Kim Vopni (00:01.312)
Hi Nat, welcome. I've been looking forward to this conversation for a really long time. I sort of accosted you at a recent event because I hadn't met you in person. I saw you walking by and introduced myself. I had sent a few emails and you graciously received a copy of my book and I'm excited about this conversation. I know very little. I've been following your podcast so I know what I have heard from you sharing.
But I want to know a little bit about who you are, how you got into this world of peptides and bioregulators, and then we're going to talk about what the heck those things are.
Nathalie Niddam (00:37.507)
Thank you. Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate it. And I have your book. I've been traveling with it. I haven't read it yet, but I keep, I want to read it. So like it's, it's this beautiful little book, right? Like it's not intimidating and I've flipped through it and so full of information. So I am looking forward to leaning in and digging into it. But I, how did I get into this? So I went back to school and became a holistic nutritionist around 15 years ago.
Kim Vopni (00:57.431)
Awesome.
Nathalie Niddam (01:05.783)
One of these days I should look at the date and say, be able to say definitive date. But my background before that was I studied physiology when I was in university and then I kind of got waylaid and kind of worked in the corporate world for quite a long time. But I was always a fitness instructor, always kind of had a, you know, I never really lost the health bug as it were. And so then when I went back to school to become a holistic nutritionist, it was kind of around the time when the paleo diet was getting big and
Kim Vopni (01:07.661)
Yeah.
Nathalie Niddam (01:35.385)
the bulletproof thing was really coming up. And so I kind of got seduced kind of into this whole biohacking space as it were. And so it's through the biohacking space that I eventually came across peptides and then eventually bioregulators. as they do for many people, they really captured my attention and my fascination. And so I am...
I just kind of leaned into it. You know, I started a Facebook community that's gotten very, very big and a podcast. And so here we are.
Kim Vopni (02:10.924)
Here we are. so which one should we start? You said later on you learned about bioregulators, so I think we start with peptides. So what are peptides?
Nathalie Niddam (02:21.113)
Sure. So peptides are basically, you know, they're, the word peptide really means small protein, right? So your body is made up of peptides. All of your enzymes are proteins. Everything's a protein in the body. And all protein really means is it's a string of amino acids. so amino acids are the building blocks of protein. And then your body has receptors. It has, there's all, there's this very intricate mechanism of communication in the body.
that uses different receptors and then molecules that act as signaling molecules to those receptors. so peptides, you know, they'll, every time I'm on a podcast, if I say there are 50 amino acids or less, somebody else comes along and says, no, it's a hundred amino acids. And then if I say it's a hundred amino acids or less, somebody else comes along and says, no, no, it's 50 amino acids. It's somewhere between 50 or a hundred amino acids or fewer is considered a peptide. Anything bigger than that is considered a protein, right?
Kim Vopni (03:16.418)
Got it. Okay.
Nathalie Niddam (03:17.231)
So when we're talking about the peptides that we're going to talk about today is these are typically fragments of proteins that are naturally existing in the body that scientists have identified as signaling molecules in the body and they either act with receptors to initiate some kind of a cascade or sometimes they actually even signal genes and flip genes on and off.
And usually the bigger peptides, we'll talk about the bioregulators later, but the bigger peptides tend to do that through a signaling mechanism rather than acting directly on a DNA helix.
Kim Vopni (03:56.909)
Okay, so what would be, can you explain what a signaling mechanism would be?
Nathalie Niddam (04:01.369)
So, you know, your body works on signals, right? So you have a, imagine that you have a receptor and this, the protein or the peptide will have some, it's a lock and key mechanism. So it'll, it's like with insulin, insulin will hit receptors on the surface of the cell, which will regulate the expression of Glut4, which is a protein that will then capture glucose and bring it into the cell.
So it's, you know, and that's a very oversimplified kind of explanation of that process. But basically, so with something like, we're going to talk about a peptide called BPC157, which, you know, it's, it's kind of like the gateway peptide because it's the one that, that other than the GLP ones, it is the one that's gotten the most exposure. And that is really, it's, it's the one that's gotten the most exposure.
and gets talked about the most. Unfortunately, like most peptides, is classified as a... I'm sorry, Kim, I'm not firing off all others here. Yeah. It's classified as a research chemical. So it's not approved for human consumption.
Kim Vopni (05:14.062)
It's all good. I can edit it out. I can edit that out, don't worry.
Nathalie Niddam (05:26.849)
It appears that it can be used orally. So there are a lot of oral supplements of BPC-157 right now. So this would be a good time to explain that, you know, something that's a protein typically is going to get digested in your gut by digestive enzymes. BPC-157 is an exception to that because it is actually a fragment of a protein that is naturally produced in the gut. So it's kind of like it gets special status, right? Like...
It's recognized by the body as something that does not need to be broken down, that is an entity that has its own mechanisms of action.
Kim Vopni (06:06.062)
Okay, so BPC 157 is the main one that I wanted to talk about because when I heard probably you, I don't remember, but it probably was you talking about it. A lot of the support is, there's a gut health component, but it's more the ligaments, the tendons repair. And so my mind goes to the people in my community who are dealing with pelvic organ prolapse as a main thing. And not to say that
Nathalie Niddam (06:31.793)
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Kim Vopni (06:35.586)
BPC 157 would go in and magically reconnect everything and your prolapse would be gone. But my mind goes to kind of like how vaginal estrogen can come in and support the tissues. Is this something that could be a supportive mechanism? Could it be something that maybe even people are taking earlier on that could act as prevention? And I realize that's not something you can say or we have research on. so it's something that doesn't need to be digested. It's recognized by the body.
