E018: The Power of Peptides for Health & Longevity - The Optimised Health Show

In this episode of the Optimised Health Show, we dive deep into the fascinating world of peptides—nature’s biological messengers with incredible therapeutic potential. From muscle repair and immune modulation to skin health and anti-aging, peptides offer a cutting-edge approach to optimising health.

We explore popular peptides like BPC-157, thymosin alpha-1, and copper peptides, discussing their benefits, dosing considerations, and best application methods—whether injectable, oral, or topical. We also break down the truth behind GLP-1 agonists (like Ozempic and Mounjaro) and why they can be game-changers for weight management and metabolic health when used correctly.

But let’s be real—there are no magic pills. We emphasise the importance of fundamentals—proper diet, exercise, and lifestyle—before turning to advanced tools like peptides. Plus, we share expert insights from thought leaders in the space, including Dr. William Seeds and Jay Campbell, and discuss the future of peptide therapy.

Topics covered in this episode:
✔️ What are peptides and how do they work?
✔️ BPC-157 for healing, inflammation, and gut health
✔️ Thymosin alpha-1 for immune support and longevity
✔️ Copper peptides for skin, hair, and collagen production
✔️ The rise (and misuse) of GLP-1 agonists for fat loss
✔️ The challenges of peptide sourcing and regulation
✔️ Why lifestyle is STILL king

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Transcript

Sarah 0:08

Hello.

Ben 0:09

Hello.

Sarah 0:10

We're back with Start for our Word, episode number two, since we relaunched.

Ben 0:15

Yeah, the next week is here.

Sarah 0:17

It is. Again. Yeah, and we've got some exciting well, I don't know if it's exciting. Is it exciting news?

Ben 0:22

I don't know. Have we?

Sarah 0:23

Yeah. Our plans of life adapted.

Ben 0:26

We don't need to tell the world. We do. Let's just move on.

Sarah 0:29

No, so so the plan was that we were going to be going to Florida for six months, potentially, if we could get our visa in February. However, we went to view a house yesterday, didn't we? And that put a little bit of a spanner in the works. Is your Yes, yes.

Ben 0:45

Yes. I mean it is an epic house, which is perfect for us. Yeah. We looked at it for a while online and just thought we'd just go and have a look at it. Just go and see. On the off chance, and we really liked it.

Sarah 0:56

I mean it had Millet Appliances and Gaganel.

Ben 1:00

Which was the one. Which is a really good area, isn't it? Where we really like Yeah.

Sarah 1:04

Yeah, and it's a beautiful house. And we just thought it's probably not you're not gonna something like that's not gonna come up again.

Ben 1:10

No. And obviously America wasn't a full-time thing anyway. We'd have to come back at some point and then we'd come back to no home, we'd have to sleep in a tent in the garden. Trying to find a home like that is not easy. So Min Law doesn't like tents, so you wouldn't. We just went for it, I guess.

Sarah 1:24

Yeah, and now and now the planet's gonna get a little doggy.

Ben 1:26

No, it isn't.

Sarah 1:27

It is not enough. And when we're not there, my friend Sarah's gonna look after it.

Ben 1:31

No, no dogs. Yes! You you I know what you'd be like. We don't even know dog's allowed. Probably not. Like girls allowed. But dogs. No.

Sarah 1:39

I think it I it doesn't say no dogs allowed, so therefore that means dogs are allowed. And I think now there's a new rule, isn't there? With tenants and landlords, they have to like non-discriminative that you were allowed pets and everything.

Ben 1:51

We're not allowed dogs anyway, because we can't look after ourselves or a dog. I could look after a dog. It'd be disastrous.

Sarah 1:57

Why? I like walking.

Ben 1:58

You just not feed it or look out after a course I would.

Sarah 2:03

I'd probably overfeed it. The wrong things, maybe. Anyway, no dogs. You don't even give an intro. Just because I wanted to talk about the exciting news first. I'm supposed to say. Welcome to the podcast. Welcome to optimized competition health or what are we called? Optimized. And welcome to the optimized show. But it's not optimized. Well, it is, but it's not. I actually don't know what episode it is. I can't say episode.

Ben 2:23

It's episode two, the new format, that's for sure.

Sarah 2:26

Okay. What are we talking about today? We're talking about peptides today, which are a lot of fun. The Optimized Health Show is brought to you by Love Life Supplements. If you're looking for clean, effective, high-quality supplements that are thoroughly tested and GMP certified, head over to lovelifsupplements.co.uk and use the code BEN10 for 10% off your entire order.

Ben 2:47

Peptides, the future, the future of medicine.

Sarah 2:50

They are the future of health, longevity, medicine, everything. I mean they've been around for years, but they haven't. You're probably you probably actually do know about peptides. You just don't realise that you know about peptides because things like insulin is a peptide. Creatine is also a peptide. Yeah. I mean there are many forms of peptides. So let's discuss what they are. So what is a peptide? It is a short chain. It sounds like this is a quiz. It's a short chain of amino acids ranging from like two amino acids up to like fifty amino acids in a chain. So think of it like the little things that make up the little things that make up a protein. No.

