The Truth About Peptides I Dr Jeff Gross

Natalie Tysdal (03:06)

Dr. Jeff, thank you so much for joining me today.

Dr. Jeff (03:09)

My pleasure.

Natalie Tysdal (03:10)

So, this is one of my favorite topics myself, and I think because so many other people are interested in this idea of I can help myself live longer and not just by exercising and what we eat. We know those are important, but there are other things we can be doing. So tell me how you're helping people do that.

Dr. Jeff (03:28)

Right. Well, we yes, we you started out with some lifestyle factors. We always have to look at those. Like you said, diet, nutrition, sleep, quality, restorative sleep. You know, we look at exercise. Are we really exercising strategically? Both both weightlifting, resistance, slash the right amount of cardio. Some people overdo it on the cardio side and not enough on the muscle gaining side, maintenance of muscle, body composition, and hormesis, which means a little bit of stress to build.

resilience like hot sauna, fasting, things like this, you know, little stress that that makes you tougher, makes your cells tougher. All these things portend to

you know, better better and healthier cells, less inflammation, which is code for age-related change at the cellular level. And if we can slow that process and reverse it, then we can slow the biological aging and be biologically younger, even though on our calendar you turn a certain birthday on on the calendar. So what other things we have is you know under the heading of what we call cell signaling. We want to how else can we influence our cells besides eating right?

And sleeping properly and exercising. Well, we have a couple categories under what we call regenerative biologics. Regenerative is to fight against the inflammation, put ourselves back in a more youthful optimal state where they can do what they're supposed to. And that comes from things in the stem cell realm from the womb: stem

Natalie Tysdal (04:58)

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Jeff (04:59)

cells, exosomes, things like this, and the growth factors, proteins, and peptides that they make. They're the two forms of influencing ourselves.

Natalie Tysdal (05:12)

And okay, we are gonna go deeper into peptides because it is so popular right now. And I think a lot of people are confused, they're thinking, should I be doing this? How do I do it? How do I do it safely? But before we get into that, you you made a big jump. You didn't start in this whole longevity space. So tell me about that because your

Dr. Jeff (05:34)

Yeah.

Natalie Tysdal (05:34)

your history is is fascinating.

Dr. Jeff (05:37)

thank you. Well, it it didn't I didn't mean to make a big jump, but you're right. It kind of turned out to be one. So I'm I'm a neurological surgeon. I I have a spine fellowship for for decades. I practice spinal medicine. Surgery was one of the things, but we always try to make that the last thing we do. And I had a great number, growing number of patients who were in this limbo where the basic things didn't help them enough, like physical therapy, chiropractic, acupuncture, medications.

Injections, but they weren't quite ready to have that surgery conversation, which was next on the menu. And we needed something, we needed another course. It's like an Italian meal, they have all those courses. We needed another course in there. And you know, I had watched these professional athletes leave the country over 20 years or plus to go get stem cells. And I thought, okay, I have a undergraduate background in some of this. It wasn't ready back then.

Instead of going to the same annual spine surgery, neurosurgery conferences where the same bowtie wearing nerds are patting themselves on the back for doing the same thing decade after decade it wasn't changing. We really weren't learning anything new at those meetings. I said, You know what, I'm going to

make a little, you know, paradigm shift. I'm gonna I'm gonna try something. My patients are asking for these things. What about stem cell stocks? So I went to his my first stem cell conference about eight years ago and I started to retrain and re-educate and bring myself up to date and found out that we are just late to the party. In Europe and in Asia they've had this for twenty years. There are follow up studies, controlled studies, fifteen year follow up in patients using different types of stem cells. We now know it

It's the exosomes and growth factors from those stem cells that we're doing the work. and the results are amazing without surgery, without pharmaceuticals. Wow. I mean natural healing. I I fell in love with it and I I meant to add it as a new menu item, but it's everything we do now. It's longevity, it's joint regeneration, it's spinal treatment, it's everything.

Natalie Tysdal (07:47)

Why do you think we're so behind here? you know, you you talk about in Europe and other places and and we'll get into the peptides and if they are farther ahead, further ahead. But why are we so behind?

