The Body Was Never Broken with Nathalie Niddam | Ep. 010

We live in a culture that promises we can hack our way to health — more data, more inputs, more control. Nathalie Niddam has spent years inside that world and has become one of its most trusted voices, going deeper into peptides and bioregulators than almost anyone. But underneath the language of optimization sits a quieter idea: these molecules don’t override the body — they remind it. They hand back signals the body already knows how to use.

In this conversation, Dr. Nasha and Nathalie sit in the tension between hacking and tending — between forcing a system and restoring the conditions it’s been missing. They talk about what the longevity movement gets right, where it quietly betrays people, and what it might mean to optimize for capacity instead of control. A conversation for anyone who’s ever wondered whether the goal is to do more to the body — or to finally listen to it.

More From Dr. Nasha Winters

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Natalie Nittham has spent years in a world that promises we can hack our way to health. More inputs, more data, more control. And she's one of the most respected people in it. A nutritionist and human potential coach who has gone deeper into peptides and bioregulators than almost anyone alive. But here's what pulled me toward her. Underneath all the optimization talk is a much quieter idea that these molecules don't override the body, they remind it, they restore signals the body already knows how to read. That's not force, that's terrain. In this conversation, we sit right in the tension between hacking and tending, between pushing a system harder and giving it back what it's been missing. We get into what the longevity world gets right and what it gets dangerously wrong, but also what it might look like to optimize for capacity instead of control. Here's my conversation with Natalie Knitham. Health doesn't happen in isolation, it happens in a terrain. The biology, the rhythms, the relationships, the meaning you're still making. All of it shapes whether life expresses its vitality or quietly begins to unravel. And each week I sit down with scientists, physicians, farmers, artists, patients, and systems thinkers, people who talk about bodies, but also about land, about healing, but also about grief and belonging and what it means to become human again. This isn't a show for quick answers. It's a space for better questions. Pull up a chair.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

Thank you, thank you.

SPEAKER_02 2:15

Good start here. You know, I was trying to think about where you and I first met. I mean, was it was definitely, I think it was at health optimization. I'd known of you through a ton of people and had definitely watched you and was very enamored by the way of you sharing your knowledge with the world, but I don't think I got to actually be in your presence until a few years ago at some like health optimization or some type of conference.

SPEAKER_00 2:40

You know what's funny, Naisha, is that I had this massive kind of girl crush on you. Like I was like, oh my god, Nasha Winters, I wonder if she would ever talk to me. I know. I was like, I don't know if I could ever get her on my podcast. Like, I mean that would be so cool. And so just so you know.

SPEAKER_02 3:02

You okay. Well, it's a mutual girl crush, so I'm really happy we get to have this conversation. And I want to also link in the show notes because you have done beautiful, beautiful interviews with me, and um, they're worth resharing. So I want to make sure those are linked here as well. And I'm very excited for people to know you because my circle, unless you play in the biohacker world, doesn't really know of you yet, but they will by the end of this conversation.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 3:29

Let's do it. Let's do it. Well, my gosh, gal, you have built your career inside the world of optimization. And, you know, you're the person when well before it became a household name, you were the person doing deep dives down into the worlds of peptides and bioregulatory, you know, bioregulators. You were looking at these things with a critical eye long before they were even household. And you're the still looking at it in a critical eye to the point of being being tea platformed, you told me, um, right before we started rolling hair. So I want to understand how you got into this space. How did you become sort of the the female Dave Asprey without those other? Do we even want to unpack that? Should I even scrap that?

SPEAKER_00 4:22

Okay. I mean, I listen, I that it's you know, love him, hate him. I mean, that's a huge compliment. He's a big wheel he's a big wheel in our space.

SPEAKER_02 4:29

He sure is.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

Um, but um, you know, I I so I mean you know, I think that curiosity is the thing that's always been my hallmark, right? I've always been super curious. And I went back to school to study holistic nutrition about I don't know, I you know, it's so funny. One of these days I'll have to sit with pen and paper and figure out the year, but it was probably about 15 years ago.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

And um, and I and it was after a full career in selling advertising of all things, um, like kind of in a marketing advertising space. But where I'd gotten my start was really, you know, I studied physiology in in university. And and I was the nerdy kid that read National Geographic cover to cover every uh every I mean, I, you know, the day that it came with that I had to throw away my 10,000 National Geographic magazines, it was I cried. I was so sad. Anyway so so it's it's it's always I've always been super curious. And so I became a holistic nutritionist because it seemed like, you know, I came to this career change relatively later in life. And so I thought, okay, well, you know, I had had aspirations of going to med school when I was much younger. And I, you know, at the time I I I I declared I developed a leak in my brain when actually I think what it was was rampant candida overgrowth that had really derailed me. Um, but um and maybe, you know, wrong choices in relationships, God knows. But maybe there were a few other things involved. But but but you know, uh life takes us down the path we need to go, right? And we are we are the sum of all the parts that we assemble along the way in in uh ultimately, even though there's parts of it that we might think, gee, I kind of wish I hadn't wasted so much time on that, but it's it's part of who you are. So so I you know, so I went back to school, I studied holistic nutrition because at the end of the day, I come from a foodie family and food is where it's at. And I've always believed really that that the human body has this innate capacity to heal itself, and that food is so central to the human experience, both from a from a fueling the body, and now I would say that it is information for ourselves, and also this this this community connector, this, this, this thing that that connects us to our world, our community, our culture, our family, all the things. So, you know, the day that I decided to go back to school and study nutrition, it was like it was within days of a conversation I had with my chiropractor. Wow. And and you know, I'd been downloading all this information to him, and he's like, you know what, dude, you you should just go back to school and get paid to do this. Because, you know, he'd been telling his patients what I was telling him. He had one guy who's like dropped 10 pounds, another guy that I'm like, Wow, that's a good idea. And I was like, and I was ready to do something else. And so within a week I was signed up to this, to like an in-class, just like the old days where people would actually go to school, sit in a chair, listen to people real life. Um, so I went back to school, I studied nutrition, which was really the beginning, right? And and I'll never forget the day we graduated. The the woman who was running the school said, you know, just so you guys know, today is the day that you really begin your education. We've given you a foundation. Now is what and and I didn't really understand what she meant at the time, and now I really do.

