Peptide Therapy For Neurodegenerative, Mood, Inflammatory, Traumatic, Toxic And Infection-related Brain Disorders

Cheng Ruan, MD

As we all know, the brain functions in very mysterious ways. And there’s some ways that it can be modified. And there’s this new philosophy called peptide therapy and peptide therapy is a therapy that’s been shown to improve a lot of neurodegenerative disorders, mood disorders, inflammation, trauma toxic and other infection related brain disorders. And so I don’t know much about peptides, but I know someone who does so Dr. Kent Holtorf, he’s an M. D. He’s the medical director of the Holtorf medical group and is the founder and medical director of the nonprofit National Academy of Hypothyroidism. He’s also the founder of a company called Integrative Peptides Integrative peptides dot com and brings doctors and patients to highest quality natural bioidentical peptides as supplements and with very unique delivery systems. 

He also has a dedicated an entire portion of his life to training physicians about groundbreaking peptide therapies. And this really comes from his own personal story that we’re gonna get into of the the suffering that he’s been through in his life from other chronic conditions and how he’s really broken through and discovered a different path which puts him on a very different trajectory and the style of medical practice that he ultimately became very well known for also start recently started a program to treat injured veterans military veterans with history of traumatic brain injury. PTSD toxic exposures and other difficult to diagnose and treat multi system illnesses and after seeing numerous doctors and specialists for years. The improvement for a lot of these veterans and particularly very sick ones who were in special forces and even people who are in comas who ultimately came out of it. 

And there was some very interesting immediate successes with specific therapies that Dr. Holtorf is known to deliver. So the story got out and this actually resulted and a director and producer wanting to highlight this in a documentary series that will be available ultimately in a multi part series on amazon hulu and other major outlets. That’s a whole tour of also is an internationally renowned known lecturer, author and innovator in cutting edge research and treatments and he’s also on the steering committee and lecturer for A4M, the international peptide society and what’s the endocrinology expert for A. O. L. And he has been featured on multiple news and media outlets. CNBC maybe see CNN Fox, Good Morning America, the today’s show Discovery health. He was on the doctors and a whole lot of different other publications, Wall Street Journal and many, many, many others. So it’s a pleasure for me to introduce Dr. Kent, hold on to the forum, awesome. It’s so amazing to talk to you and welcome to the show. I appreciate you coming on.

Kent Holtorf, MD

Hey thanks for having me. Pleasure.

Cheng Ruan, MD

Now we’re gonna get into topics of peptide therapy which is an area I know very little about before we even get into that, let’s tell your story. I know a little bit about your story but let’s kind of dive into your story and how did you get to where you are today?

Kent Holtorf, MD

Yeah, and I think I’m similar to a lot of people in the so called integrative, like, I don’t think I like alternative because, you know, and what does that mean? You know, people think and we were told always it means no evidence, you know, and being a very evidence based physician still am, but you know, it’s a great medical school, you do anything alternative though? It’s just hocus pocus stuff, then I got very sick, you know, it’s kind of weird growing up, like half my body would be sweating or my left arm would stop working. One pupil is always bigger than the other. My parents just sweat like crazy. My dad had chronic fatigue syndrome before there was chronic fatigue syndrome, so I think our whole family was infected, but it did okay, you know, that always, always kind of tired and more tired of everyone else, but going through medical school that in the residency just started getting exhausted and just mentally, like, I could not remember anything. 

Actually the medical part, I could actually remember that it wasn’t too bad, but I could have dinner with someone the next day, I could not tell you who we had dinner with, you know, and so it’s scary and he went to the doctors at university who you really respect at that time and oh, you’re distressed and you know, like I’m not stressed, I’m just, I can’t function, you know, and just so tired, never couldn’t sleep. And I had anxiety, which I never had before and that’s normal, you know? And so like, what am I gonna do? Conversations were so exhausting to me. I’m like, I can’t practice medicine, what am I going to do? So when in anesthesia and I figured, hey, they’re asleep, you can just kind of do your thing. And then I started thinking, hey, you know, I gotta do something. I’m just, I’m dying here. And even though I said, oh, don’t go to alternative, snuck off to one and then I basically went to a conference and I’m like, this is more evidence based than what they’re telling us, you know, in my residency through medical school. And I’m like, wow. And then started doing the stuff basically like hormone optimization straight T three. You know, I was normal, but the lowest like 3%. My adrenals were shot, testosterone was that of a nine year old growth hormone was low and started feeling really good and I had immune system was all screwed up and I’m like, wow, this is just, I’m a new person. So then I go, I hate anesthesia, which no offense, an anesthesiologist out there, but it is so boring. But then did family practice, took over, family practice and started doing, you know basically treating patients like myself. And then I thought it was I thought I was fine. 

