Peptides, Mycotoxins, Mast Cells, and Chronic Illness

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

The standard medicine sucks basically. So, anything alternative is good.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Yeah, but you’ve really done a lot to help really get the news out, not just on the peptides, but on appropriate uses of hormones, especially thyroid. So, feel free. We’re gonna touch on all your favorite areas. We’ll just kinda guide the way, but first tell the audience a little bit about your background.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, so basically during medical school residency, I got very sick. I was so fatigued. I couldn’t see a patient and then I go to the standard doctors. They go, “Oh, you’re stressed or just depressed.” I’m like, “I’m not depressed,” and “Here’s the anti-depressant.” Well, that didn’t work, of course. So, I’m thinking I’ll have to dropout of medicine and then I figure that, well, maybe I can do anesthesia because you don’t have to talk to a patient, but you have to be up at 5:00 a.m. which I didn’t think about until after. And it’s also the most mindless specialty ever. No offense to the anesthesiologist out there, but to me it was. 

So, anyways, it was ingrained in us not to go to any alternative medicine conference because alternative means no evidence, right? But I don’t know what to do because I can’t function. And so, I got a number of them. I’m like, damn, they’re more evidence-based than the stuff they’re teaching me in residency. And so, basically, I went on a high dose, T3, immune modulators, growth hormone, testosterone, a number of things and I’m like, damn, I’m a new person. So, I’m like, I’m getting the heck out of anesthesia. I’m gonna go do family practice where I can treat the patients like myself. And so, opened up, took over a family practice and then incorporate this stuff. And people were just coming out of the woodwork because they were getting better and word of mouth and converted an insurance practice. 

I just did nothing for people. Basically, we’re helping people, but you gotta do cash. You can’t do it under an insurance model. And then some guy with fibromyalgia who was a healthcare entrepreneur basically went all around the world looking for treatments for fibromyalgia. Nothing ever helped. Came to us in two visits was dramatically better. So, he goes, “We gotta bring this to the rest of the world,” whatever. So, we opened up 22 clinics, corporate clinics, and then they got too many and we got too many investors. So, they kind of took over and I’d be saying, “Look, this is not gonna work. “It’s not GEMCO or whatever you said, ages me, “but it’s medicine.” And they’d be like, “I’m a Harvard MBA. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” So, I said, “Okay, I’m out. “I will find another medical director,” or whatever. So, I left and then I ended up firing the CEO and the CFO. We all started it. And then six months later, it tanked basically. But even though they got an offer for many millions and then they’re like, “No, we won’t do it.” So, started a clinic in Torrens. 

And so, we would be able to get into it and then I got terrible line. So, my chronic fatigue syndrome was actually Lyme Babesia, Bartonella and I went through a stressful divorce, which that’s when we find in a bunch of studies, I talk about this, how stress, people think it lowers immunity, but it modulates immunity, where that good immunity to get rid of intercellular infections goes down, but all the inflammation goes up. I was just so sick and miserable, neuropathies, restless leg syndrome, brain fog. I could not function. I went to heart failure on top of that and could not stand up straight, could not walk upstairs and the cardiologist said, “Well, maybe in 10 years you can get better “from the heart damage and tons of arrhythmias,” and that’s where most people get a heart transplant. 

And I said, “No, I’m gonna go “look for a damn treatment for this.” So, I kinda went around the world at two miles an hour, bent over trying to catch flights and I found peptides in Europe and I took them. I wasn’t expecting much. And then a couple of days later, I’m like, I just walked up the damn stairs. And then I was able to use those on myself, but I couldn’t really sell them to patients because they were from another country and a lot of regulations on that, although some people do. And then once they came here, I’m like, oh my gosh. Sorry, speaking on that. And so, it’s really become the core of our treatment while we were at Lyme Center. We’re really kind of more Horowitz model, like massive antibiotics.

I went on three and a half years of IV antibiotics at doses that I would never give a patient, at seven at a time and I didn’t get better. It didn’t help me. But then when I had a peptide, I’m like, damn. I’m starting to feel better. And a lot of other things too. I love ozone, heparin, a lot of things, but it’s a core piece of our practice that allowed us to treat these Lyme and mold and patients with shorter terms antimicrobials. We don’t use a ton of them for years and years and years. We just need them in the short term and people are so much better. So, that’s how that kind of happened.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Yeah, no, I think that’s, I think, a view of many people who’ve used high dose antibiotics who actually watch their patients use that. There is a subset of folks who I call that are going through the front door. You go in two, three months of IV antibiotics and hey, they’re better, but when they’re not better or they’re worse, another year, usually, isn’t the answer and it’s time to go back and see what’s happening in that immune system. And that’s what’s been so exciting about the peptides because, to be honest, I’ve played with peptides for… We used to import them from Panama, but I didn’t use them enough. And I think that’s what I’ve learned from you over the last few years is that when you use them and stick with them, you’d be amazed at the responses the body has. So, tell us more about how you use. We’ll talk about them in all different flavors, but just since we’re talking a lot about mycotoxins, let’s just start there. How do you position the peptides in treating mycotoxins?

