How Peptides and Biohacking Can Help You Age Younger Naturally with Nathalie Niddam

Intro to peptides and ancestral biohacking 0:00

So what do peptides and biohacking have to do with ancestral health? Well, in today's episode, you'll learn that peptide are very often fragments of naturally occurring amino acids in the body. Today's guest, Natalie Needham, bridges the modern bio-hack practice of peptid therapy with the wisdom of ancestral practices. You will be surprised that no matter what biohack you embrace for longevity, Natalie combines ancestral health principles with contemporary bio-hacking techniques, focusing on sustainable practices that align with our evolutionary biology.

Welcome back to Everyday Ancestral. I'm your host, James Berry. Please enjoy our next episode with Natalie Needham. Yeah, well, James, nice to see you too. Thank you for having me on. And I am glowing red. The reason why I'm glowing is because as of a little while ago, I've been working with a company called Mitolux for a couple of years now. and the first product that they brought out to market was a small infrared and red light panel that also delivered a measured dose of UVB.

Red light, UVB, and vitamin D 1:12

And what UVB does is it helps your body to make its own vitamin D, which is really great, right? So for someone who lives in a climate where it's hard for me to get out and also like the sun is actually not at a good angle for my body, to generate its on vitamin d for most of the year, I'm kind of in world where I don't make a lot of vitamin because from an ancestral perspective, my ethnic background, is based on getting a lot of sun. So my body protects me from making too much vitamin D from the sun, which is great, except for the part where when you don't live in that climate anymore, you now are at a real disadvantage for making enough vitamin B for what you need.

And so What the manufacturer did recently is he launched a new panel, which has all those same features, but also has what's called the Firelight feature or Fireplace feature. And the fireplace feature is literally just red and near-infrared light. And when you have it on when your sitting in front of an artificial blue light source like your computer, it helps to kind of offset and mitigate all the negative impacts of that artificial Blue light, which is, you know, skin aging and all, even for the eyes.

And I find that on a heavy work day, I get to the end of the day with way better energy. than I do when I'm sitting in front of my computer under my artificial lights all day. So, it doesn't replace going outside, but it's definitely a really nice, you know, It's a nice hack for when you're indoors a lot more than maybe you should be. Yeah, You bring up a real good point. Because I think about that a lots and it has been coming up on a few episodes about how a a of people have been helping to recalibrate their their sleep patterns by just waking up early, getting some of that early morning sun.

But to your point, sometimes you live in areas or different seasons where there is no early-morning sun, Yeah, I think I would say there are two different things, right? Because I can still get outside and get that early morning sun for circadian benefits, which is what they're doing. Okay. Where this lamp is different is the other thing you get from the sun is UVB exposure that really only happens kind of midday. Is what a lot when it comes in contact with your skin is what allows your body to make your own vitamin D.

So that's ostensibly how we're supposed to get our vitamin d so You know what? He's done is he's mimicked and you know, he is an interesting guy. You should talk to him because you now he coming at it also from a very very ancestral perspective in the sense that he's like, okay, I'm going to mimic what happens during the day with your exposure to red, near-infrared, blue. So when you run the program, and the duration of your exposed to UVB is based on your Fitzpatrick scale skin type.

What biohacking means for longevity 4:12

And so I will, you know, my, I mean, now I've been doing it for long enough that I have gone up from a Fitzpatrick Type 3 to FitzPatrick type 4. And what happens is I get the lamp runs for seven minutes and for the first couple of minutes it's running red and infrared. And then for a few minutes in between, it brings in also the UVB. So it's mimicking a little bit of what the sun does, and then it finishes with the red and infrared again. And he's got sensors in there that if you're too close to the device, the UBB will shut off.

Because if get too much UV or you get it from too closely, you will burn. Ah, interesting. How often do you have to do it throughout the, is it just seven minutes, what, three times a day or? Once. If you're trying to optimize your vitamin D levels, it's once a. Right now there's no UVB coming from this light. And so it literally just the red and infrared. Well, this is a great place to start though, because you are known in the biohacking communities. You are a longevity expert. Why is it that longevity and biohacking seem to go together?

Like what, for those that really don't understand the whole bio hacking community, the terms, can you just kind of share like what is bio-hackin' from your perspective and why is associated so closely with longevity? Yeah, that's a great question. So for me, biohacking is looking at our environment, looking the inputs into our system. And I think, you know, and it's funny, I that bio hacking for has evolved a little bit as a definition. Because what I where I people kind of get a bit of a disconnect, a lot of people are going to say, You know what, why do you need this red light?

Just get outside. Why do you need to take these supplements? Just eat real food, ground, get outside. And I'm like, yes, and none of us, or I don't certainly live in a great environment. I live a big city. There's a significant amount of pollution here. there's lot of toxins in the air. i'm swimming in an non-native EMF soup, no matter what I do. You know, I am hooked up to a an ethernet cable here, but I bet you if I turned on my phone right now, I would see at least 10 different Wi-Fi networks.

