Botox and Burpees
Botox and Burpees
S0113 Beyond the Basics: Should Athletes Consider Peptide BPC 157? With Guest Marissa Liza
Peptides have become a hot topic in the fitness and recovery world, but what's the truth behind the hype? In this revealing conversation, special guest Marissa Liza, a licensed acupuncturist @allpointsacu who's been taking the peptide BPC-157 for the past month, explores her firsthand experience and the science behind this trending compound.
BPC-157 (Body Protection Compound) is a synthetic peptide derived from a protein found naturally in the stomach. While animal studies suggest promising benefits for tissue repair, inflammation reduction, and even gut health, human clinical research remains limited.
We dig deep into the mechanisms that make BPC-157 potentially valuable for athletes and anyone dealing with nagging injuries – from its ability to stimulate angiogenesis (new blood vessel formation) to its potential role in accelerating recovery. We also discuss important concerns, including its regulatory status, safety considerations, and the quality control issues that come with any unregulated compound.
Whether you're an athlete looking for an edge in recovery, someone dealing with chronic pain, or simply curious about cutting-edge wellness approaches, this conversation offers valuable perspectives on the risk-benefit analysis of peptide therapy.
#BPC157 #Peptides #Recovery #Wellness #FitnessJourney #PerformanceEnhancement #Acupuncture #Healing #Biohacking #HealthAndWellness #BotoxAndBurpees #MedicalPodcast #PlasticSurgery @botoxandburpeespodcast
Welcome to another episode of Botox and Burpees. I am here with my very special guest, marissa Liza. She is a licensed acupuncturist and she is also someone who has been taking the peptide BPC-157, which is one of the hottest compounds out there in terms of recovery and wellness, and so we're going to take a little bit of a dive into BPC 157. We're going to talk about the scientific research, the background behind it and Marissa's experience with it, why she takes it and what we can take away from her experiences with it. So let's first talk about Marissa Welcome. Thank you for guesting. Thank you, sam, and I really, really appreciate you sharing your experience.
Sam Rhee:It's so funny because she was at the gym the other day and she talked to me and she said, hey, I listened to your creatine one and you really should do one on BPC, and I was like, yeah, I really should. I was thinking about it and I know a lot of people that are on it or are taking it, and so at that point I was like, well, and then, about a couple days later, you were like I'm taking it and I was like, wow, that's crazy. I don't know anyone who I would actually trust in terms of their opinion in terms of their anecdotal experience. And then I said, okay, we definitely have to do this.
Marissa Liza:Thank you.
Sam Rhee:So just to let you know, marissa Aliza is a licensed acupuncturist. Her Instagram handle is allpointsacu. Her website is allpointsawccom. Her office is in Rochelle Park. She's treated so many people at the gym. I just had a couple people say to me that they just saw you. They loved your care, thank you, and I've had treatment by Marissa and she's awesome. So shout out to to your business your expertise and you're someone that I would really trust in terms of talking about BPC 157 thank you.
Marissa Liza:Thank you for having me and the kind words. Yeah, I'm just excited to sort of explore this from all angles with you so okay.
Sam Rhee:So why are people caring about BPC-157? All right, they say it's awesome for healing injuries, reducing inflammation, needing recovery. And before I begin, just as a reminder, this is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. It's for informational purposes only. Treatment and results may vary based on circumstances, situation and medical judgment. Always seek the advice of your qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have, and never disregard professional medical advice or delay seeking advice because of something in this show. So BPC-157 stands for body protection compound BPC-157. It's a sequence of 15 amino acids, so technically a pentadecapeptide, and they found it in the stomach and scientists isolated it from a gastric protein and they synthesized it. So it's actually a lab-made peptide, but it's based on a natural stomach protein that they found that appeared to protect and heal tissues and this was something that, initially, was what piqued your interest, right?
Marissa Liza:Yes. So I had heard about it probably about two or three months ago. Another provider had said, hey, I'm taking this and I kind of honestly didn't really think much about it. I was like great, sounds good. And then I had went to a seminar I needed some CEUs and there was another provider there and he was just talking amongst us it was about eight of us and we were talking about different healing modalities and different issues and he says I'm having really great results with BPC-157.
