Latest / Wellness, Actually with Emily Oster & Perry Wilson, MD / Rerun, Actually - What's the deal with peptides?

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Rerun, Actually - What's the deal with peptides? · Wellness, Actually with Emily Oster & Perry Wilson, MD

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hi, everyone. Perry and Emily here.
• 0:01
  Speaker 2: Hello.
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: And if you're hearing this, I'm actually in Italy on vacation,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: probably eating gelato.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: And I'm in my office in Providence. I'm probably drinking
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: a creatine-infused protein shake.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: And we're running our first rerun and enjoying what's left
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: of the summer.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: This is our episode on peptides. It was one of
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: our earliest, but also one of the most prescient ones. Yeah.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: It's amazing to me how often peptides have come up
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: in so many other wellness discussions.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: It is actually somewhat upsetting to me, to be honest.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Anyway, enjoy the rest of the summer.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Be careful of ticks.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: And we'll see you for a brand new episode next week.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: In the meantime, please leave us a rating and review
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts and follow our Instagram at wellnessactuallypod and
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: tell people about the show. It really helps us out.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Thank you for listening.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Ciao. There's a new peptide that literally burns fat off
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: of your body at the same time it suppresses your health.
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: Peptides are one of the best ingredients you can use
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: for anti-aging.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: Do not sleep on peptides. Peptides are the it girl
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: of the year and for good reason.
• 1:01
  Speaker 4: Well, that's the thing about peptides too, the Wolverine stack.
• 1:03
  Speaker 4: I don't know if you ever get injured. Get immediately
• 1:05
  Speaker 4: on BP-157 and TB-500.
• 1:07
  Speaker 5: Peptide might help you improve your gut health, improve the tone,
• 1:10
  Speaker 5: texture of your skin, reduce fine lines and wrinkles, possibly
• 1:12
  Speaker 5: restore your hair, raise your natural growth hormone.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: So there's truly a peptide for everything. Emily, are we
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: in over our heads here?
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: Maybe a little bit. How many peptides did you have
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: this morning?
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Are you ready? Well, I've had 30, but it's clearly
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: not enough. It's not enough.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: Did you have your CJC 1295?
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Oh, you know what? That's the problem because- That's the one.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: I still have my existential sense of dread and I'm
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: pretty sure that's the key to eliminate that.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: I'm Emily Oster. I'm an economist and a data expert.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: And I'm Perry Wilson. I'm a medical doctor.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: It's Thursday, August 27th, 2026. And this is Wellness Actually.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Because you're getting a staggering amount of health and wellness
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: information nowadays from every source imaginable. And some of it
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: is awesome.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: And some of it is, well, actually bullshit. Fortunately, we're
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: both people who know how to read studies, how to
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: parse the data, and can tell you what's worth thinking
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: about and what you can safely ignore.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: But before we dig in, a note that this podcast
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: is for educational purposes and should not be construed as
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: medical advice. We don't know your unique situation, so talk
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: to your doctor for personal health decisions.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: This week, we're asking, what's the deal with peptides? After
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: the break.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to Wellness Actually. So what's the deal with peptides? Emily,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: this is like a big topic. There's so much talk
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: about this on social media. It's nearly overwhelming.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: I was waiting for the airplane yesterday for a flight
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: home and I opened up my Instagram and the first
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: thing I saw was someone who had two side-by-side pictures
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: of her face. And it was like, this is what
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: happens after 12 weeks on peptides.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: And she looked better.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know that particular person. I have
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: a lot of issues. But the point is that you
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: cannot open social media without hearing about peptides. I would
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: like us to start this by just demystifying a little bit.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: When I think about peptides, the thing, at least before
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: I did some more research for this episode, the first
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: thing that often comes into my head is Demi Moore
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: and the substance, where she takes something and then she
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: turns into a different person and then slowly decays over time.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: I don't think that's what it is, but- My concern
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: is that for many people, we're close to that in
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: our understanding of peptides. It's just, this seems like a
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: crazy thing with a lot of crazy names that people
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: are yelling about on Reddit. So can you just like
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: anchor us in the biology of what is this?
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes. It does not make hot young women pop
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: out of your back, at least not yet.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: We haven't found the peptide for that is my guess.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about that.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: So the first thing you have to know is what
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: a protein is. So protein is the building blocks of
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: our bodies. And proteins are composed of little building blocks,
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: which are called amino acid. There's about 20 that humans
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: use in our proteins. And they're all different, but they
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: all stick together, just like Lego blocks all do, right?
