Your Cells Think They're Exercising | BIG PEPTIDE NEWS - Dr. Matt Cook

The complication rate from peptides is—

No doctor has ever really figured out in terms of like the whole picture.

These peptides are the way that our body communicates with itself, has an effect kind of like basically what would happen if a cell was exercising.

So none of us need to exercise anymore.

The more that you exercise, the better.

Hey, what's up? Uh, quick intro to this podcast, an intro before the intro. Actually, a few numbers were thrown around in this pretty important and pretty fascinating peptides podcast with Dr. Matt Cook. We sat down, he just started dropping knowledge bombs right and left. I did get my hands on some actual data and he wanted to make sure I get the actual numbers out to you for the number of units administered of each of these different peptides with a shockingly low number of adverse events. So, During these PCAC hearings back in Washington, D.C., and we'll get into what that means, alphabet letter soup, during the podcast today, about 16 million BPC-157 doses that were taken into consideration, about 2.5 million TB-500 doses, about 680,000 MOTS-C doses, about 3.6 million KPV doses, 100,000-ish delta sleep-inducing peptide doses, about 210,000 epitalon doses, and about 350,000 C-max doses, right? So, when we're talking about all of the studies or the administrations or the doses that were given, those were the actual numbers that were being investigated. So, hopefully that helps. And I just wanted to, for you real nerds out there, for everybody who's putting your propeller hats on and want to take the deep dive, there you go. Alright. Shownotes are at BenGreenfieldLife.com/Peptides2026. Let's go talk with my buddy, Matt Cook. Welcome to the show. I am out of my normal element because I traveled to a studio far away from home for this show because there has been a lot going on from a from a legislative standpoint in the whole world of peptides. Now, my guest today has been deeply involved in that scene, and you may be familiar with him. He doesn't need much of an introduction because, uh, Dr. Matt Cook, I think this might be like your 8th time on the show. You, you've, you've made it around quite a few times, and there's been a lot going on in DC the past few days. Matt just got back from DC, and he's going to share that with us and share what is happening right now in the peptide industry and what you can expect. All the show notes for today are going to be at bengreenfieldlife.com/peptides2026. That's bengreenfieldlife.com/peptides2026. I will also have some juicy links there, including one to a special cheat sheet in case you can't remember everything that every peptide does that Matt's going to be spitting out today. So, Matt, welcome back to the show for the umpteenth time.

Thank you so much. Great to be here.

So DC, you flew there, you just got back like what, 2 or 3 days ago?

Uh, yeah.

So why'd you go?

Well, so they have, uh, the FDA has a committee called the Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee. And so this is a committee and their job is to review basically the data and the literature and make a decision about which drugs can be compounded. And if those drugs can be compounded, they're put on a bulk list. And if they're put on that bulk list, then pharmacies can compound those for patients.

And when you say— I'm going to interrupt you a lot, by the way— when you say compounding, are you referring to those being available for just like the big pharmaceutical companies that we hear about, like, like GSK or Eli Lilly or whatever? Are we talking about like these like smaller compounding pharmacists that a lot of people might be familiar with.

Yeah. So that would be what would be called a 503 compounding pharmacy and or B. And so then what they can do is they— once a compounding pharmacy can compound it, then what that means is there's a specific prescription for a specific patient and then that compounding pharmacy can make that drug or that peptide. And then distribute it to that individual patient.

So this meeting was, was, was meant to determine which peptides can be compounded, if any.

Now, there's some peptides that are already compoundable. There's a, a host of some peptides that are, that are already compoundable for one reason or another. But, uh, 6 of the 7 of the most popular peptides that were taken away from compounding 2 years ago by the Biden administration. They brought those back to evaluate the data to make a decision about can we start compounding with those again. So these were things that we had 2 years ago and then went away, and now the vote was about whether the FDA will put them back on the compounding list so, so patients can start using them again.

So you said that there were some that weren't even taken off the list in the first place. I was, I was kind of sort of not really even joking when I said insulin because a lot— people don't realize, like, that's a peptide people have been injecting for a long time successfully. Uh, GLP-1s, I know, are another one that I believe are allowed to be compounded. Are there others that, that weren't taken off that list that people might be familiar with?

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to read you what those are.

Okay.

So, uh, sermorelin, genadirelin, thymosin alpha 1, uh, are all currently, uh, in category 1 compliant programs today.

Okay. So, when these peptides disappeared 2 years ago, the ones that you just got back from the meeting on, in that time span, if somebody was going to use like semaglutide, that's one even bodybuilding industry, health and fitness industry, people who want to increase growth hormone during sleep or enhance sleep, I know that that's one of the reasons people turn to that, you could at any point in the past few years go to a doctor and get that from a compounding pharmacist.

100%.

Okay. The ones that they had the meeting about, is there a reason, do you think, that it was like those specific 7 that they were talking about?

So these are probably 7 of the most popular peptides and 7 of the ones that have some of the best data. And these were in the early moment of peptides. All these were very, very popular. And I think what happened is, is the FDA a couple of years ago said, we're going to take all of these away. Because if they became too popular, it would have been hard to take them away. So they took them away, but they're somewhat backed by popular demand because during the hearings, somebody said, why are you— you know, they were having the committee meeting, you know, and we were listening and they said, well, why are you even bringing these back? And they said, there's so much popular demand. They did a whole bunch of polling in anticipation of the hearings and 70 to 75% of people across both Republican and Democratic political spectrums want the ability to— for compounding pharmacies to be able to give people peptides.

And when you say across Republican and Democrat platforms, were these like politicians that they polled, or no, this is just like—

this was just people. This was just regular polling, just political polling.

Interesting. So how's that work when you're in DC I actually know a lot of people that were over there in our industry, doctors and clinic owners and pharmacy owners. Are you guys just watching this discussion take place in a big room somewhere?