So there's a certain degree of things that we just can no longer control in our environment. And so to me, what biohacking is, it's two things. The first thing is What do we need to do? What principles do need we to apply to help us get to a baseline of balance? And that means that we have to mitigate for some of these overwhelming inputs that our bodies are being challenged with on a minute-to-minute daily basis. And I'm not saying this to freak people out or to make people think, oh my God, I really need worry about the air that I breathe.

Without being panicky about it and without getting neurotic about, we also need to accept that our bodies are being forced to deal with a lot of things that we just weren't designed to. And so if we can. Put things back into balance if we can mitigate, if can find strategies that help to offset, like having, you know, I have two Jasper air scrubbers in my house. These are air purifiers that do a really good job of cleaning the air. I have to accept that I live in an environment that is not that healthy.

And so my indoor air is going to be that unhealthy. So by putting two of those things in my house, I'm getting into a world where I can at least control for the air that's, that breathe most of the day. I am still going go outside. Am not going wear a hazmat suit or a mask, but I do what I, can to mitigate what can when I. The next step of biohacking is once we've done all those and once gotten ourselves to kind of a balanced state, now we get into the part where it's kind like the bio hacking 2.0. What can we do to really try and slow down the aging process.

And other people will talk about reversing the ageing process and whether we can truly reverse aging remains to be seen, but we definitely do a lot of things to avoid speeding it up. That's for darn sure. We can definitely at the very least bring it back to aging at a normal rate. And I've definitely seen evidence that we can slow aging. So now we're getting into things like inhaling hydrogen air or doing things, like a nano V or, um, And then there's the whole space of regenerative medicine and that's starting to get really crazy, right?

We've got things like stem cells and exosomes and growth factors and gene therapy. And now we're starting you know, kind of, we can call it crazy, but really just like the more aggressive strategies for living a longer, more vital, healthy life. And that's where they intersect, right? Because if we could slow down the aging process, and I would argue that if don't do any of this stuff that I talked about initially, our environments and our lifestyles risk accelerating our aging process and even things like controlling chronic stress, which I think chronic stresses becoming unfortunately all too common.

And so can you develop some kind of a mindfulness or breath work or any kind strategy to help to create some buffer between you and what's crazy in the world to you? Right? Yeah, I love this. Cause what I hear you saying is that you look for a marriage of ancestral principles and using technology and these tools to help to offset how kind of

Gene therapy, ethics, and designer babies 10:18

extreme modern life has become in terms of how harmful and accelerating our aging it has started to do. But how do you kind, cause I'm sure you've heard this before, like where people talk about Well, are we trying to play God with some of these things? Like, cause I feel like even when you were just starting to go to these extreme kind of gene things, like I just read recently that they were successful in basically customizing, I want to say a child's DNA, so that people could literally order the type of child they want in terms of coloring everything.

And then that's what they get. I mean, I feel like that where we're going and that really does, in my judgment, border on like, oh, we are going into like really scary territory. Correct. You said something a minute ago. I think that a lot of the biohacking 1.0, I'll call it that, is about bringing us back to nature or using technology to bring back elements of nature into our life that we've lost. It's not going to replace getting out into nature, but it's helping me to mitigate my reality of being inside in front of a computer for too many hours a day.

As far as gene therapies go, I recently interviewed a woman by the name of Liz Parrish, and she's part of a group of people that absolutely are in a world of delaying death and extending vitality as long as humanly possible. And she herself has done four different types of gene therapy on herself and is showing that, and she looks the part, not gonna lie, but is that it's actually slowing down her aging. You can see it in her labs and her blood work and our performance. But here's what's really interesting about that.

And I'll get to the custom child in a minute. What's interesting the work that she does is in shooting for this extreme longevity, let's call it, What's happening is that a lot of health issues that have been considered unsolvable could get solved along the way. So things like type 1 diabetes. At a conference I was at recently, she showed a video of a child who I believe had muscular dystrophy. I could be wrong about the disorder, but whatever it was, it a genetic disorder that they showed this little boy from the back.

He was trying to climb a set of stairs. There was no way he was getting up these stairs, no They administered a gene therapy to this child. Three months later, the next video is this kid running up the stairs. That is life-changing. You know, I think when she first started what she was doing, it was because her son had been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and she wanted to solve that. And she realized very quickly that solving for disease was complicated. It was expensive and it really heavily regulated.

So she moved into this kind of longevity space. But as she explains, you get to solved a lot of health problems when you start to when you start to, you know, change the way the genes are expressing, like a telomerase gene, which is telomeres is the enzyme that protects the ends of your DNA, your telameres, helping them to replicate appropriately. If you can solve for teloma rays, you know, is it possible that that gene therapy could be part of a solution for children who are born with a genetic disorder called progeria that causes, you now, it's a complicated disease and it is very unlikely that one gene is going to actually solve the whole problem.

But these are kids who start aging kind of like at five times the normal rate the day that they're born. So that by the time they are 20 years old, not only do they die, but they've died of all these chronic age-related illnesses that people suffer. So their arteries harden, their skin wrinkles, they shrink, and they lose bone. All the things happen to them at this crazy accelerated rate. I think that that application of gene therapy is unbelievable and could really be massively impactful to people suffering from really horrible diseases.