Dr. Jeff (07:58)

Yeah.

Well I think there are influences that that slow us down. So we have

An industry, a big pharmaceutical industry that has incredible profits and they don't want to see natural things come, especially natural things you can't patent, right? Because the manufacturer is the mother's womb. So, you know, they they would be quickly you know, hurt there. We have big implant industry, which is, you know, an spinal implants, knee replacements, things like that. So they don't want these regenerative injections.

And peptides working. Plus, you can't patent most of the peptides because they're naturally occurling occurring signals in the body. So there's no financial incentive for big, you know, capitalist industry to go after that. I I think those are probably the biggest influence. And of course, those industries have incredible lobbies that influences politics

Natalie Tysdal (08:57)

Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Jeff (08:59)

and government, and then you've got the sick care insurance system.

They've got it dialed in where they make optimal amounts of money by, you know, negotiating with the big pharma and the big implant and all this. So so they've got it dialed in where they know exactly what they want you to have, even though even though the CEOs of those companies are probably going and getting, you know, these high end stem cell and excess cell treatments.

Natalie Tysdal (09:19)

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And this is,

I mean, that's a it's a whole different podcast, probably somebody else's podcast to talk about the the politics of it. But because it exists, you you talked about the exosomes, the stem cells, the peptides are where I want to focus today. And maybe we'll go and do another podcast on some of those other things at another time. But let's talk about peptides. Everyone's hearing about it. A lot of people are seeing success with it.

But for those who are just hearing it thinking, how do I get into this? How do I start feeling better? L let's start there. What are the what are the big ones and where people,

Dr. Jeff (09:54)

Okay.

Natalie Tysdal (09:57)

where should they be getting them? And let's just let's see where that goes.

Dr. Jeff (10:01)

Let's

let's open the can of worms. So we'll we're focusing on a segment of regenerative cell signaling. That's the proteins growth factor peptide segment. And really, peptides are small fragments of larger proteins that our body makes naturally, except for a few occasions where they have been modified, like GLP weight loss medications. And they are modified to last longer.

Natalie Tysdal (10:26)

And are those the most popular? I mean, obviously that's where we're seeing immediate success for people. are those the ones that are the most popular? And tell us what those are, what what they're called so everyone can identify.

Dr. Jeff (10:32)

Yes. Yes, ma'am. I mean.

Absolutely. So so these are called the GLP one

Uh-based peptide medications. And the most common one is semaglutide, has brand names, but we'll won't we won't advertise, but you might have heard of Azempic. And then there's Terzepitide, which is sort of a second generation, it has two mechanisms of action. And that might be called Monjaro or some Zepbound, some other names. And then lastly, we have retitrutide, and there are more coming down the development pike. And those are modified peptides, meaning they might change in amino acids.

Or add a molecule, so it lasts longer, and it really has multiple mechanisms of reducing hunger and food noise, reducing the sugar effect upon our cells so we have less inflammatory cell activity from all the sugar in our environment, you know, processed foods, corn syrup, and everything, that you know, that kind of thing. And it really can go a long way to reversing the American.

American pro-diabetic, you know, influences. So so we're seeing incredible health benefits, not just weight loss slash fat loss from those.

Natalie Tysdal (11:52)

Well that that's where I wanted to go first. So many people have lost weight. But is it th all three, the GLP ones, twos and threes, the red or true tide, good for anyone?

Dr. Jeff (12:02)

Yeah.

possibly. We of course everyone's treated as an as an individual. There are some people that don't tolerate them, very few. There there are people if you've had pancreatitis, there's a risk you could have it again with the semaglutides, so we don't use certain ones. We're very dialed in. You can't just

You know, throw it to everybody. So it's got to be medically supervised. And we have to be very cautious that you during weight loss you can lose some muscle. So we need to take other actions to preserve and/or gain muscle, which is a longevity organ. The more muscle you have, the more you know, rap rapid your metabolism is, which is what we want. We want cells really working well. So so there is so much to look at strategically, and you can use a local.