So, what happened is it's a big room, about 150 times as big as this room. And then, what happened is there's 14 members, 14 to 16 members depending on each peptide had different people that were voting and reviewing it. And then the public could come and make comments. And so I spoke on 5 peptides and went through the science and the data and how they work and why people were using them and why people were disappointed when they were taken away. We had pharmacists that talked about the science and the, the pH and the biology and how they work. And, and then the FDA took basically all of those comments, everything that had been submitted, and then voted on whether they would add them to this block list to bring them back.

Interesting. So it's like representatives from the FDA that you and all these other people who are trying to be a voice of reason for peptides are attempting to convince that they should be legal for compounding.

100%.

So does the FDA like do its own research? Like, did they come in with their own studies and science that they'd looked into and compare it against what you guys said? Because obviously, like, you know, I'm assuming that the people in that room were somewhat vetted, like, you know, you're, you're a licensed physician, but it seems like somebody could just like stand up in front of the microphone and just start talking and saying things that the FDA would then need to look into and see if it's actually backed up by research.

So there's— there was on the committee, there was the people with a diversity of opinions. And so it probably seemed like there were some people that were pro-peptide and maybe some not so much. Each peptide had an indication that the FDA was taking into consideration why they would review it for. But then people also spoke about the diversity of different reasons that people use those peptides. So all of that was taken into account and then they made— and so for each one, the public, we basically made our speeches. Then the FDA, then at the FDA level, they analyzed articles and all that stuff. And then basically there was a vote and, and basically we did one peptide, had a vote, did the next one, had a vote, and then over 2 days We did that and then covered all 7 peptides over 2 days.

And so, I think a lot of people are already aware that like different peptides can do a lot of different things. And there's this term in medicine, off-label usage, right? Where there's, there's certain things that a doctor is legally allowed to prescribe for a specific reason, but then they're not allowed to make a recommendation to use that off-label, right? Okay. So, when, when these peptides are being presented to the FDA, and the FDA is making that decision, are they making the decision about just the ability to be able to use this peptide for anything at all, or do they literally need to say, okay, so, so you're allowed to use this peptide, but only for reason, you know, A, B, and C?

What happens is, is they're— you're— they're voting this, and I'm not a lawyer, so, and I don't play one on TV, but my understanding is, is that they're voting on whether it can be placed on the bulk list for an indication, but once it gets on the bulk list, then a physician can use it for an off-label purpose. So by putting it on the bulk list, it basically approves it for everything.

Okay. And, and if something is put on the bulk list, could a pharmaceutical company go in and like make a drug based on that compound being on a bulk list, or do they need to like own rights to that peptide to be able to do something like that? Do you know?

Pharma strategy is a drug strategy, and so drug strategy typically goes through what's called an Investigational New Drug application. And so that's the IND. There's a fairly expensive multimillion dollar process for going through an Investigational New Drug application. And if you go through that process, then a pharma company could take that drug to market after going through that process.

Okay. So even from like a semantics perspective, like let's say, and we'll talk about which peptides actually like made it onto this bulk list, we still, even if they're on the bulk list, don't call them drugs.

No, we would call them drugs because anything that a compounding pharmacy for the most part makes, they sometimes make vitamins. And so like sometimes they compound NAD and that would be a compounded vitamin, which is a derivative of vitamin B3.

Okay.

And sometimes they will come, but most of the things that a compounding pharmacy compounds are drugs. And so all of the peptides are technically considered drugs. They're protein-based, but protein-based drugs, just like a GLP, like terzepatide, is a protein-based drug.

Okay, got it. Now, I remember when RFK was on Joe Rogan's podcast, he threw around a number like that they were reviewing It was like 14, 16, some, a number close to that. We're talking about, I think, 7 that were considered in this last round in Washington, DC. Does that mean that there's going to be another round just like this for the other ones that are on this list that's closer to, do you know, is it like 14, 16?

So then my understanding is that there's going to be another meeting in February that I'm going to go to. And so then at that meeting, hypothetically, I heard the number 5 when I was there, which would take us to 13. But it could be that that number gets expanded at that time.

Well, no, there were 7 at the last meeting, right?

7 at this one. And I heard 5 at the next one.

So 5 would bring it to, yeah, to 12.

12, right?

Yeah, 12. Okay. What I heard, and again, like I am literally sitting down and talking with you about this because I want to know and I have barely seen or watched anything since those meetings. So I'm going a little bit blind here, but from what I understand, like, 6 of the 7 made it onto the bulk list.

6 of the 7 were recommended to be approved for the bulk list, but now the FDA actually has to still go in and do that.

How long does that take?

Could take 2 weeks, could take a month, it could take longer. Okay. But it's a major step because if the, the PCAC committee approves it, that's a very positive sign that Secretary Kennedy will most likely be able to enact that.

Right. And if they didn't, then a lot of people would basically be in the position that they've been in for the past couple of years, which is like go to the gray market, get sold for human research only.

That's exactly right.

Nudge, nudge, wink, wink type of peptides that aren't allowed to come with prescriptive advice or instructions, but that people are just kind of Mickey Mousing around with anyways.

100%. And when, when something's coming through a compounding pharmacy, the, the company that makes it has a lot number. They've got batches. They, they know the sterility. So there's all kinds of details so that if a problem ever happens, if I sent you something and a problem ever happens, we look at the vial, we look at what it says, and then we, we find out what happened. Now, the, if you're in the gray market, they're not saying where they got it from. It could be a good product, but they're not saying that because they, they can't say that because they're there by the gray. And so it really is going to improve quality and safety and access to have a physician to being able to guide people and take them through that process.

Yeah, that makes sense because You know, even in the gray market area, there's a lot of websites that, for example, publish like what is supposedly third-party lab testing on these research-based peptides, or some claim that they're made in like a CGMP facility, a Certified Good Manufacturing Practices facility, which is at least one sign that they might be doing something right. Some of them come with a laboratory certificate of analysis, which from what I understand, in some cases can even be fraudulent. It's not a fact that any sold-for-research-only peptide is going to be bad for you. But if you were getting something from a compounding pharmacist, you would have a much higher likelihood that what you're getting is safe.