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: They have one end and the other, and they kind
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: of fit together. And you can take those 20 amino
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: acids and combine them in any combinations that you want
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: to make various proteins. Now, proteins are can have thousands
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: of amino acids. They can be very, very complicated. Peptides
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: are little pieces of proteins, and the definitions vary, but
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: most people say that peptides are somewhere south of 50
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: amino acids. So you're talking much, much smaller than a protein.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: But you're still using those same 20 amino acids. And
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: just to explain why Reddit and Instagram has an explosion
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: of all these things with these crazy names and numbers
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: attached to them, if you want to do the math,
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: if you have 20 amino acids that you can combine
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: into a chain of 50, The possible combinations, and I
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: had to get out my scientific calculator for this, the
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: number of different peptides you could create is the same, roughly,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: as the number of atoms in every star in our galaxy.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: There is a nearly infinite possibility of the number of
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: peptides that are out there.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: Okay, so we've got these peptides, potentially an infinite number
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: of them. But I think that the question is, why
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: would having more of some peptide, I understand we have
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: amino acids, they make peptides, they make proteins, we need those.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: Why would supplementing myself with some peptides have any impact
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: at all on anything? Oh, sure.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Well, so peptides, you know, if you have a chain
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: of amino acids, what's going to happen is they're going
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: to fold into like some kind of shape based on
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: their chemical nature. So these are not like a long
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: stack that's just a line based on what the amino
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: acids are. They kind of fold and shape into like
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: little globby shapes, which is how your body signals to
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: do stuff in a lot of ways. So there are
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: receptors for different shapes on your cells and different peptides,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: at least purportedly, will stimulate certain receptors and those receptors
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: tell your cells what to do. So it's almost like,
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: you know, you can imagine a key and lock analogy
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: or something. You have these locks on your cells and
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: you're trying to inject something that's going to form the
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: key to open the lock. That's the theory, at least.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: And a lot of these peptides, while based on proteins
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: that you can ingest or that exist in your body,
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: not all of them are. You know, some of them
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: come from animals. Some of them are completely synthetic.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: And so the idea is if I had more of
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: some of these peptides, I could encourage my cells to
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: do more of something that I want. So I think
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: a good example that probably anchors for people is the
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: GLP-1s are peptides.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, classic.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: So semaglutide, triseptide, these things that people are taking for
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: weight loss, those are peptides. They are injected. And then
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: they are encouraging something that then causes you to be
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: less hungry and have all kinds of other impacts. But
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: it's just a peptide to try to get your body
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: to do more of something, which it might do otherwise,
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: but you want more of it.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: Exactly. And just to give a sense of like the
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: diversity of peptides, I've told you there's infinite, but because
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: the shape is really what dictates the function of molecules
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: in your body. Here's some other examples. So GLP-1s, you said. Aspartame.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: the artificial sweetener. Okay.
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: Like in diet soda.
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure which one is in Diet Coke, but yes.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: The one that people actually, a lot of wellness influencers
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: are worried about. Aspartame is a peptide. It's two amino
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: acids stuck together. They just happen to make a shape
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: that stimulates the sugar receptor on your tongue. So it
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: just makes you think it's sweet, but it's not. It's
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: just a peptide. Bee venom, for example, the Mayan protein
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: in bee venom is called melatonin and that's a peptide.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: So that can be something that really hurts when you
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: inject it, for example, right? And so one of my concerns,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: and actually I'd like to play you a clip, is
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: people suggesting that peptides are really safe because of their
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: sort of nature of being something like a protein. So
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: take a listen to this.
• 8:57
  Speaker 5: Peptides are sequences of amino acids. And why is that important?
• 9:01
  Speaker 5: Because your body recognizes these, it can break them down,
• 9:04
  Speaker 5: they're called metabolites, and it can get rid of of
• 9:07
  Speaker 5: the waste. When we put chemicals, synthetics, and pharmaceuticals into
• 9:10
  Speaker 5: our body, there's no natural way for our body to
• 9:13
  Speaker 5: break them down and get rid of them.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: So Emily, here we have, you know, someone being like, hey,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: these are just amino acids. Like your body knows what
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: to do with that, therefore safe. What do you think?
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: That doesn't sound right. To me, I mean, I think,
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: you know, the fact that something is naturally occurring in
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: the world and is an amino acid definitely does not
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: mean that it is safe.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: It clearly doesn't, right? Like snake venom has peptides in it, right?
