Peptides: The Science, Uses & Safety | Dr. Abud Bakri

[00:00] People are now stacking their GLP-1 as

[00:03] their insulin sensitivity tool, their

[00:05] growth hormone or their GHR

[00:07] >> and their androin modulation therapies

[00:10] as this trinity stack

[00:11] >> trinity stuff

[00:12] >> to get very fit, very healthy quickly.

[00:15] So a lot of these transformations you

[00:16] see in CEOs and celebrities and stuff is

[00:18] using a combination of those three

[00:20] things. You know your TRT plus teptide

[00:22] or retride whatever it may be and then

[00:25] using a growth hormone modulation

[00:27] whether if you can afford growth hormone

[00:28] or testimon. And you're seeing people

[00:30] lose a lot of fat gain a lot of muscle

[00:33] in short amounts of time. Is that

[00:34] healthy? We'll find out. But that is

[00:37] like the celebrity protocol. Welcome to

[00:39] the Huberman Lab podcast where we

[00:41] discuss science and science-based tools

[00:43] for everyday life.

[00:47] I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor

[00:49] of neurobiology and opthalmology at

[00:52] Stanford School of Medicine. My guest

[00:54] today is Dr. Abu Bakri, an internal

[00:57] medicine physician who is also extremely

[00:59] knowledgeable on the science and use of

[01:01] peptides. When I say peptides, I mean

[01:04] both FDA approved peptides such as the

[01:06] GLP agonist. You probably know these as

[01:09] things like Ompic, Monaro, and

[01:11] Retatrutide, as well as peptides such as

[01:13] body protection compound 157 or BPC57,

[01:18] which as you'll learn today has a very

[01:20] long history of being used in humans for

[01:22] gut health and tissue repair, and many

[01:25] interesting studies in animals

[01:27] supporting its potential use in humans,

[01:29] but a minimum of formal studies in

[01:31] humans, meaning one. We discuss BPC-157,

[01:35] what it does and how, as well as things

[01:38] like growth hormone secrets like

[01:40] tessamarellin, MK677 and others. And we

[01:43] talk about things like GHK copper, which

[01:45] nowadays many people are using to

[01:47] promote collagen synthesis and repair

[01:49] for aesthetic reasons like improving

[01:51] skin, hair, and so on. We also talk

[01:54] about peptides that have been studied

[01:55] for the purpose of DNA repair and

[01:57] longevity like epithelen and pinealin

[01:59] which also have been touted to improve

[02:01] REM sleep and for improving cognitive

[02:03] function. You'll also learn what is

[02:05] known and what is not known about these

[02:07] peptides both in terms of function and

[02:09] safety. During today's episode, you will

[02:11] come to appreciate that Dr. Bachri has

[02:13] truly encyclopedic knowledge about these

[02:15] peptides. He is also formerly trained as

[02:18] a physician and as a consequence you

[02:20] will learn how to think about peptides

[02:22] based on whether or not they have known

[02:23] receptors or not. That turns out to be

[02:25] very important and what their real

[02:27] safety profiles are as well as what

[02:30] particular concerns you ought to have if

[02:32] you are considering using peptides of

[02:34] any kind. As a formerly trained

[02:36] board-certified physician, he comes at

[02:38] this topic through the lens of a

[02:40] physician, but also somebody who is very

[02:42] interested in the current status and

[02:44] future of peptide medicine. Today's

[02:46] discussion, thanks to Dr. Bacher, is a

[02:48] true masterclass on peptides. By the end

[02:51] of today's discussion, I promise you,

[02:52] again, thanks to him, that you will be

[02:55] among the most informed, doctor or

[02:57] otherwise, about peptides from the GLPS

[03:00] to BPC57 and all the others that I

[03:02] mentioned, including some that I didn't

[03:04] mention here in the introduction. So, it

[03:06] is a real gift and honor to have this

[03:08] knowledge presented to all of us. So,

[03:10] buckle up. You're about to learn a lot

[03:13] about peptides. Before we begin, I'd

[03:15] like to emphasize that this podcast is

[03:17] separate from my teaching and research

[03:19] roles at Stanford. It is however part of

[03:21] my desire and effort to bring zero cost

[03:23] to consumer information about science

[03:24] and science related tools to the general

[03:26] public. In keeping with that theme,

[03:28] today's episode does include sponsors.

[03:30] And now for my discussion with Dr. Abu

[03:33] Bakri. Dr. Abu Bakri, welcome. Good to

[03:36] be here. Peptides, huge topic and huge

[03:41] category of biology and medicine. So, we

[03:44] should start off by breaking this into

[03:46] categories so that people can wrap their

[03:48] minds around it because that word

[03:50] peptides has come to mean stuff people

[03:53] buy and take and maybe should or

[03:55] shouldn't buy and take. But there's a

[03:57] lot of important and quite simple

[04:00] biology to understand before anyone

[04:03] should even be thinking about any of

[04:05] that. So if I just push the word

[04:08] peptides towards you, how do you carve

[04:10] that up in terms of thinking about it as

[04:12] an MD as a clinician and maybe also put

[04:15] yourself into the mind of a interested

[04:18] let's call it a peptide curious person

[04:20] out there. So scientifically I would say

[04:23] it's one of the languages of the human

[04:24] body right so the body likes these

[04:27] different languages to communicate

[04:28] between cells going from DNA to RNA to

[04:30] proteins which are can be broken down as

[04:32] polyeptides and peptides and peptides

[04:35] are one of these languages steroid

[04:36] hormones are another language and then

[04:38] peptides can be broken down further into

[04:40] subcategories whether or not they have

[04:42] receptors or they have no receptor

[04:45] >> and that kind of changes the clinical

[04:46] effects we'll see like the GLP1's which

[04:47] have a very strong clinical effect

[04:50] compared to these obscure peptides like

[04:52] BBC57, TB500, TB4 that don't have a

[04:55] clear target.

[04:56] >> They have receptors but they just have

[04:58] many of them or they don't even have

[04:59] receptors.

[04:59] >> We don't have a receptor identified for

[05:01] BBC57 or TB4. Just stopping you right

[05:03] there. There's a very interesting

[05:04] distinction. I don't think anyone else

[05:06] has described peptides this way.

[05:08] >> Let's take BPC57 for the moment. We're

[05:11] going to talk a lot about it today. If

[05:12] it doesn't have a receptor, what are

[05:15] some ways that it could impact cells and

[05:17] organs and so forth? Or is it that there

[05:21] are receptors, we just don't know what

[05:23] they are?

[05:23] >> It could be that the latter that maybe

[05:25] the the receptor is still elusive or it

[05:27] could be that it's modifying certain

[05:29] proteins that already exist or linking

[05:31] different pepi uh proteins together in a

[05:33] more favorable fashion for gene

[05:34] transcription. The Russian peptides are

[05:36] all epigenetic modifiers that they bind

[05:38] to the groove of the DNA in certain

[05:39] spots that either open up or close the

[05:41] chromatin to certain areas of genetic

[05:43] expression. And they've modeled this out

[05:44] >> like a steroid hormone. So steroid

[05:46] hormones bind like they bind to a like

[05:48] the andro receptor binds DHT or

[05:50] testosterone goes into the nucleus turns

[05:52] on all the androgenic genes.

[05:53] >> Yeah. Like puberty is a good example of

[05:55] that.

[05:55] >> Yes. Exactly. Exactly. So like pinealon

[05:57] that we've talked about uh shuttles uh

[05:59] heat shock proteins with androen

[06:01] receptors.

[06:02] >> Got it. So if I just pause us for a

[06:04] second, we should think about this word

[06:07] peptides in two major categories at

[06:09] least. Yep.

[06:10] >> One is has known receptors

[06:13] >> plural like the GLPS. Y

[06:14] >> the other category would be does not

[06:17] have known receptors might have

[06:18] receptors but can definitely impact

[06:21] biology in interesting ways or so say

[06:23] the animal data.

[06:24] >> Yep.

[06:25] >> Okay.

[06:25] >> A lot of animal data.

[06:26] >> All right. I know a lot of people are

[06:27] interested in GLPs and I want to go

[06:29] there. But because I know most people

[06:32] are probably listening to this foremost

[06:34] because they want to hear about the

[06:35] other stuff. Let's start with BPC57.

[06:39] What is it? What do we know about it?

[06:42] We'll explore safety and what is your

[06:45] stance on it from the perspective of a

[06:47] consumer and a clinician. So first of

[06:49] all, what is BPC57?

[06:51] >> The best way to look at it is, you know,

[06:52] as humans, we've been looking for

[06:54] medicines in plants for thousands of

[06:56] years. And in the last, let's say 150

[06:59] years, we've been looking for medicines

[07:00] in cells. So animal derived versus plant

[07:03] plant derived medicines is the way to

[07:04] think about it. You think about aspirin,

[07:06] you think about metformin, the statins,

[07:07] those were all discovered in you know

[07:10] plant tissues. um stats more so fungi

[07:12] but you get the point. Now we've been

[07:14] looking into animal tissues to find

[07:17] cures, medicines, treatments. So a group

[07:20] in Croatia in the '90s looks out for

[07:24] this peptide called BPC that they they

[07:26] and eventually named BPC. It's a $40,000

[07:29] dolton giant peptide called BPC. BBC7 is

[07:33] 15 amino acids from that giant peptide.

[07:35] We don't naturally make BPC157. That's

[07:38] what you'll commonly hear online. We

[07:39] make BBC the big uh protein. Did this

[07:42] group go looking for body protection

[07:46] compound? For those that aren't familiar

[07:48] in the laboratory, you can take a

[07:49] tissue, grind it up. You can do what's

[07:51] called fractionation. You can start

[07:52] separating basically cells and tissues

[07:54] and liquids according to the size of

[07:56] different proteins. Like different

[07:58] filters will bring let just like certain

[07:59] filters will let sand through or pebbles

[08:01] through or boulders through. That's kind

[08:02] of what you do. And then you figure out

[08:04] what the sequences are and then you

[08:05] throw them on cells or put them into

[08:07] animals and you try and figure out what

[08:08] they do. Why were they motivated to look

[08:10] for what eventually became BPC? So

[08:13] Pavlov, the famous uh scientist that

[08:16] would do the dog the experiments on the

[08:17] dogs with the bell and and making the

[08:19] dogs salivate. The other work he did was

[08:21] on gastric juices of dogs. What he'd do

[08:23] is he'd put a hole in the dogs stomachs.

