Peptalk: Peptides Unpacked

#2 Peptide Deficiency: Why Your Body's Signals Fade (And How to Rebuild Them)

• Dr. Kylie Burton & Jessica Briecke • Season 1 • Episode 2

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Ever feel like your body just stopped listening?

You're eating well, moving your body, doing all the "right" things—but energy is low, recovery is slow, your mood is off, and nothing seems to click the way it used to.

In this episode, Dr. Kylie Burton and Jessica Briecke unpack why peptides—the tiny messengers that drive energy, mood, recovery, appetite, and skin health—decline with age, stress, poor sleep, inflammation, and the demands of modern life.

The goal isn't to chase hacks. It's to restore the signal so your cells can communicate again.

What We Cover:

  • The core drivers behind peptide deficiency: cortisol blunting the hypothalamus and pituitary, oxidative stress damaging receptors, and the liver falling behind under a daily toxin load
  • Jessica's personal story: navigating endometriosis, Hashimoto's, sarcoidosis, a hysterectomy, and a life-threatening sepsis event—and what finally moved the needle
  • How thoughtful HRT supported mood, while low-and-slow GLP-1/GIP therapy brought back mental clarity and steady, sustainable weight change
  • The pitfalls of rapid weight loss, muscle loss, and receptor resistance when dosing is aggressive and foundations are ignored
  • Your blueprint for rebuilding: protect sleep, manage stress, prioritize protein and colorful plants, move daily, and consider strategic peptides with clinician guidance to prevent desensitization and build durable results

For Anyone Who Feels Like Their Body Stopped Working: Your body isn't broken—it's missing the right message. This episode shows you how to restore it.

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. I'm Dr. Kylie Burton. And I'm Jessica Brigie. This is Peptoc. Peptides Unpacked. Science made simple, results made real. Here's a wild fact. By the time we hit our 40s, our body's natural peptide production can decline by more than 20 to 30 percent. And that drop accelerates with stress, poor sleep, and chronic inflammation.

SPEAKER_02:

And that decline shows up everywhere. Slower recovery, lower energy, brain fog, hormone shifts, and even skin changes. Peptides are the body's messengers. So when production drops, communication inside your body breaks down.

SPEAKER_00:

Today we're unpacking why that happens. What causes peptide deficiency in the first place, and how lifestyle, stress, and aging all play a role.

SPEAKER_02:

More importantly, what can you do about it? From foundational support to targeted peptides that help the body remember how to repair itself again. All right, here we go. Let's dive in. All right, let's pull it up. What are we going to talk about first? I think let's tackle aging. I think when we talk about peptides and our body naturally producing, along with, we think of hormones, right? I think the first thing that comes to mind is hormones. We know when we get older, especially women, we are we are able to actually track and see aging through the way that we menstruate and how that changes. And we know that that declines as we age. Well, while a lot of the peptides that we're using in peptide therapy aren't reproductive hormones, they still work in that communication chain as everything else, and they decline with age. So natural peptides and growth hormone production, they decline about one to two percent year after year once we hit the age of 30. So we're talking about collagen production, which we do produce naturally in the body. Um, metabolic peptides, they drop, and those are the things that we're talking about when we talk about like the GLP1, the GIPs, uh, recovery and immune efficiency also drops. So recovery peptides are going to be things like our BPC157, our TB500, um, and then immune deficiency, immune efficiency starts to decline because that happens in the gut, which we're not taking care of necessarily, and our gut health declines as we get older as well. Um, and one of the things I think that we don't talk about enough, too, is not just reproductive sexual hormones or reproductive hormones, but we also have peptides that influence that communication. So we see peptides like PT141 that that's declining. And so when we start losing like libido or any interest whatsoever, that's because we are getting older and those peptides are declining. We're afraid to talk about it, but we will talk about that. But age is a big factor when it comes to declining peptides.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, age is a big factor for everything. You can use it as an excuse for the way you're feeling, the way things are traveling in your body, or you can use it as say, you know what? I'm 50, I'm 64, I'm 13, I'm 48, whatever age you are, you can use that as a platform to saying I'm going to feel my best at every age, no matter what age that is. So that's number one, aging. And uh Jess, I want you to speak a little bit on that from your story. We haven't delved into your story very much. We've we've dripped it here and there. Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

