Making Your Golden Years Sparkle: How to Look and Feel Great After 50

So it’s, it’s amazing the stuff that we see, um, you know, looking at the literature. And so we treat some of the, definitely the sick of the sick, but also healthy patients, which is, which is very amazing. You know, there’s a huge staff as well. Uh, he attended a seminar in 1995 given by Jeffrey bland, uh, the father of functional medicine, and he was hooked. Um, that became me, that, uh, began his career as really looking for the cause. And I think that is the difference of functional medicine versus standard medicine. Uh, and I think also really passionate to continually learn. Um, that’s what you see with so-called. I don’t know what to call our whole group. I hate alternative functional medicine, integrative. I don’t know, but I just say we’re practicing better medicine better. Um, it’s passion is, uh, uh, basically the functional medicine that he opened up the term pop health and wellness center in 1999. 

Um, he has employed a huge staff and trains them all, and he’s, uh, speaks all over the country, trains doctors, uh, he enjoys her overall team approach and love sharing knowledge with the team patients and providers, extensive, uh, experience in supporting patients who are dealing with the most difficult chronic autoimmune and neurologic health conditions, you know, who just get passed from doctor to doctor and standard care. Um, he has a personal, uh, experience and that’s only supporting Lyme disease, autoimmune disease, fragile X syndrome was interesting cause it’s very rare and pediatric neurologic conditions, uh, thyroid conditions, hormones. I know he lectures on that as well. Um, uh, so he has basically, uh, teach providers across the country about thyroid brain disorders. 

Of course, a lot of neurologic conditions, uh, and his free time. He just continues to read probably, but he says he likes to go outside and enjoy hiking, swimming, um, uh, college football, what’s going on with that, uh, and spending time with friends, family, and his wife, Heather. So I get some kudos for that. And for children, um, I, lads member, um, lecture for, uh, masterminds and thyroid functional blood chemistry, Lyme disease, uh, co-infections neurology or neuro behavioral disorders, Alzheimer’s pandas, um, which is very common. So he’s really not only treating the sick of the sick and very complex patients, but he’s teaching other doctors about it. So, um, welcome. Thanks for being on

Chris Turnpaugh, DC

It’s an honor to be on. Thanks so much for inviting me.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah. So interesting, interesting background. Um, I became a chiropractor and then you got interested in the neurology, did a post doctorate in neurology. Just tell me a little bit about that.

Chris Turnpaugh, DC

Hi. So I went to chiropractic school and when I went to chiropractic school, I wasn’t even sure what I was doing just kind of was led that way. Uh, when I was in chiropractic school, I thought, well, once I learned chiropractic, uh, what I thought, I like all everybody, as soon as you learn your profession, you have it all figured out and you quickly learn. You don’t have it all figured out. So one of the postdoc, uh, programs that I gravitated to was the functional neurology just went deeper into the causes of some, uh, neurologic dysfunction and how the brain is functioning and how we can drive different areas of the brain and get it to work better. So I went through that, that was a three year post doc. 

And, uh, that was, that was great. And I thought I had it all figured out at that point, too. And as you kind of alluded to that’s when a patient, um, who, uh, Mark Euro came in and he said, Hey, I have ALS what are you going to do for me? And I said, well, I’m, you know, I’m a big shot. I have a neuro degree, I’m a specialized training. And, um, he said, you better learn more cause you don’t have it all figured out yet. And he forced me to learn real quick. Um, and that started me down the road of functional medicine. So that’s kind of how, when I just constantly was yearning and learning. Um, so just never gave up on things that I didn’t know, never rested on my heels. And that was what led me down the neuro diploma pathway.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

I think that’s great. I think that’s the difference between doctors. It’s not what, you know, specialty degree you have, you have five, you know, residencies, but I find doctors who 20 years out, they’re still doing the same thing they did in residency. You know, it’s that continually learning and things are moving fast. And they’re exciting in this integrative area and things of medicine move very slow. You know, I have articles on, it takes on average 17 years for a proven new therapy to get accepted into mainstream medicine, to standard physicians. So it’s called 17 years ahead. And that’s what, you know, this whole group of integrative physicians are practicing 17 years ahead of what you’re going to get from your doctor. And, and you always, the less a doctor knows the more adamant they’re right. And the more, you know,

Chris Turnpaugh, DC

Yeah. The less Chenault, the more you’re, the more you claim to know. And, and you’re so right. I say, if I had to practice the way I did five years ago, I’d quit. But I hope to say that five years from now to you hope set it every, every year. So I have to practice the way I did yesterday.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

So yeah, I think, I think you have to, and a lot of people will get into this, get been sick themselves, um, and realize, Hey, standard medicine. That’s how I got into it. I know a lot of others, but you got a different another patient who said, can we get this patient better? And then started looking like, Hey, there’s a lot of like that I can do.

Chris Turnpaugh, DC

They straight up look me in the eye. And he said, you better learn or quick. Cause we don’t need doctors that aren’t willing to learn, but he had none. He says, I got to, if you’re not willing to learn on this journey with me, just quit and do something else. Cause you’re worthless in the profession. He was very, very Frank. And I remember the conversation like it was yesterday and there just happened to be a Jeffrey bland seminar in New York city. I said, well, I got to figure out something. And um, and I went there and I was well, there’s a whole lot. I don’t know. Um, so it was, it was the conversation. I tell all my docs that work with me. I’m like, you gotta learn, learn or quit. Cause we don’t need docs that aren’t, weren’t learning. So.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Wow. That’s amazing. I guess you can say whatever you want when you have ALS it’s kinda like, yeah. Uh, so that, that’s great. I can say. And you know, I know we’re going to focus on, you know, feeling better and looking better after 50 all of us, uh, over 50 really, uh, looking forward to talking to you about that, but let’s talk a little bit about, you know, all these different, very complex patients that they treat. Um, uh, but what have you found, you know, when did, uh, peptides start, uh, influencing your treatments or becoming part of your treatments for complex patients?

