The Peptides Podcast: Everything You Need To Know About Anti-Aging, Muscle Gain, Fat Loss & Recovery Peptides.

There is a lot of good information, a lot of not so good. So me, I try to demystify some myths that exist with peptides. They're amazingly minucious. What they're lacking compared to North America is the ethic, meaning that sometimes they will do things that wouldn't be approved by an ethic committee. Here.

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 Sealfit, 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, hormones, brain beauty and brawn to deliver 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. Hey folks, it's Ben Greenfield. And I get a ton of questions about peptides and also sarms. Things like how do peptides work and what are the safety or side effects of peptides? What are the best anti aging peptides, the best fat loss and muscle gain peptides, the best recovery peptides? What peptides work for cognition or neural enhancement? How do you properly mix and administer them? Are they legal? Do they need to be cycled? And I get a lot of the same questions about SARMs. So you may recall that I interviewed a really great regenerative medicine physician named Dr. Matthew Cook several months ago and he told me about Dr. Jean Francois Tremblay as one of the world's leading experts on this wonderful world of peptides and SARMs. So I managed to hunt this guy down. Actually Dr. Cook made the introduction, I didn't hunt him down, I didn't do anything. I just sat there and read my email. But anyways, Dr. Tremblay, he and I have emailed back and forth a few times, we talked a couple of times. And he really is one, one smart cat when it comes to this stuff. He studied exercise physiology, biochemistry and pharmacology at a collegiate level and he's been investigating peptides and SARMs since the 90s, long time ago. And he now makes peptides his primary research subject. So he has a wealth of expertise on the use of them for sports performance, for anti aging, for health, and a lot of, lot of different uses. So Dr. Tremblay, welcome to the show, man.

Hey, thank you very much and thank you for the opportunity, but please, I'm not. I don't have a doctorate. I'm not a doctor. Master.

Oh, master. I don't know why I called you doctor. You fooled me. Geez.

Well, some people nickname me doctor, but no, I'm not.

Well, man, your CV reads like one. Well, anyways, where I want to start is kind of the science of peptides and how peptides actually work. Like basically what is a peptide and how does it work in the body? And you can take as deep a dive as you want. We have a lot of smart cookies to listen in.

Okay, well, basically at this point, pretty everybody knows they are small, they're fraction of proteins. You can say they're basically amino acids linked together. So as soon as you have two, two amino acids linked together, bang, you have a peptide. And they can the upper limit to still be called a peptide. You know what, I'm not sure about that, but you have peptides. Growth hormone is a peptide of 191amino acids. So you can go pretty high. So biochemically it's very simple. Amino acids linked together, it becomes a protein. When different peptides hook up that like they become side chain of another one and they grow as a big, big molecule, then it becomes a protein.

Okay, so proteins and peptides are pretty similar in that there are a bunch of amino acids held together by these, these peptide bonds or you know, as I learned in biochemistry, these amide bonds. But peptides are just smaller than prot. From what I understand, peptides are usually like 50amino acid sequences or less.

Yeah, usually. But again, you have growth hormone that is almost 200amino acid and it's still classified as. Or we can make it as we make a peptide. It's a, it's a bit more complex. And if you want me to open a parenthesis, what I do a lot is demystify. You know, I don't invent things. But you go on. Most people who listen to this podcast or do research on peptides, they go on the Internet and there is a lot of information, a lot of good information, a lot of not so good. So me, I try to demystify some myth that exists with peptides and. Well, for example.

Yeah, I was going to ask you, what are some of those myths?

Well, one is with, you know, you read all the time, you know, you have to keep them in the, in the fridge and when you add the water, you have to be very careful. That is true. For and okay, that is true for some peptides and those meth, usually they come from the anabolic steroids use culture.

Which is kind of the same culture that made peptides popular, like the underground bodybuilding industry, which is not a bad thing.

Or even with SARMs there is myths that come from that culture. But with peptides growth hormone, yes, you have to be careful because it's. It's a long chain of amino acid and the chain itself is very stable. But then that long chain is folded on itself three times and to all those folds there is a methionine bonds that holds them and those bonds are weak.

What kind of bonds did you call them?

It's methionine, the amino acid.

Okay. Oh, methionine, yeah.

Sorry, excuse my accent. That's all right. So it's folded on itself and those bounds are weak. So yes, if, if you shake too much, it can break. If you expose it to the light, it can break. But most other peptides, they're just long chain, not folded on themselves. So they're pretty, pretty stable even at room temperature. And actually they're more sensitive to light than heat really. So, you know, let's say you forget a vial on the counter. If it degrades, it's gonna be because of the light. Not mostly not the room temperature.

That's good to know. Usually people tell you you gotta keep these things in the refrigerator, in the freezer, else or just toast.

It's good practice. But if you forget it on the counter for a day, nothing happens.

Okay.

Unless it's in the. You live in Arizona, it's in the sunlight in your kitchen. Yeah, maybe a little. But overall most of them pretty stable structures.

What are some other myths about peptides?

You're gonna like this one. It's the local effect mostly with BPC157 and TB500, the ones that you would.

Normally like inject subcutaneously around a joint for a local joint healing effect.

