How Peptides Enhance Healing and Longevity | Dr. Edwin Lee

Primary Topic

This episode discusses the role of peptides in enhancing health, particularly in areas of healing, longevity, and functional medicine.

Episode Summary

In this episode of "The Doctor's Farmacy," host Dr. Mark Hyman and guest Dr. Edwin Lee explore the fascinating world of peptides. They delve into various peptides such as Thymus Alpha One, BP 157, and their implications for medical treatments and everyday health. The conversation also touches on the regulatory environment affecting peptide usage, providing listeners with a comprehensive understanding of both the potential and the challenges faced in this field.

Main Takeaways

  1. Peptides' Role in Healing: Peptides like BP 157 are used for joint, bone, and muscle repair, showing significant potential for medical use in tissue regeneration.
  2. Regulatory Challenges: The discussion highlights the challenges peptides face from regulatory bodies like the FDA, which affects their availability and use.
  3. Potential for Longevity: Peptides are discussed as significant players in longevity and anti-aging treatments, impacting everything from skin health to internal organ function.
  4. Educational Gap: There is a noted gap in traditional medical education regarding peptides, suggesting a need for more comprehensive training and awareness.
  5. Ethical and Safety Considerations: While peptides hold promise, the episode also discusses the ethical considerations and potential side effects, emphasizing the need for professional oversight in their use.

Episode Chapters

1: Introduction to Peptides

A brief overview of what peptides are and their roles in the human body, focusing on their natural occurrence and functions. Mark Hyman: "Peptides, small yet mighty molecules, play crucial roles in the body's communication network."

2: Peptides in Practice

Discussion on how peptides are practically applied in medical settings and personal health routines. Edwin Lee: "Every day, someone's ringing my doorbell to get a peptide shot."

3: Future of Peptides

Speculates on the future applications of peptides in medicine and personal health, particularly focusing on longevity and regenerative medicine. Edwin Lee: "Peptides are the future of regulating our biology with bioidentical molecules."

Actionable Advice

  • Consult a Specialist: Always consult with a healthcare provider knowledgeable in peptides before beginning any treatment.
  • Educate Yourself: Engage with resources and materials that provide credible information on the use of peptides.
  • Monitor Health Changes: Keep track of any changes in your health when using peptides to ensure they are providing the intended benefits without adverse effects.
  • Regulatory Awareness: Stay informed about the legal status and FDA regulations regarding peptide use.
  • Dosage and Administration: Follow professional advice strictly to avoid misuse or potential side effects of peptide treatments.

About This Episode

Peptides are gaining popularity for their remarkable health benefits, but what exactly are they and how can they help you? In this episode of “The Doctor’s Farmacy,” I sit down with Dr. Edwin Lee to demystify the incredible world of peptides. We delve into how these tiny proteins can regulate every function in your body, from hormone imbalance to tissue repair, and even cognitive health.

People

Edwin Lee, Mark Hyman

Guest Name(s):

Edwin Lee

Content Warnings:

None

Transcript

Mark Hyman
Coming up on this episode of the doctor's pharmacy. In my neighborhood, all my neighbors ring my doorbell and they have some type of injury, so they just point to where they need a peptide injected. So they point to their shoulder or to the elbow, their foot, their ankles. I have every day someone's bringing my doorbell to get a peptide shot.

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Welcome to Doctor's pharmacy. I'm Doctor Mark Hyman. That's pharmacy when they have a place for conversations that matter. And today's podcast is on a topic you may or may not have heard about peptides, although you probably have heard about it if you've ever heard about insulin or the more recent peptide of note, Ozempic. Now, peptides are in our bodies, all over the place, thousands and thousands of them.

And most of us probably don't know what they are, how they work, but they're critical in our health. And doctor Edwin Lee, our guest today, is an expert. He's an endocrinologist, he's an author and he's founded the Institute for Hormonal Balance in Orlando, Florida. He's a board certified physician in internal medicine, endocrinology, diabetes and metabolism, and a specialized training in regenerative and functional medicine. He's a graduate of the Medical College of Pennsylvania and finished his two fellowships, critical care and endocrinology, at the University of Pittsburgh, and is the author of many books and the latest one is called the Fountain of Youth with Peptides.

He's the lead investigator for an IRB approved senolytic study investigating the role of peptides as well in our health, and the trial using BP 157, an important peptide for joint and bone and muscle repair, injected for knee pain. And he also works as an assistant professor at the University of Central Florida College of Medicine. And he's the co founder of the Clinical Peptide Society. So Doctor Lee and I dive deep into this topic, which you may think is a bit esoteric, but I encourage you to stay with me because peptides are the future of understanding how to regulate our biology using bioidentical molecules. Now Azempic you've seen as the latest one, but there's lots more.

We're going to talk about some of the most important ones. There's 7000, maybe more. Uh, there's ones like Thymus alpha one, BP 157. We talk about what they do in the body, how safe they are, why the FDA is cracking down on them, and how they can delay aging and reduce inflammation. I personally use peptides with great advantage and I encourage you to tune into this really enlightening conversation with Doctor Edwin Lee.

Unknown
So Edwin, it's great to be here with you. We're at the integrative healthcare Symposium live and we're recording this podcast about a topic that I think is sort of captured a lot of people's imagination, particularly in longevity biohacking space, which is peptides. And I don't know if the average person even knows what a peptide is, but we're going to get into what they are. But they're highly prevalent in the body they're things your body makes to regulate almost everything that's going on. There are little mini proteins essentially that are the communication network of your body.

And they regulate every single function from your hormones to your brain function to your immune system, your sexual function to tissue repair. I mean it's quite amazing that we've kind of gone this long in medicine. Without really taking a hard look at peptides in a conventional way. Now there are things that people know of as peptides that you don't even know are peptides. Right.

Like insulin is a peptide. Exactly. Ozempic is now the blockbuster drug of the day. Yes. And that's both peptides.

That's a peptide. Glutathione is a peptide. Glutathione is a peptide. Yeah. So there's a lot of compounds that we use in medicine that are peptides.

There's probably over 7000 produced by the body, right? Actually technically 300,000. 300,000. Okay, I was off by a few thousand. But we only understand a fraction of it.

Edwin Lee
And outside in nature there's, I think I estimate about 6 million peptides out there. That's incredible. 6 million. I mean a lot from venoms and from animals. And not in human peptides, but other peptides.

Oh yeah, dairy and it's really amazing. Spiders and just interesting creatures. Nature has a lot of wealth of. Now as a functional medicine doctor and interested in regenerative medicine, I really love the idea of using bio identical molecules to support the body to do what it's supposed to do. Definitely, yeah.

Unknown
So the drug is essentially a new to nature molecule that interferes or interrupts or blocks some pathway in the body. And there's usually downstream side effects. Peptides also can have side effects when used at pharmacological doses like we're seeing with ozempic. But these are biomolecules that we've evolved over millennia that regulate everything that's happening in our body. So they're getting a lot of play in the longevity space to optimize cognitive health, to rejuvenate your skin, to help with tissue repair, to improve sexuality, vitality, longevity.

