In this 30‑minute lecture Dr. Ashley Frazee demystifies the overwhelming peptide landscape by organizing over 60 popular peptides into logical functional “buckets.” She begins with a brief biology primer, explaining that the body operates via signaling pathways—brain, hormones, and cellular receptors—and that peptides act as natural amplifiers of these signals. She then walks through each bucket, naming representative peptides, summarizing their proposed mechanisms, the level of scientific evidence (cellular, animal, or human), regulatory status, and practical safety considerations. The buckets cover: (1) inflammation and tissue repair (e.g., GHK‑Cu, KPV, thymosin α‑1, BPC‑157, TB‑500); (2) mitochondrial fatigue (SS‑31/elamipretide, MOTS‑c); (3) growth‑hormone‑related recovery (sermorelin, CJC‑1295, ipamorelin, tesamorelin, IGF‑1 LR3); (4) metabolism and fat‑loss (semaglutide, tirzepatide, retatrutide, AOD‑9604); (5) cognitive enhancement (Semax, dihexa); (6) anxiety/stress modulation (Selank, C‑Max); (7) sleep and circadian regulation (epithelin, pinealon, DSIP). She emphasizes that most data are pre‑clinical, warns against unapproved use, and stresses the need for individualized assessment. The talk concludes with a call to action for her “Peptide Mastery” course, positioning it as a comprehensive, research‑backed guide for anyone wanting to move from superficial knowledge to informed, safe peptide use.
Chapters
Peptides are confusing. I mean, there's over 60 of them that are popular, so where do you start? I've spent hundreds of hours reading the research, trying these myself, and breaking them down for close to 30 videos on this channel. And the thing I've realized is this: most people don't need more peptide information. They need a system, a way to actually think about peptides so they can make smart decisions for their own biology, for the ones that are approved for human use, of course. Well, that's what I'm going to give you today. Today I'm going to walk you through every major peptide category, what each one does, and why it matters. But before we get into the peptides, you need about 30 seconds of biology. So your body runs on signals. Your brain sends out the signals, your hormones carry them out, and your cells receive them. And when everything's working, you recover, build muscle, burn fat, you sleep well, and you feel sharp. But stress, inflammation, poor sleep, aging— these things degrade the signal. Your cells stop hearing the messages. Your mitochondria, the engines inside every cell that produce all your energy, well, they start slowing down. Sputtering. Your pituitary gland, the project manager that coordinates growth hormone, your reproductive system, your stress response, it starts making some bad calls. And that's the gap that peptides can fill. They're not necessarily drugs, they're signaling molecules, amplifiers of biology. They help restore the conversations your body is already trying to have. I'm gonna put peptides into some buckets here because this is how I like to think about them. Bucket number 1, inflammation and tissue repair. This is where most people start when they think about peptides, and for good reason. Because chronic inflammation is at the root of almost everything that goes wrong. And what happens in the body when you have chronic inflammation? Well, it damages receptors, it blocks hormones from landing, and it keeps your body stuck in survival mode. So one of the most famous peptides for lowering inflammation is GHK copper. This one's fascinating. It's a naturally occurring peptide that your body already makes, but production drops significantly as you get older. It's been researched for its ability to calm inflammatory gene expression, promote collagen synthesis, and it's why the Glow Blend is purple. It's been shown to influence over 4,000 genes, many of them related to tissue remodeling and repair. It essentially helps reset your tissue's environment back toward a healthier, younger baseline. And I'll be doing a deep dive on this peptide, so watch for that. There's a lot more to say. All right, let's talk about KPV. This is a very small peptide. It's a fragment of a hormone that we all have called alpha-MSH. And it's been studied specifically for inflammation, especially gut inflammation. And you'll notice out in the peptide world a lot of people using it for inflammation in the skin, though it's not necessarily researched for that. But it works by inhibiting inflammatory pathways at the cellular level. It goes into the nucleus of the cell and it turns off NF-kappaB, which is the master switch for inflammation. It's been heavily studied in inflammation in the gut in animals. And if you think about it, if the gut is inflamed, everything downstream suffers— nutrient absorption, immune signaling, even mood. Thymosin alpha-1. This is an immune-modulating peptide. It doesn't just boost the immune system. According to research, it helps regulate it. It's been shown to help the immune system respond more intelligently rather than just more aggressively. It's actually approved as a drug in over 35 countries for conditions like hepatitis. And BPC-157, probably the most well-known recovery peptide