Peptides for Better Health EXPLAINED for BEGINNERS | Dr. Joy Kong

These are just such powerful new tools that we have now. And how amazing as a doctor that I have all these naturally occurring peptides that I can get people to target specific needs. A study of 79 patients with coronary artery disease, and they're aged 60 to 69, where half of them received six courses of apetalon and they were monitored for 10 years. So the apetalon group, when you look at their cardiovascular function, they were nine years younger than the ones that did not get this peptide. We all know people can have spontaneous remission, right? So what's happening there? Why is the body able to heal itself? So the body has the tools, it has the signals. So if we know how to turn on and off certain signals, then we can invoke signals, some of that very powerful natural healing abilities. My new passion in regenerative medicine is peptide therapy. So this is a whole new field and I think one day I wouldn't be surprised if 50 to 70% of the medications are going to be replaced by peptides. So peptides are these naturally occurring molecules made up of amino acids and they're short chains, amino acids that can perform all kinds of very specific functions in the body. They exist in every tissue and every organ. There are over 7,000 of them that we've discovered clinically. Probably a few dozens are the most commonly used ones. I incorporate a lot of them in my clinic to help boost the benefits of the other regenerative medicine treatments. I do like stem cell therapy, exosomes, there's some PRPs involved, ozone therapy. So we do a lot of really cutting edge and wonderful regenerative treatments. So peptides. I just want to go over, maybe just a quick overview and then talk about the ones that we use at our clinic. So the peptides are just very, very specific as far as how they act in the body. They can modulate very specific part of hormone production, immune function, sleep cycles, inflammatory reactions, DNA replication, you name it, weight control, muscle gain, tissue healing. It has been shown to be extremely safe, even at doses of 100 to 1000 fold of typical doses. We have been given an increasingly wide range of peptides these days that have been shown to be highly effective. Which are the ones we use in our clinic. The one that's probably one of the oldest, the most well known one, is BPC157. Why is it exciting? It's highly anti inflammatory and it's the most utilized peptide in the world. Highly effective and is non toxic. It was actually initially isolated from gastric juice when people were wondering why your gastric your intestinal tract is not digested from the gastric juice. So they found out that there are these peptides that are highly regenerative and improves healing of the gut lining. It's great for muscles, tendons and bone healing, great for bowel healing and improves GI mucosal integrity, prevents gastric ulcers. It can protect the liver from toxic insults like alcohol, antibiotics. It can repair teeth, cornea and the brain. It can induce serotonin release in the brain and has antidepressant effects. It modulates serotonergic and dopaminergic systems so it can relieve behavioral disturbances and is very neuroprotective. It can protect the somatosensory neurons, Peripheral nerve regeneration after transection. It can help regenerate after tbi, traumatic brain injury, spinal cord compression or other type of nerve disturbances. Then it can protect against NSAID related bleeding abnormalities and GI side effects or hepatotoxicity. So liver toxicity. It can also protect against insulin overdose and also GI liver and vascular injuries. It actually induces nitric oxide production with strong angiogenic effects, so it helps promote new blood vessel formation. It protects the endothelium of blood vessels. It counteracts high blood pressure. It also protects against thrombosis, counteracting thrombocytopenia and prolonged bleeding time. It upregulates growth hormone receptor expression in ligaments and tendons and promotes healing. It reduces excessive pain perception and it outperforms acyclovir for herpes infection at 1000th of the dose of acyclovir. It can be oral and can be also given subcutaneous or intramuscular or even intranasal. And there's no reported toxicity. So there has been a lot of research showing various benefits in conditions like Lyme disease, hiv, other viral infections, inflammatory conditions and cardiovascular disease, diabetes, GI problems and tendon, ligament and muscle repair, periodis, acute pancreatitis, liver lesions, chemical sensitivity, allergies, post surgical healing, mold and toxin exposure, neurodegenerative diseases, depression, anxiety, urinary incontinence. So very exciting. You can see the wide range. High blood pressure, hypotension and thyroid issues can boost mitochondria function. As you can see, the range is wide. One thing that's really cool about BPC157 is that it's like a keychain with lots of keys on. It can turn on different functions and it has this broad range of benefits that we are able to tap into. It's almost like if you don't know what to do. Git PC157 is probably going to help because it promotes healing such a, you know, broad way. So another one that I want to talk about is thymic peptide. So I don't know if you