Chris Turnpaugh, DC

So that’s a great question because a lot of offices, as you know, they’ll specialize in Lyme disease or mold or a thyroid or gluten or digestion or headaches or asleep. And so I never wanted to be pigeonholed into that. I want somebody to be able to come in my office and say, I have X, M big word that I use in my offices. I don’t want to have a confirmation bias towards a condition. So if I’m a Lyme doctor, I’m going to think that I have a confirmation bias that everything’s Lyme disease. And by the same token, if it’s a mold mold, doctor, everything’s mold, if everything is environmental, then everything’s environmental mercury. You know, so I want to have that general knowledge. And I like the challenge to somebody comes in as a blank slate. And I don’t have that confirmation bias now by doing that, you get to see and experience and learn from quite frankly, the other practitioners who are all those specialists, because you go to the, the ologist ologist ologists, and then they come here and you get to be the generalist and kind of look at the whole picture. 

So that’s how it started. We started to see complex patients and in our quest to constantly learn and help patients that weren’t getting answers. Other places, that’s where the peptides kind of snuck in. And they started probably Mo two and a half plus years ago, right around there. And it didn’t hit very hard. It was very, it was like a trickle, a trickle of water. Uh, I wasn’t real confident with them. I wasn’t real aware of them. And so then that led to a kind of abandoning them for awhile because I didn’t have the knowledge base. And then probably maybe about a year time flies, right. Except for the past two months. Um, um, probably about a year, year and a half ago is when we started to jump in pretty heavy into the peptides. Um, and so we got into the peptides and, and then we were using them for one particular reason, basically the immune system we’re looking at just boosting the immune system. And then when you jump into the world of peptides, you can see there’s a whole host of benefits across many disciplines, barriers and health conditions and support that you can really get into. So

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, I think that’s interesting. And that’s the same thing I’ve found is that all these conditions, they kind of boil down to the same problems, especially syndromes, you know, it’s like, Oh, they have this syndrome and you look, it’s like, we do, like for instance, they say, you know, chronic fatigue syndrome, Oh, I think did such a disservice in fibromyalgia. It gave doctors the license to go, Oh, you have fibromyalgia chronic. There’s nothing I can do. Here’s an antidepressant, not do anything well what’s causing it. And you know, we found that with a extensive panel, we can pick out a chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, Lyme patient, 80% time. And you know, really how severe they are about 70% time. And, and when they say there’s, Oh, was no labs to do. It’s like, are you crazy?

Chris Turnpaugh, DC

Oh yeah. We’re the largest non-hospital draw. We’re not there. We’re the largest non-hospital blood draw in the state of Pennsylvania. So when they said there’s no labs to do, they probably haven’t been to my office or your office because there’s a lot of labs to do. Yeah.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

And then the bottom is Cisco. Oh my God. Because you know, and now with medicine, the doctors are bonused, especially with H demos for being cost effective. Right. Beings not doing any tests, not making any diagnoses. And so they try not to find anything and try not to treat you where we’re the opposite. They, you know, it’s like medical detectives,

Chris Turnpaugh, DC

Right. Well, I’m, I’m the opposite of that. And another word that I used in the office, some, one of my docs, we have a lot of different physicians here in practitioners in the office. And so, um, right or wrong, I say, I’m the escalation clause. So they down the hallway and they say, what do you think of this? So it escalates to me. And I asked the same question all the time. What’s the mechanism. I don’t want to know the syndrome. Don’t tell me how you labeled it. Don’t tell me the sign that you put on that. What’s the mechanism. So what’s the mechanism of that action. Oh, I have chronic fatigue. 

Okay. So what does that, what’s the mechanism of that? Is it mitochondrial is infectious. Is it vector born? Where’s what’s the mechanism of the expression of the body. What’s that mechanism. So it doesn’t the ICD 10 code. Isn’t as important to me as the mechanism of the action. Yeah. It’s only if you want to like, look at this there’s this is what they have. We treat them with this, you know? And unfortunately I think doctors coming out of medicine, uh, more and more like a lot of doctors, like this is they’ve done great on tests is a memorize. And so we’ll be training doctors. Like what’s the protocol I’m like, there is no protocol. It’s concepts calls a four letter word, right? Yeah. And they just want one, if they have this, do this, this, this, you know, and drive some doctors crazy. Um, because that’s how they’re taught, especially now with, with medicine. 

And, uh, you know, this is the, if you don’t like in the ER, if you don’t do exactly like this year brought up in front of the, you know, from the board, the board and why didn’t you go down to this, this algorithm? And they don’t think we’re going to get replaced by artificial intelligence. It’ll be a computer plugging your symptoms. All I need is a nurse to just go, okay. One doctor in Oklahoma and go, okay, that’s interesting too, to piggyback that I say to now I see patients, the average patient sees us after they’ve seen 11 other physicians. So we stopped doing the calculations a couple of years ago. And that’s like a lot of officers. So I’m not, we’re, we’re no different than your office. And a lot of odd, they’ve been a lot of places. 

So then I look them right in the eye and I promise you one thing in this case, I’ll make a mistake. I promise you, I’m going to make a mistake. And they’ve been to these well rehearsed. And they’ve been in right down the street as a little hospital. You might’ve heard of it. It’s called Johns Hopkins. So I get patients from that little hospital down there and I look them in the eye and I said, I’m going to make a mistake. I’ll try to make it. I’ll try to rectify it quickly. But I don’t know how this is going to turn. What makes you think I have this all figured out? I don’t. So let’s just get the ground rules established. 

I’m going to do the best I can for you. I’m going to continuously learn. You’re different than the patient was before and the patient afterwards. And I’ll probably make a small mistake on this case. I’ll do my best to fix it and turn it around. I don’t know where this is going to go. I love that. And I also think about, yeah, we have like the patient guideline, they got a appointment that Mayo clinic I’m like, I’ll see you in three weeks. Yeah. I’ll see you right after that. They’re like, Oh my God. It was, yeah. That’s it. It’s funny that they think that’s going to be here and it’s yeah. Same old stuff. But, um, and, um, so what peptides you did, did you start with, and, um, was it more for the complex patients or kind of the healthier

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Patients?