Just common sense. Even if you inject close to the injury, just imagine all the tissues in between the injection site and the injury. The fascias, the other tendons or ligaments. The peptide will not cross those tissues to go to the injury. The blood, the stream is going to snatch the peptide and within a minute it's going to bring it back to the injury site. Basically, when you have an injury, there are protake factors that are secreted locally. And those peptides, they recognize those factors and they concentrate there. But yes, there is a local effect. If you would inject within the injury. But again, you would need to be precise. Most often you would need ultrasound machine to be sure you go to a place.

So are you saying that if I have a knee injury, for example, and I wanted to use BPC157 on a knee injury, that there'd really be no difference between injecting it near the knee versus say like injecting subcutaneously via the abs or maybe using one of these oral forms of BPC157. You're saying that either way it's going to wind up getting delivered systemically, wind its way into the knee eventually, but that the very, very best way to do it would be like a physician using digital imaging, like an ultrasound to very, very precisely inject it into the area of inflammation.

That's right.

Okay, interesting.

And when you say eventually, just the time it takes for the blood to circulate, it's like a few minutes and it went everywhere, basically. So it's very fast.

Is that the same with all peptides? Pretty much. Any of them. If you inject like near the abdomen, for example, which is a popular place, they'll just wind up systemically going where they need to go?

Yeah, the only one, the only exception would be IGF1. Not the derivate, not the LR3 and those ones, the pure IGF1. And actually at university, not me, but the biochemist I work with to sensitize them a few years back, they did some tests or experiments and they would inject locally and after a couple of weeks there would be a little hole where they would inject because there would be a very local effect on the fat mobilization. So where they would inject, there would be less fat. So it would create little holes. But that, that would be the only thing. The other extreme, you have the tanning peptide, melanotan.

Yeah.

You know, you inject everywhere and. But you get the tan systemic, you.

Know, you get a tan and you get a very, very annoying boner with that one that lasts for a really long time. Which sound. Which sounds like it'd be great, but. But it's. I've used that peptide before and it's super annoying.

Yeah, you're too young yet to appreciate.

I guess so. I guess so. I just can't even sleep.

That thing actually wanted to market it for. To replace Viagra.

Yeah, I believe it.

The only reason it didn't hit the market and overall why it never hit the market is that if you're, if you tendency to high blood pressure, it will raise your blood pressure and there were too many people. I know the percentage to be a not safe drug, dealing a lot to market it. That's the only reason.

Gotcha. That makes sense. Now, not to rabbit hole too much, but regarding this idea of systemic delivery, you know, some of these peptides are now being administered intranasally. Like there's a very popular one called C Max right now that perhaps you could fill us in on a little bit. But it's used for cognition and I have some, I've used it intranasally. I've also used injections of it. But from what I understand, intranasal delivery is far more targeted to neural tissue. So what about in a situation like that where we're talking about the delivery method being an injectable versus an intranasal versus not to make this too complex, say like an oral, when you go.

Intranasal, the absorption itself is not 100%. It's maybe 50%. That's the con of it. The pro of it is that you have the membrane that separate inside the nose from the brain cavity that 50% that crosses will cross to the brain. So if you target the brain, I would say yes, go for intranasal.

Okay, yeah, gotcha.

That would be a nice route. But always keep in mind you have to increase the dosages that you would if you would inject same thing as oral. For BPC is one of the few that is you can take orally but you have at least to double the dosage to get this same effect as injected.

Okay, gotcha. So. So if you're using intranasal or if you're using oral, you would need to dose with approximately roughly double the amount that you'd use if you were going to use an injectable. But you can get better delivery. Like if I were to use intranasal C Max peptide for the nootropic or cognition enhancing effect, intranasal would be better. I just need to use more. Or if I were to use like there's one popular oral BPC157 called Dr. Seeds. If I were to take that orally, you know, and my normal BPC dosage via injection is say 250 micrograms, I need to use something closer to 500 if I were to use the oral.

That's right.

Okay, that makes sense. And, and by the way, just so we don't leave it behind, because I know people are going to be interested in this, I already mentioned C Max, so we might as well make that the first peptide that we talked specifically about. What Is C max. And how would that work exactly?

Well, they come from, you know, back the cold war time, Russia, usa. A lot of good, amazingly good research and products came out of Russia or stayed in Russia at that time. And because of that kind, there was kind of an intellectual embargo. Part of the propaganda that, you know, Russia, it's not good, blah, blah, blah. No, the whole shebang. But, but I personally met at Russian researcher PhDs postdoc doing their postdoc here in Montreal at McGill University. And I can, I would say in terms of research strictness, they're at the level even more like they're amazingly minutius. They measure everything. What they're lacking compared to North America is the ethic, meaning that sometimes they will do things that wouldn't be approved by ethic committee here.

Yeah, I saw the documentary Icarus. I'm clued in some of the stuff that happens over there.

So, you know, they would test, okay, BPC517 at university there is professor working them. I became very good friend with him. He's kind of an expert on ghrelin, you know, the hunger hormones. He did his doctorate and postdoc in Italy with the leader on that peptide. And Italy is next to Croatia. You'll see where I'm going. So BPC, if you go on PubMed, 98% of the studies were done by a group of Croatian researchers. So he didn't know about that peptide. So you know, I told him, go on PubMed. He looked and he's the one who pointed it out. He said, oh. And then he started to laugh. He says, yeah, he says, look, he said, I'm going to tell you what they did. They did the research on humans first and the site was working and then they realized that they couldn't publish that because there was no previous animal studies done. So then they did the animal studies and that's what they published. But he told me be sure that if they publish, that's because they tested on human, they know it works and they just now duplicate everything with animals and then they will redo because they cannot come with data that are predated. But basically, you know, so that's the ethic thing I'm talking about, you know, not that, not like in the Nazi time where they would do like horrific things on people.

