The Peptide Boom: Separating Clinical Truth from Internet Hype - Cell to Systems, Episode 2

• The world of peptide therapy is moving faster than the regulations can keep up with. In this episode of Cell to Systems, we skip the "Peptides 101" lecture and dive straight into the high-stakes reality of modern cellular medicine.

From the recent regulatory announcements to the "Trust Me, Bro" culture of internet research chemicals, our panel of experts breaks down how to separate legitimate medicine from dangerous experiments. Whether you are a high-performer looking for peak optimization or a healthcare provider trying to build a safe, scalable program, this is your blueprint.

🎙️ In This Episode, We Dive Deep Into:
• The newest peptide news: Breaking down the potential shift of peptides from Category 2 to Category 1 and what it means for the future of compounding pharmacies and patient access.
• The genomic reality: Is personalized peptide therapy a myth or a reality? We discuss how genomic testing is finally allowing for precision longevity medicine.
• The cortisol sabotage: Why your "lifestyle hack" might be failing - how a dysregulated nervous system and high cortisol can render even the best peptide protocols ineffective.
• The hierarchy of evidence: the "Peptide Ladder": from FDA-approved heavyweights to the "Wild West".
• Sourcing truth vs. Sourcing risk: How to spot "Research Use Only" red flags and the extreme dangers of grey-market supply chains.
• The Clinical Operating System: How to move away from "Menu Medicine" and build a governance structure that ensures patient safety, tracking, and reproducible results.

🎙️ Follow the Cell to Systems Team:
• Leonard Pastrana, PharmD: Co-founder of nuBioAge & nuHx.Health |   / leonardpastrana 
• Franck Kacou, PharmD: Owner of Progress Pharmacy; Co-founder of nuBioAge, nuHx.Health, Source Pharmacy and nuCliniq |   / progresspharmacy    / nubioagewellnessnetwork 
• Suzanne Ferree, MD, FAARM, FSSRP: Double board-certified in Family Medicine and Anti-Aging and Regenerative Medicine |   / drsferree 
• Kristi Fury, CFNP: A board-certified Family Nurse Practitioner; Founder of Beyond Health; | 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

The Celtic Systems Podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Listening does not create a doctor-patient relationship. Always consult a qualified health care provider regarding your medical conditions or before changing your health regimen. Do not disregard professional advice or delay seeking it because of something you heard on the podcast. Reliance on the information provided is at your own risk. Guest opinions are their own. Celda Systems may utilize affiliate links, feature sponsored content, or discuss companies in which hosts or guests have financial or advisory interests. Relevant disclosures will be noted during the episode or below.

SPEAKER_05 0:38

All right, everybody. Welcome live. Here we are with Zelda Systems episode two. Coming off the incredible comm conference. Wow, that was absolutely incredible. I had the best time. Everybody that was that's on the show was actually there. And I think that might may have been the best conference I've ever been to in my entire life. Um, so congratulations to Leonard and Franck for pulling that off. Uh and again, Suzanne, phenomenal, phenomenal presentation. I was so blown away by that. It was incredible. Uh it was great to see you, Christy. Great to see you, Craig, there as well. Today we're gonna be talking about the wild west of what's going on in the peptide world. It's amazing to see every week somebody's asking me questions. I spoke with Christy about this yesterday, asking me questions about, hey, what what peptide? I'm just gonna buy this stuff online. What I'm like, whoa, hey, that's the wrong way to go. You should definitely be talking to a doctor about what you what you're using. And we're going to get into all of that today. So, in this podcast, as you know, one of the things that we cover are both patients, uh potential patients, or people who are interested in the world of longevity and cellular medicine, as well as uh providers. So, people who are out there thinking about becoming providers in longevity and cellular medicine want to get more information about how to do that the right way. Thankfully, we have the experts here to help you figure that out. So, if you're a patient or you're a provider, you're talking to the right people. Um, and we're gonna cover some really cool stuff. So, hey, Leonard, one of the things that happened while we were actually at Calm in Fort Lauderdale was the announcement from RFK that there were a number of peptides that were potentially going to be coming off the band list. Do you want to kind of take us through what happened there?