And then opened up moved to California, opened up a practice here and you know kind of doing the same thing, then went through a stressful divorce. And then just was bed bound, just sweating. I gotta lay Denia which you know I always thought people with that where I go that can’t be real. You know it’s real. I could not have a blood pressure cuff, you couldn’t draw blood out of me, it was so thick, it was like motor oil just like the phone and ring and I just couldn’t tolerate it. So bed bound and did you know basically 3.5 years of the highest dose IV antibiotics that you know I wouldn’t give a patient. And just like seven at a time remember it was in the ICU and the nurses are making a nurse change and they’re like this is that AIDS patient that keeps turning up negative for HIV, you know, I have no immune system. And then I’m like well you know I got to do something here and then I went into heart failure and my heart was basically just fibrous, it wouldn’t fill. 

And so it was just diastolic heart failure and the cardiologist said well maybe in 10 years you can get 10% better with rigorous you know cardiac rehab. Like I can’t live like this. I couldn’t stand up, I couldn’t take me two hours to go up the stairs. So basically, said either gonna off myself or I’m gonna go around the world to see what we know there’s gonna be someone. And so just really went to all these different practitioners and try different treatments and a lot of things work. Did a lot of things that didn’t work. And then when I was in Europe and Belgium I did peptides. I really didn’t think much of them. And then a couple of days later I’m like I just walked up the stairs, what the heck is going on? You know? And then I went and then I go back to my cardiologist is about eight months or nine months later standing up and he’s like what? You know of course he didn’t even ask what I did but he’s go that’s great. Good to see you. You know and and the echo is just about normal to yeah and and so it brought back all that all that fibers tissue which I now know is because of high human transforming growth factor beta and which causes fibrosis and then thymosin beta four, KPV and bylon three peptides directly lower those. So you know we know much more about you know how to treat these. It was just kind of got lucky at first but it really started incorporating peptides and it’s really made our ability to get these really sick patients, whether it’s you know the multi system patients of chronic fatigue syndrome, chronic Lyme neurodegenerative disease you know with just based by the way, Sears patients or just depression and they all have the same triad and what we’re finding is that stress especially emotional stress. And then also a toxin but we know we all have toxins but you know whether it’s mold whether it’s you know, just like phosphate heavy metals and then a chronic infection now that kind of goes together because like the stress and people think stress lowers your immunity but it doesn’t, it modulates it in a bad way. And let me kind of go back to just what the immune system does with aging. So think of one side as you know, everything is an oversimplification with immune system because you have to be. But think of the one side, your immune system, th one get stuff inside the cell th to get stuff outside the cell and it will include th-17 over here now your thigh miss, which is in your breastplate here, it actually in veloute as you get older and it controls this balance. 

So as you get older you’re th one is going down with your stuff inside the cell and th two goes up so now you can’t fight inter cellular infections, it’s not as good as monitoring for cancer, you’re not your killer. Natural killer cell is kind of a downstream marker we use for that. But you have a lot of inflammation which then causes atherosclerosis. You know basically a lot of you know brain issues. Now also you get reactivating infections whether it’s you know H H. B six Epstein-Barr HSV one or so you may have Lyme a lot of people that get Lyme, they just suppress it. But as soon as you add those two other things in general that’s when it comes out and then you get this vicious cycle. So where you get hypothalamic pituitary you know basically the hormone dysfunction. So your thyroid is low, your TSH looks normal but your thyroid is low adrenals don’t work. You have low growth hormone, you get mitochondrial dysfunction which then causes low more immunity problems. 

You get brain fog.  You get immune activation of coagulation and then everything just keeps getting worse and the you know the mitochondria and what’s called a cell danger response and then make basically more inflammation which kind of getting out there know too much information but then the cells go into sin essence where they don’t work and that basically makes makes everything worse. So we found that really with these multi system illnesses and they’re you know, they have all these different issues and that’s why doctors hate treating it, right? And where standard medicine has, you have your cardiologist, gastroenterologist, you have your, you know, each little specialty is that, you know, you need to treat everything. But the key thing to treat we’re finding is the immune system, you fix that. And a lot of the other things get better.

Cheng Ruan, MD

So let me just kind of break it down because you use a lot of big words here and someone memorized in the way I understand it. So, I mean, you yourself will you went through some not your beyond just chronic fatigue, you have multi organ failure that you went through, right? And you’re right. People like yourself, what you went through become sort of a medical mystery, right? And people can get diagnosed with all sorts of things depending on their age and gender. Maybe if they’re older, they’ll get diagnosed dementia if they’re younger, they get diagnosed PTSD, right? If they’re women, they get diagnosed with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome. Right? And so there’s there’s ageism and a gender bias when it comes to, you know, diagnosis of these things, but once again, diagnoses are just things that we observe into some sort of clinical relevance or a pattern of clinical relevance and we call it something and then once we call it something, there’s an ologists, there’s a there’s a there’s a specialist for it. 