Even she even has one for cognition, which could be very helpful for people who have cognitive experiencing, cognitive decline or dementia or neurodegenerative diseases. Now this is all work that's ongoing. So I'm not saying she has the solutions yet. As far as creating a designer baby with gene therapy, I think we're crossing the line. That's my personal opinion. It's one thing if you're able to analyze a genome of a fetus and say, oh, this kid's heading for trouble. What if you could control for APO-LP little a or something, right?

And prevent this child from having a cholesterol problem for their whole lives. That might be interesting. But when you start choosing eye color, hair color height, like aesthetic features, physical ability, that kind of stuff, Now, I mean, and this is me, many people could disagree with me. But to me we're crossing the line and we were denying ourselves the breadth and depth of what humanity is supposed to be. Yeah. Well, but, you know, to that point, You know, one could argue that these kind of contrast, these, what some people would look at as issues that people have now, whether they're caused from the toxicity of our present day, or just it's part of life, how sometimes, you know genetics, just you pop out something that's a little off or different, right?

That sometimes it these differences that And this is getting a little spiritual, but it's like that maybe that soul needs on the, in this lifetime, you know, that kind of esoteric kind. And who are we to kind look at that and say, well, no, That's wrong or right. But I, I hear what you're saying is like, look, if. if this is what we're given right now because of how life is, then if we can solve and fix it, why wouldn't we? But I guess the thing that pops up for me is I think about like, for example, the poultry industry, right?

They cage the birds, they keep them in these confined places where they were pecking at each other or themselves, and so what do they do instead of saying, oh, well, maybe they don't do well in this tight confined spaces, They cut off the beat. Yeah, it's horrible. And to me, that is kind of what we're doing is like we are not going, hey, maybe we should rethink how we were doing this because it is resulting in continued chronic illness or this or that. I know that people say, well, we don't know for sure, but we know clearly there are more issues popping up than there used to be, I think, right?

It's not just that we have more testing, is it? No. Look, there is a difference between a kid that's born with muscular dystrophy or a child who has type 1 diabetes, these are not controllable by, I mean, maybe there's something in the environment that is causing these genetic mutations, but I don't know. But these aren't lifestyle diseases. I think that if you were the parent of one of these kids and somebody said to you, We can help your child to live a normal healthy life that is not filled with suffering.

Yeah. You take it. And I mean, is there on, you know, on a, spiritual level, if that soul came back under those circumstances, Sometimes it's, I mean, if you believe in those things and if, you've read up about it, sometimes it a lesson that soul needs to learn. It's something that's soul chose. Sometimes, it teach the people around them certain lessons. Are we interfering with that? Heck yeah. I don't have the answer to that.

Natalieu2019s path into health and longevity 18:30

You know, can only tell you that as a parent, If I had the choice between watching my child suffer and live a life of suffering. And if I could end that suffering somehow by making them healthier, I probably wouldn't care so much about anything else. I would just want to bring an end to their suffering. Yeah, the gray area would be about what works, what doesn't work. What can I do to help that child? So, you know, these are very good questions and they're good things to think about. There's no doubt that we're already in a world where technology is starting to outstrip our ability to balance the ethics of what we can do with what should do.

Well said, very well said. I would never pretend to have the answer to that. Maybe it's part of the human evolution. Who knows? Maybe part our journey as a species is to learn to solve these problems and these people have come along with these problem all along. to help us to get to a place where we can solve them, maybe, right? But- Yeah, no, totally. It could be either or, you're right, and we could philosophize all we want, but the reality is, is like, the parent, like you said, that's dealing with it, they want the result now.

They want help now, it's not about- They don't want their child not to suffer. You know, their want your child to be able to run and play and have a normal life. That fundamentally is what, we all hope for. Now, what motivated you to go down this path of health and your interest in longevity? Did something happen to you or were you sick at one point or? Well, I started to get old. I would say that 10, 15 years ago when I went back to school to become a holistic nutritionist, it was about helping, you know, My first career was in sales and advertising, right?

But I was always a fitness instructor and I've always been interested in health. And I studied physiology in university. I the kid that, I, was the nerdy kid, that read National Geographic from front to back. I think when I first got married, I had cases of National Geographic that had to be pried out of my fingers and disposed of because it's like, you can't just keep collecting this stuff. I've always had this very, very keen interest in health. And, you know, eventually living and being a fitness instructor kind of gave me a little, always allowed me to kind keep my finger in the whole helping people part, right, and health and wellness.

And what ended up happening is I woke up one morning and realized, this sales thing is not working for me. Like, it's not feeding me, I don't like it. You can only say to yourself, they can't possibly be paying me enough to do this so many times before you decide they're not paying you enough. I just don't care enough, I don' care about moving money from here to there, it doesn't make a difference to me. The paleo movement was getting really big. People like J.J. Virgin had come out with the Virgin diet.