people know how important the thymic gland is and also the pineal gland. So all these. So thymic. Let's talk about thymus. So thymic proteins. So proteins produced by thymus peak at H10 and then sharply declines and stays at a steady low level from our mid-30s. So they're low and thymus shrink and degrade. And that process is influenced by age, obesity, calorie intake, genetics, inflammation, stress, pregnancy, toxins, hypothyroidism, low growth hormone levels, chronic infection and zinc deficiency. The progressive thymic dysfunction causes immune senescence, immune system getting old. That will lead to increases becoming more susceptible to infections, more vulnerable and then also inadequate immune response to vaccines. And also increased tendency for autoimmune diseases. Increase increase cancer risk and increase cardiovascular disease. Overwhelming majority of patients with autoimmune diseases actually have abnormal thymus size. Then majority of people have pineal gland calcification by age 30. Our pineal gland is basically hardened and are not functioning very very well at all. So we utilize certain peptides to replace the thymic peptides. Was identical to thymic peptides and also pineal peptide. So the thymic peptides include TB500, also called thymosin beta 4 or TB4. They're found in all tissues and of all kinds of types, except for blood cells, red blood cells. They are also found in cerebral spinal fluid and wound fluid. They have incredible regenerative activity and that has been shown in traumatic brain injury and spinal Cord injury, stroke, Ms. and other ischemic damages. It can support immunity, improve T cell function, is antimicrobial and protect promotes angiogenesis and accelerates collagen deposition. And it calms muscle spasms, improves muscle tone and it stretches connective tissue. So it maintains flexibility and also reduces inflammation in joint tissue and prevents formation of adhesions. And the fibrotic band formation in muscles and tendons and ligaments can help with dry eyes. Lung fibrosis, fatty liver disease is also protected for the heart, so it reduces systemic inflammation due to infection. The benefits has been shown in Lyme disease, hiv, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, autoimmune diseases, infections, myocardial infarction, ms, Alzheimer's, peripheral neuropathy. And it also is very helpful for things like influenza or common coats and other type of Viruses. So it's a very again it's a very broad acting peptide and again it's like a keychain with multiple keys on it. And it helps so many things. The brain, the immune function, the cardiovascular system, your musculoskeletal system, just tremendous peptide. Then another one we use is T alpha 1, thymosin alpha 1. That one also helps improve tissue repair and healing, improves host defense capabilities. It inhibits viral replication or cancer growth. It can improve microcirculation and improve stress tolerance, increase antioxidant and glutathione production. It can reverse immune suppression from chronic fatigue or fibromyalgia or Lyme disease. It reduces inflammation. It is anti tumor, has anti tumor properties, prevents and treats autoimmunity and its level significantly lowers. In patients with C severe infection and cancer. The TB4 or TB500 can effectively reduce incidence of flu from 19% to 5.5% in comparison to placebos. When you inject TB4 into mice at three and a half months, it increase their lifespan by 28% a decrease also decreased rate of their cancer by 2.8 folds almost three fold decrease in cancer rates. It increases cancer relapse free survival time. It's approved in more than 30 countries as a vaccine adjunct, as a helper for vaccines because it enhances the vaccine's benefit in the treatments of Hep B, Hep C or AIDS is actually FDA approved under orphan drug program. Some of the target conditions where benefits have been shown include Lyme disease, hiv, viral infections, immune deficiency, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, allergies, chemical sensitivity, cancer, aging or just preventative in travel situations. Then the pineal gland peptide, apitalon or epitalon, different ways of saying it. Apatilon actually increases pineal synthesis of serotonin and melatonin. It induces telomerase activity and increases and restores telomere length. I'm super excited about this. Of course the Russians were the ones that were doing a lot of study on this peptide decades ago and conducted huge, huge studies. The number is 11,000 in one study. So it's pretty remarkable. This peptide has been shown to increase telomere length. And as you know, telomeres are the end caps for the DNA. It's like the end of shoelace, the plastic wraps at the end of the. When the telomeres is long enough, then your DNA will continue to replicate in a normal fashion. But if you run out of telomeres, then the DNA's replication will start to degrade and then you won't have normal cells. And that pretty much spells the end. It's amazing that this actually increases telomere length and slows down aging. Slow sense aging of the reproductive system. That has been shown in rats and increases the T4 to T3 conversion. That's a thyroid hormone. The T3 is the active form. It helps increase that conversion and improves glucose tolerance and decrease insulin and