So kind of take us from the top down. What are peptides? How do they work in the body? And how can they be used to treat disease, optimize health and rejuvenate our biology? You did a great explanation of peptides.

Edwin Lee
But the way I explain to my patients, Mark, is that peptides are signaling molecules. They're miniature proteins, small little proteins that are made of amino acids. And unfortunately the FDA has this arbitrary just made a clarification that under 40 amino acids is considered a peptide. Over 40 is a biologic. And then over 100 amino acids, traditionally it's been considered a protein.

It's the length of basically how many amino acids are put together. Like I said, the body makes 300,000 peptides. We only understand a fraction of it. And anyway, it's really fun to read the research that's out there. And I explained that peptides to my patient is a signaling molecule.

It's short acting and it's like a doorbell ringing, someone ringing your doorbell, that's a peptide. And a reaction is going to happen. Either your dog's going to bark or someone's going to answer the door. So if you give a peptide to basically help your immune system, like thymosin alpha one, that's going to stimulate your immune system work better. So that's a natural peptide produced by your thymus gland.

And as you know, Mark, you know, it's, it's thyroid and thymus. It's always, patients always get confused, but it sits like in your chest and between, between your lungs, in front of your heart. And I have some sweet breads if you like bl sweet breads. It's when you go to a restaurant, you fancy restaurant, they grade sweet breads. That's what it is, is your thymus gland.

I didn't know that. You didn't know that I should order some sweet breads. So I wonder if eating it is actually good. I mean, if you get any ta. One or peptides from eating it after it's cooked.

Unknown
I don't know. Well, they did a study, you probably read that basically they gave human growth hormone and metformin, DHEA, and the thymus improved. It was only a men, so they were going to do another trial. Curious if it's women. But anyway, if the thymus gets healthier, your immune system gets healthier.

Edwin Lee
So that's one key component. Yeah. Have a healthy immune system. So how do they actually work? Are they like binding to receptors and activating gene expression and regulating various kinds of gene networks in the body?

Some peptides are so small, like epithalan, it can actually slip through and go through the nucleus and interact with the DNA through the histone binding sites. And it's. Some of these peptides were discovered by Doctor Kavison, who is from St. Petersburg, Russia. He has probably 40 years of research on these wonderful peptides and unfortunately he just passed away a couple weeks ago.

So I'm really sad about that. I have so many questions to ask. I need to get to ask. And I did have the privilege to talk to him once, but anyway, to me he's like one of the top scientists and he should have got the Nobel Prize in medicine. Yeah, it's quite amazing.

But it also acts in certain receptors. So there's a group of receptors called the g protein coupled receptor. And most peptides interact with that receptor and basically cause a cascade event. And then basically it's like doorbell ringing and then you get a cascade event. Well it's like insulin.

Unknown
Insulin binds to a receptor's cell and then kind of opens the gate for the glucose to go in the cell. And PLP one agonists do a similar thing like ozempic. There is a receptor. Yes, exactly. So it's a general class called the g protein couple receptors.

Edwin Lee
It won the Nobel prize in medicine. The g protein couple receptor. Yeah, yeah. Incredible. So there about 150 peptides now out of the 300,000 that are, are being researched for medical applications.

Unknown
Right. And there's over 80 peptides that are already approved by the FDA for medical use. What the kind of things that people should be aware of that peptides work well for or maybe even better than traditional therapies. Well in my neighborhood all my neighbors ring my doorbell and they have some type of injury. So they just point to where they need a peptide injected.

Edwin Lee
So they point to their shoulder or to the elbow, their foot, the ankles. I have every day someone's bringing my doorbell to get a peptide shot. But I usually give BPC 157, which is one of my favorite peptides. It comes from her stomach, stomach fluid. And actually the history is kind of interesting about that peptide.

I really, anyway, I can go into that. But it was recently discovered in 1990s in Croatia. And anyway I actually published the first human clinical trial. They peptides a lot of research in animals. But I'm conducting two more human clinical trials which is really exciting.

Unknown
That's amazing. So BB 157 for example, is a peptide that the body produces. I'm assuming it's made synthetically in the lab by putting together the sequence, they. Know the sequence of it. So they sequence the amino acids and they put together that string of your mass.

Edwin Lee
So it's synthetically made. But it's a bioidentical molecule. Exactly right. So it's like making testosterone in the lab or making various molecules. And then BB 157, let's just sort of unpack that because that's a very popular one.

Unknown
I personally used it. I've had a bicep tendonitis. I was doing some strength training and kind of irritated. And I'm like, well, I'm just going to shoot some bp 157 in there. I did a couple of shots and it went away fantastic.

And it was impressive. And I've used it for other things as well and found them really very effective for immune function. When I had Covid, I, for example, use ta one as a peptide. I use it in my patients. Bb one five seven.

Let's sort of just unpack that for a minute. How does that work in the body? When you inject it, for example, systemically in your subcutaneous fat in your abdomen, or if you have an issue in a particular muscle tendon tear, when you attend and tear, you inject it into that. What's actually happening? Is it, well, for tendon tear, muscle tear, or even I inject in patients joints and they have a tear.

Edwin Lee
What is interesting is that one classic study that was done is they had these rats and they cut the achilles. That sounds fun. So poor rat. And basically one group basically got BPC injection in their stomach and other group just got placebo. And the group that gathered and injected into their stomach, in a month later they were walking again.

And you don't see that in nature. When you have an Achilles repair, it. Doesn'T kill by itself. Exactly. This was the first thing that was shown and that was like, wow, wow, wow.

For my son, he had basically, he was in high school, cross country team. He had like six pack. He was just like born to run. He's developed basically ITB injury illiter band and he couldn't even. Your it band we call it, right?

Yeah. So he just could not even get in and out of the car. And I told him he was in 9th grade, I said, son, I can inject BPC into your, you know, into your leg. And he said, you aren't effing doing that. So I had to show him some slides and I showed him the rat, I had to show him record data and he goes, okay, you can eject.

And then literally he was, I don't know, 15 at that time. He quickly recovered and like a week later he's running again. That's amazing. It's amazing. And so it actually helps.

There's multiple theories on how it, it can help, but number one, it reduces inflammation. It recruits your immune system to basically heal. But the one part is there's a receptor called faclin C receptor that activates your growth hormone receptor. So it's a pathway to help growth hormone receptors to be activated so that whatever growth hormone you have, you can actually heal faster. So growth hormone is really involved in healing and repair.

Exactly. It's an anabolic hormone, but you need the receptors and that's what BPC 157 does. And there was a study that once they stopped it three days later, they still had high expression of receptors. So if you use growth hormone peptides with basically BPC and TB four, you will heal much faster. So I have people, I have so many patients who've had all these massive testimony.

Unknown
Some Moreland peptides. You mean for adding it? Yeah. CJC 1295 testimony. Yes.

Edwin Lee
They can all help heal faster too. Amazing. So it works by helping, for example, growth hormone. There may be mechanisms. Actually, we don't really understand yet.

