Every person should be asking, How can I optimize mitochondrial function better? And if we could just group it right there, at that place, and focus on that place, I'm talking from childhood on up, what could we avert? What could we avoid and what can we prevent?
Today, I'm joined by Dr Mark Sherwood, a naturopathic doctor, Best Selling Author and co-founder with his wife, of the Functional Medical Institute in Tulsa. Dr Sherwood is here to discuss one of the biggest buzz words in health care and wellness and medicine right now, which is peptides. So we are going to dive in. He has been working with patients to help them with their chronic health struggles, help them with longevity, help them attain their greatest state of health and fitness, and also to reduce their dependence on medications building strong bodies. In this episode, Dr Sherwood is diving into one of the most exciting frontiers in modern health and wellness, and like I said, that's peptides. He is going to tell us what they are, how they work, and his direct experience using them for many, many years now, we are talking about brain health and immune system support, tissue recovery, healing from chronic disease, and where these fit into the big picture of all of the things that we can do for our health and wellness. We're talking about science, the safety of these real life success stories. Also how to know if there might be a time that you would want to use peptides in your own health plan. So if you've been curious about using peptides, you are going to love this conversation. As always. We would love to hear from you, if this is helpful to you, if you enjoy this. So we can do more episodes like this. If there's something else you want to hear about, definitely let us know. Also share this with a friend. This is how we continue to provide free content for you. So share, follow, give us a review. We would really appreciate it, and now here we go on to peptides.
Don't let fear of the unknown stop you from trying something different, because ultimately, where we are right now is if we expect mainstream to embrace peptides, we are really deceiving ourselves because it's not going to happen. Don't be fearful of something you don't know about. Learn about it.
Well, Dr Mark, thank you so much for being here. It's been fun connecting. And this is a topic that I have just barely scratched the surface of–I know a little bit–just enough to be a dangerous sort of thing. And so I'm really excited to pick your brain. And I know that's how our listeners feel too. This is such a popular topic that we're really excited to dive in. So thanks for coming.
Oh my goodness, thanks for having me, Mallorie, it's an honor to be here. My wife would have been here today, but she's busy, hard at it today, and so, you know, she's the prettier half of the bunch, half of the bunch, but, but I'll try to step in for her and do a good job.
I'm sure it'll be great. And I'm glad she's helping people take care of patients, so that's great. Well, so like I said, we're talking about peptides. Maybe let's start at the very beginning. Will you just give us an idea? What is this thing that's called peptides that everyone's hearing about now? What is a peptide? And maybe just a little glimpse at, like, the history of why we're just now starting to use them, or are we the clincher there?
Well, I think the interesting thing about peptides, another change of amino acids, right? That's the key point. And I think pretty much everybody should, should get that as a basic thing. They're not something that's unusual and that body is foreign to the body. So we're talking about basic amino acid chemistry that are bound together in different varying links and varying styles. A peptide is something that's, you know, maybe two amino acids, all up to about 50, and you get about 50 to 100 it's known as a polypeptide. You get above that. You're talking about full proteins, right? So when you look at it from the reverse, peptides then could be constructed to make proteins, perhaps, or you could also look as hormones are constructed of multiple peptides. You could say it in both ways. So I think people need to know that it's been around for a long, long time. Science, there was a doctor back in, you know, Pavlov. We heard of Pavlov's dog, you know, back in the early 1900s you know that here's a guy who, in the gastric acid of the dog, determined that there was a peptide that that helped out. He discovered the amazing BPC 157 you know, which is a 15 chain amino acid peptide. So the concept of these peptides, Mallorie, being created inside the body, is old as time, but our uncovering and the application of these things is probably something that's still being uncovered. Because the more I learn about these things, it seems like every waking minute I turn around, there's another one that's being developed for another potential action.
Yeah, so what is the medical then application of these? So we have these tiny partial proteins, so to speak, these chains of amino acids. We know they're there. Why is it helpful to use them? Why? Why is this a thing that we're injecting ourselves with them?
When we take these peptides, certain ones that are arranged a certain way, they have these volumes of effects. So they sort of bind to these cytoreceptors, and they cause a multitude of effects. And so some of the effects can be like creating more adaptability from your T-cells with the immune system, some of the effects could be to create more brain derived neurotropic factors in the brain. They could be enhancing cellular repair. They could be enhancing DNA repair, enhancing telomere lengthening, or telomere maintaining, let's say they could be restoring, you know, healing with nerves or tissues or skin and and the applications are just so outstanding that, you know, people do broadcast these things as a kind of these, these keys of the fountains of youth. I don't think it's that simple, of course, but there's more to it. But from the standpoint of the ability to do a lot of good things, I think we're just scratching the surface, probably with these.
Yeah, tell us about your personal experience, not necessarily your personal but as a clinician, how have you seen these utilized and and what was your experience getting into this, you know, becoming proficient in utilizing these.
