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Kent Holtorf, MD is the medical director of the Holtorf Medical Group (www.HoltorfMed.com) and the founder and medical director of the non-profit National Academy of Hypothyroidism (NAH) (www.NAHypothyroidism.org), which is dedicated to the dissemination of new information to doctors and patients on the diagnosis and treatment of hypothyroidism. He is... Read More
Leo Galland M.D. has received international recognition as a pioneer in nutritional medicine and a master clinician. A graduate of Harvard university and the New York University School of Medicine, he trained in internal medicine at the New York University-Bellevue Medical Center. He has received the Linus Pauling Award for... Read More
Since the beginning of 2020, the spread of a global pandemic has wreaked havoc on our country and the world. World renowned author and integrative pioneer Dr. Leo Galland joins us to discuss the possible effects of peptides and their potential ability to combat viral attacks. Learn about the role of the angiotensin system in the body and their converting enzymes to understand how viruses attack the body and what we can do to help protect ourselves and the ones we love.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
Hello, this is Dr. Kent Holtorf with another episode, uh, from the peptide summit and today, um, uh, love welcoming the esteem dr. Leo gallon. Uh, he is an speak on the role of angiotensin, uh, pathway with COVID-19 and the use of peptides and the treatment of COVID, uh, 19 and also foreign fund, very bowel disease. Um, dr. Gallon, uh, received this, uh, uh, international recognition as a pioneer in nutritional medicine and a master clinician, a graduate of Harvard university, and, uh, also New York university school of medicine, where he trained as internal medicine physician at New York university Bellevue medical center.
He has received a Linus Pauling, uh, award for creating basic principles of functional medicine from the Institute of functional medicine and the Sealy magnesium award for his work in nutritional supplements for the American college of nutrition, uh, and at the Albert Norris Marquis lifetime achievement award from the Marquis of who’s who for his contribution to healthcare, uh, he has listed annual Americans, top doctors, then a leading physician in, in the world. Um, and he has authored seven books and 47 scientific articles, multiple textbook chapters. Um, so he’s, he’s done so much, uh, during this 2020, uh, he has been working intensively develop innovative nutritional strategies, uh, and, uh, peptides for coping with the SARS, uh, COVID uh, to pandemic and developing, uh, innovative peptide based therapeutics for the treatment of COVID-19. So I would like to welcome, uh, you, uh, dr. Gallon and thank you so much for being part of our summit.
Dr. Leo Galland
Thanks for having me on and giving me the opportunity to share my analysis and observations.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
And yeah, you’ve just done some fascinating stuff and, uh, just your knowledge base is just incredible and trying to figure out where, where to start. You wanna just maybe talk about, uh, the role of the angiotensin, um, ACE to and enhance a one seven signaling that, that peptide, uh, in, uh COVID-19 and in health.
Dr. Leo Galland
Sure. Um, I think that’s really important place to start. And just by way of background, the angiotensin system in the body, it has is very complicated. It has affects on virtually every organ, um, and impacts on inflammation, blood flow, blood clotting, uh, tissue repair, and growth blood pressure. Um, and it has essentially two arms to it. One arm raises blood pressure, promotes inflammation, promote scarring, um, and has been, and has been studied for decades. And there are drugs that were developed to block its effects called ACE inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers. The other arm, which is what’s critical as a balance to the first arm is the one that is impaired by COVID-19. And this is, this involves an enzyme called ACE to the, which is in essence, it’s affects are the opposite of ACE.
The original enzyme that was discovered ACE two breaks down the most inflammatory, uh, the most constricting, um, of the NGO of the forms of angiotensin, uh, called angiotensin two, it splits angiotensin two off and creates a peptide called angiotensin one seven or ag one seven, and one seven has numerous effects in the body that are very positive and that have been studied. Uh, it is neuroprotective, it improves blood flow, it, um, stimulates tissue repair. Um, it supports the bone marrow, um, virtually every, uh, manifestation of COVID-19 can be traced back to deficiency of angio seven of angiotensin one seven. So in order for people to understand that, I want to go back to the way in which the virus enters cells, which is critical. And I also want to say that the early discussion of, of ACE to angiotensin converting enzyme to in COVID-19 went off in the totally wrong direction, um, a direction that has since been rejected by all aspects of the medical establishment by scientists, because it, it really fell to understand deeply the role of ACE to in COVID-19 the SARS Kovi to virus. In order to enter a cell has to attach to ACE two.
It has to fit into it like a key into a lock. Now, there are three enzymes that are essential for Sarz Kovi, two to enter your cells. ACE two is the fulcrum. It’s the most important, um, but by itself, ACE to will is not enough. First is that the surface of the virus where there’s a, something that’s received a lot of attention called the viral spike protein that’s surface, which is the key that fits into the lock that has to be primed and altered. And there’s an enzyme on the outside of cells called furin F U R I N. That has to alter the viral spike protein to allow it to attach to ACE too. But even that’s not enough. Once the viral, once the viral spike protein has locked itself into ACE to the ACE two has to be split. And there’s an enzyme on the membrane of the cell, um, called TMP RSS two, which splits that protein.
