Transcript: Peptides Need Evidence, Not Enthusiasm
Sabrina Salt, welcome. Thank you. Peptides are suddenly everywhere. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, everybody's talking about peptides. You are somewhat of an expert. If you had to divide the popular ones into three buckets, which ones actually work in humans, which ones look promising, but aren't proven yet, and which ones are mostly hype? How would you sort that out? Oh my gosh, you're going to ask me to pull up big lists right off the bat. Okay. I would say if we're going to talk about ones that like are going to work, we can basically say that all the ones that are currently FDA approved, right? Because that is a rigorous process, a rigorous process of testing, clinical trials, studies that are done on real populations for extended periods of time. We know those work. So, we can classify the GLP's in there. We can classify Sermorelin, Tesamorelin, even one called PT-141, which is actually approved for female hypoactive arousal disorder, so women who have low libidos. And there is even the GHK-Cu, which is the copper peptide. And that one is amazing for topical stuff, so we can get that, too. If we're going to go into the other ones, which are we're just not quite sure yet. And what were the categories? Like, what did I can't remember how you put them. So, the ones that actually have
So, the ones that actually have some meaningful human research and are FDA approved, and I think you've covered those. But then, the I guess the next bucket can be we could call it the gray market. That's kind of what doctors call it. They're not FDA approved. They may have a a little bit or a lot of bit of human research, or they may have a ton of animal research, but not much human research, but you know, obviously there are tens of thousands of people using peptides that they bought on the gray market that are not currently FDA approved and I feel like we'd be remiss if we don't talk about those. Uh, which one of those are even though they're not FDA approved, you are not recommending them because you are a licensed uh, healthcare provider. We would never recommend a gray market peptide, but which ones are you seeing that potentially might be FDA approved later that you've gotten so much positive feedback you're like there's got to be some something there with these peptides. We actually do have a legitimate list. So, last month the FDA did meet and there is this preliminary list of I believe it's six peptides at this point that are going to be put forward to be able to be illegally compounded. And they're going to include BPC-157, TB-500, KPV, MOTS-c, Semax, and there's one other I think it's Epitalon. And those are the next six that are hopefully going to be more widely available and these are ones that
available and these are ones that patients their doctors should be able to actually prescribe for them from legitimate compounding pharmacies where they won't be able to get it on the gray market. Yep. And some of those have a little bit of human research, some not much at all. But let's talk a little bit about that cuz these are obviously very popular and there's a lot of people who would never consider uh, taking injecting something into their body or using something that wasn't prescribed [clears throat] by their doctor, but somehow peptides have just literally in run that entire process and and there are many many people who are injecting things into their body that are not FDA approved and were not prescribed by their doctor. Uh, are are you confident that uh, like BPC-157 and TB-100 and the the rest, are they safe enough if somebody kind of wants to experiment, not that we're recommending that, or but if they've been used in a thousands of people that we would see a danger signal if it existed? There's a lot of peptides that have a very high safety profile, I will say, where it's extremely unlikely that somebody would suffer an adverse event. And even if they were to, the the most common adverse events that we usually see is some sort of allergic reaction. Most people can handle something like having on hand at home for something like that. Um, the other things that I see have more to do with the product and its development. So, when we when
its development. So, when we when patients get products or clients or people just get products on the gray market, what you run the risk of is the product actually not being sterile or containing what it says it's going to contain. There are third-party companies that actually do testing on these vials, and they will do reports that will actually say, "Yeah, this one tested at this percentage of X, Y, and Z compound in it." Sometimes it doesn't match what the actual vial label says. The second thing that we have to worry about is even if the vial is 100% pure, it may actually be contaminated by something like an endotoxin or something else that may have happened during manufacturing. The labs that create these are not held to the same standards that a compounding pharmacy would be, so they're not going to go undergo the same rigorous testing. And that's kind of where the danger comes in for the average person. Yeah, and since you're most of these you're just going to be injecting them subcutaneously, right under the skin, I mean, really, unless it's just some kind of dangerous chemical in there, the worst thing you're going to have is is a localized inflammatory or infectious cellulitis, which is not the end of the world. It's not like these things are being compounded to be injected intrathecally or intravenously or, you know, intramuscularly. They're just going under the skin. Now, I think BPC-157, maybe the peptide I hear the most about. Let's talk about that. What's it actually do? How good is the evidence? And then you may want to talk about the the along with TB-500 is the so-called
the along with TB-500 is the so-called Wolverine stack. And I have to say the marketing for these peptides is just amazing. I mean, who doesn't want to be Wolverine? It is, honestly. And this is what I actually tell patients. I don't think that peptides are 100% necessary for everybody, but I view them as a compound that's actually going to allow you to compress time. So, could you get the results you want without it? Absolutely. Could you heal like Wolverine, aka very fast, with the addition of this compound? Yes, that's what it does. It's going to compress time for you. So, BPC-157 is one of my favorite peptides, and you can actually get it orally as a supplement, and it so it's not crossing any sort of FDA gray areas. And there's a lot of companies that make it. You really want to make sure that if you are going to look into this, you're going to get the arginate salt version of the BPC-157 because that is the one that was actually done in studies. What's cool about BPC-157? One, it stands for body protection compound. It actually has multiple effects throughout the entire body. So, it's not just like it has an affinity for one area. I've had patients who have benefited from it with um digestive concerns, so IBS, IBD, Crohn's, colitis, situations like that, as well as joint issues. So, it does help with healing minor aches, pains, injuries. And it does work even better when we combine it with TB-500, which can also sometimes go by Thymosin Beta 4. So, those terms can be interchangeable when it comes to talking about this product. And that one also has a oral bioavailable component that you can get from some of these um other companies that are selling it direct to consumers as a supplement. But that one actually helps amplify blood
