let’s live a healthy lifestyle. And we’re just using these as little adjuncts to make sure that we slow the aging process down.

Nathalie Niddam  

Exactly. And frankly, what uh, how cool would it be? I mean, I’ve always thought finish your fast and now apply the bio regulator, clean house and now give the stimulus

Dr. Mindy  

to Okay. Now, you and I are gonna join forces because I my new like passion this year is taking people through three day water fasts. And so let’s work on that. Let’s come up with something where the entry back in. That’s this has been a really big, like, issue for me with fasting is that people are not thinking about how they break their fast, they’re just fasting. They’re like, well, the fast heals and then they go into food. They don’t think about it, but you just elevated that thought to and you could really come in with this something really huge. And what I think you’re saying is it would be more your cells in your gut and everything would be more risk. adaptive because you had just cleaned everything up.

Nathalie Niddam  

I think so. Yeah, I think so you and I are gonna

Dr. Mindy  

talk about that one because that that was really Yeah. Okay. Normandy time. Yeah. Right. Like, you know, like, oh my god now we’re gonna double stack to incredible hacks. Okay, is there when you’re working with a patient? Is there a profile that you go ooh, this is this may not work for you like you have high toxic load you’re eating the wrong inflammatory fats you know I go down to the cell and I’m thinking, Well, gosh, you know you can’t just take BPC BP C 157 and eat McDonald’s all day long, you’re probably not going to notice a difference is there a lifestyle we could be living to to make these work better?

Nathalie Niddam  

Always. But I will tell you interestingly enough BPC 157 is the one peptide that you can give to someone who’s still doing a lot of things wrong. It’s not that it it’ll, it might just be the thing that helps them to feel that little bit better. But that shows them and gives them the energy to take the next step. Right. Like, I find sometimes, you know, like, it’s hard sometimes when we’re trying to help a client in my classes to client your cases to patient when I’m trying to help a client who’s on their knees, like they feel horrible, or they’re sick. And I’m sitting there going well, you got to clean up your act and this and that. And this poor person is exhausted, like they’ve been fighting the fight, they don’t have the energy. But sometimes, if we can give them something that just helps them to feel a little bit better, even before they change anything else. Yes. It’s some breeds hoping to them. Yeah. And they’re like, Okay, I can take the next step. Yes.

Dr. Mindy  

Right. I used to say to my patients all the time that there are really three steps to healing, the first phase is stuck. And this is where so many people are, and you can stay stuck for years and years and years, despite a lot of effort. The second phase is what I call the sweet spot, where all of a sudden, everything you’re doing is working better and better and better. And you don’t completely have like, all your days are amazing, but you feel like you have more amazing days and non amazing days, and you feel like every supplement and diet and everything you’re doing is finally working. And then the third phase is really a strength phase. And this is where you can go on vacation, you can go through periods of of immense stress, and you don’t feel like your your health falls off track. I feel like there’s like three phases there. So I would say what I’m hearing from you is if this could be an incredible tool for those in the stock phase to move them into the sweet spot phase.

Nathalie Niddam  

In some cases, yes. You know, like what in like for thymus and alpha one, sometimes it can help to rebalance that immune system, so that it not even rebalance the immune system but but strengthen that immune system so that the inflammation starts to come under control, or calm, an overactive immune system, like people with autoimmune issues. I mean, the crazy thing about a TA like thymosin Alpha One is for people who are very, very sensitive, or who have major immune over over overstimulation. They have to start at the most minut dose you can imagine, why is that? Right? Because otherwise, it’s like being on a teeter totter. And the big you’re, you’re down here, the other teeter totter is there, some big kid comes and stops on the other teeter totter and you go flying off. So they kind of have this like crazy rebound, that makes them that they end up feeling awful. So there’s caution to be had, especially with the short chain by peptides. No, I mean, sorry, the longer chain peptides, the bio regulators. It’s very rare. Very, very rare that I’ve seen people have a negative reaction. Interesting.

