[0:00] People are now stacking their GLP-1 as
[0:03] their insulin sensitivity tool, their
[0:05] growth hormone or their GHR
[0:07] >> and their androin modulation therapies
[0:10] as this trinity stack
[0:11] >> trinity stuff
[0:12] >> to get very fit, very healthy quickly.
[0:15] So a lot of these transformations you
[0:16] see in CEOs and celebrities and stuff is
[0:18] using a combination of those three
[0:20] things. You know your TRT plus teptide
[0:22] or retride whatever it may be and then
[0:25] using a growth hormone modulation
[0:27] whether if you can afford growth hormone
[0:28] or testimon. And you're seeing people
[0:30] lose a lot of fat gain a lot of muscle
[0:33] in short amounts of time. Is that
[0:34] healthy? We'll find out. But that is
[0:37] like the celebrity protocol. Welcome to
[0:39] the Huberman Lab podcast where we
[0:41] discuss science and science-based tools
[0:43] for everyday life.
[0:47] I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor
[0:49] of neurobiology and opthalmology at
[0:52] Stanford School of Medicine. My guest
[0:54] today is Dr. Abu Bakri, an internal
[0:57] medicine physician who is also extremely
[0:59] knowledgeable on the science and use of
[1:01] peptides. When I say peptides, I mean
[1:04] both FDA approved peptides such as the
[1:06] GLP agonist. You probably know these as
[1:09] things like Ompic, Monaro, and
[1:11] Retatrutide, as well as peptides such as
[1:13] body protection compound 157 or BPC57,
[1:18] which as you'll learn today has a very
[1:20] long history of being used in humans for
[1:22] gut health and tissue repair, and many
[1:25] interesting studies in animals
[1:27] supporting its potential use in humans,
[1:29] but a minimum of formal studies in
[1:31] humans, meaning one. We discuss BPC-157,
[1:35] what it does and how, as well as things
[1:38] like growth hormone secrets like
[1:40] tessamarellin, MK677 and others. And we
[1:43] talk about things like GHK copper, which
[1:45] nowadays many people are using to
[1:47] promote collagen synthesis and repair
[1:49] for aesthetic reasons like improving
[1:51] skin, hair, and so on. We also talk
[1:54] about peptides that have been studied
[1:55] for the purpose of DNA repair and
[1:57] longevity like epithelen and pinealin
[1:59] which also have been touted to improve
[2:01] REM sleep and for improving cognitive
[2:03] function. You'll also learn what is
[2:05] known and what is not known about these
[2:07] peptides both in terms of function and
[2:09] safety. During today's episode, you will
[2:11] come to appreciate that Dr. Bachri has
[2:13] truly encyclopedic knowledge about these
[2:15] peptides. He is also formerly trained as
[2:18] a physician and as a consequence you
[2:20] will learn how to think about peptides
[2:22] based on whether or not they have known
[2:23] receptors or not. That turns out to be
[2:25] very important and what their real
[2:27] safety profiles are as well as what
[2:30] particular concerns you ought to have if
[2:32] you are considering using peptides of
[2:34] any kind. As a formerly trained
[2:36] board-certified physician, he comes at
[2:38] this topic through the lens of a
[2:40] physician, but also somebody who is very
[2:42] interested in the current status and
[2:44] future of peptide medicine. Today's
[2:46] discussion, thanks to Dr. Bacher, is a
[2:48] true masterclass on peptides. By the end
[2:51] of today's discussion, I promise you,
[2:52] again, thanks to him, that you will be
[2:55] among the most informed, doctor or
[2:57] otherwise, about peptides from the GLPS
[3:00] to BPC57 and all the others that I
[3:02] mentioned, including some that I didn't
[3:04] mention here in the introduction. So, it
[3:06] is a real gift and honor to have this
[3:08] knowledge presented to all of us. So,
[3:10] buckle up. You're about to learn a lot
[3:13] about peptides. Before we begin, I'd
[3:15] like to emphasize that this podcast is
[3:17] separate from my teaching and research
[3:19] roles at Stanford. It is however part of
[3:21] my desire and effort to bring zero cost
[3:23] to consumer information about science
[3:24] and science related tools to the general
[3:26] public. In keeping with that theme,
[3:28] today's episode does include sponsors.
[3:30] And now for my discussion with Dr. Abu
[3:33] Bakri. Dr. Abu Bakri, welcome. Good to
[3:36] be here. Peptides, huge topic and huge
[3:41] category of biology and medicine. So, we
[3:44] should start off by breaking this into
[3:46] categories so that people can wrap their
[3:48] minds around it because that word
[3:50] peptides has come to mean stuff people
[3:53] buy and take and maybe should or
[3:55] shouldn't buy and take. But there's a
[3:57] lot of important and quite simple
[4:00] biology to understand before anyone
[4:03] should even be thinking about any of
[4:05] that. So if I just push the word
[4:08] peptides towards you, how do you carve
[4:10] that up in terms of thinking about it as
[4:12] an MD as a clinician and maybe also put
[4:15] yourself into the mind of a interested
[4:18] let's call it a peptide curious person
[4:20] out there. So scientifically I would say
[4:23] it's one of the languages of the human
[4:24] body right so the body likes these
[4:27] different languages to communicate
[4:28] between cells going from DNA to RNA to
[4:30] proteins which are can be broken down as
[4:32] polyeptides and peptides and peptides
[4:35] are one of these languages steroid
[4:36] hormones are another language and then
[4:38] peptides can be broken down further into
[4:40] subcategories whether or not they have
[4:42] receptors or they have no receptor
[4:45] >> and that kind of changes the clinical
[4:46] effects we'll see like the GLP1's which
[4:47] have a very strong clinical effect
[4:50] compared to these obscure peptides like
[4:52] BBC57, TB500, TB4 that don't have a
[4:55] clear target.
[4:56] >> They have receptors but they just have
[4:58] many of them or they don't even have
[4:59] receptors.
[4:59] >> We don't have a receptor identified for
[5:01] BBC57 or TB4. Just stopping you right
[5:03] there. There's a very interesting
[5:04] distinction. I don't think anyone else
[5:06] has described peptides this way.
[5:08] >> Let's take BPC57 for the moment. We're
[5:11] going to talk a lot about it today. If
[5:12] it doesn't have a receptor, what are
[5:15] some ways that it could impact cells and
[5:17] organs and so forth? Or is it that there
[5:21] are receptors, we just don't know what
[5:23] they are?
[5:23] >> It could be that the latter that maybe
[5:25] the the receptor is still elusive or it
[5:27] could be that it's modifying certain
[5:29] proteins that already exist or linking
[5:31] different pepi uh proteins together in a
[5:33] more favorable fashion for gene
[5:34] transcription. The Russian peptides are
[5:36] all epigenetic modifiers that they bind
[5:38] to the groove of the DNA in certain
[5:39] spots that either open up or close the
[5:41] chromatin to certain areas of genetic
[5:43] expression. And they've modeled this out
[5:44] >> like a steroid hormone. So steroid
[5:46] hormones bind like they bind to a like
[5:48] the andro receptor binds DHT or
[5:50] testosterone goes into the nucleus turns
[5:52] on all the androgenic genes.
[5:53] >> Yeah. Like puberty is a good example of
[5:55] that.
[5:55] >> Yes. Exactly. Exactly. So like pinealon
[5:57] that we've talked about uh shuttles uh
[5:59] heat shock proteins with androen
[6:01] receptors.
[6:02] >> Got it. So if I just pause us for a
[6:04] second, we should think about this word
[6:07] peptides in two major categories at
[6:09] least. Yep.
[6:10] >> One is has known receptors
[6:13] >> plural like the GLPS. Y
[6:14] >> the other category would be does not
[6:17] have known receptors might have
[6:18] receptors but can definitely impact
[6:21] biology in interesting ways or so say
[6:23] the animal data.
[6:24] >> Yep.
[6:25] >> Okay.
[6:25] >> A lot of animal data.
[6:26] >> All right. I know a lot of people are
[6:27] interested in GLPs and I want to go
[6:29] there. But because I know most people
[6:32] are probably listening to this foremost
[6:34] because they want to hear about the
[6:35] other stuff. Let's start with BPC57.
[6:39] What is it? What do we know about it?
[6:42] We'll explore safety and what is your
[6:45] stance on it from the perspective of a
[6:47] consumer and a clinician. So first of
[6:49] all, what is BPC57?
[6:51] >> The best way to look at it is, you know,
[6:52] as humans, we've been looking for
[6:54] medicines in plants for thousands of
[6:56] years. And in the last, let's say 150
[6:59] years, we've been looking for medicines
[7:00] in cells. So animal derived versus plant
[7:03] plant derived medicines is the way to
[7:04] think about it. You think about aspirin,
[7:06] you think about metformin, the statins,
[7:07] those were all discovered in you know
[7:10] plant tissues. um stats more so fungi
[7:12] but you get the point. Now we've been
[7:14] looking into animal tissues to find
[7:17] cures, medicines, treatments. So a group
[7:20] in Croatia in the '90s looks out for
[7:24] this peptide called BPC that they they
[7:26] and eventually named BPC. It's a $40,000
[7:29] dolton giant peptide called BPC. BBC7 is
[7:33] 15 amino acids from that giant peptide.
[7:35] We don't naturally make BPC157. That's
[7:38] what you'll commonly hear online. We
[7:39] make BBC the big uh protein. Did this
[7:42] group go looking for body protection
[7:46] compound? For those that aren't familiar
[7:48] in the laboratory, you can take a
[7:49] tissue, grind it up. You can do what's
[7:51] called fractionation. You can start
[7:52] separating basically cells and tissues
[7:54] and liquids according to the size of
[7:56] different proteins. Like different
[7:58] filters will bring let just like certain
[7:59] filters will let sand through or pebbles
[8:01] through or boulders through. That's kind
[8:02] of what you do. And then you figure out
[8:04] what the sequences are and then you
[8:05] throw them on cells or put them into
[8:07] animals and you try and figure out what
[8:08] they do. Why were they motivated to look
[8:10] for what eventually became BPC? So
[8:13] Pavlov, the famous uh scientist that
[8:16] would do the dog the experiments on the
[8:17] dogs with the bell and and making the
[8:19] dogs salivate. The other work he did was
[8:21] on gastric juices of dogs. What he'd do
[8:23] is he'd put a hole in the dogs stomachs.
[8:25] He would um feed them food and then get
[8:27] the gastric juices and sell that as a
[8:29] medicine.
[8:29] >> That's how he made his money.
[8:30] >> Yeah, that was part of his business.
[8:31] >> So he got a Nobel Prize. He was also
[8:33] kind of like what did he have a like a
[8:35] um a call code? It was like like enter
[8:38] pavlova for for discount at checkout.
[8:40] Yeah. Amazing.
[8:41] >> So this is BBC before BBC57 exists.
[8:44] There's probably other peptides and
[8:45] compounds in there, but they they found
[8:46] that gastric juices had positive effects
[8:49] on healing on people that had, you know,
[8:51] gird and these kind of
[8:52] >> Wait, so people were taking BPC in the
[8:54] time of Pavlov?
[8:55] >> They didn't know what BBC was. They were
[8:56] taking gastric juices from dogs
[8:57] >> for what?
[8:58] >> GI distress, GI discomfort. Uh some
[9:00] people were trying for wound healing.
[9:02] There was a big push in this era for
[9:03] like finding animal tissues and putting
[9:06] them into humans. That science fizzled
[9:07] out. At the same time, there's a
[9:09] scientist Hansely that's coming up with
[9:12] uh the stress adaptation theory and he
[9:14] notices that animals are stressed out.
[9:15] Three things happens to them. Their
[9:16] adrenals get really big so they make
[9:18] more cortisol. Their gastric lining gets
[9:20] destroyed and then their thymus gland
[9:22] and their lymphatics shrink down. And he
[9:24] he has this published paper where you
[9:26] have clear adrenal from a stressed
[9:27] animal versus a non-stressed animal. A
[9:29] thymus from an animal that's stressed
[9:30] versus not. So this group is looking and
[9:33] thinking hey Pavlov had this gastric
[9:36] juice. Hansely said that there was
[9:38] damage when during stress there must be
[9:40] some kind of cytorotective or
[9:41] organoprotective compound in the gut.
[9:44] The stomach is a very rich endocrine uh
[9:46] tissue. It makes ghrelin all these other
[9:48] hormones. So they're like there must be
[9:49] something else in the gut juice that
[9:51] protects the gut lining from further
[9:53] damage.
[9:54] >> Were people drinking the gastric juices
[9:55] of dogs? Were they injecting them?
[9:58] >> Drinking was mo mostly what they did.
[9:59] And it was supposed to be a medical
[10:01] elixir presumably. It had many many
[10:03] things in it, many peptides. Not
[10:05] >> this pepsia and like upset stomach and
[10:07] this kind of stuff is what people were
[10:09] thinking.
[10:09] >> Do the reports point to the fact that it
[10:10] might have worked independent of what
[10:12] was sold on uh Dr. Pavlov's non-existent
[10:16] website.
[10:16] >> This was in like the early 1900s. And
[10:19] then uh Soia was what 1930s
[10:22] >> I think. So yeah, 100 years ago.
[10:24] >> Someone will correct us if we're wrong.
[10:25] And this other group in Croatia
[10:26] >> was 91.
[10:28] >> 91. Okay,
[10:30] >> their first paper talks about this like,
[10:31] hey, there must be some kind of
[10:33] compound. They they identified the big
[10:34] 40 Dalton protein BPC. And then they
[10:37] they were like, what's what's causing
[10:38] the actual biological effects? They
[10:40] identified BPC57, the 15 amino acid
[10:43] peptide that's causing all these
[10:44] effects. There's actually more peptides
[10:45] in gastric juices that some other
[10:47] scientists may or may not have already
[10:49] identified. This field of peptides going
[10:50] to be very interesting because almost
[10:52] every organ has a signature of peptides.
[10:55] Like if you think back Dr. Vladimir
[10:56] Vulvich in 1850s 1880s finds carnosine
[11:01] and carnitine in muscle of cattle. So
[11:03] you can think that the first peptides
[11:05] that are found are carnosine and then
[11:06] carnitine is the amino acid that's that
[11:09] have positive effects on strength
[11:10] training and performance and different
[11:12] effects there. But that was the whole
[11:14] idea is like hey there's muscle peptides
[11:16] that may have muscle effects, right? Gut
[11:18] peptides might have gut effects.
[11:20] >> So this Croatian group um isolates this
[11:22] 15 amino acid kind of mini segment Yep.
[11:25] of BPC. They and others start injecting
[11:27] into mice inducing injuries to nerve to
[11:30] tendon. Maybe describe a few of those
[11:32] effects. I' I'm familiar with that
[11:33] literature, but I can tell that you are
[11:35] far more familiar with it. So, what are
[11:36] some of the impressive effects that they
[11:38] observed that led to where we are today?
[11:42] So, they did all kinds of horrible
[11:43] things to these mice. They would, you
[11:45] know, sever tendons and then give them
[11:47] BPC through oral or injectable
[11:49] intraparitinal uh administrations and
[11:51] they'd have faster healing times. They
[11:53] would sever ACL of the mice. they would
[11:55] uh do burn wounds. So when a patient has
[11:57] a burn wound in like the ICU, they end
[11:59] up having crazy gastric ulcers, but if
[12:01] they were able to put BBC on topically
[12:03] for the mouse, they would have no
[12:04] gastric ulcers. They name it as this
[12:06] anti-stress compound is how they they
[12:08] they look at it. Now, when they do that
[12:10] Achilles paper on the mice, that's what
[12:12] explodes the bodybuilder interest and
[12:14] leads us to today where we are like, oh,
[12:16] MSK injuries must be BPC, tendons and
[12:18] and and and muscle injuries. But the
[12:21] original idea of BBC was to use it as a
[12:23] gastric treatment, not to use it as a
[12:25] muscoskeleletal.
[12:27] I'd like to take a quick break and
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[14:52] >> Let me pause you here. People are
[14:53] probably saying, should I take it or
[14:54] should I? Just hang in there, folks,
[14:55] because this is really, really
[14:57] important. What is so striking to me
[14:59] about BPC and by the way that's not an
[15:02] endorsement for BPC. Just what's so
[15:03] striking to me because my lab worked for
[15:05] a long time on optic nerve repair and
[15:07] neural regeneration. Nerves don't like
[15:08] to regenerate in the central nervous
[15:10] system. Peripheral nervous system they
[15:11] do it they do it slowly but they do it.
[15:13] >> Yep.
[15:13] >> Not in the central nervous system. Ask
[15:15] anyone who's had a stroke or an optic
[15:17] nerve injury. It's a tough road at best.
[15:20] There are data that I've seen with my
[15:23] own eyes that show that, you know, you
[15:25] can accelerate
[15:27] healing of tendon, of ligament, of nerve
[15:31] pathways
[15:32] >> in animals. Yes.
[15:32] >> In animals. Yes. Thank you. And that it
[15:35] just generally promotes quote unquote
[15:38] repair.
[15:39] >> Yep.
[15:39] >> That's kind of weird.
[15:40] >> It is weird,
[15:41] >> right? Because I could spend the next 10
[15:43] hours or more telling you about all the
[15:45] ways that people have tried to get
[15:46] nerves to regenerate and couldn't. And
[15:48] as you point out, this thing doesn't
[15:51] really have one specific at least known
[15:52] receptor.
[15:54] >> So the data on the gut make a lot of
[15:56] sense. This is after all a gut peptide.
[15:58] It makes sense that that gut peptide
[16:00] could get lots of places in the body,
[16:01] right?
[16:02] >> But what is it doing mechanistically if
[16:04] we know to support regeneration or
[16:06] replenishment of all these different
[16:08] tissue types? Because a neuron is a very
[16:10] different cell type than, you know, a
[16:13] fiberblast or one of the bits of
[16:15] collagen that make up different
[16:16] connective tissues. It's modulating a
[16:19] lot of these growth and healing pathways
[16:21] like in the models of damaging the
[16:25] endothelial layer or the epithelial
[16:27] layer of different tissues. You'll get
[16:29] more veg f signaling. So that's the the
[16:31] vascular endothelial growth factor. So
[16:33] get more blood vessels andises being
[16:34] formed which creates a lot of the
[16:35] controversy around BBC safety. You'll
[16:38] get cell migration especially when
[16:40] coupled with TB500 and TB4. you'll get,
[16:42] you know, more access of the healing
[16:44] factors to the area through androgenic
[16:46] pathways. On top of that, you'll get an
[16:48] anti-stress effect. So, the other big
[16:50] thing that they did was they'd give
[16:51] corticosteroids with BPC57 to these
[16:54] mice. And usually when you have a wound
[16:56] and you you give corticosteroids, the
[16:57] corticosteroids will slow or even stop
[17:00] the wound healing from happening. When
[17:01] BPC was administered, the the the
[17:04] healing was either the same or even
[17:05] better.
[17:05] >> Is BPC considered anti-inflammatory?
[17:08] Because based on what you just said, it
[17:10] almost seems like it helps maintain some
[17:12] of the pro-inflammatory response. Some
[17:14] people might be thinking, why would you
[17:16] want inflammation? What Dr. Bockery just
[17:17] said is if you block inflammation with
[17:20] cortosteroids,
[17:21] >> you aren't going to call in the signals
[17:23] to repair tissues. So lowering
[17:25] inflammation is a dicey thing that maybe
[17:27] we set aside for later in the
[17:29] conversation if we have time. But is it
[17:30] thought that BPC is lowering
[17:32] inflammation or is just somehow hitting
[17:34] the gas pedal on all these regenerative
[17:36] restorative biological processes?
[17:38] >> It's more putting the gas pedal on these
[17:40] processes to bring in the immune system,
[17:43] the healing factors. For example, in one
[17:45] tendon model, they noticed that it
[17:46] increased the amount of growth hormone
[17:48] receptors on the tendon. So
[17:50] theoretically, this would allow more
[17:52] growth hormone to dock in and cause the
[17:53] outgrowth of the tendon and the and the
[17:55] regrowth of it. So there's that theory
[17:57] there. downstream it'll modulate uh
[17:59] nitric oxide synthesis. So that's a big
[18:01] thing when it comes to wound healing
[18:02] because you need to to dilate the blood
[18:04] vessels, you need to call in different
[18:05] cells. So it's really changing the way
[18:07] cells behave at that level, but that's
[18:09] only for like the tendon side of it.
[18:11] They also did weird things on the
[18:12] neurological side like they would make
[18:15] these mice drunk, okay? And they would
[18:18] then give them BBC and they'd get less
[18:20] drunk and when they go through mazes.
[18:21] >> Oh boy.
[18:22] >> Okay.
[18:23] >> We did not just recommend you take BBC
[18:25] with alcohol. want to be very clear. Um,
[18:28] but people are going, you know, we'll do
[18:29] their own interpretation. So, I'm being
[18:31] semi facicious, but very interesting.
[18:33] >> And then also, they would give them get
[18:34] the mice drunk and then have them
[18:35] withdraw from alcohol and like
[18:37] withdrawal is deadly. If we have a
[18:38] patient in the hospital that
[18:39] withdrawals, they could die during that
[18:40] withdrawal if they're not given
[18:41] benzoasipines. They got BPC and they
[18:43] didn't have the withdrawal symptoms. I'm
[18:45] like, what's going on here? This is a
[18:47] very interesting compound. I think it
[18:48] gets it gets all the hype for the MSK
[18:50] stuff, but I think the neurological
[18:52] neuroscychiatric, let's say, and then
[18:53] gastric effects are way more interesting
[18:55] when it comes to that because it's
[18:56] modulating the gut brain access in an
[18:58] interesting way. We'll have people come
[18:59] to us and they're like, "My aderall is
[19:01] not working since I've been taking oral
[19:02] BPC." Are they happy with that effect?
[19:04] >> No, they're not happy. They're very mad
[19:05] because like it seems like it's blunting
[19:07] their aderall.
[19:08] >> So, it's doing something from dopanergic
[19:10] signaling both on both sides, both
[19:11] withdrawal uh when it comes to like the
[19:13] gapurgic side, but also the the peak of
[19:16] signaling. So if you like peruse Reddit,
[19:18] which you should never do, um you'll
[19:20] find all these anhidonia discussions
[19:22] about BBC, people feel like depressed
[19:24] and low energy.
[19:25] >> Incredible seems to be
[19:27] >> in terms of effects in animals and
[19:29] anecdotal reports in humans because I
[19:32] think both your and my excitement about
[19:35] this might be occupying a substantial
[19:38] amount of the force field here. Let's do
[19:40] something that normally I would do in a
[19:42] few minutes. I'm going to ask you some
[19:43] very direct questions about this and you
[19:45] and I don't hold you responsible as
[19:47] being like BPC uh you know spokesperson
[19:50] but here you are. Um that's Pavlov's
[19:52] job. Um and he's dead.
[19:56] Are there any known adverse events of
[19:59] from people taking BPC known and
[20:02] documented? Okay. adverse events where
[20:06] it's unrelated to uh contamination or
[20:09] something of that sort.
[20:10] >> In the literature, when it comes to um
[20:12] the animal data, they've injected
[20:14] animals with, you know, a thousand times
[20:15] the dose of BPC with no real adverse
[20:18] effects. So there's we don't even know
[20:19] the LD50 of BPC, which makes it hard for
[20:21] it to become an FDA approved.
[20:22] >> Maybe define LD50.
[20:23] >> LD50 is is the dose of which would kill
[20:25] 50% of the animals if it was
[20:26] administered to them. So we don't even
[20:28] know what that is. And that's actually
[20:29] an important number as as you know
[20:31] barbaric as it sounds to determine for
[20:33] any drug. What's the LD50 for caffeine?
[20:35] What's the LD50 for aspirin? What's the
[20:36] L? This is every drug you take folks on
[20:39] or off the counter you know prescription
[20:41] or non-prescription has gone through
[20:42] LD50 testing in animals.
[20:44] >> To be a clinician to prescribe this, we
[20:45] need to know what that is which which
[20:46] limits us. Now there was two very small
[20:49] phase one and phase 2 trials on rectal
[20:51] BPC enemas um in the early 2000s from
[20:55] that same coration group. So that's the
[20:56] big concern of BBC. all the data comes
[20:58] from one group. So people can be
[20:59] skeptical. There's a couple of Chinese
[21:01] groups that have also replicated some of
[21:02] their work. But uh those groups wanted
[21:05] to try to treat ulcerative colitis. It's
[21:07] a very you know miserable condition of
[21:09] where the immune system attacks the
[21:10] lining of the gut in multiple spots. Uh
[21:12] and they use enemas of BPC up to like 80
[21:14] milligrams which is much more than than
[21:16] people would take.
[21:17] >> Most people are injecting microgram.
[21:19] Yes. 100 or 200 micrograms per day or
[21:21] something. Maybe more but you're talking
[21:24] about 80 milligrams.
[21:26] >> Yeah. erectile enemas. They did a phase
[21:27] one and phase two trial.
[21:28] >> They're doing this daily or they do it
[21:29] once.
[21:30] >> They did it for a few weeks. Um and then
[21:32] they reme-measured. They had it was
[21:33] placebo controlled. The data is not
[21:35] available. The abstracts are only
[21:36] available. So that that's what also
[21:37] gives us some pause when we're going to
[21:39] you know push that forward especially
[21:40] when the legal discussions are happening
[21:42] here in the next few months uh on BPC. U
[21:44] the first the phase one trial showed no
[21:46] adverse effects. U they and they didn't
[21:48] even have BPC in the systemic system
[21:50] too. That's that's a key point to know
[21:51] that orally administered or rectally
[21:53] administered BPC doesn't seem to go
[21:54] systemic. maybe define that a little bit
[21:57] more specifically.
[21:58] >> If you take aspirin and then you measure
[22:00] blood aspirin levels, you'll notice the
[22:01] levels go up. When they measured BBC
[22:03] levels, BBC157 levels in these uh
[22:05] individuals, they didn't find it in the
[22:06] blood. So, either it was broken down
[22:08] very quickly or it stayed locally to the
[22:10] lining of the the gastric tissues.
[22:11] >> That raises a question for me. Let's say
[22:13] somebody doesn't quote unquote take any
[22:15] BPC57 by enema or otherwise. If I were
[22:18] to just draw your blood right now, uh
[22:20] there's BPC57 in there in the bigger
[22:23] protein,
[22:23] >> the bigger the bigger BPC protein. I
[22:25] don't you wouldn't find
[22:25] >> is it circulating or is it or is it
[22:27] contain or is it restricted to the gut?
[22:28] >> We don't have that data.
[22:29] >> Well, that's incredible, right? Because
[22:30] we're talking about these effects all
[22:32] over the body. We don't even know if it
[22:33] leaves the gut.
[22:34] >> No, but in well, the injectable is going
[22:35] to go systemic.
[22:36] >> And most people are going to take if
[22:38] they're decide to do this, they're going
[22:39] to take an oral or an injectable.
[22:41] They're either going to inject local to
[22:42] the injury if they can
[22:44] >> or an interparitinial.
[22:45] They found fragments of the 15. Like
[22:47] there's there's a paper in 2024 that
[22:49] looked at this and they could figure out
[22:50] if somebody had BPC administered for
[22:53] doping reasons cuz it's on the water
[22:54] list now. So they could figure out if
[22:56] someone had taken BPC.
[22:57] >> Got it.
[22:57] >> But there we don't know like we don't we
[22:59] need to know the dynamics. We don't know
[23:00] where it goes, how it goes,
[23:01] >> and we don't know the results in terms
[23:03] of what those 80 mgram enemas of BPC
[23:08] did for the colitis.
[23:09] >> In the phase one trial, it was just a
[23:11] safety uh there was no adverse effects.