Unknown
What you said in the rat was interesting is they just injected into the abdominal fat. Right. It's a signaling molecule. So it basically tells the body to. But they didn't have to inject it into achilles.

Edwin Lee
They did not inject even near the. Does it work better if you inject it near the site? It always does work better. But that study was truly mind blowing. In the belly of the rat and the chili field.

Unknown
That's quite amazing. And in some ways, peptides are used to treat injury or illness. Like, for example, bp 157 or insulin. Ozempic, you could say, would be something that would be a semiglutide peptide that would be used to treat obesity or diabetes or to help with various things that it helps with. But many of the peptides are not really treating disease so much as bioregulators that regulate our bodily functions to optimize them.

Right, right. And my favorite one in regards to bioregulators is epithalan. Yeah, epithalon. And that was discovered by Doctor Kaverson. For example, four amino acid peptides, four.

Amino acids seem like, what would it do? Comes naturally from our pineal gland. And as we get older, like our thymus gland, it will calcify and will shrivel up and you lose melatonin and you lose epithalin from the pineal gland. And when you lose epithalan, what happens is your cells that are supposed to self replicate get stuck in g two. So there's self replication.

Edwin Lee
So if you want a new skin cell, your body basically can get rid of the old skin cell, and then you generate new skin cells. Inside our body, we can generate new heart cells, new myocytes, new liver cells, new pancreas. But our ability gets less. Exactly. Because we're losing epithalam.

And epithalin basically turns on cell cycle. It's the peptide to make you younger. And I have patients who have prediabetes or type two diabetes. Some of them have reduction of their medication or even get off their insulin. I have patients who basically their macular degeneration is improving, their vision is getting better.

So it's actually making you younger. But you can't self replicate forever because then you have discovered immortality, which I haven't discovered yet, far, forming. I don't think I'll ever do it, but I'll ever find it. But anyway, I have patients, I. Hurry up, Doctor Lee, but epitalent is just amazing.

I just love it. I mean, is this something you take every day? Is this something you take? Wants you to cycle it. And so I have made my patients, which is sad because the FDA has this on the chopping blocks there too in terms of banning peptides.

But you can get epithalon spray, which. Is actually nasal spray. No, under the tongue. Under the tongue. Normally you have to inject.

The problem is there's so many on the Internet, but if you can get from Russia, the original one, Kaveston. Sure. There's not a lot of commerce going back and forth with Russia through China. Yeah. The black market for peptides.

Well this one's a spray and this one I trust. Doctor Kavasan. Yeah. So these are, I don't trust the other ones. It's Kavasan's brand.

Unknown
So you mentioned for example, sort of epithelium as a bioregulator that controls our self suffication, healing repair. And so they're not like treating a disease. Exactly. So you get it. So what happens is insulin can treat type one diabetes.

That's great. But not all peptides are doing that. In fact most of them are not. They're actually simply just enhancing function. Like.

Edwin Lee
Yeah, like. Yeah, like pt 141 for example. Both at the same peptide, same time. Yeah. For better libido, better sex drive.

Unknown
It's actually appropriate for women. Yes. Has been FDA approved for that. And it also works for men? Yes, I have a lot of men and women on it.

So it increases desire. So does oxytocin. Oxytocin is actually FDA approved. Is it peptide? It's a peptide.

Edwin Lee
It's FDA approved, yeah. So oxytocin is the love molecule. Progress when you're after sex or when you are. But there's a lot of other benefits. And my nurse practitioner Becky Murray is going to do a webinar, I hope monthly webinar, not as popular as yours.

You probably have thousands. I have only 30 people following. But anyway, one day I'll be as popular as you, Mark. Well, let's see. There's no way.

I mean, you're like New York Times of a seller. That's all right. Well, no one bought my books. I bought your book. Actually, you know what?

Unknown
I went on Kindle and it was free because I think it's part of the Kindle unlimited. Oh, really? Yeah. I'm gonna take it off Amazon. I was gonna buy it.

I was like, wow, kindle unlimited.

Edwin Lee
I got no, maybe ten cents a year from Amazon.

Mark Hyman
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Edwin Lee
So let's kind of dive in a. Little deeper around some of the use cases. And where are you finding, you know, the top value for peptides in clinical practice and for patients? What are the ones you'd like to use? What are they used for?

Okay, number one that I just truly love is, if you want skin, GHk copper. Doctor Pickard discovered GHK, and it's a natural byproduct. So when you have collagen and basically breaks down, part of it is gHk. So GHK can turn on your fibroblasts to make more, basically, collagen and hyaluronic acid and skin look better. Yeah.

Unknown
And you don't have to inject it in your face. You can just put in your abdomen. Well, we have GHK copper. Topical. Topical.

Edwin Lee
Yeah. So I'm not that smart, not that good looking, not a great athlete, but I have good skin, even though I don't. I live in Florida, and I don't even even using sunscreen, but I use. Tons of GHK copper on your face. Oh, yeah, topical.

I love it. Yeah. And I tell all my things like. Hell when you inject it, Doctor Justin. Well, no, no, I'm talking about topical, but you can inject.

And for my father, who has passed away recently with very aggressive cancer, t cell lymphoma, small bowel, he had a great life. And he basically was told, we really have, like, 30 days to live. Chemo radiation won't work. And I said, all right, dad, you're like basically in a walker. Let me give you some peptides.

And so, I mean for cancer, I mean there's several different peptides that has a lot of clinical studies. So thymus alpha one could help to. Help your immune system fight cancer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. As an adjuvant.

Unknown
So we're not saying it's a cure. What you're saying is. Oh yeah, yeah. All the studies, even stage four, most of them shows basically improvement of basically longevity, their regression of mortality. So thymosinf one has been used, you can use basically met enkephalin, which I was using, GHK copper turns off also cancer genes.

Edwin Lee
Epithalin can also do that. So I told my dad, you're gonna get some peptides. And I already drew it up and my dad goes, I don't want them. He's like stoic, he goes, I don't want to live. I said, it's too late, dad.

Mom was going to inject you anyway, so you can say whatever you want. And we got eight great months with. That's amazing. So he went from like literally from a walker to walking 2 miles a day, regained his weight and that's incredible. Altered peptides.

Unknown
Yeah. And better nutrition. Yeah. Amazing. So you know, so kind of going down again into this sort of the rabbit hole of like what are the best use cases, what are the top peptides in your, in your toolkit?

Right. For example, I know, like my best supplements are magnesium, vitamin D, fish oil. Like those are my go to. Right. Probiotic.

What, what are the, in your, I. Would say number one is I love BPC 157. You can take it orally, people with reflux, it tightens the les junction. I have some people get off their reflux medicine. That's the bottom of your esophagus where the kind of reflux happens, come back.

Edwin Lee
Up from the stomach and there's not many things that tighten Les junctions. Yeah, that's a lower esophageal sphincter, like a sphincter at the bottom of your esophagus. And that's loose. Then you get, as it comes up, you get reflux gird and all that. That's impressive.

