trying to translate as the foundation of this podcast. Now, this episode is going to be about something that has been around for a long time. Some people know about them, some people don't. They're called peptides. Now, what are peptides? Peptides are short strings of amino acids, usually between 2 and 50 amino acids long. They are linked with a peptide bond, hence the name, and they basically act as bio regulators of the body. Let me give you some examples of natural peptides in the body. Insulin, oxytocin, and glucagon are all peptides naturally occurring in the body that are relatively famous. Now, if a peptide weighs more than what we call 10,000 Daltons, which is just a mechanism of weight, it's called a protein. So, these are basically really, really small proteins, if you want to think of it. Now, there's been over 7,000 peptides that have been identified. That's a lot of peptides. And and and if the way I like to usually traditionally describe these is they are basically signaling cells and proteins that bind to the surface receptor and help to coordinate an action. There are several different classes and we'll talk about the different classes today. Um and they're a they're responsible for a wide range of biological functions. Earlier we mentioned insulin and its counterpart glucagon. Oxytocin plays a significant role, but we also have the peptides that are not as common that are often remade and sold and that's what we're going to talk about today. These serve functions like endocrine, like um the nervous system, boosting the immune system, uh you know, optimal boosting health and healing, um helping with anti-aging. There the the mechanism of action in general is a regulation of a gene expression and a protein synthesis. I know this gets a little complicated, but uh that's the gist of the complication. Peptides control a vast number of cellular pathways and functions. The list includes growth factors, stem cells, hormones, mitochondria, metabolism, brain neurotransmitters, antimicrobial action, immune function and cells in essence. Each of these is a different thing that a peptide or multiple different peptides can do in the body. So basically, how do they work? They work through a combination of signals both in the cell as well as between the cells to accomplish a task. The good thing about peptides is that the majority of them have very, very low side effects. That's kind of the beauty of them. We don't compare them to say a traditional hormone like testosterone because the issue with testosterone, while vital for for both men and women, has what we call an issue with negative feedback. Meaning, if you start injecting testosterone or taking it, the body's going to say, "Hey, you already have enough of it. I don't need to make it anymore." Well, that's because the hormone is identical to the one that's already in the body. So, it doesn't really recognize that you put it in there. It just says, "Hey, you have a lot of it. I don't need to make any more." The problem is if you stop taking that testosterone or hormone, then the body's like, "Well, I'm not making it and you're not giving it to me." And you end up causing a huge problem. The good thing about peptides is that doesn't happen because these are only small little sequences of of hormones or of proteins. So, they don't cause that negative feedback. And as a result, they they don't stop doing their normal functions. You just basically just optimize. So, you get basically all of the positive benefits and really none of the negative side effects, which is kind of a cool situation. Now, uh you know, there are and this is a an important area to talk about and that's and this is why I listed it, is that there are several different peptides that do have a theoretical increased risk for cancer. Many things actually have a theoretical risk of cancer. Smoking does. You don't see them, you know, removing smoking off the market. They just tell you, "Yes, there's a risk and understand it." Many meds actually have a significant risk of cancer, whether or not they want to tell you about it. So, there's about five that are traditionally known to cause an in slight increased risk of cancer. Thymosin beta 4 or TB4, also known as TB 500, which we'll talk about in a little bit. IGF-1, which is insulin growth factor 1. Uh GHRP. GHRH. And what we call Dihexa. Now, many of the peptides actually have acronyms and and cuz many of them are super long common complicated words, so that's why they shorten them into different uh letters to make it easier. Now, there's a couple things that I've learned recently that was more surprising uh than anything uh just in terms of specificity and clarity. Reportedly, Merck, the drug company, is under uh is in the process of actually identifying 50 different peptides and see if they can convert them or change them into drugs. You're probably thinking, "Well, this is crazy. Why would they do that?" You ever heard of the drug Ozempic? The one taking the United States and likely the world by storm? That's a peptide, my friends. That's called semaglutide, and it's been around for a long time. The drug company basically put an extra carbon group or however they methylated it differently so that they could make it