Is Metformin Really Dangerous, Little-Known Peptides For Muscle Gain & Fat Loss, Testosterone Replacement Therapy & Much More!

I have a Master's degree in physiology, biomechanics and human nutrition. I've spent the past two decades competing in some of the most masochistic events on the planet, from seal fit, Kokoro, Spartan Agoji, and the world's toughest mudder to 13 Ironman triathlons, brutal bow hunts, adventure races, spearfishing, plant foraging, free diving, bodybuilding and beyond. I combine this intense time in the trenches with a blend of ancestral wisdom and modern science. Search the globe for the world's top experts in performance, fat loss recovery, gut hormones, brain beauty and brawn to deliver you this podcast everything you need to know to live an adventurous, joyful and fulfilling life. My name is Ben Greenfield. Enjoy the ride. This episode blew my mind. A lot of my episodes do that. I'm a blessed guy. I get to talk to very smart, talented people who teach me a lot of things every week for hours. I think that's, that's one of my main forms of education really is having a podcast. And I learned a lot on today's show, so you're going to enjoy it. It's all about testosterone optimization, but we also get into metformin. We get into peptides. This is a fun one. Or as I'm prone to say, a doozy. So before we jump into today's episode with Jay Campbell, I realize that as you're about to find out, this particular podcast may generate some amount of confusion. We discuss Metformin, something that I have vilified in the past. We also discuss testosterone replacement therapy, something that I've also question the wisdom of in the past. And I've been doing since I interviewed Jay quite a bit of research on all the different studies that he has been sending me. And the question that I get after I release a podcast like this is Ben, what are you going to change? What do you do? What's your plan? And I'll summarize it as follows and then listen into the episode to understand what I'm about to say here. A Regarding Metformin and what we discuss when it comes to the safety of Metformin, I still do not plan on beginning to supplement with the 1500-2000 milligrams of metformin that appears to be so popular in the anti aging circles. And primarily that is because my current habit of using things like bitter melon extract, Ceylon cinnamon, apple cider cider vinegar, etc. Seem to be managing my blood glucose levels just fine. And I do wear a continuous blood glucose monitor and have no concerns about my blood sugar. If I did have concerns about my blood sugar, however, or if I wanted to use Metformin for some of the other benefits Jay and I discuss in this episode, like muscle gain or fat loss, I'm no longer opposed to the idea of using Metformin. I thoroughly went through all the research studies that Jay sent to me, and for the reasons that Jay alludes to and what you're about to hear, I think metformin is okay. And I know people will also say, well, Ben, didn't you write one of the big articles on the Internet that says the dark side of Metformin? I did. And one of the things that you will find if you go and listen to my podcast over the past 10 years is I will readily admit when I find new research or when new research comes to light, that what I've said before was not fully informed or more research has come out on it. And therefore I will change my stance, I will change my position. I am not so dogmatic and myopic that I'm not willing to look at research and listen to what people are saying. And in this case, it turns out that most of the research done on the deleterious effects of metformin were done on compromised patient populations with liver issues, kidney issues, or in people who were using three to five times the recommended dose of it. Okay, I'll get off that soapbox. We also talk about testosterone replacement therapy and peptides. And I know you're going to ask me, well, Ben, are you going to start on testosterone replacement therapy and are you going to start on peptides? The thing is, I've already used peptides like BPC157 and TB500 and some of the others that we talk about in this episode. But regarding peptides, yes, I plan on launching into a pretty hefty stack of cognitive peptides, muscle gain peptides, fat loss peptides, anti aging peptides, et cetera. I'll be monitoring my blood results over the next few months, but I'm working with a physician already and will likely be using some of the very similar peptides that we discuss in this episode. I'm also asked if I'm going to start on testosterone replacement therapy if I decide to continue to race professionally, I will not, I cannot ethically or legally, legally use testosterone replacement therapy. If I decide not to continue competition in those type of events or when I stop competition in events sanctioned by the World Anti Doping association, et cetera, I will readily consider the use of testosterone replacement therapy along with the use of things like ipamorelin and some of the growth hormone releasing peptides that we discuss in this podcast. Absolutely not opposed to it with proper dosing and monitoring. And we just kicked that horse to death in this show. And then finally, thyroid. He discusses the use, kind of like the off label use of thyroid even if you don't have hypothyroidism. When I finished up Ironman racing on a very heavy ketogenic diet had horrible thyroid values. I currently take about 60 milligrams of an armour thyroid per day and monitor my thyroid values. I am even considering, based on what Jay and I discuss, doubling that up and bumping that up to closer to 120mg of an armour thyroid per day. Simply again because I'm not opposed to the idea of better living through science. I've seen a lot of good data on it. I like the idea of supporting my body's hormone production as I age. And so again, thyroid would be something I would lump into the category of testosterone replacement therapy as something that once you start it, if you stop, you may actually see some amount of thyroid deficiency, but if you continue to take it, you're just replacing what your body isn't making. And again, I started on 60mg of Armour Thyroid after being diagnosed with basically borderline hypothyroidism, self inflicted from me, putting my body through the masochistic ringer of very low carb dieting, extreme endurance activities and a lot of things that I have foregone in the past. So I realize I may have just opened up a big old can of worms and created more questions than I answered. But hopefully in this podcast episode with Jay, you'll discover a lot of the answers to those questions. And of course you can go leave your own comments, your own questions, etc. If you go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com Jay that's BenGreenfieldFitness.com J A Y hey folks, pop your metformin, chomp on some nicotine gum, grab yourself some testosterone because we're going to cover all those things and a whole lot more in today's show with a new acquaintance of mine, Jay Campbell. Jay Campbell, he's actually well known in the men's physique world. He's a top men's physique competitor and he's also well known in the testosterone world because he wrote what I thought would be yet another one of those bro style testosterone man. After reading over the past two days in preparation for this interview, I even tweeted this last night. It's like one of the most comprehensive and helpful guides to testosterone optimization that I've ever read. And so we're going to delve into some of the tricks and tactics that he gets into in that book as well, because his real expertise is in manipulating and tweaking the human endocrine system. So his website is FabFit over 40, because apparently he, he likes alliteration. And the way that we first met was actually based on an article I published about Metformin, the diabetic drug Metformin that's kind of used off label now for anti aging protocols and other things that Jay can get into as we talk. And I posted that article, one of my friends on Facebook sent me a link to Jay's video and said, hey, this guy has some of his thoughts about Metformin and mentioned your article. And I went and watched Jay's video, which I'll link to in the show notes. You can find them at BenGreenfieldFitness.com Jay that's BenGreenfieldFitness.com J A Y after watching the video, I thought, well, he's got some really interesting thoughts on Metformin and I'm always a fan of learning more and opening up discussion about things that I've been studying up on. And so, so I wanted to ask Jay about Metformin, but then once I got him on the schedule on the show to ask him about metformin, turns out like he knows a ton about peptides and about testosterone optimization therapy and has some really cool fat loss muscle gain protocols. So we just have a ton to talk about today. So I should probably shut up, Jay, and welcome you to the show.

Ben. What's up, brother? It's such an honor to be here and I appreciate the introduction.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So before webefore we jump into Metformin, I'm just curious because I know, I know you. When I was reading your testosterone bible, you talk about like your daily routine. So tell, tell me about your daily routine leading up to this point. Because It's a, it's 10:00am in the morning when we're recording this.

So because I'm, you know, I follow a protocol, a book that I wrote. It's a fasting lifestyle where it's kind of an alternate, you know, every other day fasting. And I eat when I train. So, you know, currently I train three days a week, which is Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Or, you know, sometimes life gets in the way. It's Saturday, whatever. And then I fast the other four days, and I. That when I'm trying to, you know, lower my body fat as much as possible, usually for, you know, going on a trip. In fact, I'm going on a trip with my wife and some friends to play carbon in a week and a half or so. So I've been doing that since the early part of January. But I do have a very, you know, militant, regimented life. You know, I wake up early in the morning. I have two daughters. And then I have a bonus daughter from my current wife, Monica, who's an amazing person, by the way. I have to throw a shout out to her.

I like that. A bonus daughter.

Yeah, she's. Yeah, yeah, that's. She's. So she's the bonus mom to my biological daughters. But. So, yes, I wake up about 6, 6:15. It depends. Sometimes a little earlier. And yeah, very, very regimented when I'm dieting like this. And, you know, we're obviously able to talk a little bit about the book that I recently wrote that's called Guaranteed Shredded, which is essentially like a 10x version of my metabolic blowtorch diet. But anyway, I take my.

I read that too, by the way. It's. I feel like I've just been inside your head for the past three days because I always, whenever I get anybody on the podcast, like, like to go through all their work. So, yes, Guaranteed Shredded was also really good.

Awesome, man. I appreciate it. Yeah. So, you know, I take metformin, a desiccated thyroid. Right now I'm using armor, my doctor script knew armor. I take. What's the mushroom supplement? Lion's mane for cognition. And this is, by the way, on a fasted day. So today's a training day. We actually trained this morning at about 7:45. So I didn't take the lion's mane, but I always take metformin and armor. And then, you know, I take my morning supplements, minerals. I take curcumin, turmeric. I'm trying to think in my head right now, like, what other things I take. Obviously, I take coins on Q10. Trying to think. Some of the other things that kind of having a brain shift right now, that's okay.

You should have taken more lion's mane. You should have taken more lion's mane.

Yeah, actually three capsules of lion's mane.

I know the eyebrows will have gone up on two of those things that you mentioned, Metformin and armor, thyroid. So I definitely want to dig into why you would include those in a. In your routine. But also I noted that in your book guaranteed shredded. You also get into how even on a fasted day, you'll still work in these little meals. Specifically a blend of protein powder and MCT oil. What's the deal behind that? Why are you kind of squeezing those into fasting day?

So it's a good question. You don't have to, I put that in there in the book. For people that need to lose a lot of weight, they may be somewhat obese or over fat. That, and that's kind of the fastest way. So. So essentially like the whole book, if we just start talking about that book, is, is based on metabolic flexibility. And you know, what I mean by that is, is that, you know, I try to incorporate almost every type of quote unquote dietary lifestyle. So low carbohydrate, you're almost even in trace ketosis if you fast 30 to 34 hours, you know, once your body becomes fast adapted, there's obviously, you know, the higher essential fatty acids from when you're eating low carb, obviously high protein. So it's kind of incorporating a lot of different dietary approaches in, you know, a seven day week, depending on how many days you're fasting. So you know, to answer that question, MCT oil, medium chain triglyceride oil I find is kind of the most palatable and also the most, you know, digestible, bioavailable in combination with protein. So if a person is, you know, fasting 18 to 20 hours that day and they do want to get something like 1000 or 800, 1200, whatever calories, you know, if you drink a couple of those shakes takes, you get pretty close, right? Because like if you take four, table three or four tablespoons of MCT oil, you're like over 100 grams of fat, I think, or close to it, like 80 or whatever. So, you know, you can get pretty much a good healthy dose of essential fatty acids. And I know, you know, about MCT oils, you know, medium chain triglycerides, they're supposedly, you know, tissue sparing and they can be, I guess, but I just find it's the easiest for people to digest if they're going to cram down three protein shakes, you know, in like a four to six hour period, you.

Get the kind of the bypassing of some of the processing via the liver as well and direct ketone production. So they just, they're pretty useful. Plus they're, as I think most people know, relatively non insulinogenic. And obviously you're getting a little bit of insulin with the protein. So Essentially what someone's doing, if I understand correctly from your book, if they're fasting and they want to still, let's say, maintain some amount of anabolism or, or avoid, especially if they're fasting as often as four days a week, which you just alluded to avoid some kind of like a, you know, a reduction in the metabolic reset point. They're kind of fasting most of the day, then around like 6pm or so, which obviously gives you probably a good like 18 hours or so. Fasted, kind of having one of these shakes and maybe having another one around 8pm or so.