Right.

But you know, they're not afraid or they go a bit further. So in the biohacking world, that's great for us because basically that's what we think too, you know.

Yeah, yeah. Okay. So, so with something like C Max that, that was, that was used from what I understand mostly in Russia and Ukraine and still is for that's nootropic and neuroprotective and neurorestorative properties and I know a lot of people will mix it with like a racetam for example for some pretty potent cognitive effects. But, but is that one that, that's safe? Is it one that, that you've used before, done any research on or what do you know about C Max?

Okay, if you want, we'll talk about peptide safety.

Okay.

And that's one thing I like about peptides to work with is that, except again, if you work with the growth hormone secret, if you work with a peptide that modulate hormones, then you may have the side effects of the increased hormone itself, not from the peptide itself. But as I tell people, the worst case scenario of somebody using peptides or using too much overdosing or whatever the worst case scenario is the person's going to tell you it didn't work. That's the worst, you know, bad side effect. I would say. No, no, no, because they all already naturally occurring in the body. You just throw in a bit more.

So are you saying that for all peptides there's, there's complete safety and no side effects? Are you saying just for CMax, for.

For most, yes.

Huh, interesting.

But again now you're talking about.

I mean I would imagine that if you didn't dose correctly there'd be some side effects. Yeah, yeah.

Well, not physiological side effect, but when you talk about nootropics, that's a slippery road you're taking because you're playing with the brain chemistry which is amazingly complex. I've known one friend who's dead. Now it would take 5 HTP, which usually is really good for the mood, serotonin increase and all that and it was almost turning into a serial killer. His brain chemistry was set up in such a way that 5 HTP was really bad on any dosage.

So.

You may have. Those are not side effects, they are effects.

Yeah, but what about like Melanotan for example, you said that would increase blood pressure. Wouldn't that be a side effect?

Okay, that's why I'm saying there is some, there are some side effects. Most, no.

Okay, but a few, well, kind of like methylene blue as a nootropic, you know, because I looked into C Max before I began using it and it appears that in normal dosages it has a pretty potent antioxidant effect in neural tissue. But an actual Pro oxidant effect if you take it at higher dosages. Do you know anything about that?

Well, it's a lot of products like that. Okay, one, let's. If you want, I'll open a new parenthesis on one, not a SARM but on GW 501516 which increases performance, mitochondrial activity and vascularization of the muscles. So endurance athletes, they love it. So when it came out, one of the first that was popped out and here, even here in Canada, Health Canada, they published communique saying no cancer. It was debunked because, okay, all the mice they use in the study were genetically prone to cancer. They gave them much higher dosages and they gave it to the mice for two years. A mouse lives three years at the most. So it's like, it's a long time if you Compare. It's like 50, 60 years if you compare to human lifespan. And the only thing it showed is that after other studies showed that it might be. It's not proven yet, but there is a tendency that it might prevent cancer. My point is when you take a product like that, not the peptides, a product like that, it works on different pathways. And yes, one pathway is pro cancer and the other one is anti cancer. And now that depending on the dosage, one pathway, if you keep increasing the dosage, maybe the, okay, the anti cancer pathway has a limit because of the enzymes that limit the pathway. So once you reach 100% of that pathway efficiency, then that's it. The anti cancer effect won't increase. But maybe the pathway for the cancer, Pro cancer has a higher limit. So if you take higher dosage, yes, the pro cancer will come out.

Okay. Yeah, look, I think to simplify things here, probably the best way to describe this would be that, and this is what I've seen from my investigation, that for just about any peptide, excessive dosage is really the main issue. And I don't know if that could be deemed a side effect as much as an overdosage. But I think that the biggest message to send to people is don't just administer these things willy nilly without knowing the exact dosage because you can do some damage and you can cause things like pro oxidation or risk for cancer if they're used excessively or in too high of a dosage.

Right. And again, if they would do it long term, if they made a mistake and they do it for a week, you know, the long term effect, I don't see it be of such an importance. Let's say that pro oxidation, okay, if you were oxidating too much for years. Yes, you'll see like bad effects out of it. But if by mistake you took too much of a peptide, for example, people, they say, okay, BPC157 and TB500, it increases the rate of cellular division. So they say you increase risk of bad cell division with. That would bring about cancer. Well, yes and no. Because if you have an injury that increased cell division will occur. That's a natural process of repair. So if you have an injury that would take two months to repair, you have X amount of extra cell divisions to produce the repair. You take BPC157 and everything is repaired in one month. So your cell division will be increased during one month, but then the other month it's going to be normal. So the total cell division either you take or don't take BPC will, will be about the same. It's just that with wpc you're going to have even more cell division but for a shorter time. So that argument that it may be pro cancer because of that doesn't stand because the total at the end will be roughly the same of extra cell divisions.

