How Low-Dose Naltrexone, Peptides, and Inflammation Shape Longevity and Quality of Life

We connect the dots between chronic inflammation, stem cell degradation, and why targeting immune overdrive can change pain, brain fog, and aging trajectories. We share how low-dose naltrexone and peptide stacking offer simpler, safer paths beyond polypharmacy.

• inflammation’s role in degrading stem cells and repair
• case study: fibromyalgia and Sjögren’s flares
• why LDN supports immune modulation and mood
• LDN use cases: neuroinflammation, long COVID, MS
• peptide stacking with NAD and glutathione
• reducing polypharmacy with targeted protocols
• longevity framing: energy, sleep, mobility, resilience
• practical dosing notes and safety profile

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Chapters

• 0:00 Inflammation’s Hidden Damage to Stem Cells
• 3:55 Case Study: Fibromyalgia, Sjögren’s, Peptides
• 7:27 Why Low-Dose Naltrexone Matters
• 11:35 LDN: Mechanisms, Uses, Safety

Transcript

Kelli: 0:31

So I didn't know in doing some of my research that significant inflammation can degrade stem cells, especially like early young stem cells. And so I have a patient that has fibromyalgia and chogrin's. And so she has a lot of flares of her chogrins. And we were chatting this week and kind of talking about some other stuff. And so I put her on NAD and I've put her on glutathione to address some of her inflammation. And she came back and we chatted about her labs, and I put her on some other things to address some of her hormones, some morein being one of them. So, you know, really kind of using those peptides and peptide stacking like we've talked before to address an issues, just because there's a ton of research showing that that's just really the gold standard right now. But then going back, I was doing some research yesterday to see what else we could do to address this just overwhelming inflammation that her poor body is dealing with right now. And so in my research and kind of going through it all, you know, we talk a lot about stem cells, and you and I discuss a lot of things about peptides and how that can help to reverse the sides of aging and not just anti-aging, but what that looks like, you know, clinically. And I didn't realize how significant, how much of a role inflammation plays in degrading stem cells. Did you know that? I didn't know that.

Nicole: 1:48

I did not know that. I did not know that. I did not know that until you just now said that. But I will tell you that we talked about last night on a meeting that I was on about LDN, LDN, low dose naltrexone, and about how really good it is for anti-inflammatory for those fibromyalgia, for those chronic inflammatory processes for patients who just have a normal, just you know, chronic inflammation in general. I mean, low dose naltrexone, like so for me, I take one milligram twice a day. One one milligram twice a day. That's it. That's it. Like the normal dose, if you look up naltrexone, it has, you know, you use it for other things, of course, at the higher doses, but at these microdoses, it does really, really good things, and especially with aging. So I think that with the stem cells that you're talking about, being that you're now you're saying, okay, inflammation can break down your stem cells. Now we need to attack the inflammation. And so there's so many ways to do that with the peptides or with the LDN. There's so many ways now. That's amazing.

Kelli: 2:49

Yeah. And I didn't think I wasn't really kind of putting those pieces together. You know, we go after the things to try to boost their stem cells. But then when I was looking at stuff to target that inflammation, it really kind of put the whole thing in picture for me. I was like, now it starts to make sense because then it becomes this vicious cycle, right? Inflammation, breaking down stem cells, you know, the degradation of stem cells, causing more inflammation, causing more breakdown. It's just like she's in this yo-yo and trying to try to get her off that hamster wheel. It really was a good, a really good, you know, mind-blowing experience for me yesterday going through all of that stuff. And so I really started kind of going down that down that pathway. But I know you, Nicole, have done a lot of research and you're really kind of hype on LDN. So let's start out today just talking about LDN. So for everyone that's just joining us, welcome. Welcome to another episode of Tattoos and Telehealth. I'm Kelly White, uh, board certified family nurse practitioner. And this is my great friend, colleague, and partner, Nicole Baldwin. She's also a board certified family nurse practitioner. And our attorneys make us say that this podcast does not at all constitute a patient provider relationship. This is not at all medical advice. We're just two gals. As you can tell, chatting it up, we like to sit here and visit and pick each other's brain and talk about some stuff. So, Nicole, take off and tell us while we're on the subject, all about LDN or low dose naltrexone. What does that mean? What kind of role does it play in medicine and how do we get to use it?