That's exactly right. And like I said, like for me now I'm so adapted to the fasting lifestyle. I've been doing it for four years consecutively now I don't even eat eat. Right. Like I'll just go, for example, like last time I ate, I mean, obviously I ate this morning, but the last time I eaten before this morning was Wednesday night. My last meal was like about 8:50. Right. So I got probably like 33 and a half hours, almost 34 hours before I ate this morning and I just didn't eat yesterday. But yeah, I mean, your answer is exactly correct. You know, I find that people that are not fast adapted who are trying to make that diet work, you know, it's best for them, especially if they have a lot of weight to lose to, you know, keep, like you said, their insulin signal, you know, suppressed and still get some caloric intake so that they don't feel weird. Because we can get into that later when we talk more about fasting. But there's definitely an issue in the microbiota with people and it could be anything, any kind of pathogen, Candida, anything that could be growing in there that causes people to have kind of those hunger pangs and they really want to feel like they're full and saturated. So that's kind of why I recommend that because obviously it also keeps carbohydrates out of the diet. As you said, there is a little bit of an insulinic response with the protein, but you know, as long as they've fasted 18 to 20 hours, it's not that big of a deal.

Yeah, speaking of the protein, I noticed in the book that you recommended whey, and a lot of times whey, like for me personally doesn't reallydoesn't really agree with my stomach that much. But from what I understand, there are certain ways to kind of filter out some of the immunoprotective compounds that you'd find in whey. And you mentioned that you actually recommend a cold filtration whey isolate. What exactly is that?

So first off, your question is a really good question because I actually have seen research from some of the people that run the food sensitivity companies. I have a friend in Paul Burgess in England who's really big into that and he says that 70% of people have an allergy or some form of a response in their microbiome to whey protein. So I say cold filtered because I think it's just kind of the easiest from, how would I say it from a process standpoint for a ubiquitous idea that most people have access to around the world, they can find that. Personally, I actually use True Nutrition and I don't have any relationship with the company, but I use True Nutrition's protein because I've seen a lot of different label tests that they've had independently and then of course by themselves and they test out so, so high. And in fact, it's a really good question because I don't even use a whey protein for the most part. I usually use a combination of egg and cast iron calcium because again, it's thicker. You know, to me I just feel more saturated. You know, when it goes down, I just, it, it doesn't burn as fast as whey. But cold, cold filter, you know, wpi, you know, right. Immediately, like post training or even during training or even pre training is still decent, you know, as long as you don't have an allergy or reaction to it.

Yeah, yeah. And the cold filtration, just so you guys know, that's, that's just this method, method of isolating the way based on like the molecular weight and the size. But they use a cold processing environment. So it's almost like micro filtration. Similar. Like I've done podcasts on wine before and how you can filter out a lot of the components of wine using microfiltration and you know, like a good biodynamic organic wine that's been micro filtered a lot of times agrees with people a lot more when it comes to like headaches and histamine release and stuff like that. Same could be said for whey protein if you, if you can find a cold filtered. I, I for a long time was actually using Mount Capra because they do a goat way and the goat protein's a little bit smaller, so the thermodynamics of the protein are a little bit better. But I know they do a cold filtration and plus they're close to my House, and I know the owner. It's this little goat farm in Central Washington.

That's awesome. Yeah. Actually True Nutrition has a pea protein bend too, you know, for people that are vegans or, you know, vegetarians or people that try to avoid, you know, eating animals. And obviously I don't have any judgment towards that. You know, that's a whole nother conversation. But he has an amazing pea protein. The guy that owns True Nutrition, and it's like 20 flavors now. Okay, so a ton of ve. Yeah, a ton of vegans go there and get their protein because I think a lot of people get confused and I don't want to rabbit hole on this, but you probably have heard this. A lot of people in the quote unquote vegan world believe that hemp protein is a fully essential amino acid complex. And it's not that. There's a lot of like, you know, misinformation online about that. The only one that's actually true essential multispectrum is pea protein. And I had to answer that question a couple months ago, so I wanted to make sure that I fact checked that.

But it is true, actually. Like not, not, not a show for my own products. But that's actually why I put pea protein in the kion energy bar is it has a really good profile. But I wanted people who didn't want to do whey to be able to have something. But you know what I do most of the time now, I've almost completely replaced all of my protein powders with like a rice pea protein blend called Mediclear that's made by Thorne. And it's expensive, but man, I use that as my primary base for my morning smoothies now because it's got like curcumin and, and sulforaphane. You can almost feel it healing your gut and detox your gut as you drink it. And now what I've been doing at night is I do a like aalmost, like a keto ice cream. I just take a bunch of chocolate Mediclear and I blend that up with egg yolks, coconut milk, stevia, and sea salt. I don't even use an ice cream maker. I just blend it in my blender for about four minutes and then toss that in the freezer in a little stainless steel ball bowl. Dig into that at night. It's absolutely amazing.

It's probably awesome.

Yeah, it's really good.

It's a great recipe.

Yeah. Okay, so we could probably go on all day about our routines and our smoothie habits, but let's dive into what brought us together in the first place. And something you already mentioned. You take Metformin, as do a lot of people, I think like a quarter of the folks in Tim Ferriss's Tools of Titans and a whole bunch of anti aging enthusiasts, they're really on this metformin bandwagon. And I wrote an article questioning whether or not that was a good idea because of some of the issues that have been brought up about metformin, such as its effect on the mitochondria and its ability to be able to possibly limit some of the activity of the electron transport chain complex 1 in the mitochondria. Some of the issues with the potential for lactic acidosis. I talked a little bit about mineral deficiencies like B12 or vitamin deficiencies like B12, a little bit about the potential liverpass issue, and then some of the gut discomfort that comes along with it. And so that was kind of like what I laid out as far as some of my concerns about using Metformin as your primary strategy for glycemic variability or even as an anti aging strategy. Right. Because it's been shown to kind of have an effect on a lot of these chronic diseases associated with anti aging and also seems to have a positive impact on cellular autophagy. So you, you did a, did a pretty informative video with your thoughts about Metformin. So I'd love for you to kind of delve into and tackle some of these issues with Metformin and what your thoughts on them are.

Yeah, for sure. First off, I read your actually, full disclosure. So some guy, you know, who's a fan of both of us emailed me and was like, hey man, and blah, blah, blah, and he just had bullet points. And quite honestly, dude, like, that's just, you know, I'm like, you right? Like, I just like, oh cool, I'll just make a video. I have 10 minutes right now. So I just like hit the points. He went. When I actually went back and read your article, I didn't really disagree with anything that you had in there. And I'm not saying that to blow smoke up your ass. I'm being honest. I mean like, you didn't really have anything that was wrong. But I will, I will assess, you know, all those different points. So first off, with the mitochondrial dysfunction, the first person that really went to market, so to speak, you know, online, was Dr. Chandler Mars. I actually met her in Vegas at AFRM, which you were actually there as I was there in December. We didn't get a Chance to meet each other. But I, lots of physicians.

I even released my, my testosterone talk from aforementioned on the podcast and I mentioned her, I mentioned in my intro you were funny.

They weren't appreciative of your humor.

Oh man, like so many straight laced like non smiling doctors in the audience listening to me make penis jokes. But it was funny because I commented like of all the medical conventions I've been to to that one in particular seemed to have a disproportionate number of like jacked doctors on steroids at it. Yeah, yeah, very interesting event.

Well, it's funny. It's funny because dude, usually like, you know, my wife and I will joke because we've been going to the medical conferences for five years and like five years ago you went to A4M or AMMG or any of them and there was just fat people, like morbidly obese. It's just like, holy shit, you know, like what is going on? You know, this is the medical community. But it's gotten better and obviously I would rather see somebody in shape with a lab coat than a fat person smoking ten cigarettes.

Right, exactly.

Bottom line, you're right. I did see the same people. But as far as the mitochondrial dysfunction, so Dr. Chandler Mars took, there were like three studies, or maybe it might have been two and somebody could fact check me, but it's two or three. And where it came from were it was all three of the patient population groups were morbidly obese diabetics who were literally using anywhere from 6 to 9 gram metformin per day. Which as you know, is like 100 times beyond. I mean not 100, but it's way beyond a life extension dose for the audience.

What would be a life extension dose or what would be like a dose that you personally would take on a, on a daily basis for metformin?

Yeah, great question. So it really depends, I think on body size. It also depends on, you know, kind of like your ancestry. I feel that people that are from ancestry is closer to the equatorial plain, need a less dosage because for some reason they have better insects, insulin sensitivity and insulin regulation like naturally versus like people who are big, you know, white, like I guess Slavic, northern European who have, don't have the insulin sensitivity. So I can take a higher dose. But to answer your question, totally.

And we're just going to keep on rabbit holing before you answer my question. That's very interesting for folks because as you know, when you go down to Playa, you can get away with eating more fruit when you're in the sunshine. That's, that's like one big topic of T.S. wiley's book. Lights Out, Sleep, Sex and Survival.

Okay, very good, very good. So check this out. So my wife, who has a mom who's literally, she's dead, you know, God rest her soul, but she is from like the southern part of Mexico. Like she was born on a ranch. She's like very dark, complected and so her dad is like a white dude. But she has like, she can only take 250 milligrams of metformin AM and PM. And that would be like a very baby dosage. I take a grammar AM and a gram pm. And just for the record for the audience, I've been on metformin for 17 years in a row. I feel like it's most. I don't think there's anything that at least that I know of in medicine right now that has more bang for the buck. As you know, it can't be the medical community, the pharmaceutical industry is not going to promote it because obviously it can't be patented anymore. Now of course they are working on some different drugs and Ryan Smith can talk to you about those till you're blue in the face. There's three or four of them and they're from the bike, the Biguanides complex or whatever. But anyway, there's like three of them in the route in the pipeline coming. So anyway, that study was then taken by Dave Asprey and he went all out against Metformin. And I feel like from those two people it kind of filtered into the community that people think that mitochondrial dysfunction can be caused by that. And then also there was some information about lactic acidosis. So here's the thing about lactic acid. There was one study in the late 40s also in a massively compromised population patient cohort. Again, end stage, the patients were in end stage renal failure and they were obese and diabetic. So like I always like to say is that we always have to be mindful that correlation does not equate to causation. But that study, Ben, has literally infiltrated the medical community for 60 years.

So these are, these were obese and diabetic patients. Now the previous study that you alluded to, they were simply obese folks taking a lot of metformin. And this is a separate study?

Yes, this isso. This is. I actually have these. I can send these studies to you. I have the links to them. I'm actually there in front of me.

I'd pull them yeah, sure. If you email them over to me, by the way, I'll put links to all these in the show notes for those of you listening.

Yeah, yeah, for sure, absolutely, I will. But so there's so theso on lactic acidosis. It's now been studied like, you know, heavily in the last four to five years in the scientific community and then also just in the research community in medicine. And I wanted to read this to you. So this is essentially how they say it now. So elevated plasma metformin concentrations that can occur in individuals with renal impairment and a secondary event or condition that further disrupts lactate production or clearance, which would be cirrhosis. So that's the liver problem. Sepsis or hypoperfusion are typically necessary to cause any metformin associated lactic acidosis as these secondary events may be unpredictable. And the mortality rate for Mala, which again is metformin associated laxadinosis approach, is 50%. Metformin has been contraindicated in moderate and severe renal impairment. So all that means is you're not going to get. And by the way, last statement is that the reported incidence of lactic acidosis in clinical practice has proved to be extremely low. Less than 10 cases per 1 million patients over the same amount of 60 years. So the bottom line is you have to have either liver issues or renal issues to ever even have a chance of this. And in fact, like three years ago, I forget what it was somebody in the AMA and then obviously the fda, they approved metformin's usage in people that have, you know, not. I guess they're just like kind of looking at where their level of acute toxicity is for renal impairment. And based on where they're at, they can still get prescribed metformin. So it's really not toxic at all unless you're compromised. Now the other ones that you talked about, obviously mineral deficiencies like B vitamin, B12 and folate. That is absolutely positively true. Okay. But I have been, I know, you know, Dr. Anthony J. I think he did a podcast with him. I did one too. We did a live broadcast together and stuff. And he analyzed my DNA, which he probably did for you too, but he analyzed my DNA on air and I had, have the B vitamin deficiency. So someone that is genetically predisposed and codes for that B vitamin deficiency, who also then uses metformin, has to, you know, almost like double up on your B vitamin and folate. Because you're right, it absolutely depletes those two things. But again, I've been using, you know, a pretty strong Dosage of like, I use like Jaro formulas, like B B. Right. And I've, I've used other stuff too. You know, I've even used stuff from Vitamins Shop. And I'm fine. And again, when I say I'm fine, I have my blood work. I do blood work twice a year. I have since I started testosterone in 19. What was it, 1999, 2000? So I know what I'm saying, that I have no issues with it, that I don't have any issues with it. And then the same thing with liver issues, just to address that too. If a person is compromised through hepatic function, then metformin would definitely be contraindicated. But I've even seen doctors and obviously I, I have a lot of great relationships with doctors now in the industry who do prescribe testosterone to men and women who have fatty liver issues. So, I mean, it really just comes down to, I think what that individual's level of being compromised is depending on where their issue is, what disease ideology they have. And then the last one, we could really rabbit hole on this because I pulled up some studies on this. But the gastric issues that people have is actually just from metformin cleaning up their microbiota. Because all of the new research that's come out in the last two years and the research is phenomenal on this, they are now saying that metformin is absolutely cleansing the microbiota. So for people that get flatulence, nausea, gut discomfort, they're basically eating shitty diet, probably drinking too much alcohol, probably very acid acidic, and the metformin is basically working their microbiome to cleanse it, and they're feeling, you know, the response which is like, oh shit, what's going on inside of me?