We had guys like Rob Wolf. Guys like Mark Sisson was just coming up at the time. Even Dave Asprey was coming out big at that. Everybody was that kind of initial wave, if you will. And I just got super interested in, I decided to go back to school and become a holistic nutritionist because I've always been interested food and I have always interested the body's ability to heal. I always kind of had this belief that the has a massive capacity for repair and regeneration built in but we need to figure out how to tap into it and how get out of the way.

And then the longevity piece really I think evolved over the last five to six years. And it's born out of, and for me, longevity, I'm not going to sit here and tell you I am aiming to live to, what, 180. I mean, to leave for as long as I can be healthy and vital and contributing. And the day that that is over, whether it is at 90 or 100 or 110, if I m lucky, or 120, so be it. This may not be a popular opinion, but I believe, back to your point, there's a natural circle of life. Like we're meant to be here for a period of time and then we are meant not to here after that because it's an evolution.

Imagine if you were never going to die, James, how would that affect your psychology, the way that you live your life and interact with people?

Foundations: sleep, light, food, and exercise 23:30

I don't know. To me, that's inconceivable and it is not, as much as I do not want to I don't think I want that either. Well, unless everyone around you and that you love is also on the same track. I mean, I know Dick Van Dyke is talking about this because I think he's 100 now. He's talking how, yes, he is enjoying his life as much as he can, but everyone he knew is gone. Yeah, they're all dead. They're dead and he's like, I don't have my friends anymore. And that begs the question of like what is the point of this life?

Is it about the things we achieve or is it the connections we make? It's both, right? And I'm sure Dick Van Dyke is still surrounded by people. It just his peer group hasn't kept up with him. So is possible that as we learn to to control for all these things that are shortening our lives unnaturally or that're making us sick or accelerating our aging. If we can do that as a society, can we age better as society? Be less of a burden on our loved ones, be less a of burden of society as we aged. As a result, get more out of the lives, the years that we live and then, and still come to a good end whenever that may be.

I know I like, I liked that thought a lot. So, so, okay. Let's just say, um, someone is new just beginning their journey, just like you did, you know, So long ago, but with your knowledge and, and what you've seen come up, where do you think they should start? Yeah, so where they should start depends on where are, right? So if this is someone who, you know, really is new to this space, this someone didn't have the benefit of coming from a family where, they ate home cooked meals every day, They got outside, didn' t spend a ton of time in front of screens.

If they didn t have those benefits, then you have to start there, Right? You have start with a super unsexy, foundation that is get to bed at a reasonable time so that you can get quality sleep, get outside at least a few times a day so your brain gets the natural light inputs that it needs to regulate your circadian rhythm which has a huge number of downstream effects. Move your body like I'm standing at my desk right now. Like I figured out quite a while ago that if I sit for those eight to 10 hours, I am done.

I try to get up. You're cutting off your circulation. It's not healthy. So I have a walking treadmill, which I don't use as much as I used to. Number one, if record my podcast on that, people get really annoyed because it's distracting. Yeah, you're kind of moving. You're balancing, and people are like, what are you doing? This is really annoying. But I actually have a 20-pound kettlebell under my desk, so I have one foot up on the kettle bell just to change up my posture on a regular basis. So move your body during the day.

Get that quality sleep. Get the natural light. Once we've checked those off, eat real food. Like, you've got to clean out your cupboards, guys. You've gotta go back to eating whole foods. And even if, even Our soils are not as rich as they should be and we're not getting as many nutrients. It's still, don't forget that food's not just calories, it's just not nutrients, its information. And this is where I think, and this a whole different discussion, but this where the Beyond Burgers of the world are so freaking scary, right?

Because lab-grown meat, to me, is an example of human arrogance to the nth degree. Yeah, it's playing God as well, right? It's the same. It is one thing to make a burger out of nuts and seeds and legumes. I mean, whatever you believe, if that's what's going to float your boat, at least it is real food. But if you're going start growing your food in a lab, I think there's a lot of danger signs there. Wholeheartedly agree. Whole heartedly. And then exercise, right? And you have to challenge your body.

You need to build muscle and maintain muscle. Now there's been this big thing over the last few months of people saying, you need build muscles, lift heavy weights. Absolutely. But now there is this backlash of saying you don't really need that much muscle, and I'm like, could we just not Do that. Could we just tell people and be clear? You need to lift heavy things as heavy as you can lift because if you don't challenge your body, nobody's telling everybody they have to walk around with like a hundred pounds of muscle on their frame.

That's actually not efficient and it's not that good for you. But we are saying that my goal is that in my 80s and my 90s, I'm standing as straight and as tall as I am right now. And that's only going to happen if I keep challenging my body to maintain itself and to remain flexible and strong. I love it, but you're bringing up something that this whole, like, we're going one direction, then we go to another. To me, that's so human, right? We're so, always we want the comfort of consistency, yet we are so inconsistent.

Yeah, I think also, don't forget the power of social media. People are looking for clicks, they're looking eyeballs, looking attention. And so they are going to say the most controversial thing that they can think of that challenges the current status quo so that people will go, wait, what? I didn't know that. What does that mean? Oh my God, does mean I don't have to exercise? Thank God. I can stay, I couldn't be comfortable. So it's unfortunate that now we're in a world where social media puts us in, is a new input.

