What Do Peptides Do For Muscle?

In this podcast, we differentiate between collagen peptides, food peptides, and medical peptides.

 We touch on how they work at a cellular level and they can help muscle growth and fat loss.

• What are peptides?
• Collagen Peptides
• Anti-aging tools

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Transcript

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Ash Horton:
Welcome to Muscle Talk where you'll get world champion advice about nutrition and stacking on muscle. I host Christine Envall. She's a three time world champion bodybuilder and IFBB professional, a food scientist and a founding co-owner of our podcast sponsor International Protein. In this podcast we differentiate between collagen peptides, food peptides, and medical peptides. We touch on how they work at a cellular level and how they can help muscle growth and fat loss. Christine, today I want to talk about what peptides do for muscle. So first of all, what are peptides and how to peptides help muscle growth? And if you actually Google peptides, a lot of results are going to be skin and cosmetic related. So is there in any way related to collagen peptides, for example?

Christine Envall:
Okay. Lot of questions there, Ash. Let's break them down one by one.

Ash Horton:
Cool.

Christine Envall:
And we'll start off with what are peptides. So peptides is a really broad name and it encompasses a whole lot of stuff, which in some ways are unrelated, but at the same time, I guess they're related. So peptide is essentially a couple of amino acids. So maybe two or three amino acids still attached to each other. So just going back, taking a step back from there as well, protein is made up of amino acids and in different proteins, it's formed together in different configurations. So it long chains of them and can be spirals, but they're essentially all amino acids, because that's a single molecule. And then they're bonded together to each other to create what we call a protein. So a peptide is not a single amino acid.

Christine Envall:
It's a group of amino acids, which is still bonded together in their natural format, but they have been, I guess, produced by using enzymes, majority of the time there's enzymes to break down a longer or larger protein into what we call peptides. That's from a food perspective. So if you look at our amino charged WPI, there are whey peptides in that product. And what that means is that the whey protein was reacted together with an enzyme and the protein got broken up because basically the enzymes eat away at the bonds, break up the bonds, and then they leave the residual is a di tri in majority.

Christine Envall:
Sometimes it can be like four. But obviously as soon as it's a singular thing, it's an amino acid. It is no longer a peptide. And as soon as there's two, it's a classified as a peptide. How that relates to the body is that a peptide is better absorbed than a single amino acid. So that the way that the body recognizes that when it goes through the intestine is that it is easier to get the peptide across the brush borders into the body, into the bloodstream than what it is an amino acid.

Ash Horton:
Right. So it's the combination of the two amino-

Christine Envall:
Two or three. But it's been produced by taking a protein, reacting it with an enzyme to create a peptide, which is obviously a much smaller molecule because of protein itself might be-

Ash Horton:
Explain that really well. [crosstalk 00:03:21]. What came to my mind though, I don't know if you had the same Ed in Australia, but we used to have, I think it was drive and it was like washing powder and there was this little like Pac-Man kind of enzyme running around eating things and that's the visual I had in my mind.

Christine Envall:
Well, it's essentially like that. It's running around in the solution with the protein and it's chopping up the bonds and breaking it apart to make it easier to digest. So that relating back to protein means it's absorbed a lot more quickly than what a full protein is because of the protein in the body still has to go through that. Because that's going to happen in your stomach. Your stomach is going to create the peptides out of the protein. Whereas if you put the peptide in, it's already in that format, it's easy. It can just pass through. Doesn't need to be digested. That's why it's more quickly absorbed.

Ash Horton:
That makes a lot of sense.

Christine Envall:
That's right. So then our complete aminos has the casein peptides has casein is normally very, very slow to digest has a great amino acid sequence, but in that format where it's been hydrolyzed which is what that process is, and then turned into peptides means that it gets in the process [crosstalk 00:04:30]

Ash Horton:
Hydrolysis, which creates a peptide.

Christine Envall:
Correct. So same thing with collagen. Collagen, they believe that if you just eat collagen, which hasn't been turned into peptides, your body just sees that as a protein and it just uses it as nutrition, calories in it. When you have collagen as a peptide, what they believe or what the research is showing is that it actually preferentially does go to the site where it is required. So if it needs needed to rebuild ligament, skin, tendons, cartilage, that type of thing, which is what collagen, where it belongs. When it's already in a peptide form, they believe and again, research is still ongoing with this type of thing, but this is like, if you go back to when I was a kid long time ago, where people thought that eating gelatin would improve nails, skin, same kind of thing. Because that's essentially amino acids that make up that type of protein.

Christine Envall:
Because we all know that different proteins have different sequences of amino acids. But they realized that essentially the body didn't preferentially take those amino acids as much as it just turned it into food. But now being in that peptide form, they believe that inside of the body, once it is absorbed, it does preferentially know where to go. And that's what again, whether that is actual factor, whether that's kind of marketing, there's a lot of studies around that show that collagen does improve skin texture, does improve joint rehabilitation, regrowth and that type of thing. So I believe it does work, but that's the difference between eating the whole protein and then having the hydrolyzed form and how it can preferentially seek out the different area where it needs to go to. And that's the big selling point around the collagen and enhance why it's used in topical.

