How Testosterone & Hormone Injections Work (Along With Growth Hormone, Peptides, SARMs, PRP & Much More!)

Hey folks, it's Ben Greenfield and I'm not wearing any pants. I'm actually not kidding you. I am not wearing pants right now. I am shining light on my gonads. I do that sometimes for health. Look it up. There's actually health effects. I have a video out there about it. If you go to YouTube.com BenGreenfieldFitness There is a video there. Just do a search over there for joovv j o o v v and you'll see a rather entertaining video of me explaining why I'm not wearing any pants and shining lights at myself. Why am I telling you this? Because it actually is kind of relevant to today's podcast episode in which I talk about ways that you can do things like enhance orgasms and libido and blood flow and pleasure. And not just that, but also growth hormone, insulin, like growth factor, testosterone hormones in women, these things called sarms and peptides and a whole lot more with Dr. Richard Gaines in this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Show.

Platelets themselves, these are cellular fragments that's in the bloodstream that help clotting. But when you isolate them and inject them, they release growth factors which stimulate tissue, which is a transforming growth factor. It's limb like growth factor, brain derived neurotactic factor. There's about seven or eight growth factors in platelets.

He's an expert in human performance and nutrition, voted America's top personal trainer and one of the globe's most influential people in health and fitness. His show provides you with everything you need to optimize physical and mental performance. He is Ben Greenfield.

Power, speed, mobility, balance, whatever it is for you, that's the natural movement. Get out there. When you look at all the studies done, studies that have shown the greatest efficacy.

All the information you need in one place right here, right now on the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast.

Hey folks, what's up? It's Ben Greenfield and in the podcast called Brace Yourself, the non pill natural alternative to Viagra that instantly fixes erectile dysfunction, boosts drive in men and women, enhances orgasms and much more. I interviewed this guy named Dr. Richard Gaines and in that show we talked about how he uses something called acoustic sound wave therapy in men and in women to do things like enhance orgasms and libido and blood flow and size and sexual pleasure and a whole lot more. And you can go listen to that episode if you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com gainswave that's BenGreenfieldFitness.com Gains just like it Sounds like gains and then the word wave. You can go and listen to that show, I'll link to it. But the fact is that Dr. Gaines actually does a lot more than that. He specializes in much more than just waving sound waves over one's gonads. And in today's show, I wanted to bring him back on to talk about things like testosterone injections and growth hormones and platelet rich plasma injections and anti aging and a whole bunch of other things that he specializes in that we didn't get a chance to really talk much about. So if you've ever wondered how one would use, say, injections or needles to build muscle or lose fat or defy aging or enhance sexual performance, then this episode is a must listen for you. With, of course, the caveat that if you're one of those athletes competing in some sanctioned sport like Iwata or USADA sanctioned sport, Ironman triathlon, Spartan racing, some type of bodybuilding event that doesn't allow for things like this, please proceed with caution and please take everything that we talk about with a grain of salt, because I don't want to give you the impression that you can just like, willy nilly wander into the realm of anti aging if you are an athlete in a tested sport. And so I just have to throw that caveat out there for those of you listening in who are competing in some of those Sports. Anyways, though Dr. Gaines himself, he's an MD, he's considered one of the nation's leading anti aging practitioners because he's been doing this since the early 90s in terms of both hormone therapy and sexual wellness treatments. And he graduated himself from the Boston University School of medicine. And in 1981, the year I was born, and then he obtained his fellowship at Harvard Medical School and now he runs this anti aging medical practice down in Hollywood, Florida, very near to Miami, where I flew into a few months ago to do his acoustic sound wave therapy on my gonads, which wound up being such a success for me. You may have read about it in Men's Health magazine and in Playboy and all over the Internet. So I kind of reported on my own happy results from those treatments. And I'm gonna actually go back down there in August to do some more of these treatments that we're gonna talk about today, like the P shot and PRP and some of these other kind of fringe things that one can do to engage in just a bit of better living or better pleasure through science. So Dr. Gaines is a pretty big wealth of knowledge on all this stuff. And we're lucky to have him back on the show. So, Dr. Gaines, welcome back.

Hey, Ben, thanks a lot. It's great to be back with you, by the way. You know, I started my business in Hollywood, Florida, but I don't want you flying back there because we're located in Aventura, where you were before. Aventura is actually North Miami Beach.

Oh, yeah, yeah, that's right. I guess. Well, when I came down, did you guys. Did you guys move to a new clinic? Because I know you're building, like, a fancy new clinic.

We are. It's going to be across the street. But the Aventura, when I got very big, I moved from Hollywood into Aventura, where you were the first time he came down.

Okay.

So that's where we are. And we are moving even from there because we've grown so much, we bought a floor of the new building.

Okay, got it, Got it. Now, one other quick question before we dive in. Do you get much flack for being named Dr. Richard Gaines, aka Dick Gaines, with what you do?

You know what's interesting is that, no, I haven't, but it's a great idea that you came up with.

I'm really the first person who's ever given you flack for that.

It's true. You are the first who's actually put it down in writing. And I think it's a great thing. It might be a great thing. Who knows? I remember when I was a kid, somebody. Somebody called me Dick once, and I never liked it, so I've always gone by Rich. But now I'm starting to like it.