Chris Turnpaugh, DC

So we started off, uh, so my whole thought process is how the immune system differentiates, whether it shifts in a pattern of the one, the two th 17 for, you know, how these, this immune activation happens, do we have natural killer cells? So I caught a whiff bid and one of my other practitioners, dr. Regina Smith, we were, um, we were talking about it and, and we were newbies. And we heard about this five mission household one and thymus and beta four. And, um, it kinda took our attention and we didn’t know much about it. And one was a T H one stimulant, one’s a T H two. And we were lost in that. So we started on that because if we could get the immune system trained better to work better, that really would help a lot. And we tried to use peptides, but we didn’t know how to monitor it. We didn’t know what we were doing. 

So that’s where it started, because that resonated with me. We can influence the immune system to work better. We didn’t know the right doses and nobody did. And you know, part of the part of being on the bleeding edge is sometimes you bleed a little bit you’re on the cutting edge and it cuts sometimes. So we were admittedly, we’re trying to figure it out. And then we refined that. And we used a lot of the immune influencing peptides, the finest and alpha one times and beta four with pretty big success when we’re using that for the chronically ill, um, we’re supporting the immune system for patients who had things like Lyme disease or chronic, uh, vector borne illnesses or anything. And in fact, and so since then it has had tremendous benefits, uh, for those who have immune compromise, if we can establish that their immune system has shifted or tilted or altered in one way, we can push it back pretty easily with those peptides. It’s pretty impressive. Once we knew what we were looking for and how to measure it, what patients to look for, that’s where we started with the pharmacy.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

And I, I can’t agree more. And I think we kind of switched, tell you our treatment so much chronic Lyme. Cause I know myself, you know, 22 centers treating chronic fatigue syndrome and you know, antibiotics, antibiotics. And we found him for myself three and a half years, the highest dose, the IB antibiotics, seven at a time grizzy and then found peptides and really the immune system. And I think we’re kind of really an immune modulatory clinic, right? And you just look at the vicious cycle with everything. And, you know, you find that the immune system causes basically, you know, also the means just drop. Now you get other infections coming through it, suppressed the mitochondria, which is a huge issue. You get quite glacier and you get the two Terri dysfunction. 

So they’re low thyroid, they’re low hormones, even though the standard blood tests look normal, um, they get, and then environmental toxin, the mold I’ll play a part. And that’s a thing I think, standard, uh, physician training as one, cause you know, one thing and I think for instance, Lyme disease, if you have Lyme disease, you’re probably fine. You know, it’s easy, right? That’s an issue. Yeah. And, you know, get more of those and, but it’s everything I think, you know, with the stress and, uh, stress we found is just the biggest and people think of suppress the immune system, but it really causes that suppression of [inaudible] increased age too. So they get older and which I think is a shame also because it you’ll see like kind of the standard quintessential chronic fatigue syndrome with, with the studies, you know, low teach when I teach too. And after let’s say a divorce or death in the family and the doctors will see you just expressed out women

Chris Turnpaugh, DC

Because it’s just because it’s just because, well, the reality is, so I wore a CGM, a continuous glucose monitor for awhile. I don’t have diabetes or anything. I wore that just to see what kind of stress and love that, that year. I was just like, I’m just going to wear this for a couple of months and see what happens. I ran a little aside, a little rabbit hole. I ran a half marathon and I never, I just decided to go out and do it. My wife’s like, you’re crazy. She trained all summer with her friends. I said, I’ll do it with you. And I hadn’t run in five years, so it wasn’t good. But I did the first six miles and I wore the CGM, the whole I’ve been wearing the CGM for months. I did the first six miles. I didn’t do any sugar replacement, electrolyte replacement. And then I ran the second six miles and I did it and I’m just comparing all the data. But the biggest piece I took from wearing the CGM is stress. Ray raised my cortisol levels. So I got a mild level elevation of fasting glucose. And that was that, that is longterm consequences from brain degeneration, hippocampus degeneration and all of the chronic diseases, mitochondrial dysfunction from stress, stress alone.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Well, I thought that was a statin deficiency.

Chris Turnpaugh, DC

Yeah. I had a deficient and then, you know, I have never had a problem sleeping, but I’m pretty diligent. I have an aura ring. So I check out where my sleep is and I can tell you the things that affect my sleep. And then I related to my blood sugar. So I was my own investigator. I also never go more than three weeks without drawing my own blood. I get, I have an in house phlebotomist, then every three weeks I get blood tests done. I just track myself as data points. I’m not sure I know what to do with it all, but I tracked data points on myself.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

That’s right. I’m kind of like a lazy version of you. I have all the test kits and I do have more exercises is my passion. I, I religiously do it every four months for eight minutes, but so I can’t like coach people out of heat cause I don’t do so well. But um, yeah, I’m a terrible patient too. But um, yeah, so it’s great. You know, so you’re treating all these very complex patients and I know you’re getting very good success. Have you found it’s difficult to now get that, uh, more healthy patient that just to be

Chris Turnpaugh, DC

Optimized and again, the 50 year old wants to feel better and look better. Yeah. So we, we made a shift. The shift was it? It is. I really appreciate it getting my hands dirty. I was never afraid to get my hands dirty. Give me a patient. I don’t know if I can fix them, but I want the challenge I want, I want to help people if you don’t have anywhere else to go. I don’t like the answer. Well, sorry. You know, some people are told, well, once I name what’s wrong with you, you’ll be at least Joel something to hang your hat on a name. Well, nobody that works for about 30 seconds and they’re like way the better. But when you start to see patients that come in and it’s no exaggeration, and I know your office is the same, they were.

So did you lose me for a second there? Sorry. So, um, so the, the, the statement people come in and they say, kill me or cure me. And I know, like I said, it’s in a lot of the offices like yours and when they come in and they say, fix me or end me, cause I don’t want to keep going like this. And so that’s, my heart goes out to him. I know, I believe my heart is on my sleeve. Uh, but it’s exhausting. It’s exhausting taking care of, kill me or cure me patients. So then you start to say it. It is. And I, yeah. So the transition going from the, the complex patient to the longevity patient, so to speak and, and patients were coming in burnout while they were burnt out. I was getting burnt out because it was killing me or cure me mentality because they were so sick. And when you go kill me or cure me, I’d like the challenge. 

