Peptalk: Peptides Unpacked

#4 Aging Well: How Peptides Help You Live Better, Longer

• Dr. Kylie Burton & Jessica Briecke • Season 1 • Episode 4

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Peptides aren't shortcuts or anti-aging fads—they're your body's native messengers, telling cells how to heal, renew, and perform.

The problem? Those signals fade with age. And modern life—stress, poor sleep, toxins, and ultra-processed food—adds static that blocks the message.

In this episode, Dr. Kylie Burton and Jessica Briecke explore how to restore clear communication in your body so you can recover faster, think sharper, move better, and age with grace. This isn't about chasing youth—it's about adding more life to your years.

What We Cover:

  • How peptide signals fade with age and why modern life disrupts the body's natural language of healing
  • The gut and liver as command centers for peptide production and signaling—and how inflammation derails everything from metabolism to memory
  • GLP-1 and GIP: what everyone asks about, and why the conversation goes so much deeper
  • Peptide applications beyond weight loss: injury recovery, skin and tissue repair, cognitive clarity, and metabolic resilience
  • Who benefits most: athletes, midlife adults, post-menopause women, and men with declining hormones
  • How peptides amplify results when paired with foundational habits like sleep, movement, protein-forward nutrition, and stress management
  • Ethics and safety: how to source peptides through licensed telemedicine and reputable compounding pharmacies
  • The mindset piece: why worthiness often blocks action more than knowledge
  • Longevity redefined: it's not about turning back time—it's about giving your body back its natural language of healing

For Anyone Looking to Live Better, Longer: Peptides are tools that work with your body, not against it. When used responsibly and paired with the right habits, they help you live better, longer.

Want to connect more with the hosts? We'd love it! Connect with Jess at B2BwithJess.com or on Instagram @JessB_LMT_NC. Connect with Dr. Kylie at her other podcast Unshakeable Brain where new episodes are posted weekly.

Ready to explore peptide therapy for yourself? Visit the company we recommend for advanced peptide therapy and one-on-one support at drkylieburton.com/peptides

Want to offer peptide therapy in your business? Whether you're adding it to your existing practice or building something new, learn how to get started—and how we'll help you make the sales and marketing much easier—at drkylieburton.com/peptides

Legal Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult with a qualified healthcare provider before starting any new health protocol. Dr. Kylie Burton and Jessica Briecke are affiliates and may receive compensation for referrals. Individual results may vary.

You have the science. You have the tools. Now it's time to take the next step.

This is PepTalk: Peptides Unpacked—science made simple, results made real.

SPEAKER_00:

Peptides are powerful and often misunderstood. But we're here to change that. Hey, I'm Dr. Kylie Burton. And I'm Jessica Brickie. This is Prep Pep Talk. Peptides Unpacked. Science made simple. Results made real. Here's a wild one for you. Scientists have identified more than 7,000 naturally occurring peptides in the human body.

SPEAKER_01:

Yep, these tiny little messengers that control how we age, heal, and function. And as we get older, those signals start to fade. Slower repair, less energy, and a body that doesn't quite bounce back like it once used to.

SPEAKER_00:

And that's where peptide therapy comes in. It's not about chasing youth, it's about restoring communication. So your body remembers how to repair itself.

SPEAKER_01:

So today we're unpacking how certain peptides can support longevity, vitality, and graceful aging from cellular repair to skin health to brain clarity and energy, because living longer is great, but living better is the goal.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. Let's dive in. Peptides and longevity. Here we go.

SPEAKER_01:

All right. So I think the first thing we want to talk about is the natural decline with age. There's this thing that I think most humans walking this planet accept that when we get older, we are going to have achy bones and body, and we are going to gain weight, and we are going to have saggy skin and poor muscle tone, and on and on and on. We just accept it as is. But why would we accept that? Why would we not live longer better? Why would we not say, hey, there's something out there that we're not producing in our body like we did in our youth, and help our body age easier?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Uh we're coming off of a birthday party for my grandpa, who just turned 90.

unknown:

Oof.