I know it goes perfectly with what you do for good or for bad. I like it. I dig it. I say, why not run with it anyways, though? So you do these hormone therapy injections, right? You do, like growth hormone and, you know, and a lot of these things that can help one toto amp up their growth hormone. And we've talked about growth hormone before on the show. We've talked about using natural methods like things like colostrum and raw milk and sleeping better and even fasting after workouts as ways to naturally increase growth hormone. We haven't talked a lot about growth hormone injections. So can you run me through kind of like growth hormone injections 101 and how this actually works? And I do want to ask you about testosterone, but I'd like to start with growth hormone.

Okay, good. I'll focus on that. But in general, as we age, we lose hormones. We know that adding them back and maintaining Good levels is good for your health. It delays degenerative disease or prevents it. It's been proven in the medical literature with growth hormones specifically. You know, it first became purified, let's say, in the early. The early 80s. Only the early 80s, I'm sorry. Yeah, in the early 80s and before that time, they used to animal growth hormone for children with short stature because they realized that it was a growth hormone deficiency, a pituitary dysfunction that they were dealing with, and it would give a couple of inches growth to these kids. So they weren't terribly short. In 1979, 1980, it became purified. And of course, animal growth hormone wasn't necessary. The problem with animal products is that sometimes it transmitted viruses and disease and it caused issues in some children. So with this purified product, in the early 80s, it became more common, especially for children with short stature, and the kids did very well being exposed to this. Also it became lumped in with the Controlled Substances Abuse act because it became very popular for bodybuilding. And it's one of the only hormones or medications on formulary that has to be prescribed specifically for growth hormone deficiency. Now, there is deficiency in kids, deficiency in adults, and there are some diseases it's approved for, but it's very, very specific, unlike any other medication on formulary, which can be used off label, in quotes. About 50% of medications are used off label. So, you know, because we know it works. It's just that the drug companies who make them have to get approved for one of their. The known uses because it's so expensive with the FDA approval process. But anyway, with growth hormone, if one is deficient, it's very beneficial to replace it. And it's a bioidentical atom per atom, the same hormone that we have in our bodies throughout our life.

So when you say it's identical, like atom for atom, I assume that's what bioidentical means. But how is it actually. So is it extracted from an animal source prior to being injected into one's body, or is this synthesized in a laboratory setting?

Very good question. It actually is synthesized. Now, that doesn't mean it's not bioidentical. The body looks at it, sees it, they know it's the same hormone that's made in the pituitary gland, and they treat it the same way the body treats it in the same way. It's actually. There's a scientific DNA recombinant technology that was. That's really brought growth hormone to a level where it became popular and safe, and that was Again, in the early 80s, they actually took a bacteria and by genetic engineering they taught this bacteria how to make growth hormone. And it's generated in the lab that way.

Fascinating.

Now there are other, yeah, there are other different techniques now, but generally this recombinant technology made it very safe and made it bioidentical so that it could be taken by anybody who has a deficiency.

Now when the bacteria are making these growth hormones, they're then extracted and I assume you bottle these up and prior to being injected, is anything else done to them or. I mean the bacteria produce a growth hormone and then you would prescribe it to a client to use. And it's just as simple as that?

Yeah, well of course, it's a whole laboratory process. They don't inject bacteria, but the bacteria extrude this protein, 191amino acids which form in a certain sequence, which forms the hormone, growth hormone. Of course, because it's in a certain sequence, it folds in a proper way and they isolate it and purify this. And that's how growth hormone is, is delivered.

Fascinating. Now when I've seen growth hormone I see it under labels like Samorelin is one popular one. S E R M O R L I N, something like that. So why don't they just call it growth hormone on the label?

Well, it's interesting because there are some vitamins that have growth hormone secret tox things that help humans secrete growth hormone from the brain and that's the amino acids like ornithine and glycine and lysine. But I've seen it on these vitamin packages saying this is growth hormone, which is totally false. It isn't growth hormone, it's actually amino acids, Sermorelin, it is a hormone, it's a copy of a hormone called growth hormone secreting hormone. Now that is a hormone that the body makes in the hypothalamus which is a part of the brain, which then sends, which then stimulates the pituitary to make growth hormone. It seems very complicated, but there's feedback and there's negative feedback mechanisms involved. But growth hormone releasing hormone actually is a more natural way of producing one's own growth hormone. So in other words, in younger patients, if I were to, if I were to have a 30 year old man come in and he has of course hypogonadism for some reason which happens, and low growth hormone, I may try to use Sermorelin first because younger patients respond to it better. They have younger pituitaries and they stimulate these cells in the pituitary to make growth hormone. Now, older patients over 50, 60 respond to Sermorelin less well or growth hormone releasing hormone less well, and they would benefit mainly from the replacement and the use of growth hormone itself.

Interesting. Okay, so what that basically means is you kind of have two options to increase your levels of growth hormone. One would be via the use of this growth hormone releasing hormone, something like samorelin, to induce your body's own production, your own natural production of growth hormone. And this would be, like, in a younger individual, a better choice. But if you're older and your pituitary gland is losing its ability to produce as much growth hormone as it would normally, and you want to engage in this concept of better living through science, then you could do something like use this growth hormone that's produced by the bacteria that you alluded to in a laboratory setting.

Exactly. And I can tell you that this is my outlook on every hormone. First of all, we try to be proactive, preventive. We try to have our organs make these hormones for as long as possible. And I encourage good lifestyle, et cetera, et cetera. There are a few ways I can stimulate production of hormone, and if I can't get all the way there, I would add back the hormone itself. So it's always a combination of stimulating either the pituitary gland or the genitals, or the testes, or even the pancreas to do what it's supposed to be doing or adding the hormone back.