there is. BPC stands for Body Protection Compound, and it's derived from a protein found in your stomachs. What makes BPC-157 unique is that it appears to upregulate growth factor receptors, meaning it doesn't just act as a signal. It makes your tissues more sensitive to the repair signals that your body is already sending. It's been studied extensively for tendon, ligament, muscle, and gut healing. It's all animal studies, but if you get around enough, you can hear the talk about BPC-157. BPC-157 is unique in that it is very stable in the stomach, and you can find BPC and KPV supplements like this one that I really like, and I'll put a link in the description for this one in particular if you want that. Then there's TB500, often paired with BPC-157 in the famous Wolverine blend. This one works differently though. TB-500 is a synthetic version of a naturally occurring peptide called thymosin beta-4. Its primary mechanism is promoting cellular migration. So it essentially acts like a GPS signal telling repair signals where to go. It upregulates actin, a protein that gives cells the structural ability to actually move to the site of an injury. See, BPC-157 makes the tissues more receptive to healing and TB-500 helps recruit the repair crews to get to the right area. Moving on, let's start another bucket, a bucket for fatigue. Okay, if inflammation is like the fire in a building, mitochondrial dysfunction can be like the power outage. So your mitochondria produce ATP. That is the energy currency for literally everything your body does. When mitochondria are damaged or inefficient, you feel it everywhere. That includes with brain fog, slow recovery, fatigue, And sleep just doesn't fix it. Well, let's talk about one of my favorite peptides, SS31, or elamipretide. This peptide's actually FDA approved for a specific mitochondrial disease, but what we've seen in the research is that it protects or stabilizes the inner mitochondrial membrane. It binds to something called cardiolipin, which helps hold the inner mitochondrial membrane together, and structural integrity of the inner mitochondrial membrane is crucial for energy production. When cardiolipin gets damaged or thrown off by oxidative stress or inflammation, your energy production tanks. And then there's MOTS-c. Now this one is different because it's encoded by mitochondrial DNA. So it's a mitochondrial-derived signaling peptide, which means that your mitochondria are actually trying to communicate with the rest of your body using MOTS-c. In animal studies, MOTS-c has been shown to activate AMPK, which is your body's Master Fuel Sensor. MOTS-c has been shown to increase glucose utilization, thereby lowering insulin resistance, and it can shift cells toward fatty acid oxidation or burning over storing. It also appears to reduce inflammatory signals, which we can also put that in the inflammatory bucket, but I like it here. This one's also not FDA approved for human use, but the research is really compelling. And again, you'll find people out there that are using it. I can't encourage it. I'm just sharing what I know. Moving on, bucket 3, recovery. See, your pituitary gland, which lives at the base of your brain, naturally releases growth hormone in pulses, especially during deep sleep and after exercise. Growth hormone drives repair, recovery, muscle protein synthesis, and fat metabolism. But as you age, those pulses get weaker and less frequent. And so the things that go in this bucket are restoring that signal. Sermorelin, a growth hormone-releasing hormone analog, works by stimulating the pituitary to release growth hormone in a natural pulsatile pattern, unlike synthetic human growth hormone, which just kind of floods the system and takes over. Now, this is important because the pulsatile pattern is how your body is designed to utilize growth hormone, and sermorelin can remind the pituitary to basically just do its job. CJC-1295, which is a really popular peptide in the muscle building space, Is similar to Sermorelin in that it does the same thing. It stimulates growth hormone-releasing hormone receptors. It just stays in the body a little bit longer than Sermorelin does, and so it's a little more potent. It's often combined with something called Ipamorelin, which is a growth hormone-releasing peptide or a ghrelin mimetic. Ghrelin is a hunger hormone utilized when we are fasting to increase growth hormone output. And what makes Ipamorelin popular is that it's considered one of the more selective ghrelin mimetics, meaning it raises growth growth hormone without significantly increasing the release of cortisol and prolactin, which some other growth hormone-releasing peptides do, like hexarelin, GHRP-2, and GHRP-6. And then there's tesamorelin or tesamorelin. I've been saying things the way I've been saying for a long time, so excuse me if I get it wrong. Well, tesamorelin is actually FDA approved specifically for reducing visceral fat in people with HIV-associated lipodystrophy. I've said that way more times than I ever thought I would. Well, studies showed a 15 to 20% reduction in visceral fat over 6 to 12 months. It's also a growth hormone-releasing hormone analog like serramorelin