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

So, they’re an excellent fit. Let’s talk about just in general immunity. And so, think of it, it’s oversimplification. Anything we talk about immunity ’cause you have to ’cause it’s so complex.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Yeah.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Think of Th1 and Th2. So, Th1 gets stuffed inside the cell, Th2 gets stuffed outside the cell. When you’re young, they’re balanced. As you get older and your thymus, which controls that involute and basically drops by the age. Starts about age 14 and by age 30, 35, it’s like 1/10th of what it should be. So, what happens is that Th1 goes down and Th2 goes up. So, now you have all this inflammation, but you can’t fight intercellular infections. And so, what a lot of the peptides do is modulate that immune system, lower the inflammation and raise that Th1. Now, my one marker, it really isn’t a Th1 cytokine or cell, but it downstream, it ends up being, is natural killer cell function. If you look at chronic fatigue syndrome, about 25% will have low natural killer cell number, but 75% will have low natural killer cell function. 

So, you can’t fight intercellular infections. Like when you get lime, it secretes cytokines that suppressed Th1 then it goes inside yourself. Now it’s long-term. Stress lowers Th1 raises Th2. Any inflammation, auto immune. You’re more prone to autoimmune disease. All the diseases of aging have this immune shift. So, if you snap that back then not only is it anti-aging, but now you can fight. The mold occurs in people that are basic immunocompromised, and you’ll see that people in a house that has tons of mold, that many people won’t react or have a problem, but the person, if they have Lyme or chronically ill, they’re the ones that get it. And it’s really interesting. 

Usually when we do IgG tests, the people in the same moldy thing, they won’t even have a response to it. Their body just gets rid of it and doesn’t care. Well, when you have that high Th2, your body’s just constantly overactive. Overactive mast cells and just causing all this inflammation. So, if you can snap that immune system back, you are so much better off and that’s one thing why the antibiotics didn’t work for me. You can’t kill enough infection for the immune system to take over. So, your immune system always has to take over, but you can’t take enough antibiotics to get rid of all this stuff. So, you gotta bring down the inflammation, raise your good immunity, and that’s when you’re gonna be able to heal.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Right, and one thing I think we forgot right in the beginning here is to mention your disclosures since you are somebody who’s done a lot to help bring these peptides to everybody, to people who are afraid of needles. We should perhaps talk a little bit about–

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Oh, yeah. That’s a very good point. Thank you. Yeah, so, just as a upfront disclosure, the CEO of Integrative Peptides, where we sell these peptides, which we make orally available, which a lot are not and effective and we have four currently. We have four more coming out with special delivery methods. And so, anything I say, and this has nothing to do with Integrated Peptides. I’m talking about my own personal and as a physician. So, nothing to do with Integrated Peptides. So, thank you for that.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Yeah, okay, but it is a company that we have all been appreciative of since it’s allowed us to really get… A lot of people aren’t happy or comfortable sticking themselves, even with tiny needles, on a regular basis and it’s nice to have oral forms.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

And we’re able to bring down the costs and our margins are super low. I’ll tell you that, but it’s okay ’cause we wanna get these out to help patients. And it’s amazing the feedback we get.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Yeah, no, it’s really good. And again, it is something. This balancing the immune response. This is something that I’m not big on the Th1 and Th2 model only because I think it’s such a… But you’re right. It’s a great way. It’s a simplification. The problem is that it’s good for patients because the immune system is so complex that we need to simplify it. My issue is I think too many doctors have done the same thing and stay in that simplified worldview.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

That they don’t understand it’s actually… Every model’s an oversimplification.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Yeah, We need them to think, but we have to remember not to get locked into believing them too much because they’re discovering new T-cell regulatory cells and subpopulations every few months. We’re–

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Exactly, the new studies. If you look at the old studies, they’ll say this autoimmune disease, like Hashimoto’s is a Th1 driven auto-immunity, but Graves’ is Th2, but I’m like, why do the same treatments work? And it’s because they thought there was Th1 was actually Th17, which looks like Th1 and then you got Tregs in there and you got a bunch of different stuff.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

So, basically, it’s a very complex, interactive communication system. And since it’s a communication system, any place you move one piece moves the other piece.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Absolutely.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

That is what we have to remember. So, don’t get hung up if somebody says you have a Th2 disease and you need something that might increase Th2. Let your doctor think about it in contextual terms, because Th2 move might be having a good communication with the Th1 system.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Oh, it does and the problem too, with the literature throughout the years, basically how they assign a cytokine, whether with Th1 or Th2, some use the cell that secretes it. Others use the response it does. And usually whenever you stimulate Th2, it’s gonna secrete something that increases Th1 to keep that balance. So, some things and some papers are named as Th2 and they call it anti-inflammatory and other papers they say it’s inflammatory and that’s what they know.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Location, location, location. The same cytokine will have different effects if it’s in your bloodstream or if it’s in a tissue and in different tissue. And that’s where we’ve all gotten into trouble. Again, one of the big things we talked about in this series is the markers that people have used. Initially, they thought there were more markers for mold. The TA, the TG, the–

