Barbell Shrugged - Peptides w/ Dr. Kyle Gillett, Doug Larson, Coach Travis Mash and Dr. Mike Lane #852

Episode Date: June 10, 2026

Peptides have exploded in popularity over the last few years, but separating legitimate science from marketing hype has become increasingly difficult. In this episode, Dr. Kyle Gillett joins Doug Larson, Dr. Mike Lane, and Coach Travis Mash for a deep dive into the world of peptides, growth hormone secretagogues, GLP-1 medications, and emerging therapies that may shape the future of performance, recovery, body composition, and longevity. They unpack what peptides actually are, which compounds have meaningful clinical research behind them, and where caution is still warranted, especially when it comes to growth factors, angiogenesis, and potential cancer-related concerns. The conversation covers BPC-157, TB-500, Tesamorelin, Retatrutide, Selank, PT-141, myostatin inhibitors, mitochondrial peptides, and the next generation of obesity and metabolic health drugs. Along the way, the group explores practical questions athletes and health-conscious individuals are asking every day: Can peptides help recovery? Are there compounds that improve cognition or libido? What are the tradeoffs of GLP-1 medications? And how close are we to drugs that can meaningfully increase muscle mass the way GLP-1s improve fat loss? Whether you're curious about performance enhancement, injury recovery, healthy aging, or simply trying to understand what all the peptide buzz is about, this episode provides a balanced, practical look at one of the fastest-moving areas in modern health and performance. Links: Doug Larson on InstagramCoach Travis Mash on Instagram

Shrug family. Doug Larson here and this week on Barb L shrug we're joined by Dr. Kyle Gillette to do a deep dive into one of the biggest topics in the world of health and performance right now and that is peptides. We break down what peptides actually are, which ones have research behind them. What are the risks and why compounds like BPC 157, Tessimoralin, retatriate and PT-141 are generating so much attention. We also, of course, dig into GLP1 medications and we discuss potential future muscle building therapies that could be coming out as well as cognitive and recovery. peptides. If you've been hearing about peptides and aren't sure what's real, what's hype, what actually matters. This episode is for you. Enjoy the show. Welcome to Barbell Strug. I'm Doug Larson here with Dr. Mike Lane and coach Travis Mash. Today on the show, we have Dr. Kyle Gillette. Kyle, welcome back to the show. Thank you. My pleasure. You bet. You are on maybe, I want to say a year, year and a half of something like that. I believe we talked about hormones, a lot about testosterone, of course. And I was hoping to get a deep dive into peptides of which I get many more questions as time goes on about peptides and I know a little bit but I

certainly would love to know more and digging in today would be great. Yo, can we kick it off? Can we kick it off on kind of the basics, like the background where we're at? I actually didn't know this because I just recently started doing around a BPC 157 and I didn't know until I started looking into it for myself like how few human trials had happened with BPC 157. As an example, I've heard Ben Greenfield talk about it for a decade now. and I figured that a lot more research had been done on that particular compound as well known as I feel like it is. So could we kind of go through the history and what really has research behind it and what is really experimental still at this point?

Yeah, so peptides are just short proteins, which are made of amino acids between two and, you know, several dozen amino acids in length. For example, creatine is a tripeptide, three amino acid peptide. Insulin is a peptide as well. But when people refer to peptides, they usually mean research chemical peptides, which I never recommend, of course. But there's actually a lot of FDA-approved peptides that we've been using other than insulin. But insulin's been around for 100 years. And before we had human clinical trials on it, we were injecting it into type 1 diabetics because it saved their life. So I'd saved a lot of type 1 diabetic lives here in the last 100 years.

BPC 157, shout out to James O'Hara, my co-host. He has a good recent post on most of the human clinical trials on BPC. There's two completed. There are several ongoing that have kind of published these preliminary results. But there's a lot more that are kind of like in the future, but it's a bioidentical peptide. So it is not FDA approved, but it's not on category two, which is what people call the band list. It's really just the warning list. But it's made from a protein that the stomach makes.

And it's the same amino acid sequence as part of that protein. And, you know, each peptide has its upsides and downsides just like medications. So just to remove the emotion out of it, I tell people, when you're talking about peptides, just say the word peptide medication. Because, you know, when you're talking about meds, people understand there's an upside and a downside, and it's the same way. What would be some of the downsides of like, say the BPC 157, I feel like that's the most common? Yeah.

For BPC 157, again, there's several mechanisms of action. It's not just a VEGF upregulator, which is vascular. endothelial growth factor. So it basically helps you make new blood vessels and increase blood flow. It has several other mechanisms as well, but that is one of the main ones. And angiogenesis, or this process of forming new blood vessels, it's actually an oncogene and also a cytokine. But one of the reasons things like platelet rich plasma or PRP works is because it has VEF in it. So you can inject VEGF into an area and do like ultrasound guide. PRP, which I do in clinic as well. And it actually has a lot of the same upsides as BPC, but it's

very difficult to have your doctor GPRP three times a week. So that's one of the things about BPC that's unique. But it is the exact opposite of a cancer medication known as Avastin. I think I've been talking about this for five years, but basically Avastin AVA-S-T-I-N is on the WHO's list of essential medications because it's used as an adjunct for so many cancers because cancers mutate And one of the genes that mutates is called oncogenes that upregulates is the one that basically takes a bunch of blood flow. So you don't want to throw fuel on the fire, if you will. Now, we don't know that for sure, but just out of abundance of caution, I do that. In fact, I noticed when I took BPC, my telangetaceans around my nose and these little angioma spots, these red spots, they got way worse.

And I actually lasered them off. So I think that that's, you know, I'm glad that they were on my skin because you can also have angiomas in your spine. and your liver for my patients that do, then I'm very judicious or don't even use BPC 157. How can you tell? Like, how do you test for those and they're much deeper, not on the skin, and obviously surface level? Great question. Yeah, they're usually incidentalomas, which is made up medical term. It's just a lesion that's an incidental finding during an imaging study.