But what you went through is pretty extreme because you went to multi organ failure. So even, you know, your your heart wasn’t even pumping, it’s like your body is trying to give it up on itself and you’re right, and it’s the immune system and the immune system is so complex, it’s so complex that it’s really hard to break it down into, hey, what is it about immune system? And you’re also right, there’s no such thing as immune system going up or down. It’s not a directional thing, it’s a switch, it’s a different, different circuits. And so, you know, knowing that and knowing that the immune system is the thing to really focus on with chronic disorder, especially neurological disorders, right? Even Alzheimer’s Parkinson’s multiple sclerosis, and everything like that, and mental health disorders as well, knowing that what are some of the things that can modulate immune system the best? How do we approach this? 

Kent Holtorf, MD

Yeah. And, and you know, very good question. And that was the problem by natural killer cell function, for instance, was zero. You know? And so no matter how many, how much antibiotics I took and killing the live and to your body needs to take over, you know, the antibiotics just can’t do everything and kill. 

Cheng Ruan, MD

Positive or hidden infections. Right?

Kent Holtorf, MD

Oh yeah, so I turned up positive. Lyme, bobisi, bartonella. And I had super high veg f so all my veins were just gigantic. They weren’t like basically varicose I think there was huge And because I had hives from Bartonella, Will will secrete that and just the baby, she a it is sweating like crazy and you know, just, just just feeling terrible. But it wasn’t until I fixed the immune system that the fracture of the dose, the antibiotics worked, you know? And then also it lower that th two, so all the, you know, you lose that, the inflammation and that so as soon as you get the line with the lime, does it goes in into the cell secretes cytokines that suppress th one then goes inside the cell. Now it’s chronic and then you just start having this really It’s kind of accelerated aging, you know? And the cells, if you have a chronic infection for a period of time, the cells will actually go into t cell exhaustion and you’ll see this around cancers too, is that the cells surrounding it? We think they’re fighting it, but they’re just almost protecting it because they just get turned off. But and that’s why, you know, are people with Sears will almost never do they have a normal immune system and then all of a sudden get a mold exposure. Oh my gosh, it’s they have a compromised immune system and then they get the mold and it’s kind of, that triad that we see. 

Cheng Ruan, MD

Let’s define Sears for a second because I don’t think everyone knows it’s chronic inflammatory response syndrome. And this is different from what we learned in school, which is more acute, systemic inflammatory reactions, like leading up to infections, acute infections and sepsis and stuff like that. And so was defined as chronic was defined as chronic are different markers of the immune system that we weren’t really taught to look for. Probably cause it’s not really a medication for it. And even though there is then even if the medications provided, there’s so much more complexity to restore the immune function that’s outside of pharmaceuticals that I don’t think it’s it’s really hard for the, you know, the modern medicine to kind of pursue right now, let’s let’s kind of get into the discussion of peptides for a second now. Now I also treat a lot of people with these things and chronic infections and neurological disorders. But peptides are a very new thing for me. So tell me about when you discovered the peptides and its effect on you. And then what do you see? And now in people with peptide therapy.

Kent Holtorf, MD

Yeah. And so I started which was a very common one, thymosin alpha one. So it’s a dynamic peptide and it’s approved in about 30 countries for infections and cancer to raise that immune system. They banned it here because a study came out showing it was safe and effective for C0V!D. So they banned it. But I I did that we have a replacement for that which it’s time again alpha one that we we looked at the effect of thymosin alpha one and used meta below mix transcript comics and proteomics to look at the equivalent and it was a combination of Imogen and immune immune peptide A 2. But really so it was diamond peptides are key. So to bring that th one up and we use a T. V four frag now because you can take it orally so well we’re thymosin beta four which is the most common dynamic peptide is you can’t take it orally because it’s it’s very long and there’s a part of it that basically will stimulate mast cells. So we took that part out and just did the TB four. But and then some nice things like you know BBC 1 57 that’s probably the most popular go to for for the doctors because it it when I give lectures on this, I mean there’s so many studies on so many different areas people think of as a gut peptide but it actually absorbs it’s equal potent if you take it orally as well as a shot. 