personalized so that they could trademark it cuz you can't trademark peptides. And they identified, "Hey, this is Ozempic." And then they basically ran it through trials and said, "Oh yeah, it does work." And then they pushed it out and making billions and billions of dollars on it. That peptide's been around for a long time. You just didn't know about it. They just didn't market it. It works the same way. So, that's the future. And and many of these peptides are something that we're going to talk about briefly today. I try to keep these relatively short, half hour, 45 minutes, maybe an hour depending on the topic. So that you can listen to them on your run, you know, in your work drive to work, you know, wherever you are. You know, quick short thoughts, important thoughts. Probably won't be 2-3 hour podcasts, at least not initially. I I'm a full-time physician. I don't have a whole lot of time to do that. Um but I do want to share my thoughts. So that's why I'm trying to make them short but important and impactful. Uh emerging frontiers. Like I just mentioned, many of these are starting to become realize of how good they are, how potent they are. And unfortunately, big pharma is going to probably try to optimize those and at the same time pull those off the compounding market. Right now, the majority of peptides are only available online through a compounding pharmacy, usually with a prescription. Yes, there are some different places and and companies around the world that do offer them. I've even seen them on Amazon. But I will warn you that you don't know what you're getting. You don't know what is actually inside of that because it doesn't really have to meet criteria because you didn't have to uh pay for it with a prescription and it didn't have to go through the regular pathways to to to evaluate it. Uh so you have to be a little bit careful there. That's why I only use uh personally and for my patients, ones that are from a compounding pharmacy that legitimately created it for this patient at the dose that I requested. When you buy stuff online, you have no idea what you're getting. You're hoping it's ideal and you may be a little bit cheaper but you're also maybe causing problems in your body that you aren't aware of and maybe until it's too late. So I I caution you about buying peptides randomly online, especially for ones that say, "Hey, this is for research use only." And I And I And be careful with that. That's That's all we'll say with that. Um in terms of some of the new kind of cool emerging frontiers, you're going to have longevity, which is becoming huge hot button topic, and we'll talk about that a little bit today in the podcast episodes. We'll We'll definitely touch into that cuz that's a a huge area of interest of mine. Something called senolytics, uh which is basically uh longevity based as well. We even have ones that will optimize vaccines. Interesting. They have ones that will help against cancer. Interesting. So, there's a lot of different things that they're going to start trying to come out with and push, turn it into a drug, and make billions and billions of dollars off it that you could probably get right now for a fraction of the price. The goal of this podcast in general is to educate. This is not medical advice. This is information that I've learned along the way that I want to present to you so that you'd see it from a different light and you can utilize it whether you're helping others, whether you're helping yourself, or just wanting to learn and know about it. Now, there's many different formulations of peptides. The most common is sub-Q or injectable underneath the skin with a tiny little insulin syringe. Those are usually the most effective, but there are many different versions now. There are some that are in capsules, there are some that are in sublinguals, uh oral we call troches. You can have a transdermal patch. You can even have intranasal, and sometimes they're even coming up with pellets. You can do them IV. They're not super common IV, but and and and you have to be a little careful with that, but they technically you could probably do it in IV. You can even inject it into discs, like the the the spine. You can inject it into joints. So, there are many different things. You just have to know what you're doing, and you have to know dosages. You have to know sourcing and how quality that medication or peptide is. Now, what are the most popular uses for peptides? Now, I've listed about 10 here. There are many more than that, but this will give you an idea. One of the the most common ones, as I mentioned, is anti-aging. You also have skin care. You have immune support. You have sports performance, and we'll talk about the biggest one today. Bodybuilding. Sexual dysfunction. Hair loss and treatment. Weight loss. Diabetes. Blood sugar control. Gut and brain support. And finally, biohacking. Which basically means trying different things to optimize your body without being {quote} and {unquote} diagnosed with something. Just trying to be aggressive and proactive. Now, in this section, I kind of wanted to to talk about a specific peptide. I felt like that was a decent introduction. You can go on for hours about peptides. I'm trying to provide a general