Now, when someone's using something like growth hormone releasing hormone, this semorelin, are there other compounds that typically would go along with that, that you take at the same time as like a ghrh or is it. Or is it typically something that you're able to just use all on its own?

Well, when you talk about the peptides, GHRH and GHRH 2 and 6, these are actually peptides, which.

A peptide, by the way, being just like a string of amino acids. Correct.

That's it. That's it. That's all that growth hormone is. Honestly, it's not a steroid hormone. And it got lumped in with the steroid abuse. The abuse act, Controlled substance abuse act, with anabolic steroids. It is not an anabolic steroid. It actually is a protein, like you said, the string of amino acids.

Why would it get lumped in with something like testosterone then, like a steroid?

Because bodybuilders were abusing chemical anabolics like Winstrol and. Well, that's Stanozolol. And, you know, all these Chemical anabolics that were developed in Germany, and of course they work, but they have a lot of downside. So they were then controlled and made, you know, class one. And you can't even prescribe it, honestly, legally, in this country. But growth hormone got lumped in there for abuse purposes. You cannot abuse growth hormone. It has to be used on label.

Okay, got it. Soso you could take a ghrh or growth hormone on its own without needing to do things like extra like when one takes steroids. And I actually want to talk to you a little bit about this. You know, like the use of testosterone, the safe use of testosterone. You need to take things like, you know, in many cases like aromatase inhibitors to keep it from getting converted into estrogens and cycle on and off it and those type of things. So with growth hormone, is it really as simple as just. Just literally getting your hands on growth hormone or growth hormone releasing hormone and simply administering on a daily basis with nothing else to go along with it?

No. I do recommend that. Of course you're being followed and monitored because, you know, honestly, higher, higher levels of growth hormone or IGF1, which is made in the liver in response to levels of growth hormone, can really cause overgrowth of certain things. In other words, you know, like acromegalics have a tumor that produces growth hormone. They are very tall, they're over six, five, and they're very big, muscular. They have their front teeth spread. These are some signs that there's very, very high levels of growth hormone. I'm talking about 10 times the normal amount in a.

Right. The stereotypical caveman look that you see a lot of football players and bodybuilders get with the big eyebrows. So that's typically a sign that someone is on massive amounts of typically growth hormone and also in many cases, testosterone. Correct.

Yeah. You sort of can pick them out. What's interesting is those acromeg alecs and you know, it's not talked about, but these acromegalics, there's been large studies on them. They do not have any increased increased incidence of cancer. Okay, so there is not one study anywhere that shows growth hormone, which unfortunately his growth. It should be called human repair hormone. There's not one study showing that it causes human cancer.

That's nuts. Because that's about all you see is talk about an IGF one sweet spot when it comes to avoiding the risk for carcinogenicity with either too much milk and protein and insulin like precursors or the use of growth hormone. Although I suppose that Some of that is related to the discussion on anti aging. Right. Like too much activation of the MTOR pathway potentially causing a state of like an increased rate at which telomeres would shorten. Now you're saying there's no studies that show an increased risk of cancer. But what about that aging argument that one could excessively age if you were in too anabolic a state?

There is some experimental evidence to that effect. I happen to agree with it. I think that. And high levels, unnatural levels of any of these hormones can cause you're going in territories that aren't generally understood. I think any hormone that we replace should be replaced to an age of about a 30 year old. And this is where we try to pinpoint our therapy for any of these hormones.

Got it. Now is there when it comes to igf, you know, that's something that's relatively easy to monitor via a simple blood evaluation. You know, things like IGF and insulin, for example. Is there a sweet spot that one would look for? You know, when you talk about trying to maintain the levels that for example, a 30 year old would have, is there an actual number, an actual range you could toss out there?

Yes, because you know, in my practice I can tell you from, with all the experience I had, I've had, I can tell you that, you know, some people respond to. I go by school grades and if you look at two standard deviations, people's, the blood work. People's blood work fall in two standard deviations and growth hormone peaks in the middle of that in the average and then comes down to. It comes down low and goes low numbers when it's measured in higher doses. So I shoot for the upper third of that range because we know the benefits and as we age we know we lose growth hormone. Now with all these considerations, I look for a range on IGF1 between about 180 to 300. That's. I'm very conservative. There are people in my field of age management medicine who suggest levels up to 450. I don't think that's really appropriate. That's for kids who are 17, 16. And I think that mainly we should concentrate on when we're adults, it's usually about between 180 and 300. So I'm happy in there. I don't want to go much higher than that in my patients.

Got it. 180.

Some people respond really well to lower levels. Some people respond, they do very well at 180 and they don't need any more. They're fit, they're happy they're lean, and I don't, you know, everybody's different, I have to say. And all these hormones, which we really haven't talked about, you know, we'll talk about testosterone, but they all interact together. It's like a symphony. That's what it's been termed.

Before we turn to testosterone, just a couple of things about growth hormone. First of all, just from a practical logistical standpoint, this is always administered via an injection.

Unfortunately, because it's a peptide, it is a very delicate molecular structure. So, I mean, if you squirt it down on a table, it'll fall apart. If you take it under your tongue, it's going to fall apart and it won't get absorbed through the tissues. If the best way and the most consistent way to deliver specific dosage is with a subcutaneous injection, because it goes there undamaged, and the small capillaries will take it up and bring it to the rest of the body.

So this would be the same way that one would administer, for example, insulin. If they were a diabetic, you'd just go right underneath the skin with just a basic. Like an insulin syringe.

Exactly, exactly.