That's very interesting, you know. You know, metformin originally came from French lilac, also known as goats roux, and was known in medicine for a very long time as having that side effect of kind of creating some amount of gut discomfort. But what you're saying is that that might be due to the fact that it's actually adjusting the biome of the human gut. And correct me if I'm wrong, but have you found that as someone's biome becomes used to or even becomes balanced via the use of metformin that that gastrointestinal upset seems to subside completely gone.

Let me read this to you. So this is literally a 2019 study that just came out and somebody actually sent this to me about, I wanna say in probably November. It was, you know, pre Pre published or pre released, but it just came came out. Metformin, the most frequently administered medication to treat patients with type 2 diabetes, has only recently been suggested to alter gut microbiotic composition through the increase in mutant degrading Akkermansia mucephila as well as several scfa producing short chain fatty acid microbiota. The gut microbiota of participants on metformin has now exerted alterations in gut metabolomics with increased ability to produce butyrate and propionate substances involved in glucose homeostasis. Thus, metformin appears now to fully affect the microbiome and an individual's metformin tolerance or intolerance will be influenced by their microbiome.

This is very interesting because I know the gut lining of patients with type 1 diabetes tends to show greater signs of inflammation, even more than what you see in celiac disease. And so this would be very interesting. So it could not only have an effect on glycemic variability, but it may also be able to alter the body biome.

Yes, I mean, I mean, I'm telling you it is. And you know, I actually, it's funny, but I always felt that that's what it was doing because in my many conversations with patients and people that, you know, I counsel or talk to online or whatever, they would say that to me and they would be like, man, I had to kill it. And I'm like, well, dude, you know, if it was a woman, I'd be like, well, what are you eating? And then they tell you and it's like, well, of course you're going to feel like that. It's telling you that your diet needs to be cleaned up. So I'm very, very confident, confident that as more and more of this research now comes out about metformin, it will confirm that. And I think, you know, both of the trials that are going on now, the TAME trial and then the MILES trial, they have, there's already information that's coming out, like if, you know, some of the moles and stuff that are involved in that, because both of these studies have been going on for like 18 months. But I mean, Ben, I've heard amazing things about metformin. The one thing we really have to talk about too, or two things, is that it protects the brain, it's extremely, extremely neuroprotective, and it also improves vascular function or it cleans vascular pathways. So again, whatever it's doing, whatever its mechanism of action is, and there's a lot of theories, they really don't understand really what it's doing. I mean, I think, you know, that it does reduce MTOR signaling but. And it's very minor by the way. You know, I get a lot of bros that come at me and they're like, dude, I can't use metformin if I'm not on testosterone or I want. I'm on anything because. Because it's going to limber my MTOR signaling. And yes it does.

They better not also fast.

Right? But the reality is metformin is doing so many other things, both extracellular and intracellularly that is positive for you living a longer, stronger life that it's totally worth using. I mean, it's definitely not going to limit your muscle gains. And I do have some really smart friends that are body builders and you know, they told me a long time ago that, you know, don't listen or read anybody that says that, you know, using metformin is going to limit muscle gains.

One thing I was going to ask you about too. Have you ever run into anybody in the community who's just using like, like goats root herb, like using the actual tea or French lilac or anything like that instead of using metformin?

I do know some people. I mean again, I'm not. They're not friends and I couldn't like send you they're thoughts. Some people in France that do use the French lilac herb and I also do know that it's also been used in medical practices over there, dude, since way before metformin was even created for like blocking glaucoma, you know, again, you know, regulating insulin and blood sugar. So I've definitely read about that, but I don't know anyone specifically that's like using the actual roots.

Interesting. Yeah, it's kind of similar to like NAD. Dr. Mercola's approach to that is he uses POW D Arcobark tea which contains some beta lapachines that almost act as like a precursor to nad. I'd be interested to see like a comparison between like go through herb uses a tea versus Metformin. Although metformin is pretty easy to get these days, right? Do you, do you need a straight up physician's prescription or you just buy online?

Yeah, it's actually a great question and people ask me this all the time. I mean I would take. We created the chapter where I have metformin in the book the Tot Bible, which we can talk about later when we get into testosterone. Has an actual like all of the research, Ben, like I compiled. I mean it's obviously out of date now, right? Because of the new stuff that's come out. But when the book was released last year, which is literally about a year and 10 days from now, I think it was February 1st, it has a whole chapter on Metformin. I compiled all of the positive research and I actually created a part in there that basically says, use this. Go into your office and tell them the following. Okay. And you say you want to use Metformin because it's cardio protective, prevents cancer, and is believed to stop the progress of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and dementia. It's also affordable and easily provided by your local blank insert. Your pharmacist, right? And so it's like we were going to make it into a cutout and they could take it in. But the bottom line is if your doctor is smart, they are in the cash pay side. They're not in the sick care system. But if they don't, there's a really awesome online supplement or pharmacy called In House Pharmacy V. So Victor U. Underwear. So it's inhousepharmacy Vu. You literally can buy 500 tablets and I think their best dosage get extended release. And you don't have to get extended release, but I find extended release works, but better than most people. Like 1650 milligram tablet, which would be for me, I would probably split that up and do one in the morning, one at night is like 60 bucks for 500 tabs. I mean, it will last you all year.

Which one of your books, by the way? Because I'm going to link to all your books in the show notes, but which one of your books has that kind of like recommendation for the script to say to your doctor, yeah, it's.

In the Tot Bible.

Okay, all right, got it. So that one's in the Tot Bible. You also mentioned, I believe in the aggressively shredded book alternative to Metformin that you would recommend as Berberine. Is that something that you stack with Metformin or are you just recommending that if someone isn't able to get or doesn't want to use Metformin, to use Berberine as an alternative?

No. So, yeah, so I don't, I don't stack berberine. You know, being very honest and truthful, Berberine on paper is very similar in its mechanism of action to what Metformin does. But here's the issue I have with Berberine, and I'm very, very explicit and transparent about this whenever I talk about it, is that it's a supplement. Right? So you're dealing with the typical fda, not regulated, who's really checking the manufacturers that create berberine. And it's also been much more expensive than metformin is. So when you compare the 2 From those two factors, it's really hard for me to recommend berberine over metformin. And I also have to say as a caveat, and I'm not in the supplement industry anymore. I was, I got out, not for any specific reason, I just wanted to focus on optimization. But, but I had somebody who's, you know who they are, I will not mention their name, who's a very high level person in the food, you know, in the supplement industry. And he told me that he tested every single berberine product on the market and the results were in his exact words, not good.

Really? Do you mean in terms of it not having the amount of berberine specified or it actually being laced with other ingredients?

No, I think the former, not the latter. I mean, I mean, honestly, I don't know about the latter, but I definitely know it's the former. He said that the berberine like amounts were like. It was embarrassing is what he told me.

That's interesting. In the past I've recommended Thorn Berberine 500 as a Berberine source. I'm curious if he, I mean, honestly.

Thor is a really good product though. I mean I've never ever known anybody from that manufacturer to complain. So who knows? He didn't tell me. I would tell you if he did. He didn't say it was the name of that product, but he did name some other ones and they are some well known. Yeah, highly soldier products. I mean it's just so much cheaper. Why would you even waste time? I mean you can get metformin now legally, quickly, cheaply, it's way more effective. Oh, by the way, I didn't say this and I wanted to say this so people know. It is, I wanted to fact check myself. It is the most studied medication in the history of the world. And that's because we, you know, diabetes, diabetes is so prevalent. Yeah, right. I mean, think about how many people are affected by diabetes and that would be the reason why. And also one other thing too, about Metformin, it's very important that you and about I talk and talk about, and I find that this is important is that most people who are diabetic who use metformin, they take metformin to block the insulin or the insulin response, the blood sugar spike from their shitty lifestyles and diets. Right. So the doctors even prescribe it and they say, okay, when you're about to go eat your 4,000 calorie lunch, pound two of these metformin at the same time, within 15 minutes, blah, blah, blah. I mean, that's like what a diabetes titian tells them. Yeah, but when you're a lifestyle just like you and me. Exactly. But when you're, when you're a life extensionist, you know, like you and I are, you're taking it to obviously suppress your insulin signal as far and as epically as you can. And then obviously when you modulate your lifestyle, you know, either via fasting or ketogenic dieting or whatever you do to, you know, further suppress your insulin signal, it's just an amazing supplement. And you know, my good friend Jim Brown, he believes that there is like a net tissue buildup effect of metformin. So for someone who's on it for like five years consecutively, if they stopped using it, you know, say for two weeks, a month or whatever, they would probably still get the similar effect as far as its, you know, glucose regulation and insulin suppression. So because again of that net tissue effect and I don't have any research or data to back that up. But he's also been a longtime user of it and he's, he, you know, gone on and off Metformin and he figures that he feels that like after a month of being off of it is when you lose the effects.

Interesting. Okay, well, I'm currently working on a book with a lot of anti aging protocols and damn you, because I'm going to take some of this research and please do also send me these studies that you've talked about because I'm going to put those in the show notes. But I'm also going to do, I always like to, to people always say, oh, Ben, this person you interviewed on podcast XYZ said something that seems to stand in stark contrast to what you've said. Well, usually I'll listen out to what that person has to say, then review the literature, then come to my conclusion. And so A, send me the literature and B, damn you. Because this could involve me returning to that chapter of the book for another hour and weaving in some clarification.

I'll write it for you. How's that?

Could work. Have you write the sidebar. Okay, so big picture here, before we move on to some peptide and testosterone optimization pieces that I want to talk to you about would be if you have liver issues, if you have kidney issues, you may want to proceed with caution. Use proper dosing, not the mega dosing used in some of these studies that vilified metformin. And then regarding the gastric issues, bear with it. It will likely go away as your biome adapts. And finally, regarding any vitamin or mineral deficiencies. Deficiencies, Consider supplementation with like a good B vitamin or methyl tetrahydrofolate source and you'll cover those bases.

Yeah, for women, for sure, they need the folate, you know, just because they just need folate for other reasons and stuff. But yeah, dude, that's a very, very good summary. I would say that men, most men should start at 500 milligrams AM and PM. Just, you know, you're 175 pound, bro. You're in decent shape. You're under, you're under 25% body fat. That's what I would do. Women, half that dose like 250, 250. And then, you know, just titrate up as you, as you like you said as your microbiota gets cleansed, you become used to and adapted to using metformin. And I think when I first started using metformin I was like 500 milligrams for probably two or three years. And then I was like, you know what, Let me just see what happens. Also, one other thing to mention is that the Life Extension foundation, the lefers, dude, they've got tons of internal research on metformin. There's people at the LEF foundation that have been using like 3 to 4 grams of metformin for like 30 years. Wow, they're huge. Yeah, they're huge on that. They're just not really very out there. Like you. You can go into their forums on Life Extension foundation and there's some people that have spoken about that. But it's just, it's like if you Google search that you won't find that, you know, Bill Falloon and the people that are behind that, you know, I've heard him speak. I can't remember where it was a long time ago, but he was saying that they had a lot, they had a lot of people in the Life Extension foundation that were using 3 to 4 grams a day. Yeah, but that's, that's a lot. That's a lot.