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

The human transforming growth factor.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Yeah, transforming growth factor. TGF-beta 1 and VEGF and MMP9. And these are just markers of immune activation. When they’re up, your immune system is doing something you would rather it wasn’t doing, but it doesn’t tell you what caused it and I think–

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

And we’ll see certain patterns. And what I tell people is that this shows something’s going on. And I think it’s most likely this, but there’s certainly a lot of crossover, but we like doing that. So, we can do that through standard labs, because you tell someone, “I think you have Lyme or mold,” and they’re like, “I don’t have any mold. “I’m not a camper.”

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Definitely.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

But they see it on paper and we’ll do like 40 tests as initial. And they’re like, “But all my labs are normal.” Then they say, “What if you don’t find anything?” I’ll say, “Well, it hasn’t happened yet.” Because they just do a CBC chem panel cholesterol, and try to treat them with the statin for their cholesterol. I’m like, .

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Yeah, well, so let’s talk just a bit a minute. What are your few, maybe two or three of your favorite tests just to explain is that the problem with the CBC, which is the complete blood count, and the chem screens is that they’re designed to find illnesses that are going to kill you or that you’re actively… Like the liver function tests are reflection of increase in liver cell turnover or their liver cells are actively dying, but they don’t tell you if your liver is functioning well. Now we have a little bit. So, what Dr. Holtorf, I think, is talking about is more tests are gonna show. They’ll look under the hood a little bit more, and not just something that might kill you, because the good news is that Lyme and mycotoxins and water damaged building issues generally don’t kill people, at least not quickly.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

You just wanna die.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Yeah, and so that’s why these are regular tests, which are designed for death or life. They don’t work. And so, on that note, what are your two or three favorite tests just to–

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, and with that, I’ll give you the answer, but in general, why I like to run so many is I like to paint a picture because there’s always test that in what lab does it, and it’s different. If you want Coxsackie virus to be positive, then do it on Labcorp. If you want it negative, do it on Quest. And it’s a little scary and we even did. I had our audio visual guy do the same test, just basic tests. Hemoglobin A1C and sugar levels, insulin. And he did it at this Quest or Labcorp and there’s one right above it and went right up to the next one. And one, his hemoglobin A1C was 5.9 and the other one was 5.4. 

And so, one, he may well be needed to be treated for diabetes. The other one is, oh, you’re totally fine. Don’t worry about it. And that is not an instantaneous. It’s over like three months. But we like looking at a lot of ratios and basically different subsets, but I would say we kind of use as a marker, which correlates, I showed it correlates with disability, with chronic fatigue syndrome and ruins the Th1 marker, is natural killer cell function through Quest. Now, LabCorp is so much easier to work with. You’ve talked to all their medical directors, they’ve have come in. I said, “You need to do this test.” And they say they have a test, but it just doesn’t clinically correlate. And then on the Th2 side, we’ll use human transforming growth factor beta and C4A, just as a clinician and say and those, but those are the three tests they screw up half the time. And so, it’s a pain in the butt.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Yeah, and just to be fair is that, especially, the TGF-beta, you really have to draw correctly and it’s temperature sensitive. So, it’s something that is difficult, but when it works, it’s helpful for information and the C4A even more so.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, or VEGF through Quest always comes back zero because they don’t process it right. I had Bartonella. My VEGF was hundreds of times or hundreds over 10 times as high and I had these veins that were just gigantic and they weren’t varicose and I remember walking up the stairs of summer and this kid goes, “Daddy, what’s wrong with his legs?” It was just just huge vessels. So, I go to this cardiothoracic doctor, tests and then said, “Well, they’re not. “That’s weird “but these are the biggest damn veins I have ever seen.” And so, he scleroses them, including my greater saphenous. And then I get rid of Bartonella and I have no veins.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Yeah, I said, anybody can get into trouble in medicine. Yes, it doesn’t matter what you know. So, getting back, so, those are two or three. And then what do you do with the peptides as far as maybe helping lower the inflammation? We do believe, because I believe and I think you do too, that without a pre-existing infection, it’s unusual for people to become very sensitive to mycotoxins. It’s more ’cause we’re constantly exposed to them. Most of us do okay. In our experience it’s infection. Tick-borne diseases are high up there and are the ones doing it. So, how do you help protect our systems?