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: There's lots of things. But I think people, one of
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: the reasons that peptides are exploding and actually one of
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: the regulatory reasons you can get your hands on these
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: things even is because of this idea that like, well,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: they're just made of amino acids after all.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: Right. All right. So let's talk about whether these actually
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: matter for anything. And I actually want to start with
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: a place where I think the evidence is the best,
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: which is in the space of collagen. So I hear
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: people talk about collagen peptides, both for your face and
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: for your joint health. So this comes up actually a
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: lot in endurance sports. People talk about, you know, like
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: I need my joints to not be so elderly and creaky.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: And so I should take these collagen peptides in a
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: lot of endurance sports drinks.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: It's a thing.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: And so my sense is that the evidence on this
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: is at least reasonably good in the case of your skin.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: So we have some meta-analyses of trials in which using
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: collagen peptides, typically in a kind of topical way, can
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: have significant improvements in your skin hydration and elasticity. Now, okay,
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: in that particular meta-analysis, there was... There was a subtlety,
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: which is that when you only looked at studies that
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: were not sponsored by industry, the effects were not there.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: So capitalism. But I'm curious whether you like if you
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: were interested in improving your already lovely skin elasticity, would
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: you use a collagen peptide?
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, maybe I don't. care that much about it.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: But whatever, I'm a 46-year-old man. So I know that
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: there's some differing opinions here. I mean, the interesting thing
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: about collagen peptides is that they're basically the only peptide
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: to exist in a regulatory landscape that makes it easy
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: and safe to get. because the FDA has recognized that
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: collagen itself is safe. They call it generally recognized as safe,
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: which means you can be a supplement company and you
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: can put collagen in a pill and you can give
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: it to people. Collagen peptides, all it is, is they
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: take collagen and they digest it with an enzyme. So
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: collagen is a big protein with you know, thousands, literally
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: thousands of amino acids. And then they just digest it
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: down into kind of manageable pieces, very similar, honestly, to
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: what your digestive system does when you eat a big protein.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: But that said, the collagen peptides are, because they're smaller,
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: absorb through the skin a little bit better, absorb through
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: the GI tract a little bit better. And you're delivering
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: in that sense. You're delivering some of these proteins, some
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: of these constituents of the stuff that makes your skin
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: firm and elastic directly to the site that you want
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: them to be delivered. And to me, that seems fine.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: This is one of those things I tell people, listen,
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: it's not terribly expensive. If you feel like trying it,
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: try it. Try to be honest with yourself if you
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: think you really look better if you don't save your money.
• 12:37
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: Save your money is perhaps good advice in general, in
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: everything we hear about on social media. So beyond collagen,
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: I think there are actually a couple of other things
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: where a couple of other FDA approved peptides, which treat
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: actually somewhat unusual things. So one of them is for tanning.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: And one is for improving female sexual desire. Did I
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: get that right?
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: Sort of. Yeah. The one for tanning called atha melanotide,
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: it's not FDA approved to get you tan, but it
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: does get you tan. It's approved for a very rare
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: condition called erythropoietic protoporphyria, which very few people have. but
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: it does stimulate the melanin receptor, which is what makes
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: you tan. And so people who receive this drug do
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: get tan. And it's worth thinking about just because There
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: is a pathway for peptides to go through the same
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: approval process that every other drug has to go through,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: the same purity standards, the same testing, the same manufacturing practices.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: And they can do really interesting things. Like, it's true.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: The female hypoactive sexual desire disorder, which, Emily, we definitely
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: need to do a whole show about this. It's fascinating.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: That's a peptide product called Vilisi, which was approved to
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: treat this condition. It does apparently increase sexual desire in women.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: It also causes nausea in 40% of people who take it,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: which I don't know how those two things are compatible,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: but apparently they are.
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: Well, you don't know. It could be the 60% of
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: people who are not nauseous. It's straight up.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: Fair enough. You're flipping an interesting coin there. And of course,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: you mentioned already the GLP-1 receptors are peptides. And of course, insulin,
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: which has maybe saved more lives than any other injectable
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: drug that we've ever created, is also a peptide product.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: So there is a pathway. But I think there's a
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: lot of people who are trying to kind of jump
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: that evidence gun and potentially taking on more risk than
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: they know that they are taking on.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: What about the evidence on drugs? joint pain. Most of
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: this evidence is in athletes. Some of it's in older people.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's there. It's there. I mean, so we do
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: have another meta-analysis. And for everyone, a meta-analysis is just
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: a study of studies. So it's a study that aggregates
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: data from multiple other studies that have been done to
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: try to kind of average out the variability and things
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: like that. There was some evidence in this meta-analysis of
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: 15 randomized trials of collagen peptides for joint pain, 12
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: of which were in athletes that showed some improvement in
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: joint pain. There was really no evidence for muscle building,
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: which is the other thing that people sometimes suggest this
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: being used for. Again, one of the problems we have
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: when the outcome of a trial is subjective, like pain
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: or fatigue or even depression.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: How your skin looks.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: How your skin looks is that it is very susceptible
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: to what we call placebo effects, like the idea that
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: you're taking something. Now, a randomized controlled trial is going
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: to have placebo controls. But just even because you have
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: a placebo doesn't mean people can't figure out what they're getting.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: Sometimes they taste a little bit different. They look a
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: little bit different, things like that. So, you know, again,
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: for joint pain, it's like it's relatively safe. It's not
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: going to hurt you. It's they're non-toxic. If it helps,
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: that's great. I mean, I don't even care if it's
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: a placebo, right? Like if it helps and then you
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: feel like it helps, it helps. Go for it.