But I know like at 54, you're feeling your greatest. I am feeling my greatest. Yeah, I just celebrated my 54th birthday. Um, I have lived a really healthy lifestyle for many, many years. But in my earlier years, my teens and my 20s, I was pretty abusive to my body in the sense that I, once I was of driving age and driving to high school, I stopped at the local little corner store. I picked up a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos and a diet Pepsi, and that was my breakfast every single day. I had freedom. I had one, those tips are disgusting. And two, when I think back, I'm like, I can't believe I did that. But then I, you know, hit my college years and college for me, I certainly uh let my Iris shine. I drank plenty, I did not eat well. You know, after a night out socializing, we would call dominoes and get pizza at two o'clock in the morning and go straight to bed. Like I ate horribly. I drank like it was my job. Um, I was not kind. I was not kind to my body. I had a great time. I just wasn't kind of at that age, yeah. Um, and so coming out of college, I you can see I was probably set up for what craving more and more carbohydrates. I was right, not knowingly um riding that high and low of of sugar craving and the the the the peaks and valleys of what happens when we're nourishing our body that way. Protein was not a primary thing. We didn't get, but we're also going back 30-something years now. And so we didn't really know to talk about protein in the way that we do now. But that's how I nourished my body for a long time and did a lot of damage. I was also diagnosed with endometriosis at 19 years old, which was really unheard of. It was a progressive young doctor that diagnosed me. So now we're talking. If I do the math right, what is that? That's 35 years ago that I was diagnosed with endometriosis. That was kind of unheard of. That's a shocker at that age.

SPEAKER_00:

I know a lot of like my mom's your age, and she didn't find out until she went in for her hysterectomy. Sure. Well, she said, Well, no wonders why my periods were so heavy, but it was just so uncommon. Yep.

SPEAKER_02:

I through the years accidentally stumbled on uh, you know, so of course you eat that way, and then you um crave it, and then you realize that at some point your body can't keep up with those kinds of calories and storing the extra sugar and you start putting on weight. So I would do different types of weight loss approaches to try to control it. I mean, even even I look back now and I I thought I was so heavy even then, but I was heavier. Um, I stumbled upon Atkins' diet. So Atkins diet was huge back then, and um, what we would now consider just a keto diet, right? And that controlled my endometriosis. So I knew also early on in my career, well before Metformin, well before we talked about PCOS and endometriosis and the blood sugar balance on that, I stumbled on the fact that when I didn't have carbohydrates and sugar in my body and I was more balanced because I was eating the Atkins way, I didn't have any more endometriosis symptoms anymore, right? Fast forward to my my professional journey. Um, I graduated with a degree in hotel, my my associates is in hotel management, my associates is in food marketing and distribution. I went back to college again, um, a two-year program for massage therapy, and then later on went back to school again for holistic nutrition. Um, it wasn't until later on, when I started putting all these pieces together, that I realized, man, I really have to change my life. And it isn't just about the number on the scale, I have to do better and eat better. I was diagnosed with multiple autoimmune conditions, including sarcoidosis, um, Hashimoto's, um, endometriosis, which is not on the list, but I'm sure that someday that will be considered. Yeah, it should be. I'm sure it will be someday. But all these things. And I have been able to, I would say, control largely how my body responded by the better treatment of my body in the last two decades, right? So eating right, moving my body, doing doing these things. And yet still I struggled and still things weren't quite right. And so when I hit my 50s, I experienced a lot of stress. I mean, that sandwich age. Um, my kids are not in the house like they were. They're grown up, but they're set free doing their thing.

SPEAKER_00:

And my parents are kids at the time I remember were also experiencing the shift in life. Well, when they go to college, okay, what do I do? They get headed one direction. No, that's not what I want. They switch to a different direction, and you're like there for it all.

SPEAKER_02:

It is really, I will say, it's a it's a stressful time in parenting. Every stage of life is different with when you're parenting. Like when you have newborns, it's hard. You're not sleeping. When you have toddlers, you think, oh my gosh, my house is never gonna be mine again. And the and the saying is so true.

SPEAKER_00:

