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Success Formula Podcast
Peptides Won't Work Until You Fix These Hormones First, Dr. Hogan Warns
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Most people are taking peptide therapy completely wrong, and Dr. Justin Hogan, a functional medicine physician, joins host Shawn Lynch to explain why. Together they break down BPC 157, TB 500 and GLP 1 weight loss drugs and what actually works.
The conversation goes deep into how peptides actually work inside the body, covering growth hormone secretagogues like CJC 1295, Ipamorelin and Tesamorelin, recovery peptides like BPC 157 and TB 500, longevity focused compounds like Epithalon and NAD, and the real science behind GLP 1 and GIP medications such as semaglutide and tirzepatide. Shawn and Dr. Hogan unpack why nutrition, hormone optimization and gut health have to come first, how to avoid wasting money on unregulated research peptides, and the exact questions you should ask any provider before starting a protocol. Whether you are chasing weight loss, faster recovery, better sleep or long term longevity, this episode hands you a real framework instead of Instagram hype.
If you are ready to take control of your health and performance, subscribe to Official Success Formula for more episodes like this one, and listen to the full conversation on the Success Formula Podcast for even more detail you will not want to miss. This is the kind of insight that separates people who guess from people who actually get results.
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My guess today breaks down what people get completely wrong when it comes to peptides.
SPEAKER_01Everyone thinks these seven peptides they want to start are gonna fix everything.
SPEAKER_00The biggest thing people don't understand about peptides is where they're actually coming from.
SPEAKER_01Peptides are nothing. Our bodies can actually make peptides.
SPEAKER_00We go into deep conversations about how everyone is so focused on peptides that they're completely overlooking the point.
SPEAKER_01So just increasing the dose or adding another way is not gonna improve the effect. Everyone wants to know which weight loss medication is the best, but the answer is we have to figure out the right recipe for each patient, and it's not cooked.
SPEAKER_00After this conversation, I think people are going to look at peptides very, very differently. And then we got into the question that everybody wants to know, but the answer wasn't nearly as simple as I thought.
SPEAKER_01Someone's selling it at the gym and like we have no clue what's in that powder that you're constituting. They gave you a vial that's actually 20 milligrams when you thought it was 10 and you over injected, you can have really bad side effects that you can end up in the ICU.
SPEAKER_00Let's start from the absolute beginning. There is so much hype, craze, uh media coverage, I guess everything that you can possibly think of around peptides. And there's a lot of good information, a lot of bad information, and I think a lot of people don't really know where to look or where to start or who to listen to because you have everybody online talking about it. And then you have the media talking about it, and then you have you know these new peptides that are supposedly getting approved through the FDA. They've been approved, but they're not you know back on the market yet. And so there is so much information it would be good today to go through in detail each and every peptide, and then all kind of the hype around them. Yeah. So we hear about peptides all the time, but how are they actually different from something just like an amino acid or a protein?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So I'll kind of take it back to the basics. So if you think about just what a peptide is, or just you know, what makes up a peptide structure, it all it all comes down to two things size and function. So you think about a peptide is just a string of amino acids. So think about we'll talk size for a moment, like two to fifty-ish would be called a peptide. Anything above that would be called a protein. So an amino acid chain would be called a peptide if it's if it's a smaller chain. Okay. Then if once you get larger, think larger structure, bigger function, you start getting into proteins like chemoglobin, you know, would be considered collagen. It's a bigger function, it's then they have a somewhat of a different function. Smaller peptides act a little differently. Just think of it like a receptor just sending a signal that then tells the body a cellular function to do something. Your proteins are a little bit bigger and tend to have a little bit more of a response within the body and a greater function. Okay. That makes sense.
SPEAKER_00Okay. When you're evaluating peptides, how how are you looking at it to determine whether it's legitimate or it's just hype, or the science is legitimate or it's just hype, or a bunch of broscience, I guess.
SPEAKER_01I think I'll I'll hit that in two ways. You have to think about like peptides are nothing new. Like, you know, our bodies naturally make peptides. And so I think people forget that. So they think since GLP1's launch, they think it's something that's new, it's scary, it's like, oh my gosh, they cause cancer, they do this. But like you think about just simple concepts like GLP1, you know, GIP, our bodies make these currently. And even things like growth worm would be considered a peptide that our body naturally makes. So people tend to kind of get a little bit nervous, a little bit scared. But now that you have all the hype, and you know, yes, author science, whatever else, and very, very good guys on Instagram talking about this, selling it. There's a lot of hype, but I think you have to take it back to the science, but also take it back to where things come from. Yes, there's research peptides, and what that means is that it's not supposed to be used for, you know, human use or even just animal use. It's supposed to be used in a laboratory to be studied. What's the function? What's the dosing structure? What's the potency? And is that vial, what's in that vial, what it sets? So that's what a research peptide would be. And so research peptides have been around a long time. The what what I try to teach my patients is more where they come from, as far as pharmacy and using a reputable pharmacy, because like you're injecting something that's that's in a vial that, and but where does that product come from? So an API, for instance, you know, that pharmaceutical ingredient, is it's where it says it comes from? If it comes from China, Russia, wherever. You know, you want to make sure what with that product that you get, is it tested properly, like for endotoxins, for instance. You know, that's a very, very dangerous toxic. You want to you do not want to inject. So you want to make sure what's in the vial says what it's in it.
SPEAKER_00Explain to me that because I've heard that before and I've heard other people talking about it on podcasts. Explain to me what an endotoxin is or it does.
SPEAKER_01So an endotoxin would be like a cross-contamination. Think of it like salmonella or something else, you know, that that that would that would be inducing an infection systemically in the body. You do not want like an endotoxin that gotcha. Becomes a little bit more dangerous to actually treat because it becomes systemic. You know, you think about seminal or you think about E. coli, yes. I mean, very, very I would say a little bit minor infections that you can treat or just get over. Endotoxins can become a little bit more dangerous just because of what it produces. So the problem is you have cross-contaminations, you need someone to actually make sure they're doing their testing. And then but it also takes it one step further, like if it says 10 milligrams, is it 10 milligrams? You know, or is it 20 milligrams? You know, do they do they is it too potent or is it not potent enough?
SPEAKER_00I think the biggest thing with the ones that I hear about when people tell me that they when they or when they do order them offline is the reconstitution part because no one knows how to do it. Like, even when I was getting them from the pharmacy a long time ago, that a lot of them would come unreconstituted. But now pretty much every pharmacy, like the majority it comes constituted to where you don't have to mix it yourself. Gentry can never figure it out. And she's one of the smartest people I know, but she's like, I don't understand. I'm like, look, says that there's 10 milligrams in the bottle. So no matter how many, how much liquid we put in there, there's still 10 milligrams in the bottle. It just, but people can't grasp the concept. And so I hear that's where a lot of the adverse effects comes comes from when they are buying them online because they don't know how to reconstitute it. And so they'll end up taking too much or whatever they end up doing, mixing it wrong. And so that's where I hear a lot about like people saying they got side effects from something or from peptides.
SPEAKER_01I mean, yeah, well, you have some guy from the gym or some, yes, you're buying a research peptide again, you still have no idea because you're not supposed to be using it. So you really can, yeah, they can put data online, they can they can put whatever, like whatever they want, but you're just trusting this company that says, you know, we ran this study, we ran this data analysis on this peptide, and this is what it is. And so the hardest part for me is yes, trying to guide patients in that realm and just learning reconstitution. So I'd say there's there's there's pluses and minuses to it having re being reconstituted. We run into the same thing, whether it's testosterone, pulling up your testosterone in our office and trying to teach our patients, you know, dosing. That's a whole nother realm. But to yes, to take a liquid and reconstitute and make sure you're doing it correctly can be a hassle. The problem is once you mix that.
SPEAKER_00The shelf life goes way down, right? Correct.
SPEAKER_01So most shelf life, depending on pharmacy, I would say 60, 90 days. Okay. So you if you go over that, it's not that it's gone it's gone bad. It is a compounding rule, but you have to think what a protein structure is. You know, they're they're very sensitive. So whether it's heat, whether it's sitting in a liquid, so they denature. So it just becomes less effective.
SPEAKER_00Gotcha. Okay.
SPEAKER_01It's like people that left it out. Yes, peptides have been tested at at higher heat temps when it's lifelized.
SPEAKER_00So typically you could leave a lifelized vial out longer versus just which is the bottle that just still has the powder in it and there's no water bacterialistic or bacterial Yeah, water.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. So window, but yeah, once you mix it, then then it's like okay. But some people like want to pre-mix them and then try to try to refill all their vials. I'm like, hey, you know, if you get a lifeless bow, just hold on to it because the shelf life's then, you know, one to two years plus. But once you mix it, then it's then it's like, okay, here's day one. And can you use it past it? I would say yes, but again, you're just losing the potency of it. But yes, I mean, there's also a stick number as well. Every time you stick a vial, you know, it has so many sticks that then you're you're you're running the risk of a cross-contamination.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01So always cheat and and also just swabbing your swabbing your vial. A lot a lot of patients forget that.
SPEAKER_00I think with the popularity of GLP1s, GIP, and all these new weight loss drugs, that's what I mean, truly put kind of peptides on the mainstream app because they work. And I think a lot of people out there don't understand or don't even know that they're getting prescribed this weight loss medication from you know, a physician or from the pharmaceutical company, but it it's just a peptide. And so people don't understand the difference. But the Ozimpic and the you know, the brand name drugs are peptides. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So you have, I mean, and like I said, I mean, there's there there's lots of different peptides out there. Like I said, HCG is a peptide. Again, HCG is the hormone that you that you're testing for when uh when a female is getting pregnant. That's what you're testing on the stick. But also we use it in a lot of males too, you know, to help induce natural testosterone because it's remember, peptides just acting on a receptor that then tells something to do. And I'll I'll I'll go back to GLP in a second, but for HCG, it's acting on the test, like the testicle region to help make natural testosterone for either younger males that you know are running low, or if you're taking actual testosterone synthetically, it can shut that process down. So you can run both to where you're not shutting the actual natural production down completely. Yep.
SPEAKER_00I took that in the very beginning when I first started taking testosterone. I it made me feel a little bit more bloated all the time. So not in a common. I I just didn't feel as good until once we did, we were this was like right after we did IBF. So, you know, I already had frozen embryos. I knew we weren't gonna try to have kids in the future, so I didn't care. And then I felt better when I stopped taking it. Yeah. So and I know everybody's different because I had a couple other friends who are like, man, I feel way better when I'm taking it.
SPEAKER_01So so me personally, yeah, so I do both. So I run a very, very low dose ACG, but that's just me personally.
SPEAKER_00So I maybe I was taking too much too. This is a long time. This is when I first got on it, and so it had to be So if you're I'm 45, it had to be when I'm I was 39. Okay-ish. 30 mid, like between 38 and 39 is when I first started taking it. And the original doctor that I went to, that's what they recommended. And again, probably didn't know if I was gonna have kids or not. And so first order of like take these together. I think I was doing it once a week.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so usually it's it's twice a week or three. I mean, I maybe maybe it was. You can you can you can do it completely, just you can do it five days a week.
SPEAKER_00Has it been so long I don't know what dose I was taking, so possibly I could have been maybe taking too much too. And if I would have just taken a little bit, I might have been better.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean that's my thing. It's like you you have to find the right dose. So everyone's different. I mean, like for me, I run a much lower dose. I mean, standard dosing for most men usually I mean let's call it a thousand to fifteen hundred units a week.