It's a new thing we have to control for, and I'm on social media and building my following, but I am not building as fast as some people because I flat out refuse to say the crazy shit that's going to get people's attention. Like it just won't. Right? Like right now, there's this massive thing going on. There's some study, a study came out where there are 2,000 lawsuits against Novos. for against Ozempic, because there's people who have woken up blind and it's being attributed to the Ozmpic. And it is legitimately being a attributed the to OzMPic but what nobody wants to talk about is who are these people?

What dose were they on? what were their underlying conditions? And truthfully, the truth is nobody can understand what the mechanism of action is for this happening. But it's happening, but we also know that people who are diabetic are very prone to blindness. And so, and in the study, what they talked about is a lot of these people, if most, not all of them, had seen a massive sudden drop in blood glucose and a sudden massive drop of weight. And the body doesn't love massive shifts like that. It needs time to adapt.

And I'm not saying that that's the reason, but is it possible that is part of what's happening? Can we please ask more questions?

Protein, digestion, and stomach acid 31:00

put on major aggressive doses because they had a lot of weight to lose too fast before their bodies can adapt? Is it possible that that's like, you know, as we've become so dramatic that we don't stop and ask questions and we give time people to say, okay, well, let me explain or Let's look into this and let's ask more questions. Like, if you look at the flip side of the 2000 lawsuits, and there's lots of other lawsuits. There's lawsuits for gastroparesis, which is paralysis of stomach. Those are the ones for, I think, what's that other, pancreatitis, can also be an issue.

None of them numbers are as big as that one, but, or maybe they are actually. I don't know the numbers. And I take that back. But the flip side of that is that there are millions of people who were completely stuck, whose metabolisms were complete broken, who have been helped dramatically. by these compounds. Is it true that if you're gonna use this stuff, you need to, it's even more important to eat a great diet. It's more even important, to manage your sleep. Its even, more to exercise. But the problem is that people are stuck on aesthetics.

They just care that they fit into their size six jeans. they don't actually care, that there any stronger or there are any healthier. And that's where we see this, and they wanna get there in a rush. See, I feel like though you are, first of all, you're so beautifully navigating the kind of human situation in my judgment. But I also feel you like you capturing that we, as humans, we kind look towards the loudest person in the room or the shiny bright light. And so I guess my question then around that is, so how do we support people so that they're asking more questions, so they are more curious about these natural, starting with more natural modalities of health, like just kind of not going towards the shiny object or that magic pill, how do we support in the grounding of people in their health?

That's such a good question. I think it comes back to the choices that people make for themselves. There's not much we can do about the voices that are screaming from the rooftops, look at me, right? What we help people to do is become more discerning about voices they choose to listen to. And that's hard, right? So it's a little bit like you have to establish your own framework. It's like establishing your value system. Is this person intolerant? Did this plant a flag on a hill and is gonna die on that hill?

Or is this willing to admit every once in a while, oh God, you know what, I used to say that. Actually, I wasn't right. I've learned new information because if you can't accept that you made a mistake or you Can't except that new Information has come to light that is changing your position on something then that's not probably the person you want to follow necessarily. Because confidence is a beautiful thing, but arrogance is the dark side of confidence, right? And if there's one thing we both know is that nobody has all the answers when it comes to our health.

Nobody, because it's this ever, not only did the human body not come with a manual, but to add insult to injury, every body is different. And now we have new inputs we never had to deal with before. So even the things that were true 10 years ago or in our grandparents' time have changed because our world has changed. Okay, so this is a fun topic then. So if there was one, and I'm gonna use air quotes, healthy, that people think it's healthy and it talked about a lot right now that, people are doing in the name of wellness, what do you think that is?

What do think people is healthy that they're doing, but in your opinion is like, it is not at all. And then what would you recommend they do instead? That's a tough one. I think it's possible that the protein message is being overplayed. I believe it is true that many people don't get enough protein. But I also think that what's happened is there's been a hyper focus to protein, and now people are like, oh my God, more is better, so find the voices that are going to help you to understand how much protein do you need based on where you are in your life based on your health status right now, based your activity levels.

Now, at a baseline, most people don't get enough protein, right? But do we all need to be consuming 1.8 or 2.0 grams of protein? Do we need every single meal to deliver 70 grams a protein. No, no we don' right. Not all of us. If you're looking to get buff, I mean I see some of these influencers and trainers and They're amazing, man. I want to come back looking like them sometime. But you know, like there's this one girl, she's adorable and she is like one can of chicky and this to this and by the time she has done she got this bowl which I don't think I could eat in a day.

It's got like 75 grams of protein and these many grams and I'm like dude, but she built like a like a figure competitor, right? Which is amazing, but I'm thinking of all these regular people watching this, building their can of Chickie Bowls, and and wondering why they're kind of stuck in their journey or not realizing that they are not producing enough digestive enzymes or HCl to actually break down that protein so that that can digest it. There's so much more to increasing your protein intake than just eating more protein.