Well, interesting. This is probably going back seven or eight years, at least something like that. I read a book, and I don't remember who wrote the book, but it was about peptides, and I thought that's fascinating, you know, because it sounded reasonable. So I just started studying on that. And then I met a guy at a conference. His name is Dr Ed Lee. I can say that to him. He's well known. He's an endocrinologist and I started talking to him, and he seemed like a really smart guy, and he had a lot of stuff to offer, a lot of background knowledge. So I just kept pressing him and pressing him and pressing him until he got tired of listening to me bugging him and started teaching me a few things, right? And so at that point in time, my wife and I both looked for various certifications out there, and we eventually landed on, probably was one of the first to ammg. Went to that and really had a great time. And then after that, we just started devouring ourselves in the literature and and thought, you know, this is not all. There is to it. There's more. And so we just kept digging and digging and digging and digging and and I think we're still dig a little bit, but it was, it was great. I mean, we had an outstanding time learning that. It's been on and on. Now we're actually progressing to the point where we're starting to really understand even some shorter chain peptides that are three, three amino acids, which actually penetrate into the nucleus of binding specific DNA. Now that's that's like next level stuff. You're talking about, these bio regulating peptides that were developed, they're oral and they were developed over in Russia. So there's a lot to this thing that we're starting to unravel, and I think the applications in the future are probably yet to be determined, but just curious and awesome to say the least. Well, it's a question I had later, but, but since you bring it up, I want you to speak to it now, is the idea of bio regulators. I think we don't hear as much about bio regulators as peptides, but they're closely related. Will you clarify then, one more time? What is a bio regulator, and how are those different or the same? Well, the term bio regulator, I suppose, would be more of a broad term. They do regulate biological pathways and system. Let's just say that. But when we use the term bio regs or bio regulator, as far as in this application, this context, we're talking about oral peptides that are three amino acids in length. And these are so small and tiny that they do have the ability to not bind on the receptor the cells, but they have the ability to go through the cell wall, through the nucleus, and bind to specific tissues, targeted tissues, on the direct DNA strand. Now that makes them quite different than the the other ones that are bigger ones that can't penetrate that deep into the cell. Therefore they create more broad actions, broad actions, as opposed to real specific and narrow actions. And so, for example, like you could take a thymus bioregulator peptide, which is going to bind to the strands of DNA tissues relates to the thymus gland. And so that's that's fascinating about what that means in the future, about can you make your thymic activity a little more youthful? And I suppose you can. I mean, you can't reverse it, but I suppose you can. As opposed to some of the ones that are that are bigger, and those ones that are bigger than not say they're not oral. Some of them are, but some of them are intranasal. Some of them are, you know, subcutaneous, but they're not going to be they're going to be more directed than the big ones tell
us to.
Briefly, what you know about the state of research with these peptides? I know, you know, if you go to PubMed, or you go to some of these, the sites to search for data
it, it's very expansive to see what the world of research is doing right now with peptides. Yeah, I think it's fascinating. You look out there, there's plenty of, plenty of study points, plenty of data points. I feel kind of badly because it seems like we're not exposed to it as much as we should be. I agree from the conventional standpoint. You know, I always came to the from the school of thought that we're supposed to be about helping people and, you know, not just managing disease. But what if we can look at things from the standpoint of prevention disease. I mean truly preventive or truly corrective, to try to see if we could empty hospitals out, to see if we could make minor emergencies not being built in every corner. I mean, that would be the dream, right? And so I think that the research is out there, at least in principle to continue that discussion. But I suspect funding is probably an issue with that, but I'm always looking for studies out there. Now, with that said, Start, a lot of studies are Association based, which have been a little cautious with that. You know, association is not equal causation, but it does build a case for the peptides being fundamentally, you know, applicable to a lot of different disease prevention processes. And when you look at prevention, how do you know you prevented anything that's, that's the hard part, right there. You know, when you're looking at this particular view of, you know, I guess healing or functional medicine, what you want to call it, you know, it's hard to quantify prevention, you know, I don't know way to do that. But then, you know, having a whole bunch of people say we feel great, you know, we have what we know is decent biomarkers, you know, they're good or whatever, and we we're not hurting all the time. We still maintain our youthful vigor, I guess. And so that's what we're trying to do. But I think there's, there's a lot of data out there, and I encourage people today, whether you're a clinician or not, go look, because ultimately it's free. And I think that awesome,
yeah, and I think it's interesting. We won't go too far on this tangent here, but it's interesting when we look at, you know, of course, one of the best known, one of the best known peptides is GLP one agonists, or GIPS, the tirzepatide and semaglutide, and those were around a fair bit before a drug company picked them up and started to commercialize it. But it wasn't until the drug company commercialized it that suddenly the conventional medical world has this the randomized control trials or the longevity data. It's because the drug company puts money behind it to get the data, which we're grateful for, but then they restrict the way that we dose it and the pricing and everything else about it. So it's sort of a it's a real frustrating world, because there's cool stuff happening out there, and I think a lot of us as practitioners just want to do cool stuff for cool patients. And there's money and big companies getting in the way of that, getting in the way of us doing it in the way that it could be done safely otherwise. But without the big money behind it, you don't get the marketing. You don't don't get the data and and this is where we're at in the state of the world right now. I don't know if you have any comments on that? No, it really is. And I think people need to,
again, clinician or not, wake up to the idea that our world right now, at least, is controlled, to a good measure, by big pharma, and not that big pharma all bad, if we're not allowed to see, if you will, both sides of a coin, or maybe the third side of a glass, or maybe, how about just this term informed consent? You know, I think that would be great. And obviously the price control of this stuff is not puzzling. It makes sense because it's about money anymore. You mentioned the GLP ones and the GIPS and the combos. I mean, those things make sense. If used correctly, they can you, you can have a good outcome, but if used incorrectly, you're going to have a bad outcome. Because I think it's both of them, and most people in the system that are driven by pharma, in my opinion, are not using them correctly, and therefore we have all kinds of issues with them. And that's going to also build in that database. And also something was good, became patented, became funded, also the family bad and you're not going to get it. I mean, that's kind of the way that thing rolls. I know, I know it's so frustrating, especially because I usually microdose the terzapatite is my, my choice, usually, and I want to microdose it, but with the FDA approved, you can't microdose it, so they really trap you into the price and to the dosing and to the administration and exactly what you just said, that's going to lead to less good outcomes, because you're locked into not being able to personalize it. And so it's going to it's getting already a lot of danger cues.