100%.

Yeah. Okay.

100%.

Well, let's go into the fun stuff. I want to know, now that we're past all the legal mumbo jumbo, I want to know what the peptides are, that made the bulk list, what the one isn't that didn't make the bulk, what the one is that didn't make the bulk list. And I don't know if there's a rank order of importance that you want to share or if you just want to start with any of them.

So then what, what I'm going to do is give you a, give you a high-level view of how peptides differ from other pharma drugs. And so then this is going to be an interesting one. So as we go through We're going to talk a little bit about the mechanism of each of these and how they work. And then that's going to be good. The traditional drugs that you've ever heard of all typically do one thing and they do one thing to have one effect. And so we know that drug is a thing that has an effect. So like a lot of the antidepressants act on serotonin reuptake inhibitors, right? So then that's, a thing that they do. There's a blood— a group of blood pressure medicines that block an enzyme called the ACE enzyme. And so they're ACE inhibitors and they lower your blood pressure. And if you took Zyrtec or one of the histamine drugs, they block the histamine receptor. So most of the drugs that are all of the famous drugs that we grew up thinking about and living with and even maybe taking, all of those drugs act on one receptor and do one thing. And so, it's fairly easy for us to basically think about them and understand them.

And by the way, I think I see where you're going with this because like melanotan is a peptide and it can like darken your hair, darken your skin, give you 4 to 6-hour erections, increase blood flow. Like, it does a whole bunch of stuff.

Yeah.

And you're saying like that's different than what a drug would do.

Yeah. They call that the Barbie doll peptide. Yeah. Because that makes you look like a Barbie doll.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's my secret.

And so, but, and so then that's something that's working across multiple different organ systems, having a diversity of effects. And often these peptides are the way that our body communicates with itself because our— in the last podcast, I said, what does DNA code for? And you said proteins and peptides. And so our genes are basically encoding for proteins if they're big or peptides if they're small. And that's how our body talks to itself. And so a lot of times it'll make a peptide and that peptide may have an influence on cells that do something. And it may also influence organ systems, and it may also influence, uh, receptors, and it may also influence which genes we promote. So they can actually go in and influence genes. And so then what happens is, is they tend to have a very high diversity of different effects.

Is that what people are talking about when they say pleiotropy? Is that what that means?

Pleiotropic would mean a diversity. I would say a diversity of effects.

Okay. So that's the difference between a peptide and a drug. But drugs do have side effects.

Drugs generally, if you block a receptor, right, the body kind of tries to find a way around that. And so it may downregulate that receptor, it may upregulate that receptor, but often the body finds a way around a foreign thing that is blocking something in the body. Whereas most of the peptides that we're going to talk about today, are either working in the way that the body actually works. And so these are either identical or close to a peptide in our body, and they influence our body the same way our body's always being influenced. And so as a result, we find that the complication rate from peptides is, is probably not an order of magnitude less, but orders of magnitude less. Compared to traditional drugs.

And some people would push back on that and say, well, if it's working on all these different areas, like the melanotan example that I gave, wouldn't it be riskier? Because if you were taking something for a specific reason, like not to kick this horse to death, but getting a tan and it's whatever, giving you a priapasm, like an erection that won't go away at night, like, wouldn't that be considered an undesirable side effect because of its, its pleiotropy?

The complication rates are so low. So the, the American Academy of Peptide Medicine, which I'm working super closely with, and we were there advocating together, did a review between poison control centers and compounding pharmacies and clinicians, and we reviewed 16 million cases of BPC- 2.5 million doses of TB500, 350,000 doses of CMAX, and 3.6 million doses of KPV. And then in that, we— they didn't see any drug complications from, from that entire, from that entire review.

You mean a drug complication being like a, like a deleterious reaction?

Yeah.

Oh wow.

There's— and extreme level of safety, which was part of what brought us to the idea of bringing these back, is because they're so safe. People are having such little complications from them. And then there's actually truly interesting biological mechanisms for each one.

I mean, I mean, that's probably also the reason that, that they've adopted such widespread popularity, even in the gray market. People like them because they're actually working. 100%. So when it comes to this list, you mentioned BPC-KPV, TB, and one other just now. Those were on that list of 7, right?

That's right.

Okay. So people are probably curious because obviously it sounds like it could be pretty promising that the FDA is going to put these on the bulk list. What are the reasons that people would use each of these different peptides generally?

Okay.

So then that's kind of a loaded question.

So then we're just— we're going to start at the top. And we'll, we'll run the table. And so let's, let's start with, with BPC.

All right.

And so BPC-157 is probably one of the most famous peptides and one of the most popular that people have been using for a long time. And so then the— we'll, we'll talk about how it works, but it seems to have an effect on the gastrointestinal system, but it's also really helpful for wound healing and musculoskeletal benefits. And it turns out that this was isolated as the active end of a protein that was found in digestive juices. And so then imagine there's a big protein that has an active segment and the active segment is like a hand. And then the hand is that end thing that does a handshake.

Right.

And so the, BPC is the terminal end of this, this digestive protein that is secreted into the stomach and has an anti-inflammatory effect inside the stomach. And so then a lot of people have taken this as a, as an oral pill, right? And then it goes in and then that active fragment is having an anti-inflammatory effect. In the intestine, on the inside of the intestine wall. Now, the other thing is, is that people will take that peptide, that fragment, and inject that subcutaneously. And when they inject it subcutaneously, it's going to get absorbed into the systemic circulation. And some of that systemic circulation is going to go to the intestine. And so you could have an effect on the intestine. And it was reviewed for ulcerative colitis. Which is an inflammatory autoimmune condition of, of the intestines. It may be that you can affect it by taking it as a pill for gastrointestinal cause, and it may be that you could also take it subcutaneously or even through a patch, and then that's going to systemically get absorbed and go to the stomach. But then you can also inject it subcutaneously by a tendon or in a muscle tear or for a musculoskeletal purpose and have, have that effect as well. Yeah.