SPEAKER_04 2:21

Yeah, sure. There was you know really exciting news for everybody in this industry. Uh RK was on the Joe Rogan podcast, and he mentioned that uh a lot of these peptides that were classified in category two incorrectly. Uh and category the categories categorization of them is basically around safety. And um what he was saying was that they were working hard to get these uh peptides uh categorized in category one, which would make them available and compounding uh pharmacy. And so that was really exciting because uh, as he explained, you know, because that those were put in this wrong category, uh, it opened up this black market. It opened up this black market of research peptides, and then things got out of control. And what he was saying was that he wants to bring that back to the medical practitioners so that they're being they're seeing by a doctor or a medical practitioner and that they're actually getting compounded at a compounding pharmacy. And he talked about the active pharmaceutical ingredient and how, you know, this is what's important, how where these compounding pharmacies are are sourcing the ingredient, um, and how it's the same ingredient as the pharmaceutical industry is using. And um, and so it was it was a really great podcast for for the industry, you know, and so I got a lot of people very excited, but you know, I think that um people might be a little bit too excited uh about it, thinking that this is gonna kind of happen overnight. It's not. What he was mentioning is that they're really concerned with safety, and so they're really gonna take their time and making sure that as they release these, they do it thinking about safety, anywhere from how it's compounded to the safety of the compound to um um for to the active pharmaceutical ingredient. And so I think people are a little, you know, a little too excited thinking this is gonna happen tomorrow. Uh there's gonna be a process behind it, and uh, but it but it's exciting because it really legitimizes what um what the space is doing. So it's uh it's very exciting.

SPEAKER_05 4:04

Yeah, it was just uh super exciting and super cool to see that. And the panel of speakers were so incredible. Uh, you know, we heard from uh Dr. Rose and Dr. Hussein and Dr. Yurth, and the list goes on. And again, Dr. Faree, which I'm gonna really jump in uh on something that you talked about here in just a moment. But Franck, one of the things that came up was the genomic aspect of this. And I'm, you know, I'm curious what you what your your thoughts are around this. There's a lot of talk about um, hey, genomics and being able to kind of figure out what peptides are right for you. How close are we to that? Is that is that really a reality today? Or is that something that's gonna take a little bit of time to really get there?

SPEAKER_06 4:44

No, it's actually a reality now. Um, you know, when you have cloud firma like, you know, in Telex DNA, they're becoming more relevant now, right? You know, because all the you know, prescribers trying to move from, you know, you know, traditional medicine into more precision longevity medicine, I guess. You know, when you have companies trying to, you know, to map you know genetic drivers of aging pathways and things like that, it becomes a little bit more interesting to add on um uh peptides, right? Because you know, the role of the peptide can be you know pretty, pretty precise uh when you have the uh you know the right data. So um, so yeah, we we we're not far from there because now we're understanding exactly how those uh the DNAs working and are you getting better testing, right? Genomic testing from from from the test themselves, then it's easier to actually kind of find which peptide will you know will act on certain pathways, right? So we already have a a ton of peptides that we can start recommending now based on um you know results. So so so so it's so it's exciting. So um, you know, that there's more to come there for sure.

SPEAKER_05 5:48

Yeah, I think as I you know, not being a clinician, I just um, you know, I was obviously in that in those meetings, you know, I'm always struggling to keep up and have to do a ton of research thereafter or lean on you guys to ask you certain questions. But one of the things that was really interesting about that is it seems like there's a lot of information that's coming as a result of that. It's almost like what we talked about with um, you know, these big tests like function health that provide all this information. We heard Dr. Hussein talk about hey, you know, at the end of the day, you really only need these particular tests. Christy, I've heard you say that before. Craig, you've said it. Um, so it'll be interesting to see just how people interpret it that and and how that advances. It's it sounds exciting to me, the notion of being able to do something that's highly personalized for an individual. So thanks, Frock. Um, Suzanne, you know, one of the things you talked about um at at the conference was the notion of um the nervous system and a dysregulated nervous system and the amount of cortisol uh really got my attention, you know, as a CEO, uh, running multiple companies, doing lots of things, moving all over the place. Cortisol could be rather high at times. How does that play into what we're doing with peptide therapy and and how and how people are using peptides?