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: I mean, this is an example of a place where
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: I think we sort of bring together often what we're
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: looking for when we try to argue for causality. The
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: question of like, is it biologically plausible? I think the
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: answer in the collagen peptide case is, yeah, it's biologically
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: plausible that this could make some difference. And then we're
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: looking for, do we have evidence, either randomized evidence or
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: even observational evidence, but here it's randomized that suggests that
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: we do see some impacts. I will say I take
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: away from this, like this is small. There are many
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: other things one might do to address joint pain, like
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: strength training and other things where collagen could be like
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: a little helpful, but it's probably not the be all
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: and end all. And sort of similarly, my guess is
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: the overall variation in skin elasticity across people is much
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: greater than the treatment effect of a collagen peptide. Like
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: when you see someone on the internet and their skin
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: is amazing and they tell you they took collagen, I'm
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: telling you it's that they have good genetics and or
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: are using a filter, not that they are taking collagen.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: And are really good at makeup. Like when I was
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: looking at all the peptide stuff on Instagram and things,
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: these videos, all I was like, oh my God, these
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: people are just... beautiful. Like that's the, that is the
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: requirement apparently to be an influencer is to like look
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: really good on camera, you know, which is why I'm
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: glad this is an audio podcast. No one has to
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: look at my unfiltered face.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: Everyone would love it.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: So let's talk about the sort of third piece of
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: the peptide conversation, which is the idea of using injected
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: peptides for like longevity, wound healing. And this is a
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: much bigger space than the narrow, like I'm taking some
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: collagen to improve my face. It's like, you know, BPC 157.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: There's a thing called the Wolverine stack, basically, Perry. There's
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: a thing called the Wolverine stack.
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: And I.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: Guess, do we want it?
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: Say more. Well, okay. Emily, let's take it from the
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: highest authority in the land that Joe Rogan himself. Well,
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: that's the thing about peptides, too.
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: The Wolverine stack, BP-157 and TB-500. I don't know if
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: you ever get injured. If you ever get injured, get
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: immediately on BP-157 and TB-500.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: I didn't hear about TB-500.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: What's that one?
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: Thymus and Beta-500. In conjunction with BPC-157, it is a
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: f * * * ing phenomenal stack.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: And it just really helps injuries. I didn't know they
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: called it the Wolverine stack.
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: That's what they call it, the Wolverine stack.
• 18:53
  Speaker 6: For healing? Yeah.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: Because you f * * * ing.
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: Heal incredibly well. Like, you, like, it quickly. I was
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: talking to a pro football player who pulled his hamstring.
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: He's like, dude, I... I shot that right into my
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: hamstring for two weeks and I was right back on
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: the field.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: I was like, that's nuts.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: So first of all, Joe Rogan, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: in that clip. I mean, we are really blowing against
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: the wind here, Emily. I mean, I don't know that
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: we can compete.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: No, totally not.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, Matt, yeah. All right. But let's, let's, let's,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: I think PPC 157 because of Joe Rogan, honestly, and,
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: and The Wolverine stack is BPC-157 combined with TB500, which
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: is another injectable peptide. I think it's really emblematic of
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: the space. And so, no, we are not– I have
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: to apologize to our listeners. There are like hundreds and
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: hundreds of marketed peptides out there. We just simply can't
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: get to all of them and like whether they work
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: and how they work. But I think there's some real
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: big principles here that BPC-157 sort of teaches us. So
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: let's start there and kind of walk through it.