We happen to find it. Okay. Some people find them during full body MRIs, of which there's a lot of upsides and downsides to doing those. Some people also find them during other advanced preventive imaging tests, like, you know, scanning for vascular abnormalities and doing ultrasounds of the liver for other reasons. So it's not uncommon to find an angioma incidentally.

All right. This is an interesting thing of what we do is we want to increase blood flow to areas. We want to increase hypertrophy of tissues. And when you talk about mTOR around, you know, cancer oncologists, they're like, no, no, shut that down, shut that down. Make that shrink. Whereas like, no, I'm trying to get swollen. Like, oh, muscle. Like, and hence the problem with tendon is the lack of vascular truit as it gets older.

So how do you try to jumpstart that but not have those unwelcome side effects? With the concern of obviously feeding, you know, a tumor that's super small, but obviously can keep growing with more blood flow. is there anything, is it like an age group that you would say or like a risk factor history or anything like that that you'd be like, you're probably not a good candidate for BPC because of just these things going on other than like you're going through chemo so you don't need to be increasing your vascular. Yeah, great question. It's not a strict cut off. It's more of a continuum or a spectrum to where you think about all the upsides and the downsides and you do what's called shared decision making, which all physicians are taught in med school to do. but many of us just kind of stop doing it. But as age progresses, certainly you want to do more cancer screening tests. For example, that's your colonoscopy or Coligard Plus, your PSA, and then also more cancer early detection tests.

Those are things like methylation and peptide tests. So a Grail-Gallery test is the most well-known one, but there's several. But those are not screening tests or early detection tests. So some people will risk stratify by doing those. before beginning a course of, say, a growth hormone releasing peptide like Tessimorlin or BPC 157, you can also do genetic tests. So that plus family history,

you're getting kind of a weighted risk score, not just to do with age, but you put all those factors in and then decide with the patient how aggressive you're going to be screening and detecting cancers versus how short of a course of VPC you would use. I mean, lately, T.R., like Dr. Serrano, I don't know, I can't remember his first name. He just spoke at Summerstrong, and he actually talked about that BPC 157,

that the difference in the angiogenesis for, like, you know, muscle repair is a different pathway than, say, angiogenesis that goes for four tumors. And he said that there was some recent study specifically that said that it would not affect injurgenesis for tumor. But, like, interesting. Yeah, I know. Yeah. And then I actually strongly disagree with this because BPC has a fast half-life, but it does go systemic.

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But you have IGF-1 that's produced locally in the muscle. Like, this used to be the broscience thing, you know. Do the squats or the leg day because you're going to increase IGF-1 in the muscle and testosterone in the muscle. But there's a difference between local, I call them paracrine hormones versus antio-en hormones. But yeah, BPC, even if you inject it locally, has more than a paracrim effect. Sure, sure. I go systemic. So, yeah, I would, I wish I could get exactly what he said.

Maybe when the show is over, I will, you know, go back. You know, they always release their talks, and I will listen to it and then send it to you. And so I don't want you to have to listen to the whole thing, and I'll just get exactly what he said. Yeah. Maybe to try to steal man his argument a bit, perhaps he was trying to say that the anti-inflammatory effects and the other mechanisms of BPC lead to a net positive. for cancer treatment. I believe I saw an animal study for animals that had cancer or some effects of cancer,

and they gave them BPC, and I believe it got better. So I've heard people propose that the net benefit of BPC for some types of cancers is going to be looked at as a potential cancer therapy. I definitely don't want, I love a man, so I'm not going to like,

you know, I will make sure I get exactly what he said. That's why I like discredit. I don't want to discredit because he's super good, too. super out of context, snippets, make them look as incompetent as possible. Not my man Serrano. He's too nice with a guy. No, Eric Serrano is a super nice guy.

And I think in there lies the problem with this entire area, it's so in its infancy. Are we talking about creatine in the early 90s where we're like, is this good? Is this bad? And it's like, damn, we should have been dosing the hell out of it. Or are we talking about a Fedra where it's like, yeah, that stuff's potent and DMA is as well, but we probably shouldn't be doing meth all the time. Yeah. Boy, did my grades go up, though. That was awesome stuff. Many fans. Man, I love to study. But you brought up, I believe it was epameral, the Tessimerellin. And then there's like

Ipermerellin and the CJC, 1295, no DAC, you know, the growth hormone secretagogues. What's kind of your thoughts on those areas as far as obviously, because you are, it's a systemic increasing growth hormone. So talk about a you're doing a burn in the candle at both ends type situation. Yeah, downstream effects are super important with growth hormones or cretagogues, whether they're GHRH agonists like Tessimorlin or CJC, or whether they are Grellin agonists, like epimorillin. It's actually how we discovered Grellin is we knew about the G protein complex receptor and then we're like, well, it's probably a ligin for this. But anyways, without getting too technical I have relatively similar concerns if you think about

most GHRPs including endogenously produced GHRH the half-life is only minutes for most of them which is actually good I prefer CJC without DAC Ibuda Morin which is a long-acting one that has a lot more side effects in my opinion both anecdotally and the different case studies case reports that you see in the clinical literature and growth hormone only has a half-life of minutes as well so you have something that has a half-life of minutes and growth growth hormone as half-life minutes, but the downstream effects are significant. So IGF-1, when it's bound to basically these binding peptides that bind insulin-like growth

factors is going to have a much longer half-life and going to have tissue effects, where after it binds the receptor in the tissue, that gene is transcribing protein for long after the growth hormone, and certainly the growth hormone screta-gog has been metabolized. So some of the issue with this, again, I mentioned the case of breast cancer. There's actually a pretty good study that says, yes, if you have breast cancer, even if it's estrogen receptor positive, they actually have triple negative androgen receptor positive breast cancer, where androgens grow up breast cancer is kind of interesting because we used to treat breast cancer with androgens. But growth hormone is a concern for that specific type. And the same thing is probably true of BPC.