It works for you know brain works a traumatic brain injury, it works for depression, it works for leaky gut. It works if you hurt your knee you know so it kind of does everything and I was like what is this snake oil? But here’s all the studies and and you know people now the doctors kind of used to seeing the studies but they’re like wait why haven’t why haven’t I heard of this? You know? And patients will also say that like well why how could my doctor how did not know this? Because there can’t be patented because they’ve been out, they’ve been around in Europe for too long, you know eastern Europe kind of behind you know they’re all came from originally from Russia. So really immune modulators and for instance like alpha melanocytes stimulating hormone, right? So that’s produced and it causes you know people you know causes like canning but it’s one of the most anti inflammatory substances that you can take now it’s too big and it’s broken down very quickly. 

But the last three amino acids of that called K. P. V. Is 10 times as potent and probably the best mast cell inhibitor and it has tremendous broad spectrum anti microbial effects. So whether it’s candida viruses, bacteria it was more potent that flu can act like a microgram they actually even a nanogram compared to the flu can what was needed. So it’s nice really? The core is we really want to lower the inflammation raise the you know the natural killer cell but everything goes with that. So now you have an immune system. But it’s also at the same time stimulating you know, stem cells and and all these things that rejuvenate. So when you look at you know the finest when it kind of basically right around age 12 or so it starts declining and then when it hits a low point and kind of stays around age 40. And that’s when all those diseases of aging start, you know because you have all this inflammation going on. So if you can just snap it back and there’s all these articles like why are we forgetting about the famous? You know and we don’t check dynamic levels and replace the famous. But and you look at for instance also there’s a pineal peptide. Epatalent is also pinealian like it will increase Well okay that it will increase telomeres and kind of reset all the hormones. So for instance, one study 15 year study with people over 65 with cardiovascular disease following for 15 years. They only gave him six doses and they found that the ones who got the talent and the thymosin basically the cardiovascular function got better. They had 22.5 fold less cancer risk you know, two fold less mortality significant, improved quality of life. Much improved endurance. And it’s kind of like these are so safe. Like they can’t find a toxic dose and they’ve tried to 1000 times the dose and nontoxic. So it’s really nice with that. And you look at you know what there is about you know basically you know brain disorders that you know all these things you know affect the brain with this multi system. You have low immune system. 

That’s when these like let’s say even HSV one which has been shown to be associated with Alzheimer’s. And you have you know studies by Macdonald did head of the Harvard Brain bank did biopsies. Found 70 plus percent of people with Alzheimer’s had line and we find you know A. L. S. We treat ALS patients that come in a wheelchair. They’re jogging and they and they go I have not seen one that didn’t have line. Didn’t usually go Busia and they go back to their neurologists and they poo poo the treatment and they’re like oh misdiagnosed as well. Three of you You know and so we just found that you know there’s so many things and then I mentioned you know mitochondria dysfunction so you can take mitochondrial peptides that boost the mitochondria. And that works really well for the brain. They were one of our doctors who her daughter had O. C. D. Was kept pulling out her eyebrows right And we gave her with all five of 9 to 1 Mq. Which increases N. A. D. In the mitochondria and years she had this problem. They did everything every medication you can think of and all that you know therapy in these biofeedback and two days she didn’t do it anymore.

Cheng Ruan, MD

What do you think? Let’s if we break down what peptides are peptides are proteins and there’s specific sequences of building block proteins or amino acids or these are these are peptides. And so what you’re saying as I understand it is that these peptides are able to change the way our immune system is responding to things whether it’s infections, environmental toxins etcetera etcetera. And so that itself can modulate the diseases that we may be diagnosed with.

Kent Holtorf, MD

Yeah. Yeah that that’s the indirect effect. Yeah and then and for instance I yeah we have like autistic kids come in for you know want to remember our first autistic kid came in. The mom sent a video of him playing basketball which was him looking at like this and the basketball going by him and he comes in. We had to see him beforehand because jess couldn’t get near him throwing f bombs just horrible. We did you know nasal peptides. We did some stem cells at that time. And we worked on the gut. We did other things but peptides were the main treatment and now he comes in and he wants a hug. He’s sarcastic he’s playing not only basketball gymnastics, he gives himself a shot. It’s just like a new kid you know it’s crazy but you know so what do you like?

Cheng Ruan, MD

Like you know if you know first of all you know just peptides in general. Right? So now these aren’t things that you kind of just take in supplemental form orally or are they oral or there are they’re injectable? Like what forms of peptides are there?

Kent Holtorf, MD

Yeah so most of them are injectable because they’re too big to put orally but we’re we did with integrated peptides. We used to have an injectable peptide company but with the way you know over state lines and a lot of regulation we didn’t do that. So we worked with a team of FDA attorneys to allow them to be supplements. So we have B. B. C., K. P. V. We have stripper license which is neuro peptides and we’ve got more you know testimonial and feedback on that like people with traumatic brain injury that couldn’t function and within several weeks they’re just like oh my gosh I’m just I’m you know back to my normal self or you know getting there and super license has been around for a long time. It’s approved in 30 plus countries for dementia, lots of studies on it but they banned the injectable in the US began safe and effective. It has been it was no report of any side effects or anything. But the good thing is that it’s small peptide. So we can put it in a capsule and it’s a supplement. And so allows people to take it that way.

