Dr. Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP(PC) CAFCI – An Intro to Biohacking and Psychedelics

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

Thank you so much, Kent, for having me here and I apologize for my puppy here, he seems to be making a little bit of noise, I may have to get my son to take her out. 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

No worries, no worries. We love dogs. That’s a little bulldog. 

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

Mini bulldog, yeah. 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Nice, nice. We have a puppy, that’s a Jack terrier, Jack Russell who’s just a terror, Ivan the terrible, but anyways. Yeah, so kind of, so tell me about what you’re doing there. I know you’re doing a lot, I’m very interested in, you know, this kind of merging field of using psychedelics and cannabinoids at low dose for depression and other things. So, tell me a little bit about that, if you would. 

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

Yeah. Like being honest, like I really came out of this whole bio-hacking space and a couple of years ago, I ran a summit here in Toronto with the bio-hacker summit folk from Finland. And basically this, the concept of biohacking means to be able to, basically, take charge of your own body by measuring it and understanding it and then experimenting on what’s out there in the world. So, generally it sits outside medicine, but I got really interested in this, in this field. And then cannabis, which is, you know, really came outside of medicine at the beginning, and really medicine is now catching up to that. Same with psychedelics, you know, people have been using psychedelics to expand their brain, and now we’re finding so many other uses in migraines and depression, anxiety, so on and so forth. 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Nice. Yeah, because you know, with this whole biohacking and you mentioned kind of outside of mainstream medicine, things are moving so fast now, and there’s so much information. You know, 20 years ago when I’m trying to get information or read a book or whatever it is, you know, you go to the library, try to find the journal and copy it. Now there’s just so much coming out and it’s exponential. It’s just really who can gather that information, but there’s so much information out there, but you know, studies have shown, internal medicine found most doctors are practicing 20 years behind what’s available in the medical literature. And it takes on average, a proven new therapy that tons of studies on, it takes 17 years to be adopted into mainstream medicine on average, unless it’s a new drug where they have a salesforce and, you know, they’re just pounding the doctors. But yeah, so everything is moving so slow inside of medicine, but the so-called alternative or integrative space is moving so fast. And it’s, evidence-based, it’s more evidence based I found than standard medicine. That’s still using, you know, what they learned in residency and medical school. 

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

Yeah. And that’s why it’s not fair to call this, you know, alternative medicine or complimentary medicine, and so on, because then it gets this kind of, I don’t know… 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, stigma. 

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

Non evidence-based and all that. But what biohacking is all about, is science. Looking at actual numbers and science and data. 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

And you’re drilling down more to actually, you know, cellular mechanisms and, you know, basically how the body works instead of, hey, let’s lower cholesterol, maybe this will lower cholesterol, you know. Where it’s just kind of a little barbaric, you know, where this is, the more science we know, the more biohacking goes on. 

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

And I think what that means is that we’re not, there’s not a particular dogma. Like you might have a particular, I don’t know, a form of alternative medicine, which has this, okay, this is, this is the way it’s going to be like, you know, it must, we believe in this theory of how things work, but when you’re looking biohacking, you’re just looking at whatever the science takes. If it’s today, it’s vegan diets, tomorrow could be keto diets. It doesn’t really, there’s no attachment to any outcome. All we’re looking for is what is the science telling us? And we’re willing to change with it. 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

And that’s what, you know, I love like medical debates, right. I say, here’s the thing, you know, everyone has their inherent bias by what you’ve read, what you’ve seen, but, you know, just basically going back and forth, here’s the studies on this, but problem is that’s, that’s gone. Everyone gets… it’s so political and emotional. It’s like, if you say something that’s outside the dogma, well, you’re a quack, you know, it’s kind of like, you’re a racist that ends the conversation. And so, you know, vested interest and bias, and you look at, you know, levels of evidence, you know, you’ve got your randomized, double blind placebo-controlled study, meta analysis, you know, single blind, basically case studies, anecdotal and below that are basically, this by the WHO, world health organization found that societal guidelines are the worst form of evidence. 

They’re so far behind. They don’t change because there’s a big fight, you know, when new studies come out, they don’t adopt. They say, all my patients are good, my patients are fine. And I have an article on the National Academy of Hypothyroidism, NAH, hypothyroidism, National Academy of hypothyroidism.org. But why doesn’t my doctor know this and goes through, there’s lots of concerns in these journals, saying doctors aren’t adopting new therapies because the system also doesn’t allow them to, even if they spend all the time researching all this stuff, their hospital, whatever, will go, you can’t do that. You know. And so, it’s, they’re put in a bad position, you know. It doesn’t do them any good to learn more and new stuff. 

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

Yeah. And luckily Canada’s been a bit of a pioneer in the whole cannabis space because it, you know, we’ve had the medical cannabis stream now for a good 10, 15 years, and now it’s become, the clinics will write prescriptions to licensed producers that has been about already four or five years. So, we’ve had a lot of ability that, you know, there’s been much more openness now. So, I think there’s already about 10% of the population has received, has probably used cannabis. 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Nice. I know you use a lot of that, and then, on the psychedelic realm, what can you tell me about that? Like what you use, what have you found it useful for like dosing of things? 