Nathalie Niddam (06:58.797)
Yeah.
Kim Vopni (07:04.782)
it has a special status. Usually peptides I hear of as being most beneficial to being injected, but you've just said these ones can be, this particular one could be consumed orally.
Nathalie Niddam (07:15.287)
Yeah, I'm sorry. And, and very often what we'll see is that it, the, the peptide will tend to be more effective in different applications depending on how it's used. Right. So for gut issues using BPC 157 orally is a really, really great strategy for musculoskeletal issues. Some people will get benefit because it also has anti-inflammatory effects.
It seems to have some analgesic effects. and so some, do get people who are using BPC 157 orally for gut issues who will say, wow, you know, it's funny, my knee, which often bothers me, or I have a sore knee or a sore back. they'll be like, it stopped hurting. Right. And I would say that that's usually in the case of minor aches and pains. If you have a major.
biomechanical issue going on in your knee, it's unlikely that just taking a little bit of BPC-157 for your gut is necessarily going to do much over there. you know, so it remains that the most efficient way, meaning that you can take the least for the big, like kind of biggest bang for your buck, the most efficient way to take BPC, to use BPC is by subcutaneous injection, but that is definitely, I would say for people who are, you know,
kind of want to make sure that they're using compounds that are above board, that are approved, that have been tested to the degree that they feel comfortable, then the subcutaneous injection is not going to be the way to go because that is definitely on the no-fly list according to the FDA. But BVC is really interesting because it can also be used in topical preparation. So it's very powerful for wound healing. It's extremely powerful for burns.
It can be compounded into eye drops and is really powerful for eyes. And the BPC stands for body protective compound. And it actually is also considered to be organoprotective. So it protects organs. So it's protective to, let's say, the pancreas or the kidneys or the heart or the lungs. And I think part of it is, you know, this whole mechanism of action in terms of healing soft tissue and even bone.
Nathalie Niddam (09:32.889)
but let's focus on the soft tissue because of what you just said. This whole idea of helping with healing of tendons and ligaments and muscle and tissue in general is all of those organs rely on integrity, right? So it is going to be helpful and it's gonna also do it through other mechanisms, obviously. There's even some animal research that shows that BPC 157 has been helpful in certain animal models of helping to regulate blood pressure.
You right? So, so you have a compound that is massively, I'll use a big word here, pleiotropic. And all pleiotropic means is that it has many, many, many different, it does many different things in the body. And I think that's part of why it's going to be hard for it to get approved anytime soon because scientists...
and researchers really like to be able to isolate things. They like to be able to find a thing that does one thing and they're like, okay, this is what this is for. But when you're looking at BPC-157 and you're looking at something that can protect the brain and balances GABAergic, serotonergic and dopaminergic centers in the brain, it's anti-inflammatory, it's analgesic. also it helps with people with withdrawal. And by the way, it helps heal the GI tract from your mouth down to your bum.
Kim Vopni (10:29.155)
Yeah.
Nathalie Niddam (10:52.303)
And it's going to be really helpful at healing that muscle issue that you developed when you were doing CrossFit. And they're sitting there going, okay, we'll have back up the bus. Right. It's, it's a very, it's complex. And so there's many, many different things going on. Like one of the things that's really interesting for tissue healing is that one of the things that BPC one five seven does is it, it increases the expression of growth hormone receptors. Right. So.
growth hormone is one of those things that is very helpful to helping the body to heal because it stimulates growth. Right. And so if we can increase the presence of growth hormone receptors, especially at the site of an injury, it's going to be helpful in terms of healing that injury. so, and it also, you know, BPC 157 also seems to have a mechanism by which it helps to increase blood flow to an area through angiogenesis.
And this is the part where people, again, lose their minds a little bit, because as soon as you talk about antiogenesis, which is an increase in, in, in blood vessels to an area, you know, people automatically go to, well, wait a minute, isn't that what cancer tumors do? Right. And so is that a danger sign? And I haven't seen any evidence that says yes, but at the same time, we don't have evidence either. We don't have confirmation for sure that it's a no. So it remains kind of like this.
Kim Vopni (12:11.95)
Right.
Nathalie Niddam (12:18.479)
this thing that just sits around. as a result, and I'm saying this because of something you mentioned earlier, BP one C one five seven is not the kind of thing you would use on an ongoing basis. Like just cuts, right? You would typically use it in this. If you were going to use it, you would use it in eight or a 12 week cycle for a specific purpose. And then you would step away from it.
Kim Vopni (12:31.66)
Got it. Yeah.
Kim Vopni (12:43.928)
Got it. Okay. I think my mind goes now that you've said that I think about post surgery. So hysterectomy, pelvic surgery, pelvic organ prolapse repair, bladder sling surgeries, using it as, you know, potentially using it before, like as a just before your surgery, but then afterwards as you're supporting the repair side of things.