And that's where like the strawman argument comes in where people will say, well, you'll find it in gastric juices and so maybe it's natural and safe in the gut. But then, you know, if you don't find it naturally in the body, whatever, like being produced in a tendon, like, is it safe to actually put it somewhere where you wouldn't actually naturally find it in the body?

Which then takes me back to 16 million doses.

Yeah. Yeah. Good point.

And so the, now to me, putting this on the bulk list is a bridge to really doing a lot of clinical trials. And so then once this happens, now people can do a clinical trial here in North America, and then they can choose a problem. And that could be a tendon problem or that could be a gut problem. You could inject it or take it as an oral pill. And now we can start to get data on that. And it's going to be only through the next 3 or 4 years of getting a whole bunch of data where we're really going to bring basically the mechanisms and how these things work and effectiveness into a clearer light.

Okay. So the way I understand that is like a doctor could have let's say like 500 patients and maybe they want to see, I don't know, let's throw something out there like lateral epicondylitis or like tennis elbow and they want to take all of these patients they have that have had tennis elbow issues, put them on BPC-157, they can do that as part of a research study and then they can actually somehow collect that data and make it publicly available or available to the FDA? Is that how that works?

How, how that would work is let's say you're looking at lateral epicondylitis and tennis elbow. So then what happens is, is you need to say, I'm going to do it. If we were doing a trial on that, you say, I'm going to do a trial on tennis elbow. And so then you say, this is the criteria to diagnose that they have tennis elbow, and, and this is who we're going to include in this trial and who we're going to exclude from that trial. And let's say we decide we're gonna, uh, prospectively treat 20 patients. And so then what you would do is you would gather data on the— how you diagnose and what the severity of that is. And typically what we would do is we would do an ultrasound on each one, and then we would look at look at and diagnose that. And then the trial would say, we're going to give this dose, this is how we're going to give it, this is where we're going to give it, and then this is how we're going to follow up to determine effectiveness. And, and so the ways that you could do that is you could, uh, take and just pinch a little subcutaneous skin, right? And so you could do a subcutaneous injection superficial to the elbow. And what happens is, is BPC seems to be able to improve collagen production and help lay down collagen. And so a subcutaneous injection here is very safe to do, and then it may have a local effect by injecting it in that area. Idea 2 is, is that you could use an ultrasound and stick a needle into the, the tendon.

Using the ultrasound to guide where you put the needle.

Using the ultrasound to guide how you do that. Now, the issue is, if you inject too much fluid in a tendon, that can tear the tendon. And so it's very exquisitely tender. Uh, tendons are tender. And it's very meticulous in how we inject into that tendon. And so when I inject into a tennis elbow tendon, I typically will only inject 0.2, maybe 0.3 cc. So that's a 1 cc syringe. And that's a tiny bit. It's like the equivalent of like 5 tears.

Yeah.

Okay. A super small amount. And so we could do an ultrasound injection. We could do a sub-q injection, or you could even do a trial where you did a sub-q injection. Injection in your hip, and some of that peptide is going to get absorbed systemically and then could go here. And so that would be an example of how you would think about putting together a trial to gather data about that.

That sounds like a complex process for a doctor to be able to do that and keep track of all that data. Like, like, are they using like software or some type of like a method in the clinic to actually track all of that?

Okay, so then that's— this has been kind my biggest frustration of how do you help doctors who are busy in the clinic trying to gather data? And then you say, what data are you going to get? And then this leads us into another topic, but we'll, we'll just, I'll touch on this right now. The problem is all the data siloed all over. So like you're my patient, but you've got a whole bunch of wearables. I don't get access to any of that stuff. You've got lab data across all the different doctors that you see, but they're not necessarily sharing that. And so your lab data is siloed, your wearable data is siloed, your genetic data— you have about 6 gigabytes of genetic data that I also don't have access to. And so then what we did is we created LifeOS, which is a digital AI platform. And what we're doing is, is we're tracking lab, genetic, wearable, and other questionnaire data that you enter. And then we— all of that is flowing into what's called an IRB-approved database. And our database is a tool that we can use to track data. And so then what that means is I can onboard you and then I can use that tool and now I can prospectively watch how those labs and wearable data are changing in response to the different treatments that we do. And so then that at least gets us IRB and publishable data. Now, if we want to really get granular and think about how BPC works, then we can do a trial on top just specifically looking at BPC. And using the LifeOS database to track that data.

But you're like, you're one clinic and you're running LifeOS in your clinic, or is this something that other doctors—

this is a B2B solution, so this is a solution for all doctors.

Okay, so, so this is not like— I don't know how many patients you see, probably, I don't know what, hundreds, hundreds, but not like the hundreds of thousands or millions that would be necessary to actually get big data on these peptides, for example. So what you're saying is like a whole bunch of clinics at a time could use a platform like that and it's all feeding into one source, right?

And so then just with the clinics that we've signed up, it looks like those clinics represent about 30,000 patients right now. But, uh, we're signing up a whole bunch. But LifeOS is something that we're going to deploy in gyms and also for corporate health. And so we were— our goal is, is that within a couple of years, we've got millions of patient lives, tracking data prospectively. And then we're tracking what treatments they do, whether that be stem cells or whether they take an ACE inhibitor for their blood pressure or a statin medicine for their cholesterol or something else. We're just tracking— or whether they're taking BPC. And so we're tracking all of the modalities that they use. And then determining and getting that data. And so then that's a, a long-term dataset that we're tracking for lots of people. And then we'll use that tool to then do more granular studies where we might compare PRP to BPC for tenosyl.

But all right, so, so that's basically like me and a lot of my friends are doing, taking all of our lab data for the past 5 or 10 or 15 years or whatever and uploading it to Claude. ChatGPT and then having it spit out a bunch of recommendations for us, but then combining something like that with the ability to also pull in my wearable data, the workouts I'm doing, what I'm eating, et cetera.