SPEAKER_02 7:55

Wow, wow.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

Um, so yeah, so then and then I, you know, then I I did Dave Asprey's Bulletproof Coach Training Program, which was kind of my introduction to that world. Then I got really interested in genetics and epigenetics, and then I stumbled across peptides and you know, the rest is history.

SPEAKER_02 8:13

Oh my gosh, this is huge. And I'm just curious, like, is there a line for you between hacking a system and supporting one?

SPEAKER_00 8:22

Yeah, I mean, I've left the hacking world behind. You know, I think that I think that the word biohacking as much as it really resonates for some people, it's a little bit disrespectful to our physiology. I feel like it's almost like, oh, we need to cut corners, we need to find a shortcut, we need to interrupt the pattern. What we need to do is learn to work with what we have. Like what we have is I mean, I don't want to use magic, but it is. It's magical. Like it's it's it's it's ethereal, right? This this vessel that we've been, we were gifted when we came into this life is the most even for people who are sick, right? Even someone who's walking around with in in a state of dis-ease in whatever way, like if you think about all of the things that are going on in that body at any given minute that is keeping them alive, that is allowing them to draw breath, to speak, to communicate, to do whatever, it is remarkable what our bodies do for us. So the biohacking term to me, and and you know, my podcast name originally was Biohacking Superhuman Performance. I guess possibly the worst name on the planet. But at the time, it really it allowed people to find me for for the space that I was in. And I would say that myself and many other people, we've kind of outgrown this idea of hacking, and we've moved into the space of how can we work with our bodies and and remove the obstacles so that the body can do what it can do best. Frankly, better than anything else can do.

SPEAKER_02 10:05

You know, and I I love, love, love where this is going. And I want to kind of come back to where I jokingly, you know, compared and you know, kind of alluded to maybe Dave wasn't a great analogy, but he's actually perfect because it is exactly the Dave's of the world, the biohackers of the world. Your early expression of this in the world has moved more mountains in medicine than any medical research did. I watched more changes in the first decade of sort of the biohacker community, sort of taken the world by storm. I watched more changes happen in even the cancer treatment space from that community alone, who were thinking outside the box, who had systems thinking brains, not linear thinking brains, and who were willing to be in of ones, they transformed my practice, my life, and my thinking about it. So, to your point, I do not want to diminish the importance of that community and even your start in that community. And it's like we've moved or moving into the next iteration, which I believe you do so well. You have always been, from my impression of you, on the forefront of these conversations. And we're gonna come to one of those specific ones here in a moment. But one thing I'd love for you to help us kind of unpack is that this longevity space has gotten really loud and really full of promises. What do you think it because it's sort of to me like the longevity space is sort of the next iteration of the biohacker space?

SPEAKER_00 11:37

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 11:38

Okay, okay. And so what do you think it gets dangerously wrong? And what has that actually cost the people who are chasing it?

SPEAKER_00 11:45

Yeah, the the challenge with longevity is I think it's deeply rooted. And I actually think I had this conversation recently with someone on my podcast. It's deeply deeply rooted in fear. And it's deeply rooted in this denial of death condition that we all as humans for survival purposes embody, right? Um, the only people who don't would be very evolved, you know, I don't know, like Zen masters or gurus in India or whatever. The most of us, particularly in the Western in developed world, right, in the Western world, who have the luxury of navel gazing and wondering what kind of oil is in this food, or you know, what what uh like like the things that we obsess over. If you if you were to talk to someone who lives in a third world country, they would look at you like you are certifiably insane. Absolutely. And and which isn't to say that it's wrong, right? It's not to say that we shouldn't be mindful about the what we drink and the air that we breathe and and all the things, but we have this luxury of obsession, and the longevity community has become obsessed with this extension of life or this I'm I I don't want to get old, I don't want to age, I don't want to look old, I don't want to be old. And and and there's and there's starting to be divisions within, right? So it's a it's a natural course. Like it's like you've got the herd moves into a certain area, and now the herd is starting to define itself. Like some people are moving this way, other people are moving that way. I mean, as we speak right now, I don't know when this podcast will air, but you know, the Mr. the more the guy that eclipsed Dave really as the biohacker, Brian Johnson, just announced that he has this, as of today, incurable autoimmune condition that is pretty, pretty devastating, right? And this is a guy who has measured every metric, who's been monitored by I don't know how many doctors, who's done every intervention you can imagine and some you never even knew existed. Right. And is it possible that they in this in striving for this goal that they forgot to mind uh their P's and Q's, right? That they they forgot about the humanity of like the this, and I'm not saying it's an emotional thing because I think it's it's autoimmune gastritis, so his stomach is being attacked by by the immune system, but it it it you know, and and now you've got all these people saying, oh, you know, it's unresolved anger, or it's or it's this or it's that. It's like, dude, his immune system is dysregulated, and you know about dysregulated immune systems better than anybody. Like at the end of the day, when you throw everything but the kitchen sink at something, and then you find the kitchen sink and you throw it in two, you're playing with a complex system that you do not understand. So, you know, I I read something today saying, you know, he's he's attributing it to having eaten sugary cereal and all kinds of crap as a child. And I'm like, okay, like a lot of people did that.

SPEAKER_02 14:57

I was gonna say 99% of us did. Captain Crunch was like my breakfast of choice for decades.

SPEAKER_00 15:04

Yeah, exactly. So I mean, nice try, buddy, but you know, I I think it would be I mean, look, good for him for owning up to what's going on. Um but the you know, I I don't really even remember the original question, but I think the longevity community we need to and and it's and it's happening, you know, and maybe it's those of us that are a little older, those of us who have traveled, you know, well, I'm not 30, right? I'm not 40, actually, I'm not even 50. So um like it's it's like I'm I'm getting to the point where I'm like, well, you know, like the decades are moving and and I'm traveling my trajectory. I'm not in a space where I'm I'm about to say, you know, I'm gonna live 120 or 180 or 200 years. A, I believe that there's a moral, ethical, and spiritual issue with that whole piece of the puzzle. Yeah. But B, I don't want to miss my life today. Like I want to find balance between living the life that I'm living today and doing whatever I can to set myself up for my best experience until the day my my time here is up.