Around it that don't have to be there. It doesn't have to have those risks. You know, I think if we're dosing it appropriately, it can be done so safely. Well, let's dive in then a little bit further to the application, because that's what we really want to know about in your clinic and your experience. What are the functions that you see these peptides serving the best? What are some of the main things that when patients come to you, your brain is thinking, Gosh, you might be a good candidate for for one of these peptides. Well, I'm looking at it from probably my wife and I, we look at it from probably eight different positions. So I look at the human experience like a multi dimensional, you know, kind of puzzle that you're trying to figure out. But we're looking at it from these eight dimensions all the time. You know, nutrition, sleep, stress, management, movement, genetics, hormones, peptides, supplementation, and so in every single person I'm thinking about, are we
maximizing with intentionality all those areas to create the best human experience? And to us, the best human experience is to be designed to create more health span, which less sick span, which is more life to its fullest. And so I think in every person, I'm always looking for application, you know. So like, for example, if somebody comes in, they have a presentation, and they're having a hard time healing, you know, I'm thinking about all that, and I'm thinking about what peptides would fit in that category. And there I might be thinking about some of
the like a thymus and beta four, you know, used to be BPC, and now it's PDA, things like that, or maybe a GHK, copper, something like that. And I'm thinking, how could that apply, you know, and if somebody's struggling with like, cognitive function, I might be thinking about, how can we mix in some Tessa Moreland with that, you know, right? Things of that nature are, how we can make those applicable in all aspects, is where our head goes. So when we hear about these peptides, you just mentioned a few of them mixed in, it sounds like gibberish, right? If you're not used to hearing them, it's just a bunch of letters and numbers mixed together when you're mixing in those peptides, oftentimes, if you do a Google search, you can find a peptide, and it will say, this peptide is good for ABCDE, yeah, where explain to us how in a little more depth than what you've just done, because that was great. How do they fit into the picture? I mean, I think, as a patient, what we wish was the case is that we went in and we said, I've got 18 symptoms, and you tell me I've got one peptide. And honestly, that's one of the things I love about tirzepatide, is it covers a bunch of symptoms, but what, what is your order of operations? What is your approach to layering in treatment strategies, and where does the peptide fit into that well with us. And echo your comment on truth epithet outstanding microdosing is
that was is, was beautiful, right? But in our world, I'm going to master those four areas. First, you know, nutrition, sleep, stress, management, movement, because we feel like those are well under the control of us as individual people. And probably one of the problems with our current system is it's taking personal responsibility away because we want the doctor to fix our problems, you know, and that's probably not the best way to go, because when you take away personal responsibility, you take away ownership of what we could be doing. So we're going to make sure that we're moving on the pathway of consistency of anti inflammatory eating, consistency of moving every day, consistency of managing our stress, you know, trying to get people off of social media, except for this show, of course,
and then working on sleep. I mean, that is something that's not utilized today because we're so connected, and so with our brain is on. It's like on perpetual fire all the time with a dopamine hit going on. Just got to check your phone and stuff. And so we're really going to focus in on those things first, and then we might get a big, comprehensive, more functional oriented blood lab and maybe some genetics to see what we've got as far as the human goes, but that's where we're going to start all the time. I'm probably not going to go peptides, you know, off the bat at all, until, you know, I figured out who the person is, where they are, where they are, from a foundational standpoint. And the analogy I've always used is this, is that if we don't build upon a good foundation, the house will not stand. And I think that principle holds true across a lot of different places. But we're going to start there, because I think it's, I think it's proper, you know, really, I have the exact same approach and almost the exact same pillars, you know, the exact same like this has to be there before anything else is going to last.
One of the questions I get asked all the time is, what supplements do you recommend Now, whether this is for daily essentials, sleep support, gut health, what to take during pregnancy? I know how overwhelming it can feel to.
Use the right products, I have spent hours myself combing through these brands and ingredients, trying to make sure that I can find things that I'm comfortable taking myself and that I'm comfortable recommending to my family and to my patients. I'm then able to get feedback from my patients and family to see did these supplements actually accomplish what we were hoping that they would accomplish, and this is why I created a curated, fullscript storefront with the brands and supplements I trust most. These are the same ones I use in my clinic and in my own home. When patients say, what do you recommend for magnesium, or what do you recommend for fish oil, or what do you recommend as a fiber supplement, all of these supplements are listed in this storefront. If you're curious, just visit the link in the show notes. There's also a link on our website and through our Instagram account to explore all of my favorites in one place. When you purchase through the link, you get 15% off. Now, back to the show how much of an improvement Do you see just with those basic lifestyle pillars? And how long do you give it? How long do you encourage patients to stick with it really kind of dive in and make sure that the food and the movement and the sleep and the stress? How long do you recommend they give that before you can tell okay, you're going to need something else, because this is this is not getting better, or maybe you got 30% better, or 50% or 90% and now we can move on to the next phase, probably at least two or three months, quite honestly, but I've seen some crazy awesome things occur in two or three months now. It depends on the mindset. And I call it the mind the heart connection, until you get this right, you know, like
when people want to make changes, you know, they they tend to not embrace, or even are aware of, the idea that these changes are not temporary, they're permanent.
If you're feeling good, why would you add back things that made you feel bad? And so I'm always like, what are we doing? So our job as clinicians, as I see it, is to train mentor teach, train, mentor teach, over and over and over again until they get it. And I want to see improvement, right with us? I mean, we're not hurting for people to come in
at all. You know, plenty of clients want to be clients because we've been doing we've done this for 15 years, you know. And so if, but I want to see people embrace the idea of change. You know, maybe come to us and say, teach me how to do this, because the best way. And I know you feel the same way we as clinicians better live it out. Why would somebody want to do what we're not doing and what we're just saying? No, man, I get up every day do the same thing that I'm trying to get them to do, and I won't do my very best to lead and mentor and teach and train them on perfect No, but I'm not going to wake up with concept that I'm going to fail either. I love that. I think it's definitely a conversion as a practitioner, isn't it? You know, you believe in these things and you do these things, but then one of the biggest, biggest things I've experienced is seeing the successes and the wins of my patients, and that's hugely a testament to me to say, like, Oh yeah, okay, I am going to do this now for sure, because it goes back and forth. So it's really fun to see that now, if patients are either unable to they just are too sick to really get those things mastered, or they've mastered those and they still aren't well, then tell us your next step in terms of introducing peptides versus supplements versus hormones. How are you deciding that order of operations and prioritizing those treatment modalities? Well, obviously, if a person's and we haven't seen somebody not get at least somewhat better, yeah, paraphrase it with that. You know, whether it be 100% or 80% or 60 this better, and so we we continue to go back at that point in time. We're going to introduce our therapies, we continue to remind them of successes. Because one thing, if we are not careful, we tend to focus too much on the things that need to be corrected and forget the things that really have got us better than we are. So I think, in other words, always not focus on wrong, what is wrong, but not forget what is right either. Always count your blessings as we like, like I say, right, but as you go forward in that, you know, immediately after blood work, I introduce probably DNA, because I want to understand kind of the way they're they're wired, so to speak, right? And, and that helps me a lot. And then throughout the process of blood work and analysis the DNA, I'm starting to think about peptides at that point. So if somebody's got, like,
I don't know they, let's say they've got, they had came in, they had rheumatoid or something like that, right? And autoimmunity as a general rule was, was afoot. I'm thinking about, how do I heal her gut up, you know? And I know that some, sometimes can take a while, and sometimes you got a little deeper testing, and sometimes you got to look at at Food antigen testing, leaking leaky gut, testings on you, and stuff like that, you know, I get all that. And.