Can we take a step back and check in with our digestion and figure out, am I even breaking this stuff down? Maybe that's why I'm deficient in protein? Yeah, it's such a good point. And through my 20 years in this health field, I have definitely found hydrochloric acid is a major issue. Cause when you start out talking about stress, right? That is in major cause of, you know, low hydro chloracacic. So we have to assume that we low, hydro-chloric acid because it sets a stressful life, all right.

Peptides and bioregulators for repair 38:00

And as we age, we make less. And you'll meet a lot of 70, 80, 90-year-olds who are like, oh, I can't eat meat. It's too heavy. I cannot digest it. You're right. Because you're not making enough stomach acid. Does that mean that person needs to now just up their protein? No. bitters before the meal to stimulate acid, maybe that for them, that's not going to be enough. Maybe they need to add digestive enzymes and HCl to their, to the regimen when they eat so that it helps their body to break down the protein.

And maybe then they can eat a reasonable amount of protein and be a-okay with that. What do you think of the apple cider vinegar, you know, in a glass of water before you eat your meal? I think it's great. I thing that can help to blend glycemic response. You know, I'd think apple cider vinegar also helps with digestive enzymes if I'm not wrong, but you know bitters are great before a meal. So you can, and I remember listening to a podcast about this years ago and the guy said, look, there's wisdom built into different cultures.

In the Italian, for example, world, you might have a small salad of arugula, which is a bitter, with extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper, and a bit of lemon juice. And that would be the bitters. That would getting your digestive system ramped up and ready to go for what's to come next. But if you don't have it in you and you like bitter foods, because so many of us are, you know, people's taste buds have evolved sadly towards sweet. Like we live in a culture where we no longer tolerate bitter.

We no long tolerate, we just don' tolerate anything that's not sweet, There's companies like Just Thrive has a bitters supplement you can take before your meal. And all it's doing is stimulating your own. So see if that helps you. You'll know you're not digesting your protein if your hair, skin and nails starts to fall apart, which everybody says, oh, that's your thyroid. Well, maybe it is not. Maybe it s your digestion. get some blood work done and calm down for a minute. So maybe it could be that.

It could that you feel heavy after you eat meat and it takes forever to digest it and you just, you know, like your body will tell you, the words will come out of your mouth, I just don't feel good when I eat me, right? Or it could be that you're not pooping regularly. Sometimes I've helped people to solve constipation with something to support their gallbladder, like a tudka, an ox bile, and digestive enzymes. And all of a sudden, they're regular, right as rain. Because their body just needed that support to get the system going.

It's a great reminder as well, because a lot of times when people, they'll eat meat or just using that as an example and they'd be like, oh, it just doesn't feel right. And then they just stop eating meat. It like I love that you're introducing, like it's not black or white. There is a gray area and it might be that, you are just not digesting the meat properly and you need support there. You don't have to throw the baby out with the bath water. I wanna talk about peptides, cause I know you know a lotta about that.

First of all, I think there is a misunderstanding that there are some people that think peptides are unnatural, but they're not really, right? I mean, many of them are taken from nature, can you talk about that? Yeah, yeah, they are. They're are not all, some of are synthetic molecules that are designed to interact with receptors in your body. Okay. Or they mimicking a natural peptide in body, I there's 7,000 peptids made by the human body all a peptid is, is a small protein. We're made up of protein.

And so the peptides are the smaller chains of amino acids. Some people put the limit at 100. Most people, put it at 50. There's talk that it's going to get lower to 40, to below 40. Which means that things like thymus and beta-4, which is a common peptide that people will use, even though it is not a proof for human use. kind of have to say that, thymus and beta-4 is 43 amino acids, so all of a sudden it'll be on the wrong side of the fence and they will qualify it as a biologic. And what's interesting about that is that tells us that there's value to it.

because they don't want people to interesting. Yeah. And I'm not going to assign full malice to it. All I am going say is that clearly it's doing something and the regulatory bodies are saying, well, wait, if it is so active, then we need to establish what it doing before we have people running around using it willy-nilly. Whether I agree with that or not is beside the point. I'm just delivering the information right now. Then you've got the BPC157. Bpc15 7, which is one of the better known peptides that people use, is a fragment of a peptide that we naturally make in our stomach.

It's part of our physiology. And so it can be reintroduced to the body therapeutically to help deliver therapeutic benefits. And, you know, it's so interesting because the FDA a couple of years ago decided that BPC157 is a research chemical. It is not approved for human use by injection, period. Nobody should be using it. Now, It can be taken orally. And people argue about this all the time. They're like, no, it's going to get broke down in the stomach. It's just another protein. Blah, blah, blah.

it does not. The body recognizes it. Its a recognizable sequence of amino acids arranged in a certain way that it gets a buy. And just last week, ironically, I had given each of my parents a bottle of an oral BPC formula that is a gut healing formula. So it has four different peptides in it. It has three or four other components we know are needed for gut-healing like glutamine, zinc, you know, all the regular stuff. And I get a call from my mom. I think I gave it to them three weeks ago when they were visiting, like at the beginning of August.

and I got a called from mother a week ago saying, we need more of that stuff, I was like, what do you mean? What did they experience? So I'm like, why? So in her case, her digestion improved, right? Because we're healing the stomach, we are healing GI tract. But the next thing that she's gonna say about her and my dad is something that people say doesn't happen. People believe that the only way for BPC to help with tissue and joints and injuries, soft tissue, and hard tissue injuries is to inject it.