overview as a expert, but not the expert in this area. There are certain physic- usually physicians, sometimes pharmacists that specialize in this and this is what they do. This is what they know. They they're very very good at this. I've been to multiple different conferences where some of the same lecturers speak about peptides, they speak about some emerging things, changes in dosages, changes in frequencies, um different combinations that that they have. So, if you're really looking to learn about this more as a practitioner or maybe as just a person of interest, uh I would educate you on checking out or recommend you check out some of the conferences that talk about this. The most advanced one is probably A4M. A very large conference, very good at peptides. Um there's a couple others. Cell Surgical Network has a good one. Um and there's a couple others. The The American Academy of Stem Cell Physicians has a very good one as well. So, there's there's different levels. It depends on how deep you want to go. But, I wanted to provide a little bit of a an overview today. Um there's you know, peptide societies and stuff like that. So, you can really go down in the weeds if you really want to learn about peptides. Now, I would say the most popular peptide that we know of, at least that most people know about, is something called BPC 157. Now, BPC stands for body protecting compound and it's just 157. It's probably the 157th one they found. It was initially discovered in 1993. And it is actually a naturally occurring peptide found in the stomach, actually in the human gastric juice. Now, it has a half-life of about 4 hours and we've noticed that you can actually split dosing for injuries. This one has a has a has a multiple different ways to get into your body. The most common is an injectable. As far as I know of, this is the only peptide that you can actually inject at the site of an injury, we'll say your shoulder, as opposed to just in your abdomen or your hip or whatnot. This one you can actually inject at the site of injury and it will help more so than if you're targeting the whole body, whereas usually you would do it in the abdomen subcutaneously. Now, there are many, many different formulations of this. I've seen it in tooth break toothpaste. I've seen it in eye drops. I've seen it in vaginal creams. I've seen it in topical creams. I've seen you name it, I've probably seen BPC used. And this is probably one of the only ones that has this this many different applications because of how safe it is, because of how effective it is, and because we're going to talk about in a sec sec what it helps with. Now, in terms of safety, it is super safe as long as you use the recommended dosages and you get a quality source. It If you get garbage, you never know what's going to happen. So, you know, what does it help with? There are so many different things that BPC helps with. This is In my opinion, this is the most versatile peptide and that's why I chose to start with it. That's why it's so popular. It might be easier to describe what it doesn't do and doesn't contribute to as opposed to what it actually does. That's how crazy this peptide is. In a cool way. So, the most common use is actually for muscle healing. But, you can use it for aesthetics. You can use it for muscle health, sarcopenia, and weight loss. You can use it for sexual performance. You can use it for anti-aging. You can use it for neuroregenerative or brain support, g- brain regeneration. You can use it for sports performance, and we'll talk about that in a second why it's not available. Heart health. It helps with the immune system. It helps with latent viral therapies, like Epstein-Barr or cytomegalovirus. COVID. It helps the heart, the brain, the kidneys, and even the muscles. As far as we know, there are only five categories of things that it doesn't technically help with. It's not known to help with DNA damage. It's not known to help with mitochondrial function and or support. It is not known to have an effect on the telomeres. It is not known to affect senolytic or what we call senescent cells, zombie cells. And to my knowledge, it technically doesn't directly help with longevity. Indirectly, it probably does. This is a very popular peptide, but unfortunately, many professional athletes, nearly all of them, cannot use it. It was banned by WADA, which is the the international organization for doping, in 2022, as well as all major professional organizations. I've seen the specific flyer from the NFL and it's highlighted it's its own page. Okay? So, yes, it is banned. And if they find it in your system, unfortunately, they're going to send you on a PED suspension. Regular people obviously don't have to worry about that. Okay, how does it work? This is kind of the cool thing about BPC. It has some fascinating pathways of use. And why it's so effective is because of all the different ways it helps. It helps with fibroblast migration, which is usually with a lot of the healing properties. It helps with angiogenesis or developing new blood vessels by upregulating what we call VEGF or VEGF, which is an important uh cytokine growth factor in in in in uh in the body. It is a massive anti-inflammatory. It releases nitric oxide uh