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, and so just what you just said about reacting is I remember when I would do some injectable peptides where it looked like a terrible allergic reaction, right, when I was sick. But then when I wasn’t flaring or was doing well, it was fine.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Tell you about the red response using–

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, when you’re doing injection.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

When you’re doing injection, yes.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, so, in general, if you think of the thymosins that usually your thymus are producing, there’s thymosin alpha 1. The most prominent one is thymosin Beta-4, which basically lowers that Th2, raises that Th1. Think of thymosin alpha 1, which is approved in 35 countries or 40 now for infections and cancer. That generally raises Th1. And then we’re gonna have a replacement for that, which a couple of different thymic peptides that actually absorb orally, which are gonna be more Th1 regulated and TB4 has more also kind of rejuvenating powers, not just immune modulation. And then the BPC, think about, is lowering Th2 to lower that inflammation, but also adding growth and healing factors. And then KPV is super anti-inflammatory, especially on mast cells. So, it is the terminal tri-peptide from alpha monocytes stimulating hormone, which there’s melanotan stuff and PT-141 for erectile dysfunction, but they make you tan which you think sounds good, which is good when you’re younger but if you do it when you’re older, you’ll have dark spots and stuff like that. But this doesn’t do that–

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Let me unpack some of this ’cause you had a whole bunch of things I wanna get to, but since you talking about KPV, we’ll just hit there first. MSH is something that was one of the early compounds that Dr. Shoemaker actually was very interested in early on, except, again, it was available for short period of time. The gynecologists were using it because it also helps balance some of the dysmenorrheas, but the FDA took it off the market because it was a biologic. And again, biologics that can’t be… On one hand, the FDA says you can’t use them, but you really can’t patent them either. So, it’s hard to get a company to spend a few–

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Then no one’s gonna wanna do it. Why would anyone do it, yeah.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Right, 10 to $100 million or a few hundred million to prove that this stuff is safe and effective, even though your body makes it and we’ve been using it. But anyway, long story. MSH went away as an injectable, but it’s nice to see that some of the derivatives and we had the melatonin too but we used to have to get that from Australia years ago and it would make people very tan, but it did help the immune system.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Oh my gosh. I’m very ADD. So, mine isn’t doing anything and all because there’s delayed response. I was the weirdest looking some kind of strange African American or something. Everyone was like, “What the heck?” I was so dark. I was freaking out. And I know a number of Lyme doctors were using it for the anti-inflammatory properties, but you got that, basically, increase in melanocytes.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Yeah, and there was lots of concerns over that. But now, you brought out this product, this KPV, which is very exciting, because it does not have the effect on the skin tones at all.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Right, it doesn’t seem like that. It’s probably 100 times as potent per weight as the parent compound just because it’s shorter, okay? But even compared molecule to molecule, it has much more anti-inflammatory effects, but they can’t figure out. It’s like melanocytes receptor one through four generally, but it doesn’t seem to activate any of those. They’re not quite sure how it works, which I started doing some research on these five peptides, super short. They don’t seem to have receptor. And one study showed that it was harmonic, right, and they stimulate the cell and I’m like, what the heck do EMFs do to that?

Eric Gordon, M.D.

And how do you get an IND? That’s an investigation new drug approval to study that? ‘Cause if you’re describing a system of effect or an effect that most scientists don’t understand, you’re never gonna get… Nobody’s gonna look at your study.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, but if you look at the drugs approved, you look at SSRIs, we think, oh, it’s simple. They raised their tone and that’s not even how they work.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

No, but it’s a story and that’s what you need for this is a good story. But one more thing just important point for our listeners is that what are the size of the peptides? I think that’s really important for people to understand that these are small molecules.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, so, they’re generally there’s a rule of fives of what absorbs. Three or less amino acids will absorb. But then you have exceptions like BPC-157. An oral dose is equivalent systemically to an injection dose wise, but it’s 14 amino acids. But it lives in the gut. That’s where it’s produced. So, it makes sense. It matters how it folds. So, there’s lipophilic outside and things like that but also you look at tripeptides like GHK, and it’s in all these cranes. Unless you do something to it, there’s almost zero absorption. So, it depends and it costs a lot of money. We’re spending a lot of money showing what absorbs, what doesn’t. We just got a guy that does computer simulations, which is like big pharma stuff to at least narrow it down and then we have to do the studies on animals and things like that. So, we’re making sure that what we give you’re getting it.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Right, absorption is important. But I think the thing is that these are peptides are generally no larger than 40 to 50 carbons long and it–

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, 40, 50 amino acids won’t absorb in general.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Yeah.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

It’s almost impossible, but you got the GLP-1 oral for diabetes that they’re all injectable, but what they do as a big pharma they give it with a substance that breaks open the tight junctions, which I’m not gonna do. And they say, “Well, it’s just temporary.” Well, yeah, in a healthy person, but we’ve got people with leaky gut that they’re not repairing these things. And they only got 1% absorption on that.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Oh, wow.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

So, they have to give 100 times the dose to get that level. And it was a big breakthrough because it’s such a big molecule.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Right, but the good thing is these peptides are small. Yes, and that’s 15 amino acids. 40, 50, not carbons, okay. Big difference. But still they’re relatively small. Enzymes have thousands to even up to, there’s one that has like 3 million amino acids. So, they’re big molecules, enzymes. Peptides are small guys.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Peptide is arbitrarily less than 40 to 50, depending on who you talk to, but still those aren’t gonna absorb orally and they’re gonna be broken down by all the enzymes in the gut.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Right.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