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

Yeah, so psychedelic’s, I mean, again, they said it’s still in a gray zone in Canada. Like they’re not, it’s not an official thing that one can prescribe, but I can educate patients on how to use it and what the science is saying. So, you know, generally what’s been in fashion is, is either, micro dosing, you know, something like a hundred, a hundred milligrams to 200 milligrams once every three days for a couple of months. 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Of what? 

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

Let’s say… sorry, just dried psychedelic mushrooms. 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Okay. Now, is there different… I don’t know about all this. Is there different potencies? Like how do know, like which one to use or different strains or…? 

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

It’s still very difficult in the psychedelic world. Yeah, in the psychedelic mushroom world to know what’s more potent or other, but generally if you just go with that type of, you know, 100 milligrams, 150 milligrams of the dried psychedelic mushroom, you should be fine. It’s not going to cause an issue. 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

And then what would the normal dose be? 

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

Oh, I mean, if one is going to a therapy session, you know, if you take about, if you take about, usually about a gram, you’ll start to… 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

That’s like recreational use, they use about a gram. 

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

Well, I mean, I think that it’s being used in therapeutic settings at bigger doses. So, under the care of a therapist, you know, this has been shown to help people get, you know, get through some problems and understand what’s going on, what has happened in their life. And sometimes people see a different, see the same problem, a different way. It’s something that’s very difficult to say. 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

And so, is it like a lasting effect? And so, people say they kind of like, look at themselves from kind of the outside and say, I’m not doing this right or not doing that. Or that’s more with Ayahuasca, is it? 

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

They’re similar psychedelics, they’re still similar, acting on similar receptors. It’s the 5HT2A receptor. So, the serotonin receptors specifically that the psilocybin, Ayahuasca or DMT is acting on. And what that’s doing is increasing the serotonin level, but it’s giving a sense of interconnectedness, this feeling that you’re connected to everyone else, to the nature and stuff like that. And at a higher dose, what ends up happening is what is called the default mode network starts to get suppressed. So, whatever’s underneath starts coming up. 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

So, kind of a bell shape or inverse bell shape, whatever. Now what about ecstasy? 

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

Yeah, MDMA, it’s MDMA is the part of ecstasy, but MDMA is clearly being used for PTSD in trials right now. We just don’t know, and some of my concerns is that- what are the long-term impacts of taking MDMA on a regular basis. We just don’t, I don’t know about that aspect, but… 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

And whether, I think at high doses kind of the same thing, bet you start down regulating or there’s some toxicity. 

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

It could be downregulating serotonin because it’s such a big dose of serotonin that’s coming out. So, receptors might be getting down regulated, but we don’t see anything in the psychedelics like psilocybin or Ayahuasca or DMT of, of people getting any type of overdose or downregulation of those receptors. But you need to take these doses, the maximum you could be taking is once every three days, because otherwise you won’t have an impact. 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Got you. And then, when do you see a difference and what do you generally see and how long do you do it? 

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

Let’s come back to the micro dosing. So, if somebody was taking a micro dose, then they may or may not feel that dose, like it’s very subtle. Like they might just be a little calmer. They might think, you know, they might just feel a little bit sharper or something like that, but generally they won’t feel it. But it’s what they, what the research showed was that people who did micro dosing after few months, they did, you know, surveys before and after they just found that their mood was better. 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

And other people don’t notice, like, oh, I love you, man. 

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

Not at the micro dose level. But if one is taking a treatment dose like you’re with, under a therapist, or, you know, you’re doing it with somebody who is there to support you and watch you, first it’s important to have that, we call the set and the setting. So, that you have set a right intention, you know, for the one week before, you set yourself that you’re not, you’re avoiding alcohol, you’re avoiding thinking, trying to put yourself in a good space. You’re not having, getting to fight with somebody you’re putting an intention of what do you want to get out of it, even if in your mind, you’re putting forth, you know what, I’m kind of working on this issue of my relationship with my mother or something like that. And, you know, you just put that in your mind and then when you actually do have the session, these things just tend to come up. That that problem tends to come up. 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Oh, interesting. So, you’re intentionally trying to solve a problem. And I heard like with Ayahuasca, if you drink alcohol, it doesn’t really work, or, you know, and you found that you use this for addiction as well. 

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

Yeah, for sure. I have patients who are using it to get off pain killers or alcohol, and they’re taking more in the micro dose, micro dose dosage, and they’re having a lot of success. 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

And doing the same every three days. And how long until they start seeing benefit and how long do you continue? 

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

Yeah, it can be, it can be a long-term thing, I guess this is again, very, these are micro dosing. People are doing that for some time. I would say, I would suggest a couple of months, three months trial. And people are noticing after usually a month that they’re, they feel different and they can increase to, you know, 200 to 300 milligrams of if they want. 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

And for, let’s say for depression, do they notice like, oh my gosh, I’m no longer depressed, or just like, you know, I don’t feel depressed. Like, is it kind of a slow, steady type thing? 

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

I would say it’s slow, steady, because what this is actually doing is helping you to see something a different way. We call this rewiring your brain… 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

We do that like crazy. We call it the anti Tony Robbins. You tell them, this is what you can do, and they’ll give you a thousand reasons why you can’t do it. You need some rewiring. 