But BPC has, FYI, just, I have people taking it and I inject peptides in their elbow and a month later they re injure their elbow but they go, something. Taking a BPC, my shoulder, I can sleep much better. So it can improve your entire body. So I call it the Wolverine peptide. So you'll get younger so you can grow back.

Yeah. So you can say Wolverine peptide. Some people, that's the top of your list. So we talked a bit about that. And it's great for injuries, for trauma, for tissue repair.

Unknown
And I think it's one of the ones that I tend to rely on because I think it really, personally, it's helped me, and I think it helps a lot of patients. What other and what other peptides are, doctor? I love thymus and alpha one, because as we get older, our thymus gland shrivels up, and we're trying to basically help the thymus gland. I mean, your immune system get healthier. And as you know, Mark, you know, you got to have the healthy immune system, because once it goes down, it goes to two ways.

Edwin Lee
It goes to cancer or to infection. Yeah, we get immunosenescence, which means the aging of our immune system, which is why when you're older, you get more infections. You can't fight them as well. You die of pneumonia, you don't respond as well to vaccines. And you get, looking at Covid, the people who are elderly have a higher risk of death.

Unknown
I think you're talking about a very important phenomena that we don't really have a good treatment for with traditional medicine. So generally, I tell my patients to use, like, 250 micrograms of thymus alpha one, like once or twice a week, just as, just not daily. You can use daily if you're sick. Like, higher doses. Like, if my wife, one day, she goes, when she gets sick, it's like, it's a nightmare because I don't know when to drop the kids off.

Edwin Lee
Do I get lunch money? Do I. Where do I pick them up? You don't have the playbook for. I just.

This is the uber driver, so, yeah, I mean, so when my kids were younger, my wife goes, I took everything. The c, the d, the zinc, you know, silver. I'm coming down with something. And I said, she goes, you have something else? And I go, yeah, yeah.

In the fridge, I have the thymus alpha one. So I gave her. I remember this clear way before COVID probably 2016 or something like that. So I gave her about 1 thymosin alpha one. Next morning, she was perfect.

It's like, thank God. Cause if she was sick, I wouldn't know how to handle the cancer. We don't have the cure for the common cold. But if you take this, if you start to feel sick, when you get that feeling, I think I'm getting sick. And you take it, it can be profoundly effective.

Unknown
Oh, exactly. Yeah. What else besides ta one and bp? 157. I love epithalin.

Edwin Lee
Generally, we do five milligrams subcue daily for like ten days. If you skip a day or like the weekend, you forget. That's okay. Just. Just make sure you finish the vial.

So one vial will have 550 milligrams of epithalam twice a year. So you do it twice a year? Yeah, like ten days twice a year. It's kind of a reset for your longevity. And I had people like, for me when I was doing it, it's amazing, my sleep.

I was on melatonin every year, higher and higher, higher doses. And do you know epithalon turns on three genes of your pineal gland to make melatonin? And my wife goes, how come you're not taking melatonin? So I don't need it. I sleep without it.

So it can reset your pineal gland and help you sleep better. So I love epithalin because as we get older, and you mentioned the russian. Version via the nasal spray, but you can also take it. Not nasal, it's under the tongue. Under the tongue.

Unknown
But you can also do it through. Injection through a 503 a compound pharmacy prescription. Yeah. Amazing. And the problem is that most people, when they hear this, they're going to get addicted to epithalam.

Edwin Lee
Do not use it every day for the rest of your life because you're going to stop. The magic in terms of self replication. It will eventually, like the hayflick theory, it's going to stop in terms of it's no longer going to work. Just because a little bit's good doesn't mean a lot's better. Exactly.

Yeah. Just be patient and don't take it every day of the year because it's going to eventually stop working. Now, the other thing that sort of happens as we get older is we end up with hormonal changes. Lower testosterone, we have lower growth hormone, we tend to lose muscle. We age as a result of changes in our hormonal environment.

Unknown
And what was interesting, a lot of these peptides can be involved in regulating hormone function. And, well, yes, there are, like, regards to women that are done with, they're in post menopause or finished with menstrual cycle. Sometimes I tell them, like, you may start your period coming back and if you get pregnant, please mention me because I want to be famous, acquired, because I can't be famous like you. So I have to go to the other route. So anyway, yeah, it's amazing.

Edwin Lee
They go, my period was gone five years ago and I was coming back, so I don't know how long it's gonna keep on going. But they've, in the animal studies using which peptide? Epithelin. Epithelin ovarian function gets better. So it works not just on the pineal gland but also other organs.

Unknown
Maybe the hypothalamus can help the heart. There because it turns on gene expression, which is interesting. There's certain proteins that get kicked off and things work. So epithalan is like, to me, that's a good one. I love it.

Maybe people are using other ones like kisapeptin, which is for testosterone. Yes. Kiss peptin 10 may work like an adderallant to help with testosterone function. But yeah, those are peptides that may or may not work in men. It's confusing because the data was iv and they would do it like 24 hours and per body weight, and it's hard to convert that to how do you do it?

Edwin Lee
Sub Q. So anyway, I have some guys with some better testosterone level with using kuspectin. Then there's the whole growth hormone category of supportive peptides, like testimony some Moreland CJC filled 95. Can you talk about those and what role they have and what they do? Yeah, there's really interesting in terms of growth hormone peptides.

So I just want to start off with, out of all the side effects of all the peptides, that class has the most common side effects. Interesting. So it may affect about 20% of patients and they can't take it anymore. They really get welts in their injection sites, and then some people really get really bad rashes and it's this entire body. So I warn them that, you know, if you see a welt just growing, growing, going to stop, you're developing antibodies to it and you're not going to be.

Even if you stop and retake it like six months later, it's going to happen again. So your body does. Now everyone I have some papers on for five, six years and no reactions and doing well. So they're all very slightly, very similar. But there's two receptors in the pituitary gland.

There's a ghrelin receptor and then there's basically the growth hormone receptor. So these peptides can interact to either one. And like you would do CJC with 1295, which is part of the growth hormone, it's like part of the active part of the growth hormone that activates the pituitary gland at the growth hormone receptor. And then iprmorlin basically interacts with the ghrelin receptor. So in combination, you have a higher level of basically growth hormone release.

Unknown
And what are the consequences of having that higher level of growth hormone release? This is the controversy about growth hormone. Does growth hormone make you younger or older? The literature is all over the place. I am doing a study on that, which is because I could show you literature on both sides of the.

Edwin Lee
But generally, growth hormones considered the founder of youth. But if you overuse it, I think it's bad. I agree. Yeah. So I think in little use and not bodybuilding use, I think we'll do fine.

Unknown
So these compounds, you sort of hinted at a little bit, but they are powerful biomolecules, like ozempic, for example, or semiglutide. We're finding that in the doses that is being given for weight loss and for diabetes at two years plus, we're seeing significant side effects like increasing bowel wall thickness, small bowel obstruction, pancreatitis, and other things. And so these are not completely risk free compounds. So how do you navigate the issue around safety? You think, oh, they're natural compounds.

