Peptides vs Natural Supplements: What’s Superior? (Safety, Liposomes, & Personalization)

Nick Urban [00:00:07]:
Are you a high performer, obsessed with growth, and looking for an edge? Welcome to MINDBODY Peak Performance. Together, we’ll discover underground secrets to unlocking the full potential of your mind, body, and spirit. We’ll learn from some of the world’s leading minds, from ancient wisdom to cutting edge tools and everything in between. This is your host, Nick Urban. Enjoy the episode. What if your supplements are working against your body instead of with it? Today, I’m taking you behind the scenes with one of the great supplement formulators of our time to discuss how to formulate supplements properly, choosing the best ingredients, determining synergies between ingredients, and using your supplements to actually get the best possible results. So even if you’re not interested in professionally formulating your own supplement products and selling those, if your day includes taking multiple supplements or ingredients, in essence, you’ve become your own formulator. So in this one, we talk about formulation philosophy and working with your biology through a synergy of peptides, botanicals, and ethical ingredient sourcing.

Nick Urban [00:01:28]:
What that translates to is supplements that work. Our guest this week has been on the show before. His name is Kyle VanderLeest. He is a nutritionist, a naturopath, and functional health coach turned supplement formulator. And he founded LevelUp Health to create the products he wished he had when he worked in clinics and supplement stores and for his own use during his own health journey. LevelUp’s formulations target the root cause of health issues and work on a multitude of biochemical targets in the body. If you wanna check out the episode Kyle and I recorded together a while back, you can visit the show notes at mindbodypeak.com slash the number 1 11. Visit the URL outlier.com.

Nick Urban [00:02:16]:
That’s right. 0utliyr.com. No longer Mindbody Peak. We’re now outlier.com slash the number 208 for everything we discuss in this episode. And if you wanna try the Level Up Health products, you can use the code urban, and that will save you 15% on your order. Stick around because next week, Kyle and I dive into particular formulas and why he chose certain ingredients for certain outcomes. My favorite product of theirs is their Total Recomp formula, which is a metabolic optimizer and, as he calls it, exercise and weight loss in a pill. But he also has a solid formula for testosterone boosting called bioanabolic, a novel longevity product called Longevity, a powerful and peptide based brain supplement called NeuroRegenerate, and then a brand new supplement that’s just hitting the market called Mito Blue, and that is a methylene blue based product.

Nick Urban [00:03:17]:
The link to his supplement store will be in the show notes. And tune back in next week for a continuation of this interview where we also discuss things like why pre workouts fall short, how to correctly support performance, optimizing the metabolism and mitochondria through supplementation, proper detoxification with lots of hands on tips, product breakdowns, and practical approaches. Alright. Ladies and gentlemen, sit back, relax, and enjoy this conversation with Kyle VanderLeest. Kyle, you were back on the podcast in episode one eleven a long time ago. It’s great to have you back. Thanks

Kyle VanderLeest [00:03:55]:
for having me back, Nick. I was, just listening back to that one in prep for our podcast, and I was very happy with it. And I hinted to a lot of the products. I didn’t have them at the time, but now they’re out. And, yeah, you were you got the inside scoop into most of the, current level up range before it even existed.

Nick Urban [00:04:12]:
Yeah. And I’ve now tested most things, I think, that you’ve put out there. And one of the things that I love about the way you do things is you don’t just copy the formulas that everyone else is putting out. You really innovate and create next level, next generation formulas. And today, I wanna explore some of the different categories of products that you’ve created. Oh, yes. Formulas and formulas in those categories and then also to understand how you formulate in general and how you think about what’s gonna be the most efficacious and ideally with a really high safety profile.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:04:43]:
Yeah. So the industry is saturated. That’s one thing that’s absolutely no doubt. You go to a bio hacking conference, there might be 30 different brands doing some version of a longevity product or some t booster. So my thinking is how can I innovate this and really push the envelope? Obviously with my formulas, peptides have been the primary thing. That’s the point of difference. I don’t have them in everything, but there’s certainly new new era ingredients that I spoke about on the last one and I’ll speak about today. Things like horny goat weed, for example, is a test booster.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:05:16]:
That’s been used for decades. I remember as a kid laughing about it when I saw it in the supermarket in the in the grocery store, we laughing about that. And but that’s been around for ages because of primary constituents in it such as Ikarin, that’s a p d five inhibitor that helps the same mechanism as Viagra, essentially. So these constituents, these ingredients have always sort of existed in naturopathy, but the new era of supplementation is, I guess, science has unlocked the ability to extract these like, solid sides from ROD or COD from COD and kind of turn it from a full spectrum herbal extract into more of a targeted, almost drug like effect that coming from something natural And peptides are not too dissimilar for that. Like the thymus gland peptides, like TB five hundred or even dietxa that comes from the brain or, epitalon that’s from the pineal gland, BPC that’s from your gastric juice, finding the best of what our bodies inherently have or what the plant world, has and utilizes for things like resveratrol. We can isolate that. It’s a basically sunscreen for plants that has really strong antioxidant effects in the human body as well. That’s how I like to formulate with LevelUp is just to use these really powerful constituents, or in probiotics, postbiotics.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:06:42]:
Just there’s so many things now. And this is like, I’ve said it’s like a golden age of supplements at the moment where there’s just so many things coming out all the time. There’s innovative companies, doing these extracts, like companies like NMB nutrition, NMB and TSI. They, like, even the paraxanthine that we speak about too, like, we are getting so much more intelligent at providing ingredients for the supplement industry. And with people like Robert Kennedy in, in power now in, as the secretary of health, I really have a lot of optimism that on a macro level, these things from our niche of biohacking and our sort of non mainstream thinking will infiltrate the mainstream thought and start to get more, more use and, more awareness around it.

Nick Urban [00:07:30]:
Yeah. You’ve already mentioned a couple of them. Like, Para is one that’s now getting a lot of recognition. Same is methylene blue. That’s been blowing up in, like, the cultural general awareness, and biohackers have been talking about these things and using them for a lot longer than general public. And it’s cool to see them going more mainstream.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:07:49]:
Yeah. Exactly right. But I kind of now that I’ve got a position in the industry, I really want to try and lead by example by not using crappy fillers by not, by minimizing the things like use like sucralose and ACE and aspartame, all these other things that are in more in the bodybuilding space. But, Just doing it as well as I can is been my methodology because ultimately I’m the first person to use these products. And if the business ends, I will absolutely cock hold them all and be the last one to use them as well. So like it’s from selfish perspectives too. Like, I just want the best product for myself. I’m inherently don’t want to take, you know, pill organizer.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:08:32]:
Like my, like my grandmother would have with them instead of full of 40 different supplements. Like funnily enough, I simplify it down, but still end up doing that anyway, because it’s so many different formulas now with the brand that was meant to simplify supplements. It’s now got, like, 30 of them. But, Yeah. Things like the GI repair that we spoke about is like a protocol, a gut protocol in just one product. Botanabolic is, you know, I think there’s like 12 different botanicals and ingredients, probably less, more like 10, but, that is like a test boosting protocol in one bottle. And that’s essentially like the results of what drives the formulation. When I formulate, I look at if like brain health, for example, if that’s something you wanna target, well, how would you rather than looking at the ingredients first, I’ll look at the mechanisms first, Like BDNF, boosting BDNF.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:09:22]:
What what’s currently in the ether? Lion’s Mane. People have been talking about that. It’s gained a lot of popularity, just in mainstream. Even people like Jeremy Clarkson, he’s a British guy. He was growing it on his show in Amazon and it got a lot of popularity from that. And yeah, people just talk about these things pretty generically. But you know, mine’s main is kind of old news, and it’s not bad by any means. It’s fantastic.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:09:51]:
And that’s why I’d use that as a formula. And that’s like an entry point for people. Oh, it’s got lion’s mane in it. And then you can then go on to educate them about dihydroflover and DHF, which is like super lion’s mane. Or you can say, hey. You know, if you’re boosting BDNF at lion’s mane, then maybe you’ve heard of dye hexa. It’s, like, seven times more potent than endogenous BDNF or p 21 or cerebrolycin, these other peptides, which work similarly but significantly stronger than these botanical things. And then if what happens if you combine them? Well, that’s kind of my mad scientist way of formulating.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:10:26]:
Well, if this is good and this is good, and then you use things to enhance blood flow, and then maybe there’s a acetylcholine booster, then that’s gonna give you on the front end a bit of a nootropic boost, then you’ve got a pretty powerful formula that’s, you know, simplifies this big five, six, 10 product stack into sort of one to two capsules.