Marissa Liza:So he's also licensed in Florida and in Florida it is legal for acupuncturists to do injection therapy. It's within the scope of their practice. They're not here in New Jersey. So he said I have been injecting it and some of my patients are having really great results with tissue repair, post-surgical. So I was like wow, okay. So it was a part of me, like okay, this is another somebody else saying it to me. I've definitely was heard the anti-inflammatory healing, athlete side of me like let's go, I want to be able to continue to perform, you know, athletically well. So that was sort of the let me, let me try this.
Sam Rhee:Right, and you are, and I've known you for years and you are a very high performing athlete. You've done how many high rocks is a competition? Two high rocks, two and multiple CrossFit competitions. You perform at a very high level, thanks, and obviously fitness is very important for you.
Marissa Liza:It is, and I sort of feel like, probably in the past two or three years I feel like the years of training have sort of caught up to me a little bit. I felt like a little more achy than I usually feel. Maybe something's going on. I'm not recovering as fast as I used to, so that was also a factor.
Sam Rhee:Yeah, and so these biologic mechanisms by which BPC-157 is thought to work is very intriguing. It's thought to help with tissue repair and regeneration muscle, tendon and bone. Helps to activate growth pathways. Growth factor increase growth factor activity. Anti-inflammatory effects, reduced excess inflammation and swelling. Angiogenesis, where it stimulates new blood vessel formation, more oxygen and nutrients to damage tissue. It's also hypothesized to increase nitric oxide, which is a blood vessel dilator, improving microcirculation.
Marissa Liza:So all the words that we want to hear, the things that are like oh, I need this.
Sam Rhee:Yeah, so if you are an athlete or someone who feels like their recovery is not as good or their training protocols are really leaving them sort of beat down, then something like this seems like it would improve those metrics.
Sam Rhee:Sure, and it's also, I think, our human nature to be like oh, I want the next best thing that's going to help me, what's going to keep me in the game longer, right, Now and we'll get into the research a little bit more, but right now just, it's mostly been in animal and lab studies and that's always like I've done a lot of animal and lab studies in my past and so I'm always a little skeptical when it comes to that. I think human clinical experience is probably the gold standard in terms of knowing what actually happens, but clearly the research that has been done so far has been very promising.
Marissa Liza:Yes, there's been a lot of research done, again only on animals. But I also wonder why haven't they tested it further on humans, Right? What's preventing that?
Sam Rhee:Right, probably, in my guess and this is just a total guess on my part is money. So if this is not a patentable like, if it's not something you could put on patent, probably there are not going to be a lot of pharma guys who are going to really want to invest in it. Because you can't protect it, you can't make it your own, you can't sell it in exclusivity, and so a lot of possible drugs are not worth the investment to take it through FDA approval because of that. That being said, I wouldn't be surprised if pharma, if they found that there was some benefit to this, they'll probably tweak it, add a couple amino acids here and there, find another proprietary version of this and then sell that as the next great recovery drug.
Marissa Liza:I don't know.
Sam Rhee:We'll see.
Marissa Liza:And then, of course, again, I'm playing devil's advocate here, right? You also. And again, this is just stuff that I've read and I get it. There's the other side of it. Well, it's like this is so wonderful, so they're never going to let it come to the market, because it's going to be, you know, it's going to make money, and that. There's that other side of it too.
Sam Rhee:I don't agree with that, right, I'm just you know, that's the other thing that you hear.
Sam Rhee:I mean there are certain drugs that are game changers in terms of the industry. I would say the GLP-1 agonists. The Ozempics are probably has impacted surgeons as well as primary care providers in a huge way. So I don't, I think, if someone can make money off of it. That's where the direction of it is going to go. One of the things that was very interesting is the faster healing of injuries suggestion where it accelerated tendon and ligament repair. Have you had any major injuries for which you were sort of investigating this use for?
Marissa Liza:injuries that for which you were sort of investigating this use for I did not have a major injury, I would say. I've been dealing with a right shoulder pain which felt a little more deeper than a muscular pain. I would get a lot of burning If I overdid it. I could feel it just. It was a deep ache and more of a burning sensation that I had never had in the past, and I also would feel that I was a runner for many years. So probably in the past two or three years my knees have been really bothering me. So that was sort of where I was like oh, let me see if this helps with that.
Sam Rhee:The other thing which what you mentioned was the first sort of thing that piqued your interest is the gut protection. There's a lot of evidence that BPC-157 protects the stomach and gut. It heals stomach ulcers and animal tests and I think probably the first clinical indications are going to be for patients with chronic conditions if it pans out for like irritable bowel syndrome, crohn's.