Lower

dose, let's say you're at an ideal weight. You can use a lower dose to help suppress inflammation. So the retrutide is now showing in some studies to reverse fatty liver that we accumulate from all the stuff we had in our diet. We shouldn't, maybe a few too many bottles of red wine, things like that. So and and we're learning about suppressing inflammation long term suppresses the occurrence of many diseases whose origin has an inflammatory.

cause like some of the dementias and the heart type problems, etcetera.

Natalie Tysdal (13:28)

So you you mentioned medically supervised. However, a lot of people are getting peptides in general, including these GLPs, online themselves.

Dr. Jeff (13:36)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Natalie Tysdal (13:38)

Talk about that. Is it okay that they're doing that? Are the sites, I know there are a lot of them out there,

Dr. Jeff (13:44)

Yeah.

Natalie Tysdal (13:45)

safe. And then for people who are getting them in that way, how do they know how much to take and

Dr. Jeff (13:53)

Yeah.

Natalie Tysdal (13:54)

and all of that?

Dr. Jeff (13:56)

Well that's where the medical supervision comes in, right?

But some of the sites can be safe. you know, the l let's talk about peptides. So peptides are are generally constructed, they're sequenced amino acid by amino acid and and and built that way, and they're made into these resins. Those resins are rarefied and purified into the pure crystallized white powder form in these big pharmaceutical labs in China. So when people say, don't get your peptides from China, mm.

We are getting that from China. Now I the vast, vast majority are are are

Natalie Tysdal (14:31)

Everyone is getting is that where they're are they manufactured anywhere else? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Dr. Jeff (14:37)

there. Why it's less expensive there. Now, when they're imported by a reputable importer, they bring over the raw ingredient, it has to go through third party testing.

And that third party testing looks for impurities, they look for infectious particles called endotoxins, and they make sure that you have at least 99% of what it says is in there. So it's it's it's the thing it says on the

Natalie Tysdal (14:58)

Okay. Mm-hmm.

Dr. Jeff (15:01)

label. Once that third party objective independent testing is done, that supplier, the big importer, can then supply other smaller peptide companies with that same certificate of analysis, and that is the key. and that's part of what makes.

makes it pharmaceutical grade and that's no different than a big pharmaceutical company and how they process and test things. Now

I wouldn't buy my peptides on Timu because we don't trust the certificate of analysis. But the the jokes on us, they're all really from China anyway. But you have to go through a reputable vetted source. So most of the sites out there, you can do this, you can ask for the certificates of analysis, and you should make sure the lot number on the label matches the lot number on the certificate. You don't want a a different one. You don't want a made up one. And you should be able to chase chase that usually a

QR code from the certificate back to the actual testing lab, and they usually publish those so you can make sure a lab, an independent lab, actually did that. So that's what I use sometimes for myself and my family, and we vetted some of those sources, not all of them, and they can in if if researched properly be safe.

Natalie Tysdal (16:20)

So d tell me about because this is the other thing people are hearing a lot about. I go to this site and it says not for human consumption. So w I know there's a lot of politics involved in this as well. But

Dr. Jeff (16:30)

Yeah.

Natalie Tysdal (16:31)

but explain what what that means and if it's okay to still be taking that peptide.

Dr. Jeff (16:37)

It it can be okay, again, in the way I suggested that you

Do your homework and your due diligence. And you know, a lot of these you know, peptide suppliers don't have a pharmacy license. And that's a plus-minus. So the pharmacy license, you have to have, you know, a license to that state, and then then that adds additional layers of regulation. And now the government's saying you can only prepare so many peptides, they have a list of approved compounding peptides. So so a lot of these places have said, you know what, we're not gonna go that.

route we're just going to make these available are what's called research use and it's sort of this gray area of sorts but it is a potential way to source these they can be again pharmaceutical grade but it doesn't say you know for human use on the bottle because it stays outside the auspices of you know the pharmacy licensure boards and the FDA and you know buyer beware you have to do your homework

Natalie Tysdal (17:39)

Do you think this is going to develop and change much in the next six months, year that that's all gonna change?