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

You just need rewiring, because that’s exactly it. Because you can tell a depressed person to change their way of thinking, but it’s very difficult. 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

They feel they can’t get out of that.

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

It’s the rumination. Rumination of what’s going on. 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

And also, it’s very interesting, I watch some of these documentaries on, you know, some of these people have everything, like some of these celebrities have fame, fortune, everyone loves them, and they’re so depressed they want to like kill themselves, you know. It’s amazing. It shows depression has nothing to do with logic, you know. Like look at all the stuff I have, it’s… you know, what do you have to be depressed about? Well, that’s depression, you don’t have anything to be depressed about, or everyone can find something. But, yeah…  

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

If we, you know, society unfortunately sets up that so many of us are struggling with negative thoughts.  

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, and I think would you say society, the way everything is now, makes everything worse… well, we have the COVID thing, you know, everyone’s stuck in, but also just, like even, you know, we didn’t have computers, you’d send a letter and wait a week for something to come back. Now it’s like- or when you’re in high school, you never know where are you in this pecking order? You know, it’s all vague. Now it’s like, how many likes do you have? Everything’s texting, instant response, instant gratification, stress, we’ve got traffic, you know, emails, it’s like we’re just been overloaded constantly.  

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

Yeah, I don’t know if you’ve seen Social Dilemma on Netflix, but it’s pretty impressive like how…  

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

I just saw part of it, I was just talking about it, with my girlfriends’ son about it. I was like damn, and I only saw part of it. It’s like they know more about you then you do. I heard they can tell if you’re pregnant before you do by your, by how your shopping changes.  

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

Right, right. But yeah, it’s very clear that it does cause, like use of social media causes depression anxiety. Constantly looking at everybody else…  

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

And also, we’re talking about news, if you look at certain news sites, they’re going to feed you that same news. So, it makes, it polarizes everyone, because this all the news you see, this person will see it, and no wonder everyone’s fighting, you know.  

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

That’s what the political climate’s about. This is where people are going down their own rabbit holes. And that’s how people are getting radicalized.  

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, and they’re just adamant, because that’s all they see. Yeah, it’s scary, it’s scary. We could go on about that, like, on that, it’s very political.  

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

Yeah, psychedelics open your, basically rebreak, like you know, because what happens, the more we think somewhere the roads get stronger and stronger, the paths. So, what we want to do is make it that it’s again, like wash over some of those roads, you know, so that you can start new paths. And so, by again, suppressing the top part of your brain, the rational part that’s always thinking and thinking, supressing that allows some new pathways to form. Basically, that’s how. So, it’s not always going to be an antidepressant, it could be put in the wrong hands. If you go and take a psychedelic dose and then you’re in a bad situation and you’re having a fight with somebody, you’re not doing…  

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, I heard it’s from the, you know, experts it’s like context, right. You can’t be in a bad mood or around bad people, bad energy. And you know, I always like make an analogy with people we see this, with a lot of the, you know, chronic fatigue syndrome, Lyme patients, you know, you can almost tell that they have this illness within a minute on the phone, right. And they’re just, they get wired different. And I think of it kind of like a feral cat, if you bring that feral cat in very soon after, it could be totally normal. But if you wait a month, there’s almost no way you’re going to get that cat to be comfortable holding it like a regular cat. I’d like to see a study on a feral cat, and give the feral cat the… see if you can rewire it.  

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

There definitely are people giving cannabis to pets, I’ve definitely seen that.  

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah. And then, the psychedelics compared to cannabis, what’s your thought, like where would you use cannabis?  

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

Two separate types of medicines, like one is acting on the endocannabinoid system, you know, helps with balancing the immune system and happiness. But yeah, they work in complete separate systems.  

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, and I think endocannabinoids, let’s say we’ll take out THC, but you know it’s so anti-inflammatory. You know, the melanocortin’s, and so many hormones, amazing for like mast cell activation syndrome, but you got to inject it and that’s super short acting. So, there’s like Melanotan which, the thing is, good or bad, you know it’s basically like Melanotan one and two, you know, called the Barbie doll or whatever. You get tanned, increase libido, lose weight, but we found that the tiny fragment, KPV which is also absorbable orally is great. It’s such a great immune modulator, anti-inflammatory, mast cell inhibitor, so I think….  

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

Are you using the KPV for gut issues?  

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

It actually absorbs too, so we’re using it for mast cell. We just, we haven’t used it for a long time because we couldn’t get it, but it’s also coming out as available as oral and we’re finding, I want to do studies on actually showing the bioavailability, but we’re finding the clinical outcome like with mast cell, is very good. But also, gut is great, and initially with the gut it’s also, delta sleep inducing peptide, you know, we use it for sleep, but the highest levels are in the gut. And it’s very anti-inflammatory, it lowers hypothalamic inflammation which causes, you know, diabetes and leptin resistance and hypothyroid pituitary dysfunction, all the hormones are low. So, these are some kind of amazing new systems everyone’s looking at.  