SPEAKER_00Of ACG.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, of ACG, along with like uh an actual testosterone dose, like 150, 200 milligrams a week as well. So for me, I'm more like 150 testosterone, then I'll run you know 800. So I run a little bit lower ACG, but I would say swellings are probably the most common.
SPEAKER_00I remember feeling like swelling. I hated it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So again, you have to find what works for you. So I yeah, we can always try it again and just lower it. Yeah. So and we can go back to GLPs.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so going back to GLPs when you know, most popular thing in the world right now, I think that's where the most the majority of the questions come from because there is so many different things coming out online. You then you have people talking about a bunch of different side effects, but you know, from what I've actually learned, it seems like most of the side effects come from people being malnutritioned and that just not eating, uh, is basically like where a lot of the side effects will come. So, first before we go into them, what what when someone takes a GLP one, what actually is happening to the body?
SPEAKER_01Okay. So I'll take you back to like just basic physiology. So, like let's just say you eat a hamburger, you eat I think a French fries. So, like your your stomach and you know your intestinal line is gonna release something called GLP. That then tells the brain or hypothalamic region that you're full. So you get that natural say, okay, like hey, like I'm full, like I'm done with the hamburger. The thing is, is that the natural GLP that you release is much shorter than an injectable version. So let's just then so I'll take it to the injectable version. Let's just use a zempic, you know, semaglutide. So it's a much longer acting GLP one. So you're talking about a seven-day half-life, you know, versus you eating a hamburger, you're talking like three or four hours. So that longer half-life, whenever you inject it, it it acts on, I would say, three organ systems. You let's just take, you know, pancreas for a moment. So you're actually going to increase insulin. So it tells the body, hey, like uh food coming, like how like let's let's process the glucose and tell it where to go. So there's a few like regions in the brain. So the hypothalamic region is basically saying, hey, it puts the brakes on food. So it says, hey, I'm full. But there's also this region that we call like food noise, or even that dopamine drive that's the VTS or nucleus accumbens is kind of what it's called. Like people that kind of keep going back for that bread, they get that dopamine reaction.
SPEAKER_00That's what my wife explains it as. She was like, it just feels like because she doesn't take a lot, she takes a really small dose, but she makes it, she's like, even that small dose just like turns off the food noise. Like she always refers to it as I don't know how drug addicts feel, but like I feel like a drug addict with food. You know, it's like I can't like cheese or bread or whatever it is. And I'm like, I don't understand. And she's like, I don't know, it's just how I feel. But she a little low dose, and she just kind of like cuts out that like noise, I guess, in her head where she's always thinking about it.
SPEAKER_01Well, that's the main thing, is that like you'll even have housewives or whoever, like, you know, I'm drinking less wine, I don't want the cigarettes. I don't think it's a lot of people. I've already done too, yeah.
SPEAKER_00A lot of people cut down on alcohol.
SPEAKER_01It's nice because yeah, because a lot of people just want that, just a little bit of a taste of something, or just everyone has their own little vices, or whether it's sweets or a diet coke or it cuts that dopamine reaction down. So it's like you're not you're not thinking about that once. I mean, it's like that cigarette that someone always keeps going back for, or people that vape or just I mean, I'm just talking in general of just any anything.
SPEAKER_00Any type of like addiction or vice or something that is like go playing, replaying over and over into their head.
SPEAKER_01So that's what's so good is that it acts in multiple areas of the body. Then you have the stomach as well. So if it slows the stomach like emptying down, you're able to process a little bit better. So think about if you're, you know, you're able to kind of just take things, break them down, put them in their places, but also it keeps you fuller longer. So yes, you are intaking less, less calories as well. So yes, you can lose weight, but yes, all the side effects I would say that you typically see are yes, it's in the wrong hands. People are just increasing the dosage based upon a diabetic person versus taking it how you should take it and use it in a very, very lower dose, but then change your habits that work along with the weight. So you're not losing muscle mash, that which is the most important thing.
SPEAKER_00And I think that's what people or women most likely or the thing that I hear the most is they freak out about. So I don't want to lose all my muscle or I don't want to look old. And I was like, well, if you eat right, correct, you'll be okay. You don't you're like these people aren't eating anything.
SPEAKER_01No. So that's what you have to explain to people. Like everyone's so scared to start a GLP. And I'm all about GLP ones because there's so many other benefits, which we'll get into. The problem you have to kind of teach patients and the way you're speaking to them is teach them the mechanism of action. But for me, it's about check-ins, weigh-ins, like what's your muscle mass? Like, you have to dive into the environment. Like, what do you, what's your protein intake? Like, are you exercising? What are your hormones doing? It's not just throwing a GLP and saying, hey, like I'm I'm seeing the scale move, but what's moving? Are you losing the muscle mass?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01You know, or are you just loot, are you actually losing the fat tissue that we're trying to actually go for? And that's the hardest part. I mean, there's a lot of hand holding. The problem is you have med spaws, you have plastic surgeons that are just randomly doing this. And I'm not saying that they they aren't capable of doing it, but it again, if your focus is in a surgical world or doing something else and you're just kind of prescribing GLPs and letting your patients just do it. Yeah. For us, it's like, you know, I'm more functional based. So it's like we we sit down with our patients and look at the entire body. I want to see what your like how your exercise routine is. I want to see what your hormones are doing, what your nutrition's doing, what your genetic profile is doing. Then let's see how the peptide works. That's what the importance is about peptides.
SPEAKER_00So I do have a question about trisepatide because my wife, we had received one from a compound pharmacy and they had started compounding it with B12. And when she started taking it, she didn't, she said the effects weren't as good. Like she got her appetite back. She was actually more hungry. And then we finally had switched to she finally had switched to a different one after like a couple months of that not working. And then immediately started seeing results again or started fuel. And she was like, Okay, now this is the exact same as it used to be. So, what's the difference between like the ingredients that different compounding pharmacies use, I guess, especially with like some of the GLPs that are out there?
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01So when it comes to like like terzepotite in general, yeah, you want to make sure that source or the API is kind of where it's coming from. But yes, you can source things from anywhere, whether it's in the US, outside, very, very important because it it tells us like what's in that product. But when you start adding things into compounds, things can change. So B6 is fine with testing, but we found when you start adding B12 to that product with terzepatide, you'll find over time that it actually decreases the actual potency of it. So that's that's why you'll you'll I mean, I've had patients, you know, leave my practice, say like a they just want to try something different and they always come back because we have a very valid product.
SPEAKER_00Or they try to save $10.
SPEAKER_01So again, it it it's it's like yes. I mean, going cheaper, you know, isn't always better, but it's one of those where I try to provide the best product.
SPEAKER_00So when somebody is looking for GLP GIP on ingredient-wise, since there is different compounded versions out there, what like I guess the B12 one didn't work for my wife. I don't know. So so should somebody not want the uh trize with B12, or does it matter?
SPEAKER_01So for me, I'm I'm usually always trying to not do any B12 because we've seen over time, even just from a from at a pharmaceutical level, the B12 will will actually you know induce degradation much much faster, so it's less potent. Okay. So yeah, so you're for a week, you know, you may be on an eight milligram, but it you know, it feels like a two milligram because it's it's it's it's breaking that peptide apart because the pH level is different.
SPEAKER_00That makes sense. So GIP came out when you know, craze happened, everybody lost weight, and then GIP plus GLP, no, GLP plus GIP came out, which is trisepatide. Correct. And what is that doing that semiglutide's not doing?
SPEAKER_01So you have semiglutide that's a little, like I said earlier, I mean it's a it's it is a longer half-life. So both GIP and GLP are secreted from like the I would say the digestive area. So when food comes in, obviously you're you're trying to make sure that you're having a very good insulin response. So GIP also acts in very similar areas. So you do get the insulin release. So they you have two, you have a dual agonist acting to help boost up insulin. So to be more responsive to your food intake. GIP also acts in the brain as well, along with GLP. So you have that kind of again decreasing that want of food as well. But there's also GIP found in other areas of the body, bone, even just adipose tissue. So what's good about the whole adipose tissue thing is that it's kind of when food's entering the body, you're making sure it's shunting those nutrients where they want to go. So you can have or even see a much more, like I would say, a much higher metabolic kind of increase. And that's why you see kind of the, I would say, a much greater like weight loss increase with trusepatide versus semagotide. Because you have a dual agonist versus a single.
SPEAKER_00Sure. And so now we have a dual agonist. Now in in stage three trials, there's actually reditrutide, which does GLP, GIP, and is it glucagon? So what's the difference between that? Like, what is that adding now to the other two?
SPEAKER_01So when you when you look at kind of like what like why these were created, again, initially we're looking at you know diabetics, then it kind of rolled into obesity trials. So the bigger concern is is muscle loss. So, you know, the the GLP and GIP, it's not a direct, you're not yes, if you if you if you intake less protein, you can burn through muscle tissue. Glucagon comes from the pancreas, and so does insulin. Okay. So when your body needs food or if your glucose drops, your your liver is gonna basically act with glucagon to break down glycogen. Glycogen is just stored energy. Think of it that way. So think about like stored fat, you know, stored carbohydrates. So when your body needs energy, it's gonna Pull the extra stored fat tissue out and use that for energy versus increase your metabolism also. Correct. So think about you know, if we didn't have the glycogen aspect, so we just go back to the GLP or the GIP, where is it pulling from if you don't have anything? It's gonna pull from the muscle tissue. So that's where the good concept comes in. So you're saving muscle tissue. So people think that it's building muscle or it's doing this. It's not so much a direct mechanism, it's it's how it works. So you're taking the already stored energy that you have in your liver and you're pulling extra fat cells to utilize that versus pulling from muscle tissue because people are like either either if they're injecting too high, they're like, I like protein just sounds awful. I'm too full. So you're not sustaining the intake too for the balance of the body, if that makes sense. Okay. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Here's something that I think that a lot of people overlook. Because you know, everybody's like, hey, what peptide, what peptide can I take? What peptide can I take? What, you know, what's the fastest way I can do this? What I think people underestimate the value of nutrition. Because how effective are the peptides going to be if they still don't have the right nutrition? Pretty much anything that you're gonna take, right? It's gonna be, I'm sure it would be less effective.
SPEAKER_01Right. I mean, a simple concept can be, I mean, you know, I've always used the the car concept, like, you know, we can take your new Ferrari, for instance, for for a moment, you know, and so like you take the oil, like take a very good synthetic oil, but like that engine has not been like been kept up. You can throw the best oil in the entire world at that at that engine. But if that if you haven't maintained that engine, it's not gonna function like it's not gonna perform right. So just think of it, just think of another simple one is just like environment. Like, you know, you toss something into an inflamed environment. If someone's drinking too much or someone's not getting enough sleep and their cortisol is too high, or their their hormones are not being effective, then the signal isn't as strong. So you lose that communication with the body. So it's working, but this is why you you hear people like want to do like four or five different peptides at once. I'm like, look, peptides, you know, you can't outpeptide a bad, a bad diet, or even just a bad environment. So nutrition plays a massive role into how the body functions because of I would say inflammation is a big one. But again, it everything gets distorted because if if if you have all this inflammation going on, then you know, that that whole communication just gets lost. So just increasing the dose or adding another one is not gonna not gonna improve the effect. You have to you have to take a step back and say, like, what's gonna work for my body, but also your genetic profile.
SPEAKER_00Are there specific vitamins and minerals that you want to be taking before putting someone on a peptide?