SPEAKER_02 16:14

Oh my gosh, that is so beautifully said. And it's it's interesting. These conversations are really percolating. In fact, I wrote a substack recently on a little bit of this topic. I touched on the idea that one of the saddest things I've ever seen in my profession in working with folks who are facing their mortality are those who were so afraid to die that they stopped living or that they were forgetting how to live. And you just articulated this beautifully that that is actually what the longevity community, for the most part, the with the current one. And like you said, there's some nice little changes happening, is so hyper-focused on. And I really love that you brought, you know, kind of the Brian Johnson example into this for someone who did. I also very much appreciate the um in of one exploration because we all learn so much from it. And, you know, one of the things, even before he learned of this autoimmune gastritis, you know, he spent $2 million a year in testing and evaluations to come back to the full circle of just you noted it, humanity living well on the planet. Um, to the most into the sim most simple things are actually the things that pull the levers of health span and longevity more than anything. So I just I love that you brought that up. And one of the things that got me intrigued about you and why I started following you in this space was I started hearing about peptides, right? This is well before the GLP explosion. Right. I mean, I just went really fast, but you were looking at it very thoughtfully. You were exploring it. I would love for you to first of all tell people, explain to people what a bioregulator is or what a peptide is in general terms, and then walk us through the arc of your experience with it, where you started, because I love that you talk about being, you know, a curious George and all of this, and where you are currently, and maybe, maybe if you have your magic crystal ball, what you might see on the horizon.

SPEAKER_00 18:06

Yeah. So, so first of all, let's just to define, right? So when I'm when we talk about, and and there are so many people out there, everybody's gonna have different definitions. My definition of the signaling peptides there is what I call them. So the signaling peptides and the bioregulator peptides. So to start, both of them are part of this family of small proteins that we call peptides because they are 50 amino acids or fewer in length, which doesn't mean they're strings, they're little intricate little origami knots and whatnot, but you know, which is that's how the body organizes its proteins. But essentially, the the signaling peptides are small molecules. Very often they are fragments of naturally occurring proteins in the body. Sometimes they're the whole deal. Like GHK copper is something that is naturally occurring in the human body. We have tons of it when we're young, we have much less of it as we age, which a lot of people believe is part of one of the many reasons why we don't heal and repair as effectively. But what defines them is that they are, they operate from outside the cell. So they connect to a receptor on the cell membrane and affect what's happening inside the cell. So they initiate different types of cascades and signaling inside and maybe even outside of the cell. What makes GHK copper special is that it can affect and it does affect the expression of your genome. Like it expressed, it affects the expression of over 4,000 genes. Now, this was discovered at Stanford University. GHK Copper itself was discovered in 1973 by Dr. Lauren Pickert, who is an American researcher who became so freaking enamored with this little three amino acid plus copper complex that he spent his entire career really from that minute forward studying it and thinking about it to the point where he then developed skincare around it. And now we've got other companies with skincare with using GHK copper as its hero ingredient. So I used to say that GHK copper was the forgotten bioregulator, but I take it back because the distinction between a bioregulator and a signaling peptide is whereas GHK copper operates from outside the cell and is somehow able to affect the expression of genes, the bioregulator gets into the nucleus of the cell and directly interacts with DNA. So that's a those are very different ways, yeah, different MOs, right? The bioregulators are all endogenously, naturally endogenously present in our bodies. And they decline in numbers as we age. And so the godfather of bioregulator peptides, Dr. Vladimir, Professor or Dr. He was both, Professor Dr. Vladimir Kavinson or Havinson, if you're if you're a Russian in the know, um he had, you know, we have the hallmarks of aging, we have all these different theories of aging. He had the peptide theory of aging, which was that essentially as the body loses access to these bioregulator peptides, it loses its ability to regenerate and restore and repair from within at a cellular level. And so hence we see the decline in form and function of the human body. So which is pretty cool, right? And so he spent, you know, similar to Lauren Picard, he spent his entire career, which was initiated by the Russian military originally, um, study well, looking for initially and studying, isolating and then clinically testing these little tiny bioregulator peptides, these tiny little molecules that he discovered exist in every single life form that he looked at.

SPEAKER_01 21:52

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 21:52

Right. And so I don't need to tell you. I mean, I I know when scientists and researchers find something that are present. Present in all the different things that are alive.

SPEAKER_01 22:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:03

They're like, okay, well, if she, Mother Nature, thought this was so important, clearly we need to pay attention. Yeah. So now I originally became very fascinated with peptides, the signaling peptides. And I remain fascinated with them, right? They're they are by all accounts really interesting small molecules that work in many cases with the body. Because this is, if even if they're not, you know, I've heard I've read a lot of people, a lot of naysayers on peptides recently saying these are all synthetic molecules. They have nothing to do with human physiology. And I'm like, no, actually they do, because we have receptors for them. And if we didn't, if they weren't natural to the body, it's not like a drug that's docking in a receptor from some from something we endogenously produce to block an effect. Right. Right? This BPC157 has receptors all over the body. So its original big giant protein that it's part of would be folded in such a way that that little BPC 157 key would find a receptor, whether it's on the liver or wherever, to initiate the repair that it would do. So I would say I think what's happening is there's a war happening right now. So where I've taken a bit of a step back on the signaling peptides is what I will grant is that we do need more information, we do need more studies, we need more long-term studies. Um and at the same time, in their in our ability to hold two truths at once, I've seen them do really power it, I've seen them affect powerful change uh in people who've used them.

SPEAKER_02 23:51

Could you give an example perhaps of one that really caught you?

