#1 Cellular Health EXPERT: Most Longevity Advice Gets It Backwards

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Since 2011, that's 15 years you've been working in the peptide industry.

I'm going to list you my favorites, okay? And I'm going to tell you what category they fall into.

Chronic pain. Yes. And healing. I want to do that one too.

Absolutely. First of all, like I mentioned, when I started this, there was nothing to pick from like this. Now there's literally something for almost everything, and that's what I love about this. And I, I will argue that all diseases really start within the cell. I mean, generally speaking, most all diseases start from high levels of inflammation and cellular, you know, free radicals spilling out from senescent cells or whatever the case. But the mitochondria itself is one of the most important aspects of our entire body. I am your host, Stassi Schroeder. Welcome to Tell Me Lies, the official podcast. What's the most unhinged thing of season 3? Steven, because he's so evil.

I do think he is misunderstood.

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You know, right now it seems like people are chasing longevity more than ever before, but the problem is a lot of people are doing it the wrong way and they're doing it backwards. They're trying to manipulate their hormones, they're experimenting with peptides, not knowing which one to take, and they're following, uh, sometimes the optimism of friends or online influencers which aren't backed by the scientific evidence and the correct principles. Well, today I've brought on a guest, Dylan Gemelli. He spent years studying natural performance, hormones, peptides, cellular medicine, and longevity. And today we're gonna have a conversation about how to heal your body at the cellular level with peptides, with prayer, and with natural medicine. Dylan, welcome to the show.

Man, thanks for having me here. It's a real honor and pleasure to be out here with you today.

Well, you've got such a great background. I know that you've been in the peptide industry for 15 years. You spent a lot of time learning about hormones, teaching people about cellular medicine, nutrition. I know you're a nutritionist yourself, and so excited to dive into all these topics today. So thanks for coming on.

When I was doing my YouTube channel, I utilized your information for all of the diet content that I was doing at the time. And I was a nutritionist, but you know, you had so many concepts and things that I wasn't aware of at the time. And I was like, okay, I'm not going to steal his info, but I'm definitely going to use it to help me. It helped a ton.

That's what it's there for, you know.

Super good resource. And I, I still remember doing a video on potassium-rich foods, was one of the ones I remember, and that was what led me to you. And I inundated myself with a lot of your work back then. So it's, it's an honor, man, to sit here with you.

Can I tell you what's so funny? Thinking back, I did this whole series on, you know, on draxe.com on these, you know, on potassium-rich foods, magnesium-rich foods, vitamin D-rich foods. And at the time, I was— first off, I, I shouldn't have been spending my time probably doing this, but I love— like, I loved writing for draxe.com, loved creating those articles. So I remember going and I'm actually the one that created the memes for that, like the infographics. I'm not a designer, but, you know, it's a, yeah, my philosophy has always been, let's first use food as medicine. You know, I know you've also talked about things like hormones and hormone replacement therapy and those types of things. Most of the time when people are struggling with a health problem, they first are saying, what supplement can I take? What drug can I take? Maybe even what hormone I can take.. But I think the first thing most people should be asking is, if I've got a magnesium deficiency, likely people should be saying, what are the top 10 magnesium-rich foods, right, that I can start, start eating, right? As a nutritionist, I know that's something probably, you know, you're probably focused on.

Well, everybody's always so looking for a quick fix, right? And it's, it's like a supplement generally. And in my world that I came from, in the bodybuilding world, it was like a performance enhancer. But the key to everything is starting at the core, and that would be the food. Everything should come from food first. And I battled this with protein powders and everybody trying to overcompensate for what they're lacking in their diet. And everything starts there— your vitamins, your minerals, everything. You go there first. That's why things are called a supplement, because you're supposed to supplement them, not rely and depend on them. And I get it, it's real easy to become dependent on anything. That's right. And, you know, one of the things that I've learned over the years, and I'm suffering with potassium deficiency now, I'm taking Jardiance and it's just draining me of electrolytes. And I started to have heart palpitations like crazy. And, you know, if your electrolytes are off, you have a heart rhythm issue. Yeah. And muscle cramps and twitches. And I— the everything aligned for me. So you have to really be aware and, and look at numbers and be aware of your body. And understand the side effects.

Well, this is another reason why— I mean, I love doing the right type of blood work on, on patients. You know, most— the problem is most medical— if somebody goes to see their general medical doctor today doing just the conventional CBC, CMP, just doing those tests, it doesn't tell you— it can tell you a little bit, but it's, it's not near enough. I mean, being able to go and look at what are, what are my vitamin mineral deficiencies, what are my vitamin D levels, my ferro— my iron levels, magnesium levels, there's so much value in the modern-day functional medicine, like blood work and testing. But that's not what people are testing today. I mean, it's such a game, you know this. For some people, if you're deficient in one single nutrient, if it's, if it's a dramatic deficiency, that one deficiency can wreck your whole body. Again, vitamin D is the most common example. I mean, if you have a low vitamin D level, I mean, you can just— your immune system, your bones, your hormones, I mean, they're all affected.

Every single thing. From the smallest to the largest can have that kind of effect like you're talking about. And it takes one. It takes one.

Hey, as we talk about cellular health, what are some of those biggest deficiencies that you found in clients you've worked with on their diet, on them trying to heal naturally? What are some of the biggest nutrient deficiencies that you see that people really need to be aware of?

Aside from vitamin D, like you brought up, that seems to be like one of the largest things that I ever come across. And I'm— I think, too, that some of that is the lack of sunlight, that people don't want to go out. Absolutely. And a fear of the sun that is not necessary. And I always have to preface this. I'm not saying go out in the sun for 5 hours a day, but what I am saying is get outside in the morning, get in front of some sunlight. Yeah, 20 minutes. That's right. You know, it doesn't take hours and hours, but I like to correlate movement and sunlight together in the morning. I like to do prayer in the morning. Those 3 really get me set to where I'm okay. Yeah. You know, especially when you're stressed, but any, any day. In general for me, those. But other deficiencies that I see— selenium, iodine, things like this that people don't really pay attention to and aren't aware of that can throw your thyroid off.

For example, what are some of the biggest side effects? Let's go through those two of iodine and then selenium that people might notice.

Well, thyroid first, right? And if your thyroid's off, then I would first look at those types of like trace minerals. I've had those issues too, and that was diet lacking. And, you know, a lot of things always revolve around mental clarity and focus. If you're not sharp and you're off, you're normally deficient in something. Yeah. Um, and, and I, once again, I try to use myself as, here's the guy that made all these problems, so now he can tell you about the fixes that, that are out there. Um, and, and to go back to another thing that you said, one of the problems with blood tests and when you're testing electrolytes is They may— if, if you just had some before the blood test, it might show that you're good, but in general, you're not. You have to be careful with those because timing is everything. If you go slam an electrolyte drink before you go in there, it might show you're okay at the time, but 3, 4 hours later, if you're still having a problem, that's when you would know. So you have to be careful. And it's like when you're testing your testosterone, you got to be fasted, you got to do it in the morning. If you don't follow the directions, right? The things that you see are not necessarily going to be accurate.

Well, that's why, you know, depending on the blood test— but a lot of blood tests, you know, we recommend stay off supplements for sometimes a week before you go in and actually get tested. Same thing if you're going to get a GI MAP, like a stool test, you know, stay off probiotics for a week. It's like, I mean, most of the time I want you on those, but to get the test accuracy, there's, uh, you know, those things are important. You know, there's some more advanced tests which I'm excited about on looking at like intracellular antioxidants. Yeah. And then it actually doesn't make that much of a difference because because you're really looking at what's your cell absorbing. But to your point, most of blood work today, the timing, understanding, you know, it's in— understanding some of those nuances is really important. Okay, so vitamin D is critically important, iodine, selenium, as you mentioned, selenium, so big for thyroid health. What are a few other nutrients that you think that you really, that are just critically important for cellular health?

For cellular health, and real quick too, selenium deficiency, look to your fish, you know, like salmon, things like that. Those are definitely like selenium-rich foods. Yeah, I was lacking a lot of that, added those in, boom, thyroid gold.