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: Totally.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: So BPC-157. This is a peptide that was initially isolated
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: from human gastric juices, which is weird.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: But fine.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: You know, as you said, you can get peptides from anywhere.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: Why not from your gastric juices? Sure.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: But, you know, because it's being promoted for healing and everything,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: you kind of, I was like, oh, it must have
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: been isolated from like healing cells or something, whatever. But,
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: you know, hey, the gastric mucosa is a hostile environment.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: So maybe there's some biologic plausibility there. The data for
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: BPC-157 is essentially entirely in mice and rats. So you
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: injure a rat, like you sever. This is cruel a
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: little bit, but this is how science works.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: All research in rats and mice is cruel.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: I know. So trigger warning for pet rat owners. they
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: will like sever part of a rat's Achilles tendon. And then,
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: you know, they either inject this stuff or they inject
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: a placebo and then they see how fast the Achilles
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: tendon heals. And some of those studies in mice and
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: rats do show accelerated healing with PPC-157. Okay.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: I just want to pause on the question of mice
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: and rat studies because I feel like a tremendous amount
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: of the data that we have in the world about
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: all kinds of different Treatments come from mice and rats
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: because mice and rats are really easy to experiment on.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: You can do all kinds of stuff with them, like
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: cut their Achilles and do other things and look in
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: their brains and kill them and do all kinds of
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: things which may be sad but are effective for learning.
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: And we always then have the question of how do
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: we deal? take the evidence from mice and rats into humans. And,
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: you know, there I think are really good learnings, but
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: someone said to me the other day, you know, if
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: we were mice, we would have solved like everything. Because
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: actually in mice, you know, you can really titrate and
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: be careful. And there's a lot of things that work
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: in mice, but then when we bring them into humans,
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: it doesn't work or the effect size is totally different
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: or just this doesn't port over.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we're just not the same creatures. But there's even
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: bigger issues than that, particularly when it comes to the
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: longevity space. Because mice and rats don't live as long
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: as people. In their natural states, you know, mice might
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: live a year or two. Rats might live a little
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: bit longer. But you know what? In these research studies,
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: they're not letting these mice live to a ripe old age, right?
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: What you do is, you know, you do your little
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: Achilles tendon thing and then you watch them for a
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: couple weeks as they heal. And then you, the euphemism
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: is sacrifice the mice, you know, humanely.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: That's the euphemism?
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: That's the euphemism is sacrifice.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: You kill the mice in as humane a way as possible.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: And there are protocols for that. And then you can
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: extract their organs and look at them under the microscope
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: and do all that stuff. So even if we're like, oh, yeah,
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: this appears to heal Achilles tendons, the larger scale questions
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: of like, what happens if you're doing this repeatedly on
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: a weekly basis for years and years and years, like,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: We're not even close to knowing that. And there are
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: some concerns here. So BPC-157, thanks to the mice, we
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: know a little bit about how it might work, aside
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: from the general magic of being a gastric juice peptide.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: BPC-157 appears to bind a receptor called VEGF, or vascular
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: endothelial growth factor, which promotes the growth of blood vessels
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: into tissues. Sure, that makes sense. If you're talking about healing,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: you want a lot of blood flow. That's no doubt
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: a good thing. One of the problems, actually, you probably
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: can guess the problem, Emily. What's wrong if we promote
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: blood vessel growth into tissues too much?
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: I feel like this is like when my 14-year-old asked
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: me about her biology homework, and I feel like I'm just, no,
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: Cancer.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: Cancer. is begging for blood vessels to come into the tumors.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: And one of our main therapies to treat cancer is
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: blocking VEGF, because it turns off that signal that the
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: cancer is saying like, ooh, give me blood, grow blood
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: vessels into me, and then the cancer starves and dies.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: And so there is a theoretical concern that ongoing stimulation
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: of receptors like this could lead to cancer. And we
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: have no idea if that's true, because you kill the
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: mouse a week after you give the injection. So just
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: something to be aware of there.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: When we look at this particular thing in people, I
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: would say my read is that like we don't have
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: much evidence in any direction that this is effective in people.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: We don't have any randomized control trials. We don't have
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: a lot of– we just don't have anything.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: Correct. Only anecdote, which is unfortunately the problem.
• 24:34
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Anecdote is not data. I mean this whole space, this–
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: Wolverine stack, all of the other stacks, the different things
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: really has the feel of like there's an interesting potential,
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: something to explore based on the animal data, but nothing
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: in the people data that would say this should be
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: widely adopted based on efficacy foundation. And then we are
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: worried about, you know, some of the potential risks to
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: using such a treatment.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: Absolutely right. And I think that's the prudent point. But
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: we also have to realize that, A, there are a
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: lot of people out there that are potentially suffering with something.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: And a lot of times the medical establishment that I
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: am a part of does a poor job of this, right?