Marissa Liza:And that was sort of the non-athlete, the total health care provider part of me that was really interested in this this because I believe that the health of the digestive system is a major role in our overall health, especially when it comes to recovery of muscles and bones and just immune system, so that and there are a lot of that I've seen clinically that have not even irritable bowel, Crohn's colitis and they're suffering. So if we can heal the gut naturally, that can potentially help the rest of their health.
Sam Rhee:Yeah, that will be probably the next great frontier is the gut, because of its microbial flora environment, which is a huge thing which we're starting to sort of uncover in terms of absorption and metabolism and health. It also is sort of a second nervous system within the body. So all of these things which we don't really know about how to manage in the gut is probably going to explode, my guess, in the next several decades, because that's where I think a lot of people's health is sort of predicated on.
Marissa Liza:Yes, and I don't think it's going to take the next couple of years or I hope not, because I think it's so important now and I don't think it's going to take the next couple of years. Or I hope not, because I think it's so important now and I think it's something that's even overlooked when it comes to what we're dealing with systemically, is that's the first place we should look, and sometimes it ends up being the last place that we look, but I do think it's becoming more prominent. We need to heal that first before we can look at other things.
Sam Rhee:Agreed. So again, the real world evidence is not great. There's no major human clinical trials. We don't even know how it's really absorbed in the body. So, as you said, it's primarily like a lot of people use it as injections. But it is stable as a gastric protein in the stomach, so you can take it as a pill, but we don't actually know what the absorption rate is. You know what the drug levels are in tissues. Based on that, like it's all extrapolated off of rats, which I mean, there are a million things that work great in rats and don't work great in humans. So we'll have to wait and see.
Marissa Liza:And I'm not sure rats are really doing like MRF.
Sam Rhee:Right, exactly. We're not putting them through the we're not putting that level of strain and stress.
Marissa Liza:They're not living in Northern New Jersey, right?
Sam Rhee:Yes, With the same type of aches and pains, as well as daily stressors on their mind. They're a lot, probably a lot simpler with that, but right now it's exploded. So I've heard of so many people using peptides. They call peptides, peptides that's what they call it, peptides, and this is one of them. There's another one which we're not going to talk about today, but this is certainly probably the peptide. When people are talking about peptides, athletes, trainers are using this. Anyone who has some sort of strain tendonitis, muscle sprain they're sort of turning to this. I do know a lot of Cairo guys are just like handing this stuff out like it's like it's asking Anybody that's got an injury?
Sam Rhee:Yeah, it's going right out to them. So OK, so did you do a deep dive into the research after hearing about it, talking about it, before you decided to take it?
Marissa Liza:Not too much of a deep dive. I probably watched a few YouTube videos. I researched sort of what would be contraindicated to take it which, again, there's not much out there, so we're also going off of. Okay, well, what's the worst it can do, sort of.
Sam Rhee:Right.
Marissa Liza:I mean, I know obviously my own health history Right, so I felt comfortable taking it.
Sam Rhee:Okay, yeah, so when you? How are you taking it? Is it an injection or a pill form? I'm taking it in pill form, Okay.
Marissa Liza:So I'm taking one pill a day.
Sam Rhee:Okay.
Marissa Liza:And I started. It's actually been about a month since I started taking it Okay.
Marissa Liza:I did not do anything else extra in terms of recovery that I normally would do and I felt like I was training at the same level that I had been training at. If anything, I probably, aside from doing my regular gym exercise, I play like pickleball two or three times a week. Sometimes can be a little intense. I'm on my feet two or three hours or kind of you know, doing a lot of shoulder motion. You know, when I'm kicking butt, which is not very often because I'm not very good- but, neither here nor there.
Sam Rhee:So you take it once a day.
Marissa Liza:You said Once a day.
Sam Rhee:And what is the dose that you're taking? So I'm taking 250 milligrams 250 milligrams, and so after a month, what are your observations right now?
Marissa Liza:I would say, on a whole, I do feel better right now. I would say on a whole I do feel better. I would say that I still feel the same level of muscle soreness that I would feel if I had done a hard workout, but some of that burning pain has gone down in my shoulder and I definitely don't feel sort of that deep ache that I used to feel since I started taking that.
Sam Rhee:And you can attribute that to the BPC-157, because not much else has changed in your life.