It's safe. I could take them. And people are playing with them. Yeah. So with use of semiglutide or ozempic or mangiorno with trizapatide, which is, and there are others.

Edwin Lee
That's a bio. Just got FTA approval for zappatite, for weight loss there. So just, but the thing is that I was kind of the king of the GLP one way before the movie started. I wish I got the hashtag skinnypen, but anyway, I don't even do social media, so I don't even, I'm not on Facebook. So were you recommending semaglutide to your patients before?

Unknown
Ozempic was sort of a big deal, brief use. I have patients, basically, you're stuck. They go, I just need a little help. And then we work on lifestyle modification. I want you to basically, like really work on physical activity.

Edwin Lee
You know, get your steps in, try to get your high intestine interval. Let's clean up the diet and maybe use it sparingly. I'm okay with that. Like maybe three months a year, like during the holidays, they know that, you know, Thanksgiving, Christmas, too much temptations. And then after that, you know, they go, okay, I'm fine.

So, yeah, if you can taper off or maybe use it sparingly, I think it's perfectly fine. There is a product that's called callocurb. It's a natural herb which actually activates basically the bitter receptor in the small intestine, and it releases your natural glp one and cck to inherit appetite. So I have some of my patients, I go, let's see if you can use this and get off your. Yeah, I mean there's a whole set of ways of naturally to raise GLP.

Unknown
One, whether it's certain compounds, for example, hemolyne tyree buckwheat works in the lower testing with these taste receptors to increase GLP. One, various kinds of polyphenols and other things can help. So it definitely not just the drug that can do it, but there are concerns around side effects. If you tend to use these things improperly, if you don't have proper guidance, if you don't understand the risks, you can, you know, get antibodies, as you mentioned, like you said to the growth hormone, you know, analogs. Or you can end up with maybe other untoward side effects that you're not even aware of.

So what are the kinds of things that people should be worried about or concerned about with peptides? Well, I think in general, peptides are generally very self safe and efficacious. The ones that are of concern are the growth hormones, releasing peptides and mod C. I did see one person that's for the mitochondria, for better energy. I've had one with anaphylactic and I had another doctor friend, he's a co founder of clinical peptide society.

Edwin Lee
He also saw one anaphylactic reaction. So just got to be careful. They're rare side effects, but medications like even taking aspirin can get anaphylactic. I agree, guys, taking aspirin almost bled to death in his stomach.

Unknown
So this field is really just exploding. But at the same time, there's a lot of pushback from the government, the FDA, to try to regulate these in ways. One of the things that I caught earlier that you said, which got my attention was that there's not a lot of human clinical trials. A lot of the data you're talking about is animal studies. Well, not all peptides.

Edwin Lee
One of the peptides I just published was on thymosin alpha one. And it's open access so you can find it. It's the comprehensive review of the safety and efficacy of thymus alpha one in human clinical trials. So there's 11,000 patients worldwide that have been on human, I mean, clinical trials on time scale for one. And basically it's been safe.

I mean, no semi efficacy based on those trials. Yeah, I mean efficacy, most of them basically improved. I mean they were doing studies like hep B, hep C. Now there's newer drugs and all that. But back then, they had nothing.

So they were using thymus alpha one and for chronic Hep B. And this is like, interesting, if you look, go back in history if you read it, and it's like, well, you know, there are better ones here now. But I remember seeing in China during COVID that studies on ta one and. Covid treatment and some studies shows that reduced mortality. And unfortunately, the one compound pharmacy got this whole peptide upset with the FDA, and it was the compound pharmacy advertised that there's a cure for Covid.

Unknown
Oh, wow. And then you say cure to the FDA with COVID oh, you're going to be shut down. That's why they were upset. So that was one of the reasons why it's on the ban list. But it has been approved as an orphan drug in the seventies.

Edwin Lee
And when they did first clinical trials with children born without thymus glands, and they even FDA goes, let's skip this going, let's see if we can help these children. And it was remarkable. It saved their lives. So this is before thyme stamp one, the precursor of it. But anyway, it's like, hey, it's safe, it's around.

So that's why I wrote the paper, to basically show it to these attorneys who are going to eventually file a lawsuit against FDA about this. Yeah, well, it's a whole problem. Often we find that supplements or things that really work well tend to be regulated in ways that are confusing to me because they work, they're safe. There's a long history of use. There's plenty of evidence compounds and their bio identical compounds or things that the body makes or uses.

Unknown
And I just find it sort of striking that maybe I don't want to be a conspiracy theorist, but there seems pushback, maybe from pharma, to kind of try to reduce access to certain compounds because they work too well.

Edwin Lee
I have theories there, too. But anyway, I just really want for people out there, especially your group, to get onto savepeptides.org, and hopefully you'll have that on your podcast there. And just, it's really quick to sign the petition, send it to your friends and family. We need more signatures, and it's grassroots. And I go on every lot of radio shows and podcasts, and we get a little blip after the podcast.

Mark Hyman
That's great. Yeah, I think it's important. What Edwin says is important. We want to be able to have access to compounds that can support our health. And we have to be, they have to be used judiciously.

Unknown
They have to be prescribed by a physician. You have to be under someone's care who knows what they're doing. But in that context, they should be available to be used. And what's happening now is a restriction on that use. So if you go to savepeptides.org, dot not comp.org, dot save peptides.org, you can basically sign a petition and that will help to the FDA to perhaps reduce their restrictions or potential ban.

They're not banned yet. There's a proposed ban. So I think we're gonna still see it's being fought. There's a lot of legal cases going on about this in terms of a few other use cases. One of the things that happens as we get older, and often a big problem for people is energy.

We lose energy. And one of the fundamental things that happens as we get older is our mitochondria don't work as well. You know, produce energy from food and oxygen as well. So basically our engine starts to slow down and we see, obviously you see a two year old running around, bouncing off the walls and full of energy, and you see like a 92 year old, and they're moving super slow. And a lot of that has to do with mitochondria.

Edwin Lee
Oh, yeah. Mitochondria function is huge. So talk about why the importance of mitochondria and what the use of peptides are in helping to improve the function and help of the mitochondria, how they work. So as you mentioned, mitochondrial function is critical for optimal health. And we check in our office nad levels.

So I say Nancy apple dog because it's nicotinamide, adenine, dinuclear, and not something. You can really check easily at a regular lab. So use a special lab. Yeah, it's ginfinity lab. Ginfinity?

Yeah, it's a finger stick. And it's j I n I f I t y. Okay, we'll put that in the show notes. Everybody but jinfinity lab to check your nad levels is that. And you can order yourself.

Unknown
You have to go through it. I think you can order yourself. And basically you. It's. It measures your white blood cells, intracellular NAd levels.

Edwin Lee
So it's a fingerprint test. There's like five whole circles. And if we draw your blood, a little extra will just put it on this and we let it dry. And there's the little droppers you have to do, but we send it in bulk rather than one at a time because things get lost in the mail anyway. But the thing is that my wife's nad level was low.