So, yeah.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

So, that’s what’s so interesting is that you guys have brought up things like thymic before, which is the frag. So, we have pieces of them. and yet the pieces seem to have significant biologic effects.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, and so when you look at thymosin beta-4, thymus secretes that and it has multiple domains, meaning it has multiple parts that do different things. And there’s one big part that stimulates mast cells, right, which we don’t want. But if you give someone TB4, a few people flare, but the upstream immune modulation is gonna fix the mast cell problem that overrides the direct stimulation.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Unless you’ve got somebody who’s super reactive and then–

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

That’s the people, yeah, that will react. So, what we did is took out all the parts we don’t want in the part that has all the immune modulatory. So, it’s 100 as potent as the full length TB4 and is fully orally absorbable, it doesn’t break down in the gut. So, it’s anti-fibrotic, it’s immune modulatory. It’s shown to rejuvenate the heart after heart attack, prevent and treat traumatic brain injury, reverse diabetic kidney disease, anti-microbial, tons of studies on that. So, you got the best of both worlds. You took out the bad, left all the good.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Yeah, which is pretty remarkable. And then you have something, like you say, the BPC-157, which because it’s made in the gut, you didn’t have to do as much work to it to keep it biologically active.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, it happens to be biologically active on its own and when I give talks on it, there’s so many studies showing it does, again, we’ll treat basically MIs, get the heart working better, traumatic brain injury, anything in the gut. It’ll protect the liver against toxins. It’s kind of a homeostatic peptide in that if your blood pressure is high it’ll lower it. If your pressure is low it’ll raise it, if you’re hypercoagulable it’ll bring it down, if you can’t coagulate it’ll bring it up. And in so many instances, it does that. It kinda brings it back to normal and it’s shown to protect from basically toxins and overdoses from mycotoxins, neurotoxins. We throw this stuff at rats in almost everything. In one study they did it from the same animal. They gave them basically inflammatory bowel disease and then MS. So, in both of those, they treated them with BPC and both conditions got dramatically better.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Which would make sense since there’s a lot of evidence that it is the “leaky gut” that is often a underpinning of a lot of–

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, they get the inflammation. Everything’s a patient’s cycle and you get the leaky gut. These big proteins are coming in and the body’s responding to it. It’s gonna drive this inflammation and you fix the leaky gut. Now, that gets better and there’s probably direct effects and there’s probably indirect effects, leaky gut, but the nice thing with the peptides is people always think the gut affecting the body, but the body also affects the gut. So, let’s say someone with SIBO or all these other issues is that they go, “That’s the cause.” Well, when you see that, usually in a systemically ill person, and it comes back because they don’t have the motility, they’re not secreting the enzymes. 

And so, you wanna treat both sides of that and that’s what makes really the peptides so powerful with the leaky gut and that you add… BPC is kind of the go-to one, or it’s gonna reduce the inflammation, increase the healing of so many things. And then TB4 or FRAG will work right on the tight junctions. And then you add KPV, which is amazingly anti-inflammatory and also BPC is shown to, whether it’s indirect effect or not, that it will help restore normal flora and all that, or may just be because it’s fixing the gut normal function.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Yeah, no, you brought up a point that I hate. How often I forget it. And I think all of us, well, I shouldn’t speak for all doctors, but I think many doctors do is my example right in the beginning of walking through the front door by treating Lyme with IV antibiotics or neuro Lyme especially or tick-borne diseases. That typical medical approach of there’s something there, we kill it or remove it–

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

One drug, one cause.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Yeah, you just boom. When it works, okay, but when it’s not working, the most important thing to keep in mind, which is the point you made is always be thinking at least one or two steps above and below the problem. So, if your gut is always inflamed and you’ve done the SIBO treatments over and over again, well, okay, step back. As you say, maybe the guts can go into the brain, but the brain is going to the gut and what else can be modulating in the system instead of just the system that’s making noise, ’cause remember we’re one big bag of communicating–

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

It’s very true. And I think most people that have Lyme and they’re healthy, they may never have symptoms. As they get older and stress and toxins and pesticides and basically thymus involution, that’s when they start getting migraines, SIBO, auto-immune disease and they’re just treating all these different things when they’re not looking at the underlying. Then they get sensitive to mold and that makes it worse and all that. And I just read a study, very interesting, that it showed that fast food basically modulate the immune system like an infection and when people went back to normal eating it, it didn’t go back. So, certainly a contributor. Then you add all the toxins, pesticides like BPA, drinking our plastic water balloons, and most of them are BPA free, but you’re still getting it in a lot of different places. It blocks the thyroid receptor in the periphery but not in pituitary. So, pituitary has totally different receptors, totally different transporters, and they’re highly sensitive and very difficult to block. So, they’re fine. So the TSH is low, but the rest of the body’s dying of basically low thyroid.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Let’s just reemphasize that, ’cause this is something that I think is just so important because so many of our chronically ill patients have this element of they’re tired, their bowels don’t work, their skin is dry. They kind of look like they’re hypo… They can’t lose weight. They look like they’re hypo thyroid but because that wonderful TSH, thyroid stimulating hormone test is normal, their GP, their endocrinologist will not touch them because you’re normal.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