My bed's never gonna be mine either.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. It's so true that the days are long, but I promise the years are short. My youngest turns 21 next week, my oldest is 26. So, you know, I've been in it for a minute. And um, I was also experiencing my parents' aging. So my parents are gonna turn uh 77 here in the next two months. Um, and a lot of things that were happening. This is a hard age, stressful age, and plus my dad had cancer, was diagnosed with small cell lung cancer, my mom had a massive stroke, and I was blessed with sepsis and luckily survived it, but it was not an easy recovery. I also had a hysterectomy in that time, like like so many things were if I knew about the sepsis. Yeah, that was uh two years ago or three years ago, um, on my anniversary, August 31st. I had a little bit of pain. I didn't feel I thought it was just something not right. And finally, I told everybody to go to work. I'm fine, I'm fine, as women do. I'm fine. This is gonna go away. And like an hour later, I called my son. I'm like, think we have to go to the emergency room. And I went from checking into the hospital vitals were fine to once they hooked me up to an IV, I think that pushed the infection in the kidney. And I went into sepsis shock. I was in the OR within two hours. I was hallucinating. I it was bad. It was a bad scene. Um, but because I've been taking care of myself so well, I do believe that my recovery from sepsis and my my ability to handle it was large in part to thank God I was taking care of myself because a lot of people don't live to tell that story. Um, so lots of stuff going on in my body, lots of inflammation, lots of things. Uh obviously, also in that time frame, um, I my hysterectomy was only partial, so I kept my ovaries still producing hormones. Um, but starting that menopausal symptom thing, right? So if you looked at me right now, even six months ago, I'm still producing. I'm still producing hormones, but things were shifting, so bouncing more than I'm in full menopause even at 54.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh I just enjoyed one thing I want in my life. I want to breathe through menopause. Yes, I will say liver support. But I know it's cutting the horizon, and I'm like, I don't want to go crazy. I don't want to experience hot flashes, I don't want none of that stuff.

SPEAKER_02:

Thankfully, I've never had it. But Kylie, I mean, you and I both know that liver is at the crux of that liver and and liver and gut support. So I believe because I've been such an advocate to take care of my liver um in the last, especially in the last decade, that I really feel like that transition into menopause for me was really smooth. You know, I have not suffered from hot flashes at all, like ever. I had it for a hot I it's possible. Now my mother suffered. And if you were to compare our reproductive health to each other, it's identical, right? So I'm sure if you opened up mom, you would have found the same like your mom that there was probably signs of hit of endometriosis. So anyway, um, earlier this year, I did start my HRT journey. Um, I would have started it sooner had I known that.

SPEAKER_00:

So if you're listening to this well off in the few near distance. Yep.

SPEAKER_02:

Early 2025. Early 2025. And yay, a couple of days ago, we've had a big change in how we're looking at these and an FDA level. So this is exciting for women's health. But I started my own journey, um, which really helped me mentally because I wouldn't say I had depression, I would say I didn't feel like myself at the beginning of the year, and it didn't make any sense. Like, why? I'm doing all of these things, all of the things. Yet I feel weird. Um, so I started my HRT journey, which helped significantly. It didn't, however, move the needle with my weight. Okay, maybe again, like so many of us, I'm accepting like this is what my body is going to be at this point in my life. Um, I did release the year prior with some really uh some changes for my gut health. I was able to release some inflammatory weight last year, but that was it. Like I released that and then I plateaued and I just said, okay, well, I don't know what else I could ever do to make my health any better. So um fast forward to me just deciding as a functional nutritionist, if I don't get a handle on understanding peptides, I'm gonna behind be behind the ball. Like it's everywhere. I'm seeing people come in and lose weight rapidly, losing muscle mass, they're not changing their diet, they're not using these a good as a good tool. I felt that the way that they were being dispensed was irresponsible and in too much too soon.

SPEAKER_00:

Like, and I just want to reiterate that these are your like you're a massage therapist. Yes, and you've seen clients for years. Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

And these are what you're seeing as you come in and you start working on the same people you've been working on for years that are yeah, and and I had doctors tell me that I was crazy when I would send them back to the practitioner to say, so we're going back two years, you know, but when people were really just massively dosing these things, um, I had practitioners tell doctors tell my clients that I don't know, she doesn't know what she's talking about. You're fine. Well, no, it really was happening. They weren't changing their diet, they were using mass doses, they were losing rapid weight loss, they were losing significant muscle mass.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, but if I didn't and that's on the external surface because that's what you're feeling as a massage therapist. I could feel what is going on on the inside with the internal organs.