Christine Envall:
So you see that in a lot of cosmetic stuff, it was topical. So they believe it can absorb into the skin, help rebuild that format and that matrix. But it's not just as simple as that because there's a whole bunch of other stuff that's needed other components for different vitamins, different minerals that need to be present to build, rebuild cartilage and to rebuild collagen. So it's not as simple as just putting the right amino acids in there. It has to be the complete right matrix of everything. And that's why in some of those beauty products, you'll see that there's other ingredients as well as not just pure collagen, that there's normally maybe some biotin and some copper and vitamin C and different components that go into making that skin.

Christine Envall:
So that's a little bit more complex in sports nutrition. When it comes down to having a peptide, it is simply a very, very quickly absorbed version of that amino acid that you need to go away and repair and recover and start that process. So that's on the food side of it, okay? Then there's the, I call them the medical peptides, which is the products that you need with a prescription, which are things like your SARMS, your CJC, ipamorelin, GHRP-6. You're shaking your head.

Ash Horton:
I've no idea what you are talking about, but that's okay.

Christine Envall:
They got famous. You might not have been over here. So there was a lot of controversy around peptides a few years back, I think ASM football club was using them obviously massive performance improvement. And then it all blew up because it's were they legal? Were they not legal? Because people were lumping them together with anabolic steroids and saying, "Oh, this is all really, really bad." But they're not. In Australia, they're legal if you have a doctor's prescription. Which generally means that it's related with anti-aging or recovery. So that's so in much the same way that I talked about how the collagen can get directed to a specific point and fix a certain thing. Now, I don't a 100% know how these peptides are made because it's chemistry more than food.

Christine Envall:
It's a little bit more scientific. So I don't know whether they are synthesizing them from something or how they're actually doing that. So you might have to ask an expert about that, but they are essentially a peptide, which means they are sequence of amino acids and a specific sequence does a specific thing, works into the body in a specific place. And that's how directed it is. If you get the right sequence much like let's use human growth hormones as an examples. That specific sequence, the body recognizes in a certain way and knows what to do with it.

Christine Envall:
So with these peptides, certain ones help with recovery, certain ones I've got a whole lot of notes here. So I make sure I don't get it all wrong. This [inaudible 00:08:58] this is taken from the company's website and what they do, but basically fitting in and either mimicking the way that the growth home hormone works without being growth hormone or mimicking how different things work or creating your own natural growth hormone to release that. They working at a very, very cellular level without being, I guess, a foreign chemical or something like a steroid, which is whilst you could argue that obviously testosterone is natural. It's still like a synthetic version of it.

Ash Horton:
So advantageous for bodybuilders to get the hands on prescriptions.

Christine Envall:
Yeah. It's definitely going to be helpful to either people use it a lot for injury recovery, because it can actually work at the site of the injury. I don't know a lot about that. Other than that, I do believe people actually inject at the side of the injury. But these things are available. Some of them are topical. Some of them are injectable. But they are basically, helping mostly to increase lean muscle mass and increase fat burning. They're an anti-aging tool essentially where natural growth hormone might have declined.

Christine Envall:
So I'm going to read some of the notes here, so I don't get it so far wrong because I said, it's not food is as much as this is obviously medical. So it says here that peptides work by manipulating the body's own natural function without fundamentally changing them. And obviously they can do things like improve injury repair, improve muscle development, improve weight loss, they improve healing on a cellular level. So that basically again, that's what the collagen is supposed to be doing. It's going to repair the collagen and at a cellular level. So these peptides are doing the same thing. They're working at a cellular level. You don't eat them. Sorry, that's a miss thing. There are a couple that are oral, but they're not a food. They're like a capsule. But a lot of the time it's either like a cream that the body absorbs into the blood or a subcutaneous injection.

Christine Envall:
So the peptides, what else can I say about the peptides? They can increase muscle mass and creates lean development, boost metabolism. There's a whole lot of claims around them. They do actually work, but they're not like a wow, okay boom, massive, massive change. So it's a subtle thing that's going to happen. And you still obviously got to train eat right. Or do everything right with it. It's not a magic potion in that way. But I think if someone has long-term injuries and things like that really, really good to look into. As I said get the access to prescriptions and that. So talking about something like SARMS, which I think a lot of people will have heard of. So it's a generally done it as a subcutaneous injection. So what do they say about this? It's a selective androgen receptor modulator, which is quite a mouthful. It is known to provide the benefits of traditional unsafe anabolic steroids without negative side effects. So I guess-

Ash Horton:
Interesting.