Okay, got it, got it. Now, when it comes to injecting something like this on a daily basis, or from what I understand, on a nightly basis is better because growth hormone can assist with sleep and with repair as one sleeps. And that's one of the reasons that sleep is so important, because you naturally produce a lot when you sleep. But related to the body's natural production, are you going toand I'd like to hear about your thoughts on this. With both growth hormone or a growth hormone releasing hormone like Somarlin, do you risk shutting down your pituitary's own natural production? Is this kinda like testosterone where, where you know you are either gonna be stuck on it for life or kinda like fighting an uphill battle for a while once you get off it. If you start taking something like growth hormone or growth hormone releasing hormone.

Thesethese are really good questions, and I've sort of learned to answer them over the years. You know, obviously as we're aging, we can't make optimal levels of these hormones. So again, the only way you can get them back is doing proper lifestyle stimulating production or adding back the hormone on occasion. Adding back the hormone will suppress production of the hormone in your body. But don't forget, in my type of therapies, I stimulate production as well. I encourage stimulating production even while adding back the hormone. So your question is yes, if Done improperly, it will suppress production and you'll be down for a long period of time. Generally what happens is when somebody goes off, let's say they're 40 years old, they come in, their growth hormone levels are, are very low, they replace, I replace growth hormone, they do well, and then they run out of money, okay, because it is expensive stuff, their levels will fall and fall to where it would have been at their age. In other words, we'd continue to drop as far as the production of any hormone. And so if they've been on growth hormone for 10 years, they're going to drop to a low number, probably lower than they were 10 years before.

Soso. Basically, the idea would be if you wanted to get all the advantages of growth hormone, if you're young and you're using growth hormone releasing hormone, if you're older and you want to use this bioidentical straight up growth hormone, just start using it and plan on using it in the same way that, for example, I take 5 grams of creatine every morning, year round. I don't cycle on it, I don't cycle off it. I just take it because I know that it's one of those molecules that's proven to be beneficial, to be safe, and to be something that's going to allow for everything from neurogenesis to muscle growth, to power to strength and beyond, even gut health. Based on recentrecent creatine studies, for example, you're saying kinda similar to growth hormone, justjust take it and plan on staying on it.

I feel that way now. There are people who wanna go off, and I say, you can, you know, your levels were this before, that probably just dripped down to where you were, I always say would have been, because, you know, aging does lower growth hormone levels. So let's say they came in with a level of 145 years later, they want to go off, they go off, it'll be 120 usually. So there is a suppression that goes on, but aging does continue. So you have to calculate that in.

Got it. Okay, now how about let's turn to testosterone, Because I know you do a lot of work in testosterone therapy and, you know, I've talked to different folks, you know, MMA fighters, et cetera, on the podcast before, about testosterone. And, you know, the fact that it's pretty well known out there that if you start taking it, there is some evidence that, you know, kind of similar to the discussion we just had, that it can kind of shut down the body's own natural production of testosterone. If you take it, you know, high amounts, long term, that type of thing. Now you mentioned with growth hormone that you would take it kind of on its own, that it would be okay to take on its own with something like testosterone. Are you administering or do you recommend taking things along with testosterone? If we're going to do say like a testosterone injection to actually mitigate some of the side effects of testosterone or allow one to maintain one's own natural production to a certain extent. What are kind of the best practices that you engage in when you are recommending something like testosterone?

Yes, I certainly do. And just before I get to testosterone, as far as growth hormone, I sometimes recommend growth hormone in the morning, sermorelin in the evening. And you can see my reasoning.

Oh, interesting.

In the evening you want bigger spice of growth hormone during good dream state and that's it shall be called human repair hormone. We do a lot of repairing when we're sleeping and it's very important and it does help sleep cirmorellon in 70% of my patients. So I recommend stimulating their pituitary at night, in the morning, then taking a dose of growth hormone. So it is similar to what I recommend for any hormone. And talking about testosterone, I recommend taking testosterone if you need it, but stimulating production as well. Everybody knows that when you take, when you're on testosterone, your balls shrink. Okay, we know that they're not being stimulated. They're not being stimulated because there's a hormone called luteinizing hormone from the pituitary that the pituitary that is produced and it stops production because in a 40 year old, the pituitary is looking for a 40 year old level of testosterone. It's actually tasting the blood. This is the way I look at it. It's tasting and sampling the bloodstream. If the taking testosterone, testosterone goes up, the pituitary realizes that hey, this is high level of testosterone. I'm not going to tell the testes to make testosterone anymore. And it shuts off this luteinizing hormone. Well, what I do, I combined therapy by injecting, by recommending the injection of something that looks like luteinizing hormone. It is half the molecule. It's the active portion of the luteinizing hormone and that's what HCG is. So in most of my patients, I recommend if they need testosterone that they also need hcg.

HCG being a human chorionic gonadotropin. That's hcg, correct?

Hcg, yes. And the interesting thing is there is a luteinizing hormone, actual luteinizing hormone on the market, very expensive through recombinant DNA technology to produce. But they've realized that human chorionic gonadotropin, which is widely available, is much easier to produce and distribute. It works in the same way.

Now, how common would it be for one to just use HCG in the absence of testosterone? Why wouldn't you just take that all on its own?

No, it's a good question. As a matter of fact, in these fertility clinics where a couple is trying to have a baby, they recommend if there is some oligospermia or low testosterone in the male partner, they recommend high doses of hcg, injectable HCG throughout the week. And I offer that to younger men who come in, who I just want to stimulate their production of testosterone and I do it with hcg. There is other chemicals, and we've learned this from, of course, the bodybuilding community, there are other chemicals that stimulate indirectly the production of testosterone from the testes. And one of them I'm sure you know, is called clomiphene. But that's, you know, it's a medication. I'm not crazy about it. There's neuro ophthalmologic symptoms that develop.