[08:25] He would um feed them food and then get

[08:27] the gastric juices and sell that as a

[08:29] medicine.

[08:29] >> That's how he made his money.

[08:30] >> Yeah, that was part of his business.

[08:31] >> So he got a Nobel Prize. He was also

[08:33] kind of like what did he have a like a

[08:35] um a call code? It was like like enter

[08:38] pavlova for for discount at checkout.

[08:40] Yeah. Amazing.

[08:41] >> So this is BBC before BBC57 exists.

[08:44] There's probably other peptides and

[08:45] compounds in there, but they they found

[08:46] that gastric juices had positive effects

[08:49] on healing on people that had, you know,

[08:51] gird and these kind of

[08:52] >> Wait, so people were taking BPC in the

[08:54] time of Pavlov?

[08:55] >> They didn't know what BBC was. They were

[08:56] taking gastric juices from dogs

[08:57] >> for what?

[08:58] >> GI distress, GI discomfort. Uh some

[09:00] people were trying for wound healing.

[09:02] There was a big push in this era for

[09:03] like finding animal tissues and putting

[09:06] them into humans. That science fizzled

[09:07] out. At the same time, there's a

[09:09] scientist Hansely that's coming up with

[09:12] uh the stress adaptation theory and he

[09:14] notices that animals are stressed out.

[09:15] Three things happens to them. Their

[09:16] adrenals get really big so they make

[09:18] more cortisol. Their gastric lining gets

[09:20] destroyed and then their thymus gland

[09:22] and their lymphatics shrink down. And he

[09:24] he has this published paper where you

[09:26] have clear adrenal from a stressed

[09:27] animal versus a non-stressed animal. A

[09:29] thymus from an animal that's stressed

[09:30] versus not. So this group is looking and

[09:33] thinking hey Pavlov had this gastric

[09:36] juice. Hansely said that there was

[09:38] damage when during stress there must be

[09:40] some kind of cytorotective or

[09:41] organoprotective compound in the gut.

[09:44] The stomach is a very rich endocrine uh

[09:46] tissue. It makes ghrelin all these other

[09:48] hormones. So they're like there must be

[09:49] something else in the gut juice that

[09:51] protects the gut lining from further

[09:53] damage.

[09:54] >> Were people drinking the gastric juices

[09:55] of dogs? Were they injecting them?

[09:58] >> Drinking was mo mostly what they did.

[09:59] 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

[12:28] acknowledge our sponsor eight. Eightle

[12:31] makes smart mattress covers with

[12:33] cooling, heating, and sleep tracking

[12:34] capacity. One of the best ways to ensure

[12:36] you get a great night's sleep is to make

[12:38] sure that the temperature of your

[12:39] sleeping environment is correct. And

[12:41] that's because in order to fall asleep

[12:43] and stay deeply asleep, your body

[12:45] temperature actually has to drop by

[12:46] about 1 to 3°. And in order to wake up

[12:49] feeling refreshed and energized, your

[12:51] body temperature actually has to

[12:52] increase by about 1 to 3°. Eight

[12:55] automatically regulates the temperature

[12:57] of your bed throughout the night

[12:58] according to your unique needs. I've

[13:00] been sleeping on an eightle mattress

[13:01] cover for nearly 5 years now and it has

[13:04] completely transformed and improved the

[13:06] quality of my sleep. The latest eight

[13:08] model is the Pod 5. This is what I'm now

[13:10] sleeping on and I absolutely love it. It

[13:13] has so many incredible features. For

[13:15] instance, the Pod 5 has a feature called

[13:16] autopilot, which is an AI engine that

[13:19] learns your sleep patterns and then

[13:20] adjusts the temperature of your sleeping

[13:22] environment across different sleep

[13:23] stages. It'll even elevate your head if

[13:25] you're snoring, and it makes other

[13:27] shifts to optimize your sleep. If you'd

[13:29] like to try eight, go to

[13:30] eight.com/huberman

[13:32] to get up to $350 off the new Pod 5.

[13:35] Eight ships to many countries worldwide,

[13:37] including Mexico and the UAE. Again,

[13:40] that's 8.com/huberman

[13:42] to save up to $350. Today's episode is

[13:45] also brought to us by Lingo. Lingo is an

[13:48] everyday wearable that tracks your

[13:50] glucose 247. Glucose drives a lot of key

[13:53] processes that support energy, body

[13:55] composition, and long-term health. When

[13:57] glucose is constantly spiking and

[13:59] crashing, that's where we can start to

[14:01] see metabolic dysfunction. And over

[14:03] time, that can even progress to

[14:04] pre-diabetes. Right now, about 115

[14:07] million adults in the US have

[14:09] pre-diabetes. Most don't know it, and a

[14:11] higher percentage of men have it than

[14:13] women do. Often, there aren't clear

[14:15] symptoms of pre-diabetes early on, so

[14:17] people don't tend to look into it. But

[14:19] the fact is that metabolic health is

[14:21] shaping how your body functions every

[14:23] day, whether you feel it or not.

[14:25] Tracking your glucose with Lingo can

[14:27] help you see how food, activity, and

[14:29] stress impact your glucose throughout

[14:31] the day. I personally have used Lingo

[14:33] and it's been an invaluable tool for

[14:35] improving my metabolic health. If you

[14:37] would like to try Lingo, Hubberman Lab

[14:39] listeners in the US and UK can save 10%

[14:41] on a four-week plan. Just visit

[14:43] hellingo.com/huberman

[14:45] for more information. Terms and

[14:47] conditions apply. Again, that's

[14:49] hellingo.com/huberman.

[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

[45:26] taking it every day since. AG1 is, to my

[45:29] knowledge, the highest quality and most

[45:30] comprehensive of the foundational

[45:32] nutritional supplements on the market.

[45:34] It combines vitamins, minerals,

[45:36] prebiotics, probiotics, and adaptogens

[45:39] into a single scoop that's easy to

[45:41] drink, and tastes great. It's designed

[45:43] to support things like gut health,

[45:44] immune health, and overall energy. And

[45:46] it does so by helping to fill any gaps

[45:48] that you might have in your daily

[45:50] nutrition. And of course, we should all

[45:52] eat highquality whole foods, but most of

[45:54] us are probably not getting enough

[45:55] prebiotics, vitamins, and minerals, and

[45:58] AG1 ensures that those gaps are filled.

[46:00] I get asked all the time by people if

[46:02] they were to take just one supplement,

[46:04] what would my recommendation for that

[46:05] supplement be? And my answer is always

[46:07] AG1 because it's just been so critical

[46:10] for supporting all aspects of my

[46:11] physical health, mental health, and

[46:13] performance by covering those

[46:14] nutritional, what we call foundational

[46:16] bases. And I know from my own experience

[46:18] and from everyone I've heard that I

[46:20] recommended it to that they simply feel

[46:22] much better in a number of different

[46:24] ways when they take it regularly. If

[46:26] you'd like to try AG1, you can go to

[46:28] drink a1.com/huberman

[46:30] to get a special offer. For a limited

[46:32] time, AG1 is giving away a week supply

[46:34] of AGZ, which is their sleep supplement,

[46:36] and a free bottle of vitamin D3 K2 with

[46:38] your subscription. AGZ is something that

[46:40] I help design. It tastes great, and it's

[46:43] the only sleep supplement I take. It has

[46:45] a collection of different things in it

[46:46] that has dramatically improved my sleep.

[46:49] Both my slowwave deep sleep and my rapid

[46:51] eye movement sleep and I absolutely love

[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

[1:00:02] know and is it the good stuff or not the

[1:00:04] good stuff because we don't actually

[1:00:06] know whether or not the the adverse

[1:00:08] outcome was due to BPC itself to misuse

[1:00:11] of BPC

[1:00:12] >> or to like you know like the factors

[1:00:14] that it's it's dissolved in or something

[1:00:16] like that and I think that's the most

[1:00:18] likely outcome unless we get our arms

[1:00:20] around this and that's where you could

[1:00:22] say like the hormone replacement therapy

[1:00:24] field has actually enjoyed the fact that

[1:00:25] if a woman decides she's going to take

[1:00:27] progesterone or estrogen replacement

[1:00:28] therapy permenopausal or or menopausal

[1:00:31] or something for PCOS or whatever that

[1:00:33] wouldn't be what to take for PCOS but

[1:00:34] you get the idea or a guy decides in his

[1:00:37] you know 40s or 50s or whatever it is

[1:00:39] okay he's going to go on TRT he can do

[1:00:41] it carefully she can do it carefully

[1:00:43] >> and knows what adverse outcomes to look

[1:00:46] for no one's thinking oh my god the

[1:00:47] sesame oil that's dissolved in is

[1:00:50] possibly causing these problems

[1:00:51] >> well some people will will be very

[1:00:53] particular on which oil their

[1:00:55] testosterone comes in.

[1:00:56] >> That's in the gym community. Yeah. Yeah.

[1:00:57] Totally with you. And where to inject

[1:00:58] and so forth. But that aside, my concern

[1:01:01] is that it is kind of wild westish.

[1:01:04] >> Yes, it is.

[1:01:05] >> And I'm not so concerned I'll get in

[1:01:07] trouble for this, but whatever.

[1:01:08] >> I'm not so concerned that these actual

[1:01:10] compounds are necessarily harming

[1:01:12] people. I worry that the way they're

[1:01:13] arriving to people is harming them, and

[1:01:16] we're going to miss out on that first

[1:01:18] possibility that these are very useful.

[1:01:19] And of course, I don't want anyone

[1:01:21] getting hurt.