SPEAKER_02 7:03

Well, certainly it's going to affect uh a lot of the things. I'm so glad that this landed really well with you, Jock. And that was my intention was, you know, really hitting the people where it's going to land. So not only the the providers, because we talked a lot of my talk was about, hey, you guys are these high achiever types too. You know, we are, all of us on this screen are. And so this information applies to all of us. We have to realize that um have it that we have a different landscape and our metabolism is different because we're running at this very high level of uh of cortisol and of other hormones. So our receptors are behaving differently, our um nutrition is different, our metabolism is different, everything functions differently. And a lot of the studies that were done on longevity were done, of course, on animals, but the human studies were often done on not necessarily on our kind of people. Our metabolism is different than what's there. So those things may not apply to us, and we need to work a little bit harder to do as providers to uh affect the results in the high achiever types like us, like our clients who are listening, like the people who are listening to us on this podcast, I'm sure. And so not only for ourselves, but also for them, we need to make that difference. The the um thing, the little things like your testosterone is going to perform differently if you have cortisol in place. So there was a study that was done where they looked at men who were in um high-level management positions, and your testosterone level determined the number of subordinates that were in your care or in your supervision, unless your cortisol was high and then it then it didn't have any effect. So you were more likely to be a successful man in or successful, depending on how you determine success, but you were more likely to be successful if you had a high core high testosterone and a low cortisol or normal cortisol. So I thought that was really fascinating. And that applies to so many other receptors. So we're not only talking about testosterone, we're talking about all of the peptide receptors. Everything is going to perform differently when we're laying it onto a background of a higher cortisol or an oxidative stress state. The cell is under stress to begin with. And now we add on to that, we're trying to uh put longevity therapies in there and they don't perform quite as well, or they do they respond differently than they would otherwise.

SPEAKER_05 9:33

Yeah, it's just absolutely fascinating. I was just riveted. I mean, I was leaning forward in the chair and just thinking to myself, holy smokes, um, you know, this is this is the next level. Uh, as were so many of the things, you know, you go away from that, come away from calm, just thinking to yourself, whoa, there is just such another level. The notion, you know, going back to Leonard and Frock, we talk about this uh frequently, which is like the notion of somebody say, Hey, if you want to be the research chemical test, crash test dummy uh for doing this, where you're just buying peptides online or whatever small molecules online and just putting them into your body, um, you know, when you start to hear all of these things lining up, it's sort of like, holy smokes, how could that possibly be a good idea? And Craig, you know, one of the things that it was interesting in spending some time with you uh when we were there in Florida that was so cool uh was this just to talk about sort of like, you know, how do you handle that with the people that are coming in saying, hey, I saw this online or, you know, I watched this YouTube video? How distracting is that for you as a provider? How do you actually have to deal with that and kind of move people back into what's reality and get them where they need to go?

SPEAKER_03 10:44

Yeah. So I think that anytime we're utilizing peptides or doing stuff in the cellular medicine space, we're really focused on outcomes, right? That's why we're doing what we're doing. And outcomes are heavily influenced by structure and clinical judgment and communication. And one of the most common issues that pops up in longevity and peptide medicine sometimes is communication. I mean, patients will hear on social media something like repair, regenerate, mitochondrial optimization, or immune modulation. And that right away they're thinking something like transformation. But as clinicians, what we're really meaning when we allude to these principles is, you know, signal modulation within a defined physiologic context. Okay. And uh, you know, that's a critical distinction to make. We have to really set the uh, you know, set the outline for what these patients um will be introducing into their bodies and what the potential expectations of uh those therapeutics, you know, should be. Um I'm very pro-peptide, but I'm also pro-structure. So in my clinic, uh, in order to utilize a peptide therapy, I basically have um the peptides run through my isms test, right? The indication, suitability, we want to uh lockdown monitoring, and then stoppage points, right? If I can't define why we're utilizing a peptide, I can't define who is or who is not a good candidate, if I don't know how we're gonna measure progress or success, and I don't have any points at which I can say, hey, we need to reevaluate or discontinue therapy, then I'm not really running an adequate longevity program. I'm not practicing good medicine. It's just like a biological experiment in real time. So we need to look at peptides in that uh structured manner. And just taking a few examples, like if we look at something like Tesamorelin, you know, that's at the top of the pyramid of uh, you know, a hierarchy of evidence, right? It's FDA approved for the reduction of visceral adipose tissue and HIV-associated uh lipodystrophy. It's got clear evidence, it's got uh defined dosing guidelines, safety and monitoring instructions, uh, and reproducible results. And we can look at other molecules, other peptides like SS31, uh, which is a recently approved, recently FDA-approved uh peptide that's targeting primary mitochondrial myopathy, and say, hey, this, you know, this has been well vetted. Uh, we've seen profound results with these therapeutics. And um, that's you know, a different level than something maybe a little bit further down on the hierarchy like thymusin alpha 1, right? Thymusin alpha 1 uh and other similar peptides have a lot of human clinical literature to support their, uh, to support its immune modulatory properties. It's been evaluated thoroughly in conditions involving um, you know, oncologic uh diseases as well as autoimmune disease. Um there's been randomized uh controlled studies, you know, on thymus and alpha one, but we have to frame it appropriately, and that's to say that, you know, it's a legitimate immune modulating peptide, but it's not FDA approved, and you know, it's uh something that we is is really indication specific, right? Um, you know, it's not gonna be a universal immune therapy. Uh, you have to know what you're doing with um, you know, humoral versus cell-mediated immunity, so on and so forth. And then even going further down the tier, uh, and this may be a little bit controversial, but looking at something like BPC157, right? BPC157 anecdotally has all of this amazing, you know, I want to say evidence, but it has this great reputation for being associated with tissue repair and recovery. Uh, and there is some really strong data out there to support angiogenic signaling and tissue repair pathways. But as uh Dr. Fare mentioned, it's you know, some of these things are really highly dependent on rodent and animal models, right? So human data is basically limited. There's been uh, you know, substantial lack of robust clinical trials evaluating uh BPC 157 in in humans. And that's not to say that it, you know, we're not invalidating its potential. We're just clearly defining uh the evidence there. And patients need to be aware of that. It has to be transparent, right? And something like BPC 157, you know, so ubiquitously used, uh, the potential is absolutely there for great outcomes. It really needs robust uh clinical trials. So patients have to know essentially, you know, they they have to know what's being targeted, they have to know whether they're a good candidate, they have to know what the success metrics are gonna be, uh, and when to reach out to their provider or um, you know, lock back in with us to say, hey, this isn't working or I'm having side effects, so on and so forth. And that's really important.