And I generally would agree with that. I would say that is the most efficient way to use Bpc 157. But my mother and father not listening to what I tell them and not necessarily reading the instructions on the bottle have been doubling down on their dose of this supplement. And my mother, earlier this year, tore a muscle in her shoulder and my dad has a major problem in his back that causes him no end of discomfort. And both of them, she said, I was telling her father that my shoulder is feeling so much better.

He said oh, you know, funny, now that you mention it, my back feels better and I never even mentioned to them. that this was a possibility. Wow. Right? Which is the best way to test something. Because if you tell someone this is going to make your shoulder better, it's going make the shoulder, you know, there's a 50-50 chance that their belief will make their shoulder. Which in my mind is actually valid. Yeah. I mean, I love placebo effect. If you can convince someone that, that they're going feel better and they do feel and things get better rock on.

Power of suggestion. It works. Who cares how it works? 100%. But in this case, they had no clue and both of them noticed that they physically feel better. They have fewer aches and pains than they did before. This is so good, but for someone who, you had mentioned the whole idea of who wants to age younger. So someone's who's over 40, who want's to aged younger, what is a not so obvious protocol or supplement you'd have them start with today? So I would use, so this is something you and I have talked about before, and this dovetails a little bit with your business, your other business.

Which is the PLUC, which is about reintroducing organ meats into people's diets, right? There's a subset of bioregulator, of peptides called bi oregulated peptide. And bi-regulated are the tiniest of the proteins. These are two to four amino acid chains. They're teeny tiny. but they are epigenetic switches, meaning that they influence the way your genes express. Not as creepy as gene therapy, because they're natural to the body, but these are natural in nature. And there's a Russian scientist by the name of Vladimir Kavansin, who almost 40 years ago now, discovered these in Russia and studied them extensively for his entire career, started with computer simulations, moved into animals, and then moved in to human testing and was able to show that when we reintroduce these bioregulator peptides into the body, it helps to basically repair day-to-day damage or day to day deficiencies in the function of our tissues, glands, organs that we lose as we age.

So, the cool thing about bioregulators is that they don't boost anything, they do not suppress anything. They just try to bring things back into balance. So if I have someone who says to me, you know what, I just want to age better. I would say, of course, we are going to talk about all the things we talked about at the beginning. But I will also say that what these bi oregulator can do is they can help to restore better balance and function to the pineal gland. It controls your circadian cycle.

It control your melatonin production, which is going to be helpful for sleep and a whole bunch of other stuff because we know that melotonin is a major hormone in the body. Well, it's going help to upregulate more production of telomerase to protect the telomeres on the ends of your DNA. And then there's a bioregulator for the pancreas, maybe to give some TLC to the pankreas which has been working so hard for you for last 40, 50, 60 years. There's gonna be a decline in its function. So can we help the pancreas to kind of regenerate a little bit or speed up the regeneration?

There's one for the liver, for stomach, the heart, blood vessels, thymus gland. Like there's 21 different bioregulators. And I would, at this stage of the game, to err on the side of nature and safety, I'd err towards the natural bioregulators that are actual extracts from those tissues from animals. That's where we get to what you do. because where the bioregulators are extracted from are essentially organs. So the liver bi oregulator will be found in the river. The kidney bi-regulator, will found on the kidney.

Thymus gland bi regulator will originate in thymis gland and so on. And same with adrenals and testes and ovaries. Like supports, it moves into the world of homeopathy. It borrows from glandular therapy. Its all part of that same world. Now we don't, even in your supplements, you only have access to so many organs. There's lots of bits and bobs that are not allowed to be used or get thrown away or whatever the case may be. So with the bioregulators, You get access, to the thyroid, the adrenal glands, The ovaries, testes, blood vessels, I mean you can eat heart, it's really nice meat if you find it.

You can bone marrow, there's bone-marrow bi-regulator but a lot of people like it, don't want it or it's not part of their world. But that's, to me, that is where I would start. I feel like the other peptides, the longer chain peptide are fantastic, but right now they're very controversial. Certainly, there's a group of people out there that's like, I don't care if they're controversial. I'm using them because I know that they work for me. That's fine. And there is a certain number now that you can use orally, which is great.

So there are companies like Level Up Health that I work with very closely. He's got a number of them. There's another company There's a couple of companies, but I would say Level Up is doing some of the best work. He's the one that makes that ultimate GI repair that I was talking about, which people- That you gave your parents? Yeah, that, I gave my parents. Everyone's going to be ordering that one based on- So if you want that you can, if we can put the link in the show notes or people can just go to my website natnidam.com and there's Nat Recommend section there.