SPEAKER_01I think you have to look at the whole picture. Like every patient is so different that comes into my office. Like again, like we we take a much deeper dive into kind of what your body needs. You can do micronutrient testing, but you have to look at a few things like I guess I'll pick like a couple peptides. Um, you know, you can talk about like copper, GHCKU. So, you know, we know it helps and benefits in collagen production. But if you're, you know, if you're not taking enough amino acid or protein in, then again, if that's the basic structure of building new collagen, then no, it's not going to function as well. Um, you also have to think about like vitamin C, zinc, you know, these all play a role into kind of wound healing and collagen repair. So like even going back to like BBC 157, which we'll hit later, but and just these are different peptides that yes, you do need. But I think just taking it back to the basics of like looking at kind of what inflammatory foods you are inputting, are you absorbing that? And then vitamin D, like looking at very simplified things, but I would can't say there's very specific exact minerals, because everyone you have to take in from it from a different perspective of what you're treating, whether it's a growth hormone, it's a credagogue or a GLP one. So you're there's different aspects you have to look at.
SPEAKER_00Can nutritional deficiencies determine how good a peptide works or not?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So that kind of goes back to the same thing. So, like if if you know, let's just go back to GLPs. I mean, if you're if you're nutrient depletes, especially from a from a protein perspective, you know, if if amino acids, you know, build different peptides in the body like growth hormone or GIP or GLP, then you can't even build the main structure of what you're trying to stimulate based upon kind of what you're taking.
SPEAKER_00What about hormones? Because I've heard one of the other kind of peptide experts I had a long time ago on the popc podcast mentioned he's like, look, before you even take most peptides, he's like, you should be hormonally optimized and you're they're gonna be more effective. Yeah. How important is that?
SPEAKER_01So again, I'll kind of hit this from a few different perspectives. Again, I hate to say like everyone's different, but um hormones are very important because it builds the foundation to kind of what you're trying to achieve. Let's just take a like growth hormone, for instance, because that's like the biggest like peptide conversation besides GLP1s. You know, if someone's testosterone is not optimized, let's just say you're six, seven hundred, but you're trying to get them to 800 or even 1250-ish, you know, what is the muscle maintenance doing? How is your recovery? You know, can you build muscle tissue if you're trying to take a peptide to help with recovery, but your your hormones aren't optimized? You know, testosterone and even estrogen help in so many different ways of improving insulin function and and glucose sensitivity. So if you can improve that whole environment, your metabolics are working better and inflammation is low, then that peptide's gonna be so much more effective. So I do feel like you should be looking at hormones, but again, you have to have a provider that is asking those questions. But people want to take peptides because they think they think hormones are dangerous.
SPEAKER_00Or their friends on them. That is what I've come to realize is every single person is different. Uh I was different. Yeah. The people that I ask me what to take sometimes, I'm like, well, I I can tell you what worked for me, but you know, there's there's a handful of things that pretty much work for everybody if you get it, if you get tested and you want to optimize. But just because I'm taking one specific thing doesn't necessarily mean you need to take it, you know, methylated vitamins. There's like some of this other stuff that I take that might be specific to me that somebody else says it's not going to really benefit. And I got stuck in that trap before I ended up seeing you because I was just looking online. I was like just trying everything, right? I was like, oh, something, I don't know what to do. And so I was just like throwing stuff at the wall, but I never done, I I had never had someone do all of the testing to figure out where I was deficient, what I actually needed. And then once we fix that, then we were able to start adding extra things to make me feel better and better and better.
SPEAKER_01I mean, yeah, because people just look at peptides as like just like another vitamin. And so the problem is like now that I think medicine's taken such a leap, I think over like the last uh, I would say last five and ten years, even since I've been in practice. I think so too. Um, we're looking at, you know, what your genetics do. We can look at kind of food sensitivities, we can look at like your absorption rates and determine based upon what your body truly needs and not just tossing, yeah, tossing another vitamin at you or tossing another supplement at you. I mean, are you actually gonna actually absorb that vitamin? Do you actually need this vitamin? Are you gonna even overmethylate somebody? So you have to look and I think really take a deep dive of just what your body needs for your own personal way versus just adding another peptide. Because again, yes, you got Chat GBT, you got people that are on it on Instagram that can talk very well. And I get people all the time, hey, can I do this, this, this, this all at once? You can, but we haven't even like touched the surface of kind of what you're what like what you're doing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think that's the biggest thing. If you don't know where to start, you just get all your testing done and it'll give you a really good place to start. But everything, like genetics and the right blood work, not just like a regular panel that you would get from your uh regular doctor, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, it's I mean, even just take thyroid, for instance. I mean, yes, we were all trained the same, and I've had this conversation with you a million times, like you know, just looking at a TSH and a T4, you can miss the whole picture of a thyroid function. Um, but for me, like if I'm like looking at someone that wants to come in and do peptides, you want to look at a fasting insulin. Like, what is your fasting insulin like really telling you before your A1C pops positive of being prediabetic or even in that, you know, type 2 diabetes? Just running a glucose isn't gonna tell you that. You know, some people don't even behave of you know, acting, I would say, fasted before then, but sometimes that glucose doesn't even pop in the right way. So you have to look at those three aspects of just you know, you know, is your GLP gonna respond? Like what else can we do to kind of bring that response back? But it does go back to the hormonal section as well, like testosterone, estrogen, you know, thyroid can all improve that functionality of that environment.
SPEAKER_00Speaking of estrogen, how important is it because we'll we'll talk about men first, because I think traditionally when you hear estrogen, you think it's gonna cause a bunch of side effects. But the more and more I learn about it, it's not that you want too much, but you also don't want too little because you can have some of the similar side effects or or even worse side effects if it's too low.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so estrogen's it's a fine balance. You know, we we have what's called aromatase, which testosterone, yes, it, you know, you can get this aromatase that converts to actual estrogen, and then that's where you have these aromatase inhibitors or AIs, aromatics. Estrogen's, I would say very, very important for number one libido for men. It can, if it's too high, it can shut it down. If it's too low, it can shut it down. The two other aspects that I think people don't realize that of the benefits of estrogen or even estrodiol is gonna be brain function. You know, there's been, gosh, very, very long-term studies on cognition, dementia, Alzheimer's, and even just heart protection. Heart protection is one of the biggest things that I always try to preach with estrogen, but also testosterone improves that as well. People always think hormones are gonna cause a heart attack. But they have to be monitored in the sense of, you know, is your hematocrit too high because of the testosterone being too elevated? But the estrogen is a very, very fine kind of line. And you can take blockers if if you're if you just aromatize too quickly, because you can't have certain genetic profiles that do produce too rapidly. Even just doing DEM. DIM is a very, very good natural supplement that helps the estrogen metabolize a little quicker if someone doesn't want to do like an AI.
SPEAKER_00I've heard a lot of people say, or a lot of people out there aren't even really using anti-estrogen, as far as guys go, if they split up the dose enough, because I think before somebody was taking a full dose or a or a really large dose, like one day a week, like every Sunday or something. And then it like spikes up and then cause you to have higher estrogen. And so if you don't do that, it kind of keeps your levels or your hormones more level where you don't have like these estrogen spikes. So people are needing less of an AI. So what I've heard from a lot of them. And I guess it probably depends on the person too.
SPEAKER_01So it does. So like I said, you can't have a a gene malfunction where you where you over-aromatize, but you're still injecting the same. But I will agree with you in the sense of like injecting more often, you're you're much more balanced, so you don't get this massive spike. So I got that's why I always try to split my testosterone either, you know, two to three days a week. So you're not getting that massive increase. I mean, most guys will say, like, you know, I get this massive wave of just irritation. And the irritation is not always just so much testosterone, but it's the conversion to the estrogen that causes a lot of that irritation.
SPEAKER_00When it comes to a woman, I'm sure, you know, there's so many different things to look at. And it's for their number one, their hormones, but their skin, their tissue health. I mean, there's a lot of things that I guess a lot harder to dial it in than it than with a man, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Right. Yeah. I mean, when it comes to balancing, yes, you have to look at, you know, several things, and females do have a lot more of a balancing act because hormones are all over the place. It's not just, you know, menopause happens at, you know, 50. You know, now we're starting to see much earlier, just like my men coming in for andropause at like in their 30s and 20s. And so estrogen plays such a big role, but like the the estrogen is a very, very, I think, scary aspect for everyone because you know, the old days of like primerin and using synthetic hormones and you know, inducing cancer rates, those are real. But when you look at biodential things like estrogen or estradiol, you can give something back to the body that's identical in structure, you're actually providing so much more benefit. And yeah, we'll hit on skin, collagen. And look, we have collagen everywhere, but this is kind of why, you know, females will come in of just, you know, they're wanting, you know, whether it's less wrinkles or even just vaginal dryness. So you have receptors everywhere that where estrogen is actually actually acting. So a lot of people just think, you know, estrogen and progesterone is just for cycles and just pregnancy, but it takes such a deeper dive when you look at the the benefits of optimizing hormones when a female hits menopause. And I've hit on this in even just our other podcasts, but like you have to look at the increased risk of MI and heart attack and stroke of when a female hits menopause, or when that estrogen drops off, there's a dramatic increase. You don't hear most women dropping dead of heart attack of 50 unless it's genetic or unless there's some sort some other you know inside.
SPEAKER_00I guess it is kind of rare.
SPEAKER_01So that's where you have to look at it the protective facts of just what it does. But everyone's so scared of like, you know, other malignancies and breast cancer and you know, and just even just endometrial cancer. But if you provide supplementation and just optimization at the right level, but also protecting tissue with progesterone and not a synthetic progesterone like a progesterone, that's what induces the all the harm when it comes to the big trial or the big WHI trial that everyone knows about with the permanent, which is from pregnant horses. Then you give a progesterone, that's a synthetic version of progesterone. That's where the big scare comes from. So you have this blanketed, you know, response of hormones causing this massive scare because of one study, and it just continues on. Like we were taught the exact same thing in you know residency of you know, hormones are so bad, use them for a very little time.
SPEAKER_00The the one I know about was for guys where it's like causes prostate cancer, right? Like that was forever. Right. It's like that was the big thing about testosterone. It's like, oh, you're gonna get prostate cancer if you take it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I mean, if you look at I mean And wasn't there one study that was like 50 years ago or something that didn't even have a bunch of people, I don't know, that they were referring to?
SPEAKER_01What so so there is. So, like, you know, the the where the where the thought pattern comes from, like when you when a guy develops actual prostate cancer, you got to think about like what's driving that cancer, what's what's driving the prostate to increase in size. Yes, testosterone can kind of throw gas on a fire of that receptor, but most of the studies go back to you actually have a higher risk of prostate cancer with a with with lower levels of testosterone in the body. So that's kind of where that goes back. So think of it like seats in a classroom. So if you have this, you know, this donut-sized organ, you have testosterone that sits on these receptors around the actual prostate. So think of it like an army just that can't get in. They're actually protecting the actual prostate itself. So it can increase the size, but it's not inducing cancer. Just because you develop something when your, you know, your your testosterone was a little bit higher, it doesn't, that's not a causation.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So that that's where people get a little bit mixed up, is just because they were just linking it all. Now, the more and more studies have come out, you can prevent a lot of types of cancer by, you know, optimizing testosterone, not just prostate. So you think about what testosterone does. Testosterone does so much more when you're looking at you know brain function and you know, inflammatory markers and improving and preventing, you know, diabetes. So you're if you carry these inflammatory rates and you know you have really bad genes and you're you're putting yourself at risk for much higher rates of cancer by keeping your testosterone low. So there's so many more benefits to hormones and peptides and and everything versus you know being so scared of just, okay, but let's go take 15 different medicines or prescriptions that's just treating symptoms.