That' sthat's Clomid, right?

Clomid, Correct. There's something. It's a drug. So there are side effects. The body really doesn't recognize it as a bioidentical hormone. There are some certain side effects, but it does work. And I offer sometimes stimul. This is called stimulation therapy. I often recommend stimulation therapy for my male patients if I think their testes will respond. And usually that's in younger men, you know, under 40.

And stimulation therapy would be something like the use of Clomid along with something like hcg.

It's usually either or. So if they can take little injections, I'd recommend the HCG because I like it better. It's more bioidentical. It's just an analog of luteinizing hormone. Whereas Clomid is really an anti estrogen type thing that we have to take, but that's oral. So if they could take injections, I recommend the hcg. That's stimulation therapy. Yep.

Okay. That's stimulation therapy. So you could do testosterone along with hcg, or you could do testosterone along with Clomid to allow yourself to, to escape the notorious ball shrinking effect of something like testosterone.

Yes.

Okay.

Yes. But I prefer hcg, as I told you. Yeah.

Interesting. And do you endorse the use of a testosterone injection or a cream or a lotion or what is kind of the best practice in anti aging medicine right now when it comes to the administration of testosterone?

Yeah, well, you know, I, that's a good question. And I've come along a lot of, I've learned a lot from my patients. I learn every day from my patients. But I can tell you that I know that it's so important to have your hormones in a school grade of an A or B to prevent degenerative disease like Alzheimer's, osteoporosis and diabetes and frailty infection. It's. I know it's so important. Even cancer is on the list. But I know it's so important that I will do whatever it takes to get their hormone levels back. So if a patient can tolerate creams, if it's females tolerate creams much better. But men, it's twice a day, every day you have to smear this stuff on the inside of your thigh or on your leg or shoulder. But generally it's a pain in the neck. But there are men who are so afraid of needles once a week that I recommend this cream twice a day. It works if they follow directions and most of my patients do. I think it's, I will do anything it takes to get their hormone levels back. Now there is pellet therapy where you can, you know, you put, it's with a large needle, you know, you numb up the skin in the buttock region with a large needle. You go under the skin, you tunnel under the skin and you put in pellets, testosterone pellets. For females you can do testosterone and estrogen. You can actually put an estrogen blocker in the men as well. But generally this is a one way street.

And then this is an actual pellet that dissolves over a long period of time.

Yes, it's compressed under thousands of pounds of pressure and it's designed to release a small amount of testosterone every time the heart beats. It's like licking the pellet with every heartbeat.

It seems as though when it comes to, when you see folks like Peter Diamandis, for example, getting implants that self quantify things like blood glucose and number of steps taken. And I'm reading a book called Beyond Human right Now which talks about how you could for example, get like a pacemaker for the brain that would enhance one's memory. Or you could get a pacemaker for hormones that would automatically detect one's hormonal status and allow for the automatic release of the hormones that you need. How close? Like for you being an anti aging medicine, how close are we to Tying something like that to technology to where you could automatically detect blood levels of something like testosterone, for example, and then, and have something like that pellet be released accordingly.

You know, generally how these things work in the body with negative feedback loops or positive feedback loops. And you know, physiologically we sort of know. I think it would be pretty straightforward to design a computer when we get advanced enough to make it small enough to be placed in the body and it would regulate hormone status. Now, you know, what's the fellow's name? Ray Kurzweil. He's very big on nanotechnology and he talks about nanobots that can be injected and directed to a proper organ and these things can regulate our function. I think, I think it's going to happen. It's going to be very expensive for the next hundred years. So I think we've got a long time to wait and I'm not sure that's going to be available in our lifetime.

Yeah, I was just curious. All these anti aging conferences you go to, if that's a, that's a hot topic or not. It sounds like it's not quite on the, on the, on the, of being created.

Yeah, it's not there yet.

Yeah, okay, got it.

I think it's very, I think it's very reasonable. I'm with you.

Yeah, yeah, it'd be interesting. So if anybody's listening in, you can always pipe into the comments or just like take that and run with it and send me the royalty checks when you create this self quantifying device for testosterone. Now what about alternatives to something like testosterone? One thing that you see talked about quite a bit lately is selective androgen receptor modulators or SARMs as one alternative to using something like testosterone or as a way to build muscle or burn fat. What's your take on these androgen receptor modulators?

Well, you know, that has to do with peptide science and they are. Peptide science is really, I mean there are medical books on peptide science. It's really incredible stuff. I think it's going to happen. I'm actually recommending a number of peptides to some of my patients. SARMS is already here. I have a few patients on SARMs because the technology has gone this way. First of all, most of the research has been done in Europe and in Australia on peptides. In the United States it's always been illegal. You can buy it on the Internet and it says not for human consumption, experimental use only, stuff like that. Now the FDA has approved a few compounding pharmacies to provide this for human consumption. So they are coming around. And I think SARMS has a place in health.

But in terms of mechanism of action, how is it working any differently than something like testosterone?