[23:13] in the phase two trial was very small
[23:14] like 40 patients there was at least a
[23:16] positive signal on on the ulcer colitis
[23:18] >> and this was done in the United States
[23:20] or this was in Croatia okay so to be
[23:23] quite direct on the one hand you have
[23:25] groups um who I think are mostly
[23:27] well-intentioned saying hey 80 millig of
[23:31] BPC by way of enema did not cause any
[23:35] adverse events and that's the phase one
[23:38] that you described
[23:39] >> if we believe their data is right
[23:40] >> on the opposite side many people
[23:43] especially in the United States and you
[23:45] know in Northern Europe where the
[23:47] regulations tend to be similarish right
[23:49] as compared to elsewhere in the world
[23:51] would say well yeah but that study was
[23:54] in Croatia now I have many Croatian
[23:57] friends that's not a knock on Croatia
[23:59] why would it be that the clinical trials
[24:02] in Croatia would hold less weight this
[24:05] is this is a dicey area but I think it's
[24:07] important because you'll hear this oh
[24:09] those are Chinese peptides those are
[24:11] Russian studies
[24:12] Yeah. And you know, I mean to me, you
[24:15] know, the question is,
[24:16] >> was it good science? Was it done
[24:18] carefully? Would it pass muster for a
[24:20] phase one in the United States?
[24:22] >> That's a good question. The groups seem
[24:24] to be very robust and they do really
[24:25] good randomized control, double blind
[24:27] placebo control trials. I think we're
[24:29] very uh United Statescentric. We view
[24:31] ourselves as the premier science and we
[24:33] are the premier science. So people kind
[24:35] of trust that more and there may be you
[24:36] know perverse incentives when it comes
[24:38] to different government bodies and like
[24:40] you know Soviet era research that might
[24:41] be you know pro fabrication when it
[24:43] comes to certain compounds that makes
[24:45] people hesitant because there's a lot of
[24:46] like these Soviet era compounds that are
[24:48] not peptides or some of them are
[24:49] peptides they're fantastic they sound
[24:51] they sound amazing but when they get
[24:53] tested maybe they're not as potent as
[24:55] the Soviet data would suggest. I always
[24:56] thought that the Russian stuff was like
[24:58] the really potent stuff that they didn't
[24:59] want anyone else to know about that kind
[25:01] of way goes the other way, right?
[25:03] >> It could go both ways. I mean, but they
[25:04] were they were more interested in
[25:06] performance. They wanted better
[25:07] astronauts, better Olympians, better
[25:09] soldiers. We care more about, you know,
[25:11] a profit drug model that gets people on
[25:13] a subscription for with the monthly
[25:14] drug unfortunately.
[25:15] >> Sometimes it heals people, but
[25:17] >> So nowadays, is BPC57 legal in the
[25:21] United States? Like if if I wanted to go
[25:22] online and buy BPC7, I can do it, right?
[25:25] legal legally for research purposes
[25:27] only.
[25:27] >> I thought now under the new regulations
[25:29] uh recently passed that you can get it
[25:31] from a compounding pharmacy or
[25:33] >> technically not just yet.
[25:34] >> Okay.
[25:35] >> And it depends on on medical boards to
[25:36] to break it down. BBC157 never got FDA
[25:38] approved, right? So it gets into these
[25:40] compounding pharmacy lists. There's a
[25:42] category 1, two, and three. Category one
[25:44] means the FDA thinks like, hey, this is
[25:45] not an approved drug, but we're okay
[25:47] with you compounding this and you're
[25:48] okay to to push that forward. Category
[25:50] 2, it's like do not compound. In late
[25:52] 2024, BPC57 and and like 20 other
[25:55] peptides got moved to this category 2
[25:57] list. Since about 2017 to 2024, people
[26:00] have been prescribing BPC and these
[26:01] alternative medicine anti-aging
[26:03] practices. It gets removed from that
[26:04] list. Of course, you know,
[26:05] compoundingies reabel it as PDA, pedeka
[26:09] peptide arginate,
[26:10] >> but it's the same thing.
[26:10] >> It's the same exact thing.
[26:11] >> Really?
[26:12] >> Yes. One of them will be an acetate, one
[26:13] of them will be an arginate, but the PDA
[26:15] is is BBC57. Because there are many many
[26:18] people selling compounded
[26:20] pentadcaeptide.
[26:21] >> Pentecate.
[26:25] That's the
[26:25] >> arginate. Okay. I think the acetate one
[26:28] is the one that's on the the phase the
[26:30] category 2 list. Now just in April of
[26:33] this year it got removed from the
[26:35] category 2 list and it's not yet on the
[26:37] category 1 list which would allow
[26:38] physicians to prescribe it
[26:40] >> through compoundingies. Now but they can
[26:44] prescribe the PDA version.
[26:45] >> People are prescribing PDA. Yes.
[26:47] >> Now, now state medical boards view that
[26:49] very differently.
[26:50] >> Like I got a letter from one of the
[26:51] licensed in many states. One of these
[26:53] states reached out to me. It's like you
[26:54] cannot prescribe not me directly to the
[26:56] general public of of people in that
[26:58] state you cannot prescribe non-FDA
[27:00] approved peptides no matter what.
[27:02] >> So there's controversy there. Even if
[27:03] the FDA says okay we're okay with you
[27:05] prescribing it. Is your medical board in
[27:07] that state going to be okay with it? So
[27:08] it's state by state by state laws.
[27:10] >> What about with tellahalth? So,
[27:11] somebody's on the east coast in a state
[27:13] that um allows them to write a script
[27:16] for let's just call it BBC cuz it's
[27:19] effectively what it is or this other
[27:20] thing where they kind of wriggle through
[27:21] the regulation. Can they send that to
[27:23] California or to Wisconsin or or
[27:26] someplace else if the patient is there?
[27:27] >> The tele health laws go into effect
[27:29] where the patient is.
[27:31] >> So, if let's say in California it's not
[27:33] allowed to have BPC according to the
[27:34] state board of pharmacy or whoever uh
[27:36] bans that. Even if you're a New York
[27:38] doctor that's licensed in California
[27:40] that would be against the California
[27:41] Medical Board and they would ask you if
[27:42] they found out to stand in front of
[27:44] them. Now, are boards cracking down on
[27:45] this? Not really. There's a couple
[27:47] states that are cracking down on people
[27:48] and people know to avoid those states,
[27:50] but it's going to be very dicey over the
[27:52] next few years.
[27:53] >> Okay. Couple of questions. anecdata. We
[27:56] don't want to place too much on it, but
[27:57] the big kind of rumor out there that
[28:01] pricked up my years a few years ago was
[28:04] when I heard that some athlete before
[28:07] the summer Olympics, this was two summer
[28:08] Olympics ago, um, from Eastern Europe,
[28:11] had a complete Achilles transsection.
[28:14] Not just a tear or a pull, but when we
[28:16] think about nerves and tendons, we think
[28:18] like complete cut the whole way through.
[28:20] And the rumor was they took BPC-157
[28:23] locally injected
[28:25] >> for a few months and they podiummed in
[28:27] the Olympics. Yep. They still got a
[28:28] medal.
[28:29] >> Familiar with that story.
[28:29] >> That was the that was the story that
[28:31] kind of got out there that I feel
[28:33] >> kind of catalyzed this movement of BPC
[28:35] out of these niche communities and in
[28:38] started it toward the the public
[28:40] awareness that leads to you sitting here
[28:41] today among other things. We also you
[28:43] have a lot of other knowledge but we're
[28:45] restricting to BPC now. So
[28:47] >> do we have verification of that story?
[28:49] >> No. No, I I think that story was uh
[28:52] hearsay. I don't think they wanted to
[28:53] reveal what they actually did. I don't
[28:55] think they only did BPC57. They'd be
[28:57] stupid if they did. They should have,
[28:58] you know, all the best and latest
[29:00] greatest treatments, whether exome, stem
[29:01] cells, other peptides, anything that
[29:03] wasn't banned. And by the way, I should
[29:05] say BPC57 was not on the banned
[29:07] substances list at that time. It was so
[29:09] unknown. Just like there are compounds
[29:11] right now that athletes
[29:13] >> are using and not just in the enhanced
[29:15] games in preparation for the Olympics.
[29:17] I'm not saying they're all doping, but
[29:18] there it's it's a common practice that
[29:20] athletes will forage into things that
[29:22] can help them that are not yet on the
[29:24] band substances list.
[29:25] >> And I mean, good luck proving that BBC
[29:26] was injected, you know, a week ago
[29:28] >> because by the time the peptides already
[29:29] gone out of your system. So, or at least
[29:31] we think based on the phmicamics that we
[29:33] understand now.
[29:33] >> U that story was run with from the
[29:37] research community. They use it as a
[29:39] marketing tool to sell more BPC157
[29:41] because what what happened in the in the
[29:42] field is the GOP ones come online, you
[29:45] know, late 2021 and 2022 with Ozek and
[29:47] WGO V, they get the FDA approval for
[29:49] weight loss. There's not enough of a
[29:51] supply from the traditional
[29:52] pharmaceutical versions of the GLP1s.
[29:55] So, people start looking elsewhere to
[29:56] get their weight loss drugs. I know
[29:58] people that would drive down to Mexico
[29:59] to pick up pens because a pharmacy in
[30:00] the United States would cost, you know,
[30:02] $1,500 for an Osmic pen. Pharmacy in
[30:04] Mexico, 1 hour drive.
[30:06] >> Same drug.
[30:06] >> Same exact drug. How much relative cost?
[30:08] >> 150 versus 1500.
[30:10] >> Wow.
[30:10] >> So 10x.
[30:11] >> And this is the thing that Trump has
[30:12] been, you know, very vocal about like
[30:14] that we that we're getting overcharged
[30:15] for drugs here.
[30:16] >> We we definitely are. And the Trump RX
[30:19] has lowered a lot of these prices, by
[30:20] the way, for for a lot of these drugs.
[30:21] Now, that time there was a shortage of
[30:23] semiglutide and then eventually
[30:25] zepatide. So the compound pharmacy game
[30:27] shifted into making these drugs,
[30:29] compounded versions. So they're not the
[30:30] FDA approved versions, but when there's
[30:32] a shortage of a medication, the
[30:34] compounders are allowed to make these
[30:36] drugs to meet the shortage. And in fact,
[30:37] the FDA was reaching out to these people
[30:39] telling them to do it. Like Brigham was
[30:41] talking to him last week at the Hands
[30:42] Games. He's like, "Yeah, the FDA told us
[30:43] to make this stuff and then they're
[30:44] getting us in trouble."
[30:44] >> This is Brigham Beller who runs ways to
[30:47] Well and
[30:48] >> he ran a pharmacy for a long time,
[30:49] right? Compounding pharmacy. Yeah. We've
[30:50] never actually met in person. One of the
[30:51] best ones.
[30:52] >> It's not an ad fories. We have no I have
[30:54] no business relationship to bring.
[30:56] >> So if there's a shortage, compounding
[30:58] can jump in the game.
[30:59] >> Yes. And they did and they jumped in
[31:00] very hard
[31:01] >> on the GLPs.
[31:02] >> Yes. And they made a lot of money off
[31:03] the GLP ones. Like this was, you know,
[31:05] billions of dollars being made.
[31:06] >> Were they selling them for less than
[31:08] standard pharma was selling?
[31:09] >> They were less than the ozic pens.
[31:11] Unfortunately, what would happen is the
[31:13] provider had the discretion on the
[31:15] price. So all these providers also were
[31:16] making a lot of money.
[31:17] >> Who's the quote unquote provider? The
[31:18] physician.
[31:19] >> The physician or the NP or the PA.
[31:21] >> Uh
[31:21] >> who takes the difference?
[31:22] >> The clinician, which is I don't think is
[31:24] legal in most states.
[31:25] >> Wait a second. Maybe not even federal.
[31:26] >> Wait a second. So, let's say I wanted to
[31:28] take a Wiggoi. Yes.
[31:29] >> And there's a shortage. I can't get it
[31:31] from who's the the big manufacturer.
[31:34] Nova Norris doesn't have enough.
[31:35] >> My doctor says, "Listen, you need this."
[31:37] Yes.
[31:37] >> And I say, "How much is it?" And they
[31:39] say, "Well, 1,500 um $1,500, but it
[31:43] turns out the compounding pharmacy
[31:45] >> through a different doctor, a more
[31:47] benevolent doctor.
[31:48] >> There you go.
[31:49] >> Could have prescribed it to me for I
[31:51] could get for maybe $300. In the case
[31:53] where I'm paying 1,500, it's going to my
[31:55] physician unbeknownst to me. I don't
[31:57] it's I'm cloaked from the process.
[31:58] >> If you're getting the the Nova Nordisk
[32:00] pen, the physician is not involved.
[32:02] >> No, I'm talking about if I'm if I'm
[32:03] drifted towards a a compounded version.
[32:05] So the the most of the times when it
[32:07] comes to compoundies, which I don't
[32:08] think is is a is a good practice, the
[32:10] clinician gets a price from the
[32:12] pharmacy. So the pharmacy will tell you,
[32:13] hey, a vial of semiglutide costs 150
[32:16] bucks.
[32:17] >> This clinician can now sell that vial to
[32:19] the patient sell. It's really they're
[32:21] charging an administrative fee, right?
[32:22] Right? It's not a sale cuz technically
[32:23] you can't sell medications like that.
[32:25] They will sell it to you for $200 or
[32:29] $800. Okay. If I want to ask my
[32:32] physician,
[32:34] >> how much are you getting the drug for
[32:36] from because I know which pharmacy it's
[32:38] going to come from. It's going to come
[32:39] in a vile says like Upstate or Tailor
[32:41] Made or what's Brigham's pharmacy?
[32:42] >> Revive.
[32:43] >> Revive. It's coming from Revive. What
[32:44] are you paying for this from Revive?
[32:46] >> Yep.
[32:47] >> And then what are you going to charge
[32:48] me? And I can assume the difference is
[32:49] going to my clinician.
[32:50] >> It's going to the clinician all.
[32:51] >> All right. Sorry clinicians, the game is
[32:53] up. Patients are now going to ask and
[32:55] you have every right to ask as far as
[32:57] I'm concerned.
[32:57] >> Yeah, cuz what's going to happen with
[32:59] the BBC and all these other peptides
[33:00] moving is there's going to be teleahalth
[33:02] platforms on every on every corner now
[33:04] that are going to be like, "Hey, BBC
[33:06] 199, BBC 299," and they're going to like
[33:08] check out and there's going to be a
[33:09] doctor somewhere in a room that's going
[33:10] to stamp the prescription, but it's just
[33:11] a, you know, e-commerce. It supplements
[33:13] with a with a stamp of a doctor, which
[33:15] is not good medical care at all.
[33:17] >> Okay. To balance this a bit, the route
[33:20] that many people have gone for about a
[33:22] decade now, but primarily in the last
[33:24] three to five years, was to go to these
[33:26] for research purposes only, what we
[33:28] would call gray market. Let's just name
[33:30] names because they're out of business
[33:31] now anyway. They've shuttered
[33:32] themselves. Peptide sciences till a few
[33:35] years ago, you could go on there, you
[33:37] could buy pretty much any peptide. It
[33:38] would say for research purposes only,
[33:41] not for animal or human use.
[33:42] >> Yes. And you sign that many times. And
[33:44] when you paid them, you would have to
[33:47] Venmo them.
[33:48] >> Yeah.
[33:48] >> Or you could do it through zel. Yes.
[33:50] >> But they would ask that you not send it
[33:52] to a Peptide Sciences account. It was
[33:54] like some random name and the names kept
[33:56] changing. So everyone knew they were in
[33:58] on something like this. By the way, I I
[34:00] I want to be very clear. I ended up
[34:02] getting these things, right? I was too
[34:05] frightened to take them later. I have
[34:08] taken BPC. I've tried it. I don't take
[34:10] it currently, but I've I've tried it
[34:12] through a compounding pharmacy. So I
[34:13] just want to be very clear what that
[34:14] experience was about.
[34:15] >> So eventually they actually got payment
[34:16] processors like the this this market
[34:18] evolved with the desire. Okay, there's
[34:20] maybe I'd say 5 to10 billion dollars on
[34:23] gray market peptides being spent in the
[34:25] United States in 2025 and that's going
[34:26] to grow this year.
[34:27] >> So here's my question. Standard pharma
[34:30] we know goes through of all the things
[34:31] we're talking about the most stringent
[34:32] process. You may hate pharma folks or
[34:34] whatever. That's you're right. But the
[34:37] the stuff that you get that's
[34:39] non-generic from Novanoris, from Eli
[34:42] Liy, you can be certain based on the
[34:44] product packaging that it's as clean as
[34:46] it gets, as pure as it gets.
[34:48] >> That's right.
[34:48] >> Compoundingies are a mix. It depends on
[34:50] the compounding pharmacy.
[34:52] >> Do we know that gray market peptides had
[34:54] problems? Because there are people out
[34:56] there right now who are certainly not
[34:57] physicians. people like Robert Breedlove
[34:59] who's best known for like his work in
[35:01] crypto who's also now like very open
[35:03] about the fact that he's taken all these
[35:04] peptides and anabolics and things and I
[35:06] heard him online the other day saying
[35:08] literally that he's tested the gray
[35:11] market for research purposes only
[35:12] peptides and compared them to the
[35:15] compounding pharmacy versions and
[35:16] they're identical. Now he's not a
[35:18] physician and I don't think he's lying
[35:20] but many people are taking that sort of
[35:22] evidence and saying oh I'll just get it
[35:24] from gray market sources. As a
[35:26] physician,
[35:27] what is your stance on this?
[35:29] >> So, the API for all these active
[35:31] pharmaceutical ingredients comes from
[35:34] China. There are no such thing as
[35:35] Americanmade peptides. It gets finished
[35:37] here. So, the API,
[35:38] >> they're all from China.
[35:39] >> Everything's from China. the raw
[35:40] materials
[35:41] >> the raw materials like the semiglutide
[35:42] you're getting from a compounding
[35:43] pharmacy or a research pep peptide
[35:46] website ratide included comes from China
[35:50] and then gets either the the raw
[35:51] material gets you know packaged here
[35:54] >> raw materials or or synthesized compound
[35:56] because there's a big difference between
[35:57] getting like the raw materials for
[35:59] something and getting the thing
[36:01] >> the synthesized semiglutide
[36:03] >> gets made in China it'd be very
[36:04] expensive to make it here there are
[36:06] people starting to look at that cuz
[36:07] that's that's the next you know thing in
[36:08] the in the arms race to make American
[36:10] peptides right?
[36:11] >> So, they're all Chinese peptides.
[36:12] >> Everything's Chinese peptides.
[36:13] >> There's no uh Guatemalan peptides.
[36:15] There's no
[36:16] >> China is the best at it at doing it.
[36:18] Now, the compoundingies
[36:21] vary in grading. Some of them are really
[36:22] good. They do all the testing,
[36:24] sterility. They have very good quality
[36:25] control. So, you get a good product, but
[36:27] they usually have to compound it with
[36:28] something else to get by the regulations
[36:30] like they'll add in a B12 or a B6 to say
[36:32] like the patient had nausea from the
[36:34] traditional semiglutide. we can compound
[36:36] them with B12 or B6 to get around the
[36:39] nausea and that's that that's meets the
[36:41] patient rule because there's two ways to
[36:42] get compounded medications. Either a
[36:44] shortage or there's a unique need that
[36:46] the patient has.
[36:47] >> Do we know that compounding with
[36:48] something else actually deals with the
[36:50] nausea or is that just it slight? It
[36:52] might help some people.
[36:53] >> Got it.
[36:54] >> Anecdotally, people will say that they
[36:55] respond better to the pens like the
[36:57] actual pharma pens than to the compared
[36:59] to the compounded stuff. The research
[37:01] stuff is all over the place. Like some
[37:02] of it could be better than compounded
[37:04] stuff. It could be the wrong substance.
[37:06] Like there's a there's a guy went viral
[37:07] on Twitter a few weeks ago. He got rid
[37:09] of two tide started getting darker. He's
[37:11] like, I don't think I'm injecting reat.
[37:13] Got it.
[37:13] >> Yes. He was melan. He was injecting
[37:15] melan too.
[37:16] >> And folks, I realize that we're we're
[37:18] going places that not even I predicted
[37:20] we would go, but this is super
[37:22] informative. So all of the raw materials
[37:23] are coming from the same source. Yes.
[37:25] Then they're getting filtered into these
[37:26] different let's just call them
[37:28] >> stringency bins. Standard pharma, quote
[37:32] unquote big pharma being the most
[37:33] stringent.
[37:34] >> Yeah, some of the raw materials are
[37:35] overseas, like I think Lily's opening
[37:36] some China factories. Some of it's here.
[37:38] >> Okay. Some are going into compoundingies
[37:41] and compoundingies, I think it's fair to
[37:43] say, have varying levels of stringency.
[37:46] Some are going to be excellent, some are
[37:47] good, some are going to be lousy.
[37:48] >> That's right.
[37:48] >> Fair. Okay. the quoteunquote gray market
[37:51] peptides, the ones where it's
[37:53] quoteunquote for research purposes only,
[37:55] but I made the joke on X a few weeks
[37:57] ago, like how many of you are running
[37:59] experiments in your home, not on
[38:00] animals. Were you doing cell culture at
[38:02] home? Like, come on.
[38:04] I know what's involved in doing cell
[38:05] culture. You're not. No one's doing this
[38:07] at home.
[38:08] >> So, those presumably also come in
[38:12] anywhere from excellent to dreadful.
[38:14] >> Yes.
[38:14] >> Um, but we don't know which are which.
[38:16] Nope.
[38:16] >> We don't know that.
[38:18] >> And batch to batch. That's the big
[38:19] problem.
[38:19] >> Gotcha. Okay. So, it is risky to get re
[38:22] for research purposes. I mean, like
[38:23] that's the majority of way people are
[38:24] consuming peptides. Unfortunately, we
[38:26] should just because of the the the move
[38:28] in 2024 to get these from the category
[38:30] one to the category 2 list and make them
[38:32] banned quote unquote. That opened up
[38:35] this gray market zone. Like the gray
[38:36] market existed for the last 15, 20
[38:38] years. Bodybuilders would, you know,
[38:40] have anecdotes about BPC157. They'd
[38:42] inject it post, you know, post squats
[38:43] for different injuries. Nobody really
[38:45] cared about it. It was with the GLP-1s
[38:47] and then the banning of the peptides
[38:49] plus this, you know, anti- medicine kick
[38:52] that's been happening over the last five
[38:53] years
[38:53] >> since the pandemic.
[38:54] >> Yes. Since the pandemic that people are
[38:55] like, you know what, I want to inject
[38:56] this because it gives them a sense of
[38:58] autonomy or they feel like their bro
[39:00] recommended it. Like I said, the best
[39:02] job in 2025 was to be a peptide
[39:04] affiliate. Like people made my yearly
[39:06] salary in in a month selling peptides
[39:08] illegally on TikTok.
[39:09] >> And I will say because for people that
[39:11] think it's just bro science, it's also
[39:13] gal science. I will tell you, I don't
[39:15] even know this a term. Um, someone needs
[39:17] to come up with a better term. Um, my
[39:19] understanding and not from Reddit is
[39:22] that more than half of the peptide
[39:24] market is female.
[39:26] >> Oh, that's right.
[39:27] >> You know, there's this perception that
[39:28] it's like, you know, only guys who like
[39:30] to lift weights and want to be jacked
[39:31] and, you know, jacked and tan or
[39:33] whatever, they say, you know, no. No.
[39:34] Especially when we start getting into
[39:36] things like GHKU copper and we start
[39:38] talking about things for collagen and
[39:40] skin rejuvenation. There's a big peptide
[39:42] market in towards women. I actually
[39:44] think in the long run it's going to
[39:45] exceed at least financially peptide
[39:47] market in men.
[39:48] >> I think it already has because like
[39:50] soccer moms have become like affiliates
[39:52] like like you know Amway and Herbal Life
[39:53] was the big thing 20 years ago. Now
[39:55] soccer moms just do peptide affiliation.
[39:56] >> Where are they getting their peptides?
[39:57] >> Research research grade websites. The
[39:59] >> gray market. Okay. We already know that
[40:01] they're not uh recommended, but what
[40:03] what about black market? What what what
[40:05] would be considered black market?
[40:06] >> Black market is like if you bought it
[40:07] directly from China like like it's very
[40:09] cheap. Like a vial of BPC costs five
[40:11] bucks to make. Like now someone will
[40:13] sell it to you for $1.99 plus depending
[40:14] on where. But black market is either
[40:16] like you know your friend in China on
[40:18] WhatsApp sent you a vial of BPC. Do not
[40:20] do this or someone synthesize claims
[40:22] they synthesize it in their bathtub.
[40:24] Like just like the underground gear like
[40:26] all the steroids that were in the '9s
[40:28] and the 2000s. It's like, who knows what
[40:29] that is.
[40:30] >> What's so interesting to me is with
[40:33] steroids, it went from bodybuilding
[40:35] community to eventually hormone
[40:38] replacement. It was like TRT or what I
[40:39] call TRT plus cuz a lot of guys are
[40:41] taking a lot more than that. Some are
[40:42] taking less, some are most are taking
[40:44] more, some are taking what they're
[40:45] prescribed. And then HRT be has become
[40:48] very popular in women. So now HRT is
[40:50] kind of like a thing that it's not like,
[40:52] oh my goodness, like so and so is taking
[40:54] estrogen replacement or testo. It's not
[40:55] not a big deal. Peptides is different
[40:57] because it came, you know, the big
[41:00] explosion in this came through the GLPs.
[41:02] And I would argue, I'd love your opinion
[41:03] on this, why so many people are now
[41:05] peptide curious is because people
[41:08] because of the GLPs are now also very
[41:10] comfortable
[41:12] >> injecting themselves. Like like 5 years
[41:14] ago, if you're like, you're going to
[41:15] inject yourself, people like, oh my god.
[41:16] Then they realize it's like this little
[41:17] tiny pin. It hurts less than a, you
[41:19] know, Texan mosquikito bite. People are
[41:20] doing it on their skin and like, you
[41:22] know, and somebody's, you know, your
[41:23] girlfriend or wife is doing it as if
[41:24] it's nothing. And, you know, like heroin
[41:26] addicts or diabetics,
[41:27] >> right? You're not going introvenous. So,
[41:29] that changed everything that
[41:31] dstigmatized it. Now,
[41:32] >> to be fair, I I want to touch on
[41:35] >> the the question about adverse events.
[41:37] Again,
[41:37] >> y
[41:37] >> we're going to spend a couple minutes
[41:38] talking about some incredible things
[41:40] that we've seen and heard about BPC57 in
[41:42] terms of its positive effects.
[41:44] >> Y
[41:44] >> the concern I've always had was the
[41:46] angioenesis, the growth of vasculature.
[41:49] If somebody happens to have a little
[41:50] tumor or what will eventually become a
[41:52] tumor sitting on their liver or in their
[41:54] gut or in their pancreas, in theory, it
[41:56] could vascularize that tumor and cause
[42:00] it to grow more quickly. Is there any
[42:02] evidence that that's actually happened?
[42:03] I want to be very clear. I'm not loading
[42:05] this question because it sounds like I'm
[42:06] kind of like leading the witness when I
[42:07] say that. I want to know. Y
[42:09] >> I'm not currently taking BPC57. I'm
[42:11] fortunately I don't have an injury at
[42:13] the moment. So that would be the only
[42:14] condition which I'd take it unless you
[42:15] told me there are other reasons. But I
[42:17] don't want to give myself that risk
[42:19] >> that risk. And I think most people don't
[42:20] want to give themselves that risk. So
[42:21] what is the the realistic risk based on
[42:24] observations in humans or animals? Have
[42:26] we ever seen tumors grow more quickly?
[42:28] >> No. Like for example, most compounds if
[42:30] they're, you know, carcinogenic, we will
[42:32] see that signature in the animals like
[42:34] you know with cardarine GW uh was a drug
[42:36] that was very was very promising because
[42:38] it had you know diabetic implications
[42:39] for metabolism and now it's a
[42:41] bodybuilder drug that they use for more
[42:42] cardio. What is this?
[42:44] >> Cardarine GW. Mhm. Uh you might have
[42:46] seen on on the Reddits and those forums,
[42:48] but people use it for I stay out of
[42:49] Reddit.