SPEAKER_00It goes back to when people tell me about the GLP stuff. They're like, I don't want to be on a GLP forever. I was like, well, but if you improve your insulin and all these other markers and lower cholesterol, is it better than getting on, you know, heart medication and and blood thinners and like all this stuff you're gonna get on down the road? Yeah. So just take the one thing that your body's already naturally producing, anyways.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because like when GLPs first came out, and I hate and I hate to say they just came out because they but they've been around for over a decade. Popularity has they they the mentality that I always see in my practice is that if it goes to a pharmacy, it's bad. But I'll take 70 different supplements from I've no clue where they came from, where they were processes or third-party testing. So it's my job to teach patients what this peptide does and how can we work with the peptide and not use it as a as a garage.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I kind of get why people think that though, because of all the other pharmaceutical industry things that were pushed on everybody. So I do understand that, but I think a lot of people just don't understand that the GLP ones are peptides. And so it's just a pharmaceutical industry happen to take control of it and have a patent on it and sell it as a brand name. But and so I think they're they're they're categorizing it with all these other medications that have done a lot of harm. And anything you use in this mass number of people, I think you're always gonna have some side effects. There's you're also gonna have people taking something that are 500 pounds or drinking 50 Cokes a day or smoking all day long, and then they're also taking the same medication somebody else is. And so if they're both are taking GLP and this one has a side effect, it's like, well, what really caused it? Was it all these other issues that or all these other like lifestyle issues and their whole past that caused it, or was it the actual GLP one or the peptide?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I mean, so and and that goes back to kind of our conversation earlier about just, you know, where does where does it come from? And you do have different, you know, research peptides or someone selling it at the gym, and like, so we have no clue what's in that powder that you're you're actually reconstituting it with. So you will see side effects if they gave you a vial that's actually 20 milligrams when you thought it was 10 and you over injected, you can have really bad side effects. You can even, you can induce like pancreatitis. But again, when it's in the right hands and it's in the if you actually have a provider that's helping oversee you, then there's so many other benefits. And you know, you've seen all the studies coming out now with just I have so many of my patients that are autoimmune that are 110 pounds, and people are like, well, hang on, like, why are they on a GOP1? I said, because I'm not using it in the sense of for weight loss, we are microdosing it. So when you look at the the inflammatory markers are reducing so we have, you know, people with ankylosing spondylitis, we have rheumatoid arthritis. So if we can reduce the overall inflammation and help the immune system work better, then hopefully we can get them off, you know, a lot of the like major harsh drugs that they're actually having to take. So that's the goal of like medicine, and this is kind of why GLPs have been such a, I think, an impact on medicine today, is because we're finding so much more what it's doing, whether it's mood, whether it's you know, osteoarthritis, whether it's even just reducing cholesterol rates.
SPEAKER_00Also, if it just gets people to reduce their sugar intake and their alcohol intake, the I mean, they're gonna be better off anyways, right? I mean, that just alone without improving anything else.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah. I mean, like, look, I have patients that come in and drink, you know, 10 diet cokes a day, or even just 10 regular Cokes, or even just something. So what's you know, we hit on this earlier. It's it's so nice to cut out that food noise of just being able to walk past the pantry or like, yeah, like I mean, like I said earlier, I've lots of friends, girlfriends, whatever, you know, that have come in and just patients of mine, and they used to drink a bottle of wine every day or just a glass of wine. It it's gone down from, you know, to nothing because it cuts out that dopamine drive.
SPEAKER_00I also think that you have tons and tons of people that do change their lifestyle. Like we we have people that I know personally that that work for us, uh, you know, friends of ours that have like quit smoking, quit drinking, or for the most part, quit drinking and like changed their whole lifestyle, started working out. They never worked out in the past, ever, like ever. And then, you know, once they started losing weight, they're like, you know what? I do feel a little bit better. And I did cut out, you know, this alcohol and I did cut out the processed food that I was eating every day. And so like they lower that and they start to feel better, and then they go work out and like, oh, what else can I do? Yeah, and so I I have seen that happen to a lot of people. So I I think it I do think it's good. I think it's definitely for society and the way um the processed food in the the industry was going, I think it's on a better path now for sure, but you still got a long way to go. I mean, I think in the last 30 years, like food has changed so much. So I think if you can just improve somebody's diet or you know, their alcohol intake, or if they quit smoking, like hands down, it's gonna increase their probability to like live longer and feel better no matter what.
SPEAKER_01I mean, for me, the hardest thing in my practice is like showing someone just that like blip of light. Just that one little inkling of like, hey, like I saw a pound move. You know, I hate to I I completely hate to use the word kickstart, but you know, GLPs do help in a way of getting someone going. And no, I don't throw everyone on a GLP one.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01You have to evaluate everything. And yes, there's some people that I'm, you know, starting three or four hormones on before we even, you know, touch a GLP.
SPEAKER_00That was actually something that I was going to ask. Is you know, what's the process when somebody comes in to where you're thinking about or they want to start a peptide and they come in? Like what what happens?
SPEAKER_01So I mean, you have to look at the whole patient. So for me, like I like you, you've you've been a patient of mine. So it's like, you know, it's we have to look at a very, very in-depth intake. What's going on? What's your symptoms? What's, you know, and what are we testing for? So for me, like it's also taking a very in-depth blood test. Um, you know, you have to look at the hormone side of it, you have to look at the fasting insulin, you have to look at the A1C, what's the sugar doing, what vitamins are you taking that we can do it and also support. And then determine like, do I need to optimize, you know, your hormones first? Do I need to, you know, approach you from a diet perspective because you're only eating 900 calories a day? So I have lots of patients that come in where it's just trying to get them to eat more, where they think that like eating less, yes, that's the that's the concept of in and out.
SPEAKER_00I do think a lot of people make that mistake. And you know, guys too. I mean, the you know, more more girls than guys because they think they're gonna gain too much muscle or something if they eat too much protein, which is like by far the case. But guys too, it's like, oh, I just eat salads every day. From it's like, dude, you gotta eat like you're you're not gonna have any energy. It's like if you just eat a salad with nothing else, like you gotta eat some type of protein, some type of carbs, like something. You're a guy, you're like an average, you know, 50-year-old guy, like you can't live off that.
SPEAKER_01No, and like you have to feed the muscle tissue. So I think, yes, everyone's in that in that concept of eating eating five to six meals a day. Am I am I am I burning more fat by increasing, you know, how many times I eat? Yes and no, but it depends on like really the right nutrition, right?
SPEAKER_00Right. It's not necessarily like it's looking at the calories, spaced out this amount of times a day. I worked out my since I was 18 years old, and I just now found out how to eat right in the last like five years because I was working out way too much, but I wasn't eating enough healthy fats and like certain things, right? I was eating enough protein, but I definitely wasn't eating enough carbs for how much I was exercising. Probably for the average male, I was doing okay. But I was definitely eating a low fat, low sodium, which is insane because I'm boxing for an hour and like no AC. And I guess just from me thinking from when I since I started working out while I stronger, oh, if you have less sodium, you're not really bloated. Like I just never really knew like all of it had so much impact. And then the right healthy fats impact hormones and all this stuff. So I was kind of eating way too little fat for sure, way too little calories for sure, how much I was working out. And then also things like sodium and and magnesium and these other things that had no idea about.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I mean, you have to look at the energy of kind of what you're putting in your body. Yes. I mean, everyone processes differently in the S, whether you're doing paleo, whether you're doing two meals, three mils, or even just fasting. So, yes, if you're exercising, you have to kind of look at like, are you burning through all of that and then you're burning into your into your muscle tissue? Yeah, I was yeah. So that's why like everyone just thinks like cardio, cardio, cardio, or just you know, I'm gonna cut my calories down to a thousand, but like I'm stagnant. It's because your body's starving.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I was I was starving my body, but not in not because I I just didn't I didn't know I wasn't eating enough. I was just working out too much. I was eating the average, I was eating three times a day, four times eight. I was eating enough protein. I just didn't have the right nutrition because I'm working out twice a day, like doing crazy Olympic movements in the morning and boxing at night. Like I was I probably should have been eaten like 5,000 calories a day. I mean, probably um or at least the right nutrition, and I probably would have felt better, but I ended up hitting a wall.
SPEAKER_01I mean it's hard as I got older. But it's hard that like I mean I mean, thanks to Chat GBT and that's it.
SPEAKER_00But nobody ever explained it to me. And I grew up kind of, you know, I owned a gym and like I was a kind of around the you know, the fitness community for the you know, since I was 18. And I still didn't really know how to eat. Like nobody ever really told me like the right nutrition until I met Chase and and the new and you know, really understood that like what I my body needed, number one, and then what the right nutrition actually was.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean it it's it's hard. I mean, like, I mean, people still don't know, and there's but there's so much information that again, you have your friend doing this. That's the problem. You have this Instagrammer doing this. That's the problem. And so there's too, there's too much noise, and like you're like a few.
SPEAKER_00And you don't know where to turn. That's what that's where I was. I'm like, oh, maybe it worked for this guy. I'm gonna try that. Oh, I don't really have enough energy. Maybe I should try what this guy's doing to get more energy. Well, it wasn't really any of that. It was just eating the right stuff for me.
SPEAKER_01Well, and I think too, it's like, you know, having chat, I think is great because you know, you can access so much more information. The problem is like I have patients do this to me all the time. They'll come in for a new patient visit and like we'll have a like an like an amazing plan. And it's like, well, hey, like, you know, I threw this in the chat, like you were you were right for like 99%, but like, why don't you add this peptide? And so you have to explain to them like why there's a there's a thought pattern to to the recipe. Like you have to figure out the right recipe for each patient, and it's not cookie cutter. Just because you're you know, so and so are your friends, you know, on a on on a copper peptide or a BPC 157, you know, are you are you even using it correctly?
SPEAKER_00That's what I tell people now too. I'm like, look, I I take when people ask me, like, hey, what do you take? What if I should I take this? Should I take this? I'm like, I I don't know. Like, I really don't know, like, because everybody's different. That's what I've learned. And so definitely get the right testing for sure, and have someone at least oversee it. Yeah. Is is the better thing. Hey everyone, real quick, I just want to let you know this podcast is 100% independent. No ads, no sponsors, just real. If you're finding value in whatever we're doing here, the biggest help that you can give us is hitting subscribe and sharing this with someone who you think needs to hear it or someone that it will provide value to. That's how we continue to grow. And if you did that, I would really appreciate it. How does insulin resistance affect the way somebody responds to peptides?
SPEAKER_01So it kind of goes back to the environment thing. So, like, think about like what insulin resistance is doing. So you have cells that aren't responding. So your body's pumping out so much more insulin. And so when you have all this insulin, you know, that means you have like a lot of sugar sitting around. So sugar, we know, causes a lot of damage, a lot of just overall inflammation. So again, it's breaking up the noise. Well, let me go back. It's not really breaking up the noise, it's just more breaking up that communication. So it's more disturbed. So it's not as effective in a very crappy environment. So it's just it's getting disturbed. So when you have this elevated level, you have all this inflammation that's distorting that communication to that receptor.
SPEAKER_00How much does gut health matter when you're talking about like inflammation and then also taking peptides?