Nicole: 4:15

Yeah, sure. So LDN has been around for a really long time. LDN is low dose naltrexone. So it's like a microdose of naltrexone. Now, I have some patients. I was on a podcast yesterday, and someone said, I mentioned one of the patients said, I mentioned naltrexone, low dose naltrexone to my in-person provider, and they were like, What? And you know, not every provider knows everything. And so you you have you have to know that, right? That's why we have specialists, and that's why we have you know different things. Nobody knows everything. I grew up thinking that every doctor, if you were a doctor, you knew everything. But as you know, as we you know become adults, okay, not everyone knows everything. And so if you don't specialize in it, you just don't know. So it's nobody's fault. But there's really not a lot of providers out there that know a lot about low-dose naltrexone. And naltrexone is um a medication that between one and four milligrams has been has been studied for a wide range of conditions where immune, where they where they have patients have immune dysregulation, chronic pain, inflammation. So, like an example would be fibromyalgia or chronic, you know, chronic inflammation. So the LDN works by it blocks the opioid receptors, which causes the body to upregulate production of endorphins, but endorphins improve mood, but also play an important role in the immune system. So immune modulation is one of the benefits. Less of importance to number two, anti-inflammatory effects. So LDN reduces the activity of the immune cells in the brain and the spinal cord that contribute to neuroinflammation. So, like my dad, he struggles with some memory. And so I'm gonna get him on LDN because I think that that would be super, super helpful if you have a loved one that is suffering from memory issues. Where we are in science today is you can't completely reverse, you know, Alzheimer's or dementia or whatever, but the sooner you get treatment, you can slow it down, right? So you can't go backwards. So as we age, you know, our memory goes down. But if you can catch it as it starts to decline, it we can level it off, right? So LDN with this anti-inflammatory effects, great for neuroinflammation. Also, LDN has been finding great results with conditions like multiple sclerosis, fibromyalgia, chronic pain, neuropathy, complex regional pain syndrome. It's been great with that. Another thing that I use it for is long COVID for patients who have a brain fog and fatigue where they either have chronic fatigue syndrome or they have long COVID. I found that just like one milligram twice a day or two milligrams once a day has been super, super helpful for those patients who just have that brain fog that they just have not been able to come on the other side of. There's been some research that LDN has been uh shown to benefit Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis. Those are autoimmune conditions. So rheumatoid psoriasis. And so it, you know, I'm not saying it's gonna heal everything, but these are these are conditions that we have to manage, right? You can't, you know, necessarily reverse Hashimoto's. You can't re you know, you can't uh cure Hashimoto's, you can't cure rheumatoid arthritis necessarily psoriasis. You learn to manage it, and so these autoimmune conditions that patients have, the LDN is that it's being studied that it's showing to help balance the immune system without the heavy side effects of immunosuppressants, which that's typically historically where medicine pushes you, because that's the only option, one of the only options that medicine has had is these strong immunosuppressants, which aren't good for you long term, they make you feel absolutely terrible and they not they really knock down your own immune system. So you're more prone to colds, flus, you know, viruses, things like that. So there's so many good things. And I think as the world goes to a more holistic approach with things, because let's be real, nobody trusts anybody, even in the medical field, like we're you know, we're questioning everything, but it's more of a micro dose of something that is super, super safety profile, like super great safety profile. But it also increases endorphin levels that may improve mood, sleep, and resilience to stress. Some patients talk about reduced anxiety and depression when on low dose trexum. And so I know for I have seen it do amazing things for anxiety. And everybody's different. Of course, everybody's different, but for safety profile, it is well tolerated, minimal side effects, if any. So typically, if you're going to have a side effect, right? Nothing comes without a risk. You get in your car, there's a risk, but you wear your seatbelt just in case, right? So if you're gonna have a side effect, and this is typically at the higher doses, it's gonna be headaches with the first few days that you start it, which I I have not had a patient that's had that with LDN, vivid dreams again at the higher doses, insomnia, again at the higher doses, but there is no significant risk of dependency, unlike with the higher dosage of different of different medications that would be used for the same condition. So it's certainly not a one size, you know, fits all, but it can it can be an amazing game changer for patients with autoimmune, inflammatory pain conditions, especially when normal traditional therapies aren't effective or poorly tolerated. So it is just doing amazing things. And I feel like it's not talked about enough, that there's not enough education on it. And I think it can replace a lot of medications that patients are on. Patients are on, you know, this this medication for this, and then this one for the side effects of this, and then this one for this, and this one for this. And it seems like that this can be helpful as an umbrella.