via the EGR1 and NGF1A pathways. And nitric oxide is vital to the body. I take it every day. It helps with that. BPC upregulates growth factors. And at the end of the day, when I talk to my patients about stem cells, about regenerative medicine, I'm talking about growth factors more than anything else. So, do patients who get injections into the joints, into the hip, knee, shoulder, spine, should they be on BPC? Probably. Because it's only going to help. I'll talk about cost in a little bit. What can it do for the stomach and the gut? Good question. Remember, BPC came out of the gut. It is in the gastric juices. That's where we find it. That's where it lives. It actually is most effective for the gut taken by oral form. It's pretty much the only one. Uh the only reason that you would take it orally, the rest you would do it sub-q. Uh but it will help in many different things. One of the fascinating things about PPC is it actually helps to activate our body's stem cells. You're trying to tell me it helps me heal, it's a massive anti-inflammatory, it helps with the stomach, and it helps activate my stem cells. Okay. I'm interested. How expensive is it? Depends on your pharmacy, depends on the purity. I usually get it for my patients for about 125 to 150 dollars a month. Not awful. Orally, it can be a little bit pricier. It goes by capsule and it's anywhere from between 1 and 5 dollars a capsule. So it just depends on your source and how much is in there. We have a a a version that we use that is specific for SIBO. That it combines it with two other peptides. That is on the more expensive side because it's three different peptides in one, but it works beautifully. Clinical uses. I'll start off with the gut because that's what I have listed. IBS, IBD, a leaky gut, aka SIBO, and injuries secondary to anti-inflammatories, your your ibuprofen and zero leaves, your ulcers. It heals skin. And one of the most favorite things, one of the reasons why I use it, is because it helps to heal and repair ligaments and tendons, which don't heal naturally. They're awful. They do not heal well at all. It helps to repair tissue, bone, bruises, and the gut. It improves muscle healing. It improves your blood pressure. It helps treat dental issues, periodontitis. It actually lowers the need for growth hormone. And lowers the need It promotes sex hormones. To make it easy. It's a little bit more complicated than that, but that that's the understanding. It can help with eye injuries, with corneal injuries. It can help with chronic infections, Lyme, viral, especially when combined with something called thymosin alpha-1, which is very hard to find because of how good it is. It helps with autoimmune disease. Your lupus, your eczema. Diabetes indirectly is an autoimmune disease. It helps protect the liver. Protect against toxins and alcohol. It helps protect the brain and can be helpful in concussions or traumatic brain injuries. Is there anything this thing can't do? Is probably the better question. It is a massive anti-inflammatory and actually will lower ESR and CRP in your blood values, which are two markers relatively specific for inflammation in the body. It can help with arthritis. And it also can help as indirectly an antidepressant for gut and for brain. As I said, it's pretty magical. And that's why I chose to start with it, and that's why it's so popular. If you have any acute injury, I banged my knee, I tore my rotator cuff, whatever the case may be. You can actually do it twice a day. Most commonly you do it in the morning. But you can do it twice a day. There are some peptides that you do at night on empty stomach. There's some you do in the morning, there's some you do daily, there's some you do five times a week, there's some you do once a week. There's many, many different versions, just like medicines. There's some that you do for three weeks and then you take six months off. There's some you do for three days and you skip all year. So there's different versions. Peptides are very fascinating. And we're going to we're going to talk about them periodically. I want you to do me a favor and and and put your comments and suggestions below. Wherever you're watching, wherever you're listening, if you want to find me, I'm I'm on Twitter, I'm on Instagram. I have the Eternal Vitality podcast signature for each of those locations. You know, I will be found and I will be reading your your comments. Um I want to know what you want me to talk about. I have many, many different things I want to hear that I want to talk about that you may want to hear. But if you have something in specific, something in particular, let me know. That's why I'm doing this. To educate and to to discuss and share my thoughts and learn. Okay. Finishing up, I try to keep these around a half hour. This is about 26 minutes or so. BPC is a fantastic peptide, very safe, relatively inexpensive compared to other things. It does so many different things. It's fantastic for healing. If you want to look up something kind of cool, look up the Wolverine protocol. It is where you combine PPC-157 with something called TB-500, also known as Thymosin Beta-4. They kind of play off each other, and it is a fantastic combination. They do have it in the right