Dr. Mindy  

So you have you tell me the different categories, you have bio regulators, what was the second category you just mentioned? So the other one is the long chain peptides. So there’s only two categories. Pretty much.

Nathalie Niddam  

I mean, maybe there’s a third that I’m not thinking of on the on the anti aging healthy aging side. The one other peptide I would mention is it’s a category of peptides that are called growth hormone secretagogues. So, so these are peptides that stimulate your body to make to produce and release more growth hormone. So we know as we age, we really likes growth hormone. And it’s part of the reason why we don’t recover as well. We don’t sleep as well, we’d make a little bit more fat. We don’t we have a harder time making muscle. You know, we have a harder time repairing. But growth hormone like like many other things is a double edged sword. And of course, there’s many, many anti aging doctors who will put their patients on growth hormone supplementation, you have to be really careful you don’t go too hard. Now with the growth hormone secreted dogs, they’re nowhere near as strong As taking exogenous growth hormone, they have the added benefit of tapping into your system. So you, you don’t stop, you’re actually making growth hormone, it doesn’t shut off your reduction without exogenous growth hormone can do, right. And it’s never going to be as strong as growth hormone. But for many, many people, what we see is that it’s enough to really like their sleep. It’s all those things, their sleep gets better. They recover faster from their workouts, they heal, like and their skin gets better. There’s cognitive benefits, it’s all the things we see with growth hormone. But that is one pep one category of peptides, I would say, you have to be cautious. They know what your IGF one levels are going in. Because it’s the best measure we have of growth hormone. Don’t more is not better. You want to hit that sweet spot. Okay. And you want to psych and you also want to cycle off like, this is not Yeah, this is not a pet. This is not and I and I see people all the time saying no, don’t be silly. People can take it indefinitely. And I’m like, Yeah, I don’t know. Well, it just makes me uncomfortable. So I like to see people maybe do 12 weeks, eight to 12 weeks, and then lay off. Right. And then and then there’s other physician practitioners that will say five days on two days off five days on two days off, and also giving those receptors but you know, I’ll let you in on a little I referred to the Wolverine stack. Yeah, I heard that he’ll like Wolverine. So listen to this. So one of the other many many things that BPC 157 does is it up regulates the expression of growth hormone receptors. Amazing. Imagine when we stack BPC 157 with our growth hormone secreted Gex. So now we have more growth hormones circulating in the system and and our growth hormone receptors are out and ready to receive.

Dr. Mindy  

Is that what you look like? You’re 20? Yeah.

Nathalie Niddam  

It’s a good filter on the camera. I’m actually I’m actually allergic to growth hormone secreted dogs, if you know, which is

Dr. Mindy  

nuts. That is too bad. Yeah, is there? Where does toxicity fit into this because in in all my work with patients, one of the things I’ve seen is that when the toxic load gets high enough, it doesn’t matter what supplement you give them. Doesn’t matter what diet they’re on, there just becomes a point where it’s like, you’re gonna need to detox in order for all these other things to work? Well. Yeah, one of the things I’ve noticed in clinical practice is that it’s really difficult to get some of these nutrients into the cell to be able to get the body to receive it if the toxic load is high. So do you see that with peptides? Because I do hear a lot of people say, well, it didn’t work. And I’m wondering if they didn’t have the right peptide, they didn’t have the right way of using it. And if their toxic load was in Korea, incredibly high,

Nathalie Niddam  

all of the above. Exactly. I mean, you nailed it, right. I think that and where we see people have bad reactions to peptides most often is they’ve got underlying conditions. So yeah, all the usual suspects, the like, the tick borne diseases, the mold, the infectious that like all this, like and then or heavy metals, like all of these toxins, think about it like they’re, they’re occupying receptors there. Yes. They’re, they’re breaking up communication. They’re, you know, so so the body is so overburdened. And now you’re giving it a signal to do something. And it’s like, dude, like, I’ve got my hands full here. I can’t do one more thing. Right. So and I think that certainly a lot of the physicians that are working with peptides are finding that it’s really important to help their patients first, to dig toxify or to reduce these loads of toxins, so that you can kind of free the body up to then respond and do the work because we are asking the body to do the work. Like let’s not forget that these compounds are not doing it for you. Right, they’re initiating a process. Right, right. Yeah, they’re starting a cascade. They’re acting on a gene like they’re flipping genes on and off, but then everything else, and the nutrients have to be there. And you talked about how much you’re a fan of amino acids earlier. I mean, to me, essential amino acids on board is a it’s like it’s a starting position.