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: They've got joint pain. They have something, you know, yes, sure.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: They were told to do physical therapy. They're told to
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: do strength training and things just aren't working. So there's
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: a desperation there. Like this does fulfill a need that
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: I think some people have. And then there's a whole
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: group of people, you know, the kind of biohackers who
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: are like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I understand in theory that
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: we would like to have a large randomized trial to
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: prove that this works, but I'm not going to wait
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: for that. Like, This stuff seems great. My buddy says
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: it's great. This guy online says it's perfectly safe. You know, LFG,
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: like let's go. And I'll sort of throw caution to
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: the wind. I think as much as we can say like, well, guys,
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: I don't know. There's no hard data. It's still going
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: to happen. And so I think anticipating that this stuff
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: is out there, we might want to try to give
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: people some like tools to be able to separate at
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: least what is potentially safe from what is potentially not safe,
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: even if we throw evidence out the window.
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So I want to start with actually just noting
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: that the.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: So let's kind of back up. When we think about peptides,
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: there are some peptides that people take orally. Other than
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: some of these collagen peptides, generally oral peptides are totally
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: ineffective because they break down in your stomach and are
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: not therefore absorbed. So if somebody is telling you here
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: are some gummies with this amazing peptide, like that's just
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: a money toilet, like you're just putting your money in
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: a money toilet and flushing it away.
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: Correct?
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: Correct.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: I think broadly, yes, there are ways to make peptides
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: more stable in the GI tract. Oral peptide consumption is
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: basically going to be safe, even if you are ingesting
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: bee venom.
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: Because it's not effective. It's safe because it's useless. Your
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: stomach is eating it.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: Correct. And so I don't worry too much about people
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: wasting their money on things. I'm a libertarian in that sense.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: No, I will say I worry about that because I
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: feel like exactly to the point you had before, which is,
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: you know, people are struggling with this. They want to
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: get help. And then online, someone's telling them, oh, just
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: take this gummy bee venom and like it's going to
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: fix all of your problems. I actually think that really
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: gets in the way of people finding solutions that might
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: actually work for them. So I am more worried than
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: you are about the kind of I'm buying this unapproved
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: thing that somebody on TikTok told me about, even if
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: it is not actually unapproved. unsafe. Although I agree with you,
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: it's worse if there's a potential safety risk.
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, the trick here is being honest with yourself
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: and really trying to determine whether this thing that you tried,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: if you're going to try it, helped you or not. Like,
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: is your life better or not? Is it worth the
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: expense or not? We think, I agree with you, it
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: probably isn't most of the time. Okay.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: But then there are these products that you're injecting. So
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: most of these peptides would be delivered. To the extent
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: they could be efficacious at all, they are delivered through
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: an injection like a GLP-1. But these, unlike the GLP-1s,
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: are not. in an FDA-approved product category. So generally, the
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: FDA does not approve these peptides, which are made by
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: compounding pharmacies and are not regulated because the FDA has
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: actually now said they are illegal to compound. That includes
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: the BPC-157 and all of these other ones. And so
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: if you're getting these, they are not from an FDA
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: approved supplier.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: I think this is such an important point. And I
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: want to play a clip here about someone who's trying
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: to talk about safe sourcing of peptides.
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: So today you and I are going to have a
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: little chit chat about where you're getting your peptides from.
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: There are a couple of different ways that you can
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: get your hands on peptides. One is going to your
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: doctor and getting a pharmaceutical prescription for it. Option number two,
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: compound pharmacy. But there are two split offs that come
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: up when we talk about compound pharmacies.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: So one is going to.
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: Be pharmaceutical grade, human grade, made for human beings. The
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: other is research grade. This is the one that I
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: am telling my clients to stay away from. There's not
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: the same amount of oversight.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: So I really do think because, you know, if you're
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: listening to this and you're like, well, I don't know,
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: Joe Rogan says BPC-157 is good. Like, I want to
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: get my hands on some BPC-157. It is important to
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: know what the regulatory landscape is here. Compounding pharmacies are
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: pharmacies that have a license, to mix drugs. That's what
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: compounding is. They can make their own concoctions under specific conditions,
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: ideally sterile conditions that they can then sell for injections
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: and things like that. Compounding pharmacies are regulated at the state,
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: not the federal level, which gives this whole crazy patchwork
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: of what's legal across the country. And because you can
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: ship these things from state to state, it basically is
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: like a lowest common denominator of what the compounding pharmacy
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: can do. Many of the peptides that you'll see out
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: there on Instagram are able to be made in compounded pharmacies,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: but many of the most popular ones, as you said, Emily,
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: are not. So BPC-157, this Wolverine stack peptide out of
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: Joe Rogan fame, was classified by the FDA as a
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: Category 2 substance, which is one that has significant evidence
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: for harm. And compounding pharmacies are not allowed to synthesize
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: or create anything that is Category 2, or they lose
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: their license. That's illegal. So if you're getting BPC-157, you're
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: actually not getting it from a compounding pharmacy. You're getting
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: it from overseas almost certainly, and most of it comes
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: from China. So again, BPC-157 I think is like the
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: poster child for this set of problems. It's marketed aggressively.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: It's got a Wolverine stack. That is awesome.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: Sounds amazing.