that one actually helps amplify blood flow. So, the two of them combined really amazing for things like acute sprains and strains or even to help with healing some of their chronic issues. When it comes to the research on those, they don't have a lot of human data. And it's unfortunate. A a of it has to do with, I'm sure you know, it's the funding to actual to actually fund the studies. Because these compounds cannot be readily patented by a pharmaceutical company, there's less interest in spending the money to actually produce that research. And now there are some some patented peptides like insulin, Ozempic, Wegovy, and and others. Uh but you're right, many of these things are such a natural the string of of amino acids that can't really get a a patent on them. And then also I feel like in a lot of cases the cow's already out of the barn. Like there's so many corporations around the world producing these things and seemingly producing them reliably that it would just almost be a waste of money for a big pharmaceutical house to to do all the, you know, phases of a study to get them FDA approved. I feel like uh it's too late for them to do that. It just wouldn't be worth the the money to invest. By the way, if you're watching this on YouTube, this was filmed live in front of our PhD community. Uh which is thousands of people all over the world using a proper human diet to improve
using a proper human diet to improve their health, reverse chronic disease, and live their best life. And we'll probably be taking some questions from our tribe members as we go through this. I'm watching the comments. Uh and if you'd like the opportunity in the future when I interview other world experts uh like Dr. Salt, uh maybe consider joining the PhD community. There's a link in the show notes. Now, uh Dr. Salt is a naturopathic medical doctor in Scottsdale, Arizona who's been working and I don't let her appearance fool you. She's been doing this since 2013. She started when she was 14 years old as a practicing physician evidently. And so you may be saying to yourself, I want whatever peptide she's using and she may or may not want to share that with with us later in the show. So you talked about muscle recovery and then everybody is going to age as slowly as they possibly can. I think most of my viewers are intelligent enough to know that you cannot reverse aging. Even saying such a thing is foolishness. But what you can do is you can take your foot off the aging accelerator. Thus slowing down the aging process. If somebody watching this is 45, 55, 65 and wants to maintain muscle, recover better, recover faster, feel younger, act younger, look younger maybe,
act younger, look younger maybe, which peptides are actually worth discussing? Oh, this is such a juicy question and I love this in the context of your audience because the people here they already understand probably the concept of inflammaging, of how diet is so necessary. We need adequate amounts of protein, adequate amounts of micronutrients. And pending that all of those things are in place because here's the thing about peptides. I like to say that they are the cherry on top of an already optimized system. And you really can get next level results once you have your foundation in place. If we're talking about things like reversing aging, I really love talking about the growth hormone releasing peptides. One of them being sermorelin. It is one that is FDA approved. It is widely available. Any doctor can prescribe it right now and it is a really wonderful entry level gentle peptide for pretty much most people. And what it's going to do is it's going to help the body release growth hormone. And it does it in an amount that is safe and appropriate. So you're not going to get some of the negative unwanted side effects you would if you were going to take straight growth hormone like the organomegaly or your ears or your nose growing uncontrollably. We don't want that. But, the benefits of growth hormone are phenomenal. You are going to get a reduction in wrinkles. You're going to get an increase in muscle mass, a decrease in fat mass. Your hair is going to grow better. Your skin is going to look better. Nails are going to be stronger. You're going to sleep better. So, you're going to get better recovery. And what's really cool about these peptides is that you really only have to do maybe one, possibly two cycles a year because the benefits will actually continue going. So, really really love those. In addition to that, one of the peptides that's on that FDA potentially
peptides that's on that FDA potentially to be compounded list is something called a pitalon or epitalon. People pronounce it slightly differently. This peptide is really cool because it actually has the ability to lengthen the ends of your telomeres by um through the telomerase uh pathway. And you know, yep. So, the end caps of our DNA are called the telomeres and as we age those shorten. And the shortening of the telomeres is associated with of course an unpredictable eventual death and the other effects that come with aging. So, the more that we can actually maintain the length of those, the longer we can live. And what people actually do notice when taking this is that sleep and recovery do improve and cognitive function improves as well. That's excellent. And so, if we're using one of these that's it they're they are not human growth hormone, but they just encourage your body to release uh a physiologically appropriate amount which of growth hormone which is maybe more than your body's currently releasing and people who don't understand this they think oh growth hormone I'm my growth plates are closed. How can that help me? But, it really should be called growth slash healing recovery hormone because that's really what it does, right? Absolutely. And it's such Again, it's one of those things where if you're combining it with a lifestyle where you're already eating well, you're lifting weights, you're getting some some sort of activity, you're sleeping well, it's going to massively accelerate how quickly you can get results. So, something that may have taken you 1 to years, you may see those changes in a