[1:01:22] >> So, here comes the question. As a

[1:01:24] physician, I realize that you are more

[1:01:26] than peptide curious. You're very

[1:01:27] peptide friendly in your own life. You

[1:01:29] know, if you have a patient who has, you

[1:01:33] know, just their gut is a mess or

[1:01:35] they're dealing with, you know,

[1:01:36] postsurgical issues and you know that

[1:01:39] BPC from the right source is either

[1:01:42] going to be benign or could potentially

[1:01:45] help them. What kind of position does

[1:01:47] that put you in? Yep.

[1:01:48] >> As an American board-certified

[1:01:50] physician,

[1:01:50] >> very uncomfortable position because if

[1:01:52] I'm, you know, rounding on a patient in

[1:01:54] the wards of a hospital and like, hey,

[1:01:56] you should take BPC instead of your

[1:01:57] pentopol, I'll probably get my license

[1:01:59] revoked. So, not a good idea. Don't do

[1:02:00] that.

[1:02:01] >> What about in addition to

[1:02:02] >> in addition to so like if they come see

[1:02:03] me in clinic, that might be a place

[1:02:05] where we can have that discussion. We're

[1:02:06] going to see very shortly here what the

[1:02:08] FDA is going to tell us about BPC and

[1:02:10] all these other peptides and the

[1:02:11] legality of them. if they get moved to

[1:02:14] the category one list and then the

[1:02:15] states say like hey the FDA said so

[1:02:17] we're not going to look we're not going

[1:02:18] to care about this you can do what you

[1:02:19] want to do as a physician and you

[1:02:21] counsel the patient like you have an

[1:02:22] honest discussion with the patient I

[1:02:24] think that's what it should be it should

[1:02:24] be between the physician and the patient

[1:02:26] like hey there's this promising compound

[1:02:28] it's not FDA approved we have minimal to

[1:02:30] no human data but we have anecdata are

[1:02:34] you willing to try this on yourself and

[1:02:37] we'll monitor you we'll have clear

[1:02:39] endpoints for that should be what this

[1:02:41] looks like frank discussion between a

[1:02:43] physician and a patient. Now, if that

[1:02:45] patient has an adverse effect, they can

[1:02:46] go to a medical board and say like,

[1:02:47] "Hey, Dr. so and so gave me BP157 and I

[1:02:50] had a bad effect and I would be like,

[1:02:52] "Hey, you gave them a non-FDA approved

[1:02:53] compound." A for injectable. B, the

[1:02:56] problem is there's orals that are being

[1:02:58] sold as supplements now, like BBC 57 as

[1:03:00] an oral available supplement because

[1:03:02] it's not a medication. It's never been

[1:03:04] uh approved as a medication in the

[1:03:05] United States. So, what is BBC's legal

[1:03:08] status? Is it dietary available?

[1:03:10] Therefore, cuz if you, you know, cut up

[1:03:12] an animal and ate its stomach, you'd

[1:03:14] probably get some BBC in.

[1:03:15] >> Well, I can buy desicated liver t.

[1:03:17] >> I'm eating livers.

[1:03:18] >> There there's tons of

[1:03:18] >> You can go buy liver at the this like

[1:03:20] one Michelin star restaurant, not down

[1:03:22] this road, but a different road. Yeah.

[1:03:24] >> Yeah. I mean, like Dr. Cavson identified

[1:03:25] many peptides in livers like ligen

[1:03:27] ovagen that you'd find in your

[1:03:28] desiccated liver supplement that you're

[1:03:29] eat. It's like the the biggest

[1:03:30] distributors of peptides have been these

[1:03:32] organ meat companies because each organ

[1:03:34] has a signature peptide that comes out

[1:03:36] of it.

[1:03:36] >> Do they get absorbed?

[1:03:37] >> Yes.

[1:03:38] >> Are they bioavailable active?

[1:03:39] >> Dr. Dr. Cavins's work suggests that it

[1:03:41] is. Dr. Vladimir McCavson is this

[1:03:43] Russian Soviet scientist that gives us

[1:03:45] epital and thyolin and pinealon and all

[1:03:48] these Russian peptides. Die and

[1:03:49] tripeptides can be orally available if

[1:03:52] they're the right shape and size.

[1:03:54] >> They're not very well uh available, but

[1:03:56] they can be available. So, you won't

[1:03:57] necessarily get it from the organ uh

[1:04:00] isolate or from the or eating the organ

[1:04:02] like like if you eat heart probably very

[1:04:05] rich in lcarnitine. Can my body make

[1:04:07] good use of that? I mean, there's

[1:04:09] cardiogen, which is one of the the heart

[1:04:10] peptides that that was scantly studied

[1:04:13] uh in the late 2000s that may be orally

[1:04:14] bioavailable. The problem is no one's

[1:04:16] doing the work to figure that out. You

[1:04:17] painted this picture where not you

[1:04:20] perhaps, but let's just say um another

[1:04:22] physician has the awareness that BPC57

[1:04:26] might be useful to a patient of theirs

[1:04:27] that's dealing with a they had like an

[1:04:29] ACL tear. They're not recovering very

[1:04:32] quickly. Doctor says, "Listen, you're

[1:04:34] doing everything correctly. there's this

[1:04:36] new category of stuff. We don't have a

[1:04:39] lot of data on it. I'm not aware that

[1:04:41] there are any severe risks, but they

[1:04:42] they could be there. So, if you're

[1:04:43] willing to embrace those unknowns, you

[1:04:46] could take x number of micrograms or

[1:04:48] milligrams per day for 2 weeks and see

[1:04:50] how you feel. Patient says, "Okay, I'm

[1:04:52] willing to do that." The physician says,

[1:04:55] "Okay, you want to make sure that it's

[1:04:57] real and you want to make sure that it's

[1:04:58] clean, there's not no contaminants." Y

[1:05:00] >> if that physician says, you know, I can

[1:05:03] write you a script for it and this

[1:05:05] compounding pharmacy will send it to you

[1:05:08] and they're making money on it. A lot of

[1:05:10] people, well, the moment they hear that,

[1:05:12] they think, oh, well, they're totally

[1:05:13] incentivized to do this cuz they're

[1:05:14] going to get a cut. But if we go back to

[1:05:16] the original pharma model, it is a

[1:05:19] little bit of a different situation,

[1:05:21] right? Because let's say Lily charges

[1:05:24] $1,500 for a pen of some sort of GLP.

[1:05:27] the physician who prescribes that are

[1:05:29] they getting a cut of that 1500?

[1:05:31] >> They don't. They don't.

[1:05:32] >> But there are kickbacks and, you know,

[1:05:33] pharmaceutical incentives and pharma

[1:05:35] deals. Those are real.

[1:05:36] >> It's flights to Hawaii for a conference.

[1:05:38] >> Really? So, there are real incentives

[1:05:39] even though they're not getting paid

[1:05:41] directly.

[1:05:41] >> Yeah. There's there's always incentives

[1:05:42] in in any kind of business, especially a

[1:05:45] business as big as pharmaceutical.

[1:05:46] >> Well, physicians are already getting

[1:05:47] paid. So, I'm not saying that. I mean,

[1:05:48] these are these are peripheral

[1:05:50] incentives. Well, the the farmers also

[1:05:51] lobby a lot of the medical schools and

[1:05:53] they, you know, got there's a lot.

[1:05:54] >> So, there's a relationship there, but

[1:05:55] it's not cold hard cash.

[1:05:56] >> Sorry, as direct as the compound,

[1:05:58] >> but in a compounding pharmacy now, this

[1:05:59] physician, hypothetical physician, could

[1:06:01] say, "Hey, you know what? You can get it

[1:06:02] from this compounding pharmacy and it's

[1:06:04] going to be 500 bucks." The patient,

[1:06:06] we've now established because they've

[1:06:07] heard this podcast, has a right to say,

[1:06:08] "What are you paying for it versus what

[1:06:10] you're charging me?" They might lie.

[1:06:11] They might tell you the truth. Or the

[1:06:13] physician could say, "You know what? I'm

[1:06:14] not making a dime on this. It's just I

[1:06:16] think it might be useful to you." that

[1:06:17] physician is protected or not protected

[1:06:20] if something negative happens to the

[1:06:21] patient. Something happens to they is

[1:06:23] somebody suing a compounding pharmacy or

[1:06:24] they're suing their physician.

[1:06:25] >> They're suing all three. They're suing

[1:06:26] the physician, the compounded pharmacy

[1:06:28] and and anyone who recommended it. So

[1:06:29] >> that's pretty scary.

[1:06:30] >> No malpractice provider is going to give

[1:06:32] you coverage for peptides, especially

[1:06:34] non FDA approved peptides unless

[1:06:36] there's, you know, high risk malpractice

[1:06:37] providers that that will cover you for

[1:06:38] that. Let's say somebody gets hurt

[1:06:40] taking uh one of the prescribed pharma

[1:06:43] GLPS and they they're pissed and they

[1:06:45] and they sue they sue their doctor or

[1:06:46] they sue the pharma company depending on

[1:06:48] who who had the liability. So if the

[1:06:50] doctor didn't warn you that you know

[1:06:51] injecting 10 times a dose might cause

[1:06:53] pancreatitis and you had pancreatitis

[1:06:54] they can claim the doctor is at fault.

[1:06:56] If someone has deep pockets they can go

[1:06:57] at Lily and say like hey Lily you didn't

[1:06:59] disclose this risk. I think now people

[1:07:01] thanks to you are armed with enough

[1:07:03] information to be able to make really

[1:07:05] good decisions about whether or not to

[1:07:07] say eh waiting for those clinical trial

[1:07:09] results or I'll stick my toe in the pond

[1:07:12] or I'm going to continue to learn more

[1:07:14] but I'm going to now learn more thanks

[1:07:15] to you genuinely with a lot more

[1:07:18] understanding about how this stuff flows

[1:07:22] from website or from doctor to patient.

[1:07:25] >> Let's talk about pinealon.

[1:07:27] >> Yeah,

[1:07:27] >> pinealon is one that most people

[1:07:29] probably haven't heard of. Mhm.

[1:07:30] >> I'll just go on record saying I've tried

[1:07:32] it a few times or more. I don't take it

[1:07:34] regularly, but I tried it before sleep.

[1:07:36] Yep.