Nick Urban [00:10:45]:
Yeah. I like that. And so you’re taking the perspective, the approach of first looking at the outcome. What do you wanna do? Say you wanna improve brain health and performance. Then how do we go about that? What are the different mechanisms that we know of? And then choosing the ingredients after that. You’re not taking one or two or a handful of ingredients and then formulating products around those ingredients, are you?

Kyle VanderLeest [00:11:07]:
No. Exactly. When I like, an older product I have is called Complete Liver Complex. There were seven things I wanted to achieve with the product. That was to, support all six of the conjugation phase two pathways. I didn’t see a product out there that supported all of them. And then the other part of it was to recycle glutathione. So those were the goals, and then I sort of reverse engineered it to, you know, bring in some NAX, some some taurine, choline, alpha ALA, the and, what are the other ones? Like selenium, molybdenum, all those sort of things because they are the they’re the the cofactors or the precursors or whatever it is that goes into targeting these pathways.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:11:49]:
And that’s essentially how you get the effect. Right? It’s like, how do I I wanna you know, macroscopically, I wanna improve my liver, then you gotta go down a level like, alright. How does the liver work? Phase one, intermediary phase, phase two, and clearance. Alright. Well, there’s a lot there, so maybe let’s work our way back. You know, things like Globe Artichoke will, clear and help with bile flow, and then you’ve got NAC for glutathione, glutathione synthesis and recycling, and then all the other co factors boost. So every product has my best attempt. I might miss a few mechanisms here or there, but my best attempt to sort of hit all of the systems that go into a certain, certain health goal.

Nick Urban [00:12:31]:
And how are you settling on the dosages you’re gonna use? Because if you’re taking an individual isolate, it might be one dose, but if you’re taking it in conjunction with a bunch of other ingredients, perhaps you’re gonna use a smaller dosage. And then there’s also gonna be the the influence of bio individuality. Like, perhaps most people do better with six hundred milligrams of NAC than five hundred or eight hundred. And then I’m asking these questions because whether or not someone actually wants to become a supplement formulator and start their own business or not. If you’re taking multiple products at home, essentially, you’re becoming a supplement formulator to some degree because you’re creating your own formula that perhaps no one else is taking. So it’s helpful to know some of these things and how you’re making these decisions.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:13:16]:
Yeah. Well, always, always, always, when I choose an ingredient, I try my best. Sometimes it’s restricted by how much you can fit in the capsule, but I always try my best to get it within the clinical dosage range that, you know, you can find in studies. If they’re done on humans, if not, it’s kinda like, then you have to with peptides go maybe a little bit gray area into forums and people like, honestly, the forums for peptides are almost as good as the clinical studies because I think there’s more human research done, in those in a informal setting than there ever will be in a in a formal setting because of them not being patentable drugs that, you know, companies and pharmaceutical, models want to pour millions of dollars into. But, basically, understanding, alright. This is the range. This is the hypothetical range for peptides or with something like NAC, as you said, like, there’s very clear set guidelines for what the minimum effective dosage is. I would probably aim for somewhere in the middle of that and, you know, just sort of play around with it before I’d, you know, bring a product out to market.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:14:14]:
And then understanding synergy, when you combine ingredients, like the, the net sum of one ingredient plus one ingredient might be three. So you’d probably need significantly less of those two to achieve the same outcome. And that’s because instead of, like, with NAT, for example, if that’s the only thing you’re taking for liver health. You are going improve your liver health. It will in, it will help with phase two, glutathione conjugation pathways, and it’ll help recycle glutathione. So you’re hitting on two of those seven targets that I sort of said with the liver complex that I would target, and you will get some inroads, but by combining, NAC with glycine, with, taurine, with the Libdanum, then you kind of, and all the other things I use, or even DHM, as we discussed last time, you’re helping the liver in multiple ways and you need less of the knack because by supporting the other five pathways, the two that knack supports don’t have too much of a burden, or there’s not too much put on those ones to, achieve that outcome. And nootropics would be a similar, a similar thing to, liver comp, to liver detoxification where, like, when you look at neurotransmitters in the brain, if you wanna improve your cognitive function, you you can look at supporting dopamine and maybe you just take something like Mucuna prions to just give you the direct precursor to dopamine and you feel fantastic. But there’s so many different neurotransmitters in the brain.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:15:38]:
There’s so many different ways you can improve your cognitive performance that if you’re only pushing one pathway, then the dose of Mucuna is higher than if you were to just say, all right, I’m gonna take some L tyrosine, some N a L T or, you know, some Boca, some Ginko and some, Mucuna, then you’d need less of all of them to achieve that final outcome. So. Yeah. How do you formulate? Well, honestly, try it out yourself. Try not to hurt anyone by overdoing things. With Mucuna, like I’ve got nootropic products now. I’m not using that one because that has potential for dopamine Merit to down regulation. There’s a few other issues with it as well, though.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:16:18]:
So I wouldn’t use that one, but things like Ginkgo and Boco, these are traditionally used nootropics that just improve blood flow, improve dopamine, synaptic formation. They’re fantastic. And they’re very, very long use with a very well established safety profile. So you can use those ones. Things like Cooper’s a, very, very robust, evidence for improving, outcomes with things like Alzheimer’s, as an acetyl choline steroid inhibitor, it’s really good at giving you a a boost in cognitive function. So, I won’t get too deep into that one, but essentially, yeah, you dose it conservatively, understand synergy, and also make sure when you source these ingredients, you source them correctly. So you’re actually delivering what it is that you are trying to achieve. Not, you know, using like TUDCA.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:17:10]:
We spoke about before that’s an fantastic single ingredient. That’s a bile salt that reliably, if you’re using pure TUDCA, that’s tested will lower your liver enzymes by supporting bile flow by feeding the bile and, taking the burden off the liver. But, yeah, purity and testing’s important. And often if it, if a product like if you’re buying on Amazon, a product that’s $12 for like ninety capsules, that’s meant to support your liver. There’s a good chance. I mean, there’s a very, very good chance that that’s not gonna be dosed properly, probably has a proprietary blend that might use the cheapest possible ingredient that makes up 90% of the capsule. And then all the capsule. And then all the other ones that it claims to have in there, there’s no obligation for it to be more than one milligram.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:17:52]:
It’s the effective dose is, you know, eight hundred. So avoid proprietary blends. I always say proprietary blends are the coward’s way to make a product. Because because I I understand, like, you people can’t copy what you’ve done, but at the same time, then you can’t, like, claim to have a clinically dosed product, with, you know, integrity. And there’s nothing stopping one batch being done right and then the next one being completely done wrong. And that’s why I’ll never do proprietary blends with my products. And I think when people look buying things, avoid avoid them. And if the price is too low and too good to be true, it generally is.