triglyceride levels. That improves your metabolic health. It also activates gene expression and protein synthesis in specific target tissues and increases lifespan of mice. From 14% of the mice reaching age of two years, from 14% of the mice to 56% you're bringing up majority of the mice to live a long time. A really cool study is a study of 79 patients with coronary artery disease and they're age 60 to 69 where half of them received six courses of apetalon at 10 milligrams every three days for 15 days. That's one course only for 15 days. And every six months they do another one. They only did it six times. That's three years. They were monitored for 10 years. The Apatylon group, when you look at their cardiovascular function, they were nine years younger than the ones that did not get this peptide. The mortality rate due to cardiovascular disease was reduced from 83% to 46%. Their physical endurance was improved by 10% versus deterioration by 10% in the control group. The epitalon group also had a normalization of the circadian rhythm, so increasing their melatonin production and improve their carbohydrate and lipid metabolism. And it has been shown to be pretty helpful as a prophylaxis against age related pathologies including cancer. So I love that peptide. I just think it's amazing to be able to take something 15 days twice a year and that can lengthen your telomere and rejuvenate your cardiovascular vascular system and extend your lifespan. So it's just amazing. We have tools like these like this right now. So definitely I encourage my patients to take it and then I take it and I think actually helped my carbohydrate metabolism. It's pretty cool. And then we have some brain peptides. That includes Dihexa, which is really exciting new peptide. It has shown to improve cognitive function and was found to be 10 million times more potent than brain derived neurotropic factor BDNF. It can help in the repair of the brain and nerves. It can increase mental stamina, improve creative thinking skills, enhance conversational skills. I think I need some of that right now because I don't have it yet. I'm trying to get some into my clinic. And improves problem solving and helps in managing depression and improves focus, learning and memory. That's going to be a wonderful peptide and that's by mouth only a few peptides that you can take in a capsule form or cream form and this is one of them. Another brain peptide that I'm very excited about is called Cerebralysin. It's a very low molecular weight peptide that can cross the blood brain barrier. It's very neuroprotective and it stimulates neuron growth. It can help shield neurons from toxicity and prevents the formation of free radicals and have been studied In Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, MS, ALS, traumatic brain injury and stroke. It can promote the growth of new brain cells and help the brain cells to communicate. So it can enhance a person's learning capacity. This can be also given through IV or through sub Q injections. Another one that I like and I do use myself is called Sealink. This has been traditionally prescribed for anxiety and depression and it's been known to be effective in many other treatments related to immunodulation, anticoagulation, also ptsd, ADHD and metabolic syndromes. The neurotropic action is very similar to nerve growth factor and it promotes both central and peripheral nervous system stimulation and rejuvenation. It has anxiolytic effect breaking up anxiety. It acts as a stable neuropsychotropic antidepressant and anti stress drug that relieves aggression and fear reaction from animal models. It can also positively influence the formation of memory and learning learning and clinical studies have shown that this C link is similar to a tranquilizer at low doses, but doesn't have the kind of side effects like in benzodiazepine because those medications can cause anemia, withdrawal, dependence. So without these problems, these are natural molecules that that's produced by your body to enhance certain functions, including neurological functions. The experiments has also shown that C link can help prevent the accumulation of body fat. It shields neurons from neurotoxins, inflammation and injury and promotes neuroregeneration. That's another very helpful peptide. Next I want to talk about growth hormone releasing peptides. I personally would not want to. I wouldn't give a patient human growth hormone itself because of particular concerns such as when you give a person this hormone directly, you are shutting down the pituitary glands production of growth hormone self. So there's a feedback loop so you end up inhibiting your own Production, but also you can overshoot, you can give too much. If you stimulate your own pituitary gland to secrete the hormone, your body's smart, it's never going to produce way too much because you stimulate it a lot. It doesn't happen that way. There's a biological or physiological ceiling that you're not going to exceed. That's a safety net. Also, growth hormone itself can cause insulin resistance, some blood sugar issues. So that's another potential problem. So I prefer giving people growth hormone releasing peptides such as Ipramorelin and CJC 1295. So these two actually I use them together because they function differently. So they have