Show #2683
DIALOGUE edited
The Pep Talk: peptides For Women
with guest, Dr. Elizabeth Yurth, MD - Dr. Suzanne Turner, MD - Dr. Erika Schwartz, MD

Carl Lanore:
We’re talking about peptides, protocols, dosing, and even a discussion about hormone replacement therapy. I have two returning guests, Dr. Elizabeth Yurth and Dr. Suzanne Turner and a new guest Dr. Erica Schwartz..

Dr. Erika Schwartz, MD: [00:05:23]
We have a culture that still doesn't realize that youthfulness and health and longevity are really tied into people who have muscles, not people who are skinny. Muscles are the most important Organ. I'm not talking about big body builder muscles but rather having the right muscle mass for usefulness and prevent chronic illnesses.

Dr. Betsy Yurth, MD: [00:07:26]
Myokines are what kill people's frailty, that's why hormones and peptides are absolutely critical. We've only really recently identified muscle as an endocrine organ. Think about muscle just like your heart or your liver, because it actually has just as much importance in your life as those organs do. Muscles make things called myokines and myokines have really far reaching values. They don't just work at a muscular level. When you build more muscle and you produce more myokines your bones get stronger. In fact, you can't build strong bones without muscle. It's futile. There are frail women who get put on osteo product drugs, what they really need to be doing is building muscle, because the muscle actually makes a hormone that actually makes bone stronger. You also need myokines for endocrine function for liver. There are very far reaching benefits to muscles that we didn't even know about a few years ago. We have to start thinking about muscle as an organ, not as just, a novelty.

Carl Lanore:   
Can you give me a list of the top few peptides that fit into the category of being great for women?

Dr. Betsy Yurth, MD: [00:09:08]
You have to have growth hormone secretagogues. They are probably number one because we want to replace everything lose as we age. In fact that's probably paramount and as women, we wouldn’t go to peptides as our first choice. We're going to optimize the hormones first. Even young women tend to be low testosterone, especially if you've been on birth control pills.

Typically we'll use CJC and Ipamorelin which is a growth hormone releasing hormone and a growth hormone releasing peptide. Those two together cause your pituitary to release more growth hormone. In general, they help everything.

One of the things I have almost all my patients on is something called thymus alpha one which is a thymus peptide that helps to restore immune health.  This is something women of all ages should be thinking about. We have to restore immune function because immune health affects muscles and everything else.

Dr. Suzanne Turner, MD: [00:11:06
With my inflammatory patients that have other autoimmune diseases, I start with the immune modulators and then add the growth hormone secretagogues.

A couple others would be BPC and TB4. They are also particularly important. There's lots of research with BPC on intestinal health, and that's such an important part of recovery from lots of illnesses. All of these are things that will help with intestinal health

Dr. Erika Schwartz, MD: [00:12:35]
I do exactly the same thing. I find that the limiting factor in our practice is the number of shots that people are willing to give themselves.

Carl Lanore: [00:15:04]
Let's talk about something in the secretagogues area. We learned. 13 years ago that taking Ipamorelin or ghrelin agonist by itself or taking a growth hormone releasing hormone like modified GRF1 -29 or even CJC 1295 without Dak was effectively not a good idea because in order to get a good pulse, you needed not only to get the pituitary to squirt out growth hormone, but you needed a reduction in somatostatin.

Dr. Betsy Yurth, MD: [00:16:07]
In general, we do like to use a growth hormone releasing hormone, like CJC with a growth hormone releasing peptide, you're going to get maximum efficacy, but there are groups of people where actually it's safer to just use Ipamorelin, for example, cancer patients. If you're healthy and well then CJC and Ipa are certainly your best bet.

Sometimes I start with a thymus peptide and get them immune stabilized. Other times I will just go to Ipamorelin for a little while until I get their immune system a little stronger and then add the CJC. . Together they have significantly better effects synergistically, however, Ipamorelin alone has benefits and for some people it is better tolerated

Dr. Suzanne Turner, MD: [00:17:27]
Each of those, the ghrelin agonist as well as GHRH has its own actions outside of its ability to raise growth hormone. It has actions on the liver actions on the heart, specifically for GHRH that have nothing to do with this with raising IGF 1.