Ben 3:30

In the simplest form, protein is amino acids, isn't it?

Sarah 3:33

Yes.

Ben 3:34

And these are chains of amino acids, but not enough to make a protein. That's right. That's right.

Sarah 3:40

Yes.

Ben 3:41

So shorter chains of amino acids.

Sarah 3:44

Have lots of different therapeutic effects in the body in terms of how they help the body function. They kind of are like messengers in a way, aren't they?

Ben 3:52

They act as biological messengers, influencing various processes such as hormone regulation, immune responses, and cellular communication. I can't even say communication. Because you'd grow too much red wine.

Sarah 4:04

Oh, yeah. Cellular glass communication antioxidants. Is that what that's Yes, so they help the body create the response, I guess, you could say. They can create responses in the body in different ways. So they're a bit like little messengers in a way that go around and do jobs.

Ben 4:21

Pretty incredible, really, what they can do. They are very incredible. And yeah, the beauty of them, though they're naturally occurring. Well, the natural ones.

Sarah 4:29

There's some synthetic ones as well, but yes, they are naturally occurring. So it's like your body actually makes a lot of them itself, doesn't it? Yeah. So they are natural. But that doesn't mean that they're not potent. And they need to be handled with care.

Ben 4:43

Yeah, but they don't have like really bad side effects.

Sarah 4:46

Well, some could if you OD'd. I mean, melanitan. Melanitan's awesome, just so you know. Uh I'm not actually going to talk much about melanotan, but it was nicknamed the Barbie drug because it would make you go like tantastic. But also could increase things of like if you, you know, go wild with it. Cancer risks. Yeah. If you go wild. But in other respects it can protect your son, your son from the skin. Your skin from the sun. Because it stops you burning because it brings the melanin closer to the surface.

Ben 5:13

Yeah, so if you can't get a tan, it's not take melanotan because you'll go really dark.

Sarah 5:18

Yeah, but also be mindful if you've got, you know, any family histories of carcinomas or if you've got lots of moles and things, then I'd be very, very mindful about doing that, because that probably wouldn't end well.

Ben 5:28

So, yeah, so we touched on it. So types of peptides, there's natural peptides that are already found in the body, such as insulin regulates blood sugar, and oxytocin influences social bonding.

Sarah 5:39

It does. Oxytocin is great. It's what you'd you that's why mothers bond to their babies. They have a lot of oxytocin. Just the happy hormone, right? Well, it's not happy, it's the love hormone. Which I guess could be happy. But it is, yeah, it's the hormone of love. So it actually has incredible benefits when it comes to like regulation of things like cortisol and stress management. Yeah, so that's why it can have such an impact on your health. But that's what mothers release a lot of oxytocin when they give birth. Men, you miss out on that, unfortunately. But also that's another reason we need a dog. I need the oxytocin. Giving a pet some love releases a lot of oxytocin. So I need it for my health. If you agree with me, put it in the corner. Nice.

Ben 6:15

So you've Yeah, your body releases it naturally, but you can literally inject it.

Sarah 6:21

Yes. Or snout it. Snout it? Snort it. Up your nose.

Ben 6:25

Yeah, there's a lot of needle sprays. So the the delivery systems are injectable, subcutaneous, so not in the vein, just in the fat.

Sarah 6:33

Yeah, in your space.

Ben 6:34

We have to do it in the butt, don't we? Yeah. Or the your abdomen.

Sarah 6:37

If our neighbours could actually see into our kitchen in the morning, I think they'd call the police, to be honest. Because we've got needles, we're injecting our buttons. That is looks a bit dodgy.

Ben 6:48

That is a big barrier to entry, isn't it, with peptides? Because a lot of people wouldn't do that. No. Find it weird. Or it means pretty simple. If you get tiny tiniest needle ever. Yeah, like the thinnest needle ever. Yeah. And it hardly you can hardly feel it. Yeah. But I guess that's a bit weird for people, isn't it?

Sarah 7:08

It's just not normal, is it? That's why.

Ben 7:09

If not, it's stabbing. It is a bit of a pain, not literally, but you have to call it like reconstituting the peptides. They come in they're very, very delicate, aren't they? They are when they've been reconstituted, yes. Well, yeah, winter peak you can't shake them around. Because they're yeah, they'll just I guess breaks them. Breaks them. Breaks the bonds, I think. Just making it up.

Sarah 7:29

I mean Google it. But yeah, it they they are very, very fragile. So super careful with them. Yeah, you store them in in the cool. Don't shake them around.

Ben 7:39

And you have to get by this called bacteriostatic water to reconstitute them. Yeah, it's a bit of a pain to put the water into the vial in enough.

Sarah 7:48

Well no, it doesn't really take that long, but sometimes you can't.

Ben 7:50

And then know your ratios as well between water and the peptides.

Sarah 7:53

So you're this is where you get an app called peptide calc, and it saves your life because it creates it for you, which is very nice because I'd only just discovered that and I was my maths is not the best, is it?

Ben 8:05

I'm not the strongest when it comes to So you have to know how much you're putting in and how much powder's in the bottle, and then extract the right amount, otherwise you could m easily massively overdose or underdose.