Nick Urban [00:18:33]:
Yeah. Those are all great tips. And when I see proprietary blends, I always not not always, almost always steer the opposite direction. There’s the edge case where I know the person, I know they’re trustworthy, and then I will use them. I’m like, still, can you tell me what’s in here? I wanna know the details, the exact dosing I’m getting because you don’t know if you’re getting the clinical dose. And, also, you don’t notice you don’t know if you’re gonna be getting overlap between this and another product you’re taking, and you don’t wanna, like sometimes it’s fine. Sometimes there’s toxicity if you’re getting too much.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:19:02]:
Yeah. Exactly. One that I had to really be careful with was alpha GPC. I thought this is fantastic. I first started using it. My focus was up. My verbal fluency was really high. Then I started getting migraine like headaches because one of the products I was using had significantly more alpha GPS than I thought.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:19:19]:
They, they had it dose based on a, a, one, like an eight gram scoop yet the scoop was significantly larger. It was like more like a 12 to 13. So between that and another product I was taking, which had a little bit of it, I definitely went over the safe level and was getting really bad headaches from it. Like there’s always seemingly a, an inverse bell, a bell shaped curve where there’s the right dose for everyone. Too much is possibly problematic. Too little is not gonna be any effect. There’s a Goldilocks zone in the middle where from you know? And what that dose is is what you said before, bio individuality. Everyone’s got different genetics.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:19:55]:
Everyone’s got different, different burdens on their body, be it, you know, toxic burdens, be it, you know, gen genetic issues with a certain enzyme or pathway. So what one man’s favorite supplement like Ashwagandha might be another one’s anadonia where they don’t feel any good. So it’s really, yeah, you got that’s why in experimenting with these things, also working with someone who’s like a professional or an ex expert adviser who’s done what you and I have done where they’ve experimented with hundreds of compounds and can provide these insights. That’s really important as well.

Nick Urban [00:20:29]:
Yeah. And also for the substances that are older, there’s it’s much easier to find information on them, whether it’s anecdotal or it’s clinical. Oftentimes, it’s not clinical because no one’s gonna be making billions off of an ashwagandha extract unless it’s a patented version. And then even then but, like, you can find a lot of reports in line of the things that people are experiencing and negative side effects if there are any. But then also the newer molecules, that’s where I’m a little more cautious because you don’t know. Like, there’s not as much research on them obviously and there’s less anecdotes and that’s when I’m I do a little more research. But if it’s like an ancient adaptogen that’s been used for thousands of years, they tend to have a pretty decent safety profile. Or if it’s not a decent safety profile, you can at least find information around it.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:21:11]:
Yeah. Well, I’ll give you one perfect example of a product that I have that now we have a, like, it’s the only one that I’m like, maybe I shouldn’t sell it, but I it’s very good called tesafencing. Tesafencine is on paper, this amazing weight loss appetite suppressant, like an alternative to GLP ones, and it works really, really well as a thermogenic. I formulated I tried it from other companies at 500, was it micrograms, mill milligrams or micrograms? I’m pretty sure it’s micrograms. And and, yeah, I got the appetite suppressant effects, and I’m like, okay. Great. I’m gonna make this under level up, but I’m gonna do it really conservatively micrograms a capsule because I’ve seen, like, all these issues with, potential serotonin syndrome being a neuropeptide, one, a neuro small molecule that works as a triple, a triple uptake pre inhibitor of serotonin, dopamine, and noradrenaline. Like there is a, a bit of risk with this one, but I pushed forward through it.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:22:15]:
Sold about 80 bottles and then the feedback started coming through that, oh my goodness. I’m I’m wetting buckets for four hours. I’m salivating like a bulldog. I feel absolutely like I’ve had cocaine, and I’m like, okay. Let’s pull this from public sale and put, like, a a warning on it. If people wanna get it, then they need to read the fine print and, start low on it. Like, it’s very good. It certainly works as a appetite suppressant, as a thermogenic.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:22:43]:
There’s nothing more potent than I’ve ever taken. When I overdosed it at At two fifty micrograms of my one, which has albaba, which is also a thermogenic, mitochondrial lung coupler. And, what’s the other one? GBB, the precursor to L carnitine, that combination of those three, I was sweating. I don’t know if you’ve tried it personally, our one, but my goodness.

Nick Urban [00:23:04]:
Yeah. Well, yeah, a long a long time ago, I actually had a very similar story. I had used a number of times, the five hundred microgram version from other companies, and I’m like, oh, it’s only a hundred and 20 5 in Kyle’s product. Like, Kyle’s product. Like, this is nothing. I’ll I can take multiple. Luckily, I didn’t take multiple. I just took the one.