My heart went out to them to try to help them. But after awhile, you know, you can’t help everybody. You can help a lot of people. We had really good outcomes, but at the same time, um, it was exhausting. And sometimes it’s nice to have a patient come in and say, uh, I just want to stay healthy. And I was getting older myself and I want to stay healthy. And so our new message is get healthy, stay healthy. Right? The COVID crisis has kind of brought that to the forefront from obesity and diabetes and all these little things. So get healthy, stay healthy. What does that mean? So I had patients coming in with some disposable income and they said all this money in the world, isn’t going to help me if I don’t feel good. If I’m not healthy, I learned that you could be rich. I was like, praising take everything. If I can see, like, cause you can’t do anything. No. What good is it? If you can’t do anything with it. So we started instead of a longevity program, we started with, I called the live Jevity program. Um, and so it’s about adding all the life. You can, there’s no guarantees in life. We start off with zap. We say, what can we do to OPSM optimize and maximize what you do? And, uh, we do obviously a bunch of labs. As I mentioned before, we do heavy into labs and lifestyle, but I have something I’ll share with you. It’s called the hand of health. This is a book I’m writing, in fact. 

So it’s called the hand of health. And the hand of health is this simple. If you have a hand, you can understand health. It’s how, and when you eat, how, and when you sleep, how, and when you move that your foundation, how, and when you eat, how, when you sleep, how, when you move. So that can take in intermittent, fasting, paleo, vegan, whatever you want to do. We’ll talk about that, how you sleep when you sleep, how, and when you move type of exercise, you’re doing that includes meditation. Self-help all that kind of stuff. So moving is sometimes being still, right? And then are you doing phase three, phase four training? And then last on the fingers is what you need to supplement with to maintain that. So they’re here and then way over here, when needed is a medication. So you might need a medication. 

And then the hand represents the hand that reaches out and help others. The hand that reaches out and says, I need help. The hand that reaches out. So the hand is very important too. So with that, we started the live Jevity program and cornerstone to that was we did your foundational physiology, but you also need additional support because we want to keep you from aging as quickly as you are. So that’s extra ordinary. That’s not ordinary. So people came in and said, I want to be extra ordinary. I want to age slower. Well, part of that longevity program is peptides for everybody. Everybody is going to get on pet peptides when they do that. And one of the reasons is if you live long enough, you are, you have an increased probability to get cancer. You have an increased probability to get cardiovascular disease. 

You have an increased probability to brain doesn’t work as well as it did. And that starts with the thymus evolution, right? So the thymus starts to decay. This, this, this, uh, school for your immune system starts to drift off in the sixth decade of life. And it needs a little bit of extra support. So we drifted from the chronically ill kill me or cure me. I feel really terrible. It doesn’t matter what you do. Just do something patient to the patient saying, Hey Chris, what can I do? Can you use the, the knowledge you’ve done over the past 25 years to just refine my health and make sure I’m moving in the right process? Can I go on the right process? And boy, that is a, that is, I love still taking care of the really sick patient has nowhere to go, but I really appreciate the mental decompression of, and just help have helped me age gracefully, help give me that live Jevity program. And so we’ll do the IVs and the support that they need to help their bodies, but it always includes peptides. And so that’s how we transitioned. Yeah.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

And it is, it’s like have treated the sickest of the sick and that’s like our centers become, and I’m like, you know, give me a person who’s a little Byrider. You, these patients that you know, longevity. And do you think really that a key is having an educated patient? Yes. So in our, in our facility, in our office here, all of our 11 providers, we have health coaches underneath them. They need, the patient has to be vested. The patient has to be involved. That’s why I said how, when you eat, how, when you sleep, how, when you move, that’s their homework, that’s free. 

They need to be vested and they need to be interested in that. And then we take the time to say, you’re not going to take this pill. You’re not going to take this peptide. You’re going to know what this is. You’re going to, why you’re taking it. You’re going to be understanding what you’re doing to your body. So you can be held accountable and you can take control of your health. Very, they leave very well educated and they’re going to go out and they’re going to talk to their other family. Doc, are there other friends that are physicians and said, this is why I’m doing what I’m doing. They have, they’re fully armed when they leave the office.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

And I think that’s your best friend is educated patient because they’ll go to their family practice or specialists, even not just crazy. That’s quackery. And you know, are I, yeah, I’m used to it now. Or are you going to patient or seeing a doctor who they love very nice. Uh, they come in, like they only want their doctor now and they get better. They go back, they’re excited to tell them. And you would think the doctor’s happy. They’re mad. They will not see the patient again. That’s quackery like, you know, and it’s scary. But I really think that the educated patient, I think the days of people listening to their doctor and just taking this pill at four o’clock, uh, you know, and I think a lot of doctors don’t want to be challenged. Like, I’m the doctor. I said, if a doctor won’t answer your questions, when you say, well, what about this study? This study run find. So I like read the internet. Okay. There’s great information on the internet. There’s some wrong information. Come and talk to me and we’ll talk about it. But so many doctors, I don’t want to bet bash on center docs so much, but I mean, it’s a whole different system, right?

Chris Turnpaugh, DC

We don’t, we encourage our patients to be educated. We want them to bring us ideas. And when a doctor, I tell patients to doctors work for you, you don’t work for them. So you get to fire your doctor whenever you’re dissatisfied with them. I mean, you would fire any other employees or any other, you know, if somebody came to your house and was building a room and it was crooked, you’d fire them. The work they work for you, you don’t work for them. So firearm,

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

I even have a friend who’s very sick and we try to treat him, but he won’t basically, he doesn’t know why he’s taking this, why he’s taking that. I said, it can’t work that way. One it’s dangerous because you don’t know what to look for side effects and even ask, are you feeling better from this or that? He can’t tell me because he doesn’t know why he’s taking this or that. And I’m like, I’m sorry. We can’t like you can’t work that way.

Chris Turnpaugh, DC

Every patient, I draw out the immune system for them and I make it so simple that a fifth grader can understand it. So I dropped the immune system and then I write down everything they’re taking and where it is involved in the immune system. So it’s not a name disease or a name condition. It’s just supporting their immune system. They understand it when they go home to their spouse or their cousin or their friend, who’s a family doc. They show them the piece of paper and say, here’s the mechanism of why I’m taking that. Here’s the mechanism of action and the mechanism of action. And then they know, Oh, they’re becoming more educated. They know what they need, what they need more of what they need less of what the side effects are and what they’re doing to manipulate their immune system. And they also know how they age. And they’re like, that is a product of aging. I don’t want to, I don’t want to get Brown. I don’t want to Brown on the inside.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah. Or yeah, I want to live longer, but in a nursing home. Right. You know, and, and when you look at that’s, what’s killing people is being, being frail. Right. Um, so it’s basically, you know, like can’t leave the house. They can’t walk, they break a hip there and the quality life. Yeah. You can live longer, but it’s live better, longer.

