Peptides: The Science, Uses & Safety | Dr. Abud Bakri

Dr. Abud Bakri:
People are now stacking their GLP-1 as their insulin sensitivity tool, their growth hormone or their GHRH-

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... and their androgen modulation therapies as this trinity stack-

Andrew Huberman:
Trinity stack

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... to get very fit, very healthy quickly. So a lot of these transformations you see in CEOs and celebrities and stuff is using a combination of those three things, your TRT plus terzepatide or retatrutide, whatever it may be, and then using a growth hormone modulation if you can afford growth hormone or tesamorelin, ipamorelin. And you're seeing people lose a lot of fat, gain a lot of muscle in short amounts of time. Is that healthy? We'll find out, but that is the celebrity protocol.

Andrew Huberman:
Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Dr. Abood Bakri, an internal medicine physician who is also extremely knowledgeable on the science and use of peptides. When I say peptides, I mean both FDA-approved peptides, such as the GLP agonists. You probably know these as things like Ozempic, Mounjaro, and retatrutide, as well as peptides such as Body Protection Compound 157, or BPC 157, which as you'll learn today, has a very long history of being used in humans for gut health and tissue repair, and many interesting studies in animals supporting its potential use in humans, but a minimum of formal studies in humans, meaning one. We discuss BPC 157, what it does and how, as well as things like growth hormone secretagogues, like tesamorelin, MK-677, and others. And we talk about things like GHK copper, which nowadays many people are using to promote collagen synthesis and repair for aesthetic reasons, like improving skin, hair, and so on. We also talk about peptides that have been studied for the purpose of DNA repair and longevity, like epithalin and pinealin, which also have been touted to improve REM sleep and for improving cognitive function. You'll also learn what is known and what is not known about these peptides, both in terms of function and safety. During today's episode, you will come to appreciate that Dr. Bakri has truly encyclopedic knowledge about these peptides. He is also formally trained as a physician, and as a consequence, you will learn how to think about peptides based on whether or not they have known receptors or not, that turns out to be very important, and what their real safety profiles are, as well as what particular concerns you ought to have if you are considering using peptides of any kind. As a formally trained board-certified physician, he comes at this topic through the lens of a physician, but also somebody who is very interested in the current status and future of peptide medicine. Today's discussion, thanks to Dr. Bakri, is a true master class on peptides. By the end of today's discussion, I promise you, again, thanks to him, that you will be among the most informed, doctor or otherwise, about peptides from the GLPs to BPC 157, and all the others that I mentioned, including some that I didn't mention here in the introduction. So it is a real gift and honor to have this knowledge presented to all of us. So buckle up. You're about to learn a lot about peptides. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, today's episode does include sponsors. And now for my discussion with Dr. Abood Bakri. Dr. Abood Bakri, welcome.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Good to be here.

Andrew Huberman:
Peptides. Huge topic and huge category of biology and medicine. So we should start off by breaking this into categories-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Sure

Andrew Huberman:
... so that people can wrap their minds around it, because that word peptides has come to mean stuff people buy and take and maybe should or shouldn't buy and take, but- ... there's a lot of important and quite simple biology to understand before anyone should even be thinking about any of that. So if I just push the word peptides towards you, how do you carve that up in terms of thinking about it as an MD, as a clinician, and maybe also put yourself into the mind of a interested, let's call it a peptide curious person- ... out there?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
So scientifically, I would say it's one of the languages of the human body. So the body likes these different languages to communicate between cells, going from DNA to RNA to proteins, which can be broken down into polypeptides and peptides. And peptides are one of these languages. Steroid hormones are another language, and then peptides can be broken down further into subcategories, whether or not they have receptors or they have no receptor.

Andrew Huberman:
Hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
And that kind of changes the clinical effects we'll see, like the GLP-1s, which have a very strong clinical effect, compared to these obscure peptides like BPC 157, TB-500, TB-4, that don't have a clear target.

Andrew Huberman:
They have receptors, but they just have many of them, or they don't even have receptors?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
We don't have a receptor identified for BPC 157 or TB-4.

Andrew Huberman:
Just stopping you right there. There's a very interesting distinction.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
I don't think anyone else has described peptides this way. Let's take BPC 157-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... for the moment. We're going to talk a lot about it today. If it doesn't have a receptor, what are some ways that it could impact cells and organs-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... and so forth? Or is it that there are receptors, we just don't know what they are?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
It could be that-

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... the latter, that maybe the receptor is still elusive, or it could be that it's modifying certain proteins that already exist or linking different proteins together in a more favorable fashion for-

Andrew Huberman:
Hmm

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... gene transcription. The Russian peptides are all epigenetic modifiers that they bind to the groove of the DNA in certain spots that either open up or close the chromatin to certain areas of genetic expression, and they've modeled this out.

Andrew Huberman:
Like a steroid hormone?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
So steroid hormones bind to a, like the androgen receptor binds DHT or testosterone, goes into the nucleus, turns on all the androgenic genes. Like this-

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah. Puberty is a good example of that.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes, exactly.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
So like pinealin that we've talked about, shuttles heat shock proteins with androgen receptors

Andrew Huberman:
Got it. So if I just pause us for a second, we should think about this word peptides in two major categories at least.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
One is, has known receptors.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Plural, like the GLPs.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
The other category would be, does not have known receptors, might have receptors, but can definitely impact biology-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... in interesting ways, or so say the animal data.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Okay.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
A lot of animal data.

Andrew Huberman:
All right. I know a lot of people are interested in GLPs and I want to go there, but because I know most people are probably listening to this foremost because they want to hear about the other stuff- ... let's start with BPC 157.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Sure.

Andrew Huberman:
What is it? What do we know about it? We'll explore safety and what is your stance on it from the perspective of a consumer and a clinician? So first of all, what is BPC 157?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah. The best way to look at it is, as humans we've been looking for medicines in plants for thousands of years, and in the last, let's say 150 years, we've been looking for medicines in cells. So animal-derived versus plant-derived medicines is the way to think about it. You think about aspirin, you think about metformin, the statins. Those were all discovered in plant tissues. Statins more so fungi, but you get the point. Now we've been looking into animal tissues to find cures, medicines, treatments. So a group in Croatia in the '90s looks out for this peptide called BPC, that they eventually named BPC. It's a 40,000-dalton giant peptide called BPC. BPC 157 is 15 amino acids from that giant peptide. We don't naturally make BPC 157. That's what you'll commonly hear online. We make BPC the big protein.

Andrew Huberman:
Did this group go looking for-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes

Andrew Huberman:
... body protection compound? For those that aren't familiar, in the laboratory you can take a tissue, grind it up, you can do what's called fractionation, you can start separating basically cells and tissues and liquids according to the size of different proteins. Like different filters will bring, just like certain filters will let sand through or pebbles through or boulders through.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
That's kind of what you do, and then you figure out what the sequences are, and then you throw them on cells or put them into animals and you try and figure out what they do.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Why were they motivated to look for what eventually became BPC?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
So Pavlov, the famous scientist that would do the experience on the dogs with the bell and making the dogs salivate, the other work he did was on gastric juices of dogs. What he'd do is he'd put a hole in the dogs' stomachs, he would feed them food and then get the gastric juices and sell that as a medicine.

Andrew Huberman:
That's how he made his money?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah, that was part of his business.

Andrew Huberman:
So he got a Nobel Prize. He was also kind of like, what did he have a call code? It was like enter Pavlov for discount at checkout?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Amazing.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
So this is BPC, before BPC 157 exists. There's probably other peptides and compounds in there, but they found that gastric juices had positive effects on healing, on people that had GERD and these kind of-

Andrew Huberman:
Wait, so people were taking BPC-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... in the time of Pavlov?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
They didn't know what BPC was. They were taking gastric juices from dogs.

Andrew Huberman:
For what?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
GI distress, GI discomfort, some people would try it for wound healing. There was a big push in this era for finding animal tissues and putting them into humans. That science fizzled out. At the same time, there's a scientist, Hans Selye, that's coming up with the stress adaptation theory, and he notices that animals are stressed out, three things happens to them. Their adrenals get really big, so they make more cortisol. Their gastric lining gets destroyed, and then their thymus gland and their lymphatics shrink down. And he has this published paper where you have clear adrenal from a stressed animal versus a non-stressed animal, a thymus from an animal that's stressed versus not. So this group is looking and thinking, like, "Hey, Pavlov had this gastric juice. Hans Selye said that there was damage during stress. There must be some kind of cytoprotective or organoprotective compound in the gut." The stomach is a very rich endocrine tissue. It makes ghrelin, all these other hormones. So they're like, "There must be something else in the gut juice that protects the gut lining from further damage."

Andrew Huberman:
Were people drinking the gastric juices of dogs?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
From Pavlov's-

Andrew Huberman:
Or were they injecting them?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Drinking was mostly what they did.

Andrew Huberman:
And it was supposed to be a medical elixir?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes.

Andrew Huberman:
Presumably it had many-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... many things in it.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Many peptides, not-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Dyspepsia and upset stomach and this kind of stuff is what people were thinking about

Andrew Huberman:
Do the reports point to the fact that it might have worked independent of what was sold on Dr. Pavlov's-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
... nonexistent website? This was in like the early 1900s, right?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah, exactly.

Andrew Huberman:
And then Selye was what, 1930s?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
I think so, yeah. It was about 100 years ago.

Andrew Huberman:
Okay. Someone will correct us if we're wrong.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
And this other group in Croatia-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Was '91.

Andrew Huberman:
'91. Okay. Amazing.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Their first paper talks about this, like, "Hey, there must be some kind of compound." They identified the big 40-dalton protein, BPC, and then they were like, "Well, what's causing the actual biological effects?" They identified BPC 157, the 15-amino acid peptide that's causing all these effects. There's actually more peptides in gastric juices that some other scientists may or may not have already identified. This field of peptides is going to be very interesting because almost every organ has a signature of peptides. Like if you think back, Dr. Vladimir Ulovich in 1850s, 1880s, finds carnosine and carnitine in muscle of cattle. So you can think about the first peptides that are found are carnosine and then carnitine as the amino acid that have positive effects on strength training and performance and different effects there. But that was the whole idea is like, hey, there's muscle peptides that may have muscle effects, right? Gut peptides might have gut effects.

Andrew Huberman:
So this Croatian group isolates this 15-amino acid-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... kind of mini segment-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... of BPC. They and others start injecting into mice.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Mice.

Andrew Huberman:
Inducing injuries to nerve-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... to tendon. Maybe describe a few of those effects. I'm familiar with that literature, but I can tell that you are far more familiar with it. So what are some of the impressive effects that they observed that led to where we are today?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah. So they did all kinds of horrible things to these mice. They would sever tendons and then give them BPC through oral or injectable intraperitoneal administrations, and they'd have faster healing times. They would sever ACLs of the mice. They would do burn wounds. So when a patient has a burn wound in the ICU, they end up having crazy gastric ulcers. But if they were able to put BPC on topically for the mouse, they would have no gastric ulcers. They name it as this anti-stress compound, is how they look at it. Now, when they do that Achilles paper on the mice, that's what explodes the bodybuilder interest And leads us to today where we are like, "Oh, MSK injuries must be BPC, tendons and muscle injuries." But the original idea of BPC was to use it as a gastric treatment, not to use it as a musculoskeletal.