So it’s really, it’s a triple whammy. You need fewer and you need a two and you need TM PRSs, two, all of those have to work together to allow the virus to enter, to gain entry into the cell. Now, why is this important? It’s important for many reasons. First is if you can block one of these enzymes, you may be able to prevent viral infection. You do not want to block a [inaudible]. It is a vitally important enzyme for your heart, your blood vessels in particular. Uh, and that’s, that’s where it’s probably most important kidney function, blood flow, heart function, and the brain it’s also neuroprotective. Uh, and it’s anti-inflammatory, which is the reason that, um, all of these weird and mysterious complications of COVID-19 can be traced back to the deficiency of ACE to an Ang one seven, which is created when the virus enters cells. Now what’s important about, um, furin is you can block Fearon and if you block furin, you can presumably interfere with viral entry into the cells.
And, um, the most studied and potent furin blockers are actually peptides, poly Argentines polymers of the amino acid. Arginine can block the activity of urine, and they’ve been studied in animal models of infectious diseases like anthrax, um, for example, where they’re, where they’re very effective as adjuncts to treatment. What’s critically important about TMP our S S to the third member of this triad, is that not all cells express TMP, R S S two. And it’s the co-expression of ACE to NTM PR SS to that’s needed for the virus to enter the cell. So there was a lot of talk back in February and March about how well [inaudible] is the way that the virus gets into cells. So you don’t want to have too much ACE, too. It was totally wrong. You need it very simplistic, and you need as much [inaudible], as you can get to protect yourself against the negative effects of the virus, which is destroying ACE too. The limiting factor is not how much [inaudible] there is. It’s the co-expression of ACE to NTM PRSs too. And so what’s interesting, for example, is that TMP RSS to production is stimulated by testosterone. That may be the reason why men are more susceptible to getting sick with COVID-19 than women, because they have more [inaudible].
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
I think, I don’t know if it’s zero pregnant women or, you know, very few pregnant women have been, uh, uh, infected.
Dr. Leo Galland
So also estrogen stimulates ACE [inaudible], um, activity. And
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
The molecule basically gets cleaved to this angiotensin one seven, that has a kind of an opposite effect, right? Basically
Dr. Leo Galland
ACE does, is it, it, it, it creates 180 degree turnaround in the, in hormone balance in this angiotensin system. And it takes, um, an essential but dangerous, um, peptide, which is angiotensin to a peptide that raises blood pressure that interferes with kidney function that promotes inflammation, that promotes fibrosis and scarring. It, it takes that promotes blood clotting. It takes that very dangerous on break, and it flips it over to, I mean, it’s almost like a superhero movie or something. It flips it over to the opposite ag one seven, which is anti-inflammatory, um, inhibits blood clots and thrombosis inhibits scarring and fibrosis improves, um, blood flow and circulation improves kidney function. Um, and, and that is the fulcrum on which the outcome of SARS go, uh, SARS Kovi to infection, uh, swings or rests is ACE too, is so critical.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
That’s interesting with the edge of Tencent one seven, then really looking into it. And it does so many things like you’re saying, you know, boosts mitochondrial function, which associated with almost disease of
Dr. Leo Galland
Aging, you know, chronic neurodegenerative diseases, it’s shown to improve memory, uh, shown to like, uh, allow the heart to recover and significant, less damage after a heart attack. And so, so many benefits to that, right? Just across the board and angiotensin one seven has been studied in animals and humans. Um, it enhances recovery from intense exercise, uh, eccentric exercise it for women who have had breast or ovarian or ovarian cancer who have received chemotherapy, or are getting chemotherapy angiotensin one seven supports their bone marrow and prevents the low blood counts that are a result of chemotherapy. And it works better than the drugs, the standard drugs, in that case, in animal models, it reverses dementia that is associated with a poor blood flow to the brain. Um, and it, um, there’s this beneficial effect after beneficial effect, you can use it to, um, heal the lungs.
And if it is an angiotensin, one seven, that’s used it’s ACE to itself in animal models of every type of lung disease, um, whether it’s infectious, including SARS, the original SARS, or whether it’s toxic, um, infusions of ACE to help the lung to heal, um, angiotensin one seven does the same thing, uh, prevents blood clots. One of the complications of COVID-19 is what’s been called happy hypoxia. It’s these people who have very low blood oxygen concentrations, but they’re not exactly short of breath. And the question is what’s happening. Uh, these are people who should not be put on a ventilator.