So. But I'm thinking about maybe at that point, how can I bring in some oral peptides like KPV to help heal the gutta? I'm thinking about how I can perhaps even bring in some external things, maybe like an epi talent or something like that, if I can find some of that anymore, right? Maybe some of the bio regulators. And I think by by doing that, it helps the body progress and speed up the healing process, recovery, or maybe even better said, restoration process, in the areas that are not quite where we want them to be yet. How many of these peptides? And then I want to get into specifics, because you're you're throwing them out, and I know we're all getting antsy to be like, Oh, what was that one? What? Tell me more about that one with the peptides. How many of these are meant to be lifelong, versus a course, versus pulsed on and off? Yeah, most of our principles have been we use them in a pulsed manner. You know, I find that if you can address things, if you give the body what it needs, and you continue to give it what it needs in small dosages, you know, almost the hermetic principle, you know, right? I think it works. And so with most of our clientele, we will create, maybe our peptide rotation well worth of a year. And it's very personalized. I mean, I had some very general rules, and I liked, I like to think that I want to have some that are going to work with, maybe ensuring that growth hormone is being created at a pace that's not too high and not too low. I
want to make sure that I'm hitting the immune system occasionally so that it's optimal in its functionality towards that whole immunological process. I maybe want to make sure that my mitochondria is targeted properly a few times a year. So I'm always rotating those things like that. I think it keeps things fresh. And from an anecdotal standpoint, we've seen really good results. And again, how do you know it's good results? We got happy people who are not sick. And I think that win right there. So is it your belief at this point, because this will continue to modify as we get more data and more experience. Is it your belief at most, at this point, that most people would benefit from these pulsed peptides, that most of us would have some benefit from being on them throughout time? I do at this point. You know, I have not seen nor by red I mean, and I've looked at a lot of data, and I'll continue to almost look at stuff, you know, in this condition as it relate, what studies are out there as it applies to this, I have seen, overall, so much good from these things that we are being foolish to not sort of applying them. Even more, science is nothing more and less than a bunch of experiments going right or wrong.
The more we think we know something, the more we better check ourselves, because we don't, and someone's looking at I don't have it figured out. I don't, but I will always look at what I think I know. Try to disprove it. Try to prove it at the same time, you know, because I really want to do the right thing, and at this point, I'm convinced that they are beneficial. Yeah, I love that. It's there's such a good example of that in semaglutide intercept, and I'm sorry to keep bringing those up, because those are the ones I'm most familiar with. But you know, semaglutide started as a diabetes medication, and then as they started treating all these diabetics, they noticed that the blood sugars were getting better, but the people were losing weight. And so then they said, Hey, this is a weight loss medication, and now that we're using it as a weight loss medication, we're finding people's joint pain and plantar fasciitis and inflammation and cognitive health and kidney health. You know, we're getting clues that like, oh gosh, I think this is doing really good things. And now I see more rheumatologists using it, just for low dose, for microdosing, for joint pain, and so that's, it's, it's a fascinating world, and I'm excited. You can't, you can't learn as much when it's not being utilized as much, right? So the more we utilize it, then the more, the more clues we get. Yeah, and one thing we've done with semaglutan, I think, is we've been playing with this, and I haven't heard anybody do it, so I'll just throw it out there today. I think it's fascinating. We've been using it in a
kind of a sporadic way, not regular way, to promote ease of longer term fasting periodically, which is crazy. So we've been using a little bit, maybe every 45 days or 60 days to assist with maybe a 24 or 36 hour fast and and we all know, I think everybody agrees at this point, really, from this space, that fasting is good. Fasting does enhance longevity. So there's another aspect of this, with its ability to sort of help us turn on that octology pathway to help clean up, you know, intracellular, intra body waste, yeah, yeah. That is interesting.