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

And sorry, just one question on DSIP, are you finding that you can give that every single day? Like I’ve been giving it everyday, but is it something…  

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, I found it kind of, one of the ones that changed my life for sleep. You know, it’s not a sleep medication where you get sleepy, it kind of changes that whole sleep center. I found if you combined the delta sleep inducing peptide Epitalon, so pineal hormone or Pinealon, and then a growth hormone. Either a growth hormone secretagogue, growth hormone itself, or AOD, anti-obesity drug, which is a fragment of growth hormone, that combination seems to work very well. It takes a couple weeks, it works more epigenetically. But I’ve been the worst sleeper, I had Lyme all my life, it just messes your sleep up like crazy. And it’s still not perfect but it has helped so much, because I would, everyone calls me a vampire. I get energy at midnight and you know, I wish the world was turned around. And when I was in China it was awesome because I could, I was on US time, I’d be up all night and just talk to be over there in the day. But that combo has helped a lot of people.  

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

The Epitalon, are you giving this all in big doses like at one time? 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Well, when you look at the studies, they’re, you know, basically done in big doses, they did like one week every six months. But we just do it smaller doses everyday and we find that it works. And delta sleep also looks like it’s orally bioavailable. And it’s interesting, generally the smaller the peptide, the more likely it is absorbed, but there’s certain ones that the conformation, if the amino acid has enough hydrophobic, so lipid soluble amino acids that tends to grip and form, it gets, it can actually be absorbed. So, like BPC-157 is not a tiny peptide, well it’s tiny compared to proteins and things like that, but it is equal potent to injectable for synthetic, sorry, for systemic conditions. 

Like they did a study on colitis and Alzheimer’s model, and it worked for both. There are people with joint pain, just give it orally and boom. And that’s why we also like the TB4- Thymosin Beta 4, you know, immune modulator, thymic peptide, a lot of great studies on modulating the immune system, but it’s 42 amino acids, it doesn’t absorb. But the four amino acid and terminal absorbs whole and has the majority of all the effects of Thymosin Beta 4, but it doesn’t stimulate mast cells. So, that part was taken out. And there’s another smaller fragment, nanofragment that is also immune modulatory that should be available orally coming out too. So, kind of interesting stuff when you kind of dig down into the dirt, right.  

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

Yeah, yeah, that’s very exciting.  

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah. So, what do you like for cognitive, I know you do a lot of your, obviously a lot of brain stuff, depression or cognition, dementia, what types of things do you like to do?  

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

Yeah, I’m pretty excited about, I’ve done, I’ve used a lot of Cerebrolysin, which I’m giving in kind of a big, like 10 milligram dose via IV. If the person can make it into the office, I’ll try to do as much, as often as they can get into the office, but usually it’s something like once a week, we’ll do at least ten treatments. I’ve seen good results with patients with early dementia and you know, just people who want to have a bit of an edge.  

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

And so, Cerebrolysin is basically, you know, brain peptides, a mixture, which no one knows the exact composition, but we’re actually testing it with mass spec, we’re going to figure out exactly what’s in there. But they made it here a biologic, so you can’t get it IV or by injection anymore. 

But it is orally bioavailable, because the peptides are small enough. And they’ve had studies showing orally, EEG changes, they show that it works. So, that’s I know is going to be out in a couple weeks or so.  

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

Yeah, I’m pretty excited if you can get that, that’s… 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, so like one capsule equals like 2 CC’s.  

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

Because it’s very difficult, we have to get it shipped right from Austria and like it’s not easy to do.  

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah. And we used to get a lot of stuff from Europe, and I mean, they’re approved and you know, in Europe and these other countries, but we had a patient who was an FDA agent, or DEA agent, he goes, you’re on the list. You better stop getting stuff from Europe, you know. So, oh we got to stop, even though… you know. And people think something’s FDA approved, that means it’s proven and safe. It’s like, there’s so much corruption, but you know, hopefully there’s no FDA, I’m just kidding, if there’s anyone listening. But yeah, all these great treatments shown to be exceedingly safe, much safer than standard meds, you know. And it’s funny my pharmacy attorney, we have so many FDA attorney’s too, they say, yeah if you find something that’s totally safe and works, it’s likely to get taken away.  

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

Well, I’ve also been using FGL for, at the same time mixing it in with the Cerebrolysin through the IV. And doing some C-Link and cmaX, if a patient has anxiety and things like that.  

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Can you talk a little bit about those?  

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

Yeah, so basically FGL looks to be like neurogenesis, helps to increase neurogenesis, so brain cells, neuron cells. So, about 2 milligrams I’m putting into the IV, with every treatment.  

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

So, with that you need a little higher doses, where a lot of peptides, like nano, basically micrograms rather than milligrams, it’s a thousand times more. So, they tend to be more expensive because you need so much more. 

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

Yeah, that’s the problem with some of these. They’re kind of $100 type vials.  

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, yeah.  

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

So, quite expensive. And I’m definitely adding in Thymosin Alpha into these, for anybody who’s got any type of brain concerns, because of, you know, trying to reduce neural inflammation and…  

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, yeah. And a nice study on Thymosin Beta 4- FRAG reducing microglial activation, you know. So, because of lot of people, you know, brain on fire, and that’s what it is, especially these chronic infections. Can you talk a little bit about cmaX and C-Link? When you one or the other?  