Christine Envall:
Yeah. This peptide works through the androgen receptor to target the muscle bone and fat cells while minimizing negative effects on non target areas such as prostate hairline and subcutaneous gland. So I guess they're saying that the way that it is targeted is it helps with the repair of obviously muscle, helps bone to grow, but it's not just like that blanket approach like what a steroid has. What else does it say about it? It mimics the effect of testosterone without actually altering testosterone levels. So has a lot of the same properties there that they're saying, essentially you can experience the benefits of testosterone, such as building muscle, strengthening bone, that metabolism, enhance libido and joint tendon regeneration, and repair without possible negative side effects. So that's the promise around those peptides. So it's something-

Ash Horton:
So this is a sort of saying, if you went to the doctor with an injury or something like that, you could actually start directing the doctor in this direction. How do we make this information useful to our listeners?

Christine Envall:
I believe that there are, if people do a bit of a Google search, they will find places that specialize in these more anti-aging type doctors. If you went to your regular GP, they may or may not know about it. But they could certainly do research and point you in the right direction. But there are like anti-aging type doctors, clinics and things around. I know in the U.S. it's very, very popular. And in Australia it's becoming more popular because like I said, it was a little bit unclear as to where it stood, but now it has actually been declared as a prescription available, not illegal.

Ash Horton:
Is this the sort of thing people can get on Medicare as well?

Christine Envall:
No, it's definitely not a Medicare. I think that's probably the caveat of all anti-aging is it's definitely not. It's cosmetic.

Ash Horton:
Can we group that into the injury category?

Christine Envall:
No, no, no. Unfortunately, but the information is out there around peptides, around the availability, and there is medical screening obviously required to make sure that someone doesn't have an issue that, and other contradictory health issue that might be aggravated by these, because obviously when certain things grow or if people have cancers and things like that, then it's not good to do this type of therapy because it can actually increase the rate of growth of those things. But definitely around injuries, speak to the person who's your surgeon or whoever's dealing with that. And they should have some information around that, or be able to do your own research around that and try it out. So the SARMS is obviously very, very famous one around bodybuilding circles and that there's another one called MK-677. This is one of the ones that is oral.

Christine Envall:
And it's a growth hormone secretor, which I can't say properly, but basically helps you to secrete or basically mimics the action of growth hormone without being growth hormone, which has obviously got a whole bunch of other negative things around it because again, it doesn't really differentiate between what you want it to grow and just grows everything. But it stimulates the pituitary gland to increase the release of numerous hormones like insulin, growth factor with little to no increase in cortisol, which obviously we all want to keep cortisol low. As a potent or really administrated growth hormone releasing compound, it provides many of the benefits, treatable growth hormone releasing peptides, such as ipamorelin and GHRP-6 also.

Christine Envall:
So it's a alternative to some of the other peptides, but noting there that it says that it does it actually increase the release of IGF-1, which is what he's associated with cancer. So we were talking about that in other podcasts about how dairy proteins and animal proteins increase that and are better for muscle growth. So that's great. But that's why it's very important that there's screening done to make sure that a person's not predisposed to cancer because it will excessivate that problem. So it's not to be taken lightly, hence why it is prescription.

Christine Envall:
And I am not a doctor, so not qualified to give any advice around that type of thing. This is more just what I've pulled off and on research around these. And they have been around for quite a long time now, around maybe more than 10 years, probably longer than that. But I've been aware of them around about the place. And definitely if people are looking at improving naturally what they're doing, particularly as we get older, because we want to maintain again, these will also help with skin because that's all skin muscle, ligaments, injury repair and keep us, I guess, younger essentially.

Christine Envall:
So that's essentially the medical peptides versus the food type peptides. And then where collagen sits in the middle and would probably support the usage of all of these things because it's one thing to create I guess, the chemical environment within the body, the hormonal environment to do something, but then you need to support it with the nutrition and have the right nutrients in there and the right building blocks, which is essentially what the collagen peptides are doing and the joints and ligaments and skin, and then obviously the protein around your nutrition and having the right amino acids for recovery and muscle growth. So supporting these. It's not like one or the other, they would work beautifully together giving yourself the right amino acids and the right proteins for nutrition and then supporting it with something like that. But I would love to hear if anyone has any experience with them. And again that's what the group's for. The closed group Muscle Talk people.

Ash Horton:
The Facebook group?

Christine Envall:
Yeah the Facebook group jump in and let us know if they've had any experience with those things. I do know that they are heavily used in the states because a lot of people, again, steroids are illegal, have a lot of negative side effects. These are not illegal when prescribed properly and don't have the same side effects.

Ash Horton:
You know what? If anybody's got a lot of experience on them, it would be really great to actually get them on the podcast.

Christine Envall:
It would be.

Ash Horton:
And get them to... Or if we've got any specialists out there in a particular field that are listening, it would be great to get you involved. Not just in this subject, in a multitude of subjects. Anyway, that was a very information overload, but also very interesting. Thank you very much, Christine.

Christine Envall:
No worries.

Ash Horton:
Words of wisdom. If you like, what you've heard, leave us a review and recognize that these bodybuilding tips from International Protein, they're free. So show your support by becoming a loyal International Protein customer. The best supplements money can buy. So jump online, hunt down their product and hit that buy now button.