Other than the telangetaceas and angioma, this is getting worse. I have seen other side effects of BPC many years ago, at least more than five years ago, actually. I saw a patient, unfortunately, and this individual was found to have metastatic colon cancer, which we know we use VGF inhibitors on very frequently. And he was on a pretty high dose of BPC 157 and CJC Ipomorillin, or one of the growth hormone secretagogues. I don't remember 100% for sure. And he had been taking them for years.

Oh, gosh. So I can't say for sure, but if I had been at this point in my career, then I would have written it up as a precautionary case study. But I do have systemic side effect concerns from those as well, probably fairly similar to HGH. But that being said, conventional medicine is not a huge fan of HGH, but I think that it just got kind of such a bad name in the 90s or early 2000s. I think there's actually a lot of clinical utility to it.

Usually the rate limiting step for that is just cost. So just because there's a downside to something, doesn't mean there's a significant upside. We could have the exact same conversation about a different hormone, like androgens or estrogens. We just know them a lot better. So we don't need to be as cautious with them because it could be that Dr. Serrano is right.

Regarding BPC-157, certainly could be. But I'm looking at it from a perspective of how does that change my practice right now. Sure. So for you, and because you brought up the true just using growth hormone, is it kind of the equivalent of where it's most likely safer for individuals to use testosterone than is for you can use pro hormones, much less SARMs? And that's kind of that same, I don't know, general concept of it's probably safer to

use to growth hormone than it is to do the IPA Morel and the CJC and otherwise, or am I doing some false equivalency here? It's a good question. In a lot of cases, I actually like the GHRPs because there's a bit of a speed limit or governor in that you have some feedback inhibition that still works in the pituitary, where you can take very high doses of growth hormone and it's going to have downstream effects. But at some point, especially for patients as they age and their pituitary output is not generally as high. you have more relative hypopetuitarianism, then there's a bit of a speed governor on that. So I actually do like short-acting GHRPs a lot, especially Tessimorland. I think there's also really good placebo-controlled studies on Tessimorland, where we know its side effects and its upsides better than others.

So I'm sorry, I'm not trying to take it all over, but I've seen the pieces on its, I believe it's helping with visceral adipose and reducing it. Correct. Do you an idea why that mechanism is, and it's not just a global decreasing body fat? Yeah, great question. So the individuals with lipodistrophy

that were given Tessimorland or generic agrifta compared to placebo did not lose any, like the only body fat they lost when they were taking it for months was visceral. In fact, they gained about a one to two pounds of subcutaneous body fat. So the IGF1 on average also went up by 100 points. I've seen peptide doctors say that GHRPs don't increase IGF1, but that's pretty good evidence that it in this is placebo controlled blinded study too. Yeah, IGF1 on average went up by a hundred points on the regular dose of Tessimoral. I think it was a thousand micrograms, maybe even 2,000 and something.

cases. But yeah, the mechanism as far as I know is just increased growth hormone and downstream to that binds in the liver creates IGF1. That way it's like more liver specific. And of course, fat end around the liver is one type of visceral fat. Interesting. I feel like I've been seeing more more pairing of peptides lately. I see BPC 157 TB500 paired regularly. At least people talk about them together. But I've also seen kind of more and more stacking. And then now like the marketers have showed up and it's like the gorilla stack and the Wolverine stack. The Wolverine stack. Yeah, yeah.

And so like to what degree are these, is this just a business that play? You got to differentiate yourselves. I got to make it sound cool and on that, all that get attention versus like there's actually been actual outcomes that are improved by these combination effects. Yeah. As far as I know, the glow, clow and Wolverine stacks have not been studied clinically. mechanistically, it makes a lot of sense. And often I do prescribe BPC-157 and TB-500 together.

A lot of people ask about stability, especially with GHK-cover peptide, because it's most stable at a certain pH. There's bodybuilders that have tested it because you can set it for testing services after I've seen more than a year together and it has stability. But, you know, and even brand name pharmaceutical companies will put two peptides together. For example, there's a lot of pharma companies that have their GLP1 combined with their insulin or their short acting long app. There's a lot of combo peptides that are stable in the same auto-injector for months and months.

That being said, again, this is like more of some peptides like BPC-157, TB-500, I think, are cutting edge, not bleeding edge, if that makes sense. But I like to prescribe them separate. But when I've taken them in the past myself, I drew them up in the same syringe and injected them, which I never technically recommend. That's just what I did just for full transparency. And occasionally I do prescribe them together because if you draw it up, there's less risk of needle stick. But there is still that theoretical risk of slightly worse stability. I feel like when peptides were even popular in the last five or ten years, of course,

O-Zemphic is like the biggest name in peptides and it has been for a long time, especially it's the big moneymaker. It's the one that people feel like at this point is it's kind of as common knowledge that it works and you're going to lose body fat and that's great. So a semaglutide and surzebicide. And then I feel like more lately, read a true tide, if I'm saying that correctly even, is like the thing that now I'm hearing more and more about. I feel people are telling you that it's like Ozempic, but it's even better for X, Y, Z reason.