And they won’t listen to the studies.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Yeah, true.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

The way we diagnose, treat thyroid in this country is wrong. It’s not evidence based. It’s based on the fictitious, totally healthy patient and if they have any illness or living in this world, they’re low thyroid to some degree and it’s a big problem.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Yeah, no, and you have done a lot. And the reason I’m bringing this up is ’cause you’ve done a lot of work of teaching doctors about how important it is to look past that first level of the TSH and be brave enough to say, “Oh, maybe T3 is the answer,” is gonna begin to… Because we know what we’re looking to do is restore function. When I was a kid, I was briefly a car mechanic. The frustrating thing about being a car mechanic, ’cause you actually have to fix the problem.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

A what mechanic? A what?

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Car mechanic, a mechanic.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

A car mechanic.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

And the nice thing about people is that the body is a self-healing organism. Many times, if you just remove something that’s blocking or give a piece of information that maybe is not even in the area that’s most injured, the body will then heal. You don’t have to get everything right and that’s where supporting the hormones is so important. But just a little aside even though that’s not about peptides, but obviously I appreciate your work.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, and the problem is that everyone goes by the societal recommendation, the endocrine society. And there’s one of the doctors that wrote the end of the societies guidance and he totally believes in T3 and TSH is problematic, but the end of his papers are always Synthroid and TSH remain the standard.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Right.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, and he writes this stuff down and at one of our franchise, a hospital bought one of our franchises and the doctors were complaining that we’re practicing medieval evidence. So, I had to rush down there and give a talk on evidence-based medicine, which was a big mistake because that was not what they were concerned about was also I may show them that we were evidence-based and they weren’t. And then this OB would say, “Here’s the guidelines.” I’m like, “Okay, what level of evidence “are our societal guidelines?” You have double blind placebo controlled studies, that analysis, then you get case controlled, then you get anecdotal stories.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Expert opinion, they call it.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Oh, yes.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Yeah, expert opinion, which is what most of our guidelines are based on. An expert opinion means that you get people. And my favorite line about experts in chronic illness is even for myself, it’s true is that you’re usually expert in what hasn’t worked, because if we had all the answers, there wouldn’t be that chronic illness anymore. We would have figured it out.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Totally true. And they found the lowest level is expert opinion, but even lower than that were societal guidelines because it’s experts that get together and basically they cherry pick studies. They don’t change for 20 years. They have a stance and they will stick to it. And so, I would say, “Here it is. “WHO, levels of evidence, societal guidelines right here. “So, we’re doing this. “I just showed you 15 “double blind placebo controlled studies. “I showed you five meta analysis, “that what we’re doing is right “and you’re bringing me societal guidelines?” And it was funny. 

It was a small town outside of Kansas city, two hours outside and a guy who grew up there said, “They won’t let you in.” And I’m like, “No, they love us.” But it turned out, they were mad. They then changed their thing too. They think they’re better than us. So, they’re like, “You gotta go talk to the CEO. “He’s so pissed.” He was given this talk and the rheumatologist stands up. He goes, “I’m not listening to bullshit.” Walks out but then we got to talk to the CEO. He’s so mad. I go talk to him and he goes, “You know what? “All these fricking specialist clowns “have been treating my wife for 20 years or 15 years “and she hasn’t gotten any better “and two visits to your clinic, she’s dramatically better. “I will control these doctors.” 

They’re like, “No, you won’t. “You won’t. “Let’s just change the names…” And then I went to the satellite clinic, which was a peds clinic and the guy was like into it and then he gets a call and he goes, “Well, I’m busy with a meeting.” “No, it’s an emergency.” So, he comes back, takes the call and goes, “What the hell was that? “This OB called and said don’t listen to you.” So, anyways, they had an emergency management meeting of all the doctors and they described it like Frankenstein with pitchforks and torches going to get them out. But it was that they didn’t understand what they were doing and we were getting better results and it an ego thing.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

To be fair, medicine is like anything. It’s not very scientific. That’s what I’ve said all along is that patients have to understand is that we don’t have enough science. We don’t understand how the body works at the levels that the average person thinks we do. So, remember how genetics we were gonna get the genome and we were gonna have… Well, that was now almost 20 years ago. What, 17, 18 years ago, we had the human genome and guess what? We don’t know much it with that. We know a lot more than we did, but it’s still minuscule, okay? We know about things we build, okay? Bridges, bombs, planes–

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

But, yeah, it’s so .

Eric Gordon, M.D.