and CJC-1295, but it has a stronger and more targeted effect on visceral fat reduction, we think. Again, it works by increasing growth hormone output, and growth hormone improves fatty acid oxidation or the breakdown of stored fat. For use as fuel. Then there's IGF-LR3. This is the downstream hormone that growth hormone gets most of its credit for. So IGF-1 does all the good things that we've basically said that growth hormone does. Well, it's actually IGF-1. When growth hormone hits the liver, the liver produces IGF-1, insulin-like growth factor. IGF-1 is what actually drives a lot of the muscle repair, cellular growth, and recovery that people associate with growth hormone. IGF-LR3 is a synthetic version of IGF-1 with a longer half-life, meaning it stays active longer in the body. And that's why researchers made it so that they could study the effects of IGF-1. This is a more advanced tool that biohackers will use to bypass the pituitary entirely and deliver the end product directly to the body. And it's powerful, but it also means that you need to understand what you're doing if you're going to try this. Again, I can't encourage you to do that. Moving on to bucket number 4, metabolism and fat loss. This category has exploded lately and for good reason. Well, these peptides aren't just helping people lose weight, they're fundamentally changing how the body handles insulin, appetite, and metabolic signaling. Semaglutide, originally developed for type 2 diabetes and now indicated for obesity. Semaglutide is a GLP-1 receptor agonist. It's a peptide. It mimics a hormone your gut naturally releases after eating, which tells your brain that you're full and tells your pancreas to manage insulin more effectively. But the benefits go beyond appetite. See, we're seeing improvements in cardiovascular markers, inflammatory markers, and even early research into neuroprotective effects, meaning we're starting to look at it for preventing things like dementia. Then there's tirzepatide, which is a dual agonist. It hits both GLP-1 and GIP receptors. GIP is another hormone that amplifies insulin-sensitizing and appetite-regulating effects. Studies on tirzepatide showed a 30% reduction in fatty liver, and the weight loss results have been unprecedented in clinical trials until retatrutide came around. Now, retatrutide is a triple agonist— GLP-1, GIP, and glucagon receptor agonist. Studies have shown up to an 80% reduction in fatty liver and direct visceral fat loss. With retatrutide. It effectively blunts your appetite, improves fat burning, and maintains and actually increases metabolic rate even while in a caloric deficit, which was almost unheard of until now. Retatrutide is about to hit the market as an FDA-approved treatment for probably diabetes, probably knee osteoarthritis, and obesity. But again, people have gotten their hands on it all over the place and are shouting its benefits. From the rooftops. And then there's AOD-9604. Well, this peptide is a fragment of growth hormone, specifically the fragment responsible for fat mobilization. It doesn't affect blood sugar or growth the way that full growth hormone does, but it works by mimicking the fat-burning region of growth hormone. It helps to mobilize those fatty acids for fuel. So think of it as isolating this specific function of growth hormone and using just that piece. It doesn't work that well for people who need to lose 50 to 100 pounds. I mean, it worked really well in the rat studies and it works for some people, just more of a kind of a fat loss finisher, if you will. Bucket number 5, focus and cognitive enhancement. Believe it or not, the brain runs on the same signaling principles as the rest of the body. And when neuroplasticity, the ability of your neurons to change and adapt to things, when neuroplasticity When neurotrophic factors decline, you feel it as brain fog, poor focus, slower learning, things like that. Well, there's the peptide Semax developed in Russia. Semax has been studied extensively for cognitive enhancement. Its primary mode of action is by increasing brain-derived neurotrophic factor. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor is what your brain uses to strengthen existing neural connections and build new ones. It's essentially fertilizer for your neurons. Semax has been shown to improve mental focus, clarity, and alertness. And this one's fun because it's small enough to be absorbed by the nasal mucosa, and so you'll see a lot of people sniffing it. And then there's dihexa. This is a remarkable peptide, and it's also a little intimidating because in research, dihexa has been shown to be up to 10 million times more potent than brain-derived neurotrophic factor at promoting neural connections. It's an oral peptide that works on the hepatocyte growth factor to c-Met pathway, which plays a major role in synapse formation. It's been studied in animals and in rats with Alzheimer's disease has shown some really promising effects. But, and I have to be clear with this one, there are real safety concerns with Dihexa because of that hepatogrowth factor to c-Met pathway. Don't rush out to buy it is all I'm saying. All right, let's make a bucket for anxiety and