SPEAKER_01So I'm huge on gut health, and you know that. Like, I mean, I do lots of food testing my practice because you have to look at um it's like filling a bucket of water, you know, with a I've always used this analogy, like, you know, think about filling a bucket of water up with, you know, and just poking it with a bunch of toothpicks. You keep it's a it's a slow leak. So our cells, our hormones, everything has cofactors, vitamins, minerals that act and improve that pathway. So if you have a leaky gut or you're eating inflammatory foods that, you know, things are just not getting absorbed, then again, you're gonna create more inflammation, you're gonna create a lot more disruption, and then pathways aren't working like they should.
SPEAKER_00That was actually what I thought. Whenever we did mine, and you're like, hey, you should probably cut out oatmeal and a couple of those other things that were high. And I'm like, I thought it was kind of bullshit too. I was like, I how is that gonna help me feel better? But we we cut out a bunch of stuff really that was causing inflammation. It wasn't just one thing. Yeah. And it really did matter. Like, I couldn't believe how much better that I felt. And then you even said you're like, hey, you we can work some of these foods back in, and I still eat the same way because I'm like, I just continue to feel better. And so I was like, I don't really care about eating those foods. I'm not really like most people. I'm like, I'll eat the same thing almost every day or the same five things almost every day. And if I feel better, that's what I care about.
SPEAKER_01Well, and then and that's the biggest thing. Like for me, like when like when I first started my practice, I mean, I was trained like internal medicine, but yes, I'm a lot more functional based. And like when I first came across food testing, I was like, Yeah, it's kind of uh it's kind of bullshittish. Like you just like because you didn't learn it in school.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So this, I mean, 10 years ago, this was a whole new path. And you know, when I tested myself, and you know, I love love eggs, and I'm like every other American, I love you know dairy. Um, you know, I grew up eating cheese and people snack on cheese, and like, and so it's one of those things. My those were like fives for for like myself. And after pulling them out and then just trying to kind of consume it again, my reactions were just really, really, really like strong fatigue for myself. Everyone's reaction and food reaction is different on kind of what they're sensitive to, but you know, we have to try to eat what food's best for your body, but also like you know, where is that source coming from? And is that food inflammatory? Just because it's inflammatory doesn't mean you're sensitive to it. But when you're eating an inflammatory food, let's just take gluten, for instance. We know gluten is is highly inflammatory towards the gut. It doesn't mean that you're gonna you're gonna create, you know, some sort of celiac patient where you're like highly sensitive to that gluten. But again, you create enough inflammation, then you start damaging cell lines, then you start damaging the gut lining, then you start damaging and not being able to repair the DNA or even mitochondria that you need for longevity. So food's everything. I mean, you know, someone gets cancer, like what do they change? Food's one of the most impactful things to help heal the body. That I think is one of the most underutilized things in my practice because it's also the hardest thing because you're you're taught so many different things of like, and you get different cultures, you get different exposures, you get people that you know travel all day. I mean, I get you know, single moms that are literally consultants that are on the road in their car all day, every day. Then have to come home feed you know, three or four kids. It's like, okay, what like like what do I eat and like how do I eat? So like there's a lot of education that I do in my practice, but I think it's taking you try to take it back to the basics of like cut out simple things like gluten dairy. It's not like everyone has to do this, but it's just one of those that it's it's an easy start to kind of help the body work better, but also heal itself naturally.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I didn't think that that was gonna make that much of an impact by changing my inflammatory foods, but it did.
SPEAKER_01Well, you I mean, and and you don't know until you like it.
SPEAKER_00I also think people are there's a everyone's different again, and some people are way more sensitive to things than correct other people are. We did gentry's food tests, and she's like not sensitive to it. She's not like there's nothing. There's like one thing on there, which is probably why she'd never felt bad eating bad food like I did. Yeah. I would eat certain things, I'm like, man, I just feel I I don't feel I don't feel as good, so I don't I just don't like to eat it. And she's like, oh like it didn't matter. But then you get her food test back, and you're like, well, no wonder nothing ever affects you. You're like pretty like like an ox.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, and that's the thing, it's like, and it's not so much like I said, just because you don't have the antibody there, it doesn't mean that it's not inducing inflammation. So when we're when like when we're looking at food testing, we're looking at antibodies that create a memory cell that your body's truly sensitive to. It's not just an exposure saying, hey, like I like, you know, my oatmeal side is like I eight a ton of oatmeal. Um, and so the antibody is one like one piece of that, but then you have inflammation on the other side of it. But if you were to take, you know, and I've you know, I I know gentries diet sometimes. So it's one of those where if you peel some of those foods out, you wonder if she would feel better. But the hard part is like, how consistent can we be for like a four-week stint? Because if you take two days out of there, you're like, well, like, you know, I don't eat that much dairy. Like, but you start you start really harping on patients of where they're getting their dairy from.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Whether it's Greek yogurt, whether it's like, you know, grass-fed butter. And those are very small things. Yes, grass-fed butter is better than just regular butter or just margarine, but you have to look at kind of the case and that's in it and where it comes from. But again, it's just its consistency.
SPEAKER_00So now we've talked about pretty much having the right environment for all these peptides. Let's go into the actual peptides because you know, we talked a little bit about, you know, some of the weight loss peptides that are out there. Yeah. But some of the other popular peptides, one of them that you hear a lot about is BPC157 and TB500. So a lot of people call both of those together the Wolverine stack. What explain those peptides and explain what they're good for for people that don't know about them?
SPEAKER_01So I'll kind of I'll kind of hit one at a time. Let me hit BPC first for a moment, uh, which stands for body uh protection compound. This was kind of founded in, you know, by some Croatian scientists. I want to say back in, I want to say back in the early 90s, I may be incorrect on that exact date. But it's a so BPC is a was actually founded in like the gastric juices of the stomach lining. But I think where people have a misconception is like what BPC really is, BPC157 is a snippet of actual BPC. So you have a 50 kind of you know, amino acid compound, which is BBC, and then you have a 15, which is that's what that 15 stands for. Um, and so what they found is like think about like the think about the environment of the stomach, how acidic it is, and like how much turnover you have. And so you you had you need to have something that's gonna repair itself. So um, I won't go back into the history of this, but you know, I saw this on actually another podcast uh with Huberman. Um, but this kind of goes back to Pavlov's, like, you know, the guy that actually studied like dogs and just gastric juices. That's kind of where the thought pattern came from. They're like, is there a compound out there that we can consume, create, or that's produced by the stomach lining or that's in the gastric juices that can help repair, you know, certain areas of the body? And that's where kind of the history of BBC came from. And so it's after being studied, most of your studies you're gonna find, you're you're gonna find some very, very small, like very small population studies on human data. Most of it's been studied on rats. And so what they found is like there's BBC actually helps in several ways. It helps increase angiogenesis, which is just kind of blood flow. So think about like when you have cellular damage, you need blood flow to drive cells or healing cells to that section of damage. That's one. And you're also driving other growth factors and other healing cells in there, like you think about collagen production, fibroblasts. And so that's kind of BPC in a in a nutshell. And then so think of BPC as like, you know, the road to the construction site, and think of TB500 as kind of the workers actually doing the work. So, you know, TB500 is another peptide. When you use them in conjunction, they work synergistically. And so you have great blood flow, you have growth factors coming in, then you have TB500 that's actually helping kind of pull the cells together. So TB500, in in its history and kind of what it does to like actual cells themselves, when you think about like actin, which is like how cells kind of move. So if you think take a wound or damage, you need those cells to kind of pull together. And that's kind of how they work very good synergistically on, you know, not only inflammation, but also healing and repairing areas of damage. When people use it, I know I have people that come in and use it all the time, they're like, Well, yeah, I'm just injecting my stomach, but like I'm expecting my neck to get better.
SPEAKER_00It's what is the because I hear people tell them, do you inject it in your shoulder around your shoulder injury, or do you inject it in your stomach? Like there's so many people that swear by different things, but there's there's not like a definitive thing that's out there or answer.
SPEAKER_01So there's not because there's not a lot of, like I said, long-term human data. So I you can only go back to, and this is just me kind of preaching on just patients that use it in my practice and just how we've how we've seen it act in other data and studies. You want to inject close to the injury of, you know, this like to like close to injury, because if if you think about like what you're trying to drive is the response, like it let's just say you had golfers elbow and you want to inject close to the tissue. Because if you inject it here, and let's just say you tweaked your knee and you tweaked your elbow, where's it gonna go? It could go to the knee versus you want your elbow to be healed. So you're trying to inject it near that section of the actual area of damage to hopefully like help that that heel much like quicker and faster.
SPEAKER_00Can you just use it for would it be helpful just to use it for like muscle recovery and from from exercise? Like if I didn't have a specific injury, is it helpful? Would it be helpful for me to take it from time to time just for performance or so anything else or no?
SPEAKER_01I can't really give you a definitive answer on like if that would help. I mean, based on on kind of I would say the anti-inflammatory effects of of the benefits, just taking it randomly, I would say no.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01I mean, injuries and and tweaking a muscle, yes, I would say, I mean, it's very good at kind of response and how quick it does, but just to take it just randomly, just whenever you're feeling a little ache or pain, I can't say it's gonna be extremely beneficial just to you systemically.
SPEAKER_00Now that the FDA has signed off on putting them back in the compounding pharmacy world, I'm sure there'll be more and more studies that'll actually come out on them here in the future.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I mean, like I said, if you just look at like again, yeah, no, we're not rats, but like if you look at how many people are using it.
SPEAKER_00Well, I know that there's tons and tons of people that, you know, physicians that have reported what their patients see. But now that they're back in the compounding world, does that mean that they'll be like people will start running them through more human trials, or does that doesn't necessarily mean that?
SPEAKER_01So the problem the problem with the you know, the meeting with the FDA, I mean, they're still not they're still not completely approved to be compounded.
SPEAKER_00Correct. If it does become approved to be compounded.
SPEAKER_01So if it does, yeah, I mean, I think you're gonna see I mean, a lot of people looking at certain data, certain studies, and even just mixing different compounds of just recovery repair. And that's kind of what we need. Like, I mean, you know, you want to see specific human data of what that is actually doing with humans, not just again, when any, when any when any new drug comes out, you know, you have to look at, okay, like, is it safe for humans to use one? Yeah. You know, when you look at phase one, phase two, phase three, like when you look at red or then you say, okay, like let's let's actually put it into human use and like you know, what are the side effect profiles? Like, can they tolerate it? And then you go to phase three of kind of like what's what's it really doing and and like what's it going to be approved for? So that like any drug coming out, any compound coming out, the the trials to get approval for something like for a specific use like Monjaro and Terzepatide, it takes it takes a lot of time. But I think it it it will be very beneficial to see this um from a long-term study use to see where it can be used and like every and also other benefits of other disease states.
SPEAKER_00What about MOTC? So I've heard that it's like it'll I know it's supposed to increase energy, but what does that actually mean, or what is it actually doing in the body to increase energy? Or I've also heard that it helps burn more fat, but I don't know a ton about it. I've never taken it before.
SPEAKER_01So it's basically a mitochondrial peptide. So think about like when you exercise, you know, you're you're gonna get natural lease of MOSC, and this is kind of where this this this actually came from. So when you're exercising, you're moving your bodies, your cells, your muscle tissue, it's gotta pull energy from somewhere. And so when what they found is that you it actually helps pull more fatty acids to help make more ATP. If you have more ATP production and more, you know, reserve, then you can build more muscle tissue, burn more fats, and it also extend, I would say, the longevity aspect, but also the time that you can exercise. So I would say performance there. So that's where the energy aspect comes from. So like if if energy comes from like mitochondria, if you can, if you can make mitochondria work better, faster and produce more ATP, so it makes your body think that you're actually exercising. It doesn't, it doesn't, you know, replace it doesn't so it doesn't replace exercising in the sense where people are like, But if you already exercise, it should have a greater benefit on the existing exercise. Correct. Because the because your mitochondria is working better, and then if you can recycle that ATP much faster, then you can perform better than you not injecting it.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01So you're getting us a natural release, but then you're also pulling extra energy from fat tissue to drive better performance.