And I don't know that much about it. So can you fill us in on the efficacy of a new, I don't even know if it's the same exact category. Like, tell me more. Like, what is this new thing that I keep hearing about? Yeah. So retachyotide is basically terseptide plus glucagon receptor agonism, which is the same receptor that, you know, if I'm testing a pediatric patient for growth hormone deficiency, one of the growth hormone stem tests I'll do is with glucagon. So it does potentiate growth hormone release in a, you know, if I'm a hormone deficiency. a unique way, not via binding the Grelin receptor,

not via binding the GHRH receptor. Now, but be binding the Glucagon receptor, glucagon can give you parestesias, kind of like the tingles, kind of like what you get with beta alanine, and about 20% of people in the triumph trial, which is the trial that is the big one that's literally running it through the different phases,

and it's gonna be FDA approved soon, and gonna be an absolutely blockbuster drug. So there's gonna be a ton of people on, or TATTERTide. The problem right now is that I can only find legit pharmacy that will kind of compound it. And even then, it's just one of those that I'm more worried about the sourcing. And also it has an alternative that works probably just as well if you take a high enough dose. I don't think that retachertide is different enough from a highish

dose of terseptide to prevent muscle loss. I think that's bodybuilding coach hype. That being said, The people that I've seen on Retach Retach Retire Tide are getting amazing results, but there's also a bit of a selection bias. It's like the first pilots that Japan sent out in the World War, they got like amazing results. So was the zero plane really that good? Or was their first like crop of pilots just amazing? And then the replacements were not near as good. So people on Retachertitide right now are extremely forward thinking smart people that are wanting to be optimally healthy. And even if they were injecting placebo, they'd still probably.

have relatively good results. If they're injecting terseptitide, that was just, if they ordered it from, I don't need to say the website, but someone orders it from the Chinese website, heals off the terseptitite sticker, puts on the retoucher tight sticker, gives it to someone who's super motivated and, you know, very knowledgeable. They're probably going to have amazing fat loss results. Well, yeah, for sure they are. I mean, I just think too many people use it lately, and it's just like, you know, ladies,

have forever struggled to lose weight, and then they do it, and then now they're lost 100 pounds. It's like, yeah. So they're definitely going to, no matter which one they're taking, they're still going to see great results. Yeah. If there's a diabetic and they cannot tolerate any other GLP1, I'd make a case that if they can find compounded retoucher tide,

that would be a net positive for sure. But I think 98 or 99% of people can benefit from, just utilizing terseptide instead. Yeah. Do you see it as possible or likely that anything will show up that's similar to steroids in the sense that like it'll maximize muscle growth to the same extent that OZempic will help you lose body fat percentage? But you don't have to play with hormones to the extent that you do with with androgens.

There's a 100% chance of that happening with the caveat that it's going to be very difficult to get. They're actually studying that there's IV infusions of the. these different myostatin inhibitors, but it's not going to be able to, because basically GLP-1s can suppress your appetite if you take enough of it to the point where you just lose weight in general. So the more of a caloric deficit you're in, even like if you look at the studies of VLCDs or the very low-calorie diets, they're the calorie diets that are so low that you need an obesity medicine physician to oversee them. And people lose a lot of muscle loss and they

also rebound like that. Very similar to a GLP-1. Most people just don't have the willpower or supervision in order to do that, whereas GOP ones make it easy. Now, the myostatin inhibitors, the magromab and others, there's actually already one FDA approved, but it's only FDA approved for pulmonary artery hypertension and as a ton of side effects. Those are going to lead to significant increases in muscle mass, but it's going to depend on the individual getting it. And it's going to be a while until the subcutaneous auto injectors are out.

And for a while, it's just going to be IV infusions. So excited about that. And then the quintuple agonists and the quadruple agonist are going to be out soon as well. So retatur tight is a triple agonist. They're also studying one that is an amylin agonist as well, which is great. Cagrelinatide is going to be the first one, which is amazing for type 1 diabetics, because type 1 diabetics lose their beta cell, which is where you make home install your amylin. And then there's also a quintuple agonist.

So it's amylin plus calcitonin. So calcitonin is a cheap peptide. You can take calcitonin salmon nasal spray. for bone density, but you have to wash your calcium. You want to balance your K2 and vitamin D as well because of various calcium issues, but it'll be very interesting to see if people actually end up gaining a little bit of bone mass, if they're on this calcitonin, GLP1, basically. So that would then be prescribed to people that have osteoporosis or bone-related issues?

Presumably it would be prescribed for the same reasons as Treseptitide or Retachutide, but especially so for people that are at risk of bone loss. We have kind of like the fat loss bucket. We have like the joint health bucket. Then we have potentially some type of bone density bucket. Are there any other like big categories that people really should be considering if they're thinking about peptides in general? There's so many.

Yeah. The joke that James and I say is they should just take that quintuple agonist, put some repathal which is a piece it's basically a plaque medicine for black in your cornaries and then also testosterone and then give people that auto-injecture once a week so it's like kind of dystopian but a fun thought to have be as far as the other the other peptides I really like talking about calcitonin because it's been around for quite some time I believe it's made in your thyroid gland but from it's like parathyroid or not maybe it's your parathyroid gland I think it's your parathyroid gland But anyways, it's made endogenously, but you can replace it.

And yeah, it's like very cheap and accessible for a lot of people and just somewhat underutilized. It does have side effects. Of course, I mentioned the calcium homeostasis. And then I love talking about amylin. So I think that type 1 diabetics have just kind of been left out to dry. And these big pharma companies are just trying to make as much money as possible. And again, they do a lot of good, too. I'm glad that they study what they study.

but there should be way more options for type 1 diabetics and it's sad to me that the long-acting amylin agonists have taken so long to get out because they were basically waited until this big obesity drug thing to make them they could have made these 20 years ago there's one called simulin it's synthetic like synthetic amylin that's known as pramilinatide starts with a prara m And I want to say it's been out for well over a decade. But it's like when insulin originally came out as a half-life of minutes, you have to take it. You have to like take it in a pump or three or four times a day. And unfortunately, I think every type 1 diabetic that there is, which is a lot of them,

would be much healthier and potentially even have a prolonged lifespan and health span if they were on one of these long acting amyloan agonists. I was about to ask you, sorry, Mike, I was about to ask you about to ask you about cognition and the nervous system and then I had a thought that I had never really considered before. A big part of speed and power in sports and athletics is the nervous system. Are there potentially any, like not muscle tissue specific, but like nervous system specific peptides that could potentially help with increasing speed and power in athletes?

Yeah, it's a great question. So most of the cognitive peptides that there is probably are not too helpful for increasing speed and power. Same thing for the mitochondrial peptides, maybe so, especially for people with mitochondrial issues. For example, if they have very mutated mitochondria, but that actually correlates pretty well with VO2 max. So as far as power and absolute strength and top speed, more of just stimulant effects. So new classes of medications that are basically new gen stimulants, I think are very interesting for that. Or even things that are, you know, like sodium channel blockers. For example, genetics.