SPEAKER_02:

Exactly. Exactly. It is this is not just about wins on the scale. This is so much deeper, and we need to be responsible in how we're helping these people. But as a nutritionist for my nutrition clients, when people would come in, I needed to understand how to support them to avoid that, right? So I can see the physical part of what's happening to these people when they're not being supported by um, you know, guided, I would say, how to nourish their body or how to even maybe dose a little bit more body-friendly. Um, I needed to understand that. So I dove deep into the education side of learning peptides. And for me, once I realized there was so much more to peptides than just losing weight, and I realized that there was a massive benefit for neurological protection. I am the daughter of a stroke survivor who is the daughter of a stroke survivor, and I would do anything to protect my brain. Also, Alzheimer's and dementia scare me more than anything else. So if I could lower my risk of stroke, Alzheimer's, and dementia, sign me up. And anything else would be icing on the cake. So within, I would say, a month of using trisepatide, which is a GLP and GIP combination, it was like somebody gave me my brain back. I stopped walking into a room and saying, oh, what did I come in here for? Or word searching when I would be in the middle of a conversation and just get lost. Just lost. What was I saying? Or somebody come in and not remember their name, and all of a sudden I thought, oh, I'm smart. I am smart. It is still in there. It isn't just about getting old. It was about the fact that my body wasn't communicating, it wasn't signaling. And so now my brain is functioning better. My blood sugar, even though on paper it was perfect, wasn't responding. I was not responding to insulin anymore. I wasn't using glucose like I should be. If you gave me a piece of bread, I was gonna gain three pounds. So that's not normal, that's not right. I started with tiny little amounts to protect my brain, and I have been on these now for months. I have lost 17 pounds slowly over many months. I've never felt better than I than I do right now. So what we were willing to accept as the aging process, and this is just how my body is as I get older. No thanks. Live longer, better. That's what I want to do.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay. Aging, you can accept it, or you can say, I don't care, I'm gonna still live my best life. Number two is chronic stress. High cortisol suppresses the hypothalamus and pituitary, which then talk to your thyroid, and we can get into that in a whole nother world. The HPT access. But the command centers that trigger peptide release are the hypothalamus and the pituitary. And if you have high cortisol hitting on those two guys which are sitting inside your brain, well, lungs, lots of things are going to be affected downstream. High cortisol, just talking about high cortisol suppressing the hypothalamus and the pituitary. The two command centers that trigger peptide release. And if you don't, it's because you have very good meditation practices or something.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, we live a crazy high stress life.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, we live in a very fast-paced high stress life where busyness is a badge of honor. And as you are doing that, not only is it affecting all the other things that you know, but it's also affecting your peptide production. Correct.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And anything else on that we need to we need to address?

SPEAKER_02:

No, I think that that is, you know, the stress response in the body is just so much more than just increased cortisol, which is a big, big part of the piece, but all of these signaling, whether it's a hormone or it's a peptide, they're all communicators. And when one's off, everything is off. And so stress is going to inhibit the production of these peptides because it's inhibiting our gut health primarily, um, where most of these peptides are made. So it's a matter of the balance and the signaling that's not happening because everything's out of whack, and how it's impacting our gut health. So stress no bueno.

SPEAKER_00:

Next, so I would say the next thing. Go ahead. Sorry. Brain health, brain. We think about like brain, and we talk about gut so many times, but the gut is our second brain, and it's been referred to that for years now. So if you're impacting your gut and making it better, you're impacting your brain, and vice versa. Yep, exactly.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh, the next one, I think a lot of people kind of blow off, like they just don't think that this is a big deal. But whether it's peptides being reduced because of or just our overall health, sleep is a primary thing that we need to protect. Protect your sleep. So, number three, one of the reasons that we are deficient would be poor sleep. Um, most peptide signaling, like growth hormone, was deep sleep sleep phase. And anytime that we're interrupting that circadian rhythm, we're gonna have less repair and regeneration of those peptides that are being made and used in the body. So sleep is so much more. I mean, we've we hear about it, rest and recovery, but do we really understand what it means? And I'm here to tell you right now, as Kylie and I are telling you, that poor sleep means less production, less use of those peptides, because we're not entering into that deep sleep phase that we need to in order for all of those things to happen.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I don't have much to say on sleep because if you're like me, you don't have much control of your sleep. Um, but it's getting better. I just think if we can make one improvement in our daily habits, it would be to take the screen and turn it off, say 30 minutes before we used to, or just make one little small shift about screens. And I say this because I'm like, dang, you know, when we're recording this, it's the end of November in 2025, and Hallmark's now out with all our Christmas movies. And it's like, I got 45 minutes, maybe an hour, after I get the kids to bed. That's my one, like, where I get my own time. I'm gonna throw on a Hallmark movie, I'm gonna zip past through all the parts I don't want to watch, I just watch the good parts. So that's like my bedtime routine. Yep. Whereas my husband likes to wake up first thing in the morning, like at five o'clock and six o'clock in the morning. I don't function in those time of days. And so he'll like he'll be asleep by the time I even come downstairs, and from the getting the kids to sleep. And so our routines are just so very different. And we often hear, I will say this about sleep, we often hear that the most quote successful people wake up at five o'clock in the morning and get started. I heard Lori Griner say one day on Shark Tank that she wakes up at eight, because she's not a morning person. She wakes up at eight, and the only reason why people would wake up at five, it just it shifts their day forward three hours. Right. So that's something to think about. If you're like a nighttime owl like me, I would rather work at 11, 12 o'clock at night than ever work at five or six, where Andrew's the complete opposite. So do what is best for you and then give yourself grace in the meantime.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, I would agree. And you're you're in a hard stage of life with littles, but um, I mean, we do know that metabolically speaking, following the sun's pattern is better for us, the way that our cortisol rises, the way and lowers, and the way that our melatonin rises and lowers.