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: Totally.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: Awesome. I'm a superhero fan. That is great marketing. It's
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: got really impressive influencers talking.
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: Things come out of your hand like.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, I would do it. I would do it
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: if you show me. You've got these impressive influencers talking
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: about it. You have anecdotal stories from people saying how
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: great it is, but it's actually deemed unsafe. You have
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: to source it from some external country, and we have
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: no idea what its actual effects are. And that's sort
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: of the space right now. It's pretty much the Wild West.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: And when it comes to eating something, I'm more experimental.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: When it comes to injecting things into your body, you
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: don't really want the Wild West.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And I mean, there are all kinds of examples
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: in the past of things that were injectable that turn
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: out bad. I was looking at this Scientific American article
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: from a number of years ago about stem cells where
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: someone had injected some stem cells to try to fix
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: some eyelid problem, and they ended up growing tiny bones
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: in their eyelid, which need to be removed. I'm not
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: saying that's going to happen here.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: That is worse than the substance.
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: It is somewhat worse. You may not have watched The Substance.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: That's pretty gross. It's pretty gross.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: But I mean, I feel like there is a general
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: sense that injecting yourself with things It runs a risk
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: of infection, and it is just a much more extreme
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: approach to this than, say, eating something, which, again, I
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: don't think that makes sense in this context for almost
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: any of these peptides.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: Let me give you two more risks of injecting things
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: into your body as if we don't have enough. Number one, allergy.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: As you may know, when we eat things, we have
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: this whole immune system in our gut that is surveils
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: them for allergens and gives us tolerance to the things
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: we eat. This is why, like Emily, I'm sure you've
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: talked about, it's actually good for little kids to like
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: get kind of dirty and put dirt in their mouths
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: and stuff like that so that they have less allergic reactions, right?
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: That's what our GI tract does. When we get what
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: are called antigens, which are peptides or proteins or other things,
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: Via another route, like the injection or sometimes the inhalation route,
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: a whole different immune reaction occurs. And that is an
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: allergen-forming immune reaction. It is worth noting that the first
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: time you get stung by a bee is not when
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: you have the anaphylactic response to a bee sting, if
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: you're allergic to bees. It's the second time. The first time,
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: the allergy starts to get learned and woken up, essentially.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: And then the second time you get stung, you have
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: the anaphylactic shock. As I said, there's infinite peptides you
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: could theoretically inject into you. And it is likely that some,
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: at the very least, will cause severe allergies in some people.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: So be aware of that. Number two is what we
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: call autoimmunity. So your immune system is this amazing thing
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: that surveils all the cells in your body and decides,
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: is this me or is this something else? And in general,
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: if you're healthy, it looks at your cells and says, oh, yeah,
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: this is me. I don't need to attack this. This
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: is myself. We're OK. Autoimmunity is when the immune system
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: starts to recognize something in your own body that is you,
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: but it doesn't recognize it as you anymore. So it
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: attacks it. And lupus, for example, is the prototypical autoimmune
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: syndrome where your immune system is attacking these various cells
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: in your body. When you inject a protein into yourself,
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: you form antibodies to that protein. That is how vaccines work.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: When we inject a COVID vaccine, antibodies form against the
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: spike protein, and that works because the spike protein is
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: not you. And so when the immune system sees the
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: spike protein again, it can attack that. Many of these
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: peptides are derived from human proteins. And if your immune
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: system starts to recognize those peptides as foreign to There's
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: a chance that they might start to attack your own
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: proteins that contain those peptides as foreign. And that could
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: be really bad. It could almost do the opposite of
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: what you want these things to do, right? Because you
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: want these peptides to stimulate, you know, this system. And
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: now all of a sudden you have antibodies that are
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: directly attacking the system. That could be an issue in
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: the long term.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: That does seem like an issue in the long term. Okay. So, Perry,
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: I honestly feel like we could just list all of
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: these peptides that exist in the world and just talk
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: about why there's no evidence for them. You know, there's TB500.
