The Dr. Tyna Show
Peptides 101: Unlock Optimized Gut, Brain and Recovery | Kyal Van Der Leest of LVLUP
Thu, 20 Mar 2025
EP. 200 In this episode, I sit down with Kyal Van Der Leest, founder and formulator of LVLUP, a cutting-edge peptide-based supplement company. We dive deep into the power of peptides, their role in gut health, brain function, and overall wellness, and how they can be effectively used in over-the-counter supplements to optimize health. Kyal shares his unique approach—blending modern naturopathy with advanced formulations to create targeted solutions for health optimization. We also break down the differences between oral and injectable peptides, the impact of environmental toxins, and how to strategically use peptides to take control of your health and longevity Topics Discussed: What peptides are and how they support gut health, brain function, and recovery How Ultimate GI Repair works and why it’s a game-changer for gut healing The key differences between oral and injectable peptides (and when to use each) How environmental toxins impact brain function, metabolism, and overall health The role of peptides in weight loss, muscle building, and body recomposition How to determine the best peptide-based supplements and therapies for your needs Head over to LVLUPHealth.com and use code DRTYNA at checkout to get 20% off your order sitewide. On This Episode We Cover: 00:00:00 - Intro to peptides & Kyal’s background 00:04:08 - GI Repair formula breakdown 00:10:25 - How to dose peptides effectively 00:14:30 - Environmental toxins & gut health 00:20:01 - Brain fog & cognitive peptides 00:22:46 - Boosting BDNF for brain function 00:27:55 - Peptides for recovery & longevity 00:32:11 - GLP-1 medications & metabolism 00:36:35 - Oral vs. injectable peptides 00:39:27 - Finding the right supplements 00:42:57 - Joint pain & inflammation support 00:49:05 - Peptides for weight loss & muscle 00:54:22 - Toxic load & stubborn fat 00:57:44 - MTHFR, mold, & detox pathways 01:00:51 - Naturopathic medicine & root causes Further Listening: EP. 183: Breaking Down The Latest Sensationalism About Ozempic | Solo Ozempic Done Right Playlist Sponsored By: LVLUP | Head over to LVLUPHealth.com and use code DRTYNA at checkout to get 20% off your order sitewide. Disclaimer: Information provided in this podcast is for informational purposes only. This information is NOT intended as a substitute for the advice provided by your physician or other healthcare professional, or any information contained on or in any product. Do not use the information provided in this podcast for diagnosing or treating a health problem or disease, or prescribing medication or other treatment. Always speak with your physician or other healthcare professional before taking any medication or nutritional, herbal or other supplement, or using any treatment for a health problem. Information provided in this blog/podcast and the use of any products or services related to this podcast by you does not create a doctor-patient relationship between you and Dr. Tyna Moore. Information and statements regarding dietary supplements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent ANY disease.
Chapter 1: What are peptides and how do they support health?
You do not want to have adiposity, excess adiposity. People can do all these things to try and increase their lifespan with NMN and NR and NADs, but just reduce your body fat percentage and that'll go a lot further.
Chapter 2: How does the GI Repair formula work?
You are tuned into The Dr. Tina Show with Dr. Tina Moore. For more, visit drtina.com. On this episode of The Dr. Tina Show, I sat down with Kyle Vanderlees. Kyle is a young man who is wise beyond his years. And I tell you what, he gives me faith in humanity again. I'm excited about this younger generation after talking to him. He is a... founder and formulator for the company Level Up.
They are a peptide-based company. These are oral supplements. And I wanted to get him on because I wanted to get you guys what you've been asking for, which is more about peptides, more about specific peptides and how we can use them and how can we access them readily. And you can do so through Level Up because again, these are oral, these are over the counter and they're considered supplements.
The beauty and the reason that I had to have this particular young man on was because I got a bottle of their GI repair in the mail and I looked at the formulation and I thought, this is brilliant. Like what is in here all combined at the ratios that they're at is who did this? And I come to find out that this man is not only a nutritionist, but he is a naturopath.
Now, Australian trained naturopaths are a bit different than licensed naturopathic doctors in the United States. but that does not mean that their knowledge base is any less. And this guy knows his stuff. Plus he brings in this unique modern approach by combining in the peptides. So beautiful conversation. I know you're going to love this one.
It's chock full of clinical pearls and knowledge and tips just know-how on how to utilize these peptides in your life. If you head to LevelUpHealth, that's L-V-L-U-P.com, LevelUp, and you use code DRTINA at checkout, you'll get a nice discount. I know you're going to love this conversation as much as I did interviewing him. So let's jump in.
Kyle, thank you so much for coming on the Dr. Tina show. You have introduced me to a line of products that I truly think are genius and remarkable. And I don't just let anyone on this show. I've used them personally because you've been kind enough to share them with me. And I wanted to introduce you to my audience because I think you're absolutely just a young genius in this space.