Okay, got it. Well, I'll weave together all these links and research and again, folks, go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com Jay but don't tune out yet because we have a lot of other things I want to talk to Jay about. Specifically in researching you and some of the topics I wanted to discuss in this podcast. I viewed a Roundtable that you did on peptides with a few physicians. And you guys talked about some very interesting peptides like I've discussed on the show before. For example, BPC157 as one injectable peptide, or even an orally available peptide that could be used for healing the gut, for healing different tissues if it's injected near a tissue site subcutaneously. I've talked about TB500 as kind of another one that's very, very useful for repair and recovery. Recovery. But when it comes to peptides, you guys discussed a lot of others. You and I were even talking off air about a new nootropic peptide called C Max that I'm very interested in trying. What are some of your favorite peptides, even ones that might fly under the radar? And can you fill us in on what you think people should be looking into and paying attention to when it comes to the best of the best for peptides?

Absolutely. So first off, you know, shout outs. Props to Ben Greenfield because your article that you wrote on peptides, which I don't even know, was that like two years ago? When did you write that article?

I wrote two of them. One on one on BPC157 and one on TB500.

No, you wrote one bigger. You want like a compilation of about a bunch of different peptides. I think you were talking about like GHRP 2 and 6.

That one. So more of the growth hormone stack peptide peptides. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Yeah. I wrote thatI wrote that about a year ago. I'll link to it in the shownotes.

So yeah, yeah, so I linked to that article in the TOT Bible because like, you know, we have a chapter in the Tot Bible called Agents of Change and we literally every single one of these, the ones you just said, of course, tb, BPC and all the top peptides. And you know, we did tons of research, you know, what's available because obviously, as you know, with peptides, it's kind of the future of medicine and there's just not that much, much research. But you know, what is there we put in that book. But so yeah, so great job on that article. I do know a lot about peptides. I've used pretty much all of them. I have not used some of the newer ones like the ones that we were talking about on the roundtable last week. I have not used any of those nootropics like you. We're going to be using those, it seems like pretty soon. But this is what I'll say about peptides and what I know about peptides. And then we'll get into like, which ones I think are the best ones. I, I think that peptides for the money and again, from a growth hormone releasing standpoint are a great option, especially if you're in the United States where if you're an aging man or woman and you want to use some sort of a growth hormone analog to slow down your aging process, to improve skin vitality, deeper sleep, increase polyphasic sleep, yada yada, it's impossible, unless you're pretty wealthy to get of a sense script for growth hormone, right? For actually human growth hormone and a specific test if the doctor's on the up and up, because they're not, they can't. Technically, a doctor cannot write today, Ben, a script for growth hormone for a person that says, I want to do this, I'm 52 years old, because it's going to improve my life quality. They can't do that. You still have to pass a test. It's called a glucostim test. And then there's one other test and if they don't pass that, if you don't fail, quote, unquote, I say pass, but you have to fail it to qualify. It's like a concussion type test. If you were like a full contact fighter or you were in the military or anything like that, a cop, law enforcement, a fireman, whatever, you know, you might pass it because you probably have had issues where you've been affected. But other than that, you can't get growth hormones. So I say that as a caveat because peptides are obviously the next best thing. Now here's my experience with peptides. I have been using peptides. I first started using Ipamorelin and we could talk a lot about Ipamorelin. I know a lot about ipamorelin, probably in, 2002, 2008, and at that time it was like you could not get these from any kind of compounding pharmacy. The only place you could get them were obviously the research chemical companies, however, and I won't name the company because they're long gone, but the company that I got ipamrelin for was actually like the back room of a quote unquote stringent quality controlled pharmacy. And so they were just kind of like doing it in the back office. And so this company was making, making like the purest Ipamorelin. So when I started using it, I was like, wow. I mean, you definitely noticed it. It was like to me, and I've used obviously human growth hormone at very low Dosages as an experimentation through my life as a guinea pig like you, to see what stuff works. I never really got anything out of growth hormone. But also, once I have my DNA mapped with Anthony, I have a lot of Neanderthal DNA and I also have high natural IGF one. So I probably was one of those people where, like, I'd have to use, like, a map, massive dosage of GH to really feel anything. And I was like, nope, I'm not going to do that. I have some forms of cancer in my dad's side of the family, and I'm like, you know what? I don't want to increase the risk of metagenic tumor formation, so I avoid that. But Ipamorelin, I use that at 3.

Before you keep going into Ipamorelin, we can't gloss over what you said about Neanderthal genes. Some people may have no clue what you mean when you say you have Neanderthal genes. What you are. Does that mean.

It means that if you get your DNA mapped and you get your haplogroup, you know, examined and, you know, they drill down, there's like, a percentage of all of us have a percentage of Neanderthal. And I have, like, almost three times the Neanderthal percentage that the average, you know, person that does a 23andMe screening.

Geez, do you sleep in a leopard skin unitard or anything like that to stay close to your Neanderthal ancestors?

I'm a knuckle dragger and, like, you know, I have family members. Like, if they hit you, you're going to sleep.

Yeah, yeah. There's this whole whole, you know, backstory behind, you know, possible interbreeding between someone who is more Neanderthal, like, and kind of more anatomically modern humans. And, yeah, it's very interesting. And you could almost, you know, it sounds stereotypical, but you could look at the people who have the higher number of Neanderthal genes and they kind of are a little bit more mesomer. Polymorphic, square jaw, like, high bone density, big hands. It's quite interesting.

Big feet.

Yeah.

You know where we're going with this, Ben?

Yep, I know where you're going. Okay, so back to ipamorelin.

Yeah. So ipa. So I tried that when it first came out back in 2008, and I used, like, a typical dosage that, you know, you wrote about. I think it's 300 micrograms. So the thing, you know, and we don't have to keep rabbit holing on ipamilin because. Because I want to talk about Tessamorelin but Ipamorelin is the only peptide as of now that does not disturb natural growth hormone production. So your endogenous, you can use Ipamorelin concomitantly with anything and it's not going to disturb your natural growth hormone production. Now that said a caveat. That's obviously as long as you're not abusing Ipamorelin. I've seen bros and bodybuilder guys talking about using it four times a day. A boom dose or what they call a saturation dose, which again, I don't even know what that means anymore. But I've read people that done that. I'm sure if you do that, then yes, you're going to disturb natural production of growth hormone. But if you just use ipamorelin at like 300 micrograms, you know, before bed, and then maybe if you want to, you know, extend it, do it in the morning too, same dosage, you definitely will have better sleep, better skin quality, I think a little bit of improved fat loss again and you know, depending on your diet and if you have everything else dialed in and stuff like that. But that's it, you know, it's, it's not, you're not gonna have muscle gain. I mean, again, you know, people will talk about, you know, growth hormone, you know, releasing analogs and peptides and obviously HGH do havedoes have synergy with anabolic hormones. And I'm sure that's true. I mean, look at obviously professional bodybuilders, but you know, those are guys are using super physiological levels of everything and you have no idea it's possible polypharmacy, who knows what's going on. Right. So in what I'm at and where you and I are at and we're in like obviously the extending life, you know, using therapeutic things and doing things that make us feel better. I don't think that any of the peptides do that much, with the exception being Tessa Morelin. And if you want to jump into that, if you have any questions about Ipamorelin before I jump into that, because I am, I am fascinated by Tessa Morellon.

So for, for people who are going to use Ipamorel to enhance growth hormone to, it has a profound impact on sleep as well, like a morning dose and an evening dose. One thing that we should clarify, and I'm curious if the same could be said for this Tesamorelin that you're about to talk about, is that you typically want to combine it with growth hormone releasing. Yeah, like CGC 1295 is one very common one because they have different mechanisms of action, they work on different receptors. And you know, one is a growth hormone releasing hormone receptor and the other one is the ghrelin receptor which helps to stabilize your appetite that these two work on. But you canyou can literally get a five to six times effect of something like a growth hormone secretagogue like ipamorelin if you combine it with something like CGC1295 for example. But one thing the that we should clarify for people when we throw around terms like cjc, what exactly does that mean, Jay? What would that be classified as as far as a peptide is concerned?

Good question. I literally, I mean I knew the answer at one time. What does it. I don't even remember. I know like CGC 1295 with DAC or without DAC. And I'm trying to remember what does CGC stand for? I don't even remember.

I have no clue. But I can tell you something like BPC is body protecting compound and TB is thymosin beta. But I actually don't know what CJC is. I forget.

I didn't know that.

Yeah, I can tell you what GHRP.

Means, but I don't.

Yeah, well, basically one's a pet like G, like ipamorelin would be considered a ghrp growth hormone releasing peptide. And then if you look at something that you'd want to stack along with that, you'd call that a giant ghrh, a growth hormone releasing hormone I think is what the final H stands for, if I remember off the top of my head. But anyways, so you usually combine something with something like ipamorelin if you're gonna do to clarify, it's a sub like under the skin, a subcutaneous injection that you'd use, for example, in the morning or in the evening. And you mentioned the dosage, you're correct. It's usually like 250, 300 micrograms for example, of the Epimore.

So by the way, what you just said is absolutely right. You'll get a much stronger effect and a much longer, like a more pulsatile kind of diurnal release of growth hormone doing it with the, the DA or the cgc. But what I found, again, this is my personal experience. I felt like too much like I wanted to sleep, you know what I mean? Like it was such a strong growth hormone release that I didn't have my natural Jay Campbell energy go through the day. Like it just kind of, kind of put me in a like, oh man, I want to sleep. I want to take a nap. Which is, you know, if you talk to growth hormone users, that's what they feel like. Right. They're four or five IUs a day or whatever. You know, that's like every afternoon they got to take a nap type stuff. And so I just, you know, for me, I didn't want to have anything to do with that. But you're absolutely right. It's also important, you know, because I'm sure you have a ton of women that watch the show or listen to the show. IPamorelin is the best peptide for women by far. Okay. I've used all of them. You know, my wife uses ipumroller Morellin. I know at least a thousand women that I've either recommended it to or just indirectly know who have used it. They all report much better skin quality. They definitely, you know, their, their skin elasticity is much better and their sleep is insane. Like, when my wife uses, she uses like 150 to 200. I think she just like, dude, like a bomb could go off in her house and she won't wake up.

Yeah. So for people who. That happens. So you just save your full dosage for the evening.

Exactly.

Okay.

Exactly. So, yeah. So I mean, that.

But that.

Back to what you're saying too, you could do that too. I just, I felt weird whenever I injected the cgc. Like, I felt like a flush, you know, like that niacin flush. I felt kind of like irritated in the area of injection. I mean, it was. It was transient, it was temporary, but I just never liked the way I felt. And ipamorelin just, you know, one. One dose morning, one dose night. I never, ever, never was disturbed in any way. Never.

Yeah. I'm curious. Sometimes that can be due to the presence of different growth hormone binding proteins, or in this case, a low concentration of some of these growth hormone binding proteins. I actually recently wrote an article on growth hormone binding proteins and whether the lack of their activity could be what's responsible for some of the deleterious or even the cancer causing effects people associate with the use of not ipamorilin but actual growth hormone. And it turns out in writing that article and doing some research on it, one of the best ways to increase the activity of your binding proteins for any of these growth hormones is the use of quercetin, the antioxidant quercetin. And so in reading. That's awesome.

I didn't know that.

Yeah. In reading up on quercetin, I just did a podcast on it a couple of days days ago, actually. There are so many benefits to it. I don't currently supplement with quercetin, but after doing a lot of this research, it's kind of one of those ones that in the next few weeks I'm actually planning on beginning to incorporate it into like a nighttime tea or something like that for this growth hormone effect that it has. But that would be one thing to experiment with would be, you know, take some quercetin and see if you still have that same response to Ipamorelin or one of these other growth hormone releasing compounds.

As you were saying that? I just ordered it on Amazon. Good work, my friend.

There you go. Okay, Soso, Tessamorelin. What is that?