Dr. Jeff (17:46)

It's changing right now. I mean, we've seen Medical Board of South Carolina told physicians they can't even recommend peptides. So I don't know how you're gonna if you want to lose weight, how you're gonna get a GLP there. they've said if it's not FDA approved, which means for marketing, they can't recommend it. So that means they can't even recommend vitamin D in South Carolina. It's not approved by the FDA for marketing. So there's there's this disinformation that's finally spinning back on what FDA approved means and what it's

supposed to mean. So I think we are seeing that happen in real time.

Natalie Tysdal (18:21)

Yeah. And yet at the same time, you are seeing a lot of success. As a doctor, tell me where we talked about the GLP. So obviously people losing weight, being healthier overall because they've lost and been able to lose that weight, doing other things at the same time, exercising, eating well. But

Dr. Jeff (18:39)

Yes. Yes.

Natalie Tysdal (18:40)

tell me about some of the other peptides. I know there are a lot of them, a lot of a lot of numbers and letters.

but where you're where you're seeing the biggest changes and success?

Dr. Jeff (18:54)

Yeah, you're right. There is a code to this, right? So yeah, body composition, it's not just weight loss, right? It's fat loss, muscle gain,

And maybe bone density gain. Maybe you're in midlife and hormonal changes are occurring. And although those need to be optimized, peptides, in a way, are small hormones. Signal your cells just like hormones do. So we need to signal for maintenance of muscle and bone, because both muscle and bone are correlated with longevity. And we don't want to get osteopenia and osteoporosis, which are so common when hormones change. But not just hormones, there are other ways to stimulate that on the peptide.

Side. So we're seeing body composition is a big area. Then we're seeing, I'll call it energy depletion. Your mitochondria aren't working well. Maybe you've suffered from long COVID or some other impact on mitochondria, certain exposures, molds, toxins, things like that. Spike protein has been a big one. There are some peptides to help restore the mitochondria within your cells. And if they function better, your cells function better. They're sort of the CEO of your cell, not just the power.

Powerhouse and that powerhouse is a battery, and you have to maintain the batteries. So that's important.

Natalie Tysdal (20:07)

Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Jeff (20:09)

So that's I'll call it energy and metabolism. And then some people take a GLP and they they struggle like it's not working. And sometimes it's because the mitochondria aren't working, we have to help the mitochondria before the GLP will do what it's meant to do.

Then we go into other things like brain health, like we have CLANC and CMAX for mood and for brain health. For cognitive ability, we like CMAX. For mood stabilization, we like CLANC. Those have been very helpful. We have some anti-aging peptides that we use. Some of them are bioregulators called epitalon to help the immune system. We have one called thymusin alpha-1. Epitalon can

can

actually improve your telomere length, which is a marker of age. So it helps reverse a marker of age. Does that reverse your age? No, but if we can physiologically make your cells behave and look younger, then their owner could behave and look younger, look and feel and behave younger metabolically at a cellular level. And there are so many more. I mean we could we could probably talk hours about the different categories. Yeah.

Natalie Tysdal (21:20)

What are the most GLPs are the ones most

popular on the market, but below that,

Dr. Jeff (21:25)

yeah.

Natalie Tysdal (21:26)

what are you seeing as the most popular?

Dr. Jeff (21:29)

anti-inflammatory re recovery peptides. So you twist your ankle, you want to recover faster because you're 52, and you gotta, you know, you gotta be back in the gym on the treadmill. So we might do a wolverine stack. my favorite is Clo K-L-O-W. It's got four peptides that have anti-inflammatory, angiomodulatory behavior. Those are fancy words for improving the healing capacity of cells and of tissues. It has the

Copper peptide, which we know is good for skin and hair, but also for healing and suppression of age and inflammation in the cells. And then it's got KPV, a very small peptide that stimulates reduces brain inflammation, stimulates brain activity, but also healing of the body. That closed stack, single injection, and of course, most of these are subcutaneous injections, like like an insulin. That one is an incredibly a great game changer for acute injuries. If you're an NFL player,

you're quietly getting these if i after a Sunday game, you know, from your trainer. You're taking these.