Sarah 8:16

Yeah.

Ben 8:17

Yeah. And also on doses, there's the dosing recommendations are all over the board because it's so, I guess, kind of new and not regulated, so there's all not clear on the dosing, is it?

Sarah 8:29

No, it's not not super clear. There's a couple of people that we follow. So Dr. William Seeds, I love, like he does a peptide conference every year. Um and he's got some books, so he's great. And then Jay Campbell's another one who has a lot of good advice when it comes to peptides. Um and there was another or was that Jay Campbell's book? I can't remember. There was another one, but I can't remember what it is. Yeah. If you go for Dr. William Seeds or Jay Campbell, they're both great.

Ben 8:51

And there are there's literally like pep peptide conferences now, isn't it?

Sarah 8:54

That's what Dr. William Seeds is. He does a peptide conference every year in Vegas.

Ben 8:58

Yeah.

Sarah 8:58

Which I would really like to go to. So if you're listening, Dr. William Seeds, because I'm sure you are, give us a free ticket. We'll plug you even more.

Ben 9:06

He's definitely listening. He's definitely listening to this. Um but there are some that you can take already, like BPC.

Sarah 9:13

Yeah, so BPC 157, which we're going to talk about in a little bit more depth in a second when we go into a few of the kind of ones that we love. You can take it orally or you can do injectable, and it kind of works differently. Like the oral version is great for anything digestive, which I'm going to talk a bit more about in a second. And then the injectable is great for like can be really good for things like tendons, injuries, tendinopathy, arthritis.

Ben 9:39

You can literally inject it at the site, can't you? Yes. Of the injury. And it helps reject. Or you can just do it anywhere, so it's systematically.

Sarah 9:48

Yeah. But a lot of peptides are not good in oral form, are they? No.

Ben 9:55

Stomach breaks them down.

Sarah 9:56

Yeah, and the stomach acid.

Ben 9:57

Get them into the systems.

Sarah 9:58

No, so most of them are at the moment needed to be injected, or some of them are in is that a word, intranasal? Have I made that up? I think it might be a word. Intranasal. Or just nasal. Basically, you just snort it out your nose. But we have tried both, haven't we? So with certain ones we got some oxytocin and we got some salanc, didn't we? Was it psalanc or CMAX? Both. Which kind of nootropics so help with brain function and focus and anti-anxiety, mental clarity, etc. And I didn't really notice much of a difference with the nasal sprays, did you? And I actually got my lanatin as a nasal spray and it did nothing, but the injectable really works for me.

Ben 10:33

No, I don't really feel any nasal sprays.

Sarah 10:36

Maybe it's just our noses. I mean I don't know why that would be, but Yeah. Were you gonna say I've got a big nose?

Ben 10:41

No, I've got a little nose, you've got a big nose. It's not very nice. And also now they're bringing out a lot more pens, aren't they?

Sarah 10:48

They are. So there are pre-made pens which already have the bacteriostatic water in them. The only thing I don't really like about those with certain ones is you can't, for example, like you couldn't microdose, and some of them you might want to just microdose. So for example, like GLP1. So many people now know about like Azempic or Manjaro, which are classed as ants. They are actually peptides. They are peptides, they have some incredible benefits when they are used in the right way. I'm actually a massive fan. And we'll probably do a whole podcast. Yeah, we need to do a whole podcast on them because there there are so many benefits to them. But the problem is they are absolutely being abused, and people are just going onto them as a quick weight loss tool, flaking off loads of muscle, not eating properly, and basically screwing themselves up. Not the weightlifting. No, and that is not how you are supposed to use them. So we will do a podcast on that. But the problem with the pre-made pens with something like that, for example, is that they come like as a standard dose. So the the smallest dose, I think, is 2.5. And with something like that, actually it would be more beneficial in lots of ways to microdose it and start slow and low. And so you can't really dig it out when it's a pre-done.

Ben 12:00

Some of them you can. I think there's a a number of clicks on there. And each click is a certain amount. This is like how many clicks you do, I think.

Sarah 12:09

Yeah.

Ben 12:09

But that obviously makes it a lot easier than having to but I guess they're a lot less stable because they come in the water, right?

Sarah 12:15

I would imagine so. And again, I always think about like when they get delivered. Surely, like, you know, royal mail are not really that uh delicate with packages where they're not chucking them around in a van. And I just think if they're delicate, which we know they are, you're not even supposed to put them in the fridge door because when you shut the fridge all the time. Well, haven't you said they have to be stored in the fridge? I didn't say they need to be stored in the store. Did they? Yes. Um but yeah, if you put them in the fridge door and then they're you know, you're slamming the fridge door shut all the time, that's shaking them around and you don't want to be doing that. So surely in the back of a royal mail van they're gonna I don't know. Swish hitting on royal mail here. Well I'm just you know stating facts. Royal mail probably aren't that delicate with the But there are companies what are they called?

Ben 12:51

What's the company in America? Give me a clue. Level up health. They came to you and it took a while. Yeah, they're finding ways of encapsulating them or more.

Sarah 12:59

Oh yeah. They're not in America, they're in Australia. Oh yeah.