Marissa Liza:Not much else has changed, nope.
Sam Rhee:Okay, any side effects that you've noticed from it.
Marissa Liza:I haven't noticed any side effects. I did, for a week, take it without food to see if it would didn't impact my stomach at all and I did not notice any change whether it was with food or without food, and I would always take it generally around the same time, which is in the morning.
Sam Rhee:How do you source it, Like where did you get your BPC-157 from?
Marissa Liza:I got it from a provider who I trust, who's been selling it, and told me he trusted this brand. So it is just as a side it is available. There's a site out there that sells a lot of supplements, called Fullscript, which a lot of providers use because you can just send information to patients about stuff. So it is available on there just as a side note. But I got it from another provider.
Sam Rhee:Have you recommended BPC-157 to patients?
Marissa Liza:No, okay, I have not recommended it to anyone.
Sam Rhee:And now that you've taken it for a month, would you say you should? It works fine as it is, or should it be integrated with other types of therapies or wellness treatments?
Marissa Liza:I think you know when we're talking about. Are you talking about for myself, or would I recommend it to a?
Sam Rhee:patient Both.
Marissa Liza:So I would. I'm going to stop taking it for the next month and see if any of those other aches and pains that I had came back At this point. I would not recommend it to any of my patients, primarily because I don't think that there's enough research out there to say, oh, this is a safe thing for you to take. And I also think that in terms of health care, I tend to look at the basics first, right Like is the patient doing everything they can in their power to help recovery? And, if I can help them, obviously with acupuncture, because that's what I do but also say okay, are we getting enough sleep? How is our nutrition? Are we overtraining ourselves, rather than saying, here you're working yourself to the bone, but you know what, try this and see if that helps. So that is typically how I treat, so I wouldn't recommend it.
Sam Rhee:Yeah, because none of us are doing any of those things. If you actually asked any of us Like enough, I would say Did you track yourself in any way? Did you do any sort of testing pre post?
Marissa Liza:I did not.
Sam Rhee:Okay.
Marissa Liza:I really honestly went off of how am I feeling in the gym, how am I feeling after two days of training hard, and then how does my body feel?
Sam Rhee:Okay, yeah, so a lot of people do cycle for like six weeks and then come off of that. So how long are you going to stay off and then when might you cycle back on?
Marissa Liza:I would take another six weeks, take six weeks off and then cycle back on.
Sam Rhee:Is it expensive?
Marissa Liza:That's a well you know.
Sam Rhee:I mean so cost-wise.
Marissa Liza:So I know that most people probably market up about 100 to 150%. So I was. I purchased it at cost because I had a colleague that gave it to me at his cost.
Sam Rhee:Okay.
Marissa Liza:So it was for a two month supply. It was $75.
Sam Rhee:Wow, that's pretty. Even at a 100% markup that's still pretty cheap for a supplement.
Marissa Liza:Correct, that was at base. So the normal, not normal. Somebody else would probably pay anywhere about $120 to $125.
Sam Rhee:Okay.
Marissa Liza:So he charged me his cost, which was $75.
Sam Rhee:Okay, so other than the providers you've talked to, do you know of anyone else who's been on peptides?
Marissa Liza:I consulted with a colleague of mine in Florida. She had tried it and she did not have much great result from it. She got it injected oh Yep, because she had somebody that can do it for her down there and she did it for four weeks and felt like I didn't feel any difference and she was post-surgical knee pain.
Sam Rhee:Oh, so she had it injected directly into the knee area Interesting.
Marissa Liza:Yep, okay, and she didn't notice any difference.
Sam Rhee:Okay.
Sam Rhee:So, Well, let's talk a little bit about the safety profile of BPC-157. So right now it seems like in the short term there are no major issues when it's injected, maybe just a little bit of sight pain or irritation. In animal studies they injected ginormous doses and it didn't have any severe toxic or lethal effects, no major organ damage, no behavior change. So it sounds like the safety margin is probably pretty good for this. People who have taken it haven't said that they've had high blood pressure or blood sugar changes or anything like that. I mean again in anecdotal testing and a lot of people like you are taking it and not necessarily like checking their blood sugars or their blood pressures or anything like that, but they're generally feeling pretty healthy.
Marissa Liza:Definitely better.