100%. 100%. And then the— what would be— what's gigantically interesting is it used to take us 10 hours to sit down and work, pull all of that data together and then come up with a plan for a new patient. And now we've gotten that— what, what used to take us 10 hours, we got that down to about 2 hours. But then imagine now all of that data is living inside of a HIPAA-compliant vehicle that all of that data can now be searched by Claude or GPT. And then now you're tracking all of your data for the rest of your life and that data is going to compound. So, like, one thing that we've talked about is your gut health. And then basically I said, "How's that going?" And then you said, what did you tell me?

Well, at breakfast this morning, while we're eating the beautiful blueberry smoothies that I made, I was like, "Well, I actually figured out quite a bit because I finally just, like, buckled down and took 15 years of gut tests, lab data." I wasn't able to pull in wearables and stuff like that, but at least all of my labs, fed it all in and it identified, I mean, I just let it go to work and it identified within about 40 minutes 3 specific things that have been going on in my gut for years that, no offense to the medical community, no doctor has ever really figured out in terms of the whole picture. And I had it all in front of me with actionable information about what to do with that then.

And so then imagine But you didn't even have all of the data. And so now imagine all of the data and everything that you do is, is in one location.

Yeah.

And now you can interrogate that and continually interrogate that and interrogate your genetics and compare that.

Now remember, but it's legal, it's like secure. You said HIPAA compliant. That means like this isn't just like floating around there, out there on the internet, because I, I can't even like legally From what I understand, I couldn't like legally like print all that stuff off of Claude and just like email it to you in a PDF to your clinic. Could I?

You could, but then what happens is, is the, there's rules for HIPAA compliance. And so then what happens is, is if you just throw that into Claude, that data is somehow in Claude and Claude has your data. Whereas if you put this into LifeOS, now it's in a HIPAA compliant place and there's nowhere that's going to. Go Out, which has the names of the bacteria that are in your gut, and Ben Greenfield, and some— somehow that's—

but my doctor has it if they, if they're running LifeOS in their clinic. My doctor has—

your doctor has all of that?

Okay, cool. Uh, we rabbit hole.

Speaking of that, remember, uh, you told me you did the, the NovoBiom, the fecal microbiota transplant capsules? Yeah, yeah. How did that go? Did that help the gut?

It helped it. It, it's— so it stabilized my tolerance to eating a wide variety of foods. What it didn't seem to do, and, and just basically one of the major things of those 15 years of lab data found was that I produced massive amounts of hydrogen sulfide that even SIBO tests hadn't really seemed to detect. And so anything that's like a sulfur-based compound like eggs, poultry, broccoli, etc., was causing a pretty significant amount of gut disruption for me.

My experience of that has been that it's super helpful to re— recolonize and create that diversity. But then if there's a structural issue going on, a lot of times then you got to go back to the drawing board of lifestyle. And so, and so then we're going back to managing that system, but I've seen quite a few people who had positive results from that. But then now you begin to realize that we are influencing a system. And a lot of times if I influence that gastrointestinal system, that's going to have side effects of helping other systems. And so then change, you know, taking a probiotic or even taking a fecal transplant is one way to affect the gastrointestinal system. Another way to affect the gastrointestinal system would be to take BPC.

Okay. I want to dig into some of these other peptides. So not quite lightning round, but I definitely want to have time to touch on each one.

Okay.

So let's dig into these other 6.

Okay.

What else do we have?

Let me just run you through BPC before we, we close out that one. So there's no single confirmed receptor. Now, one thing that it'll do, and so then there's the, the top 2 peptides, probably is going to be BPC and thymosin beta, TB500. And so now they do some similar things. And so it's gonna be interesting to compare them and to compare how they work together. And so what happens is, is that these have effects inside of cells and outside of cells. And so the effect on the inside of cells that there's an internal structure of a cell. And that internal structure is kind of like a scaffolding. And one of the proteins in that internal structure is called actin. And so it appears that BPC can go all the way inside of a cell and act on that. And when it acts on that, it gets that cell to be able to mobilize. And I think of this as almost like, have you ever seen one of those balls that you can get into and you can cause the ball to roll around? We have to find a video of that. BPC can do that. And so it seems to influence the ability of cells to migrate through tissues and migrate through scars. And so then what I've probably the most impactful thing that, and one of the things that I do is I do hydrodissection where I stick a needle in a fascial plane. And so then if that needle happened to have BPC-157 in it, then that, that would influence the ability. Of the cells that it was talking to in that area to migrate through. And so a lot of people have seen a big improvement in patients that had scars, and scars often lead to nerve entrapment and nerve pain. And often in scars, there's not good collagen.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, now BPC helps with collagen, it helps with cell migration, it seems to be able to affect nitric oxide. Which has to do with basically vasodilation of blood vessels. And it seems to be able to balance it, whether it's up or down. And then as a result, all of those things can affect wound healing. And then, and it also can help grow new blood vessels. And all of those effects at the musculoskeletal level can lead to basically improved healing. And some people experience that by injecting it right where they need it to be. Some people experience it injecting it subcutaneously right over an area, and some people will experience it by just taking it in their hip. All of those mechanisms are live in a tendon problem, but they're also probably having an effect systemically in the gut. And so a lot of people who take BPC, whether they take it systemically or as a pill will notice an improvement in gut symptoms. And so then when we're thinking about a system approach to optimizing someone, then maybe we give them a probiotic to work on their gut, but maybe we would add BPC-157 to that. And so then in the same way, when you think, and about a, a problem like inflammatory bowel disease, which is like ulcerative colitis, that's an, a crazy autoimmune condition. And then if that doesn't go well, then the Western medicine approach is, is that they cut out the colon and then do an ostomy where they basically give you a bag that you poop into. Fun. So that's a crazy condition and it's definitely hard to treat. And how we treat that is, is that we give something that suppresses the immune system. And so we have basically— and that's why you hear about people who are immune suppressed. They're taking medications to suppress their immune system, but sometimes people are on maximal immune suppression and they still have symptoms. And sometimes they can't get up to enough of a dose. Both of those are candidates where they could take BPC-157 in addition to their immunosuppressive medication. And so then you begin to see that BPC has broad regulatory benefits, can work across multiple systems, and then is a helpful adjunctive drug that can, that can help a diversity of people.