Nathalie Niddam (12:58.797)
as a healing.
Nathalie Niddam (13:05.583)
A hundred percent. I mean, I think for surgical recovery, you will find a lot of functional medicine doctors are using things like BPC 157. It has a very close friend called thymus and beta four, which is also referred to as TB 500. And it is also a very powerful, even though it's a thymus peptide, so it, does help with immune function. Um, it is also a very powerful peptide for healing of tissue.
And so very often you'll see those two used together in a post-surgical protocol if you're working with a functional medicine doctor. And then they'll use things like, for me, I would recommend someone use something like essential amino acids just to provide those extra building blocks to the body for healing.
You might use like a supplement like a stem regen, which is a supplement that increases the proliferation and the release of stem cells in the body, your own stem cells in the body. you know, it's kind of like the easiest way, cheapest way to get a stem cell infusion, if you will, but it's your own and it's safe. so, so you start to build kind of like this little arse, this little repair arsenal that would be helpful.
Kim Vopni (14:08.066)
Yeah. Yeah.
Kim Vopni (14:18.402)
Yeah, yeah. When you said that it's not for human consumption and it's harder to get, and I know that several years ago, I think it was during COVID maybe where it used to be more readily available and then I guess the FDA or Health Canada came and clamped down. I see whenever I go to kind of biohacker type shows, the conference is full of supplement companies and many of which would have a BPC one, like many of them would be oral.
Nathalie Niddam (14:47.62)
Yeah.
Kim Vopni (14:48.192)
So how are they then, like how are these available and how do you know if it's a good brand? What do you look for on the label? That kind of thing.
Nathalie Niddam (14:56.429)
Yeah. Yeah, that's a really good question. And I would say the only way to really know is to use trusted brands. You know, it's a bit like supplements, right? You could use supplement ABC from the, go for the bottom of the barrel, go for the cheapest supplements you can find. And you're getting into the world of supplements that may or may not contain what you want them to contain. They may or may not contain the amount that you want, and they may or may not contain other things that you don't want.
Kim Vopni (15:05.26)
Yeah. Yeah.
Nathalie Niddam (15:25.817)
that are less desirable at the same time. So it's really important to stick to trusted brands, and there's a couple of them, really good ones out there. From a regulation perspective, I don't know why the orals are allowed. I don't know if it's an act of omission or if they've, or if somehow the powers that be feel that there's less risk in an oral administration.
Or if we're going to see it coming, like, you know, like I, don't know. I've, I've wondered that myself, but for whatever, and I'm no, for sure that, know, anything that involves a needle, which is invasive is going to give regulatory authorities the heebie-jeebies. And frankly, it gives a lot of people the heebie-jeebies to be perfectly honest. Like a lot of consumers, you talk to them about a needle and they're like, yeah, I'm not doing that. Right.
Kim Vopni (16:08.418)
Yeah. Yeah.
Kim Vopni (16:18.21)
Yeah, yeah.
Nathalie Niddam (16:19.119)
So it's, which is completely fine, right? As soon as you break the skin, you're now, and you're introducing something into the body that is a very, very powerful compound. we're talking about something that is dosed in micrograms. So it's, you know, 500 micrograms is half a milligram is actually a very, it's a big, it's a powerful dose. That's crazy. I mean, if you think about it, that's really.
Kim Vopni (16:42.936)
Yeah. Yeah.
Nathalie Niddam (16:48.343)
It's amazing that a tiny little speck of something could have that kind of effect on the human body.
Kim Vopni (16:54.83)
Are there companies in, most of my followers are in North America. There are some who are elsewhere in the world, but are there companies worldwide? Do you need to, like, as a Canadian, do we buy just a Canadian brand or can they be shipped across the border? Can we bring them across the border? Do you know any regulations there?
Nathalie Niddam (17:15.073)
It depends, right? So for the injectables, I would say that, and I wouldn't name them here, there's a couple of, you know, you can share this with your followers. There's a couple of companies. There's one company for sure. There's a couple of companies in Canada. They're classified as research laboratories, right? So there's a couple of research labs in Canada that ship within Canada. There's still a couple in the U.S. that manage to ship into Canada, but that's really only until somebody at the border figures out who they are and what they're shipping and they're going to ship them down, right? They don't.
Kim Vopni (17:42.06)
Yeah. Yeah.
Nathalie Niddam (17:44.291)
The Canadian government does not want injectable peptides to be made available to the population particularly. For the oral supplements so far, I haven't seen an issue, but again, that doesn't mean we won't at some point, right? Now there is another peptide I wanted, you didn't mention it earlier and I just wanted to bring it to the attention of your audience and it's called GHKCU. And it's a really interesting peptide because
Kim Vopni (17:59.031)
Right, right.
Nathalie Niddam (18:12.239)
To begin with, it's a three amino acid peptide. And you had brought up bioregulators earlier. And so, you know, that whole discussion about 50 amino acids or 100 amino acids. So bioregulators are anywhere from like, they're three to four, maybe five amino acids. They're tiny. And their superpower is that they are epigenetic switches.
which means that they're able to get into the nucleus of the cell and they act directly on DNA. So they actually are affecting the expression of your DNA, which is pretty fascinating. And GHK is not technically classified as a bioregulator. And that's possibly because it was discovered by an American scientist in 1973 by the name of Dr. Lauren Pickard, whereas the whole bioregulator
segment, if you will, was developed and discovered by a Russian doctor by the name of Dr. Vladimir Kavansin. And so, you know, it could, I mean, it may be a situation of like champagne. You can only call bubbly wine, white wine, champagne, it comes from a certain region in France, but then you've got California and even Canada producing bubbly whites that they sure look and taste like champagne, but they just can't be called champagne. Right? So.