[42:50] >> Yeah. Good. Uh increases your cardio um
[42:52] capacity. Got so banned on on the water
[42:54] list of course, but it was it had
[42:56] promise for treating diabetics because
[42:57] it changed metabolism in the liver. It
[42:59] had a signal of cancer in animal data.
[43:02] So that whole thing was scrapped.
[43:03] >> There's no signal from the animal
[43:05] literature on BPC57 for for you know
[43:08] cancers. Now that all that literature
[43:10] comes from one group. So we have to be
[43:12] very careful. that one creation group
[43:14] that tells you that that's it's the
[43:15] safest thing in the world.
[43:16] >> All the animal data come from one group.
[43:17] >> Almost all of it.
[43:18] >> Interesting.
[43:18] >> Almost all of it. Very few. Like there's
[43:20] a couple of Chinese studies on on BBC57.
[43:22] Now there's starting to become more
[43:24] interest here. Like I think it's a phase
[43:25] two trial on hamstrings happening here
[43:27] in the United States.
[43:28] >> Really? Yeah. Humans. Yes. Phase two.
[43:30] >> Yes. Uh we talked to a group, an
[43:31] orthopedic group somewhere on the East
[43:32] Coast. They they wanted to do a BBC
[43:34] trial. So we consulted with them to kind
[43:35] of Great.
[43:36] >> Yeah. So it's it's going to happen.
[43:37] Especially if it moves to this category
[43:39] one list and people can be prescribed
[43:40] it. At least we can get like a phase 4
[43:42] trial where it's being prescribed and we
[43:44] can see what's happening to the people
[43:45] as they're getting it
[43:46] >> and we can, you know, aggregate all this
[43:47] anecdata into one place ideally and
[43:50] report on it. So that's something we're
[43:51] working on in the in the background.
[43:52] >> Is that something you personally working
[43:54] on on aggregating all this all this data
[43:56] together into a anyone nest study to put
[43:59] it all all together because all the ane
[44:01] data exists but like put it together
[44:03] somewhere at least we can see what the
[44:04] signals are. For example, on Reddit,
[44:05] you'll find signals of hematomas getting
[44:08] worse, which makes sense with the with
[44:09] the VEGF pathway.
[44:10] >> I've heard this. So, a friend and
[44:13] physician who is, I would say, peptide
[44:16] curious/positive
[44:18] told me that when he takes BPC-157 for,
[44:21] you know, a shoulder or knee or
[44:22] whatever, that angiomas on his face, um,
[44:25] the sort of spiderweb angiomas, not the
[44:27] formal term, forgive me, derms, but, um,
[44:29] get worse. That's his his personal
[44:31] observation. I think a lot of people
[44:33] don't want that. It makes sense though
[44:34] if it's promoting angioenesis
[44:35] >> based on the the mechanism it does make
[44:37] sense. Now BBC157 is not a uniform
[44:39] androgenis um upregulator. In some
[44:42] models it decreases vef in a melanoma
[44:45] model a cell line.
[44:46] >> So it might be potentially anti-cancer
[44:48] but we need to test it.
[44:49] >> We don't know and which is what's really
[44:50] unfortunate about this compound. It's
[44:52] very promising. It has all this cool
[44:53] literature in animals and we just don't
[44:56] know when it comes to the one.
[44:58] >> Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And and we'd love
[45:00] to know because like if it does work
[45:02] like I could see a million use cases in
[45:03] the ICU that we could use, you know,
[45:05] BBC157 to really help people out
[45:06] especially during the critical illness
[45:08] because like in ICU people get gastric
[45:10] ulcers. Like if if we knew that it would
[45:12] work, I would love to give them an
[45:13] infusion of BBC157 and that's the future
[45:15] I could see happening. But we need data.
[45:17] As many of you know, I've been taking
[45:19] AG1 for nearly 15 years now. I
[45:22] discovered it way back in 2012, long
[45:24] before I had a podcast, and I've been
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[45:29] knowledge, the highest quality and most
[45:30] comprehensive of the foundational
[45:32] nutritional supplements on the market.
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[45:44] immune health, and overall energy. And
[45:46] it does so by helping to fill any gaps
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[46:07] AG1 because it's just been so critical
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[46:11] physical health, mental health, and
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[46:14] nutritional, what we call foundational
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[46:18] and from everyone I've heard that I
[46:20] recommended it to that they simply feel
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[46:40] I help design. It tastes great, and it's
[46:43] the only sleep supplement I take. It has
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[46:53] it. Again, that's drinkagg.com/huberman
[46:56] to get a week supply of AGZ and a bottle
[46:59] of D3K2 with your subscription. When is
[47:02] there going to be a formal randomized
[47:04] control trial on BPC and who holds the
[47:06] patent?
[47:07] >> There's multiple patents on BPC 157
[47:09] depending on which salt they're in. The
[47:11] patent has been passed around a couple
[47:13] of times to through different places.
[47:14] Unfortunately, the company that had the
[47:16] patent under the pled got acquired by
[47:19] TAVA. TA is this generic pharmaceutical
[47:22] company and they don't they make, you
[47:23] know, Aderall. So, they they have
[47:24] they're making tons of money making
[47:25] Aderal. They don't really care about
[47:26] PPC157. So, they have one of the
[47:28] patents. The other patent expires in
[47:30] like 10 years. I think Cric still has
[47:31] it. Dr. Crick is is the guy behind
[47:33] BBC157. He's
[47:34] >> he's in Croatia.
[47:35] >> He's in Croatia. Yeah.
[47:36] >> Would Tava um sell the patent?
[47:38] >> I'm sure they would if someone made an
[47:39] offer. The the problem is I don't I
[47:41] don't see the purpose of even having the
[47:42] patent because you can add on one chain
[47:44] to the amino acid. This is the problem
[47:45] with with peptides. This is what Luli
[47:47] Eli Liy is coming into when it comes to
[47:50] making rea is that patent laws for
[47:52] peptides kind of suck because you can
[47:53] add on one amino acid. You can modify
[47:55] one thing on it and suddenly it's a
[47:56] different compound.
[47:57] >> This is true for other pharmaceuticals.
[47:59] Like I'm familiar with some of the
[48:00] ketamine and ibeane trials and there's a
[48:03] company that took ibagane and basically
[48:05] added a magnesium component to it and
[48:07] you can make that a completely new drug.
[48:09] I'm not saying that doesn't work. I
[48:10] think they have a good rationale for
[48:11] doing that. But so this game of sort of
[48:14] protecting patents rough and plus
[48:16] millions of people have already used
[48:17] BPC157 through research use only
[48:20] websites. So I think millions is fair.
[48:23] But now how do you reel that back? Like
[48:25] it's already the cat's out of the bag.
[48:27] So like there's no financial incentive
[48:28] to run the giant study
[48:30] >> unless like we we crowdfund it as as you
[48:32] know peptide curious people
[48:34] >> within the category of um interesting uh
[48:37] anecdotal data. Y
[48:39] >> and in your role as a physician, I
[48:40] realize you're not suggesting these
[48:42] things, but you you have a different
[48:43] picture of this stuff at the level of
[48:45] mechanism and you're a clinician that
[48:46] works with, you know, truly FDA approved
[48:49] drugs and you're you're I want you to
[48:51] share with folks. I said it in the
[48:53] introduction, but internal medicine
[48:54] means that you spend your days what
[48:56] >> I'm on the on the wards of the hospital
[48:58] admitting patients from the ER to the
[48:59] floor to the ICU, managing very complex
[49:01] disease ranging from, you know, a simple
[49:03] pneumonia to a coronary artery bypass
[49:06] patient. So, yeah,
[49:07] >> that whole spectrum.
[49:07] >> Okay. So that lens applied to this as
[49:10] much as one can would you say that like
[49:13] of the the reports that you've heard
[49:15] directly from people you trust and from
[49:17] people that who are not incentivized to
[49:19] say these things like oh you know it
[49:21] made me happier you know their skin
[49:23] looked better all the things that one
[49:25] can find in it with an affiliate code
[49:26] attached to it of those what do you
[49:29] think are the most interesting
[49:32] potentially valid claims
[49:36] and I asked that because If we were
[49:38] going to fund a clinical trial, we need
[49:40] to pick an end point or a couple of end
[49:42] points. Is it going to be recovery from
[49:43] injury? If so, what kinds of injuries?
[49:45] Is it going to be the gastric stuff? Is
[49:47] it mood interaction with dopamine
[49:48] receptors? I mean, I've heard so many
[49:50] different things. If we had a chunk of
[49:51] money and we're going to we're going to
[49:52] design a study and have someone else do
[49:54] it so it's truly independent. Like what
[49:56] are the top three to five outcomes that
[49:58] you've heard that you have a good
[50:00] feeling there's quote unquote something
[50:01] there?
[50:02] >> Yep.
[50:02] >> And then we narrow it down to maybe one
[50:04] or two for sake of the study. What What
[50:05] are those five? I would say to complete
[50:08] the phase one, phase two on the ulcer of
[50:09] colitis, do that phase three trial on
[50:11] proven that it has benefits for
[50:12] ulcerative colitis. And I don't think we
[50:14] need to use enema. We could probably
[50:15] have an encapsulated version that
[50:16] releases deeper into the intestines.
[50:18] >> So fix the gut, fix the ulcered gut.
[50:21] >> Yes. In conjunction with that, you could
[50:22] do a trial on like, you know, gird.
[50:24] That's a simple condition. A lot of
[50:25] people have it randomized to BPC157 oral
[50:29] capsules versus pentopresol.
[50:31] >> Okay. And you're basing this on the fact
[50:32] that you've seen and heard that people
[50:33] who have gird get better, feel better
[50:36] when they take it. Okay. And it could be
[50:37] placebo.
[50:38] >> Yes. I mean, anecdotally, when when I
[50:40] travel, I I have a bottle of BPC orally.
[50:42] >> Why is that?
[50:43] >> I don't get, you know, travelers
[50:45] diarrhea or or, you know,
[50:47] >> when I, you know, eat exotic foods on in
[50:48] random places. My friends all get sick
[50:50] and I I happen not to. Anecdote, right?
[50:52] But that's interesting. There seems to
[50:53] be some kind of gut protective effect.
[50:55] And that's what they noticed in the the
[50:56] mice literature. they would have an
[50:58] offending agent into the gut and they'd
[50:59] notice that there would be protection
[51:01] deeper down in the in the gastric tract
[51:03] from that offending agent because if you
[51:04] think about it the gut is the most
[51:05] vulnerable part of the body like it's
[51:07] open to the outside world it's a tube
[51:09] that runs through you can eat something
[51:10] and it could completely destroy you so
[51:12] you have to have some kind of mechanisms
[51:13] the prostaglandins uh the you know all
[51:15] these different hormones that are made
[51:17] potentially BPC17 is part of this robust
[51:19] armory that the gut has to protect
[51:20] itself from further injuries. Mhm. What
[51:23] are some things outside the gut or
[51:25] indirect from the gut that are also
[51:27] compelling?
[51:28] >> So, I would love to see some
[51:29] neuroscychiatric um BBC studies when it
[51:32] comes to um addictions. There's enough
[51:34] anecdot about people talking about
[51:36] addictions and and like hey I don't need
[51:37] to crave insert drug here not
[51:39] recommending that anyone tries that out
[51:40] but for alcohol or whatever it may be.
[51:42] Do you think that is likely due to the
[51:45] we're speculating but likely due to a um
[51:49] interference with the reinforcing
[51:50] properties just like earlier you said
[51:52] people are getting less drunk so people
[51:53] are getting less high becomes less
[51:55] reinforcing or is it somehow touching
[51:57] the craving mechanisms themselves?
[51:59] >> It's probably touching the craving
[52:00] mechanism through the gutb brain access
[52:01] because I don't think it's going
[52:02] systemic either. I think it's it's
[52:04] locally in the gut shutting down the
[52:06] neurons from from from if you think
[52:07] about it if BBC is what they claim it is
[52:09] right and that's a big if that if you
[52:11] have a noxious agent going into your gut
[52:14] your body has to have a mechanism to
[52:16] lock down you know protect your your
[52:17] vital organs right so is BPC part of
[52:19] this giant transduction pathway to
[52:21] protect your vital organs your brain
[52:22] your heart your kidneys from further
[52:24] damage we had uh Dr. Diego Borquez, I
[52:26] can never pronounce his last name,
[52:27] forgive me, Diego, who's out at Duke,
[52:29] who's really the world expert on these
[52:30] neuropod cells in the gut that signal
[52:32] through the noto's gangling up the Vegas
[52:34] noto's ganglion to either promote or
[52:36] suppress release of dopamine to make you
[52:38] either approach or avoid certain foods.
[52:40] Very, very interesting. I would be more
[52:43] than happy to
[52:44] >> encourage his lab, even if get funds for
[52:47] his lab, to do something on this. What
[52:49] are some other categories of interesting
[52:51] effects that deserve
[52:53] >> careful study?
[52:54] >> Yep. So we need to see what BBC does on
[52:56] the muscular skeletal system. Like
[52:57] that's what the hype is. That's where
[52:58] everybody's is is going. So as I look
[53:00] through like what model I would look
[53:02] for, you want something that's not very
[53:05] vascularized but could be improved if
[53:07] the blood flow was good like a tendon
[53:10] injury. So perhaps you know a bicep
[53:12] tricep tendon type of uh postsurgical
[53:15] outcome. So like you get your bicep
[53:16] tendon um torn, you get a repair, you
[53:18] get BBC either inoperatively or
[53:20] postoperatively and you see if if that
[53:23] person heals faster because idea is not
[53:25] to use BBC. It's not going to magically
[53:26] reattach an ACL that's torn, right? But
[53:29] can it further accelerate the healing
[53:31] from an ACL surgery so you come back in
[53:33] 6 months rather than 12 months? That's
[53:34] the big question
[53:36] >> and that's what like a lot of athletes
[53:37] are are using BBC157 for that use.
[53:39] >> Has ever anyone ever done the one limb
[53:42] versus opposite limb control experiment?
[53:43] I mean I know that people take it orally
[53:45] or inject it systemically like under the
[53:47] skin or into the muscle goes
[53:48] systemically in the bloodstream if you
[53:49] apply it that way. Um if you can get to
[53:52] the injury site sometimes people will
[53:53] inject locally
[53:55] >> but it seems that the challenge is that
[53:58] let's say you have you know uh you know
[53:59] tendonitis in one elbow and tendonitis
[54:01] in the other elbow you could inject into
[54:03] your left elbow not and not your right
[54:05] but there's going to be systemic
[54:06] transfer so it's hard to do that
[54:08] internal control experiment. Yeah, I
[54:09] know. I've had I've used BBC for one
[54:11] injury and I've had results on a
[54:13] different injury.
[54:14] >> Positive results.
[54:14] >> I had positive results. I'm like, "Oh,
[54:16] interesting that like that that my
[54:17] shoulder feels better even though I was
[54:18] doing it from my elbow or whatever it
[54:19] may be." This would be a good time for
[54:20] us to, you know, bracket what we're
[54:23] about to say by saying this is purely
[54:24] anecdotal, but filtered through I
[54:27] consider myself a skeptic on many, many
[54:29] things, especially things I would put
[54:30] into my body. I'll tell a a story.
[54:32] What's your favorite personal BPC story
[54:35] involving you and your body? Yeah,
[54:38] >> I tore my tricep a few months ago. Tore.
[54:40] Yeah, tore triceps lifting with people I
[54:42] should have been lifting with. They're
[54:43] much stronger than I was. Purple from
[54:44] here to here.
[54:46] >> Like the pictures I posted on on X. It's
[54:48] it's brutal. I'm like, I'm going to have
[54:49] to have surgery. This sucks. I I don't
[54:51] have time to have surgery cuz you're
[54:53] you're in a brace for like 3 months. And
[54:54] I put BBC in locally. Don't try this at
[54:57] home. Not medical advice, but locally in
[54:59] the tissue spot with a couple of other
[55:00] peptides. And within 3 weeks, my my PT
[55:03] is like, "What the hell are you doing?
[55:04] Like, this is healing so fast." Would I
[55:06] have healed that fast anyways? I don't
[55:08] know. But that's typically a grade two
[55:10] tricep tear with with purple arm from
[55:12] from top to bottom. It wasn't grade
[55:13] three. Uh cuz I could still extend my my
[55:15] elbow. That's usually a 3-month
[55:17] recovery. And to be back in 3 to 4 weeks
[55:19] was was fantastic for me, which is why
[55:21] I'm so excited.
[55:22] >> What dosage were you injecting?
[55:23] >> Uh a larger dose than people would uh
[55:26] >> not micrograms. No,
[55:27] >> you were up in the grams.
[55:28] >> Yeah. Yeah. A lot higher. I I think um
[55:31] personally and in some of our our our
[55:32] people, we've used bigger dosages. I
[55:34] think that's the problem. the low
[55:35] dosages even though that translates well
[55:38] from the mice data for humans I think
[55:40] the dose is way higher
[55:41] >> but people just go based on the dosage
[55:43] that would fit in the pile through a you
[55:45] know peptide sciences website rather
[55:46] than what actually we don't know what
[55:47] what the human dose is for BBC157 so
[55:50] there's a lot of work to do just to
[55:52] figure that out like when we spoke to
[55:53] the to the orthopedic group like yeah
[55:54] we're going to start with you know 250
[55:55] micrograms I'm like I don't know if
[55:57] you're going to see an effect at that
[55:58] low of a dose you might need to to raise
[56:00] it up like that that's what people do
[56:01] online
[56:02] >> I'm like yeah but that's just because
[56:03] someone's peptide website says to do
[56:05] that. There's no data there, but you
[56:07] know, tricep was back to normal.
[56:09] >> Amazing.
[56:09] >> That was a an interesting BPC case. I'
[56:12] I've seen other injuries where BBC
[56:13] didn't really help
[56:14] >> much. I can't match your story. That's
[56:16] that's a a bigger result. I can just say
[56:19] that I had a bad trap neck pull where I
[56:21] couldn't turn my head and I was like,
[56:23] "Oh, one of those." and you know had
[56:24] some BPC so it was only I think only 200
[56:27] micrograms and just pinned it right into
[56:29] the that's street talk for injected um
[56:32] right into the kind of like upper
[56:35] trapish area 2 days later completely
[56:37] gone of course
[56:39] >> I don't know what would have happened
[56:40] had I just waited
[56:41] >> but it seemed um eerily fast and then I
[56:44] stopped taking it y
[56:45] >> so this is a guy that you know and and
[56:47] by the way that was um not gray market
[56:49] it was obtained through a doctor's
[56:50] prescription from a compounding pharmacy
[56:52] labeled BPC1 57 not PDA PDA okay those
[56:56] are anecdotes I've also read just to be
[56:58] fair we should balance this out
[57:00] certainly on X you know people can say
[57:01] anything they want people saying oh you
[57:02] know I didn't feel well I stopped taking
[57:04] it okay could be due to what it was
[57:07] dissolved in could be due to their own
[57:10] unique you know response could be due to
[57:12] bad sourcing you know contamination so
[57:15] we don't know but not everyone has a
[57:16] great result and some people have no
[57:18] result right but many many people report
[57:20] what can only be described as pretty
[57:22] astonishing ing positive results
[57:25] >> that cannot be directly ascribed to the
[57:27] BPC because of the placebo effect etc.
[57:29] And I'm not saying that to protect
[57:30] myself. I'm saying that so that people
[57:31] can couch this in that like how we got
[57:34] here y
[57:35] >> is because of stories like this.
[57:36] >> Well, there's two possibilities. Either
[57:37] BBC is as amazing as we think it is and
[57:39] it's unfortunate that millions of people
[57:41] don't have access to it
[57:43] >> or BBC is actually either ineffective or
[57:46] harmful to people and millions of people
[57:47] are injecting it right now by buying it
[57:49] through online sources. Both cases are
[57:51] very bad endpoints. one's worse than the
[57:53] other. You can argue which one, but
[57:55] that's why we need this data. We need
[57:56] people to push this forward to figure
[57:57] this out because we don't want these end
[57:59] points because if if in 20 years we find
[58:00] out BPC is as good as, you know, Secrets
[58:03] Lab says it is, then man, people are
[58:05] pissed off all the, you know, joint
[58:07] replacements and injuries didn't heal
[58:09] and all the athletes that maybe could
[58:10] have had a longer career, that would be
[58:12] very unfortunate. But if it's the
[58:13] opposite and like, you know, every
[58:14] 18-year-old kid in the in the gym will
[58:15] come up to me and like, I'm going to
[58:16] inject inject BPC. Like, where do you
[58:17] get it from?
[58:18] >> I'm like, dude, you're 18. you have all
[58:20] the peptides you need in you like the
[58:22] parabiosis studies that these are young
[58:24] animals like you actually take your
[58:25] blood and
[58:27] >> we had Tony Weiss Corey on the podcast
[58:28] that was you know young blood is rich
[58:30] with these things and no we're not
[58:31] talking about harvesting blood from
[58:33] babies check out the Tony Weiss Corey
[58:35] episode we'll provide a link
[58:37] >> I mean what you just said about young
[58:39] guys coming up to you in the gym and
[58:40] saying should I be taking or I'm already
[58:42] taking BBC is you know we could have a
[58:44] whole other conversation maybe another
[58:45] time we will talk about testosterone and
[58:47] synthetics and things like that I see a
[58:48] lot of young guys taking everyone.
[58:50] >> I don't know if it's everyone. I don't
[58:51] know if it's everyone. I see a lot of
[58:54] many many people are taking testosterone
[58:56] exogenously who truly don't need it and
[59:00] potentially permanently shutting down
[59:01] their fertility or causing other issues.
[59:03] >> With the looks maxing trend, too,
[59:04] >> with the looks maxing trend, you know,
[59:06] they're walking around with hammers,
[59:07] sledging on their face, this kind of
[59:08] thing. You know, I'm sure when I was in
[59:11] my 20s, you know, people in their 50s
[59:13] were probably like, "What are these kids
[59:14] doing?" You know, and it wasn't in
[59:16] anything like this, but who knows? It
[59:18] was like baggy pants and like you know
[59:20] and like there was weird stuff going on
[59:21] like hacky sacks and stuff. So not me,
[59:23] not me. But I'm confident that thanks to
[59:26] you we've framed the history of this
[59:28] which by the way is fascinating
[59:29] >> and kind of where we are now very very
[59:32] well. So thank you. Thank you. Thank
[59:34] you. Thank you.
[59:35] >> I have two questions. Um well one
[59:37] comment and one question. The comment is
[59:38] I think there's a third category of
[59:41] problematic outcome. One you said is
[59:43] this thing works spectacularly well for
[59:45] a number of important problems to solve
[59:47] important problems and we don't find out
[59:49] about it because it wasn't looked at
[59:50] carefully. The other is it's
[59:51] detrimental. There's the other one which
[59:54] is we start hearing about adverse events
[59:56] y
[59:57] >> and it goes kind of the way of the dodo
[59:59] or it kind of drifts back into who you
[60:02] know and is it the good stuff or not the
[60:04] good stuff because we don't actually
[60:06] know whether or not the the adverse
[60:08] outcome was due to BPC itself to misuse
[60:11] of BPC
[60:12] >> or to like you know like the factors
[60:14] that it's it's dissolved in or something
[60:16] like that and I think that's the most
[60:18] likely outcome unless we get our arms
[60:20] around this and that's where you could
[60:22] say like the hormone replacement therapy
[60:24] field has actually enjoyed the fact that
[60:25] if a woman decides she's going to take
[60:27] progesterone or estrogen replacement
[60:28] therapy permenopausal or or menopausal
[60:31] or something for PCOS or whatever that
[60:33] wouldn't be what to take for PCOS but
[60:34] you get the idea or a guy decides in his
[60:37] you know 40s or 50s or whatever it is
[60:39] okay he's going to go on TRT he can do
[60:41] it carefully she can do it carefully
[60:43] >> and knows what adverse outcomes to look
[60:46] for no one's thinking oh my god the
[60:47] sesame oil that's dissolved in is
[60:50] possibly causing these problems
[60:51] >> well some people will will be very
[60:53] particular on which oil their
[60:55] testosterone comes in.
[60:56] >> That's in the gym community. Yeah. Yeah.
[60:57] Totally with you. And where to inject
[60:58] and so forth. But that aside, my concern
[61:01] is that it is kind of wild westish.
[61:04] >> Yes, it is.
[61:05] >> And I'm not so concerned I'll get in
[61:07] trouble for this, but whatever.
[61:08] >> I'm not so concerned that these actual
[61:10] compounds are necessarily harming
[61:12] people. I worry that the way they're
[61:13] arriving to people is harming them, and
[61:16] we're going to miss out on that first
[61:18] possibility that these are very useful.
[61:19] And of course, I don't want anyone
[61:21] getting hurt.
[61:22] >> So, here comes the question. As a
[61:24] physician, I realize that you are more
[61:26] than peptide curious. You're very
[61:27] peptide friendly in your own life. You
[61:29] know, if you have a patient who has, you
[61:33] know, just their gut is a mess or
[61:35] they're dealing with, you know,
[61:36] postsurgical issues and you know that
[61:39] BPC from the right source is either
[61:42] going to be benign or could potentially
[61:45] help them. What kind of position does
[61:47] that put you in? Yep.
[61:48] >> As an American board-certified
[61:50] physician,
[61:50] >> very uncomfortable position because if
[61:52] I'm, you know, rounding on a patient in
[61:54] the wards of a hospital and like, hey,
[61:56] you should take BPC instead of your
[61:57] pentopol, I'll probably get my license
[61:59] revoked. So, not a good idea. Don't do
[62:00] that.
[62:01] >> What about in addition to
[62:02] >> in addition to so like if they come see
[62:03] me in clinic, that might be a place
[62:05] where we can have that discussion. We're
[62:06] going to see very shortly here what the
[62:08] FDA is going to tell us about BPC and
[62:10] all these other peptides and the
[62:11] legality of them. if they get moved to
[62:14] the category one list and then the
[62:15] states say like hey the FDA said so
[62:17] we're not going to look we're not going
[62:18] to care about this you can do what you
[62:19] want to do as a physician and you
[62:21] counsel the patient like you have an
[62:22] honest discussion with the patient I
[62:24] think that's what it should be it should
[62:24] be between the physician and the patient
[62:26] like hey there's this promising compound
[62:28] it's not FDA approved we have minimal to
[62:30] no human data but we have anecdata are
[62:34] you willing to try this on yourself and
[62:37] we'll monitor you we'll have clear
[62:39] endpoints for that should be what this
[62:41] looks like frank discussion between a
[62:43] physician and a patient. Now, if that
[62:45] patient has an adverse effect, they can
[62:46] go to a medical board and say like,
[62:47] "Hey, Dr. so and so gave me BP157 and I
[62:50] had a bad effect and I would be like,
[62:52] "Hey, you gave them a non-FDA approved
[62:53] compound." A for injectable. B, the
[62:56] problem is there's orals that are being
[62:58] sold as supplements now, like BBC 57 as
[63:00] an oral available supplement because
[63:02] it's not a medication. It's never been
[63:04] uh approved as a medication in the
[63:05] United States. So, what is BBC's legal
[63:08] status? Is it dietary available?
[63:10] Therefore, cuz if you, you know, cut up
[63:12] an animal and ate its stomach, you'd
[63:14] probably get some BBC in.
[63:15] >> Well, I can buy desicated liver t.
[63:17] >> I'm eating livers.
[63:18] >> There there's tons of
[63:18] >> You can go buy liver at the this like
[63:20] one Michelin star restaurant, not down
[63:22] this road, but a different road. Yeah.
[63:24] >> Yeah. I mean, like Dr. Cavson identified
[63:25] many peptides in livers like ligen
[63:27] ovagen that you'd find in your
[63:28] desiccated liver supplement that you're
[63:29] eat. It's like the the biggest
[63:30] distributors of peptides have been these
[63:32] organ meat companies because each organ
[63:34] has a signature peptide that comes out
[63:36] of it.
[63:36] >> Do they get absorbed?
[63:37] >> Yes.