Nick Urban [00:23:21]:
And then half an hour later, I felt like I was in a sauna, and I was, like, sitting on a towel just, like, sweating. And I’m like, woah. This is intense. And then I sent you a voice message. I’m like, am I okay? Am I gonna live through this? And I’m like, wow. Okay. It’s interesting because the other party the other company had their third party COA saying that it was pure and everything, and the potency difference was massive. So I I I see what you mean there.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:23:46]:
Yeah. Which always makes me wonder, like, this is the state of the industry at the moment that I’ve said before is, like, you can get all these COAs, but then, like, what batch was that done on? And they guarantee that the dose that they put in it like, you can get your COA, but there’s no COA that you put exactly the microgram or milligram amount in each capsule. There’s no proof of that. You just tested the raw before it’s gone into the big batch and then mixed up and sent. So this is my gripe with, like, if you go on Amazon and you wanna find BPC, you can probably buy it for, let’s say, 50 us dollars or something that our product is 200 us dollars. And you look at the reviews, they’re like one star because have they even put BPC in it? Probably not at that price or if they have. And they’ve claimed it at at this March, like Sean Wells did a video where he said like 80% of products on Amazon, aren’t meeting the dosages of which they claim, to deliver. And then 20% of them don’t even have the actives that they actually claim to be in it.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:24:44]:
So this is the issue with the supplement industry at the moment. And, like, pharmaceuticals and the big pharma models, I hate I hate it in principle, but at least they’re giving you what you’re after. Like, there’s very strict standards. If they under dose a medicine or something, they’re in trouble. But the supplement industry powders pills, there’s so many different companies popping up nowadays. And, you know, to be completely honest, like there’s nothing stopping me, like having the dose of BPC and doubling my profits, but I just ethically promise I will never do that. And I hope people call me and test me on that because I, I handle my heart, never ever do that, but there’s very little stopping any business from doing that. So having really strong principle, like, I don’t know if I got into the ethical reasons of why I started level up in our last one, but I’ve had a lot of illness in my life.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:25:34]:
My mom had cancer for eight years. So a lot of the products that I’ve developed and a lot of the ingredients I know were come from a perspective of I’m trying to fix this illness of which, you know, there’s very little hope. She was given like two years to live and lived eight with all the alternative therapies, the hyperbarics, mitochondrial therapies, the push poll stuff, intravenous therapies and the most extensive supplement routine that, you know, what was my life basically trying to figure out, well, right, green ECGC and resveratrol and all these other things are gonna support her. So I’d go online, I’d buy it. I’d have a budget regrettably. So I’d, sometimes go the cheaper one. But from my perspective, like I’m using this for a medical purpose. I am need to know that what I’m giving my mum or taking for myself for multi detoxification or taking my partner for preconception support.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:26:27]:
I need to know that the ingredients that I am taking are exactly what’s listed on there. And that’s why now I don’t ever skimp on testing for my brand. So I know that I’m delivering what I promise on the label. But then when I buy other brands, I’m, like, gonna go for the one that’s probably a bit more expensive or a bit more of a recognizable brand because I’m, like, well, I’m not in the business of wasting time anymore. I don’t wanna slow down the results that I’m expecting or not get them at all by just saving $10 on a bottle and going at unknown entity or an unknown brands like it. There’s nothing saying that that won’t be what you after, but there’s also that risk that you don’t ever wanna take. So my reasons for doing this is I genuinely wanna make a difference in the world. That’s like the legacy I wanna leave and the products are doing that for now.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:27:15]:
And I sure as will do my best efforts to continue to make sure that they do that. And, I think the world needs this shift. Like there’s so much disease. Most people have some level of illness, especially in America and pharmaceuticals aren’t cutting it. So now’s the time for supplements to step up, do it right, and sort of take over.

Nick Urban [00:27:35]:
Yeah. I’m with you on that 100%. It’s interesting on the Amazon front. I always avoid Amazon when I can, because there are so many issues with their supplements. You can look at the reviews sometimes. It’s like one star took too long to arrive. Five stars arrived very quickly. It’s like, well, that has nothing to do with the actual product itself.

Nick Urban [00:27:54]:
And even then, a lot of the reviews are created by bots, and they’re not actual, like, human humans didn’t actually even consume the product. And then it’s like, this company has five products, and they have no fit like, no presence no digital presence, no physical presence. Never heard of them. Like, no one I know has ever heard of them or used them. And not only are you risking not getting the therapeutic effect that you’re looking for, but in a lot of cases as third party reports constantly show us, these things can contain other potentially banned substances, toxic substances, like heavy metals, microbes, things that you don’t wanna be consuming. So not only are you getting no beneficial effect, but you can even be getting a negative effect while thinking you’re getting a a high quality product at a great price.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:28:40]:
Yeah. This touches on, peptides, especially the injectable ones. I don’t sell injectable ones. Regulatory challenge, but there are other companies that do. And never ever ever ever ever ever ever cheap out on your injectable peptides because of LPS, heavy metals, contaminants, % of what you inject ends up in circulation and can go on to cause issues. People who are anti vaxxers will avoid vaccines for the adjuvant, the heavy metals, and yet they put are gonna risk taking heavy metals every day, every three days with injectable peptides. It’s kinda like, well, that’s such an issue here. No.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:29:13]:
No. You need to you make sure it’s not an issue over here as well. So, yeah, always get really good quality injectable peptides, oral peptides. It’s not as in as important. We do test for all those things on our website. The purity reports for every batch of peptides. Not every ingredient we use is tested. We have very, very good, very reputable suppliers who we just get the manufacturing reports from them.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:29:37]:
But yeah. Injectable versus oral, you don’t absorb a % of if like we had a really contaminated BBC, which we don’t, but if you did take it contaminated BBC, you’d only absorb 0.1%. Provided you didn’t have extensive hyper permeability of the gut. You’d only absorb about 0.1% of any heavy, most heavy metals like aluminum or mercury versus injectable. Yeah. Well, a % of that’s ending up in circulation. So, yeah, always source your injectable peptides from some, really reputable supplier.

Nick Urban [00:30:08]:
Yeah. And LPS and the injectables is an issue, and LPS is extremely inflammatory and dangerous and high levels. And are you seeing that in general, when people have gut dysbiosis, which is a large portion of the population, they’re still able to absorb and assimilate the peptides through the gut lining, and they’re still having the same biological effects. Because I know in certain cases, people are advised to use the injectables if they have, like, a really compromised gut.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:30:35]:
Well, it depends which peptide you’re trying to absorb. If it’s ones like the neuropeptides that we have, for example, like, a liposomal delivery of these thing will make it work regardless kind of of your integrity because the fat absorption provider, that’s not compromised. It’s you just may might not have a gallbladder, then, yeah, probably the fat absorption or you could do sublingual versions that would work better. But the the gut peptide I have two forms of GHK. I have it nonliposomal and liposomal. The liposomal form is to get it systemic as best as possible to have antiaging effects, to have effects on the skin. But then the non liposomal form is for it to directly in interact with the gut lining to have the same effects as it would have on your skin, on your inner skin, which is your gut lining. And when you if you were to take injectable BPC for gut health, that’s probably not gonna work as well as if you were to take an oral capsule that’s gonna get delivered to a compromised gut lining.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:31:28]:
These things do absorb pretty easily without the need. Like, it’s larger proteins that might be more compromised and more difficult to get absorbed, but they can act locally on the gut and then end up absorbed systemically. So if you were to take a peptide for an, a distal injury, then injectable’s better. But for gi repair, it is gonna be the better of the ways to deliver the gut peptides and then, natural, natural ones too. But yeah, like, what’s another one I got? TB four fragments, for example, if you were to take that one. We are live at booming it now, so this will become obsolete once this airs, but our prior one had sulfur eight sodium. And that is an interesting peptide absorption enhancer because paradoxically, the worst your leaky gut is possibly the better your peptide absorption will be. Right.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:32:21]:
Because these large molecules, like you’ve got this thing called the 500 kilo Dalton rule about peptide absorption through the skin and your gut. But if you bring in a cell Prozac sodium, that’s deliberately causing a transient increase in cell in, per permeability to allow the peptide to get in better. They’ve even got two hundred milligram, which is a massive dose of cell pro eight sodium with trezepatide and, Ozempic, as an oral capsule. And it’s very large. Normally it wouldn’t work, but that combination causes side to add transient leaky gut that the peptide actually is getting in and having oral effects as an oral peptide and oral, semaglutide. So, you know, I don’t think, I don’t think permeability really affects the, the, peptide absorption too much, but when it comes to nutrient absorption, mineral absorption, all the supportive things, and definitely can, because you, if you’ve got a like, minerals are absorbed through, certain receptors. They don’t just passively diffuse or they’re not absorbed through liposomes, fat soluble vitamins being, something different.