Kim Vopni (19:33.9)
Right.
Nathalie Niddam (19:36.525)
But G and the reason I say that is because GHK is a very, very powerful epigenetic signaling peptide. So it gets right in there and it flips over a thousand genes back to the youthful setting. So the interesting thing about GHK is we have a lot of it in circulation when we're young and those levels drop dramatically as we age.
Kim Vopni (19:59.864)
Okay, so I'm gonna rephrase or just make sure I'm clear. Peptides, arguably somewhere between 50 and 100 amino acids. Bioregulators, so anything, they're less. So like 49 and less would be bioregulator, but you also still said peptide as well. So are bioregulators also considered peptides?
Nathalie Niddam (20:10.913)
or less. Less.
Yeah.
Nathalie Niddam (20:21.199)
Okay, let me rehash that one more time. So a peptide, right, is 50 amino acids or less, unless you're that gnarly person on the internet who believes it's a hundred amino acids or less. Okay? A bioregulator is only three to five amino acids. So it's like itty bitty to be super technical. It's the tiniest of proteins, of peptides.
Kim Vopni (20:23.63)
K.
Kim Vopni (20:32.118)
Okay, okay, okay, got it.
Kim Vopni (20:37.388)
I got it, okay.
Yeah, okay.
Kim Vopni (20:44.462)
Okay. So GHKCU copper. Okay. Yeah.
Nathalie Niddam (20:51.215)
Correct. So that was going to say that. So CU is the copper and copper is a co-factor that allows GHK to be active. you get into the world where some people might use GHK without the copper when they're doing it systemically. And that is because they believe, and there's some evidence that says that in the body, it will find copper and use it as a co-factor.
Kim Vopni (20:59.159)
Okay.
Kim Vopni (21:20.696)
Hmm, okay.
Nathalie Niddam (21:21.325)
Right? So it needs copper. So if somebody's copper deficient, that wouldn't work out so well. If you're using GHKCU as a topical, which I'll explain why you would do that next, you need the copper because there's no copper on your skin. Right? So one of the superpowers of GHKCU is it's really, it's seeing a lot of research and there are some skincare brands that are exclusively
using GHK or almost like really founded on this whole GHK-CU molecule. And then you've got other anti-aging brands like Young Goose, for example, they've got the copper peptide in their formulas, but you don't see it. But you've got
Kim Vopni (22:01.71)
Is it the copper peptide or is it the GH? It's not the GHK, it's just the copper.
Nathalie Niddam (22:05.239)
It's actually the copper peptide, but it's a specific form that doesn't, that isn't blue. It's like an activated form. whereas you have a line like Vitali skincare, which you're probably familiar with and Vitali skincare, all of their products are blue because they really like GHK is the central molecule to, you know, then they're going to use brown seaweed and they're going to use hyaluronic acid. Like they're going to use different natural components.
Kim Vopni (22:20.44)
Mm-hmm.
Nathalie Niddam (22:32.719)
but the central tenant of their line is the copper peptide.
Kim Vopni (22:37.588)
it. Okay. So if it's you mentioned like it's the superpower, GHKCU is a superpower does so many things. Okay, I'll finish.
Nathalie Niddam (22:45.771)
so, okay. So sorry, because I don't think I ever finished why I thought it was important to bring up because one of the things it does is it up regulates the production of collagen and elastic. So this is why it's so great for skin. And this is also why it's actually really great for wound healing and the reduction of scarring. So when you're building a healing stack, is it possible that that GHK will bring something to the party that might also help?
Kim Vopni (22:52.001)
OK, OK.
Kim Vopni (22:56.682)
Okay.
Nathalie Niddam (23:14.715)
You know, the problem is, I don't know that I haven't looked at it, but I don't know that there's any research that says that for prolapsed organs or like, there's not going to be much, any research, right? So, but you know, if we sit there and put our thinking caps on, is it possible that helping with the production of collagen and elastin could globally be effective to the body? And I know that there's people...
Kim Vopni (23:25.398)
I guarantee you there's
Nathalie Niddam (23:40.247)
with a certain tissue genetic tissue disorder called EDS, which is Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, which you're probably familiar with, because I'll bet you those people show up at your door all the time. They can't figure out why their organs aren't where they're supposed to be. cause they just don't make collagen efficiently. Right. And I've seen people with that condition use things like GHK and BPC one five seven, and even thymus and beta four, which just, it does seem to help to
Kim Vopni (23:48.323)
Hmm.
Nathalie Niddam (24:09.219)
to kind of mitigate some of that laxity. It's not a cure, but in some cases they do seem to feel that it is helpful for them.
Kim Vopni (24:12.108)
Okay. Yeah.
Kim Vopni (24:17.27)
and because it would be temporarily. So maybe they would use it a couple times a year. Like, because it's not like, is it going to create lasting change? It's not.