SPEAKER_00 23:55

So you know, so so for example, BPC 157 as a healing peptide is really it's it is unbelievable in the sense that it can use it can work topically, it can work orally, it can work subcutaneously injected, it can work intranasally. Like, you know, I've seen and and what you see is an acceleration, right? So it doesn't mean that the person might not have healed anyway, although I will say that one woman that I worked with very, very early on had a non-union fracture in her wrist. So essentially there was a fracture in some little bone and they couldn't get it to knit. And so her her orthopedics guy was like, We're gonna have to operate because it's not coming together, it's not healing. And the wrist is really tough because there's lots of little bits and pieces. Plus, you can't apply pressure, and the way that bones heal is under pressure, right? Right. So she came to me, and this was very early on. So she came to me and she said, Nat, you know, I hear that you're talking about all these peptide things. Can you can is there anything that can help me? And so I, of course, consulted my guru at the time because I didn't know enough. And we put to he put together a protocol that included BPC157, thymus and beta 4, and CJC1295 and ipamerelin. So the alphabet soup is BPC157 is the repair peptide. Thymusin beta 4 is actually a thymus peptide, but that also stimulates repair and and and it works with kind of peanut butter and jelly is BPC and DB4. And then CJC1295 and epimeralin are growth hormone secretagogs. So what they do is they stimulate your own system to upregulate your production of growth hormone. And we know that as we age, our growth hormone levels drop, which imp impacts our ability to heal negatively. We put he put together this protocol, she did it, she executed it over, I believe it was six or eight weeks, and I get another email. Oh my god, I just went to the doctor. He wants to know what the heck I've been doing. It's repaired.

SPEAKER_01 26:03

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

So to me, this was like holy crap, because it's not just, oh, I hurt my wrist, can you help me to fix it? So we would need to break the other wrist to know did we do anything different, right? Which would be a bad idea.

SPEAKER_02 26:15

Yeah. No ethics community will pass that one through.

SPEAKER_00 26:19

No, in this case, it was the it was it had been declared by conventional medicine that the body itself was not able to heal this, and they were gonna have to put a plate in there or something to make it to to bring back integrity. And these small molecules were able to move the needle for this person.

SPEAKER_02 26:37

Unbelievable. So good.

SPEAKER_00 26:39

What saddens me right now is it becoming like everything else in the world, it's becoming this uh over-emotional, over-politicized, really overhyped kind of war between people who it seems are being paid to denigrate their the value of these peptides, which I gotta tell you, like the number of functional medicine doctors I know of who have used these in practice and who I've interviewed on the podcast, and I'm sure you're gonna be talking to a lot of them, who would say that they have cut in half the healing and recovery time of their patients, whether if it's from autoimmune conditions or or gut issues or Lyme or chronic complex disease, all of these things, they're able to compress the time that the body needs to heal, versus on the other side, a group of people that are saying these are dangerous, they are unproven, we don't even know that they're doing anything. Every redded thread out there is full of poop anyway. We don't believe any of those people, and therefore squash them, right? So the FDA Scientific Advisory Board this week or last week drew a black line through the six pep six of the seven peptides that are coming up for review on July 23rd. What's interesting, and what a lot of people miss, I just put this in my newsletter last week because I was so excited when I figured this out, or I I read it on somebody else's thread, is that that that FDA scientific board is just one board. There are two now historically the two have been very similar. The two have been composed of scientists and researchers and and academics, if you will. Well, with the new administration, there's been a bit of a turnover on the second committee. It is now composed of people who own telehealth clinics, people who uh who people who really stand to gain from the approval and compounding pharmacies, but at the same time, that's the dark side. So on the one hand, you're screaming conflict of interest. Right. Which frankly, pharma's been doing for frickin' generations.

SPEAKER_02 28:49

And like there's no difference of the other way.

SPEAKER_00 28:53

But what's interesting about these people is they've seen what peptides can do. They don't scratch their heads wondering, can they do anything? They've seen it, they know. So and they are gonna get to vote July 23rd, 24th. So it it is going to be an explosion. That we've never seen before.

SPEAKER_02 29:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:13

So for me, I still think the signaling peptides are fascinating. I still think believe that used properly with the proper medical supervision and and in the right context, I I want I need people to move away from what peptides are you doing to what peptides might you need.

SPEAKER_02 29:35

I love it. Right?

SPEAKER_00 29:36

Like what what is it, what problem is it that you're trying to solve that is not solvable in any other way? That actually maybe it's worth taking a chance and rolling the dice a little bit. I I inherently believe that most likely they're safe, but I don't have all the answers. I don't have a crystal ball. I don't know 10, 20, 30 years down the road what's gonna happen. But I can tell you that they can really, really move the needle for people in many cases. I mean, thymus and alpha one, which frankly, yeah, everybody's neglecting to mention, is actually a drug in 30 countries. It is approved. Right. And these guys have drawn, and that's where they lose credibility with me, right?

SPEAKER_02 30:14

Right, right, right. When they try and throw it all out with the bathwater, there actually are already they have been on. Well, I mean, insulin is a peptide. Like those are just we have many pharmaceuticals that are already approved and understood as such, but because of sort of the hands that it's fallen into, like the biohackers and the influencers, we've categorized it as either like all good or all bad. And what I hear you saying is maybe there are shades of gray, and there's a deeper need for true evaluation and personalization. So I love that here you also say, like, get away from the protocols. Like right now, every day on my Pinterest, I get an email about look at this new peptide cheat sheet, which basically everyone and their dog has, and everyone's like trying to stack it on their own. And yeah, my question for you, and most no one has really been able to give me an answer. So I don't, I'm not expecting one, by the way. Okay. But because I work in the space of cancer, just intuitively, this is not an environment you want to push growth factors. No, right? At least you know, in the cancering process, in the prevention space, I could see, and in the cleanup down the road, I can see. But that active cancering process, we gotta be real careful. And it's making me really nervous to see some um researchers and things being pushed. Now, research based on like cell line and animal studies, not human studies yet, um, like the use of, for instance, GLPs and breast cancer, it's everywhere right now. And yet I see something as a clinician, what happens to people's terrain when they get on these medications while they're actively cancering. My personal clinical experience is that it's causing more harm than good in certain things. There are, I've seen really beautiful things with thymocin in the cancering process. So that was really interesting you brought that in.

SPEAKER_00 32:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:00

I'm just curious if you have some thoughts about the the populations who should steer clear or have extreme experienced providers who are going through good research and good clinical decision making for these folks. Like, what do you what would you say about all this?

SPEAKER_00 32:18

Look, I think that if you're in a compromised state and you're going through some, and I and that I would include and not compromise, but I would say even pregnancy falls under this, right?