Andrew Huberman:
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Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Just hang in there, folks, because this is really, really important. What is so striking to me about BPC, and by the way, that's not an endorsement for BPC, just what's so striking to me, because my lab worked for a long time on optic nerve repair and neural regeneration. Nerves don't like to regenerate in the central nervous system. Peripheral nervous system, they do it. They do it slowly, but they do it.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
Not in the central nervous system. Ask anyone who's had a stroke or an optic nerve injury. It's a tough road at best.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
There are data that I've seen with my own eyes that show that you can accelerate healing of tendon-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes

Andrew Huberman:
... of ligament, of nerve pathways.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
In animals, yes.

Andrew Huberman:
In animals, yes. Thank you. And that it just generally promotes, quote-unquote, "repair."

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
That's kind of weird.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
It is weird.

Andrew Huberman:
Right?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Very.

Andrew Huberman:
Because I could spend the next 10 hours or more telling you about all the ways that people have tried to get nerves to regenerate and couldn't, and as you pointed out, this thing doesn't really have one specific, at least known, receptor. So the data on the gut make a lot of sense. This is, after all, a gut peptide. It makes sense that that gut peptide could get lots of places in the body.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
But what is it doing mechanistically, if we know, to support regeneration or replenishment of all these different tissue types? Because a neuron is a very different cell type-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... than a fibroblast or one of the bits of collagen that make up different connective tissues.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep. It's modulating a lot of these growth and healing pathways. Like in the models of damaging the endothelial layer, or the epithelial layer of different tissues, you'll get more VEGF signaling. So that's the vascular endothelial growth factor. So you get more blood vessels, angiogenesis being formed, which creates a lot of the controversy around BPC's safety. You'll get cell migration, especially when coupled with TB500 and TB4. You'll get more access of the healing factors to the area through angiogenic pathways. On top of that, you'll get an anti-stress effect. So the other big thing that they did was they'd give corticosteroids with BPC-157 to these mice, and usually when you have a wound and you give corticosteroids, the corticosteroids will slow or even stop the wound healing from happening. When BPC was administered, the healing was either the same or even better.

Andrew Huberman:
Is BPC considered anti-inflammatory? Because based on what you just said, it almost seems like it helps maintain some of the pro-inflammatory response.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
Some people might be thinking, why would you want inflammation? What Dr. Bhakri just said is if you block inflammation with corticosteroids-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes

Andrew Huberman:
... you aren't going to call in the signals to repair tissues.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes.

Andrew Huberman:
So lowering inflammation is a dicey thing that maybe we set aside for later in the conversation if we have time, but is it thought that BPC is lowering inflammation, or is just somehow hitting the gas pedal on all these regenerative, restorative biological processes?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
It's more putting the gas pedal on these processes to bring in the immune system, the healing factors. For example, in one tendon model, they noticed that it increased the amount of growth hormone receptors on the tendon. So theoretically, this would allow more growth hormone to dock in and cause the outgrowth of the tendon and the regrowth of it. So there's that theory there. Downstream, it'll modulate nitric oxide synthesis, so that's a big thing when it comes to wound healing because you need to dilate the blood vessels, you need to call in different cells. So it's really changing the way cells behave at that level. But that's only for the tendon side of it. They also did weird things on the neurological side, like they would make these mice drunk Okay? And they would then give them BPC, and they'd get less drunk when they go through mazes.

Andrew Huberman:
Oh, boy.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Okay.

Andrew Huberman:
We did not just recommend you take BPC with alcohol.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
No.

Andrew Huberman:
Just want to be very clear. But people are good, will do their own interpretation.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes.

Andrew Huberman:
So, I'm being semi-facetious, but very interesting.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
And then also, they would give the mice drunk and then have them withdraw from alcohol.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
And that withdrawal is deadly. If we have a patient in the hospital that withdrawals, they could die during that withdrawal if they're not given benzodiazepines. They got BPC, and they didn't have the withdrawal symptoms. I'm like, "What's going on here?" This is a very interesting compound. I think it gets all the hype for the MSK stuff, but I think the neurological, neuropsychiatric, let's say, and then gastric effects are way more interesting when it comes to that because it's modulating the gut-brain access in an interesting way. We'll have people come to us, and they're like, "My Adderall's not working since I've been taking oral BPC."

Andrew Huberman:
Are they happy with that effect?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
No, they're not happy.

Andrew Huberman:
Okay.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
They're very mad because it seems like it's blunting their Adderall.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
So, it's doing something from dopaminergic signaling on both sides, both withdrawal, when it comes to the GABAergic side, but also the peak of signaling. So, if you peruse Reddit, which you should never do, you'll find all these anhedonia discussions about BPC. People feel depressed and low energy.

Andrew Huberman:
Incredible.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
So, it seems to be homeostatic.

Andrew Huberman:
In terms of effects in animals-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes

Andrew Huberman:
... and anecdotal reports in humans. Because I think both your and my excitement about this might be occupying a substantial amount of the force field here, let's do something that normally I would do in a few minutes. I'm going to ask you some very direct questions-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... about this, and I don't hold you responsible as being BPC- ... spokesperson, but here you are. That's Pavlov's job. And he's dead. Are there any known adverse events from people taking BPC, known and documented, okay? Adverse events where it's unrelated to contamination or something of that sort.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
In the literature, when it comes to the animal data, they've injected animals with 1,000 times the dose of BPC with no real adverse effects. So, we don't even know the LD50 of BPC, which makes it hard for it to become an FDA-approved-

Andrew Huberman:
Maybe define LD50.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes. LD50 is the dose of which would kill 50% of the animals if it was administered to them. So, we don't even know what that is.

Andrew Huberman:
And that's actually an important number, as barbaric as it sounds, to determine for any drug.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
What's the LD50 for caffeine? What's the LD50 for aspirin?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes.

Andrew Huberman:
Every drug you take, folks, on or off the counter-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... prescription or non-prescription, has gone through LD50 testing-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes

Andrew Huberman:
... in animals.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
To be a clinician to prescribe this, we need to know what that is-

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... which limits us. Now, there was two very small Phase 1 and Phase 2 trials on rectal BPC enemas in the early 2000s from that same Croatian group. So, that's the big concern with BPC, all the data comes from one group, so people can be skeptical. There's a couple of Chinese groups that have also replicated some of their work, but those groups wanted to try to treat ulcerative colitis. It's a very miserable condition where the immune system attacks the lining of the gut in multiple spots. And they use enemas of BPC up to 80 milligrams, which is much more than people would take.

Andrew Huberman:
Most people are injecting micrograms.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes.

Andrew Huberman:
100 or 200 micrograms-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Sure

Andrew Huberman:
... per day or something.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Maybe more, but-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah, up to a milligram, yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... you're talking about 80 milligrams.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah, rectal enemas. They did a Phase 1 and Phase 2 trial.

Andrew Huberman:
They're doing this daily, or they do it once?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
They did it for a few weeks.

Andrew Huberman:
Okay.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
And then they re-measured. It was placebo-controlled. The data's not available. The abstracts are only available. So, that's what also gives us some pause when we're going to push that forward, especially when the legal discussions are happening here in the next few months-

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... on BPC. The Phase 1 trial showed no adverse effects. And they didn't even have BPC in the systemic system, too. That's a key point to know, that orally administered or rectally administered BPC doesn't seem to go systemic.

Andrew Huberman:
Maybe define-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... that a little bit more specifically.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
If you take aspirin and then you measure blood aspirin levels, you'll notice the levels go up. When they measured BPC levels, BPC 157 levels, in these individuals, they didn't find it in the blood. So, either it was broken down very quickly, or it stayed locally to the lining of the gastric tissues.

Andrew Huberman:
That raises a question for me. Let's say somebody doesn't, quote-unquote, "take any BPC 157" by enema or otherwise. If I were to just draw your blood right now-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... there's BPC 157 in there, in the bigger protein.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
The bigger BPC protein? I don't think you would find it.

Andrew Huberman:
Is it circulating, or is it restricted to the gut?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
We don't have that data.

Andrew Huberman:
But that's incredible, right?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Because we're talking about these effects all over the body.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
We don't even know if it leaves the gut.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
No. But, well, the injectable is going to go systemic.

Andrew Huberman:
And most people are going to take, if they decide to do this-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes

Andrew Huberman:
... are going to take an oral or an injectable. They're either going to inject local to the injury-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes

Andrew Huberman:
... if they can.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Or intraperitoneal.

Andrew Huberman:
So-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
They found fragments of the 15.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
There's a paper in 2024 that looked at this, and they could figure out if somebody had BPC administered for doping reasons, because it's on the WADA list now. So, they could figure out if someone had taken BPC.

Andrew Huberman:
Got it.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
But we don't know.

Andrew Huberman:
Okay.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
We need to know the dynamics. We don't know where it goes, how it goes.

Andrew Huberman:
And we don't know the results in terms of what those 80-milligram enemas of BPC did for the colitis.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
In the Phase 1 trial, it was just the safety. There was no adverse effects. In the Phase 2 trial, it was very small, like 40 patients. There was at least a positive signal on the ulcerative colitis.

Andrew Huberman:
And this was done in the United States, or this was-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Croatia

Andrew Huberman:
... in Croatia?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Croatia.

Andrew Huberman:
Okay, so to be quite direct, on the one hand, you have groups who I think are mostly well-intentioned saying, "Hey, 80 milligrams of BPC by way of enema did not cause any adverse events." And that's the Phase 1 that you described.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
If we believe their data, that is true.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah. Right. On the opposite side, many people, especially in the United States and Northern Europe, where the regulations tend to be similar-ish-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... right? As compared to elsewhere in the world, would say, "Well, yeah, but that study was in Croatia." Now, I have many Croatian friends. That's not a knock on Croatia. Why would it be that the clinical trials in Croatia would hold less weight? This is a dicey area, but I think it's important because you'll hear this, "Oh, those are Chinese peptides. Those are Russian studies."

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah, and? To me-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... the question is, was it good science?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Sure.

Andrew Huberman:
Was it done carefully? Would it Pass muster for a phase one in the United States?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
That's a good question. The groups seem to be very robust, and they do really good randomized controlled, double-blind placebo-controlled trials. I think we're very United States-centric.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
We view ourselves as the premier science, and we are the premier science, so people kind of trust that more. And there may be perverse incentives when it comes to different government bodies-

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... and Soviet-era research that might be pro fabrication when it comes to certain compounds that makes people hesitant. Because there's a lot of these Soviet era compounds that are not peptides, or some of them are peptides, that are fantastic. They sound amazing. But when they get tested, maybe they're not as potent as the Soviet data would suggest.

Andrew Huberman:
I always thought that the Russian stuff was the really potent stuff that they didn't want anyone else to know about.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
That is also very true.

Andrew Huberman:
It kind of went, it goes the other way, right?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
It could go both ways.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
But they were more interested in performance. They wanted better astronauts, better Olympians, better soldiers. We care more about a profit drug model that gets people on a subscription with a monthly drug, unfortunately.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Sometimes it heals people, but...