years, you may see those changes in a couple of months. I mean, that's that's Wolverine level. Yes, that's why I love these things, right? Because if we can get somebody to a better state faster, they can then live longer at that more optimized state. And this is I think the utility that peptides have. I love that. Now, like I said earlier, you've been actively involved. You've been studying these things and using these things for over a decade. What if any negative signal have you seen uh have you seen cuz, you know, growth hormone, a lot of people immediately think cancer. Have you seen any signal as a practicing healthcare provider of increased risk of cancer, of inappropriate or unhealthy or unnatural growth? Uh what what if any negative signal have you seen with the peptides? I have not seen any peptides produce any direct cancers in any of my current patients. Um nothing even correlative at that point. I have had patients have unfavorable outcomes from some peptides. I have had patients who have taken um the again, the growth hormone peptides, we'll go back to that class. There are There is another uh there one that's called CJC-1295 and it's sometimes combined with another one called ipamorelin or ipamorelin. Right. And I have had patients develop allergic responses to those ones in particular, even if they have taken it previously without any issues. And that can be very scary for somebody who may not be expecting that, especially if it was something they took previously without,
something they took previously without, you know, any problems whatsoever, to develop potential hives, the feeling of the throat closing, and then having to then monitor that response. Um it is very rare, but it is something that can happen. There are uh the other class of peptides, the PT-141 that I was talking about earlier, that is for female hypoactive sexual Some women get really bad migraines after utilizing it, or they feel very tired. It Again, it can just produce negative side effects. And a lot of these are rare, but those are the only things that I really see. And it's not outside the realm of possibility like with any other medication. Any other medication that any doctor prescribes across the board comes with a whole host of side effects. If any patient has ever taken any sort of insert out of any sort of medication package, you know we are again, we're dealing with with these compounds and they can produce unexpected results because we are all genetically very unique. So, is it safe to say that you've shepherded hundreds or thousands of patients along along a peptide path? And and so, give us a rough good faith estimate of how many people you've kind of been intimately involved with in their peptide journey that you've not seen any signal whatsoever of any kind of meaningful serious you know, outcomes. I would say many hundreds. I don't think I've quite hit a thousand yet only because my practice is relatively small and concierge, but you know, it's been over a decade, so many many hundreds. And so, for anybody with any common
And so, for anybody with any common sense, if I mean, if you've been, you know, actively involved in the care of hundreds and hundreds of people using these peptides and you haven't seen a single serious outcome or bad effect. I mean, that that's a strong signal that this is probably not something that's super dangerous. And there are influencers and doctors out there who just act like peptides are the devil. But I I would assume that that's doctors who have no experience with them whatsoever. They've just seen a you know, a CNN or a Fox News article and then that's that's become their practice advice, which is true for many doctors about many things. But you've actually been in the trenches with this for over a decade and you haven't seen any negative signal. Now, we have quite a few um women who who are in our community and and watch the YouTube channel. So, let's talk about skin and hair. And then actually let's actually add that uh the sexual desire peptide as well. Uh what about GHK? What about collagen? What about hair growth, skin aging? Uh and the glow stack? Is there a glow stack? This I'm not familiar with. Uh yeah, let's talk about that. They help our And you know there men can men care about their appearances as well. Come on. Let's be honest. So tell us about how peptides can help with hair, skin, and other appearances and then you
skin, and other appearances and then you can absolutely throw in some discussion about the uh sexual desire peptide. Cool. All right, we'll say so external appearance is is can usually be an indicator of what's happening internally. So, I do think that it's still important to make this part of the conversation because if your skin looks good, if your hair is healthy, if you're not balding male or female, again these are all indicators that things are working well on the inside, right? Cuz it's producing those external signals. Um the glow stack is is the BPC-157, the TB-500, and it's also combined with the GHK-Cu which is our copper peptide. And that is what we will call like our beauty peptide, if you will. One of the things that it does is it'll help your body to actually turn on its collagen signaling or collagen creation genes. So, it's not just that it's it's trying to stimulate collagen or give you collagen, it's actually turning on the gene expression for it, which is really really neat. It also acts as anti-aging genes as well. And this can be delivered as a topical for both the hair and the skin. And you can get it pretty widely available. If people are shopping for it, you want to try to get as high of a percentage in it as possible. You're not going want really great results if you're looking at like a 0. 25 or 0. 5% you want to try to get into like the one, the three, the six. Some of them do have to be compounded at those higher levels. But it does work really freaking well. Again, especially combined with making sure you're getting adequate protein in the diet. Cuz all these peptides, what they're doing is they're they're flipping a switch. So they're telling your body to execute an action.
telling your body to execute an action. If you just throw construction workers into a site and you don't give them any raw materials, you can send that signal all day long and it's not going to do anything. And I think this is where some people kind of get peptides mixed up is that they're using them in people who maybe aren't quite ready for them yet. They don't have the raw materials readily available for that building to occur. Yeah, because somebody's eating a crap diet and living a crap lifestyle, then no amount of peptides is you they you've got nothing to build with. And so, yeah, I think that's a great analogy. Just have a bunch of construction workers show up at a site and be like, "Here, build a thing. I didn't bring any materials, but just build this thing." They're going to be like, "What are you talking about?" And so, I think this is ideally suited for uh people in my community if they want to do that because they already understand the absolute importance of nutrient-dense foods and and you've got to get all your vitamins and minerals and all the stuff from your food. And so then if they're like, "Well, okay, that I'm doing all that. Now I need a little extra help with this, that, and the other."then peptides may be uh the way for them to go. If you're on Twitter, all you hear about uh medical Twitter anyway is is mitochondria. Let's talk about MOTS-c. Uh it's I've heard people say it's like the exercise of the metabolic peptide. Let's talk us through MOTS-c. How does it help our mitochondria?