Okay, well, let's dive in, because I want to get to the specifics. Will you start with maybe, what is one peptide that that is your most commonly prescribed, or one of your go tos? Well, years ago it was Sir Moreland, thanks for more than there was a general overall go to that was a not one of the bigger peptides, but one of the smaller ones, but it was used to as a secondary directive to instill optimum growth hormone production. And I think everybody understands that growth hormones is hormone that does promote repair, regeneration, rebuilding, and it's good. You don't want too much, you don't want too little, but you could, we were dosing that at like, you know, four to five days per week, you know, with little micro breaks. And we would go 10 or 12 weeks on and maybe three or four weeks off. And that's, that was kind of a rotation. And then we started moving in from that a little bit bigger peptide that is FDA approved for HIV muscle wasting, which is Tessa Moreland. So we started using that one. And much along the same lines, and we've got really good effects from those things, with fat loss again, you know, muscle gain to a point, but just better vascular function, better brain function. We saw our, you know, saw our lipoprotein Fractionation, our carotid intermediate thicknesses, stabilizer get better, which was really good. And so that's kind of the ones we started with, and then kind of just, well, what about this? And what about that? We just kind of kept growing it. So with the Tessa Moreland, what are you seeing? What conditions do you think of? I think like you say growth hormone equals restoration and growth like that, sounds good. We all could use that. But what specifically do you have any clinical other clinical examples of where utilizing that makes a makes a significant difference. Well, we were using it when people were trying to lose weight, you know, with obesity, you know, because, as you just said clearly that, you know, and we were mixing it with semaglutide too, as well. I mean, when you do that, you're reducing that that fat tissue which creates that inflammatory signal that just, and of course, we got leptin settling in joints, you know, in the joint pain and all that kind of stuff. And not to mention the brain fog. And overall, systemic inflammation is just terrible, you know. And we, so we were using that to reduce the body fat and give people more energy, and that gave them more push to go out and move more. And they didn't as bad. And so from the standpoint of even joint repair and things like that, we found that fascinating, and it worked really, really well. It does. So we still use a lot of that one. And when CJC, and if a more than were available for a time, you know you could use that as well, because open that same family of things. But those were our initial go tos. Go back to the BPC, 157, because I think that's another one that is particularly it's thrown about a lot. Will you tell us what that is and what it's used for, and how you've seen it beneficial and what you're doing now? Yeah, it's known as body protection compound, or body repair compound.
The it's a 15 chain amino acid profile that actually can help instill better tissue repair with tissues, muscles, skin, etc. So when you've got someone struggling with joint issues or maybe even hypermobility, I've seen that before. I was just going to ask you if you've used it absolutely and it works great. You're talking about the ability to help repair existing injuries. We have used that pre hip replacement surgeries, and we've seen multiple reports. We've heard the people say, My surgeon said this is the fastest recovery ever. And whatever you're doing, keep on going. And we're like, Well, I think keep on going. Just keep your mouth shut. You know,
you really can open up a whole can of worms if you talk about it too much. Tell us more about that, because I agree, obviously, and we were using it for that. We were using it for gi repair, you know, leaky gut repair in a subcutaneous manner. I know it comes in oral and we would use that at the same time, you know, simultaneously, but BPC that has ultimate data out there in literature as being great for all of our vascular repair. You know, you're talking about
a push in vascular endothelial growth factor, so maybe a repair of the of the vessels. And again, I think the only caution flag I would give these things is the in the area of active cancers, you know, you didn't really know your stuff. And don't just throw on everybody without knowing the person. You know, it's like, that is a problem. And you mentioned earlier, before we went live, you know is there's a lot of people out there that are just hearing some of these radio personalities, let's say whatever podcast personnel. Just say, use this, but they're not qualifying many times clearly that you don't use it in certain conditions. And I'm not saying it's not it's bad, because I think we don't know a lot of stuff, but I'm saying we got to be careful with this, because.
Us like we're saying a moment ago. I don't see anything wrong with right now as a general rule for everybody. But again, I'm not God, and I don't know, you know, you don't know the specifics of everybody, so I think we just got to keep an open mind. Don't ever think we've got it figured out, and keep learning and trying new things. Yeah, it's a good it's a good nuance that you're bringing up. Because I think, on one hand, we're talking about, you know, gosh, these are so great. Why can't we get them more out into the public? Why can't we get the data more publicized, and all of these things, but at the same time, you know, we're both evidence based practitioners. We're not saying, like, go buy it off the black market and use it, because it's amazing and it's harmless. And, you know, I think cancer is the perfect example, because cancer is the body systems gone rogue and and a lot of these peptides that are doing really good things with healthy tissues can help the cancer cells in the same way that they're helping the healthy tissues. And we don't want to help cancer cells in that way. So I think cancer especially, but also other things that we don't understand yet with certain disease states, like certain autoimmune diseases, it's, it's not willy nilly. I mean, there is some logic that goes with it, but it's, there is some risk and a whole lot of unknown. Yeah, I've used, like thymus and alpha one for,
you know, almost all autoimmune conditions at this point, and I've not had any issues yet. But not to say there could be, yeah, my wife and I have used a lot of that, and I haven't seen anything bad happen yet. Tell us more about the thymus, and because that one actually does come up a lot as well. Yeah, thymus and alpha one out there, and probably its partner, let's say thymosin beta four, which people that don't know thymus and beta four and BPC is known as the Wolverine peptide, and head south. There some of the slang terms, but the thymosins will help with the immune system's adaptability and resiliency, just so people understand, you know, when we're younger, that thymus gland is really working as a good job to sort of promote these T cell, B cells, and all our adaptability going on resiliency, and it's doing great. But as we age, something happens. We lose our resiliency, because the thymus gland stops working quite as well, and that becomes a problem. Well, what if you could take something like a thymus and one to help instill that youthful vigor within the thymus gland, and that's what it portends to do. And I think that's outstanding, you know, to think about. So are we creating a more youthful system at an more elderly age? Probably, probably, so we've used it a lot to sort of help reset the system in cases of autoimmunity and and we've seen good results now, that is not to say it's by itself we've used because I'm a full believer that the majority of autoimmunity conditions are related directly to this food pyramid mess that we created years ago, and, you know, leaky gut and all that mess. So we have to combine these peptides with that foundational nutritional place. Or, I don't think we're using them quite properly, and I don't think we're getting the most out of them potentially. Yeah, I think that's I mean, from what you're telling me, it sounds like the peptides are really used to augment, right to to augment the body's own own systems to say, Let's do your own system better. It's not bringing a new function in. And therefore, if your systems aren't built on a good foundation, then it's not going to work long term. It's not You're not going to have as good of benefits long term as if you are working on the foundation. Again, that's one of the things we see with the weight loss medications, is if people are just using them without fixing any lifestyle, then it's just a big old band aid, you know, like it's a good band aid, you know, you might lose weight, your numbers might get better, you might decrease your risk of heart disease, and we like all of those things, but to actually heal the body and repair the body and regrow the body in a healthy way, you have To do that while you're learning how to eat properly and move properly and sleep and manage stress and all of the other things that we've talked about. So I love that you bring that up. I think it's annoying for patients, honestly, and I don't blame them. It's annoying for me too, right? Like, everyone wants the easy button, but the fact is that the body is not that, like we can't change what the body is. The body is a factory that has a lot of intricate details and that that's just what it is. So we can't change that. I go back to the analogy of a car. And everyone knows there's these classic cars that seem to hold their shape,
not as fast as everything else, but they've been cleaned. They've been cared for, they've been nurtured, they've been loved. And their owner, you know, back to the owner of our house, so to speak, is, is nurturing that thing. And as they increase in age, they actually increase in value. I ask people to actually imagine that about their own life,
and that you can't tell.