They do need oxygen, but the reason it’s happening is that the blood flow blood flow through the lungs is all messed up. It’s not regulated properly angiotensin one seven restores normal blood flow through the lungs and raises I’ll get that total mismatch. So blood going through non mud blows to the areas that are not being ventilated and, and not to the areas that are. And so the oxygen goes up, goes down, the carbon dioxide goes up, you get pulmonary failure, but it’s not really due to lung disease. It’s due to a vascular disease disease of the blood vessels. And what’s interesting is that, you know, you’re naming all these studies and I have been reading all these studies and you hear this, you parts on TV. It’s like the doctors not read all these old literature it’s been done. It’s like, they have to
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
Reinvent everything. It’s like a new discovery. I’m like, yeah, that’s been known for 40 years, like the clotting and sepsis. And, you know, we’re looking at like the peptide five months in beta four for sepsis, it’s basically gone with people, accepts as you give it back. They don’t have all those problems. And it’s the same thing. They don’t look at old literature And they just come out with something and then come up with a new theory.
Dr. Leo Galland
Well, some of this is actually pretty new literature and they’re not looking at it. There are some centers that are looking at ACE two or angiotensin one seven to heal COVID-19. Um, and there is a research group, a couple of research groups at the university of Arizona, um, that are looking at that, or have applied for I and D is for that. There’s a research group at a university of Pennsylvania and who that’s worked with, um, uh, with a group at university of South Florida. And, and they’re looking at this, there is a Canadian and European, um, joint, uh, academic venture looking at infusions of [inaudible], uh, in the treatment of COVID-19, there’s been some work done at Johns Hopkins on that. I mean, it’s their major, highly respected medical centers are doing it. It’s just not getting the attention that it deserves because everybody’s talking about a vaccine and, and, um, antiviral drugs. Um, but it is there and it, it really, it should be utilized now because people are dying now and ACE to an angiotensin, one seven can really mitigate the outcome of COVID-19.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
And the antigen one seven is orally bioavailable,
Dr. Leo Galland
Which is right there. Isn’t, there is a form that’s orally available. Um, the, but it’s also available. It can be used by injection main problem, and it may not be a problem is that it has a very short half life. That is, if, if you just use pure angiotensin one seven, that hasn’t been modified to expand its half-life, it’ll disappear within 30 minutes from the blood, despite that maybe it doesn’t need to be around for a long time. Maybe once it starts that signaling, you know, it’s like a re a bowling ball that knocks down all the pins. It only takes, it only takes a few seconds to get down to initiate that. And, um, there was a study in, in mice that were exposed to hold body radiation and a single dose of angiotensin one seven given once a day.
Um, or sometimes only for a couple of days after the radiation, not even before it was able to restore the bone marrow. So it just takes a little bit to move things in the right direction. It’s an initiator of healing responses. And I think that’s true. We find that doctors don’t seem to understand that there’s between, you know, serum half-life and physiologic half-life right. Absolutely. There even like hormones, they basic go in the cell nuclear receptor, they change protein synthesis. So they’re going, but Hey, they’re gone out of the serum like T3 and you go, Oh, it’s such a short half life. No, it’s about two days. There’s logic, half life to the grace, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s, that’s a really important point. Um, so yeah, so I’ve been pushing since March the beginning of March of this, of 2020 for angiotensin one seven as a, to be available as a therapeutic strategy. And COVID-19, um, and actually I’m, uh, working on an I N D it’s being submitted to the FDA. And I hope that by the time that the summit goes live, that that will be available nights. You’re doing the, have one seven, and then also the fear in which we’re going to talk.
Right. So, so that, that’s another, um, that’s another concept that I came up with, um, and that, um, also needs, um, uh, that also will need an I N D, which I hope will be in place. And just [inaudible] in a nasal mist or a nasal spray after you’ve been exposed to COVID-19 will inhibit the furin in the lining of the nose. And maybe that’s the only place you need fewer in inhibition because the virus will not be able to enter its incubation chamber, the nasal mew ma nasal mucosal cells. And so it doesn’t, there won’t be enough of the virus replicating, cause it really appears as if how sick you get from COVID-19 depends on the initial viral load, you know, in the famous episode of the Sackett County choir in Washington, where there were 60, roughly 60 women in the choir who were singing together in a closed space for two hours, um, practicing social distancing, they were six feet apart. Um, the attack rate was 86%, uh, which kind of indicates that there’s a lot of aerosolization of this virus. It hangs out in the air.