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Chapter 3: What are the key differences between oral and injectable peptides?
And we're going to talk all things peptides. So thanks for being here.
Well, thanks for having me. And thank you for the compliments of I definitely have developed them to try and reduce the barrier to entry for peptides for people because for bringing the public consciousness to peptides. We'll take it and we'll run with it. And yeah, hopefully the products can help people, your audience. They'll hopefully all like them and yeah, keen to discuss them all.
Yeah, well, I've had a couple different folks on, but we haven't jumped into some of the other peptides. We've most notably talked about GLP-1s and you are bringing peptides in oral forms, in supplement forms that are easily accessible to people at... Just really incredible formulations.
I got a bottle of your GI repair in my hands right before I had my upper bleph, which was my eyelid surgery I had in November. And I got the bottle and I looked at it and you're a naturopath from Australia originally, right? So for the audience, there are fake NDs, there are real NDs, and there are...
in that real nd category are the us nds and the australian nds and this is a you guys are very i've worked with many of you guys are smart smart people you practice very similarly to how we do you have a deep understanding and uh it's always fun because You guys really, I think more than anybody, embrace true naturopathic medicine, to be honest with you, the fundamental principles.
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Chapter 4: How do environmental toxins affect brain function?
So this GI repair formula, like treat the gut first. That's like rule number one in at least the way I was taught in naturopathic school. And so the formulation is so great. I wanna talk about that. You have a neuro formula, you have a longevity formula. And then you have a really great body composition formula, which I think will go right into that GLP-1 conversation. So let's jump in.
Tell me your story. You've got a really compelling backstory.
Yep. So as you mentioned, I studied naturopathy in Australia. It's... different to America. We don't get the little ND title or the doctor title. They kind of stripped that away from the Aussies, which is a bit of a shame. But yeah, that was of all the courses I studied, because prior to that, I was studying human nutrition.
And prior to that, I was actually a graphic designer until my mom ended up being diagnosed with cancer. And then I thought, oh, crap, I better actually do something about this and learn how to sort of empower her and myself with learning about diet and learning how we can actually treat cancer or help mitigate the effects with proper clean diet.
And so I went and studied nutrition for four to five years. I can't remember how long it was specifically. And that left me really short of useful information to actually help people. It basically was a food accounting course, which was quite annoying and very outdated talking about food pyramids, except they call it the healthy eating plate in Australia.
So after graduating nutrition, I went and got my first job, which was a blessing because it was in a hyperbaric oxygen facility, which amazing place to begin your career as a health coach or a practitioner, but also humbled the hell out of me. Having only that human nutrition degree at the time.
I did not really know how to help people who come in with cancer or Lyme disease or some demyelination condition or even like professional athletes would come in as well. And my nutrition degree wasn't really cutting it. So while working there, I just sponged as much information off the patients who were their biggest health advocates. They're the ones who had these conditions for ages.
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Chapter 5: Can peptides aid in weight loss and muscle building?
And I would ask them, hey, what are you doing? What are you taking? What's working for you? And the Lyme disease people were the ones who really interested me and the cancer people
were ones who really interested me too because they were going to really extreme lengths they'd try anything they wouldn't just go to the chemist or to the health food store and a supplement they'd seek every avenue to find ways to bring back their health basically and from there from that clinic i learned about peptides a lot of the people who were coming in were using peptides because you know universe works in funny ways opposite across the road was a compounding chemist in um
in victoria where i worked so they would tell me all about bpc and all these thymus and peptides that they use and i'll be like wow okay i gotta try these out so i did and at the time i had a bit of burnout i had brain fog and i had some gut issues and yeah bpc was the first one i tried in oral capsule and it worked phenomenally so much that when the opportunity came to actually make it myself begin the business of level up i took it and it has been an amazing five years since then
BPC is like the gateway peptide.
Yeah, it does so much that I don't know many people who would take it and not get some level of benefit. They might take it for gut health and yeah, it'll work for that. But then they might notice a nootropic effect or improvement in their sleep because it helps with GABAergic tone and increases deep sleep.
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Chapter 6: How to choose the best peptide-based supplements?
um or you know that might have niggling injury that all of a sudden oh that's that's disappeared since taking it so it's yeah as you said a perfect Gateway peptide for people um to understand the power of peptides and now the new wave of glp-1s are Gateway peptides as well that you know if someone can lose 100 pounds off glp-1s and that shows the power of these of these molecules and shows why everyone's calling them the future of medicine
They really are. And the FDA here in the United States came after several of them in the injectable form that you could get through a compounding pharmacy back at the end of, was it 2023? And some of them have come back, but that's just been this constant, And the really cool thing that's come from that is that these companies are popping up with good quality oral forms.