Nick Urban [00:33:29]:
But,

Kyle VanderLeest [00:33:29]:
you know, everything has its own way of getting into the body and to say, oh, I’ve got compromised gut. Therefore I don’t absorb everything. That’s not necessarily true. And conversely, I think you might absorb peptide better and maybe the best thing for you to take versus I’m gonna take zinc to help my, my gut. Yeah. That will help. But how much of the zinc are you gonna absorb with, like, metalloprotein protease issues or things like that? So

Nick Urban [00:33:51]:
After our last conversation, you’d convinced me to do a deep dive into TUDCA. And I did that and I used it for a while. I tried all kinds of different dosages. And I realized if someone’s taking a lot of different substances, say herbs, which are notoriously contaminated with heavy metals and other stuff that you don’t want, especially from the more affordable sources, it makes sense to help your liver and body process things more efficiently to support it with, like, something like TUDCA. What do you think about that? Do you think that’s a legit strategy that might help?

Kyle VanderLeest [00:34:20]:
I mean, depends how many things you throw in at yourself. Right? Like, TUDCA is just gonna help phase three. And if I like, you and a me are probably the same. We probably in one day have a hundred different things from our food and our supplements coming with of which most things require peptides being probably Most peptides being an exception, but most things almost everything is processed through your liver or your kidneys, even natural things. If you overdo it on natural things, then then you can have issues with, you know, overwhelming all of those phase two detoxification pathways and the conjugation pathways. And even certain probiotic species, like, depends on what you got bacteria you’re doing. If you’ve got, you know, gram gram negative, gram positive, overgrowths of fungus or bacteria, then they all produce pro postpartic things that could be good things like your lift or it could be bad things like LBS, you know, everyone’s bio individuality is so different, but by taking something like to, there’s again, like this bell shaped curve to the perfect amount. If you don’t have enough totega, you’ll end up with fat in your stall that’s being under absorbed, and you end up with a movement that floats in the toilet.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:35:29]:
Again, you can see, like, fat in it. And in that case, totega is great. The opposite end is you end up getting what’s lovely. It was described by one of my mentors, the squirts, where you just don’t have it, a form bowel, and you can see like bile and yellow in the, in the bowels too. So again, it kind of comes down to this Goldilocks zone. If you’re a bodybuilder and you’re taking oral Anavar that’s gonna tank your liver or, you know, other steroids, or if you’re a biohacker like Brian Johnson and you probably take a hundred supplements a day, then, yeah, probably probably give you a little a little support with another supplement. But, you know, this one’s gonna work, in synergy with what your body is meant to be doing anyway with bile.

Nick Urban [00:36:08]:
Would it also help you absorb fat soluble substances more effectively? Like, I I know nutrients, like the vitamins, the fat soluble vitamins. But what about, like, say, nootropics that are fat soluble also?

Kyle VanderLeest [00:36:19]:
Definitely. I mean, a a, d, e, and k, you know, toga helps the absorption of those. So if the you know, like a liposomal peptide or any anything that’s, fat soluble, it will absorb better with if you’ve got if you’re making bile and you’ve got, you know, a bile sold or an ox bile. With our TUD can now, we have three different iterations of it. We just had the one at the start. But for some people who are in mold like myself, 500, if it’s the first time you’re using it, that will give you the worst Herxheimer because you’re clearing all the mold toxins and all the backlog that’s in your liver. So we have a lower dose with taurine, which is, like, the gentle approach to doing it, which, honestly, I am more of an advocate for now than just going whole hog on it. When it comes to, detoxification, it’s a a low and slow process.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:37:01]:
You don’t wanna create excessive inflammation in a body that’s already overburdened. Then the other one, is just to support by digestion and liver health at the same time, which is our tug ox product, which we only released about two weeks ago. And people were like, oh, I take ox bile. Can I take two? I’m like, you know what? We should just combine the two, you know, that’s cover all basis. Help Oxbile will help, and Todka will both help with fat absorption and digestion. People who don’t have a gallbladder, like, that is almost your daily staple. That is a medicine, not a supplement to take that every day.

Nick Urban [00:37:32]:
And that’s Oxbile contains Todka as one of the active ingredients in it?

Kyle VanderLeest [00:37:36]:
Yeah. Yeah. It’s Todka, Todka, oxycholic as like a a spectrum of all the, bile acids are in desiccated, ox bile. And then tadka is probably the most beneficial of that. So by taking the best of that ox of that bile combined with the rest of it, you’ve got a really good full spectrum of bile acids.

Nick Urban [00:37:55]:
By taking bile acids, you’re not gonna down regulate your natural production.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:37:58]:
Oh, the people who need them the most are going to not have a a cold bladder, but you don’t tend to do that. No. Todd care isn’t natural. Isn’t Todd care itself is actually dependent on you having specific bacterial populations that conjugate, which your body can make with taurine. So if you’re a vegan and you’re not taking any, you’re not getting any significant amount of taurine in your diet, you’re not gonna have a very good liver health potentially because, you know, of the lack of taurine, unless you’re fortifying your diet or you’re complementing taurine. And you also need the right bacteria species, which is where bio individuality comes in. I’ve forgotten the bacteria species off the top of my head, but there’s a certain one that helps conjugate that taurine with the bowel. And then, you know, the totega then gets reabsorbed or or used, in the gut.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:38:47]:
So, yeah, it’s a complicated one. And I don’t think it’s one that downregulates because your body doesn’t make TUDCA as that molecule. And I don’t think taking TUDCA is gonna downregulate your deoxycholic acid production. And again, like, if you don’t have enough cholesterol too, that’s the, that’s the most upstream of all the bile acids. They’re all made from cholesterol. So not avoiding eggs or being on statins might result in deterioration in liver health and, impaired fat absorption too. So there’s so many mainstream or maybe you’re trying to do the right thing, you need health, and you’ve just been misinformed and you’ve gone vegan vegan, or your doctors put you on statins so you don’t absorb cholesterol. Well, then you’re not gonna have co Q ten and then you’re probably not gonna make bile acids properly.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:39:26]:
So there’s just so many different landmines when you, I don’t know, take some bad advice that result in problems. So

Nick Urban [00:39:33]:
That’s one side. You mentioned a couple different things and considerations when you’re building supplement stacks. Another thing that I noticed that you do differently, which I don’t know why no one else does. It seems so intuitive and obvious intuitive and obvious is that when you have an active ingredient in, say, a capsule that holds five hundred milligrams of substance, say, the peptide takes up half a milligram or one milligram, you have 499 to use. Most people fill it with really cheap fillers like magnesium stearate and silicone dioxide, a lot of them. You don’t do that. You actually add functional ingredients as the filler.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:40:10]:
Yeah. Why? Why would you? I mean, money, but that’s fundamentally it, isn’t it? Like a rice flower or a cellulose, microcrystalline cellulose is for a whole production run, probably $5 versus if I use PEA, which I use for most of the peptides, it’s gonna add a significant cost per unit, not just for the whole production run. So, yeah, it’s, it’s a decision, financial decision that businesses make. And I understand it. If all people really want the active, then does it really matter what the rest is? In my opinion? Yes. You’ll get the product to work better, but other peoples don’t necessarily need to do that. So, I mean, each to their own, but I definitely want PA as an anti inflammatory, as a painkiller to work with BPC, which is going to then address the root cause of why you’d need a painkiller and an anti inflammatory to begin with.

Nick Urban [00:40:54]:
I know you have a postbiotic metabolite of this in one of your products. Did you consider using Shilajit or fulvicumic acids, anything like that to enhance absorption across your formulas?