This is more in the realm of PEDs, which, of course, I don't recommend, but people certainly used to take tramidol because it's serotonergic, but also kind of like a pain med in order for sports performance. You know, like one step up above ibuprofen or Tylenol. And there's basically these blighticane blocks sodium channels, and there's a medication very specific to just one sodium channel has a very high receptor affinity. And, you know, you might get muscle spasms because that can happen when you block sodium channels as well. Or you might get rhabdo more if you're doing something that would cause rapto. But if you turn off that signal, then it does, it's kind of like turning off the speed limit to your nervous system in some ways. Oh, wow.

Interesting. Because I was going to go down. So what's our thoughts on injecting, you know, pig brain utropic factors like cerebrolycin and similar to like the Samax and Selank that you see out there? Yeah, Samax and Selank, I think, have reasonable safety profiles. I don't think there are any significant autoimmune risk. I don't think we're sure on Cortexin or cerebralicin or these other pig brain products. I know that they're supposedly like used.

some in Australia. But if you read the threads from the internet, then people say they've had dementia caused by it at young ages and autoimmune diseases. Just because I think their theoretical risk is higher, I don't like cortex and cerebralicin. What were you saying? I was just saying by Selank they had their dementia. They're saying, oh no, sorry, yeah, just cerebralicin and Cortexin with those risks. Selangk and Samaks I love. I think they're great and one of them came off category too, but I think they're both great molecules. Selank, I believe, is a fragment of Tuftsin. Tufton is another peptide protein that your gut makes. So BPC is kind of based off of gastric pentadecoa peptide, I think. But yeah, Tuftsin, like a tuft of feathers.

is what Selink is based off of. So I've noticed that. Yeah, that's what I was going to ask you. What are some of the benefits you've noticed from Selang? Yeah, I've used it to help get people off of serotonergic drugs before that, along with methylene blue. I think the combination of the two is highly underrated. And then a lot of people also use it for decreasing nicotine or tobacco use.

But I've seen it used for concussion protocols. I've actually used it for concussion protocols, boxers. people at higher risk of head trauma athletes. I do think that Selink has an excellent safety profile. Some people are very underwhelmed by it. Maybe it has to do with they're just making more tough sin in their gut. For people with an inflammatory bowel disease, I like to use Selink a ton.

It's such a wild situation, and this is my gripe with endocrinology in general, which is we can measure blood levels stupendously. But we're really hard with measuring receptor sensitivity not, well, receptor number. So hence, you know, that's why we can have this big conversation about it's normal testosterone levels, but they're showing all the actual true symptoms of low testosterone because, you know, some folks have got better receptor number and they don't need as much to push.

And I can imagine it's the same thing there. You brought up methylene blue. That was going to be one of my questions. And, Doug, if you want to see on the neuro side, otherwise I was going to go back to the performance enhancement on the mitochondrial side. No, go ahead. We'll talk cognition here in a minute. Okay, so I have a friend that, let's just say, they're better living through chemistry. And so not by any means do I want you to light them on fire. But I would like to know what your thoughts are on.

I believe it's called Caterine. Yeah. So Cartaine is, yeah, Caterine is GW 501, 516 or GW 5016. There's a bunch of names. But basically, this was studied, I believe, from GSC, which is Glaxis Smith-Kline years ago, and they did one study in rats that tend to get cancer, and the rats got cancer. So they've actually done a rebranding. I was actually about to make a post on this, because Carterines really died off.

This is an old-school question, which I love. I do think it works quite well. I don't know if it's specifically a cancer risk. Maybe the P-Par-Delta agonism is too powerful, but they've rebranded it. So they now call it K-P-P-P-Deta. It's the exact same receptor. But yeah, I think Lanifibranor is the new one that GSK is studying. But yeah, drug companies have a lot of these, they call them pan-P-P-Par agonists.

Because they don't want to say, oh, yeah, we're a P-Par-Agonist, just like Carteri, and they want to say, we're a pan-P-Par agonist. So gamma, alpha, you know, like fibrates or TZDs, respectively, and then also this beta, which is just the delta, but with disguise on. So I do think that these will be FDA approved here in the next couple of years and I'm super interested to see Maybe that's a little bit weaker receptor affinity for the P-PAR beta agonist, but I bet that it will have some improvement Okay, so one more time is wrong You one more time what was the benefit of taking all that stuff

Better metabolic health especially for P-par alpha and gamma for lipids We use it medically, for example, like phenofibrate. We use for high triglycerides. And then we use TZDs as anti-diabetes drugs for blood sugars. And then P-PAR beta slash delta, which I think is the exact same thing, that's used for metabolic health. But it also happens to increase your cardiovascular performance. For example, if you get your genome tested, they check the SNIP to see how sensitive your P-PAR-Delta

receptor is. And then I think they say that if your P-part delta receptor is more sensitive, you're better at endurance or something. I mentioned the kind of the big categories and cognition is definitely one of them. Like I'm hoping a smart drug is on the way at some point, along with many other people in the world, I'd imagine. But yeah, for cognition, energy and sex drive, what are the the best peptides potentially for those three big categories? Yeah, great question. The best one for cognitions, whatever helps you sleep the best. So epitalon is super interesting, but it depends on if you trust Dr. Kavanaugh's Russian studies, but it's a bioidentical epithalament from the pineal gland. So if taking melatonin is reasonable, then perhaps taking this pineal peptide is reasonable.

I do have some people on intermittent courses of that, but I think its main benefit is sleep. But lots of peptides can have benefits for sleep, growth hormone secretagogues, growth hormone itself, kind of sleep benefit. And a lot of other non-peptide. medications. So I also have a very low threshold for order to sleep studies. That'd be like whatever's best for sleep is best for cognition or whatever's best for your mental health is best for cognition too. People like to talk about diehexa, which I'm not totally against their studies for Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease for its pro drug. I forget the pro drug's name, but yeah, basically dihex is interesting, but it also activates an oncogene.