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: There's GHKCU. There are a million of these peptides. And
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: if we talked about every one, in nearly all cases,
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: what we would say was, you know, maybe there's a
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: little bit of suggestive something in mice. And there's nothing
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: to say in people. And there are these risks of
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: injecting yourself with random things, which you want to be
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: careful about. So I do want to acknowledge the people
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: who are listening, who are like, I hear you about this, but.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: It sounds good.
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: I'm interested in trying. And so if someone came, you know,
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: your doctor, somebody comes to you and they're like, look,
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: I'm really interested in trying to inject myself with a
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: bunch of different peptides. I just feel like it's like,
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: that's for me this week. Is there any way to
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: ameliorate some of the concerns that you have about such activities?
• 36:10
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: I mean, so You know, you're probably not going to
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: get them from me directly because I don't think the
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: risk-benefit calculus is there. But yeah, just to understand, let's
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: accept the fact that people are going to do this. Like,
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: you know, we cannot fight the tides.
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: Ben Affleck comes to you and asks for some advice.
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: What's the advice?
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: Ben, what was up with Gigli? Did you need to
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: do that? Like, was she pressuring you?
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: If you're going to do it, okay, realize that if
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: someone tells you that they're getting some of these peptides,
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: like GPC-157 from a compounding pharmacy, they're not. It's not legal.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: So it's coming from outside of the US. So be
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: a little skeptical of wherever you're getting them from. If
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: you are getting that, and there are places that do
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: a better job of trying to be reputable in this space.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: And what they do is they farm out the substance to...
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: an independent testing laboratory, which issues what's called a certificate
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: of analysis, which basically says like, we tested the stuff
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: in here and yes, it is what it says it is.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: The things you're looking for on a certificate of analysis
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: Number one is purity. Is it actually clean? Is it
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: the stuff you want? You want basically greater than 98%
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: purity to feel comfortable. Number two, you want testing for
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: something called endotoxin. This is a bacterial byproduct that causes
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: sepsis and inflammation. You do not want endotoxin in anything
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: you inject into your body. It's also the thing that
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: causes toxic shock syndrome. You want heavy metal testing. So
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: a lot of these that have come from China and
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: other countries are contaminated with lead and other heavy metals.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: So you want the certificate of analysis to demonstrate there's
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: no heavy metals there. You want sterility testing, so they've
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: confirmed that it's sterile. It doesn't contain bacteria or anything.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: And finally, you want to check the certificate analysis, which
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: should list the batch number and the lot number against
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: the one on the thing you're injecting. Or else, right,
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: it could just be referring to some other one that
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: was tested years ago. And I know that sounds crazy. insane.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: And maybe that more than anything else is going to
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: convince people not to use these things. But I do
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: think if all of these pieces are in place, you
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: may be okay. I would not recommend long-term use though,
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: because we really just don't know the effects. And I
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: am quite concerned about allergy and autoimmunity with repeated dosing.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: All right, Emily, talked a lot here. What's your one
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: thing about peptides?
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: Don't inject something in yourself that's not FDA approved just
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: because it worked on a rat.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: That's a good thing.
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: What about you?
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: I'm not ready to give up on this, but there's
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: some serious snake oil vibes here.
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: Wellness Actually is produced in association with iHeartMedia. Our senior
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: producer is Tamar Abishai. Our executive producer is Jennifer Bassett.
• 38:58
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• 39:01
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• 39:03
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• 39:21
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• 39:24
  Speaker 2: We'll let the influencers have the last word.
• 39:26
  Speaker 6: I've gotten a ton of questions about what a peptide
• 39:28
  Speaker 6: even is. So let me make this stupid simple. Peptides are...
• 39:32
  Speaker 6: Short chain amino acids are fragments of protein. They're not
• 39:35
  Speaker 6: steroids or drugs or some fairy dust that some influencer
• 39:37
  Speaker 6: talks about. So imagine your body is like my 911
• 39:41
  Speaker 6: Turbo S. Now imagine somebody handed you the upgrade file,
• 39:45
  Speaker 6: the tuning file that gets your car to use all
• 39:47
  Speaker 6: the stuff that it already has, but forgot was even there.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: That's what a peptide is. It's not forcing anything. It's saying, hey,
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: You know all this hidden horsepower? Yeah, do that.
• 39:57
  Speaker 6: Peptides are like voice commands for your biology. They walk
• 40:00
  Speaker 6: into the pit crew of your body and they say,
• 40:01
  Speaker 6: all right, fire up that thing.