[63:38] >> Are they bioavailable active?
[63:39] >> Dr. Dr. Cavins's work suggests that it
[63:41] is. Dr. Vladimir McCavson is this
[63:43] Russian Soviet scientist that gives us
[63:45] epital and thyolin and pinealon and all
[63:48] these Russian peptides. Die and
[63:49] tripeptides can be orally available if
[63:52] they're the right shape and size.
[63:54] >> They're not very well uh available, but
[63:56] they can be available. So, you won't
[63:57] necessarily get it from the organ uh
[64:00] isolate or from the or eating the organ
[64:02] like like if you eat heart probably very
[64:05] rich in lcarnitine. Can my body make
[64:07] good use of that? I mean, there's
[64:09] cardiogen, which is one of the the heart
[64:10] peptides that that was scantly studied
[64:13] uh in the late 2000s that may be orally
[64:14] bioavailable. The problem is no one's
[64:16] doing the work to figure that out. You
[64:17] painted this picture where not you
[64:20] perhaps, but let's just say um another
[64:22] physician has the awareness that BPC57
[64:26] might be useful to a patient of theirs
[64:27] that's dealing with a they had like an
[64:29] ACL tear. They're not recovering very
[64:32] quickly. Doctor says, "Listen, you're
[64:34] doing everything correctly. there's this
[64:36] new category of stuff. We don't have a
[64:39] lot of data on it. I'm not aware that
[64:41] there are any severe risks, but they
[64:42] they could be there. So, if you're
[64:43] willing to embrace those unknowns, you
[64:46] could take x number of micrograms or
[64:48] milligrams per day for 2 weeks and see
[64:50] how you feel. Patient says, "Okay, I'm
[64:52] willing to do that." The physician says,
[64:55] "Okay, you want to make sure that it's
[64:57] real and you want to make sure that it's
[64:58] clean, there's not no contaminants." Y
[65:00] >> if that physician says, you know, I can
[65:03] write you a script for it and this
[65:05] compounding pharmacy will send it to you
[65:08] and they're making money on it. A lot of
[65:10] people, well, the moment they hear that,
[65:12] they think, oh, well, they're totally
[65:13] incentivized to do this cuz they're
[65:14] going to get a cut. But if we go back to
[65:16] the original pharma model, it is a
[65:19] little bit of a different situation,
[65:21] right? Because let's say Lily charges
[65:24] $1,500 for a pen of some sort of GLP.
[65:27] the physician who prescribes that are
[65:29] they getting a cut of that 1500?
[65:31] >> They don't. They don't.
[65:32] >> But there are kickbacks and, you know,
[65:33] pharmaceutical incentives and pharma
[65:35] deals. Those are real.
[65:36] >> It's flights to Hawaii for a conference.
[65:38] >> Really? So, there are real incentives
[65:39] even though they're not getting paid
[65:41] directly.
[65:41] >> Yeah. There's there's always incentives
[65:42] in in any kind of business, especially a
[65:45] business as big as pharmaceutical.
[65:46] >> Well, physicians are already getting
[65:47] paid. So, I'm not saying that. I mean,
[65:48] these are these are peripheral
[65:50] incentives. Well, the the farmers also
[65:51] lobby a lot of the medical schools and
[65:53] they, you know, got there's a lot.
[65:54] >> So, there's a relationship there, but
[65:55] it's not cold hard cash.
[65:56] >> Sorry, as direct as the compound,
[65:58] >> but in a compounding pharmacy now, this
[65:59] physician, hypothetical physician, could
[66:01] say, "Hey, you know what? You can get it
[66:02] from this compounding pharmacy and it's
[66:04] going to be 500 bucks." The patient,
[66:06] we've now established because they've
[66:07] heard this podcast, has a right to say,
[66:08] "What are you paying for it versus what
[66:10] you're charging me?" They might lie.
[66:11] They might tell you the truth. Or the
[66:13] physician could say, "You know what? I'm
[66:14] not making a dime on this. It's just I
[66:16] think it might be useful to you." that
[66:17] physician is protected or not protected
[66:20] if something negative happens to the
[66:21] patient. Something happens to they is
[66:23] somebody suing a compounding pharmacy or
[66:24] they're suing their physician.
[66:25] >> They're suing all three. They're suing
[66:26] the physician, the compounded pharmacy
[66:28] and and anyone who recommended it. So
[66:29] >> that's pretty scary.
[66:30] >> No malpractice provider is going to give
[66:32] you coverage for peptides, especially
[66:34] non FDA approved peptides unless
[66:36] there's, you know, high risk malpractice
[66:37] providers that that will cover you for
[66:38] that. Let's say somebody gets hurt
[66:40] taking uh one of the prescribed pharma
[66:43] GLPS and they they're pissed and they
[66:45] and they sue they sue their doctor or
[66:46] they sue the pharma company depending on
[66:48] who who had the liability. So if the
[66:50] doctor didn't warn you that you know
[66:51] injecting 10 times a dose might cause
[66:53] pancreatitis and you had pancreatitis
[66:54] they can claim the doctor is at fault.
[66:56] If someone has deep pockets they can go
[66:57] at Lily and say like hey Lily you didn't
[66:59] disclose this risk. I think now people
[67:01] thanks to you are armed with enough
[67:03] information to be able to make really
[67:05] good decisions about whether or not to
[67:07] say eh waiting for those clinical trial
[67:09] results or I'll stick my toe in the pond
[67:12] or I'm going to continue to learn more
[67:14] but I'm going to now learn more thanks
[67:15] to you genuinely with a lot more
[67:18] understanding about how this stuff flows
[67:22] from website or from doctor to patient.
[67:25] >> Let's talk about pinealon.
[67:27] >> Yeah,
[67:27] >> pinealon is one that most people
[67:29] probably haven't heard of. Mhm.
[67:30] >> I'll just go on record saying I've tried
[67:32] it a few times or more. I don't take it
[67:34] regularly, but I tried it before sleep.
[67:36] Yep.
[67:36] >> If I take it at the beginning of the
[67:38] night, it reduces my deep slowwave sleep
[67:41] and gives me far more REM across the
[67:43] night. Not a great situation.
[67:45] >> Y
[67:46] >> great situation is if I go to sleep, get
[67:48] my usual ration of deep sleep. If I
[67:50] happen to wake up in the middle of the
[67:52] night to use the restroom once or so,
[67:54] not uncommon, if I do a very small
[67:56] injection of pinealon at that point, the
[67:59] one and a half hours of REM that I would
[68:01] get in the final hours of my sleep, now
[68:03] I'm getting 3 hours in the same amount
[68:05] of sleep. It's just a higher fraction of
[68:07] REM. Y
[68:08] >> sometimes wake up feeling a little
[68:09] groggy, but it is a whole other life to
[68:13] get that much REM. I don't do it
[68:14] regularly. It's not, you know, I would
[68:16] say maybe three times a month, but
[68:18] here's the interesting thing. It
[68:19] improves my percentage of REM on all the
[68:23] other nights in between those three
[68:25] injections.
[68:26] >> So I'm coming clean here.
[68:27] >> Lingering effects.
[68:28] >> Very cool. You're interested in
[68:30] pinealone for a whole other set of
[68:31] reasons. But first of all, what is
[68:32] pinealone and where does it act? Does it
[68:34] have a known receptor?
[68:35] >> No known receptor. So pinealon is a
[68:36] tripeptide edr discovered by the
[68:39] mentioned of Dr. Vladimir Cavinson. He's
[68:41] a Soviet researcher that comes out of
[68:43] this Soviet era research to make
[68:46] soldiers, astronauts, and pilots uh
[68:49] better. There's concern that the US
[68:50] might be using lasers to to shoot at
[68:52] soldiers. So, the Soviet Union um tasks
[68:55] him with identifying peptides to defend
[68:57] soldiers, their eyes, and then they're
[68:59] aging because what would happen is
[69:01] they'd be in a submarine for a few
[69:02] months, there'd be a nuclear sub, and
[69:04] they'd they'd come back to shore and
[69:06] they'd be like, you know, these
[69:07] submariners, let's call them, would look
[69:09] 10, 20 years older. also happens to
[69:10] astronauts.
[69:11] >> Yes. So then the same the same thing as
[69:13] astronauts are coming back they're
[69:14] they're aged. So Vladimir Cavson is
[69:16] looking at this and he's like hey
[69:16] there's there's got to be a solution for
[69:18] this. There's been literature about
[69:20] using extracts of other tissues notably
[69:23] the pineal gland and the thymus from you
[69:26] know late 1800s till this this 1970s uh
[69:29] point that we're you know starting our
[69:31] story. And he starts grounding up these
[69:34] um extracts and injecting it into these
[69:36] people and then undoing a lot of this
[69:37] aging effects through pineal extracts
[69:40] and thymus extracts because these what
[69:42] do these soldiers have? They had very
[69:44] bad circadian rhythmicity. So they they
[69:46] can't couldn't sleep properly. They had
[69:47] terrible immunity. They'd get sick
[69:49] often. They'd be uh have autoimmune
[69:51] problems. All these conditions that come
[69:53] with it. And then they were able to undo
[69:55] this using these organ extracts. So
[69:57] Vladimir Cavson takes it a step further.
[70:00] He looks like, hey, what's causing this
[70:01] effect in these in these tissues? Like
[70:03] people have been injecting pineal glands
[70:05] in different research models or taking
[70:06] out pineal glands from rats from the
[70:08] 1800s onwards. He finds peptides in
[70:10] these extracts. He's like, "Huh, I
[70:12] wonder if these effects are from the
[70:14] peptides, not from this the gland
[70:15] itself." So then he sequences from the
[70:18] pineal gland epialon and from the thymus
[70:22] gland a couple different peptides vyon
[70:24] thyogen cristaggen that you'll be
[70:26] hearing about in the next few years that
[70:28] on their own do a lot of the effects
[70:29] that the whole extract would would do.
[70:31] Now you're talking about epialon but
[70:33] pinealon and epon
[70:34] >> is not from the pineal gland
[70:35] >> is not from the pineal gland
[70:36] >> even though everyone
[70:38] >> no I think it's called that because
[70:39] there's there's as far as I understand
[70:40] please correct me if I'm wrong there are
[70:42] animal data suggesting that pinealon can
[70:45] help either regenerate or enhance the
[70:48] the general functioning of pinealytes.
[70:50] So it's having an effect on the pineal
[70:52] when cult like you take cultured pineal
[70:53] glands like little PI gland you put it
[70:55] in a dish and you dissociate the cells
[70:57] or keep it you know as a little P-siz
[70:58] thing and then you give it pinealon and
[71:00] seems to improve the timing and perhaps
[71:03] even the amount of melatonin output from
[71:05] the pineal these kinds of
[71:06] >> epialon does that so that's a big
[71:08] confusion I don't know why he named them
[71:10] the way he named them if anyone knows
[71:11] please let us know but epalon is from
[71:13] the pineal gland pinealon comes from a
[71:16] groundup brain extract called cortexin
[71:19] >> and brain has a pineal in it.
[71:21] >> Yeah. But it was the cortex
[71:22] specifically, not not the subcortical
[71:24] regions. So he specifically not the
[71:26] subcortical regions. So flavon
[71:29] identifies he makes a drug in Russia.
[71:30] It's called epialamine which is the
[71:32] pineal gland extract and had great
[71:33] effect on circadian rhythmicity and it's
[71:36] rich with melatonin basically giving
[71:38] people melatonin
[71:39] >> but also you up with enzyme that creates
[71:41] melatonin from from serotonin to an
[71:42] acetyl serotonin to melatonin. So like
[71:44] um when he gave it to young monkeys, the
[71:47] monkeys had no effect, but he gave it to
[71:49] age monkeys that have decreased
[71:50] melatonin and you know from puberty
[71:52] onwards your melatonin levels
[71:53] dramatically decrease. He was able to
[71:55] restore melatonin production in these
[71:57] aged animals and eventually replicated
[71:58] it on humans.
[71:59] >> I want to talk about thymus because it's
[72:01] fascinating and you are truly aversed in
[72:04] this. But before we do that,
[72:06] >> so pineal comes from the cortex, not the
[72:08] pineal. That's annoying.
[72:10] >> Yes, very annoying.
[72:10] >> Um maybe we just rename it today. I'll
[72:12] let you do the renaming. We'll call it
[72:13] EDR.
[72:14] >> EDR.
[72:15] >> That's the three amino acid sequence.
[72:16] >> Great. We'll call it EDR so people don't
[72:18] get confused. What are some of the known
[72:20] effects? Or am I just imagining this REM
[72:22] increase? Because I can't change what's
[72:25] happening to me during sleep. Y that
[72:27] would be an amazing placebo effect. And
[72:29] the reason I say amazing is there are
[72:31] many things that one can do to improve
[72:33] the amount of slowwave deep sleep. Not
[72:35] eating too close to bedtime, doing some
[72:36] exercise early in the day, etc., etc.
[72:38] very hard to increase REM except by
[72:40] heating your sleep environment in the
[72:42] last third of your night and maybe some
[72:44] alpha GPC in the late day can bump it up
[72:47] a bit or you can REM deprive yourself or
[72:49] you can smoke cannabis for 10 years then
[72:51] quit and then you'll get a lot of REM
[72:52] because you got no REM for 10 years do
[72:53] not recommend that protocol but
[72:56] >> for me it was just striking so why would
[72:58] EDR
[72:59] >> tripeptide with no receptor
[73:00] >> right previously called pinealon but
[73:03] from here uh here forward EDR why would
[73:06] that have this effect on on REM sleep.
[73:09] >> Yep. And and I actually searched through
[73:11] all of the literature from Cavson. He
[73:12] never mentions REM sleep once in his
[73:14] studies. He studied pinealon quite
[73:16] extensively on different neuronal tissue
[73:17] extracts, animal studies, even in in
[73:19] athletes and never mentions the REM
[73:21] sleep. They weren't having they didn't
[73:22] have Whoops in the 1970s in the Soviet
[73:24] Union. They didn't have an eight sleep.
[73:25] You're kidding me. No.
[73:27] >> So they didn't have, you know, sleep
[73:28] trackers in the 1970s uh when it came to
[73:30] to these. So there was no reports on on
[73:33] that. But what seems to be happening,
[73:34] let's see, what is this on this edr?
[73:37] It's a tripeptide that um meets the
[73:40] groove of the DNA of different key
[73:42] regions and helps the promoter region be
[73:44] exposed. So then that DNA transduction
[73:46] can happen uh translation transcription.
[73:49] So you get
[73:49] >> it's turning on genetic programs.
[73:51] >> Yes.
[73:51] >> It's acting a little bit like a
[73:53] transcription factor.
[73:54] >> Yeah. Yeah. Almost like that or maybe
[73:55] assisting transcription factors in
[73:57] accessing the DNA in the right places.
[73:59] So pinealon in in one sentence it's
[74:01] leading to better brain metabolism
[74:04] through modulating all these different
[74:05] pathways. for example GDF11 sod one sod
[74:08] 2 uh iris PPR alpha PPR gamma so what
[74:11] seems to be happening so he made
[74:13] pinealon as a anti-stress um cognitive
[74:16] performance compound
[74:18] >> uh and it was available orally in like
[74:20] Kazakhstan to
[74:21] >> that I'm taking before sleep I should be
[74:23] taking in the morning
[74:24] >> yes so if you take a high enough dose
[74:25] there is sedation from it but if you
[74:27] take it in the morning or prehit workout
[74:29] you get quite an interesting effect so
[74:31] he studied this um compound on athletes
[74:33] and he would uh do have them do their
[74:35] training session, go to exhaustion and
[74:37] then do a test afterwards. And there's
[74:39] two groups, pinealon and the placebo.
[74:41] The pinealon group could keep their
[74:42] performance up despite uh being
[74:45] maximally exhausted from their training.
[74:46] >> I feel like such a dummy. Here I am
[74:48] having like these elaborate dreams I
[74:49] don't really remember or care about when
[74:51] I could be actually thinking better
[74:53] during the daytime.
[74:54] >> Yeah. So, a lot of people report less
[74:55] brain fog, you know, better thinking. Uh
[74:58] a friend that has a a you know, nine
[74:59] figure company has all of his employees
[75:01] on pineal on. They're taking it in the
[75:02] morning.
[75:03] >> In the morning, uh, or at night,
[75:04] depending on,
[75:04] >> do you know the dosages? Not that we're
[75:06] recommending it.
[75:07] >> Orally, people will take anywhere
[75:08] between, you know, half a milligram up
[75:10] to three milligrams is what where people
[75:13] um, settle in. Um, the Cavson ones that
[75:15] that come from Russia are like 200
[75:17] micrograms.
[75:18] >> Some people are injecting it.
[75:19] >> Some people are injecting it.
[75:20] >> It goes systemic.
[75:21] >> Ego systemic. It's orally available
[75:22] through these uh, Latin pep
[75:24] transporters.
[75:25] >> Crosses the bloodb brain barrier
[75:26] >> most likely. Yes.
[75:27] >> Okay. Okay. Cuz it's coming from cortex,
[75:28] but otherwise we're the way you're
[75:30] describing it, we're putting no one's
[75:31] infusing into the brain.
[75:32] >> No one's so we're assuming it's small
[75:34] enough. It's trieptide to cross the the
[75:36] bloodb brain barrier.
[75:37] >> Have you tried it?
[75:37] >> I mean, I took some last night, but
[75:39] >> Okay. At night.
[75:40] >> Yeah. So, I I will take larger dosages
[75:42] uh if I want to get good sleep. I'll
[75:44] describe as 8K. Some people it will
[75:47] cause them to have a little bit of
[75:48] awakening um at first. That may be why
[75:50] your deep sleep was going away. I'll say
[75:52] this.
[75:53] >> If I take half of what was recommended,
[75:56] I'm great. But I'm very sensitive to
[75:58] everything. Just sensitive. If I take
[76:00] what was recommended, I fall very deeply
[76:02] asleep. I have elaborate dreams and I
[76:04] wake up. Yeah. And I couldn't tell if
[76:06] that was a disruption in sleep
[76:07] architecture.
[76:09] I just found and and granted I'm only
[76:11] doing this three times per month
[76:12] maximum. And I often forget and then I
[76:14] go months and months and I was like, oh,
[76:15] maybe I'll take a little pineal. Whoa,
[76:18] this is wild. and then I'd stop taking
[76:20] it because because I don't know enough
[76:21] about it. Now, I know it's cleanly
[76:23] sourced because I trust the compounding
[76:25] pharmacy it's coming from, but I should
[76:26] ask, are there any known risks of EDR?
[76:29] >> So far, nothing in the Russian
[76:31] literature. So, big caveat, it's Russian
[76:33] literature. It's not gold standard
[76:34] American research that we love here. Um,
[76:36] so there's nothing that's come up as a,
[76:38] you know, clear sign because what what
[76:40] it seems the big theory of Cavson is
[76:42] that as you're when you're younger, you
[76:44] make a lot of these peptides naturally.
[76:46] these tri die tri and tetropeptides and
[76:50] as you age they go down in function and
[76:52] quantity and by replenishing these
[76:54] peptides you're restoring some aspect of
[76:56] youthfulness
[76:57] >> something similar happens in America
[76:58] with GHK copper which is another
[76:59] tripeptide that's technically like the
[77:01] collagen regulator so the brain
[77:04] regulator and GHK copper is the collagen
[77:06] regulator but so far the the side
[77:08] effects we've noticed we have the
[77:10] probably the biggest anecdotal
[77:12] compilation of N equals 1 every every
[77:13] day I wake up someone texts me be like
[77:15] hey Pineelon did this to me some will
[77:16] have a little drop in blood sugar
[77:18] because it activates PPR alpha PPR
[77:20] gamma. So it'll have positive metabolic
[77:22] effects. So that's something to keep an
[77:24] eye out. And in some people even had
[77:25] their A1C's drop. So
[77:28] >> hypoglycemics and other people blood
[77:29] sugar issues take extra caution.
[77:31] >> And then very vivid dreams for some
[77:33] people that could be disheartening if if
[77:35] they have like you know nightmares or
[77:36] something like that. But very very vivid
[77:39] dreams uh as a result of a pinealon
[77:41] especially like the the color and the
[77:43] the quality of the dreams is very
[77:45] different than you'd normally expect.
[77:47] What seems to be happening
[77:49] >> is like just like you know psychedelics
[77:51] change the redux state of the brain.
[77:53] Pinealon is doing something similar
[77:55] where you're getting more alertness
[77:57] during the day
[77:58] >> like you don't wake up with as much
[77:59] brain fog uh at least anecdotally. Uh
[78:01] you get better performance during like
[78:03] high-intensity interval training and
[78:05] then you get more REM sleep at night. um
[78:07] because the neurons are in a better
[78:09] oxidative state thanks to the PPR alpha
[78:11] PPR gamma iris and all these different
[78:12] pathways that it's modulating
[78:14] >> um with no clear one you know receptor
[78:16] that it's doing it through.
[78:18] >> I'd like to take a quick break and
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[79:55] >> What about epital, which turns out comes
[79:57] from the pineal? I'd love your thoughts
[79:59] on this. I've heard and I thought it was
[80:01] complete nonsense when I first heard it
[80:03] that the pineal becomes calcified as
[80:06] people age. The reason I thought it was
[80:08] nonsense is I used to co-e neuro anatomy
[80:10] when I was at UCSD before moving my lab
[80:12] to Stanford with a guy named Harvey
[80:13] Carton. You guys can look him up.
[80:15] Unfortunately, he passed away. He was in
[80:16] his late 80s and he had this incredible
[80:18] career as a I think one of the greatest
[80:21] neuroanatomists of the last hundred
[80:23] years. It's a that's a good category to
[80:26] be in because we have like Kahal who's
[80:27] like discovered everything basically and
[80:29] then the rest of neuroscientists are
[80:30] just kind of tinkering around with what
[80:32] he predicted and then a few other neuro
[80:34] anatomists like Ted Jones is there but
[80:35] he's like the neuroanatomist of my
[80:37] generation and I asked him about this
[80:40] calcification thing cuz he had looked at
[80:43] the brains of so many different species
[80:44] including humans. He was also an MD by
[80:46] the way and he goes, "Yeah, I don't know
[80:48] whether or not this calcification thing
[80:50] is real." M
[80:51] >> and he kind of brushed it aside and I
[80:52] thought well Harvey doesn't take it
[80:53] seriously so I'm not going to take it
[80:54] seriously but even though he was
[80:57] absolutely right about many many things
[80:59] I think he might have missed that one
[81:01] because when I go to the literature now
[81:03] it's a little bit tough because the
[81:04] cadaavvers that you looked at in medical
[81:06] school and not all of them are processed
[81:08] on the same timeline right it's not
[81:09] thankfully it's not a controlled science
[81:11] right these are people that generously
[81:13] donate their bodies to science right
[81:16] >> does our pineal calcify and even if it
[81:18] does does that somehow inhibit its
[81:21] ability to communicate with our other
[81:22] tissues.
[81:23] >> It's it's a big kind of debatable thing
[81:25] in in the pineal research. If you look
[81:27] at the pineal gland Wikipedia, it's very
[81:29] under uh developed, let's say, because
[81:31] it's kind of woowoo. Like when you think
[81:32] of pineal gland, you think of someone
[81:34] who's going to sell you
[81:34] >> a neuroscientist chooses to work on the
[81:36] pineal.
[81:36] >> They should, but it's not a very sexy.
[81:38] >> It sounds like someone's going to sell
[81:39] you crystals or something about your
[81:40] >> It's not very sexy. Yeah.
[81:42] >> But I think it's it's a key aspect of
[81:44] aging and longevity. So that's that's
[81:45] what gives us, you know, our interest in
[81:47] it. the pineal gland. Um it seems from
[81:50] Caven's work that the decrease in pineal
[81:53] gland function with aging is more of a
[81:54] physiologic than a anatomic problem. Now
[81:57] I will see some calcification on MRI is
[81:59] when we have a patient come in for like
[82:00] a stroke or you know TBI will look at
[82:02] their MRI and I'm like hey there's that
[82:03] looks like a little bit calcification
[82:04] there. uh maybe my neurology colleagues
[82:07] will disagree but that seems to happen
[82:10] but the question is what is actually
[82:11] leading to the deterioration of
[82:12] melatonin synthesis because it decreases
[82:14] quite dramatically and some people even
[82:16] think that might start puberty like if
[82:18] you have a pineal pineal cyst you can
[82:20] have precocious puberty like eight or
[82:22] nine years old
[82:22] >> the rhythmicity in melatonin because a
[82:24] young baby very young baby their
[82:27] melatonin secretion is not very rhythmic
[82:29] but they're in REM like a lot a lot of
[82:32] their sleep is REM it's a beautiful
[82:34] thing Right. With time it becomes more
[82:36] rhythmic. And of course in today's day
[82:38] and age with all the artificial lighting
[82:39] and the lack of sunlight exposure things
[82:41] that you and I care a lot about. Um
[82:42] people are making themselves somewhat
[82:44] arythmic or phase shifted.
[82:48] >> But epialen is somehow restoring
[82:50] pinealytes is somehow enhancing function
[82:53] of the pineal and other tissues.
[82:55] >> Yep. So uh in in cabin's work he's found
[82:57] that it will increase the expression of
[83:00] the different clock genes. So in like
[83:02] you know lymphosytes that he'll measure
[83:03] in peripheral tissues he'll notice that
[83:05] the clock genes actually change. So in a
[83:07] more rhythmic pattern he'll notice that
[83:09] morning cortisol is higher. Great. Which
[83:12] by the way folks I've said this in the
[83:14] cortisol episode. You want your morning
[83:16] cortisol super super high. You want your
[83:17] evening and nighttime cortisol low. If
[83:19] you're a resident in medical school just
[83:21] listen to what your superiors say. They
[83:22] don't give a [ __ ] about your cortisol
[83:24] levels. You got to do the hard work and
[83:25] then uh later you get to later you get
[83:28] to go to bed. It's a little weird that
[83:30] the medical profession tortures their
[83:31] own by disrupting one of the one of the
[83:34] primary anchors of health. Yep.
[83:36] >> And and cognitive function, right? I
[83:38] mean, I've had 28 hour shifts and that's
[83:40] what got me interested in security.
[83:41] >> You're young. You're good. You're good.
[83:43] But yeah, the idea was it was restoring
[83:45] a more um circadian appropriate hormonal
[83:48] profile through you know HTH cortisol
[83:51] >> taken when
[83:52] >> anytime because the idea with these bio
[83:54] regulators unlike you know a GLP-1 drug
[83:56] that you take today and have the effect
[83:58] for the next week the idea from the
[84:00] cavonin model is that you take these and
[84:02] then you acrewue benefits when you're
[84:04] off of them like you notice with
[84:05] pinealon you took pinealon for a day or
[84:08] two or three days a month and you had
[84:09] effects until you took the next dose. So
[84:11] the idea is can you acrue benefits from
[84:14] these compounds as they upregulate or
[84:16] downregulate certain genetic pathways in
[84:18] a more favorable state and then keep
[84:19] those effects later on. So in the cavson
[84:22] seminal work was this 15y year um
[84:24] longevity study he got people in nursing
[84:26] homes two groups one them got echalon in
[84:30] the form of epathalamine which is the
[84:32] whole pineal gland extract and then a
[84:33] thymus peptide called thyolin not
[84:36] thyulin there's two different peptides a
[84:38] lot of people confuse them every peptide
[84:39] website confuses them but I inject them
[84:42] for 15 years like a 10 or 20 day course
[84:45] per year just just uh beginning of the
[84:47] year middle of the year and that's it
[84:48] and they had a significant lower
[84:50] mortality when it came to cardiovascular
[84:52] disease, uh, infectious risk and for,
[84:54] um, cancers. So, Russian study, caveat,
[84:58] but that would would be the most
[85:00] interesting longevity study I've seen
[85:02] done if accurate, if true, uh, because
[85:04] he was able to take nursing home
[85:05] patients, give them peptides for, you
[85:07] know, very small amount of the year, and
[85:09] yet they accred benefits the rest of the
[85:10] year.