Natalie Tysdal (22:34)

Well and and

they're able to do that, which a lot of things in the past with professional athletes and college at athletes, they're tested for things, but all of these are fine on their correct?

Dr. Jeff (22:46)

Well, we should say

that the amateur sports agencies have have not approved these for use, but th there's they're naturally occurring. They they really can't detect them.

Just like if you if if you you know injured yourself and needed a steroid injection, you're suppressing inflammation. How is that any different than a peptide? Peptide is just more natural. Repeated

Natalie Tysdal (23:11)

Yeah.

Dr. Jeff (23:11)

steroid injections aren't yeah, th it helps in the short term but damages in the long term.

Natalie Tysdal (23:16)

Yeah.

So you mentioned the the wolverine stack. For someone who's maybe hearing these buzzwords again, there are different stacks of peptides. Explain a few more of those. What or you you mentioned a few of those within that stack, the copper peptide. you

Dr. Jeff (23:32)

Yeah. Right.

Natalie Tysdal (23:34)

could take that alone and some people do that for hair, skin, things like that.

Dr. Jeff (23:38)

Yes. Yes.

you could take copper peptide alone for you know the a youthful glow in your skin, maybe improved hair. but when you suppress

Natalie Tysdal (23:48)

Are people seeing those changes

pretty rapidly? Like that one in particular, I see people talking about it and I think after a few months, are you glowing? Is your s is your hair like really growing more?

Dr. Jeff (23:57)

Yeah, you can be.

You you can

be I you know, we can't make any claims here. The FDA

Natalie Tysdal (24:02)

Yeah.

Dr. Jeff (24:03)

has not approved any marketing claims. So that for educational purposes, we often see within a month some changes in skin quality, tone and texture, and glow. And we see this in and we can see it in hair. Now there are other reasons why hair is a challenge. Could be hormones, could be exposure to things, could be, you know, different different elements. So we may have to do more than one thing, but skin health in fact.

with our GLP patients who have lost weight rapidly, they they have you know loose skin and that skin remodels elastin and collagen take a couple years to fully remodel. Copper peptide might be able to help speed some of that up.

Natalie Tysdal (24:44)

Yeah. Okay, let let's talk women specifically. women perimenopause, menopause, where which peptides are you most commonly recommending and seeing them take successfully?

Dr. Jeff (24:57)

Well of course paired with

you know, lifestyle, hormone optimization, exercise. We we we look if if their body composition needs some attention, that GLPs are still the most popular. They have really opened the door, I think, to the rest of these. They've they've really helped. I think that secondly, copper peptide or some some form of a clo, wolverine anti-inflammatory, you know, recovery stack is good. And then and then the energy metabolism. So you have the mitochondrial repair peptides. Those are probably the three

Three biggest buckets of things, unless we are dealing with something more specific. And a lot of these peptides are short-term use. You might use it a month or two or cycle on and off. You know, you know, very few are long-term necessarily. Although those of us, you know, enthusiasts might be always experimenting with something.

Natalie Tysdal (25:49)

Well and

that I wanted to ask you about that next because we're hearing now after what has it been, four four years, three, four years since people have really been successfully using GLPs. W are most of these especially the GLPs, do you have to stay on them? Are you gonna just be so hungry if you stop and gain weight back? What are you seeing?

Dr. Jeff (26:12)

Yeah, you're you're if you stop a GLP after success, it your your reset in your brain that that hunger reset turns back on. We know that. So you you know the the only thing psychologically you can do is go, I I just got my body good again. So you I've gotta keep that. But honestly, you'll be hungry again. So we do have a lower dose for a lot of people, not to lose weight, but just to turn off some of that food noise. People call

Natalie Tysdal (26:38)

maintain mm-hmm. huh.

Dr. Jeff (26:41)

that microdose.

But that's just a cute term. It's low dosing. You know, it's below the amount that would lose weight. So just kind of keep it going. You can do

Natalie Tysdal (26:50)

Yeah.

Dr. Jeff (26:50)

it.