Dr. Mindy  

Yes. Right. Yes. Yeah. And I’m starting to see a real shift in the way we need to approach supplements and peptides and aminos. And what I think we’ve been doing up until now, is we’ve been supplementing in a poor lifestyle, and I do believe that has worked until 2023. Because now we are living in the most toxic time not only chemical, but physical emotional time then than ever before. And all of a sudden, the supplements aren’t working. And so I feel like we’ve got to come back and create a foundational lifestyle, clear up your lifestyle. And now there’s going to be an anti aging miracle. There’s going to be a hormonal miracle in this moment.

Nathalie Niddam  

For sure. I mean, think about it. You know, we don’t find centenarians in the middle of like cesspool cities.

Dr. Mindy  

I well said, yes,

Nathalie Niddam  

they definitely right where our blue zones like, yeah, zones are beautiful, pristine places where people actually get to think, yeah, for a minute, right? Maybe weren’t true trying. We’re trying to hack our way back to that. And, and we have to be mindful that we’re not always thinking about what can I add? Before we think about what can I remove? What can I take away? What can I stop doing? Oh,

Dr. Mindy  

I love that. So if somebody’s listening to everything we’ve talked about so far, and they are like, Well, I’m curious about peptides. I’d like to try it. What’s the door in like, how do we how do we tiptoe into this world of peptides. And I’m gonna say, I love that you and I agree on this lifestyle thing, because I’m so exhausted with peep with the HRT and the BHRT conversation that we’re seeing in menopause, when we really need to be talking about lifestyle first, and then adding in. So what’s, what’s the door in with peptides?

Nathalie Niddam  

Yeah, so the door and? Well, I mean, you know, I’ve, it’s a good question. I mean, finding a practitioner, or someone who’s working with peptides is a really good idea. Unless you’re one and there, I see these people all the time, right. And I’m sure you do to people who hit hit up against a health issue or, like some kind of health issue and they suddenly become a researcher. And like an Uber researcher, and I look at these people and go holy jumpin you should have gone to like, a different schools than whatever it

Dr. Mindy  

is you all the time, they’re like, any doctors without any degree, so much. Yeah, so we

Nathalie Niddam  

have those people and those people probably like, I have a peptide Crash Course coming out in the next little while. There’s also a couple of really good introductory books out there. You know, there’s, there’s lots of podcasts, like, I’ve done a bunch of podcasts on peptides, there’s other people as well. So you can if you have the time, the bandwidth and the energy, you can definitely self educate. And I would say the peptide Crash Course when it comes out will be it’s it’s basic, but it’s enough to give people an idea of what’s out there. And then I also have a mighty networks community, like a private membership community. And I love I mean, I love my big crazy Facebook group as well. But my membership community like it seems that all the people that are attracted to that, there’s just different mindset, right? So it’s a very supportive, lovely community. We do live q&a Is every week with me and or a guest expert. I’d love to get you in there sometime talking about fasting and help people to break that. I find like with fasting, it’s there’s two things that happen. People either think that it’s the craziest idea that they should never do. Or they’re addicted to fasting. Yeah, to the point where it’s a negative,

Dr. Mindy  

right? Too much. Oh, I meet those people all the time all the time,

Nathalie Niddam  

right. They’re like, Oh, Mindy, I’m so glad to meet you.