[85:10] >> Impressive. Uh, one of the things that
[85:12] really got me excited about epalon, is
[85:15] italon or talon? The Russians say epylon
[85:17] is the the way they say it, but it's
[85:19] spelled with a th Okay. So, I'll say
[85:21] epal whoever wants, you know, we're
[85:23] making the rules today. So,
[85:24] >> okay, epitoon is also a a DG. That's
[85:26] that's the amino acid for amino acid.
[85:28] >> I'll say epialin because it's uh easiest
[85:30] for me and forgive me if anyone takes
[85:32] offense. I took interest because uh in
[85:35] my former life running a lab focused on
[85:38] among other things uh visual pathway
[85:41] repair y um to reverse blindness or
[85:44] impending blindness. Um there's some
[85:46] interesting papers and there I can
[85:48] really gauge the data even though
[85:49] they're in mice. I can say this is a
[85:50] real effect or like a me effect or like
[85:52] a wo effect using epialin to combat some
[85:56] of the neurodeeneration in things like
[85:58] uh retinitis pigmentotosa downstream
[86:00] neurodeeneration in RP uh which is a
[86:02] very common unfortunately blinding
[86:04] disease or even in glaucoma. Y
[86:07] >> I should mention that BPC57 to my
[86:09] knowledge hasn't been looked at
[86:10] extensively in terms of optic nerve
[86:12] repair but it absolutely should be. If
[86:13] if someone knows those papers, please
[86:15] put them in the comments. So, I was
[86:17] intrigued. Yep. Like, there's this
[86:18] molecule that's somehow involved in DNA
[86:20] repair,
[86:21] >> and it's uh either maintaining or
[86:24] restoring some of the machinery that
[86:25] would otherwise definitely be lost in
[86:27] one of these optic nerve damage
[86:28] conditions that models things like
[86:30] glaucoma retinitis pigmentotosa
[86:32] stroke, uh traumatic head injury. It's a
[86:34] big deal. Yep. Vision and movement are
[86:35] kind of the biggies. I mean there are
[86:36] other things too but like you know you
[86:38] don't want to lose those and if you do
[86:39] you can get by but it you need
[86:41] additional support obviously. So the
[86:45] reason it's so interesting to me is that
[86:46] it's getting to DNA repair as opposed to
[86:49] these downstream
[86:51] um you know working on any number of
[86:53] vague receptorish maybe no receptor
[86:56] things like and this is what gene
[86:57] therapy is about.
[86:58] >> Yep. So do you think of epien as kind of
[87:00] a gene therapy of sorts or do you think
[87:02] about it more as support for genetic
[87:04] machinery that has lots of downstream
[87:06] targets?
[87:07] >> Yes, I think it it supports this genetic
[87:09] machinery. Um when it comes to the eyes,
[87:12] it seems to be repairing some of the
[87:14] photo receptors that might get damaged
[87:16] in a red pigmentotosa. Melanopsin wasn't
[87:18] discovered when when Cavson was was
[87:20] kicking it around. But I would my my
[87:23] theory is that epiphylon is working on
[87:25] melanopsin.
[87:26] >> Interesting. and that it may be
[87:27] upregulating melanopsin levels and then
[87:29] making that morning sunlight that
[87:30] everyone likes
[87:31] >> to be more effective because the big
[87:33] problem is a lot of people will tell me
[87:35] doc I did morning sunlight didn't I
[87:36] didn't feel the effects I'm like have
[87:38] you had enough darkness to regenerate
[87:39] melanopsin levels because we know that
[87:42] uh in animal studies 5 days of pure
[87:44] darkness dramatically increases the
[87:45] amount of melanopsin in the redness
[87:47] >> this is interesting and I certainly have
[87:48] a lot of close close friends that are in
[87:51] a position to do these studies um and
[87:53] you know the podcast is obviously
[87:54] available free to everyone but we have a
[87:56] premium channel that funds research. We
[87:59] don't talk a lot about it, but we we've
[88:00] given a lot of money away to excellent
[88:02] laboratories where they're free to
[88:03] explore these things. I'd love to see
[88:04] some of the studies that we're talking
[88:05] about today supported. And by the way,
[88:07] that's done in collaboration with donors
[88:09] that do a match. So, we could get the
[88:11] right people to do the right studies
[88:13] with no bias toward what the preferred
[88:16] outcome is. In fact, the scientists that
[88:19] we both know, the right ones, would try
[88:21] and disprove the hypothesis that any of
[88:23] this stuff was real. And if some makes
[88:26] it through that filter, then they would
[88:27] conclude it's real. Otherwise, they're
[88:29] trying to essentially knock down the the
[88:31] the quoteunquote positive outcome. Yep.
[88:33] I mean, and I think as a clinician, one
[88:35] of the key things to pe for people to
[88:37] remember is that we've screwed up a lot
[88:39] of times as clinicians through different
[88:41] grotesque abuses of our, you know,
[88:43] trust. We've done, you know,
[88:45] interventions or drugs that weren't the
[88:47] most efficacious. For example, like in
[88:49] the 1910s to 1940s, we irradiated the
[88:53] thymuses of young kids to prevent SIDS.
[88:56] This was considered gold standard
[88:57] medicine. Like
[88:58] >> does it have anything to do with SIDS?
[88:59] >> No, they thought that sudden infant
[89:01] death.
[89:01] >> They thought that the thymus was too big
[89:02] and was sitting on the heart and that
[89:03] might be the cause. So tons of these
[89:05] kids, you know, I think at least 10,000
[89:06] died from cancers. No, I think the only
[89:08] person that's talked about it is he has
[89:10] a video talking about this. So we've had
[89:12] a lot of issues as a as a as a field. We
[89:14] have to be very cognizant of that and
[89:16] know the history of where we've been
[89:17] like like Verkow of the famous Verkow
[89:19] triad. He was like pro this therapy
[89:22] >> and we all know learn about it in
[89:24] medical school but no one talks about
[89:25] this aspect. So there's a lot of
[89:26] grotesque abuses of medical power. Let's
[89:29] say we have to be very careful in which
[89:30] interventions we give people and the
[89:32] first things like do no harm. So while
[89:34] we are you know excited about these
[89:36] therapies we have to be kind of careful
[89:37] in where we're taking people.
[89:38] >> Appreciate that. I wasn't aware of that
[89:40] study. Perfect um tea up for uh no pun
[89:44] for the thymus. Tell me about the
[89:45] thymus. Um super interesting organ.
[89:48] >> Yep.
[89:49] >> We gland.
[89:50] >> Yep.
[89:50] >> We all have one when we're born.
[89:52] >> Yep.
[89:52] >> By the time we're what age is it mostly
[89:54] gone?
[89:55] >> So the thymus is grown under the
[89:57] influence of a lot of these youthful
[89:59] hormones, melatonin, growth hormone, um
[90:01] DHEA, um and then is shrunk at the
[90:04] moment you hit puberty. So until from
[90:06] your the day of birth until puberty, you
[90:09] grow this massive thymus.
[90:10] >> Where does it sit?
[90:11] >> It's right above your heart. Right
[90:12] behind this the collar bone.
[90:13] >> How big is it?
[90:14] >> It's a in in a baby, it could be quite
[90:17] large on on the chest as a baseball.
[90:19] >> Like maybe the size of half the heart,
[90:22] let's say. Maybe bigger. Depends on on
[90:23] on on the size. Right now in our bodies,
[90:26] it's going to be a bunch of fat with a
[90:28] couple of different globules of thyic
[90:30] residue.
[90:30] >> Tiny tiny.
[90:31] >> Very tiny. In fact, most surgeons will
[90:33] just remove it um when they do surgery
[90:35] nowadays for like open heart. U but
[90:37] there's, you know, good data from New
[90:39] England Journal of Medicine that
[90:40] removing the thymus tissue, residue
[90:42] tissue leads to uh a mortality signal
[90:44] within the first 5 years after those
[90:46] surgeries.
[90:46] >> So people have died because of thymus
[90:48] removed.
[90:48] >> They'll have like either higher rates of
[90:50] cancers or, you know, higher rates of
[90:52] autoimmune diseases if they have their
[90:53] their thymuses removed. Now there are
[90:55] thyomomas where people have to have
[90:57] their thymus removed but we're talking
[90:58] about people that you know the surgeon
[90:59] is going in to do a coronary artery
[91:01] bypass surgery.
[91:02] >> Is the thymus neurally innervated?
[91:04] >> Yes.
[91:04] >> So it's getting signals from from brain
[91:07] >> Vegas nerve. Yep.
[91:08] >> So it's getting sorry to get technical
[91:10] here but I since I did the episode in
[91:12] the Vegas some people might remember
[91:13] there's a lot of ascending sensory
[91:15] information from the Vegas going up to
[91:17] the brain. There's also motor control
[91:18] from the brain going down through the
[91:20] Vegas. So it's two two-way street mostly
[91:22] up some down. Is the thymus controlled
[91:26] by the descending is like in other words
[91:28] is something going on in our brain like
[91:30] stress level or or sleep controlling our
[91:33] thymic?
[91:33] >> There's sympathetic and parasympathetic
[91:35] intervations for thymus
[91:36] >> um that dictates its hormonal output
[91:38] because the thymus what what is the
[91:40] thymus?
[91:41] >> Yeah, it's it's a gland that both
[91:43] secretes hormones
[91:45] >> and develops the tea cells. So your your
[91:47] lymphatic cells are found in your bone
[91:49] marrow that's where they're made. the
[91:50] tea cells will travel up to the thymus
[91:52] and get trained so they don't kill you
[91:54] and they don't attack your own tissue
[91:56] but attack a foreign invader or a cancer
[91:58] or whatever it may be that process is
[92:01] very good in youth and as you age you
[92:03] get more autoimmunity more cancers etc
[92:05] etc because the immune system is not as
[92:06] robust
[92:07] >> both because the thymus makes less of
[92:09] the hormones that train the immune cells
[92:11] and makes less of these immune cells
[92:12] themselves so when you're you know 15
[92:15] you're making uh 10 to the eth magnitude
[92:17] of these cells every single day they're
[92:19] called naive T cells, they will
[92:20] eventually become your CD4 and CD8 T-
[92:22] cells. Uh, as you age, this number
[92:24] dramatically decreases. And those cells
[92:28] will live somewhere between 10 and 15
[92:30] years. And that can kind of gauge when
[92:32] the mortality window kicks in for a lot
[92:34] of these different disorders. When your
[92:35] thymus reaches a, you know, minimum
[92:37] level of output, you get a lot of these
[92:39] disorders like cancers, uh, heart
[92:41] disease, autoimmunity. If you put almost
[92:43] any disease and look at the thymus um
[92:46] risk associated with it, it increases as
[92:48] the thymus um function uh decreases.
[92:51] There's a nature paper uh 2026 just came
[92:54] out that looked at cardiovascular
[92:56] disease and cancer mortality and all
[92:58] these different metrics that they did
[93:00] MRIs of people and and the people that
[93:02] had the higher thymic scores had less
[93:04] mortality across every single one of
[93:06] these conditions. But you said, not
[93:08] challenging this, but what's surprising
[93:10] about that very interesting result is
[93:12] that you said that by the time you reach
[93:13] your you're in your 30s, I'm in my 50s,
[93:16] those ages, our ages, you there, you've
[93:18] got just a bit of residual tissue there.
[93:20] It's just a few cells and yet it's
[93:22] somehow maintaining function. The rate
[93:24] of decrease varies dramatically from
[93:26] person to person. So we call this thymic
[93:28] involution. So from the moment puberty
[93:29] starts till um you die, your thymus is
[93:33] slowly shrinking. That really happens in
[93:34] your 20s and 30s. the majority of that
[93:36] under the the pressure of androgens,
[93:39] estrogens, progesterines and
[93:40] corticosteroids. Those are driving a lot
[93:42] of the shrinkage.
[93:43] >> So the hormones that everyone seems to
[93:45] want to increase the rest of their life
[93:46] and that uh become you know active a lot
[93:50] during puberty actually cause thyic
[93:52] involution.
[93:53] >> Yes. So like u castration will undo some
[93:56] of the thyic involution. Um, pregnancy
[93:59] is a great time to involute your thymus,
[94:00] which makes sense because you don't want
[94:02] to be having an autoimmune attack
[94:03] against the baby or an immune attack
[94:05] against the baby.
[94:05] >> Do women's thymus disappear after
[94:08] pregnancy?
[94:09] >> They they involute and then will regrow
[94:11] during the breastfeeding period under
[94:13] the influences of growth hormone and
[94:14] prolactin. So, hibernating animals will
[94:16] have a dramatic shrinkage of the thymus
[94:18] during hibernation and then a regrowth
[94:20] um during the feeding window. Is there
[94:22] any benefit to doing or taking something
[94:25] to either maintain or regenerate thyic
[94:28] size? So there was
[94:29] >> as an as a let's just say somebody 25 or
[94:32] older.
[94:32] >> Yeah. There's a um interesting study
[94:34] trim trial from Dr. Greg Fahhee. He's
[94:37] doing a study where he's giving a
[94:39] cocktail of growth hormone, metformin,
[94:41] and DHEA. Uh gave that for 12 months and
[94:44] had the thymic size increase on imaging.
[94:46] The amount of CD4 or CD8 T cells
[94:48] increase and the ratio of which
[94:50] improved. uh and then some of the
[94:51] markers that would show like immune cell
[94:53] exhaustion like PD1 and all these
[94:55] different aspects of T- cell um dynamics
[94:57] also improve. So they're they're trying
[94:59] to use growth hormone to regrow the
[95:00] thymus.
[95:01] >> Getting us directly to peptides. Many
[95:04] people who are peptide curious start
[95:07] asking about thymus and alpha. Is thymus
[95:09] and alpha a peptide that comes from the
[95:11] thymus? Thankfully they named it
[95:13] appropriately this time. Uh great uh for
[95:16] that. What does thymus alpha do
[95:18] endogenously when you're not injecting
[95:19] it or taking it? What's its normal
[95:21] function?
[95:22] >> So thyosin alpha 1 is part of this
[95:24] thymic family of hormones that gets
[95:26] secreted. It's like at least 21 amino
[95:27] acids. It uh increases T- cell
[95:29] development in the thymus, increases TE-
[95:31] cell perforation outside the thymus and
[95:33] makes the T- cells more likely to
[95:35] properly attack a pathogen. Um like it's
[95:38] like a you know jet fuel for the for the
[95:40] tea cells.
[95:40] >> So it's like proimmune. Yes. I've heard
[95:42] of people taking it when they feel run
[95:45] down, if they're traveling, they're
[95:46] sleeping less than usual, they're a new
[95:48] parent. So, obviously that's kind of,
[95:51] you know, uh, peptide wild west kind of
[95:53] indications.
[95:54] >> It was FDA approved as Zidaxin, um, for
[95:57] kids that were born without a thymus or
[95:58] a malfunction thymus like Dor syndrome,
[96:00] these different kind of genetic
[96:02] abnormalities um, to be used for these
[96:05] kids to help develop the T- cells that
[96:06] they had that weren't um, in the thymus
[96:08] because they'd have like bone marrow tea
[96:09] cells that weren't properly developed.
[96:11] So there was good support from thyopaf 1
[96:13] for these kids. I don't think that FDA
[96:15] approval still exists. So the people are
[96:17] trying to you know grandfather thyop one
[96:19] into these this peptide conversation. Um
[96:21] in other countries it's approved for a
[96:24] ad aguant therapy for like hepatitis B,
[96:25] hepatitis C and and in different
[96:27] cancers. So far the sepsis literature
[96:30] and the infectious literature is not
[96:31] that promising. It might be like if you
[96:33] take antibiotics with thy one you might
[96:36] have a quicker bounce around. What what
[96:38] I would be interested to see is like if
[96:39] you you know went to nursing homes
[96:40] injected everybody with thousand thyin
[96:42] alpha 1 in November and December would
[96:44] you have less flu in January and
[96:45] February? That'd be like the interesting
[96:47] thought experiment. Both thyus alpha 1
[96:49] and thymus and beta 4 come out of the
[96:50] Goldstein lab. That's the very famous
[96:53] lab that studied the thymus in the 70s '
[96:54] 80s and 90s. Um but thyic research kind
[96:57] of fell out of favor the last few
[96:58] decades but now
[96:59] >> also sexy as the pineal. I say that sort
[97:02] of tongue and cheek because I mean I
[97:03] think these are fascinating glands and
[97:05] um the reason I ask if they're neurally
[97:06] innovated is that you know nowadays
[97:08] there's a there are a lot of reasons why
[97:10] people choose to study one thing or the
[97:11] other. But these um underststudied
[97:14] glands if neurally innovated then open
[97:16] up a lot of interesting questions about
[97:18] brain control, behavioral stress control
[97:21] and the and the experiments kind of
[97:23] write themselves. doing them still takes
[97:24] a lot of work. Interpreting them is no
[97:26] easy task either. But um I think there
[97:28] should certainly be more work on um on
[97:30] the pineal and on on the thymus. So I
[97:32] want to make that clear that have you
[97:35] taken thy alpha? Oh yeah, I' I've used
[97:37] thumbs off one when uh when I travel to
[97:39] to avoid the uh cesspool of planes and
[97:43] hotels and all these places which uh
[97:45] like I would say traveling and then this
[97:47] year on the wards the first time I don't
[97:49] get flu, cold, whatever kind of
[97:51] infection I do one throughout and I
[97:53] didn't get sick a single time.
[97:54] >> What time of day or night are you
[97:56] injecting?
[97:56] >> Uh twice a week uh time agnostic. Uh
[97:59] we're talking about you know 2.5
[98:01] milligrams uh as a prophylactic. that's
[98:04] not FDA approved or Yeah.
[98:05] >> or this is just you doing your thing.
[98:07] >> I'm I'm curious and see if it would it
[98:08] would work.
[98:09] >> You're trying to stay healthy so you can
[98:10] uh take care of patients. Exactly. So
[98:12] you're willing to be your own
[98:13] experiment. When we hear about thyosin
[98:14] alpha, we usually hear about TB500 also.
[98:17] What's TB500 and how are the are the two
[98:19] related if at all?
[98:20] >> So while Cavinson's finding thyolin and
[98:22] he's injecting that into people, the
[98:23] Goldstein lab finds thyin fraction 5
[98:25] which is this giant uh protein that has
[98:28] many different peptides in it. Thy alpha
[98:30] 1 being one of them and then thymusin
[98:32] beta 4 being the other one. Thyself
[98:33] alpha 1, thyus beta 4 were discovered in
[98:35] the thymus but they're not exclusive to
[98:36] the thymus gland. They're also made in
[98:38] other tissues. Thysin beta 4 seems to be
[98:40] uh this 43 amino acid peptide that helps
[98:44] in the actin cytokeleton of cells. So if
[98:46] you think about it, immune cells have to
[98:47] move a lot. So they have to re
[98:48] reorganize their actin cytokeleton quite
[98:50] quickly. So it seems to upregulate that
[98:52] movement
[98:53] >> which you know the horse community for
[98:55] doping uh and other athletes have found
[98:57] a niche for thy beta 4 to use it as a
[99:00] >> the horse community.
[99:00] >> Yeah. The horse races. Thus made 4 is a
[99:03] very common doping agent
[99:04] >> for the riders or for the for the
[99:05] horses.
[99:06] >> For the horses.
[99:06] >> Yes.
[99:07] >> Do they test the horses for?
[99:08] >> Yeah. No there's like a big doping
[99:10] scandal when it comes to to horses and
[99:12] uh I don't know if they test them or
[99:13] they like
[99:14] >> you know what's funny this is a very
[99:16] relevant tangent. Occasionally someone
[99:18] will say, "Hey, does all this morning
[99:19] sunlight stuff, does that work on like
[99:21] dogs?" And I go, "Listen, I hate to tell
[99:22] you this, but like a lot of the
[99:24] literature came from animals, not
[99:25] necessarily dogs, and they have
[99:27] melanopsin, ganglen cells, they have
[99:29] super kaismatic like yes, yes, and yes,
[99:31] same physiology."
[99:31] >> And then recently, won't say who, wasn't
[99:34] me. Um, truly, I have a friend whose uh
[99:36] dog was injured. And the question
[99:37] becomes like, would BPC work? And you
[99:39] can actually say, well, there's a lot
[99:40] more animal data than uh human data.
[99:43] talked to a couple vets and vets will
[99:46] they're a lot more adventurous than we
[99:48] might think and I thought well listen
[99:50] you know now of course these are pets
[99:52] they're I love my dog you know not the
[99:54] same as a human I am a bit of a species
[99:56] but love them tremendously um
[99:59] >> and I think the
[100:00] >> pet peptide industry is going to be
[100:03] enormous already
[100:04] >> so here's the question and then we'll go
[100:05] right back to what we were saying before
[100:08] >> there's been so much interest in NAD NMN
[100:10] and NR to upregulate NAD what NAD is a
[100:14] prolongevity NAD for you know one of
[100:16] these things that drops over uh over the
[100:18] lifespan
[100:19] >> although the paper last week says that
[100:20] it doesn't drop in blood the landmark
[100:22] paper
[100:22] >> I will say which
[100:23] >> is the news stories on that claim that I
[100:26] called it a longevity drug I've always
[100:28] said that NAD I I do augment NAD using
[100:31] NMN it gives me more uh morning energy I
[100:35] will say it does make my nails really
[100:36] thick and my hair grow fast two effects
[100:37] I was not looking for but I like the
[100:39] energy effect I've never said it
[100:41] increases lifespan ever. So, um, this
[100:44] was mentioned in the New York Times and
[100:45] elsewhere, and it's absolutely false
[100:47] that my name is included in that
[100:48] statement. So, their fact checkers need
[100:50] factchecking. NAD has been kind of the
[100:53] thing for a lot of people who want to go
[100:55] beyond supplements, right? They kind
[100:57] beyond creatine, beyond magnesium,
[100:59] beyond what they can get, you know, just
[101:00] on Amazon or whatever, but
[101:02] >> they don't want to go all the way to,
[101:04] you know, like blood cleansing and all
[101:06] this other stuff, which I I certainly
[101:08] don't do myself, and I think that's too
[101:10] extreme, at least for me.
[101:11] When I hear about thy alpha, TB500, BPC,
[101:14] it occupies this kind of middle ground,
[101:17] right? And so I think this is why a lot
[101:19] of people are saying, "Hey, Alison, I
[101:21] love my dog. I love my cat." I don't
[101:23] know if NAD is going to do anything for
[101:25] their longevity. It doesn't look like it
[101:26] may or may not. I don't know. But I
[101:28] think a lot of people are starting to
[101:29] think, oh, you know, like,
[101:31] >> and here we go, Pavlov and his dogs. So,
[101:34] I do think this is another category of
[101:35] interest. And of course, we're the
[101:37] curators. They don't get a vote. They
[101:38] can't consent. Right.
[101:39] >> Right. So, we have to be very thoughtful
[101:40] there, too. Yep.
[101:41] >> If I ask you, let's say I had an aged
[101:44] dog and I come to you and I go, "Listen,
[101:46] I know you're a human physician, but
[101:47] he's getting sick a lot. I don't know,
[101:49] maybe getting some thyus and alpha. He's
[101:51] kind of creaky joints, some BPC. He's
[101:53] probably got a couple years to go and
[101:55] that's it." Would you say like,
[101:57] >> "Well,
[101:58] >> I know you're not a vet.
[101:59] >> The veterary board is going to sue me
[102:00] now but
[102:00] >> No, they're not. Actually, I have
[102:02] relatives who are vets. They are very
[102:03] open.
[102:04] >> Interesting.
[102:04] >> Very open. The veterary community has
[102:06] been very open. I injected my previous
[102:08] dog. Yeah,
[102:09] >> with testosterone later in life. And I
[102:11] expected the vets to come after me with
[102:12] pitchforks. And I got calls that we
[102:14] would love to prescribe this. In fact,
[102:15] we wish we could just do vasectomies on
[102:17] male dogs. Let them keep their
[102:18] testosterone and then you don't have to
[102:19] worry about this breeding problem. And
[102:21] you let people train them not to hump.
[102:22] >> Yep. No, my my sister was at a
[102:24] compending pharmacy here locally that
[102:25] would give dogs their testosterone. And
[102:28] it made him so much healthier and
[102:30] happier. I have zero regrets.
[102:32] >> I'm propeptid for pets. Let's say let's
[102:34] say I think there would be beneficial
[102:36] effects. We know dogs when they vomit
[102:37] they end up licking some of the vomit.
[102:39] You've seen this before.
[102:40] >> Yes.
[102:40] >> Unfort is he trying to get peptides back
[102:43] from the gastric tract like the first
[102:46] from a pavlovian dog
[102:47] >> being kind to dogs.
[102:48] >> So I'm like but I mean intuitively
[102:49] instinctively there might be something
[102:50] there like they might be trying to get
[102:52] BPC out of that. Who knows? But um I
[102:55] think there would be less hesitation for
[102:59] people to use these on animals. They
[103:00] come from animal literature. Like you
[103:02] said we don't want to be harming these
[103:03] pets, right? But a lot of I think a lot
[103:07] of the the positive signals are going to
[103:08] come out of people giving them to their
[103:09] pets. Unfortunately, there's so many
[103:10] brands now that are popping up every day
[103:12] giving uh their pets peptides.
[103:15] >> Um because BPC, is it going to be
[103:18] treated as a supplement when it comes to
[103:19] oral capsules or is it going to be
[103:20] treated as a med? Like we haven't got
[103:22] got that answer from the FDA. RFK
[103:24] himself has kind of said like these are
[103:25] supplements. They're not they're not
[103:26] medications. So FDA said that he said
[103:28] that we're not going to regulate them as
[103:30] meds because they're not meds which I
[103:31] don't know if the agency themselves is
[103:33] going to be too happy with that. I mean
[103:34] there's a big well McCary just McCiri I
[103:37] don't ever know how to pronounce his
[103:38] last name um recently left so that there
[103:40] was a from what I understand a kind of a
[103:42] split I don't think he left because of
[103:43] peptide anything I think it was related
[103:45] to other things that I'm not aware of
[103:47] but I do think the question that you're
[103:49] raising is one of the most important
[103:51] questions
[103:51] >> is BPC going to be taken seriously as a
[103:54] drug
[103:54] >> y
[103:55] >> or is it more creatineish
[103:57] >> yep I mean for example I could give you
[103:59] a B12 supplement you could buy that on
[104:00] Amazon or I could prescribe that to you
[104:02] but if I was to give you an injectable
[104:03] B12 shot, you would need a prescription
[104:05] for that.
[104:06] >> So, is that distinction going to apply
[104:07] to peptides also is the big question
[104:09] that no one's answered. And is a, you
[104:11] know, pinealon is a supplement you can
[104:13] find in Kazakhstan and Russia and
[104:15] Ukraine wherever all these different
[104:16] countries over the counter in
[104:17] differenties.
[104:18] >> Is pinealon available as a capsule?
[104:20] >> It's available as a caps.
[104:21] >> Does it work as well as a capsule in a
[104:23] capsule?
[104:23] >> Higher doses as needed, but it still
[104:25] works.
[104:25] >> What are the doses dosages excuse me
[104:28] that people are injecting versus taking
[104:29] orally? So when it comes to the bio
[104:31] regulators the epitalon pineelion the
[104:33] cavon literature looks at like microgram
[104:35] dosages from 10 to 100 micrograms of um
[104:38] of the actual raw peptides of the
[104:41] peptide mixes we're talking about 10
[104:43] milligs. So 10 milligs of you know
[104:45] desiccated cow brain that might give you
[104:47] a few hundred micrograms of pineon. Oh
[104:49] man, desiccated cow brain makes me think
[104:51] of crutzville yakob aka mad cow pry
[104:55] first patient I had on on wards in third
[104:56] year of medical school
[104:57] >> had degenerative brain from crutzville
[104:59] >> yak there was yeah it was a bad bad case
[105:02] on neurology
[105:03] >> wards yeah please folks do not be
[105:05] consuming brains I know there's some
[105:08] people like oh he's got all this stuff
[105:09] that can help you like please please
[105:11] please like these these uh these pron
[105:14] things are really serious
[105:16] >> yeah scary
[105:17] >> it's really scary it's really really
[105:19] scary and not just from wild game, but
[105:21] it's it's really scary.