Chris Turnpaugh, DC

And what’s, what’s this with, well, you’re, you’re getting old at 50, at 68. When is it that you get old and you stop? Like, what is it when you’re low? Well, now you’re, you’re 72. So we don’t care about you or what is it about it? Well, you’re just getting older. Like, no, what are you talking about? You should get dementia at 50. No, you shouldn’t. You should get at 67. They just give up.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah. But I bought them. It’s like, it’s, that’s normal. It’s normal to get cancer. When we get hard to say, well, you know, you’re older, it’s crazy. Or you need to look at testosterone ranges. Okay. So soft syringes, every decade have dropped because they take 95% of the people and they say, what’s the average. And it goes down and down. So now the reference range is so low compared to 30 years ago, 40 years ago, where you would be so low. Now you’re normal while you’re normal, but it’s also normal to get cardiovascular disease of a heart attack and get cancer.

Chris Turnpaugh, DC

Right? Th the norms are not normal. That’s the problem. The norms in society are not normal. It’s not normal aging. And testosterone’s a big one. I said, you know, testosterone, the light excels in your testicles are very, very sensitive to inflammation. So the longer you live, the more likely to have some inflammation to reduce your testosterone, but testosterone helps you get over inflammation. So I don’t know about you, but I want my testosterone to be December was when I was 25. When I’m 95.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think everything, I think you’ve done. It is a vicious cycle in medicine, you know? And so what let’s talk about, I come in on over 50 and I’m not feeling my best. What, what things do you do? And what, what do you look at? What are some key peptides that you,

Chris Turnpaugh, DC

The first question is, what are your goals? So I want to meet your goals because I don’t, I don’t have to live in your body. You have to live in your body. So what are your goals? If you said, listen, I’m not going to exercise. I’m not going to change my diet. And I stay up till four in the morning. My, my road is very uphill and I put it right out in front of him. Like, you have to do these pieces. If you don’t do these pieces, my job, not impossible, but not impossible. So if somebody comes in the office, who’s say a 50 middle aged person, and they want to know what a, what we’re going to do for a live Jevity program. We sit down and I say, you know, what are you willing to do with your diet? What are you willing to do with your sleep? What are you willing to do with your movement exercise? And self-awareness, we’ll do a battery of blood tests, a full compliment of blood tests, which are going to evaluate their physiology, where it is, what we can optimize and then how we’re going to optimize it. Um, as I said, I’ll be their medical Sherpa. 

That’s a term I like to use. And friend of mine coined. So I’ll carry your bags. I’ll walk with you on the journey. But if you don’t want to go on the journey, I’m not going to drag you so whatever. And if I say, I’d like you to do this. And they said, well, I’ll do a lot of things, but I’m not giving up wings with my friends on Thursday nights. I’ll figure it out. Taylor, I’ll tell her the program to you, but the ground rules are established. And then, um, we determined, well from there, what we, I don’t take anything off the table. It’s like a huge smorgasbord. So I say, this is my optimal plan. My optimal plan is going to include, we have a, it’s called a longevity package. And the live Jevity package includes a monthly Ivey, a monthly massage, a monthly juve, light, a monthly, uh, hyperbaric. If they wanted a monthly pulse, Matt, if they want it. Um, and but with that, it is basically required. Peptides are part of that program to shift the immune system away from aging, or at least slow the aging process down with great probability.

 The other piece I tell them is there’s no guarantees. We can do this program. You could get hit by a bus. You still could get cancer. This is not promising you. You’re not going to have something. It increases the probability of healthy aging. That’s all we’re doing. So it’s not a guarantee and we’re not treating anything. We’re just promoting health. So we look at lab markers, hold ourselves accountable and go forward from there. So like, come in, you say, take these peptides. Well, I’ve never heard of these. Why do you claim that they decrease aging? So a couple of them, the literature has shown that some will manipulate the immune system. Some will or support the immune system. Some woes actually showed telomere lengthening, and I know telomeres, aren’t everything they thought they once were. But we also say over time and we go through a lengthy explanation, but we taught them what telomeres are. 

So if you think of like a, the best way it was described to me as like a Tootsie roll and you take the ends of the Tootsie roll, um, those little frayed ends. So every time that DNA opens up and divides, the Tootsie roll gets short, the freight ends get shorter and shorter and shorter until they can’t make another one of itself. It can’t replicate. And that is the end of the cell life. The cell has no more life after that. So if you could theoretically keep the end of your Tootsie rolls long, then you’re never gonna run out of Tootsie roll. So you’re in the Tootsie roll in this case is the life of the cell. And so we’ll continue.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

That’s one marker. You use

Chris Turnpaugh, DC

That’s one marker. We’ll use, we use a mitochondrial health. We do a test called a Mito swab, which tests the health of the mitochondria and how that’s functioning. We will do probably 70 to 75 blood markers and kind of put them all together, uh, from methylation homocysteine. And,

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, sorry. I just say, you know, cause mitochondria, I think are some of the most exciting parts of anti-aging uh, now, and they’re finding with all the neurodegenerative diseases, diabetes, I mean, uh, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, chronic infections, uh, you know, just standard aging, dementia, Parkinson’s all, I mean, all have mitochondrial dysfunction.

Chris Turnpaugh, DC

All chronic disease is, is an impart mitochondria dysfunction, whether it’s a cell danger response or all chronic disease involves mitochondria. So if you’re, if you’re seeing a practitioner for chronic disease, longevity, chronic life, whatever chronic reason, you’re seeing that, that physician for the mitochondria, it needs to be addressed, assessed and support it, period. It just, if you’re not assessing, addressing and supporting the mitochondria, you’re gonna lose, you’re gonna lose the battle. The case will fail. The case will just fail.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

I think if you’ve fixed the mitochondria, you’re going to fix a heck of a lot of stuff and prevent a lot of, a lot of things as well. Um, so is there a number of peptide combinations, uh, or do you single peptides or what would you like to do with, uh, the peptides in terms of longevity and reducing, uh, risk for cardiovascular disease, cancer, whatever it may be, all those, uh, diseases of aging.