It was anyway, 20. Not optimal. And I was 30, a little better, but I always had more energy than my wife. And so I told her, let's try this product that has NMN. So I tell my patients, like Nancy, Michael Nancy.

And it's. It's. It stands for big chemical work, but it's a precursor of NAd. So, a month later, we rechecked, and she went from 20 to 40. I went 30 to 50.

Unknown
Amazing. And it's amazing because I like to ride. I'm not a professional cyclist, but anyway, I like to ride with younger people. Yeah, you keep up. Yeah, try to keep up.

And did you do better? Oh, yeah. I mean. I mean, there was a group ride. They go, oh, you're so young.

Edwin Lee
I go, no, I have a higher nad level. So this is like the enhanced Olympics, then, right? Exactly. So you know what? All the athletes are taking NMN to improve their energy, but you can measure it.

And the second thing, I mean, that's not a peptide. No, it's. No, it's a supplement that the FDA has now banned since March of 2023 against Amazon. It was available for over 1015 years. David Sinclair.

Unknown
Yeah, it's still available, but it's. It's through physician's office, but not on Amazon. So it's. It's. It's harder and harder, but I think David Sinclair is making it a drug.

Edwin Lee
So. Yeah, yeah, it's a shame. It's natural. Yeah, exactly. So anyway, so.

Unknown
So nad. But you're talking about how to optimize even nad with another peptide. No, it's not a peptide. No, but you're a b vitamin. But the other thing is, what I'm trying to do is in conjunction with that.

Edwin Lee
Yeah. Is that you gotta optimize sleep, too. So I think Epithalan can help with better sleep, and if you'll get your Rem up, and a lot of people have adrenal fatigue, so you got to get that deep sleep, REM sleep up and get good quality sleep. So it's not quantity, it's also quality. But anyway, there is a peptide.

Since we're talking about peptide, it's Motsc mod C. It's a mitochondrial peptide, and it just basically turns on the mitochondria to work faster. And when I've tried it, the first dose is like, okay, oh, good. Second time I tried it, I was like, mmm. And third time was, damn, this is great.

Unknown
So, is this something you use every day, long term? I do it interventionally, so. But I. You know, there's so many different compound formulas that make it and the problem is, I'm a wuss when it comes to injection. And if it burns, I don't like the burn.

Yeah. And the ones that I were using never burned. And then we. They don't really stop tailor made, you know, stop making it. Yeah.

Edwin Lee
And we had to go elsewhere. And I just. So I prefer iv pushes. If I get an iv of nutrition, I also do a mozzie push and doesn't burn at all. I feel good, but I do it interventionally because most mozzie burns and I'm a wimp.

Was. I mean, I can go in cold water. I love cold plunge, but I don't like to burn. Could you use it every day if. Well, you're supposed to.

You can do the protocols. Ten milligrams once a week or five milligrams subcu twice a week. You could go a little further. If you have an event like you're trying to run faster, you have a marathon coming up, but in general, just once to two times a week. Are there any risks to it?

Well, like I said before, I did have one patient that developed anaplas reaction, and she was. She. Thank God she was by. She lived by herself, but she had a wherewithal to basically knew something was wrong. So she was in Arizona.

She ran outside. Thank God her neighbor was there. She said, call 911, and she collapsed outside. Wow. And then she basically, like a month later, goes, can I try it again?

No. Right. Never. She goes, I lost so much weight. So that's another benefit with MoD C.

Unknown
It helps with weight loss. Yes. Speeds up metabolism. Yeah. Converts your white fat to brown fat, too.

So it increases energy production and burning. Right. So it increases your metabolism, literally. There's a few other mitochondrial peptides like SS 31 and human. And can you talk a little bit about how those work, what they do, how they're used?

Edwin Lee
Yeah. So SS 31 is another interesting mitochondrial peptide that can help. I kind of explained to my patients that as you get older, it's like your underwear. You wear that same underwear. Over time, you lose that elastic.

So your mitochondria gets weak and SS 31 kind of snaps it back in place. So then basically the electron chain where you produce all the ATP and energy, basically it's better formed. So if the confirmation of the mitochondria doesn't work, it gets weak, then that's why your production gets weak. So it doesn't speed up the mitochondria. But it helps basically their structure.

Exactly. And what about human in. I haven't used that yet. Have you a little? Yeah, a little.

Unknown
Okay, so I think, I think there's a, I mean there's like you said, there's 300,000. I don't know how many characterized I get on podcasts. And always someone wants to stop me. What about blah, blah, blah, blah? I never heard.

Yeah. So then they'll go 1 hour talking, giving me electron. Yeah, yeah. So I don't know all the peptides. So the question really is, you know, when you're seeing a patient and we talked a lot about, you know, peptides, where everything's going to be in the show notes here so people can learn more about them, we're going to put links to the studies you mentioned.

We're going to be links to say pep has that. If you can donate too, that'd be great. It's time to get a phase one clinical trial for BPC 157. Yeah. So if you've got a few million dollars to do some research, I don't.

Edwin Lee
Think it's millions, but just. No, it's important. And I think, you know, even $20 will help. The more research that we have, the better off we're going to be to understand these. But they are kind of exciting new therapeutic in medicine that I never really learned about except insulin.

Unknown
And I think that they help across a range of human functions that tend to decline as we get older. So they seem to be sort of an adjunct in longevity. And a lot of people in the longevity space are using this. What are your sort of top longevity peptides? Well, number one is epithal one.

That one you mentioned twice a year, ten days. Reset the pineal gland. Exactly. Okay, got it. And in terms of the, you know, the kind of second would be thymus.

Edwin Lee
Off, one for your immune system. Yeah, those two. Yeah. So there's some like, there's some heavy hitters, there's some powerhouse peptides that are kind of go to for you, that are part of your standard practice. But when someone comes in to see you as a patient, you take their medical history, how do you sort of begin to think about, you know, which are the right peptides for each person and how long to use them, how to give them.

Unknown
And it just seems like we don't really learn how to do that in medicine. Well, what I do is when a patient comes to see me, we actually, it's a pretty extensive morning visit when they come and we do so many different tests. And we're looking for DNA damage. We're looking at your genetic SNP's and we're also looking at leaky gut, we're looking at many different, many different things that most conventional doctors don't check, like oxidative stress protocol to see if you have cell membrane damage. And so anyway, the thing is, I have this foundational triangle of health, and a lot of people have different versions of it, but it's hormones.

Edwin Lee
Leaky gut, fix your liver to remove toxins, sleep, exercise, and then in the middle is nutrition, so iv nutritional. So try to get that balance and then later add peptides. I don't do that first, I mean, unless. So like phase two. Yeah, two or three, just add more or something like that.

But unless they have an acute injury, it's like, okay, let me inject. And so their immune system's down or they've got an injury, there's things you'll pull out. So occasionally I'll pull out, but generally I. We do a biological age too, in all our patients. So anyway, I look at the intrinsic age, and later I have to tell you're older than your chronological age or younger.