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

Yeah, I wouldn’t… I think C-Link I’m using more the addiction, people who have addiction issues, and cmaX more for the depression. But apart from that, no I don’t…  

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, I think I’ll agree. Very similar, you know, subtle differences I think, the cmaX a little more activating, you know. People will take the either nasal or shot, and go I think I’m a little clear. Where C-Link, I find people with like anxiety, it’s a little more calming, it helps deal with stress, they gave it to rats, like, which they do terrible things to rats. It’s like, you know, how long they can last even with like swimming until they drown type things, or at least they think they’re going to drown. And I find when I’m really stressed, I’m looking for the C-Link, you know. But, so I like those, and C-Link has a lot of also immune modulatory properties. There’s some studies, you know, showing to prevent viral infections and things like that.  

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

What do you think about, just jumping there, you had mentioned a FRAG with the Thymosin Beta. So, what’s the FRAG part, is that an addition?  

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

No, it’s actually a piece. So, if you look at Thymosin Beta 4, it has multiple domains that do different things. And like you’ll have like part of it is the immune modulatory, some activate mast cells, the one fragment works for hair. So, the fragment that is available currently orally is the one that does the immune modulation, very antifibrotic. Great studies showing, you know, reversing diabetic nephropathy, you know, kidney damage, heart damage, traumatic brain injury, reverses you know, heart failure post infarct. But it takes away that part that stimulates mast cells. Now if you give TB4 to a person with mast cell, usually they’re better, because of the upstream immune modulation and you know, all these mast cell experts, they’re stuck on direct mast cell inhibition, you know, and the histamines. Yeah, that’s a part of it, but look upstream and you’ll do so much better. And so, it’s also smaller, so it’s only four amino acids. And so, it crosses the blood barrier, so you get a much better effect. Now, there’s another fragment that actually works for hair and by using the hair fragment, like you’ll see the studies on TB4 that you’ll inject or put it topically, topically probably because it’s so big. But the fragment actually can get into the scalp.  

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

What fragment is that, just curious? How does one, how does somebody who’s trying get this, understand what the different fragments are?  

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, so there’s, yeah, basically you got to dig down. So, the hair, so the immune fragment is basically the first four amino acids. And then the hair is about three quarters of the way in, another four amino acids. And then the nanofragment is another one that is actually located multiple places in the TB4 and 3 amino acids. It actually goes also, dipeptide, so two amino acids, it’s amazing that they have this all this immune modulatory effects. And you think how could a two amino acid thing do that? But it also makes it through the enzymes, the enzymes don’t break them down. And then, so they’ll show, they’ll do studies basically on the two amino acids, the three, the four and extend it. And then all of a sudden if you two it stops, makes it not work, you go backwards. So, it’s interesting stuff.  

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

Okay, makes sense to me now.  

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Now, lets see, you also, you talk about, I know you mentioned substance abuse. You found some use with peptides and also the micro dosing you already talked about with substance abuse.  

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

Micro dosing, the peptides which I guess mentioned the C- Link and some of the neural, like FGL and cmaX, and Thymosin Alpha. Also doing the Vitamin C IV drips for that. Yeah, those seem to be what…  

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Got you, so it’s kind of that rewiring and I think just, you know, we see it work for depression, traumatic brain injury, post traumatic stress, and you know, and anxiety. I think anytime you reduce that anxiety, because some people they’re really using it as self medicating. And you reduce that constant anxiety, it’s huge. That’s great. And what other one’s do you like, you said you like Thymosin Alpha 1, BPC-157?  

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

Yeah, I definitely use some BPC. I’m using a lot of AOD 9064 for weight loss, we’re having a lot of success with that.  

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Can you talk, can you mention, can you explain that, AOD?  

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

Yeah, so basically, it’s, AOD seems to be, it’s a fragment I believe of human growth hormone. So, without the side effects of growth hormones it works only I think the weight loss part, the fat loss.  

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, it’s called the anti-obesity drug, is what it came out as. And the studies actually look pretty good, but they dropped it. They dropped from finishing the studies, it was in clinical trials, I don’t know what happened because the studies looked good. You look at like studies on like Neurontin and other drugs for nerve pain, the curve is exactly like placebo and then it dips down a little bit and then they go here you go, it helps. And all the side effects. But yeah, it doesn’t’ increase IGF1, but has a lot of healing effects, and very safe, I haven’t seen any side effects with it. And you can also put it into joints and things like that. AOD, BPC 157 and either TB4 or TB4-FRAG as our, kind of, standard cocktail for join injections. It works really well.  

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

Can you mix it with PRP?  

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, either PRP, stem cells, exosomes, or decellularized growth factors now. Ozone I do like, prolozone, I think it’s, you now, they all work but I think putting them in you might oxidize the peptides, so we tend not to do those together, but yeah, or even just doing the peptides. But usually, it will be with like a little PRP or exosomes, or something like that.

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

Any of these growth factors, I know we can buy some of these growth factors, like dermal growth factor, but can these things be added to like PRP, would it have any benefit?  