So really kind of got to be for the right patient. And then I think diHex is a fragment of ingotensin for those that are interested. So possibly some people that have high blood pressure, it's partly compensatory to perfuse and also like change your ingotensin protein level in your basically blood pressure system that we call RAS, we're in an ingotinson, Lnosterone system. So that's cognition is kind of just the sleep peptide. But yeah, as far as like the notropic ones, don't love them at this point. And then you would also ask about what else?

I said energy and sex drive. Yeah, great questions. I love non-peptide medications for energy. A lot of people have tried medaphanil. I think that's Solramphatal, which is senosi. That is amazing for energy for the right person, especially for people that don't get great sleep, or they randomly sleep on their back and have some hypophanias, maybe,

or even drink a little bit of alcohol or a little bit more caffeine. their RDI is down that night. I think that's going to be able to be used off-label for many things. What is it called? What did you say? It's called Sol Riamphatal. Its brand name is Sonosi, S-U-N-O-S-I. I'm surprised the FDA let the name at that because it's like the sun makes you happy.

And this one's known for people who have narcolepsy or shift work, sleep disorder or sleep apnea. Those are the indications if you take it and you compare it to say Medaphne. then your happiness scores are higher, which is kind of interesting. Wow. Yeah. So that's not unfortunately not, or yeah, I don't care that it's not a peptide, but not technically a peptide. People like talking about Elamacrotide, which is for Zinnity or SS31 for energy, but I think

it's really mostly for people that have energy pump issues. So it's kind of like if your car doesn't have good electronic fuel injection, you put new EFI system on it. It's amazing. Kind of the same thing in humans, if your fuel injection for specifically fats, the mitochondria is not great, then carnitine injections and ilamoprotite injections are going to work better. What about MOTC?

I've heard a lot of people talk about that lately. Yeah, I've seen some great results and I've seen some zero results. And I think what the deal is, is during exercise, you make a lot of MOTC indogynously. So I love that you can endogously make it. I love all things bioidentical. I tend to get more and more natural and crunchy and functional medicine as I practice more. But if you exercise a ton, then you probably don't need it. But I use it a lot after surgery, especially if there's someone who generally exercises a ton.

They're used to making all that MOTC, and then they go to making almost none. I think it's really helpful in those cases. And for people that are just generally deconditioned. But I think that a lot of people are underwhelmed by it just because it's a drop in the bucket compared to what they're already making. What about NAD plus? Energy only. I don't think it really increases intracellular NAD plus levels as it's positively charged.

But if people feel better energy and they feel great, then I think it's reasonable to take from time to time. So we're just putting you up in the barrage of the questions. I know, man. Injectable carnitine. Because, I mean, obviously we see it in the energy drinks, you know, it's an X number of different pre-workout supplements. Is it one of those things that the,

digestibility of carnitine is just that low, that just working around and going straight into the body is just that much more efficacious? Yeah, excellent question. Its bioavailability is usually less than 10%. And then it can also carnitine and coline can lead to more TMAO production in the gut depending on your gut microbiome. I've seen people take huge amounts of carnitine and coline, have normal TMAO, which is a potential carcinogen. But I've also seen a lot of people take oral l carnitine and have sky high t m a all right what about sex drive oh yeah that's right i forgot that one so everyone's got the order of his interests yeah so sexual health you saw you saw match lean into the camera he was yeah but let's hear it yeah because it'll allow it been sitting back or

leading forward yeah those sexual health uh mental health spiritual health all these things are super important to talk about and i like that they're not really taboo anymore at least i think maybe maybe the spiritual health one's still taboo, but sexual health is no longer tapu, which is fantastic. Lots of peptide options for that. The melanocortin receptor agonists are very interesting. According to their MSLs,

even if someone's had a melanoma, because melanocortin receptors grow melanocytes, they can still take it, which is interesting. But I usually say, if you're going to take brimelanotide, which is violici or PT-141, probably best if you have not had a melanoma. If you're family history and you're checking for it regularly, then that's reasonable to take.

But it works in males, but it's currently only FDA approved in females. But I like that one. And I also like APO, which is not a peptide, but it binds dopamine receptors. And then I also like... So to be clear, that is specifically for sexual desire or the lack of sexual desire? Correct. So I believe it's approved for what's called like hypoactive sexual arousal disorder, which is, we had to make of a name for it because basically there's a huge variation in what we consider normal sexual arousal. Is it once a week, both from a sexual arousal standpoint and a frequency of sex standpoint?

And yeah, basically it depends on the like which partner is higher or lower. Because if both partners have similar drives, then it's considered, yeah, it's kind of an odd thing. But it does help both like the libido or desire component. And then it actually also increases blood flow. So, and you can take combos. A lot of times I prescribe the combos of PT-141 with todalophil, which is Cialis or oxytocin with sildenophil, which is Viagra, or apomorphine, which is the dopamorphine, which is the dopamine. agonist. So you can stack these things together. And all of them work some, but there's not

necessarily one that I like for everyone. It just kind of depends on the situation. What about the, what is it called? I think you said it, the melan, melan, melanotin one and two. Is that, did I pronounce it right? Yes, you did. So those are the melanocortin receptor agonist. So Melanotan 1, I think I was studying in Arizona. And then Melanotanin 2 were the first two versions. There's several case studies on Melanotan 2 causing melanomas in weird areas like the oral mucosa or people who you wouldn't think would get a melanoma. We don't know for sure if it causes it, but there's at least enough case reports that I'm a little bit hesitant.