You’re not just getting it directly from someone else’s breath or coughing or sneezing. One person in that choir had a cold. So they thought thought that person had COVID-19 86% of the people in that choir got sick. Two of them died. That’s an infection fatality rate of 3.7%, which is very high. It’s likely that the high viral load that people were infected with initially had something to do with, with a very bad outcome in that group. So what the current thinking is is that there are very few aced to TMP RSS, two molecules in the lungs. There are some, but not nearly as many is in the nose and that the way that pneumonia occurs, it’s not directly from the virus that gets that you inhale from the air. It goes into your nose, the virus multiplies in the lining of the nose and reaches a critical amount that really raises your own personal viral load to the point where the virus can, you can inhale it into your lungs from your own nose, from your own respiratory tract, which happens of course all the time that it can get into your brain, following the olfactory nerve from the nose up into the brain, um, and that it can get into your blood vessels.
Uh, and so if we view the nose as the incubation chamber blocking Fearon or TM PRSs two in the nose, um, may really prevent serious infection. And just, just for clarification of fear and is a enzyme, uh, uh, protease. Correct. So, but leaving right furin is a protease. Um, it’s a category of enzyme called pro protein. Convertases it takes one, uh, protein, one protein, and converts it into another protein basically. Um, and it plays an important role in infectious diseases and in cancer. And so there’s been a lot of interest in finding ways to block fearing, uh, to treat, um, cancers and, um, and also in certain infections now, um, fury, most of the Fearon in your body is inside cells. We don’t really care about the intracellular urine because that’s not where it’s important for viral transmission, a small amount of it travels through the cell to the membrane and goes through the membrane. And it’s kind of coding and hanging around in the, in the space around the outside of the that’s, the Fearon that we want to target.
That’s the fear on that has to prime the viral spike protein for attaching to ACE too, which is embedded in the membrane and, um, doing that is not likely to have any adverse effects intracellularly cause it’s, whatever you’re doing is not getting into the cell where most of the Fearon is just dealing with this thin coating outside the cells. So the poly are Janine peptides do that very effectively and irreversibly and have been tested in animal models. As I mentioned to the anthrax for anthrax to make you sick, it has to, Oh, there’s a toxin that it’s produced. And that toxin gets activated by, um, by furin. So with animals who were infected with anthrax, if you give them, uh, the poly origins, uh, you can interfere with the effects of anthrax toxin, uh, and there’s another model. Um, it was used in which mice had their eyes infected with pseudomonas, pretty nasty bacteria. And pseudomonas produces a toxin that requires furin for its activation. And you can treat the eye infection by using eyedrops of poly arginine to the thing. I think the fear and is also responsible for, uh, species, different species transmission. Also the flu virus needs fear and correct it.
Yeah, there are a lot of viruses that use furin, uh, for modification. Uh, actually the MERS virus used furin to be, to alter itself, to bind to its receptor, which is not a stew now. And here, this is real. I think one of the things that makes it clear that Fearon is really important. The original SARS virus we’ll call it SARS Kovi. One that did not require furin, uh, that virus was very deadly, was probably on an individual basis. It was possibly 10 times more deadly than SARS Kovi too, but it was not readily transmitted that whole epidemic of SARS back 15 years ago, that killed about 800 people and infected about 7,000 people in the world. I mean this, um, SARS Kovi too is a thousand times more lethal, not because it’s more deadly on an individual basis, but because it is so much more readily transmitted from person to person.
Now, the biologists who have looked at the, at the genetic code in SARS and various SARS, the whole plate of SARS related viruses and SARS Kovi to have found that the distinctive difference that allowed this pandemic to occur was related to genetic changes at what they call the furin cleavage site. In other words, the scent, the increasing sensitivity of this virus to the effects of urine is what created this pandemic. Wow. And if you look at most of the, and so they’ve looked at continuing, um, mutations in the virus over time since it started and the most common place where mutations of this virus are occurring, is that the fear and cleavage site, so that may or may not be making the virus more or less contagious or deadly, but it is, it certainly is the genetic change that underlies the COVID-19 pandemic. And it makes sense then that if you can find a way to block Fearon, you may be able to block the transmission of the virus.
So I’ll, I’ll put you on the spot a little bit here. Does that seem to be a natural mutation or a manmade? Well, of course I’m not an, I’m not an expert in that, but the scientists that have looked at this have all of them concluded that it is a series of natural mutations, that there’s no lab in the world that would have thought about this because it’s a very awkward and imperfect mutation. And what would have been hard to interpret, because if we go back to the idea of a lock and key, it’s not as if the key of the viral spike protein that’s, um, prime by Puron is a perfect fit into the lock. It actually is a very imperfect fit. It gets into the lock, but then it doesn’t turn the lock and you can’t pull it out. So if you have a key, that’s kind of the wrong key for a lock, but it sort of looks like it could be the right gate. You can really screw up the rod and the lock, you know, you put the key in, and now you can’t get it out, but you can’t turn it. And so these scientists have said, you know, they just don’t know of any lab that would have designed this on purpose.