it help our mitochondria? MOTS-c is really cool because it's almost like an exercise mimetic. So the benefits that you would get from performing high-intensity aerobic exercise that are ultimately good for your mitochondria as far as like oxygenation, respiration, nutrient utilization go, you get that benefit by just taking MOTS-c. That said, it is very rarely a peptide that I would ever start somebody on right out the gate. Most people, their cells actually aren't even ready to handle that influx of positivity, if you will. In that case, we actually sometimes want to backtrack to a different peptide called SS-31. This one actually is my isn't a FDA-approved peptide, and it is phenomenal for mitochondrial health. Um I heard another doctor, and I'm going to blank on who it was right now, refer to basically utilizing SS-31 before MOTS-c as shutting the window before turning on the AC. You have to kind of get things ready to go. And what the SS-31 is going to do really well is actually going to help rebuild the mitochondrial membrane to a healthier membrane state before you start adding on the MOTS-c, which is then going to add more demand. Interesting. And then, obviously, if we're talking about peptides, we have to talk about the GLP-1s. And there are multiple that are already FDA-approved, but the one that everybody is talking about, and many, many people are getting from the gray market, is retatrutide. and uh let's talk about that. Uh have you had any experience, perhaps,
have you had any experience, perhaps, uh seeing people who are taking it that they got from another source, and you've kind of shepherded their care, even though you're not recommending or providing that? What are you seeing from people taking retatrutide on the gray market? I know that there's probably an FDA approval coming in the next year or two, probably, unless their uh final experiments don't go well. Yeah, so retatrutide is really interesting because the clinical data that's coming out right now is showing that it is behaving exceedingly better than the current GLPs on the market, the semaglutide and tirzepatide. And it's going to be it's really promising. I have had patients though come in who have taken it on the gray market, and the difference seems to be split between how men respond versus how women respond. Men Men seem to respond to it better. I haven't had a female come to me who has taken it who's been like, "Yeah, I had a great experience." Almost all of them had some degree of what I will refer to as like a dopamine crash out. They basically reach a very very intense anhedonic or depressive state. And it is It's been fascinating to see. Now, if we backtrack a little bit to retatrutide as a compound, and we talk about how it's actually being It's owned and being manufactured and studied by Eli Lilly. That's That's who's made it. Now, what they've told the public is that it is a combination of the the GLP,
that it is a combination of the the GLP, GIP, and glucagon. And it's the addition of the glucagon that is now making this this very novel compound. Because it's still in base three clinical trials, the recipe for retatrutide is not released. The only reason that we know or that the compounding pharmacies, I should say, know the recipes for semaglutide and tirzepatide is because there was a national shortage a couple years back, so Eli Lilly had no choice but to release the actual recipe. Right. So, when we're talking about retatrutide on the gray market right now, are we talking about actually retatrutide? It's the difference between like the Nordstrom chocolate chip cookie versus your Chips Ahoy from Albertsons. Right? We don't quite know what kind of chocolate chip cookie you're getting, so you could be eating one that's just not exactly what it should be, and maybe this is why I'm seeing some of these side effects. That side it still is producing weight loss in people. It still is producing these, you know, favorable metabolic effects, but I wouldn't trust the gray market right now because we just don't know what it is. Interesting. Um and now I was actually watching an investigative YouTube channel and this guy, he's great at debunking things and he actually ordered a bunch of gray market peptides and sent them off for third market testing and it turned out he was shocked and awed. Every single one of them had exactly what they said they had in it. They were they evidently had were done in a very good lab. They were very clean. There was no contaminants. And this guy was he was set up and ready
And this guy was he was set up and ready to bust them down and he was like, "Okay, I mean they're they're actually telling the truth and they're actually doing a good job." And so I'm not recommending gray market peptides. I'm just saying people have looked into this and he ordered I think eight or nine different ones from different companies including like MLM uh almost shady peptide companies and even those were made in a good lab and were clean and had had the actual ingredients that they said. But I I was I'm intrigued by what you said about men and women respond differently. Have you seen that with any of the other FDA approved or gray market peptides where you would like I would really recommend this for a man but not so much for a woman or vice versa? So less men versus women but when we talk with the GLPs, it's somebody who's metabolically optimized versus not metabolically optimized. There was so much talk over the last couple years about using these GLPs in microdoses to manage inflammation and to treat other things, right? What I found actually is that people who are metabolically sound, meaning they don't have any degree of insulin resistance, they are very insulin sensitive, their fasting insulin usually runs below 10, usually below five, and they you know low triglycerides, the whole thing, right? I have a lot of these patients cuz they find me through the carnivore community, right? Now, they'll say, "Let's try I want to try one of these." And we will try it. And almost across the board, every single time that I have prescribed
every single time that I have prescribed tirzepatide out of my microdose for those patients, they do worse and even potentially gain weight. And it's because they don't require the GIP activation. And that extra production of insulin will actually drive them to possibly even eat more carbs and get worse. So, I would say Again, this doesn't apply to the average person, but in your community, I think it may be an important thing to pay attention to is that you don't need these if you're metabolically optimized. And if you did want to use one for information reduction, semaglutide would be the better choice. So, then you're just you're getting just the single activation of just the GLP. If we're going male versus female, I will say that men across the board usually respond better to the growth hormone-releasing peptides. Women still benefit, of course, but as far as stronger response, it's it's usually the men. Which uh for some reason kind of makes sense to me. I'm not sure why I think it makes better sense, but it just seems like it does. You mentioned anhedonia and just uh kind of the the dopamine crash kind of picture. I've actually been seeing quite a signal of that even in the FDA-approved GLP-1s. Uh and I think that's part of the reason cuz you know the obviously the the big big pharma guys are trying to get every single indication that they can because then they can get better insurance cover coverage. And they're looking at, you know, helping people with gambling addiction, helping people with other addictions. And