And I honestly have found that BBC 157 orally has done way more for me than an injectable form. And that's because I have had... I mean, truth be told, I have had gut issues since I was a little kid, like little, little kid. And it was constant. And a lot of it was stress and anxiety. We moved a lot. And so I was constantly having to go to a new school. And I had just that...
Chapter 7: What role do peptides play in recovery and longevity?
They called it, I was hyperkinetic, not ADHD. Back then we were hyperkinetic. So the recipe for health in that case was to actually get more exercise, get outside. But now they drug these poor children. So my gut was really the driver of so many of my chronic issues. And this went on and on and on. I went through naturopathic medical school. I had access to all the things.
I got into regenerative medicine. That is the bulk of my practice was decades in regenerative medicine doing things mostly musculoskeletal work with regenerative medicine, but I was the girl that would try anything. Like I was helping patients heal fistulas and dealing with lichen sclerosis in the vaginal area. Like I was doing all kinds of stuff with stem cells and PRP.
But the one thing that I always realized was these folks results were only as good as their blood was. If I was gonna be utilizing their blood to make PRP, the results and outcomes were only as good as their overall health was. And this was before peptides really came on the scene And truly a huge driver for so much of these people's woes was their gut health, as was mine.
And even with all the best of intentions and the best of what exosomes, stem cells, all those things I had access to, I could not get my gut health under control. And then it really fell apart in 2021 because I pushed back pretty hard against the COVID narrative. and was on the receiving end of the last presidential administration censorship industrial complex.
Like they came down hard on me and it was personal. And my gut fell apart completely after a trip to Mexico where I got a nice little amoeba and it was BPC-157 that pulled me back out of that. And I have had such remarkable gut health ever since and it's a tool I can go to. And I have wished that somebody would combine it with some of the ingredients you finally combined it with.
So thank you because No kidding, that GI repair formula. Let's talk about some of those ingredients first off because it's really, it's a remarkable combo you put together.
Yeah, well, I formulated it about four years ago for a housemate of mine who had IBD. She had Crohn's disease and was almost at the point where they were going to
do a surgery and she'd be on a stroma bag it was that bad and tried all the infliximabs tried all of the immunosuppressants was losing her hair and i'm like oh my goodness surely there's something that can work anyway i developed that product but she was a nurse and knew better and didn't want to take it so from that gi repair was created and since then it's helped
Countless people, I think we sold almost 100,000 units of it to date, which is amazing. And the feedback's been phenomenal. And I'm just so glad it exists because it's designed for pretty much any gut issue. There's something in it for every part of the gastrointestinal tract, whether you've got a stomach ulcer or a H. pylori, the zinc carnosine and the BPC will work on that part.
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Chapter 8: How to effectively cycle peptide usage?
roller coaster. A lot of these docs will get their patients in and keep them forever. And the patient's like, when am I going to be healed? Well, that's a great question, right? So peptides get you there faster. Plus it can jumpstart a lot for people.
We can really get people, you mentioned Lyme and I know you have a back history of exposure to mold and we can really jumpstart that process and get people further faster. And like you said, then the other treatments that we're applying actually start working better. It's so cool.
absolutely and I always tell people these are interventional things not daily things if you're going to take GRPA every day of the year the receptors are going to burn out and not be as that it's just not going to work as well you need to take breaks from these things no matter what peptide it is be it a neuropeptide a GLP-1 like these are bursts like at most you'd ever do is two months if you got severe like
intestinal inflammation and then you take a break. I usually recommend like for every month on you take at least a week off of the peptides just to make sure super cautiously that you don't end up with receptor downregulation.
Yep, I totally agree. And that cycle might differ for each person depending on the severity of how they're feeling. And again, this is not medical advice because this isn't a prevention treatment or cure for anything. This is a way to heal the body and harness homeostasis in the body. That's how I look at it.
So I'm not ever applying something or talking about something as a way, like that's just the foundation of naturopathic medicine. Like we're not ever trying to prevent, like patients would come in and say, have you dealt with this specific condition or this specific type of infection? And I'm like, that is irrelevant to me.
I'm far more interested in how do I get the individual sitting in front of me vital again? How do I get their homeostasis working? How do I get their tissues healed so that they can heal with or deal with and heal whatever it is that's coming at them? And that's how I fundamentally see peptides working too.
Yeah, in naturopathy, healing is a consequence of improving health. It's not like directly going after a disease isn't kind of how we do it. We try and restore all of the systems of the body, all the ones that need it the most. And usually the symptoms tend to resolve or the healing tends to happen.
But you're doing it from the perspective of we're going to improve this person, not treat this illness. so that's why i love naturopathy that's why i'll never ever give up on the tendencies of that and you apply it as best as i can with these products like there's a term that they throw around in naturopathy called school called green allopathy where you basically just become
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