Okay, so Tessamorelin is, or Tessamorelin, whatever, however you pronounce it, is an FDA approved drug that was created. Somebody can fact check me. I'm pretty sure it was created by Merck, but I don't know, I might be off on that. But again, it's a major pharmaceutical drug. It was, it was created for HIV positive men suffering for lipodystrophy. And the name of the drug trademark is EGRIVA E G R I F T A. Okay. It's a super, super expensive drug. All the guys in the compound pharmacy industry have never understood because when they look at Tessa Morelin's chemical properties and then they compare it to what's the one that they sell all the time. And the name always, it's Sermorelin, Sermarell. They say, oh, it's the same, it's the same, it's the same. You know, I've had this conversation and actually this debate or argument with so many, you know, compound manufacturers because I'm like, okay, you think it's the same because you look at it. But have you ever used both of them? If you did, you would never say it's the same. And everyone who's ever used them says the same thing. In fact, if you watch that roundtable last week, which I think you did, you know, Dr. Daniel Stickler is like a huge believer in Tessa Morella now too. Anyway, here's my experience with been. I've used it twice now. Bro, that stuff is amazing. So, so it was actually designed to target abdominal, you know, adiposity. Right. So essentially gut fat, belly fat. So, you know, the one place that men probably put or are predisposed to put fat on more than anywhere else is like right around the navel, you know, that lower midsection, which also tends to, you know, get a lot of visceral fat buildup because again, poor Blood flow to that area. Area. So this, this, this peptide, bro, literally attacks gut fat. So, like, you could be, you know, I wouldn't say a fat slob, but you could be one of those people that like eats a lot, you know, over the holidays. And then you're like, okay, I'm gonna shred and I'm gonna. I got, you know, eight weeks, 10 weeks. I mean, that's really the, you know, the impetus of guaranteed shredded and use testamorelin at 1mg am and 1mg pm. Same exact style of dosing, you know, parameters that I use with Ipamorelin. And, and dude, it is a blowtorch. I mean, it literally incinerates belly fat.

Wow.

I've never seen anything like it. And quite honestly, and I know people are going to probably come at me after this show runs and say, oh, you're full of shit. I believe that tessamorelin works better than growth hormone in this particular way. Because I don't ever, in my experience using growth hormone and also talking to a lot of people use growth hormone. It never worked in an actual geographically regional targeting of fat in that area. And again, as you know, most men, that's the one place. And I actually found this out last year before I did my first round with it from Dr. Robert Cominaric, who's one of my roundtable doctors in Dayton, Ohio. And he told me, he's like, dude, Tessa Morellin is. I use Tessa Morellin with every single one of. He calls him metabolic emergencies. Like every guy in Ohio that he comes that sees him to get optimized, who's got giant belly or gut fat, he's like, I use it and it's like a hot and knife through butter.

Wow, interesting. Okay, so. So a lot of people are going to hear that. They're going to want to get it. They're going to wind up at whatever SARM's warehouse or peptides warehouse or wherever. And I'm curious to hear your thoughts about that and sourcing of Peptides.

Dude, it is. I mean, that we could got caught all day. We have to do another show on that. It's really sad, man. Like people ask me all the time like, well, where you recommend it? And I cannot for the life of me for who I am as a human being and what I stand for, I cannot recommend research chemical companies because, dude, if you know any of these people and you met any of these people, and again, I'm not judging them or casting anything on them, but most of them are convicted felons they have like weird backgrounds. Like you wouldn't trust them in a normal business deal. So why would you trust them with a chemical that you're going to be injecting into your body? And the truth is that there's one, one compounding pharmacy that I know of right now in North America that will manufacture these things and obviously very quality control process, sterility is maintained and all that. And that's tailor made.

Tailor made compounding you sent me. It was actually fascinating. You sent me the whole fact sheet, almost like the catalog of all the different peptides. And this is a fantastic resource too. Can I put that in the show notes, by the way?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, give credit to Ryan and stuff like that. Here's the thing though, it's important that we say this. And again, we could talk all day on peptides. There's only four peptides and somebody could fact check me, there might be six now because somebody said something the other day that two of them have recently been approved for a very specific, you know, finite medical process. But I know that the four that are FDA approved are Tessa Morellin, again because of the age, HIV, ibutamorin, which is MK677, which was also approved for men in HIV for growth hormone increases. And then the other two, I think are the ones that you mentioned, you know, bp, I forget, I don't even want to even mention them because I.

Don'T know bpc and I think.

Yeah, yeah, and I think, I think Sermarellin is also now in some capacities approved. But by the way, I'll say it right now, Sermorelin is absolutely, absolutely worthless. Anyone who's ever used Sermorelin and, and actually had real Sermorelin, they'll tell you like, I got nothing. I mean, you know, water retention. I mean, I just, I've never, I've never seen anybody that I've known use Sermorellan and get results. I mean, I've had guys tell me, oh, well, I thought I got, I lost fat, but yeah, but you were dieting and you know, doing more cardio and decreasing.

Most, most people will, will use something like CJC 1295 these days instead of Samorellon magic because it's so much better.

But see, the sad part is the doctors sell it like that's the big, you know, medical deal where they're like, oh yeah, we'll put you on Sermorellon. And I'm like, I don't want Sermorellen. It's useless.

Yeah, now you were talking about the compounding pharmacy like TaylorMade Compounding. But that people to clarify can't just go there and buy peptides. You have to actually get a script, work with a physician and then ask that physician if they get their peptides from tailor made compounds compounding and then that would at least ensure that you've got a physician who's ordering from one doc who's associated with the company you can at least vouch for.

Exactly. I mean they all, for the most part the good. And again, I'm blessed that I work with or know almost all of the quote unquote good doctors in America that are obviously in the cash pay optimization space. But when they can't get from a tailor made for whatever reasons back orders, they can't get whatever because again they're supplying the whole country. It seems like right now there's one other research chemical company and again it's a research chemical company. So I cannot, you know, in good faith tell anybody listening to the show right now that it's going to be legit. But I do know from testing and they're, you know, they're. What is that, what is that test thing, the SAG or whatever they put out? Like they test super high. Like I've never seen them fail anything like below 99 or 98.5%. So they, if you're gonna buy a research chemical company, I would say that Peptide Sciences, which I think they're in Scottsdale, Arizona, but it's just peptidesciences.com they test really high. And I also know that a lot of doctors do go there when they can't get stuff from TaylorMade. But here's the problem, Ben. It says on the damn label not for human use. So if you're a doctor and your patients are going there, I mean, hello, you know, there' sthere's definitely liability. So I mean if you're a doctor and you're listening to this show and I know you have a lot of doctors listening, don't write a script for your patient to fill Peptide Sciences. Yeah, just tell them to go there on their own.

Yeah, yeah. And I'll put a link to Peptide Sciences in the show notes as well. But again like these are not, these are, you know, you could get berberine and take a couple extra capsules and your blood sugar's gonna go down a little bit. You can, you can really f up your hormonal balance if you don't use these properly. So even if you do go to Peptide Sciences, do your fricking Research. And I'm, I'm gonna put a ton of research. Yeah, exactly.

There's companies out there that'll test them and that's what I would do. I mean, you know, I have good friends, you know, they're in the compounding pharmacy and like wherever we go, if anybody gives them anything, they're, let's test it. Yeah, yeah.

And I mean they're, and they're not inexpensive. You know, like a vial of Test Orleans is going to be like 80, 90 bucks. However, their efficacy, and I noticed the same thing walking around a 4m has influenced and kind of pushed especially the field of anti aging medicine towards a very keen interest in peptides. And I agree with you that it is kind of like the next frontier of medicine and supplementation, the use of these injectable pension peptides. Obviously there's still kind of the issue that a lot of people aren't going to use them anyways because they don't like needles. And the only orally available one I'm familiar with is BPC157, since that's found in human gastric mucosa. Anyways, there's A company called Dr. Seeds sells a pretty good BPC157 oral supplement. But ultimately, yeah, I mean they are injectable, they are not cheap. And so I think there'll be a little bit of a, it'll be a little while. But I think, think most people listening into this show are kind of a little bit more on the cutting edge of what they're willing to invest in terms of their bodies. So the other one, and I'll report on this, you introduced this to me, or at least I discovered it while viewing your peptides roundtable is C Max, which I just mentioned a little bit ago as a nootropic and I forget who. On the podcast, one of the physicians, it may have been Daniel Smith Stickler, he mentioned how profound of an improvement it had on things like clear head and cognitive function.

It was actually Dr. Jim Meehan. It was actually Dr. Jim MEEHAN, yeah. Because he scripts it and he's actually the only guy. In fact, I was going to get him to write you the script before our friend volunteered. So we're good. And I'll eventually introduce you to him because he's a good friend to have. He's an amazing guy. He listens to your show, by the way.

Yeah, but so for those of you who aren't familiar with C Max, I have a script for it. I'm gonna try it and I'll let you guys know how it goes. But it's spelled S E M A X if you wanna do your own research on it.

Yeah, and then there's another one. And let's just real quick, for everybody's purposes, we'll just run them down. So I already mentioned Ibutamorin, which, you know, most people in the quote unquote bodybuilding Fitness community know MK677, which is ibutamorin. So it's an oral peptide, it's encapsulated, oscillated. I did use it, I got it from a compounding pharmacy. Not tailor made because again that's one that is FDA approved. So really all the compounders will make it. But honestly dude, like it stopped working for me. And, and that is the, if you read people's reviews of it, they will say the same thing. Like I feel like that's one of those ones. It's a, first off, it was an orphaned originally orphan pharmaceutical drug from I think one of the biggest pharmacies. And they just kind of let it go. And then of course the optimization space community was like, oh wow. Well it does increase growth hormone and old people. So I felt like I used it for two straight months every day, did everyday doses, same thing, cap in the morning, cap at night. And all I did was I had increased hunger and I would wake up at like in the middle of the night. So it was definitely doing something to my central nervous system for a while. And then it stopped working. And everyone who's used it. If you go online and you read it and you search MK677 reviews, you'll see the same thing. And I believe that it does some sort of downregulation of, you know, what you were talking about, the protein, antibodies. You know, you have, you have issues where your body just says, okay, I don't really need this because I have my own growth hormones. So anyway, I, I'm not a fan of Ibutamorin. I'm also not a fan of GHRP 2 or 6. They, they do create massive growth hormone release, but they also increase cortisol and prolactin. And for a lot of, of guys that is a no, no. And then of course, as you know, Ben, they create increase hunger. So if you're a guy that's trying to lean out or diet, it's useless. You'll be so hungry you want to eat everything. And then, you know, you already said BP157 and TB500 are amazing, amazing peptides for healing. I've actually known people. I don't know if you know this, Ben, but I've known people who have used BP157 injected locally in the scalp and it regrows health hair.

Wow.

So, yeah, so. And. And by the way, we'll. I don't cut you off real quick, but what's his name? Ryan. Ryan is going to. He's got. He's coming on my podcast pretty soon with like one of their researchers, a Taylor made, and they supposedly have created a topical men's hair regrowth cream. Or. Or it might be an injection, I don't know specifically, but he's like, bro, you cannot believe the research Trials. They have 10 weeks of it and they have like five people in it and every single one of them were near bald and they've grown their hair back.

Wow. Wow. So Ryan Smith, by the way, for those who don't know who that is, he works with TaylorMade Pharmaceuticals or Tailor Made Compounding. He's like the VP of Business Development for that company.

Yep. And he's also like the smartest guy that I know in the world on Peptides. Like, you should definitely have him on your show. Dude, that guy is an absolute bible on Peptides.

Yeah. Connect us after. Because we. I mean, obviously you and I have talked for 20 minutes on peptides and barely even scratched the surface, so there's a lot more. A lot more. But I also. We're already getting long in the tooth. But I do have some other things I want to talk to you about. First of all, you mentioned when you were talking about your protocol, Metformin, and I asked you about that. But the other one that I said I wanted to ask you about, because I'm sure a lot of people will wonder because I don't think you have hypothyroidism, but you're taking Armour Thyroid.