And it really looks like it was a series of multiple mutations. And that it’s very likely that this virus has been around for a long time. Um, but wasn’t really suited and maybe even caused occasional illness in humans, but it wasn’t suited for, um, rapid transmission from person to person, uh, at the end of the day, I’m not sure that it matters from a treatment perspective, whether this is some accident that was created in a laboratory or not. Um, if anybody decided that they were going to do this to screw up the world, they were pretty stupid because it’s not that deadly a virus. Um, and if, uh, and it shut down economies and, you know, a lot of the reason that’s been done, a lot of the reason that that’s happened is because of stupid decisions that have been made and a misunderstanding of the nature of the virus and how it works and how it makes people sick. This did not have to happen. No, I, I agree.
Oh, and of course, one of the reasons it had, but it happened in so many places, including places that are not allies politically, that it’s very unlikely that this is some, uh, gargantuan conspiracy. Um, they’re, you know, they’re just too many ridiculous moving parts to it to have been manmade. Um, you know, one of my favorite authors, um, Raymond, um, uh, Phil, um, Raymond Chandler who created the Phillip Marlow character, uh, in all of the books when Marla was going through a detective story, he would say, this had the whoop, the expression was something like, um, this had the simplicity of a lie, or this did not have the simplicity of a lie, and this does not have the simplicity of something planned. Yeah. It would have to be a lot of people involved, but, uh, yeah, I don’t know. It’s the, world’s crazy now. It’s like, I don’t know. Well, it’s, it’s, it’s created chaos, it’s created chaos. And one of the asks, one of the characteristics of chaos is that the initiating conditions when chaos is created, have a huge impact on the outcome. Um, and so we had a small window of to get it right. We didn’t get it right. And, and that is what happens with chaos. We may have another window now.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
Yeah. And I think it’s true, everyone just panics. And so many things are political and, uh, what’s the perception they’re doing something or, you know, uh, so it’s just, it’s crazy, you know, it’s like, but, um, when we change gears and I know you use, um, a different peptide, you use a lot of peptides, um, and we’ll talk about the ones that, that you, that you love to use, but I know KPV, which is a, um, tripeptide meaning just three amino acids of alpha and monocytes see winning hormone. Um, if you, uh, want to talk about that a little bit?
Dr. Leo Galland
Sure. Well, I, I treat, um, before COVID-19 consumed all of my time and attention outside of treating patients, my research interests were primarily in the GI tract, the impact of the gut microbiome on health, um, intestinal permeability, so-called leaky gut. Um, and I’ve been working with those concepts clinically writing and lecturing about them for over 30 years before there was a term, wow. You’re 28 years ahead of your time. Well, you know, was it, um, yeah, quite the, um, there was a time when I would talk about leaky gut to a patient and they’d go to their guests were in Raleigh it’s, you’d say, ah, there’s no such thing as a leaky gut. Now you see the term in the new England journal of medicine. Um, yeah, there’s been, there’s been a huge turnaround in, in the understanding there. And so I, in my practice, I have over the years, dealt with many patients with bowel problems and have had a special interest in inflammatory bowel disease, Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.
Dr. Leo Galland
And I’ve actually written three textbook chapters on nutritional approaches to inflammatory bowel disease. Um, and so I’m always embarrassed to say, I have not read those. I have had to go to find those. So, um, right. Well, I mean, they all become, I mean, first of all, they’re not, they’re not in mainstream textbooks, but they are in, well, they are in mainstream textbooks. Just not, I don’t know if anybody reads them, you know, metabolic medicine and surgery. No, those are the ones that allow me to integrative gastroenterology. They only have like 400 bucks, but, uh, yeah. Right. So, um, the, um, so finding innovative approaches to treating inflammatory bowel disease has been one of the things that, uh, has been a focus of my practice. And, um, and aside from nutrition, their specific supplements and natural products, specific probiotics, um, that I use in my view on the use of nutrition in medical treatment is that nutritional therapies should be used with the same attention to detail that you would use if you were prescribing a drug or the doctors should use when prescribing drugs, that is, there is no one size fits all.
Dr. Leo Galland
Um, this is not like, well, put everybody on a statin to prevent heart disease. Oh God, here, this is, this is the diet. This is what everybody’s diet should be like. This is the, the breath people will ask me, what’s the best probiotic. There is no such thing. Um, so in the course of looking for individualized treatments, I have gotten very interested into therapies. Uh, one is KPV the, um, uh, the, the Mulata court and fragment, which is anti-inflammatory and which has been tested in a clinical trial and ulcerative colitis. And KPV is something that has become part of my, um, treatment protocol for patients with inflammatory bowel disease. I don’t start with KPV. I start with diet and nutrition, um, and decisions about probiotics and prebiotics that’s stage one, stage two. Um, if people are not fully controlled is KPV.