addictions. And that sounds great, but I'm I fear that the reason it's helping with these things, uh you know, like sexual addiction, porn addiction, is because it they basically just make you not really give a crap about anything. Including what you may or may not be addicted to or are you kind of seeing that signal as well? Absolutely and I do think that there is kind of a dose response curve on this and I really think that it can be managed if dosed appropriately. In my experience the FDA approved minimum dosing or starting dosing and max dosing is way way too high in order to get the necessary effects. Like you need agree. small amounts of these things and the microdosing I absolutely agree with. I've actually been doing microdosing with my patients before it was like a popular thing because I knew that you just didn't need that much. You need to send these micro signals and you do the lowest effective dose for as long as you possibly can before you consider taking it up just for no you don't need to. It's also going to save your patients a ton of money too. Absolutely and let's let's really dig into that microdosing because my current recommendation when I have somebody in the tribe ask me, hey, you know, I my BMI is currently 40. I just started this. My A1C is 11. I feel like I you know, my doctor's really aggressively trying to get me on that bound or Ozempic or something. Should I do that? What dose should I
Should I do that? What dose should I start? Which one should I take? How long should I take it? What's kind of cuz I've been prescribing these since I think 2017 is probably the first time and and I was always hesitant to to go up as like the pharmaceutical reps said, start here and then go to here. I'm like, yeah, I don't know about that. But my current recommendation and I want you to correct me if I'm wrong. My current recommendation is to take the lowest possible dose that you can get some meaningful effect as you are correcting your diet and your lifestyle. That's mandatory. If you're not doing that then this is just a temporary band-aid. Lowest lowest meaningful dose that you're getting some response and let's do it for 3 to 6 months while you're getting your your pantry, your cabinets, your fridge, your freezer in order and getting your life in order. What is that bad advice, good advice? What would How do you do this and what kind of I mean, if you want to get into actual dosages, what's your microdosing what would that look like? Yeah, so personally, I don't like starting my patients above max 0. 5 mg. Max to start. Sometimes I'll even go less just depending on on what their labs are showing. Um it can be very drastic for some of these patients to go from having normal bowel movements to possible degree of slowing down or constipation. To go from a normal appetite to a very restricted
normal appetite to a very restricted appetite. I especially worry about sometimes my women who undereat. I don't want to give them more fuel to continually undereat. I need them to actually go into this very nourished. And again, we can always go up. We can't take it out. And I don't want them to end up in a state where they are go having to go to the emergency room because of unwanted side effects. And we've seen I think we've all seen at this point the news articles of people going with um you know, intestinal paralysis or possible gallbladder issues. The list goes on. I want to make sure my patients are doing this safely. Again, we can always add more. And with the half-life on these guys, even if you're doing weekly dosing, you're still going to get an additive effect almost week over week because it does take a pretty I think it's like almost like a 2-week um half-life on these medications. So, you take a dose, it doesn't go down by half of that until 2 weeks after. So, your next week dose is adding to that. So, you're always almost getting a higher dose. And if you're then continually escalating again, you're not going to be going back. So, sometimes even washout periods are beneficial for patients, especially if they're going to be on them long periods. So, we may do 6 months, do a washout out of a month, start it back up at a lower dose, continue to get that sensitivity within that. Love it. And you mentioned uh insulin earlier and I feel like the the fasting insulin test is the most unordered under-ordered test in modern American medicine. What do when you check a serum insulin, what do you like to see that level between what and what do you consider
between what and what do you consider normoinsulinemia? I I like my patients to absolutely have a fasting insulin below 10. I like it closer to five or lower and depending on the patient. Um anything above 10, especially if it's being accompanied by high triglycerides or borderline A1C, we kind of talk about aggressive diet changes at that point. And they they could likely be candidate at that point for microdoses of these GLPs. Love it. Now, uh a lot of one of the main kind of red flag trigger signals I see is, "Oh, we don't know if these things cause cancer or not." And you've already talked to earlier that your over a decade of experience, you've seen no signal that these things increase the risk of cancer. I would actually opine that it's probably since you're improving your metabolic health, you're going to lower your risk of cancer is what I would probably say. And of course, we don't have the research so we can say that definitively, but what do you think about the whole cancer argument with regards to peptides? You can make the cancer argument for so many things. I mean, we can't walk outside into car exhaust without being exposed to cancer-causing chemicals. And I mean, my gosh, there's so many things that actually do have legitimate cancer-causing you know, everything from body washes to shampoos to things that you use daily cancer-causing. And I don't think that everybody is taking such like a fine-tooth comb to their lives to remove every single