Nathalie Niddam (24:25.367)
It's not going to change your genetic expression. So in an EDS situation, you have a genetic variation that prevents you from, from making the collagen and the elastin, right? And there's many different types of collagen. I don't, you know, I, again, I don't, I don't know that, that everybody who has EDS has the exact same issues. And I don't know necessarily that GHK addresses all of the many different types of collagen, but at the same time, it's going to, it's going to
Kim Vopni (24:35.68)
Making it, yeah.
Nathalie Niddam (24:55.039)
maybe push the body to make it, but it's not going to correct the foundational issue why you're not making it in the first place.
Kim Vopni (24:59.886)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. So what, excuse me, what are some of the other, so if you think of the community that I, that I talk about the pelvic health side of things, so definitely musculoskeletal, bladder health, urinary constipation, digestion, painful sex, low estrogen, so we can talk about the estrogen piece, but what would some of the other
Nathalie Niddam (25:24.431)
Thank
Kim Vopni (25:27.128)
Like where does your mind go for other peptides or bioregulators that could be helpful?
Nathalie Niddam (25:32.019)
so on the bioregulator side, what the bioregulators are, they, the way the bioregulators were identified and classified is they're kind of tissue specific, right? So you have a bioregulator, you mentioned it, for the kidney. No, for the bladder, for example. You have a bioregulator for the adrenal glands. There's a bioregulator for the ovaries. There's a bioregulator for the pineal gland, which is...
You know, little pine nut shaped gland in the brain that regulates circadian rhythm. It regulates melatonin production. Interestingly, it also has a very broad effect on the entire endocrine system. Right. We also have a central nervous system bioregulator that is more, more brain-based and less specific to the pineal gland, although it also does act on the pineal gland. And so, you know, when we're talking about hormonal issues,
Kim Vopni (26:25.24)
Mm-hmm.
Nathalie Niddam (26:30.113)
We might look at, depending on what's happening with the person, we might look at the bioregulator for the adrenals, the thyroid. we could look at the bioregulator for, how was the other one? I was just thinking of for immune perspective, we might look at the thymus gland bioregulator. And so what's interesting about the bioregulators is they don't boost or suppress function. They're really working towards normalizing function.
So that gives them a relatively safe profile. Again, you know, there's a lot of people that would say, well, well, you know, there's not enough. and, know, in the case of severe illness or a cancer, whatever the case may be, you're not going to willy nilly, just throw this stuff in there because it's acting on, on genes. Right. And so you don't want to blindly be throwing darts the dark here. You just to be clear.
Kim Vopni (27:22.668)
Yeah. Yeah.
Nathalie Niddam (27:26.879)
But there's, there's a world where I've seen women who, for example, had lost their period for a period of time, and they've been going at it a million different ways and they're working on their hormones and they're working on their lifestyle, they're working on their sleep. And they do a few cycles of the pineal gland bioregulator with the ovarian bioregulator. And they seem to get their cycle back. Right. This is not a guarantee. Just to be clear.
I've had women with hypothyroidism, like with Hashimoto's, they've worked, one in particular who'd been going at it for like years with her naturopath. And she finally did a cycle of the thyroid gland bioregulator and she went into, you know, her antibodies went down. But I've got a whole bunch of other people who have the same issues. They use the thyroid gland bioregulator and not much happened. So, you know.
One of the things I'm very passionate about is not making blanket statements and giving people the impression that these are a silver bullet because they're not. They're very powerful. What we believe is happening or what seems to be going on at a cellular level is they are helping to regenerate tissue and function at a cellular level from within that organ.
Kim Vopni (28:27.363)
Yeah.
Kim Vopni (28:30.637)
Yeah.
Nathalie Niddam (28:49.357)
And it's possible, there's a really good hypothesis out there that what it's doing is it's actually helping to repair DNA. So as we age, we have more and more damage happening to our DNA for any number of reasons. And so if we have these compounds that can actually help to repair that DNA, then it gives the body the ability to do what it did so much better when we were younger, which is to repair itself.
Kim Vopni (29:12.258)
Yeah. Yeah. What about as you're saying that in my mind is now also going to autophagy and sort of like the senescent cells and the cleanup. that it's different from DNA repair? Yeah. Yeah.
Nathalie Niddam (29:28.365)
Yeah, this is a completely different process. this is, you you need, and so that case in point, like you still want to do the things that drive autophagy because you want to take out the trash, right? You still want to push my autophagy. You still want to do all those. You need to be doing all the things you need to be taking care of your circadian cycle. You need to be managing your stress. need, you know, like there's all these, all these boxes still have to be checked.
Kim Vopni (29:36.236)
Yeah. Yeah.
Nathalie Niddam (29:53.891)
But imagine if you're doing all those things and you're nourishing the body properly and you're giving it what it needs to function well. And now you're providing these, this, you're providing this impetus or this signal to regenerate at a tissue level. So, but you know, the other really interesting thing about the bioregulators is they work very well with conventional therapies also. So a lot of the studies that were done in Russia, and there were a lot of studies done in Russia.