I want to make sure that we have time to delve into specific peptides that could be used for specific purposes. But before we do, one more question. Well, you know what? Actually a few more kind of logistical questions before we start to delve into peptides beyond like the C max and the BPC157 that we already talked about. One is legality. Because you know, I know that physicians are prescribing them. They were a huge topic at a 4m this year. There are companies that I'm familiar with like you know, Taylormade compounding down in Kentucky for example, that a lot of physicians are getting high quality quality peptides from. But at the same time there are all these peptide websites selling bottles that aren't meant for human consumption. And you know, I even need to be careful on my end with certain recommendations in terms of sending people to certain websites because these things aren't sold for human consumption. So when it comes to sourcing a peptide, what, what's kind of the current state of the industry as far as how people can use peptides safely?

Okay, from what you see on the Internet, 99% come from China pre vial. Because in the US by law, if you just the fact that you label the vials, which is the last step of production, I think that legally you can say it was made in the US because one part of the production was us. But basically that's why you say most. You see, most of those sites, they sell the same products at the same milligrams per vial. Like it's so consistent across all those sites. And for the prices they sell, it's obviously from China.

Well, you're saying the stuff from China isn't any good?

No, it's. You don't know Chinese. They have been known to be very sneaky. A few years ago, they came up with growth hormone. I don't remember the name. And it was about the best you can get on the market. It was the right dosage, high quality, and it was sold for about six months. And then after they started to replace the growth hormone with another product much cheaper, that would do nothing on. It was not a growth hormone secretag or anything, but it would give you after a few weeks that carpal tunnel inflammation. So people would take it, they would get the inflammation and would think, hey, that's good. It's good because I get that inflammation which you get when you take too much growth hormone. So they do things like that. But then people would do blood tests and they would see no, well, my growth hormone and bang, it was blown out of the water. Or there is that study that was done in a Scandinavian country they did on Melanotan. They ordered from 15 different company and they checked for the purity and dosage in each vial. Each vial was sold as containing 10 milligrams. All of them contained 5 milligrams. Purity wasn't bad, but people were paying for 10 and were getting 5. But what happened? It was Melanotan. Eventually they would get a tan. And if they would talk to a friend who bought from another company, he said, yeah, I got the tan in about the same time. And you know what they say, if you repeat a lie often enough, it become truth. So that became the standard and everybody was happy and they get a tan, but Everybody was getting 5 milligrams. So maybe some China. And I'm saying, no, listen, there is only China. They're in compartments. It's all government regulated. It's by zone. Anybody who has been to China, they know there is a zone for clothes, a zone for electronics and a zone for chemicals. And then the government comes and he says, you, you're going to make this, you're going to make this, you're going to. So you cannot, as a Chinese say, okay, tomorrow I'm going to start to make peptides. No, there is already maybe two, three companies that make them. And when you go on the Alibaba and All that, those sites you deal with resellers that present themselves as company whatever. It's Internet, you can do what you want. But basically they all buy from the same. Companies that make them and they resell one. Let's say they have a batch of 10,000 vials of BPC. They call their resellers their 50 resellers, and they say, how much you want for you? How much? And they distribute. And those people, they sell. So there isn't that many companies. There isn't 50 companies in China. That makes them maybe two, I would think.

Okay, so. So all these companies, when we look at all these different websites like Peptides Warehouse and Peptide Sciences and all these places you can go and buy these peptides that aren't necessarily advertised as being used for human consumption. But that's, you know, let's face it, what people are ordering them for, they're pretty much all coming for the most part from just a couple different sources in China. And, and, but what you're saying is regardless of that, they may actually be efficacious peptides.

Yeah, sometimes. But again, that's why people, sometimes, you know, from the same company, some people will vouch for them and another one say, no, it doesn't work because they got different batches. And even if they would and they don't, because they will present you HPLC results, but they will present you the results they got from China, you know, and they send them what they want. Most people don't have access to the. Because that's the most expensive equipment. When you make peptide, it's the HPLC machine to see the quality plus to detect the quantity. It's more complicated because now you have the peptide mixed with powder, that's sugar they use to make.

Now, does that mean that if you order your peptide, because I've heard this before, and you reconstitute it with, with the bacteriostatic water that it comes with or that you add into it and it's. And it's cloudy and not clear. Is that a sign that it's not a good peptide because of the addition of these, these excess compounds like a form of sugar or something like that?

No, no, no, because some peptides, if you. I'm thinking about the AOD 9604 and the. There is a fragment of the growth hormone that when you, you reconstitute, it's cloudy. But that's the only one I know about. Yeah, if it's cloudy, that's not a good sign. Usually for, except for those peptides but the BPC TB500, the main ones, those that everybody knows about, it should be crystal clear after a minute or so.

Okay. Is there much of a difference between those and something that, for example, many physicians are getting them from compounding pharmacies. Is there a difference between what you're getting from a website versus what you're getting from a compounding pharmacy?

Well, when you get from a compounding pharmacy, I would assume that. Well, I saw you had a podcast a few weeks ago with one guy, and then I went to see his podcast on Peptides and he had like three, three people on the podcast and one of them, I don't remember the name, he owned the compounding pharmacy.

I'm blanking on who that would have been. What was it? What? Did I have multiple guests?

No, your podcast. There was one. He has his own podcast and he had three people.

Okay.