Andrew Huberman:
So nowadays, is BPC 157 legal in the United States? If I wanted to go online and buy BPC 157, I can do it, right?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
You could-

Andrew Huberman:
Legally

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... for research purposes only.

Andrew Huberman:
I thought now under the new regulations recently passed, that you can get it from a compounding pharmacy or-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Technically not just yet.

Andrew Huberman:
Okay.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
And it depends on medical boards. To break it down, BPC 157 never got FDA approved, right? So it gets into these compounding pharmacy lists. There's a category one, two, and three. Category one means the FDA thinks like, "Hey, this is not an approved drug, but we're okay with you compounding this, and you're okay to push that forward." Category two is like, do not compound. In late 2024, BPC 157 and 20 other peptides got moved to this category two list. Since about 2017 to 2024, people have been prescribing BPC in these alternative medicine, anti-aging practices. It gets removed from that list. Of course, compounding pharmacies re-label it as PDA, pentadecapeptide arginate.

Andrew Huberman:
But it's the same thing.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
It's the same exact thing.

Andrew Huberman:
Really?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes. One of them will be an acetate, one of them will be an arginate, but the PDA is BPC 157.

Andrew Huberman:
Because there are many people selling compounded pentadecapeptide.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Pentadecapeptide. Arginate, PDA is-

Andrew Huberman:
Did I mispronounce it?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah, pentadecapeptide arginate. That's the-

Andrew Huberman:
Arginate. Okay.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes. I think the acetate one is the one that's on the category two list. Now, just in April of this year, it got removed from the category two list, and it's not yet on the category one list, which would allow physicians to prescribe it-

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... through compounding pharmacies. Now-

Andrew Huberman:
But they can prescribe the PDA version.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
People are prescribing PDA.

Andrew Huberman:
Yes.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Now, state medical boards view that very differently. I got a letter from one of the licensed in many states. One of these states reached out to me and was like, "You cannot prescribe..." Not me directly, to-

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... the general public of people in that state, said, "You cannot prescribe non-FDA-approved peptides, no matter what."

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
So there's controversy there. Even if the FDA says, "Okay, we're okay with you prescribing it," is your medical board in that state going to be okay with it?

Andrew Huberman:
So it's state by state.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
State by state laws.

Andrew Huberman:
What about with telehealth? So somebody's on the East Coast in a state that allows them to write a script for, let's just call it BPC-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Sure

Andrew Huberman:
... because that's effectively what it is.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
Or this other thing where-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... they kind of wriggle through the regulation. Can they send that to California or to Wisconsin or someplace else if the patient is there?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
The telehealth laws go into effect where the patient is.

Andrew Huberman:
Hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
So if, let's say, in California, it's not allowed to have BPC according to the State Board of Pharmacy or whoever bans that. Even if you're a New York doctor that's licensed in California, that would be against the California Medical Board, and they would ask you, if they found out, to stand in front of them. Now, are boards cracking down on this? Not really. There's a couple of states that are cracking down on people, and people know to avoid those states. But it's going to be very dicey over the next few years.

Andrew Huberman:
Okay. A couple of questions. Anecdota.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
We don't want to place too much on it, but the big kind of rumor out there that pricked up my ears a few years ago was when I heard that some athlete before the Summer Olympics, this was two Summer Olympics ago, from Eastern Europe, had a complete Achilles transection.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
Not just a tear or a pull, but when we think about nerves and tendons, we think, like, complete cut the whole way through. And the rumor was they took BPC 157, locally injected for a few months, and they podiumed in the Olympics.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
They still got a medal.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Familiar with that story.

Andrew Huberman:
That was the-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... story that kind of got out there that I feel kind of catalyzed this movement of BPC out of these niche communities, and started it toward the public awareness that leads to you sitting here today.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
Among other things.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes.

Andrew Huberman:
You have a lot of other knowledge. But we're restricting to BPC now. So do we have verification of that story?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
No. I think that story was hearsay. I don't think they wanted to reveal what they actually did. I don't think they only did BPC 157. They'd be stupid if they did. They should have all the best and latest, greatest treatments, whether exosome, stem cells, other peptides, cocktail-

Andrew Huberman:
Anything that wasn't banned. And by the way, I should say BPC 157 was not on the banned substances-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
No

Andrew Huberman:
... list at that time. It was so unknown. Just like there are compounds right now that athletes are using-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... and not just in the enhanced games-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... in preparation for the Olympics. I'm not saying they're all doping, but it's a common practice that athletes will forage into things that can help them that are not yet on the banned substances list.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes. And good luck proving that BPC was injected a week ago.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Because by the time, the peptide's already gone out of your system.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Or at least we think based on the pharmacodynamics that we understand now. That story was run with from the research community. They used it as a marketing tool to sell more BPC 157. Because what happened in the field is the GLP-1s come online late 2021, 2022 with Ozempic and Wegovy. They get the FDA approval for weight loss. There's not enough of a supply from the traditional pharmaceutical versions of the GLP-1s, so people start looking elsewhere to get their weight loss drugs. I know people that would drive down to Mexico to pick up pens, because a pharmacy in the United States would cost $1,500 for an Ozempic pen. Pharmacy in Mexico, one-hour drive, $100.

Andrew Huberman:
Same drug.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Same exact drug.

Andrew Huberman:
How much relative cost?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
150 versus 1,500. So 10X.

Andrew Huberman:
And this is the thing that Trump has been-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes

Andrew Huberman:
... very vocal about, like-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes

Andrew Huberman:
... that we're getting overcharged for drugs here.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
We definitely are. And the Trump RX has lowered a lot of these prices, by the way, for a lot of these drugs. Now, that time there was a shortage of semaglutide and then eventually tirzepatide, so the compound pharmacy game shifted into making these drugs, compounded versions, so they're not the FDA-approved versions, but when there's a shortage of a medication, the compounders are allowed to make these drugs to meet the shortage. And in fact, the FDA was reaching out to these people telling them to do it. Like Brigham was talking to him last week at the NHANES games, and he's like, "Yeah, the FDA told us to make this stuff, and then they're getting us in trouble."

Andrew Huberman:
This is Brigham Buhler-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... who runs Ways to Well, and-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... he ran a pharmacy for a long time, right?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
He's the best, yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Compounding pharmacy.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah. One of the best.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah. We've never actually met in person.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
One of the best ones, yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
This is not an ad for pharmacies.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
We have no... I have no business relationship to Brigham.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
So if there's a shortage-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... compounding pharmacies can jump in the game.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes. And they did. And they jumped in very hard.

Andrew Huberman:
On the GLPs.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes, and they made a lot of money off the GLP-1s. This was billions of dollars being made.

Andrew Huberman:
Were they selling them for less than standard pharma was selling them for?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
They were less than the Ozempic pens. Unfortunately, what would happen is the provider had the discretion on the price, so all these providers also were making a lot of money.

Andrew Huberman:
Who's the "provider"? The physician?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
The physician or the NP or the PA. Um-

Andrew Huberman:
Who takes the difference?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
The clinician, which I don't think is legal in most states.

Andrew Huberman:
Wait a second.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Or maybe not even federally.

Andrew Huberman:
Wait a second. So-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... let's say I wanted to take a Wegovy.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes.

Andrew Huberman:
And there's a shortage. I can't get it from, who's the big manufacturer of-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Novo Nordisk.

Andrew Huberman:
Novo Nordisk doesn't have enough.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
My doctor says, "Listen, you need this."

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes.

Andrew Huberman:
And I say, "How much is it?" And they say, "Well, $1,500." But it turns out the compounding pharmacy, through a different doctor, a more benevolent doctor-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
There you go

Andrew Huberman:
... could have prescribed it to me for, I could get for maybe $300. In the case where I'm paying $1,500, it's going to my physician unbeknownst to me. I'm cloaked from the process.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
If you're getting the Novo Nordisk pen, the physician's not involved in that at all.

Andrew Huberman:
Sure. No, I'm talking about if I'm drifted towards a compounded version.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
A compounded version. So most of the times when it comes to compound pharmacies, which I don't think is a good practice, the clinician gets a price from the pharmacy.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
So the pharmacist will tell you, "Hey, a vial of semaglutide costs 150 bucks."

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
This clinician can now sell that vial to the patient. Sell, that's really, they're charging an administrative fee, right?

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
It's not a sale- ... because technically you can't sell medications like that. They will sell it to you for $200 or $800.

Andrew Huberman:
Okay. If I want to ask my physician, "How much are you getting the drug for from..." Because I know which pharmacy it's going to come from-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... because it's going to come in a vial that says-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes

Andrew Huberman:
... like Upstate or Tailormade-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes. Yes. Yes

Andrew Huberman:
... or what's Brigham's pharmacy?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Revive.

Andrew Huberman:
Revive. It's coming from Revive. What are you paying for this from Revive?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
And then what are you going to charge me?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes.

Andrew Huberman:
And I can assume the difference is going to my clinician.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
It's going to the clinician, all day.

Andrew Huberman:
All right. Sorry, clinicians.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
The game is up. Patients are now going to ask, and you have every right to ask, as far as I'm concerned.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah, because what's going to happen with the BPC and all these other peptides moving is there's going to be telehealth platforms on every corner now that are going to be like, "Hey, BPC, $199. BPC, $299." And they're going to check out, and there's going to be a doctor somewhere in a room that's going to stamp the prescription. But it's just a e-commerce. It's supplements with the stamp of a doctor, which is not good medical care at all.

Andrew Huberman:
Okay. To balance this a bit, the route that many people have gone for about a decade now, but primarily in the last three to five years, was to go to these for research purposes only-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes

Andrew Huberman:
... what we would call gray market.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes.

Andrew Huberman:
Let's just name names because they're out of business now anyway. They shuttered themselves.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
Peptide Sciences-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... till a few years ago, you could go on there, you could buy pretty much any peptide. It would say, "For research purposes only. Not for animal or human use."

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes.

Andrew Huberman:
And then they-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
And you'd sign that many times

Andrew Huberman:
... and when you paid them, you would have to Venmo them-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... or you could do it through Zelle.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes.

Andrew Huberman:
But they would ask that you not send it to a Peptide Sciences account.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes.

Andrew Huberman:
It was like some random name-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... and the names kept changing.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
So everyone knew they were in on something like this. By the way- ... I want to be very clear. I ended up getting these things, right? I was too frightened to take them. Later, I have taken BPC. I've tried it. I don't take it currently, but I've tried it through a compounding pharmacy.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
So I just want to be very clear what that experience was about.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep. So eventually, they actually got payment processors. This market evolved with the desire-

Andrew Huberman:
Okay

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... because there's maybe, I'd say $5 to $10 billion on gray market peptides being spent in the United States in 2025, and that's going to grow this year.

Andrew Huberman:
So here's my question. Standard pharma we know goes through, of all the things we're talking about, the most stringent process.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
That's right.

Andrew Huberman:
You may hate pharma folks or whatever, you're right. But the stuff that you get that's non-generic-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes

Andrew Huberman:
... from Novo Nordisk-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Or Lilly

Andrew Huberman:
... from Eli Lilly-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... you can be certain based on the product packaging that it's as clean as it gets.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
As pure as it gets.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
That's right.