Natalie Tysdal (26:51)

Yeah. Tell me how how you work with people in La I know you're in Las Vegas. Do work with people remotely? Because I think there is a fear for people of I I see these websites, I could order them, but I'm gonna give myself injections and I have to put the water and the powder and it's scary for people. I was just talking to someone the other day who

Dr. Jeff (27:04)

Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep. You gotta put the lime in the coconut, right?

Natalie Tysdal (27:13)

said that. She's like, I'm not going there because that what if I do it wrong?

Dr. Jeff (27:16)

Yeah.

Natalie Tysdal (27:17)

How can that be done remotely?

Dr. Jeff (27:18)

And and that's what we do. We coach people to do this responsibly. We teach them remotely. Everything's by video. We show them where we would order them.

Sometimes they bring us a website and we might vet the source and the COA for them, tell them what to order, tell them how much water to put in, how to do it here on video. We show them how to play chemistry kit at home and keep it keep it, you know, clean and how to how to prepare it, how to inject themselves, how much, how to adjust. We we basically provide that for people because they need it. They need that peptide coaching to do it right and to and to get the confidence towards getting the result. We start low dose and

We we titrate up, you know, we're not cavalier in any way.

Natalie Tysdal (28:02)

Is it

give me a ballpark for someone thinking I this is way too expensive? What's what are most people spending on peptides? Is it something they can maintain?

Dr. Jeff (28:11)

Yeah, most peptides are a few hundred dollars a month. you know, and they're they're going down in price. The competition's going up. So like any good system that works like that, it the pricing has has come down quite a bit. So s you know, some of the mitochondrial repair peptides that you might need for one month are a little more expensive than that. But generally, I mean, you know, low dose GLP is probably a hundred a month or a little more. weight loss dose, maybe two hundred.

hundred

to six hundred a month depending on which one and how much you need. And then you know the anti-inflammatory healing recovery clo wolverine type peptides are

100 to 200 a month. The muscle gaining peptides are one hundred to two hundred a month ish. You might be on some of these at the same time, but we don't want people taking, you know, twenty different injections. We want to keep it simple for them. Some of the injections are weekly, some of them are daily, some of them are Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Again, that's why it helps to have someone guide you.

Natalie Tysdal (29:14)

Yeah,

so you you have a chart, you know when to take things, how much, and you have confidence in that. Boy, there's a lot that goes along with this.

Dr. Jeff (29:19)

Yeah.

Natalie Tysdal (29:22)

So I'm imagining in you know three to six months we need to redo this and give some updates.

Dr. Jeff (29:27)

Happy to happy. I'll be your phone a friend for peptides or

regenerative signaling in any way you need.

Natalie Tysdal (29:35)

And I think for those who are doing it successfully, they are in the know where they are keeping up with it. But it is, and I'm I'm not even there, but it is a a daily, what's happening politically, where can I

Dr. Jeff (29:48)

Yeah.

Natalie Tysdal (29:48)

get them, how much should I be taking? but I've watched a lot of people find great success with them too.

Dr. Jeff (29:55)

Yeah.

Yeah, I I'm I continue to be amazed. I wish I had these tools my entire career.

Natalie Tysdal (30:00)

Mm.

Dr. Jeff (30:01)

It would have changed a lot of people's lives in an easier way.

Natalie Tysdal (30:05)

Yeah. Well, thanks so much for the information. Where can people find you? I'll put it in the show notes. but why don't you go ahead

Dr. Jeff (30:10)

thank you.

Natalie Tysdal (30:11)

and tell us?

Dr. Jeff (30:12)

So our clinic is called Recelebrate because we're celebrating the renewal of your cells. R E C E L L E B R A T E. And because we made that word up, we sort of cornered it on the internet. So if you look at recelebrate dot com

Natalie Tysdal (30:25)

Good for you.

Dr. Jeff (30:28)

or at recelebrate on social channels, I I pretty much will go to us. Thank you.

Natalie Tysdal (30:32)

That's a good made up word. Good

job. Well, thanks so much, Dr. Jeff. It's great to talk to you and learn from you.

Dr. Jeff (30:40)

You too, thank you.