Chris Turnpaugh, DC

Yeah. That’s, that’s a great question. And it’s the right question. I think a lot of people will just throw peptides at people without any rhyme or reason, much like medications, drugs, supplements, everything else. So we have a pretty, um, uh, unique approach. We’re gonna try to reeducate the thymus gland and shift away from things like cancer and shift away from things like autoimmune diseases and chronic inflammatory conditions. So we’re going to try and drive that T H one side of the immune system. So everybody’s going to get Simons and alpha one at some point, and they’re going to do that every year. And that’s what I do myself. I do times an alpha one at least once a year, usually to be honest with you twice a year. So I’ll do it for every six months. I’ll usually do it for a month and then we’ll do if the patients qualify. So one of the other things is you don’t want to use a lot of growth hormone stuff. If there’s cancers, if there’s things that you don’t want to grow. So I know it’s controversial, but we’re saying this the cleanest side of it. I don’t, I don’t necessarily know that that’s true or not true, but at least

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

I’ll say this. Not that I disagree, but I did review a growth hormone use in cancer. There’s never been a study that shows that giving growth hormone increases cancer, but there are studies. It’s interesting that for longevity, like, so growth hormone really works through making IGF one in the liver that low IGF one may be good for longevity, you know? And so a little controversy there. I think it’s very safe, but, uh, sorry, I don’t disagree with you. And just like so many, you know, like it’s kinda funny building mentality. Let’s just get your muscles big and make you look good. And then, then you’re fun. Hey, we’re in LA, I guess that works. But, but everywhere else, you want to be healthy everywhere. Yeah.

Chris Turnpaugh, DC

Fresh rules. So I say that, but that’s a starting point or a guideline, but it’s not a hard, hard, fast rule. I do want to have some regeneration. So I might use the CJC 1295. If a Moreland I’ll use Epic talent on L stack. A lot of those together, we used to use three realize and for brain health and different things, blood flow, I’m a huge fan of Atlanta tan. The Mullainathan too. Not because it makes you tan, but because it also increases blood flow to tissue, blood flow to the brain. I want to keep my brain healthy. I find that people, when they take the Malana tan too specifically, they feel like they’ve been in the sun. They get better mood. I’ve actually supported people who have had mood disorders and depression and low mood with Malana tend to, and it has worked better than a lot of pharmacological agents for their mood disorder, just from driving blood flow to the brain. Uh, so it’s not an aesthetic thing. We don’t take it to, to get the tan, but we do, uh, pay patients to use it. And they notice the benefit of, of increased mood. So we’ll, we’ll put a lot of those together. Then I’m not afraid to put four or five, six, seven together at times. And then sometimes I just use one. I just am a big fan of if I know the mechanism of action and I see the rationale for my treatment, they’re doing four or five at one time.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah. And the nice thing is, is when I get doctors that are like scared to start using them, I mean, it’s, it’s hard to screw up because like, you know, you look at, uh, I was a beta for BBC. They can’t find the toxic dose. There’s less side effects than placebo for pharmacy. And also you buy them to out for one is approved in 30 countries, everything from cancer, chronic infections. Yeah. So, and in boosted immune system, I don’t know, even an immunologist who checks people’s immune system.

Chris Turnpaugh, DC

And that’s the frustrating thing is, is if we see it as I’ll check IGF lawn IGFs or three, I’ll run a lot of the blood markers for the growth hormone, but I’m looking at the immune system CD 57 CD six, you know, I’m looking for some kind of dominance, whether I can see CD eight CD, three suppression. So we’re really looking into the immune system. When I was running the lab lab Corp called me and said, are you an oncologist? I said, now I just care about the human physiology. So, uh, I don’t think labs, uh, belong in any ologists center either. If you understand the physiology, uh, I’m a big fan. So the thymus and beta four, we use the TB frag all the time. I mean, I love, so I love repairing organs and tissues and things wear out. We don’t want them to wear out as fast. So we use the thymus, some beta for thymus. 

Now for one, we’ll do some CJC, 1295 at Memorial and epitaph. Um, and, and by the way, I’ve taken all these myself, but all of these, I don’t only get my blood work done every three weeks myself, but I only wear the CGM because I wanted to see what’s going on and where it’s sleep studies. I’ve done the peptides and I’ve run my labs two years ago, a induced fatty liver. I gave myself fatty liver, and then I reversed it just for the fun of it, just because I wanted to say, yeah, I really did. And I showed them my, I showed my, my, my fatty liver scores from the lab protesting. So I ate an awful lot. And this is the weird thing. Cause I didn’t, I won’t jump off the health train. I went and became like a fruitarian I tons and tons and tons of fruit and interesting. I thought that was healthy. Yeah. So all that fructose that doesn’t need the fructose. It doesn’t need any insulin to get into your liver. It goes right into your liver without insulin. 

I induced fatty liver. So I did it in a way that may be perceived as healthy, right. So I didn’t do it by just eating McDonald’s. I did it with doing a lot of fructose a lot because I chose, you know, the underlying mechanism and, you know, people think fruit for fruit and especially fruit juices. And then of course the Heights of this corn syrup by I think is a problem for so many illnesses. Yeah. So when you translate what I did, which was considered somewhat healthy and I don’t, you know, tons of honey and tons of fruit juices and concentrated fruit, but the average Americans drinking all this high fructose corn syrup, they’re getting, at least I was getting some antioxidant support. I was getting some federal nutrition from my fruits. They’re getting just nothing sugar and brain damage from there. They’re high fructose corn syrup. So, so I want to support that, that piece. And so I’ve done a lot of the peptides myself. I track my numbers. I see what they do. I look for what’s beneficial. I don’t know that anybody certainly not me, has it figured out what combinations work for certain patients and we’ve counseled patients. This is the effect you need to know what’s going on. Um, we want to push some things, but I’m also a fan of push pole. 