Andrew Huberman:
Compounding pharmacies are a mix. It depends on the compounding pharmacy.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep. Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
Do we know that gray market peptides had problems? Because there are people out there right now who are certainly not physicians-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... people like Robert Breedlove, who's best known for his work in crypto, who's also now very open about the fact that he's taking all these peptides-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... and anabolics and things.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
And I heard him online the other day saying literally that he's tested the gray market, for research purposes only peptides, and compared them to the compounding pharmacy versions, and they're identical. Now, he's not a physician, and I don't think he's lying, but many people are taking that sort of evidence and saying, "Oh, I'll just get it from gray market sources." As a physician, what is your stance on this?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
So the API for all of these, active pharmaceutical ingredients, comes from China. There are no such thing as American-made peptides. It gets finished here. So the API-

Andrew Huberman:
They're all from China.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Everything's from China.

Andrew Huberman:
The raw materials?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
The raw materials, like the semaglutide you're getting from a compounding pharmacy or a research peptide website, Retatrutide included, comes from China, and then either the raw material gets packaged here into vials-

Andrew Huberman:
Wait, the raw materials or synthesized compound? Because there's a big difference between getting the raw materials for something and getting the thing.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
The synthesized semaglutide-

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... gets made in China. It'd be very expensive to make it here. There are people starting to look at that, because that's the next thing in the arms race, to make American peptides, right?

Andrew Huberman:
So they're all Chinese peptides.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Everything's Chinese peptides.

Andrew Huberman:
There's no Guatemalan peptides? There's no-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
China is the best at doing it. Now, the compounding pharmacies Vary in grading. Some of them are really good. They do all the testing, sterility, they have very good quality control, so you get a good product. But they usually have to compound it with something else to get by the regulations, like they'll add on a B12 or a B6 to say, the patient had nausea from the traditional semaglutide. We can compound them with B12 or B6 to get around the nausea, and that meets the patient rule. Because there's two ways to get compounded medications. Either there's a shortage or there's a unique need that the patient has.

Andrew Huberman:
Do we know that compounding with something else actually deals with the nausea, or is that just a-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
It's a slight event. It might help some people.

Andrew Huberman:
Got it.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Anecdotally, people will say that they respond better to the pens, like the actual pharma pens compared to the compounded stuff. The research stuff is all over the place. Some of it could be better than compounded stuff, it could be the wrong substance. There's a guy went viral on Twitter a few weeks ago. He got retatrutide, started getting darker. He's like, "I don't think I'm injecting retatrutide."

Andrew Huberman:
Skin got it. Yeah.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes. He was in-

Andrew Huberman:
So it was melanotan

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... he was injecting melanotan 2.

Andrew Huberman:
And folks, I realize that we're going places that not even I predicted we would go, but this is super informative. So all of the raw materials are coming from the same source.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes.

Andrew Huberman:
Then they're getting filtered into these different, let's just call them stringency bins.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes.

Andrew Huberman:
Standard pharma, quote unquote-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... Big Pharma-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... being the most stringent.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah. Some of the raw materials are overseas. I think Lilly's opening some China factories.

Andrew Huberman:
Okay.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Some of it's here.

Andrew Huberman:
Okay. Some are going into compounding pharmacies.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
And compounding pharmacies, I think it's fair to say, have varying levels of stringency.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
That's right.

Andrew Huberman:
Some are going to be excellent, some are good, some are going to be lousy.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
That's right.

Andrew Huberman:
Fair? Okay. The, quote unquote, gray market peptides, the ones where it's, quote unquote, for research purposes only, but I made the joke on X a few weeks ago, like how many of you are running experiments in your-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
No one

Andrew Huberman:
... not on animals, really? What, are you doing cell culture at home? Like, come on. I know what's involved in doing cell culture. You're not- ... no one's doing this at home. So those presumably also come in anywhere from excellent to dreadful.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes. And-

Andrew Huberman:
But we don't know which are which.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Nope.

Andrew Huberman:
We don't know that-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
And batch to batch, that's the big problem.

Andrew Huberman:
Gotcha. Okay. So it is risky to get for research purposes only peptides.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah. That's the majority of the way people are consuming peptides, unfortunately. We should just... Because of the move in 2024 to get these from the category one to the category two list and make them banned, quote unquote, that opened up this gray market zone. The gray market existed for the last 15, 20 years. Bodybuilders would have anecdotes about BPC 157. They'd inject it post squats for different injuries. Nobody really cared about it. It was with the GLP-1s and then the banning of the peptides, plus this anti-medicine kick that's been happening over the last five years-

Andrew Huberman:
Since the pandemic

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... yes, since the pandemic, that people are like, "You know what? I want to inject this," because it gives them a sense of autonomy, or they feel like their bro recommended it. I said the best job in 2025 was to be a peptide affiliate. People made my yearly salary in a month selling peptides illegally on TikTok.

Andrew Huberman:
And I will say, because for people that think it's just bro science, it's also gal science. I will tell you, I don't even know if that's a term. Someone needs to come up with a better term. My understanding, and not from Reddit, is that more than half of the peptide market is female.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
That's right, for the GLP-1s-

Andrew Huberman:
You know, there's this perception that it's like, only guys who like to lift weights and want to be jacked, and jacked and tan or whatever they say. No.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
No.

Andrew Huberman:
Especially when we start getting into things like GHK-Cu.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
And we start talking about things for collagen and skin-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... rejuvenation. There's a big peptide market aimed towards women. I actually think in the long run, it's going to exceed, at least financially-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
It will

Andrew Huberman:
... the peptide market in men.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
I think it already has because soccer moms become affiliates. Like Amway and Herbalife was the big thing 20 years ago. Now soccer moms just do peptide affiliate issues.

Andrew Huberman:
Where are they getting their peptides?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Research grade websites.

Andrew Huberman:
The gray market.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah, all gray market.

Andrew Huberman:
Okay. We already know that they're not recommended.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Nope.

Andrew Huberman:
But what about black market? What would be considered black market?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Black market is like you bought it directly from China. It's very cheap. A vial of BPC costs five bucks to make. Now someone will sell it to you for $199 plus, depending on where.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
But black market is either your friend in China on WhatsApp sent you a vial of BPC. Do not do this. Or someone claims they synthesized it in their bathtub. Just like underground gear.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Like all those steroids that were in the '90s and the 2000s. It's like, who knows what that is?

Andrew Huberman:
What's so interesting to me is, with steroids, it went from bodybuilding community to eventually hormone replacement. It was like TRT or what I call TRT plus-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... because a lot of guys are taking a lot more than that.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Oh, yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Some are taking less, most are taking more. Some are taking what they're prescribed. And then HRT has become very popular in women.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
So now HRT is kind of like a thing that it's not like, "Oh my goodness, so-and-so's taking estrogen replacement or testosterone."

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
It's not a big deal.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Nope.

Andrew Huberman:
Peptides is different because the big explosion in this came through the GLPs.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
And I would argue, I'd love your opinion on this, why so many people are now peptide curious is because people, because of the GLPs, are now-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes

Andrew Huberman:
... also very comfortable injecting themselves.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
That's absolutely correct.

Andrew Huberman:
Five years ago, if you're like, "You're going to inject yourself," people are like, "Oh my God." Then they realize it's like this little-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... tiny pin. It hurts less than a Texan mosquito bite.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
People are doing it on their skin, and your girlfriend or wife is doing it-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... as if it's nothing, and-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
People like heroin addicts or diabetics.

Andrew Huberman:
Right. You're not going intravenous.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
So that changed everything.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Destigmatized, yes.

Andrew Huberman:
That destigmatized it. Now, to be fair, I want to touch on the question about adverse events again.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
We're going to spend a couple minutes talking about some incredible things that we've seen and heard about BPC 157 in terms of its positive effects.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
The concern I've always had was the angiogenesis, the growth of vasculature. If somebody happens to have a little tumor or what will eventually become a tumor sitting on their liver or in their gut or in their pancreas, in theory, it could vascularize that tumor and cause it to grow more quickly. Is there any evidence that that's actually happened? I want to be very clear, I'm not loading this question-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... because it sounds like I'm kind of leading the witness-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... when I say that. I want to know.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
I'm not currently taking BPC 157. Fortunately, I don't have an injury at the moment, so that would be the only condition which I'd take it, unless you tell me there are other reasons. But I don't want to give myself-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
That risk

Andrew Huberman:
... that risk. And I think most people don't want to give themselves that risk.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
That's right.

Andrew Huberman:
So what is the realistic risk based on observations in humans or animals?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
Have we ever seen tumors grow more quickly?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
No. For example, most compounds, if they're carcinogenic, we will see that signature in the animals. Like with Cardarine GW, was a drug that was very promising because it had diabetic implications for metabolism. Now it's a bodybuilder drug that they use for more cardio.

Andrew Huberman:
What is this called?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Cardarine GW. You might have seen it on-

Andrew Huberman:
Okay

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... the Reddits and-

Andrew Huberman:
Okay

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... those forums, but people use it for-

Andrew Huberman:
I stay out of Reddit.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah, good.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
It increases your cardio capacity.

Andrew Huberman:
Gotcha.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
And so it's banned on the WADA list, of course. But it had promise for treating diabetics because it changed metabolism in the liver. It had a signal of cancer in animal data, so that whole thing was scrapped.

Andrew Huberman:
Hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
There's no signal from the animal literature on BPC-157 for cancers. Now, all that literature comes from one group, so we have to be very careful. It's that one Croatian group that tells you that it's the safest thing in the world.

Andrew Huberman:
All the animal data come from one group?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Almost all of it.

Andrew Huberman:
Interesting.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Almost all of it. Very few, there's a couple of Chinese studies on BPC-157. Now they're starting to become more interested here. I think there's a phase 2 trial on hamstrings happening here in the United States.

Andrew Huberman:
Really?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Humans?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes.

Andrew Huberman:
Phase 2?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes. We talked to a group, an orthopedic group somewhere on the East Coast. They wanted to do a BPC trial, so we consulted with them to kind of-

Andrew Huberman:
Great

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... yeah, so it's going to happen, especially if it moves to this category 1 list and people can be prescribed it. At least we can get a phase 4 trial where it's being prescribed, and we can see what's happening to the people as they're getting it. And we can aggregate all this anecdata into one place-

Andrew Huberman:
Hmm

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... ideally, and report on it. So that's something we're working on in the background.

Andrew Huberman:
Is that something you personally are involved in?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes. We're working on aggregating all this data together-

Andrew Huberman:
Great

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... into a NE1, N-E-1, dot study to put it all together, because all the anecdata exists, but put it together somewhere, at least we can see what the signals are. For example, on Reddit, you'll find signals of hematomas getting worse, which makes sense with the VEGF pathway.

Andrew Huberman:
I've heard this. So a friend and physician who is, I would say, peptide curious/positive-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Sure

Andrew Huberman:
... told me that when he takes BPC-157 for a shoulder or knee or whatever, that angiomas on his face, the sort of spider web angiomas-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... not the formal term, forgive me, derms, but- ... get worse.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes.