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, you can add all that stuff. The problem is like the growth factors tend to be very expensive. There’s certain serums and stuff like that, that you can buy from certain companies that combine different growth factors. And you know, very similar to peptides in terms of turning genes on, signalling, epigenetic change, the, you know, basically what genes are turned off and turned on. And I know you do genetics, and the thing is I love genetic tests, but your genetics are really about 20% of what’s, of what your destiny is. The other 80% is how you can turn those on or turn them off, depending on lifestyle, food, sleep, peptides, hormones, and like GHK is another one. So, copper peptide, it turns on like 78 genes and turns off 43, or something like that, I mean, that’s not the right number but it’s like amazing.  

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

I use it topically a lot.  

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, it works great for the skin. You can also do it in injectable, and it looks like oral will work as well, it’s only a tripeptide.  

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

It has that bluish color, but that’s fine when you’re injecting, it doesn’t burn or whatever injecting.  

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Oh yeah, and you have GHK all over your body, so it’s usually 2 milligrams injection a day or a couple times a week, or the higher dose is in the joint and then orally we’re looking at how much is actually absorbed. Or trans dermally, how to get it through the skin, not just into the skin. And 

it looks like GHK by itself does not absorb, but if you have the cooper already attached to it, then much better absorption.  

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

Right, the GHK copper. Yeah, that’s how I think I’ve seen it coming.  

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah. It’s like, also zinc thymuline is going to absorb much better than just thymuline. So, if they tend to be positive charged, positively charged, they tend to get in much better. And like AOD, what is it, like 167 to 191.  

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

Yeah, I’ve seen that.  

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

And that actually absorbs orally. And the studies showed that, where you wouldn’t think based on the size but it has a lot of positively charged amino acids and the hydrophobic and lipophilic amino acids, so it absorbs very well, yeah. Yeah, when you do AOD for weight loss, what else… do you like the, also the mitochondrial boosting peptides along with that?  

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

The only one’s I’m using is, I’ve used NOX, which I’m telling patients to do on a weekly basis. And then I’m also, I’m just testing out the SS31 on a few patients.  

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

That’s right, yeah, so, SS31, can you tell, talk about SS31?  

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

Well, as far as I was doing some reading on it, it looks like it seems to be improving mitochondrial efficiency and improving the energy production of the cells. So, I think the studies showed in mice, the mice were given SS31, the older mice became younger, I think after a couple of months. There was also some human studies that also showed some improvement in elderly patients.  

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, and when you look at all these studies on aging and age-related illnesses, they have a number of things in common. You know, immune dysfunction, you know your thymus goes, you get that poor, you know, TH1, TReg, so you can’t fight infections, can’t fight cancer, but the TH2 is too high, so all this inflammation, autoimmunity. And then also mitochondrial dysfunction is huge. So, the cells actually don’t have enough energy to even detox, to kick out heavy metals. They don’t have enough energy to die when they’re supposed to. So, the cell needs to energy to do what’s called apoptosis, so the cell, the body, the cells have an inherent mechanism and when they can senescent and they don’t work very well, they self destruct… or they should, but they don’t have enough energy to. So, all of a sudden, you add the energy, now they can die, and it’s called autophagy, where you’re getting rid of all the old bad cells. 

Which, there’s a lot of people promote it and I agree, is you want to do some things for autophagy and get rid of those old cells first, and then start promoting the health. Because you don’t want to promote, like, you know, make a senescent cell all crazy, especially the mitochondria, causes a lot of inflammation. And things like the, TB4, TB4-FRAG, BPC heal the mitochondria, actually Allinia which is antiparasitic, antiviral, anticancer, actually that’s not in the literature, it’s not approved for that, but it’s amazing substance. Metformin, Resveratrol, all the bioflavonoids are great at autophagy as well. Intermittent fasting does that as well. So, get rid of the bad cells before you try to, you don’t want to stimulate all the cells, you want to get rid of the bad ones first.  

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

What’s your experience with fasting intermittent diet?  

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

You know, I don’t promote much diet, because I don’t want to be a hypocrite because I eat like crap. And I tried the fasting intermittent diet, and I did, I lost like ten pounds, but then I gained fifteen back. So, and I’m also with exercise, I’m religiously exercise, it’s my passion, every four months for eight minutes, you know, rain or shine. So, I don’t want to be a hypocrite, so I don’t talk about it. There’s so many people that can tell you more about like what to do, exercise and stuff.  

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

I think the way you explained about autophagy, that’s exactly, that’s where it really is now, that’s so exciting the science now, senescence and how to help get rid of those cells that are in the senescence.  

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, and I mean, it’s amazing, you look at people, you know, I have friends in their eighties that you could swear they’re forty. You know, and other people who are sixty, and they’re like, what I remember thinking in high school, someone’s sixty, that’s nursing home, you know. I’m fifty six and I’m like damn, I’m almost sixty. And you think about whatever with the Simpsons, Mr. Burns, whatever, and just hunched over and people are like that. And it’s such a difference. Like do you want to live longer if you’re in a nursing home, and don’t have your faculties and can barely do anything? I wouldn’t. 