[105:22] >> By the way, I think this set back all
[105:24] that research in the when when the you
[105:26] know the PON stuff happened in the early
[105:27] 2000s that set back a lot of these
[105:29] animal derived peptide research
[105:31] dramatically cuz people like oh we don't
[105:32] want to touch these extracts anymore.
[105:34] Makes sense
[105:34] >> because there was thymus extracts. There
[105:35] were like there was about you know 10
[105:37] different groups in Eastern Europe that
[105:38] came up with their own thymus peptide
[105:40] drug
[105:41] >> which was a polyeptide fragment with you
[105:43] know thyusphan thus beta 4 vylon thyogen
[105:45] crystal like all these different
[105:46] peptides that you'd get together. The
[105:48] the Eastern Europeans went down like
[105:50] this mix of just mixing up young thyuses
[105:52] because you don't want an old thyus from
[105:53] a cow. You want a six-month old cow that
[105:55] has the giant juicy big thymus with all
[105:57] the healthy hormones in there. uh they'd
[105:59] grind that up and inject that into into
[106:01] humans with positive effects like you
[106:02] know hundreds of papers on that. The
[106:04] American side, the Goldstein um group
[106:07] came up with thyin fraction 5 which has
[106:09] thy one and thyin beta 4 in it. Also
[106:11] thyin beta 10, thyin beta 9, a bunch of
[106:13] different thyosins but studied these two
[106:15] dramatically thy 1 and thyin beta 4. The
[106:18] French came up with the actual main
[106:20] thymus hormone which is thyulin not
[106:22] thyolin. Thyolin is the Russian
[106:24] polyeptide mix. Thymulin is a nine amino
[106:26] acid uh peptide that is the marker of
[106:30] thymus function. It also has very
[106:32] interesting neurological effects which I
[106:33] think you'll you'll find interesting
[106:35] because it modulates the what we're
[106:38] calling the thymus pituitary adrenal
[106:40] axis thymus pituitary gonatal axis.
[106:42] Thyulin is this peptide that's secreted
[106:45] by thymus dramatically decreases with
[106:47] age um as zinc dependent. So biology
[106:51] likes to use metals with different amino
[106:52] acid structures. Hemoglobin with iron,
[106:54] GHK copper with copper. Thyuin is zinc
[106:57] dependent. So it's a nine amino acid
[106:58] peptide with zinc inside inside of it to
[107:00] do its effects. That will develop NK
[107:02] cells and T- cells um stimulate the
[107:04] immune response. But also in the animal
[107:07] models, not replicated in humans yet,
[107:09] when they take out the pituitary and
[107:11] then inject, you know, act or ACG, the
[107:14] amount of thyline sensitizes the end
[107:16] organ to production of the targeted
[107:18] hormone. For example, if you were just
[107:20] to give ACG alone to the animal,
[107:22] >> hCG, synthetic glutinizing hormone.
[107:25] >> Yes. Yes. Yes. ACG is is binding to the
[107:27] it's called the ACG LH receptor. So they
[107:30] would get more testosterone produced
[107:32] when they got ACG with thyulin
[107:35] >> versus ACG alone.
[107:37] >> So what you're saying is that thymus and
[107:39] alpha potentially or TB500 or other
[107:43] thyic hormones,
[107:44] >> thy thyulin specifically.
[107:46] >> Okay. Thyulin specifically. Okay. The
[107:47] other ones do different effects on the
[107:49] on the pituitary axis.
[107:50] >> So thulin specifically can augment Yes.
[107:53] >> the effects of indogenous and perhaps
[107:56] also exogenous hormones.
[107:57] >> Yep.
[107:58] >> Interesting.
[107:58] >> And it makes sense because if you're not
[108:00] robust when it comes to immune status
[108:03] because you you can think of your
[108:04] thyulin as high in youth, low in aged,
[108:07] >> you have no business investing in
[108:08] reproduction. You have no business in
[108:11] creating a lot of cortical steroids
[108:12] because that gives you that, you know,
[108:13] youthful energy in the morning. But if
[108:15] you're making a lot of coral steroids,
[108:16] you're shrinking your thymus. So it
[108:17] creates kind of a feedback loop,
[108:19] negative feedback loop to prevent you
[108:20] from overrunning your system. A lot of
[108:22] young guys will be like, "Oh, my immune
[108:24] system sucks and my testosterone is
[108:25] low." Like, is there a thymus link?
[108:27] There is the question.
[108:27] >> Interesting. And I I'm sure that you're
[108:29] the first person in the last 20 years to
[108:32] be talking about this publicly. Um, and
[108:34] I really appreciate that you are because
[108:35] of course you knew what the thymus was.
[108:37] don't know a lot about the biology but
[108:39] you've really um opened people's eyes to
[108:41] and um what it is that it goes away over
[108:44] time. People taking thyosin alpha TB500
[108:47] and um thymulin.
[108:48] >> Yep.
[108:48] >> Is this something that people would
[108:50] cocktail or is taking thyulin something
[108:52] that generally could be a good idea
[108:54] under certain circumstances?
[108:56] >> Thyulin itself has a very short
[108:58] half-life. The goal would be to increase
[109:00] endogenous production of the thymulin
[109:02] itself.
[109:02] >> How would you do that?
[109:03] >> So sufficient zinc status is necessary
[109:05] to make thyulin. The first sign of zinc
[109:07] depletion before RBC zinc or serum zinc
[109:10] decrease is your thyuline levels tank.
[109:13] I'd like to take a quick break and
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[110:35] copper.
[110:36] >> Yeah, most of the questions I get about
[110:38] it are from women.
[110:39] >> Yep.
[110:40] >> I sent out a little informal poll to the
[110:43] uh be careful how I say this. women in
[110:44] my life um including siblings and things
[110:47] like that and and almost all the women
[110:49] said, "What about GHQ copper? I hear it
[110:52] can be good for my skin. Should I use it
[110:54] topically, take it orally, or inject it?
[110:55] If I inject it, should I inject it
[110:56] locally?" I'm like, "Please don't inject
[110:57] it in your face cuz I don't as much as
[111:00] I'm comfortable with people giving
[111:01] themselves like a little, you know,
[111:02] sterile injection and you know, belly or
[111:04] something like I get worried about
[111:06] non-experts injecting themselves in the
[111:07] face and other other tissues. So, a lot
[111:10] of interest in this.
[111:12] >> What is it? Why has it made it into this
[111:14] kind of um aesthetic category?
[111:18] Because I'm guessing it has a lot of
[111:19] other effects too. But it's kind of
[111:20] funny how things kind of land in one
[111:22] region. Like creatine was like the
[111:23] muscle thing for a long time. Then it
[111:24] got some kind of like maybe it's good
[111:26] for cognition, maybe for people with
[111:28] Alzheimer's. Maybe women should take it
[111:29] too for all those reasons and more. And
[111:31] it kind of reverted back to like the
[111:32] muscle thing. GHKCU is a tripeptide um
[111:36] with a copper uh ion in the in the
[111:38] middle. It's glycine histadine and
[111:40] lysine. Um it's actually found in type
[111:43] one collagen fibers. So
[111:45] >> it's only where type one collagen fibers
[111:46] are
[111:47] >> all over your skin and hair and
[111:49] connective tissue. So
[111:51] >> uh just like Vladimir Cavson discovers
[111:53] these 40 different peptides, liver
[111:55] peptides, brain peptides, pineal
[111:56] peptides, whatever it may be, there's a
[111:58] American researcher Lauren Pikart, Dr.
[112:00] Lauren Pickard uh who's passed now he
[112:02] discovers GHKCU
[112:04] uh in the collagen tissue and he's like
[112:06] hey this might be the the factor that
[112:08] controls collagen synthesis and also
[112:10] collagen breakdown. So he does a bunch
[112:11] of studies his work is all about this.
[112:13] So almost all the the literature comes
[112:15] from this one lab a common theme in
[112:17] peptides unfortunately um he discovers
[112:19] it in maybe the mid70s it's um found to
[112:23] be very high in youth in in serum
[112:24] levels. So you'll find this in the blood
[112:26] of of anyone that we test um up to like
[112:28] 200 I think nanogs whatever the the unit
[112:31] was and then gets down to like in the
[112:32] levels of the 60s by the age of 65. So
[112:35] dramatically decreases with age. It's
[112:36] thought to be maybe what leads to the
[112:38] youthful appearance of young skin and
[112:40] with age you lose that effect. So he did
[112:43] a bunch of trials both topically for
[112:45] skin for hair. Um there's now injectable
[112:48] work being done. So, similar to the BPC,
[112:51] they would, you know, cut rats open,
[112:53] inject GHK copper, uh, in a different
[112:55] site, and they'd get faster wound
[112:57] repair, uh, of the the skin tissue from
[113:00] injecting this. So, that's, you know,
[113:02] it's become synonymous with BBC157,
[113:05] TB500, Wolverine stack, which is someone
[113:08] online just made up. And
[113:09] >> that's that's the Wolverine stack.
[113:10] >> It's those two. Yes.
[113:11] >> TB500 and and alpha.
[113:13] >> No, the T500 and BBC157.
[113:15] >> BBC157. Okay. Now people will add on GHK
[113:17] copper and call it the glow stack.
[113:19] >> The glow stack.
[113:20] >> Oh, interesting. Okay.
[113:22] >> Someone has made it up in a research
[113:23] chemical.
[113:24] >> Like a glow Wolverine. Yeah.
[113:25] >> Yeah. There's there's a big debate about
[113:27] whether or not if mixing those together
[113:28] causes, you know, denaturing of
[113:29] different peptides. That's beyond this
[113:32] discussion. Point is GHA copper. It both
[113:34] upregulates the synthesis side of
[113:36] collagen and the breakdown side of
[113:37] collagen. So, because when you're you're
[113:39] remodeling tissue, if you're just
[113:40] rebuilding it, you're you're going to
[113:42] get like very pathogenic uh structures.
[113:44] And if you're just breaking down, you're
[113:45] getting bad structures. So you're doing
[113:46] both. So the idea is does it number one
[113:49] have a skin effect, which it seems to
[113:50] be. The pickards, you know, compared it
[113:52] to to retinol and vitamin C creams and
[113:55] all these things with positive effects
[113:56] and people anecdotally talk about like,
[113:58] you know, their crows feet going away
[113:59] and topically it does good for them.
[114:01] There was a study on hair that didn't
[114:02] seem too promising. So it's not going to
[114:04] the peptide sites try to tell you like
[114:06] this is better than minoxidil. Not
[114:08] really. Maybe it could be an adjunct and
[114:10] a lot of patients will will have that
[114:12] success using that with some of their
[114:13] other topical um hair hair loss agents
[114:16] and now there's a Chinese group studying
[114:18] it for um lung regeneration because
[114:20] there's a lot of connective tissue in
[114:21] the lungs uh between the different
[114:23] alvoli and there's some you know hype
[114:26] there of using um GH copper as a
[114:28] regenerative from that side. How many
[114:30] people are trying to regenerate their
[114:31] lungs is for like COPD
[114:32] >> COPD and and smokers it's a big big
[114:35] issue.
[114:35] >> Maybe long lung CO from what I hear is a
[114:37] real thing. Lung damage from COVID. Y I
[114:40] know some people debate it but it seems
[114:41] like there are enough people walking
[114:42] around
[114:43] >> who were vaccinated and nonvaccinated
[114:44] who claim that they have
[114:46] >> symptoms postcoid that have last a long
[114:49] time aka long co. So that might be an
[114:51] interesting place for them to remain
[114:53] peptide curious.
[114:54] >> Yeah. And enthyic atrophy is a big part
[114:56] of the I suspect
[114:58] >> postco. Yeah, because any infection
[115:00] actually leads to we talk about the
[115:01] thymic involution that happens with age.
[115:03] There's thymic atrophy that happens
[115:04] after every infection the thymus kind of
[115:06] shrinks down and then the idea is that
[115:08] you you know recover you convoles we
[115:11] just have convolescent homes for for
[115:12] sick patients and then you regenerate
[115:13] your thymus in the state of health. I
[115:15] think the problem in modern day people
[115:16] are stressed out they're at work they
[115:18] get sick and they get keep getting sick.
[115:20] So they never get this this chance for
[115:21] that thymus rejuvenation. So then
[115:23] they're constantly getting hit down and
[115:24] they're ending up with these diseases of
[115:26] aging that could have maybe been
[115:27] augmented, amilarated, maybe pushed down
[115:29] had their thymus function been better in
[115:31] youth. Raise my hand, Professor Bachery.
[115:34] Um, I'm only half. I really feel like
[115:36] I'm in school. This is so cool for me. I
[115:37] I'm truly in heaven right now. If you
[115:39] look back at the literature on
[115:41] convolesing, how long were people uh
[115:44] recommended to take some time off after
[115:46] a cold or a flu or some other That's a
[115:48] good question. because I think this
[115:50] would tell us like are we just like with
[115:52] um sort of uh how long um maternity
[115:55] leave type things like you know the idea
[115:57] now is people are being forced to go
[115:58] back too quickly in countries like in
[116:00] Scandinavia perhaps where they get more
[116:01] time positive outcomes for baby and mom
[116:04] like I think it's an interesting and
[116:05] important question because our biology
[116:07] hasn't changed that much no in the last
[116:10] you know couple thousand years at least
[116:12] like after one has a cold typically
[116:14] people go back as soon as they deem
[116:16] themselves non-infectious which really
[116:18] worries
[116:18] Um, but do you think people are getting
[116:20] back to work too quickly? I mean, I
[116:22] understand the reasons why, but do you
[116:24] think that adding a stage of of really
[116:27] getting back to full functioning without
[116:29] getting into the, you know, back to the
[116:31] gym, back to work, back to everything is
[116:33] could be beneficial for these longevity
[116:35] effects,
[116:35] >> right? Right. Well, I mean, if you think
[116:37] about it, nothing that they do once they
[116:40] come back is is, you know, additive to
[116:42] healing. Their their circadian rhythms
[116:44] are are thrown off. They're under
[116:45] malilluminative lights all day. Okay,
[116:47] they're not getting sunlight. They're
[116:48] not their vitamin D levels are
[116:49] atrocious. Their blue light exposure at
[116:51] night is is high. Their stress levels
[116:52] are very high. Their guts are inflamed
[116:54] from from eating processed
[116:56] hyperprocessed hyper palatable foods.
[116:58] They have obesity or they're
[116:59] pre-diabetic. So all these things now
[117:01] lead to this inflammatory state and they
[117:03] just got sick and their thymus didn't
[117:04] bounce back. So then they get sick the
[117:06] next time in two or three weeks. Like
[117:08] post pandemic a lot of my colleagues
[117:10] were like dude I get sick three four
[117:11] times a winter now before I'd get sick
[117:13] you know once a winter. So this is where
[117:15] the interest in thyic peptides is very
[117:18] elusive. We have to figure out if the
[117:19] STPs or the PTE are the the the more
[117:22] interesting ones. There's synthetic
[117:23] thyic peptides thyself one thus beta 4in
[117:26] and there's purified thyic extracts.
[117:28] There's the the two different research
[117:30] committees that exist when it comes to
[117:31] the thymus. Which one will be more
[117:33] advantageous? Vladimir cabin came up
[117:35] with the thyimolin inject injectable and
[117:37] oral versions of that. and he had
[117:39] positive uh immune markers and he showed
[117:41] like CD4 cells come up and CD8 cells
[117:43] improve and all all his um immune
[117:46] markers become a more youthful state
[117:48] let's say
[117:49] >> but unfortunately what's happening here
[117:51] is we don't have thymologists like we
[117:53] don't have a branch of medicine that's
[117:55] dedicated to this aspect of immunity
[117:57] like there's you know allergy allergy
[117:59] and immun immunologists
[118:02] but they focus more on you know
[118:04] allergies to different agents or very
[118:07] severe immune diseases is they're not
[118:09] really addressing the immunity of the
[118:11] general public and how you can boost
[118:13] that. And I think post pandemic a lot of
[118:14] people started to ask hey how can I have
[118:16] better immunity for myself. Uh and now
[118:19] finally people are starting to talk
[118:20] about the thymus. Unfortunately it's
[118:21] been too little too late. That would
[118:22] have been great during the pandemic. uh
[118:24] because we could have used these thyic
[118:29] you know focused interventions whether
[118:30] it be zinc or you know uh thyic peptides
[118:34] or your purified thymic extracts to
[118:36] augment immunity of the population as a
[118:38] whole especially because Dr.
[118:40] was doing this in the 70s in Russia.
[118:42] Even in Russia, they don't really look
[118:44] kindly to this research. Um, the Soviet
[118:46] era research has been kind of pushed
[118:47] aside and it's like more big farmer
[118:49] style because it's more profitable
[118:50] because how many thymuses are you going
[118:51] to inject into people and how many
[118:53] thymuses exist on the planet to make
[118:55] these different peptides from
[118:56] >> but you could inject a lot of synthetic
[118:58] thymus and alpha TB500. Yes.
[119:00] >> Um, and maybe BPC so Wolverine stack
[119:04] plus you know.
[119:05] >> Yeah. So it'd be very interesting if if
[119:06] we can get that cuz now that everyone's
[119:07] getting like these puno scans and
[119:09] different full body MRIs, we can see the
[119:11] thymus size.
[119:12] >> I was going to ask you can can I get
[119:13] some sense of my thymic size and output
[119:16] from a blood draw or do I have to do
[119:17] whole body imaging? I've done whole body
[119:18] imaging. It is somewhat costly and
[119:20] that's that's a prohibitive barrier for
[119:22] for people. But if people can afford it,
[119:24] I actually think it can be useful. I
[119:26] have a number of friends including a
[119:27] neurosurgeon friend who said that he's
[119:29] um some people are still alive now
[119:31] because they got that scan. A lot of
[119:33] people get scared about what they see.
[119:35] Wouldn't you rather be scared about what
[119:36] you see and be told that it's okay than
[119:39] not know it's there and then have a
[119:41] catastrophic event?
[119:42] >> We always have a patient that comes in,
[119:44] you know, car accident, young 45year-old
[119:46] car accident, comes in, has a pancreatic
[119:48] mass that they would have never known
[119:50] about had they not had that accident.
[119:51] They get a CT scan just to check for any
[119:53] kind of internal bleeding. They find the
[119:54] pancreatic mass that gets removed. It
[119:56] ends up being a malignant mass that had
[119:57] they waited six months, they would have,
[119:59] you know, had stage four pancreatic
[120:00] cancer and passed away. So that's that's
[120:02] a theory. There is a concern about false
[120:03] positives and false negatives when it
[120:05] comes to these screening modalities.
[120:06] Like any screening modality is not
[120:08] perfect. So there's a big debate on
[120:09] whether or not to do do these that will
[120:11] leave to people and their physicians.
[120:12] But I'm I've been trying to lobby them
[120:14] to give the thymic score to everybody
[120:16] who gets one of these scans because they
[120:18] could see like, hey, can can you see
[120:19] where the thymus is at
[120:20] >> because, you know, someone might come
[120:21] in, you know, for five different scans
[120:23] over 5 years, they did a TRT protocol or
[120:26] a GH protocol or whatever it may be. And
[120:27] we could see did that improve uh thymics
[120:30] status or or make it worse or different
[120:32] infections, different interventions.
[120:34] That'd be very interesting to to kind of
[120:35] tease out on blood tests. We we've been
[120:37] trying to work with a couple different
[120:38] labs to figure out a thymic score. M the
[120:40] most commercially available is going to
[120:42] be a a lymphosy count which look at CD4
[120:44] to CD8. There's an ideal CD4 to CD8
[120:47] ratio that's more youthful. You don't
[120:48] want to have more CD8 cells than CD4
[120:51] cells. You don't want to have too few of
[120:52] either of them. That goes more into like
[120:54] the HIV literature. But the the most
[120:57] simple thing that almost every single
[120:58] person has gotten done but no one's
[121:00] looked at is their lymphosy to monocy
[121:02] ratio on their CBC. So almost
[121:04] everybody's gone to CBC with diff. It's
[121:05] a $3 lab test. If you type in any
[121:09] disorder, cardiovascular disease,
[121:10] cancer, uh diabetes and put lymphosytes
[121:13] to monocyt ratio, there's a study that
[121:14] will talk about how like low lymphosy to
[121:17] monocy ratio is associated with poor
[121:19] outcomes when it comes to that disease
[121:21] state. So it gives you kind of a general
[121:24] gestalt of what's going on with immunity
[121:25] because you want a high absolute
[121:27] lymphosy count not too high because it's
[121:28] associated with like lymphas but
[121:30] somewhere the hazard when you look at
[121:32] the charts around 1,000 total
[121:35] lymphosytes is um where the hazard of
[121:38] different cancer sites starts to
[121:40] increase a young healthy person will be
[121:42] between you know 1500 and 33,000 total
[121:45] lymphosytes and you want the ratio to
[121:47] the monocytes. Monocytes are different
[121:48] types of uh immune cells that are more
[121:50] inflammatory. So if you have a robust
[121:52] amount of lymphosytes with low amount of
[121:53] monocytes that suggests you have a more
[121:55] let's say ready and robust immune state.
[121:58] >> So $3 lab test that everybody gets
[122:00] almost every lab testing company now
[122:01] checks it and no one really do reports
[122:03] on it. But you can kind of u stratify
[122:05] people into disease risk based on that
[122:07] score.
[122:08] >> Out of a hundred randomly pulled um
[122:11] physicians who receive their license in
[122:14] the United States, how many of them
[122:15] probably know what you just described?
[122:17] >> Uh zero.
[122:18] >> Why not? It it's like rabbit holes that
[122:20] you kind of go down and find out. Like I
[122:22] I've been lobbing everyone in the
[122:23] hospital to look at this.
[122:24] >> But it's very easy, right? The data are
[122:25] there.
[122:25] >> No, I look
[122:26] >> It's not like you're saying, "Oh, you
[122:27] got to do all this additional work. You
[122:28] got to build insurance. I mean, it's
[122:30] there."
[122:30] >> Like I I I started to care about the
[122:32] thymus uh post pandemic because I
[122:33] noticed people's lymph counts were
[122:35] lower.
[122:35] >> And I I could notice that, you know,
[122:37] anecdotally or looking at, you know,
[122:39] small data sets like, "Hey, people had
[122:40] lower lymphosy counts had worse disease
[122:42] or like earlier like people that had
[122:44] cancers in their late 30s, early 40s."
[122:46] I'm like, "Huh, they all had like lower
[122:47] lymphosy counts." So I started to like
[122:49] dig into the literature and I'm lobbying
[122:51] a lot of the hematologists and
[122:52] infectious disease doctors in my
[122:53] hospital to start to look at this.
[122:54] Unfortunately they they kind of are
[122:56] textbook. It's not part of the
[122:57] guidelines. It's it's in a space that's
[123:00] not p pathology. So it's not clear like
[123:03] hey if I check your lymph site to
[123:04] monocite count right now is it going to
[123:05] change my management of you in the
[123:06] hospital today? Not really. It's more of
[123:08] a long-term look. So that's where all
[123:10] these direct to health uh direct to
[123:11] consumer um companies have an
[123:13] opportunity to kind of modulate the way
[123:15] medicine is practiced in the United
[123:16] States. But if if we have this metric
[123:19] that we can study, why not use it and
[123:21] then like try different interventions
[123:22] and see what actually helps people like
[123:25] we've gotten sometimes peptides. We've
[123:26] had people go from like a 4:1 lymph to
[123:28] monocy ratio to an 8 to1 ratio. Now is
[123:31] that significant? That seems to be
[123:33] significant. Um but no one's really kind
[123:35] of discussing it unfortunately.
[123:36] >> I know who I'm putting my vote in for
[123:38] surgeon general and uh if ever there's a
[123:40] turnover. I don't haven't explored the
[123:42] most recent person. So that's not a
[123:44] comment on her. It's um I know they
[123:46] elected to not uh vote Casey in. Um but
[123:49] uh so that's not truly not a mention. I
[123:51] haven't done but I I think uh your voice
[123:54] should be heard uh far and wide on these
[123:56] things that I mean like more data is
[123:57] good. The scientist in me just says you
[123:59] got the data. Data could be informative.
[124:01] Take a look.
[124:02] >> There's a category of peptides such as
[124:04] growth hormone secret testin MK677 that
[124:07] we could we could do the deep dive on
[124:09] all those but I'll just batch those and
[124:11] and maybe we parse them a little bit.
[124:13] and things like melanotans. Um these are
[124:16] >> to my understanding FDA approved for
[124:19] certain indications. So they've gone
[124:20] through the randomized control trials
[124:22] for like uh growth hormone secret dogs
[124:25] for uh small stature in kids. They might
[124:27] use it for that or for um postsurgical
[124:31] uh burn uh recovery. I think some HIV
[124:35] HIV HIV. So the idea here, the sort of
[124:38] framework that I'm I'm teeing up is that
[124:41] that these molecules are have been
[124:44] explored.
[124:45] >> Yep.
[124:46] >> For their known biological function in
[124:48] animals. It's established these
[124:50] molecules lead to an increase in growth
[124:52] hormone above what would normally be
[124:54] secreted. They do it indirectly by so
[124:56] they're sort of the gas pedal on that
[124:57] system. Growth hormone secret cause more
[125:00] growth hormone to be secreted, not
[125:01] actual growth hormone. They vary in
[125:03] terms of how much they stimulate hunger
[125:04] or don't stimulate hunger. Yep.
[125:06] >> And on on you should take them if you're
[125:08] going to take them before sleep, but not
[125:11] having eaten in the last two or three
[125:12] hours. All all that stuff. We can save
[125:14] ourselves some time here.
[125:15] >> Y
[125:16] >> most people who are taking these things,
[125:17] whether they get it from pharma or
[125:20] compounding pharmacy or gray market,
[125:22] research purposes only, um
[125:25] >> or black market, god forbid, they're
[125:27] doing this because they want to lose
[125:29] fat, gain muscle, recover from exercise
[125:31] more quickly, and look more youthful.
[125:33] >> Yep. Can we assume that those effects
[125:35] are real given that they were FDA
[125:37] approved for other things?
[125:39] >> Yeah. So when it comes to let's parse
[125:41] out the effects and and the different
[125:42] types of of compounds that exist in this
[125:44] category. So there's the grein side the
[125:46] grelin agonist like MK67 not FDA
[125:48] approved orally available pill that you
[125:50] makes you bleed out uh growth hormone
[125:52] like you make so much growth hormone in
[125:53] response to that and in non-pulsatile
[125:54] fashion. Growth hormone is a very
[125:56] circadian hormone that gets released in
[125:58] the first you know 90 minutes of a
[125:59] slowwave sleep. Um, and if you miss that
[126:02] big pulse, you're going to get small
[126:03] pulses throughout the day. The question
[126:05] is, is that big pulse better than small
[126:06] little, you know, u mini pulses
[126:09] throughout the day. The secrets will uh
[126:12] address the the broader category of
[126:14] something called somatopause. So, you've
[126:16] heard of menopause, you've heard of
[126:17] maybe andropause. Somatopause is this
[126:20] event that happens somewhere in the 30s
[126:22] where growth hormone production
[126:23] dramatically decreases. So if we kind of
[126:25] paint a picture, your pineal glands
[126:26] aging before puberty, your thymus right
[126:29] after puberty, you know, in your 20s,
[126:31] and in your 30s, you're having
[126:32] somatopause. That's where your growth
[126:34] hormone production is decreasing. You're
[126:35] having they call it adrenopause where
[126:37] your adrenals stop making as much DHEA
[126:39] and the different ratio of cortisol. And
[126:41] then you're having menopause, andropause
[126:42] and all the other chronic conditions. So
[126:44] it's like your first 50 years of your
[126:45] life, that's what you have to expect.