SPEAKER_00Is it a daily, weekly, bi-weekly thing?
SPEAKER_01So most people will will do it daily. Um again, it depends on like the the actual mechanism of it, whether you're gonna take a pulse it, whether you're gonna, you know, some people ask which ones you pulse, which ones you don't pulse, which ones you, you know, is it do you get receptor overload or you know, even even I would say desensitizing that actual receptor itself? Um so MOTC, again, there's there's no data or long-term data, but again, I mean, I would tell you like three to six months of use, we've seen really, really good use of just fat burning, especially when you use it with something else, like a growth hormone secretagog, like ibomorlin, you know, some morlin, you know, some moralin's not the only one that's actually FDA approved. Um, but they can work very, very good synergistically, but two completely different mechanisms.
SPEAKER_00What about GHKCU? So I've heard a ton about this, and my wife's in the beauty industry, so I've heard her even talk about it. But what is it? I I know some people use it as an actual peptide, not just for the aesthetic world, is for actually repair repair and and recovery. Yeah. What is it actually doing? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01GHK is just a it's just a triple amino acid that's actually naturally produced in the body, but it needs it needs copper to actually act as a cofactor. So when you think about like collagen, skin healing, everything else, and also just reducing inflammation. This this entire compound that that works within the body does help with in several different ways. Yes, it does help with skin, does help with hair regeneration, inflammation. So when you inject it, you're you are helping systemically from a an I would say an anti-inflammatory standpoint, but also driving new collagen production. But the thing is that you need, again, you need to have a good diet, which is one. But I think where people get a little bit confused on how to take it and like what we've seen with it, even you know, Chase uh and I had a really good conversation um on one of his patients actually went to the hospital from copper overload.
SPEAKER_00Were they just taking too much, or like how do you how do you avoid that?
SPEAKER_01So I mean how it's how it's looked at is if if you can't really get rid of copper very well, it depends on how much you're injecting. It's supposed to be taken, it depends on it depends on dosing structure, but whatever you're taking, let's say let's let's say you do it six weeks or even two months on, you want to take two months off. So you're not getting that copper overload. Because it's it you have to have that copper attached to it for it actually for it to do its job. Okay. So you need the copper to act as a cofactor or to kind of just turn the engine on to help with repair.
SPEAKER_00So is it good to take just for longevity? Like if somebody wants to take it for longevity on and off, or how like what's the best thing to take it for? I would say outside of just like recovery and repair.
SPEAKER_01I would say it the two biggest things that I would I would say copper's beneficial for is I would say inflammation is the biggest one. Okay. Um, but also repair is another one. So you can say a little bit of recovery, but I'll I would say just more chronic pain, chronic inflammation. It does, it's it's it's it has great data on.
SPEAKER_00And then all the women care about skin, hair, nails. Like what is it I know they use it in a lot of like topical products, but is it beneficial to take in the peptide form? No, just for like the injectant form. Would it would it do the same thing for collagen or for skin health? Yes. Is it better? I'm sure it's better if you you would think it would be better, your body would absorb more.
SPEAKER_01I would say this if if like let's say you're let's say your focus was like just face, skin, neck, just exterior. There's some really, really good. I mean, I've even seen it in even our patient using it topically for face. Um but when you're injecting something systemically, it's hard to say I can inject something, it's gonna do everything. So you have to use it for a longer, I would say, a long-standing period to get exact benefits. Okay. Um but topical products work great, even for hair. Okay. So using a topic is very, very, I would say very good from the skin perspective. From the internal perspective, when you're looking at healing, recovery, inflammation, I would say the injectable form would be my thought. Because again, you're just you're applying it just to an inflamed joint's not gonna you're not gonna get that much benefit. Because the j more it's more from the pen like the actual penetration.
SPEAKER_00What about CMAX? Because I'm always looking to increase my performance. And I think I might have asked you about this one before. I've never taken it yet.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think we had a little bit of it on the on the last podcast.
SPEAKER_00But again, so from what I know, from what people have told me from what I've read, uh increases mental performance could increase like memory a little bit, um, which I'm always looking to more than anything, is more for can I can I have more, I don't know, mental energy or more mental performance, not so much physical. Yeah. So what's the benefits? What's the drawbacks?
SPEAKER_01What so when you look at kind of just memory recall, neuroplasticity, you're looking at several aspects, and I'm gonna this we can go to the we can go several different ways, but I'll stay on CMAX for a moment. So CMAX works kind of in that increasing kind of BDNF, which is just brain-derived neurotropic neurotropic factor. Um when you increase that, you're actually helping not only protect neurons, but have you heard the term like neuroplasticity before? Like just whenever you're learning something new or something actually is kind of expanding. You're actually improving or increasing the amount of actual neurons within the body. So if you're improving, increasing, then memory recall is better. Okay. But it's also keeping that inflammatory state of the brain lower. So it's not like taking like Adderall Arritalin or, you know, or taking caffeine for focus itself. It's not increasing that dopinergic, I would say, release to help in memory. It's it's increasing the neurons and protecting the neurons for longevity, essentially. They've also done some data on like, you know, recovery of like, let's see, you know, post-stroke patient. You have a lot of damage in that, in that tissue. Can you give someone a peptide to help with that neuror regeneration of the tissue? Because when someone has some sort of CNS or essential nervous system damage, stroke, whether it's an optic nerve, anything like that, like what's the recovery of that nerve? And it's it's very difficult to regenerate types of nerve tissue.
SPEAKER_00And so if you increase BDN, BDNF, you have the possibility to do something like that.
SPEAKER_01Correct. And it's yeah, and there's and there's there's a there's a lot more inflammatory markers that that it works with, but that's kind of where most of the data is going is like how can we protect brain if like we have stroke? Like what's like because again, if you don't act very quickly, then it just turns into scar tissue.
SPEAKER_00So outside of that, just for like performance focus, uh mental energy, like is it good to take short-term, long term?
SPEAKER_01Like if I wanted to try it, like what what what what would be the benefits or I think there's really good data, but just because what I've seen in again, my patient population that take it. Um I've heard great things about it. I haven't personally used it. Yeah. Um, but again, it's it's it's trying to maximize everything else sometimes. And then it's like, okay, once you once I've reached this, just like for you, I mean, you're you had a really kind of tough methylation issue that we had to fix first. And then it's like, okay, we tried the NAD, NAD we had we had very good success. Yeah. I still notice. So you've optimized almost everything else, and like and again, I always think it's worth saying, okay, if everything is optimal, nutrition's on point, you know, and I'm actually recovering, getting great sleep. Can I try this other peptide to to see if it helps?
SPEAKER_00I always start super low with everything because I feel like I'm more sensitive to anybody in this world. So like any little small amount usually affects me pretty good.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So I don't know, maybe I'll try it. Is there any I guess there's not a lot enough long-term data out there to figure out if you can take it like how long can yeah, how long can you take? Can I take it every day for the rest of my life? Or is it more like a cycle thing? Do you take it for two months and then do I not take it?
SPEAKER_01I mean, I would tell you this. I mean, with with any peptide, um again, it goes back to kind of which which one you're doing. I I do think it's nice to kind of cycle off sometimes because you can get some of that receptor, like desensitizing it. Um, I would say there's no, there's not enough data for me to tell you, like, yeah, you can take it for five years straight. But again, it's one of those where you could try it if you see benefit, then take a pulse off like maybe three to six months and then you start it.
SPEAKER_00Another one now that's out there that I don't know too much about, but a lot of people use in the longevity world is epitalon. Is that how you said epitalon? Um and you heard a lot about like telomere lengthening or you know, if that even does that. What's the science or what's the concept behind that one to help with longevity?
SPEAKER_01So as you age, you I mean, you know, our telomere length, as you think about your chromosome length, and like as as you age, you know, that shortens. You have these caps or protective caps on your chromosomes that protect. Um, and so you think if if we can can we preserve the the caps to so our telomeres stay where they're at to increase longevity, because obviously as they get shorter, shorter, shorter, shorter, then things start to get damaged and you can't repair as much. And so the thought pattern behind epitalon is to preserve that longevity of telomere space to so you're not getting that cell turnover or sailor damage that you can't repair.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01Um there's not a there's not a whole lot of, like I would tell you, human data on on any on on most of these. Um, but there is there is some good data where I'm very curious to kind of dive into even just personally um on that one.
SPEAKER_00Does it have any other effect besides the longevity that you would like any other benefit that you could possibly see or does this supposed to do besides just the longevity thing?
SPEAKER_01Well, I mean, if you can if you can protect DNA and you can protect um most of your cell turnover in mitochondrial space, then that that is longevity. Like again, as we age and we get older.
SPEAKER_00You feel better over time, I guess.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So if you can if if things are functioning great and like in again, cells aren't getting older and you know, you're able to recover much faster. I mean, think about back when you were 20 and now. I mean, you know, how much you can just pop out of bed. So yeah, so it so it is a lot different. So we so we age differently, but if we can slow down the process of aging in the sense of protect cells on from that cellular level, then yes, longevity is there and benefit is there because again, you're you recover much faster than I would.
SPEAKER_00Let's talk about growth hormone peptides. So explain the difference to someone listening. Because I think when they think about growth hormone, they think that they're injecting growth hormone like something like testosterone. So, what's the difference between like the traditional growth hormone injections as opposed to you know the peptide ones that people are injecting to increase your growth hormone?
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01So I'll hit growth hormone for a second. So, like, I mean, if you're taking growth hormone, for instance, like, you know, that comes from the brain itself, you're you're shutting down your own production. So you're you're kind of delivering kind of the you know, the the entire kind of present to the body, say, okay, like here it is. But then the the problem you run into is is shutting down natural production.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So that's growth hormone in itself. Then you have different growth hormone secretogs, and depends on kind of where they act. You know, most growth hormone peptides act in a space that I would call the hypothalamus, which is, you know, growth hormone releasing hormone, is what you're acting as. So it's basically an analog of that. So it's a copy that then talks to the pituitary and says, hey, release growth hormone. That's what essentially peptides do when it comes to a growth hormone releasing hormone. You're trying to take a peptide to hit the receptor that hits a button, that then you naturally release a pulsatile fashion growth hormone to the rest of the body.
SPEAKER_00So it's just stimulating your own body's production of growth hormone?