Kyle VanderLeest [00:41:09]:
So AstraZen is one that we’re going to start using to enhance amino acid absorption. Bio is another one that people use, and that works like cell pro sodium. It creates transient permeability. What was it again? The four Vicumic, I haven’t seen good evidence that that does increase absorption of other ingredients, so I’ve not really like, it’s not been on my radar, but the astro estrogen definitely has. In something like the tributerine that you’re talking about, the postbiotic of butyrate, that is going to not need to have improved permeability or absorption because that will get used by the enterocytes directly from the gut. It not doesn’t necessarily need to enter circulation. So for that particular one, that nuance, it’s probably not necessary, but, yeah, absorption enhances. I I I have pivoted towards liposomes.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:42:04]:
I think they are the gold standard in getting things into the body, Whether it’s necessary for a compound or not, that’s sort of where you have to do your your intelligent discernment. Like, I’ve not bothered liposaming BPC. I don’t think it makes any significant difference to absorption with what I’ve done already with just delayed release capsules and bicarbonate. Like that’s protecting it for the most part. And then it gets into the ileum and can absorb it about an eighty to ninety percent, the, rate orally versus other things like GHK

Nick Urban [00:42:33]:
Compared to what, like, what’s a typical BPC? It’s not arginate. It’s the other form of the C.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:42:39]:
The one that people inject. That will that other weak bonds to the peptide.

Nick Urban [00:42:44]:
But, like, what are the cheap oral supplements use that is not the I think it’s not not the arginate form.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:42:50]:
There’s a few different forms, and you can custom synthesize now. So you could probably just put it on whatever you want. Very expensive to do that. So that’s why it’s not happening yet. And arginate’s working really well anyway. That’s used to be called diogen, which was the orally bio avail, most orally bioavailable form. And it was studied for bioavailability by that company until they lost their patents. So now that’s why it’s no longer diet and everyone just uses Arginate BPC.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:43:17]:
The acetate’s what you’d inject does not need to, it can, does not need to be arginate. If you’re injecting it, like injection just bypasses the need for it to be bound to the, arginine salt. And, yeah, it will, I think the estimates from Diogen is about 80 to 90%. It’s withstands even without these acid buffers, it withstands the acid for, like, six hours at about an 80% rate. If you put an entirely coded delayed release capsule, then it’s not even having to be exposed to the acid theoretically. Or if it is, then, you know, the capsule’s probably broken. That’s like not the point of a delayed release capsule, But, then you’ve got things like bicarbonate and just simply by not taking it with food, your stomach acid’s not gonna be as high. So, intelligent delivery of peptides and of all molecules and all nutraceuticals is how you make them work better.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:44:08]:
And that’s why liposomes, I honestly see is that, you know, you can take them sublingually. You can use even liposomes to improve penetration of things through the skin barrier or, liposomes to get into the brain. Yet, if your liposome a a larger peptide, like fats get through your skin better than if, you know, if they’re just sort of sitting there that every ingredient has its, tendencies to be more fat soluble or more water soluble or work at better PHs. So, but liposomes are how I’ve I’ve attempted to get GHK to work better systemically. As I said, I don’t always liposome it for the gut effects. But t b four eight the AC fragments, the active fragments of TB four, AKA natural TB five hundred. They, if you don’t buffer them and you don’t liposome, you probably only gonna get about a ten percent survival of these ten to twenty percent survival of these same with KPV and GHK. Like they are weaker than BPC.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:45:05]:
BPCs made in the stomach acid. So even if you were to take acetate, you still probably get thirty to forty percent of it provided you don’t have really strong acid churning at, at that point in time.

Nick Urban [00:45:14]:
When you say take acid, you mean if you were to orally consume acid?

Kyle VanderLeest [00:45:18]:
Exactly. Yes. No, no capsule. You just take your injection and not inject in your mouth, but just shoot the solution and drink it. Like, it will have some local effect as well. Like, it it doesn’t not work. It just doesn’t work to the level that you’d need it to. And then if you wanted it to work on your a distal injury like a, you know, RSI on your wrist or a golfer’s elbow or something, it wouldn’t you wouldn’t get any significant amount of it.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:45:43]:
So that’s why using the forms like acid, arginate are are better. And then liposyming, honestly, is my way it’s like the third layer of protection. So I’d have a delayed release capsule. I’d have some acidity buffer like bicarbonate or sulfur proteate sodium. And then the liposome as well is like, you’ve got three ways to protect the peptide and then the liposome to improve delivery systemically. That’s an intelligent formula. And that’s how I like to do things. Right.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:46:11]:
So doing that properly is very difficult, very time consuming and very expensive. So the newest product I have that I. Painted to on the last one is called neuro regenerate. It’s got a triple liposomal neuropeptide combination of an acetal Cmax P 21 and D hexa. This is possibly boring to people. So if you don’t care about manufacturing processes, skip this next minute. But to to get these right, you have to custom synthesize most of these peptides because they’re very difficult to source, and p 21 specifically is not much of it out there. Then you have to liposome them in liquid as most liposomes are liquid and you take them as a liquid.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:46:51]:
But I don’t like liquids, and they don’t have a very good stability. So then we freeze dry it, which takes about three weeks in a freeze dryer. And then along the way, you have to test the liposomes to make sure they’re still stable. And if you do it too fast or too slow, then the stability of the liposomes might be compromised. So it’s kinda like baking a cake. You have to do it right. And, you know, there’s a lot of companies doing liposomes now. And all they might do is just put some phospholipids with an ingredient and, you know, give it five minutes and say done.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:47:22]:
But in reality, you don’t have a liposome. You’ve just got phospholipids that are broken down after five minutes after you’ve liposome them and the other active ingredient. But to do it right is a very expensive time consuming process, and that’s honestly I apologize, but that’s why the product is so expensive, and doing it right. Yeah. The more we do it, the cheaper it’ll get. For the first run. It’s just been this exorbitantly expensive process that there’s no getting around it. I can’t not make a little bit of money off a product.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:47:52]:
So, to do that right with the GHK and now with neuroregenerate has been a a process, but not necessary for BPC and other things you can get away with not doing the very expensive liposome process.

Nick Urban [00:48:04]:
Wow. I did not realize the process to formulate Neuroregenerate is that intense.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:48:10]:
Nice to see. Spoke about it in 02/2023. I hinted that I was gonna bring it out, and it didn’t launch until about three months ago, four months ago. So it’s yeah. It’s been a very long process to do it right. And we had to do so many different runs, and we got the universities to test liposomes to make sure that was still stable. And, yeah, they’re they’re stable, but my goodness, it took a while and to upgrade equipment and oh my goodness. Yeah.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:48:33]:
I won’t rant about manufacturing too much. So I’ll get back to my old and things for people.

Nick Urban [00:48:38]:
I wanna explore that formula because you mentioned it’s a nootropic. I’ve talked about those a bit on the show previously, and those are basically substances that improve cognitive function, brain health, other related facets of human performance and wellness. Why would someone wanna use neuroregenerate instead of the perhaps original nootropic, which is the simple combination of caffeine or coffee and a little bit of L theanine?