Well, there are some benefits the way it works. I mean, honestly, testosterone does stimulate the prostatic cells and it does cause a little growth. SARMs don't seem to. That's my understanding. So, you know, PSA, we follow PSAs in men because, you know, one out of 10 men over 50 have some form of, let's say, I don't want to say cancer, but some form of dysfunctional cells in the prostate. I think cancers come and go. I think the immune system has a lot to do with it. If you have a healthy immune system, these sites of bad cells will be consumed by natural killer cells, etc. But the point is that SARMs do not stimulate prostatic tissue. So there are some benefits. It is a peptide, it is not a steroid. So there's benefits with that as well. Subcutaneous injections instead of IM injections. There's still a lot even I need to look before I really make it. Any strong suggestions to your audience? I mean, I think there is a place for SOMs. I think there are CJC 1295 DAC, which stimulates, which indirectly stimulates growth hormone production. There's a couple of, like thymostan B beta 1. These have healing properties. I think that it's early on even for me to offer it to my patients, though I have with SARMs. I have already done that with the CJC. I've already offered it to some of my patients also. Usually it's a cost consideration. They are less expensive than growth hormone. So I do recommend CGC to some patients and we'll see how they do. It's really early for me to clinically tell you how it's been going, but the evidence is very strong that these SARMs and the CJCs, they do work. These are actually natural peptides that circulate in our bloodstream.

I've written a couple articles on them and I'll link to if you guys go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com GainsWave I'll link to a couple of my SARMS articles that I've written. But yeah, my understanding is there's a little bit less of a concern of some amount of aromatization or conversion to estrogen or dihydrotestosterone or DHT that notorious. Oh crap, I'm going bald. Steroid with similar effects in terms of libido. And stress, strength gains and fat loss. But of course, there's no injections. SARMs are just like an oral, like a sublingual kind of liquid. And I believe there's not quite as much of an issue with the liver, although I think the liver issues would be if one were using very, very large amounts of testosterone. Is that correct? Is there much harsh liver toxicity with normal testosterone use?

The only testosterone that really affects liver is first pass liver effect if you take it orally. Now, sarms, I misspoke before. Sarms can be taken orally orally, and it doesn't have, not that I know of, any liver toxicity. Oral testosterone, though, does have liver toxicity.

Okay, got it, got it. But if you were doing like a testosterone injection, it would not be something that would have to be processed by the liver.

No, not at all.

Okay, got it. Now, we talked about growth hormones and we talked about SARMs and some of these growth hormone releasing hormones. A little bit about testosterone and also about how to keep one's balls from shrinking or to induce the release of luteinizing hormone with something like Clomid or hcg. But just delving straight into the sexual performance side of things, which I know that's one thing that you and a lot of these clinics that you guys have around the country that you're actually able to do. We've talked a lot about sound wave therapy in our previous podcast and my own interesting yet quite pleasurable results from doing your acoustic sound wave therapy treatment, this gainswave treatment. But tell me about these shock. There's been some talk in the biohacking sector about, for example, injecting one's gonads with stem cells. And I know you do something kind of similar for men and women, but from what I understand, you do something a bit different in terms of this thing called a P shot and an O shot. Can you go into what those are and how those work?

Yeah, it's been described for about, let me see, since 2008 or so that this has been going on. Now, this is injections of platelet rich plasma. Platelet rich plasma is basically, you know, taking someone's blood, whole blood, you take a sample out, you spin it in a special centrifuge, you withdraw a certain layer of that centrifuge substance, and in that layer is a high concentration of platelets. Now, platelets themselves, these are cellular fragments that's in the bloodstream and help clog clotting. When you isolate them and inject them, they release growth factors which stimulate tissue, which is a Transforming growth factor, insulin like growth factor, brain derived neurotactic factor. There's about seven or eight growth factors in these platelets because they help in healing. Platelets help in healing. So they carry this around. And if the platelets are spun properly and injected, they stimulate tissue growth and tissue rejuvenation, collagen deposition, collagen reformation, neovascularization, which is a new vessel growth and even some nerve tissue growth. It's been shown, this is a science that's developed over the last 30 years. It's been used for 30 years and now it's been used in orthopedics, injecting it in joints, injecting it in wounds, in infections. And so it's nothing that's really new. There are three or four thousand studies on PRP alone. You can go to Google and type PRP in, in any part of the body you want to. PRP in finger, PRP in ear, you'll see it in there. And PRP in pancreas.

Oh yeah. I mean, I won't deny that there's a ton of evidence out there for it. As a matter of fact, I don't think I told you this but, but when I was a personal trainer, one of the things that I was known for, and I think one of the reasons that I got thrust into the limelight early in my career as a personal trainer, or not early in my career, but after busting my ass for about a decade in personal training was I would use high speed video cameras for gait analysis and biomechanical analysis. And I did a lot of indirect calorimetry for VO2 max and metabolic rate measurements. And I did a lot of blood and biomarker measures measurements way back when nobody was really doing those because I partnered up with physicians in my personal training studio and we had a physician's clinic right there that would do these protocols. And we did EKGs, we did all manner of different kind of high tech, cutting edge procedures that nobody else was doing in a fricking gym setting. And one of the things that I had there was I purchased, I spent $12,000 on a MED Graphics VO2 analyzing unit. And I purchased, purchased, I think it was about $10,000 to $12,000 at the time. Centrifuge and a platelet rich plasma injection unit because I had a doctor right there. And so when I had clients who would come down with joint issues, we were doing injections right there in my personal training studio. And so I was familiar with PRP a decade ago and part of that was because I was in a hip and knee surgical sales for a short stint after college, and I was aware of its utility when we would inject the these into patients who are doing hip and knee surgeries to enhance the healing post surgery. But I guess my big question is, how does this work? Are you actually just injecting straight into the genitals? I mean, how does that actually work? It seems like it would really hurt, basically, is what I'm saying.