SPEAKER_01 32:29

Right.

SPEAKER_00 32:30

Um, and I know plenty of people who claim that they used certain compounds all through their pregnancy, had an amazing baby, had an amazing experience. I'm like, that's awesome for you. Yeah, we don't have that research. Right. Like we just don't. Um anybody who's in a, you know, whether they're cancering or or anything else, this is where you got to bring in the big guns. And by big guns, I mean you need to sit yourself down, find yourself a functional medicine provider who gets pathways, who understands your condition, who understands these molecules, and who can critically look at the pathways and say, yes, this is worth a risk. No, this is not worth a risk, or this can help. Um, with the GLPs and breast cancer, I think what's interesting is if I mean, first of all, as a society, we like to drill, we like to boil things down to one thing, right? So people like to say people who are metabolically imbalanced are going to develop cancer, and therefore they're going to develop breast cancer, and therefore, if high blood sugar and metabolic imbalance and blah, blah, blah, and this GLP solves those problems, therefore, it will make it better. I mean, look, maybe for some people, there's an argument to be made for that. I can see that, right? I mean, if we can hold blood sugar steady and avoid it.

SPEAKER_02 33:48

At least it's an on-ramp for people, right? One way, I mean, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:52

We can reduce obesity, which we know is a risk factor. Like there's a lot to be said here. But here's the other side of it. If you have someone who's chronically using GLPs, who's undernourishing their body, who's not exercising, who's not making the lifestyle choices they need to make, right? Could they possibly be, yeah, the sugar's not there, but they're not sleeping, they're under they're they're malnourished at this point, they've lost their muscle. They're they're actually eating shit. Sorry. Yeah, don't eat. So they're eating Doritos and whatever because they figured out that guess what? I can eat my favorite shitty foods and still fit into my size two genes. Are we is it I mean, is there a case to be said that maybe you'll develop cancer from all the nasty things in that food? Maybe. So so you know, there's no free lunch in nature. Right? And and I do believe that the GLPs represent a huge potential for improving a lot of pe for helping people. Yeah, it's not going to improve their health, it's supporting people in improving their health. But but you know, as as you know, we we operate under these principles as humans, right? We have a fear and denial of dying. We want to find shortcuts, we want our cake and eat it too. Literally. We want, you know, we don't want to not have the things that we want and do that. We really want to live like grown-up toddlers because now we're old enough to make the decisions that we want to make. And we don't want to live the consequences. And frankly, there's going to be consequences to everything, right? And so, so that's where the GLPs, I believe, can be overwhelmingly good if they're used properly. Yeah. But they need to be used properly. We kind of got off court. I mean, I never got to the bioregulators. I don't know if you want to go back to those.

SPEAKER_02 35:42

But full circle back around when you want. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:44

Yeah. Whenever you're ready.

SPEAKER_02 35:46

Well, I think just one last piece about the GLP is they my belief and my understanding and the conferences that I attend and the discussions and everything from the diabetes world, uh, obesity world, even oncology, disordered eating world, mental health world, is that they're meant to be a uh a runway only to help people bridge over to a different chosen diet and lifestyle. They're not meant to replace function and stay on permanently because that is where you get into some tricky, tricky territory. And so I think that that's really interesting. And yet our culture, our thing is like, well, if some is good, more is better, and I'll just stay on this and I can continue to do things the way I always did and not have to take accountability and change. So there's like there's kind of just two sides to that coin. I think that's where I'd leave it. Now come back to the bioregulators because this is, you know, a lot of people are more familiar with the concept of peptides. So you really defined beautifully the difference between like one basically hangs out outside the cell, the other one really gets inside and makes a change. So let's talk about those and what you're learning. Um what you learned and what you're learning around.

SPEAKER_00 36:55

Yeah, actually, the one other example I'll give people to just to finish your point is PPIs.

SPEAKER_02 37:00

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 37:01

Proton pump inhibitors.

SPEAKER_02 37:02

Very much great idea. You're a great. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:04

So PPIs were never developed to be used for more than six weeks. They were developed to be used to shut down stomach acid for a short period of time so that the ulcers could heal. Instead, they're being given to people as a lifelong tool, which means your people end up with cardiovascular disease, bone density issues because your body can't digest its food properly because it doesn't have acid. So I'm gonna leave it there, but I'm just saying, like, and and I'm not I'm not blaming medicine, but medicine is as guilty as the rest of us in looking for these easy solution shortcuts. Right?

SPEAKER_01 37:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:42

So anyway, back to bioregulators. So the bioregulators are two to four amino acids long, right? They're the like the teeniest, tiniest little proteins you can imagine. Like I said, they can get across the cell membrane, they get across the into the nucleus of the cell, they interact with your DNA. They it's really cool. Like the DNA unwinds because there's certain binding sites that affect the histones and it unwinds and it shows up the right amino acid chain, and then it upregulates the production of certain uh certain proteins, which is essentially activating your genes. So super cool, uh super natural to the body, right? Because this is how our bodies operate. There would I heard many people or a couple of people refer to it as repairing the DNA's ability to function as it should.

SPEAKER_02 38:31

Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 38:31

It's restoring our DNA's ability because as we age, our DNA gets damaged, it doesn't necessarily express properly, and so now we're bringing that back. Now, what's really important to understand about the bioregulators, and Kavinson talked about this a lot, and people like to like forget about this, right? But what he talked about is every every living and form or creature has a biological reserve, right? So humans in general live to be about around 80 years old. If you're lucky enough to live in a developed country and have access to the right resources and whatnot, our average lifespan is 80-ish, although in the States it's a little lower. I don't even know if Canada's at 80, but whatever, it's around there. Our our maximum lifespan, it's is fairly well accepted to be at 120, even though 99.99% of people.

SPEAKER_02 39:22

We'll take it to that, right? Right.

SPEAKER_00 39:23

We're not gonna get that far. And if we do, we may not want to. Right. Um, so he's talking about the bioregulators allowing us to tap into that natural biological reserve. So, but but the way that he discusses bioregulators, the way he describes the way that they work, it's not that they're going to amplify or boost or augment function. They are going to normalize function. So the bioregulator seeks to restore balance to the tissue gland or organ that it that it comes from, that it's being reintroduced for.