their lives to remove every single cancer, cancer-causing thing out there. And again, I agree with you, when you are improving a patient's overall metabolic health, you're ultimately doing your system a favor and it's going to be a less hospitable environment for those cancer cells to proliferate. So, again, it's hard to say. We just don't know. What are people not talking about when it comes to peptides? What do you wish you you saw more conversation in in mainstream media and all the the podcasts and YouTube videos? What's what's being missed? I I think it's what I talk about, which is it's the patient readiness. You you have to have the right foundation for these things to be as safe and effective as they possibly can be. This is the thing that I think is missing. Everyone's talking about how peptides are so great. I'll give you an I saw this guy on my Facebook page and I didn't even know where we were friends from. Whatever. He's like, "Yeah, back in 2025, I started taking peptides. I lost like 20-something pounds." It was a high enough number and he was like, "And now I'm selling them and if you want peptides, contact me." And I'm like, "Wow, if this isn't the most irresponsible thing I've ever seen." Because how dare you as a random person who has no medical background think that you can go in and manipulate another human's physiology and it's going to be okay. Like Yeah. Just to be clear, I mean, this is like literally a uh the the group programming
uh the the group programming of the human physiology. That's what these peptides are interacting with. This is not just like putting putting makeup on your skin. This is what literally root cause physiology. Yeah. We're going in and we are strategically changing how your body operates. You want to You want somebody who knows what they're doing in order to do that. Somebody who understands how the peptides are interacting with each other, how they're interacting with you, what they need in order to work best in your system, how to cycle them appropriately, when to take them, how to take them, all of these things. It's not, you know, just because every influencer is promoting them and they got good results that, hey, it's safe and okay for you at any point in time. Right. And so, let's talk about sourcing and safety. Uh stepping gingerly through this minefield. Uh you and I are both licensed and we're not going to be recommending any gray market peptides, but let's just say somebody's watching. They've already got their diet dialed in. They've already got their lifestyle diet dialed in. They've had a few friends who have gotten some peptides off the gray market and have had great results. And they're like, "Dude, I'm doing this whether whether you like it or not." What are maybe some just rough guidelines of how Well, first of all, don't don't order it from a neighbor who's doing an multi-level marketing. That's probably should go without saying, but obviously it's not because that guy's advertising it on Facebook. Uh but what are some kind of some rough guidelines that you would say, "I don't recommend gray market beef. If you're
recommend gray market beef. If you're going to do it, here's kind of what I would look for." Bare minimum that the company has readily, freely available COAs, so certificates of analysis or authenticity of each product in their catalog that are current and match batch numbers. And these have to be third-party, of course. Like, they can't have their own internal branding on it. It has to be a third-party legitimate actual company that you could go and look into yourself and be like, "Hey, did you actually check this?" And that's going to be your very bare minimum fail-safe, you know? Even then, you still don't really have a leg to stand on should something negative happen to you as a result of taking these peptides cuz all of these companies that are gray market are advertising their products for research use only, not for human use. Right. It's very clear in the disclaimers on those websites that if you were to use it for human use or something were to happen, you don't really have the ability to take any sort of legal action against them. Um, so this very much is like an at your own risk scenario and if you are a person who is keen to perform research on yourself, I would at least at the very very minimum make sure that the product contains what it says it contains and has the stability to also come with that. Excellent. And then I know that there are several very very well-known popular influencers out there who are obviously using uh
who are obviously using uh different stacks of peptides and recommending and in some cases selling them. Uh your I think your precautions you've just described are perfect for that. Uh are there a I mean, do you want to name names here? Is there anybody you'd be like, don't listen to this guy? [gasps] I don't want to name names because ultimately I actually like that the conversation has been opened up and I think that most people when they start hearing about this stuff, they start doing their research, especially people in your community, right? They heard that somebody said that butter was probably good for them and instead of scoffing, they did their research. So I feel like we're talking to a very educated group of people and it's very I think for a lot of people like it just has to pass the sniff test, if you will. Like if this person sounds like they're full of, you know what, they're probably full of, you know what, and just be careful and if you have the ability to work with somebody local to you or somebody that can even do telemedicine that knows what they're doing, I would urge that. Got you. Now, we kind of skirted around the uh the peptide that seems to help women with sexual desire. I think it's time to to talk about that. We can circle back to that one. So it's uh PT-141, also known as bremelanotide, also known as the brand name, which is Vyleesi. And again, it was approved for female hyposexual arousal disorder, meaning a woman does have low libido. And this is not for a woman necessarily
And this is not for a woman necessarily in menopause, so this is premenopausal related. And it's delivered as an injection. You can also get it compounded as either a nasal spray or a troche, and you take it before intercourse, and it should help with increasing arousal. It doesn't work in everybody. Some people do get side effects. They always saying headaches or potentially migraines. But for those that it does work well in, it definitely works, and I think that it's worth trying, especially if you've looked at all the other options, right? Like again, a diet styled in, if you're otherwise healthy, if you don't have any sort of issues, um you're not like in an abusive situation with your partner, cuz of course that's going to turn down desire right off the bat. But if all everything else is good, this is one that I would certainly look into. And so, a lot of women's ears just perked up. They're like, wait, now what? I haven't heard about this. Uh are we talking about it increases desire, or it increases arousal? Are we talking about the physical arousal process, or are we talking about just the desire and thinking about and wanting sex? It's both. It's It's the arousal. It's the desire. It's the also enjoyment while you're engaging. Excellent. So, many women are interested in that, and that's already FDA approved. That's been out for a few years. Uh and I don't have much experience prescribing that. Uh I'm sure you do. What it Can you give us kind of a breakdown of percentages of how many women And I I think it it also