Andrew Huberman:
That's his personal observation.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
I think a lot of people don't want that.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
No.

Andrew Huberman:
It makes sense, though, if it's promoting angiogenesis.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Based on the mechanism, it does make sense. Now, BPC-157 is not a uniform angiogenesis regulator. In some models, it decreases VEGF in a melanoma model cell line.

Andrew Huberman:
So it might be potentially anticancer, but we need to test it.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
We don't know, which is what's really unfortunate about this compound. It's very promising. It has all this cool literature in animals, and we just don't know when it comes to humans.

Andrew Huberman:
Just the one animal-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... study.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah, exactly. And we'd love to know because if it does work, I could see a million use cases in the ICU that we could use BPC-157 to really help people out, especially during the critical illness, because in the ICU, people get gastric ulcers. If we knew that it would work, I would love to give them an infusion of BPC-157, and that's the future I could see happening, but we need data.

Andrew Huberman:
As many of you know, I've been taking AG1 for nearly 15 years now. I discovered it way back in 2012, long before I had a podcast, and I've been taking it every day since. AG1 is, to my knowledge, the highest quality and most comprehensive of the foundational nutritional supplements on the market. It combines vitamins, minerals, prebiotics, probiotics, and adaptogens into a single scoop that's easy to drink and tastes great. It's designed to support things like gut health, immune health, and overall energy, and it does so by helping to fill any gaps that you might have in your daily nutrition. And of course, we should all eat high-quality whole foods, but most of us are probably not getting enough prebiotics, vitamins, and minerals, and AG1 ensures that those gaps are filled. I get asked all the time by people if they were to take just one supplement, what would my recommendation for that supplement be? And my answer is always AG1 because it's just been so critical for supporting all aspects of my physical health, mental health, and performance by covering those nutritional, what we call foundational, bases. And I know from my own experience and from everyone I've heard that I recommended it to, that they simply feel much better in a number of different ways when they take it regularly. If you'd like to try AG1, you can go to drinkag1.com/huberman to get a special offer. For a limited time, AG1 is giving away a week's supply of AGZ, which is their sleep supplement, and a free bottle of vitamin D3K2 with your subscription. AGZ is something that I helped design. It tastes great, and it's the only sleep supplement I take. It has a collection of different things in it that has dramatically improved my sleep, both my slow-wave deep sleep and my rapid eye movement sleep, and I absolutely love it. Again, that's drinkag1.com/huberman to get a week's supply of AGZ and a bottle of D3K2 with your subscription. When is there going to be a formal randomized control trial on BPC, and who holds the patent?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
There's multiple patents on BPC-157, depending on which salt they're in. The patent has been passed around a couple of times through different places. Unfortunately, the company that had the patent under the Pliva got acquired by Teva. Teva is this generic pharmaceutical company, and they make Adderall. So they're making tons of money making Adderall. They don't really care about BPC-157. So they have one of the patents. The other patent expires in 10 years. I think Cycric still has it. Dr. Cycric is the guy behind BPC-157.

Andrew Huberman:
He's in Croatia.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
He's in Croatia, yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Would Teva sell the patent?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
I'm sure they would if someone made an offer. The problem is I don't see the purpose of even having the patent because you can add on one chain to the amino acid. This is the problem with peptides. This is what Eli Lilly's coming into when it comes to making Redda, is that patent laws for peptides kind of suck because you can add on one amino acid, you can modify one thing on it, and suddenly it's a different compound.

Andrew Huberman:
This is true for other pharmaceuticals.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
I'm familiar with some of the ketamine and ibogaine trials.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes.

Andrew Huberman:
And there's a company that took ibogaine and basically added a magnesium component to it-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... and you can make that a completely new drug.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Exactly.

Andrew Huberman:
I'm not saying that doesn't work. I think they have a good rationale for doing that, but so this game of sort of protecting patents-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
It's rough. And plus, millions of people have already used BPC-157 through research use only websites. So I think millions is fair. But now, how do you reel that back? The cat's out of the bag. So there's no financial incentive to run the giant study, unless we crowdfund it as peptide-curious people.

Andrew Huberman:
Within the category of interesting anecdotal data-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... and in your role as a physician, I realize you're not suggesting these things, but you have a different picture of this stuff at the level of mechanism, and you're a clinician that works with truly FDA-approved drugs, and I want you to share with folks, I said it in the introduction, but internal medicine means that you spend your days what?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
I'm on the wards of the hospital, admitting patients from the ER to the floor to the ICU, managing very complex disease ranging from a simple pneumonia to a coronary artery bypass patient.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
That whole spectrum.

Andrew Huberman:
Okay. So that lens applied to this, as much as one can Would you say that of the reports that you've heard directly from people you trust, and from people who are not incentivized to say these things. Like, "Oh, it made me happier. Their skin looked better." All the things that one can find with an affiliate code attached to it.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
Of those, what do you think are the most interesting, potentially valid claims? And I ask that because if we were going to fund a clinical trial-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... we'd need to pick an endpoint or a couple of endpoints.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Sure.

Andrew Huberman:
Is it going to be recovery from injury?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
If so, what kinds of injuries? Is it going to be the gastric stuff? Is it mood interaction with dopamine receptors? I've heard so many different things.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
I know.

Andrew Huberman:
If we had a chunk of money-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... and we're going to design a study and have someone else do it, so it's truly independent, what are the top three to five outcomes that you've heard that you have a good feeling there's, quote-unquote, "something there?"

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
And then we'd narrow it down to maybe one or two for sake of the study. What are those five?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
I would say to complete the phase one, phase two on the ulcerative colitis, do that phase three trial on proving that it has benefits for ulcerative colitis, and I don't think we'd need to use an enema. We could probably have an encapsulated version that releases deeper into the intestines.

Andrew Huberman:
And so fix the gut.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes.

Andrew Huberman:
Fix the ulcered gut.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes. In conjunction with that, you could do a trial on GERD. That's a simple condition. A lot of people have it, randomized to BPC 157 oral capsules versus pantoprazole.

Andrew Huberman:
Okay, and you're basing this on the fact that you've seen and heard that people who have GERD-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... get better, feel better when they take it.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Okay. And it could be placebo.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes.

Andrew Huberman:
I mean, what-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Anecdotally, when I travel, I have a bottle of BPC orally.

Andrew Huberman:
Why is that?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
I don't get traveler's diarrhea or-

Andrew Huberman:
Hmm

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... when I eat exotic foods in random places, my friends all get sick, and I happen not to. Anecdote, right? But that's interesting. There seems to be some kind of gut protective effect, and that's what they noticed in the mice literature. They would have an offending agent into the gut, and they'd notice that there'd be protection deeper down in the gastric tract from that offending agent. Because if you think about it, the gut is the most vulnerable part of the body.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
It's open to the outside world. It's a tube that runs through you. You can eat something, and it could completely destroy you. So you have to have some kind of mechanisms, the prostaglandins, all these different hormones that are made, potentially BPC 157 as part of this robust armory that the gut has to protect itself from further injuries.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm. What are some things outside the gut or-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... indirect from the gut that are also compelling?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
So I would love to see some neuropsychiatric BPC studies when it comes to addictions. There's enough anecdata about people talking about addictions and like, "Hey, I don't really crave insert drug here." Not recommending anyone tries that out, but for alcohol or whatever it may be.

Andrew Huberman:
Do you think that is likely due to the, we're speculating, but likely due to a interference with the reinforcing properties? Just like earlier you said people are getting less drunk.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
So people are getting less high, becomes less reinforcing.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
It could be that.

Andrew Huberman:
Or is it somehow touching the craving mechanisms themselves?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
It's probably touching the craving mechanism through the gut-brain axis, because I don't think it's going systemic either. I think it's locally in the gut, shutting down the neurons from... If you think about it, if BPC is what they claim it is, right, and that's a big if, that if you have a noxious agent going into your gut, your body has to have a mechanism to lock down, protect your vital organs, right? So is BPC part of this giant transduction pathway to protect your vital organs, your brain, your heart, your kidneys from further damage?

Andrew Huberman:
We had Dr. Diego Bohorquez, I can never pronounce his last name, forgive me, Diego, who's out at Duke, who's really the world expert on these neuropod cells in the gut-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... that signal through the nodose ganglion, up the vagus, nodose ganglion, to either promote or suppress release of dopamine to make-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... you either approach or avoid certain foods.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Very, very interesting.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Wow.

Andrew Huberman:
I would be more than happy to encourage his lab, even if-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Right

Andrew Huberman:
... get funds for his lab to do something on this. What are some other categories-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... of interesting effects that deserve careful study?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep. So we need to see what BPC does on the musculoskeletal system. That's what the hype is. That's where everybody is going. So as I look through what model I would look for, you'd want something that's not very vascularized but could be improved if the blood flow was good.

Andrew Huberman:
Hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Like a tendon injury, so perhaps a bicep, tricep tendon type of post-surgical outcome. So if you get your bicep tendon torn, you get a repair, you get BPC either intraoperatively or post-operatively, and you see if that person heals faster. Because the idea is not to use BPC. It's not going to magically reattach an ACL that's torn, right? But can it further accelerate the healing from an ACL surgery, so you come back in six months rather than 12 months? That's the big question.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
And that's why a lot of athletes are using BPC 157 for that use.

Andrew Huberman:
Has anyone ever done the one limb versus opposite limb control experiment? I know that people take it orally or inject it systemically-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes

Andrew Huberman:
... like under the skin-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... or into the muscle. It goes systemically in the bloodstream if you apply it that way. If you can get to the injury site, sometimes people will inject locally. But it seems that the challenge is that let's say you have tendonitis in one elbow and tendonitis in the other elbow. You could inject into your left elbow and not your right, but there's going to be systemic transfer.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
There is.

Andrew Huberman:
So it's hard to do the-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... internal control experiment.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah, I know. I've used BPC for one injury, and I've had results on a different injury.

Andrew Huberman:
Positive results?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Positive results. I'm like, "Oh, interesting. My shoulder feels better even though I was doing it for my elbow," or whatever it may be.

Andrew Huberman:
This would be a good time for us to bracket what we're about to say by saying this is purely anecdotal-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... but filtered through, I consider myself a skeptic-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... on many, many things, especially things I would put into my body.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
I'll tell a story. What's your favorite personal BPC story involving you and your body?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah. I tore my tricep a few months ago.

Andrew Huberman:
Tore?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah. Tore tricep lifting with people I shouldn't have been lifting with. They're much stronger than I was. Purple from here to here.

Andrew Huberman:
Oof.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
The pictures, I posted them on X. It's brutal. I'm like, "Oh, I'm going to have to have surgery. This sucks. I don't have time to have surgery." Because you're in a brace for three months. And I put BPC in locally. Don't try this at home. Not medical advice. But locally in the tissue spot with a couple of other peptides, and within three weeks, my PT's like, "What the hell are you doing? This is healing so fast." Would I have healed that fast anyways? I don't know, but that's typically a grade two tricep tear with purple arm from top to bottom. It wasn't grade three, because I could still extend my elbow. That's usually a three-month recovery, and to be back in three to four weeks was fantastic for me, which is why I'm so excited.