I really like it it’s been very helpful and a lot of my patients have benefited from it. And then there’s BPC one 57, um, a totally different peptide normally produced in the stomach and under stress conditions. And that’s, that’s I think, 17 amino acids, um, the, uh, and BPC one 57 has been helpful for inflammatory bowel disease, especially in conjunction with KPV, but I’ve also used it a lot, uh, for other kinds of bowel problems. And, uh, most of the research on it, which has been done in animals, um, has shown benefits in conditions like short bowel syndrome. Cause it stimulates healing in, um, a soft vaginosis and gastritis. And I treat a lot of patients with, um, with gastric, with GERD, um, and the esophagus it’s very common.
I mean, there are tens of millions of people in this country who have that. I really think that the standard medical approach to treating esophogitis is so unphysiologic UL. Um, it’s amazing to me, I mean, esophogitis is not due to an excess of acid production. So blocking acid, just converts acid reflux to non acid reflux, it may relieve symptoms. It creates a whole host of complications, especially with side effects, unintended, and like the body pressure compound one 57 and tightens the lower, uh, you know, are the stink jurors makes them more, you know, they get all dysregulated. Yeah. Physiologic, bring them back to normal, right. I mean, um, GERD and esophogitis are basically motility disorders in which there’s a deficit in the functioning of the lower Safa, Jill sphincter. And so treatment should be based upon trying to improve the function of that sphincter, not reducing the amount of acid that the stomach produces. Um, so I, those are dysbiosis, which now we’re finding huge problem, you know, with that brain access to everything, got everything access, right? And there are studies, I mean, over the years, the studies on the impact of the negative effects of these proton pump inhibitors and acid suppressing drugs has accumulated still the majority of gastroenterologists, um, will tell patients, Oh, you, this is safe.
You can take it forever. There are no problems. It says short term, 14 days on the package. Right? Right. Even in 14 days, it increases your risk of pneumonia. Um, but, um, at least the proton pump inhibitors do that. Longterm, the dysbiosis produced by these drugs has been very well documented and they are, they contribute to C difficile, Clostridium, difficile colitis. Now there was one study which looked at the impact of the routine use of acid suppression in hospitalized patients on the likelihood of in hospital pneumonia and C difficile colitis and concluded that these drugs in hospitals may be killing as many as 30,000 people in the U S every year, just based on the frequency of in hospital pneumonia in patients getting these drugs and the mortality rate of in hospital pneumonia, a one bad place to be is the hospital. Yeah. And taking these standard meds, you know, it’s, and it’s not, it doesn’t make any news because it’s expected, you know? Right. Yeah. I know. Yeah.
Actually I think, um, um, hospital medication affects are the third or fourth leading cause of death in the U S yeah. Yeah. Doctors are a big leading cause of death. Unfortunately, that’s the case. Uh, and that’s preventable, but, um, can you, uh, uh, talk about, uh, uh, so a body protection compound? Yeah. We’d love it for, you know, uh, gut issues also work systemically reduces inflammation, uh, and you know, really with this gut brain access, probably the best thing for, for leaky gut. Uh, we also have the pharmacy, uh, beta four, which has a frag, which the tight junctions, uh, will help, uh, uh, basically tighten those up. So I have been really impressive. Yeah. I’m sorry. I’ve been really impressed with, by miss and beta for, um, and for its PR for its neuroprotective effects. Um, originally I got interested in it as an adjunct to find miss an alpha one for immune modulation.
Um, but it became, um, pretty clear that there were other effects. And when I started looking at the literature and the thing I love about the peptides is therapeutic tools is that there is for all of the peptides, there’s a pretty extensive scientific literature. Some of it is from the U S a lot of it isn’t. And so like with BPC one 57, the research there has been done mostly in Croatian, China, for example, um, you know, there’ll be, um, countries in which certain researchers will get interested in they’ll carry these pet, the torch for these peptides, famous in beta for what I’ve found to be really important was its benefits in head trauma and head injury. I mean, so five, a patient who’s just had a head injury. I will get them on thymus and beta four right away. Um, and I’m really seeing an even in people who have neurologic problems that have been long standing, I’m seeing beneficial effects from fondness and beta for, um, yeah, I happen to love that one.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
And I agree, you know, all the issues with traumatic brain injury now. And, you know, if I miss a beat a for massive amounts of studies on it, and the problem is has to be injectable, but so the, what we have out is the fragment, which base has all the effects of thymus and beta four, but it takes out the part that Sumits mass cells, but also BBC show with traumatic brain injury. Uh, I mean, I, you can argue that all these football players, whatever kid should, uh, you know, playing sports should be on it preventable.