SPEAKER_05 15:49

A key point um is that this ongoing dialogue with your provider. It's the only way to do it. In my, as far as I know, anybody, I don't think anybody here on on the uh in the group would disagree with that. I think we're all on the same page, obviously, um, true believers. You know, and Christy, you know, one of the things I love about you is that you always talk about living health. You know, that's just the theme that always, whenever I think of you, it's like, uh, living health uh in everything that you do. I mean, we talk about peptides, we you know, certainly heard some really interesting stuff about um uh the microbiome from Dr. Keller uh as well as Dr. Rose uh and long-term COVID. Uh, and then, you know, but her real passion around gut microbiome. Um, at the end of the day, there are going to be a lot of providers who are trying to figure out how to set up a peptide program inside of their practices, uh, who maybe not as experienced as all of you. Um, and as the leaders in the industry and the really the people that are like uh that have went out there first, you know, stepped off the the uh the rocket on the first the first moon landing, if you will. Um, what's the advice that you can give to a provider who's really thinking about how do I structure this within my practice so I can do exactly what Craig said and what Suzanne said, which is you know, practice efficacious medicine uh for patients?

SPEAKER_01 17:15

I mean, I think it it first starts with the provider. I mean, you have to have a good amount of working knowledge before you can really take it to patients. Um, you know, I'm a firm believer in that. Um, you know, going to all the different peptide certifications. I mean, I've been blessed. Um, I was following Dr. Free before she even knew I was following her. Um, but as far as like I recommend her book, the um counterclockwise book, all the time to my patients to read to have a good understanding. And I also recommend it to providers that are coming to me that are new to the space. Um and then, you know, I love I I don't the probably the majority of providers don't understand how fortunate we are to have leaders like Franck and Leonard in this space with their platform with nucleus, it's it's huge. Um it's because it's under New Bioage, but I mean like I we're constantly printing out patient pamphlet information, giving that to patients and and also to to providers. I mean, I would hope the the providers that I've mentored new to this space, you know, have followed up and have joined um New BioAge and is using that educational platform because it's it's basically free. Um and so that's been huge. Um and then, you know, obviously I'm gonna affirm, I mean, like, you know, Dr. Seeds, I think we've all followed him at some point in our career, are still following him, and his books are good. You know, I am constantly recommending those books as well. Um, but as far as, you know, from a clinical perspective, um, bringing into the practice safely, I mean, a lot of like what Craig said, but I think it still goes back to that education. You have to make sure your staff, because they're the ones that are getting hit with the questions before I do. You know, new patients calling us and, you know, questioning us or asking us about what we do. Um, so, you know, like we're having a um a meeting tomorrow, and Barry and I, we're gonna talk about what we learned at Calm and so that we can bring the new information to our staff so that they feel educated and it also empowers them. Um, and so that's a I think a huge part of making sure your staff is educated. Because if your staff is educated, you're educated as a provider. It's going to trickle down to the patient for the best outcomes possible.