Dr. Mindy  

I fast every day. And you’re like, No, no, no. What they say is they go and it stopped working for me why? And I’m like, because you were doing it every day. That’s exactly. You know,

Nathalie Niddam  

it’s the same thing with everything. Right? What do we know the body responds to pulses coming in and pushing and pulling. And actually, Dan Paul, but the first time I ever heard you speak was at a at an event of Dr. Dan Pompa Yes. And he at that event was speaking about feast and famine and creating these different moments over the week, so that you’re always changing the inputs within a consistent framework. Anyway, I’m kind of contradicting myself, I

Dr. Mindy  

think, I think actually, when you look at the female body, because of the nature and how our hormones pulse in an app, we even more our body demands that we give it things in small little doses, and we post them in and out. But if you look at our health care system, just take like blood pressure medication, or statins. We’re never told the pulse that we’re just like, Here you go. Here it is. We’re never taught anything about lifestyle. So what I love about this peptide conversation is how is those two things the pulsing the lifestyle if you want to make these peptides work for you? And I’ve watched so many people go to peptides and come back and tell me it didn’t work. And I’m wondering if they missed those two things.

Nathalie Niddam  

Yeah, like it doesn’t work, right. We do the work. So and then the other for people who are looking for an opportunity to get away and really dive into a bunch of stuff like this kind of stuff. I do host a women’s longevity and resilience retreat. My next one’s coming up November 1. X. And it’s like a five day. We’re a by the ocean and Cabernet tea, which is the northeast shore of the Dominican Republic. So it’s not Punta Cana where all the all inclusive czar, it’s a completely different world. And we talk about lifestyle and nutrition and all the things and we talk about peptides, where how we weave them through our lives, when it’s appropriate, when it’s not appropriate. And, you know, based on an individual’s goals.

Nathalie Niddam  

So if somebody wants to work with you, we’ll leave all the links, by the way. So to all of Natalie’s stuff, if somebody wants to work with you, they’re intrigued. Where would their start be? So I think the best way is to go to my website, net net m.com.

Nathalie Niddam  

I mean, right now, I’m not taking any clients. I’m I’m maxed out until

Dr. Mindy  

August. You know, that’s happening to so many of us, because there’s so many sick people. So yeah, I can understand that. Yeah. So But

Nathalie Niddam  

definitely, but I do I have a coach that I, I have a moderator in my Facebook community, she’s a great coach. So I’ve been referring people to her. But there’s always the mighty networks group for people who don’t need that one on one, but just want a community where they can learn that’s supportive. I think that mighty networks community is fantastic. And that you can find out about that. It’s all on the website, not animal.com. Everything’s

Dr. Mindy  

beautiful. And and the reason I wanted to highlight that is because I do want to say to my following, like, this is a really cool tool, that can be a complete game changer. But you have to know what you’re doing. Otherwise, you’re just going to waste your money, or you’re going to be frustrated. So that’s, you know, I never want to bring inflammation that causes one of those two things to happen. And if all the supplements all the, you know, aminos minerals, everything I’ve ever seen, it seems like there’s a bigger learning curve with peptides than anything else. Would you agree on that?

Nathalie Niddam  

Yeah, yeah. Especially with the longer chain peptides because they’re pretty powerful. Like, think about this, I’ll leave you with one last little anecdote. Oxytocin is a peptide that we can use for anabolic purposes, you can use it after a workout. Because, you know, we think of oxytocin as the feel good hormone, and in very high doses to induce contractions for birth. But in tiny doses, it actually has anabolic effects. And so I would be, I would post workout, I would do a subcutaneous injection, and it would be 75 micrograms. So we’re talking less than a 10th of a milligram. And I would be injecting it into the belly fat. And Mindy, within, in under a minute, within seconds, I would feel a flush in my face, I would feel my ears get really hot. It is, it is, to me, it was the most incredible demonstration of how incredibly powerful these things are. And so I love them. And I think we have to treat them with respect, I think we have to remember that as much as they are native to the body. We don’t there’s a lot we still don’t know. Yeah. So what we were talking about earlier, don’t just run out and say I’m going to do peptides, because I think it’s a good idea. Right? It’s, you know, be be conscious of the fact that they’re still they’re not new, but we’re behind on the research and how much information we possibly