Oh, That's great. We should, we would definitely do that. So yeah, anyway. That's what I would do. This is a perfect place to ask. So if people feel inspired from your talk, they want to work with you. Do you work clients? And if not, how do people kind of get more access to you? Yeah, thank you for that.

Working with Natalie and staying discerning 51:30

Right now I'm not working with clients. I'm starting to feel the pressure to develop some kind of a curriculum or something that people can go through on their own. I don't know that I'll go back to working with people one-on-one, but the best way right at this instant to get access to me and to work with me is to join my membership community. I have a membership community called the Longevity Community. You can find details for it at natnidam.com. I'm doing office hours once a week in there. Actually, last year I just finished this year of bioregulators program where I was working with people and working them through all the bi oregulars for a year.

Um, I don't know yet if I am doing it again for next year just because I m so busy, but I might be doing that again. I also bring in podcast guests to do live Q&As, and it's a really cool community of like-minded people. We've got practitioners in there and consumers and everybody's really just contributing. And because it, you know, it may be, I don't even think it is 300 people, It's intimate enough, but big enough that it it active. It is a great resource. So that would be the best way to go and or listen to the podcast.

I mean, like you, I've got a podcast and I talk about a lot of this stuff or bring people on the talk, about it as well. And that's another resource. Yeah, and your podcast has been going on for a long time. There's a lotta great episodes and continue to be just a really great resource, highly recommend that to everyone. I think I wanna end just highlighting that you said something earlier about how we need to support people mean more discerning about who they listen to and what they follow. And I just wanna offer that, you are a great example of someone who I believe is worth following and who has earned that following because not only do you live what you preach, You also look healthy.

And I think that's really important that when we follow people, when hear people on their soap boxes, how do they look? I know that we don't wanna be too visual necessarily, but I we have to be because if that person doesn't exhibit what they're saying and they don' exhibit the type of body and or persona that you are pursuing, then they may not be the right person for you. And I just think it's really important that you are talking about longevity and I've now known you for a few years and you do look like you're de-aging.

Thank you, thank you that. I think, look, I first of all thank for everything you just said, appreciate it. When it comes to following people, We have to be careful with how people look. I came to the space relatively late in life. If I'd been doing what I've been since I was 35 or 40, I probably would look even a lot younger than I look now. That doesn't change my message. I mean, definitely somebody who looks ill and who you can find shots on TikTok of, you know, sitting and having their meals at Burger King or McDonald's or whatever, it's not living the life.

They're not walking the walk. There's simply just talking a talk that's going to get them recognition or, whatever the case may be. So I just think we need to apply a little bit of grace on that one. because sometimes stuff happens. Even people in this space, like we had one fairly high-profile person recently who got cancer. It can be a beast and it's not because she's any less good at what she does. Its not, because, she is not living the right life or doing the things. Because sometimes there are circumstances beyond our control when it comes to health that are just going to kick in.

So definitely, you know, somebody being vibrant and healthy is a really good sign. But we also have to reserve a little bit of grace for sometimes when things do go off the rails, which they can, that's beyond our control. And now we're working in a world of, okay, now how does this person handle that? How do they manage it? What are you going to do about it. Yeah, well said. That reminds me though, I was curious during this talk. So what is Natalie Needham like when she, do you fall off the rails ever?

Do you ever have days where you're just like, yeah, just done doing all the biohacking. I just wanna have a no frills, nothing kind of day. Sure, of course. It happens every once in a while, and I don't feel as good at the end of the day. We're all pulled down sometimes. If I allow myself to spend too much time on social media, get sucked into that doom scrolling thing, it's almost like a necessary lesson for me to remind me, man, I can't imagine people who spend their days like this. Like talk about toxic.

It's more toxic than any food, than activity, then almost anything else. Because it will alter your physiology by destroying your mentality, your spiritual, it's soul crushing what's happening right now in the world. And I think that you know, in an effort to be heard, all the sides are becoming more and more, and it's becoming, more difficult to find the truth and to not lose anybody's humanity in all this. And if there's one thing I want to leave people with is remember that everybody's a human being.

Everybody wants to live. There's certainly there are bad actors in the world that are we have to wonder what they're doing here and why they are here, but they aren't the majority. You cannot paint a whole group of people with the same brush of a bunch of bad actors. I don't want to get political about anything, what I see happening in the world right now is this rise in hatred and intolerance and Honestly, guys, I think that will be the thing that takes us down. That will destroy your longevity almost more than anything.

Well, thank you, Natalie. Just so well said and love talking to you. There's a thousand and one more things we could, of course, talk about. So I hope to have you on another date. But thank so much. And thank all for being curious enough to stay with us, to listen, and to keep asking questions. Thank you, have a great one everybody, take care. Thank You James, thanks for having me. Thank you so much for joining me on Everyday Ancestral. If you enjoyed this episode, hit subscribe so you don't miss the next one.

You can find the show notes, links and resources mentioned at EatPluck.com. That's E-A-T-P-L-U-C-K dot com. And hey, if you know someone who gets something out of this, share it with them too. Stay curious, live well, and keep it ancestral.