SPEAKER_05 19:44

Yeah, it was so great to see you with uh you brought so many staff members. It's quite an investment to do that, but it just shows the level of commitment uh to excellence within that group. I love what Leonard said. It was, you know, and Franck, what you what you guys have put together there was really cool to see Leonard, you had something on your social where you're talking about, hey, day one, day two. Of course, we had the pre-conference, which was absolutely amazing. And to see the the stuff that happened there was just uh mind-blowing. But um, that that commitment to seeing people bringing team members so that they can get the education within the practice um was was really neat, really phenomenal. So thanks, Christy, for all of that information. Tremendous. Leonard, what's the evidential truth? What can we say? What can we claim uh that's the truth today?

SPEAKER_04 20:35

Sure. I think uh Craig did a great job of going through the different like hierarchies of evidence, anywhere from like the standard GLP ones, we have huge clinical trials, FDA approved, to other FDA-approved ones, like you mentioned, like Tesla Moralin, like hey, this is working in a specific patient and a specific subset, to um, you know, some peptides like larrazotide that went through phase two and three clinical trials that never really got FDA approved, but it was it was due to other factors, like maybe them insurance wasn't going to cover it, but we have really good human data to mechanistic stuff. And um, I think the the truth that I have is that it's it's actually more than the evidence, it's more than the data, right? It's it's it's um it's it's the patient that's in front of you. Yeah, you can have the data, that all the data and the evidence that you want, but you have to understand all aspects of all the hierarchies of data, anywhere from mechanistically to what's happening to what you saw in phase two and three clinical trials to um uh of what potentially it's been if it's been FDA approved. But it's in context, right? I think more, even more important than the data is yes, understanding it, but then knowing who's in front of you. So is the peptide that you're selecting for the right person at the right time? And I think that just takes a lot of education from what everybody was talking about. And that's why I was so excited to see so many people bring their entire teams to calm because uh the impact that they can make, both financially and for outcomes in their practice, has everything to do with how they scale knowledge within their practice. And um, and it's it's actually not how much you individually. Know. It's how well you can teach everybody else around you. And then that goes directly to the patient. How well you can educate and communicate with your patients is really how you make the biggest impact. And so it's uh, if I had to put it in one sentence, it's it's it's in context and personalize to the person that's that's sitting right in front of you.

SPEAKER_05 22:16

Yeah. And before we go, Leonard, I just had to ask, you know, because because Christy mentioned nucleus, uh, I think it's important for providers to know that there's an incredible amount of information there and they just need to contact New BioAge, as far as I know. Is that the truth that they can just go through New BioAge and sign up and become a part of that? How does that happen?

SPEAKER_04 22:35

Yeah, so one one one thing that we we we kind of changed our mind on is we love certification courses and peptide courses. We we do them all the time. We've made them before, we have those, but we we wanted to put everything in one place, and that's in the Nucleus platform, where they can have access to our scientific team that you mentioned, where we can do Q ⁇ A's, presentations, where they can be one-on-one webinars, where we have the certification courses and where we actually have that conversation of, hey, here's all this knowledge that we have, but how do we translate that in a way that the patient understands? And so we take within that nucleus platform, we translate all that education and start creating assets for patients or for your practice internally. Because we talk a lot, even on this podcast, about the fact that, hey, there is these, there's these research peptides, there's a lot of misinformation from influencers. But, you know, the patients, the reason that they're they're listening to those influencers is that they're good at communicating with them. They're communicating in a way that they can they can understand and they get their attention. And we, as medical practitioners, we should be better at how we communicate with patients. And so Nucleus isn't only an education platform for you to scale knowledge within your practice, but it's also on how we can help you communicate with your patients. And so that all happens uh through New BioH on the Nucleus platform.

SPEAKER_05 23:48

Yeah, phenomenal, phenomenal resource, uh, super exciting. All right, Frog. Uh, one of the things I think is interesting is product truth. Um, you know, here I am uh drinking Icel water from New BioH, which by the way, guys, uh thanks for the bottle. Love, absolutely love it. Um, and I sift it all day long. But beyond that, let's talk about product truth. We talk about medication truth, product truth. Um, I think Dr. Yerv talked a lot about supplements and how they interact with and and and work to um bolster whatever therapies we're using. What do people need to know about products and the truth around products?