Well, and, and the biggest thing too, if you have high TPO antibodies, so Hashimoto's thyroiditis, selenium is probably the single most important nutrient. Uh, and to your point, fish is the big one, and Brazil nuts. I mean, those, those are game changers. I love that you brought that up.

Yeah, definitely. Trace minerals, people need to look at those in general. That has a big effect on cellular health in general that I've seen people doing. I think too, a lot of the reason that cellular health is bad, aside from mineral deficiency, is stress levels and sleep. That's a big one. I can't tell you how much that I've learned over the past 6 months when it comes to the neuro— neuroscience side of things in terms of our thinking and our thoughts. And the more negative and the more stress, the worse our cellular health is. Lack of movement and exercise prevalent. Drinking, smoking, and even if it's just casual drinking— and I know people get upset when we say just one drink. I've learned over the years, just one drink is very poisonous to yourself inside. And I'm one of those guys, I don't fearmonger, I don't exaggerate. I'm like the realest guy in the room. And I'm telling you, alcohol is one of the worst things that I have learned and studied and really comprehended on. Just one drink, it adds up to a lot. I did a big liver deep dive with Siggi Klavien, and we were talking about how much alcohol and then like something like Xanax harbors in your liver. Well, there's a lot of things that people don't realize that accumulate very quickly. I did this thing with my wife and I said, hey, I said, you know, everybody talks about these blue dyes and red dyes and stuff. And I said, let's go through the cupboard on some of the supplements and powders we have and start to look at what maybe we have overlooked and add it up. Because, you know, you know how this goes. Little bits add up. That's right. And I was astounded by how many powders and things were in there. I said, all right, let's get rid of this. Let's get rid of this. Let's get rid of this and let's find something that might not taste as good. But that's okay. Yeah. You know, I don't want all of this garbage and toxicity in our bodies because I'll tell you what, so many people— and this is what's so important about what you brought up earlier about the blood testing— there are so many people walking around with high mercury levels, lead, aluminum, everything, that have no clue, and they're, they're struggling, you know. And your attitude can say it all. Yeah, your bad attitude, and you don't know why. Why am I so angry? Why am I having this issue? A lot of times it's because we have so much toxicity inside and have no clue.

You know what, when we look at a lot of these ancient forms of medicine, you know, ancient Asian medicine is an example, or Ayurveda, and even the Bible is an example of this. I mean, there was this keen awareness that your emotional and spiritual health are just incredibly and deeply tied to your physical health. That's right. And so if you are, in Chinese medicine, it was known if you're dealing with liver toxicity, you're going to be more frustrated and you're going to be more angry. You're just going to feel like you'll just go off the handle more easily and get upset about things. If you're dealing with this constant worry and overanalyzing things running around in your head, and that can keep you from sleeping at night or just is keeping you at a level of stress, that's caused by your digestive system's upset. And it works in a reverse way. If you were dealing with a lot of anger, that's causing more liver toxicity. So these things add up. And you brought up something I think that's so important. We started talking about food for cellular health, and then the first thing after that you said is it's tied to our emotional health. Yep. You know, I think that this is the most overlooked area in all of medicine, and I actually think it's bigger than diet. I think diet's the big number 2, but I think childhood trauma, I think dealing with guilt and shame, I think dealing with that stress, those things that elevate cortisol.

Yep.

That's the single biggest thing. What's been your experience with that?

It took me— I told you I was going to turn 44 in February, or this month, actually, in a couple of weeks. Took me 43 years to figure out it's all a mind-body connection. And the way that I lay it out is I start with spirituality and then I cross it. So then it goes to mind and body because I personally, I don't know that I have the science to back it up, but I just have the know that it starts with the spirituality, and that's going to form how you think, which is then going to have the effect on your physical. Yeah, everything that, that I do revolves around God first. That's just how I've changed my life. And when I made those changes— no, I don't have a perfect every day, but I'll tell you what, things flow and they go way better than they ever did. Now, the mind side, I agree with you that I think and feel. And of course, I want to stress the importance of exercise and diet because I have my whole life and I firmly believe that. But I— you have to be aligned. You can— I can fix your diet and work you out all day long. But if you're stressed and you're mentally off and you're suffering inside, you're never going to feel right. You're just not. And I've been there for many years. And I know perfect diet, perfect training, miserable. Why? Well, first, I wasn't God first, but secondly, I was just not mentally correct. Yeah. And, and I say this, some of the times when I go back and look, it's like this: I looked my best and I felt my worst because I was so deficient, starving, taking stuff I shouldn't be taking, you know, not giving myself the spiritual nurturing that I need, so obsessed with body. Yeah, felt my worst, my worst. So to feel your best and look your best, I believe it starts with spirituality, and then you're able to do both.

You know, I work out at home a lot, but I also have a membership at Lifetime Fitness, and I go in there regularly. And sometimes I look around, and this is not judging people, but I see a lot of people that are, I think, so focused on self. And there's this element of, you can just see there's this sort of, there's this emptiness. In this, yeah, there's something deep, like they're trying to make up for something. They're trying to look perfect on the outside. And that's their, it's their god. And, you know, the Apostle Paul says physical fitness, it's of some importance. He says it's important, it's of some importance, but your spiritual health is even more important, to summarize him. And I think it's absolutely true. What are some of, as you've worked with clients and helping them, reverse health conditions and improve cellular health and lose weight. I know a lot of things you help them do, hormone balance. What are— give me maybe your top 3 in ranking order spiritual practices people can do that will also impact their physical health.

I mean, I think first and foremost is prayer, and some sort of prayer. I really firmly believe, and it's funny because I do this backwards, you know how most people, they pray when something really bad's happening or they're desperate or whatever. I— my prayers are better when things are going good. You know when most people forget about prayer and don't think about it? Mine are the strongest. I have this, when I have a problem going on, I get, sometimes I get frustrated, sometimes I get angry, and my prayers aren't as good. They're a little bit, I don't wanna say cold 'cause that's not the word I'm looking for, but they're just not as intense. And I think giving thanks and appreciation, that good old gratitude. I speak on this and my friend Ben Azadi told me about vitamin G, he called it, right? And I said, that is, The one thing that everybody's lacking, I think gratitude and appreciation for what you have. You know what I started doing? Well, when I leave the gym, I just do a quick prayer. Thank you for letting me be able to even be here to work out, giving me the means to have a nice place to go to work out. Things that you don't really— you just take for granted.

You know what I think about just with everything? I think the greatest thing that's ever strengthened my relationship with God is a realization that It's a relationship, just like you and I have a relationship. Yes. Like I have a relationship with my wife Chelsea and my girls. It's that type of relationship. And God wants to give more to somebody, bless somebody, be in connection more with somebody when they're not entitled, when they're grateful, when they're thankful, when they're saying, God, I am so grateful for my amazing wife, my beautiful girls, my health, that I could walk out the door today. I'm so grateful for you giving your son, like that, So I love that you're saying that because gratitude as a state changes your entire physiology.

That's right. That's right. So when I get up in the morning, I immediately just do a quick thank you. Thank you for letting me wake up. Wow. And for another day, even if the day was bad the day before. And then what I do— and this isn't the greatest thing because I'm looking at a screen, but I read the first readings of the day. I'm Catholic, so I go through the Catholic readings. I read those and then normally my wife's still asleep.

So I just— What app do you use for that?

You know what? I just use the UCSBB Catholic readings of the day just right off. I don't even use an app. I just do that. And then my wife's generally asleep, so I just put my hand on her and say a quiet prayer. If she's awake, then we say it together. Yeah, well, I say it and she just, you know, but— and then normally I try to find my cat and do a one, put my hand on her and if she'll let me, she thinks it's playtime when I do that. But then I get up and start, you know, getting ready for the day. And then I, as soon as I trim my lines and everything and brush my teeth, I go right outside and start walking. And one of the things that I really started to appreciate that, you know, you just don't when you're younger is the surroundings, the what God created, the earth that he created, not what man made, but the sky. And then, you know, when I moved to Arizona now, I've got a mountain right next to me. So I see the skyline and then I ride my bicycle at night after I have dinner instead of walking. I go ride, you know, now. And, and then I appreciate that sunset. And I think the appreciation for everything around me that I just took for granted all these years, like when I come on these trips, I went to Utah to see Dr. Pompa. I come here to Nashville with you and I get to go places and see all these beautiful things.