SPEAKER_00:

So we should send something to government and tell them to stop changing the clock.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, there's that. But you're right. I'm like you. I'm I I do feel like I'm a little bit better getting dark at 5 30 in the afternoon. It's rough. It's brutal. It really is. It really that really shortens the day. Um, that is that is a tough one. But um, to your point, turning off the phone at night earlier. I have actually on my phone, I have a sleep reminder set. Um, it's late for some people, but for me, it's 10:45 at night. I have a little thing that comes on my phone that says time to start your bedtime routine. Sometimes I ignore it. Sometimes I'm like, yep, time to like turn things off if I'm in the middle of my Hallmark movie. I'm not, I'm not necessarily always paying attention, but I try to. And I know that too on the days that I have to get up and function in the morning, if you know, when I'm in my office, then I I need to pay attention. But on an A that I might have a little more wiggle room in the morning, maybe not so much. Um, but I have that reminder set on my phone. I do have it set on night mode. Do not disturb is automatically also set up on my phone at 10 p.m. at night so that there's no text, there's no other than the emergency people, my notifications are not coming up. And then the last thing that I started doing a long time ago, we got rid of our landline, um, which meant that the cell phone needed to be in our bedroom in case, God forbid something happened and we needed to be notified. Um, but if I put it on my nightstand, what am I gonna do? I'm gonna climb into bed and I'm gonna scroll instead of going to sleep. Or when I wake up first thing in the morning, instead of getting that, what whether it's five o'clock in the morning or eight o'clock in the morning, whatever it is, instead of getting that first morning sunlight when we wake up, which is important, you reach over and the phone's right there. So you might like kind of slowly wake up and start scrolling on both ends of your day, which is terrible for us. So put it on the other side of the room. The phone rings in the middle of the night, you can get out of bed and go answer the phone. It's not gonna happen that often, but put it away from you so it's not right there. Put it on do not disturb and set yourself in a reminder. Go to bed. Sleep's important. All right, next up. Um systemic inflammation. That is another reason why we are not producing peptides as we should. Uh, chronic inflammation and oxidative stress damage receptors on the cells, and it reduces the sensitivity to those signals, those peptide signals by being chronically inflamed for those peptides to not link up on those receptor sites. And inflammation also increases the breakdown rate of the peptides. So they may not have enough of an opportunity to even do their job because the body in the inflammation is breaking them down before we even have a chance to get them to the receptor site to get them to be used. So chronic inflammation, which can come for a whole host of reasons, including the things that we are going to talk about in this, will definitely be a reason that we are not producing peptides that includes once again our gut health where they are produced. Chronic inflammation is going to mean that the gut lining is inflamed and we're not producing all of the things we need to be doing in the small intestines.

SPEAKER_00:

Let's throw on uh some lab markers. Okay, because we can. Yeah. We know if you guys have been around me for a few years, or maybe you're new to me, I am lab I'm the lab girl. So systemic inflammation. You can find that marker with HSCRP. That is called high sensitive C reactive protein. And that is your specific inflammatory marker. Now the normal range is between zero and three. If you're above three percent, then you quote, you know, have excessive inflammation. But you can take that as a if you're above zero, you have systemic inflammation. So go back, grab your labs, and see if check your HSCRP and see what level you fall at.

SPEAKER_02:

And it's not run very often. So if you have blood work coming up and you're hearing this, ask your practice ask your uh provider to run that one for you. Just throw it on the list. Check it up, check the box.