Andrew Huberman:
What dosage were you injecting?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
A larger dose than people would typically-

Andrew Huberman:
Not micrograms.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
No.

Andrew Huberman:
You were up in the grams.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Range.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
A lot higher. I think- Personally, and in some of our people, we've used bigger dosages.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
I think that's the problem, the low dosages. Even though that translates well from the mice data, for humans, I think the dose is way higher.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
But people just go based on the dosage that would fit in the vial

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... through a peptide sciences website, rather than what actually-- We don't know what the human dose is-

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... for BPC 157. So there's a lot of work to do just to figure that out. When we spoke to the orthopedic group, they're like, "Yeah, we're going to start with 250 micrograms." I'm like, "I don't know if you're going to see an effect at that low of a dose."

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
"You might need to raise it up." They're like, "That's what people do online."

Andrew Huberman:
Mm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
I'm like, "Yeah, but that's just because someone's peptide website says to do that. There's no data there." But tricep was back to normal.

Andrew Huberman:
Amazing.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
That was an interesting BPC case. I've seen other injuries where BPC didn't really help-

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... much.

Andrew Huberman:
Well, I can't match your story. That's a bigger result. I can just say that I had a bad trap neck pull where I couldn't turn my head, and I was like, "Oh, one of those." And I had some BPC, so it was only, I think, 200 micrograms, and just pinned it right into the-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... that's street talk for injected. Right into the upper trap-ish area. Two days later, completely gone. Of course, I don't know what would've-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... happened had I just waited.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
But it seemed eerily fast.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes.

Andrew Huberman:
And then I stopped taking it.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
So there's a guy that... And by the way, that was not gray market.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
It was obtained through a doctor's prescription-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... from a compounding pharmacy.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
Labeled BPC 157, not-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
PDA

Andrew Huberman:
... PDA. Okay, those are anecdotes. I've also read, just to be fair, we should balance this out. Certainly, on X, people can say anything they want. People saying, "Oh, you know, I didn't feel well. I stopped taking it." Okay, could be due to what it was dissolved in, could be due to their own unique response.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
Could be due to bad sourcing-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... contamination. So we don't know. But not everyone has a great result-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
No. It's not magic

Andrew Huberman:
... and some people have no result. Right. But many, many people report what can only be described as pretty astonishing positive results-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Right

Andrew Huberman:
... that cannot be directly ascribed to the BPC because of the placebo effect, et cetera.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
And I'm not saying that to protect myself. I'm saying that so that people can couch this in how we got here-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... is because of stories like this.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Well, there's two possibilities. Either BPC is as amazing as we think it is, and it's unfortunate that millions of people don't have access to it.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Or BPC is actually either ineffective or harmful to people, and millions of people are injecting it right now by buying it through online sources. Both cases are very bad endpoints.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
One is worse than the other. You can argue which one. But that's why we need this data, and we need people to push this forward to figure this out because we don't want these endpoints. Because if in 20 years, we find out BPC is as good as Cicatrix Labs says it is, then, man, people are going to be pissed off. All the joint replacements and injuries that didn't heal, and all the athletes that maybe could've had a longer career, that would be very unfortunate. But if it's the opposite, and every 18-year-old kid in the gym will come up to me and is like, "I'm going to inject BPC." Like, "Where do you get it from?"

Andrew Huberman:
What for?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
I'm like, "Dude, you're 18. You have all the peptides you need in you." Like the parabiosis studies, these are young animals. I should take your blood and inject it into me, right?

Andrew Huberman:
We had Tony Wyss-Coray on the podcast. Young blood is rich with these things. And no, we're not talking about harvesting blood from babies.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
No.

Andrew Huberman:
Check out the Tony Wyss-Coray episode.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
We'll provide a link. What you just said about young guys coming up to you in the gym and saying, "Should I be taking..." Or, "I'm already taking BPC," we could have a whole other conversation. Maybe another time, we will talk about testosterone and-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... synthetics and things like that. I see a lot of young guys taking-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Everyone.

Andrew Huberman:
I don't know if it's everyone.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah. Sorry.

Andrew Huberman:
I don't know if it's everyone.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Hyperbolic.

Andrew Huberman:
I see a lot of-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
It is bad, though

Andrew Huberman:
... many, many people are taking testosterone exogenously who truly don't need it-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... and potentially permanently shutting down their fertility or causing other issues.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep. With the looks maxing trend, too.

Andrew Huberman:
With the looks maxing trend. They're walking around with hammers, sledgehammers in the face, this kind of thing. I'm sure when I was in my 20s, people in their 50s were probably like, "What are these kids doing?" And it wasn't anything like this, but who knows? It was like baggy pants and- ... there was weird stuff going on, like hacky sacks and stuff. Not me. But I'm confident that thanks to you, we've framed the history of this, which by the way, is fascinating-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... and where we are now very, very well. So thank you. I have two questions. Well, one comment and one question. The comment is, I think there's a third category of problematic outcome.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
One you said is this thing works spectacularly well for a number of important problems, to solve important problems, and we don't find out about it because it wasn't looked at carefully. The other is it's detrimental. There's the other one, which is we start hearing about adverse events-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... and it goes the way of the dodo, or it drifts back into who you know and is it the good stuff or not the good stuff because we don't actually know whether or not the adverse outcome was due to BPC itself-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... to misuse of BPC, or to the factors that it's dissolved in or something like that. And I think that's the most likely outcome-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Sure

Andrew Huberman:
... unless we get our arms around this. And that's where you could say the hormone replacement therapy field has actually enjoyed the fact that if a woman decides she's going to take progesterone or estrogen replacement therapy, perimenopausal or menopausal or something for PCOS or whatever, that wouldn't be what to take for PCOS, but you get the idea.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes.

Andrew Huberman:
Or a guy decides in his 40s or 50s or whatever it is, okay, he's going to go on TRT. He can do it carefully, she can do it carefully, and knows what adverse outcomes to look for. No one's thinking, "Oh my god, the sesame oil that it's dissolved in-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... is possibly causing these problems."

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Well, some people will be very particular on which oil their testosterone comes in.

Andrew Huberman:
Well, that's in the gym community.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah. Totally with you.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
And where to inject and so forth.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes.

Andrew Huberman:
But that aside, my concern is that it is kind of Wild West-ish.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes. It is.

Andrew Huberman:
And I'm not so concerned, I'll get in trouble for this, but whatever. I'm not so concerned that these actual compounds are necessarily harming people. I worry that the way they're arriving to people is harming them, and we're going to miss out on that first possibility that these are very useful. And of course, I don't want anyone getting hurt.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Same.

Andrew Huberman:
So here comes the question. As a physician, I realize that you are more than peptide curious. You're very peptide friendly in your own life. If you have a patient Who has, just their gut is a mess, or they're dealing with post-surgical issues. And you know that BPC from the right source is either going to be benign or could potentially help them. What kind of position does that put you in?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
As an American board-certified physician.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Very uncomfortable position, because if I'm rounding on a patient in the wards of a hospital and like, "Hey, you should take BPC instead of your pantoprazole," I'll probably get my license revoked. So not a good idea. Don't do that.

Andrew Huberman:
What about in addition to?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
In addition to, so if they come see me in clinic, that might be a place where we can have that discussion. We're going to see very shortly here what the FDA is going to tell us about BPC and all these other peptides and the legality of them. If they get moved to the category one list and then the states say, like, "Hey, the FDA said so, we're not going to care about this. You can do what you want to do as a physician." And you counsel the patient, you have an honest discussion with the patient. I think that's what it should be. It should be between the physician and the patient like, "Hey, there's this promising compound. It's not FDA-approved. We have minimal to no human data, but we have anecdata. Are you willing to try this on yourself? And we'll monitor you. We'll have clear endpoints for that."

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
That should be what this looks like-

Andrew Huberman:
Okay

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... a frank discussion between a physician and patient. Now, if that patient has an adverse effect, they can go to a medical board and say, like, "Hey, Dr. So-and-so gave me BPC 157, and I had a bad effect." And I would be like, "Hey, you gave him a non-FDA-approved compound, A, for injectable. B, the problem is there's orals that are being sold as supplements now, like BPC 157 as an oral available supplement because it's not a medication. It's never been approved as a medication in the United States." So what is BPC's legal status? Is it dietary available, therefore? Because if you cut up an animal and ate its stomach, you'd probably get some BPC in there.

Andrew Huberman:
Well, I can buy desiccated liver tablets.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
There you go.

Andrew Huberman:
I'm eating livers.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
There's tons of-

Andrew Huberman:
You can go buy liver at this one Michelin star-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... restaurant, not down this road-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... but a different road. Yeah.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah. I mean, like Dr. Caviness identified many peptides in livers, like livigin and ovigin that you'd find in your desiccated liver supplement that you eat. It's like the biggest distributors of peptides have been these organ meat companies because each organ has a signature peptide that comes out of it. And many-

Andrew Huberman:
Do they get absorbed?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes.

Andrew Huberman:
Are they bioavailable active?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Dr. Caviness's work suggests that it is. Dr. Vladimir Caviness is this Russian Soviet scientist that gives us epitalon and thymalin and pinealon and all these Russian peptides. Di- and tripeptides can be orally available if they're the right shape and size.

Andrew Huberman:
Hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
They're not very well available, but they can be available.

Andrew Huberman:
So you won't necessarily get it from the organ isolate or from eating the organ. Like if you eat heart, probably very rich in L-carnitine.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
Can my body make good use of that?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
I mean, there's cardiogen, which is one of the heart peptides that was scantly studied in the late 2000s that may be orally bioavailable. The problem is no one's doing the work to figure that out.

Andrew Huberman:
You painted this picture where, not you perhaps, but let's just say another physician has the awareness that BPC 157 might be useful to a patient of theirs that's dealing with a, they had like an ACL tear.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Sure.

Andrew Huberman:
They're not recovering very quickly. Doctor says, "Listen, you're doing everything correctly. There's this new category of stuff. We don't have a lot of data on it. I'm not aware that there are any severe risks, but they could be there. So if you're willing to embrace those unknowns, you could take X number of micrograms or milligrams per day for two weeks and see how you feel." Patient says, "Okay, I'm willing to do that." The physician says, "Okay, you want to make sure that it's real, and you want to make sure that it's clean."

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
There's no contaminants.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
If that physician says, "I can write you a script for it, and this compounding pharmacy will send it to you," and they're making money on it, a lot of people, well, the moment they hear that, they think, oh, well, they're totally incentivized to do this because they're going to get a cut. But if we go back to the original pharma model, it is a little bit of a different situation, right? Because let's say Lilly charges $1,500 for a pen of some sort of GLP. The physician who prescribes that, are they getting a cut of that 1,500?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
They don't.

Andrew Huberman:
They don't.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
But there are kickbacks and pharmaceutical incentives and pharma dinners.

Andrew Huberman:
Those are real.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
It's flights to Hawaii for a conference.

Andrew Huberman:
Really? So there are real incentives even though they're not getting paid directly.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah, there's always incentives in any kind of business, especially a business as big as pharmaceuticals.