Kim Vopni (30:10.018)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nathalie Niddam (30:22.627)
human and animal, showed that if they took, like there was one, for example, there's one that jumps to mind where they had a bunch of patients that had COPD, so chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. And they gave one group the conventional drugs, whatever those were, and their test subjects were given the conventional drugs with the lung bioregulator. And that group seemed to fare better. They got better.
they just got better results even from the drugs. They didn't use as many drugs and the effects lasted longer.
Kim Vopni (30:57.07)
Interesting. I usually say this to the very end where, you know, where can we find you and work with you? So I'm thinking in my mind, how do you work with somebody? I'm going to bet that allopathic doctors are not necessarily treating with peptides and bioregulators, it would be more in the functional medicine space, potentially some naturopaths. Is that accurate?
Nathalie Niddam (31:22.243)
Potentially. Yeah. So you're looking at people who are really, you're looking at physicians who are really pushing beyond what they've been taught in med school, right? Yeah. Yeah. Like that whole category of physicians are the people that are, just pushing their attention and you know, they're like, we're not going to wait 20 years for med schools to catch up.
Kim Vopni (31:30.37)
Yeah, regenerative medicine doctors maybe I would say, yeah.
Nathalie Niddam (31:48.479)
not to mention the fact that they're, you know, whether you believe in conspiracies or not, there's not a huge amount of enthusiasm on the part of pharma to develop these because they can't develop them into drugs. And so that's not to say that, you know, a couple of years ago when the FDA pulled these, a lot of these peptides away from compounding pharmacy saying they're no longer allowed to even compound them for the functional medicine doctors, that there's not a pharma movement out there that says, well,
you know, just like they did with the GLP-1s, they're like, wait, we can take this, we might be able to modify it and therefore turn it into a drug. The good news is it could be a really great drug. The bad news is it's gonna become a whole different kettle of fish, right? So.
Kim Vopni (32:30.954)
Yeah, yeah, So you would be looking if somebody was searching, you know, functional medicine doctor or regenerative medicine, longevity doctor and bioregulators, or maybe even just Google bioregulators.
Nathalie Niddam (32:44.633)
The bioregulators will be tougher. Like the bioregulators, think are just starting to really catch on. Like I've been yapping about bioregulators for at least three years now. And it's, would say it's in the last year that all of a sudden they're really gaining traction. Right. And, and we're seeing a plethora of companies that are starting to get into the space to make their own supplements, to do their thing. and then so, but you've got, you've got organizations like we're
Kim Vopni (32:58.178)
Yeah. Yeah.
Nathalie Niddam (33:14.457)
where we were, where we met at A4M, which is the anti-aging, which is a big anti-aging medicine organization. There's people like the Human Longevity Institute. She's about to launch a peptide university. You know, you've got people, there's a Dr. Edwin Lee. They have the Clinical Peptide Society. And so all of these bodies that are now educating physicians and practitioners in general,
Kim Vopni (33:28.302)
Cool.
Nathalie Niddam (33:43.58)
are now going to start having lists of people that work with these compounds. But I would say with the bioregulators, you're still looking at a fairly small pool of individuals.
Kim Vopni (33:52.591)
Yeah, yeah, fair enough. I want to talk a little bit about bones. So the majority of the people in my community would be nearing or post menopause bone health is something that I've become more obsessed with now that I'm also post menopause. It's funny how that happens. But so BPC 157 potentially.
Nathalie Niddam (34:09.209)
You
Mm-hmm.
Kim Vopni (34:16.82)
helping with bone as well or are there other things other maybe by regulators as well that could help from a bone like I'm thinking like stimulating the osteoblasts and build.
Nathalie Niddam (34:25.835)
Yeah. So I'm going to say this. There is nothing like lifting very heavy things. Nothing. there's nothing like a good vibration plate, nothing like putting that press. So nothing is going to replace those things. You simply cannot sit on the couch eating bioregulator bonbons and think that your bones are going to regenerate. It's not going to happen. Right. But when we think about the bioregulators of peptides that could be assistive,
Kim Vopni (34:31.34)
Hallelujah!
Nathalie Niddam (34:55.867)
I've definitely witnessed that BPC one five seven with thymus and beta four can really be helpful in healing bone. Right. from a fracture perspective. So I can't, know, and, and by the way, your hormone status, right? So the stuff that you talk about the Karen Martel talks about, like you need to be managing your hormones properly. mean, all of these people who are dead set against BHRT, there's a, there's a cost to that. Right.
Kim Vopni (35:05.102)
from a fracture perspective. Yeah, okay.
Kim Vopni (35:24.962)
Yeah. Yep.
Nathalie Niddam (35:26.263)
So I think in a best case scenario, women are meeting with their physicians and making the right decision for them, but acknowledging the fact that the loss of estrogen and testosterone and all of these hormones as we age is a massive hit to our skeletal, to our musculoskeletal system. So on the side of the bioregulators, absolutely we have a cartilage bioregulator, right? And we know that for bones to be strong, they need to be flexible. Like one of the biggest issues that
has come out over the years has been a lot of these bone density medications that are very good at increasing bone mineral density, but now you end up with brittle bones instead of strong bones. there's a guy, his name is Gary Rhodes, who's marketing a device called the Echolite, which is an imaging device, an imaging technology from Italy.