Yeah.

Normally when I go to places, all I cared about was partying and what bar or club I could go to. Now I, the That's the last thing I think about. Now it's, man, I can't wait to go walk and see what's cool out here.

And you know what's interesting? I think there's an element of that perception change that alters everything, you know? Because you could be, I'll give you an example of this. Like my mom, after she had cancer, for a few years after, well, actually, so she went through conventional treatment for 10 years, She really just, she was exhausted all the time. I think she probably felt an element of like, this is unfair. You know, maybe even God's taken something from me. I mean, there, there's years of just discomfort there. Then we followed a natural protocol and she reversed cancer naturally. And, um, and I think after that time, my mom started getting in this, this, this situation where she was just start, started being grateful for every moment of the day, everything she had, she was so grateful. And she even got to the point, this was amazing. I was talking to her a few years ago and she said to me, she said, you know what? I am actually grateful that I had cancer. I was like, really? She's like, yeah, you know, because of it, I look back at my life. She said, I've got a better relationship with your dad. She said, I, you know, now we're like, you know, I was talking to my mom and she's like, we're gonna go out on a trip out to, uh, and rent an RV and go to like Park City. And, uh, we're gonna go to the, Grand Tetons, and Yosemite. They're gonna do this tour together, and they've decided to move to Florida where my mom loved, like Disney World area. So all that being said, like, but she's like, if I wouldn't have had cancer, I don't know that I would've done all that. But like, her perspective is, God, thank you for teaching me and leading me. Not that you gave me, she doesn't believe there was any cause on his part, but she's grateful that God used it for good for her life. And so if we can take even our worst moments and hardest trials in life and things that we had in the past and say, God, What can good come of this? It can actually become healing and regenerating versus some people were hurt in the past. It could have been by a friend, by a teacher, by the church. It could be by all kinds of things. And they're still living with that pain today. They haven't allowed it to heal. So it festers like a disease. Mm-hmm. And, and people don't realize that, like, if you're living with unforgiveness or guilt or shame and you've never healed from it, it's as bad as a parasite.

It's worse.

Worse. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's worse.

You know, and I've talked about this a lot, there's a major difference between faith and trust. You can't tell on the surface. It seems like it's very similar. Believing is one thing. Trusting is a whole nother ballgame. And that's the difficult part. I can believe in God all day long, but do I trust what he's doing at the moment when something sucks and it's hard? I mean, You know, I got into a lot of trouble when I was younger, and I tell everybody, I don't recommend you go to prison to learn your lesson and to shape who you are. But if I didn't, I would've never met my wife. I wouldn't be sitting here with you. I wouldn't have changed the whole outlook I have on everything and started to put my focus into what I put it on now. I wouldn't have been doing the health content and the fitness and, and gotten into all of the things that I did had that not happened. I wouldn't have learned. I wouldn't be able to inspire and encourage people the way I do about overcoming things that come into the way. I took and learned so much. Yeah, horrific experience, horrific. But I got out way early, and I took care of exactly what I was meant to do. I just threw the trajectory off a little bit. I'm sure that wasn't my intended plan. But I'll tell you what, God doesn't give up on you if you actually repent and you actually truly are sorry and have remorse. He knows if you're lying.

This is such a big thing we're missing today. I see constantly with people online, they made a mistake and then they just wanna admit wrongdoing. Yeah. And versus it's like, people appreciate if you confess, I think at least for Christians, there's a level we're called to forgive you. That's what we're called to do. We're called to forgive you and give you grace. That's it.

Yeah. You know, that's the good old lost art of accountability that I talk about all the time. When I finally looked in the mirror and took accountability for all the things that I did— and you have— it's hard to look in the mirror and lie to yourself. You can tell lies to everybody, and you— people actually believe the stories they tell after a while. You know, that compulsive liar concept is a real thing. And if you look in the mirror and you can lie to yourself, that's a major problem. Most people can't. When it's one-on-one and if you take the time to look. And I just never liked what I saw looking back at me. And when I took the time and sat there and said, Dylan, what are you doing? Like, you can't get this time back. It's gone. You don't understand that in your 20s. For most people, you don't get it till you lose it. And then you realize, I can't recreate it. I can't buy it back. I can't earn it back. It's gone. I lost years. I lost years that I can't have back. I missed Christmases, Thanksgiving, birthdays. I couldn't get those back. I mean, I was eating cornflakes on Thanksgiving that, that one year, you know. But I'll tell you what, it made me appreciate every Thanksgiving, every Christmas, every holiday, every birthday, every moment, every single day. And once you start to appreciate, you can live healthier, you can live happier because you have a value on every single thing that you get. Yeah.

You know, when we're living in the state of gratefulness, there's a natural hormonal response that's happening. I mean, you're having dopamine and serotonin and oxytocin and these endorphins released at higher levels, right? Which, which, which are balancing your other hormones and helping you heal. Hey, so if you've ever thought, something is wrong with me, but I just can't prove it, then this is for you. Now, you might be eating clean, even what you feel like is perfect, working out, taking all the right supplements, but you're still exhausted. Still foggy, gaining weight, and you're not sleeping. And every time you ask for help, you hear the same thing. But your labs are normal. Here's what that actually means. Standard bloodwork only shows what's in your blood, not whether your cells can actually access it or not. You can give your body all the right inputs, but if your cells are in danger mode, chronically stressed or inflamed, they can't absorb or use those nutrients properly. If you're finally ready to heal, go to mybloodwork.com. You'll get an at-home cellular blood work panel shipped straight to your home and reviewed on a private call with one of my senior health advisors at the Health Institute. And this will help you finally connect the dots between your symptoms at the cellular level. We'll also determine if you're a good candidate for one of our cellular healing protocols so you can finally experience lasting healing. Once again, go to mybloodwork.com to check it out. You know, I want to dive into some other areas of cellular medicine because I know this is an area of expertise. And then I want to talk more about peptides. When you think about cellular health, there's all these different components of the cell. We've got the cell membrane and the nucleus and the receptors and the lysosomes and the mitochondria. What area of the cell and cellular medicine do you think is the most important to focus on when it comes to healing and regeneration?

Everybody will go to mitochondria first, and I don't necessarily disagree with that. I mean, powerhouse of the cell, energy, produce ATP. I think that at this point, that's kind of become— you know how it was like gut health a couple years ago, and now everybody shifted to mitochondria, but we're forgetting about the cellular membrane. And you mentioned that. And here's what's funny, Josh, is when I was in school, everything that I studied was either centered around exercise science, physiology, or business. You know, the topic I hated and despised was science. I mean, I hated it with a passion. I had to go to summer school and take biology on its own because I couldn't even sit there and think about it. I just— everything that I do now and everything I'm interested in and love revolves around science. Yeah, everything. Yeah. And I think it was just because I wasn't ready. For a lot of the things. And so understanding now and studying it— my first big sponsor when I came into the biohacking area was Timeline. And then I learned mitochondria, and I went to Harvard and studied at night. I took a cellular health coaching class with Dr. Elizabeth Yurth, and I made that my focus. And then I kept learning and learning all these different parts of the cell, because all I knew was mitochondria, working with urolithin A and And then I learned about the cellular membrane and then the importance of fats and how important, like, cholesterol was in feeding the membrane and everything. And, you know, for instance, NAD+, just bringing up something, can't really penetrate the cell. I was learning about penetrating the cell. How do we increase NAD+? Well, precursors can penetrate the cell. Everything that we have and we do revolves around the cell. But you have the cellular membranes, the protectant of the whole cell. Yeah. So if you don't protect that, we don't have mitochondria, we don't have all of the, the other things that you talked about. So I think that people should really consider understanding cellular membrane. What do we have to do to keep it healthy and protect ourselves so that we can then take care of what's inside of the cell?