I didn't used to be like 100% against it, but there just seems like there's better options. And also you can take astazanth, and there's other things that you can do that kind of help. with skin color, especially if you're very pale. But yeah, melanotan 3 and 4 are called brimelanotide, which is the PT-141 I'm talking about. Okay. It's approved for libido. And then melanotan 4 is set melancholytide, also as in as MVCree with an eye. And that one's actually FDA approved for obesity, but for hyperphazic syndromes like Baudet

syndrome, which is a very rare genetic hyperphasia disorder, which is where you just keep eating. keep eating because they also decrease appetite to some degree, but that one can also have a skin tanning effect. In fact, if you look at the pamphlet for brand name set to melanotide, I like that their MSLs also call it our peptide. I tried to get their PhD on my podcast, but there's a picture of a patient that was very pale going into treatment and then very tan after being treated. So it's pretty interesting oh i took the i took the one and for sure you know i'm there i'm normally very pale and like i was for the first time of my life i was darker than my wife than my life he's like what the hell you know it never really went away like i've always from the moment like now i'm darker than i

have ever been still a year later i'm i'm going to double back to that milano 104 because that specific situation you're talking about, like, those of you listening to home, like, Google images of people that have that, like, they're just ravenous. They have to lock up food and keep them, like, away from it because they won't stop eating. That's crazy. Like, just completely disjointed. So, you know, just regulated. Yeah, it's a great point. And a lot of times it's easy to say, you know, thermodynamics, physics, calories in, calories out, they just need to do this or do that or just do a GLP1. but there is rare conditions like that where it's helpful to see an obesity specialist. Again, this is where I can be a little frustrated about the situation.

And sex drive is a great example of it because we all have our preferences. We know what we were when we were 20. We know what we are now. We're probably not as ravenous as we once were, but we're still hungry to eat on occasion. But, you know, when people take, you know, a treaspetide, a semi-glutatide, like, is this the equivalent of Like that's what it's like to have a low sex drive because it's easy to practice abstinence if you never get horny. Every day you just wake up and you're just like trying to hold back. Like that's a challenge.

And it's just interesting where like what's a normal sex drive? What's a normal food drive? You know, it's a wide bucket. And obviously, you know, what we're mostly just like, you know, what's the opposite? Bad joke of the day though is remember in every relationship everyone's having on average as much sex. as they want because one partner is having less than they want and the other partners having more than they want that's perfect two data points everybody's right in the center that's a great point the one thing to consider and I wasn't sure at first

if you were talking about actually eating or sex but I think one thing to consider is that there's a lot of interplay with neurochemistry you know some people say that they whoever they are, the reptilian overlords, I guess, are making sure we have low testosterone and women are on birth control pills. So we're just like not living our lives naturally. And there's certainly truth that we're not living near naturally enough. We're not outdoors enough. That's why I came with the pillars of health. But yeah, there is downsides to be it on GLP-1s as well. I believe they're being studied for alcohol cessation, smoking cessation, and something else. But a lot of people bring blame their breakup on glp ones because your desires do change and this like it's there's a lot of

activity in the limbic center of your brain which is the emotional center which is the amygdala the hippocampus so even glp ones can affect sex drive in a good or way that way potentially both um one concern is if there's one spouse or partner is on a GLP1 and one is not that the desire loops will change associated with not just food but other dopamine seeking behaviors as well. Wait. Let's expand on that. For example, if they both love going for dates where they're doing something that is previously

exciting, this is a way too easy example. But going to do like alcohol samplers or going to like a restaurant to sample appetizers, then the person that's on a GLP1 will not enjoy that whatsoever. Zero dopamine seeking behavior, less bond and shared enjoyment between the two. The person that's not on a GLP1 says you're zero fun anymore. I don't know, I don't know, like the person that you are now. And this is like all you care about is being shredded. So now these side effects are dose dependent, but I have heard a lot of these an hedonia concerns where people on GLP ones kind of don't have any fun, but they also don't care that they're not having fun.

Very similar to the analogy that you made, whereas a lot of times if people are not having a lot of intercourse, then maybe they don't have the drive, but they probably should. At some point, it's just so infrequent that you need to figure out what's holding you back. It's also fascinating when you think about, you know, this is kind of running a stereotype here, but how many folks will take these GLP-1s and they maintain the same diet, but now their diet is less of a bad diet. And accidentally, they were hitting their micronutrients before because they're just eating enough pizza, you know, and now that they're in that hypokolaric state. And this is, I mean, we can look up real, like, you can look up chakroop's like sports

nutrition text. And like as soon as you go low-calorie, a lot of athletes, we eat a decent diet, they go, certain micronutrients are becoming now insufficient because of just processing those calories. And it's got to be hard to have a good hormonal milieu if now you're doing 30 grams of protein a day. You know, because again, you've just cut back on what we're unfortunately poor habits to start. But that's just another piece in that puzzle. Yeah, GLP-1s may diet much more important, not less important, which is what some people think. Mm-hmm.

You know, growing up, when I took, you know, undergraduate physiology, et cetera, like insulin and glucagon were always kind of like taught together as like partners in crime or their complementary partners, so to speak, kind of opposite effects, even if that's not necessarily true in every sense. But they were always talked about together. And then GLB-1's come out and it's glucagon like peptide. What happened to glucagon like the OG? Yeah. Where is he in this, in this whole experience? retachyotide is bringing back a glucagon. It's going to make a glucagon great again, I guess.