Yeah, yeah. By the way, there's a difference between genitals and gonads. You were referring to gonads. With sound wave therapy, we sort of avoid the gonads. Those are astronomical. The testicles and the ovaries, Right?

I mean, like the testicles and the ovaries.

Yeah. Genitals are more like the penis. And the areas around that area, that's where we concentrate. We sort of avoid that area because it's sensitive, first of all. And sound waves have been proven very beneficial for testes. But as far as the genitals go, there's a guy named Runels, and he stuck to runels. In 2008, he injected his own penis for some reason with PRP, he noticed benefits in himself. He then offered it to his patients. He noticed that they got effects. Then he went on the lecture circuit. It became very popular. I remember going to one of his first lectures and having all these physicians around him afterwards. So we know that sexual energy and intimacy is a very important topic. I realized it then and I went for training with Dr. Reynals. And yes, you actually take the PRP and you do inject it into the shaft of the penis in very strategic locations. So it's about five injections now.

I would assume that for both men and for women there's some sort of a numbing cream involved.

Yeah. And as a matter of fact, you know, I don't even like the word pee shot. I think it's ridiculous. Who wants a shot in the pee? But, you know, people go for it because it does have good benefits. Yes, they do. They put on a cream. It has tetracain, lytic and benzocaine. These are numbing, topical numbing medicines. And when you put this cream on, it numbs up the surface pretty good. But it's still, you know, you can still feel a little pinch and, you know, sometimes a little pressure and burning. I'm not crazy about it because in my previous lab, I was an anesthesiologist. I said, there must be a better way. I looked up the anatomy. I found out that I could see that the dorsal penile nerves are in a potential space. And as anesthesiologists, we inject potential spaces because those potential spaces have nerves running through it. When you inject a potential space, these nerves get soaked in the local anesthetic and numbness occurs or anesthesia occurs. And that's what a spinal anesthetic is. You inject it with potential space. This lidocaine goes around or whatever local anesthetic you're using. It goes around the spinal cord and numbs up you from the waist down. You could do that in various parts of the body. In the penis, there is a potential space near the abdomen where you can just, with a tiny little needle, inject a small amount of local anesthetic, and it numbs over the whole shaft. Now, it's funny because during the GainsWave therapy, Dr. Ornels came down and I was training him, this is only about a year ago, and I showed him this block, and he said, wow, that's a great idea. Yeah. So now it's recommended for any P shot. They do this little injection. So it's one little injection, numbs up the penis, and you can do all the rest of those strategic injections without any pain or burning at all. So that's the way I provide it. That's the service I provide to my patients. Similarly, in females, there is a location with one single injection. You can make it a little more pleasant for them, too. It's a little more difficult because they have nothing hanging out. But still, you can numb them up pretty good With a cc of local anesthetic.

Yeah, I mean, I did the numbing cream when I came down. For your. For your gainswave treatment. I did the numbing cream, and it seemed to work just fine in terms of there being no discomfort at all for me. But I was just curious when it comes to these injections, if it's kind of similar, because, as you know, I'm gonna come down there and do it. I think I'm scheduled in mid August to come down and do one of these p shots. So if you're listening in.

Oh, great.

Stay tuned.

And you'll see the shot. You won't feel a thing. It's really a breeze.

Now you're doing those in conjunction with the gains wave, where you're doing, like, acoustic sound wave and the P shot. Is this the new gains enhancement thing that you're doing?

Yeah, when I offer. Yeah, I call it gains enhancement Because I don't like the word shot, P shot or anything. Like that. But I do give credit to Dr. Ornells for injecting himself and his girlfriend and publishing the data and getting the word out. And by the way, the O shot, when he developed that, he offered it in the gift bag at the was, it was the Oscars. And he got a lot of publicity out of that. And he got some, of course, movie stars coming in for the O shot that he provided for them for free. But he got a lot of publicity and a lot of TV time. And that was about five, six years ago. But when I offered a P shot or gains enhancement, it does have the gains wave therapy before, just before the injection of prp. What's interesting is both the tissue response to these technologies are very similar. So gainswave stimulates progenitor stem cells, it stimulates the growth of neovascularization or new blood vessels, the collagen, et cetera, et cetera. Platelet rich plasma does the same type of thing. It's interesting, but I think it has. What I've seen is it may have a synergistic effect. They both work together in a beneficial way. So I do offer gains enhancement and when I do, it's done with gains wave therapy and a P shot.

Okay, so the way that that would work is someone comes in, they do the. Is it the sound wave therapy and then you do the P shot. Do you have to. Can you like. Can I? Because when I went into your clinic, I got this done in like 20 minutes. Do you just come in and you do it all in one fell swoop?

Yep, we sure do. And you know, the thing is, you know, you put the cream on. Right. Well, when you come in next time, you know, we still have, you put on the cream, but we can do the block even before, you know, we do that little block I told you about, the potential space with the nerve going through it. I do a little block and then we do the gains wave. You'll see, you're not going to feel a thing. It's. It's a really strange sensation. And, you know, it was even strange with the cream. This is even a little more strange. But it only lasts about 45 minutes. So we give you double anesthesia, basically so that you don't feel anything with those injections.

Got it. Now you're offering for people who are listening in an actual discount or a voucher for the gainswave and the Gainswave enhancement. I know our code is you text the word greenfield to 3131. If you text or greenfield to 31, 3131. That gets you 150 bucks off of the Gains Wave treatment. Will that also work, do you know, on this gains enhancement, if you want to do the 1, 2 combo of the shot and the acoustic sound wave?