Dr. Mindy  

have. Yeah, my new concept is really this idea that dose matters, we tend to take something like a peptide or a ketone and ketones. A great example of this, where when we first started learning about ketosis, the medical profession went crazy. They were like no way. You don’t want ketones. And when you look at it from a level of 7.0, millimoles, or even like 1010 millimoles of ketones, that’s ketoacidosis. And yes, that is a very dangerous place. But at point five, you’re millimoles urine, nutritional ketosis, and that’s a wonderful place to live. And so what I just heard in that story is like, yes, so it’s knowing how to use it. Dose matters. Lifestyle matters. Like it’s such a beautiful, I’m so happy that these concepts are now coming together in some of these really cool tools. And that people are starting to understand that in a big bigger picture. So yeah, that was beautiful. I really Yeah, you and I very much sync up and how we look at the body so I really loved Absolutely. I’m gonna I would have finished with this question. So we have a theme every year and this year the theme is self love. I feel like we don’t we don’t do enough to love ourselves. We don’t brag about our superpowers enough. So I’m curious do you have a self love practice? And what do you think your superpower is that you bring to the world?

Nathalie Niddam  

Hmm. So my self love practice? I think I have to lean into my self love practice a bit because I’m running pretty hard the He’s

Dr. Mindy  

better if I can bring that up. But yes,

Nathalie Niddam  

I think recognizing that but you know, I think making, making sure that I take the time to take care of myself, whether it’s, you know, getting to the gym early in the morning or getting into my sauna, even if I don’t really feel like it, like, you know, it’s funny as people in this space in the position of educators in the space, we talk about so many things we get so caught up in what we’re doing, it’s very easy to lose sight of actually doing it for ourselves. It’s so true, right? And so for me, it’s reminding myself to slow down every once in a while. Throw my headset on, do a new comm session or do a sensate before like, whatever it is before bed, like take the time to put into practice for myself what I encourage other people to do. And as far as my superpower goes, I think it’s going to be I just you know what, it’s full on curiosity. Oh,

Dr. Mindy  

that’s my superpower. It is. Yes. Somebody asked me the other day. I said, Listen, I don’t I’m definitely not the smartest one in the room. I’m not the prettiest one. I may be one of the hardest workers. But I am ridiculously curious. Yeah. I can adopt my curiosity. I and especially about the human body.

Nathalie Niddam  

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I think that’s why we love our podcasts, right? Because our podcasts allow us to be curious every day with both different topics with different people with different areas. Like it’s just it’s, it’s a beautiful thing. Yeah, right. And

Dr. Mindy  

you’ll never, you know, my, my mom, my parents are in their 80s. And when my mom turned 80, I asked her what the what the key to longevity was. And she said never stopped learning be a lifelong learner. And I think in order to be a lifelong learner, you do have to be curious, because every time you ask a question, you will have to go search the answer, then that leads to more questions. So Oh, I got

Nathalie Niddam  

100%.

Dr. Mindy  

That was beautiful. We will leave all your links, but just so for the person who might be driving or clean their house, how do they how do they find you because this is really cool stuff. And I want them to connect with you.

Nathalie Niddam  

Thank you. So so the website not net him.com. The on Instagram, it’s just at Natalie Netcom. Natalie has an H between the T and the second a this biohacking superhuman performance podcast and the mighty networks group. You know what, at the end of the day, folks, it’s easier to find everything on the website. I know I can I can sit here and rattle off a bunch of stuff. It’s all there. Beautiful.

Dr. Mindy  

Well, Natalie, thank you. Thank you so much for having this conversation with me. I now feel like I may believe maybe got a full glass of water. And amazing I might actually might not be as thirsty for my peptide knowledge. But I’m definitely going to be consulting with you to find my own peptide path. So thank you for you. Thank you.

Nathalie Niddam  

Thank you so much, Mindy, thank you so much for having me. This is amazing.

Dr. Mindy  

Oh my pleasure. Thank you so much for joining me in today’s episode. I love bringing thoughtful discussions about all things health to you. If you enjoyed it, we’d love to know about it. So please leave us a review, share it with your friends and let me know what your biggest takeaway is.