Yes. So it's a good question. So like, when someone is hormonally operating optimized, you always. Not always, but, you know, again, everybody's different. We're all biochemically unique. But you want to make sure that when they're testosterone, progesterone, you know, if they're a woman, estrogen, maybe when that's optimized, that you're also looking at thyroid. Because sometimes, you know, they're obviously very synergistic, the way they work in the human body. So you kind of. When a person is hormonally optimized, they're high energy, you know, they're obviously trying to maintain a very lean, functional Strong physique, you know, like you have, like I have a very slight uptick in basal metabolic rate, you know, thermogenesis and then obviously, you know, caloric burning is, can, can happen from using desiccated thyroid. Now desiccated thyroid is a combination of 3 and 4, T3 and T4. And I don't want to go too esoteric into, you know, understanding thyroid and you know, the different pathways and metabolites and all that stuff, but the reality is it's not going to destroy, disturb natural function if you just use a very, very low dose. And even if you used a huge dose, it would be debatable as to whether it would disturb thyroid function. Obviously, you know Synthroid and also Cytomel, which are real thyroid medications, mostly T4, not combinations. And then the other one is T3. Those can disturb natural thyroid function and I would never recommend those unless you obviously have had hypothyroidism or hyperthyroidism and your doctor recommended that.

Now are you using the same dosage when you're using something like Armour Thyroid that the, that someone with hypothyroidism would use?

Probably not. You know, I'm not obviously everybody's dosages are different based on your doctor and your script and your symptoms and all that stuff. But my dosage is 60 of a one grain in the morning and usually 3:30 in the afternoon. And I've, I've gone as high as I've done 60 and 60 and you know, when I get my blood work done, my, my thyroid stimulating hormone in T3 is like a little bit out of range but nothing like where it would be like, wow, you know, like what's going on? You know. And again, I, I've been doing it for so long, I mean, I think I started using armor and I also rotate sometimes between nature thyroid and armor. And again they're desiccated porcine, they're, they're from pig because again pig is so close to us by a chemically, which is another weird thing. But I have no idea why that is. But.

And you've had, you've had good success with dosing twice a day?

I have, I have, but I mean I wouldn't. So that's a great question. I would not dose twice a day if I wasn't trying to be super lean. Like, if I was just like, I would say I'm trying to be super lean for four to six months of the year tops. So that's when I'll take a second dose and obviously I forget at Times, you know, like we all do. You don't always remember, but I always take that 60 milligrams. So my script is filled by my doctor and it's, I get a bottle of, I think it's a two month script. So I get one bottle of the 60s and then one bottle of the 30s, and the 30s last a lot longer.

Okay. And you're not concerned at all about that somehow downregulating your own thyroid production?

No, because like I said, when I look at my levels of T3 and I look at my thyroid stimulating hormone, I'm just a little bit out of the range, but I'm obviously high, higher. So I would feel like if I was going to drop off and I stopped it and again, I probably should test this out. I have, I have done it in the past. You go back into normal. And again, you know, most doctors who are really smart about this and understanding, you know, the optimization pathways and stuff like that, they want to see when your testosterone and your other hormones are optimized. They also want to see a slight uptick in thyroid too, just to keep up with that, you know, that whole, you know, how would I say it? Like, just the whole circular pathway of like all of your hormones staying in balance. You know, if you got one optimized, you want the other one at the higher end of the range too. And so that's why they give you a little bit of mild dose of that thyroid. But again, this thyroid medication versus, you know, Synthroid or Cytomel is totally different because those thyroid hormones or medications can definitely affect your natural production.

And the primary effect that one would expect when they do something like this would be enhanced fat loss or higher metabolism or potentially more energy.

Well, I mean, all three for sure. You know, all three. And again, you know, I'm not willy nilly recommending this. I mean, obviously you, you should go to a physician. You know, they need to obviously, you know, do an intake on you and figure out what's going on, get your blood work in your labs and, you know, see your symptoms and all that stuff. But I mean, to me, like the, you know, the real protocol when you're hormonally optimized is testosterone, metformin, and when there's a need an armor thyroid or a nature thyroid, which again, same thing, desiccated.

Okay, got it, got it. Now, there are a ton of other things that you get into in your book, Guaranteed shredded in addition to metformin and thyroid, you talk about and kind of educate people on everything from phentermine and albuterol to nicotine gum to a pretty hefty dose of vitamin D. It's a very interesting, interesting stack and we don't have time to get into every element of it, you know, beyond metformin and thyroid today. But Jay is indeed ripped and built. And for those of you who are interested in looking at his protocol and also seeing which I appreciate the science behind it because a lot of people like myself, we're concerned about things like metformin, we're concerned about things like exogenous use of something like thyroid. Some people get concerned about ipamorelin or Tessamorelin and effects on growth hormone hormone or like the, you know, like the cancer concerns I talked about earlier and the absence of proper binding proteins. The nice thing is that Jay has a lot of references in there and so go check that out. That book guaranteed shredded, which I'll link to if you go to the show notes@bengreenfieldfitness.com J. But I would be remiss not to talk about testosterone J because I gotta give you kudos. Your book, this testosterone optimization box bible, is one of the best books I've ever read on testosterone optimization and even the ins and outs of testosterone replacement therapy, which I'm becoming increasingly interested in as I age. And so there are a lot of questions that I could ask you about that. But what I'd like to do, if you're game, is to kind of just rapid fire a few at you and get your reply. When it comes to testosterone, of course.

And by the way, thank you for the compliment. That means a lot coming from you. I appreciate it.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Soso. First of all, there are a lot of concerns out there when it comes to testosterone replacement therapy, particularly its effects on the prostate, which I actually covered in my last podcast. I talked about how that's kind of a myth. Unless you already have prostate cancer, it's a non issue. Other concerns that people have are the issues with cardiovascular health. Is there a risk for cardiovascular health if one begins to supplement with like testosterone injections or creams or lotions or anything like that?

So it's the best question you could ask about all of this. So as you know, in the media, in the lastso, I published my first book, which is the TRT manual, in the very end of 2015. And then of course, right after that was like the massive media backlash with the attorneys going after, you know, the doctors and obviously the manufacturers of Androgel, because all these guys had heart attacks. Okay, so the answer to your question is if a man is what I would refer to. And again, I got to give credit to Dr. Rob, a metabolic emergency. And that means they have a ton of visceral body fat, they're in poor physical condition, they're untrained, and they obviously have, you know, insulin resistance resistance, probably metabolic disorder. And then they start with a doctor who doesn't even know how to manage their endocrine system, doesn't assess all of their risk factors, and maybe puts them on a therapeutic injectable testosterone regimen. It potentially, and again, in all caps with stars behind it could cause a vascular incident, but it's not going to be due to testosterone's mechanism of action, but the fat person's to going compromised health. Does that make sense? Okay, so because remember, testosterone, injectable testosterone will increase through erythrocytosis, the oxygenation of your red blood cells, which is actually a good and healthy thing. But for a person who's poor health and physical shape, you know, they lack conditioning, it's possible that that could cause some sort of a vascular event. But the problem is, and again, this has actually already been proven in court because the manufacturers of Androgel have been let off on this now, is it always will come down to the individual. So the only other thing I would say to Ben just to understand is that all of the studies now, and there are literally hundreds of studies in the last 10 years showing this testosterone is in fact cardio protective. So using therapeutic testosterone when a person is otherwise normal, healthy, is actually beneficial for the heart.

Yeah, unless you fall. Kind of like metformin. I believe that the only studies that have shown it to be potentially dangerous if you have heart issues, issues would be like senior men older than 65 with a lot of other physical limitations.

Exactly. Yeah, always. And I'm so glad you said that. Always. When you're in a compromised patient population group, you always have to seek the wise counsel, hopefully of your physician. The problem is, as you know, is that there are not a lot of doctors schooled in managing men's endocrine systems.

Okay, got it. Some people will think of testosterone as something you would do for, for enhanced libido or erectile dysfunction or increased energy. But what I learned in your book was its effect as a nootropic. Can you explain briefly what TRT could do to cognition?

Yeah, that's great. Good question. And yeah, so that's the one thing I think most people don't understand the most. And I always say this, the first side effect that is mediated through testosterone therapy or therapeutic testosterone is depression. So it alleviates any kind of depressive symptoms or ideology. And then, of course, a lack of brain fog is obviously one of the number one side effects or not side effects. But when you have a testosterone deficiency, people report brain fog. So the testosterone will alleviate both of those because what it does is it massively stimulates dopamine signaling. Okay. So your dopaminergic pathway improved. Increased. So you have this feeling, essentially it's like a feeling of well being. I mean, you know, you could talk to any guys who were like super low, had a deficiency, and then, you know, two weeks to four weeks later, that's like the first thing. They're like, holy shit, I feel like a new man. Right. So that's due to the dopamine increases. And then also it definitely definitely improves working memory. And again, there's a number of studies, as you found out in my book, in the Tot Bible. And I will say this. I would be remiss to if I didn't say this. I just did a podcast with Dr. Mark Gordon. And I know you know who he is because he's on Joe's show all the time. He's the guy that founded the Warrior Angels foundation for all military.

He's a good guy.

He's very smart. Yeah, Mark's awesome. So. And we're good friends. Yeah. So he now has access to some clinical research that literally shows that testosterone is able. I'm not kidding you. He just told me this last week. Stop. Alzheimer's and dementia. And it's tracks. So there's a researcher at University of Southern California and Mark. I don't know the guy's name. I could get it. I could reach out, text him, but this guy has an insane amount of research that he has analyzed in the last two years about how powerful the effects of testosterone, exerting protective effects in the synaptic and dendritic pathways in the brain, to which now they can basically say that it can. Can, if a person gets on therapeutic testosterone early enough, can completely stop Alzheimer's and dementia in a person that is predisposed to actually having it happen.

Well, that's very good to know. I'd seen the studies already, relatively new studies that have come out displaying that it's effective and efficacious in reducing depressive symptoms, likely by acting on some of those serotonin and dopamine pathways. If it also has that effect on Alzheimer's and depression as well. Well, and also cardiovascular health and bone density. And a lot of the other things you get into in the book, I think a lot of people, especially men, are going to be very interested in using it. And of course you probably get this question all the time. Once you start using it, don't you have to be on it for life?

Yes, so you do. But see, here's my argument to that. It's not an argument, but you know, my counter to that. And I think, you know, we're going to talk about this as we get further into this interview. But the environment, Ben, you know this, right? Like we're, it's an all scale, full out frontal assault from every angle in the environment. Now on both, you know, male and female endocrine systems, right? From the EDCs, from the air that we breathe, from the blue light in our screens, you know, to, I mean, you know, there's tons of other stuff I'm not even talking about, you know, the water supply. I mean, it's just there's such so many chemicals laced in our environment now that you look around and the average man under the age of 25 and this doesn't even count like what birth control did to the younger men of today because now there's all kinds of studies are coming out on that, but it's very difficult to maintain an optimized level of testosterone as you age now. And again, it's from the environment, I think, you know, this, and obviously this is covered in the book. Men 60 years ago had three times the natural testosterone level of men walking around on the street today. That is a statistic, statistical fact.

Geez. Now, now you talked about birth control. That. I mean, I'm mostly familiar with its effects on females. What do you mean? It affects young men.

So, so we've covered this in the roundtable. There's been some studies that have come out and I can go back and I can find this stuff for you or you know, just search the roundtable. But we talked about this. There was a study that came out, I think about three months ago, maybe four months ago, about the urogenital tract narrowing. Ben. So what that means is, you know, from the testicles to the anus, it's literally narrowing for the first time that they've ever again, you know, in recorded, you know, modern history, which means that men are becoming more like females. So there's literally now an observed.

But what would that have to do with the pill or what would that have to do with birth control?

Well, they, well they say that the issue is that it. Because birth control has been you know, ubiquitous in the landscape for, like, the last 30 to 35 years, that it's so prevalent in the water supply, that would. Yes.