Take an old car, and let's use the new tires as a peptide. If the engine's not running well, you may put those new tires on there. They may make you look good, go good for a little bit, but that engine is still not working. And eventually, even when the tires might not wear out, the engines working out, you know, it doesn't work. And so we think the augment word is perfect. You know, I was gonna say an adjuvant therapy, but it's, it's an augmentation. And we, we never will. We worked hard to not talk about this thing is that is the creme de la creme, or this thing is the fountain of youth. I think the fountain of youth is really all of it put together in a synergy, harmonious manner, you know, you just figure out how to take care of it the best way possible, right? Yeah,
going back to the thymus, and when you're using it with people who have chronic infection, who are dealing with stealth infections or mycotoxin illness, or, you know, a number of these that come up. Are you using it early in the phase? Or do you find you have to get the fire put out? You know, do you have to, kind of get things calmed down? And then you're using it to reset the immune system, to rebalance the immune system? We use in both ways? I think it depends on the the severity of the presentation, of the the self infection, or whatever's going on. We use it in both, I would say probably it's it's more in the the latter methodology that you just mentioned. But I think there's some times where you could use it early on. If you catch something early on, you could kind of assist the system, you know, better, but, but more than anything else, it's been the latter section where we got to think that kind of the fire turned down with whatever else we need to do, and then once that sets to kind of build back the vim and vigor of the system after that. Yeah,
when it comes to prenatals, I'm really picky and needed is the one that I personally use and love. It's the brand we recommend most often at uplift for her, because it is so intelligently formulated. It's formulated with the right forms and optimal doses of nutrients your body actually needs before, during and after pregnancy, from their complete prenatal vitamin to omega threes, collagen and other essentials needed covers so much more than the standard prenatal and it's all clean, well sourced and easy to absorb, so I don't have to worry too much about what they're putting in it. I can just trust that they're making a great quality product. When I first started taking the comprehensive prenatal vitamin, it was a lot of capsules, but I felt so much better after a short period of time. And really think that it was a huge game changer with the amount of energy and feeling like I've been able to stay going during pregnancy and feeling well needed also makes a really smart product, which is their powdered prenatal vitamin. So for people who have terrible morning sickness in the early stages of pregnancy that just cannot do capsules, they have a powder alternative that tastes good and can be thrown into water or a smoothie. I just think it's so smart. Why did we not have this before? And then they also have a smaller dose prenatal vitamins, so you don't have to have all the capsules that just covers the essentials, and that's another really good help for the beginning of pregnancy. So if you're interested, you can get 20% off your first order with our affiliate link, which is in the show notes, or you can find it on our favorite products page at uplift for her.com. Now back to the show. You bring up auto immunity. Are there any other peptides that you're seeing particularly useful in autoimmunity? You know, it's interesting. We've used a lot of the mitochondria, horny ones. You know, we could get like Mott so we could get like s 31 and and those were two of our favorites that we would use, because we always believed that when you have autoimmunity, it's an upside down system turn on itself. But what if you go back to the very base, the base of the process, the mitochondria, and and get that working better? And we found that as an again, it's an augmented place there to use that that seemed to help because it gave the body more energy to fight back, so to speak. You know, you're always gonna correct everything else, but I like to think internal energy. How do you how you have the body like a little more umph behind it, yeah, fight back, yeah. Can you help the body do what it's supposed to do a little bit better? Can you boost it up a little bit? Yeah, that's great.
When I think about my own patients. I have a women's health practice so, so these are all issues that are really common to women, specifically obvious, obviously, weight loss. We've talked about that a little bit. Some of the other things that I see the most are things like fatigue or cognitive changes, brain fog, definitely, hormonal changes. Are there any other peptides or conditions specific to women that you see peptides particularly useful for. I love C max, C link. I love those things. I love the intranasal delivery. Those. I think they're awesome because it goes straight across that blood brain barrier and can bring a calm to the brain. And you know, when a lady is going through, I'm not a lady, but I had the current i.
Being the only male and where I'm at right now in our offices for like, 10 years, I like to say I'm an expert in estrogen dominance, and it was but and my wife will ever dearly. And we walked through that process together, you know, and even though we knew, we found out that we didn't really know. Yeah, so the learning experience for me, because I learned to have a lot a lot better understanding of women's physiology and the menopausal symptoms I go through, and I never understood it, quite frankly, because I can't walk shoes, you know, and but c max and C link have been great to bring a calm the thing I like about the intranasal is you can use it in an instantaneous manner and bring a little bit of peace to the mind, a piece of the brain, a piece of the system. Because ladies have told me, you know, when they are in those moments of crises, they just feel like hurting somebody, you know, just a little out of control, little bit, little bit on the edge, and this tends to bring them back several notches from that emotional component. So those are my two favorites for that. Are you using those regularly or only as needed?