And it was a video podcast. So you could see behind. I think I saw HPLC thing and all that. So basically I would assume that when it's compound, the pharmacy get the raw material not mixed with anything, so they can do all the taste testing to check for first if it's the right product and the percentage of purity. So that's what you would get. And basically that's why you pay more. Because, you know, to start, let's say you tell me, you want to start to make peptides tomorrow, you want to start a company, you want to make them. Well, it's at least half a million dollars of equipment. So now, I don't know anybody would invest half a million dollars US to make Melanotan. You know, it's going to take quite a time before they recuperate their investments. Plus, it's not only that you need the people that know how to use that equipment. You need to pay. And plus they break down. See, it's a very fragile equipment. Like, right. Ours broke down like a month ago. It was a $16, $16,000 repair. That happened a couple of times a year. It's. It's a very expensive thing to do. So if you have company like compounding pharmacies that sell it more expensive. That's because, yeah, there is a reason for it. It's not out of greed. It's really because it is more expensive.

Right. And they're actually using equipment like HPLC machines or liquid chromatography machines to actually ensure quality. I mean, I've used peptides that have purchased from websites. You know, way back when I first started to look into peptides, I'd order things like BPC157 and TB500. And I've since shifted to working with personal physicians who order this stuff for me. And it just seems this could be mental because I think it's higher quality, but it just seems to work better. Any of these, when I'm getting them from a high quality compounding pharmacist and working with the physician. And I think you just have far less risk as well in terms of the shipping, the delivery, the quality. I mean, to me that seems like a safer way to go with many of these things.

It is.

Okay.

And again, because there is another study that showed that on one particular peptide the analyzed and they found bacterias in, in, in. In the peptide.

Yeah.

So I don't know about you, but I, I don't want Chinese bacteria.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't want that getting injected into my knee. So when, when it comes to one other question I have about peptides before we jump into a few specific peptides that you might recommend for specific purposes, like say, you know, anti aging or fat loss or muscle gain or recovery. When you're using a peptide for a specific reason. Let's say you're using C max for cognition. Is there any need to cycle these kind of similar to like hormones, for example, do you develop tolerance? Do you need to go like eight weeks on, four weeks off or, you know, if you're using BPC157 for your gut, you know, orally, is it something you'd take for a little bit of time and then you need to stop? Or can you kind of like, let's say fish oil, just take something like this every day?

Yeah, yeah. Unless you overdose and saturate in a ridiculous matter the receptors. But no, usually no, there is no. You can take for a long, long time. The effect will still be there and yeah, no problem.

Okay, now though, what about like if, if you didn't want to be in a state of constant anabolism, or you didn't want to inhibit cellular autophagy, or you wanted more of a longevity effect and you were using something like, you know, I think probably the guy you heard me interview was Jay Campbell, and he and I were talking about Tessamorelin or a lot of these IGF type of compounds, wouldn't you want to cycle something like that? So you aren't just in a state of constant growth year round for, you know, just for longevity purposes?

Yeah, again, it depends. Tessamorelin is a funny. I've been asked after that podcast I've been Asked if we could sell it, but we actually, the biochemist I work with is under contract with the company that patented and makes Tesamorelin. So that's the only peptides my company cannot make because of that.

So your company makes peptides as well?

Of course.

What's the name of your company?

Canlab.net Canlab.net yeah, that's the web store, but it's Canlab Research.

Okay. Can Lab Research. I'm keeping show notes, by the way. For those of you listening in, just go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com peptide podcast. That's BenGreenfieldFitness.com PeptidePodcast and I'll link to a lot of the stuff that we're talking about today. Okay, so some of these would need to be cycled, but some of them, like say BPC157 or some of the ones that aren't necessarily super growth promoting, those could be used on a daily basis, for example.

Yeah, even bpc, depending how many times a day, because the effect lasts about six hours. So if you inject only once a day, well, you have your cycling there, because you have six hours you get the effect and 18 hours you don't. So you have a daily cycle of the BPC TB500. The effect lasts between 10 and 15 days. Now, I'm not talking about the life of the peptide, the peptide, you have enzymes in the blood that break down peptides. They don't last for even TB500. That the metabolic cascade it creates for repair continues for 10, 15. It's like training. You train for an hour, but you build muscle. The MTOR goes on for hours and days. So it's the same thing with peptides. And that's why, I don't know if I can say that on the podcast, but they say TB500 is tested by some sports federations. But basically, bits of information here. After 12 hours you cannot detect TB 500. It's all gone. The effect will continue though. So it would. And you don't need to inject because of that every day. So you would need to be very unlucky to be tested within 10, 12 hours of using it.

Yeah. Not that we would endorse cheating or breaking the in season competition regulations, but. But from what I understand, many peptides are banned by the World Anti Doping association and USADA and a lot of these governing sport bodies, but some I believe still are legal. Such as, correct me if I'm wrong, but like BPC157 for example.

It'S not if you read, well the directives, they include without naming it, BPC 500. I think it goes like any peptide that increase repair and blah blah, blah. So they don't name it. But if you are taking it and if they would test for it and see it, yeah, that could disqualify you.