Ben 13:01

For an Australian brand. To make more stable uh as capsule form, so they're more stable. So if they really nail that, which I think they have done with a lot, then it's gotta be a game changer. So you can just take as a capsule, which would be obviously way easier.

Sarah 13:15

Yeah. Yeah. But not all peptides are injectable. So for example, like we said, creatine is actually a peptide. So you may already be taking peptides without even knowing you're taking peptides. Collagen peptides. Collagen peptides as well. But again, that's the important thing. That's actually something that we should mention with collagen, is that you want to make sure it is peptides that you're taking, not like collagen protein. Of course, standard. Because it's peptides that you can explain this because you're probably wake up. Well, I can't. Oh.

Ben 13:43

Well, they're they are the smallest the smallest form uh and most easy easily digestible. So some companies just sell collagen powder so it hasn't been broken down into the like tiny little bits. Just tiny little bits. Peptides. Yeah.

Sarah 13:58

So they're less They can't get transported to go, basically, and do their job because that's what collagen peptides basically can just be transported around the body and kind of do their magic where they need they kinda nowhere to go and do their magic. Yeah. Plug. Use CERA L15 for 15% off. And also I've got a discount code from my husband. Even always like, you get commission from your husband. Yes, I do. Yes.

Ben 14:21

So I like to make money off it. Talk about types, then do you want to speak about any specific ones? Yes, there are go to BPC.

Sarah 14:28

We could talk about BPC first if you'd like to. So there's a few key ones that I really wanted to touch on that I think are quite incredible. So BPC157 is definitely one of those. It's such a good all roundup. And they've all got all weird scientific names, by the way. They have, yeah. So it's actually isolated from human gastric juice. Body body protectant Body Protective Compound. Compound. Um or body protective one of those two. Anyway, yeah, so it's actually from human gastric juice. So what we create when we digest it, that's where it's actually isolated from. And like we mentioned, it can be injectable or it can be oral. So I actually use it orally for quite a few of my clients. Oh, chills. Um, I use it for quite a lot of my clients who have like any kind of IBD, so irritable bowel disease, like ulcerative colitis, Crohn's, any kind of inflammatory disorders in the gut and the gut lining, it can be incredible for. Um it can also help to prevent ulcers, it can help with gut tissue repair. So that's really good for like leaky gut, repairing the gut lining, like I mentioned, IBD type stuff. And then it accelerates wound healing. So if you were injecting, uh it's, you know, post-surgery is an incredible one to help. That with TB TB. T B500. That's what I take. Yeah. As a combo. Yeah, amazing post-surgery in any way to help with wound healing. It can help with tendon to bone damage and ligament damage as well. So again, any kind of injuries can be absolutely incredible for. And also I was doing some research into it uh in terms of arthritis. So people often think like osteoarthritis, oh, that's just because I injured my knee. So, for example, like I've got osteoarthritis in my knee because I had accruciate ligament reconstruction when I was a dancer, snapped all the ligaments in my knee, had my cartilage removed, so it's like, well, you're bound to get arthritis when you're old because you've got no cartilage, it's bone on bone, and you've got a fake ligament and pins basically in your knee. So it's kind of a given that I would have had arthritis. However, people just think that it's always from like, you know, wear and tear. But actually, a lot of arthritis is because of inflammation. So when you start to reduce inflammation, you actually can really help things like arthritis. So I would say if you have arthritis in any way, shape, or form, don't just be like, oh, that's it, I've got arthritis. It's like actually it's inflammation. And if I can reduce inflammation in my body and also help with um clearing out senescent cells, which are like zombie cells, that are kind of like cells that aren't really duplicating or replicating anymore as they should, but they're also not fully dead, so they just hang around in the body and they can hang around in the joints. And so that is what can create the kind of inflammation because they release inflammatory markers and that creates the inflammation in the joint. So you want to work on autophagy, basically, uh clearing out senescent cells, and I noticed a dramatic difference in my knee when I reduced inflammation. So when I had the crazy overactive immune system shenanigans that I had after getting a little virus, my knee was terrible, wasn't it? I remember I went to have an MRI because I was like, I thought I'd snapped my cruciate ligament again, because I was like, something is not right in there, and I couldn't, it felt like something was moving when I walked, it was not fun. And I went, and that's when I found out I had stage four arthritis in my knee, I was like, awesome. On the back of my kneecap stage four, which is the worst it can be, because they did an MRI and everything, and they were like, yeah, it's not ideal. And then I'd got a tear in my meniscus. But what's really interesting is after I did loads of autophagy work, cleared out loads of senescent cells, it doesn't hurt anymore. The only time I get any issues is if I try and bend down fully, it's like there's something a little bit stuck in the way. And running. I just don't run anymore. And but other than that, no problems. Anyway, I went off on a random tangent there. But although that's what I was talking about, yes, some research with regards to arthritis. So BPC can be super helpful in things like ost arthritis as well. Um Arthritis. Arthritis. It's a new kind of disease that no one's heard of.

Ben 18:19

Arthritis.

Sarah 18:20

Yeah. So that's BPC 157.