place. You they do have it combined, and you can get it as a single-level injectable. Many of these and and I should talk about this. Uh if it's in the injectable form, there's two ways it can come. In a powdered lyophilized form that you have to reconstitute at home with bacteriostatic water, or you can the pharmacy can already physically formulate it exactly to its specification for you in a liquid form. But, the caveat behind that one is it it has to be refrigerated at pretty much all times. So, you have to ship it on ice, and it can get a little expensive. But, if someone wants to remove the headache of having to reconstitute it and make sure they do it correctly, it may be worth it to consider getting it non-lyophilized or already formulated. Again, if you're looking for this and you want to consider doing this, look for a provider that knows what they're doing and knows what they're talking about. That knows how to get a quality source, that knows it's legit, and knows the ins and outs of peptides. You don't want to play doctor on your body and end up causing some problems. You don't know what a lot of these places are are shipping you or where they're coming from or if they're even real. You know, especially stuff in you know, China or you know, Europe, they may be fine, they may not be. You know, um there are ones that as I mentioned earlier that are specific for research grade. That's how they can sell them. If they say this is for human use, they would not be around anymore. They would their company would be gone. They can't say that. My suspicion is 99% of the people buying from there are using it on themselves. They are not using it for research. Unless they're doing research on themselves. Or you know, rat or whatever it is. But nevertheless, be careful because when you start searching for them, you will find them. But that doesn't mean they're legit. They're harder to get than they used to be. As I said, big farmer is starting to crunch down on the different peptides, the different levels what we call functional medicine, which is kind of what this falls under. Integrative medicine is another word for it. And when that happens, they're going to become much more difficult to acquire. So that's why A, I want to talk about it, and B, what they are, you know, how effective they can be, how safe they are when done properly with a correct source. But understanding that you have to be careful with these and understand what you're doing. Seek professional guidance at the minimum with these. But they they they work well. They work really well. They can do a lot of different things. BPC is is probably my favorite because of how many different boxes it checks. I'd say there's about 10 or 12 different categories of peptides. It pretty much is in like six or seven of them. It's pretty insane. There's no other one that probably checks more than three boxes that I'm aware of. Um if you're injured, if you're healing, if your immune system is beat up, peptides can help optimize your body without having to you to on certain medications so on and so forth. So, this is another avenue to optimize your health, and that's why I wanted to talk about it because I can feel like it's so important. I hope you enjoyed this episode today. The um This is the first official podcast. The first episode is more about an introduction to give you an idea of who I am. So, if you haven't listened to that one yet, please go back and check that out to give you an idea of who the person in front of the camera and microphone are saying this. Now, I will say something that you may or may not know. Uh yes, I am a physician. I practice in Miami. Uh we have several offices, but I'm at the Osteopathic Center in Miami. And um I obviously use these regularly. I I I I speak from experience. Um most of traditional medicine does not know about this. Most of traditional medicine does not talk about this. Your professional athletes definitely know about this. Unfortunately, many of them cannot use it. Now, um I would love to hear your thoughts, your input. Was this a good episode? Was it helpful? What did you learn anything? What questions do you have? I will try to answer them. Um what do you want to hear about? What episodes, what topics do you want me to cover? Long COVID, hair loss, some of the other peptides that are common. You know, uh I have I have a massive list that I I have different things. Testosterone, um is injury-prone a real thing? What are my favorite supplements? Some of the best recovery protocols for athletes. Why not you know, physical therapy's not created equal in amongst things. How the FDA has destroyed the trust in the American health in the public after 2020. You know, that's just the tip of the iceberg. My goal is to release a podcast a week, probably on Monday mornings for all of 2024. This is early 2024 as we're recording right now. And and we have a wonderful slate of ideas, topics, guests coming. If you like this episode, do me a favor, leave a five-star review, share this with your friends and colleagues, and stay tuned to the next episode, which will be about how I believe America's healthcare system is broken and what we can do about it. Thank you for tuning in. We'll see you soon. Take care.