Okay. Yeah. I do know a lot of the growth hormone ones like epamorlin and Tessamorelin and GHRP and many of these others, they're definitely banned. But I was under the impression that there were still some that were not. So I guess probably the best step, and I'll tell you what I use a lot of times with my athletes and myself is you just go to globaldro.com that's just like it sounds, globaldro.com and you can do a search for which type of compounds or supplements that you're taking would be legal versus not. So I'll link to that one in the show notes. Now, I want to be sure that we address certain peptides that you like for certain things. And I guess one of the big areas, and this was where I was kind of first turned on to peptides on an even deeper level was anti aging. I attended a 4M the American Academy of Anti Aging Medicine conference in Vegas. And peptides seem to be just the darling of the expo there. A lot of physicians were talking about them and going to separate breakout sessions on them. There are certain peptides that I'm aware of like apitalon and Mot c and Humanin for example, that a lot of people now are turning to as mitochondrial enhancers or even anti aging compounds. And I'm curious what your take is on a lot of these and which anti aging or longevity enhancing peptides you've actually noted to be efficacious or that you might recommend.

I would recommend all of them. They're very right on their effect. But don't expect like let's say you take Epitalon for 10 or 20 days and you do telomere length test before and after the studies that were done on humans in Russia on epitalon, it was mixed with Timalin and orvillan, which are two thymus peptides. They measured the telomeres before and after 12 and 15 years, not one month or one year. So it's a slow effect that compounds over the years. But with that mix of epitalon and Timalan they saw an increase in telomere length of about 15% when normally you should have seen a decrease. So yearly you may see first it would Stop the shortening and yearly maybe an increase of 1% in the length. So it's a bit of a leap of faith. That's why I tell my clients, take this, take this. I don't tell them to take this because I'm not a physician, but I tell them that if I was them, I would take this, this and this and I wouldn't. In 15 years, 20 years, when you compare to other people your age, you'll see the difference. When you'll go for blood test, you'll see the difference.

Yeah, yeah. I mean a lot of these, like, like epitalon for example, that acts as, as a telomerase activator, I believe so it would decrease the rate at which telomeres shorten. And you might be aware of this. I don't recall the details of the actual study, but I believe in a human study, several weeks of apitalon administration resulted in a pretty significant increase in a lot of markers related to lifespan. Are you familiar of any studies on epitolin?

Well, those from Russia, that one maybe I've seen, I'm not sure, but sometimes. Okay, if you don't mind, I'll talk about those Russian peptides classified as bioregulator. Peptide is the most known of. But there is right now 25 about that are known. And I know that institute in St. Petersburg, they came about 50 more that are under investigation to see what they do, if they have a positive effect or not, will know the result maybe in a year or two. But right now there are 25. And the general trend of those peptides, it's bioregulation, it's a bit like an adaptogen. If something is too high, it's going to bring it down. If it's too low, it's going to bring it up at the organ level in its function. So if you had a very. And epitalon is known for the anti aging, but overall it's the hormonal system peptide. So if you have something very depressed, then yes, you may see an immediate effect. You see that with other people with epitalon their melatonin levels are very low. That comes with age. They take epitalon and very fast they recuperate their sleep. I've seen epitalon work great with competitive women. You know, before competition they train harder body fat percentage, decrease the stress, everything. So after a competition they're a wreck. The iPad, they would go on an epitalon and bang. It will bring everything back together very fast. And the most comment I get from those people, you Say, well, I've been sleeping like 13 hours for a few days. It would really bring back everything and provoke sleep for repair. So yes, if you have something, an anecdote, my doctor, who is like kind of a black sheep here in that part of Canada because we're probably in there is a big, big restriction from the doctor association order. They cannot do anything. And he's very strong on prescribing for the thyroid. You know that, that extract. Armor.

Yeah, yeah. Thyroid armor.

Yeah, yeah. And you know, every time I go see him, we spend like three hours talking and this and that and, and he was telling me something, he said, it's funny though, I say, I've noticed people, I put on armor, that after a certain time, maybe a year, you start to see an improvement in their thyroid function. It's coming back. And I told him, I said, I know why, because in the extract you'll find some of the bioregulator peptide. And maybe you don't get much, maybe not much is absorbed, but over time the quantity will be there. And yes, the thyroid function will be improved. So it does work like that too. But it's kind of a slow process. It's not like, okay, you have an injury, you take a few shots of TB 500 and Bang, you know, it worked. That class of peptide, it's more slow, but it does work. And sometimes too, yes, you see more immediate effects.

What about MOT C? MOTS C and Humanin? Because those are two others that seem to be growing in popularity for their anti aging and mitochondrial enhancement and even exercise performance effects.

Yeah, Umanin. You know, I was at that thing in Toronto in September where you gave a conference and.

Oh, you at that biohacking conference.

Yeah, we didn't talk, but yeah, I was there.

Oh, small world.

And you mentioned umanin. And it's funny because then nobody knew about it, you couldn't read about it, but we had made a batch like the year before and mudsi too. We have like a couple of grams sitting there. Very good. Of course, actually I'm working kind of a formula because working with Dr. Cook, I came to realize, you know, he said, okay, after we met, send me all the main peptides you have. I send him a bunch of vials and then I get phone calls almost every day. Hey, Jeff, how much water do I put in this one? How much in this one? How much this, how much that? And I realized the crowd of anti aging people or performance people, mostly anti aging people, they are not into mixing like five vials different and measuring every day. So now I'm working on a few formulas where it's all going to be mixed together. So you have to.