stress. Now I talk about cortisol a lot. Cortisol isn't just a feeling. It's not just stress. It's a fat storage signal. It's a muscle wasting signal, and it's an inflammation amplifier. Managing your stress response isn't just about mental health. See, it's about protecting your entire hormonal system. And so there are peptides that help with that. Selank, another peptide developed in Russia alongside Semax. Cilantro has been shown to have anxiolytic properties similar to medications like Xanax and Ativan, but without the sedation or addictive potential that those drugs have. It appears to work by modulating GABA activity and influencing serotonin metabolism. It's also been shown to help regulate overactive cortisol responses, bringing cortisol back down to normal levels when it's been Overamplified in certain stressful situations. And C-Max can go in this bucket too, because C-Max has been shown to bring cortisol levels back to baseline after very stressful events, like basically after an over-response of cortisol. Now let's create a bucket for sleep. I don't think you'll argue that sleep is when your body does its deepest repair work. If your circadian rhythm is disrupted or your sleep architecture is broken, meaning you're not getting enough deep sleep, everything you're doing is compromised. Your growth hormone pulses happen during deep sleep. Your brain clears out metabolic waste during deep sleep. Recovery happens during deep sleep. Let's talk about this peptide called epithelin. This peptide has been studied for its effects on the pineal gland and melatonin production. It appears to help reset circadian rhythms and restore natural melatonin cycles. But what makes epithelin especially interesting is the telomere research. It's been shown to activate telomerase, the enzyme that lengthens telomeres. Telomeres are the protective caps on your chromosomes that shorten with age, and this puts epithelin at the intersection of sleep optimization and longevity research. Then there's pinealon. This is a peptide that has been shown to revamp the pineal gland specifically. It's been studied for its ability to normalize melatonin synthesis and improve circadian rhythm as well. It works a little bit differently. It works at the gene expression level within pineal cells, helping restore the structure of the cells within the pineal gland. Then there's delta sleep-inducing peptide, or DSIP. The name says it all. DSIP has been studied for its ability to promote delta wave sleep, the deepest stage of sleep where your brain and your body do the most significant physical recovery. Not getting enough deep sleep is associated with impaired growth hormone release, Weakened immune systems, and accelerated aging. But DSIP appears to help increase the time spent in deep sleep. Okay, that was a lot. Your head is probably spinning a little, and that's okay. I even cut out the sections on immunity and longevity, believe it or not. But here's my point. The thing most people get wrong about peptides is not knowing the categories in which they can fit in. See, if you're gonna play around with peptides, you have to understand what these things could potentially do. But it all comes down to this. Everybody has unique circumstances. See, it's not enough to just want to try peptides. You have to understand what they could potentially do and the safety concerns and risks that are associated with them, which I've taken it upon myself to really understand as much of that as possible. A lot of what we know about peptides comes from cellular and animal research, not necessarily human, but we've also learned a lot from actual human use. Just look around you. And personally, I wouldn't be as excited about them if I thought they did more harm than benefit. And if you want to go deeper into this, I've built a full peptide course called Peptide Mastery where I break these down individually and help you actually understand what each peptide is, what it's been researched for, and why the world of peptides can be so powerful. And this course is for anyone wanting to understand peptides. When I started learning about peptides, It was really confusing and I couldn't find one place to get just the information that I needed to know to apply it to me or you, or how do we think about these things? So that's what I've created. If you're interested in that, please see the link in my description. I mean, I tried watching other creators' content about these things and I basically just got a lot of information that was flat out wrong. So that's exactly why I built a course on understanding peptides. And so that's exactly why I took everything that I've learned. I read all the research that I could, and I built a course on understanding peptides for anyone so that you don't just know about peptides, you actually understand them well enough to have an intelligent conversation with your doctor or your friend, or well enough so that nobody can sell you something that you don't need. I'm Dr. Ashley Frazee. I hope you liked this video. If you did, please hit like for me, subscribe to my channel, and I'll keep making videos to help you feel fascinated and informed. Hope you have the best day.