SPEAKER_06 24:25

That's a really good question. And by the way, I just wanted to kind of talk about what you guys talked about earlier on. One thing that I realized is that the most successful clinic out there, other clinics that are bringing their entire team with them. And and it's just, you know, it doesn't require the full staff, it's just requiring another person that can come in and just experience everything because you can't learn everything on your own, you know, and and and going through the experience with your staff is just is just elevating. Um, so yeah, I totally couldn't agree uh with you guys more than that. So so anyway, when it comes to product selection, um, you know, this is the most important thing that you know consumers can do out there. Um, you know, yes, we do have AI to kind of help us with things now. Um, you know, for some of us, we still believe in talking to our pharmacist, uh, it has helped quite a bit. Uh, talking to your physicians, your prescriber also also helps. Um, but let's be real. You know, most patients out there, um, you know, based on what's going on right now, will try to look at products and try to do as much research as they can, right? Through uh PubMed now. They'll go to the PubMed and take a look at stuff, looking at AI, look at stuff, right? They dump all that information to their favorite platform and just get what they need out there. Um, and and that's what they use. So um my recommendation when it comes down to this is yes, you have to you can rely on AI all day long. This is what, this is what the trend is for sure. But there's certain things that AI can't give you. Um, you know, because AI is good at giving you information about products in general, but it's not really good at telling you exactly the source of the product. And that's really kind of what what you know where where we come from. You know, we come from from that background. The physician is doing their due diligence, the pharmacist is doing their due diligence on establishing exactly what's, you know, where where is this product coming from, right? Uh and dig a little deeper if if they're not aware of it, right? You know, uh, Chrissy, for example, you bring a product to her, she'll be like, you know, I don't know much about this. Uh let me do my due diligence and look and look it up and get more information. You know, it seems like a good product, but let me do my due diligence. And when you do your due diligence, actually, you're looking at sourcing, ingredient sourcing, you know, you're looking at um impurities in the product. Uh, so let's just break this down a little bit. You know, a lot of people now go to, you know, um uh Amazon to buy supplements. You know, they you can buy BPC on Amazon as well. You can get a lot of peptides that are already available through a lot of different channels uh online. Uh, one thing that they don't ask is, well, what one thing they look for, because consumers are looking for, they're looking for, hey, was this made in an FDA register facility? So, you know, so so so the bad actors are utilizing a lot of those terminology. And by the way, let me just put something out there that was very interesting about Calm. We actually, I don't know if you guys are aware, but we were told that we had a few uh research chemical companies in there giving their little cards to people. Uh John, you heard that, John? I was that was that was wild. That was fascinating.

SPEAKER_05 27:33

I was blown away by that. Actually, they went, they approached my son, and I was I was like, oh, I'm I can't wait to talk to Leonard and Frank about this because this would just I was just blown away by that.

SPEAKER_04 27:44

They were at the wrong conference because we had panels and everybody was talking about what a disaster this was. I'm sure I'm pretty sure those sales reps just scoped to any uh medical conference out there. And and and unfortunately, this is the bad part is that a lot of doctors, a lot of medical practitioners are just unaware and they fall for those tricks. Hey, this is an FDA registered facility. It's you know, X, Y, and Z using all these terminology, and they they just assume credibility because they're there and they say, okay, but they were in the wrong room at the wrong conference because everybody over there, we started the conference out with that education as to what the difference between what we do and what they do. So I don't think they did well in that conference. They must have been thinking to themselves, what's what's what's up with these people? They're different.

SPEAKER_05 28:22

Yeah, I mean, what was really crazy was they literally gave um uh two say I'm not gonna go into too much detail. They gave two samples to my son. Um you guys all know my son, he's a he's a real fit, you know, he's an athlete, right? So looking at him thinking, Oh, you know, let's do something. And I was like, dude, throw that stuff in the trash. Just throw it away right now.