We didn’t build people or nature. We’re here trying to figure out the operating system. So, have just some understanding for your physicians and if–

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

And they’re putting a bad… I used to be very upset and just hated physicians because you send a patient back better, you think they’d be happy? No, they’re pissed. And they discharge the patient. But an internal medicine did a study and also some other major journal said that most doctors are practicing 10 to 20 years behind what’s available in the medical literature and it takes on average a proven new therapy idea to be accepted in the mainstream medicine, it takes on average 17 years. And they said, why is that? And one, doctors don’t read medical journals. They don’t. Before, I remember when I was writing these books and doing research, you have to go down to the medical library and scan them, see if they’re clear on the damn . Now it’s now it’s overload, right? 

But still, if you bring a doctor, and they found the biggest reason that they don’t change, if you bring them here’s 20 studies showing what you’re doing isn’t optimal, they will take those, throw them in the trash and say, “My patients were fine. “The way I do it is right. “My medical society agrees with me. “So, don’t bring me this crap. “I don’t care how much.” And I wrote a review article on HPA axis dysfunction and piece of the five . And I gave it to a patient who was feeling so much better and excited. He brought to his endocrinologist and endocrinologist goes, “Oh, I’ve seen this. “This is junk.” And he goes, “No, you haven’t. “It hasn’t been published.” And he takes it, throws in trash and he goes, “I don’t need to read it.”

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Yeah, no, this is the problem medicine, of science in general but in medicine in particular is that the average physician is now seeing too many patients a day and does–

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, they don’t have an incentive to do anything different. Even if they wanted to, they’re gonna get dinged because they have eight minutes, whatever, with the patient and the paperwork. I can’t sit alone any minute.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

No, this is the disincentives of medicine today. But the good news is there’s a lot of doctors out there. In fact, most doctors wanna help people. That’s the bottom line. I’ve met very few doctors who don’t want to help. And as we educate them slowly, they change individually. But as a group, it’s a very, very slow–

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

But also that cognitive dissonance where they can’t do it. If they believe it, now they’re a bad doctor ’cause they’re not doing it. So, it’s much easier to–

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Oh, yeah, to keep doing what you were trained to do.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

If anyone wants a copy of ours, because we always get, “Well, this is so great. “Why doesn’t my doctor know about it?” So, I wrote a piece on our nonprofit National Academy of Hypothyroidism, which has been hacked. So, you may have to type in a couple of times, but it’s “Why doesn’t my endocrinologist know this?” And it kind of goes through all of those studies.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Yeah, no, this is the issue of T3 we’ve been fighting for 30. In fact, you can still lose your license in many states for using T3, including California, unless you know how to defend yourself. But let’s go back–

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

But it’s key not to .

Eric Gordon, M.D.

What?

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

I did a lot of expert testimony and I just can’t believe what they do. It’s just the illusion. Let’s see.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Oh, I lost you for a second. I don’t know what happened.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Can you hear me?

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

That’s really weird. I’m sorry to know my audience, but my computer just decided to lose its way.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

He kicked me off.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Yeah, right.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

They must’ve been listening, but anyway. So, I hope they–

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, did it.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

That was the very strangest thing. I don’t know why it decided to shut down, but as you were saying, educating your doctor is a very difficult thing to do, but it’s worth it. Many will listen if it’s given to them quietly and slowly. Many of them, as Dr. Holtorf has been explaining, will not because it’s hard. All of us. It’s hard to realize that we could have been doing something different that would have benefited our patients. I sometimes feel the same way just when I learned about a therapy that’s been out there for years and I haven’t been using it. It was just like this, sometimes an emotional will that doesn’t make sense to me kind of thing, but I don’t go for it or learn more about it until enough patients come back and say, “Hey, guess what? “That therapy works.” So, I have compassion. It’s hard to learn new things when you think you know what you’re doing and the thing we have to remember is–

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

It’s hard to train other doctors to basically incorporate and have enough knowledge to get the full picture.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Yeah, so it is. And just to review, so, basically, your way of thinking about treating maybe not treating, but helping people deal with mycotoxin exposures is really supporting the membranes and the detox, it sounds like. The peptides that you’re suggesting are the BPC for the integrity of the membrane.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

And BPC is gonna protect the body from the mycotoxins and it even protects from alcohol, Tylenol overdose, Amphetamine overdose. It’s kind of a, again, homeostatic peptide. So, it will prevent all those things. It prevents a hangover too. But if you take too much, and I don’t know this mechanism, but it’s hard to get drunk. But I’ve heard from people, but it will prevent the kind of toxicity from alcohol the next day and people wake up feeling good, but it also does that for mycotoxin and those other things. And then if you look at KPV, is amazingly antifungal, antimycotic, where it’s shown to outperform Fluconazole. And also with staph infections at tiny, tiny doses it works. Then you look at BPC was showing before a cycle of a year at 100, the dose for herpes viruses. And the thing is there’s not a ton of studies. I’m sure they work for so many other infections and also shown to out perform Tinidazole against the Lyme disease. So, it has a lot of… And then there’s antimicrobial peptide, which is also shown to be effective, which we use, but you got to start low. We usually wanna fix everything else first.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Right, you talked about the LL-37?