You know, like the intermittent fasting and the mTOR pathway. And we get down the whole road. Sometimes you don’t want to grow too much because the overgrowth is going to cause you to rapidly, um, the posers and grow, but you don’t want to just decay and not have any growth. So I like the push polls. So we might pull some things we’re going to do this hard for maybe six weeks and then we’re not gonna do it for six weeks. We’ll incorporate that into their diet as well as their peptides. So when we push more, push hard and get growth, but then we want to not grow too fast for too long because that’s going to increase our replication. And so let’s say, you know, people saying, Hey, what is this, ABC, this TV for a frag. Um, I always have a problem explaining it because of so many studies that it does so many things that it sounds like snake oil right now. Um, if you could mention some of the things that it does that that’s supported by the literature. So one of the things that it helps with T helper cells and how they, and so I try and break down your, your, your T H cells, your T helper cells. And so this cell is, is this naive T cell. 

It doesn’t know what it’s supposed to be when it grows up and it can grow up to become many different professions. It becomes a [inaudible] or a T regulatory cell. And this what we can do geolocation and the school that it can go to is the thymus school, the school in the middle of her Chester, which loses its teachers about the sixth decade of life. So we didn’t have no more teachers. And these peptides, one of the things that they can do is these peptides can help bring teachers back to the school. And so these immune cells can actually go to school and learn to become the right profession. D the cells grow up and they have certain jobs to do. And these cells also can give off inflammation, these inflammatory cytokines. So if we can have these cells grow up to become the right profession, they’re not going to give off this inflammatory message. And this inflammatory messages is linked to heart disease and diabetes and Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, and basically the diseases of aging. 

So wouldn’t it make sense that if we start with one small thing, we can change different pieces. In addition, we talk about supporting the energy of the cell through the mitochondria. It comes back to that mitochondria again. And if you don’t have the proper energy, so mitochondria doesn’t have a lot of genes, but the mitochondria influences a lot of genes in our nucleus. So we got to have this healthy mitochondria, not just for energy, but for transcription or messaging of everything that goes on in our body. So if we can help the immune system, we can reduce inflammation. We can give ourselves the right information and energy. It needs, wouldn’t it make sense that that would stop many, many, many different processes of aging. 

That that would make sense to me. So this is how I try to describe it to a patient is if we can fix a few key pieces of your immune system and your energy production system, that you would not get all the things we name of all these ICD 10 codes. So you’re not going to get fatigued. You’re not going to your, I’m sorry, your reduce your probability to get fatigued and cancer and all those things, because you have a healthy system. And when it also makes sense that 50 years of abuse, because you may not have known how to do it correctly, or you didn’t think at 16 was important or 26 was important at 36 was important. So we use the peptides. And I say, if we can fix the core pieces of your immune system, physiology, energy and inflammation, well, what disease doesn’t have, what chronic disease, including aging doesn’t involve inflammation does involve mitochondria dysfunction. Doesn’t call include immune dysregulation. If we fix those, you tell me what we’re not going to fix. I, I totally agree. And it’s like so many conditions. And we look at like basic, even autism, Lyme disease, chronic fatigue syndrome, Parkinson’s Alzheimer’s cardiovascular disease. They have the same picture on the labs. And that’s what it sounds like you definitely do. And I say, I try to paint a picture with all of these labs are a patients. Last one, if you don’t find it, my doctor says, can’t find anything wrong with you. You know, they check a CBC, a chem panel cholesterol and give them a Staton, right? Is some of the worst thing you can do. 

And if I don’t find something wrong, then I’m incompetent. I mean, we’re going to find something. And so it’s, it’s just like you said, I had a clinic for special needs kids. I have a child with fragile X. And so that’s why I know about it. And I look at the same markers for him as I do with an Alzheimer’s patient. So I’m looking at the same thing, cause I just want to optimize physiology and you hit the nail on the head, a child with autism or a child with a disability should be treated the same or assessed the same way somebody is with Alzheimer’s and like a Bredesen’s book. You know, the reversing, all of his markers. When we, I met with him and he said, you’ve been doing these markers. I said, those markers are health, their physiology. Yes. They could be linked to Alzheimer’s, but they can be linked to autism. 

So I’m just kind of laying it out and saying, this is, we want to optimize your physiology, not name a condition and treat a condition we want to optimize you. And we can do that through the miracle of peptides is one of the, it’s a huge, I think it’s one of the biggest, if not the biggest breakthrough we’ve seen in the past 20 years of how we can influence physiology. Aye, aye, aye. Tony grade. And everything’s a of immune dysfunction. As you get older stress chemicals, heavy metals, chronic infections, all these things, you can’t clear out your heavy metals, you can’t clear out your, you can’t clear out all the debris fields without a healthy mitochondria. So, uh, you think the combination of a pineal battalion and assignments in is kind of a core therapy? Absolutely. A core BPC. I want the body to be able to repair, but I want some pineal peptides. I want some, I want some pharmacy and immune system peptides. And then we could, we started again into the Moxies a little bit, but then there was a problem with production. And so, but we had some pretty good results. And I’m interested in to where this is going, because I think this is the tip of the iceberg. We spoke a little bit before we recording about seeing exciting breakthroughs you might have coming through. I I’m, I’m on the edge of my seat, literally because I know how that influences the physiology. I know what it can do for patients and yeah.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah. So do you find that, you know, people who even are healthy, right? I never see anyone that’s optimal, especially as they get older. And I think really, almost everyone, I rarely say that should be on a pineal peptide using a battalion and a thymus in which is a [inaudible] peptide and the pineal har will help define this work, but you can also get more. And for instance, study, I really liked the one that looked at, um, a battalion and find Mulan. So a thymus peptide they’re all work. Similarly, if I miss an awful one, but I was in beta for five Mulan, diamond gin. So all those, the modulator, that immune system, we’re looking at patients with significant cardiovascular disease in a 15 year study. And they found that the people on the combination actually their cardiovascular function got better, not worse. They live longer higher quality of life, dramatic reduction in cancer. And if people will say like, you know, like when I first started lecturing on these, that Aqua never heard this and they can’t believe how hundreds and hundreds of studies on these and it’s amazing. It just hasn’t caught on here. And, and they can’t be how evidence-based it is, you know? Right, right.