SPEAKER_00:

Yep. The other thing when I think about inflammation in labs is actually your lipid panel. Direct correlation between inflammation and your cholesterol numbers and everything else inside that lipid panel. So I'm not gonna dive into it today. But if you want an alternative avenue to improving your cholesterol numbers, well, tackle some inflammation. Exactly. Alright, number five, nutrient deficiencies. Peptides are made from amino acids, minerals, and vitamins like zinc, magnesium, and B vitamins. Everything we have in our body is made from food in some way, shape, or form. Minerals, vitamins, amino acids, all the things. So when we're depriving our bodies, we are also depriving our production of hepatitis. I think you know, my experience with stress and food specifically is like in the year 2025, I don't ever get on the scale. I couldn't tell you how much I weigh. I would say maybe around 130 pounds. I don't I just don't care about the number. Right. Um But my my my people around me will say to me, like, hey, how much weight loss have you had? Like, how much weight loss have you experienced this year? Like, I don't know if I can tell you I'm caloric deficient. Like when I'm stressed, I don't eat. Nothing sounds good. I'm the complete opposite of most people where one where stress causes them to overeat, I under eat. So if I were to look back and say, like, I need peptides in five years or whatever the story may be. I could go back to this 2025 year and say chronic stress, sleep deprivation for the last eight years, and the lack of nutrition. Yeah. So much so that yesterday I was like, Andrew, I just need something. I need a really big meal right now. Like, I need to replenish my body. And so we went to our one of our favorite places, our hibachi girl. I ate the entire thing on top of an entire sushi roll and salad and all the other stuff that they brought in front of me. Well, I've been replenished as of today, but it's like, all right, we need to do that a little bit more often and a little bit more consistently.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. And and um, I would say prioritizing protein and fiber. Um, I think that vegetables and fruit are super important eating colors um because that provides a nice balance of different favorites.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, but but is what's on your plate always?

SPEAKER_02:

Meat. Meat. Yeah. Um, but if we are talking about making every bite count, I would say protein because that's going to nourish so many things in our body. Um, a healthy fat, a little bit of healthy fat. Fiber is so important to feed our microbiome and have a good healthy gut, and elimination, which is crucial, um, and water. And then within that, we can fill in with the fruits and vegetables where we can. But I would say starting with those things being prioritized, and that's going to help us with how we produce peptides as well.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And there's been previous episodes where we dive into some simple foundation components. So if you're interested in diving more into that, and you haven't gone back from the beginning and listened to every episode on this Pep Talk podcast, please do so. There's a reason why we present them in the order we present them in. Yep. All right, number six.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, sedentary lifestyle. Boy, oh boy, have we become a very non-moving society. But moving movement stimulates um uh uh myocines, it's a muscle-derived peptide that drives repair and metabolic balance, right? And so we have to, for so many reasons, we need to move. And we are the even what we're recording on right now, we are so dependent on our little computers that have fit in our hands or our laptops or the television shows that are just so appealing. We're not moving like we used to. So we're depriving these things in our body that are made because they're stimulated by movement by sitting still, by sitting on the computer, by having sedentary jobs. We need to do that because without movement, those internal signalings, they just stay dormant. They're they're not doing what they need to do. So, sedentary lifestyle, also another reason why we might be peptide deficient.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, one simple tidbit that I've learned personally myself with this when the year of 2025 is over and it is New Year's Eve, I'm gonna have the biggest celebration because I accomplished the year. It has been one very difficult year for me. And I've had a Peloton bike for about two years now. I've hardly used it. We've had it from my office when we had my office in the house. Uh when it was right after I had Chloe, so I have a two-year-old, is when we when I got it, and I'm like, I'm I'm so physically exhausted from lack of sleep that I can't get myself to the bike. That would just be a bigger stressor to my own body. Yeah. So now it helps that she is two, and I can she can entertain herself for a little bit while I get on the bike. But we moved it from the house out to my office, then back into the house now. And I will tell you, that shift changes every single day. I wake up at seven o'clock, I help my oldest two go to bed, or not go to bed, they go to school, and then after they get at the bus stop at eight, I jump on my bike. Even if it's 20 minutes, 30 minutes. I haven't done a bike ride that's longer than 30 minutes. That's when I that's why I love the Peloton bike so much, is because you can get such a good workout in such a short period of time. Right. But the endorphins that you receive from getting a physical movement, physical exercise in the beginning of the day sets your day up to be that much better. Your mood, your energy levels, your brain, like that's just like the most simple hack to feeling better overall is getting that movement first thing in the day because of those endorphins that get released.