[126:47] The question has been, and it's a big
[126:48] debate in the medical community, is
[126:51] replacing growth hormone and addressing
[126:54] somatopause useful because you can
[126:55] measure if we had your IGF-1 when you're
[126:57] 18 and your IGF-1 when you're 30 and 50,
[126:59] it's going to be a dramatic decrease in
[127:00] that. Should we now replenish this
[127:03] IGF-1? The proponents will say IGF-1 is
[127:05] important for skin and and good quality
[127:07] sleep and for muscle recovery and joints
[127:10] and all these things and those are true.
[127:12] We know growth hormone has all these
[127:13] beneficial effects on that. We also know
[127:15] growth hormone is thymore regenerative
[127:17] because it stimulates the regrowth of an
[127:20] aged involuted thymus gland. Based on
[127:22] Dr. Fee's work, the question is, is
[127:24] there an ankcogenic signal when it comes
[127:26] to growth hormone?
[127:27] >> Does it cause cancer?
[127:28] >> Yes.
[127:28] >> Can it sorry, can it promote more rapid
[127:31] growth of other of existing cancer? I
[127:35] don't think anyone thinks it causes
[127:36] canc. And this is the big debate when
[127:37] people are like BBC causes cancer.
[127:39] There's no muten effect from BP is BPC
[127:42] like smoking a cigarette. Smoking a
[127:44] cigarette. you get carcinogenic damage
[127:45] to the lung tissue that causes a cancer
[127:47] later on. There's no direct mechanism
[127:49] that would link any of these peptides to
[127:50] a carcinogen carcinogenic effect. But is
[127:53] it you know a growth factor that could
[127:56] grow a cancer potentially? There isn't
[127:58] good data showing that the the debate
[128:00] may be like hey by boosting thymic
[128:02] function from growth hormone are you
[128:03] increasing immunity and then immune
[128:04] surveillance of different tumors right
[128:06] and therefore decreasing and then
[128:08] causing the scale. There's a big debate
[128:09] of of whether growth hormone is even
[128:11] beneficial when it comes to aging
[128:12] because growth hormone does grow certain
[128:14] tissues. There's models where people are
[128:16] growth hormone deficient and they live a
[128:17] lot longer
[128:18] >> and growth hormone is not positive when
[128:20] it comes to a cardio metabolic
[128:21] perspective.
[128:22] >> And in species like dogs where there's
[128:23] tremendous variation in the amount of
[128:25] IGF-1 that's made between say a
[128:27] chihuahua and a great dane. The breed
[128:30] that makes more IGF-1 downstream of
[128:32] growth hormone of course lives a lot
[128:34] shorter lives than smaller versions of
[128:36] the same species. So, you want a dog
[128:38] around for a long time, get a Chihuahua.
[128:40] You want a real dog, get a excuse me,
[128:41] you want a dog that lives a long time,
[128:43] get a great Dana or a bulldog. There's
[128:44] that whole discussion of what's better.
[128:46] And then you get into antagonistic
[128:48] pleotropy. Is this something that's good
[128:49] in youth but detrimental for longevity
[128:51] or is it prolongevity? And that's big
[128:53] the big debate in the longevity field,
[128:55] whatever that, you know, field is of
[128:57] whether or not to use growth hormone.
[128:58] So, now growth hormone has become very
[129:00] difficult to acquire through clinical
[129:01] prescriptions after the whole anabolic
[129:03] steroids act and buried bonds and all
[129:05] all that stuff. So people have now
[129:06] shifted to using secrets in lie of
[129:08] growth hormone.
[129:09] >> Also growth hormone is very expensive.
[129:11] >> Very expensive. Yeah. Like Fizer's pens
[129:13] are are in the thousands of dollars. So
[129:15] like if you want if you're rich you can
[129:16] afford to you know have a growth hormone
[129:18] have it but otherwise a security go cost
[129:20] you know less than 100 bucks.
[129:21] >> I'm told that growth hormone uh doesn't
[129:24] shut down one's own production.
[129:25] >> Yeah. It's not it's not a a uh strong
[129:28] shutdown like the uh testicular axis.
[129:32] I'm also told that when people take it,
[129:34] they feel awesome,
[129:36] >> which is scary to say on a podcast
[129:37] because you're like, "Oh, no. I don't
[129:38] want everyone running out." And, you
[129:39] know, young people are already making
[129:41] tons of it. But, I mean,
[129:42] >> that combination of looking younger,
[129:44] feeling great, cognitively feeling
[129:46] great. I mean, I have some friends
[129:47] who've taken like an IU a night or even
[129:50] two IUs a night, you know, five nights a
[129:51] week for for years. And
[129:54] >> you go, "Hey, like, are you worried
[129:55] about some of the tumor effects?" And
[129:56] they're like, you just function at a
[129:59] whole other level. and then you go, "Oh
[130:01] god, that's really enticing." But, you
[130:03] know, even with great imaging, you don't
[130:05] know if you've got tumors that you're
[130:06] accelerating in that case. So, it's kind
[130:08] of scary.
[130:08] >> Yeah. And and we don't have a data set
[130:09] that would show that. Like, where's the
[130:11] body count from from growth hormone? Uh
[130:13] like the bodybuilder body counts are
[130:14] from other compounds, not doing
[130:16] everything.
[130:17] >> Yeah. Exactly. I mean, when you go into
[130:18] a gym, you can tell who's who's doing
[130:20] growth hormone versus not based on their
[130:21] skin shining. like you see a 45-year-old
[130:23] dude that's through sematopause but has
[130:25] perfect young skin and
[130:26] >> you know there's Botox and all other
[130:27] things involved but you can tell there's
[130:28] that growth hormone look the hair looks
[130:30] a little bit healthier
[130:31] >> because growth hormone favors the
[130:32] conversion of T4 to T3 so it changes the
[130:34] thyroid dynamics it can have
[130:36] protesticular effects as well from the
[130:38] IGF-1 perspective so there's a lot of
[130:41] you know youthful effects to it the
[130:43] question is is that been a good idea to
[130:45] replace it traditionally like the
[130:47] medical field's kind of anti um using
[130:49] these secrets to augment sematopause but
[130:53] I think there's going to be a role for
[130:54] it perhaps cyclally because I don't
[130:56] think anything in nature is is year
[130:57] round so what if you did a cyclical
[130:59] cycle of and this is not medical advice
[131:01] but theoretical cyclical cycle of
[131:03] tesmoral for uh a certain amount of time
[131:06] got your IGF-1 to a certain level under
[131:07] clinician guidance measured your your
[131:10] thymus on an MRI before and after and
[131:11] then you saw that the thymus grew and
[131:12] you had you know higher CD4CA count that
[131:15] would be pretty interesting
[131:16] >> be interesting a few years back and I've
[131:18] told this story publicly before I tried
[131:20] um smearin Yeah,
[131:21] >> it's different than obviously than
[131:22] testom but similar in the sense the end
[131:25] point is you're seeking is more uh
[131:27] growth hormone IGF-1 and it dramatically
[131:30] increased my deep sleep and like nuked
[131:33] my REM sleep. It's like the opposite of
[131:35] pinealon together.
[131:36] >> Yeah. So well didn't try that. The other
[131:38] thing that it did and the reason I
[131:40] halted it almost right away because I
[131:41] was really just running it as an
[131:42] experiment on myself was that it spiked
[131:46] my PSA, my prostate specific antigen. It
[131:49] had always been in range and and
[131:51] relatively low. Boom. Spiked it and I
[131:53] was like, "Wo, that's wild." And I don't
[131:55] want that. Off it.
[131:57] >> Yeah.
[131:57] >> It reverted to a low level. So that was
[132:00] pretty striking. So obviously, you know,
[132:02] hyper respponsive prostate to smearin.
[132:05] Maybe it wouldn't have been to testo,
[132:07] etc. But but those are the kinds of
[132:08] things the growth hormone itself that
[132:11] growth hormone secretion. That's a good
[132:12] point. As you age, your prostate gets
[132:13] bigger. The bane of every man is going
[132:14] to be BPH. like that's going to be the
[132:16] reason that you hate your life when
[132:17] you're in your 60s and 70s because you
[132:19] have to wake up at night to to to pee
[132:21] >> and then when you're at, you know, an
[132:22] amusement park, you're going to have to
[132:23] find the nearest bathroom very
[132:24] frequently because your bladder size is
[132:26] >> it'll go it out. There's there's some
[132:27] prostate peptides we're looking at. So,
[132:30] >> there's a young guy old guy like
[132:31] taunting like, you know, you got 10 more
[132:33] years before you're miserable. Thanks.
[132:34] >> There's prostate peptides that uh
[132:35] Cington looked at that we're trying to
[132:37] translate some of that literature.
[132:38] >> You'll save me.
[132:39] >> No, there's there's people uh this guy
[132:40] named Brennan Henry who's translated
[132:42] like thousands of these papers from
[132:44] Russian to English. So shout out to
[132:45] Amnoiliation, but he's translated a lot
[132:46] of this Russian literature and helped us
[132:48] from that. So that's great. But the
[132:50] prostate is growing with age under the
[132:52] control of DHT and estrogen and then
[132:54] probably growth hormone. So the question
[132:55] is, do you want to be messing with that
[132:56] and increasing the size of that? There's
[132:58] there's concerns about, you know,
[132:59] cardiac growth, liver growth. So there's
[133:01] all these things, but also growth
[133:03] hormone and and the secrets have a
[133:06] negative effect on on insulin
[133:07] sensitivity,
[133:08] >> right?
[133:08] >> So people's A1C's will usually jump.
[133:11] Like the the joke in the bodybuilding
[133:12] community is you have to get lean enough
[133:13] and healthy enough to be able to take
[133:14] growth hormone.
[133:15] >> Oh, what's happening?
[133:16] >> Growth hormone or the secretogs.
[133:17] >> The growth hormone more so the
[133:19] >> it can make you insulin insensitive.
[133:21] >> Yes. Uh especially with more like
[133:22] tesmlin especially when combined with
[133:24] epomorlin. Ceremorine is kind of a
[133:25] weaker um GHR. Tesmorine especially when
[133:28] combined with eporin. Tesmor is FDA
[133:30] approved. Eporin is not. The the GHR
[133:33] versus GHRP kind of in the weeds there.
[133:34] Those two together can create a giant
[133:37] growth hormone response where your IGF-1
[133:38] is in the 380s, 390s. Um, so that's
[133:41] that's that's quite high like puberty
[133:43] levels of IGF-1
[133:44] >> and you're hungry all the time.
[133:45] >> Yeah. Yeah. With MK for sure with with
[133:48] tessimorin. So tesmorland has more
[133:50] fidelity uh less grein effects
[133:52] especially um because you can have grein
[133:55] effects, prolactin effects and cortisol
[133:57] effects from whenever you're mucking
[133:58] around with the pituitary because
[133:59] they're all in that in that same area.
[134:01] Um, I think MK bleeds out the worst when
[134:04] it comes to having the other effects. MK
[134:06] is not a peptide. It's a a non-eptide
[134:09] GHRP.
[134:10] >> What's happened now is people are now
[134:12] stacking their GLP-1 as their insulin
[134:15] sensitivity tool, their growth hormone
[134:18] or their GHR
[134:19] >> and their androen modulation therapies
[134:22] as this trinity stack.
[134:23] >> Trinity stack
[134:24] >> to get very fit, very healthy quickly.
[134:27] So a lot of these transformations you
[134:28] see in CEOs and celebrities and stuff is
[134:30] using a combination of those three
[134:32] things. You know your TRT plus maybe
[134:34] anavar with tzeptide or retrruide
[134:37] whatever it may be and then using a
[134:39] growth hormone modulation with your if
[134:41] you can afford growth hormone or that's
[134:42] more epor and you're seeing people lose
[134:44] a lot of fat gain a lot of muscle in
[134:47] short amounts of time. Is that healthy?
[134:48] We'll find out. But that is like the
[134:51] celebrity protocol.
[134:52] >> Very interesting. And I'm guessing that
[134:54] for women the it's the combination of
[134:57] growth hormone secret plus um something
[135:00] like and we'll talk about these now uh
[135:02] reatride or um one of the other GLPs.
[135:05] I'm going to acknowledge because people
[135:06] are going to start like dart throwing
[135:08] darts at me about this. Yes, reatride is
[135:10] hitting things other than the GLP
[135:11] pathway. It's also GIP and glucagon
[135:13] pathway but most people put it under the
[135:15] category of GLP. So you are an
[135:18] encyclopedic my friend. I I really
[135:20] really appreciate the clarity and the
[135:22] thoughtfulness of your answers on these.
[135:24] And as people are probably becoming
[135:26] aware, we could spend 50 hours talking
[135:29] about salank about cerebral ly. I think
[135:31] we we will have to have you back to
[135:32] explore those other ones. There are a
[135:33] few other things I'd like to talk about
[135:34] if you're willing to give us the time.
[135:36] We should close the hatch on
[135:38] >> GHKCU. I misspoke and I saw it in your
[135:42] eyes. You're like, he said it wrong. Do
[135:43] I correct him? Yes, correct me. Everyone
[135:45] else does. Um GHKCU for the collagen
[135:48] effects. It's available in a lot of
[135:50] creams, assuming it's real, assuming
[135:51] people are doing this medically
[135:53] supervised. Um, is there any benefit to
[135:55] putting it directly on crow's feet or
[135:58] other wrinkles or face versus injecting
[135:59] it for it to go systemically?
[136:01] >> Yeah, I think if you have a well-
[136:02] formulated topical that's actually not
[136:04] broken down because a lot of these, you
[136:06] know, from these research chemites, they
[136:07] sell topicals now because everyone's in
[136:08] skincare. Uh, they're, you know, poor
[136:10] quality. They're not even blue. Like the
[136:12] GHK should be blue, but that that is
[136:14] blue
[136:14] >> from the copper. Yeah.
[136:15] >> Okay, that makes sense. My copper pills
[136:17] are blue. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah.
[136:18] Okay.
[136:19] >> But that doesn't mean that it's real.
[136:20] Could be copper that's fallen out of the
[136:22] G the complex of the GHK. So yeah, you
[136:24] want a well formulated like a good
[136:25] skinare brand that knows how to
[136:26] formulate these uh and deliver them into
[136:28] the skin cuz that's that's another
[136:29] thing. So like you know every skincare
[136:31] brand has their now GHK formulation cuz
[136:33] people are demanding it but it's been
[136:34] around for 30 40 years on topical. The
[136:37] injectable is not FDA approved of
[136:39] course. I think it's going to be on the
[136:40] second round of discussions when it
[136:41] comes to the peptides coming back to
[136:43] category one. The first round is going
[136:44] to have these seven peptides BPC, TB,
[136:46] etc. I think the second round is going
[136:48] to look at GHK. I don't imagine that
[136:49] that makes that there's no good human
[136:51] data on that. But topically, there's
[136:53] great human data on like different
[136:55] aesthetic outcomes, especially when
[136:56] coupled with red light therapy um
[136:58] because it seems that the the blue
[137:00] pigment and and the red light seem to be
[137:02] synergistic in that effect. There's also
[137:04] some some uh literature when it comes to
[137:06] GHKU um for post um UV damage. So people
[137:10] that are, you know, sun friendly um can
[137:13] use GHKCU topically to alleviate some of
[137:16] the the photo damage. Of course,
[137:17] dermatologists are going to get mad at
[137:18] us and say like you you just use
[137:20] sunscreen and don't get the damage in
[137:21] the first place. But for people that you
[137:23] know aren't as responsible, you can use
[137:24] GHKCU as a you know, post sunscreen.
[137:26] Listen to the derms who are slightly
[137:29] more sun positive like especially low
[137:31] low UV index sun when the sun is low in
[137:34] the sky.
[137:35] >> Yep.
[137:35] >> Uh Dr. Abud Bakri is is perhaps the only
[137:38] other person on the planet besides um my
[137:41] friend Samra Hatar who's been on this
[137:43] podcast who's as excited about circadian
[137:45] biology as an organizing feature uh as I
[137:48] am. There are a couple others out there
[137:49] but in terms of people who are like
[137:50] really grounded in what's real that he's
[137:52] um he I put him in that category whether
[137:54] he likes it or not. So people are taking
[137:57] GHKCU
[137:58] cream putting it on and then doing red
[138:00] light therapy and there are human data
[138:01] that that perhaps can augment some of
[138:03] the collagen repairative effects. the
[138:06] photoagging effects, some of the the
[138:07] effects of aging when compared to like
[138:09] different retinols and stuff like that.
[138:11] I think the the consensus in the field
[138:13] now is to use it with the rest of your
[138:14] skincare routine, not in place of it.
[138:16] >> Um, but a lot of people, especially bros
[138:19] that have never been into skincare, are
[138:20] now into skincare because of
[138:21] >> Oh my goodness.
[138:22] >> Yeah. So, there's that, but it's
[138:24] promising.
[138:24] >> Bros are into skinincare.
[138:27] >> Be a documentary before long like what
[138:28] do you call that? The manosphere. It's
[138:30] like the skinosphere.
[138:31] >> Well, with with looks maxing, that's
[138:32] it's it's the looks maxing peptide now.
[138:34] GHK because all these guys that are into
[138:37] looks maxing will use GHK.
[138:38] >> They're dipping their hammer in GHK CU
[138:41] and and tapping themselves. And by the
[138:43] way, if you want great longwavelength
[138:45] red near infrared and infrared light to
[138:48] augment your GHK CU uh peptide, by the
[138:51] way, I'm not suggesting that. There's
[138:52] this thing called sunlight that provides
[138:54] that. You just have to be careful not to
[138:56] get too much UV in the process. So
[138:57] before before uh people start thinking
[138:59] they absolutely need a red light device.
[139:01] >> Full spectrum, too. full spectrum,
[139:03] balanced, great article in Nature we can
[139:05] link to recently that describes the
[139:06] different uh spectrums coming out of
[139:08] different devices and that thing that we
[139:09] call the sun which is the best source of
[139:10] all of that
[139:11] >> and better blue light too
[139:12] >> and better
[139:13] >> because we're deprived of 480 nmters in
[139:16] this setup that you have full spectrum
[139:17] lighting that that we don't know about.
[139:19] >> I don't get paid to say what I'm about
[139:20] to say but I'm really excited about
[139:22] something. For a long time, I've used
[139:23] Bon Chargar's bulbs cuz they have these
[139:26] bulbs that switch from full spectrum in
[139:28] the day. Then you, you know, flip the
[139:29] same switch and it goes to yellow and
[139:31] then flip flip the switch again and it
[139:32] goes to red. I find the red to be kind
[139:34] of difficult to navigate at night. Raw
[139:36] optics.
[139:37] >> Yep. Then you want
[139:38] >> made one that goes from like a morning
[139:41] really bright light full spectrum with a
[139:43] with some a lot of blue in there on
[139:44] purpose to wake you, you know, part of
[139:46] the way
[139:46] >> and the right blue. The 480 cyan blue
[139:49] >> switch the same switch. Don't have to
[139:50] change the bulb. goes to kind of a late
[139:52] morning mode to afternoon mode and then
[139:54] goes to candle light mode in the
[139:56] evening. And here's the cool thing. Not
[139:57] only did they get the spectrum and the
[139:59] balance right, but it doesn't flicker.
[140:02] They got rid of the flicker that you get
[140:03] from LEDs and yet it's an LED, so it's
[140:06] >> energy efficient. Yep. Infrared and
[140:08] >> Yeah. And I have no affiliation to them
[140:10] whatsoever. I pay full price for these
[140:11] things. And I have to say, I really,
[140:13] really like them. Even my bulldog puppy
[140:15] has a little one. I have this little
[140:16] monkey holding a lamp and I say, "When
[140:18] the monkey goes to candle light, you're
[140:19] going to sleep." and he knows he's
[140:21] learning when it goes to Cantalite. Now
[140:22] he's sorry he's a dromat not a tri
[140:24] chromat but that's a different podcast.
[140:25] All right GLPS yep now we can
[140:29] comfortably exhale into your colleagues
[140:32] can you can feel completely comfortable
[140:34] about anything that uh that they might
[140:37] think or say because the GLPs are the
[140:40] reason why people are comfortable
[140:42] injecting themselves. It's why this
[140:43] whole thing of peptides has really taken
[140:45] off. BPC kind of rode in on the GLPs in
[140:48] my opinion even though it's been around
[140:50] for a long time and so have all the
[140:51] other peptides we've been talking about.
[140:53] >> So what are your thoughts? I've never
[140:55] taken one of these. Um first things
[140:58] first, we're hearing that some people I
[141:02] think Sam Alman actually talked about
[141:03] this publicly um overdose with with Cara
[141:05] Swisser about what he thought yeah where
[141:07] he overdosed actually a compound
[141:09] pharmacy issue he thought was what did
[141:11] it. I trust him to do the right
[141:12] calculation. And so it does sound like
[141:13] that was a compounding pharmacy issue.
[141:14] >> Could afford it? Is the buy the farmer a
[141:16] great option?
[141:16] >> I think back then people were just
[141:17] getting them where they can. I I didn't
[141:19] ask him why uh why that happened, but
[141:22] nonetheless, get the dosage right. Make
[141:24] sure you're getting the right stuff
[141:25] clean. But he talked about the kind of
[141:28] lack of uh motivation, which many people
[141:31] have described anecdotally um like,
[141:34] okay, lowered their food drive, but
[141:36] lowered their drive period.
[141:38] >> Yep.
[141:38] >> Makes sense,
[141:40] >> you know, depending on which pathways
[141:41] are being affected. But do you think
[141:43] that's a real effect? Is that something
[141:44] that people need to be concerned about?
[141:45] Do you think people can micro dose this
[141:47] stuff? Because a lot of people are micro
[141:48] doing it regardless of what their source
[141:50] is. They're taking a lot less than the
[141:52] kind of standard clinical trials will
[141:53] be. And we're leaving out red tide for
[141:55] now because it's so new. We're going to
[141:56] talk about it, but I'm talking about the
[141:59] >> standard ifide.
[142:01] Yeah. I'll tell you that you have your
[142:02] you know semiglutide which is obey and
[142:04] uh the wgov is the FDA approved version
[142:06] for the weight loss. For teptide you
[142:08] have zeppbound and moner. Zapbound being
[142:10] the FDA approved version for weight loss
[142:12] that allows them to keep their patents
[142:13] for longer. um these medications are
[142:16] good kind of transforming medicine
[142:18] especially where where I practice right
[142:20] if you if we kind of zoom out our
[142:22] medical system if we didn't have these
[142:24] interventions was going to collapse on
[142:25] itself thanks to the obesity
[142:27] pre-diabetes diabetes epidemics because
[142:30] we don't have enough clinicians or
[142:32] finances to get everybody who was
[142:34] pre-diabetic in the in the last you know
[142:36] 20 years and they all transitioned to
[142:37] diabetes and ended up with you know
[142:39] diabetic medications and dialysis and
[142:41] eventually cardiovascular disease and
[142:43] all these things we don't have the
[142:44] resources to take care of all these
[142:45] people like our medical system was going
[142:47] to collapse and there wasn't enough
[142:49] finances to take care of it. Now these
[142:50] GLP1s are coming in and kind of
[142:52] transforming that phase of medicine
[142:54] because now we have a chance to
[142:56] dramatically change the rate of obesity
[142:59] uh diabetes pre-diabetes and all these
[143:01] cardio metabolic disorders. So where do
[143:04] we stand? We needed something to happen.
[143:06] I mean, ideally, everybody, you know,
[143:07] would get morning sunlight and eat only
[143:09] healthy foods, unprocessed foods, and
[143:10] have low stress and sleep great at night
[143:12] and maybe no one would develop to become
[143:13] obese. But the reality is people become
[143:16] overweight, obese. They get stuck in
[143:18] that hole. And if you just try to step
[143:20] out of the hole the way you came in,
[143:22] sometimes that doesn't work. You need a
[143:23] different path out of that problem. And
[143:26] that that's been, you know, the diet and
[143:28] exercise literature for the last 40
[143:29] years. Millions of books have been sold
[143:31] on how to get people leaner. We now have
[143:34] interventions medically that can
[143:35] dramatically change people's weights for
[143:37] the first time. We've had drugs in the
[143:38] past that you know 5 10% of body weight.
[143:41] Now with the GLP1s we're getting 10 20
[143:43] even 30% of body weight being shaved off
[143:46] of people especially with the new
[143:47] reduced data. Is there a free lunch?
[143:50] That's the big question. Like like we
[143:52] kind of talked about earlier there's
[143:53] always been these medical mishaps that
[143:54] have happened. So far the data is very
[143:57] promising when it comes to GLP1s and
[143:59] that we are now reversing this rate of
[144:01] chronic disease. Is it going to stay
[144:03] that way? That's a good question. I'm
[144:04] I'm cautiously uh optimistic when it
[144:06] comes to these medications. I've been
[144:09] prescribing them since I was a resident.
[144:10] Uh in my VA clinic, I was putting all
[144:13] these vets that are, you know, 300 lb on
[144:15] GLV1s, they were losing 50, 100 lb.
[144:18] Before it was FDA approved for weight
[144:20] loss. We knew that that if you put
[144:21] diabetics on this drug, they would lose
[144:23] weight thanks to a lot of the
[144:24] bodybuilders um that kind of pioneered
[144:26] that.
[144:27] >> When did the bodybuilders first start
[144:28] using GLPS?
[144:29] >> Uh late 20110s. Wow.
[144:32] >> And then the signal I don't I don't
[144:35] think Norvo or Lily wanted to make these
[144:36] for obesity. They were focused on making
[144:38] diabetes drugs because like if we zoom
[144:40] out even further, this is another animal
[144:42] derived compound, right? It's found in
[144:44] the the saliva of the Hila monsters.
[144:48] GLP1 was discovered. It's too um short
[144:51] acting to have worked on its own. Then
[144:53] pharmaceutical companies, this is where
[144:54] you got to give pharma their credit.
[144:55] they developed these drugs into more
[144:56] functioning versions that had you know
[144:58] longer half- lives and could stick
[145:00] around in the serum for longer to have
[145:01] the clinical effect. So then we started
[145:03] noticing that diabetics like my my
[145:04] grandma got uh Betta which was one of
[145:07] these first uh GOP one drugs like 25
[145:09] years ago. It was the out of all the
[145:10] drugs she was on the reason I went into
[145:12] medicine that was the drug that changed
[145:14] her her whole trajectory because she had
[145:17] less insulin needs and she was losing
[145:18] weight and more energetic. So we had
[145:20] seen the effects on diabetics and then
[145:22] you get luraglutide dlutide and then
[145:24] eventually semiglutide was the is the
[145:26] blockbuster but you get all these
[145:28] positive effects coming from these drugs
[145:30] on diabetics. It gets translated into
[145:32] obese people and overweight patients.
[145:34] The question is what is the long-term
[145:37] effect of this? Do you have to stay on
[145:38] this drug forever? Um can you titer it
[145:40] off? The the pharmaceutical companies
[145:41] have not given us good guidelines on
[145:42] that. They've shown us what happens if
[145:43] you stop the drug. You can max out on
[145:45] maximum dose. Pull the brakes on. People
[145:48] tend to sometimes gain the weight. Some
[145:50] people don't, but some people will
[145:51] regain back to baseline. Because if you
[145:53] think about it, the better way to think
[145:55] about weight loss, it's a calculation
[145:57] your brain does every single day with
[145:58] all the different hormones and and
[146:00] peptides that are made from the gut, the
[146:02] GIP GLP glucagon insulin
[146:05] testosterone, estrogen, all these things
[146:06] kind of modulate. And there's this thing
[146:08] called a set point theory or settling
[146:10] points and they integrate. Should I eat
[146:12] or not eat, right? So the GP1 is a giant
[146:15] signal to the brain of don't eat. So
[146:17] we're we're modulating this pathway.
[146:20] What happens to all these young kids
[146:21] that are 18 19 years old on 5 milligrams
[146:24] of ratutide uh that have lost 30 40
[146:26] pounds? Are they going to have to be on
[146:27] that for life now to maintain that
[146:29] weight?