Andrew Huberman:
Well, physicians are already getting paid, so I'm not saying that... I mean, these are peripheral incentives.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Well, the pharmas also lobby a lot of the medical schools, and they-

Andrew Huberman:
Got you

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... funding. So there's a lot of-

Andrew Huberman:
So there's a relationship there-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes

Andrew Huberman:
... but it's not cold, hard cash.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
It's not as direct as the compounding pharmacies.

Andrew Huberman:
Right. But in a compounding pharmacy, now this physician, hypothetical physician-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes

Andrew Huberman:
... could say, "Hey, you know what? You can get it from this compounding pharmacy."

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
"And it's going to be 500 bucks." The patient we've now established, because they've heard this podcast, has a right to say, "What are you paying for it versus what you're charging me?"

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes.

Andrew Huberman:
They might lie. They might tell you the truth. Or the physician could say, "You know what? I'm not making a dime on this. It's just, I think it might be useful to you." That physician is protected or not protected if something negative happens to the patient?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
I don't-

Andrew Huberman:
If something happens, is somebody suing a compounding pharmacy, or they're suing their physician?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
They're suing all three. They're suing the physician, the compounding pharmacy, and anyone who recommended it, so.

Andrew Huberman:
That's pretty scary.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
No malpractice provider is going to give you coverage for peptides, especially non-FDA-approved peptides, unless there's high risk malpractice providers that they'll cover you for that.

Andrew Huberman:
Let's say somebody gets hurt taking one of the prescribed pharma GLPs, and they're pissed-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
That's-

Andrew Huberman:
... and they sue. They sue their doctor, or they sue the pharma company?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Depending on who had the liability. So if the doctor didn't warn you that injecting 10 times a dose might cause pancreatitis, and you had pancreatitis, they can claim the doctor is at fault. If someone has deep pockets, they can go at Lilly and say, like, "Hey, Lilly, you didn't disclose this risk."

Andrew Huberman:
I think now people, thanks to you, are armed with enough information to be able to make really good decisions about whether or not to say, "Eh, waiting for those clinical trial results," or, "I'll stick my toe in the pond," or, "I'm going to continue to learn more, but I'm going to now learn more," thanks to you, genuinely, with a lot more understanding about how this stuff flows from website or from doctor to patient.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Let's talk about pinealon.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Pinealon is one that most people probably haven't heard of.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
I'll just go on record saying I've tried it a few times or more. I don't take it regularly, but I tried it before sleep.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
If I take it at the beginning of the night, it reduces my deep slow-wave sleep And gives me far more REM across the night. Not a great situation.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Okay.

Andrew Huberman:
Great situation is if I go to sleep, get my usual ration of deep sleep. If I happen to wake up in the middle of the night to use the restroom once or so, not uncommon. If I do a very small injection of pinealon at that point, the one and a half hours of REM that I would get in the final hours of my sleep, now I'm getting three hours.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Mm.

Andrew Huberman:
In the same amount of sleep. It's just a higher fraction of REM.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
Sometimes wake up feeling a little groggy, but it is a whole other life to get that much REM.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
I don't do it regularly.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Sure.

Andrew Huberman:
It's not... I would say maybe three times a month. But here's the interesting thing. It improves my percentage of REM on all the other nights in between those three injections.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
So I'm coming clean here.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Lingering effects.

Andrew Huberman:
Very cool. You're interested in pinealon for a whole other set of reasons. But first of all, what is pinealon and where does it act? Does it have a known receptor?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
No known receptor. So pinealon is a tripeptide EDR discovered by the mention of Dr. Vladimir Kavinson. He's a Soviet researcher that comes out of this Soviet-era research to make soldiers, astronauts, and pilots better. There's concern that the US might be using lasers to shoot at soldiers. So the Soviet Union tasks him with identifying peptides to defend soldiers, their eyes, and then their aging. Because what would happen is they'd be in a submarine for a few months, they'd be in a nuclear sub, and they'd come back to shore, and they'd be like these submariners, let's call them, would look 10, 20 years older.

Andrew Huberman:
Also happens to astronauts.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes. So then the same thing as astronauts are coming back, they're aged. So Vladimir Kavinson's looking at this, and he's like, "Hey, there's got to be a solution for this." There's been literature about using extracts of other tissues, notably the pineal gland and the thymus, from late 1800s till this 1970s point that we're starting our story. And he starts grounding up these extracts and injecting it into these people, and then undoing a lot of this aging effects through pineal extracts and thymus extracts. Because what do these soldiers have? They had very bad circadian rhythmicity, so they couldn't sleep properly. They had terrible immunity. They'd get sick often. They'd have autoimmune problems, all these conditions that come with it. And then they were able to undo this using these organ extracts. So Vladimir Kavinson takes it a step further. He looks like, "Hey, what's causing this effect in these tissues?" People have been injecting pineal glands in different research models or taking out pineal glands from rats from the 1800s onwards. He finds peptides in these extracts. He's like, "Huh, I wonder if these effects are from the peptides and not from the gland itself." So then he sequences from the pineal gland, epithalon, and from the thymus gland, a couple different peptides, thyronum, thymogen, christogen, that you'll be hearing about in the next few years, that on their own do a lot of the effects that the whole extract would do.

Andrew Huberman:
Now, you're talking about epithalon, but pinealon and epithalon-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Is not from the pineal gland.

Andrew Huberman:
Is not from the pineal gland.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Even though everyone-

Andrew Huberman:
Right. No, I think it's called that because there's, as far as I understand, please correct me if I'm wrong-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... there are animal data suggesting that pinealon can help either regenerate or enhance the general functioning of pinealocytes. So it's having an effect on the pineal when cult- Well, like you take cultured pineal glands-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... that little pea-sized gland, you put it in a dish, and you dissociate the cells or keep it as a little pea size thing.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
And then you give it pinealon, and it seems to improve the timing and perhaps even the amount of melatonin output from the pineal, these kinds of things.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
So epithalon does that. So that's a big confusion. I don't know why he named them the way he named them. If anyone knows, please let us know. But epithalon is from the pineal gland. Pinealon comes from a ground-up brain extract called cortexin.

Andrew Huberman:
And brain has pineal in it.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah, but it was the cortex specifically, not the subcortical-

Andrew Huberman:
I see. Okay

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... regions.

Andrew Huberman:
Okay. So-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
So he, specifically not the subcortical regions.

Andrew Huberman:
Okay. That's reassuring. Yep.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
So Vladimir Kavinson identifies, he makes a drug in Russia, it's called epithalamin, which is the pineal gland extract, and had great effect on circadian rhythmicity and melatonin production.

Andrew Huberman:
Well, that makes sense because it's rich with melatonin.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
There you go. But al-

Andrew Huberman:
It's basically giving people melatonin.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
But also you upregulate the enzyme that creates melatonin from serotonin to N-acetyl serotonin to melatonin. So when he gave it to young monkeys, the monkeys had no effect. But he gave it to aged monkeys that have decreased melatonin, and from puberty onwards, your melatonin levels dramatically decrease. He was able to restore melatonin production in these aged animals, and eventually replicated it on humans.

Andrew Huberman:
I want to talk about thymus, because it's-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... fascinating, and you're truly versed in this. But before we do that-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah. Figure it out

Andrew Huberman:
... so pinealon comes from the cortex, not-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes

Andrew Huberman:
... the pineal.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes.

Andrew Huberman:
That's annoying.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes, very annoying.

Andrew Huberman:
Maybe we just rename it today. I'll let you do the renaming.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
We'll call it EDR.

Andrew Huberman:
EDR.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
That's the three amino acid sequence.

Andrew Huberman:
Great. We'll call it EDR so people don't get confused. What are some of the known-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... effects? Or am I just imagining this REM increase? Because I can't change what's happening to me during sleep.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
That would be an amazing placebo effect. And the reason I say amazing is there are many things that one can do to improve the amount of slow-wave deep sleep.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
Not eating too close to bedtime-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Sure

Andrew Huberman:
... doing some exercise early in the day, etc. Very hard to increase REM except by heating your sleep environment in the last third of your night, and maybe some alpha GPC in the late day can bump it up a bit. Or you can REM deprive yourself.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
Or you can smoke cannabis for 10 years, then quit, and then you'll get a lot of REM because you got no REM for 10 years. Do not recommend that protocol.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
But for me, it was just striking. So why would EDR-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Tripeptide with no receptor

Andrew Huberman:
... Right. Previously called pinealon, but- ... from here forward, EDR, why would that have this effect on REM sleep?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep, and I actually searched through all of the literature from Kavinson. He never mentions REM sleep once in his studies. He studied pinealon quite extensively on different neuronal tissue extracts, animal studies, even in athletes, and never mentions the REM sleep. They didn't have WHOOPS in the 1970s in the Soviet Union.

Andrew Huberman:
What? They didn't have an H sleep?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
You're kidding me. No, that's right. Totally.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah. So they didn't have sleep trackers in the 1970s-

Andrew Huberman:
Right

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... when it came to these, so there was no reports on that. But what seems to be happening, let's see, what is this pinealon, this EDR? It's a tripeptide that meets the groove of the DNA of different key regions and helps the promoter region be exposed so then that DNA transduction can happen, translation, transcription. So you get-

Andrew Huberman:
So it's turning on genetic programs.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes. Yes.

Andrew Huberman:
It's acting a little bit like a transcription factor.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah. Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Okay.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Almost like that, or maybe assisting transcription factors in accessing the DNA in the right places. So pinealon, in one sentence, it's leading to better brain metabolism through modulating all of these different pathways. For example, GDF11, SOD1, SOD2, irisin, PPAR alpha, PPAR gamma. So what seems to be happening, so he made pinealon as a anti-stress, cognitive performance compound.

Andrew Huberman:
Hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
And it was available orally in Kazakhstan to all the soldiers.

Andrew Huberman:
So I have an idea that I'm taking it before sleep-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... I should be taking it in the morning.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes. So if you take a high enough dose, there is sedation from it.

Andrew Huberman:
Okay.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
But if you take it in the morning or pre-HIT workout, you get quite an interesting effect. So he studied this compound on athletes, and he would have them do their training session, go to exhaustion, and then do a test afterwards. And there's two groups, pinealon and the placebo. The pinealon group could keep their performance up despite being maximum exhausted from their training. So-

Andrew Huberman:
I feel like such a dummy. Here I am having these elaborate dreams I don't really remember-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... or care about, and when I could be actually thinking better during the daytime.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah. So a lot of people report less brain fog, better thinking. There's a friend that has a nine-figure company, he has all of his employees on pinealon.

Andrew Huberman:
They're taking it in the morning?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
In the morning. Or at night, depending on-

Andrew Huberman:
Do you know the dosages? Not that we're recommending it

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... Orally, people will take anywhere between half a milligram, up to three milligrams, is where people settle in. The Kavinson ones that come from Russia are 200 micrograms.

Andrew Huberman:
Some people are injecting it.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Some people are injecting it.

Andrew Huberman:
It goes systemic.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
It goes systemic. It's orally available through these latin pep transporters.

Andrew Huberman:
Crosses the blood-brain barrier?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Most likely, yes.