Kyle VanderLeest [00:49:06]:
Well, you can use those. They’re gonna be a transient boost to your neurotransmitters. But this one, I kind of like the purpose behind this isn’t to make people’s brains just be like, duh, duh, duh, go, go, go. I’ve had a bang energy or a mon energy. Like, you can get really good cognitive effects from caffeine, l theanine, and, things like, alternatives, like, paraxanthine. They’re really good. They are gonna work. But supporting blood flow to the brain, really working on the naphthogenesis, boosting neuroplasticity.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:49:40]:
And my, my why behind creating that was for my dad. He was developing what I call early signs of Alzheimer’s repetition, like four or five times the same story. And I’m like, I’ve seen I know I think I know what this is. And my father’s father, my grandfather had Alzheimer’s, so it’s in our family. Like, I’m gonna have to do something about this. So I look at all the natural ingredients that might help Alzheimer’s, ginkgo and bacopa. They’re your no brainers. Gotu kola is a naturopathic blood flow enhancer.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:50:09]:
It helps to varicose veins. Just to leave it in the brain too, it can have some really good nootropic effects, and it helps like, there’s compounds in it which help protect neurons from, like, antioxidant effects. Huperzine a is one I spoke about that works, inhibitor of acetylcholine. So that helps with, you know, boosting that similar to how, like, alpha GPC will. That will provide the choline, but huperzine prevents the breakdown of acetylcholine. So those two together will work really well for boosting that one neurotransmitter. Working on the theory of type three Alzheimer’s, type three diabetes equals Alzheimer’s. I included dihydroberine, the, upgrade to regular berberine to sort of stabilize blood sugars.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:50:53]:
Naset is an ingredient I spoke about with you last time, the upgrade on NAC, that can cross the blood brain barrier, increase glutathione levels in the brain. Terris, still being fantastic for brain health, the active in, I believe, blueberries. Like, one of the re like, blueberries are very well studied for Alzheimer’s as a functional food, and people you know, if you there’s absolutely no reason unless they’re not organic to just eat a heap of blueberry. Carnivores, don’t don’t me. Blueberries are great. But then this is the point of difference. Right? Like, that product and include Lion’s Mane, as we spoke about before, if that’s all you took, you’re probably gonna make some really good inroads into your brain health, in actually supporting brain health, in the structures, in the synapses, in the myelination of of the brain. Whereas if you just take caffeine and theanine, there’s nothing really in those compounds apart from I guess, if it’s from coffee, you you get some of the constituent with coffee that might support it.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:51:49]:
But there’s nothing that’s actually working on the framework of the brain to support it and make it grow and help it, help reverse any, issues with it. So that’s where the peptides will come in. Things like dihexa supports BDNF, BDNF being miracle growth for the brain. P twenty one is derived from cerebrolysin. So cerebrolysin is peptide isolated from animal brain tissue that very, very powerfully, anecdotally is helping reverse people conditions with Alzheimer’s. I’m not claiming this or do it, but that is my overall thought process of if I had Alzheimer’s, this is the product that I would take in all the ingredients that I would use. And then Cmax is fantastic as a nootropic too. I included that, and there’s some really good studies suggesting that it might help with that as well as boosting BDNF.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:52:39]:
So boost BDNF, increase blood flow, and modulate neurotransmitters. Those, you’ve asked how I formulate. Those were the three key targets. Oh, and then type four type three diabetes with the metabolic health of the brain. Those were the sort of the four or five targets that I had. And then I just formulated around that with what I found to be the best ingredients for that.

Nick Urban [00:52:59]:
So with certain ingredients, the one I’m thinking of is huperzine. It has a very long half life. It lasts in the body a long time. How do you recommend someone use this type of product given that each of the substances are are gonna last for different durations?

Kyle VanderLeest [00:53:15]:
With peptides, all peptides, I recommend cycling them just because they will work on receptors. They will transcribe proteins. They’ll do lots of things. But if you’re constantly hitting that target, and even certain naturopathic things that aren’t peptides, I recommend cycling things. I always think that’s a good idea. Coffee being an like, it there’s a different mechanism, but caffeine’s gonna be the same thing. Like, if you bring it in and then take it out, it’s gonna continue to work better. Huapizine does have a long half life.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:53:41]:
So it’s not something you need to take every day. And I believe the effect of these things, if you were to take it for about a week and then take maybe two to three days off, that should be enough to resensitize the receptors for the peptides and then like any issues with the huperzine a then, yeah, I feel like that possibly would offset that as well. Huperzine is one that I have not had personally had any issues taking in a prolonged for a prolonged period of time. And again, bio individuality, take a Braverman test, see where your neurotransmitters are at, or even on, like, the, was it the Dutch test or the organic acids test? Sorry. You can see your metabolites of, of your neurotransmitters have a really good understanding of what your dopamine, your serotonin, your acetylcholine, your GABA, your glutamine, your histamine, all of these things that go into making who making your brain, making a personality, who you are, seeing where they’re all at. And, my mate Lucas calls it cosmetic neurology, where you essentially get to play around with different compounds to alter each of these neurotransmitters for a period of time, for whatever favorable outcome you want. Maybe you wanna be more sociable. You’ll take things that increase GABA.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:54:55]:
You know? Yeah. Like, DHM is one of those things that we spoke about in the last one that people will have alcohol because it increases reduces their, social anxiety and decreases inhibition. Like, DHM will do that as well, or you can take altheonine, which will reduce your anxiety. But then if you wanted to, again, boost your dopamine to feel more confident and to have more drive, l tyrosine, rhodiola, mucuna, they’re all fantastic things you can bring in for a short period of time or, you know, long if you, you know, if it’s not causing side effects. And, again, this is like, supplementation, like, next level and this extreme, I guess, biohacking supplementation does require you to be well in tune with your body and to not over rely on anything like Qualia or or neurogen or any of these nootropic mushrooms or anything like that. Like if you develop a dependence on it, then I don’t feel like you’re truly going at the upstream part of. You’re not really targeting anything upstream. It’s more of an an a green allopathy, a naturopathic band aid for a bigger problem.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:56:02]:
So neuro regenerates definitely not designed for daily use unless you’ve got a neuro develop, a neuro degenerative condition that you’re trying to either reverse or target. I take it when I do podcasts. I need my brain working. I want to come across intelligent and to share my ideas without having brain fog, so that’s why I take that. And I do combine it with caffeine too. There’s a synergy between all these ingredients, but I don’t take it every day. I don’t need to take it every day. If you do need to take it every day, then, you know, work with a provider to target the why you need to take it every day and use that as a tool in your tool belt.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:56:41]:
But yeah, again, everything has its dose on that bell shape curve, including things like Cuisine and the neuropeptides

Nick Urban [00:56:50]:
And including caffeine. And I think it’s late over there for you. So I hope you didn’t take any caffeine

Kyle VanderLeest [00:56:54]:
in the morning. It’s perfect timing. Oh, okay.

Nick Urban [00:56:57]:
Early in the morning. Gotcha. And then you keep referencing the importance of, like, assessing where you are, whether it’s just, like, introspection or interoception of, like, knowing where you are, how does this affect you, positive or negative? Because you might use the clinical dose of whatever it is, but you have the genetics or the constitution, whatever you wanna call it, that doesn’t respond favorably. And in fact, no matter how much of this substance you use, you feel bad. So then you just don’t continue using that substance. You mentioned Braverman test being one of them and the organic acids test, the oat test, as another. Are there any other things, whether it’s a physical test you can do, an assessment, or things that you like to notice when you’re experimenting with these compounds or stacks of multiple compounds?