Cheng Ruan, MD

So you know these things are used in other countries right? As you said right in Eastern Europe and whatnot. Right. What is the hesitation in the U. S. Why is it so kind of behind I guess in treatments of this? Because it’s not it’s nothing we learned in school or residency. 

Kent Holtorf, MD

No. Yeah and it’s interesting because I didn’t think we never knew about this other layer. You know we kind of think of the controlling layer maybe you know the hormones and you know hormones basically you know they’re secreted from a gland they go into the cell into the nucleus. They change protein synthesis slow on slow off and then peptides are produced in a very tissue specific manner and work on the cell surface. They’re signaling protein have more of a plea a trophic the multi you know kind of signaling effect more like a supplement but much more potent And for instance they turn on certain pathways. It does work epigenetically. And you know just you know now there’s something like 40% of the new drugs being approved or peptide but they’re finding and even tiny peptides which really is great for us because we can use those for oral absorption.

Cheng Ruan, MD

What’s interesting a lot of the new drugs are actually peptides and there’s some big ones are out there right now, especially for weight loss that are injectables and stuff like that and people don’t realize they’re peptides. But what they actually they can’t necessarily patent part of the drug. What they do patent is the delivery device, right? The injectables and stuff like that. And so but we’re seeing more and more peptides in the pharmaceutical industry. So my father is one of the deans of pharmacology at the University of Houston Pharmacy Schools and his PhD is tides right? And so he’s been involved in research and peptides and animal models in cancer and atherosclerosis and Alzheimer’s model forever and stroke model in mice forever. So it’s an interesting thing that this is you know a lot of stuff I kind of experience as a kid and him doing experiments and being exposed to that is the stuff that we’re talking about now and so and now so much of the new the new treatments and there’s a new one coming out, another pep talk coming out in the in in Alzheimer’s disorder is now focused on like neural regeneration and T. B. I. And PTSD and stuff like that and in the in the former world. And so we’ve really turned really interesting corner in the last eight years which I thought is quite fascinating now this… 

Kent Holtorf, MD

Real quick, that there’s one there’s one for instance is human in and they named it human in because it made Alzheimer’s patients human again.

Cheng Ruan, MD

That’s a great one. Yeah. Are these things are these peptide treatments, are they covering up symptoms or are they getting to the root cause of symptoms?

Kent Holtorf, MD

They’re getting the root cause that’s the big difference for instance. like you know I had pots which is you know where your blood pressure drops and pulse goes way up and with immune modulation and you know people think it’s that’s so hard to treat and it is but you basically fix the you know the immunity and also you know the mast cells that you know like the mass well mastermind group and smartest nerdiest. I mean that is in a good way. They are just amazing but they’re stuck on going after the mast cells directly which that’s fine. But there’s nothing wrong with the mast cells that the problem is they’re being stimulated. So you want to look upstream and again, modulation like the K. P. V., B. P. C. Like we had this nine year old girl came in with Crohn’s they’re gonna do collecting me because all the medications nothing worked on her and she’s just you know tons of you know bloody diarrhea, you know multiple multiple times a day. And gave her B. P. C., K. P. V. And T before frag and I think we started with BBC actually cause she wanted to, one thing at a time she was about 60 70% better. And then by the time we just kind of added those in she was very very good. Didn’t need a collected me again.

Cheng Ruan, MD

So these agents were able to modify the way that her immune system works so it doesn’t necessarily have to attack her colon to the extent that it’s attacking. Right. And so and so what if and and I’m asking in your case for example you had the baby. She is an organism and you had the Lyme disease. Another organism. But what if there’s active organisms within the body, are you like I guess the best term is are you trying to go against nature by taking these peptides or are you helping the immune system do what it’s supposed to do? Like what was the category here? 

Kent Holtorf, MD

Yeah. So no I think you’re really helping the immune system what to do. For instance when they looked at C0V!D patients, their TB four levels and their lung was zero. And when you give people for instance and all these these levels drop especially the famous, you know BPC same thing. So you’re really doing just an optimization and now you know basically lowering the inflammation. But I say well okay now they’re gonna be prone to infections is actually the opposite. They can fight infections better and their antimicrobial as well. So then there’s antimicrobial peptides L-37 which will add in after we modulate the immune system and with you know wide antimicrobial effects.