I mean, this is powerful. You know, when my mom did have cancer, I did thousands of hours of research of how do— how do we heal cancer? What can we do? And I remember studying everything from Chinese medicine to the top herbs, to the ideal diets, Gerson therapy, all kinds of things. But one of the articles I came across was on a woman named Joanna Budwig, and she created something called the Budwig Protocol. And this was a mixture of, they called it quark, which is almost like a cottage cheese or kefir, sort of fermented, raw, organic fermented dairy. And then flax meal and flax oil. And her theory was the cause of cancer is a lack of oxygen, which is caused by a damaged or a cell membrane that becomes too rigid. And so things can't get in and out. Yes. And so I was reading this and I thought, okay, well, I'm going to make this part of my mom's cancer protocol. And so we really started focusing on getting the right fats in her diet, the right phospholipids. And I started learning about some of this. And so we had her do that mixture. And then today, even with my wife and girls, I'm really focused on getting these sort of fats, these things that make up the cell membrane. I mean, what's crazy is the largest portion of our cell membrane is fat. Yeah. And secondarily, it's protein. They're, they're actually peptides. So it's, um, so it's, it's your, your cell membrane is made of pro— it's made of peptides and, um, these fats, fatty acids. And, um, in order to repair and heal it You know, you want omega-3s, you want quality saturated fat, and you want these phospholipids. And these phospholipids are found in things like salmon, uh, you know, and, uh, in egg yolks, and like phosphatidylcholine and serine. And so all that being said, this was actually part of my mom's cancer protocol, focusing on healing the cell membrane to get more oxygen in her cells, because cancer can't thrive as well in an oxygen—

oxygenated environment, you know. I battled, and I still to this day have battled, eating disorder, body dysmorphia. I was a model. I worked with bodybuilders. I mean, and I was fat when I was a kid and an athlete and everything. And it just— it started when I was 11. And I lived for like 15, 20 years in this state of fear of fats. And I mean terrified to the point where— and as much as I train, If you look at my charts on every test, every breath test, everything I've taken, I'm supposed to eat 3,800 calories a day. I train heavy. Yeah, I train. I probably overtrain still. I've tried to cut it back. And I'm telling you, I would eat at the max 1,800 calories a day. And looking back on it, it was damn near all carbs. It was like 2 to 3 servings of oats. 15 servings of vegetables, fruits, fat-free Greek yogurt, only egg whites. And I'm talking 15 grams of fat at the most, only from peanut butter.

Oh, per day?

Per day. Wow.

Per day. That is very, very— I mean, that's very low fat.

Well, and I will, I will argue that some of the heart issues that I can get into with you later were because of the low-fat diet. Yeah. And, um, well, you have to think A low-fat food has been stripped of all of the nutrients and they fill it with whatever garbage they put in.

All the fat-soluble vitamins impacting hormones, your cell, all kinds. Yeah.

Wow. You know how mad I am that I haven't been cooking in grass-fed butter for 20 years and just started? So it was, uh, and this is once again probably revolved around my wife's power of prayer about me and her dealing with my misery every day. Because, you know, when you starve yourself like that and don't feed yourself what you need. I mean, every 30 minutes I was getting up from my desk. I couldn't stay focused. I was going to snack on vegetables all day. My wife would make me 15-some-odd servings of vegetables every night and then put them in the refrigerator so I could go snack all day. That's how I was getting through the day. And my mind and my, like, really quick to be angry and snappy and never having fun at anything I'm doing and more worried about how hungry I am than—

You know what's crazy? I mean, you could have had a level of insulin resistance and fatty liver disease and being— having almost no body fat. And people, people don't realize that.

No, I know. Yeah. You know what's crazy is, so now— and I'm the type of guy that a car will just show up, you know, and it's like I'm a spur-of-the-moment guy. I went into the kitchen one day and I said, okay, this is what we're gonna do today. And, you know, my wife's just like, okay, here we go, because she knows how I am. I said, we're gonna because we like to go do Whole Foods trips, and that's kind of how I have fun now. Go to Costco, lame stuff, but it's fun, right? And I said, we're gonna go and we're gonna just change everything today. And I was watching different people talk about how much leaner they were getting on grass-fed meats and all these fats and everything. And I, and I thought to myself, hey, if it doesn't work, I know how to lose weight really fast.

Yeah.

So I said, we're gonna go buy this meat, avocados. I'm going to start eating whole eggs. I'm going to do this, this, this, and this. Complete 180. And I eased into it. I was doing like 80, 85 grams of avocado. I tried salmon, which I just said I didn't like, without even eating it. You know, one of those things. To this day now, I went from like 20 grams of fat a day to 130. My calorie intake's about 3,000. My avocado is up from 80 grams to about 150 to 200. I have 4 whole— 4 or 5 whole eggs every day instead of 10 egg whites. Full-fat yogurts. I everything. And I haven't been this lean or this full of energy and skin and everything better since I was probably in high school.

Wow.

You know, that's amazing. And I'm telling you, if you look at my diet, my staple foods are all pretty much high-fat foods, but they're good, healthy fats. Yeah. I can't live without avocados, whole eggs. If you forced me and you said, Dylan, you can only take one food with yeah, and that's it. I would probably take whole eggs, yeah, that you could live on. I went through every single meat. I went from elk to venison to bison, you know, force of nature, right? Oh yeah, all the organs. So every single day, even like organic ground pork or pork tenderloin, I'll mix in here and there, but I kind of stay focused on the, the grass-fed meats. And I went from 93/7 now to 80/20 because I— 80/20 is the best. And if you're gonna have it, enjoy it.

It's definitely the tastiest. There's no doubt about it. It's so good. Yeah, there's no doubt about it. Well, I love that you had that revelation years ago and it's impacted you so positively. You know, when I was in college, that's when the low-fat craze was really at its height. And I remember one of my first patients came in, actually, literally my first ever patient. His name was Ron and he was in his early 60s. And his doctor had put him on a no-fat diet. I mean, he tried to literally have no fat, and he put him on a statin drug, and his hair was thinning and falling out. He had lost like 20 pounds of muscle. He's wasting away. He hurt— the guy was in terrible pain. And I said, Ron, you know, I said, Ron, we, we gotta, we gotta do something really different here. And I said, let's not worry about your overall cholesterol. Let's get your HDL up. Let's focus on getting your body healing. And so we really went started doing a lot of berries, extra virgin olive oil, wild salmon. You know, we added a lot of fat back in his diet. And 3 months later, he was like, wow, I can't believe it. He's like, I felt like I was dying. He said, I was like, my body was wasting away. I felt like I was dying. Yeah. And, and people don't understand how cholesterol is so critically important. 25% of your brain is cholesterol. And so, you know, these fats and cholesterol— here's another interesting fact. In order for your body to make vitamin D, Your body takes sunlight plus the cholesterol that's actually in your skin, and that's what makes vitamin D, is sunlight plus cholesterol. And so anyways, you know, the low-fat diets hormonally are an absolute wreck and disaster. And so it's, um, it's something a lot of people— now, now let me say, I do think that for some people they can do okay on a— some people need to do high fat, some people need to do moderate, some people need to do moderate-low. You know, moderate-low might be you know, you're doing, you know, let's call it 30 grams 3 times a day, or 25 grams. Like, if somebody's had their gallbladder removed and they can't produce enough bile. But of course, but I think generally speaking, um, yeah, most people are deficient in the right type of fats and fat-soluble vitamins, and it's important. So we talked about the cell membrane. I do want to talk about the mitochondria though, because I know I've heard you speak on this and have some expertise there. What is the mitochondria? And then what are some things we can do? And then here's another thing. What are the biggest symptoms somebody is going to have if they have mitochondrial deficiency?