how many women And I I think it it also we should talk for a moment about like if if a woman is in a a relationship she's not really happy to be in anymore, or she feels stuck, or the I mean, you know, I my classic thing is a man could be on death row, next in line for the electric chair. And if you said, "Hey, you want to?" He'd be like, "Yeah, why not?" Whereas a woman, sometimes if if the dishes have piled up too much in the sink, that's all she can think about. And so, it it I know that's very sexist thing to say, but on average, it tends to kind of be true on average. If a woman's in a good position, good relationship, everything's fine, but then she just doesn't have the desire, then you would recommend this, and you have seen good results with this. Yes. And I will say the female response can vary by the form it's delivered in. So, I usually don't go with the brand name. I usually try to use a compounding pharmacy so that we can kind of switch between forms. The one that I use will compound the nasal spray, the injection, and the lozenge. And sometimes one form will work really well, the other one will produce side effects. And sometimes we have to kind of meter the dosage, too. Whereas they might do well at a lower dose, but the higher dose can give them that headache. So, it has to it I want it to be customized in order for it to work, so that she can, of course, get the benefits of it. That said, I also want to add in one other thing that can be helpful, and it's technically not a peptide, but it is approved, and it is
peptide, but it is approved, and it is something that we can prescribe, and it's oxytocin. Yeah. So, for those of you that don't know, oxytocin is the love hormone. It's the hormone that your body naturally produces when you give a hug, when you have an orgasm, and when you nurse a baby. And it makes you have that closeness, that bonding sort of feeling. We can deliver this also as a nasal spray, as a lozenge, and it works really well for also getting them to kind of drop into that close space, and get her out of that stress response that she's in. Cuz like you were saying, if she's thinking about the dishes, if she's thinking about what the kids need, if she's thinking about what all the housework she has to do tomorrow or later, she's in a stress response. She's in a sympathetic state. She is releasing cortisol. Cortisol and a libido don't do well together. Like they just can't coexist. But, the antidote to that cortisol expression is going to be oxytocin. And of course, you could give that to her via an orgasm, but that would have her Had she have to get there first, right? So, to bypass that, get her into oxytocin and closeness, we just give her the oxytocin and then you benefit from the closeness. Excellent. And I think a lot of women will be very happy to hear that this is available in a a nasal spray because for many men well, women, but probably more men than women, their cortisol is going to go up when you start talking about needles. And so, initially when I started studying the peptides years ago, I was like, if it's not a a sub-q injection, it's probably bunk. But, I know that now there are several of the peptides that
there are several of the peptides that you can get with either a nasal or a lozenge. Tell us which ones that you're like, yeah, this is legit if you do it nasally or a lozenge. So, BPC 157, um you can just do oral as a capsule. So, it's actually naturally found in gastric juices. So, it is completely stable in the stomach. Um Sermorelin and most of the growth hormone releasing peptides you can get as lozenges and they work okay. They're not as strong as the injectable, but I would rather have somebody take it consistently for the 90-day period versus them getting needle exhaustion after a couple weeks and then quit the whole thing, right? I would much rather have that. So, that's definitely an option. Um the PT-141 does work really well with that. And then I've also actually prescribed BPC 157 as a nasal spray. I had this one patient, it's a really interesting case. She had intractable migraines and no been to neurologists, been to many other doctors, nobody had done anything about it. We kind of like managed things a little bit. And I was like, you know what? Let's just give this a try and prescribe the BPC as a nasal spray and she got significant She hadn't a migraine for like 2 months, I think, last time we checked in with her. Very nice. And I think a a lot of women's ears just barked up who have chronic migraines. They're like, "Wait, I'm sorry." Excellent. Yeah. Are there any other conditions that maybe the peptide is not really marketed for that? Uh so, that you've seen like the BPC 157 for migraines. Are there any other
for migraines. Are there any other indications like it works great for that even though nobody talks about that? I'm going to talk about one and in order to appease the social media YouTube gods, I'm going to talk about that I used this back when it was readily available because I remember years ago, it was during COVID times, the FDA took away so many peptides that we had been prescribing safely, effectively for many years. So, from back in this time period, way back then, I was using a compound called thymosin alpha-1, which is an immune-supportive peptide. It actually stimulates your thymus gland, which is located kind of behind the sternum, to release immature T cells. T cells are responsible for mediating your immune responses. And kind of by the time we're, you know, a young adult, that thymus gland has almost about shriveled up and the immune system that you have is the immune system that you have. Right. Yet, comes Here comes thymosin alpha-1 and it's stimulating it and it's giving us new immune function. Well, what's been really cool with that one or what was really cool with that one is utilizing it for my patients that have autoimmune disorders. I've seen Hashimoto's antibodies go down from the 300s to almost nonexistent. I personally cured my seasonal allergies with that peptide. I used to have severe seasonal allergies. I was taking Sudafed every single day, eyes watering, sniffling all the time. Nothing. All gone. Very interesting. Okay. Uh let's talk about Dr. Sabrina's peptide scoreboard.