Kelli: 10:12

So you know, I d I don't know about you, but you just what you just said reminded me of how many times I see patients that take a medication for a pill for an ill, right? And then they're on another medication to counteract the side effects of that medication. Not because they needed it for anything other than the side effects of a medication that they were on. And I'm like, how in the world of any of this is this making sense? Because you could have just treated this condition with this either lifestyle change or this supplement or this microdosing or this this, and instead we added this pill for the ill and then this pill for the side effect of this pill. And I'm like, you know, I I it's just and then it's continuous. You know, yesterday, or maybe it was the day before yesterday, I I I saw a patient and I ended up, I put her on an injectable peptide in exchange for three pills. I pulled her off of three medications in exchange for one injectable peptide. And it's just it's situations like that that I'm like, how in the world did that make sense to somebody else simply because you were closed-minded to alternative treatment options for patients? I I don't understand that thought process. You know, she's she's you know, young and active and healthy and just wants to stay active and healthy. And she was being, you know, tied down by all these medications she's having to take. And like it just in in no world does that make sense. We have options, you know. Like you said, microdosing is very, very popular. It has always been around a long time, but it's becoming more and more popular. And it's very it works, it works, it's very safe. And I don't understand why it's not being utilized more often. There's so much research out there that shows that it's very effective. And when you can come off of all of these medications, you know, I see so many patients, especially, you know, with my side gig, polypharmacy is a big thing. And if you can get them off of some of those medications in exchange for something that their body made naturally when they were younger, why not?

Nicole: 12:11

Yeah, yeah. Like like NAD. That's exactly your body made it. Your body still, right? You still have NAD. Yeah. Which is a peptide, by the way, for those of you who haven't, you know, jumped, jumped into this or or you know, heard of it, but look it up. I mean, you guys, look it up, look it up, look up LDN, look up NAD. NAD is, you know, is a peptide that our body naturally makes between the age of 30 and 40, drops down to 50% of what we had, hence the aging process. So patients are looking for longevity, they're looking for, you know, they're wanting to stay healthy, get that quality of life near the end. You know, once we get 50, 60, 70, it it really becomes about quality of life, you know, and starting earlier and knocking down the inflammation and knocking down some of the processes that just naturally happen with aging, especially women. You know, a lot of things happen with women with our hormone decline, but but men too, just degenerative things, you know, people people are gonna have your body gets old. That's what degenerative, it starts to degenerate. And that's why you see the the old man or the old woman with the walker, they're crunched over, they're but their body is deteriorating. So these degenerative diseases, which are normal with aging, you know, as our spine, the joints between our spine, they start, we start wearing them down. And that's why when we turn 100, we're two inches shorter, because the discs in our spine start getting small because we're wearing them out. We're just we're wearing them out. And so you know, aging is not preventative. I mean, it's not preventable, but if we can do things to slow the process, the quality of life can be amazing. You know, it can really, really be sustainable, really be, you know, be sustainable through those those older, those, those older golden years, but also for people who are super health conscious, you know, younger but super health conscious, there's more natural now. Kelly and I we're Western medicine trained, right? We get it, like we're Western medicine trained, but I think we put so much value in what else is out there. We're curious. What else is out there? What can I offer for ourselves try or guinea pig our families that would have less side effects? Less side effects, less risk, less all those things. If if we can find something that's it's gonna be less harmful, we're all about it.

Kelli: 14:43

Well, guys, we hope that this was helpful information. You can always find us at hamiltontelehealth.com. You can look for our podcast at tattoos and telehealth. Please like, subscribe, share, follow, all the things. And we look forward to seeing you guys next time. Thank you.