Absolutely, yeah. For your listeners, for sure.

Okay, cool, cool. So if you guys want to do that, you don't have to go to Aventura. There's 80 different docs around the nation that you can work with with on this. And if you go to their website, which would be just gainswave.com or could folks go to healthgains.com as well, Dr. Gaines? Or does it matter? Where would be the best place for people to go if they want to find a spot?

GainsWave.com will get them pretty quick to the Gainswave affiliates. I think if they go to Health Gains, either one would be fine. Why not go to the Health Gains? It's more comprehensive. They'll look at the whole clinic and of course, you'll get linked over to Gains Wave as well. So Health Gains is the one I like.

Okay, perfect. And then what about for the injections, like, for people who are, you know, notwho are listening in, who can do this legally, right? Who aren't like, you know, MMA fighters, and they're not, you know, competing in like, Ironman triathlon or Spartan racing or something like that. And they also wanna do, like, testosterone or they wanna do growth hormone or Clomid or HCG or these other things that you talked about. What's the best way for them to go about doing that? If they wanna get ahold of you or they wanna work with someone, somebody who you would vouch for.

Well, I have a lot of representatives here in Aventura. We have the phones working all the time. And these guys, you know, I, as a matter of fact, I sat with them. Today's Friday, right? Yesterday, sat with them for an hour. We go over things. I tell them what we have available. They're very knowledgeable and be able to help anyone that calls. HealthGains.com is a good number. The number will be there. I know the. I know the local number here. But, you know, HealthGains.com is the best website to look at. Of course, the local number is 305-621-818.

Okay, so healthgains.com and then for that, if they want to save anything or get any kind of voucher, is there like a code or anything they should use or should I work that out with your folks and we can put it in the show notes?

Well, I think they only have to mention your name. That's all they got to do. But I'd like you to come contact my guys too. But thatthat'stI'm pretty sure that's all we need to hear is your name, doctor.

Okay, cool. So if you're listening in, it's easy as that. Justjust give em a call. HealthGains.com, mention the show. If whoever you talk to doesn't know what you're talking about, just leave a comment in the show notes over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com HealthGains and we'll hook you up because like, if I'm going to be talking about things like injections of testosterone or HCG on the show, I do want to make sure folks wind up working with somebody who's actually got a good head on their shoulders when it comes to this stuff and isn't just like injecting willy nilly isn't actually monitoring values because I know that you do a crap ton of like blood testing along with your actual administration of some of these things to ensure that it's done correctly. So make sure if you're listening in, don't go to onlinepharmacy.com and we do it regularly.

I just want to send you with monitoring. Of course we're available all the time. You will have a, you know, assigned an assigned health coordinator who will be in touch with you all the time. I'm available all the time as far as appointments can go and we do blood work every six months which is necessary for it to monitor changes. I'm glad you mentioned Ben. I'm glad you mentioned also that you know, as far as professional sports, we do try to stay away from that. It's not, it's a very touchy subject. I think one day, you know, they're going to have sports teams that are going to be open. You can do anything you want and to be an athlete as far as, you know, anabolics, but currently it's frowned upon and I do not treat anyone for specifically performance enhancements. All for health though. Of course.

Yeah. And that's a whole different can of worms that I know a lot of people will debate about is like should we allow athletes to actually get LASIK surgery but not if they've got, let's say Testosterone levels of 300 or something. Get them up to 800 with something like an injection. I know that's a whole different can of worms. And I don't think we have time to delve into that aside from the fact that I do, I do think that it's a good idea to send a message to the youth in our country that you shouldn't try to override your biology with injections and things like that if you don't need them. And I think the major thing is that unless you know what you're doing and unless you're having something overseen by a medical professional and can also afford to do that, that it's kind of, it's playing with your body's chemistry set in a way that could be potentially dangerous. So I do appreciate the fact that there are people out there trying to watch the backs of especially like, I think a big part of it is young baseball players who are, let's say, 13 years old looking up to their favorite guy in the mlb. And if they know that guy's jacked to the gills thinking about doing that themselves when they're in frickin high school. I mean, like, that's my main concern is, is honestly, as dumb as it may sound, kids and youth getting influenced by what people in professional sports are doing, which is, I think, a perfect argument for being very careful with this when it comes to regulation at the sporting level. So again, whole different can of worms. But definitely I want to make sure that folks know that I do not endorse this being done if you're in a sanctioned sport. So all that being said, healthgains.com is the website. You can text the word gain to 3131 3, 1. And I think you just get a voucher sent straight back to your home or to your phone that will get you the Gainswave treatment at any of the different 80 participating physicians around the nation. And if you run into any trouble or any difficulty with any of those docs not recognizing the podcast when you talk about it, just leave a comment in the show notes and we'll bend over backwards to help you out and connect you with Dr. Gaines and his folks. So. So, Dr. Gaines, thanks for coming on the show and sharing all this stuff with us, man.

Thank you. Thank you, Ben. It was a pleasure being on your show.

All right, folks. Well, I'm Ben Greenfield along with Dr. Richard Gaines from BenGreenfieldFitness.com, signing out. Check out the show notes BenGreenfieldFitness.com GainsWave for all the goodness, as well as the previous podcast episode that I did with Dr. Richard Gaines about the whole sound wave therapy thing, because we took a deep dive into that in our other episode. So thanks for listening in and have a healthy week.

You've been listening to the Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast. Go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness and performance advice.

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