different mechanism to help with growth hormone release. So ipamorelin mimics ghrelin and then CJC basically directly stimulates the pituitary gland. So ipamorelin, people love it. You know, a lot of people, you know, say that it, you know, help them to lose the belly fat so you know, reduce weight is being reported to be super helpful in women. It improves sleep. And I, you know, and CJC 1295 as well. So this growth hormone peptide set is usually taken at night subcu injection and I've definitely seen people sleeping much better. So the IPamorelin we know there's no sensitization issue. So you don't, by using it you don't desensitize your body. So always remain helpful or effective. It improves muscle growth and has anti broad anti aging benefits. If you think of growth hormone, which declines as we age, growth hormone helps with repair throughout our body. So it's a useful hormone, right? It promotes growth and regeneration. So that's what they do. And the CJC 1295 has been shown to decrease recovery time, increase muscle mass and improves fat loss. It improves cognition, repair, regeneration and it promotes slow wave deep sleep which is the time that you have the highest level of muscle growth, memory retention and rejuvenation. I always use them together and a lot of doctors do because a combination results in a five fold increase in efficacy. The sleep quality usually improves on day, the third or fourth day, improving body composition. It protects your heart, your neurons, your immune system, helps your metabolic status and protects your muscles. Another one we use that's pretty interesting is called Tessamorelin. It's a growth hormone releasing kind of peptide. Initially was invested in the treatment of HIV patients to reduce the drug induced central obesity. These patients have when they use this tesamorelin daily for 26 weeks. They found that these people have significantly decreased visceral fat and improved lipid levels. This hormone increases natural production of human growth hormone. Increase IGF1 without changing the glucose parameters. Like I mentioned, the human growth hormone could and this one does not. It increase protein synthesis and muscle growth and increasing the breakdown of fat. It can reduce body fat by 7.4%. It can improve fasting insulin level. Of course, the higher insulin level is related to all kinds of issues including high body fat and higher cancer rate. And it can reduce triglycerides, reduces atherosclerosis, so help with the arteries. It reduces risk of cardiovascular events. It can reduce inflammation marker like the crp reduce fatty liver disease, improve cognition and memory, improve exercise capacity, improve bone density and immune function. That's another very interesting peptide that we can utilize to help people with lots of functions, but including weight loss. Some of the weight loss peptides actually the Ipamorlin CJC1295 can help with weight loss as well. But some peptides are really remarkable for weight loss and some ones that we are utilizing, one of them is called MOT C. This is really interesting peptide that actually came from mitochondria. This particular peptide regulates metabolic homeostasis. It actually can get around into the cell nucleus and and change the gene expression relating to cellular stress. The peptide also improves mitochondria health and improves muscle building fat loss and reverses cellular senescence, activating the AMPK pathway to improve energy dissipation and insulin sensitivity. It regulates carbohydrate metabolism, improves physical performance and there's a tendency toward increased lifespan and acts primarily on muscles versus metformin which acts primarily on liver. This particular peptide has been shown to prevent ovaryectomy which means just ovaries removed. That can lead to obesity and this peptide can prevent that and it can prevent insulin resistance. It increases brown fat activation. That's the fat that's good. That consumes energy and reduces fat accumulation and reduces vascular calcification. This is a very helpful peptide. I have personally used this one and I think along with the T Alpha 1 and the growth hormone peptides, I was shocked to see my own fasting glucose was dropped by about 20 points within a few weeks. So that was just remarkable. I didn't expect that. I thought it's going to take me six months to work my fasting glucose level from the 90s to 100 to back to 70 to 80. It only took a few weeks. Then semaglutide, which is very interesting. I'm not going to go into it right here. Then the melanotan is Very interesting as well. There's also follistatin. All these can be used for weight loss. They all have their own different mechanisms action. Then there are certain antimicrobial peptides that we utilize, including LL37. Then we have sexual wellness peptide such as PT141, which acts centrally on a person to induce sexual arousal and also enhances the sexual response, not only increasing libido, but also improves the quality of the orgasm. It increases blood flow so help with erection in men and vaginal flow in women. It can increase erection in 80% of the men who do not respond to things like Viagra Ocean. And it is actually FDA approved for women. And there's an increased chance of having a more gratifying sexual experience. And then there's a last