Yeah. So mitochondria is powerhouse of the cell. That's where we get ATP production, which gives us energy. So of course it's going to have an effect on everything that we do. And I will argue that all diseases really start within the cell. I mean, generally speaking, most all diseases start from high levels of inflammation and cellular, you know, free radicals spilling out from senescent cells or whatever the case. But the mitochondria itself is one of the most important aspects of our entire body. I mean, like I said, with our energy production. Now, how do we take care of it? Well, that goes back to plenty of rest, you know, lower stress, lower inflammation. Inflammation is the killer of all, I believe. I mean, you see high-sensitivity CRP and it's off the chart, I'm probably going to look at testing for cancer, looking at the heart, things like that. But all of that is a cellular deficiency. Yeah. And so like urolithin A is what I take for mitochondria health in terms of supplement-wise. But like pomegranates would be something amazing, you know, that you do. I actually drink a half a serving of pomegranate juice every day because I had found plaque in my arteries and I have reversed A great deal of it.

It's amazing. I saw an article recently, a clinical study that went through, I mean, pomegranates and pomegranate juice. You know, I, I don't drink fruit juice unless I'm working, so that's what I try and do. I try and drink— if I'm going to do fruit juice, I do it around the time I'm working out. Yeah. And that way it's, you know, easily absorbed in the body and the bloodstream. But pomegranates are, you know, I wrote a book on a biblical diet, and I mean, pomegranates in Roman culture and in the Bible are prized as sort of like the gem of all fruits. Yes.

There's a reason for it because of the health benefits. I don't drink fruit juice at all. I just do the pomegranate juice. And you know what's funny? You said that after I train, like my cardio session, which is 90 minutes, that's when I have it. And I do electrolytes within it and a little bit of this coconut water that we put in there.

Yeah.

Because it replenishes. Yeah. And then that's when I feel like it's the most beneficial for me.

It's so funny. So Chelsea and I, we went on a ski trip to Park City. Yeah. And we literally made the exact combination. Really? So, yes. So because we were trying to recover from skiing and I did all this research on, okay, what is the best thing for recovery? And it was a mixture of coconut water, pomegranate juice, electrolytes.

And then—

no way. Yeah. And then at night I would do separately, I do a little tart cherry juice. Yeah. To sleep. But yeah, for sleep. But that was the, that was the blend.

Yes. I put, I guess I put D-ribose in there too, for I had a low ejection fraction.

Okay. Yeah.

We tested. So I do the D-ribose in there as well. But yeah. And, and I've read and seen so many people that have reversed plaque with pomegranate juice. Yeah. And, and I'll get into that a little bit later, but that definitely is one for, you know, urolithin A is from pomegranates. Yeah, I mean, that's what it comes from and is derived from. So, but once again, that exercise, the good diet, the no alcohol, this is all for your cellular health because you don't want senescent senescent cells. Senescent cells are cells that are— they're zombie cells. They're dead, but they're still there, right? And then what happens? Well, they start accumulating junk, which then in turn spills out free radicals, oxidative stress, boom, disease.

Yeah, right. Yeah. And to your point, you know, we've got these, these senescent cells, which for everybody, um, out there, senescent cells are these cells that have continued to divide over time, oftentimes 50 times, and then they're at the point where they don't work anymore. And so they can sit in your body almost like garbage in a city. Imagine you got a big pristine city and over time as it ages, the waste facility stops doing their job. And so garbage just starts piling up on the streets and everywhere and they release toxins, they destroy things. It's, you know, and this can happen as we age and it's been connected, as Dylan's talking about here, to cancer. And part of the job of really two things in particular in your body, your mitochondria feeding your lysosomes activates autophagy, which gets rid of them. So mitochondrial health, lysosomal health, those things can help you fight cancer, prevent cancer. And, and this is why it's so— cellular health is so exciting because what we're talking about, like mitochondria, they're actually called organelles. Yeah, they're the organs of your cells. Your cells have organs. And so we need to do everything we can. Just like you want to take care of your heart and your gut and your brain, we got to take care of these organs of ourselves if we want to be healthy.

Billions of cells in your body. That's right. When I, I, I, when I heard the numbers and you— and if you think about it, because I, I don't want to say I was ever anti-science, but I, I was like, okay, this goes against God, it goes against everything, because people misuse science. But if you look at the beauty of science and the structure of how we're made internally, and, and what kind of effort and thought had to be put into our makeup to function in the way it does, in every little intricate piece of our body. And I started to look at that, and I— and, and because you read the Bible, and part of the problem when people read the Bible is they take everything literal and they don't understand how to break down what's being said And what is— it's why Jesus spoke in parables, because we couldn't understand, right? And if you read and listen and you look, no, he didn't just breathe and everything just appeared. He rested on the seventh day because of— look at all the work that he did.

You know, I think what maybe, maybe what some— maybe some people don't fully realize, as you brought this up, Jesus was telling us things in parables, I think for a couple of reasons. One, because he said, you know, there are people that really that the Holy Spirit can help interpret what he said, right? And so if you don't have a relationship with the Holy Spirit and you're not coming in with a humble mind and attitude of you want to receive, then it's hard to hear. And I think there's another element of, well, his parables are very applicable. Yeah. You know, when you hear something as a parable or a story, that's a real life thing. I think it's actually easier to apply. I mean, when people use today, like I'm thinking there's a movie, I don't know if you've seen it, it's called Nacho Libre. And it's a comedy with Jack Black. And it's pretty, it depends on your sense of humor, by the way. I think it's hilarious. My wife won't laugh at all at it. My brother-in-law and I think it's pretty comical. But there's a scene in that movie where, you know, he is a monk at part of this monastery and his, kind of the other main character in the movie says, "I don't believe in God, I believe in science." You know? But with that, here's the deal. It's not God or science. One, there's God. Science is just a, it's a few things. One, it's a, essentially it's a pattern of the way God created the world and the way systems function.

Yes.

That we can be interpreted that way. And then also science, is a method. If we talk about the science— scientific method, which is we're going to essentially do beta testing on one group versus another, and we're going to come into a, uh, a study unbiasedly to see what the outcome is. Now, the thing is, the scientific community constantly violates the scientific method, right? I mean, you know, pharmaceutical— pharmaceutical companies and the bias and all the things. I mean, there was a study that came out, by the way, it was a study on studies and it said that around 51% of studies are not accurate when you read the headlines and what you're seeing. So think about that. If you're reading a study headline, most people see that and they're like, oh, that's a fact. That's, that's, that's— but over 51% of the time, it's not true.

I learned quickly by working with so many clients. So when I started to get huge client bases over time, you know, I start with 5, 10, and before you know it, you've hit thousands. And I realized very, very fast how BS a lot of these studies were by seeing the results on clients. You know, you—

because you can't just—

you can't— this is one of the problems that I see with people is they'll go, well, for me, for me. But you can't just say for me. You need a group. You need numbers. Because everybody's got something different. You have something different than I have, and the next person, the next person. So if every single belief you have revolves around your experience, that's not accurate either. I want to see real data. And I learned very fast, these, these studies are not anywhere near to what they say. But then you have to dig deeper. It's kind of like— and I'm sure I'm not going to get into politics, but it's kind of like when they say this bill didn't pass, and then you look at it and there's 800 pages and there's like 2% of what it's supposed to be. Same with studies. You need to look at who's doing it, how it's being done, what kind of people are in there, and then how do they manipulate the numbers?