I've heard that KPV is also one that people will use a lot of times for leaky gut or gut inflammation. Do you put that into the same category or like stack that with BPC-157? And that is, yeah, you already said that's on the list, right?

That's on the list. So we'll go, we'll go there next.

Okay.

And so then KPV, there's a bigger protein called alpha MSH and alpha MSH is one of the most anti-inflammatory proteins in the body. And then remember I said that sometimes you have a protein and then there's a little terminal end that does something. And that's the handshake that does something. And so KPV is a, is the, is a 3-amino acid terminal end of MSH. And so then what happened is, is if I just took that terminal end and right now I could shake your hand, but there's 180 pounds of Matt with one active right hand that can shake a hand. And so then KPV is basically just the hand, kind of like Lurch. It can shake your hand and have the effect.

Yeah.

And, or maybe it's just the hand. Did you see Wednesday?

No.

Oh, it's just from The Addams Family.

Okay.

There was a hand that could do stuff. Okay. And so KPV is just that one, that terminal end. And then what happens is it gets absorbed into cells. And then it regulates how a cell leads to inflammation. And what happened is, is when a cell is in a state of stress, it, there, it can make inflammatory cytokines and anti-inflammatory cytokines. And KPV suppresses the inflammatory cytokines. Having an anti-inflammatory effect. Right, right.

And, and that— would that be like oral or injectable?

KPV is a two-for-one peptide because it— you can take it injectable and it will have a systemic effect. And so we've seen many, many patients over the years take KPV as an injection, but also many people will take it as a pill And sometimes they will take it as a pill with more than one ingredient in that pill.

Okay. And one other question about KPV, if it's anti-inflammatory like that, could you theoretically use it on like wounds or tissue injuries or things like that?

So then, and, and often what happened is if there's a wound, a wound has inflammation. That inflammation is a signal for something to come there, turn that inflammation off and say, economic indicators are good, we can get a loan and we can fix this, this area. And so KPV was actually prob— in our hands and in our experience, most people were using it for gastrointestinal purposes. However, the FDA looked at it for wound healing and, and approved it based upon that. And so KPV can have an anti-inflammatory effect and, and then by turning the inflammation off, switch the body into healing mode for wound healing. But then it can also work on the gut, managing inflammation, and it seems to also help with barrier function. So it may help those cells be tighter and then work together in that way. So this is a very big diversity of, of, of ways that it can help people.

Was TB500 on the list? Because that kind of fits into the category of another one that, you know, especially a lot of athletes look at for, for, for tissue injuries.

Right. And so then now this is the perfect sequence. We didn't plan this, but this, this is kind of the perfect sequence to talk about this because TB500 also was assessed for wound healing. And so TB500 works from immune healing, and I said KPV works. KPV works for wound healing kind of primarily by an anti-inflammatory mechanism. Okay, TB500 is a kind of almost like a brand name. It was a, it was a, it was a, somebody said to me at the meeting. Somebody goes, TB500 is a nickname. And there's a bigger 54-amino acid peptide called thymosin beta-4. And thymosin beta-4 is actually a protein, a peptide that is inside of cells and it has several active fragments, kind of like a right hand and a left hand, and they do different things.

Okay.

And so then Remember I said that, that idea of a ball that you could crawl into and roll around?

Yeah.

TB-500 is really very active at activating that actin cytoskeleton and influencing the ability of cells to migrate around.

Okay. So, we've got kind of like 3 different mechanisms of action. So, theoretically, if you had an injury— when you say wound, by the way, does that include like injuries? Like in, in medicine, or is a wound like, you know, whatever, the cat clawed my arm?

So then there would be, there'd be a variety of different types of wounds from a surgery to a non-healing wound. So there's a diversity of different types of wounds. We, you know, I don't, I don't know what happened, but, you know, it was kind of stressful in COVID and, you know, we, we suddenly went to never going out to dinner and cooking all the time. And then in the first 6 months of COVID Barb burned her forearm probably 6 times. And then one time she—

Barb, the CEO of BioReset Medical, Barbara.

And my wife.

Okay. Yes.

And my wife.

Yes. And your wife. Congratulations, by the way.

Yeah. Thank you so much. It was amazing. Uh, we had Willie Nelson play our ceremony by going to a Willie Nelson concert, but it still worked. We noticed, and somebody told me, I was like, oh, Barb got a horrible burn on her arm from, you know, hitting the, the oven, a hot oven. And then what we would do is we would inject BPC and TB-500 around that. And Barb doesn't have a single scar from any of those injuries. And so then that was this moment that was this aha moment when I realized, oh, so these work on wounds. They work on the gut. They, they influence healing. And so they have this diversity of different ways. And then KPV and BPC and TB500 work synergistically. So a lot of people will like to put those together. And when you put those together with GHK, they call it KLO.

Oh yeah, I've heard that.

Yeah.

Okay. Okay, cool. The CLO stack. Yeah. Interesting.

BPC and TB-500 and put them together. They call that Wolverine.

The Wolverine stack.

And even Jean-François, our buddy, he was the— when I first met him years and years and years ago, he goes, he goes, all I know, and this is from a decade of bodybuilding people. He goes, what happens is, is you take BPC and TB-500 and you put them together.

Yeah.

And, uh, and sure enough, now there's millions and millions of people using these, these combinations.

Yeah, yeah. Um, by the way, for those of you who, uh, really want to keep track of mechanisms of action, I will give you a URL at the end that you can go to to get this cheat sheet for all these different peptides if you just want to see what they do, how to get them, etc.

Um, now can Can I just dive in just a tiny bit more on TB500? Yeah. So then TB500 is this big protein, uh, it's, it's, it's, you could call it, I mean, BPC, I mean, uh, thymosin beta-4 is 54 amino acids, but it's got an active fragment and the most active and most important fragment is the 17 to 23 amino acid fragment.