Yeah, okay. I know where you're going. Yeah, I've seen some of that research, too. Yeah. Yeah, that's. That's talked about in the book Estrogeneration, Anthony's book. And I interviewed Anthony already. I'll put a link to my interview on Anthony about. About his book Estrogeneration, so that you guys can learn more about this. But, yeah, I mean, to return to your point about needing to be on it for life because we're fighting an uphill battle, you know, if you do start it, you know, for me, cognitively, it's very similar to, like, you know, glyphosate. For example, my entire family takes Zach Bush's product restore, and until Monsanto goes out of business, or I guess Bayer Pharmaceuticals now goes out of business business, I will take that for the rest of my life. I have the genetic deficiency for superoxide dismutase and glutathione. I will take my sublingual glutathione and do my glutathione butt injections that I do once a week for the rest of my life. Like, it's just, you know, sometimes this is better, living through science and trying to optimize your body so you can better achieve your purpose in life. So. So, yeah, it is probably kind of annoying to have to do something like an injection every week or a couple times a week for the rest of your life, but the benefits seem so profound. I mean, I've been keenly interested in testosterone replacement therapy for quite some time, and now that I'm kind of slowly moving away from competing in a lot of these professional sports that I compete in, it's high up on my radar. So that kind of leads me to another question that I wanted to ask you. You, though, do you have to inject? Because there's pellets, there's creams, there's lotions, there's gels. What's the best delivery mechanism?

So, great question. And no, you do not have to inject. In fact, now for six months, actually, I'm in my seventh month, I have been using cream on my testicles. So transcrotal application, which is I have to give my close friend and potential business partner, Dr. Keith Nichols. And he's not the first guy that came up with this, but he's the first guy that support supported it with the research. So, Ben, I will send you a study. The cream is Eight times better absorbed on scrotal skin than anywhere else on the body. Okay. So I had been on testosterone injections three times a week with a very shallow, you know, 28 gauge or 27 gauge insulin needle, you know, intermuscularly. I do my shoulders, I do my upper, you know, upper shoulders, tricep area. I do my quads. You're like a never. Yeah, well, I never injected my butt because I could if I wanted to. But when you're using a little 5, 16 inch needle, you know, a little tiny insulin needle. I know, you know what I'm. Because you're injecting glutathione, but, you know, you don't have to. So I've been just. Yeah, exactly. I've been using injections for 17 years. So there is scar tissue that comes from that. I mean, I, I see an art, you know, technician once a month and she beats me up and, you know, removes all the scar tissue. So it's not an issue, it's just more work. But I started, you know, doing this even though, even though I was against cream because I had tried cream in my early part of my first five years when I was on testosterone and it just wasn't the same. And of course, that was a long time ago too. They've improved permeability of the versa based cream. They've improved the absorption, they've improved a lot of things. It actually holds stable in cream form. Better now too. So anyway, Keith got me to do it and Ben, holy shit, bro. It is amazing. Really.

No, you have to be careful though, when you put that on your test testicles if you're with a partner.

Correct.

You wouldn't want to do this prior to.

So here's. So it's a. So it's a good question. So in the past, and obviously that's in the book, you know, the ability to transfer the transdermal solution to a partner, a pet, you know, any other life form was, you know, much more possible, obviously. But that was also. That was also before I understood good. Or was really versed in doing it on the scrotum. Now, obviously, if you put it on your scrotum, let's say after you take a shower in the morning, which is what I do, it's a religion now for me. And then you have sex with your wife and she goes down on your balls then of course. But I find legitimately that if you'll have to find out, and I'm sure I'll get you down that path at some point. But when you put it on your balls and rub the cream in, dude, it absorbs really fast. Like, it is incredible how much better this cream's absorption quality is now. I mean, honestly, I don't ever have that issue. Now again, I say that as a caveat. If you did have sex right after and your wife or your significant other was down there, then yes, there's some transfer potential, but it's not that big. And I've had doctors that do this as their regular regimen talk about all the time. They say, like, they joke about, they're like, don't you want your wife just as turned on as you during sex? You know, so I mean, they, you know, they make jokes about it, but I, I don't see it as a bigger risk as if you were putting it on your legs or you're putting it on your arms, which is where, you know, normally men would, you know, apply it. You know, they say to put it on your inside forearms or, you know, the inside of your thighs. But I'm telling you, dude, it's, it's unbelievable. And you know, the other benefits too that I want to talk to you about is that it's definitely an incredible sexual function enhancer. Now again, it's not going to make you crazy porn star, that, but because of the increase in DHT from having the cream right on your scrotum, you have better sexual function. Right, because dihydrotestosterone is the primary androgen signaler. So you're going to have better sex. You're definitely going to have, especially for men in monogamous relationships, you, you're going to be able to get turned on and super erect a lot fast using the cream versus injections. And again, I see that as a 17 year injection supporter. So it took a lot for me from a research standpoint and obviously anecdotally trying it for me to start supporting the cream. But I'm telling you, dude, I'm here to say to everybody in the world, now, this is a better solution. I sent you my document for my speech or my lecture that I did at Swiss in October and I changed my ways. You know, I, in the book it's, you know, injections were number one, but now I go to transcrotal cream. 1 and 1A would be injections daily if you're.

That's interesting. So, so if people are listening to the podcast, this would almost be an update to the to buy the to Bible book.

Yep.

Okay, 100. A lot of guys would be concerned about sperm count and about fertility and anything else that you should stack with testosterone to get rid of some of the potential issues with that. In that regard, or even the potential issues with over aromatization, what are you taking with testosterone to mitigate any of the downstream side effects?

Okay, so. Good question. Okay, so here's the thing. It's really hard to say this because so many people are really misinformed, including myself and most doctors. The understanding in the community, community about suppressing estrogen, quote, unquote, blocking estrogen when you're on testosterone is a total myth and a misnomer, in fact. And I'll send you the lectures, not lectures, but the podcast I did. So the leading testosterone doctor, researcher, slash lecturer is a guy by the name of Dr. Neil Rougier, and he owns a company called WorldLink Medical. His practice, which he's now retired, he just lectures and teaches. It was in Palm Springs, California, but he has been teaching for 10 years at all of the major academies, you know, a 4M obviously AMMG, that blocking estrogen is wrong and that all these doctors that are doing this with an AI, which is an aromatase inhibitor medication, are missing the understanding of how important estrogen is in the human body. And this is where it gets really weird. And I don't want to go too deep down the rabbit hole on this, but you need estrogen to. Excuse me, you need testosterone to aromatize into estrogen, especially as you're able aging to confer the protective effects to your biological system. So when I say protective effects, Ben, I mean heart and vascular protection. I mean bone mineral density protection, I mean joint protection, brain protection, again, vascular protection. I mean, on and on it goes. There's like 90 other pathways in the human body that estrogen exerts a protective effect. So what's happened, you know, in the last 10 years as testosterone has become bigger, you know, therapeutic testosterone has become bigger. All, all of these doctors have been screwing up the science and blocking men's estrogen by starting them on an AI and testosterone and whatever else. And we'll get to whatever else in a second because your question's a great question. But I wanted to make sure that I came very clear today on this podcast because in the community, in the community where I'm in, this has been a big topic for the last four months because more and more patients now are realizing, and of course doctors too, that they should stop blocking lacking estrogen. So it's, you know, it's obviously to what most people believe because they've always thought that especially in the bodybuilding world, and obviously this isn't the bodybuilding world, but the bodybuilding world has unfortunately filtered into the therapeutic world, obviously the clinical settings, and they would think that, oh, well, if I want to have my testosterone optimized at a higher level or an end to range value, that I want my estrogen lower. And it's not true. Even the reference ranges, which I know we're going to probably talk about, where they say you should, should have your estradiol, which is your estrogen, obviously between 30 and 45, that's wrong too, because that's not even giving you minimal protection from having a heart attack.

Mm, yeah, a lot of people don't think about that too. The protective effect of estrogen on cardiovascular function. Soso you would not absolutelyare you saying you would not want to take an aromatase inhibitor at all to prevent the testosterone converting into estrogen?

Really? Never. Never, never. So here's the thing, and it's a great question. You're very smart, by the way, because even doctors don't catch on that fast. So what. What ends up happening is you get tons of guys who've been on testosterone for 10 years, they're doing fine, otherwise, they seem okay. And they use a microdose of an AI and they say, well, Jay, or whatever their doctor is, I stopped my AI, I feel a little bit better. But here's the thing, and then they claim that there's some symptom that they can't get away from, and if they don't use the AI, the symptom comes back, blah, blah, blah. The bottom line is, even if you use an AI again, and I know, I don't want to get too esoteric, an AI is an aromatase inhibitor medication to suppress or block estrogen. When you're on therapeutic testosterone, you're causing too much harm to biological systems because you're blocking the natural byproduct of testosterone aromatizing, quote unquote into estrogen when you're on therapeutic testosterone. And it's a terrible thing, and here's the thing, and I don't want to scare people, but it's important that I bring this out. We're talking on the show. I just did a podcast two weeks ago with a researcher, very not a name person, so it doesn't need to name who he is. But his company has been doing a lot of research with cardiologists, and they've been looking at men on therapeutic testosterone, and they are finding that there is issues in the vascular pathways from men that are on AIs and he referred to them as micro blisters in certain vascular pathways that can lead to, to technically an mi. So anyway, bottom line is, if you're doing this right, you should not use or block your estrogen when you're on testosterone. The one thing, Ben, that most people get confused is they think that testosterone causes, if you don't block your estrogen, that the highest estrogen effects, meaning high estrogen symptoms of an elevated estrogen E2 level, which again is estradiol biol, is causing the side effects that they think are from high estrogen. It's not, Ben, it's from insulin resistance and visceral fat. So if you're a dude, you got a belly, you're on testosterone, you don't block your estrogen and then you feel like you have high estrogen in your mind because you've been told that this is high estrogen symptoms. It's not the truth. The symptoms that you're feeling are from your insulin resistance and your visceral fat deposition. So that's what causes high estrogen effects. The truth is, truth is you should have your estrogen between 60 and 80 or higher when you're on testosterone to confer minimum protective effects to your heart.

Doesn't the HCG cause a slight elevation in estrogen? Is that why you would take the hcg or do you take the HCG along with testosterone to maintain fertility?

Yeah, so great question and I'm glad you said that. Actually, I just did a video on HCG last night that I'm probably going to post later today that talks a lot about that. So when it's on, when it's on YouTube, I'll just email it to you and you can probably put it in the show notes because it's going to be really, really good. But so HCG is definitely necessary for men that want to maintain fertility. Right. So if you went on testosterone cream hypothetically in the next year and you still wanted to have kids, which I don't know if you do or not, do you still want to have kids?

I'm not close to the idea, but not actively trying.

Okay. So let's just say that you might want to have it. So what you would do is you would use H HCG in a micro dose fashion. And again, HCG is human chorionic gonotropin. It is a fertility medication. Men use it when they're trying to get their wives pregnant. If you go to a fertility specialist, women also use it too. It's actually women's urine. That's what the actual base constituent of the drug is. But the bottom line is that you would use a very micro dose of HCG to maintain luteinizing hormone, which is LH function, so that your sperm remains motile and you still can obviously impregnate your wife. So the thing is, and this is where all the confusion is, is that men who are not okay wanting or desiring to maintain fertility, they don't need to use hcg. Now, some guys will come to you and me or anybody and say, oh, that's not true, bro. I feel really good on hcg. Right? And if that's the case, again, you're biochemically unique. You have your own individuality. That's fine, Great. Use HCG for me. I want to see what testosterone does in isolation in my endocrine system. And ever, in my opinion, every man should want to do the same so that they understand what their baseline levels are of, you know, one thing, one time, right.

Doesn't HCG keep your balls from shrinking too, though?

They do. It does. So it's. That's a good point. It does. But, you know, if you're a cyclist, an athlete, you know, somebody like that, I mean, you know, big, sacky hanging balls usually is like, kind of a detriment, you know, from a performance standpoint. Point.

And most women are tea bagging when you take a dump.

Most guys complain, you know, or when I hear them say that, you know, you say back to them and like, dude, has your wife ever told you that she likes your big haggy sacks? And they're like, no. And I'm like, exactly. So who cares? It's just the thing. But you're right that that is an issue. But as far as ejaculate volume, you know, erection quality issues or anything like that. Nah, I mean, you don't need HCG for any of those things. But yes, there is a little bit of a d descended testicle issue. Like, you know, once your body is reliant on the exogenous testosterone, you will notice that if you're not using hcg. That's correct.