[1:07:36] >> If I take it at the beginning of the

[1:07:38] night, it reduces my deep slowwave sleep

[1:07:41] and gives me far more REM across the

[1:07:43] night. Not a great situation.

[1:07:45] >> Y

[1:07:46] >> great situation is if I go to sleep, get

[1:07:48] my usual ration of deep sleep. If I

[1:07:50] happen to wake up in the middle of the

[1:07:52] night to use the restroom once or so,

[1:07:54] not uncommon, if I do a very small

[1:07:56] injection of pinealon at that point, the

[1:07:59] one and a half hours of REM that I would

[1:08:01] get in the final hours of my sleep, now

[1:08:03] I'm getting 3 hours in the same amount

[1:08:05] of sleep. It's just a higher fraction of

[1:08:07] REM. Y

[1:08:08] >> sometimes wake up feeling a little

[1:08:09] groggy, but it is a whole other life to

[1:08:13] get that much REM. I don't do it

[1:08:14] regularly. It's not, you know, I would

[1:08:16] say maybe three times a month, but

[1:08:18] here's the interesting thing. It

[1:08:19] improves my percentage of REM on all the

[1:08:23] other nights in between those three

[1:08:25] injections.

[1:08:26] >> So I'm coming clean here.

[1:08:27] >> Lingering effects.

[1:08:28] >> Very cool. You're interested in

[1:08:30] pinealone for a whole other set of

[1:08:31] reasons. But first of all, what is

[1:08:32] pinealone and where does it act? Does it

[1:08:34] have a known receptor?

[1:08:35] >> No known receptor. So pinealon is a

[1:08:36] tripeptide edr discovered by the

[1:08:39] mentioned of Dr. Vladimir Cavinson. He's

[1:08:41] a Soviet researcher that comes out of

[1:08:43] this Soviet era research to make

[1:08:46] soldiers, astronauts, and pilots uh

[1:08:49] better. There's concern that the US

[1:08:50] might be using lasers to to shoot at

[1:08:52] soldiers. So, the Soviet Union um tasks

[1:08:55] him with identifying peptides to defend

[1:08:57] soldiers, their eyes, and then they're

[1:08:59] aging because what would happen is

[1:09:01] they'd be in a submarine for a few

[1:09:02] months, there'd be a nuclear sub, and

[1:09:04] they'd they'd come back to shore and

[1:09:06] they'd be like, you know, these

[1:09:07] submariners, let's call them, would look

[1:09:09] 10, 20 years older. also happens to

[1:09:10] astronauts.

[1:09:11] >> Yes. So then the same the same thing as

[1:09:13] astronauts are coming back they're

[1:09:14] they're aged. So Vladimir Cavson is

[1:09:16] looking at this and he's like hey

[1:09:16] there's there's got to be a solution for

[1:09:18] this. There's been literature about

[1:09:20] using extracts of other tissues notably

[1:09:23] the pineal gland and the thymus from you

[1:09:26] know late 1800s till this this 1970s uh

[1:09:29] point that we're you know starting our

[1:09:31] story. And he starts grounding up these

[1:09:34] um extracts and injecting it into these

[1:09:36] people and then undoing a lot of this

[1:09:37] aging effects through pineal extracts

[1:09:40] and thymus extracts because these what

[1:09:42] do these soldiers have? They had very

[1:09:44] bad circadian rhythmicity. So they they

[1:09:46] can't couldn't sleep properly. They had

[1:09:47] terrible immunity. They'd get sick

[1:09:49] often. They'd be uh have autoimmune

[1:09:51] problems. All these conditions that come

[1:09:53] with it. And then they were able to undo

[1:09:55] this using these organ extracts. So

[1:09:57] Vladimir Cavson takes it a step further.

[1:10:00] He looks like, hey, what's causing this

[1:10:01] effect in these in these tissues? Like

[1:10:03] people have been injecting pineal glands

[1:10:05] in different research models or taking

[1:10:06] out pineal glands from rats from the

[1:10:08] 1800s onwards. He finds peptides in

[1:10:10] these extracts. He's like, "Huh, I

[1:10:12] wonder if these effects are from the

[1:10:14] peptides, not from this the gland

[1:10:15] itself." So then he sequences from the

[1:10:18] pineal gland epialon and from the thymus

[1:10:22] gland a couple different peptides vyon

[1:10:24] thyogen cristaggen that you'll be

[1:10:26] hearing about in the next few years that

[1:10:28] on their own do a lot of the effects

[1:10:29] that the whole extract would would do.

[1:10:31] Now you're talking about epialon but

[1:10:33] pinealon and epon

[1:10:34] >> is not from the pineal gland

[1:10:35] >> is not from the pineal gland

[1:10:36] >> even though everyone

[1:10:38] >> no I think it's called that because

[1:10:39] there's there's as far as I understand

[1:10:40] please correct me if I'm wrong there are

[1:10:42] animal data suggesting that pinealon can

[1:10:45] help either regenerate or enhance the

[1:10:48] the general functioning of pinealytes.

[1:10:50] So it's having an effect on the pineal

[1:10:52] when cult like you take cultured pineal

[1:10:53] glands like little PI gland you put it

[1:10:55] in a dish and you dissociate the cells

[1:10:57] or keep it you know as a little P-siz

[1:10:58] thing and then you give it pinealon and

[1:11:00] seems to improve the timing and perhaps

[1:11:03] even the amount of melatonin output from

[1:11:05] the pineal these kinds of

[1:11:06] >> epialon does that so that's a big

[1:11:08] confusion I don't know why he named them

[1:11:10] the way he named them if anyone knows

[1:11:11] please let us know but epalon is from

[1:11:13] the pineal gland pinealon comes from a

[1:11:16] groundup brain extract called cortexin

[1:11:19] >> and brain has a pineal in it.

[1:11:21] >> Yeah. But it was the cortex

[1:11:22] specifically, not not the subcortical

[1:11:24] regions. So he specifically not the

[1:11:26] subcortical regions. So flavon

[1:11:29] identifies he makes a drug in Russia.

[1:11:30] It's called epialamine which is the

[1:11:32] pineal gland extract and had great

[1:11:33] effect on circadian rhythmicity and it's

[1:11:36] rich with melatonin basically giving

[1:11:38] people melatonin

[1:11:39] >> but also you up with enzyme that creates

[1:11:41] melatonin from from serotonin to an

[1:11:42] acetyl serotonin to melatonin. So like

[1:11:44] um when he gave it to young monkeys, the

[1:11:47] monkeys had no effect, but he gave it to

[1:11:49] age monkeys that have decreased

[1:11:50] melatonin and you know from puberty

[1:11:52] onwards your melatonin levels

[1:11:53] dramatically decrease. He was able to

[1:11:55] restore melatonin production in these

[1:11:57] aged animals and eventually replicated

[1:11:58] it on humans.

[1:11:59] >> I want to talk about thymus because it's

[1:12:01] fascinating and you are truly aversed in

[1:12:04] this. But before we do that,

[1:12:06] >> so pineal comes from the cortex, not the

[1:12:08] pineal. That's annoying.

[1:12:10] >> Yes, very annoying.

[1:12:10] >> Um maybe we just rename it today. I'll

[1:12:12] let you do the renaming. We'll call it

[1:12:13] EDR.

[1:12:14] >> EDR.

[1:12:15] >> That's the three amino acid sequence.

[1:12:16] >> Great. We'll call it EDR so people don't

[1:12:18] get confused. What are some of the known

[1:12:20] effects? Or am I just imagining this REM

[1:12:22] increase? Because I can't change what's

[1:12:25] happening to me during sleep. Y that

[1:12:27] would be an amazing placebo effect. And

[1:12:29] the reason I say amazing is there are

[1:12:31] many things that one can do to improve

[1:12:33] the amount of slowwave deep sleep. Not

[1:12:35] eating too close to bedtime, doing some

[1:12:36] exercise early in the day, etc., etc.

[1:12:38] very hard to increase REM except by

[1:12:40] heating your sleep environment in the

[1:12:42] last third of your night and maybe some

[1:12:44] alpha GPC in the late day can bump it up

[1:12:47] a bit or you can REM deprive yourself or

[1:12:49] you can smoke cannabis for 10 years then

[1:12:51] quit and then you'll get a lot of REM

[1:12:52] because you got no REM for 10 years do

[1:12:53] not recommend that protocol but

[1:12:56] >> for me it was just striking so why would

[1:12:58] EDR

[1:12:59] >> tripeptide with no receptor

[1:13:00] >> right previously called pinealon but

[1:13:03] from here uh here forward EDR why would

[1:13:06] that have this effect on on REM sleep.

[1:13:09] >> Yep. And and I actually searched through

[1:13:11] all of the literature from Cavson. He

[1:13:12] never mentions REM sleep once in his

[1:13:14] studies. He studied pinealon quite

[1:13:16] extensively on different neuronal tissue

[1:13:17] extracts, animal studies, even in in

[1:13:19] athletes and never mentions the REM

[1:13:21] sleep. They weren't having they didn't

[1:13:22] have Whoops in the 1970s in the Soviet

[1:13:24] Union. They didn't have an eight sleep.

[1:13:25] You're kidding me. No.

[1:13:27] >> So they didn't have, you know, sleep

[1:13:28] trackers in the 1970s uh when it came to

[1:13:30] to these. So there was no reports on on

[1:13:33] that. But what seems to be happening,

[1:13:34] let's see, what is this on this edr?

[1:13:37] It's a tripeptide that um meets the

[1:13:40] groove of the DNA of different key

[1:13:42] regions and helps the promoter region be

[1:13:44] exposed. So then that DNA transduction

[1:13:46] can happen uh translation transcription.

[1:13:49] So you get

[1:13:49] >> it's turning on genetic programs.

[1:13:51] >> Yes.

[1:13:51] >> It's acting a little bit like a

[1:13:53] transcription factor.

[1:13:54] >> Yeah. Yeah. Almost like that or maybe

[1:13:55] assisting transcription factors in

[1:13:57] accessing the DNA in the right places.