You mean like you'd have a Pitalon with Humana and with Mot C together in the same.

I have like.

And those peptides aren't going to interact with one one another and, and form different peptide bonds?

No.

Okay.

Unless that's a method, you eat up the thing.

I think that's a great idea to use more of a shotgun formula. Whether it's a mix of TB 500 and BPC 157 because you know, those act on different pathways. You know.

Exactly.

TB on the, on the fiber pathway and BPC on the inflammatory pathway. So I think that that's a great opportunity there is to create, you know, stacks, for example, in those specific areas. Now what about for fat loss? Are there any peptides that seem to be particularly efficacious for fat loss?

Yes and no. You know, people, they always look for the magic pill. I don't know if you notice, I don't want to be talk bad about the whole thing, but when I went to that thing in the biohacking conference in Toronto, I saw a lot of fat people, even from presenters, you know, and I came to talk, I said, you know, there are steps to take. It's like if you are a smoker and you take a bunch of antioxidants, it won't work. Your risk of cancer is still there.

Or if you want to compete in the Olympics, you can't breathe structured water and stand on a vibration platform, you understand?

So there are things that have to be done first. So. And for me, number one exercise diet, that has to be not perfect. But, but come on, you know, if you're overweight, try to lose weight.

Yeah, I get what you're saying. But at the same time, you know, some, some people like to use a, you know, kind of a multimodal approach. They like to exercise, eat well, you know, hit the sauna, do, do some cold sessions and maybe they want to throw some kind of a peptide in the mix or are there any out there for, for body composition?

Yes. Once that is done, to help those processes, they are the cheapest one would be a growth hormone secretagog to increase a bit growth hormone levels. Not crazy, but that will help.

That would be like Ipamorelin or tessamorelin.

Yeah. And CGC 1295. Not the long lasting one, you know, again, the biochemist. You know, CGC 1295 was invented at the University I'm at, and the biochemist I work with made the first molecule of that peptide. And they did a bunch of research. And every time I talked to him about CGC 1295, DAC they call the one that bind to a globulin in the blood that makes it last for days, he said, listen, he said, no, no, no. He said, all the rats we tested with that product, they all died of a horrible death. It's long term, it's not a good product. Little parenthesis, go for the short acting one.

And what would be the short acting one?

It's the CGC. Well, different name. It's CGC 1295. No DAC some people call it or it's modified something i29, there is a bunch of tweak. Right now they have one that is like a thousand more potent DAC than the normal epamorium and all that.

Yeah. So to clarify, CGC 1295 is a growth hormone and you could get that as what's called the DAC version versus the no DAC version. And you'd recommend the no DAC version to get some of the better effects without the side effects.

Exactly. Plus there is another reason. If you take the DAC version, you'll get growth hormone peaks. You don't decide when you get them. And if you get them when your blood sugar is high, then it, it won't convert to IGF1, so you kind of lose of those peaks.

That makes sense. And dac, by the way, for those of you listening, it stands for drug affinity complex. It kind of controls the release over time when administered. And what Dr. Francois is saying is that you wouldn't want to control the release over time, Correct?

Exactly.

Yeah. Okay, gotcha. What about muscle gain? Are there any peptides out there that you think would be efficacious for muscle gain? Or they also be those same kind of growth hormone type of peptides.

In terms of peptides, no, nothing impressive. There is a few, but they require like there is the mechanical growth factor peptide. But it has such a local effect. Let's say you would want the bicep. You would need to inject like 10 spots within the biceps after a training, you know, it's okay. Extreme people. Yeah, maybe. But 90% of the population, they'll do it for a week and they'll give up. They say, well, that's too many injections, they get sick of it. So. And again, it's a marginal effect. It's the next step. Okay, you're competing. The muscle mass is Important for you. You add that, yes, you'll get an extra effect, but I don't see it as a major. No, no.

Okay.

No. For muscle gain. Nothing. Great for now.

Okay, gotcha. Now if you were to get on, let's say you were to start on a peptide protocol, which I know a lot of people in the anti aging industry or physicians in the anti aging industry, someone will come to them and they'll walk out the door with a prescription. One of my friends recently went to their physician and they left with a recommendation for an 8 week cycle of, of ipamorelin and then CJC 1275 as a muscle builder and fat burner. And then another one called AOD906 as an energy enhancer, DSIP to enhance sleep and deep sleep and then BPC157 for healing as like a peptide stack. And I'm not necessarily saying like that's the ideal stack, but that's kind of the prescription that they left with. Now in your case, do you think, or could you say that there's like a certain stack or series of stacks that you found to be. Be pretty efficacious if somebody just wants the best of the best, they want to gain muscle, lose fat, think better, sleep better, you know, etc. Are there, are there certain peptide kind of stacks that you recommend?

Okay, but easy. I'm going to tell you what I take like on a regular basis. Epitalon, that's number one, long term effect, two, three times a year. That's good. Another thing some people may wonder why Epitalon, Timalin, those bioregulators, why do you need, why don't you take them year round? Because they have the particularity that their receptor site is the actual DNA chain. So they bind at specific spot in the DNA and they stay there. They make the DNA dilate in that position, which increases the expression of the genes in that area. And in those cases it's a positive expression, but they stay there. So you do 100 milligrams of Epitalon, you have all over the body in all the genes that are receptive to that molecule. And after you stop, it's going to continue working for months. You do it again after six months to replenish. Because yes, you have cells that die that. Okay, so new cells, they don't have epital, so you replenish a couple of times a year. So that's the reason why.