Okay.

And so what TB500 is, is just a fragment of this bigger peptide. And that fragment is then having an effect intracellular to get those cells to migrate, but it's having effects extracellularly to help with collagen. So it's having a diversity of different effects and it's probably having some immune regulatory effects as well. Interesting. But we talked about KPV is 3 amino acids. 3 amino acids is really small. Like you walked around, you walked into the clinic today and gave us a bunch of amino acid supplements. And so then that's just, those are just 1 amino acid. KPV is 3 of them. TB500 is 7. Now when you have 3 to 7 amino acids, that's such a small amount of amino acids that it's smaller than the size at which either our T cells, which is one side of our security, or our B cells, which is another side of our security, can react against. And so that's why across millions and millions of doses, we're not seeing any immunogenicity, which is a big topic that the FDA was concerned about. Because these are too small for people to really have any immune reactions to, like redness, swelling, inflammation, stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. Now I have seen more immune problems from BPC or immune reactivity, but that's 15 amino acids, so it's a little bit bigger. Okay. And so the smaller peptides are really really, really safe from having any type of reactions in general. Yeah.

Okay. Okay. Matt, I've got you for about 15 minutes or so, and I want to do the other 4 peptides. Can you give me a glimpse into the most important aspects of these other 4? Although I think there's like one that didn't make the list. Yeah.

There's one that didn't make the list.

Okay. So, so the 3 that did and the one that didn't.

The 3 that, the 3 that I did. And so then the next one's MOTS-c. And so MOTS-c is a mitochondrial peptide. And so then all of these are kind of interesting. And so that in a setting of stress, okay. Now remember the mitochondria makes the energy in, in, in the cell.

Right.

And so then if you could help the mitochondria, I call that the rising tide that lifts all boats.

Right.

Because if I help the mitochondria in my brain, I can think better. If I help the mitochondria in my liver, I can detox better and make— the liver does a lot of stuff, makes stuff, does all kinds of things. So then what happened is, is there's a gene and that is called a mitochondrial gene because we have genes in our mitochondria and then other genes that are in our cell.

Okay.

And so what happened is, is MOTC is actually a peptide that is coded for in the mitochondria. In a setting of stress, the mitochondria prints that, turns it into a peptide, and then that peptide goes into the nucleus of the cell, and then it activates AMPK. And it basically has an effect kind of like basically what would happen if a cell was exercising.

Oh, so this is like when people say something like exercise mimetic, like mimics the effects of exercise. MOTS-c does that?

Yeah.

Interesting. Fasting does that too. Does it mimic— I mean, anything that increases AMPK, it would cause a similar effect.

Exactly.

So none of us need to exercise anymore.

Probably not. Probably the— there's no surrogate for exercise. And the more that you exercise, the better. And so then you just, we just need to program ourselves.

So you also kind of throw like bone density, skeletal muscle mass, all that out the window, but you at least get the AMPK.

But interestingly, there was, there is a theory that if you could improve mitochondrial function and that could get the cell working better and that cell happened to be a bone cell, then it could be. And that was one of the things that it was evaluated for. Is osteoporosis. The other thing that it was evaluated for was obesity, because the idea is if I could get those cells to act more like exercising cells and, and be healthy, then what would happen is, is the, um, then maybe you could burn energy better. And so it would have an effect on obesity or on osteoporosis.

Interesting.

But then we also think that people tend to have a little bit more energy. And, and that makes sense with the mitochondrial peptide. And that also makes sense from an efficiency perspective of how these cells work.

Right. And people who already exercise, it could still help them in terms of producing additional AMPK.

Exactly. And so then that's, that's kind of the sweet spot. And so now what you're doing with these peptides is you're saying, okay, I'm going to influence a system.

Yeah.

And this, and the system of how these cells are working.

Right.

And then stack that with exercise.

Yeah.

Or better sleep.

Okay.

Or supplements that are working on that same system.

Okay. So we got BBC, KPV, TB500, MOTC. What's the fifth?

Semax is another peptide that is a brain-based peptide. And so then there's a hormone called ACTH. And then C-max is a fragment of that. And so then remember, a lot of these are fragments. So KPV is a fragment of alpha MSH. BPC is a fragment of a stomach protein. And then C-max is a fragment of a protein and it has an effect on the central nervous system. And so it has an effect on the hypothalamus and it has an effect, but Unlike ACTH, which stimulates cortisol, it, it doesn't stimulate cortisol, but it has an effect of regulating different nuclei in the central nervous system. And what it does is it increases one of the most interesting molecules, which is called brain-derived neurotropic factor.

Yeah, so one that's like Miracle-Gro for the brain, right? Exactly.

And so then brain-derived neurotropic factor binds onto something that's a type— what's basically called TRAK-B, which is a tyrosine kinase. And so then CMAX may increase both of those, or it may just increase the susceptibility of the tyrosine kinase. But then when it binds onto that, then the tyrosine kinase inside— and so it binds on outside of a cell. Binds onto this tyrosine kinase, and then it activates, and then it leads to improved ability for learning. And so then the— everybody, I always like to say, everybody thinks the elephant is the smartest animal, but maybe it's the hippo. And that's just a little mnemonic that I use because the area of the brain that is memory related is called the— Hippocampus. Hippocampus. And so then—

I almost said hippopotamus.

The hippopotamus. What was that song? Uh, the, the, the hip hip hip hop hippopotamus, Slate of the Conards. But so then what happened is, is, uh, CMAX is active in the hippocampus to increase BDNF to activate this tyrosine kinase.

And then that has an effect of turning on learning and, and it's not like a central nervous system, something like caffeine or whatever, paraxanthine, any of these other things that people are using as an energy compound. It's more of something that just increases the ability to learn, or I guess what would it— synaptic plasticity, is that the type of thing?