And it assesses not just how mineral dense your bones are, but it assesses the quality of the bone. And he, I don't know if you've met him. Yeah. So, so the cool thing about Echolite is it can take someone and say, you know, this person doesn't have as much bone mineral density as this one, but they're actually at a lower risk of fracture because there's more better quality of bone. There's more collagen in there versus this guy that's got crazy good bone mineral density, but might just.
Kim Vopni (36:31.554)
I just had it done, yeah.
Nathalie Niddam (36:51.627)
shatter standing and doing the dishes because it's completely brittle. So we know that cartilage is very important. The blood vessel bioregulator underpins almost every single protocol simply because if we don't have good blood flow to and from at a micro and a macro level, nothing good is going to happen, right? There's a bone marrow bioregulator.
Kim Vopni (37:13.72)
Yeah. Yeah.
Nathalie Niddam (37:19.599)
that I would say would be worth dipping in and out of. There's a parathyroid bioregulator, right? People forget about the parathyroid gland, which is responsible for calcitonin and all these other things. And did I mention D3K2 lifting heavy stuff and sun and the whole thing? you know, so all of those things, can these things in an adjunct way just start to bring more to the fold? Just start to bring more?
Kim Vopni (37:22.2)
Mm-hmm.
Kim Vopni (37:27.96)
Mm-hmm.
Kim Vopni (37:35.64)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Nathalie Niddam (37:48.451)
components of what is that whole healing universe that we need to create better bonds.
Kim Vopni (37:54.819)
Yeah, yeah. So what is, how do you use them in your own body? How would you, like are you basing it on a challenge that you're currently facing or are you doing kind of rounds as a preventive side of things or how do you cycle them and what's your protocols?
Nathalie Niddam (38:13.955)
So the bioregulators, would say those you can cycle, those you can do ongoingly to a point. You don't need to, it gets expensive. So I've got a membership community where I have a group of people, we have this program called the Year of Bioregulators program, and I'm writing protocols for them. And as much as I'm not, I'm not saying we're not treating any disease here, we're not treating anything.
Kim Vopni (38:40.238)
Mm-hmm.
Nathalie Niddam (38:41.667)
But if someone I know is having challenges metabolically, then we're gonna, we might lean into that, you know, the pancreas and the liver and the stomach and the, these different, the blood vessel, obviously, and the heart, all the different pieces of the puzzle that might be getting challenged, right? And then, so for those guys, some of these people are like, okay, for the next two to three years, I just, it's like you're renewing the tread on your tires.
Right? So I want to just keep cycling through them so that I just keep that signal kind of pulsing and giving the body the signal that says, attention, let's renew, let's restore. These aren't 20 year old people. These are like 50, 60, 70 year old people, even 40 year olds you could make an argument for. Um, and then the other people will say, you know, one of the other things that the pineal gland bioregulator
is said to do is that it activates an enzyme called telomerase. And telomerase is the enzyme that helps to maintain the length of the telomeres on the ends of your DNA. And your telomeres need to be a certain length so that the DNA can continue to replicate. So a lot of people will cycle the pineal gland bioregulator two or three times a year so that they want to make sure that they keep those telomeres healthy.
Now it just so happens that meditation also is a way to lengthen your ears. You know, like there's many different ways to skin a cat, but this is one of the strategies. And so you get people who are measuring their biological age through a test, like a true diagnostic, something like that. And there's now an increasing number of these tests around and running bioregulators for a year, year and a half, and then retesting their biological age to see.
Kim Vopni (40:08.91)
Mm-hmm.
You
Yeah.
Nathalie Niddam (40:35.791)
You know, have they stopped it from moving forward and even more better, is it possible that they've reversed it a little bit? Because there's, I think it was Steve Horvat that did a bunch of research that showed that if you're showing up as eight years older than your chronological age, you have a 50 % greater chance of all-cause mortality versus your peers versus if you're eight years younger, then you have a 50 % lower chance of all-cause mortality. So we definitely want to try and keep ourselves
Kim Vopni (40:41.57)
Yeah, yeah.
Kim Vopni (40:55.394)
Well.
Kim Vopni (41:02.979)
Yeah.
Nathalie Niddam (41:05.901)
biologically younger as we age.
Kim Vopni (41:08.268)
Yeah, yeah. And so you can have multiple, somebody could potentially have two, three, four, six different peptides regulators at a given time.
Nathalie Niddam (41:18.393)
Typically, I don't love people using much more than three at a time, but you might cycle them. An induction cycle would be taking something for 30 days, but then you might do 10 day cycles periodically or consecutively. There's a lot of art.
Kim Vopni (41:23.532)
Okay. Yeah.
Kim Vopni (41:34.447)
got it. Yeah, cool. So yeah, I can imagine I can imagine it's super fascinating. And so you have a podcast that I listened to I absolutely adore. You had a really funny one recently that I mentioned you to you about which a lot of people was about hairless dogs. But so where can people listen to your podcast? Where could they
Nathalie Niddam (41:50.969)
We're
Nathalie Niddam (41:56.791)
Solaria Sack.
Kim Vopni (42:00.62)
look into joining your membership and learning more from you about these compounds.