[1:13:59] So pinealon in in one sentence it's

[1:14:01] leading to better brain metabolism

[1:14:04] through modulating all these different

[1:14:05] pathways. for example GDF11 sod one sod

[1:14:08] 2 uh iris PPR alpha PPR gamma so what

[1:14:11] seems to be happening so he made

[1:14:13] pinealon as a anti-stress um cognitive

[1:14:16] performance compound

[1:14:18] >> uh and it was available orally in like

[1:14:20] Kazakhstan to

[1:14:21] >> that I'm taking before sleep I should be

[1:14:23] taking in the morning

[1:14:24] >> yes so if you take a high enough dose

[1:14:25] there is sedation from it but if you

[1:14:27] take it in the morning or prehit workout

[1:14:29] you get quite an interesting effect so

[1:14:31] he studied this um compound on athletes

[1:14:33] and he would uh do have them do their

[1:14:35] training session, go to exhaustion and

[1:14:37] then do a test afterwards. And there's

[1:14:39] two groups, pinealon and the placebo.

[1:14:41] The pinealon group could keep their

[1:14:42] performance up despite uh being

[1:14:45] maximally exhausted from their training.

[1:14:46] >> I feel like such a dummy. Here I am

[1:14:48] having like these elaborate dreams I

[1:14:49] don't really remember or care about when

[1:14:51] I could be actually thinking better

[1:14:53] during the daytime.

[1:14:54] >> Yeah. So, a lot of people report less

[1:14:55] brain fog, you know, better thinking. Uh

[1:14:58] a friend that has a a you know, nine

[1:14:59] figure company has all of his employees

[1:15:01] on pineal on. They're taking it in the

[1:15:02] morning.

[1:15:03] >> In the morning, uh, or at night,

[1:15:04] depending on,

[1:15:04] >> do you know the dosages? Not that we're

[1:15:06] recommending it.

[1:15:07] >> Orally, people will take anywhere

[1:15:08] between, you know, half a milligram up

[1:15:10] to three milligrams is what where people

[1:15:13] um, settle in. Um, the Cavson ones that

[1:15:15] that come from Russia are like 200

[1:15:17] micrograms.

[1:15:18] >> Some people are injecting it.

[1:15:19] >> Some people are injecting it.

[1:15:20] >> It goes systemic.

[1:15:21] >> Ego systemic. It's orally available

[1:15:22] through these uh, Latin pep

[1:15:24] transporters.

[1:15:25] >> Crosses the bloodb brain barrier

[1:15:26] >> most likely. Yes.

[1:15:27] >> Okay. Okay. Cuz it's coming from cortex,

[1:15:28] but otherwise we're the way you're

[1:15:30] describing it, we're putting no one's

[1:15:31] infusing into the brain.

[1:15:32] >> No one's so we're assuming it's small

[1:15:34] enough. It's trieptide to cross the the

[1:15:36] bloodb brain barrier.

[1:15:37] >> Have you tried it?

[1:15:37] >> I mean, I took some last night, but

[1:15:39] >> Okay. At night.

[1:15:40] >> Yeah. So, I I will take larger dosages

[1:15:42] uh if I want to get good sleep. I'll

[1:15:44] describe as 8K. Some people it will

[1:15:47] cause them to have a little bit of

[1:15:48] awakening um at first. That may be why

[1:15:50] your deep sleep was going away. I'll say

[1:15:52] this.

[1:15:53] >> If I take half of what was recommended,

[1:15:56] I'm great. But I'm very sensitive to

[1:15:58] everything. Just sensitive. If I take

[1:16:00] what was recommended, I fall very deeply

[1:16:02] asleep. I have elaborate dreams and I

[1:16:04] wake up. Yeah. And I couldn't tell if

[1:16:06] that was a disruption in sleep

[1:16:07] architecture.

[1:16:09] I just found and and granted I'm only

[1:16:11] doing this three times per month

[1:16:12] maximum. And I often forget and then I

[1:16:14] go months and months and I was like, oh,

[1:16:15] maybe I'll take a little pineal. Whoa,

[1:16:18] this is wild. and then I'd stop taking

[1:16:20] it because because I don't know enough

[1:16:21] about it. Now, I know it's cleanly

[1:16:23] sourced because I trust the compounding

[1:16:25] pharmacy it's coming from, but I should

[1:16:26] ask, are there any known risks of EDR?

[1:16:29] >> So far, nothing in the Russian

[1:16:31] literature. So, big caveat, it's Russian

[1:16:33] literature. It's not gold standard

[1:16:34] American research that we love here. Um,

[1:16:36] so there's nothing that's come up as a,

[1:16:38] you know, clear sign because what what

[1:16:40] it seems the big theory of Cavson is

[1:16:42] that as you're when you're younger, you

[1:16:44] make a lot of these peptides naturally.

[1:16:46] these tri die tri and tetropeptides and

[1:16:50] as you age they go down in function and

[1:16:52] quantity and by replenishing these

[1:16:54] peptides you're restoring some aspect of

[1:16:56] youthfulness

[1:16:57] >> something similar happens in America

[1:16:58] with GHK copper which is another

[1:16:59] tripeptide that's technically like the

[1:17:01] collagen regulator so the brain

[1:17:04] regulator and GHK copper is the collagen

[1:17:06] regulator but so far the the side

[1:17:08] effects we've noticed we have the

[1:17:10] probably the biggest anecdotal

[1:17:12] compilation of N equals 1 every every

[1:17:13] day I wake up someone texts me be like

[1:17:15] hey Pineelon did this to me some will

[1:17:16] have a little drop in blood sugar

[1:17:18] because it activates PPR alpha PPR

[1:17:20] gamma. So it'll have positive metabolic

[1:17:22] effects. So that's something to keep an

[1:17:24] eye out. And in some people even had

[1:17:25] their A1C's drop. So

[1:17:28] >> hypoglycemics and other people blood

[1:17:29] sugar issues take extra caution.

[1:17:31] >> And then very vivid dreams for some

[1:17:33] people that could be disheartening if if

[1:17:35] they have like you know nightmares or

[1:17:36] something like that. But very very vivid

[1:17:39] dreams uh as a result of a pinealon

[1:17:41] especially like the the color and the

[1:17:43] the quality of the dreams is very

[1:17:45] different than you'd normally expect.

[1:17:47] What seems to be happening

[1:17:49] >> is like just like you know psychedelics

[1:17:51] change the redux state of the brain.

[1:17:53] Pinealon is doing something similar

[1:17:55] where you're getting more alertness

[1:17:57] during the day

[1:17:58] >> like you don't wake up with as much

[1:17:59] brain fog uh at least anecdotally. Uh

[1:18:01] you get better performance during like

[1:18:03] high-intensity interval training and

[1:18:05] then you get more REM sleep at night. um

[1:18:07] because the neurons are in a better

[1:18:09] oxidative state thanks to the PPR alpha

[1:18:11] PPR gamma iris and all these different

[1:18:12] pathways that it's modulating

[1:18:14] >> um with no clear one you know receptor

[1:18:16] that it's doing it through.

[1:18:18] >> I'd like to take a quick break and

[1:18:19] acknowledge our sponsor function.

[1:18:22] Function provides over 160 advanced lab

[1:18:25] tests to give you a clear snapshot of

[1:18:26] your bodily health. This snapshot gives

[1:18:29] you insights into your heart health,

[1:18:30] your hormone health, autoimmune

[1:18:32] function, nutrient levels, and much

[1:18:34] more. They've also recently added access

[1:18:36] to advanced MRI and CT scans. Function

[1:18:39] not only provides testing of over 160

[1:18:41] biomarkers key to your physical and

[1:18:43] mental health. It also analyzes these

[1:18:45] results and provides recommendations for

[1:18:47] improving your health from top doctors.

[1:18:50] For example, in a recent test with

[1:18:51] function, I learned that some of my

[1:18:53] blood lipids were slightly out of range.

[1:18:55] As a result, I decided to start

[1:18:57] supplementing with nattokinise, which

[1:18:59] can naturally help reduce LDL

[1:19:01] cholesterol. And it did. In a follow-up

[1:19:03] test, I could confirm that this strategy

[1:19:05] worked. My blood lipids are now back

[1:19:07] exactly where I want them. Comprehensive

[1:19:09] lab testing of the sort that function

[1:19:10] offers is just so important for health.

[1:19:13] I mean, how else are you going to know

[1:19:14] what's going on under the hood? And

[1:19:16] while I've been doing blood work for

[1:19:17] years, it used to be timeconuming,

[1:19:19] complicated, and expensive. In fact, I

[1:19:21] used to spend thousands of dollars per

[1:19:23] year trying to get this kind of data.

[1:19:25] And the data, frankly, were not all that

[1:19:27] good. But now with Function, it's

[1:19:29] extremely easy and affordable. A

[1:19:31] function membership is only a dollar a

[1:19:33] day, $365 a year. And if you think about

[1:19:35] the information it provides and the

[1:19:37] health challenges it helps you avoid and

[1:19:39] the proactive things that it can do for

[1:19:41] you to enhance your health, I truly look

[1:19:43] at it as a savings. To learn more, visit

[1:19:46] functionhealth.com/huberman

[1:19:48] and use the code hubman for a $50 credit

[1:19:50] towards your membership. Again, that's

[1:19:52] functionhealth.com/huberman.

[1:19:55] >> What about epital, which turns out comes

[1:19:57] from the pineal? I'd love your thoughts

[1:19:59] on this. I've heard and I thought it was

[1:20:01] complete nonsense when I first heard it

[1:20:03] that the pineal becomes calcified as

[1:20:06] people age. The reason I thought it was

[1:20:08] nonsense is I used to co-e neuro anatomy

[1:20:10] when I was at UCSD before moving my lab

[1:20:12] to Stanford with a guy named Harvey

[1:20:13] Carton. You guys can look him up.