I've used them both because, again, it's about the individual person, some people's life, their culture, their upbringing, their age, their surroundings, their friends, and what they do, their job. You know, you always got it back to that end, you know, because you can't change your situation for a while, and it may be hormonal, and that can help you get the hormones on board. That's going to help. But sometimes they're in a home or a situation or a family ordeal that needs a little bit of support for time. So I'm not afraid to go, go continue on some of those. I think it brings up a good point with where peptides come in. I think of them sometimes as step stools. You know, if someone's stuck in a pit and you're like, you know, diet and exercise would really help. Or, you know, if you went to bed on time, it would really help. And they're looking at you like, Yeah, I know, like, I would have done that if I could have done that, but I can't. And that's where I do think peptides can, kind of can give them a boost, sometimes can give them a leg up to say, okay, in a situation like you're describing where, where there's a lot of irritability and a lot of snappiness, and you feel angst and anxiety to tell someone, you know, like, have you tried meditating? Like, I stand by that. That's good advice. But sometimes people are like, I can't do that, you know, like, I am not in a state to do that. And so being able to help from another angle, I'm just really grateful to have the more tools in my toolbox, the better. And that doesn't mean that you shouldn't meditate and you shouldn't balance your nervous system and you shouldn't solve problems. But sometimes that order, as much as we want to do the foundational work, first, sometimes giving someone a leg up so that then they can come back and do the foundational work. I'll give you two examples of that, you know, one with C max and C link. You know, the intranasal This hasn't been that long ago, but, you know, we're, we're talking about those meditation, prayer, quiet times, you know, and getting the same kind of answer. And it's, it's not unusual, by the way, if you're out there right now listening to have that answer, that attitude, okay, got it. But ultimately, I had a lady that I was saying, Here's what I want you to do. I want you to consider in the evening time before you go to bed, I want you to go out. They live in a live in Colorado, which is a nice place, obviously. And so I want you to go on the back porch.
I want you to just leave your cell phone inside, and I want you to just listen
and be quiet. She's like, but I don't feel like doing that. I can't tell my mind off, and I'm like, and I kept going back, and I thought, why can't you just Colorado or whatever? You know, is going down this pathway of what seemed logical to me, but I had to go back and utilize those intranasal things. And it turned out that once she started doing that, that would get her from the living room or the kitchen out to the patio. You know, it did it. And one more example, joint pain. You know, a person is so sore they don't feel like moving. They got knee pain, elbow pain, they don't feel like going to the gym. It hurts them too bad. Well, that's sometimes where you can use the thymus and beta four, BPC, etc, and those. And it can help get them from just that point A to point B, that little boost they need now, is it? Is it inclusive within your whole therapy protocol? Yes, but that's how you can use it to kind of bridge. I'm so grateful you bring that up because so many people, I think, feel gas lit by the medical system, or feel like kind of made fun of. And in fact, I've been in conversations with doctors where they are full on mocking patients who have these symptoms. And it's like you came to me because I'm your doctor, and I told you what to do, and you didn't do it. So like, what do you want me to do? And it's like we have to remember that humans are trying.
Trying their best most of the time, right? So if I tell a patient to do something and they come back and they say, I couldn't do it, my response as a practitioner, as an as an healer, as a helper, should not be like, Well, that was dumb. Well, you're an idiot, you know. Like, why didn't you do what I told you to do? My response has to be like, Hmm, okay, what's getting in your way and what's the what's the other approach? What can we take a side door? You know? Can we help you get the same place? You still have to do it. I'm not going to say that you don't need to regulate your nervous system. I'm never going to say that you can dismiss eating healthy foods like that's never going to be the solution, right? But are you able to go about it in the order that someone else is able to. And I think the more tools that we have, the more that we can say like, Okay, that didn't work for you. Then let's try Step A and then go back to Step B. So I'm glad you bring up that aspect of compassion. I've had people before where I actually would write him an affirmative statement or two and have him put it on their mirror, yeah, out loud a couple times, have a segment or phone in front of me read out loud. I watched people in my office and my wife can verify this as well, that we have have had them pull out devotional books and read out loud, yeah. And just watch the I mean, you watch the water works. Come on, because they haven't heard themselves, yeah, those words in years, yeah. And so even the power the spoken word is amazing, you know, with that, you know, like in the case you mentioned, I can't do that
and but they know down deep inside, most people know what's right and wrong. Most people know that the health care system is kind of broken. Most people know that America is really sick. You know, that's not that doesn't take science to figure that out. You know, that's just simply observational, and you got to look at people and meet them where they are. So I think that great that you mentioned. One of the things we talked about before was which peptides should be used together. Will you tell us a little bit more about that? Yeah, the ones I like to use together. I mean, going back a ways, but, but I always like to use one. I like Tessa Moreland. I think that's really a wonderful peptide. I like the BPCs of the world. I think that's a wonderful peptide. I like the thymosin of the world. That's a wonderful peptide. And then I like the ones that deal with the mitochondria. So I mean, there are times where I personally will use three or four together, and that's not that's not unusual, but those hit different aspects of the entire system, right? So those are ones that I use quite often Now, occasionally, during the course of a year, I will mix in some of the GHK coppers, which is more of a collagenic repair. Sometimes I'll use GHK copper cream on the face. I think that's a wonderful healing peptide to smooth away those fine lines. Works awesome like that, you know, but I'll rotate these things through the course of the year to make sure I'm hitting different angles of the system. And I have a plan that I carry out, you know, that I wrote for myself, and I've used that plan for other people to just kind of modify it depending on what they want to do. The longevity plan, right? Some people need to put on a little more muscle. They do because we're looking at body composition, not weight. Some need to lose some weight, so we start mixing it. How much? How often do you use semaglutide? You know, that's the question. I'm not a guy who needs to lose weight, but I will use semaglutide From time to time, because I want to enhance the function of the fasting process and using them like this together in
a method that hits all aspects back to our house analogy, you know, I want to make sure I'm checking my foundation, my wiring, you know, everything you know, the roof, the windows, you know, the air and and I think using like that, they can really be a benefit to anyone out there really, obviously, the media is having a heyday with women building muscle and eating more protein. I'm not opposed to it, but it is. It is a lot out there. What are you finding most beneficial for women to support muscle growth? I have many patients who don't necessarily need to to lose fat, but but are really trying to build that muscle and struggling to do so, yeah, I use some more line a lot. Yeah, and a BPC type of peptide a lot. Those are great, because, you know, how do you build muscle? The whole process of building muscle is moving something progressive resistance. And so progressive resistance, obviously, is going to strengthen bone as well. It's going to promote muscle healing, because you're going to have muscle breakdown. And so the healing of the body and the repairs initiation is going to be the the B PCs, the thymus and beta fours of the world, and the ability to instill better healing as well is going to be the some of the.