Yeah, yeah. And listen, I think there are some really fantastic studies there. I've come to appreciate more of the meta-analysis, which is maybe taking larger groups of studies and looking at— was it done by a third party or the company that's trying to promote themselves? I mean, so when you dig into studies, there are some ways to really analyze, to kind of look at that. Oh yeah, that information. But it's important to be aware that when you see a study to also say, okay, well, let me learn a little bit more about it. I mean, honestly, it's pretty easy now to take a study, to plug it into an AI tool like ChatGPT or Bard or whatever, and ask those questions. Is it biased? Did they cherry-pick data? Was there a, you know, was there a conflict of interest with the people that put it on? And what do other studies say cumulatively that may support or not promote the study. So, so there are ways if you're a, you know, healthcare professional or a layperson to where AI can actually help us, I think, better interpret and find out those little lies that are kind of hidden in there with some of those studies. Hey, if you want practical science-backed guidance for living a healthier, longer, more vibrant life, you need to check out the Biohack It podcast. It is hosted by my good friend Aman Hassan, and it brings a thoughtful, compassionate perspective to wellness that so many women have been looking for. Every week, Iman breaks down the latest research in longevity, hormones, and metabolic health in a way that's clear and easy to understand, leads to important conversations around women's health, fertility, and the steps women can take to protect their energy, balance their hormones, and support long-term well-being. She talks with top doctors, scientists, and health experts about natural healing, nutrition, lifestyle choices that make a real difference. And sits down with entrepreneurs and thought leaders to explore how they stay strong, grounded, and resilient in their personal lives and their work. If you want a show that speaks directly to health challenges women are navigating today while offering hope, clarity, and real solutions, tune in to Biohack It every Thursday wherever you listen to podcasts. It is one of the most educational and uplifting shows in the wellness space, and I think you're going to love it. One of the things I want to move into, and I'm really excited to talk to you about this today. Since 2011, that's 15 years you've been working in the peptide industry. And just now, over the last 2 years, of course, GLP-1s in the medical industry, those have grown like crazy. We're seeing so many people get on things like BPC-157. By the way, I'll just share my story of this with you quick on my my, my introduction to peptides. Now, of course, I was one of the first people promoting collagen peptides, right? So I was aware of some of the peptides out there, more of the food-based that were used during ancient times and, and, and, and that. But I was not very aware of a lot of the synthetic peptides and their uses. I had read about some of them with glandular therapy, like thymus gland. That's been used for cancer treatment for a long time in, in, in Russia and around the world. But I came down with a spinal infection in 2022, and I didn't walk for an entire year. So this is just 3 years ago. Wow. And I thought I might never walk again. And I met a man who is one of the world's leaders in peptide science. And he lived, he happened to, this is a God moment. I was so desperate, I couldn't walk. I was in unbelievable pain. And I was trying to find out how do I heal? Because I had this, I was diagnosed with osteomyelitis. I had an abscess by my spinal cord. And it was, you could see on the MRI, I mean, just my bone being eaten away and destroyed. And when I went to meet with the doctor, he said, listen, Josh, in most likely scenarios, you're gonna be permanently disabled. This is me sitting down with the doctor 3 years ago. And I thought, you know what? I just prayed and I felt like God said, listen, just walk with me through this. And so I just started praying to God and trying to watch out for things that God would lead me to as I spent time in prayer. And I was on the phone with a physician, his name was Dr. Rafael Gonzalez. He said, "Listen, I've got a friend who's into peptide therapy." And I'm like, "Okay." And he said, "I'm gonna introduce you to him." And I was in Puerto Rico at the time, okay? And so I get introduced to him on a text thread. And he said, "Hey, where are you?" I said, "Puerto Rico." And he goes, "No way, I'm in Puerto Rico." I said, "Where are you at?" He was a few houses down, a golf cart ride away.

Wow.

Immediately came over to my house, sat down with me, and he's like, "You wanna do this now?" I said, "Well, let me learn about 'em first." Started teaching me, talking to me about peptides. And I did a blend of BPC-157 and TB-500. And can I tell you, after 6 weeks on these peptides, the results, I couldn't believe it. I absolutely couldn't believe it.

4 to 6 weeks, generally.

Yeah, so I was blown away. So I want you to share a little bit about how you got introduced to peptides. Yeah. And, and, and, and also explain peptides to us a little bit.

I, I just talked to Raphael, like, I don't know, 2, 3 weeks ago. I just met him. I just got intro to him.

Yeah, I mean, he's a great guy. I mean, he's one of the world's leading experts in stem cells. Yeah. Oh yeah. And so that was the other thing. I would say the combination of peptides and stem cell therapy are why I'm walking today. I have zero pain. Yeah. And it's because of those two things in combination.

Brilliant guy. I, I got Really good impression immediately talking to him. But so, okay, when I got out of prison, I spent my entire evenings every night on bodybuilding forums. I got an email about a testosterone booster, and I'll tell you what, after reading that, my mind was like, okay, you know what, I got out of there, I'm gonna start ripping myself to shreds here. I'm gonna get in the best shape possible, and I'm gonna do this and do that. So, and I'll make a long story short, I started getting myself inundated in these bodybuilding forums, and very quickly my work got noticed, and I got introduced to several different big brand companies. One of them said, hey, we want to, we want to know, can you do any kind of video work? Like, are you good on the camera? And I said, well, before I got in trouble, I started to mess around with like a fake sports talk show that I was kind of doing. I said, here, I'll show it to you, because I was really into sports debate. And they said, okay, you can do this. We want you to get on a camera and start talking about anabolic steroids and research chemicals, peptides and SARMs. And I said, well, how the hell am I going to do that? I don't even know what those are. And I'm certainly not going to go risk getting in trouble by talking about this stuff. So I went through the legal stuff, found you could talk about it. You're not selling it, so that's fine. So I was left with, do I really want to do this? Like, is this what I'm called to do? And if so, I got to study and learn about what these things are. So I started to learn. Now, back then there was like 7 or 8 peptides you could pick from and that was it. It was all GH-RPs. So growth hormone-releasing peptides or growth hormone-releasing hormones. So CJC-1295, ipamorelin, hexarelin, sermorelin, and then melanotan-2. Right. And that was it. I got more into the SARMs because for bodybuilders, peptides weren't doing enough.

Explain what those are.

Yeah. So selective androgen receptor modulators.

Okay. And this is for supporting testosterone and growth hormone.

So the SARMs were actually created for osteoporosis and HIV patients. Okay. So people that were suffering from muscle wastage. Yeah. But the way they correlated to bodybuilding was SARMs were basically— they weren't as strong as steroids, but they were close in terms of, wow, we can get strength, we can get size, we can really, really get a lot of the benefits from steroids without the slew of side effects.

Now, by the way, to today, you know, I had a family member, a young guy, and he's like, listen, I— of course he would never ever consider any sort of steroids, but he's like, I want to put on as much muscle as I can. I've, I've got, you know, guys in college and they'll ask me this sort of thing. What do you believe if there are maybe 3 peptides used together or something like that? If somebody's looking to build muscle, what is the best peptide stack for building muscle?

So GHRP-6 is nice with the least amount of side effects, right? Right. So GHRP-6 is good because it, it fuels your hunger because you have to eat more to get size. So you got to get a high amount of protein intake. And I'm not saying eat a bunch of garbage and free will to just eat whatever, but you need an appetite and that one will build muscle. So that's definitely one I would consider. Now, this is going to seem counterintuitive, but I'll tell you where I'm going with this. So tesamoralin is my favorite peptide in terms of what it can do for muscle because you can build lean muscle and still lose fat. So it's— I look at it like a recomposition peptide, which is building muscle. So if you're going to be eating more, you still want to have something that's compensating you to stay lean at the same time. Lean muscle is what we want. We don't want to accumulate fat when we're building muscle.

Yeah.

So I definitely want that one in there. And then I would be looking at probably ipamorelin or CJC-1295. Those normally go together and they're ran together. Yeah, those would be like the set that I would really look at and consider for building muscle.

And do people go on those for 4 to 6 weeks, off 4 to 6 weeks, on 5 days a week, 2 off? Is that the general—

You definitely want to cycle these. Yeah. Now you could get away with 8 to 12 weeks on all of the ones I listed, 12 for most. But you definitely want to cycle. Well, I generally like to stay 7 days a week unless somebody's got history, and then we have to talk.

Let me ask, what are the side effects of any of these peptides if you use them too long?

Well, there's not a ton of shown side effects on a lot of these. Like, Tesamorlin, if you're pregnant, women, they could have an issue. Uh, you don't want to use it. There's something there that can affect the pregnancy and the birth. Okay. And that's for women. But look, there's not proven anything with these for too long of use. There's just not enough study. Yeah. And so you have to be very careful of overusing anything because your body also will acclimate to these after a while. So you'll—

you'll— so there's just— yeah, one of the side effects is your body is saturated. You're not getting any additional benefit. So why waste the money?