peptide scoreboard. If somebody is like, "Okay, I really want to try some of this." I think the standing Sabrina's Dr. Sabrina's standing order is get your diet fixed, get your lifestyle in order, and then once you got that, now what is your scoreboard for the the peptides? Like which ones are my favorite? Yeah, which ones are your favorites that you just reliably see results with? And then also you can have the your no-go list. Like I've I've not had any good signal from this one. Maybe it helps some people, but I haven't seen it. Oh, so the one on our list it's one called DSIP, delta sleep-inducing peptide, and that one was actually one of the ones that was on that FDA list for potential approval, and it didn't get approved and I was like, "You know what? Good riddance."cuz I've never seen this one do absolutely anything. I will say our glow blend and our cloe blend. So we have glow, which is the BPC, TB-500, GHK-Cu, and then we have cloe, which is basically glow with the addition of something called KPV. KPV is another one that's really great for stabilizing allergic responses, specifically in people who have like hyperactive immune systems, things like MCAS, chronic mold exposure, things like that. I I really do think the utility in these for the average person is so broad that I mean they're they're safe and they're pretty darn safe for most people. I do We talked about Mots-c earlier. I
I do We talked about Mots-c earlier. I do love that one as an exercise mimetic, especially when you have the patient prepped for it, especially if they're in a situation where they haven't exercised for a long period of time and we kind of want to get them a jumpstart back into an active lifestyle. You're kind of priming the pump, if you will. Let's see. I love the growth hormone-releasing peptides, especially for people who are middle-aged and they want to kind of again accelerate the process to getting back to an ideal body recom. Maybe they've been sedentary at a desk job for 10-20 years. They are approaching retirement. They want to be active. That one is going to again, it's going to get you those results faster. We're going to take something that may take you 2-3 - 4 years and maybe get it get you in a year. Um love that. Love it. What's coming uh what's coming around the bend? Uh cuz I know you keep your finger on the pulse of the peptide community. What's What's coming? What can we look forward to peptide wise? I'm I'm hoping that when the FDA gets this approval for this chunk right now that we're going to have more chunks that follow. Right now there are a lot of really cool things coming out in the research only world that seem very promising. But for for us to not get flagged and not get in trouble. But they're there. They're They're there. They are coming out. There's some really really neat things that are going to help with putting on muscle, with accelerating fat loss, which again people are very pleased about. There is one other thing that I think is going to be important to this conversation and to people in general. And I really think that the next wave of what needs to
that the next wave of what needs to happen and that myself and a lot of other providers are doing is actually genetic testing. So, understanding what's happening at a person's baseline physiology and how they operate because if we can take the guesswork out of what your body needs, we can be that much more precise with getting you results. And again, my whole goal with patients is always get you where you want to be as fast as possible so we can keep you there longer. I love that. And what have you noticed as far as you brought up lab work? What lab, if any, uh before you start a particular peptide, you'd be like, I need to see your lab results for the following tests before I'll know how to dose this or know whether you need it or will benefit from it. I like to take a really comprehensive look because I'm very rarely just looking at what peptide are we going to give you based on what you have going on. I like to know what we have to fix in their foundation first. So, I like to look at a broad array of micronutrients, everything from vitamin D to folate, B12, minerals like calcium, magnesium, zinc, selenium, copper, especially copper, right? If we're going to get into some of the copper peptide, I want to know what their copper is doing and what their zinc is doing in relationship to it because these do have a relationship to each other. And then like base level things, right? Liver function, kidney function, electrolytes, blood sugar, A1C, ferritin, insulin, cholesterol panel, make sure we're seeing the triglycerides. And then of course I do take a look at all the hormones. So, everything from thyroid hormones to testosterone, estrogen, cortisol, DHEA, just the whole nine. I'm I'm very very thorough.
I'm very very thorough. That's what I think that's a great thing and I think more doctors need to order more labs on average just across the board. How often do you have a new patient come in and they're like, "Hey, I've heard about this peptide, I want that." And you do your comprehensive lab work and you're like, "You know, actually you're deficient in the following things. If you just fix that, you won't even need the peptide." It happens quite a bit and I think that the cool thing with social media is that a lot of people find me and they kind of already know me and know my approach. So, they know that they're not going to get their peptides day one. They know that we're going to do the investigation and we're going to repair what we need to repair, like patch the leaks if you will, right? You you have to come into this fully ready cuz I ultimately, you know, peptides aren't cheap. I want them to be able to be very confident that when they make the investment in these that they are going to get the best results they can possibly get. So, we do normally start with patching up the holes. And then say they improve, say the concern they come in with improves, then I get to have the really cool conversation with them, which is, "If we were to wave a magic wand right now and fix anything or give you anything, what would it be?" And we can usually find a peptide or a stack that's going to make that happen. Very very nice. I know that over the last few months I've been training Dr. Berry AI with so much peptide input, so many studies, mainly animal studies, but more and more increasingly human studies as well. And but the amount of questions that I'm getting from people asking Dr. Berry AI questions about peptides is just
questions about peptides is just literally exploding. And so I know that this is something that people are interested in. And so if people want to follow you, learn from you, maybe even make an appointment with you, how do they find you? I'm most active on Instagram at this time. So my handle on there is just @ dr. solt so drsolt. I actually do have a waitlist on there for a peptide education program that I'm putting together that's going to have monthly calls with me and basically teach people all about these compounds so that they have a really good understanding of what they are and they can hopefully bring this information to their providers if they want to work with them. So that is there. It should be released very soon. And my clinic website is www. stemcelltherapypro. com because the majority of what I actually do in clinical practice is stem cell therapy. So people can also learn about that, too. Yep. And I also wanted to tell everybody Dr. Solt is going to be on Nisha's channel coming up in the near future talking about all things women's health including peptides, including hormones, including everything else. So make sure and look for that as well. Any final thoughts, final words, final advice, Dr. Solt? Gosh. I'd just say to keep your you know, keep asking the questions that are going to point you towards being your best. That's that's really it. You know, never stop trying to get your health in order and never stop trying to be as healthy
and never stop trying to be as healthy as you possibly can. It pays off in dividends. I love that advice. All of Dr. Solt's uh are in the show notes. Check those out and uh even if you don't want to schedule an appointment with her, I think you can learn a ton from her following her on Instagram. So, thank you, Sabrina, for doing this. I'll be looking forward to your interview with Nisha Loves It coming up in the near future. Thanks for being here. Thank you so much for having me.