Kyle VanderLeest [00:57:43]:
Yep. I’ll I’ll broad level start with it. Like, how do I feel? Like, actual interceptive thought like, how do I feel? How’s my energy today? That’s cheap, free, and easy. Everyone can do that. If you feel terrible, then, alright, we got some work to do. Easy intervention. Sorry. I didn’t put the finger up, but you’re just showing my the Oura ring, that’s a great tool, or the root band or any sort of thing that can measure your sleep.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:58:09]:
If you’ve got HIV fluctuations, you’ve got a really low HIV, O ring even tells you your stress levels now. That’s another really good tool that I think most people of your audience will have some level of metric or measurement of that. Bloods annual blood tests are really important to see where you’re tracking. When I was last spoke to you, I constantly had liver issues despite having all these things because of ridiculous levels of toxic black mold that were in my environment that, hey. It’s funny. You move out of one house into the next thinking, great. Done. Fixed.

Kyle VanderLeest [00:58:39]:
I can I’m out of this now. Let’s get it out. And then, you know, you’d just look behind a wall or I’m lift up a floor and, again. So mold’s been a big problem for me and homocysteine levels. There’s there’s just like, we are, as I said, for supplements in a golden age of supplements, but testing too. Like, it’s never been easier. Companies like Ways to Well, for example, there’s,

Nick Urban [00:59:00]:
I

Kyle VanderLeest [00:59:00]:
think, plenty of other ways that you can just get all the testing that maybe your doctor doesn’t know about. And even there’s so many functional medicine doctors out there now in my bubble. I don’t know for the layperson how easy it is to find someone like that, but organic acids test for just, like, your general urine retest, very easy to do, rather expensive, but it gives you a very good, like it’s almost like taking your car to the mechanic and getting a a a progress, a a overall systems report on how things are going. From that, it can tell you things like, alright, you’ve got some bacterial overgrowth, or maybe there’s a bit of mitochondrial dysfunction, or you have issues with fatty acid metabol metabolism. It’ll say where your neurotransmit it’ll give you a general advice on where your neurotransmitters are at or Krebs cycle, all these other things like that one is a really great starting point. Blood tests are more cheap, but depending on how extensive you do it, they can be a fantastic resource. And I think they are important to stay on top of, especially when you’re younger too, getting a good baseline for when your body’s working, you know, hopefully, the best it’s meant to, the best it should be. Dutch test, if people are having hormonal issues, a lot of women benefit tremendously from getting a Dutch test.

Kyle VanderLeest [01:00:15]:
It’ll tell you not only where a full range of your hormones are at, but the metabolites of them and how it’s clearing and how your body is metabolizing things like estrogens. One, two, and three estrogens, and then the metabolites, the four, the eights, and the sixteens. Like, where you’re at with all those is super important too. The Braverman test is like a free it’s because neurotransmitters are basically what your brain’s doing, you can just take a a test online. I think it’s free. There’s a version that makes it pay, but I like that one because it’s free. It takes, like, fifteen, twenty minutes, and you can get a really good sense of where you’re at neurologically. And then, yeah, I guess that covers most of the basis unless there’s some I miss.

Kyle VanderLeest [01:00:54]:
Like, if you’ve got gut issues, then maybe a microbiome test, a a a fecal microbiome test, which is a bit gross to do. But there’s so many different ways we can figure things out and what’s going on in our body now that I’m just, like, great. You know, I don’t see there being anything that you can really miss if you know all the if you have a practitioner who has all the tools and knows all the all the testing that you can do for it. But, again, like, this is just a snapshot and a point in time. It’s a very valuable snapshot, but, you know, what what you do now versus what you do in thirty days’ time, they they need to change. Like, because what you’re gonna how you are going to intervene from what these tests say. It needs to be some level of follow-up. Like, a mycotoxin test is something I’ve run six times now just to see where my level of, of, mold toxin is because that’s been the biggest driver of all these other issues.

Kyle VanderLeest [01:01:41]:
And I’ve progressively seen it go down when we moved house, but then another one went up because of different species in there. So, you know, that being able to, to track it is very important. And, and then, you know, it, it, it all, it all works in together as a system. So when you do the blood test for the organic acids test, for the mycotoxin test, you’ve got a very clear picture if you can understand it or if your practitioner can understand it of where your health’s at and, you know, what supplements or what dietary intervention you would be most appropriate for you based on those.

Nick Urban [01:02:11]:
Yeah. I’m with you on that. And then I think also keeping, as you mentioned also, a subjective log of how you’re doing, whether it’s your energy levels, your stress, because you might see certain things show up quantitatively on your blood work, your aura ring. It’s not gonna tell you how your mood was necessarily or how your stress was, how your productivity was. But those things tend to matter a lot when you look back in hindsight. If your blood markers improve a bit, but now you feel depressed and you feel lethargic, it might not show up in your quant quantitative markers, but you’ll notice it in your qualitative markers subjectively. So having the full range of the qualitative and the quantitative together paints a big high level picture. And that is something that, like, the more data you have around it, obviously, the more informed your choices, the easier it is to tailor your interventions that you choose, whether they’re supplements or something else.

Kyle VanderLeest [01:03:07]:
Exactly right. That’s what we refer to broadly as the health optimization. Isn’t it? We have all the all the tools and all the data. So it’s why we’re in a golden age of it now.

Nick Urban [01:03:16]:
Exactly. Well, Kyle, we are gonna continue on a another episode that’s gonna come out next week. And if people want to connect with you to check out the level up health products to follow you on social media, where can they find you?

Kyle VanderLeest [01:03:32]:
Our website is leveluplvluphealth.com, and level up health on Instagram are the two pretty much exclusive ways to still two years ago, it was the same, to contact me and to see what the brand’s doing. We have a newsletter now. It’s pretty active. Never had one until the last sort of six months. So we’re always sharing information like this, but more, like, easy to digest. Just one email will tell you a little bit about Hoopazine or go to Kohler or why we include DHM or PA in our formulas. So between the newsletter, the website, and Instagram, that’s, yeah, the best way to to keep tabs on what on and level up are

Nick Urban [01:04:12]:
doing. Yep. And your newsletter I got today said that your pre workout is robbing your gains. And so we’re gonna dissect that in the next one because I stopped using pre workouts for many years, and I recently started. So stay tuned for that. If you guys wanna try Level Up Health products, you can use the code urban, and I think that’ll save you 15% on your order. And until next time, I’m Nick Urban here with Kyle VanderLeest signing out from mindbodypeak.com. Have a great week, and be an outlier.

Nick Urban [01:04:39]:
Thank you for tuning in to this episode. Head over to Apple Music, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and leave a rating. Every review helps me bring you thought provoking guests. As always, you can find the show notes for this one at mindbodypeak.comslash, and then the number of the episode. There, you can also chat with other peak performers or connect with me directly. The information depicted in this podcast is for information purposes only. Please consult your primary health care professional before making any lifestyle

Kyle VanderLeest [01:05:20]:
changes.