Sam Rhee:Yeah, I would say if you wanted to play devil's advocate. The big thing is long-term safety, right, sure. So anything that upregulates growth, you know cell growth, blood vessel proliferation is unwanted cell growth.
Marissa Liza:Sure. So we have to look at this as what if somebody has a history of cancer? Right, right, sure. So we have to look at this as what if somebody has a history of cancer? Right, right? So, and do we know that? As, of course, all practitioners, we do intakes and look at health history, but when there's not enough research and you're having, you know, I don't think it's right. Right, it's not anything. You wouldn't want to take that risk, right?
Sam Rhee:So that's always a concern and you really and I've looked at so many drugs that have even gone on the market and been taken off the market and a lot of stuff you can't really see as an effect until you test it on a wide range of people in a wide range of situations.
Marissa Liza:Sure and a long period of time.
Sam Rhee:And a wide range of situations. Sure, and a long period of time and a longer period of time. Yeah, I've gotten burned by so many drugs that I thought were awesome and then they were taken off because of some issue Liver damage in certain types of people, or this, that or the other thing. So I wouldn't recommend anyone just sort of jump in. And I think you're right as a clinician, like it's one thing. Listen, we've all experimented in ourselves. We're probably some of the big like. I think clinicians are sometimes the biggest experimenters.
Marissa Liza:Yes.
Sam Rhee:But we probably wouldn't, or we never should or ought to experiment on the people that we're taking care of, and so that would be one reason why providers ought not to really sort of throw this at people without actually knowing more about this, yeah, and I think now too, like patients in general, they're becoming more complex.
Marissa Liza:Right, we're dealing with more complex conditions. They're taking a lot of different medications, so we don't exactly know how is this going to interact with the medication.
Sam Rhee:That is correct. And the other biggest issue with any drug or any kind of substance is immune reaction. So it is a peptide. You can develop an allergic reaction to it, produce antibodies. I've seen that even with like rarely like with Botox, which is you know, or some people you know. Listen, if you can have a reaction to Tylenol or Advil or any of the most common over-the-counter drugs, there's no reason why you couldn't develop one to something like this.
Marissa Liza:Exactly.
Sam Rhee:And the other thing is it's not regulated, so purity and quality will always be an issue. I mean, you can source it from a very trusted source, but even then there's no outside regulation to trust what that company is doing.
Marissa Liza:You're basically taking them at their word and I mean, I don't know if that's true for a lot of different things out there, that they're not regulated so much, but it's not a risk that I'd want to put anyone to.
Sam Rhee:Correct. So let's talk about the regulatory status right now. So right now it is not approved by the FDA for any human use. It's not an official medication. It's not a dietary supplement. You can't sell it as a supplement. Actually, the way that it has been sort of sold is through a legal gray area. It's called a research chemical. It's called a research chemical, so that means companies can sell it for quote lab use only. People who buy it are technically using it at their own risk. It's not an illegal substance. But if you're giving it to someone with the specific use that they're going to be using it, that's actually illegal. So I mean, it's a gray area and I'm not going to go around, you know, and interestingly, in New Zealand right now it's an investigational prescription only medication. So it really depends Like there is a lot that's out there that we're still sort of figuring out with this.
Marissa Liza:Sure.
Sam Rhee:And the FDA is always the slowest, of course, but sometimes being slow isn't necessarily bad. Yeah, the biggest and most important thing is it's banned in competitive sports right now. So the World Anti-Doping Agency classifies it as a non-improved substance. So, even though it's not a steroid or hormone, so even though it's not a steroid or hormone, if you are on it and you are competing professionally or at a high level, you are going to, you're going to light up positive for this. For the average person, it is legal to purchase and use. You just can't market it. You can't tell people hey, take this, you know that's. So. It's sort of weird. I don't know how medical providers are sort of Getting around that Well, right, so is it one of those things? And I can imagine patients saying, hey, do you have peptides? And then saying, don't ask me about it. But there are these research chemicals which are available. I don't like it's all very legally weird. So, um, so I don't know.
Marissa Liza:It's really a biohacker type of situation, right now Sure, and I mean this is, as we know, this is just one of the many bio biohackers or it's a buzzword that everybody that that's putting out there. Right, how can we, how can we stay stronger, how can we stay fitter, how can we live longer, how can we perform better? So it's just another one in that line of products that are out there, right?