Dr. Leo Galland
Right. Right. So, and BPC has this other really interesting effect. It’s a mess cell stabilizer. And I mean, that opens up a whole other area in medicine that interacts with every other, um, complex, um, condition that we’re looking at is, um, and it’s becoming very much recognized now. And whereas it had been virtually unknown a few years ago, which is mast cell activation syndrome. You could, you could, of course, devote hours to discussing.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
Yes. Yeah. And it’s huge. And I really think a lot of these things like weren’t talking about, I don’t think they weren’t issues as much 20 years ago, 30 years ago, you know, I think it’s what I have the theory ends in toxins and stress and yeah.
Dr. Leo Galland
Yeah. And I have a theory about the mass cell activation issue because of some fascinating research that I discovered that was done at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden that 20 years ago. I mean, there is no higher prestige place in the world, the Carolyn skin Institute, hands out the Nobel prize. So this is not, you know, this is not some sleepy university. Um, they were, uh, they took a bunch of healthy people and they put them in front of a TV monitor for two hours and they did skin biopsies before and after. And they looked at the mass cells in the skin and the exposure to the TV monitor caused degranulation of the mass cells, which is activation MES or these hundreds of chem 200 chemicals in these granules in about 15% of the patients. Um, so it’s possible that one of the reasons we’re seeing the high exposure to electromagnetic fields is one of the things that is kind of, it’s, it’s re raising the floor, lowering the ceiling on mass cell activation, making the barrel smaller, so that symptoms are more likely to occur.
Um, and I think for these, um, for the many people that I’ve seen who were very sensitive to EMS, the mechanism of that sensitivity is mass cell activation. Yeah. I think it’s a common denominator and a lot of things, you know, pots, especially, you know yeah. It’s patients and the increasing frequency of pots that we’re seeing, I think with, and then mess a neurologist, would they get a tilt table? They go, that’s your problem. Like they don’t well, what’s causing that. It’s a symptom, you know? Sure. That’s, that’s just, yeah, that’s just a symptom. It’s not telling me I’m dizzy when I stand up, you know? Right. This is the, this is the mechanism, but it’s not the reason. Yeah.
And what do you think should happen with this five G um, Oh, like, you know, um, probably look, I don’t know. I haven’t actually looked at the data on that. Um, the, the only thing that I can say is what is certain is that there’s increasing EMF exposure globally everywhere. Um, and that, that we are seeing the blossoming of conditions that were not really, that could have been recognized 20 or 30 years ago, but weren’t, that is the technology was there to do it. It’s not as if, Oh, now we can, you know, Oh, now we can measure this. No, we can’t measure it any better. It’s just that, um, it wasn’t happening as much then as it is now. And I do these patients are discounted as, Oh, it’s like a logical, you know, and if a doctor doesn’t know how to treat it, it’s doesn’t exist.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
And it’s the patient’s fault. It’s crazy patient, you know, and it’s interesting when I was digging down on Oz, you know, looking at all these just tiny pet, you know, like two amino acid peptides by peptides, peptides have huge effects and they can’t find the receptor. And I found one study looked that they feel it’s harmonic or harmonica. They vibrate a certain frequency and activate, and I’m like, let me think, wow. Also all these EMS apps, you know, messing that up. Uh, it made me really think, you know,
Dr. Leo Galland
That’s real, that’s really interesting. And it, it, it makes sense because molecules vibrate and there are harmonics created. And, um, it would be very surprising if EMS don’t impact on that. Um, and understanding how that affects the function of cells that can have that can really help to unders to explain some aspects of chronic disease
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
And tough to study though. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, just, uh, let’s talk just a little bit, as we’re getting close to finishing up here, um, putting your clinical experience with, you know, BPC KPB, um, other, your other peptides with, you know, um, for your bowel disease or anything else, just some, uh, what, what you, basically thing, a thing, uh, people should know about to, for putting conditions or to stay healthy, um, just with all your like extensive knowledge about so many things.
Dr. Leo Galland
Um, well, first of all, I, as I said before, about my attitude towards nutrition, I don’t believe there’s one size fits all. Um, I don’t believe that everyone should be taking this treatment because this is the way that you’re going to take stay healthy. I really think that treatment, that prevention and treatment both need to be individualized knowledge and understanding is important. And, um, the main way that I’ve been viewing peptides at present is from a treatment perspective, an individualized treatment perspective, the, um, and as one of the Russian researchers in this area said, this is PR these are potentially the most effective categories of drugs that there are peptides. Um, I am not yet what using peptides or for general prevention that may change. I mean, we’ll see. Yeah. And it will, it will always be individualized. It will be based on the, of this person. Yeah. And what’s this trait in a genetic test. And, uh, when he came back yesterday, we’re, uh, using that significantly now for, you know, looking at how, how to treat patients and, you know, one show and I have a terrible snip for IGF one, you know, that I don’t make IGF one.