And they always say, how do I get better? So I'm publishing another paper and I just don't have time. But we submitted a paper to be, it's being reviewed and I'm trying to get that open access quickly. And so it's an interesting thing, I'll just tell you. Alzheimer's patient, 80 years old, could not finish a sentence.

And in a year his cognitive test significantly improved. He started 2%. He was like failed. And now he's trading stocks, he said, and his biological age reduced by eight years in a year. And his telomeres increased the size.

Unknown
But is he making money on the trading stock? Yes, but the beauty. I'm not going to tell you what the protocol is, but wait for the paper because the paper has to be published first. I don't want it personally. Oh, no.

Okay. Interview me next time. Okay. We'll link to it eventually in the show notes. I'm dying to know what the, that protocol was because you're talking basically about reversing cognitive decline using.

Edwin Lee
I know, I'm really excited about that x price because I think I'm going to submit it. This is just one case. Yeah, but I have other cases. Oh, I have several. Yeah, I am busy in my practice.

Unknown
Do you want to maybe share also a little before we get into sort of some of the case studies? Do you want to share a little bit about the peptides related to sleep? Because there's a number of peptides that can help improve sleep and there's several 70 million Americans who have some type of sleep disruption. Falling asleep, stinging. I think the best one, honestly.

Edwin Lee
I'll just start with that. But there are other peptides there. But I mean, I've used DSiP delta sleep inducing peptide and Ryan Smith and I were doing, at the same time, texting. Oh, my God, my sleep. So good.

Because we both struggle with sleep but then eventually stopped. It was like tachyfylaxis to stop working. Yeah. And we were doing it every day and then figured we have to put it back down to like three times a week or something like that. And then.

Unknown
So that's DSIP. Yeah, I stopped using that. Epithalan is phenomenal epithelial. Over time you're. Because you're generating, you're turning on three genes for melatonin production.

Edwin Lee
So it's phenomenal. So over time you're not going to require some sleeping. I have people that are saying, omg, I am sleeping. Great. So that's your topic.

It took me three years because I was doing it twice a year and then on the third year I was doing it just to get my biological age down. Yeah. That's amazing. Are there any others that are helpful for sleep? CJC 1295.

When I first took it, I forgot that it burns like you. Not burning injection, but you. You feel like you're on fire. And I remember injecting and it's worse if you drink alcohol, if you have wine. So I had wine and then I injected and I felt like I was on fire, but I was a little drunk, so I fell asleep quickly.

But I had a brief moment of empathy. Women going through hot, through menopause and getting hot flashes because it's like, if this is a hot flash, just shoot me because I can't survive. This is terrible. Yeah. So.

But then I slept like a baby, so. Is that something? Is this something? CJCJC five days a week. Five days a week.

You don't want to burn out the pituitary class. So I have a peptide class. We teach healthcare providers and I have a class March 16. It's almost sold out. But now is this a curriculum?

Unknown
Is this something that a healthcare provider would sign up for? And is it a multi part course? That's a one day introduction to peptides. But we teach seven new peptides. It's in case the FDA takes things out.

Edwin Lee
So. And anyway, it's exciting. It's on clinicalpeptidesociety.com, if you're interested. I'm a co founder of it it's going to be in Orlando March 16. So it's an in person seminar.

Yeah, in person. Not zoom. I had someone from Beverly Hills sign up and they go, I thought zoom. It says right there. So personally say the website against Clinical Peptide Society.com.

i'm a co founder of clinical Peptides Society. So we're going to put that in the show notes. If you're a practitioner, you want to learn more because it's hard to learn about this stuff. Yeah, you're actually, I remember you called me like what the hell are these peptides? You know what Mark said?

He goes, teach me peptides in five minutes. I said, mark, I can't do that. Just read my book. Give me the cheat sheet. He goes, I don't want to read this book.

Unknown
Give me the cheat sheet. I wanted the cheat sheet. So I mailed him the book. You read it and you're really good. I'm like watching.

Edwin Lee
It's like I'm learning, I'm learning. High five. I like, I'm a sponge. I like to learn stuff. So we got three in five minutes.

This is like peptides.

Unknown
Not fair. But I was looking for, because it's hard to get is like a cheat sheet. Okay. Here's the dose of the peptides. Here's the frequency of the peptides.

Here's the use case, here's how to mix them up. Here's the amount of units you get. We teach that in the class and then we do offer like central knowledge. It's not a certification. Central knowledge of clinical use of peptides.

Edwin Lee
So you have, there's a test and there's 80 question kind of thing. Yes, but we don't call it certification because central knowledge. Yeah. Because we work with AMMG age management medicine group. We would love for you to come and speak there.

Sure. Yeah. I think this is such an important. I'm on a planning committee. Okay, got it.

So you're giving me a pitch now. To go give a talk. I hear you. I'll be in November. Someplace fun and beautiful.

Unknown
No, definitely an option. It'll be Utah. Utah. Oh, my daughter lives there. Oh cool.

Salt Lake. I don't know exactly one hotel. Okay. Park City. That's close enough to Salt Lake City.

Edwin Lee
Yeah. Okay so that sounds good. The, the other thing I kind of want to hear from you, you know, is there's an issue around cost. These are not cheap. And so people might be listening, get excited about it, want to try it.

Unknown
And then they go look it up and it's like so expensive. Well, what's expensive? It's all relative. Some patients, it's investment of their life and their health. And I have people of all different backgrounds.

Edwin Lee
And when it comes to their health, though, I mean, it's like there's not many alternatives. When you come to see me, you usually failed everything else. Everything else. So it's hundreds of dollars sometimes for. The thing is, it's starting to get you from a to b.

And then over time, you know, if you use it sparingly, it's not. Yeah. So they're sort of like kind of fix things and get you healthy and then you can use them as sort of maintenance intermittently if you. If you lose weight or. Or things get better.

And so I give you the path to get well. It's up to the patient to follow the path. And I'll always be in business because they usually fall off the path. There you go. Never assured.

But a lot of my patients do. They go, I'll try better. Yeah. Now if we do a good job in fixing the food system and maybe dealing with a new way of thinking about chronic taste, we might have a reduction in business, I hope. But there's going to be sick people for a long time.

Unknown
In terms of case studies, can you share a few kind of highlights from your career? You mentioned the Alzheimer's case. You mentioned your son with it band. You mentioned yourself a few times. I've certainly had a few positive experiences myself.

Patients? Well, I've had one woman who slipped chasing her grandchild on carpet and her shoulder popped out, got worked up and they said, you need a shoulder replacement. So she said, I want a second opinion. And she drove like 2 hours to see me. She used to live closer, but she wanted to see me.

Edwin Lee
And she had five tears in her shoulder. Super spinatus infraspinatus, the labrum tear and two other tears. So I said, let me inject with ultrasound guidance. And she could not even put deodorant underneath her arm. She could not.

Unknown
Wow. That she was limited, but she didn't want to have surgery because she wanted to try this alternative way. And there was no one to take care of her. Her husband passed away, so she didn't have anyone to help her after soldier surgery. So each month she came once a month.