No. And that's for sure. Um, myostatin will always kick in to where you can't just keep gaining muscle. You have to remember that too. You just have to be very careful with like growth hormone releasers, especially because too much growth hormone is not good. Like too much testosterone is not good. You— too much pressure on your heart. Too much growth hormone, you can eventually get like water retention, high blood pressure. Some people could get hypoglycemia. So you have to be careful with these things. You can't abuse them and misuse them. There's a lot of things that could go wrong. So you have to stay under the mindset that this is a marathon, not a sprint. You're only going to get so much out of it. If you do it right, you can do it long term and get a lot of results.

Now let's talk about peptides for other uses, because I think there's a lot of people asking about peptides for a few categories. Longevity would be a big one. I would say hormonal health, just general hormonal health in women, maybe even thyroid or menopause or PCOS, you know, of course, men, low testosterone. And then we see peptides for heart health. I mean, they're, you know, diabetes, weight loss. So talk to me about some of these other peptides in your— maybe, maybe between 1 and 3 peptides that might help some of those general goals.

I'm going to list you my favorites.

Okay.

And I'm going to tell you what category they fall in.

Chronic pain. Yes. And healing. I want to do that one too.

Absolutely. First of all, like I mentioned, when I started this, there was nothing to pick from like this. Now, there's literally something for almost everything. And that's what I love about this. So my list of favorites— KPV is at the top of my list. Now, you talked about BPC and TB500. So there's two different types of stacks on the market. One is called Glow and one is called Clo. Glow is BPC, TB500, and GHK-Cu. GHK-Cu copper peptide, which is for skin. And collagen and everything else, but it can also have some gut healing benefits. So it fits beautifully into that scenario. But then CLO adds KPV, which is like my gold star shining, probably my most flagship one that's coming up.

By the way, this is what I take right now is CLO. My dad, my dad has frozen shoulder and having some pain, so he's also getting some, uh, some regenerative therapies in there. But I have him doing flow right now. But by the way, I hate to say— here's one other thing I want you to explain. What are peptides? And also, how are they different than hormones? Maybe because I want people to really understand maybe what— or just what peptides are.

They're just amino acids. It's so simple. Like, if you— I used to say this when Bitcoin came out, everybody acted like it was so difficult, and I did too. And when you look at it, it's so easy if you just read it. Peptides are just amino acids in chains and they have more molecules to like different compounds. So, and Dr. William Seeds has a very good book that really breaks the science down. I will say that, that explains the, the certain amounts that each one has, why and how they work. And it's very, very simple. They're not like hormones will affect, like for instance, let's take synthetic testosterone.

Yeah.

So that's going to have such a different kind of effect on your body.

It's kind of— it's going to force your body to do something whether it wants to or not.

Exactly. And so like, I'm on TRT, so what is TRT going to do? Well, it's going to shut down my luteinizing hormone and my follicle stimulating hormone because I'm taking synthetic testosterone, so my body forgets how to produce it. It's shifting hormone balance, and if you take too much or if your body has too little, it's going to shift to different things going on in your body. A lot of times in a bad way. Yeah. And so we want the balance there. Now, the KPV, which I love so much, is because of the gut health. Yes. And because of the benefit there. And then look, with peptides, with SARMs and a lot of supplements that you take, you'll find that they do really good on their own. But when you get synergy between 2, 3 or 4, that's when they can shine because they feed off of each other. So one, could have a primary that has a secondary that's another's primary, right? So BPC does have gut produce, you know, gut health protection there, and KPV's primarying that. And KPV can also have some secondary healing benefits, but nowhere to the extent of BPC. But they work together synergistically. So then you get everything. That CLO stack is incredible. It's my favorite stack in existence. So that's one. Now, I am somebody that struggled with stress and anxiety and things, and I know how bad it is. So I look at Selank and CMAX. You take those together, they have mood benefits, anxiety help, sharpness, focus. They fit hand in hand together. Now, two others I want to mention. Yeah, MOTC, because it's mitochondrial, and it also— it's— I can't stand this term, but I'm going to say it. It's like exercise in a bottle because I don't recommend that, but it can mimic exercise. It's almost like an exercise mimetic. Don't take it— now, don't exercise, please. Just don't mix the terminologies. But that's what it does. But the mitochondria benefits— I love MOTC. I guess I lied. I'm going to say 2 more. SS31 to me is very appealing because it can help with ejection fraction and heart health.

Yeah. And it's also good for mitochondrial health too. Absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely right. And so that's one. And then I look at sleep because so many people struggle with sleep. Yeah. Epithelon is one for sleep. And the beauty of some of these is, is you don't have to take them very long. Yeah. MOTC is like very incremental. Epithelon is another one. You take 7 to 14 days and don't take it again for months. Yeah. And it, it helps to regulate your sleep cycle, your circadian rhythm. So some of these don't require much. That's the other beauty of it.

Powerful.

It is. And now There's brilliant people that, of course, have been working on this for years that are finding ways that you can take it without just injecting it. Because let's face it, injecting sucks. Yeah, it does over time. And it's not that it's painful, it's annoying. And it's hard to carry around insulin syringes and like TRT needles and stuff. And people look at you like you're a junkie or you're crazy. And it's not fun. Yeah, it's just not. And you can make errors. I've pinned myself bad before on TRT and swelled up and made myself bleed. And it can happen to anybody, you know. And I actually injected into my del here and got a lipoma and had to have it removed really from a bat, from doing it too much because I got lazy.

That's interesting.

Yeah. So those are the types of things that can happen. Scar tissue buildup, you know. And with, with peptide injections, you can have allergic reactions at times. If you're not sterile. Yeah. You know, and you— there's a lot of stuff. So there's people that are now have formulated— I'm not a big fan of oral yet. I don't know that like BPC, for example.

So here's what I found with oral. Some of them, they are effective orally. They tend to not be as effective orally as injection. No. But of course, the compliance a lot higher. But I will say this. So BPC-157, we know, is coming from stomach acid.

Acid in humans.

And there is some research, and I saw a study from a friend of mine, Gesegoli, uh, sent it to me the other day on BPC-157 for leaky gut. Yeah. And for— so, so I will say I do believe BPC-157 and KBV in particular, um, maybe even lorazetide, but some of these for gut health and leaky gut are beneficial. Absolutely. So I do think we're going to see more and more, and I anyways, there's some that are enteric coated, some are doing liposomal. So I do think we're going to see more and more adoption of oral peptides and great benefits there. But I do think the highest uptake by the body definitely is still doing those insulin-like, you know, needles and injections. Um, but I, I'll tell you, I'm so excited about peptides because to me it's a powerful form of medicine that also is alignment with, to a degree, natural medicine. That's right. You know, when I started doing, reading the history of where do peptides come from, where are they found? They're found predominantly in our organs. Yeah. So going all the way back to, you know, the 1970s, they were using, now even beyond that, Chinese medicine, they would prescribe glandulars as medicine. So if you would have gone into an ancient pharmacy, you know, people would have had, you would have, herb, all your herbs and spices there, your turmeric, your ginger. You had mushrooms like reishi. And then there were glandulars. There was heart glandular and liver and, and, and thymus gland. And even in the past 100 years, they actually prescribed thymus gland for treating cancer because it had vilon, and that's where TB500 is, and thymosin alpha 11. So these, uh, so when you think about what peptides are, peptides are the shorter proteins that live in our organs and glands. And now what we're able to do is take them, make them synthetically, and in a more concentrated, higher dose. And so they're really supporting, in part, cellular communication, helping your cells communicate better, tell them, hey, here's what you need to do: create more estrogen, create more testosterone, heal and regenerate this area. So they're supporting the body in that way. And so anyways, I kind of knew about them as granular therapy. And now today we have this higher concentrated. And just like, you know, if you eat an orange today, that's about 60 milligrams of vitamin C right now. When people are sick today, oftentimes we recommend 1,000 milligrams. I was going to say 3 times a day. Right. Think about peptides in that very same way for everybody there in terms of what they are, how they're used. And it's exciting. I mean, we're going to continue. It's really— it's so— it's a big part of the future of medicine.