Okay, so I know we're getting long in the tooth not to overuse that phrase, but I want to ask you at least one other important question about testosterone. And that would be, you know, for the people who go in and get blood tested for testosterone, assuming that you think a blood test is the way to go versus, say, like a urine panel or a salivary hormone analysis, and you can comment on that, reference ranges, what should you be looking for in reference ranges and kind of related to the testing. When you're on testosterone, what should you be monitoring to make sure that you're not venturing into any type of dangerous category as far as hormone imbalances are concerned?

Did he ask the best question? So to make a very, very big, long, narrow minded question, go to the book, which I know you're going to provide in the links, but I have that, that's like actually a whole chapter on the biomarkers that you need to pay attention to over life of being on testosterone. But let's talk about the reference ranges and their accuracy. So the reference intervals for blood levels for men have actually changed in the last year. Right? So seen, we've went from 348 nanograms per deciliter on the low end to 1197 nanograms per deciliter on THE high end to now 264 to 916. So what they did was meaning what they meaning LabCorp, which is again the big kind of blood measurement company. There's others, but they're the biggest one. Then there's Quest Diagnostics too. They basically lowered the standard mean deviation in their opinion, or what their claim is is due to obesity and metabolic disorder, which as you know, lowers natural testosterone production by itself. So they're saying that what they're doing is they're just basically applying it to the bell curve of the population. But here's what the smart doctors will tell you, Ben. It's not the truth. The real truth is they're basically now with the new normal values being lowered. So think about that. It went from 348 to 264. Okay. And then it went from top end 1197 to 916. It's just the same. Essentially they're denying treatment now because they've lowered the standards. Okay, so more men who desperately probably need therapeutic testosterone are denied when they go to their primary care or their HMO doctor and say, look dude, I want you to test my testosterone and it comes back and the guy's 265. Oh, you're fine. Right? But the guy's suffering. So as to part three of your question, therapeutic testosterone prescription is essentially a wholly symptomatic over laboratory range values. You should definitely get your labs done. Of course. But if you are still suffering from symptoms of a deficiency which was again, lack of cognition, lack of energy, listlessness, lifelessness, depressive, obviously brain fog, any of those things, then you should definitely go see a specialist who's not an HMO or a PPO doctor because as you know, dude, you're not, you're not going to find anybody. And if you do, it's going to be pure luck that's, you know, really qualified to manage your endocrine system. And honestly, dude, like the truth is, is like if you do go to those people and you do work with them and you, you know, it's a copay thing and you do qualify and very rarely will you. But let's say you're a 55 year old guy and you do, they're going to screw you up then they don't know what they're doing. And again, I don't blame them. They just, there's no trick, there's no training, as you know. You know, there's no training in med school for this. They don't know how to manage, manage endocrine systems. Even endocrinologists, who's supposed to know this stuff, they're not really good in, you know, prescribing hormones with men either because they look at the textbook definitions and the textbook definitions are obsolescent.

Yeah, and are you talking about. Or do you prefer blood testing always or do you look at, you know, diurnal variation or variation over a 24 hour cycle with things like a Dutch test via urine or like an adrenal stress index salivary test?

Dude, you're the man nobody ever talks about. I mean, in a perfect world I would love a Dutch test, but it's too expensive and nobody even knows what that means. So blood, which is serum, is the best way right now currently in the marketplace. Obviously Dutch is the best by far, but nobody's doing Dutch and it's very hard to get Dutch anyway. But saliva, I mean, excuse me, salivary is completely worthless. It cannot measure testosterone, especially like you said with the diurnal point. Salivary, you know, there's a doctor who's in my network, he blows up salivary tests and he gives you like 20 reasons why it's worthless. But I just know that the only thing that salivary works for is cortisol. Everything else is too deviated and there's too many issues that can fall into it. So you just can't rely on it. So definitely the best place is if you're a guy listening to this show right now and you have no idea, which is again 90% of society because they don't ever go to their doctor and get this measured. Doctor, doctors don't want to recommend it because it goes counter to you Know the sick care illness medicine model. Discounted labs.com. and again, I have no affiliation with these companies. I know the people that own them, but I have no, I don't make money on them. Discounted labs.com and privatemdlabs.com. you literally just go online like you're going to Amazon. You get a testosterone, total testosterone, free testosterone and sensitive estradiol. It's like under a hundred bucks. Go get that done. And then from that there, based on your lab measurement numbers, that's when you, if you have a deficiency, you should seek out, you know, a really good cash pay optimization doctor.

Okay. Do you have much history with Direct Labs? That's the one I've used quite a bit in the past for Direct labs.

I'm sorry, I didn't mention them. No, I mean, I'm very familiar with them. Never use them, but they're also great, too.

Okay, okay, got it.

There's a bunch of them. There's a bunch of them. They come up, it seems like every day now.

Yeah. And you're monitoring as the, as the testosterone, testosterone replacement therapy goes along. You're monitoring estrogens to make sure those aren't getting too high. You're obviously monitoring total and free testosterone, I would imagine monitoring sex hormone binding, globulin, any. Anything else that you pay particular attention to once you've already started on the therapy?

Yeah. So all good points. Hematocrit and hemoglobin. And I'll get back to that in a second. So, so, so, so just like you said, because this is like the advanced version. This, bro, you're giving me the opportunity to update the book right here online. Thank you. I really appreciate.

Well, you gave me the opportunity to update my metformin chapter, so. Right back at you, bro.

You're the man. But it's good that you brought that up because here's the truth about testosterone optimization therapy today. If you're working with a clinician that knows what they're doing and they are out there, there's not a lot, not enough yet. But we're working on changing that. They are looking at symptom resolution and how you feel over all of the lab reference ranges. And what I mean by that is, sure, when you start, get the full panel again, it's in the book, what you should pull. Do it once a year just to feel good about yourself, to see what's changing over time. But don't preoccupy your mind with where's my total testosterone level? Or where's my sensitive Estradiol level, or where's this or where's that? The only caveat would be hematocrit and hemoglobin, which I'll get to in a second. But again, the only goal right now of testosterone, testosterone optimization therapy is symptoms, no symptoms and side effects and feeling good. That's like the twofold goal. I want to feel great. I want to have no symptoms and side effects. All the other things if you focus on, let's say you show up one time, they take your test six hours after you inject or after you put the cream on, and you show 1400 testosterone. That's way above the reference range. Who cares? Do you feel good? Do you have any side effects? No. So the right doctor, smart doctor who gets this isn't going to look at you and say, oh, oh, my God. Oh, my God. Your symptoms, you're way out of range. But see, Ben, what happens is the average doctor who doesn't know this, what they'll then do is they'll literally cut the dosage in half because they don't understand the mechanism of action of testosterone. They don't understand the half life of the molecule. They don't get any of that stuff. So they just see the outer range level and freak out and then drop the guy's dosage and then the guy goes on this unfortunate circle jerk. Who knows how long it'll last of, like, feeling like shit, blah, blah, blah. And then a lot of times, too, and I don't want to get into it, they. They increase their dosage of an AI, which, as you know, is only causing harm. So that causes all kinds of downstream effects like psychogenically and, you know, in the brain, and they just feel like they have anxiety. It's just a horrible situation. So the real truth of testosterone is if this is done right, and I've been blessed that I work with doctors that have always done this right, there's no side effects. Now, granted, you have to do work right? You do have to monitor things. You do have to take care of your life. You do have to eat, clean, train, do all the things that you should do, which, as you know, I cover in the book, it's not a panacea. Testosterone is not some holy grail wonder drug, right? But it does help and slows your aging process. So the only other thing, two things to answer that question in a long winded way, is that hematocrit and hemoglobin are the measures of, like, red blood cell activity and levels in your body. You want to Keep your hematocrit. You want to keep your hematocrit around 20, 22 would be the high end. But between 22 and 20 and. And then you want to keep your hemoglobin at about 55%. Now, one other thing about those two things is that most doctors don't understand that because those numbers are the newer range numbers, and they were based on studies of people at elevations like in Denver, also some places in the Andes Mountains in South America where they did some studies on athletes and just people living there. You are capable as a normal, again, otherwise healthy person of being at that rate range of hemoglobin and hematocrit without needing to donate or be phlebotomized. And the problem is that doctors see those levels and they immediately send the guys to be phlebotomized. If you over phlebotomize a patient, you drop their iron levels too low. And then once you drop their iron levels too low, you know what can happen? All kinds of bad things. Exactly.

You want a sweet spot with iron because obviously it can act as an oxidant, which can be an issue for many men.

Exactly.

We don't even have time to get into that right now.

But ultimately, just one more thing, so you can't. Too many doctors think that having that elevated level is polythemia vera. Polycythemia vera, which is literally a neoplastic bone marrow disorder. When you have elevated levels, let's say you're on injectable testosterone. It's actually natural, and it's called erythrocytosis. Okay. Which is literally when both your hemoglobin and your hematocrit are elevated in the production of red blood cells. So basically, you're sending more oxygenated blood to your heart, which is obviously beneficial. Anyway, that's all I need to say.

Yeah. And to clarify for people, this is because if your hematocrit and hemoglobin go up too high while you're on testosterone replacement therapy, it could result in this erythrocytosis or blood thickening, and you'd to want. Want to keep that from occurring.

Yeah, exactly. And just. I'm glad you said that. Men should always be doing cardio okay on testosterone. In fact, you should increase your endurance capacity because exactly what you just said, you definitely are having a thickening of the blood. So the best way to replace those red blood cells and just, you know, constantly have that exchange is to obviously do more cardio or, you know, at least regular consistent cardio so that you improve Your cardiovascular capacity.

Yeah, makes sense. We've been going almost two hours, man. We're gonna, we're gonna have to send people to the book because we really like, we didn't even scratch the surface of what we go into in the book. If I can read all four of your books in, in six days in preparing for an interview for you, I guarantee, dude, you're amazing. Our audience, I don't like to interview people unless I, I know what's up, but I, I will link to. So, so Jay has his aggressively shredded program which gets into like his fasting program protocol and a lot of those things that we let off with, including how he uses Metformin, the protein MCT oil drink that he uses. His other stacks that include quite a few other things that I haven't talked about a lot before on the show. So I'm going to link to that. I'm also going to link to his amazing Tot Bible. That one is a must read, I would say of anything that I link to, that's going to be one of the best. And, and then I'll also link to his aggressively shredded program and his website and also the roundtable that he did on Peptides, the peptide sheet from TaylorMade Pharmaceuticals. I'll put links to his Facebook video about Metformin. I'll put a link to his fat Loss bundle, his Men's Health Optimization bundle, his TRT Revolution podcast, and also, also Jay is going to be sending me additional research on Metformin, additional research on the reason that he switched from testosterone injections and pretty much anything that he mentioned as far as papers. He'll send all those to me and I'll weave those into the show notes between now and when I actually release this show. So those are all going to be available for you at BenGreenfieldFitness.com j that's BenGreenfieldFitness.com J&A y and Jay, dude, we, we literally could talk this entire day. I have to actually go and, and head over to my kids school. But, but thank you so much for, for the time.

Thank you. I mean honestly, this was epic and let's definitely do it again. And like I said, I definitely want to bring you on my podcast. So again, I appreciate the opportunity. It was amazing. Let me just add one more thing because when you gave my website earlier, it's the thing that is my website but like I'm kind of, it's kind of dead. Just go, just have everybody who's watching this just go to totrevolution.com, which is testosterone optimization therapy revolution. You kind of already said it. And then I wanted to say, because you did ask me a cost on physicians, it should be anywhere, 100 to $300 a month for total optimization. That's everything.

100, 300. That's not bad, really. I mean, considering all the benefits that you get. Yeah. Yeah, I like it. All right. Well, folks, leave your questions, leave your comments, leave your own feedback over at BenGreenfieldFitness.com Jay J. A Y and until next time, I'm Ben Greenfield along with Jay Campbell signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com well, thanks for listening to today's show. You can grab all the show notes, the resources, pretty much everything that I mentioned mentioned over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com along with plenty of other goodies from me, including the highly helpful Ben Recommends page, which is a list of pretty much everything that I've ever recommended for hormones, sleep digestion, fat loss, performance, and plenty more. Please also know that all the links, all the promo codes that I mentioned during this and every episode help to make this podcast happen and to generate income that enables me to keep bringing you this content every single week. So when you listen in, be sure to.