So, I think that’s the big thing, the health span and vitality span versus life span. And you look at the money spent in people’s last year or two of life is huge, we spend all this money to keep them alive but they’re already, you know, their heart’s failing and you know, they got dementia, they can’t remember anything, and neuropathy and diabetes. And that’s like you know, when I got heart failure, it’s just… from Lyme, it’s like I can’t live like this. I’m not going to go on where I, you know, couldn’t stand up and would walk one mile an hour. 

I remember going around the world and trying to catch my plane just sweating, you know, trying to make the plane at a mile an hour, with my head bent down like a bowl and then pulling my suitcase in the snow and getting on the subway in New York, like this and it’s crowded. And thinking someone’s just going to, you know, hit me in the back of the head because I’m annoying. But, yeah, stuff like that. And some people with heart failure, the peptides changed my life, reversed the heart failure. And studies show that with TB4 and BPC, certainly stem cells and exosomes helped, I love ozone. I mean, there’s a lot of things that worked and peptides are one part of them, you know. It’s a nice tool to have in your toolbox.  

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

Yeah, it’s pretty exciting. I’m so happy that you’re doing this summit because this is really the future of medicine.  

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, and so many people, you know, they hear about peptides and you know, you can give me people studies and doctors, they’re not going to, okay, they want to hear what doctors are doing, and what you’re finding that works. Because I’m telling you, they’ll be a study that comes out and shows you X treatment is so great, I find it doesn’t work. I use it, I’m like wait a minute, the study is showing it’s wonderful, like I haven’t seen any benefit. Or sometimes it’s the first person it works on but then no one else after that. Or it’s like T2, you know, basically the thyroid there’s T4, T3, there’s also T2 which stimulates mitochondrial function. And the studies showed, like oh my gosh, this will be great for weight loss. And there are some people it works amazing, where they’re like this stuff is amazing, but the majority of people we found it didn’t work. 

It’s safe, so it’s something to try but it’s probably 15% of people who notice a difference. And there’s certainly not enough T2 in like armor and those things, so we’re doing like probably 600 to 800 micrograms a day of that. I mean, no side effects, but I’ll tell people try it for a month, if it works great, if it doesn’t no worries. But for people it works on it’s like, it’s amazing. And another mitochondrial booster. I think it’s the same with everything. You know, the other mitochondrial boosters, some people are like, oh my God, I feel like superman. I think all the peptides, I think, really everything’s like that. You can look, you know, why… and I think that’s the problem, people go to the internet and oh my God, cure me with this herb, you know, but try it on a bunch of people, it doesn’t work. 

And so, I love patients that go to the internet and look for everything, you know, if a doctor says stop reading the internet, run. But just bring it back and we’ll talk about it, you know. And a lot of things just work on a few people, but we got to play, one, percentages, you want things that work for the majority of people, are safe, you know, effective and cost. So, you try to weigh all those things and, which is like, a patient says, well my doctor says this… you know. Well, you ask three doctors, you get four different opinions. And we found the less a doctor knows the more adamant they are that they’re right. You know, I think you’ve probably found when you get into this biohacking and dig deep in all this stuff, you realize how little we know.  

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

That’s the thing, I still think it’s, it’s still quite a bit of an art. I’d like it to be a bit more, unfortunately, you know the blood tests we have unfortunately don’t provide enough guidance. Okay, well which peptide will work in each person. Some of it’s a bit of a…  

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, and that’s why I tell doctors that you know, the labs are piece of information. And I love getting a ton of labs, we usually get 35 for the sickest patients, but they’ve been everywhere, and you know, you look at the chart, it’s CBC, chem panels, and electrolytes, or you don’t find anything. Well, if you don’t look… and you should, we know what’s going to be wrong, but also our job is to convince the patient and also convince the patient’s doctor that hey, you’re in the right spot, here’s what’s going on. But any one test, it could be a lab error, it could be, you know, and there’s no perfect test. I love to run a lot of great tests, but you know, costs and a lot of tests are great in research because they’re right there and doing it, but once they try to commercialize them, then you got a tech drawing it, it sits out. 

We sent our internet guy, just pretty basic labs, just he went to Quest and then LabCorp, or LabCorp and Quest, they were right on top of each other. He didn’t eat or anything, just went from one to the other. One showed he was diabetic, the other showed his blood sugar was awesome. Yeah, and one insulin was sky high, the other one was low, I mean… and these are just standard labs. So, you’ve got to take everything with a grain of salt. So, I don’t understand why doctors, they order a lab and it’s abnormal and they go, oh, it’s a false positive. Well, why did you run the lab if you’re not going to do anything about it? You know. So, anyways. What labs do you like to get?  

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

Yeah, I tend to get like, I’m looking at the hormones, like free testosterone, estradiol, DHEA, but I’m also looking at HSCRP, lipoprotein A, LLAPLA2. 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

So, you’re looking for prevention, heart disease and…  

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

I’m looking for signs of inflammation, you know…  

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, and I think the whole cholesterol theory of heart disease I think is dead. I mean, there’s so many studies. I mean, inflammation is huge. Yeah, and a lot of patients, for instance the Lyme patients have so much inflammation, but their CRP is normal. And also, we found that some people check SED rates, if that’s low, often they have coagulation defect, immune deactivation of coagulation. And give them a little heparin, like they’ll line the, the infection will cause the body to line the vessels with fibrin, not a clot but now it’s lining it, so oxygen it usually takes two seconds to get into the cell, now it takes up to two minutes and waste products can’t get out, nutrients can’t get in, hormones, peptides, like if things don’t work, it’s something to really look at. 