SPEAKER_06 28:42

That's that list that this that's it is unbelievable, but that's the reality. You know, I was walking at a one of the biggest conferences in the country, uh, around December. So you can do your math. So I was walking around and some guy just stopped me and he had a bunch of peptide in his pocket. And he's like, Hey, um, do you have any interest? Almost like I'm I'm walking the street of New York and somebody's showing me with some some stuff to buy. I mean, it was just like it was just mind blowing. But anyway, to go back to your questions real quick, um, you know, what what the consumers can be looking for here is to stay away from any company is going out there and just using the you know the key terms, FD approved, FD registered, come from this, come from that. You know, that that is not gonna give you the visibility and safety that you're looking for, right? You know, so you want to do your due diligence when it comes down to the sourcing of the product. Is it being distributed by? Is it being is it being white labeled for a company, right? And then from there, ask the right questions, right? You know, this you're really gonna look at the strategic analysis. A lot of companies are not providing a lot of structural analysis. You can look at a strict analysis. I'm not saying it's bad, but please do, right? Please do take a look at it if it's a supplement or if it's a if it's a drug, right, that you're getting out there. Um, request that information, right? You know, and ask very simple questions. Are you testing every batch, for example, right? Uh or just one batch that you tested, right? So, so you have to kind of be smarter than most people out there to be safe, in a sense, right? And when it comes down to supplement, right, same thing, right? It's it's it's unfortunate, but you know, there's a bunch of supplements out there. You want to rely on one of the big companies, you know, one of the big names out there that have uh, you know, uh some type of of reputation on the line that that is vetted by by your physicians, you know. You know, you can go to any physicians out there, Craig, Suzanne, you can ask them, hey, have you heard of this company before? Right. And they'll tell you right there, oh, I've never heard of them. You know, it's it's a company that just opened up a few months ago. I will stay clear from them, right? Um rely on your physician, rely on your practitioner, rely on people that you trust. Don't rely on on what I call this trust me bro culture online that will tell you, hey, by the way, trust me. Um, I've used it, or my aunt used it, or my guy at the gym used it. And we know that is now where you should get your information from.

SPEAKER_05 31:06

Yeah, I agree, totally agree. And the other thing that you said that I think it's really important for people to understand at one point in time, and they're not so I don't know, they say that they've corrected it. I'm still suspicious. Um, but you know, Amazon had a real supply chain issue where there was a lot of counterfeit stuff in there. So I I always recommend to people buy directly from the company or from your provider because you the you know that they're getting it direct from the manufacturer. So there's no way that it could be, you know, it's like somebody's grabbing the you know the box that's being sent and then changing the stuff out and then you know putting counterfeit, it just doesn't make sense. They're relabelers, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 31:39

That's what they call it. They're they're they're relabeled guys, you know, which is sometimes can actually be, you know, misbranding if you go that route.

SPEAKER_05 31:47

Yeah, it's it that's a scary proposition. So everything, every supplement that I take is purchased directly from the manufacturer, and you know, you could get you get some great sort of you know subscription-based models there. I think that's the way to go. Talk to your provider about it. If you're a patient, you should really be talking about those uh supplements with your with your provider, in my opinion. All right, moving on. Thank you, Frock. That was amazing. Um uh Suzanne, you know, on the clinical truth, um, what is something that that we should really be talking about today coming out of Calm, that clinical truth that is just something that someone needs to hear?

SPEAKER_02 32:22

I'm still reeling from all the information that's coming that came from Calm. So there's so many things. Um I loved hearing, you know, I think especially realizing that that um long COVID is out there, we have to be aware of that, that there's so many things we need to be doing to treat that and to just basically being aware that it's there and the how it's affecting our gut microbiome, what we need to do there. One of the big, I thought, great discussions that came out of the panel at the end was a talk about tryptophan. And this kind of goes along with what we were saying a minute ago was how we we have to be careful. I I love tryptophan as a therapy and as a treatment at the end of um, or for all these patients that are coming to us with fatigue. Tryptophan, of course, is an amino acid. And uh, if we're if you're taking tryptophan in a high enough dose, you have to realize that this is one of the testing points for us. So this is you have to be careful in the patients that you that you use it in. Um, but you also can use this as a, hey, wonder what the cause of this fatigue is. Is this a tryptophan deficiency because of having come through whatever the circumstances that they were in, infection, heavy metal toxicity, uh, Lyme, mold exposure, uh, even uh long COVID, or is this an actual uh is this an active infection or disease state? And do we need to look specifically at that? This is the simplest, really inexpensive way for us to look at that. So, but also realizing you need to educate your patients. So I think that's kind of where the big plus was educating patients and educating um the providers. A, long COVID is still here, and B, educating patients that um that the on each detail. I love what you were talking about earlier, Craig, about looking at the what to expect, how long to expect it, giving them that margin and saying, hey, this peptide's gonna take you about two days to see the effects. This peptide's gonna take you about six months to see the effects, so that people are dealing with an a reasonable expectation. You know, if you're talking about applying GHKCU, even a two or three percent serum to the face, that's probably gonna be about a three-month cycle to really see an improvement in hair loss or um wrinkle reduction, et cetera. So giving people reasonable expectations of time is also one of the great things that came out. I think also realizing that there's so much we don't know. That's probably my big take home, was there's so much we don't know, especially when we're talking about genetics that are involved in um in all of this, the genetics of of uh weight loss and of obesity, uh, the genetics of um how we deal with um cardiovascular disease and things that we, you know, we know that LP little A is significantly associated with um heart disease risk and genetic heart disease risk. However, there's not a lot of evidence right now that lowering that LP little A is going to give us the outcomes we're hoping for. And there's actually some skepticism right now because of the delays in the um production of some of these uh the pharmaceuticals that are coming out. They're they're delayed in their release, be potentially because of their outcomes not being present. So it's cool that we have a lot of great other options available for doing that, like the MPK 0304, that's a brand new peptide, one of the ones that came out of, thank goodness, the FDA um removal of the peptides. So I think that's been the springboard for a lot of creation of new peptides, which is exciting. But um, thank goodness we're back on the road to getting some of the more effectual peptides back.