Edwin Lee
And I've told her five times her movement with these peptides. I used BPC and thymosin beta four. That's it. No stem cells, no exosomes, no growth factors. Those peptides, just.

I knew where the tears were and I basically injected there and each month it just got better. By the third month, it's like you could see significant improvement. By the fifth month, I was telling her, I probably have to inject your good shoulder. You're going to realize your damaged shoulder is going to get so well. So a year later, I mean, she did come back.

She goes, you know, my good shoulder, I mean, the one that you injected feels like it's super young, and she likes the golf. She goes, you got to fix my other slice. That's amazing. So it's amazing. Yeah.

I mean, it's regenerative. And I gave a talk. You just gave her once a month in the joint, BP 157 and TB, four. So I gave a talk to traumatic brain injury to mark Corden's workshop, to healthcare providers, and Rob's talking about peptides to help the brain. And I kind of got off label and was talking about some of these interesting cases.

And there was a retired air force orthopedic. He was like a captain in the air force, and he got up, put his finger in my face, and he was at it. He goes, damn you. You're going to ruin the orthopedics careers. And I say, yes, me by myself, going to ruin all these orthopedics?

No. You can be educated and offer this to your patients, of course. So I'm excited. There is a doctor that graduated from Dominican Republic, and he found me and he goes, I want to become an orthopedic surgeon, and I need to get something published. And my dad's an orthopedic surgeon.

And it's like, in Miami, it's like, oh, so we've been talking. We have two clinical trials. He needs to get IRB approval. I go, I don't need IRB approval. I don't have to prove.

But I think for your future career, you should get IRB approval. And I told him once, some sites you can go to, and hopefully we can get this approved quickly, improved and start to study. That's amazing, because one is we're going to do mris you have before the knee injury, like ACL, and then do a month into the knee for like three times, like once a month for three times, and then six months, repeat the MRI. Because I did a study published and it was a subjective people we call and say, do you feel better? But having an orthopedic surgeon want to see?

Yeah. Yeah. Like, what if, for example, heal a meniscus that's torn? Yeah. My mother had a partial meniscus tear.

And I actually, I flew to Pennsylvania because she was getting, I couldn't figure out how bad it was. And when I started the airport it was like oh Houston we have a problem. She couldn't even turn like 180. It was like just really slow. And so when I got home I've been, and I injected her and then.

Unknown
Go in any joint or just in the joint. It has to be in the joint. Yes you could try around but the best is in the joints. It's easy to, I mean anyway for me it's relatively easy. Yeah, yeah but the thing is that I injected like then later like that was October and then Thanksgiving I was there injected so I flew back to Pennsylvania and then Christmas time I injected her and I mean Christmas time she didn't need a third injection but she goes since you're here just inject me.

Edwin Lee
So my mother is now a peptide junkie. And for osteoarthritis too. Would it help? Yes it can help with, it can help with it. Yeah.

And they did studies in animals with arthritis. They induced arthritis in the paws and gave BPC and it has reduced their. Does it regrow cartilage? I think to regrow you do need the stem cells. Yeah stem cells.

Unknown
So last thing I want to sort of just touch on the sourcing and, and finding peptides and finding practitioners and safely doing this because it's a bit of a wild west out there. So people are getting it off of unregulated websites and you don't really know what you're getting and there's not really, there's risk to it. So one, how do you sort of find the right practitioner and use the right compounding pharmacies to find the right peptides? Well on our clinical peptides society we do have practitioners who've taken the quotes, they passed their test, they've had training. They have training.

Edwin Lee
So anyway they basically have the central knowledge on how to use peptides and they basically do a lot of peptides in their practice. So you can look at per state where they are located. And anyway I don't know all the doctors in America or, but I do know some people that I deal with but we usually, I mean there's only about 20 compound pharmacies that are 503 a that produce sterile injectors. So 503 means it's like it's good for human use and it's regulated by the FDA. Exactly.

Unknown
State inspected and all state inspected and you can be confident in the compounds that are. And they check for basically third party inspection for basically any mold or bacteria. You list those on clinicalpeptidesociety.com dot. I don't even know all the 20. I have several but use but I don't know all 20 to me.

Edwin Lee
I know most of them but don't know all of them but I don't list it all there. But I will give you a personal list. What I use.

Unknown
Basically, you have to find someone who understands the science behind it, who knows how to use them appropriately. For example, what you're sharing is some of these you only take for ten days twice a year. Some of them you take, you take periodically or I'd love for you to take my class. Yeah, I can get you the next level. Okay, great.

I'm coming, I'm coming. So I think this has just been such an enlightening discussion. I think people can learn more about your work by going to clinicalpeptidesociety.com. definitely sign the petition, save peptides.org. and of course, you can check out Doctor Lee's books, the Fountain of Youth with peptides and his new one called.

Is that the one? That's the newest one. It's the newest one, yeah. So this has really been a fabulous conversation. I've learned a lot.

And I think while not everybody can easily access these compounds, it's something that kind of explore, particularly if you have certain conditions and issues that really respond well to this that we talked about. And not all peptides are injectable. There are peptides that you can take by mouth, orally. And there is a booth here at this show called health Jevity, and it's only through doctors. So if they have an account with health Jevity, I'm kind of helping him kind of with that journey.

Edwin Lee
So we're kind of. I get no royal help to gut. Healing like BP 157. So, yeah, so I hit some pretty cool products there. Well, thanks for your dedication in this field, for educating all of us, for writing the book, for teaching the courses, for fighting the fight against the FDA.

Unknown
I really appreciate it. Like I have all of us brag up the mountain. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for what you do and hope everybody love listening to this podcast. And thanks for pharmacy.

Edwin Lee
Yes, thanks. Pleasure. Thanks for listening today. If you love this podcast, please share. It with your friends and family, leave.

Mark Hyman
A comment on your own best practices on how you upgrade your health, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And follow me on all social media channels at drmarkheiman. And we'll see you next time on the doctor's pharmacy. I'm always getting questions about my favorite books, podcasts, gadgets, supplements, recipes, and lots more. And now you can have access to all of this information by signing up for my free market picks newsletter@drheiman.com.

markspicks I promise I'll only email you once a week on Fridays, and I'll never share your email address or send you anything else besides my recommendations. These are the things that have helped me on my health journey, and I hope they'll help you too. Again, that's drheiman.com markspicks. Thank you again, and we'll see you next time on the doctor's pharmacy. This podcast is separate from my clinical practice at the Ultra Wellness center and my work at Cleveland Clinic and Function Health, where I'm the chief medical officer.

This podcast represents my opinions and my guests opinions, and neither myself nor the podcast endorses the views or statements of my guests. This podcast is for educational purposes only. This podcast is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided on the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. If you're looking for your help in your journey, seek out a qualified medical practitioner.

You can come see us at the Ultra Wellness center in Lenox, Massachusetts. Just go to ultrawellnesscenter.com. if you're looking for a functional medicine practitioner near you, you can visit ifm.org and search find a practitioner database. It's important that you have someone in your corner who is trained, who is a licensed healthcare practitioner, and can help you make changes, especially when it comes to your health.