SPEAKER_01Without shutting it down. That's what that's what's great about the peptide spaces. And you know, I get so many people that want me to just like they want me to just go ahead and just write growth hormone like ever like all the time. But then we're couple things. One is going to be costs. I mean, I do see the side effect profile much higher when someone's taking actual growth hormone versus, you know, can we optimize or just titrate up on a peptide? And every peptide acts a little bit differently when you talk about like CJC, you know, 1295 versus like epimorlin, you have semorlin. So they all act in a very similar fashion.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, let's go through the differences because I know there is popular ones out there. I think a lot of them people would know there's, you know, there's tesmorlin, there's ipomorlin, there's semorlin. Let's go through some of the major ones that people may have heard of that and so we can explain the difference.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So tesumorlin is probably the first one I'll hit, which you know was created more for HIV patients that have that one's actually FDA approved, right? So it is. Yeah. And so it's it's one that was created for HIV patients that take HIV medications that cause lipodystory like within the abdominal wall. So think about like visceral fat.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01So tesmorlin works again, just like any other of the analogs. It's it's increasing growth hormone, but you'll see a lot more, I would say, fat burning at that abdominal level when you're utilizing the tesumorlin. So each one plays a role. They they all kind of increase growth hormone, but again, you're looking at different areas of the body of like which one's better for sleep, which one's better for recovery, which ones, you know, do you see the most kind of like visceral fat burning? Um, that would be kind of tesomorlin. Then you have epimorlin and semorlin, which are kind of very, very similar. But you know, ipamorlin really acts on a little bit of a different pathway called ghrelin, um, but still you're getting more actual growth hormone release. Um, and you'll see a little bit more recovery, a little bit more sleep induction, like with the actual epimorlin itself. You'll see a lot of combos with like testamorlin, epimorlin, you know, CJC1295 plus epimorlin. And the reason being is because when you have epimorlin that's acting on this ghrelin pathway over here, I would say it kind of is like pushing the gas on giving you a lot of growth hormone kind of at once. But remember, growth hormone is released in a pulse-stop fashion. It's mainly at night. And so when you add that ipamorlin to another one, like Tesamorlin or CJC1295, you're getting a much higher amplitude. But these over here versus the epimorlin have a much more natural kind of release versus the epimorin, you get a little bit more of that, just that kind of that immediate kind of just increase. If that makes sense.
SPEAKER_00It does. And so that leads me to my next question. When you're taking these growth hormones, what time of day? Or is it morning? Is it night? Like, when's the best time of day to take them? Is it both?
SPEAKER_01So the hardest part is like taking it. So I always say this like you always want if you're gonna take something, like try to take it to where it mimics that actual hormone.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So if it's if you pulse at night, you're gonna take it before you go to sleep.
SPEAKER_01So typically, yeah, you'll see it. So you'll see your highest peak in most growth hormone release two hours like like after you actually lay your head down. So I try to tell patients to try to stick with the nighttime routine. The problem is like some people work late, some people, you know, are either traveling, like, can I just do it in the morning? Second, I think, incorrect way of like people use peptides is especially the growth hormone growth hormone ones, is they're injecting it too close to consuming food. So when you when you eat food, what happens? You know, you get an increase in insulin production. Then, you know, it's gonna affect glucose. Then, you know, that glucose kind of almost inhibits the actual growth hormone release itself. So you're actually doing more harm than good. So I always say if you're gonna inject after dinner, try to do it like two hours minimum. So you're not getting that spike and you're actually getting that that drop. So you can get a nice increase of growth hormone.
SPEAKER_00What about other peptides? I mean, I know you it's hard to group them all into one bucket, but do they need to be taken fasted, or is it better to take? I mean, is it like what's what's the general rule of thumb, I guess, for most peptides?
SPEAKER_01So, well, are we talking growth hormone? Are we talking about it?
SPEAKER_00I don't know. That's what we can we can go through both of them. So growth hormones, you're saying you're definitely saying fast, or at least on an empty stomach.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we'll start with growth hormone. Like if the best way, in my opinion, if if most growth hormones release two hours post like you sleeping.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01Like you you would 120% want to inject then.
SPEAKER_00Wake up two hours after you went to sleep.
SPEAKER_01No, no, no, no, no. So what I'm saying is like, so when you inject it, so it takes time to get absorbed in the same way.
SPEAKER_00So you want to take it before you go to bed.
SPEAKER_01Exactly.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I mean, you can take it fasted, but again, if most of your spike was at night and then you're trying to kind of mimic that pulsatile response, why why like why do it in the morning? Yeah. So that would be more in the growth hormone side of it. The other peptides that will hit like BPC 157, like TB5, like does not matter. Like you can joke on like anytime that's has nothing to do with growth hormone. Okay. So you're you're really just trying for repair.
SPEAKER_00But other peptides, in a, you know, like I I take NAD, but does that matter if I take it on empty stomach or take it on a full stomach?
SPEAKER_01Or so it doesn't matter. Um NAD is not a peptide, but it's but it but I will say it is classified in that group of like being a peptide is more of a coenzyme. Um I think most people feel that energy aspect. So I always say if you're going to do NAD, like I prefer morning, but it doesn't matter if you injected NAD at night or or take morning.
SPEAKER_00I was just more referring to like empty stomach or not empty stomach.
SPEAKER_01So none of them, so none of them really matter unless you're talking about like the growth hormone because that's the one that gets affected with insulin.
SPEAKER_00What about the cycle part of it? Because I hear certain peptides, like you need to take them for X amount of days and then you get get off. Yeah. Like what's the idea behind do they all need to be cycled? Is there just certain ones that you should cycle?
SPEAKER_01Let's start with the BBCs, because that was kind of the first one we started with. Like I I will usually tell patients to do it for if there's a nice injury, depending on what that injury is, to do it for like a full 30, 60 days and then just come off. And then if you get re-injured or something happens, yes, you don't have to do a full 60, but it just it all depends on the injury itself. So that one, no, like you don't have to keep taking it to keep repairing the tissue. If you if everything feels better and like it depends on the extent of the injury, then no, you can stop like the BPC. When it comes to the growth hormone peptides, I would say if you're doing a Monday through Friday and a Saturday, Sunday off, which is how it usually is prescribed. If you think about in a month's like cycle, you're almost taking a whole week off. So you like your receptors are getting that pulsatile fashion, but you're also giving them a break. So it's hard to say, I still think yes, you if you did it a full year of like testamoralin, like epimorin, yes. I mean, it's not gonna hurt to kind of give your receptors a break for like 90 days or even up to six months and then go back because again, you're giving the receptors a little bit of a break, but like I said, if you if you look at the month stent, you're actually giving it almost a seven-day full break every month. So you're almost giving it a break without overloading that receptor itself. By doing it by doing a Monday through Friday and then a Saturday Sunday off. Okay. Yeah. So um again, there's no data, but still I would say it's not gonna hurt to take off. But no, you don't need to do 12 weeks on, 12 weeks off, like in my opinion, because you're you're taking a nice break. If you were just to do it Monday through like Sunday, then I would say that that's a little bit more necessary to actually have a receptor break.
SPEAKER_00We touched on this a little bit earlier, but can you explain the difference between like purity and potency and sterility in we talked about earlier endotoxin testing?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So I mean, when it comes to a vial, like let's just take, you know, a 10 milligram vial of, you know, of terzepatite, for instance. Yeah, whether you're getting it from like research, peptides online, you know, a true compounding pharmacy, you know, you want to make sure when that's when that vial is like like reconstituted, what's in that vial. So when you talk about dosing structure, you want to make sure that that 10 milligrams is 10 milligrams, not 20 milligrams, not nine milligrams, 10. So that's that's one aspect of the violing. Then it comes down to you know the actual purity of the product. Is it is there anything extra in that product, or is it purely that API, like like that we talked about? Is it that pharmaceutical ingredient that where you ordered trusepitide, are you getting all trzepid?
SPEAKER_00100% trisepatide, yeah.
SPEAKER_01So just because it says, you know, 99% pure, that doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean that there's 10 milligrams of of of you know of that product in there. Um yes, it may be pure, but then what else, you know, what what other like sterilization did it go through? And things can get cross-contaminated when you yes, endotoxin is probably like one of the most dangerous things you could actually get in in a bile because when you do inject that endotoxin, you're gonna get a systemic basically response that can make you really, really, really sick that you can end up in the ICU. And so again, people think peptides are all fine. Doesn't matter I mixed it, like it's okay because it came from a pharmacy. I mean, there's there's tons of pharmacies that that run testing, and that's the important thing for my patients that I like. It's not worth saving a 50 hundred bucks by getting it online when you know you have no idea what's in that vial, even though they put testing and everything else there, or your friends doing it and they they've been doing it for a while.
SPEAKER_00Also, now it's a lot of times it's almost the same price, anyways. Just like it's not really that much of a difference. I mean, sometimes, but not much. How are I you know, I've always wondered, and I've heard people ask me this before, on how does it work as far as like the potency or something else when it comes to either light exposure or heat exposure? Like what's the idea around that? Like, do you always need to keep it cold? Does it depend on the peptide?
SPEAKER_01So I would say all peptides, once they're like obviously once they're mixed, everything, like you want to keep it cool because again, a peptide is a protein that's then a chain of a of an actual amino acid. Any sort of heat is gonna break that peptide down and make it weaker. Um and so yes, you don't want to leave it in your car sitting out in the hot sun or you know, leaving it on your counter, then you end up traveling. Um, you can travel with it where I would say up to a certain amount of like you know, so many hours you can leave it out to and it not go bad. I mean, if your house is you know 70 degrees, I'm not saying to leave it out, but if you left it out so temperature is everything, but also keeping it cold is also you know a very, very important aspect because again, you don't want that to that protein to actually denature. Um, I can't say, yes, if it does get hot, yes, you can run it. To sterility issues as well. But the bigger thing is more just the potency of the product. It's more just it just declining and just becoming weaker from getting hot, getting sun exposure, and keep and not keeping it cold.
SPEAKER_00Hey everyone, real quick, I just want to let you know this podcast is 100% independent. No ads, no sponsors, just real. If you're finding value in whatever we're doing here, the biggest help that you can give us is hitting subscribe and sharing this with someone who you think needs to hear it or someone that it will provide value to. That's how we continue to grow. And if you did that, I would really appreciate it. Can you explain the difference between pharmacies and research use only? Because I think a lot of people out there don't still don't really understand the difference. And then there's also different types of pharmacies. There's 503A and there's 503B. So what's the difference between all those?
SPEAKER_01So I'll start with research because I think that's the most I think that's the most hit topic right now. Um I mean, research is is meant for research. Like when you create a product, you're trying to run a study on that product. Okay. So like if you whether it's terzepatide, whether it's you know, you know, any other growth hormone releasing peptide, you want to make sure that that product is is what it says it is. It's it's the same potency, it's it's the same purity. So research is just it's not for human use and not for animal use. You're supposed to study the product. That's that's the difference. But you have no idea what studies they ran. Like they can say it, yeah, it's pure, it's been it's ran all this testing, but how do you know it is what it is? Because it's not regulated by the FDA. Then you take, you know, other two other pharmacies, which we'll talk a little bit on, you know, 503A, 503B. 5x3B is a little bit more, I would say, FDA scrutinized. They can outsource a lot of their a lot of their products, um, whether it's compounded, they can use a different pharmacy to actually fulfill their order. And they can also provide patients or even just, I would say, um, clinics with like an in-office use of something, let's just say testosterone. They can ship that product to them without having a patient prescription. 503A is a little a little bit tighter on that aspect, but you can they have a little bit more leeway because I would say the FDA regulations aren't as harsh on this side versus the 503B. Because they can do kind of both. And then 500 most I would say most pharmacies are a little bit on on the 503A side because they are doing a lot more compounding for patients, so every script that goes out is patient specific.
SPEAKER_00Looking five years ahead, which peptide do you think you're most excited about? Or really just the future of peptides? I guess it doesn't necessarily need to be five years.
SPEAKER_01I mean, for me, I would say when I look at the whole space of longevity, I'm looking at more something on the mitochondrial side, like SS41 or even just MOT C is is is kind of in my willhouse because everything comes down to your mitochondrial function. And when those start breaking down, again, the body starts breaking down. And so in my opinion, I'm I'm very interested to see the extent of studies that come out with something that's more mitochondrial driven.