Sam Rhee:and I mean I have seen people advertising peptides online. When I started looking into this and they're probably skirting that line a little bit. But I don't think the FDA is going to go around like stamping out every individual practitioner.
Marissa Liza:No, I think there's definitely bigger fish to fry when it comes to who are we going to?
Marissa Liza:go for and, yes, I did the same. There's a lot of places out there. I actually, of course, I went to Florida because that's where I heard about it, but you know there's lots of facilities out there and my colleague has said that peptides and injections are huge down there. Like everyone's doing them. Most of them are regulated or they have their not regulated. They have an MD on staff. Not regulated, they have an MD on staff. So I think that is also maybe how they kind of get around it or feel like it's safer at some of these places rather than just an acupuncturist doing it.
Sam Rhee:Florida is such a wild west for medical care. No, I'm serious because, as a plastic surgeon, all the craziest stuff you hear about aesthetic surgery happens down in Florida. They are the most heavily regulated in terms of liposuction, fat transfer, tummy tucks. Because there have been so many complications down in Florida. Because there's no med mal coverage, Everyone goes bare. Because you can't afford medical malpractice coverage in Florida.
Sam Rhee:So, every provider has a patient sign of consent saying so. Every provider has. Everyone you know has a patient sign a consent saying you are aware that there's no insurance. You know I don't have any medical malpractice insurance coverage. You know, if there's anything that adverse happens, like you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah blah. So like it's crazy in Florida, like there's just a ton of fly-by-night stuff that goes on there. That being said, I don't want to cast a shadow on BPC-157. It could be in five years. This could be sort of the first-line treatment for someone who has gastric issues or who needs a little bump when it comes to their knee replacement or ACL replacement.
Marissa Liza:So that was when I thought about if I were to give this to a patient or who I thought potentially could benefit from this, based on how I feel after taking it. I would say a post-surgical patient would be somebody that I would recommend it to right. So because you've had the trauma of a surgery so that tissue is trying to repair. So if this can be enough assistance to that, then that would be great, rather than again like somebody who's not doing the basics, overtraining, overworking, looking for something to just like magically help them without doing the basics. So that's sort of my take on that.
Sam Rhee:Yeah, I think that's a good takeaway, I mean in terms of someone who might be taking it. I think, personally, I'll be checking in on you and seeing how you are. You know I.
Marissa Liza:There is a part of me that says, ok, let's take off the six weeks, right, do regular training.
Sam Rhee:Yeah.
Marissa Liza:Right See if I feel any of those.
Sam Rhee:Right, ace and pains and again.
Marissa Liza:you know, I also think like there's so many other factors that influence how we feel there's the hormone factor, there's a female for just being a female, right? So there's, you know. This is all. This is just me coming to. Oh, I know the way I feel, right, but I can't. When you come to a patient, right, when you're not testing, you're not actually doing something to say, okay, let's have a study here, let's check how you are no-transcript.
Sam Rhee:I did a podcast episode about rapamycin, which is longevity medication, and I still haven't taken it yet. I have it and I haven't taken it yet. I'm still a little chicken crap about it, like because, and so because I'm not in a really terrible place right now, I think there's, there's certainly a place I could see myself in a, in a in a certain place in life. You know acute injury, you know chronic pain, some sort of really bad gastric disturbance where I'm just fighting something and it's just beating me down. No, I would certainly, looking at this evidence, I would say I'll take a cycle of BPC 157 and see what it does for me, but I would have to sort of be in dire straits at that point. I am not.
Sam Rhee:Obviously, if anyone is competing on any level, they should not be taking this. If you pop for BPC 157, that's probably the stupidest thing you could do. Like there are probably about 50 other PEDs out there that would help you more. Like prove you're going to do it Right. Yeah, take something really that's going to help.
Sam Rhee:You know if you're going to run the risk of popping, but for me, where I am, the other thing thing is is that it's really for longevity for me. So I, I work out for fitnessing. You work out because you really enjoy it. Yes, oh, my god, I.
Sam Rhee:You know anyone who I've seen everyone who does high rocks, the people who who really grind and push like there is a and I understand it is is such a huge joy and boost in quality of life to be able to do that, and so that is why I see a lot of people at my gym getting the knee replacements, the shoulder surgeries, the things that they don't necessarily need to have on a daily basis in terms of functioning, but in order for them to perform at the level at which they want to in the you know, in the gym, doing athletic activities, they have to do these things. And if you have issues which are preventing you from fully enjoying your life to the extent that you want to, if you couldn't participate in a higher oxygen, if you couldn't throw down on a weekend or go to the gym and do the things that you want to do, that is a huge diminishment of your quality of life, 100%.