I like having alternative options that are derived differently, that I feel are much safer, that aren't structurally inept. When I say that, I mean that cause so much damage. Yeah, because I feel like— and I'll use a steroid as an example. So when you take an oral steroid, it goes through a process called C17 alpha alkylation so that it can pass through the liver. Yeah, but what does that do? It adds all kinds of methylation and toxicity, which is why you see people have like terrible ALT and AST numbers. Their kidney numbers are all screwed up. Cholesterol goes through the roof, blood pressure's high. That's why they have those side effects. But a lot of pharmaceutical drugs, yes, like a statin, comes from— derived from what? Red yeast rice. But then what else are they doing to it? What are they altering to it? And what is that causing? Why are people getting the muscle pain and the fatigue and everything else that goes along with it? That's why I like peptides as the other option.

Hey, can I ask you, with GLP-1? Yeah, that's a peptide. Sure. Every peptide I know of that where a responsible doctor is prescribing it or recommending it, they are cycling on and off of it. Yeah. Or it's ultra low dose. Why are GLP-1s the only peptide where that's not happening? I mean, doctors are putting them on for a very— they're not cycling them on and off every 4 weeks.

I would say it's a misunderstanding or lack thereof knowledge base on how these work and what they will actually do.

And how about lack of integrity? Yeah, that too. You know, in terms of, you know, we'll make more money if we just have people people stay on it, you know, long term.

So here's the, here's the truth. These clinics, a lot of them are just people that start a business. They have no clue nor concept of what they're doing, the effects, the ramifications of anything. They care about keeping people on whatever it is that they have at their clinic. Unfortunately, GLP-1 is like the highest thing at any clinic. First it was anti-aging clinics back in— yeah, who knows when, when baseball and everything was going on, and it was let's get everybody on HGH. Then it became the, the TRT clinics. Let's put everybody on testosterone, even people that have 600, 700, 800 testosterone.

Or HCG.

I mean, it's always something. It's always something.

Yeah.

So what is it now? It's GLP-1s. But now the amount of harm that people are causing by running too high too long— they're, they're ending up, once they do come off, not only gaining the weight back but gaining more weight back. And then they have screwed up their system and their, their brain so much in terms of their hunger that it's just all over the place. Yeah, they're just a mess.

And when they're getting the weight back, it's more fat than the muscle they previously had.

Well, that's the other thing. They're losing muscle in the process of losing weight. They're sacrificing tons of muscle. And then, like you said, when they gain the weight back, it's all fat. They're not gaining back any muscle. Because essentially, just to, to make it as simple and easy as I can, a GLP-1 is just tricking your mind and making you not hungry, right? So it's just shutting down your mind from being hungry. So what happens when it turns back on? You're starving. Yeah, you're starving. Yeah. So the microdosing— and I have talked to so many people in terms of, and, and people that I respect— that microdosing, it has a slew of long-term benefits. Yeah, especially cognitive.

Yeah. And the microdose, it's like 1/10. I mean, they're prescribing 10 times the amount you should probably be on. It's insane.

Yeah, it's absolutely asinine. And whether it's, you know what you're doing and you're, you're hurting people or you don't know what you're doing and it's a lack of care, it's bad both ways.

I mean, think about it like this. It's like one apple a day. That's great for your health, right? 10 or 10 pieces of fruit. That's too much. I mean, you know, the dose determines the medicine or the poison. Always. That's kind of where we're at today. And so, you know, I— but I'm glad I asked you about that because I see that all these people open up all these GLP-1 clinics. A lot of them aren't doctors. They're just opening up. They just realize, oh, I can make money with this. And it's not about people's health. Yeah. The— Dylan, last question I want to ask you. Yeah. As we think about longevity and you think in ranking order, somebody wants to live a long time, be 90s, doing the thing they love to do. Maybe it's pickleball, maybe it's bringing their grandkids to Disney World, whatever their favorite thing is. But people not only living a long time, but being young for longer, looking younger, feeling younger. What are your top 5 things in ranking order that you think will make the biggest difference for people in longevity?

Rest and recovery is going to be first. Okay. And I've learned this the hard way. Lack of sleep, lack of trying to, to, to really stay in focus on how much we're doing here. So stress is a killer. That is not just a statement. So being highly stressed, overtraining, which is a very real thing— if you don't rest and recover physically and mentally, that's why we were given the Sabbath, which I finally just learned and understood was you need to look at that as a gift. That's right, it's a gift.. It's not a requirement, it's a gift. Amen. Right? And I just learned that like a week ago.

God's like, take a vacation. Yes. Take a whole day and no work. Let's receive the gift.

Yes. And I'm trying my hardest and I'm not good at it, but I will get good at it because now I understand when you have a gift, you don't spit in the face of God. All right? So that's one, rest and recovery. Two, mental, right? So that goes back to the gratitude part of things. And being in a good place mentally, however that may be for you to get you there. I will always say prayer first for the people that don't, some sort of meditative state or some way that you're relaxing your mind. You need to have that. You have to have some alone time with yourself where you're getting a good focus. I will always, always, always say at least get a good hour of prayer. And I'm not just saying recited prayer, I'm saying conversation with God.

Yeah.

You know, there's prayer. People forget that's a conversation with God. Recited prayers are great. Go deeper than that. 3, absolutely, you have to have movement. I really have come to the understanding how important walking is. Yeah. You know, I was Mr. You gotta run everywhere. Well, that's not the case. Walking every single day is of the utmost importance. Jesus walked everywhere. Yeah. Everybody back then walked everywhere. That was the key. And that's why you go to all these other countries and people are in such good health condition. Even people that smoke in Europe, they're still in good health because they walk everywhere. Well, maybe decent health, better than us. So that 4 is diet. Your diet needs to be consistent. Everybody wants to— well, can I have a cheat day? Well, can I do this? Well, can I do that? Consistency will take you the longest. You have to be consistent. I'm not saying perfect. Consistency and perfection are two different terms, but finding a good diet and an understanding as we age that you're going to have to adapt to whatever change is going on. The diet that worked for you when you were 25 may not work for you when you're 40. So being able to adapt and do that is very important. 5 would be the bloodwork monitoring like you talked about. You need to do it at least twice a year, and it's never too early to go check your Lp to see if you're going to potentially have a heart issue later because you have a genetic condition, or just look for certain things. Check your body for toxicity twice a year minimum. As we get older, you know, I, I maybe go overboard, but I've had things that go on. So, you know, I do every 3 to 4 months, twice a year minimum. So those, those would be my 5 keys to making sure that we're going to live longer.

I love it. There's so much wisdom there.

Thank you.

Well, Dylan, thanks so much for coming on and sharing your wisdom today. I mean, I've really enjoyed this. I've enjoyed getting to know you a little bit over the last, you know, week or so. And, um, I wanna encourage everybody, hey, check out what Dylan has going on. He's got a great podcast. It's called the Dylan Gemelli Podcast. I've got a great YouTube channel, social following. So I wanna encourage you, follow him, continue to see what he has to say. There was a lot of brilliant things in the conversation today. I wanna say thanks so much for tuning in here to the Dr. Josh Axe Show. Remember, each and every week we're diving deep into the science and principles of how you can heal physically, mentally, spiritually, and take your health and your life to the next level. Hey, make sure to subscribe, like, and share. By the way, sometimes this sort of content gets shadowbanned when we talk about peptides and some of these things. So make sure to subscribe. That way it always shows up in your feed. By the way, it's the number one way you can support the show is by subscribing and share. So many people can learn about the power of peptides and cellular medicine and prayer and a lot, a lot of the things we talked about today. So thanks for your support and subscribing and sharing. I can't wait to see you on the next episode.