World so you can really get and it's not about putting on a lot of bulk. It's that's not it at all. It's about maintaining lean muscle mass as long as you can in life. Because the more lean muscle mass you have, if people are interested in how that relates to weight loss or fat loss, the more lean muscle you can maintain in place, the lower body fat you can attain over here,
that's really a nice ratio. So, you know, strength training is a mandatory thing, and to do that, there's nothing wrong with have a little bit of help so you get good results. Yeah, and like you say, the summer Ellen isn't going to do anything if you're not lifting muscle and going to the gym. It's not like you can sit on your couch and use it and build muscle. It's reacting to that. It's making the weightlifting that you're doing more effective right now. What do you say to people who who feel like this is cheating? I don't think it's cheating because you're using our natural bodies processes. Is it cheating to take amino acids? Is it cheating to do amino acid drinks? Is it cheating and drink a protein drink, if you're if you're saying, If you believe that, then I would suppose it is cheating. Because you're I would say it's cheating probably then don't eat a steak. Don't eat a piece of fish, because they actually have amino acids in them. And remember that amino acid, or the peptides, are built, let's say a person contains and consumes like a grilled chicken breast, right? And so the body, you know, through the digestion process, will extract the amino acids out of that substance in the GI tract, and then the food is eventually dismantled and sort of determine waste from what I want to keep. And some of the things we keep are amino acids, the amino acid transported down into our cellular processes and reconstructed into guess what, peptides and proteins. So I don't think it's cheating at all. I think it's actually utilizing what we've been given in a better manner. And I think there's going to be more things out there like this, quite frankly, in the years to come that we can have, because people today are thinking like that, what can I do to enhance the system's functionality again, longer in life? Because I'm seeing what we're doing is not working. Yeah, I love it. Well. As we wrap up here, what? What are we not asking that we should be asking, you've been doing this for a long time. You've been talking about this for a long time. Is there anything you can say that we're we're missing we haven't covered yet? That would be really key for people to know. Yeah, I think that, in my opinion, I believe that the aging process really is magnified or exemplified at the mitochondrial level. And I really believe that if we get right back to that concept, and this goes right back to the citric acid cycle of Krebs cycle, you know, do oxygen plus nutrients, all things being pools are going to equal ATP production, which is going to enhance the cellular function of our bodies, because where those cells are functional, well, the tissues that are constructed by them are going to function well too. So I think one right back there is a place to be. And so my mind goes to this that every person should be asking, How can I optimize mitochondrial function better? And if we could just group it right there, at that place, and focused on that place I'm talking from childhood on up, what could we avert? What could we avoid, and what can we prevent? And what can we see go away that we're dealing with right now? We just did that. I don't believe there would be type two diabetes. I don't believe there would be a lot of our brain diseases. I don't believe we'd be suffering from all this Alzheimer's dementia that we're having today, and the cancers and certainly the autoimmune disease, my God, I think that that is a lot of that is created by our own system and culture. And if we could get back to that thing, how can we benefit our bodies? Well, at the mitochondrial level and everything that is medicine, healing, performance, longevity was focused right there. I think we'd be better off. Yeah, I'll add to that. You know, some of the biggest issues that women deal with, in terms of fertility and period abnormalities and perimenopause and menopause, all of those are deeply based in the mitochondria, because that's the aging of the cell. And the quicker they age, and the worse, the less well they age, the more issues you have in that way. So I think you're spot on. Aside from that, thank you for sharing that. Is there any other summary or any other final message you want to leave, especially with women listening, who really want to focus on peptides, who may be interested or, you know, wondering if this is the next step they should take? Is there any other message you have for them? Yeah, I think it, you know, I'll be just
direct with this. This is part of the next step.
Don't let fear of the unknown stop you from trying something different. Because ultimately, where we are right now is if we expect mainstream to embrace peptides, we are really.
Be deceiving ourselves, because it's just not going to happen. Persons like yourself are out there working diligently to bring about a pathway of healing, and I think by initiating peptide therapy as lady goes, I'm talking not just wait to menopause, but right in the now, you know, to help the body deal with everything menopause, peptides are incredibly important, and I believe that is wisdom to use those things. And again, as of right now, I'm not seeing a negative in them, and I think it's when used appropriately, when used appropriately, right? So I think that that's a that's a good takeaway message, a good take home message for people and don't be fearful of something you don't know about. Learn about it. Yeah. Well, thank you so much Mark for being on I think this has been such a good conversation. I think it's if anything scratched the surface and and really, you know, led us to more questions and interest and fascination with all of this. So thanks for sharing your expertise and your expertise and your experience. I I really appreciate your time. Tell us where we can find you. Where can people work with you? Oh, they can go to sherwood.tv that's my wife and I's homepage. And through there, you can find what all we do and kind of what all we are into. And then you can find our clinic. We're licensed in almost every state, so kind of keep working at it, and we're just trying to be a blessing to people and be
a voice of reason, I suppose. Well, and you are very busy, and you have lots and lots of resources for people, so I'm thank you for creating these resources to support people. Absolutely, it's an honor. Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode. A huge thank you to our guests for sharing their insights and time with us. We are grateful for the incredible support from our sponsors and to all of you listening. We couldn't do this without you. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing on your favorite platform. You can find us on our website, uplift for her calm YouTube, Apple podcast, Spotify, or wherever you love to listen. And if you found value here today, please share this episode with someone who would benefit from it. Leave us a comment or give us a review. It really helps us reach more listeners like you. Thank you for being part of our community. Stay tuned for our next episode. Lastly, this information is for educational purposes only and not intended to be medical advice.