Yeah, so glucagon is still something that can be prescribed to people at risk of hypoglycemia. And for the only reason, generally the only other reason is just growth hormone stem tests, is you can do a glucagon pen. It is interesting when you think about, yes, most of it's like, how do we get people to produce less insulin because they're not driving their blood sugar up all the time? and you know go figure diet and exercise two biggest levers you can pull to help write that ship but then people that were taking metformin and having you know diarrhea for the entire time they're on it now these medications still you know cause nausea still cause vomiting and otherwise but

it seems the side effects are actually becoming a lower function while obviously all the pros are increasing so it's just interesting before we close it down here we got a few minutes left. Are there any big categories, like top five peptides or top 10 here that we haven't mentioned yet that you feel like deserve some airtime here? Yeah, great question. I've already mentioned the myostatin inhibitors. I briefly mentioned LAMMoprotide along with SS31 carnitian. I mentioned quite a few. I suppose one thing that I'll say is often the right dose of GLP-1s for those who are curious what their ideal doses. Yes, is one where they're not losing significant lean body mass. It's one that they're having beneficial metabolic effects, losing body fat, if they have

body fat to lose. But often from a subjective standpoint, how they feel, if they feel like they're not sure if they're on a GLP one, I think that's actually a good thing. That way it's not, you know, if you break your ankle, maybe you're in a wheelchair for a little bit, but soon you're up and walking around, early mobility is what you want, and you want your brain to be active early if you're on a GLP1, same if you're on ADHD med. You don't want, generally, there's exceptions, but generally if someone has ADHD and they're on, say, Adderall, you don't want them to be on so much to where they feel like, this is the perfect dose. You're like, you want them to not have symptoms, but you want to feel like, I think I need the next dose because I'm really having to use my tools in order to focus,

where they're still using those coping mechanisms. And it's the same thing with the GLP1. I think I need to increase the dose a little bit, not because you're not having success. If they're plateaued and they haven't had any success, you probably need to increase the dose. But if they're having great success and they're feeling like, yeah, I'm really having to think about it. And I am hungry from time to time. and maybe I do need to increase dose. A lot of times I just don't need to increase that dose.

That's right where they should be, probably. Yeah. Yeah. So the guys that want their hormone replacement therapy to really be a cycle of steroids. Sure. Well, I think like 500 milligrams a week is my TRT dosage. You know, I feel like that's what I need in order to feel like a normal person. To compete inboundedly.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I've noticed a lot of people taking TLP ones, you know, like the, the problem with it is they do stop eating and with that comes other problems like you know they stop working out like you know and then you know what's left is not necessarily i mean it's obviously it's healthier than was if they were extremely overweight however this you know it's now coming to other issues of like you know the bone density muscle muscle loss and so i get what you're saying and getting it to where they're still having to use some tools.

Perfect. So, and I can pick your brain on this all day. Is there any peptides that you've seen that are particularly actually good for things like, you know, kidney health, some of your more fragile organs that don't do really a good job of, you know, healing from chronic insults like high blood pressure, high blood sugar? Yeah, so there's lots of things for kidney health that are helpful. Of course, most athletes are people that, or have a lot of muscle mass or take a statin C,

an estimated GFR or a kidney filtration rate that way instead of creatinine. But anything that helps your blood sugar, including GLP-1s, is going to help prevent glycemic damage to the filtration system of the kidney. SGLT-2s are not peptides, but SGLT inhibitors are also kidney protective for the right population. as are aldosterone receptor antagonists. There's an interesting one called charyndia. I think it's generic as phenenronone, but it's basically a version of spronolactone

that does not block the antigen receptor that is kidney protective and heart protective. So pretty interesting for people that have that upregulated hyperaldosteronism that occasionally you see with higher doses of testosterone replacement therapy. As far as injectable peptides, I don't know of any that are directly kidney protective. Interesting.

And if you have any extra, you know, myostatin inhibitors, I got an mailing address that I'll give you after this conversation. It's my cat. I just want to see how to get my cat. Yeah, my wolf found also needs some myostatin inhibition. Do you have an Irish wolf found? Yeah. Oh, sorry, I love those dogs. Yeah, they're just so massive and ugly, they're cute.

I remember finding out about myostatin inhibitors and my eyes. staten inhibitors when I was in college. I was just like, I want this. Yeah. Yeah. That's actually what I was going to lead into. Like I heard about this, you know, 20 years ago and it didn't really pan out. And then now it's like having this resurgence.

Like what is different between then and now? Yeah. So direct myostatin inhibitors like YK 11. Actually, vitamin D is a bit of a myostatin inhibitor. Epichatin, epitaphon, which is from fertilized egg yolk protein is a weak myostat inhibitor. And occasionally I use it actually in kits because it's egg yolk powder. Yoked is the name of that one.

But yeah, those, there's a system. Yeah, that's great. There's a system of several proteins that regulate the myostatin system. One of them is called actinivin two. So they have actiniven two light chain inhibitors. And then they also have a couple other proteins that like regulate up and regulate down. So that's why it appears to be why we didn't see a huge clinical. response from things that directly altered myostatin.

There is one that's FDA approved currently. The name of it's slipping my mind, but it's approved for pulmonary artery hypertension. You actually have to try Cialis, which is to allopil first. And then if that's not quite enough to control symptoms, then you take this one as well. But it causes a lot of side effects like blood thickening, but also bleeding at the same time. And then red, red, of the skin and superficial blood vessels. So it'll be interesting to see how these newer generation myostatin inhibitors work.

All right. Dr. Kyle Gillette, my man, I appreciate you coming on the show. You have your own show, by the way, and many other things to share here. Where can people find you, your show, social media, your practice, all the things? Yeah, thank you. My pleasure. My Instagram is Kyle Gillette, MD, and my podcast is Gillette Health, and it's Gillette Health on all other platforms.

All right, very cool. Coach, Travis Mash. That macslee.com. I've just been searching this whole show. I've been talking and searching a little bit. This has been amazing having you on. So this is a lot of fun. Oh, yeah.

Dr. Mike Lane. Yeah, Mike Lane, PhD. You know, again, had a great time chat with you. And I can sure keep pulling your year all hours on end. Thank you again. For sure. Absolutely. Good.

I'm Doug Larson on Instagram at Doug with E. Larsson. We are Barbill Strug on Instagram. Barbara underscore shrug. And if you want to work with Dr. Michael Lane, coach Travis Mass, Dr. Andy Gapelan, and the whole team at Rapid Health Optimization, you go to R-Hat-A-L-A-L-A-B.com.

That's A-R-E-T-E-L-A-B. Friends, we'll see you guys next week.