peptide. It's an esthetic peptide we use, which is very famous GHK copper. A lot of people talk about it, so it's found in human plasma. There's a lot of roles that this peptide provides, not just skin rejuvenation, but it promotes wound healing. It attracts immune cells, has antioxidant and anti inflammatory effects. It can stimulate collagen synthesis, promote blood vessel growth. And again, this is almost like all good peptides. It decreases with age. There's increased inflammation when we have less of this peptide. Cancerous activities and tissue destruction. This GHK Copper is generated after tissue injury, is a very potent protector against tissue inflammation and oxidative damages, and it promotes tissue remodeling. So by removing damaged or scar tissue and regenerate new and healthy tissue. And when it's used topically, it can increase collagen production by 70% and decrease fine lines and wrinkles by 27%. I did put this particular peptide, along with quite a few other ones into the Chara Omni cream that I developed. It's 100% natural cream that includes stem cell component and peptides. I definitely included this GHK copper. This peptide tightens, loosens skin and reverses thinning of skin and repairs the protective skin barrier proteins. Improves skin firmness, elasticity and clarity. It can reduce photo damage and reduce hyperpigmentation like skin spots and lesions. It stimulates wound healing, protects skin cells from UV radiation, and it can reduce inflammation and free radical damages. And it can also increase hair growth and thickness and enlarge hair follicle size. It can be also used in treatments like hair restoration procedures that when we do that in our clinic, incorporate this peptide. So this is a pretty, pretty interesting and very broad range peptides and but it has broad range of healing, you know, not just for the skin. So that's called GHK copper. So these are some of the, you know, the peptides. I didn't really, you know, talk in too much detail about semaglutide and melanotin 1 and follistatin, but I probably would just talk about melanotone 1 a little bit because it's such a, you know, fun peptide. So it actually gives you a tan. So it helps give a person a tan because induces skin pigmentation through enhanced melanin production. Melanin actually prevents cellular damage in skin by absorbing, reflecting and refracting light. It's used to enhance tanning, but it's also a prophylactic treatment for, for light affected disorders. It can be potentially preventative for skin cancer. It does reduce sun damages to UV exposed skin and it can transform cells to produce dark protective melanin. It can be safely combined with uvb, light or sunlight and they act synergistically to help a person get a better tan. But it also, in addition to that, it boosts neurogenesis. It helps with your brain and your cognition. It protects against cognitive declines in Alzheimer's disease animal models, and improves functional recovery after stroke and improves heart recovery and survival after heart attack. It reduces neuroinflammation, stimulates fat burning, so it helps with your fat burning, so it helps your body composition and also gives you a better tan. So very interesting peptides. I think that's it. I'm going to stop there. I just wanted to show people and share my excitement about peptide therapy because these are just such powerful new tools that we have now. And how amazing as a doctor that I have all these naturally occurring peptides that I can get people to target specific needs. Whether the person has GI issues or neurological conditions or wants to shed unwanted weight. We have these amazing tools. I just think that medicine is heading more toward nature natural therapies. So peptide therapy is one of the keys that the nature use to turn on and off what's going on in the body. We all know people can have spontaneous remission. What's happening there? Why is the body able to heal itself? The body has the tools, it has the signals. We know how to turn on and off certain signals. Then we can invoke some of that very powerful natural healing abilities. So this is why I'm excited to incorporate this into my clinic. And I hope the explanation about these peptides will give people an idea of the breadth of tools we have these days that we can extend lifespan. We can help reduce cardiovascular issues. We can extend your telomere and we can help you shed weight. How fun is that? We can give you 10 and we can make you enjoy sex more. So this is just very exciting and very fun and yeah, I just want to share this and hope people find this helpful. I hope you enjoyed that overview on peptides and if anyone is interested in coming to see me in Los Angeles, our clinic is called Uplift Longevity Center. Uplift with a Y. So the website is upliftcenter.com and we do stem cell therapy, exosome treatments, ozone therapy, a lot of different procedures for the skin, hair, reproductive health and, you know, musculoskeletal injections. And we also do ketamine treatments which is important for me to help people with their brain and their mind plus their body. So we want to help people rewire and regenerate their brain and their body and enhance their mind and help with the joy of life. So again, thank you for watching this and I wish all of you well. Sam.