With my primarily intestine function patients, I’m going to use Ipamorelin because with patients who have some sort of slowed mode, gastric motility, you're going to get a really nice benefit in treating that slowed intestinal motility, in addition to all the things it does by raising growth hormone and by raising the IGF-1

Carl Lanore: [00:18:24]  
I would imagine that skin quality peptides fall into the growth hormone secretagogues as well.

Dr. Erika Schwartz, MD: [00:19:28]
Melanotan is something that we use..

Dr. Betsy Yurth, MD: [00:20:45
Melanotan is great, aside from helping you with weight loss and darkening your skin, we actually use it more often for its immune modulating functions. I have a little bit of an autoimmune disease and it helps me dramatically with that.

The other peptide to think about for skin is GHK copper and as a transdermal. GHK copper has huge systemic benefits. It’s an anti-aging peptide in general, it works on about 500 different genes to positively change genetic expression for longevity.

It's hugely beneficial and it's key for wound healing.  As a face cream, for instance, you get you can get systemic effects from raising GHK copper systemically, but it has an anti-wrinkle effect and a skin tightening effect.

I have patients that buy just GHK copper, bright blue, really strong GHK copper, just add a little bit to their face cream and use it as a face cream. It is kind of amazing.

Dr. Suzanne Turner, MD: [00:22:53]
Patients that have hair loss, or a little widow's peak where they're losing hair on either side, just apply some of that right to the front. It can be helpful stimulating hair regrowth, at least thickening of the hair follicle

Carl Lanore: [00:23:13]
When it comes to GHK copper, there was a study done in France years ago that showed by using a Derma roller and perforating the scalp and applying the GHK copper actually not only made dormant follicles wake up and start growing again, but made pigment come back in a lot of these follicles. That study has never been reproduced. It's kind of like the albatross that everybody chases and hopes is true.  

Is a problem that we don't give some of these peptides enough time to actually work

Dr. Suzanne Turner, MD: [00:24:10]
I have a few things that I think work really quickly but of course, it all depends on the patient. Everything's very individual dependent. Typically it's going to be at least four weeks in a healthy person before you're going to see any benefits, especially if you're talking about removing facial wrinkles or restoring hair follicle thickness, it's going to take you probably three months before you see a benefit.

Carl Lanore: [00:24:55]
I think that's the real problem, the reason people don’t stick with it.

Dr. Erika Schwartz, MD: [00:25:03]
I make sure that I manage expectations. When I start a patient, I tell them don't expect anything for six weeks, at least at a minimum while we're doing everything else, tweaking everything. Somehow it works at six weeks miraculously, yet on some of them, it works within a week.

I think that if you manage expectations you come out with better results.

A protocol for GHK copper topically:

Dr. Betsy Yurth, MD: [00:30:38]
You can either buy the straight GHK copper as a serum and add two or three drops of a strong formulation. Some people you have to work up to it as it may irritate the skin a little bit initially. I just apply it every single night at bedtime as my nighttime face cream. It’s cost-effective to buy strong GHK copper serum and add a few drops of it to whatever your face cream you use at night. Some of the compounds that we work with, make face creams that are mixed with like argireline, which acts like a Botox. It actually stops the muscles from being able to contract.

Dr. Suzanne Turner, MD: [00:32:14]
I use it twice a day under whatever else I'm wearing. So clean, dry face applied twice a day. It's an eye serum and a face serum. There’s a company making a moisturizer called Restoreacell. They're great people and they're really making high quality stuff. It’s nice to have somebody I know making it. They were so excited about the outcome of using it that they created this whole product line.

Carl Lanore: [00:32:52]
Here’s a question from a listener:   He asks, when talking about HRT can someone explain the difference between bio-identical and not, and which is best, please.