And you can do a little kind of parlor trick, it’s not perfect, because it depends on also patients and their effort, but normally if you have someone breathe out all their air, have a pulse ox on, and hold their breath. And so normally, so the oxygen from the lungs, basically goes into the blood stream, and then through the heart, into the cells and then in the cell it’s utilized. So, you look at the pulse ox, that will go down as you shut off the oxygen. But if they have a coagulation defect, it stays, barely goes down. So, if someone like holds their breath and makes good effort, it goes from like you 97, 98 down to like 80, some people 70s, that’s actually the blood is getting into the, oxygen’s getting into the tissues, but if it doesn’t, it’s a marker for a coagulation defect. So, when you clear that up and all of a sudden, the treatments that didn’t work before, now start working.  

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

Give them some heparin, is that what you’d do then?  

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

So, usually, it’s very safe, safer than aspirin, because it’s super low dose. And people go, oh, my gosh, you’re on a blood thinner, if you talk to a hematologist they’ll say, why are you giving that, it’s homeopathic dose. But also, the enzymes like lumbrokinase, they’re the best, nattokinase. So, I tell people, I’ve got good news and bad news, the bad news is you have coagulation defect. The good news is you got a coagulation defect, we can treat it. So, there’s a panel we do for that. Nice. So, I love all this stuff that you’re doing, anything else you’re kind of excited about.

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

I’m excited about this well everything about Bio-Hacking is about measurements so I have this ring these days it’s called the oura ring. It’s really cool it basically checks your heart rate. It’s a really interesting measurement because basic can tell you the stress that your system is under so 

you know so even if you have one or two drinks the nigh before that your heart-rate variability will go down during the night. 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Can you explain heart-rate variability and why? 

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

Heart rate variability is the variation of your heart beat and when you’re relaxed and your parasympathetic system is working well there is a good variation between beat to beat. And when someone’s stressed again it’s like imagine your stiff your heart rate becomes stiff so there’s less variation. 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

That actually measures that. 

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

Yeah it’s pretty awesome and so you really compete against yourself. It’s not about checking with somebody else you can see day to day. You know if your over training you’ll know such heart rate variability take a day or two to come back to normal. 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Wow, wow. And we’ve seen more and more of these athletes you know and weekend warriors and they’ve gotta finish this marathon and all of a sudden they crash and they’ve got like [inaudible] syndrome and immune system is shocked and that’s very interesting because I think someone bought me a watch or whatever I’ve never worn it but that sounds interesting what does it cost you know? 

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

It’s about US $400 oura ring, it’s O-U-R-A R-I-N-G, Oura Ring and NBA has come out I think they made it official they want all the players to use now so it’s pretty cool. 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Wow I have to check it out and yeah. I think more and more we are also going be getting into that you know measurement of you know individual measurements of that and you can monitor your so I think people really need to take an active role in their healthcare because you know just 

going for the checkup with their doctor I mean they find nothing you know. 

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

I think we need to start I think doctors, coz there’s no way for us to know everything all we can do is guide the patients now and just like you know the IPhone allows people to take movies on their own. Technology allows people to take charge of their own health and the tools are there now but we can probably provide guidance but there’s no way we can 100% know all of it ourselves and so patients are to do it themselves they need to go out there and, informations out there now. 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

And I find too, I think it goes back, kind of circles back to the beginning and seems to sum it up a little bit that I think people, some people when they try and take active role in their health care it’s so confusing because you read you know all the stuff in the internet this is good, this is bad, the official stand is this which is usually wrong but those are the sites now that come up you know google suppressing any alternative facts or doesn’t matter how many references you have if you have a couple of buzz words, bio-identical, integrative, alternative it’s like you get penalized and you don’t come up and so people see and think well I read this and this you know well here’s 200 studies showing that that’s incorrect but that’s the stands of the [Inaudible] society and so you can see these adds to their anxiety so a lot of people. I’m so sick and this and that and I go well you should consider this and my doctor says I don’t have any well okay how’s that working for you and they’re scared to make a decision you know because they are just bombarded basically conflicting information so it’s difficult. 

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

Yeah I don’t envy I think it’s quite difficult to navigate and so we can only be a guidance to help people navigate this is very difficult. 

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Well great it looks like you’re doing some great work and on the cutting edge and I think you’re the second person from Canada that I interviewed but working in so many restrictions here and all our stuff FDA is trying to shut down everything but I think it’s big Pharma. Awesome, keep 

up the work and thank you for taking the time and sharing your knowledge and experience, I think it’s going to be really helpful for all of the viewers.  

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

Thank you so much Kent. It was my pleasure.  

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Great, thanks a lot.  

Sanjeev Goel, MD, FCFP (PC), CAFCI

Okay, bye-bye.