Chris Turnpaugh, DC

Well, so that’s interesting because evidence-based is originally, was supposed to include the wishes of the patient, the clinical acumen and the current literature. Well, I can tell you firsthand, the clinical literature is out there. The literature is out there. I mean the, the literature, this is, this is not a one off study. There’s tons and tons of peer reviewed papers on this. The clinical acumen comes with experience, which I like to say, I know you do. I have a lot of experience with this, not just with myself, but with thousands of patients now. Um, and then the patient’s wishes the patients are saying, Hey, what’s the best information you can offer me with your clinical experience to help me age graciously? Well, I think it will be very, very, very blunted. 

If I didn’t say you should be doing something for your pineal gland, something for your timing plan or your thymus gland and something for your Monacan Drea function. I think it would be foolish to not address those three. And so to your point, almost all, unless a patient has some philosophical aversion to it, we’ll include those in combination almost all the time. We need to work with your immune system and your times, Glenn, we need to work with your pineal gland in your brain. And we want to do something to support mitochondrial function, longterm, uh, and that’s the pieces we can handle again, that doesn’t change your diet, your life, your sleep, and your, your, your exercise, but those are, and so we’ll continually, we’ll do them in combination. We’ll roll on and off. We’ll push a little bit, pull a little bit, uh, but we’ll use those in combination throughout the entire year. 

We’ll see changes in their function that they didn’t think were even being addressed over three. We check them every three, three, six, nine, and 12 months. We do a three month check in with every one of the patients and we’ll see the changes. Some of them are gradual and some of them, but the, the, those are the objective findings, but subjectively they didn’t know. They can feel that good because they never set the bar high enough to even feel that good to your point. Nobody’s optimal, right? They’re close. And I use the Olympic athlete. They’re pretty close because they monitor everything they do. If we treated the 50, 55, 60 year old patient who wanted to be in their best health, like we treat an Olympic athlete, which is what I think we should do. What I think I do do in the office is you don’t deserve to be 60%. If an Olympic athlete is at 96%, they’re there. They’re not even on stage. They need to be 99 90. That’s what we try to do for our longevity patients.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Well, what about, well, I’m normal. The doctor said my level is normal.

Chris Turnpaugh, DC

I say, you’re in the norm. The norm isn’t normal. You know, the norm is everybody feels like crap. When they’re 55, that’s not normal. I don’t want to. And if that’s the case, I want to be a statistical anomaly. I don’t want to be the norm. I don’t want to be what they call normal. I want to be exceptional. And I want you to be exceptional. And you didn’t work your butt off this long for this many years to be in this position to be 55 working 12 hour days, five days a week to not take that and invested back into yourself and for you to be exceptional for the last 50 years of your life.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, I totally agree. And I think when he explained to patients, you know what normal means, they basic 95% of the people. And only if you’re the lowest two and a half percent, you’re considered abnormal. So you’re the lowest 3%, 5% then, Oh, you’re normal. That’s like a D minus is great. And they feel terrible. And the doctor will, Oh, well, let’s, let’s check it again. You know? And if it’s abnormal and it might be a little in the normal range, you go, okay, you’re normal not greet you.

Chris Turnpaugh, DC

And to that point, I say this too. I say, if this is the trajectory, I asked this question and I didn’t come up with it. I probably stole it from somebody. I said, how long do you want to live? And they say, well, I’m gonna live to be 89. I’m like, well, what do you want to be able to do when you’re 89? Well, I want to be able to live and walk and get up the steps. So what does that mean when you’re 79, 69 and 59 and 49? And if you’re just this far, if you’re this far off, that curves, if you’re this far off that curve, when you’re 50 or 55, that curve gets wider and wider and wider. So when you’re 65 and 75, you’re not even close anymore. We’ve got to keep you tight to perfect. At 50. So when you’re 75, you’re not that far off the curve.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah. Yeah. Cause it just makes me sick people in nursing homes and they just almost discarded. And the key is, is to stay out of the nursing home and have a, you know, amazing vitality and enjoy life longer. Yeah.

Chris Turnpaugh, DC

Functional life. But it was functional medicine for a functional life.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I totally agree. Um, are there any therapies you would not use peptides with?

Chris Turnpaugh, DC

So the, the controversy, I don’t know that I, I don’t know that my mind wouldn’t use peptides for certain therapies, but I know out there there’s a lot of concern and some of those, like we said before, cancer, which I don’t know that I a hundred percent buy into, but I practice a little bit defensively for that purpose. If somebody says, listen, I don’t want to do any kind of growth hormone security gods, because I’ve had a history of cancer. I respect that. I’ll listen to that. I think though the, the side effects are low. The receptors are all there for this. These are things that the body’s used to having. They’re not doing it in super physiological doses. So I work with the body. I personally, I’m out on a little bit more of a limb than most. I don’t have a lot of fear with these.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

No. And that’s what I think. And I tell patients, they are artists, people. I, we never been sued. We don’t harm people. I mean, and I loved, I went to a dr. Robbins and he does direct ozone and he tells patients, I can take out my prescription pad and kill you with it. And nothing will happen to me because that is an expected side effect. Right. Well, we do, if we harm anyone we’re in trouble. Right. But it just shows the safety of these things that, um, and, and the risk benefit is just crazy high. Um, we’re outside,

Chris Turnpaugh, DC

We’re outside the norm and what we do, you and I were outside the norm and I think that’s exceptional. And so I’m outside the norm. So I know I have a slight, maybe not a glaring bull’s eye, but I got a little bit of a bullseye on my back. So if I do anything this much wrong, it’s gonna come back and bite me and I’m not afraid of peptide. So what does that say? I have no fear of the peptides. Yeah.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah. We’re all scared of, of regulatory officials that are practicing medicine 30 years ago and don’t understand what we’re doing. Right. But, um, I think it’s awesome. All the stuff that you’re doing and just your passion for helping really anyone that walks through your door, um, you know, from the sixth of the sec to someone that wants to live the best life they can, I think is just so impressive. So, um, I appreciate his for the time with us and I’m sure, uh, people get a lot out of this. So, uh, thank you.

Chris Turnpaugh, DC

Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. It was a great time. Thank you, so, okay.