So if you're going to cycle it, how many weeks are you cycling it for?

Well, I found the Standard total dosage is 100 milligrams. And initially in the study it was done either 10 milligrams per day for 10 days or 10 milligrams per day. One day. On one day they have different protocol, but usually the total is 50 or 100 milligrams. But I found out that for immediate effect, like on sleep and everything, if you spread it out a bit more, like over 20 days or 30 days, that 100 milligrams, you get a bit of a better effect.

Okay, so got it. What else do you use?

Dsip. I use once in a while. But that DSIP is a funny one because. Okay, first I got caught in that a few years ago. I thought you would take it before you go to sleep and it would knock you out. It doesn't, because it's not a sleep inducing peptide.

Well, that's what it stands for. Delta sleep inducing peptide, bsip.

There you go. It induces the delta sleep phase of sleep, not the old sleep itself or.

Sleep onset, for example.

So it won't affect the alpha phase, the REM phase. It will make your deep sleep deeper.

And longer if you, if you can get past the, the initial sleep onset. You're saying if you use that, you could see an increase in percentage of deep sleep?

Exactly. But I made that mistake thinking, oh, you know, like, no, it doesn't put you to sleep at all. And actually turns out it, it works better if you take it at least two hours before you go to sleep. And the effect, either you use it every day or every second day, it's going to work the same. It's a funny peptide because of that. Now they're starting. But for many years they knew it existed. They knew it was produced in the human body, but they had no clue where it came from, you know, which gland or system would produce it. And the way it works, it's still in a funny zone where. So they have different protocol, but it does work big time. Okay, so this one I use once in a while. Again because it doesn't need to be taken every day. So maybe three shots a week and I'm happy with that. TB500 I use maybe once a month just for preventive because sometimes you have little injuries that start to develop. You don't even feel them. So you know, you kill the bird in the egg.

And this would be like, like post workout or, or after a difficult training.

Oh, no, anytime.

Just anytime. Okay, gotcha. So that, that'd be something that an athlete would use to enhance recovery.

Yeah. Okay. And. And what? Yeah, and maybe once every two months, BPC 10 milligrams for to intestinal permeability repair. Almost everybody has problem with that. So you know, once in a while repair it and go on.

Okay.

Okay. With the epitalon I would take a thymus peptide, either timalin or violin timolin.

Or what was the other one you mentioned as your thymus peptide?

Vylon V I L O N. Okay, gotcha.

Now for those, would you primarily do those to stave off the immune system degradation?

Yeah, yeah. And for longevity, if you think about it, if you have a strong immune system, less disease, you live longer.

Okay.

Less degradation. Yeah.

Are there any others that you're using, like cmash or anything like that?

On Enough? Yeah, you know, I have access to all of those, but it's like at one point, I don't know. Cmax C lank when I use it. Yeah, I mix them one shot in the morning and maybe for a month and stop. Not because I don't feel the effect anymore, but I get tired of injecting every day or routine.

Oh, by the way, the thymolin or the vilon, are you using those daily or cycling them like you are the epitalon?

The bioreculators like the epitalon. Couple of times a year.

Okay, so you're using those a couple of times a year. Very similarly, yeah. Okay, but are those similar? Those are 10 milligram a day cycle. Or are those different dosages?

No, again I would go for a lower dosage for maybe over 20 days. 30 days. Yeah.

Okay, gotcha, gotcha. But a similar dosage of like for 20 days, like 5 milligrams a day.

That's right.

Okay, gotcha. Very interesting, very interesting. Now I could, I could talk to you forever about this stuff, but obviously our time is limited. Where's the best place for people to find out more about you or to communicate with you?

Okay, well actually on Facebook I have a Can Lab page. They look for canlab and I write some articles, I post a few. I'm not a big writer actually, but once in a while and answer questions. So if they come up. So yeah, CanLab on Facebook, that's my go to place right now.

Okay, awesome. I'll find you on there. And I'll try to put a link in the show notes here. Sometimes actually we have to be careful with what links I put in show notes for some of this stuff that's not sold for human consumption. But anything I can link to and that the folks who protect me on this stuff. I am allowed to link, link to, I'll link to. So hopefully we can get a link to your Facebook page there. And I'll also link to my first and second podcast with Dr. Matthew Cook who initially turned me on to Jean Francois. And we talk about peptides in both of those shows. And I'll also link to my podcast with Jay Campbell in which we talk about some of these things like tessamorelin and some of these growth hormone based peptides. And I'll put all of Those over at BenGreenfieldFitness.com PeptidePodcast that's BenGreenfieldFitness.comPeptidePodcast Jean Francois, thanks so much for coming on the show and sharing all this stuff with us, man. It's fascinating.

Well, no, it was my pleasure, Ben.

Awesome. Awesome. All right, folks. Well, I'm Ben Greenfield along with Jean Francois Tremblay signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com have an amazing week. Well, thanks for listening to today's show. You can grab all the show notes, the resources, pretty much much everything that I 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 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 use the links in the show notes, use the promo codes that I generate because that helps to float this thing and keep it coming to.