[1:20:15] Unfortunately, he passed away. He was in

[1:20:16] his late 80s and he had this incredible

[1:20:18] career as a I think one of the greatest

[1:20:21] neuroanatomists of the last hundred

[1:20:23] years. It's a that's a good category to

[1:20:26] be in because we have like Kahal who's

[1:20:27] like discovered everything basically and

[1:20:29] then the rest of neuroscientists are

[1:20:30] just kind of tinkering around with what

[1:20:32] he predicted and then a few other neuro

[1:20:34] anatomists like Ted Jones is there but

[1:20:35] he's like the neuroanatomist of my

[1:20:37] generation and I asked him about this

[1:20:40] calcification thing cuz he had looked at

[1:20:43] the brains of so many different species

[1:20:44] including humans. He was also an MD by

[1:20:46] the way and he goes, "Yeah, I don't know

[1:20:48] whether or not this calcification thing

[1:20:50] is real." M

[1:20:51] >> and he kind of brushed it aside and I

[1:20:52] thought well Harvey doesn't take it

[1:20:53] seriously so I'm not going to take it

[1:20:54] seriously but even though he was

[1:20:57] absolutely right about many many things

[1:20:59] I think he might have missed that one

[1:21:01] because when I go to the literature now

[1:21:03] it's a little bit tough because the

[1:21:04] cadaavvers that you looked at in medical

[1:21:06] school and not all of them are processed

[1:21:08] on the same timeline right it's not

[1:21:09] thankfully it's not a controlled science

[1:21:11] right these are people that generously

[1:21:13] donate their bodies to science right

[1:21:16] >> does our pineal calcify and even if it

[1:21:18] does does that somehow inhibit its

[1:21:21] ability to communicate with our other

[1:21:22] tissues.

[1:21:23] >> It's it's a big kind of debatable thing

[1:21:25] in in the pineal research. If you look

[1:21:27] at the pineal gland Wikipedia, it's very

[1:21:29] under uh developed, let's say, because

[1:21:31] it's kind of woowoo. Like when you think

[1:21:32] of pineal gland, you think of someone

[1:21:34] who's going to sell you

[1:21:34] >> a neuroscientist chooses to work on the

[1:21:36] pineal.

[1:21:36] >> They should, but it's not a very sexy.

[1:21:38] >> It sounds like someone's going to sell

[1:21:39] you crystals or something about your

[1:21:40] >> It's not very sexy. Yeah.

[1:21:42] >> But I think it's it's a key aspect of

[1:21:44] aging and longevity. So that's that's

[1:21:45] what gives us, you know, our interest in

[1:21:47] it. the pineal gland. Um it seems from

[1:21:50] Caven's work that the decrease in pineal

[1:21:53] gland function with aging is more of a

[1:21:54] physiologic than a anatomic problem. Now

[1:21:57] I will see some calcification on MRI is

[1:21:59] when we have a patient come in for like

[1:22:00] a stroke or you know TBI will look at

[1:22:02] their MRI and I'm like hey there's that

[1:22:03] looks like a little bit calcification

[1:22:04] there. uh maybe my neurology colleagues

[1:22:07] will disagree but that seems to happen

[1:22:10] but the question is what is actually

[1:22:11] leading to the deterioration of

[1:22:12] melatonin synthesis because it decreases

[1:22:14] quite dramatically and some people even

[1:22:16] think that might start puberty like if

[1:22:18] you have a pineal pineal cyst you can

[1:22:20] have precocious puberty like eight or

[1:22:22] nine years old

[1:22:22] >> the rhythmicity in melatonin because a

[1:22:24] young baby very young baby their

[1:22:27] melatonin secretion is not very rhythmic

[1:22:29] but they're in REM like a lot a lot of

[1:22:32] their sleep is REM it's a beautiful

[1:22:34] thing Right. With time it becomes more

[1:22:36] rhythmic. And of course in today's day

[1:22:38] and age with all the artificial lighting

[1:22:39] and the lack of sunlight exposure things

[1:22:41] that you and I care a lot about. Um

[1:22:42] people are making themselves somewhat

[1:22:44] arythmic or phase shifted.

[1:22:48] >> But epialen is somehow restoring

[1:22:50] pinealytes is somehow enhancing function

[1:22:53] of the pineal and other tissues.

[1:22:55] >> Yep. So uh in in cabin's work he's found

[1:22:57] that it will increase the expression of

[1:23:00] the different clock genes. So in like

[1:23:02] you know lymphosytes that he'll measure

[1:23:03] in peripheral tissues he'll notice that

[1:23:05] the clock genes actually change. So in a

[1:23:07] more rhythmic pattern he'll notice that

[1:23:09] morning cortisol is higher. Great. Which

[1:23:12] by the way folks I've said this in the

[1:23:14] cortisol episode. You want your morning

[1:23:16] cortisol super super high. You want your

[1:23:17] evening and nighttime cortisol low. If

[1:23:19] you're a resident in medical school just

[1:23:21] listen to what your superiors say. They

[1:23:22] don't give a [ __ ] about your cortisol

[1:23:24] levels. You got to do the hard work and

[1:23:25] then uh later you get to later you get

[1:23:28] to go to bed. It's a little weird that

[1:23:30] the medical profession tortures their

[1:23:31] own by disrupting one of the one of the

[1:23:34] primary anchors of health. Yep.

[1:23:36] >> And and cognitive function, right? I

[1:23:38] mean, I've had 28 hour shifts and that's

[1:23:40] what got me interested in security.

[1:23:41] >> You're young. You're good. You're good.

[1:23:43] But yeah, the idea was it was restoring

[1:23:45] a more um circadian appropriate hormonal

[1:23:48] profile through you know HTH cortisol

[1:23:51] >> taken when

[1:23:52] >> anytime because the idea with these bio

[1:23:54] regulators unlike you know a GLP-1 drug

[1:23:56] that you take today and have the effect

[1:23:58] for the next week the idea from the

[1:24:00] cavonin model is that you take these and

[1:24:02] then you acrewue benefits when you're

[1:24:04] off of them like you notice with

[1:24:05] pinealon you took pinealon for a day or

[1:24:08] two or three days a month and you had

[1:24:09] effects until you took the next dose. So

[1:24:11] the idea is can you acrue benefits from

[1:24:14] these compounds as they upregulate or

[1:24:16] downregulate certain genetic pathways in

[1:24:18] a more favorable state and then keep

[1:24:19] those effects later on. So in the cavson

[1:24:22] seminal work was this 15y year um

[1:24:24] longevity study he got people in nursing

[1:24:26] homes two groups one them got echalon in

[1:24:30] the form of epathalamine which is the

[1:24:32] whole pineal gland extract and then a

[1:24:33] thymus peptide called thyolin not

[1:24:36] thyulin there's two different peptides a

[1:24:38] lot of people confuse them every peptide

[1:24:39] website confuses them but I inject them

[1:24:42] for 15 years like a 10 or 20 day course

[1:24:45] per year just just uh beginning of the

[1:24:47] year middle of the year and that's it

[1:24:48] and they had a significant lower

[1:24:50] mortality when it came to cardiovascular

[1:24:52] disease, uh, infectious risk and for,

[1:24:54] um, cancers. So, Russian study, caveat,

[1:24:58] but that would would be the most

[1:25:00] interesting longevity study I've seen

[1:25:02] done if accurate, if true, uh, because

[1:25:04] he was able to take nursing home

[1:25:05] patients, give them peptides for, you

[1:25:07] know, very small amount of the year, and

[1:25:09] yet they accred benefits the rest of the

[1:25:10] year.

[1:25:10] >> Impressive. Uh, one of the things that

[1:25:12] really got me excited about epalon, is

[1:25:15] italon or talon? The Russians say epylon

[1:25:17] is the the way they say it, but it's

[1:25:19] spelled with a th Okay. So, I'll say

[1:25:21] epal whoever wants, you know, we're

[1:25:23] making the rules today. So,

[1:25:24] >> okay, epitoon is also a a DG. That's

[1:25:26] that's the amino acid for amino acid.

[1:25:28] >> I'll say epialin because it's uh easiest

[1:25:30] for me and forgive me if anyone takes

[1:25:32] offense. I took interest because uh in

[1:25:35] my former life running a lab focused on

[1:25:38] among other things uh visual pathway

[1:25:41] repair y um to reverse blindness or

[1:25:44] impending blindness. Um there's some

[1:25:46] interesting papers and there I can

[1:25:48] really gauge the data even though

[1:25:49] they're in mice. I can say this is a

[1:25:50] real effect or like a me effect or like

[1:25:52] a wo effect using epialin to combat some

[1:25:56] of the neurodeeneration in things like

[1:25:58] uh retinitis pigmentotosa downstream

[1:26:00] neurodeeneration in RP uh which is a

[1:26:02] very common unfortunately blinding

[1:26:04] disease or even in glaucoma. Y

[1:26:07] >> I should mention that BPC57 to my

[1:26:09] knowledge hasn't been looked at

[1:26:10] extensively in terms of optic nerve

[1:26:12] repair but it absolutely should be. If

[1:26:13] if someone knows those papers, please

[1:26:15] put them in the comments. So, I was

[1:26:17] intrigued. Yep. Like, there's this

[1:26:18] molecule that's somehow involved in DNA

[1:26:20] repair,

[1:26:21] >> and it's uh either maintaining or

[1:26:24] restoring some of the machinery that

[1:26:25] would otherwise definitely be lost in

[1:26:27] one of these optic nerve damage

[1:26:28] conditions that models things like

[1:26:30] glaucoma retinitis pigmentotosa

[1:26:32] stroke, uh traumatic head injury. It's a

[1:26:34] big deal. Yep. Vision and movement are

[1:26:35] kind of the biggies. I mean there are

[1:26:36] other things too but like you know you

[1:26:38] don't want to lose those and if you do

[1:26:39] you can get by but it you need

[1:26:41] additional support obviously. So the

[1:26:45] reason it's so interesting to me is that

[1:26:46] it's getting to DNA repair as opposed to

[1:26:49] these downstream

[1:26:51] um you know working on any number of

[1:26:53] vague receptorish maybe no receptor

[1:26:56] things like and this is what gene

[1:26:57] therapy is about.

[1:26:58] >> Yep. So do you think of epien as kind of

[1:27:00] a gene therapy of sorts or do you think

[1:27:02] about it more as support for genetic

[1:27:04] machinery that has lots of downstream

[1:27:06] targets?