SPEAKER_00So just more long-term data on the science, yeah, for sure. That in NAD, I don't even think we talked about that one. I know it's technically not a peptide, but is it a mitochondrial?
SPEAKER_01So it is. So you think about like think of a factory, you know, the mitochondria is kind of your your your powerhouse, and so what drives that is what's called the electron transport chain. And to keep it simple, this factory is making ATP. So when you take NAD, you know, when you're born, you're born with so much NAD. And you know, we've hit this a few times on like yes, if mitochondria start breaking down, then then repair starts breaking down, you can't detoxify the body as well. So trash builds up, and then you know, you get DNA like like miss misrepair. So NAD helps make more ATP in the body. So but as you age, that NAD level goes from here to here. So if you think about if I can't repair or make as much ATP, then again, trash is going to start building up. And so NAD is phenomenal just because you have miconder everywhere. Liver, you have it in muscle tissue, you have it in brain tissue. That's why a lot of people like the cognitive benefits of NAD, whether it's injected, whether it's infused. Not a fan of the oral NADs, and we'll we'll hit on that in a second.
SPEAKER_00But I took those in the beginning. I didn't really see much of a difference.
SPEAKER_01You won't because what happens is NAD is a very large structure. You're you're so when it goes to the stomach, it has it has to be broken down and reversed and then hopefully rebuilt again. Yeah. But also it's got to make it past, you know, all the stomach acid and everything else. And so anything IV or injection is is always usually better than something that oral it depends on what it is because things do pass through liver and can make things a little bit more harmful. But it's finding the right dose of what's gonna what's gonna work for you. But uh for me, like it's always taking each patient, just kind of determining what that is. Infusions work great, but they're a little bit more uncomfortable. They are really uncomfortable. I mean, there's some there's some really good data on in the space of just nanoparticles that are a little bit more lyophyllized, so it it's finding a way past kind of the stomach lining to get it absorbed a little bit better, which we're seeing. There's also nasal spray as well.
SPEAKER_00I did that one, I didn't really like it as much, but I already like I I don't know, it just makes me feel a little bit weird. And the the I used to love the the IVs, but they're totally they're they're really uncomfortable. It takes a long time for most people. Even me, I got it down where I could do it in a shorter amount of time, but it's so uncomfortable. But I would feel great for like two days, and then it would kind of just you know feel a little bit less great. And it was really the the they're more expensive. Um, you have to go to the office to do it. So it was like convenience for me, striving an hour or you know, close to an hour. And then once I actually started taking, but I and I don't know if this is because I'd already done IVs to get my levels kind of like back to where they should have been. And then when I started taking just the injection, I felt like just a little bit more like energy would be more stable throughout the week. And I would my like mental energy would be more stable throughout the week instead of being like really good, and then like slowly kind of going back and then until I got the next IV.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, like you have to find your level, like so you know, that's why we say you have to raise your baseline up, but then some patients will be like, hey, like I don't notice anything, and that's because their NAD is so low over time. And um when it's when it's very low, you're trying to get it back up. So you think of an IV as either 500 to 750 to 1000 in a session versus I couldn't even imagine doing a thousand.
SPEAKER_00I did 500 and it was hard. My first I used to do 500s and it was hard.
SPEAKER_01Uh my first one was very rough, and like what's what's cool to watch the process of like when you get your first NAD, it's like, yes, you've got to go very slow, but it knows where to go. Like for me, I've had a lot of SI stuff, like just joint pain over the years. My my my joints hurt while you're doing it. Oh, I mean, yeah. So it it's almost like it's almost like going to that section of just where like where you're so inflamed.
SPEAKER_00My whole body feels a little tight. Yeah. And then my gut, it's like a little bit more on my side of my gut, is like kind of where I feel it the most. But I wouldn't say like it doesn't hurt, it just is uncomfortable. It's hard to explain. And I used to tell Gentry, you should get an N A D thing, you should get an NAD. And she finally did it. And I she's like, just tell me you can't explain how it feels. I was like, I can't. It's just uncomfortable. I don't even know how to explain it. Like, you just feel really uncomfortable and you can't, I can't explain it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's almost like cheese.
SPEAKER_00She's like, You're never gonna explain anything. And then she went and did it, and she was like, Well, you're kind of right. Like, I don't really know. I was just really uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it no, it is. I mean, like you're a little bit short-winded, it's hard to breathe, a little bit. That's what it is, too. It's kind of like you just I mean, it's tight. Everything's tight. Yeah, and so what's happening is like so think of it like when you work out, always call always called NAD like an NAD drip more like sailor fitness. So your body's working and things are kind of detoxing and things are like moving through a little bit more rapidly. And so that's kind of what's happening with the body, like whenever you're doing the drip. That's kind of why you feel so so uncomfortable as well. Versus the injections, you can tell when you inject a little bit too much at once.
SPEAKER_0010 or 15 seconds of that same feeling that you get when you do the IV, but it just goes away like that. IV just so hard. But I mean, they're great. I felt great after I did them.
SPEAKER_01I mean, we've seen we've seen really good results in our in and like a lot of our patients, whether it's long COVID, autoimmune patients, again, it's just more time in the office. So a lot of people do want the injection, but I always try to explain to them like you've got to be patient if like you're not seeing great results at first.
SPEAKER_00Still one of my most favorite things. No, I still take it today. It's like again, I did everything else first. I don't think I probably would have felt it as much, but once I got everything else right, and then I started doing that, I'm like, it's that much better.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00So if so if someone listening is considering peptide therapy, what are some questions that they should ask their physician whenever they're going in? Because a lot of people may go in and ask their physician, like, hey, I've heard my friend's taking this peptide, or what are some things that they need to be aware of or they should ask their doctor when they first go in?
SPEAKER_01I think even just taking it back to like how I approach it is just, you know, the first thing is is always taking a very good, like in-depth intake of like symptoms, side effects, like what's going on, family history, just like GLPs, for instance, people will miss this every time. Like if there's a family history of like whether it's thyroid cancer or you know, there's a very specific genetic link to thyroid cancer when it comes to GLP ones. But again, you have to ask the simple questions. That's one. Two, do you do blood work? Like, what are you looking at? What are you evaluating?
SPEAKER_00Like how make sure their doctors are doing all the right testing. Correct.
SPEAKER_01I mean, like, how are you gonna monitor like my progress? Um, and then, you know, third, I think, where do they come from? Like, where like where do your peptides are? What pharmacies are coming from? Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, you want to know if it's some just you know, tiny pharmacy you've never heard of, and you know, they've and you actually you can find some of these pharmacies online that have a a lot of you know regulations and you know, FDA coming in. And so you want to make sure you're using a very good, like reputable pharmacy. And so those are kind of my three things that I would always look for. But yeah, you want to be able to monitor, but also make sure you're you're utilizing the correct peptide for your like for you.
SPEAKER_00If you give somebody one piece of advice before they ever start a peptide, or two pieces of advice or three pieces of advice, what would it be? Before they start peptides, what should they be aware that they should be doing?
SPEAKER_01I think you should look at and take a step back before you jump on a peptide that one of your friends is doing, or you've seen on, you know, Instagram podcasts, even just this podcast, is take it, I think, internal evaluation and look at what you're doing. Like, how's your nutrition look? You know, have I have I have I have I looked at you know my overall habits, sleep, stress, sleeps, everything, habits like can I change something else? And then like, have I actually looked at my hormones? Have I actually looked at blood work? Like, how can I optimize my body first before I just jump to a peptide?
SPEAKER_00Thinking it's gonna solve all your problems.
SPEAKER_01Right. Everyone thinks like these seven peptides I'm gonna they want to start are gonna fix everything else when I was when I and most of the time I'm showing them like three simple things, whether it's nutrition, whether it's their exercise routine, or yeah, there's not sleeping. Um, and do you track your sleep? I mean, it's great to wear a sleep tracker. Um, because you want to make sure you're getting that recovery rest so you're not getting massive amounts of cortisol that then disrupt the rest of the environment.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, or waste your money on peptides if your lifestyle is so bad that it's not going to do anything anyways.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I mean, it's like, yeah, you know, can you outwork or even out, you know, lift a bad diet? I mean, that's always the old saying. And same can go for peptides. You can't can you can you outpeptide a bad diet?
SPEAKER_00I still see people that go to the gym to this day, and we used to own a gym a long time ago. In the years and years they'd be going, they never once changed. They never once like lost weight or never once looked any different.
SPEAKER_01I mean, and when you really take a nutrition as, like I said, the hardest thing that I do in my practice. And I think that when you really dive deep with someone, they're like, no, I I like I I eat pretty good. And and so, but what does that good mean? And like, and then I don't know, you know, are you a are you a weekend warrior? You know, like does Friday, Saturday, Sunday just completely destroy their entire week's worth of eating?
SPEAKER_00I think that's what the GLPs are actually good for. To get, like I said, I I know a lot of people personally that they've changed their lifestyle because of it. And I don't think if they would have not taken that, I don't think they would have changed their lifestyle. I mean, sadly enough to say, but it it helps people like get over that hump of like, oh, okay, I do feel a little bit better. Now I'm gonna, you know, drink a little bit less, or now I am gonna look into my nutrition. Maybe I do need to, you know, change some more stuff that I'm doing. What else can I do to feel better? I've seen them change a lot of their lifestyle after they start taking these things. My kind of my wife included, like she only took it because she couldn't lose, she first started taking it when she couldn't lose the baby weight. And she's been 115 pounds her whole life. And when she had her baby and did IDF and hormones like really messed her up and she was she lost most of it. I think she was still 135-ish, and she wanted to just get back down in the 120s. And when she started taking it, she actually was like, started feeling a little bit better. And she was like, This is the first time in my life, my feet aren't swollen. Yeah. She's like, even when she was 120, her ankles will be swollen all the time. And so she saw those changes and she's like, you know what? Started working out twice a week. And like, never before in her life has she ever worked out, ever. And so now she works out, she has a consistent routine, like she goes, you know, at least twice a week, no matter what. But even that caused, you know, caused her to change kind of her some of her habits. She does eat better. Um, she does do a lot of things that she didn't used to do that I don't know if she would have wouldn't have done it and saw like a little bit of inflammation go down and uh uh saw herself feel better if she would have done all those things if she didn't take it. I don't know. I I don't think it's end all be all. I do think it for a lot of people, for how our society is, I think it it'll at least push people over that edge. They'll see a little bit of results, they'll feel a little bit better, and it's like, oh, what else can I do to actually change my lifestyle?
SPEAKER_01Well, and I think it's just it's been in the wrong hands and that you know you look around and of how many people have just lost drastic weight, and then that's everyone's so scared of the GL.
SPEAKER_00That's a story you see. I mean, that's a story that kind of comes up, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And and you but it just has to be in the right hands, and you have to kind of teach them like why you shouldn't be scared to start it, especially if you needed it, like whether you have some insulin resistance, or even just like I said, there's patients that you know eat very, very clean, but then they have an autoimmune issue. Can we control that autoimmune issue by dropping the inflammatory markers down, just like you know, gentry's swelling?
SPEAKER_00All right, so we covered a lot today, and I think we cleared up a lot of the questions I know I get from people uh and the messages I get from people on a lot of these peptides and a lot of nutrition and functional medicine and hormones. But I think we covered a lot today. So I really appreciate you coming on.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, I always appreciate it as well.
SPEAKER_00All right, thanks.