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, but the other ones are very antimicrobial, which a lot of people don’t think of.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Right, no, that is fascinating. But again, your whole, not your whole, but a big part of your approach is just trying to get that immune modulation back in the right direction.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, and we generally found that you can get a person from A to B to functioning healthy much quicker if you address these things first and then if you need to do some antibiotics, now you’re looking at a couple of months not a couple of years.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Yeah, no, I think that that is the most important thing is we wanna get the body to the point that when we use a drug, it’s for short focused period, and that goes back to, I’m gonna say you’re talking just about bringing up the SIBO, is that, I said I have stuff. Once the direct treatment has failed once, and then twice it’s time to rethink the strategy and really–

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

A person called the other day, and it was kind of a more business talk, but he conducted himself and wondered if I would help his wife and I said “Is anything wrong with you?” He goes, “Well, I just have this weird “kind of chronic kidney disease.” And then I asked a bunch of questions and I said, “Are you on a PPI?” And I said, “That raises your risk “for progressive chronic kidney disease by fivefold. “Just taking that.” He’s like, “Oh yeah, I take it every day. “I thought it was fine.”

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Yeah, well, don’t get me started. The proton pump inhibitors are the medicines that basically they’re approved for, I think, two weeks use and gastroenterologists, I think, they’re approved for daily use for the rest of your life. That’s a great example of evidence-based medicine that doesn’t exist.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Yeah, because they don’t want it to, although people go to the endocrinologist who say, “We’ll suppress someone’s TSH with T3,” and they’re freaking out and saying, “you’re gonna get osteoporosis.” So, I send over med analysis, all these studies showing it doesn’t for any woman who’s on estrogen or as normal estrogen levels. If they’re not, you’ll a slight decrease, but being on an SSRI has two to five times the risk of osteoporosis. Do you ever hear–

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Never stopped anybody from describing one, nope. Nope, nope, nope.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

And osteoporosis is inflammation. So, you moderate the immune system, their bone density is gonna go up.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Yeah, that is something that I said. We have to wrap up. As a Pearl for the end, is that when you have dental, your teeth are loose or you’re losing bone, is that inflammation is almost always underneath that. There’s a few genes that rankle us, as we say. The rankles and the IL-6, it’s a great way to turn on bone loss.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

And I’m sure you’ve had some speakers that they’ve got EMFs and mold, but EMFs really will stimulate mold growth. They’ll cause them to secrete 100, and as I once studied, 1,000 times. The mycotoxins. So, we’re being bombarded with so many issues.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Yeah, have you found any of the peptides that you, especially, like you think that might improve our ability to deal with EMFs?

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Absolutely, so the big thing that happens with EMFs, so, normally we get EMFs everywhere. Let’s say from the sun from lights, but they’re scattered all over and they cancel each other out. So, there are infinite directions and they cancel each other out. But when it’s from a man-made source, they’re polarized. So, they’re one direction. So, other ones will basically, they become very additive but the problem is in their impulses. So, the EPA looks at the average level, right, which is low, but they’re get these massive pulses and it’s also AC current. 

So, it’s causing this back and forth of your charge cells. And what they do is they stimulate the particular type of calcium voltage gated channels and that just dumps the calcium in and forms all these peroxynitrite, IL-6 and it just goes down the cascade of inflammation. Now, BPC will normalize those calcium channels and make them resistant to EMF activation. And then in genetics with Bob Miller, I got him to find some genes that are associated with people who are prone to calcium gated channel activation by EMFs. So, we can see that now.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Yeah, no, that’s exciting to you ’cause, again, all it takes is a little mycotoxin exposure in a sensitive person plus an EMF exposure ’cause these are additive. Once the system becomes sensitive, overly sensitive, overly reactive, each insult is multiplicative sometimes. When we’re not in that reactive state, we tolerate a tremendous amount and that’s why we have so much pollution, environmental at all levels, is because still, thank God, most of us can tolerate this onslaught. Unfortunately, in the–

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

We didn’t see. Everyone’s sick. I go to a party, I have to carry labs slips in my pocket. It’s where it goes up. It’s either they’re totally sick or their daughter and they’re like, “I’m feeling horrible.”

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Yeah, well, actually the daughter. That’s what we’re seeing. How many times is you’re talking to people and it’s their kids that are now not functioning and they’re young and this is the next… Yeah, but unfortunately, I think it’s gonna be a little bit like the climate. As we lose our coastal cities, we’ll begin to go, “Oh, maybe there was an issue.”

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

That’d be good. We’ll have waterfront property here then.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Anyway, we gotta wrap up. This has been fun. Dr. Holtorf, it’s a pleasure to talk to you and I hope we’ve illuminated just the amazing usefulness of peptides.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Hey, man. It’s always great to talk to you. So, listeners, I don’t know. We’ve talked for like an hour about everything.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

And we can go on, but hopefully we have enough in here that everybody is gonna learn something from, okay.

Kent Holtorf, M.D.

Hey, awesome. I think you’re doing a great service doing this mold conference and I’m looking forward to it.

Eric Gordon, M.D.

Well, thank you. A pleasure having you.