SPEAKER_05 35:55

Yeah, that was that hearing that uh at the conference or at the meeting was absolutely amazing. I was just like, whoa, mind blown. Um, thank you, Suzanne. Craig, give us an execution truth on um what happens in the clinic and essentially, you know, adherence and boundary setting, you know, within within the patient base.

SPEAKER_03 36:16

Language discipline matters, right? It's critically important. Um, marketing can't outrun measurement. We have to have objective data in conjunction with, you know, the patient's subjective uh evaluation of how they're responding to the treatment. Um, you know, that can be monitoring insulin, it can be monitoring, you know, body composition changes or uh, you know, any number of things, right? But um it we gotta why are we here, right? We're trying to um, you know, find our way through the hype. And so utilizing uh clear contextual language to really um outline what the expectations are uh is paramount.

SPEAKER_05 36:56

Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's one of the things that Leonard talked about um with me uh on my podcast, uh Pathway to Peak Performance. Uh he was talking about hey, these things evolve and you've got to be continuously monitoring this stuff to understand like where are you going? And it's just not a one size fits all and just keep doing that. It should change over time. So that's great. Christine, moving on to you. Um, you know, program, backbone, and governance. How do you, how do you, how do you do those things the right way?

SPEAKER_01 37:23

I mean, I I think it first starts, there's so many people, new providers um entering this space. Um, and I always hope that they're doing it for the right reason. Because yes, you can make a good living in this space, um, but you have to have a sense of passion and desire for it. And kind of going back to, you know, my motto of like yours is live health. I mean, that's truly my tagline is to live health. Um, because if we're going to have a successful practice and govern them through, you know, changes of different health um diseases or or issues, symptoms that might arise, we have to have the ability to live health ourselves. Um, and so I think that is um a huge takeaway. And then to just um stop the noise. I mean, there's so much noise out there right now with you know, longevity, health span, peptides, and it gets overwhelming. And and I consider myself blessed that, you know, I've been in this space. I mean, I'm not long in it, but I mean, really since 2014 is when I left the hospitalist world and moved into my, you know, my true I, you know, functional medicine and it has involved since then. Um, but where I I I consider that one, I've surrounded myself with people like you, um, that they you guys do share truth with me as far as the true science and actual, you know, data material. Um, but that there is, there's a lot of chatter. And and you know, I I have some concerns with the new, you know, even new physicians graduating medical school. Like there's this one kid at the gym that's gonna be graduating and he's already trying to enter longevity, but does he really know? You know, and you know, I've already referred him to new bioage. I was like, you need to check these guys out as soon as you, you know, are done with your boards and everything. Um, because it it is the buzzword. And and but then I also think, you know, the the flip side is because people are understanding, and other physicians and providers are understanding this is the way of medicine. I mean, this if you want health, you have to be in some form of this model that we are all practicing.

SPEAKER_05 39:40

You know, one of the things I'm so proud of to be associated with this group is you were truly living the Hippocratic Oath in a larger sense. That that right there, the fact that you would say to somebody, you know, that's coming out of medical school, entering into the market, he's working out in the gym, he's in your community, he potentially is going to be uh a competitor to your practice, but you care about people. You want the right result for people. So you want to direct him uh in the in the ways that can produce the best result. I think it speaks volumes about who you all are as people and what you're doing every single day. I want to thank you guys today for taking the time. Uh, once again, everybody here is super busy, but bringing this information to the world is so important. Uh, next week, we're going to have a barn burner of an episode. Holy smokes, come back and join us. It's going to be phenomenal. Please like, share, and subscribe uh to Celtic Systems so that we can make sure that we spread this message to as many people who really need to know it at this time. As longevity medicine explodes out there into the world, it's critical that people are getting the right information for the right people at the right time. I want to thank you all uh and I look forward to seeing you next week.