Cheng Ruan, MD

This really reminds me of a similar effect of like cannabinoids CBD right? You have a very immune modulating effect like helping the immune system like its guiding force, you know? But I guess these are far more direct in what you’re trying to do, right?

Kent Holtorf, MD

And it’s interesting like BPC it’s kind of help me a static in that let’s say you have low blood pressure, it will raise it, you have high blood pressure, lowers it if you’re hyper correctable, it brings it down. If you don’t if you can’t coagulate, it will help you you won’t believe so it’s kind of like kind of smart drug type thing, you know? So it’s kind of… 

Cheng Ruan, MD

Your example is about pots, so pots for those who don’t know it’s possible or the static tachycardia syndrome. It’s very a lot more common than most people think but basically brain in the body and the entire system doesn’t know whether to be in this butter flight response or rest and digest. So sympathetic parasympathetic system and there’s mild reforms we call this autonomy and this meaning impaired autonomy is autonomic nervous system. And so there’s a lot of people that are like this and there’s a lot of people who have chronic infections that are like this, but the one hallmark is that they’re always, you know, kind of hyper primed, right? Their immune system is primed to react to everything whether it’s a physical stress or even a psychological stress, it’s kind of hyper primed and the body kind of goes haywire into that shutdown mode and you know, people call this sort of a pot episode for example right now. So what then what the peptides are doing in someone like that, which I guess was you in that situation right, is that it’s it’s allowing the body’s immune system to create sort of this this calm that hey, I am not in danger and therefore you can kind of go back to like homeostasis, go back to that balancing effect that it might think about that correctly.

Kent Holtorf, MD

Yeah, definitely. And when you’re in fight or flight, like for instance, you’re, you know, you’re stimulating really this like let’s say with the cortisol releasing hormone, you know, basically will stimulate AC th which then stimulates cortisol now with with stress CRH also is a very potent mass cell stimulator. And so you know that one way and then and also just the sympathetic drive drives the immune system like that as well. And so by doing that immune modulation and doing things for mast cell and in addition that those things just go away and but if you miss that like and for instance, you know, we find some of the key markers is natural killer cell function. That’s kind of what we use as a downstream, it’s not to teach one but it’s a downstream marker. And then for the other side where you C4A and human transforming growth factor beta and that’s when it causes significant fibrosis. 

You see that in Sears. And that is the ones I mentioned by Lon K. P. V. And T. V. Four frag directly lower that. And that is you know what caused my heart fibrosis and also causes chronic kidney damage. So I was in my create name was two for running around. So yeah it was at multi system illness and you know these are the people that we see now and it’s kind of nice because they all have the same pattern. I mean you look at autistic kids and Alzheimer’s kid Parkinson’s a just you know, old frail person and their immune markers. These biomarkers look about the same.

Cheng Ruan, MD

Yeah, I want to go into the mix of traumatic experiences. Right. And so we know those people with traumatic experiences tend to also exhibit sort of the same dis autonomy, a type of symptoms, How does that play into the picture and how does that how and how do peptides affect that population as well? 

Kent Holtorf, MD

Yeah. And so with the PTSD they look the same and you know, we see these bets with traumatic brain injury, they look the same, you know, but we’ll do more immune system. Yeah. And then so you fix the immune system and then you can add, you know, all the things to boost brain function. There’s also see length C max, which are direct no tropics and improve memory and cognition also lower inflammation. The lower, you know, micro glial activation, which is like the mast cells of the brain. Then mitochondrial peptides also because, you know, you’re the their low you get depression and also, I mean I love T. Three, we have a nonprofit National Academy of Hypothyroidism. What you really put that a number of review articles on thyroid because the way we practice thyroid in this country is wrong. 

Anyone who’s chronically ill stressed as toxins there, they have pineal gland pituitary, you know, thyroid dysfunction and we, you know, we’re taught in medical school, thyroids are easy. If your thyroid levels drop your TSH should go up. And that tells you you’re low thyroid. If it’s normal, it’s normal. If it’s low it’s high but with chronic illness the TSH goes down. But the kicker is that because you have mitochondrial dysfunction? Okay, it’s actually active transport, thyroid doesn’t diffuse into the cell that especially T. Four does not get into the cell. So T four is up. And if you look at depressed patients that they have low normal TSH high normal T four. And doctors think they’re oh they’re kind of high thyroid. No, they’re really low. In fact, you look at the largest study done on depression was a star report. 