Sam Rhee:And if you're sitting there like oh, my shoulder is just like and you know it's not enough to like warrant something invasive, but it's not like really great and it's not. You know, I'm just it's smoking along but not doing awesome. I could see that.
Marissa Liza:Sure, but not doing awesome. It's always that fine line of wanting to take care of the patient, feeling like you're actually doing something for them whether it's with whatever modality you're doing or recommending a supplement that you're getting them on a better path, and again, that's very much an individualized thing, but also helping them understand their role in the process.
Sam Rhee:So how about the other? Now, just to some like there's another. When people call, talk about peptides, there's another one, tb500. Have you heard about?
Marissa Liza:that one that I've not heard about.
Sam Rhee:Because a lot of people will stack both BPC-157 and then this TB-500.
Marissa Liza:I'm sorry. I've heard of the stack that I did not know that that was yeah.
Sam Rhee:And we won't talk about it, but just very briefly. It's a synthetic peptide which is again a fragment of a natural occurring protein, just like BPC-157, thymocin beta-4. That's why it's TB, and then it's supposed to mimic the active region of this protein. It's currently actually being studied for skin conditions because it has something to do with actin and sort of binding to the actin protein. So a lot of people are stacking those Again. We're not going to talk about that. There's always something on the horizon, but we've also seen stuff that supposedly helped that hasn't panned out in the past. I actually should take a deep dive and look at all the things that people thought were going to work.
Marissa Liza:From a supplement perspective.
Sam Rhee:Yeah, or drugs. I remember the biggest one. Well, this was when I was a kid back in the 80s, called Latril, which was derived from peach pits and it was supposed to be an anti-cancer drug and it was sold in Mexico and so a lot of people went down to Mexico to get this anti-cancer treatment because it wasn't approved in the United States and it did nothing. Basically, and I can't tell you about how many drugs that I have prescribed at least three or four that were initially awesome, like new antibiotics taken off the market after they figured out, oh, in widespread distribution, that it caused major problems. So I would say it's exciting.
Sam Rhee:I really appreciate you sharing your experience with it. It's hopeful. I'm very glad that you've felt like there was some benefit from it. Thanks, I'm really interested to see what your second cycle's like. Yes, if I was wanting to bug you, I'd be like do I mean? It's a pain in the ass? But I would say get a bunch of metrics like do a blood panel work up, see where your blood sugar is, what your blood pressure is during this, all that. But it's like.
Marissa Liza:I mean, I could take my blood pressure every day but that would just begin it.
Sam Rhee:You know I'm just that would be using you as a guinea pig, which is time consuming and annoying. So listen, if it works for you, if it works for anyone else, that's great. This is just sort of informational so people can sort of take out of it what they will. If anyone out there is taking BPC 157 and you want to chime in and talk about your experience with it, that would be really helpful. We would enjoy that.
Marissa Liza:Be very curious to see how other people are doing.
Sam Rhee:Yeah.
Marissa Liza:Because, of course, I always hear, like I'm doing great, I'm doing great, I you know somebody who's giving it to you. It's like I've had great results, all my patients have had great results, which I understand.
Sam Rhee:Absolutely, and if you need additional wellness and you know treatment, please go see Marcellisa. Thank you, all Points ACU is her Instagram. Allpointsawccom is her website. She is an awesome licensed acupuncturist, great athlete. She also gets and sees that you know she understands the mindset of that athlete who wants to push. So if you are one of those and you're in that situation where you're needing recovery, you're needing additional therapy and treatment. I know BPC-157 is one possible way of doing it, but acupuncture is definitely a tried, true performance enhancement in that regard.
Marissa Liza:That is a natural anti-inflammatory nervous system repair.
Sam Rhee:It is not illegal and that may also be helpful. So that's basically my way of saying explore all your other therapies and if you are sort of in my opinion at that point where you're not, you might think about trying something like this Sure, make sure you're doing all the things that you should be doing first.
Marissa Liza:That's exactly right. That is always my first. So true, always my first line.
Sam Rhee:So true, and I appreciate that. Marissa, thank you so much for being my guest.
Marissa Liza:Thank you.