[146:29] >> Can I ask you about that? Because when
[146:31] people say
[146:33] perhaps you have to be on a drug for the
[146:34] rest of your life, I think okay, what's
[146:36] the availability? What's the cost?
[146:38] >> What's the real world cost of taking six
[146:40] months off because you can't access it?
[146:42] Y there's a shortage and maybe better
[146:44] drugs will come along. Like I don't
[146:45] necessarily have a problem with it.
[146:47] Although if you talk to type 1 diabetics
[146:49] in the old days, they weren't crazy
[146:50] about the idea that they had to
[146:51] constantly inject themselves with
[146:53] insulin. Now there are better better
[146:54] delivery devices. I kind of feel like
[146:56] eventually there'll be some slowrelease
[146:58] um polymer that will just kind of give
[147:01] you a micro dose of it. You could dial
[147:02] it up if you want.
[147:03] >> Those are all pills. Now
[147:04] >> personally I don't worry so much about
[147:06] like for the rest of your life. I worry
[147:07] more about the much shorter life if
[147:09] people are obese. But what about these
[147:12] brain effects? I I do worry about a
[147:14] brain that's developing in the context
[147:16] of of a you know thousandfold or more
[147:19] increase in these GLPs because when we
[147:21] had um Zach Knight on the podcast, he's
[147:23] not a clinician, he's a scientist up at
[147:24] UCSF, Howard Hughes investigator, which
[147:26] means he's like a superstar and deserves
[147:28] to be in that category. He described
[147:30] that the diabetic drugs would increase
[147:32] GLP by like like double, quadruple, but
[147:36] the weight loss effects weren't really
[147:37] there. But the drugs that you rattled
[147:40] off a few minutes ago, Monaro, Zmpic,
[147:42] etc. And certainly Red True Tide. We're
[147:44] talking about thousandfold increases in
[147:46] GPS, we don't know what the long-term
[147:47] effects of those are on like
[147:48] neuroplasticity and learning. Could be
[147:50] great. Yes.
[147:51] >> Could be positive. We shouldn't always
[147:52] assume those effects are bad.
[147:53] >> Yeah. Like the effects for like let's
[147:55] say a 60-year-old pre-diabetic diabetic
[147:57] on Alzheimer's disease seems to be
[148:00] potentially positive. I think the the
[148:01] study last year didn't show a good
[148:03] signal on our Alzheimer's prevention,
[148:04] but we know diabetes and cardio
[148:06] metabolic disease speeds up that
[148:08] transition. So controlling insulin
[148:10] dynamics might be beneficial there and
[148:12] the obesity is not great for for
[148:13] Alzheimer's risk. The question is what
[148:15] about for like these cognitive effects?
[148:16] Is the effect happening from the drug
[148:18] itself? Is it from misuse of the drug?
[148:20] Too too high of a dose. You're not
[148:22] getting enough electrolytes. You're not
[148:23] getting enough micronutrients,
[148:25] macronutrients. You know, your blood
[148:26] sugar is low. Because a lot of these
[148:28] patients, the way we we approach it is
[148:31] training wheel effect when it comes to
[148:32] GLP-p1s. Like, hey, you come to us,
[148:34] you're a patient, you want to use GLP1s,
[148:35] we'll give you a lowest dose as possible
[148:37] that has an effect for you, GLP-1 in
[148:39] conjunction with lifestyle modification,
[148:41] dietary advice, exercise programs, etc.,
[148:44] etc., and then hopefully peel away those
[148:46] those training wheels or keep them on if
[148:48] you need them until we get to the end
[148:50] point that we want. Now, when people do
[148:52] it that way, I don't hear a lot of these
[148:54] effects anecdotally from from Brookley
[148:56] patients that we hear about online where
[148:58] people are like, "Oh, I'm depressed. I
[148:59] hate my life from from these drugs." And
[149:02] the question is, are they just, you
[149:03] know, a lot of people have low blood
[149:04] pressure from from these drugs because
[149:06] they're not, you know, consuming enough
[149:07] electrolytes or enough food period?
[149:09] >> Cuz like some people will take a mega
[149:11] dose of these drugs and end up not
[149:13] eating like a day goes by, they've eaten
[149:17] one meal. That's not conducive to to
[149:19] good feeling good. everyone, you know,
[149:20] the reason people are eating in the
[149:21] first place is because eating is is such
[149:22] a pleasurable experience for humans and
[149:24] a social experience, etc., etc. The
[149:26] other thing is if you're not eating with
[149:27] people on the same table, are you having
[149:28] less of that socialization aspect? A lot
[149:30] of times you meet up to eat or drink or
[149:32] whatever it may be. So I'm very curious
[149:35] when it comes to the cognitive effects,
[149:36] is it from the drug directly interacting
[149:38] with receptors in the brain when we
[149:40] we've seen that the right amount of dose
[149:41] decreases inflammation in the brain or
[149:43] is it because of the social aspects of
[149:45] the drug changing the way you behave and
[149:47] therefore leading to negative out? dare
[149:49] you think of confounding variables. It's
[149:51] like, no, it's so cool cuz you're
[149:52] willing to go outside the box and say,
[149:54] "Hey, listen, this might be due to some
[149:56] of the um downstream consequences of of
[149:59] reduced appetite."
[150:00] >> Yeah. And we know the literature shows
[150:01] that people now are having less alcohol
[150:03] cravings from this. It might be changing
[150:05] the way the dopanergic signaling is
[150:06] happening in the brain, which is
[150:08] concerning, right? Because a lot of
[150:09] people will be stacking this with, you
[150:11] know, ADHD medications. Uh they might be
[150:13] using some of these peptide stimulants,
[150:15] um smax link, whatever it may be. So the
[150:17] question because what happens is people
[150:18] go to these websites, they they buy one
[150:19] more peptide and they got a great result
[150:21] and they'll be like, you know, let me
[150:22] add three more peptides on peptides.
[150:23] >> Yes, it's a increasing AOV problem. So
[150:26] the average sale value goes up
[150:28] >> from these research sites.
[150:30] >> We'll see where where GLP ones go. The
[150:32] the the reality is it's here. There
[150:34] there is no pre GLP1 world for us as
[150:36] clinicians, as health enthusiasts. We're
[150:38] in a postg world and everything kind of
[150:41] dictates downstream from that. The
[150:43] people I know who've taken um these and
[150:45] I don't know exactly which are taking
[150:47] much lower dosages than were prescribed
[150:48] to them and they are indeed sharing them
[150:51] with getting the prescription than
[150:53] people are sharing them. People are cost
[150:54] sharing now people are trying to get
[150:56] them from other sources. Several of
[150:58] those people say they they feel like
[151:00] they can think better. But I told them,
[151:01] well yeah, if your insulin sensitivity
[151:03] is improved, if you're carrying less
[151:05] body fat, body fat's an endocrine organ.
[151:07] It's you know you need some body fat.
[151:09] But
[151:10] >> there could be a number of reasons for
[151:11] that. I don't know if these are direct
[151:12] effects on the brain.
[151:13] >> Yeah. Well, I mean leptin sensitivity
[151:14] increases as you decrease the body fat
[151:16] mass. There's there's GP1 receptors on
[151:18] the palm neurons in the brain and no
[151:20] one's kind of examined what that means
[151:21] downstream for the leptin melano uh
[151:23] leptin melanocortin pathway and what
[151:25] that means for energy status you know
[151:27] thyroid hormone production reproductive
[151:29] status. We know a lot of people are oyic
[151:31] babies in that a lady will will be
[151:33] subfertile or infertile start a weight
[151:36] loss drug and then find out by accident
[151:38] she's pregnant.
[151:39] >> Was she obese before? Yeah, there's
[151:41] these are overweight obese women that
[151:43] are having um their fertility improve as
[151:45] a result of losing the weight because we
[151:46] know
[151:47] >> uh your leptin status is a key driver of
[151:49] fertility because if if you're having
[151:50] low leptin levels, you're starving. You
[151:52] shouldn't be fertile. If you have too
[151:53] much leptin and you're at leptin
[151:55] resistant, you shouldn't be having kids
[151:56] either. So, both of those those things
[151:59] kind of get modulated by these drugs as
[152:01] well.
[152:01] >> There was a science paper some years ago
[152:03] that leptin hitting a certain threshold
[152:05] is actually what signals the onset of
[152:06] puberty in females. Is that still
[152:08] considered true? I think that's that's
[152:10] that's part of it
[152:11] >> makes sense like enough body fat to
[152:12] signal that there are enough resources
[152:14] and then um animals or that was an
[152:16] animal study or the idea was that people
[152:18] perhaps also become females become
[152:20] reproductively competent at the point
[152:21] where there's enough energetic resources
[152:23] that
[152:24] >> interesting. Have you ever taken one of
[152:25] these?
[152:25] >> Oh wow. Yes. I uh I uh had a family
[152:30] member with a GLP1 pen uh from four
[152:33] years ago that um said it wasn't
[152:36] working. So I'm like okay let's see
[152:37] what's going on here. I got a pen. Don't
[152:40] do Don't do this at home. And I was
[152:41] like, "Yeah, it's not working. Like,
[152:42] it's bunked. They got it from overseas.
[152:43] It was a a brand name Ozamic pen, but
[152:46] gotten from overseas." Got the pen. I
[152:48] was like, "You know what? If it's bunk,
[152:49] let's see what it is. Don't do this at
[152:50] home." Biohackers in me came out and
[152:52] tried it. I injected a I think it was a
[152:55] milligram of ombic.
[152:56] >> What's a standard dose?
[152:57] >> You start at 0.25 and escalate to 0.5.
[153:00] >> You went straight to a milligram.
[153:01] >> Yeah. Cuz I was like, "Ah." They're
[153:02] like, "It doesn't work. I'm I'm eating
[153:03] so much." I'm like, "Okay, whatever."
[153:04] You got bunk bunk pen from overseas. I
[153:07] go to do a shift. I was on a night shift
[153:09] that day and I've never had Charizard
[153:12] like projectile vomiting
[153:15] >> and low blood sugar presumably.
[153:16] >> The blood sugar effect for for
[153:17] non-diabetics don't get that low, but it
[153:19] was just miserable. Like I would I would
[153:21] go admit a patient, go upstairs, vomit
[153:24] in the in the call room.
[153:25] >> You just gave a really good reason why
[153:27] people shouldn't just do what you just
[153:28] described.
[153:29] >> No, they shouldn't do that. Uh then go
[153:31] back to back to the ER, admit a patient,
[153:33] and then it was it was the most
[153:34] miserable night of my life. Uh so be
[153:37] very careful how you use these drugs.
[153:39] That's why titrate very slowly. Um
[153:41] luckily with the newer ones the effects
[153:43] are much less like people who report and
[153:45] retroide even have less of these
[153:47] gastrointestinal effects
[153:49] >> but um that's a peptide gone wrong
[153:51] story.
[153:52] >> Peptide gone wrong. Um reatride. Yep.
[153:55] >> I put out a post on X. I thought and I
[153:58] do still think that it that Red True
[154:00] Tide is going to be a trillion dollar
[154:01] industry. Not because so many people are
[154:04] necessarily going to use it for weight
[154:05] loss,
[154:06] >> but because many people will use it for
[154:08] weight loss. Many people will use it for
[154:10] other things because you can be sure,
[154:12] absolutely sure that Lily is going to
[154:15] find other
[154:16] >> ways to market it. And you can protect a
[154:19] patent by finding additional uses for
[154:21] things. I mean, a lot of the the
[154:22] blockbuster drugs for eye diseases, um,
[154:25] the patents to prevent generic forms um,
[154:29] were continued by Here's the deal,
[154:30] folks. companies are really incentivized
[154:32] to take the hundreds of millions of
[154:34] dollars that they spent on clinical
[154:35] trials and research and development and
[154:36] not have to do it again. So, if you can
[154:38] find another valid use for a drug, you
[154:41] don't have to run all the safety stuff,
[154:42] you don't have to do a lot of stuff, you
[154:44] just have to show efficacy and a few
[154:46] other things, but that's the way that
[154:48] drug companies continue to play the game
[154:51] um to protect their their investment,
[154:53] right? I mean, it's you can understand
[154:54] why they do it. If you like or not,
[154:56] that's that's your business. But um so
[154:58] I'm guessing that Reddit True Tide is
[155:00] going we're going to discover that it's
[155:02] um useful for a number of things and
[155:04] from the clinical trials there's a
[155:05] reason to believe that's going to be the
[155:06] case.
[155:07] >> And the big thing they're trying to do
[155:08] now is classify as a biologic. So
[155:09] Retroide has 39 amino acids. Uh to be a
[155:11] biologic you have to be above 40 amino
[155:13] acids.
[155:13] >> And once you get to above 40 amino
[155:15] acids, if you are a biologic, then the
[155:17] patent lasts
[155:18] >> way longer. I don't know the exact
[155:19] number.
[155:20] >> It's like 15 years.
[155:21] >> Yeah. Much much longer. If it's a if
[155:22] it's 40 or below amino acids, then it's
[155:25] something like five five to seven years.
[155:27] >> Someone in law will have that.
[155:28] >> So, we're talking like hundreds of
[155:29] hundreds of millions of dollars, maybe
[155:31] billions of dollars. If it's a if you
[155:33] and you can tinker with this, you can
[155:35] amino acids
[155:35] >> and more importantly, no one can
[155:36] compound it if it's a biologic or if
[155:38] it's very difficult to compound like the
[155:40] right right certificates. Something
[155:41] similar happened with ACG where it was
[155:42] taken out of the compounders um
[155:44] recently.
[155:45] >> Really? Yeah. Yeah. So ACG um
[155:47] >> human coriotic ginatotropin this is
[155:48] commonly prescribed for trying to
[155:50] restore fertility to uh to men but it's
[155:53] main mostly being given in IVF cycles to
[155:56] women.
[155:56] >> Yep. Yeah,
[155:57] >> there's a big controversy about ACG
[155:59] compounders and who can compound and who
[156:00] can't that's that's beyond this. But uh
[156:03] this is a very important thing cuz if
[156:05] Lily gets rea
[156:09] then the compounders are out of luck
[156:10] because the compounders all have the
[156:11] formula for reetta they're ready to make
[156:13] it like they can get the API from China
[156:14] and and and start compounding it as soon
[156:17] as it's available. It'll it will make
[156:18] them all billions of dollars but if Lily
[156:20] is able to do this they'll be able to
[156:21] protect themselves from what was going
[156:23] to happen. You see the Trump
[156:24] administration now is trying to get with
[156:25] Trump RX Lily and Novaist to drop their
[156:28] prices to make it more available which
[156:30] has happened like now I think you can
[156:32] get a you know $300 monthly dose of
[156:34] Tresepite available through these
[156:36] websites
[156:36] >> used to be 1 1500
[156:37] >> yeah 1 without insurance some insurance
[156:39] will cover it some some wouldn't you'd
[156:40] have to get you know savvy clinician
[156:42] that will advocate on your on your
[156:44] behalf to get these covered but cash pay
[156:46] between you know even some of the the
[156:48] pills I think you can pay 150 bucks a
[156:49] month for the oroplon which is not a
[156:51] peptide but still GLP1 agonist um which
[156:53] kind of gets to the point like it
[156:54] doesn't matter if it's a peptide or not.
[156:56] What matters is where where it touches,
[156:57] what receptor it touches because orupon
[156:59] is more similar to semiglutide. Both of
[157:02] them are GLP-1 drugs. One's a peptide,
[157:04] one's not. Then BBC is to semiglutide.
[157:06] So like everyone online talk about
[157:07] peptides are good or peptides are bad.
[157:09] There's no actual scientific category of
[157:12] peptides that gives you a functional
[157:13] definition that's discussable between
[157:15] two people because what do you mean by
[157:16] peptide? Do you mean carnosine or do you
[157:19] mean ratitude?
[157:21] >> Excellent point. uh speaks to a lot of
[157:23] the confusion. Um you are a beam of
[157:26] clarifying information uh on this. I
[157:30] actually am going to put in a vote um
[157:32] publicly right here and now, but also uh
[157:35] I'm going to do what I can to contact
[157:37] folks that are relevant. I think you
[157:39] should, no joke, I think you should be
[157:41] in charge of a nomenclature committee. I
[157:44] think for in in the world of genetics
[157:45] for a long time that people would just
[157:47] name genes Sonic Hedgehog or you know
[157:49] you know sink one or people name it
[157:51] after their cousin or what and it was a
[157:52] mess and so what ends up happening is
[157:54] you find similarity between genes across
[157:56] different laboratories and eventually
[157:58] you have a meeting and you come up with
[158:00] a you have a nomenclature committee and
[158:02] then you say this is you know ephrine 1
[158:04] 2 3 4 5 6 these are the sequences the
[158:07] general public doesn't think about
[158:08] molecules in that way no but the general
[158:11] public are diving right into this they
[158:13] are the experiment and so what I think
[158:15] would be very very useful would be a um
[158:19] clear and accessible nomenclature to
[158:22] divide up what we've talked about today
[158:24] you know BPC-157
[158:26] um you know peptides with and without
[158:28] known receptors the regenerative
[158:30] peptides as you've called them like
[158:32] thymus and alpha TB500 which are
[158:33] amunogenic peptides I think
[158:35] >> the word peptides is just too general
[158:37] too general
[158:38] >> I'm putting my vote in for you not that
[158:39] you don't already have enough to do to
[158:41] um come up with some nomen clature that
[158:43] maybe I can help propagate and some of
[158:45] the other people in the podcast
[158:46] community. We'll even contact our our
[158:47] our close close friends in in um legacy
[158:50] media and explain to them how this works
[158:52] and maybe they can help propagate just
[158:54] for sake of clarity. Yep.
[158:56] >> Right. We're not taking the stance these
[158:57] are good or bad but just for sake of
[158:59] clarity as given that there's so many
[159:01] people that are peptide curious. Okay.
[159:03] So before we wrap
[159:05] >> I solicited X and Instagram for
[159:07] questions about peptides. I did not
[159:09] reveal exactly who you are, but I gave
[159:11] some of your credentials and got back
[159:14] many, many excellent questions. Most of
[159:17] which, thanks to you, were answered
[159:19] during the course of our conversation up
[159:20] until now. But there are a couple of
[159:22] them that many people asked, we didn't
[159:24] touch on, at least not directly. One
[159:26] thing that's come up several times is
[159:28] the question about for women who have
[159:30] endometriosis or fibroids or other
[159:33] things related to reproductive health
[159:35] and potential. Can things like BPC57
[159:38] help and or hurt those circumstances
[159:40] given their potential role in
[159:42] angioenesis and the other things you
[159:43] described?
[159:44] >> No literature exists on either animal or
[159:46] human data that that relates to those
[159:48] peptides. I'd say those are more
[159:50] hormonal/ metabolic issues that that a
[159:53] good obgine should should take care of.
[159:54] They're very difficult to treat
[159:56] conditions and very miserable to have
[159:57] for people and they have fertility
[159:58] implications. But those are more on the
[160:00] hormonal side. I think the hormonal
[160:01] lever is way stronger than a peptide
[160:03] level like BBC or any of those. And as
[160:06] far as I'm concerned, there's no case
[160:07] reports or studies that would suggest
[160:09] positive or negative. CNS effects
[160:12] central nervous system, excuse me, of
[160:14] BPC57 or other peptides that we've
[160:17] talked about that are don't fall under
[160:19] the, you know, typical um umbrella that
[160:22] people, you know, go to when they think
[160:24] about BPC57. Now, you talked about some
[160:26] of the uh stuff related to alcohol and
[160:28] perhaps other things like aderall, but
[160:31] anything known about, you know, people
[160:33] feeling better or worse on different
[160:35] peptides just psychologically,
[160:36] neurologically?
[160:37] >> TBI, I'll throw TBI in there for myself.
[160:39] I I don't have TBI fortunately, but I
[160:41] know many people that do. They reach out
[160:43] to me. Could it be beneficial in those
[160:44] cases?
[160:45] >> Yeah, there were studies in Russia on
[160:46] TBI when it comes to cortexin and
[160:48] cerebralin, which would probably never
[160:50] be available in the United States. So,
[160:51] we'll we'll we'll skip those. Uh there's
[160:53] no good data on BBC TBI. They
[160:55] theoretically could be useful from a
[160:57] from anti-stress perspective. That would
[160:58] be interesting to explore that. BBC's
[161:01] neurological effects are very
[161:03] homeostatic in nature. They don't let
[161:04] you get too high in the in the mice data
[161:07] at least. the mice can't get too drunk
[161:08] and they can't withdraw from malcol.
[161:09] They can't get too high on on the mice
[161:11] methamphetamines and they can't get too
[161:13] high on the methamphetamines and they
[161:14] don't withdraw either. So there's a
[161:16] homeostatic mechanism that might explain
[161:18] some of these anhidonia uh side effects
[161:19] that people are reporting where BBC
[161:21] modulates the gut brain access in a way
[161:23] which we do not understand. It's kind of
[161:25] woowoo that makes it so that your brain
[161:27] can't go too far in one direction. Maybe
[161:29] in putting if we think of a just just so
[161:32] story it's putting you into a rest and
[161:34] digest state to heal whatever problem
[161:36] you have. If that's why BBC exists as a
[161:38] big parent compound that might be part
[161:41] of the fact that if you secrete BBC your
[161:42] body goes into like a convolescent mode
[161:44] because it will it will take away
[161:45] stimulants it will take away sedatives
[161:47] um don't try this of course but there
[161:50] seems to be a homeostatic mechanism in
[161:51] BPC that needs to be explored further
[161:53] with good data very interesting thank
[161:56] you the major question was what should
[161:58] people do if they are actually
[162:01] interested in obtaining peptides let's
[162:04] just set the GLPs aside because it's
[162:06] kind of a separate category and they
[162:08] want to explore their use and they want
[162:10] to be as safe as possible. Where
[162:12] shouldn't they look?
[162:14] >> Yeah.
[162:14] >> Is how I'll phrase the question. Um
[162:16] where should they look? Who should they
[162:18] talk to? At what point do they can they
[162:20] be confident that what they're taking is
[162:22] what you know the bottle claims and and
[162:24] that it's you know free of contaminants
[162:27] um and so on. I many many questions but
[162:29] I think this is like kind of the
[162:30] question.
[162:30] >> Yep. It's it's the most difficult
[162:31] question to answer because uh the
[162:33] majority of people are getting their
[162:34] peptides from research only websites. Uh
[162:36] unfortunately those are not reliable. We
[162:38] don't know what's in them. They they
[162:39] could be good, could be bad, could be as
[162:41] good as a compound pharmacy, could be
[162:42] much worse, could be the wrong peptide
[162:44] in in the vial. So we don't know what's
[162:46] in there. What should happen over the
[162:47] next 6 12 24 months is there will be a
[162:50] lot of physicianled options for patients
[162:53] to get peptides. Number one, you should
[162:54] encourage your physician if you don't
[162:55] have one. Uh, get one and get a good
[162:57] relationship with one because having a
[162:58] good relationship with your physician is
[162:59] a key aspect of driving good health. But
[163:01] having a physician that's educated on
[163:03] peptides to my doctor friends, all of
[163:04] you guys are now live in a peptide era.
[163:06] You have no choice but to get educated.
[163:07] So get educated. We should create
[163:09] resources for that. There will be a lot
[163:10] of telemet options opening up soon uh
[163:13] through various companies that will
[163:14] offer these peptides and it will be good
[163:16] for the consumer because it'll be a race
[163:17] down in price and then we'll know which
[163:19] which compoundingies are better which
[163:20] ones are worse so you can get a better
[163:22] source peptides but you should get them
[163:24] from clinicians. The question that's
[163:26] going to happen is there's going to be a
[163:26] lot of these orally available peptides
[163:28] and they're going to be all over
[163:29] supplement websites like you you'll find
[163:31] them with your magnesium and your
[163:32] creatine and then your pinealon or your
[163:33] BPC157. The question is what is that
[163:36] going to look like? So we'd like, you
[163:37] know, our FDA overlords to give give us
[163:39] some guidance there on what can and
[163:41] cannot be sold and bought. But it should
[163:43] be physician le. You should be doing
[163:44] this under the guidance of a physician
[163:45] that's monitoring you. You know, you
[163:47] shouldn't be taking testes in without
[163:48] checking IGF-1 levels. Uh a GLP1 even
[163:51] should be monitored with the physicians
[163:52] that can counsel you on on too much
[163:53] weight loss. Like some of these some of
[163:54] these celebrities should have had better
[163:55] clinicians monitoring their GLP1
[163:57] journeys cuz they lost way too much
[163:58] weight. That doesn't look healthy at
[164:00] all. Unless someone's first of all
[164:02] someone's not having the basics in place
[164:03] there's no I point in putting all these
[164:05] peptides in like
[164:06] >> morning sunlight sleep darkness at night
[164:08] yes good diet minimally processed food
[164:11] >> yes the next phase of peptide curious
[164:13] and peptide driven discussions is going
[164:15] to be like how do you incorporate it
[164:16] into a giant health system like you do
[164:19] morning sunlight blue light blockers and
[164:20] epitalon you do you know BPC and you
[164:23] work out in the gym or whatever it may
[164:24] be there's going to be you know
[164:25] protocols that that develop but I think
[164:28] within six months there'll be very good
[164:29] physician options for everybody Abud,
[164:32] amazing. Thank you so much for coming
[164:35] here today and again shedding so much
[164:37] light on what all of these things are.
[164:39] You have an clearly a virtuoso level um
[164:43] understanding and ability to communicate
[164:44] about the history of these things, what
[164:46] they are, what they aren't, what we
[164:47] know, what we still don't know, um the
[164:49] potential upsides, the potential
[164:51] hazards, the uh the regulation, and on
[164:53] and on. Um there are 50 other topics
[164:56] that you and I must talk about at some
[164:58] point. your knowledge of hormones in men
[165:01] and women, pregnancy and women's
[165:03] hormones affecting the fetus, how
[165:04] progesterone impacts DHT and male
[165:06] offspring. Incredible. Absolutely want
[165:09] to have you back to have that
[165:10] discussion, but we'll let people digest
[165:11] this in the meantime. We'll put links to
[165:13] where people can find you. And I just
[165:15] want to say thank you for doing what you
[165:16] do. And if you don't mind me sharing,
[165:18] you're you're 33 years old.
[165:19] >> That's right.
[165:20] >> I love that you're a clinician and
[165:22] you're practicing medicine, but please
[165:24] please please keep wherever you can keep
[165:26] up your efforts as a public educator.
[165:27] come back and talk to us again. Uh
[165:29] you're a gift to us all and um thank you
[165:31] so much.
[165:32] >> Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here
[165:33] and thank you for the kind words.
[165:35] >> Thank you for joining me for today's
[165:36] discussion with Dr. Abud Bachri. To
[165:38] learn more about his work and to find
[165:40] links to the various things we
[165:41] discussed, please see the show note
[165:43] captions. I should also mention that Dr.
[165:45] Bachri has just released a new app which
[165:47] is focused on circadian biology which we
[165:49] didn't talk about today, but he's a true
[165:51] expert there as well. You can also find
[165:53] a link to that app in the show notes
[165:55] caption. If you're learning from and or
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[166:25] Huberman Lab podcast, please put those
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[166:29] read all the comments. For those of you
[166:31] that haven't heard, I have a new book
[166:32] coming out. It's my very first book.
[166:34] It's entitled Protocols, an operating
[166:36] manual for the human body. This is a
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[166:39] than 5 years, and that's based on more
[166:41] than 30 years of research and
[166:43] experience. And it covers protocols for
[166:46] everything from sleep to exercise to
[166:49] stress control protocols related to
[166:51] focus and motivation. And of course, I
[166:53] provide the scientific substantiation
[166:55] for the protocols that are included. The
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[167:01] There you can find links to various
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[167:43] three-page PDFs that cover everything
[167:45] from how to optimize your sleep, how to
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[167:48] exposure. We have a foundational fitness
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[168:06] Thank you once again for joining me for
[168:07] today's discussion with Dr. Abud Bakri.
[168:10] And last but certainly not least, thank
[168:12] you for your interest in science.