And they found they give you all different, I think it was, you know, eight or different antidepressants. They also added T3 And one of the groups got T3 straight straight T3 not T4 which is usually given which is the precursor. And you hope it converts. They find it outperformed the antidepressants. It worked when the antidepressants didn’t work, when the antidepressants work, they tend to only work for about a year and stop working. And then you could also add the T. Three at that time and they would start working and then left side effects. But they did not help fund the study. So they didn’t they didn’t end up in the abstract. So doctors don’t know it. But another study real quick, like 100 and 35 bipolar patients treatment resistant tried on average 14 different medications. No response. They gave them all T three straight T three time release time but straight T. Three. And they found 80% responded in about 30% total resolution of symptoms.

Cheng Ruan, MD

So if you know, we now know that there’s an immune system that modulates everything. The way that react to things, right? And they play very interactive with the hormonal system that’s in our body, right? And so when someone asked the question, you know, is my hormones, are my hormones out of balance. The real question is is my immune system out of balance as well, Right?

Kent Holtorf, MD

Because I have one talk that’s on, you know, big thyroid person, I love T3. And so I give a lot of thyroid talks. But you you look at, let’s say, someone with Hashimoto’s that if you modulate the immune system and lower those antibodies, they feel better than if you give them thyroid, even though they’re gonna feel better with thyroid as well, but modulate the immune system there, it’s going to increase their mitochondrial function. It’s gonna allow the thyroid to get into the cells all that. And then especially when you combine it with T. Three, because T3 Again, too much information, but it needs less energy to get into the cell, the active transporter. So that’s why it works in depression when T4 doesn’t. And a lot of studies, they’ll say, oh thyroid doesn’t work for depression because they give T4 but they have the wrong thing, you know?

Cheng Ruan, MD

You know the way to think about it I guess is you know, we have we have the interplay of the immune system are hormone functions the function of our organs. And so even though it’s a complex array of different things, We really have to take it holistically, right? And if someone has, you know, persistent traumas or maybe they’re holding onto traumas in their lifetime, right. That also modulates the immune response. And maybe if someone has had, you know, concussive injuries and traumatic brain injuries as well. Then that plus perpetual traumas, plus there’s also medical trauma because people go through medical doctors and not really being validated by the disease, taking diagnoses, right? umThere’s a medical trauma that’s there too. So creates sort of this you know, one of my friends called the band of Misfit patients that try to find something that’s kind of there and not necessarily succeeding, right? And but we’re seeing the immune system be really at the center of modulating all this. 

But you know, I think that we still have to thank the immune system because I think our immune system has been developed to protect us. And part of the reason our organs start slowing down and shutting down is the immune system telling our body hey, pay attention like something’s going on, you have to deal with this, you know, and I think we’re taught in sort of the Western society just like keep pushing, keep pushing, you know, especially as a medical doctor, right? Anesthesiologists keep pushing, keep doing your thing and sometimes we slow down and smell the roses and really honor the fact that we do have senses and our senses can be very complex. But all those arrays are still tying back to the fact that we really have to kind of pay attention to our bodies. Do you think that what you’re doing, especially with innovative peptides dot com, Do you think that there’s the time is now like here for really doctors and the medical societies to start considering like peptides as forms of like primary treatments for these disease states. 

Kent Holtorf, MD

No doubt. And every practice and position that we were taught, you know, that we have a training program that’s year long. We’re finding an official just training program starting in January, 2nd week of January. It’s at my Bettermedicine.com. But the year long it’s I think it has to be and it’s really making the rounds headway with the bio hackers, you know, because it’s very anti aging and you know, for instance, you know, there’s some peptides that are senolytics that you get rid of the senescent and this was just on my desk. But you know, and these rats are the same age and one got senolytics where you knock out basically you get these cells that go into basically sin essence, but it’s called zombie cells, They don’t work. But even worse than that there’s a creating all this inflammation, you know, so they’re causing tons of problems. So your body gets should get rid of those. 

But if you have low th one your body can’t kill those and there’s no pro proper autophagy where the cell knows too. Hey my time you know and you increase that autophagy Or you know get rid of those senescent cells like people’s heart failure, dramatically better diabetes, you know all these you know neurological neurodegenerative diseases get better and because a lot of you know these neurodegenerative diseases almost always are infection and toxins and stress and And then they have again but you can’t fight the infections and so you got to get the body and lower that inflammation. They got brain on fire. And and and then there’s a lot you know different peptides like people can’t sleep that they’re basically sleep center is it’s inflamed and there’s a delta sleep inducing peptide which doesn’t make you sleepy which kind of sounds like it would but after a couple of weeks it basically lowers that inflammation starts working again. We find when you combine that with the pineal ian peptide. And a growth hormone especially it’s like people can’t sleep now they start sleeping.