SPEAKER_00:

He's doing pretty good. Yeah. But my little son, we were making a birthday present for him with you know, we were making 90 out of these purlers. You know what those are? They're like little beads. What were they? They're called purlers. Oh, I've never heard of them. Well, they're like little beads that you can form in a shape and then you melt it together with an iron so they stay. Oh, cool. So we made a 9-0 and we put a necklace on and gave it to grandpa when we got to his birthday party. And Easton had said to me, Mom, only 10 more years until grandpa turns 100. And I said, I don't know if grandpa wants to live another 10 more years, bud. Now he grew like he was born in 1935, and we did some statistics yesterday at the birthday party, where a gallon of gas was 23 cents. You could buy a home for$6,300. You could buy a car for$580. It's my mind, right? But we are talking about this age gracefully. And as we're driving home, my husband says to me, I really don't want to live like that. I don't want to be old in that way. Right. I want to be able to take care and do the best that I can so that, you know, at a at 75, I can still get on an airplane. At 85, I can still whatever that whatever it looks like for you to age gracefully, to not just live longer, but live better. And I feel like that was a perfect accumulation of coming off of grandpa's birthday party last night. He's the only one I have left. So I watched the other three pass. And Andrew's grandparents are, you know, in their mid-80s, starting to show their age as well. And he's having a hard time with it. He's like, they could die. This could be our last Christmas. I'm like, honey, I've watched three of them go unless something crazy happens. It can take a while for the aging process to occur toward the point of death. Right. But let's not talk about death. Let's talk about having living life to its fullest and allowing peptide therapy to help us do that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I mean, to me, I had a grand, I had one of my my grandmother who lived to 87, um, 87, she then she got stomach cancer, unfortunately. But up until that 87th birthday, she was vibrant and she would run around and she um had a memory that is just enviable because even in my 30s, I didn't have the memory that my 87-year-old grandmother did. What was the difference? Well, first and foremost, how she nourished her body her entire life. That's first and foremost, because we make these peptides naturally in our intestines. She was eating her whole life things that she grew in her garden, or the the cow from the farmer down the road, and that was where she got her chicken and she got her eggs and she got her beef, or um you know, she canned everything. So her nourishment was completely whole and completely pure before it became trendy to do so, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Before it became like you had to go out of your way to have a lifestyle like that. Right. Was the standard lifestyle.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. And so when I think about her at 87 years old, I have a memory of her. My husband said something really smartassy to her, and we were at a party and she got up out of that chair. We were in a in the firehouse where we had a big community gathering. She got up out of that chair and she chased him around those tables, like ran after him, like, you know, just playful, but so funny at 80 something years old. And I want that for myself, but man, if I think about 20 years ago, where I was, I was not headed towards a life at 87 years old. Well, first of all, would I have lived at 87? Secondly, I sure would not have been that vibrant. We've just done such a good job at creating such shortcuts, shortcuts in our life. We don't have these natural peptides that we should be making anymore. We've kind of destroyed the process a little bit. So why don't we dump drive, like kind of jump into like why do we become deficient to begin with? Because we make them naturally. Why do we need peptides if we make them naturally? Yeah. So peptides are largely made in the small intestines, just like our immune system cells are made there, just like part of our thyroid um hormone is changed there. Like our intestines are not just about absorbing nutrients. They're doing a lot of other work in there. And over time, with a life that is always on the go, super high stress, and a lousy diet and not getting the rest that we need, that we think is a luxury, must be nice that you can go chill. All of those things are contributing to the decline of our gut health, where we naturally make these peptides. So, on top of a lousy lifestyle that's contributing to blood sugar imbalances, we're no longer making these peptides because the environment to make them is it doesn't exist in most Americans. And I should emphasize that largely this is an American problem. The same thing.

SPEAKER_00:

I remember walking through Japan. I did study abroad there after my undergraduate years. And you know, I want to be fit, I want to exercise, I want to do those things. And what was available to me was to just go take a jog, and I would like I like to do HIT training, so I would do like a 30-minute jog, but on the corners of the streets, I would do push-ups or jumping jacks or something like that. And I can't tell you how many times I heard the words American as people walked past me. It's just different where they want to be as skinny as possible and not have muscle, whereas we're just very different cultures, and diet is a huge factor in that. But also, you know, we hear about the toxins in the air, we hear about all these things that we have to deal with, whether or not we want to, we get to deal with them. And how do we get to help our bodies handle them more efficiently? Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So when we think about those simple things like movement, um, chronic stress, all of those things are breaking down that gut health, right? And so if we are dealing with a toxic overload, uh, whether it's stuff that we're just exposed to in the environment or the foods that we're putting in our body, that's going to create inflammation in the intestines, in the whole GI tract. Um, and we don't really think about that, especially like people that are of a healthy weight or when we're young. We think about, well, I can eat anything. And it's just a calories in, calories out perspective. We're not thinking about the damage that's being done to the body long term. Um, and I like to use the term like skinny fat. There's a lot of skinny fat people that are they're walking around this planet, right? They are um able to eat all the garbage and internally, they may be on the scale a small number, but internally they're a disaster. They're gonna, they're gonna have problems down the road. But all of these things that we're doing that are destroying that gut health, and I I almost feel like people are tired of hearing it. Like people are tired of hearing about gut health and our microbiome and the good bacteria versus the bad bacteria, well, it does matter, and it really comes down to um how do we manage that? And sometimes we can manage that just by living a healthy life, and sometimes we're gonna need some support like peptides in order to turn the lifestyle stuff around. But if we can manage those things, if we can get that gut healthy again, if we can give the body the spark to make the peptides or even listen to the peptides again, we are gonna put ourselves in a position that down the road we can be 87 or celebrating a 90th or 100th birthday with vitality where we're gonna get up and want to chase somebody around the table, or we're gonna be able to tell the stories of what happened a hundred years ago before the internet, and I had to, you know, walk to school uphill both ways and bare feet.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, like I heard all about it last night. The Great Depression, having to go to school on a horse.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I mean, it's such a different life. And I want to be able to live a nice long life and do it with gusto, do it feeling good without pain and a brain that functions and have all of those things. So we have to mind our gut health, we have to mind our stress levels, and some of those stress levels we're not gonna be able to avoid because life is gonna always life and we're gonna have a response to stress, which is gonna create inflammation. Um, but there's other things that we're doing to ourselves that increases that um stress level, or we're scrolling, doing scrolling on our phone at you know, 11, 12 o'clock at night instead of going to sleep. Like that all matters, that recovery stage all matters and it all impacts the the manufacturing and listening of these GLP ones or the GIPs or whatever peptide it is that we're talking about. We use that example a lot, GLP and GIP, because that's the thing that people are most hot about.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, we've got a couple specific points here on why we become peptide deficient. The first one is naturally decline with age, just like hormones, collagen, or growth factors. Second, chronic stress. How often does our culture glorify busyness as a badge? Poor sleep, inflammation, environmental toxins, and nutrient gaps all blunt peptide production. Number three, the liver and gut play big roles in peptide signaling. When they're overburdened, messages don't travel well. And last but not least, think of your body like a group chat when there's too much noise from things like stress, toxins, and inflammation. The messages stop getting through.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. So peptide therapy doesn't replace what's missing, but it helps to remind your body how to send those signals again and then how to listen to those signals again. It's really pretty remarkable.

SPEAKER_00:

All right, so that's how we can become peptide deficient. Now, who can benefit from peptide therapy? Everyone. Throw the fisnet out there underneath fish.

SPEAKER_01:

Everyone, I mean, uh let's just say everyone probably, you know, 20s and above could have some sort of peptide that they would benefit from.

SPEAKER_00:

So let's let's even come back to let's say anybody who cares about living life at its fullest.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, exactly. Not just living life. I would say if you are living a healthy lifestyle going into your 20s, and what I mean by that is you are sleeping, you are exercising, you are for the most part eating well, um, getting, you know, doing all of those little things. And and also alcohol plays a role in here too. So we're not abusing our body with alcohol or or recreational drugs, which are now a big thing.

SPEAKER_00:

That was a thing that you guys had mentioned that we could do another episode on.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. So if we're doing if we're checking all those boxes in our 20s, probably peptide therapy isn't as necessary unless we have a surgery, an injury, or something like that, in which case there's peptides that will help us heal better. For the most part, our body at that age is still producing pretty well because we don't have age as a factor, and maybe the stress, if again, if we're living a healthy lifestyle. If we're not living a health style, healthy lifestyle, maybe we were raised in a house where um we didn't have good habits around um how we ate, how we snacked, how we handled stress, um, and we're heading into those 20s already behind peptide therapy like GLP1 or whatever might help us kind of get on track to change those foundations and have have a better life. So it really does depend. I say everyone because I really do think there's a peptide out there for everyone, and I say it sort of joking, but sort of not.