Ben 18:22

But well, there's there are dangers with it if apparently for cancer, if you've got tumours accelerated the What BPC really, I didn't know that. Yeah.

Sarah 18:32

I guess that would make sense because of the healing. But then Yeah.

Ben 18:37

Yeah, that is a slight pretty major caveat there.

Sarah 18:40

I'm sure I didn't tell me that in the research.

Ben 18:42

Yeah, so cancer patient is not a good Yeah.

Sarah 18:51

Um obviously sometimes you don't know if you've got achievement. No, that's true. Yeah. Um What was I gonna say?

Ben 18:56

I don't know.

Sarah 18:57

So it says here about it being safe. Smafe than safe. Anyway, that's that. Next up, should we talk about another one? Or do you have you got something else you'd like to share? We could talk about another one. I think we should talk about copper peptide, because we both love copper peptide. So copper peptide is one that you can actually have in creams, so you can have it in skincare.

Ben 19:18

We didn't talk about creams. We didn't. You're right. Topical. Topical. Is that pretty much the only one you could have topic?

Sarah 19:25

Matrixal as well is topical. That's for skin as well. But yeah, copper peptide you can inject. So we do inject, um, but you can also add to creams. So you could actually get the reconstituted copper peptide out of the vial and mix it in with your your cream. Um, the niveothase. Anyway, uh, I'm not gonna bash companies. Uh but yeah, so it is amazing again for wound healing, it can stimulate stimulate collagen synthesis. So the problem is as we age, from our mid-twenties onwards, actually, which is really sad, we start to lose collagen production. Like collagen production goes down in our skin, which is why we get wrinkly. So we want to stimulate collagen production. So if you think of collagen like the tent poles to a tent canvas. So obviously, if you had a tent canvas with no poles, it'd be a saggy canvas. And that's what your skin goes like, basically. You need that structure, that firmness, and that's what collagen is there. It's like the structure that helps the main treatment. Yeah. So it helps with the production of it, basically. It keeps your collagen production up, which is declining as you age, so you want to keep it up. Uh but collagen is also important for ligaments, joints, everything is.

Ben 20:31

It is 30% of your bodily protein, right?

Sarah 20:34

Yeah.

Ben 20:34

It's oh yeah. Connected fissues, ligaments, tendons, so connected fish. Fish.

Sarah 20:39

Connected fissues. I don't know. Yes. Can also be good for hyperpigmentation. So if you've got pigmentation in your skin from sun damage, uh it can help with that, can stimulate hair growth as well. So I actually used to use a serum. When I went through a lot of my autophagy work that I had to go through to get my immune system to calm down, I had a lot of hair loss, didn't I? It was quite worrying at one point where I was like, I think I'm gonna have none less. It was literally like hand holes. But that is sometimes part of the process when you are clearing out unhealthy cells, you don't know where you're gonna clear cells from, you might be clearing hair cells. So that's essentially what happened. I lost a lot of hair. So I was using a serum, like a hair serum that had copper peptide, caffeine. I think it had some melatonin in there as well, which is like a super potent antioxidant to help stimulate hair growth. Uh, and it can tighten that saggy skin up. So it's always good. The gels I noticed the other day, didn't I? I was on a podcast.

Ben 21:33

I guess uh no gels.

Sarah 21:35

And I was very sad. I basically told you I was like, I have gels. Um It depends what angle you get me at.

Ben 21:41

So I use uh Alitura serum, which has got it in. Copper peptide inas I just use Arbon. But I think and then I put biolabtide and copper in my pepper. We can talk about people who sell peptides, but biolab have a gone with several have now. Yeah. Copper peptide in.

Sarah 21:58

And this is the thing with with peptides. It's a very unregulated industry. Yes. Again, very much like the supplement world, but probably even more so. So there are some peptides that FDA approved, but there are many that are not. I think one of the only ones. There's like thirteen, I think. Was it? I I think thirteen that are approved, if I can remember correctly. Oh no, twenty-six peptides as drugs. So that that's it. It's like well, that was between 2016 and 2022. The FDA approved 26 peptides as drugs, leading to over 30, 315 new peptide drugs approved in the same timeframe. There's actually a lot that have been approved, but there's also a lot that are not. So it's an interesting one. I'm not why are they not approved? I guess uh I don't really know. I think it's when they're sold as drugs they get approved. Uh but because the FDA doesn't regulate supplements and cosmetics in the same way as it does medications, that's why there's a lot that probably aren't FDA approved because they're classed as drugs, not like supplements, essentially.

Ben 22:56

Yeah. It's a bit of a grey area, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, a lot of them have to be classed as research For research purposes. For research purposes only. Yeah.

Sarah 23:05

But it is important, like, if you're buying, to know where you're buying from because again, like there is a lot of black market and you don't want to be injecting something into your body when you don't know where it's come from or what it is. So Biolab who we use have COAs again, don't they, for all of their products.

Ben 23:21

Yeah, it's again it's a bit of the Wild West carolite supplements, probably even more so with peptides. So you have to do your research and check the like I said before, check the COAs, check the test documents.