Dr. Erika Schwartz, MD: [00:33:19]
Bio-identicals are also known as natural hormones. They refer to estradiol, progesterone and testosterone. They are nearly identical to the hormone our bodies make when we're young. Those are basically duplicated. They work very nicely because they fit in the receptors in the cells that would ordinarily accept to dial up progesterone and testosterone, which our bodies would make.

It doesn't matter if you're 20 or 60 or 70 you will maintain those receptors. If you keep on being given the right amount of hormones, estradiol, progesterone, testosterone in the right doses and in the right formulations. The non-human identical hormone are the ones that molecularly don't look like your hormones, all the hormone replacements are really synthetic because they're being made in a lab.

When you’re on birth control pills, you have the hormone levels of menopausal women, and other side effects that are undesirable. They don't increase the risk of cancer except for Provera, but birth control pills increase the risk of infertility.

Bio-identicals are clearly better because your body recognizes them as their own and they act as normal. They work really miraculously when you're doing it in the right combinations, the right dosing.

Carl Lanore: [00:48:56]
Methyl testosterone is not good. Neither is methyl trenbolone. These are dangerous, can damage your liver permanently caused terrible side effects. I'm not a fan of orals at all.   The liver plays a role in flushing out excess hormones to a certain degree.  There was a study I read a long time ago that looked at the same dose of testosterone cypionate being given to young men and old men.  The overall increase in plasma testosterone levels was greater in the old men.  They did another study that showed that receptors that flush testosterone out of the body were reduced in older men.
This conservation approach makes sense as men get older and they produce less testosterone, the body tries to conserve more. Does the liver play a role in helping to get the excess estrogen out of the body, and is there a way to stimulate and improve that role?

Dr. Erika Schwartz, MD: [00:49:45]
That's why we give people IVs with glutathione and pretty high doses of it. That helps, but we don't really take the estrogen out unless there is a symptom or a problem because in the long-term, they're not going to have it anyway, it'll drop. We also don't know high levels of estrogen will actually hurt you. Women have very high estrogen levels, estriol, when they're pregnant and they don't get cancer and they don't get sick. I think that we have to kind of disabuse ourselves of the idea that high levels of estrogen are dangerous.

Dr. Betsy Yurth, MD: [00:50:30]
Adding to that, It is a balance.right? If you have these very high levels of estrogen, sometimes you have to push the progesterone up a little bit. It is that balance between progesterone and estrogen that can contribute to some of the side effects of high estrogen.

Carl Lanore: [00:51:25]
Let's talk a little bit about peptides and sex hormones together. Will they still be as effective in a woman who isn't optimized hormones?

Dr. Betsy Yurth, MD: [00:52:23]
My opinion is that hormones play a huge role. I think hormonal optimization is paramount, our priority is getting people hormonally stabilized before we start throwing peptides into the mix.

If you're trying to use peptides for weight loss, for example, versus trying to get hormone stabilized, I think you're going to fight a losing battle. Get the hormone stabilized first and then start adding peptides into the mix. Do I think there's a place for peptides alone? Yes, but I'm going to encourage most women to have their hormones checked and get optimized, and then add peptides into the next layer.

Dr. Suzanne Turner, MD: [00:55:06]
The GLP-1 agonists have some great benefits as far as weight loss goes, in upregulating the way that your cells choose to burn fat as a preference. They work on the brain. They work on the heart. They work on the kidneys and the liver. There are tons of benefits to using them. In addition, they are very anti-aging and currently FDA approved for diabetes and for weight loss. I

I have had several patients who have not lost weight using them, but most of the time people lose a good bit of weight. It can be really helpful if you're trying to get off of wheat for an auto-immune disease or, or something like that, it can help you stick to that diet, give you the gumption to do that.

Dr. Suzanne Turner, MD: [00:56:58]
So it works in several ways, the upregulation of PGC-1 alpha, clinically it works by slowing down gastric motility so your appetite decreases, it works on improving insulin sensitivity in the brain which helps with not feeling so hungry.