Cheng Ruan, MD

Great and I’m gonna validate what you said a little bit earlier is that you know I do a lot of quantitative EEG analysis basically brain mapping and I tell my patients all the time like patients like hey, do I have PTSD symptoms or do I have a traumatic brain injury on the QEEG. I’m like, you know what? They all look the same and they all look like your immune system is so revved up to trying to get rid of something, right?

Kent Holtorf, MD

And we have to fight or flight. Yeah. You can tell within like, you know, you get used to like on the phone, like You get like 30 seconds so you can tell. Yeah. 

Cheng Ruan, MD

Right. And then there’s always and there’s always patterns that are there that we really have to, you know, uncover. And the brain is very fascinating because the brain is able to create other neural circuitry to compensate for this persistent like fight or flight and then preservation mode, right? And we can see that on the brain mapping and that’s one of the things that we do with neural feedback and stuff. But, you know, that’s just part of the picture. You know, I think that I think that what we have to really understand is as a medical field, we really have to kind of communicate together, right? Because there are data out there that were not necessarily receiving either because we’re not taught about it or it’s just too new. But it seems like the even the big pharma world is turning into peptides for some of these new age drugs that’s being developed you know right now.

Kent Holtorf, MD

We’re actually starting clinical trials. We started a drug company. We went to the dark side because we have a peptide shot that gets rid of tonight is very quickly years.

Cheng Ruan, MD

So that’s huge. That’s huge. And that company is what is it? K. J. Bell biofarm. 

Kent Holtorf, MD

Yeah. Yeah.

Cheng Ruan, MD

So and so ok now you have to explain that to me now, Not perplexed. So tonight this is very complex ring in the ears, very complex multiple things that are involved in it and it’s heavily immune modulated. And so how did that come out?

Kent Holtorf, MD

We just found it kind of by chance and it’s someone was injecting someone for TMJ and it went a little too high and then he’s like mike has gone yeah and also works for hearing like we had a it was a little party for some of our patients and we’re doing some injections. One girl had just poor hearing and we did it and she’s like just starts crying because she could hear better, took about seven minutes you know. But yeah you know with the nerves and that’s the interesting thing like BPC let’s say someone has peripheral neuropathy. BPC, TB4 all studies show it works in fact like they’ll slice rats sciatic nerve they’ll do nasty stuff you know rats and if they put BBC will grow back together if they don’t it doesn’t. And there’s also air air a. 2 90. And there’s a lot of a lot of things that there’s a lot of crossover. 

But then we’re figuring out new ones every day and we find that actually very very small by peptides can be very powerful. And you kind of think like well you know what it just it makes no sense. You know, we wouldn’t think that that would do anything and we can’t find the receptor. But one study did show that the receptor was harmonic, which was very interesting. But which kind of reminds me of, you know an EMFS. And you look at some studies on E. M. S. When they put like a rat in a box and they put the cell phone in the middle and wait three weeks and then they sacrificed and they got hippocampal degeneration. You know? And we’re getting bombarded. I always tell people turn off your Wi-Fi at night, you know, don’t put your cell phone up to your ear electric cars to reverse Tesla cage. And so do it at your own risk.

Cheng Ruan, MD

But so many things that are out there that technology has really made our lives easier. But at the same time what is it doing to us at the cellular level at the genetic level at the molecular level. It’s really hard to understand. And so well this has been a fabulous discussion. How can people find more about this type of treatment? More about you, more about your practice?

Kent Holtorf, MD

Yeah. Well again we’re a Holtorf medical group in El Segundo, California. We also do you know Skype business and things like that. But we have integrated peptides where you can order peptides there. If you’re interested in thyroid especially go to the National Academy of Hypothyroidism and I think hopefully I’ll convince you that the way we’re practicing thyroids country is wrong. And then we’ll be again starting that training program but currently also doing with A4M. The on the board there for the international peptide society. So peptides are getting in there you know And so that’s they have four or five different you know, conference of the year on peptides.

Cheng Ruan, MD

Well thank you so much for being on, it’s been a salvage discussion. Very in depth discussions. I want to thank you for that but go ahead and check out the website and can you spell your last name so people can type it into the URL

Kent Holtorf, MD

Holtorf. H. O. L. T. O. R. F. Med dot com. And then integrated peptides.

Cheng Ruan, MD

Excellent thank you so much and you know I wanna you know just and this is sort of my first introduction into the understanding of peptides, not at the basic bench science level, which I’ve been exposed to most of my life really at the clinical level. So I’m excited to learn. Thank you.

Kent Holtorf, MD

Give me your address, get that to me and we’ll send you some samples. Try it out.

Cheng Ruan, MD

Thanks a lot. Alright, everyone. Thanks for checking in and we’ll chat with you later. Bye bye.

Kent Holtorf, MD

Great. Thanks so much, appreciate it.