SPEAKER_02 39:59

Elegant. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:01

Right. So so right away, it's like you hear that and you're like, huh, okay, that doesn't sound too scary. Right? Like it's not boosting anything. And even then, I mean, the most knowledgeable people I have spoken to in the bioregulator space who would be uh Kavinson's widow, uh Svetlana Trofimova, um, and our mutual Russian friend and other people that we know in this space, they're cautious with bioregulators around cancer.

SPEAKER_02 40:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:31

Right? Even though on paper, if if from what I just described, you'd be like, well, I mean, what could be the problem? We're just equalizing things. Yeah, well, you know, we're not exactly sure. So maybe we'll just step away from that because there are none of those studies that took a can a population dealing with cancer and a population not dealing with cancer, because it would be unethical. Now, where I can tell you the bioregulators have been used, particularly in Russia, where they are really part of the pharmacopoeia, if you will, that is that is administered there is post-treatment. Cleaning up the DNA damage of the treatment itself. Correct. Fascinating. In helping to r restore function to the immune system. Right? In helping to restore bone marrow function. And you know, like there's a bone marrow bioregulator. We have a thymus bioregulator. We have, and you know, we have a bunch of different bioregulators that work with the body that kind of tap into those systems. Nobody's gonna argue that the adrenals and the thyroid probably need a little helping hand after treatment. So, but again, you're gonna want that clean bill of health so that now you're you're you're more comfortable even applying these little molecules signaling molecules that are wildly powerful.

SPEAKER_02 41:49

Very cool. That you're modulating um the after, the aftermath where you're because you when we are in a cancering process, we have growth signaling pathways that have run amok. And they're either overgrowing here, undergrowing there, not dying, all you know, and more like all these different, they're called the hallmarks of cancer. Interestingly enough, they very much track with the hallmarks of aging.

SPEAKER_00 42:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:13

But there's a metabolic shift in the cancer space that's different in the aging space. And that's where it is what you do kind of wonder about how does that smart bioregulator, you know, how does it land in this sort of confused signaling environment? And what you're saying about the aftermath or even the prevention. Like I could imagine, you know, and I'm just talking out loud, like imagining families of origin who have a strong maybe Lynch syndrome history or BROCA mutation, which is about difficulties in repairing your own DNA, which then over time can give you a higher risk of a cancering process. That might be the place where we educate ourselves about our own DNA repairabilities and then utilize tools like this to enhance it. Because living on planet Earth today, our DNA is taking more hits than ever before. Our terrain is hitting. So I like what you're saying around it's getting me curious about looking at where I could use this as a prevention tool as well as a cleanup after the big mess tool. Um the safest place to talk until we have more.

SPEAKER_00 43:18

Well, there's a cool mouse study that Kavinson did where he looked at mice that were, they were transgenic mice that were bred to develop the. I think they had BRACA genes or anyway. And he administered two different synthetic bioregulators. He administered epitallon, and he administered vilon. So three groups your control group, your one test subjects one got epitolon, test subject two got vilon. Both the epitallon and vilon group had fewer tumors, and the tumors that they developed were smaller. Villon actually outperformed epitallon. Interesting. They're mice. Yeah. But they're mice. So we cannot, under any circumstances, translocate this research to people. But it's really interesting to note because vino is an immune modulator, but it is it is a fragment of the thymus bioregulator. Epitalon is the pineal gland bioregulator. Now the pineal gland regulates melatonin production, it regulates telomerase, it has this overarching endocrine system kind of balancing effect, and it regulates circadian rhythm. So at least two of those are really important in a cancer world. Telomerase is the one that makes people kind of go, I don't know, you know, because maybe could the cancer cell kind of hijack it for itself? We don't really know. You know, none of his research said it would, but I don't know that we and I think he himself was still very actively researching all of these things. Wow. So at no time would I would you find someone that say, Oh yeah, Kavinson, he was fine. He he would he was done. He was so knocked out.

SPEAKER_02 45:07

It was not decided at the time of his demise. Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_00 45:10

And he was still very busy researching. And the chat, you know, the tragedy or the reality of the world is that when he started 40 years ago, the Soviet Union at the time had nothing but resources. They gave him a blank checkbook. They gave told him you can have as many mice as you want, and when you're done testing on mice, there's factories filled with people who would be happy to participate in your experiments, which they did, which, you know, as it turns out, in those case, the test subjects were very grateful because they lived longer, healthier, better lives.

SPEAKER_01 45:39

Right.

SPEAKER_00 45:40

But the the in today's environment, nobody can afford this.

SPEAKER_02 45:44

That would never, that would never get to happen in today's environment as the model stands today. So now, one of the things you mentioned before we started the recording is just your own evolution of sort of looking at you know the first bit of your research and your understanding and even your application to yourself and clients and the studies you've been doing was more about the exogenous supplementation of these. You're sounding like you might be pivoting a little bit and getting curious in another arena. Do you want to speak to that?

SPEAKER_00 46:12

Well, I'm I'm at this point, I'm way more comfortable with the natural bioregulators playing with those. Um you know, not even playing, like using those than I am with the signaling peptides. And that's not to say that I don't believe signaling peptides are good. I do. Um I just think we need a dose of caution. I think that I and it and you know what what's turning me off right now is the whole environment, this gold rush that's going on, these new research labs that are popping up like mushrooms, people talking about you know, testing product and it's not the right stuff, influencers injecting themselves on Instagram and TikTok, you know, and then me getting kicked off Instagram because I was educating about peptides. I wasn't even like honestly, like it is it blows my mind the stuff that's allowed to be there. And and meanwhile, the way I got booted off, I'm I'm it's like fascinating, it it is a fascinating thing. So because my nature is I'm you know, and it's not like I don't take chances, right? I mean, I'm trying new stuff all the time. I'm you know, I'm I'm I'm testing new supplements, new compounds, new this, new that all the time. But there's there's a threshold for me. And and I might use peptides, but I'm not at this point I don't believe that I'm in a place where I want to take on the responsibility of guiding other people in peptides because I I feel like if you unless you really, really understand the terrain that you're dealing with, you just don't really know what buttons you're pushing. Right? So brilliantly said. The bioregulators I'm more comfortable with because this whole concept of balance and modulation, particularly the natural bioregulators, right? So let me define for you now within bioregulators, we have two groups, we have two families. We have the natural bioregulator, which is an extract from a tissue gland and organ from an animal. And uh interestingly enough, historically you'll p hear people talk about oh, yeah, it can come from sheep, it can come from cows, it can come from pigs, um, which really triggers a lot of people, and I get it. But yeah. Um, but also it can come from fish, which is super interesting. Yeah. Whereas the synthetic bioregulator had is where they've the scientists had scientists have identified the exact amino acid sequence and orientation in space of the most active of the small proteins in that extract and and res synthesized it in a lab. So these are the ones, so so to add more AM to the story, everything has a different name. So there are probably at least three names per bioregulator.