Dr. Betsy Yurth, MD: [00:57:48]
The GLP one agonists are pretty amazing because honestly they may be the one cure all for almost every disease.

They are hugely beneficial in dementia, metabolic syndrome, insulin resistance, they help with weight loss. They are anti-inflammatory so they help with auto-immune disease. They help with gut. They might be the number one peptide you should go to for.

I also want to make a comment about exercise. If I have a woman who has zero testosterone, and I'm asking her to go to the gym and exercise she can't do it. Sometimes you have to look at hormones first because you've got to get motivation up and mood up.

If someone is horribly depressed because they have no progesterone and have zero ability to have sex or build muscle because of no testosterone, then nothing else is going to work. You've got to look at hormones first and then say let's get you to the gym. Let's get you eating right.

Carl Lanore: [00:59:30]
Research shows women respond to exercise very differently than men, because you're much more complex. You can actually make a human being. Men can't. As a result, there's lots of evolutionary triggers that cause women to not be able to lose body fat. And one of them is in post-menopausal women, especially those that aren't treated. The more they exercise, the lower their metabolism shuts down to compensate for the stress. So you see women that pour on the exercise more and more and body fat stores actually increase.

When it comes to women, the complexity of their bodies is astonishing from an evolutionary perspective that it's always designed to protect her from getting into a situation of famine.

Dr. Erika Schwartz, MD: [01:00:55]
The first thing you're losing are the hormones and unless you put the hormones back in you're not going to get the results from the peptides or from anything else that you will get when you put the hormones back in. It's crucial to really understand the importance of hormones, and start with hormones. There is no way you're going to get to the results you want if you don't put the hormones back in, because that's how mother nature nature takes you out by taking the hormones out. They’re not going to lose fat because they have white fat. They don't have Brown fat. There’s so much that needs to happen metabolically behind the scenes in order to be able to get the results and hormones are the only way to help you get there.

Dr. Betsy Yurth, MD: [01:02:28]
And that's men and women.  If you're a guy and your testosterone is low, they're going to get a lot more bang for their buck by getting their testosterone on board first, then we can start adding the peptides in.  We get so fascinated with peptides and peptides are amazing, so many cool things you can do with them, but it still comes down to, you've got to get the body in a stable hormonal state daily first,

Dr. Suzanne Turner, MD:
We can't forget about oxytocin, I use it a lot for women there's so much benefits.

Carl Lanore: [01:10:13]
Oxytocin increases L reuteri in the gut, it is a microbe that is associated with, healthy aging phenotype in rodents and we assume that it will cross over to humans as well. I love oxytocin. I've been using oxytocin for eight years now. I use a pretty high dose, 150 units post-workout in my peptide stack and I use 150 units before bed. I don't get the pounding heart anymore, but I do get the sensation, the head rush.  Oxytocin, crushes, cortisol.

Dr. Betsy Yurth, MD: [01:10:57]
It is one of my favorite peptide hormones to use with my patients, because it has so many positive benefits.  It helps with weight loss. Sometimes you have to dose it a little high, but I do think it helps with weight loss and with muscle building and mood. It’s immune modulating. It’s amazing, which is why you make so much of it in breast milk. I use a ton of oxytocin. It's a peptide hormone we've sort of reawakened. You can do a lot with this and it's very safe. It has great anabolic potential without having any of the bad anabolic side effects.

Carl Lanore: [01:12:01]
There's good evidence that oxytocin should be used therapeutically in people with congestive heart failure. A couple of, couple of interesting things. Number one,  in the fetus, oxytocin is concentrated in the heart when the heart is going through the greatest growth.

Carl Lanore: [01:13:37]
Don't go this alone. There are three professionals here that this is their wheelhouse. This is all they do.

Dr. Yurts - boulderlongevity.com

Dr. Turner - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Dr. Schwartz, EShealth.com