[1:27:07] >> Yes, I think it it supports this genetic

[1:27:09] machinery. Um when it comes to the eyes,

[1:27:12] it seems to be repairing some of the

[1:27:14] photo receptors that might get damaged

[1:27:16] in a red pigmentotosa. Melanopsin wasn't

[1:27:18] discovered when when Cavson was was

[1:27:20] kicking it around. But I would my my

[1:27:23] theory is that epiphylon is working on

[1:27:25] melanopsin.

[1:27:26] >> Interesting. and that it may be

[1:27:27] upregulating melanopsin levels and then

[1:27:29] making that morning sunlight that

[1:27:30] everyone likes

[1:27:31] >> to be more effective because the big

[1:27:33] problem is a lot of people will tell me

[1:27:35] doc I did morning sunlight didn't I

[1:27:36] didn't feel the effects I'm like have

[1:27:38] you had enough darkness to regenerate

[1:27:39] melanopsin levels because we know that

[1:27:42] uh in animal studies 5 days of pure

[1:27:44] darkness dramatically increases the

[1:27:45] amount of melanopsin in the redness

[1:27:47] >> this is interesting and I certainly have

[1:27:48] a lot of close close friends that are in

[1:27:51] a position to do these studies um and

[1:27:53] you know the podcast is obviously

[1:27:54] available free to everyone but we have a

[1:27:56] premium channel that funds research. We

[1:27:59] don't talk a lot about it, but we we've

[1:28:00] given a lot of money away to excellent

[1:28:02] laboratories where they're free to

[1:28:03] explore these things. I'd love to see

[1:28:04] some of the studies that we're talking

[1:28:05] about today supported. And by the way,

[1:28:07] that's done in collaboration with donors

[1:28:09] that do a match. So, we could get the

[1:28:11] right people to do the right studies

[1:28:13] with no bias toward what the preferred

[1:28:16] outcome is. In fact, the scientists that

[1:28:19] we both know, the right ones, would try

[1:28:21] and disprove the hypothesis that any of

[1:28:23] this stuff was real. And if some makes

[1:28:26] it through that filter, then they would

[1:28:27] conclude it's real. Otherwise, they're

[1:28:29] trying to essentially knock down the the

[1:28:31] the quoteunquote positive outcome. Yep.

[1:28:33] I mean, and I think as a clinician, one

[1:28:35] of the key things to pe for people to

[1:28:37] remember is that we've screwed up a lot

[1:28:39] of times as clinicians through different

[1:28:41] grotesque abuses of our, you know,

[1:28:43] trust. We've done, you know,

[1:28:45] interventions or drugs that weren't the

[1:28:47] most efficacious. For example, like in

[1:28:49] the 1910s to 1940s, we irradiated the

[1:28:53] thymuses of young kids to prevent SIDS.

[1:28:56] This was considered gold standard

[1:28:57] medicine. Like

[1:28:58] >> does it have anything to do with SIDS?

[1:28:59] >> No, they thought that sudden infant

[1:29:01] death.

[1:29:01] >> They thought that the thymus was too big

[1:29:02] and was sitting on the heart and that

[1:29:03] might be the cause. So tons of these

[1:29:05] kids, you know, I think at least 10,000

[1:29:06] died from cancers. No, I think the only

[1:29:08] person that's talked about it is he has

[1:29:10] a video talking about this. So we've had

[1:29:12] a lot of issues as a as a as a field. We

[1:29:14] have to be very cognizant of that and

[1:29:16] know the history of where we've been

[1:29:17] like like Verkow of the famous Verkow

[1:29:19] triad. He was like pro this therapy

[1:29:22] >> and we all know learn about it in

[1:29:24] medical school but no one talks about

[1:29:25] this aspect. So there's a lot of

[1:29:26] grotesque abuses of medical power. Let's

[1:29:29] say we have to be very careful in which

[1:29:30] interventions we give people and the

[1:29:32] first things like do no harm. So while

[1:29:34] we are you know excited about these

[1:29:36] therapies we have to be kind of careful

[1:29:37] in where we're taking people.

[1:29:38] >> Appreciate that. I wasn't aware of that

[1:29:40] study. Perfect um tea up for uh no pun

[1:29:44] for the thymus. Tell me about the

[1:29:45] thymus. Um super interesting organ.

[1:29:48] >> Yep.

[1:29:49] >> We gland.

[1:29:50] >> Yep.

[1:29:50] >> We all have one when we're born.

[1:29:52] >> Yep.

[1:29:52] >> By the time we're what age is it mostly

[1:29:54] gone?

[1:29:55] >> So the thymus is grown under the

[1:29:57] influence of a lot of these youthful

[1:29:59] hormones, melatonin, growth hormone, um

[1:30:01] DHEA, um and then is shrunk at the

[1:30:04] moment you hit puberty. So until from

[1:30:06] your the day of birth until puberty, you

[1:30:09] grow this massive thymus.

[1:30:10] >> Where does it sit?

[1:30:11] >> It's right above your heart. Right

[1:30:12] behind this the collar bone.

[1:30:13] >> How big is it?

[1:30:14] >> It's a in in a baby, it could be quite

[1:30:17] large on on the chest as a baseball.

[1:30:19] >> Like maybe the size of half the heart,

[1:30:22] let's say. Maybe bigger. Depends on on

[1:30:23] on on the size. Right now in our bodies,

[1:30:26] it's going to be a bunch of fat with a

[1:30:28] couple of different globules of thyic

[1:30:30] residue.

[1:30:30] >> Tiny tiny.

[1:30:31] >> Very tiny. In fact, most surgeons will

[1:30:33] just remove it um when they do surgery

[1:30:35] nowadays for like open heart. U but

[1:30:37] there's, you know, good data from New

[1:30:39] England Journal of Medicine that

[1:30:40] removing the thymus tissue, residue

[1:30:42] tissue leads to uh a mortality signal

[1:30:44] within the first 5 years after those

[1:30:46] surgeries.

[1:30:46] >> So people have died because of thymus

[1:30:48] removed.

[1:30:48] >> They'll have like either higher rates of

[1:30:50] cancers or, you know, higher rates of

[1:30:52] autoimmune diseases if they have their

[1:30:53] their thymuses removed. Now there are

[1:30:55] thyomomas where people have to have

[1:30:57] their thymus removed but we're talking

[1:30:58] about people that you know the surgeon

[1:30:59] is going in to do a coronary artery

[1:31:01] bypass surgery.

[1:31:02] >> Is the thymus neurally innervated?

[1:31:04] >> Yes.

[1:31:04] >> So it's getting signals from from brain

[1:31:07] >> Vegas nerve. Yep.

[1:31:08] >> So it's getting sorry to get technical

[1:31:10] here but I since I did the episode in

[1:31:12] the Vegas some people might remember

[1:31:13] there's a lot of ascending sensory

[1:31:15] information from the Vegas going up to

[1:31:17] the brain. There's also motor control

[1:31:18] from the brain going down through the

[1:31:20] Vegas. So it's two two-way street mostly

[1:31:22] up some down. Is the thymus controlled

[1:31:26] by the descending is like in other words

[1:31:28] is something going on in our brain like

[1:31:30] stress level or or sleep controlling our

[1:31:33] thymic?

[1:31:33] >> There's sympathetic and parasympathetic

[1:31:35] intervations for thymus

[1:31:36] >> um that dictates its hormonal output

[1:31:38] because the thymus what what is the

[1:31:40] thymus?

[1:31:41] >> Yeah, it's it's a gland that both

[1:31:43] secretes hormones

[1:31:45] >> and develops the tea cells. So your your

[1:31:47] lymphatic cells are found in your bone

[1:31:49] marrow that's where they're made. the

[1:31:50] tea cells will travel up to the thymus

[1:31:52] and get trained so they don't kill you

[1:31:54] and they don't attack your own tissue

[1:31:56] but attack a foreign invader or a cancer

[1:31:58] or whatever it may be that process is

[1:32:01] very good in youth and as you age you

[1:32:03] get more autoimmunity more cancers etc

[1:32:05] etc because the immune system is not as

[1:32:06] robust

[1:32:07] >> both because the thymus makes less of

[1:32:09] the hormones that train the immune cells

[1:32:11] and makes less of these immune cells

[1:32:12] themselves so when you're you know 15

[1:32:15] you're making uh 10 to the eth magnitude

[1:32:17] of these cells every single day they're

[1:32:19] called naive T cells, they will

[1:32:20] eventually become your CD4 and CD8 T-

[1:32:22] cells. Uh, as you age, this number

[1:32:24] dramatically decreases. And those cells

[1:32:28] will live somewhere between 10 and 15

[1:32:30] years. And that can kind of gauge when

[1:32:32] the mortality window kicks in for a lot

[1:32:34] of these different disorders. When your

[1:32:35] thymus reaches a, you know, minimum

[1:32:37] level of output, you get a lot of these

[1:32:39] disorders like cancers, uh, heart

[1:32:41] disease, autoimmunity. If you put almost

[1:32:43] any disease and look at the thymus um

[1:32:46] risk associated with it, it increases as

[1:32:48] the thymus um function uh decreases.

[1:32:51] There's a nature paper uh 2026 just came

[1:32:54] out that looked at cardiovascular

[1:32:56] disease and cancer mortality and all

[1:32:58] these different metrics that they did

[1:33:00] MRIs of people and and the people that

[1:33:02] had the higher thymic scores had less

[1:33:04] mortality across every single one of

[1:33:06] these conditions. But you said, not

[1:33:08] challenging this, but what's surprising

[1:33:10] about that very interesting result is

[1:33:12] that you said that by the time you reach

[1:33:13] your you're in your 30s, I'm in my 50s,

[1:33:16] those ages, our ages, you there, you've

[1:33:18] got just a bit of residual tissue there.

[1:33:20] It's just a few cells and yet it's

[1:33:22] somehow maintaining function. The rate

[1:33:24] of decrease varies dramatically from

[1:33:26] person to person. So we call this thymic

[1:33:28] involution. So from the moment puberty

[1:33:29] starts till um you die, your thymus is

[1:33:33] slowly shrinking. That really happens in

[1:33:34] your 20s and 30s. the majority of that

[1:33:36] under the the pressure of androgens,

[1:33:39] estrogens, progesterines and

[1:33:40] corticosteroids. Those are driving a lot

[1:33:42] of the shrinkage.