Nathalie Niddam (42:05.391)
Thank you. So the podcast is Longevity with Natalie Nidam and it's on all the good podcast platforms out there, all the places. The community, you're lucky that you're listening to this now folks because we just went through a big move. We moved off one platform onto another, which is then beyond traumatic. I can't even begin to tell you. So by the time you guys hear about this, we will be well installed in our new home.
Kim Vopni (42:12.649)
the good places.
Kim Vopni (42:23.23)
man.
Nathalie Niddam (42:31.055)
And so to learn about that, you can go to natnidam.com. That's my website. I will also have, I also have a URL natnidam.com forward slash newsletter. And when you sign up for my newsletter, you get an eight part series of laying the foundation for using bioregulators. Cause one of my pet peeves is people coming in on a head on fire saying, just give me all the bioregulators. And I'm like, yes, but your inflammation is off the charts and your blood sugar is crazy and your hormones are whacked.
and your microbiome is a mess and you think you're just gonna throw these things in there. It's like, you know, it's like bringing a contractor into a burning house. It's not gonna work. Or it's not gonna work as well, right? And we're spending money here. So let's make sure that we are mindful and we start from the foundation and build up.
Kim Vopni (43:09.452)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Kim Vopni (43:18.018)
Yeah, one thing I just thought of, sorry if I can ask one more question, from an absorption perspective, it's something that I've actually just been highlighting. I do take a decent, not a crazy amount of supplements, but I take very good care of my body, but there's a couple places where absorption could be better. So would the same apply? You could be taking even a very good high quality supplement, but if you're not absorbing and assimilating what you eat, what you take from a supplement, then
Nathalie Niddam (43:21.081)
course.
Kim Vopni (43:47.563)
you're just basically spending money for nothing. So could the same thing happen with peptides and bioregulators where the absorption, if you didn't have adequate absorption, you may not get as much benefit?
Nathalie Niddam (43:50.159)
Mm-hmm.
Nathalie Niddam (43:59.353)
I think that the difference is that they have, like in the case of BPC 157, it's reparative to the gut and it doesn't need to be absorbed necessarily. And, and like the, don't forget that these things are really tiny and they're, they're pre-packaged. Right. The bioregulators, what's really cool about bioregulators, and I might've said that 75 times by now, I apologize, but the bioregulator is those sequences are found in food and
Kim Vopni (44:07.022)
So in helping increase, yeah.
Kim Vopni (44:26.275)
Yeah.
Nathalie Niddam (44:27.917)
And so when I've heard that, was like, well, that's weird. Then why doesn't it just get chopped up by your protein? by your enzymes, because I imagine that my enzymes come along and they just chop, chop, chop, chop, chop everything into single amino acids and they go the other side. That's actually not true because the way it works is that your, wisdom of nature is such that there are sequences that are, that are identified by, we'll call them bumpers for lack of a better word.
Kim Vopni (44:39.63)
Smaller, yep.
Nathalie Niddam (44:55.555)
So there are specific molecules that tell the enzymes where they're gonna cleave a protein. So the bioregulator is one of those defined units that is predestined, if you will, to remain integral. And then there's transporters that get it across. So it's a little bit like taking essential amino acids. If your gut can be the hottest mess on the planet, those essential amino acids are gonna get moved across.
Kim Vopni (45:01.88)
Hmm. Hmm.
Nathalie Niddam (45:25.327)
Cause it doesn't require any work. So I mean, unless you've got like a severely dysfunctional gut, which is a whole different kettle of fish. would say that the bioregulators and one thing we didn't talk about, we're now five minutes past when we said goodbye. I apologize. I'm so sorry. One of the things we didn't talk about is that the bioregulators can be taken orally as a natural bioregulator. They can be taken orally as a synthetic bioregulator.
Kim Vopni (45:40.748)
No, it's all good.
Nathalie Niddam (45:53.261)
And they can be injected as a synthetic bioregulator and they can be even used as a, as a spray and even transdermally because they're so small with specific technology to get them across the skin. So there's many different ways to skin this cat and there's, and I, what I want the audience to, to remember is you have two.
Kim Vopni (46:06.68)
Yeah, so that's kind of what you're saying with the skincare with the copper. Yeah, Yeah.
Nathalie Niddam (46:17.153)
In the bioregulator world, you have the natural bioregulators that are actual extracts from animal tissues versus a synthetic bioregulator where that amino acid sequence has been isolated and reproduced and resynthesized in a lab. So now it's synthetic.
Kim Vopni (46:29.902)
Replicate it. From what? What would they, so the natural from animal, the synthetic in the lab, where would that be? What are they using to source to create that with?
Nathalie Niddam (46:42.703)
So the synthetic in the lab is they're sourcing essential amino acids and they're a biochemist who's very skilled, knows how to get them to bind in a very specific configuration that creates that unit that then acts as the epigenetic switch.
Kim Vopni (46:49.773)
Yeah.
Kim Vopni (46:56.29)
Yeah, yeah.
Super fascinating. Super fascinating. Thank you so much. I always love your wisdom and your mind and everything that you share. Thank you for joining us today and sharing it with us. And I'll have everything in the show notes where people can find you. yeah, we'll see you. Maybe I'll see you in Austin. Thank you.
Nathalie Niddam (47:15.833)
Thanks Kim. Thanks for having me.
Kim Vopni (47:20.118)
Okay.