SPEAKER_00:

One thing that comes to my mind immediately is you know, we can say everybody can benefit from this, but in reality, deep down, hidden buried inside of some individuals, many of them actually, is a feeling of worthiness. It's a feeling of being worthy to have and to live that extravagant life. Where maybe it's sexual abuse in their history, maybe it's emotional abuse or physical abuse, or somebody just telling them that they're not worthy of X, Y, and Z, whether it be religion, like there's so many different ways it can come. And that gets ingrained in our brain and it gets ingrained in who we are when in reality it's nothing to do with us. So I'm myself, I'm unpacking my worthiness, not attached to the income I produce. Right. And I think I can resonate with a lot of women, especially, and even men, where it's like, you know what, you are worthy of living not just longer, but living better. You are worthy of being that energetic mom who takes all the kids to the playground. You are worthy of having that vibrant intimacy with your spouse of 30 years, even in your postpartum or sorry, your post-menopause years. I'm postpartum, you're post like in the menopause age. I just want people and I want all the listeners to know, even if you're thinking about putting this on the business side, like you are so worthy of the things that you want in life. And peptide therapy just might be the aspect that helps you get there and get there faster.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, exactly. Well, I think when we really break it down who can benefit, I think the key things are I say everyone, but pretty much anybody that's feeling off from modern day living, right? The top groups of that being midlife adults that are noticing maybe slower recovery, fatigue, brain fog. Maybe it's those that are healing from chronic stress, injury, or inflammation.

SPEAKER_00:

Women's pause on that real quick. Yeah. I'm in the athletic space. Yep. Can you imagine how cool it would be to get all these like high schoolers who like my my brother had a career-ending hamstring strain pull? Basically came off the bone. His senior year of high school, he was already signed with um BYU to go run for them, and they were very great in working with them. But I'm like, I'm always just wondering what if yeah, peptide therapy was part of his recovery plan. I'm certain that these are what have the track and field experience been like for him in college versus what it was.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I'm certain that these are peptides that are being used out there in the professional sports and college, collegiate level sports and everything right now. I'm sure that there's a lot of people using even like something wrong, it's not an enhancement.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. It's just something that's helping your body heal based upon naturally occurring chemicals in your body. Right, exactly.

SPEAKER_01:

I would say the other really big group of people that could benefit from this, um, women that are post-menopause or men with declining hormone balance, I don't think we give men enough, we don't talk about men and their declining hormone balance, like we we tease about it, manopause, but it's a real thing that men experience as they age and their declining hormones. Um both people that are in that category could really benefit. Um, and I would say practitioners or wellness seekers that are wanting more cellular support for longevity. So even if you're like me who walks the talk, right? You're doing all these things, but maybe your body's not responding as well as you thought that it should, this might benefit you. You're already focused on those basics, the nutrition, the sleep, the minerals. Um, they're just gonna amplify the results that you're seeking.

SPEAKER_00:

I think about the chiropractors who are working with people in in recovery. So, say they got injured from a personal injury case, maybe a car wreck. Maybe, you know, a friend of ours, he had a bite crash, totally crushed his wrist. Like when I saw the x-ray, I didn't even recognize it as a wrist. Wow. I thought it was his ankle. It's been a little while since I saw x-rays, but right. Um, like I just think about for those of you who are in that space, you can easily incorporate it into your therapies. And also, if you are one of those individuals, like my husband fell on a on a dirt bike and totally crushed his leg to where his ankle was facing the wrong direction, spiral fracture in his tip fib, and now he's got a rod in there. But there are so many applications to peptides that were just breaching the surface, and to say that the only thing they do is weight loss is absurd. Right. It's just a side effect. Like, cool, we can do we can do some weight loss with it, and by all means, if that's your goal, go for it. It will do that.

SPEAKER_01:

I was just gonna say that exactly. Like, if that don't be ashamed, don't own it. If that's your primary focus, is to get control of your weight and you need peptide therapy to help you, own it. It's okay. I get it.

SPEAKER_00:

I think when you say get control of your weight, I want to determine as you what you also say is metabolically busted. Yeah. Because you've been trying to get in control and you've been trying to overcome this hurdle that's been placed in your life for who knows how long, however many diets and and alternative options that you've tried. Maybe I've like I even know people who've had gastric bypass surgery.