SPEAKER_02 49:09

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 49:10

There's the trademark name for the natural bioregulator, which could be something like conduitin or just like crazy name, kind of like going to IKEA. Um, and then and then there's this other name that pops up every once in a while that I don't even know where it came from. And then you've got the name of the synthetic, which will be completely different. It'll be epitalon. So the pineal gland bioregulator, for example, is epitalon, is the synthetic, which is the only one of the compounds that magically made it through the first scientific board. I don't even know how that happened. Um, I don't even know how they figure they they they got their eyes on it in the first place.

SPEAKER_01 49:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:48

And then because none of the other bioregulators on any list, yeah. Um, but you know, they don't need to they don't need to know what they don't know. Um, and then the natural oral bioregulator of the pineal gland is called the endolutin. And so what's comical about this is when you're looking at the synthetic, the dosing is maybe 100 micrograms up to a milligram. The dosing on the natural is 10 milligrams.

SPEAKER_02 50:16

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 50:16

Because you're not just getting that five amino acid or five amino acid chain, you're actually getting a whole host of other small molecules and peptides that work together. It's a whole complex.

SPEAKER_02 50:28

Like an entourage effect that they're a whole entourage.

SPEAKER_00 50:31

That's the exact word. Interesting. So but for the longest time, you had all these biohackers running around saying you need 10 milligrams a day of the of epitolon. What they were missing is that in his studies, Cavinson was actually using epithalamine. Oh, new word, another name for the pineal gland bioregulator, which is a natural extract that has actually been prepared for injection, intramuscular injection, which you can't even get right now anymore. I don't even I don't know if you can get in in Russia, but you sure as heck can get it anywhere else. That was 10 milligrams a day because it was the natural. So people conflated that with epitallon. And so to this day, I have people telling me, oh, yeah, it's 10 milligrams a day for 10 days. I'm like, no, it's not.

SPEAKER_02 51:18

That that could be some dangerous territory.

SPEAKER_00 51:21

Well, yeah, you know, so so we haven't seen it show up as dangerous, but we don't know. Maybe in 10 years, I who knows? I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 51:30

It's the wild west, is kind of what you're saying. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I feel like this is like the resurgence of like what we saw with the uh um legalization of Canada, but like it just yeah, we just our culture is so funny. Like with the whole like um interest in psychedelics, like everything is like if a little bit's good, a lot more is better. I'm gonna go down to Peru and like inject, you know, X, Y, and Z and trip my balls off and do all these things. Like, we our culture is just so we're so looking for something. And I think that ties us right back into the longevity discussion earlier of we're so scared, we're so defying death that we are just willing to grab onto anything in the hopes that it is the magic carpet ride that we would hope it would be.

SPEAKER_00 52:21

Yeah, yeah. And so, you know, finding that line. So I use bioregulators on the regular for yourself and for other clients.

SPEAKER_02 52:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 52:30

I've been throwing them at my husband. Like, I mean, you know, my parents take them. I, you know, I will I've coached people, like I will use bioregulators. I, you know, like Dr. Bill Lawrence, who's been running this field study now with you know originally that he developed with Kavinson for I don't think it's five or six years now or eight years running, you know, he himself will not take anybody into his study that has active or a recent history of cancer. Right again.

SPEAKER_02 52:58

It's just such an unknown, like I said, the ethics around it. There's probably people, and I'm I know I've run across them of patients who themselves went rogue and went and found their own pieces, and I've seen I've seen nothing happen, I've seen things explode, and I've seen things get better. And there's exactly and that's just it. It's like this comes back full circle of what is the environment or the terrain in which those, you know, little molecules are landing. Like it is so dependent on the environment in which they land for how they will behave. So I'm just intrigued.

SPEAKER_00 53:37

Like, look at melanitan. Melanitan is another one of these peptides that people love because melanitan too, in particular, because it stimulates melanocytes and gives you a 10 without going in the sun.

unknown 53:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:47

Okay, well, so here's the bad news there's a handful of cases of melanoma being triggered. Yes. I've seen two along the way. Okay. So, you know, is it that those people had melanoma brewing anyway and it just brought it up to the surface sooner?

SPEAKER_01 54:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:02

Yeah. Or is it that it triggered something new? Right. We just don't know. Again, we just don't know. And and and inherently, like I I just um interviewed a um a dermatologist who specializes in oncology, and he's seen some horror stories. And so he's like, I wouldn't touch that stuff with a 10-foot pole. Never mind the risk of priapism.

SPEAKER_02 54:28

Oh gosh, I've definitely heard those stories too.

SPEAKER_00 54:31

Because there's a fragment of melanitan that it PT141 comes from, which is a tiny little peptide that stimulates that is quite active, quite impotent for libido, as long as you don't take so much of the makes you nauseous, which is so not sexy. And so I love you so much. Well, but it's true, right? There's nothing worse than being green and horny. I mean, right, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:55

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not rocking that boat, so to speak.

SPEAKER_00 54:58

No, no, just don't move, don't come here, don't look at me, just don't even think about it. Um, but but you know, but there have been cases, but PT141, interestingly enough, has been patented as a drug by a drug company because they figured out that it works on women's libido, and that is the holy grail of how can we make millions of dollars, right?

SPEAKER_02 55:18

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 55:18

So anyway, I digress.