SPEAKER_02:

I agree. I think on to your point, too, there's a lot of people that are not moving their body um with intention. And we get caught up in this, well, I have to get up, I have to go to the gym, I have to, I have to, and it's gonna take me an hour to work out and a half an hour to drive there, a half an hour home. And when am I gonna shove? You know, you make this bigger production. Guess what? If you are using AI, you can go on chat GPT and you can ask them to give me a full body uh workout in for 20 minutes using my own body weight, and you are gonna get a phenomenal workout. So, no excuses. You can do this. Well, you're nutrition too. You can say, Hey, chat, help me out with a diet. Yeah, they're putting people like me out of a job for sure. But AI cannot replace my charming personality, that's for darn sure. But my point is that can't give you peptides, it doesn't, yeah. We need the movement in order to make the peptides, and we don't have to make it be this big, huge production without it, we can get it done without excuses. So yeah, that was number six.

SPEAKER_00:

You need a little bit of motivation, figure out what works for you in this stage of your life, and it's not necessarily going to the gym. If you don't like it, you're never gonna be consistent with it. Correct, and that's okay. Yep. Number seven, chronic illness or autoimmunity. The immune system burns through peptide reserves during constant defense. Thymic peptides like thymocin alpha 1 and beta 4, going back to my chemistry as I see those deplete under stress. And thymic peptides like those examples, just as another indicator that there are more peptides that exist than just GLP1s and GIPs. Right, exactly. These have a multiple effect in the body as they're already currently there hanging out. So, Jess, you mentioned early on with your, you know, you've had autoimmunity diagnoses, including Hashimoto's, which many people listening to this probably have experience with. Yep. Um, but that is a factor. Yeah. Yep. All right, number eight.

SPEAKER_02:

Number eight is a lot of people. Yeah, no, I that's it. I mean, it's you can't cast a net these days without catching most of the people around you with some sort of autoimmune um issue, which that's a whole nother conversation is too.

SPEAKER_00:

Whether it'll be diagnosed or undiagnosed.

SPEAKER_02:

Correct, exactly. All right, moving on to number eight, environmental toxins. All right, so toxins, heavy metals, um, any endocrine disruptor, that's gonna increase the oxidative stress and disrupt pathway peptide pathways. People hear, or maybe they don't hear, oxidative stress often. They don't really understand what that actually is, but it's these things that are coming in, and we're breaking down um cells uh in our body that are supposed to be doing a lot of jobs, a lot of cells, a lot of jobs that are being disrupted through oxidative stress in the process of, and so you hear people talk about um eat your antioxidants, eat your blueberries, they're full of antioxidants, whatever it is, right? And that's supposed to help with oxidative stress, but people don't understand what that really means. Eat your eat your blueberries for the antioxidant benefit. Well, that's because when we have too much oxidative stress because we're exposed to environmental toxins, we're gonna have this cellular breakdown that's happening that's going to create a cascade of problems within the body. So we want to be preventative with that, and that's why we want to get those oxidative, um, those antioxidants in the body and help that, but that will deplete the production of peptides. Um, the liver, which is key to peptide metabolism, it's going to become burdened and sluggish for a multitude of reasons. Stress, poor diet, um, having uh too many toxins that we're expecting it to detox and process through, having a too many oxidative, uh too much breakdown due to oxidative stress. It's got to deal with this load. And when it's dealing with that load, it disrupts how we process, how we detoxify hormones in the body. Um, it's gonna have a big influence on blood sugar, on cortisol, on thyroid hormone, on reproductive hormones. The list is endless because the liver does over 500 jobs. But environmental toxins, we can't avoid it. Not in the not in 2025, the world that we're living in right now, they are everywhere. We're not gonna completely avoid it, but we can do things to help support it. Number one, just let's get pooping every day because people that don't poop every day think and they've been doing it for 10 years and that's what they've always done. They think that's normal. Let's start there. That's just a tip of the iceberg. It's a whole entire podcast we can talk about pooping and liver health and all that kind of stuff, but we are exposed to environmental toxins, which is going to have this cascade effect of not being able to produce peptides. Yeah, let's dive into some labs.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, let's. I love it. There are two markers called ALT and AST. These are direct liver-correlated markers. And I don't even know what the standard range is for that anymore.

SPEAKER_02:

I don't remember the standard range because I've been doing optimal for so long, I don't know what the standard range would be.

SPEAKER_00:

So it's like, okay, your optimal range is anywhere around 15. If you're over 26, then you really need to be concerned. So go check out your ALT and your AST markers. If you're over 15, let's do some work on it. If you're over 26, definitely need to tackle some of this. That's just a way to monitor your liver and your liver function as we discuss things that impact it. Right. Number nine, overuse of medications or alcohol. Certain drugs and alcohol impair liver detox and protein synthesis, which can interfere with both production and clearance of peptides. I think that's simple enough.