Sarah 23:32

Yeah, and there are some compounding pharmacies that will I mean not many in the UK, that's the thing. There's more in America. But compounding pharmacies are are are able to compound them. So they get them and they'll, you know, then you know if it's from a compounding pharmacy, it sh should be legit. Um but unfortunately in the UK it's I don't think I know any compounding pharmacy. I don't know any compounding pharmacies in the UK that do that. So that was one of the reasons we wanted to lose America. And now we're moving to Round here instead.

Ben 23:59

Well, we can get pettized from America.

Sarah 24:01

Yes, this is true. So yeah, be careful about where you're buying them from, that's what we are trying to say. Because there's many dodgy, dodgy companies out here injecting. Biolab. We do. Biolab.shop. You can use my discount code Sarah Law UK.

Ben 24:13

With that in the show notes. Yeah.

Sarah 24:15

All the discounts. If you are fed up with going it alone on your health journey and you are struggling, you're generally not feeling your best self, but are ready to get optimised. Why not book a free wellness discovery call with me, a naturopathic nutritionist and functional health coach, where I'll help you understand the root causes of your issues and guide you in the right direction of which of my programs would be best suited for you, whether that be a group programme or one-to-one coaching. The link to book your free call is in the show notes. The other one I wanted to talk about was Thymusin Alpha 1. Yep. So thymusin alpha one. So there's think of peptides as different kind of classes of peptides. So you've got ones that help on the immune kind of front, you've got ones that help with skin, ones that help with muscle strength and body, etc. But some of them kind of cross over to each other. So for example, like melanotan, even though it's one that is amazing for protecting your skin and giving you a lovely tan, um, it actually has some real immune benefits as well. So modulate the immune system as well. So that's interesting to know. So thymusin alpha one is amazing for modulating the immune system. So it's literally from the thymus gland, right? Yeah. Yeah. So your thymus gland is something that shrinks as you age, isn't it? Yeah. And that helps regulate your immune system. So, like I mentioned, thymusin alpha one modulates the immune system. So we have kind of two parts to the immune system. We've got the innate immune system and the acquired immune system. So we've got TH1 and TH2. And so think of it a bit like you've got a branch of your immune system that upregulates inflammation, which is super important because we need that inflammatory response. We don't want to not have an inflammatory response because it means we wouldn't fight off pathogens and deadly things, essentially. So we need that to kick in. But then we need the second part of the immune system to kick in, which is like the anti-inflammatory part. So you need the inflammation and then you need the second branch of the immune system to come along and be like, right, I'm going to damp it down now, threat is over. And so we need those two to be balanced. Um, and that's what thymusin alpha one can do. It can help that basically have them, you know, modulate those two. It also helps with T cell differentiation. So T cells are a part of the immune system. So what we want is it help it basically helps T helper cells become regular T reg cells, we call them. Regulated how can I say that word? Regular, regulatory T cells. So T regs are white blood cells that play a really key role in regulating the immune system. So they control the body's immune response to keep it from over-reacting. So, like I mentioned, it kind of balances out that pro-inflammatory to the anti-inflammatory. It allows the pro-inflammatory to kick in, but then it brings the anti-inflammatory component to, so you don't stay in that over-reactive inflammatory state, which is what autoimmunity is, is your body is basically over-reacting and creating an immune response constantly and causing a lot of damage. So it helps with that. Um, and just a little side note on that if you've been on the birth control, it's most likely that you've got suppressed T reg cells because that's what it does. Messes with your immune system, and that's why a lot of women have a lot of issues because of birth control. I am a fan of it at all, never had been, never will be. I mean, there are some certain scenarios where it might be beneficial, but very, very rarely. So, yeah, just so you know. It can also protect against oxidative damage. So oxid I can I can never say that word either, oxidative oxidative damage is basically when we don't have enough antioxidants to fight free radical damage. So free radical damage is basically what heages the body and screws it up. Too much of that going on. So we need enough antioxidants to fight the free radical damage. I always think of it like you've got Pac-Men. This is a weird analogy, probably, and it might not make sense, but it does in my head. So you've got like Pac-Men. And so the way that free radicals work is basically a free radical is an unstable molecule and it has an electron. This is the science here. It has an electron missing from its outer shell. So what it does to try and stabilize itself is it goes and tries to steal an electron from another healthy cell. And so then that causes that one to become a free radical because it's stolen the electron, and so it causes this chain reaction, because then that one then goes, right, well, I need to go and find an electron, so it goes and steals one from another one. So you caught you kind of create this free radical chain, essentially, if that makes sense. So what antioxidants do is they come and lovingly donate their electron to the free radical. Oh nice. Yeah. So think of it like Pac-Man. You've got a Pac-Man that is munching the game Pac-Man. It's kind of like the antioxidant is the thing that comes and tapes the Pac-Man's mouth up so it can't go and munch onto another cell. That's how I think of it anyway. It probably doesn't make sense to many people, but it does to my little brain. Um so we need free radical damage. What are you doing?

Ben 28:50

Just checking out still recording.