SPEAKER_01:

I know a lot of people that have used this and a failed gastric bypass. They wouldn't have had to have the surgery if they had had this first, because this was what worked for them finally. I I I think that um how do I want to say this? When we are talking about people that are looking for the benefits of of weight loss, um you know what, Kylie? I just totally lost my train of thought because you said something that just sparked it, and I just completely lost where I was going with that. It'll come back.

SPEAKER_00:

Your peptides.

SPEAKER_01:

It'll come back to me because you said something like, Oh, we need to we need to talk about that, but it's okay, it'll come back to me.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, so peptides don't fix bad habits, but they enhance healing when the groundwork is done. Who can benefit? If you are looking at all and starting this or incorporating this into your therapy, you can benefit. The reason why is up to you. Your goals with it is up to you, and it's purely up to you. Okay, if you're worried about judgment, people are judging anyways. Let them judge, as Mel Robbins would say. Go let them be focused on you, your goals, and not just your goals, but think about your why behind it. Like for the the reason why Jess and I are here is because of that. Why.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Uh, I want to touch with people on safe sourcing and smart use. I think we've hit on this a little bit with our other episodes, but I I can't emphasize just as much as I can't emphasize foundational work is the key to making these work long term, um, using this as a tool in our toolbox. Safe sourcing and smart use is just as important and it is worth repeating. If we say it on every single episode, it's because this is key. Um, you know, the safety is gonna come out come down to where you get them and how you use them. So you only want to source them through licensed telemedicine or reputable compounding pharmacists. And we're gonna avoid some of those research only online discount sites because they're often mislabeled, impure, things that we can't trust.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and I've heard the number one reason why people haven't started on peptide therapy, but they've looked into it, is because they don't know who to trust. Yeah. So I hope with this episode, you guys are starting to learn about Jess and I. And the reason why we recommend what we recommend is because not only can you trust us, but we can trust them and help you. We trust them in such a way that if you are our best friend, we would still send them to you, we would still send you to them because that's how much we trust them.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm on them from this company. My husband is on them from my company, and my in-laws are on this from this company. That's how much I trust them. I'm putting them in my own body. So if you don't know who to trust, you can trust us. Absolutely. I think um the takeaway here is that longevity isn't just about reversing age, it's about the keeping the communication clear in our body. Peptides help you, they help you repair faster, think clearer, move with energy again. We're not adding, we're not just adding years to life, we're adding to life in those years. Yes. Living longer and better. Living longer, better. So longevity isn't about turning back time, it's about feeling vibrant as the years go on. When you combine foundational wellness, sleep, movement, nutrition, and stress support with the right peptides, you give your body back its natural language of healing.

SPEAKER_00:

Exactly. Peptides aren't shortcuts, they're reminders of how your body is designed to work. They help you age efficiently with energy, clarity, and strength. And who doesn't want more energy?

SPEAKER_01:

Really? So if this episode sparks some curiosity, make sure that you're following the show, everything that we're putting out, and join us next time as we talk about what are we going to talk about next? I think GLP1, maybe GLP1 and GIP1, uh GIPs specifically, and um the peptides that are going to power your metabolic reactions.

SPEAKER_00:

Now remember, this is a limited series podcast. So you're getting all of the episodes up front right now. You can binge, listen to all of them. But I would recommend you start at episode one and you work your way through because they do build upon each other. Jess, where can they learn more about you? All right.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, they can find me on my website, B2B. That's the number two, b2bewithjess.com, or you can find me on my Instagram. That's at JessBasenboy underscore LMT underscore N C.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm Dr. Kylie. You can find me on the other podcast that I host, unshakablebrain.com. If you are interested in getting started with your peptide therapy, go to drkylieburton.comslash peptides. If someone else has sent you here, please go reach back with to them and see how you can get started. If you are a practitioner interested in beginning or incorporating peptide therapy into your clinical toolkit, uh you can also go to drkylieburton.comslash peptides. If you were sent here by somebody else, please make sure you go reach back out to them if you're interested in building the business side of this. Um, but Jess and I are so glad that you're here. We are so glad that you've come on board with this ride with us. As we conclude this episode, this is Pep Talk Peptides Unpacked. Science made simple, results made real. See you next time. See ya.