And so it’s like kind of rethink of, well, okay. Let’s just kind of replace that. Um, but you know, so many other things I’m thinking is as that gets more sophisticated and I think genetics played a big part. I think sometimes we’re ahead of ourselves with, you know, some of these 23 and me and it’s, and it’s much more complex than one gene causing this and that. Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, poly genics, uh, in terms of inherited conditions, it’s almost always poly Genet genetics.
That’s important, but epi genetics is probably even more important, right? The GFR, you can have the genes for diabetes, but if one person eats grain exercises, they aren’t going to get it, but another person could eat normally, but they have the same gene that are going to get diabetes. Right. I constantly, I constantly see patients who have had genetic testing and they have, um, genes that, you know, they’ll have a gene for high blood pressure or a cluster of genes for high blood pressure. Their blood pressure is great. Yeah. Um, it’s um, and of course, the other thing is if we go to the microbiome is one of my, I mean, I could talk for hours about that. There were having back for that, because I think that there are about 25,000 human genes in the body. That means that we have fewer genes than rice has a grain of rice has 40,000 functioning genetic units. We have 25,000. How is that possible? Well, there are about 4 million bacterial genes that our gut microbiome and they have a tremendous impact in shaping the way that our own genes are expressed. Um, and so, um, I do think that, I mean, I think peptides are a hugely important therapeutic tool and will help to shape the future of medicine.
Understanding the microbiome is going to be foundational for the future of medicine. And, and w w what do you think the viral biome, Oh, listen, you know, right. That’s going to be the levels of complexity become really hard for the human mind to comprehend for one thing. Most of the viruses, there are, um, hundreds, thousands of viruses in your gut. Most of them are what are called bacteria flashes. They are eaten by bacteria. And so they inhibit, they, they enter the bacteria and they alter the function of the bacteria. So now you’ve got, um, you know, 4 million, um, bacterial genes whose activity is being altered by thousands of viral genes, um, and expressed in bacteria phages.
And to take it a step further food that you eat and substances you take may activate or inactivate the activity of these flashes. So for example, Stevia, uh, um, you know, this common sugar substitute, that is one of the most potent products at silencing bacteria flashes, um, not just specific bacteria, phages, multiple bacteria flashes oregano does the opposite. So how do you even begin to comprehend what Stevia or oregano is doing when you put it in your body? Um, aside from, from, from the known effects, there are all these indirect effects, um, that nobody has ever thought of before the past year or two. And most people, most researchers on the microbiome aren’t even thinking about because the level of complexity is way beyond the tools that we have.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
And it’s interesting, even like I was reading a study on, um, bacteria screening butyrate, which is good, but if it gets a certain level, it stimulates the bacteria phage to kill it. So it doesn’t get too, I can tell it’s just like, wow, like we’ve evolved with these things for, you know, millions of years, but I think that’s going to be the next big thing is the by room of our biome. And by the way, we will be coming out with some bacteria of H uh, treatments. Um, so you have to be the first person I’ve talked to about them. And, uh, yeah, just really quick, uh, like BPC KPV combination. What do you think of that for patients?
Dr. Leo Galland
Um, well, I, I mean, I love it for, um, inflammatory bowel disease and, um, and, and ulcer healing as well. Uh, I use BPC a lot for upper GI problems, not just lower GI problems. Um, I haven’t looked at KPV in the upper GI tract, but from what I’ve seen in the physiology of it, it makes sense to combine the minute, uh, not just to use an inflammatory bowel disease, but in diseases of the stomach and the esophagus.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
Yeah. Because I, I think everyone now, I think it’s the foods and, you know, all the additives and, and these things to have, you know, inflammation of the gut leaky gut, it’s like you do food sensitivity test things like they’re not allergic, but sensitive to everything, you know, which means their gut is let these big proteins in causing the inflammation. Now they have all these, you know, uh, you know, symptoms that no one can figure out. And it’s, everything’s a vicious cycle.
Dr. Leo Galland
No. Right. The leaky gut is definitely creates a vicious cycle. In fact, first paper that I wrote on it was called, um, leaky gut breaking the vicious cycle that was published. I don’t know what year is it? It was published about 30 years ago.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
Oh my gosh. That’s so impressive. You know, it’s like gastroenterologists are just now discovering probiotics, but, um, uh, it’s, it’s amazing. Uh, it’s just been a pleasure speaking with you and, uh, just a wealth of knowledge. And I think everyone’s gonna find this a fascinating interview. So, uh, I thank you. And yeah.
Dr. Leo Galland
Thank you. Thanks a lot for giving me the opportunity to share the work that I’m passionate about.
Kent Holtorf, M.D.
No, I, I am. Uh, it’s it, it’s incredible. So, uh, keep up the great work and thank you again and thanks for being on. Alright.
Dr. Leo Galland
Okay. Bye. Bye.
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