Sarah 28:51

We need free radical damage. That's actually what creates change in the body. It creates a hormetic response. So we'd die if we didn't have a free radical, any free radical damage. We actually create free radical damage in our own bodies anyway, when we eat food and break it down. Um so we need free radical damage. We don't want to have no free radical damage, and that's why, like, actually, if you overdo antioxidants, you might actually be screwing yourself up a little bit because you're not allowing your body to have that free radical exposure. And actually, when you have that free radical exposure, it causes your body to create its own antioxidants. Um so you're kind of messing with that system. Um it's about balance. And a lot of people have too much oxidative damage from the way that they live, the lifestyle they lead, the foods they eat, etc. And genetically, some people are more prone to oxidative damage, like myself. I am one of those people. So take thymocin alpha one. Yeah. To help with oxid to protect against to protect protect against oxidative damage. Uh it also has anti-tumour effects as well. So could be highly beneficial. Yeah.

Ben 29:55

It's like in the uh Premier League of diets.

Sarah 29:59

Yeah, it is. Also great for any kind of illnesses that are associated with immune dysfunction. So chronic infections, like I mentioned, autoimmunity, fibromyalgia, uh, chronic fatigue syndrome, and all other things basically that come from a that are immune dysfunction. Because in all reality, so many chronic illnesses are actually because of a faulty immune system. Immune system dismantled. Yeah. It really does. And as we age, our immune system becomes less efficient. So that means it's not as good at clearing out old unhealthy cells, and that's what leads to a lot of inflammation and damage and issues. So we want a nice, healthy, happy immune system. So yeah, Apple One is the dogs. Anymore? Dogs, dogs, bees. Bees. Um we've got to talk about muscle building peptides. CJC, ipamerelin, combo, stack, go.

Ben 30:48

Yeah, so this is a good stack. We both hormonen. Yeah. Peptides can be massively influential in building muscle and losing fat.

Sarah 30:56

Yes, body composition. So the two that we love are CJC1295 and ipamerellin, or tesomeralin, or summerolin. Yeah. There's lots of different morelins. But yeah, so they can help with growth hormone. And growth hormone declines as we age. So it can help with uh an increase in growth hormone, which can result in better sleep, uh, increase in muscle mass, a stronger immune system, better recovery, repair from injuries, better brain function, again, can help with the skin, hair, nails, all of that, increases in your metabolic rate uh and increases in fat loss. So the way that ipamerelin works is it basically sends select as like a selective pulse of the pituitary gland, which then secretes so the pituitary gland is what secretes growth hormone within the body. So it kind of is like ipameralin sends pulse to the pituitary gland to make it secrete growth hormone. So when you stack the two together, CJC1295 and ipamarellin, it kind of creates this spike of growth hormone, because that's what the ipamerellin will do, is it creates a spike of growth hormone, but then CJC1295 extends the time that your body keeps pumping out that growth hormone. So you get like a bit of a spike, but then you get a continuous secretion of it. So CJC1295 takes between like one to four hours to reach its peak in blood serum, while ipamarelin works a lot quicker, but it's it's cleared out of the body quicker as well. So when you stack them two together, it kind of extends the benefits. Yeah. Because you get better, more sustained growth. They're commonly paired, aren't they? They are. CJC1295. I'll just sort of say that. CJC 1295. Why?

Ben 32:31

I don't know. I sound like a C2. Um but then you get because you can manipulate them, I guess. Get CJC1295 with DAC.

Sarah 32:38

With DAC or without DAC.

Ben 32:40

DAC extends the half-life.

Sarah 32:42

What does DAC stand for? Can you remember? I read it earlier. Rug.

Ben 32:46

Affinity complex. Where do they come from? There you go, isn't it?

Sarah 32:49

Somewhere.

Ben 32:50

Which means you can only you can you can literally inject it once a week or once every five to seven days. So it's like a more sustained release. But it doesn't mimic the natural release of your great hormone.

Sarah 33:00

Yeah, which can then be like, is that beneficial where you want to mimic what your body wouldn't naturally do? I don't, I just do without. And I actually use Cermorelin rather at the moment, rather than ipamarolin. And that's very complex to talk about the difference between Cermarelin. They act on in different testerolin, ipamarolin. So sermellin, I think, acts more on the per tuit I can't remember. It's very complicated. I mean there's how many cripples are. I think I like it. Ipamarellin is better after like you're 35, and I think has more benefit, but we shall see. I've I play around with them sometimes, depending on what my coach tells me to do. Um and there are hundreds of other ones, but they were the ones we wanted to focus on today, just to give you a bit of a window into the wonderful world of peptides.

Ben 33:40

Yeah, there's issues like 170, 180, probably more. I don't know. Yeah, probably more than that. Yeah. Obviously the big one at the moment is GLP1, as we touched on. GOP1 agonists, which we could probably talk about in another podcast, because they're just going to be a big topic.

Sarah 33:55

It is a huge and they're very marmite-like. Some people love them, some people hate them. There's a lot of, you know, people in the fitness world or nutrition world who are like so anti them, and I'm like, no, they actually have some incredible benefits when you know how to utilize them properly. And some people need them. Uh that's the reality. But it's the way they're being dosed. That's the problem. Far too higher doses. Not eating in the right way alongside them people like people using them as a massive quick fix to just go, oh, brilliant, I'm gonna take this and not eat winner because it suppresses appetite, and that's not the purpose of it. It's not what you're supposed to use them for. It's supposed to help with the insulin release at the right time. And balancing out your insulin and glucagon.