SPEAKER_02:

Simple enough. We know that any excess use of medication in alcohol is going to destroy the gut, it's going to destroy the liver, it's going to knock out all of those communication chains in the body. Now, that said, there are things that are life-saving, and we need medications for I'm not saying to have better peptides, get off all your medication is not what we're saying here. But I am saying that recreational use of alcohol and medication is definitely going to have an impact. But there are certain medications that we need for um life-saving, life support, whatever it may be, that will impact the peptide production in our body.

SPEAKER_00:

All right, last but not least, number 10, receptor resistance. Similar to like insulin resistance, chronic overstimulation leads to peptide receptor desensitization. Cells stop hearing the messages even when peptides are present.

SPEAKER_02:

I think this is a great one to end on because it's probably the one that I talk about the most. And for two reasons. One, we make these naturally in the body, as we have discussed over and over and over. Um, really quickly, with insulin resistance, basically what happens is we might be eating in excess of carbohydrates. We'll use that as an example. Um, the body releases uh insulin so that it can unlock the door and allow that blood glucose to come into the cells and make energy, right? That's a very condensed version of what's happening. And over time, when we're either usually when we're overconsuming carbohydrates, and I use that term loosely because carbohydrates, if you don't understand it, can be a ton of fruit, it can be healthy carbohydrates, it can be eating a candy bar for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, whatever, right? It can be look like a bunch of different things. And so what happens is we're pumping out a lot of insulin because we're pumping it, we have a lot of blood glucose, and the body just kind of stops listening to it. What's happening, I think, in my opinion, with with the use of peptides, um, when that is part of the command that we stop listening to our GLPs, to our GIPs, to our BPC 157, PT141, whatever, we just stop communicating. So it might be manufactured, but the body's just not communicating anymore. It's not listening. On the back side, when we're seeing people that are using uh standard dose peptides quickly flooding the body, I think that we're gonna see that the reason that people have rebound weight gain is because uh we've desensitized the body by flooding it again with peptides that we're injecting, and instead of improving the communication, which we do initially too much too fast, is gonna have this opposite reaction. And I think we're gonna see that we're gonna have a deficiency in peptide response because of the way that we're using the peptide therapy. So I haven't heard people.

SPEAKER_00:

Another reason why you should be working with a licensed physician who knows these inside and out, yeah, and can work with you individually on your health goals.

SPEAKER_02:

Right, because I think that what we're seeing is money-driven dosage, and that doesn't mean and and it's not individualized, right? So this is the protocol that we're putting out because this is what's making the drug companies money. We can get into that too, but ultimately I think supplement industries. Same, right. So I think that these are driven financially, not necessarily in the patient's best interest. And so what we're seeing when it comes to things like rebound weight is is a desensitate desensitive desensitizing of the body's communication when it comes to the peptides. So um one, we become resistance just in general. So we're we might be making them, but we're not losing using them naturally for all the reasons we just mentioned. But also when we are medicating with the peptides, if we're not using them responsibly, that can be problematic as well.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, that's it.

SPEAKER_00:

That's it. Ten reasons. 10 reasons on why our peptide production declines.

unknown:

Yep.

SPEAKER_00:

Peptide declining. Just like everything else in the body. Nutrition, peptides, hormones, they all impact each other, and it's a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_02:

Yep. Peptide decline isn't just about age, like we mentioned, it's about overloads, stress, toxins, and nutrient depletion can all interrupt how your cells talk to each other.

SPEAKER_00:

Exactly. When we restore these messages through sleep, movement, nutrition, and strategic peptides, the body starts communicating again and healing follows.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. So if today's episode helped connect some dots, then you can follow this uh podcast, pep talk, peptides unpacked, wherever you listen. And you can find me, Jessica, at B number two B, B2B with Jess.com or on Instagram at Jess B as and boy, Jess B underscore L M T underscore N C.

SPEAKER_00:

And you can find me, Dr. Kylie, and get started on your peptide therapy or start offering peptides to your clients at drKyberg.com slash peptides. You'll also find me on another podcast called Unshakable Brain. Don't miss our next episode because we're diving into something you really want to understand. It's gonna improve your health and it's gonna improve your friends' health and your family's health, and anybody else who wants to listen. So please give this podcast a share on your platform so we can help impact thousands of lives with this knowledge. Your body isn't broken, it just needs the right message. This is Pep Talk, Peptides Unpacked. See you next time.