SPEAKER_02 55:21

No, you're in the perfect place. And this is what I think. First of all, my expectation of this conversation is people, you're getting other people curious. You're maybe helping people to be a bit more discerning about this is all good or all bad. You're becoming a resource now for our listeners. And you are um, so that's going to be one of the things like where can people learn more about you in particular, about some of these topics we've covered today. And then I have one final question for you after that.

SPEAKER_00 55:50

Okay. So, well, people can learn more because I do seek out people who know more than me, of which there are many, um, to interview on my podcast. So longevity with Natalie Knitham is the podcast. I have a membership community on Circle where I, you know, it's actually quite small, and I quite like it that way. I mean, it's not super, it's 300 people, which is in my mind just right. Um, and we could take a few more for sure, but that membership community, we it it's a really interesting mix of people who are health enthusiasts and physicians and practitioners. So it's a really neat mix. Um, and then I've got a newsletter. So, you know, my my my website as we speak today is a bit of a tragedy. It's under I have a new one under construction. It has been for a really long time. So I it possibly by magic it'll pop up as a new website soon, but there is natnitum.com. And then depending on when this um episode comes out, I am hosting a virtual summit online in August on bioregulators and peptides. I'm so there for that. That's amazing. So I've gotten to interview, as a matter of fact, even Svetlana Trofimova agreed to being interviewed by me, which was really you know, and she's she's such an interesting woman, you know, like it's such um so humble, so knowledgeable, so you know, like just to give you an idea of the power of these bioregulators, and they may even you be using some of the longer chain peptides. There's a condition, an eye condition called retinitis pigmentosa.

SPEAKER_02 57:26

I have this in my family of origin. My grandmother, my great grandmother, my mother, and I am constantly screened for it because it's and I'm got some edits some things showing up. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 57:36

They've stopped it. With these bioregulators, we need to talk. Like she has act and she's got the scans. You've got the scan where it's everything's black, black, black with a little bit of red, green, and yellow, and after treatment, you now have green, green, green, green, green. So it doesn't correct the genetic issue, right? Which means you have to keep using them, you have to keep up with the protocol. But holy crap, to take a condition that that basically blinds people, it does and according to conventional medicine is untreatable. There's nothing we can do. Yeah you know, take a good look around because one day you won't be able to see anything to have something that actually has demonst demonstratably, is that demonstrably? Yeah, that word has been shown to um both stop the disease and reverse it to a degree that is mind-blowing. That is mind-blowing. And that to me, we there is a very prominent functional medicine doctor in the peptide space who will go on any podcast he can get on and talk about how bioregulators are bullshit, like that they are not worth the box that they're in. And I would love him to just take a look at that data and look anybody in the eye and repeat that.

SPEAKER_02 58:57

That pun intended very much there. Wow, that's so fascinating. I'm already thinking about a colleague of mine who also deals with RP and my mom, who's you know, been legally blind for about 15 years now, my great-grandmother, who was legally blind the last you know, 20 years of her life, and my own vision changing really drastically, especially this last year. I'm due for a full workup. I need I go about every five years to see if it's started or progressing. And so hearing this gives me a little bit of a thrill because you know I'm gonna be 55 soon, and I don't want to be, I really appreciate my eyesight. And so, you know, it's part of my uh superpower of being a keen observer of the world in on and around me. So, what a cool little tidbit I feel like I walked away from this conversation and helping support my terrain. So, my question to you and for our listeners, and whatever you feel called to share, is what are you currently tending to in your own terrain?

SPEAKER_00 59:53

Good question. Um I'm tending to restoring balance in my terrain right now. Um, you know, I had a, and I've talked about this briefly without going into too much detail. I've had a fairly significant health event at the beginning of this year. And essentially, you know, I maybe we know, maybe we don't know exactly what triggered it, but my immune system took a hard left and had to be shut down for a good couple of months to um just to recalibrate. Stop the train. We're not going in the right direction. Um, and so as you know, so to do that, we had to tap into some immune suppressants, we had to tap into steroids, and that's not a really pretty place, and it sure isn't a good longevity place.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:46

Not great for your brand, is that what you're saying?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:48

No, it's not really, you know, I kind of disappeared for a couple of months. I was like, oh, nobody needs to see this. Um, and so so right now for me, it's all about bringing all the systems back online, restoring equilibrium and balance. And because, you know, we will not careen into longevity. We will enter into we will flow into longevity from a balanced place. Yes. And if there's one thing we all know is that immune system of ours is the key. And if whether whether it's overactive or underactive is going to work against us. So whatever we can do to make friends, to support, to to balance is, you know, so I'm I'm actually starting to work with with a fairly well-known functional medicine doctor and and really kind of taking a big look under the hood to see, you know, is there is there any fallout? Is there anything left over? What do we need to to tend to, and how do we support the system moving forward?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:50

Well, what I love is that you kind of talked about going into hiding. That was exactly where you needed to incubate for a while for something new. And your your being vulnerable about this helps the rest of us realize because I think somebody looks at you. I mean, I have my whole life of knowing you and looks at you like she's got her poo in a pile. Look how gorgeous this one. Like you are giving us the the like there's also the the the moments of difficulty, of despair, of dis-ease, of discomfort, and you showing us like that this is not a linear process and that it has a bilater, you know, it's you it's bilateral in its movement. You're the perfect person who's been guiding so many others into optimizing themselves that you having this experience will only make you that more like believable. And so I'm I'm I'm in for it to see how this continues. And it's just an absolute, absolute, I know you didn't want me to use this word, but honor to know you and to have you here. And it's just a joy. I can't wait for people to continue to follow you and learn more. So, Matt, thanks for being here today.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:55

Dr. Natha, thank you. Pleasure was all mine.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:59

Yeeha. What stays with me after Natalie is how easily the language of optimization can hide a much older truth. That the body was never broken, only under-supported. Even the most advanced tools she works with don't dominate biology. They whisper to it. And maybe that's the real edge of longevity. Not adding more, but restoring what lets life do its own repair. Thanks for tending the terrain with me today. Whatever stirred in you, don't rush past it. Let it compost. Because when we tend the terrain, life knows what to do. See you in our next conversation.