Ben 34:30

Many of them should be cycled as well. Yes. So a lot of them are like eight weeks on, eight weeks off. Yeah. They're not supposed to be taken we're round. Or some can some can be. I know that's rigorous. Uh confusing and grey.

Sarah 34:43

Some can, some can't. Some should.

Ben 34:45

Or like five days a week. Yeah. Two days off.

Sarah 34:48

Yeah, so that's what I do with CJC. It's five days on, two days off.

Ben 34:51

But again, that's all over the place in terms of recommendations.

Sarah 34:54

Yeah. But definitely check out Dr. William Seeds. Definitely check out Jay Campbell. And I think that's everything we wanted to share this week, isn't it?

Ben 35:02

Yeah. Oh.

Sarah 35:03

I mean That was a long yes.

Ben 35:05

Just a couple of notes, like the future of peptides, like development of peptide drugs for conditions like Alzheimer's obesity and antimicrobial resistance. There's so much. Potential for target cancer therapies using tumour-specific peptides, peptides and nanotechnology, peptide-based nanoparticles drug delivery and diagnostics, continued exploration of peptide stability, bioboding delivery methods, to expand their applications. Because that's like we touched on. Just getting them more stable, I guess, easier to deliver delivery systems. Yeah, but they are they're fascinating like area of the PR.

Sarah 35:39

They are fascinating. They can they can be so beneficial in so many ways, which is really exciting. Really exciting. Especially like you know, for some people who haven't explored those avenues and just feel lost, like they can't change their physique or they like struggle with immune system dysregulation like me. And you know, things like that.

Ben 35:57

Yeah. I think the things need to change is get them to the masses. That's the problem, because like I said it's sometimes you can have like eight different vials, and that means like eight different injections. People are just not going to do it, are they? No, it's a lot. And they're and they're super expensive. Forgot to mention that.

Sarah 36:13

Yeah, they're not the cheapest. Not all of them are super expensive, but some are very expensive. Some of the will I seem to have all the expensive ones.

Ben 36:20

It's like, yeah, very expensive. You could be spending hundreds a month just on peptides.

Sarah 36:25

Yeah. Yeah. So they are a tool in the toolbox. Of course, nothing ever takes away from diet and lifestyle. And this is the thing with peptides. Again, people will sometimes be like, brilliant, that's going to be the thing. And it's like, no, you can't just take a peptide and expect miracles. You you still have to focus on your diet and your lifestyle. They're not going to do anything if you haven't nailed the fundamentals. It always comes back to the fundamentals, it really does. So if you're not looking after your diet, if you're not looking after your lifestyle and you just expect a peptide to be your miracle drug, I'm sorry, but you're going to waste your money, essentially. And this is the problem that I see so much in society right now, is uh human beings just want the quick route and instant gratification. And unfortunately it doesn't work like that. You can't take a supplement and expect a miracle. You can't, you know, go onto HRT and expect a miracle if you haven't done the groundwork. You can't take a peptide and expect miracles to happen. You have to be prepared to work on your daily routines and habits to be a real healthy human.

Ben 37:28

Yeah, same principles apply, don't they? Yes. To everything. Get the fundamental fundamentals. Fundals. Fundamentals. Fundamentals nailed in first, dialed in. Um and then you can add these on the top. But yeah.

Sarah 37:43

I think the problem is some people don't even know what the fundamentals are nowadays. Crush. Do one on the fundamentals. Yeah. Basically, if you don't know what the fundamentals are, come and contact me and do my Thrive programme because it teaches you the fundamentals. Little plug there, but it's the truth. Many people are missing the fundamentals, and we will do a podcast on the fundamentals for you.

Ben 37:58

But I think, yeah, as time goes on, these are gonna become more and more widespread, and they can really massively change, you know, health outcomes. Yeah. Like GLP one, love it or hate it, is making a huge difference to people who are using it properly. Yes. Like people are losing huge amounts of weight.

Sarah 38:15

Which reduces their risk of all cause morbid morbidity. But not just that, it's there's so many other benefits in terms of inflammation, immune system dysfunction, all of these things that it can help with. Um, you know, a lot of people's issues as they age is poor insulin secretion, poor insulin function, and it can help with that. And that's not necessarily even necessarily how many times can I say necessarily in a sentence? It's not always just the lifestyle they're leading at that moment. It could have been like what they did in the past, or it could be genetics play a role as well. So there's multiple factors that do go into these issues that people need to consider. But the fundamentals are always the fundamentals. And on that note, we're done. We're over and out. So thank you so much for listening again. If you've loved this episode, please leave us a review of Five Stars, of course, um, and share this with anyone that you think could benefit from listening to it. And we will catch you in the next episode of the Optimized Health Show. Ta-da!

Ben 39:12

Goodbye, everybody.

Sarah 39:13

Goodbye.

Ben 39:14

Ciao.