So it's thought to do that. So then this is a— and so then it was assessed, and it has anti-inflammatory effects in the central nervous system. And so it was assessed for trigeminal neuralgia, and it was assessed for migraine headaches. Which it has some effect of, and, but less so. We've really seen improvements with cognitive function. So I have a practitioner that I was talking to, um, who said that basically they have a genetic thing where everybody in their family gets Alzheimer's and they're in their 50s and they were struggling with memory and they, they take this every day and they're back to working totally fine.

Interesting.

And so this is a a cognitive enhancer that also has anti-inflammatory effects because we're— remember, we're thinking about migraine headaches. But then, then this was developed by, uh, Dr. Cavinson in Russia, who's godfather of all peptides. And they actually studied it where they gave it to patients who'd had a stroke stroke and improved benefits after a stroke.

Wow.

And so then this is going to be something that then, you know, up until now you had doctors in clinics doing stuff. What we need to do is first we need to be able to track data on this, but then these things, we need to be able to have these in hospitals where people can use them.

BPC, KPV, TB500, MOTC, CMAX. What's number 6?

Evertalent. And so then epitalon is, uh, also developed by Dr. Cavinson. So synergistically, and I actually got a chance to go study with him. Oh, wow. And he, he's dead though now, isn't he? He died. He died. Yeah. And, uh, but he was, he, and which was a tragedy, but the, the, he basically found out that that all of these different organs had what are called bioregulator peptides that had regulating effects on those organs. And so then what he— and what they, they found these and they synthesized them. And so initially what they did is they made oral preparations of these bioregulator peptides that were all 2 or 3 amino acids. And so then one of the areas that they really were interested in was the pineal gland, because the pineal gland makes melatonin, controls our sleep-wake and our circadian rhythms. And so they said, if we could regulate that pineal gland, wouldn't that be interesting? And so it turns out that they found a variety of different sequences of bioregulators within the pineal gland, and they called it epitalamin. And then they chose a sequence that they felt was the most active. And that's a synthetic peptide called epitalon. And so this is a 4-amino acid peptide, and that peptide we would consider to be a bioregulator peptide. And so then it was evaluated for insomnia. And so the idea is, is that if it can regulate the pineal gland and then get it, it may influence the pineal gland to actually secrete more melatonin, which tends to go down just like all other hormones in our lives. And so then the— they, they, they studied it for that indication. But then the other thing that epitalon seems to do is turn on an enzyme called telomerase. And all of our chromosomes have a little cap at the end, and that cap tends to be long when we're young., and it tends to get smaller and smaller and smaller as we age. And so there's a theory that epitalon seems to catalyze or turn that on and, uh, can be useful to, uh, from a longevity perspective. So one thing that it's doing is it's regulating our central nervous system in a sleep-wake type of cycle. One thing that it's doing is maybe lengthening telomeres, which had, could would have an effect. And it also seems to have anti-inflammatory effects. And a lot of people will use it from a stress perspective. And Dr. Cavinson actually found out that it reduced all causes of mortality. And so then that was what led it to become a very popular peptide early on from a longevity perspective. Also based largely on a very robust Russian experience.

Yeah, the decreased mortality is something I first learned about with Epitalon, and then I found out about the telomerase longevity, and then recently, I can't believe I didn't realize it, its effects on sleep and indications for insomnia. But it is, it is super fascinating that that could both help you to live longer and sleep better, potentially.

Yeah. And if you could sleep better, that might help you live longer. But then what happens is, is when you compare this to the other sleep things that we do, the other sleep things put you to sleep, but in putting you to sleep, often there's a hangover effect. Okay. And then also there's a risk of something that puts you to sleep. And so then what happened is, is often those are sedating. So like morphine could put you to sleep, but it could put you all the way to sleep.

Yeah.

And so then the, and then we'll talk about the one that failed, but both Epitalon and DSIP which, which stands for Delta Sleep Inducing Peptide, seem to have an ability to regulate sleep architecture. So they're influencing broadly the central nervous system in terms of how it's sleeping rather than just putting you to sleep.

Let's finish with that one, the DSIP. That's the one that didn't make it, right?

That's right.

Why?

What happened is, is they were able to take rabbits, and this is like in the '70s. They had rabbits that were asleep. And then what they did is they were able to take a sample of blood from the venous blood of the rabbit. And they saw that it had this peptide called DSIP. And so they thought maybe that is in the central nervous system. And it's in the central nervous system. We're only finding it when, when, when the rabbits are asleep. So maybe it's something that is doing something that regulates the central nervous system during sleep. So I came up with that name, Delta sleep-inducing peptide. Some of us are not so confident that that's the primary thing that it does, and it seems more to regulate the central nervous system's response to stress at a variety of levels. And so, and it also seems to have an effect on sleep architecture, but it's not necessarily putting people to sleep kind of like that it might've been, you know, somewhat marketed to. And so, and then the problem with this one is, is that the, the initial trials were trials where people were doing the IV dosing of it. And so then what our experience, even a friend of mine said, you know, I might have said no to that one too from a data perspective. He goes, if I hadn't been using it for, you know, a long, long time. Yeah. And so, uh, that was, that was shout out to, uh, Dr. Jim Laval, who's just one of the godfathers.

I love your former podcast guest, Matt. You're, you're encyclopedic. Acknowledged of peptides blows me away. I know you created a super handy cheat sheet. I'm going to reach for my phone because I have the magical URL written down. Repeat that. So, the show notes, by the way, are at bengreenfieldlife.com/peptides2026. But there's a cheat sheet that is at shoplifemarket.com/cheatsheet. shoplifemarket.com/cheatsheet. I'll also put that in the show notes, but because the regulatory landscape is so rapidly evolving, as is things like peptides access, where to get them, how to vet them, et cetera, I will put as much information on that website as I can to help all of you out a little bit. But now you know what happened in Washington, D.C. I would love to hear your comments. Your questions, your feedback over at BenGreenfieldLife.com/peptides. 2026, I know we flew through this and fed you through the fire hose, but I promise Matt will be back sometime in the near future to take a dive most likely into the next meeting that happens. So, Matt, thanks for doing this, man.

Thank you. The best.

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