[1:33:43] >> So the hormones that everyone seems to

[1:33:45] want to increase the rest of their life

[1:33:46] and that uh become you know active a lot

[1:33:50] during puberty actually cause thyic

[1:33:52] involution.

[1:33:53] >> Yes. So like u castration will undo some

[1:33:56] of the thyic involution. Um, pregnancy

[1:33:59] is a great time to involute your thymus,

[1:34:00] which makes sense because you don't want

[1:34:02] to be having an autoimmune attack

[1:34:03] against the baby or an immune attack

[1:34:05] against the baby.

[1:34:05] >> Do women's thymus disappear after

[1:34:08] pregnancy?

[1:34:09] >> They they involute and then will regrow

[1:34:11] during the breastfeeding period under

[1:34:13] the influences of growth hormone and

[1:34:14] prolactin. So, hibernating animals will

[1:34:16] have a dramatic shrinkage of the thymus

[1:34:18] during hibernation and then a regrowth

[1:34:20] um during the feeding window. Is there

[1:34:22] any benefit to doing or taking something

[1:34:25] to either maintain or regenerate thyic

[1:34:28] size? So there was

[1:34:29] >> as an as a let's just say somebody 25 or

[1:34:32] older.

[1:34:32] >> Yeah. There's a um interesting study

[1:34:34] trim trial from Dr. Greg Fahhee. He's

[1:34:37] doing a study where he's giving a

[1:34:39] cocktail of growth hormone, metformin,

[1:34:41] and DHEA. Uh gave that for 12 months and

[1:34:44] had the thymic size increase on imaging.

[1:34:46] The amount of CD4 or CD8 T cells

[1:34:48] increase and the ratio of which

[1:34:50] improved. uh and then some of the

[1:34:51] markers that would show like immune cell

[1:34:53] exhaustion like PD1 and all these

[1:34:55] different aspects of T- cell um dynamics

[1:34:57] also improve. So they're they're trying

[1:34:59] to use growth hormone to regrow the

[1:35:00] thymus.

[1:35:01] >> Getting us directly to peptides. Many

[1:35:04] people who are peptide curious start

[1:35:07] asking about thymus and alpha. Is thymus

[1:35:09] and alpha a peptide that comes from the

[1:35:11] thymus? Thankfully they named it

[1:35:13] appropriately this time. Uh great uh for

[1:35:16] that. What does thymus alpha do

[1:35:18] endogenously when you're not injecting

[1:35:19] it or taking it? What's its normal

[1:35:21] function?

[1:35:22] >> So thyosin alpha 1 is part of this

[1:35:24] thymic family of hormones that gets

[1:35:26] secreted. It's like at least 21 amino

[1:35:27] acids. It uh increases T- cell

[1:35:29] development in the thymus, increases TE-

[1:35:31] cell perforation outside the thymus and

[1:35:33] makes the T- cells more likely to

[1:35:35] properly attack a pathogen. Um like it's

[1:35:38] like a you know jet fuel for the for the

[1:35:40] tea cells.

[1:35:40] >> So it's like proimmune. Yes. I've heard

[1:35:42] of people taking it when they feel run

[1:35:45] down, if they're traveling, they're

[1:35:46] sleeping less than usual, they're a new

[1:35:48] parent. So, obviously that's kind of,

[1:35:51] you know, uh, peptide wild west kind of

[1:35:53] indications.

[1:35:54] >> It was FDA approved as Zidaxin, um, for

[1:35:57] kids that were born without a thymus or

[1:35:58] a malfunction thymus like Dor syndrome,

[1:36:00] these different kind of genetic

[1:36:02] abnormalities um, to be used for these

[1:36:05] kids to help develop the T- cells that

[1:36:06] they had that weren't um, in the thymus

[1:36:08] because they'd have like bone marrow tea

[1:36:09] cells that weren't properly developed.

[1:36:11] So there was good support from thyopaf 1

[1:36:13] for these kids. I don't think that FDA

[1:36:15] approval still exists. So the people are

[1:36:17] trying to you know grandfather thyop one

[1:36:19] into these this peptide conversation. Um

[1:36:21] in other countries it's approved for a

[1:36:24] ad aguant therapy for like hepatitis B,

[1:36:25] hepatitis C and and in different

[1:36:27] cancers. So far the sepsis literature

[1:36:30] and the infectious literature is not

[1:36:31] that promising. It might be like if you

[1:36:33] take antibiotics with thy one you might

[1:36:36] have a quicker bounce around. What what

[1:36:38] I would be interested to see is like if

[1:36:39] you you know went to nursing homes

[1:36:40] injected everybody with thousand thyin

[1:36:42] alpha 1 in November and December would

[1:36:44] you have less flu in January and

[1:36:45] February? That'd be like the interesting

[1:36:47] thought experiment. Both thyus alpha 1

[1:36:49] and thymus and beta 4 come out of the

[1:36:50] Goldstein lab. That's the very famous

[1:36:53] lab that studied the thymus in the 70s '

[1:36:54] 80s and 90s. Um but thyic research kind

[1:36:57] of fell out of favor the last few

[1:36:58] decades but now

[1:36:59] >> also sexy as the pineal. I say that sort

[1:37:02] of tongue and cheek because I mean I

[1:37:03] think these are fascinating glands and

[1:37:05] um the reason I ask if they're neurally

[1:37:06] innovated is that you know nowadays

[1:37:08] there's a there are a lot of reasons why

[1:37:10] people choose to study one thing or the

[1:37:11] other. But these um underststudied

[1:37:14] glands if neurally innovated then open

[1:37:16] up a lot of interesting questions about

[1:37:18] brain control, behavioral stress control

[1:37:21] and the and the experiments kind of

[1:37:23] write themselves. doing them still takes

[1:37:24] a lot of work. Interpreting them is no

[1:37:26] easy task either. But um I think there

[1:37:28] should certainly be more work on um on

[1:37:30] the pineal and on on the thymus. So I

[1:37:32] want to make that clear that have you

[1:37:35] taken thy alpha? Oh yeah, I' I've used

[1:37:37] thumbs off one when uh when I travel to

[1:37:39] to avoid the uh cesspool of planes and

[1:37:43] hotels and all these places which uh

[1:37:45] like I would say traveling and then this

[1:37:47] year on the wards the first time I don't

[1:37:49] get flu, cold, whatever kind of

[1:37:51] infection I do one throughout and I

[1:37:53] didn't get sick a single time.

[1:37:54] >> What time of day or night are you

[1:37:56] injecting?

[1:37:56] >> Uh twice a week uh time agnostic. Uh

[1:37:59] we're talking about you know 2.5

[1:38:01] milligrams uh as a prophylactic. that's

[1:38:04] not FDA approved or Yeah.

[1:38:05] >> or this is just you doing your thing.

[1:38:07] >> I'm I'm curious and see if it would it

[1:38:08] would work.

[1:38:09] >> You're trying to stay healthy so you can

[1:38:10] uh take care of patients. Exactly. So

[1:38:12] you're willing to be your own

[1:38:13] experiment. When we hear about thyosin

[1:38:14] alpha, we usually hear about TB500 also.

[1:38:17] What's TB500 and how are the are the two

[1:38:19] related if at all?

[1:38:20] >> So while Cavinson's finding thyolin and

[1:38:22] he's injecting that into people, the

[1:38:23] Goldstein lab finds thyin fraction 5

[1:38:25] which is this giant uh protein that has

[1:38:28] many different peptides in it. Thy alpha

[1:38:30] 1 being one of them and then thymusin

[1:38:32] beta 4 being the other one. Thyself

[1:38:33] alpha 1, thyus beta 4 were discovered in

[1:38:35] the thymus but they're not exclusive to

[1:38:36] the thymus gland. They're also made in

[1:38:38] other tissues. Thysin beta 4 seems to be

[1:38:40] uh this 43 amino acid peptide that helps

[1:38:44] in the actin cytokeleton of cells. So if

[1:38:46] you think about it, immune cells have to

[1:38:47] move a lot. So they have to re

[1:38:48] reorganize their actin cytokeleton quite

[1:38:50] quickly. So it seems to upregulate that

[1:38:52] movement

[1:38:53] >> which you know the horse community for

[1:38:55] doping uh and other athletes have found

[1:38:57] a niche for thy beta 4 to use it as a

[1:39:00] >> the horse community.

[1:39:00] >> Yeah. The horse races. Thus made 4 is a

[1:39:03] very common doping agent

[1:39:04] >> for the riders or for the for the

[1:39:05] horses.

[1:39:06] >> For the horses.

[1:39:06] >> Yes.

[1:39:07] >> Do they test the horses for?

[1:39:08] >> Yeah. No there's like a big doping

[1:39:10] scandal when it comes to to horses and

[1:39:12] uh I don't know if they test them or

[1:39:13] they like

[1:39:14] >> you know what's funny this is a very

[1:39:16] relevant tangent. Occasionally someone

[1:39:18] will say, "Hey, does all this morning

[1:39:19] sunlight stuff, does that work on like

[1:39:21] dogs?" And I go, "Listen, I hate to tell

[1:39:22] you this, but like a lot of the

[1:39:24] literature came from animals, not

[1:39:25] necessarily dogs, and they have

[1:39:27] melanopsin, ganglen cells, they have

[1:39:29] super kaismatic like yes, yes, and yes,

[1:39:31] same physiology."

[1:39:31] >> And then recently, won't say who, wasn't

[1:39:34] me. Um, truly, I have a friend whose uh

[1:39:36] dog was injured. And the question

[1:39:37] becomes like, would BPC work? And you

[1:39:39] can actually say, well, there's a lot

[1:39:40] more animal data than uh human data.

[1:39:43] talked to a couple vets and vets will

[1:39:46] they're a lot more adventurous than we

[1:39:48] might think and I thought well listen

[1:39:50] you know now of course these are pets

[1:39:52] they're I love my dog you know not the

[1:39:54] same as a human I am a bit of a species

[1:39:56] but love them tremendously um

[1:39:59] >> and I think the