Andrew Huberman:
Okay, because it's coming from cortex, but-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes

Andrew Huberman:
... otherwise, the way you're describing it, no one's infusing it into the brain.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Nope. So we're assuming it's small enough, it's a tripeptide, to cross the blood-brain barrier.

Andrew Huberman:
Have you tried it?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
I took some last night, but...

Andrew Huberman:
Okay. At night?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah, so I will take larger dosages, if I want to get good sleep. I'll describe as 8K REM. Some people, it will cause them to have a little bit of awakening, at first. That may be why your deep sleep is going away.

Andrew Huberman:
I'll say this. If I take half of what was recommended-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... I'm great.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes, yes, yes.

Andrew Huberman:
But I'm very sensitive to everything.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Sure.

Andrew Huberman:
Just sensitive.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
If I take what was recommended, I fall very deeply asleep, I have elaborate dreams, and I wake up.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
And I couldn't tell if that was a disruption in sleep architecture or da da da da.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
I just found, and granted, I'm only doing this three times per month-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Sure

Andrew Huberman:
... maximum.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Sure.

Andrew Huberman:
And I often forget, and then I go-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Sure

Andrew Huberman:
... months and months and I was like, "Oh, maybe I'll take a little pinealon," and I'm like-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... "Whoa, this is wild." And then I stop taking it.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
Because I don't know enough about it.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Now, I know it's cleanly sourced because I trust the compounding pharmacy-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Sure

Andrew Huberman:
... it's coming from, but I should ask, are there any known risks of EDR?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
So far, nothing in the Russian literature, so big caveat, it's Russian literature. It's not gold standard American research that we love here. So there's nothing that's come up as a clear sign because what it seems, the big theory of Kavinson, is that when you're younger, you make a lot of these peptides naturally-

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... these di-, tri- and tetrapeptides, and as you age, they go down in function and quantity. And by replenishing these peptides, you're restoring some aspect of youthfulness.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Something similar happens in America with GHK copper, which is another tripeptide that's technically like the collagen regulator.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
So pinealon is the brain regulator-

Andrew Huberman:
We're going to talk about this

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... and GHK copper is the collagen regulator. But so far, the side effects we've noticed, we have probably the biggest anecdotal compilation of N equals one. Every day I wake up, someone texts me like, "Hey, pinealon did this to me." Some people have a little bit of drop in blood sugar because it activates PPAR alpha, PPAR gamma, so it'll have positive metabolic effects, so that's something to keep an eye on. Some people even had their A1Cs drop. So nothing-

Andrew Huberman:
So hypoglycemics and other people with blood sugar issues-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes

Andrew Huberman:
... take extra caution.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes, and then very vivid dreams. For some people, that could be disheartening if they have nightmares or something like that.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
But very, very vivid dreams, as a result of pinealon, especially the color and the quality of the dreams is very different than you'd normally expect. What seems to be happening-

Andrew Huberman:
That tracks. Yeah

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... is just like psychedelics change the redox state of the brain, pinealon's doing something similar where you're getting more alertness during the day.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
You don't wake up with as much brain fog, at least anecdotally. You get better performance during high-intensity interval training.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
And then you get more REM sleep at night-

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... because the neurons are in a better oxidative state, thanks to the PPAR alpha, PPAR gamma, irisin, all these different pathways that it's modulating-

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... with no clear one receptor that it's doing it through.

Andrew Huberman:
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Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
I'd love your thoughts on this. I've heard, and I thought it was complete nonsense when I first heard it, that the pineal becomes calcified as people age. The reason I thought it was nonsense is I used to co-teach neuroanatomy when I was at UCSD, before moving my lab to Stanford, with a guy named Harvey Carton. You guys can look him up. Unfortunately, he passed away. He was in his late 80s, and he had this incredible career as, I think, one of the greatest neuroanatomists of the last 100 years. That's a good category to be in because we have Cajal, who discovered everything, basically, and then the rest of the neuroscientists are just tinkering around with what he predicted. And then a few other neuroanatomists like Ted Jones, et cetera, but he's like the neuroanatomist of my generation. And I asked him about this calcification thing because he had looked at the brains of so many different species, including humans. He was also an MD, by the way. And he goes, "Yeah, I don't know whether or not this calcification thing is real."

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
And he kind of brushed it aside, and I thought, well, Harvey doesn't take it seriously, so I'm not going to take it seriously. But even though he was absolutely right about many things, I think he might have missed that one.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Sure.

Andrew Huberman:
Because when I go to the literature now, it's a little bit tough because the cadavers that you looked at in medical school, not all of them are processed on the same timeline.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Sure.

Andrew Huberman:
Thankfully, it's not a controlled science.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
These are people that generously donate their bodies to science. Does our pineal calcify? Even if it does, does that somehow inhibit its ability to communicate with our other tissues?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
It's a big kind of debatable thing in the pineal research. If you look at the pineal gland Wikipedia, it's very underdeveloped, let's say.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Because it's kind of woo-woo. When you think of pineal gland, you think of someone who's going to tell you-

Andrew Huberman:
Not every neuroscientist chooses to work on the pineal gland.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah, exactly.

Andrew Huberman:
They should, but it's not a very sexy-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
It sounds like someone's going to sell you crystals or something about your-

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah. It's not very sexy.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
But I think it's a key aspect of aging and longevity, so that's what gives us our interest in it. The pineal gland, it seems from Caviness' work that the decrease in pineal gland function with aging is more of a physiologic than an anatomic problem.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Now, I will see some calcification on MRIs when we have a patient come in for a stroke or a TBI. We'll look at their MRI, and I'm like, "Hey, that looks like a little bit of calcification there." Maybe my neurology colleagues will disagree, but that seems to happen. But the question is, what is actually leading to the deterioration of melatonin synthesis? Because it decreases quite dramatically, and some people even think that might start puberty. If you have a pineal cyst, you can have precocious puberty at eight or nine years old.

Andrew Huberman:
The rhythmicity in melatonin.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes.

Andrew Huberman:
Because a young baby, very young baby-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes

Andrew Huberman:
... their melatonin secretion is not very rhythmic.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
No.

Andrew Huberman:
But they're in REM a lot.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
A lot of their sleep is REM.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
It's a beautiful thing.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
With time, it becomes more rhythmic.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
And of course, in today's day and age, with all the artificial lighting and the lack of sunlight exposure, things that you and I care a lot about-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... people are making themselves somewhat arrhythmic or phase shifted.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
But epitalon is somehow restoring pinealocytes. It's somehow enhancing function of the pineal and other tissues?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep. So in Caviness' work, he's found that it will increase the expression of the different clock genes. So in lymphocytes that he'll measure in peripheral tissues, he'll notice that the clock genes actually change in a more rhythmic pattern. He'll notice that morning cortisol is higher.

Andrew Huberman:
Great. Which, by the way, folks, I've said this in the cortisol episode, you want your morning cortisol super high.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
You want your evening and nighttime cortisol low.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
If you're a resident in medical school, just listen to what your superiors say- ... because they don't give a shit about your cortisol levels. You got to do the hard work, and then later you get to-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Exactly

Andrew Huberman:
... go to bed. It's a little weird that the medical profession tortures their own-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... by disrupting one of the primary anchors of health.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
And cognitive function.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep. Right. I've had 28-hour shifts, and that's what got me interested in circadian rhythm in the first place.

Andrew Huberman:
You're young. You're good.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
But yeah, the idea was it was restoring a more circadian appropriate hormonal profile-

Andrew Huberman:
Hmm

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... through HTH, cortisol.

Andrew Huberman:
Take it when?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Anytime. Because the idea with these bioregulators, unlike a GLP-1 drug that you take today and have the effect for the next week, the idea from the Cavinson model is that you take these, and then you accrue benefits when you're off of them. Like you noticed with Penelon, you took Penelon for a day or two or three days a month, and you had effects until you took the next dose. So the idea is, can you accrue benefits from these compounds as they upregulate or downregulate certain genetic pathways-

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... in a more favorable state and then keep those effects later on? So in the Cavinson seminal work was this 15-year longevity study.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
He got people in nursing homes, two groups. One of them got epitalon in the form of epithalamin, which is the whole pineal gland extract, and then a thymus peptide called thymulin, not thymulin. Those are two different peptides.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
A lot of people confuse them. Every peptide website confuses them. But they inject them for 15 years, like a 10 or 20-day course per year. Just beginning of the year, middle of the year, and that's it. And they had a significant lower mortality when it came to cardiovascular disease, infectious risk, and for cancers. So Russian study caveat, but that would be the most interesting longevity study I've seen done, if accurate, if true, because he was able to take nursing home patients, give them peptides for a very small amount of the year, and yet they accrued benefits the rest of the year.

Andrew Huberman:
Impressive. One of the things that really got me excited about epitalon, is it thalon or talon?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
The Russians say epitalon. It's the way they say it, but it's spelled with a T-H.

Andrew Huberman:
Okay.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
So I'll say epitalon.

Andrew Huberman:
Okay.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
We're making the rules today.

Andrew Huberman:
Okay. Epitalon.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Epitalon is also AADG.

Andrew Huberman:
Okay.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
That's the amino acid sequence for amino acids.

Andrew Huberman:
I'll say epitalon because it's easiest for me, and forgive me if anyone takes offense. I took interest because I In my former life, running a lab focused on, among other things, visual pathway repair-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... to reverse blindness or impending blindness. There's some interesting papers, and there I can really gauge the data. Even though they're in mice, I can say, "This is a real effect"-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Sure

Andrew Huberman:
... or a meh effect or a whoa effect. Using Epitalon to combat some of the neurodegeneration in things like retinitis pigmentosa.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
Downstream neurodegeneration in RP, which is a very common, unfortunately blinding disease.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
Or even in glaucoma.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
I should mention that BPC-157, to my knowledge, hasn't been looked at extensively in terms of optic nerve repair-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... but it absolutely should be. If someone knows those papers, please put them in the comments. So I was intrigued.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
Here's this molecule that's somehow involved in DNA repair, and it's either maintaining or restoring some of the machinery that would otherwise definitely be lost in one of these optic nerve damage conditions that models things like glaucoma, retinitis pigmentosa, stroke-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... traumatic head injury. It's a big deal.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
Vision and movement are kind of the biggies. There are other things too, but you don't want to lose those. And if you do, you can get by, but you need additional support, obviously. So the reason it's so interesting to me is that it's getting to DNA repair, as opposed to these downstream, working on any number of vague receptor-ish-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Sure

Andrew Huberman:
... maybe no receptor things like... And this is what gene therapy is about.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
So do you think of Epitalon as a kind of gene therapy of sorts, or do you think about it more as support for genetic machinery that has lots of downstream targets?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes, I think it supports this genetic machinery. When it comes to the eyes, it seems to be repairing some of the photoreceptors that might get damaged in a retinitis pigmentosa. Melanopsin wasn't discovered when Cavenson was kicking around. But my theory is that Epitalon is working on melanopsin.

Andrew Huberman:
Interesting.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
And that it may be upregulating melanopsin levels and then making that morning sunlight that everyone likes-

Andrew Huberman:
Mm

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... to be more effective. Because the big problem is a lot of people will tell me, "Doc, I did morning sunlight, I didn't feel effects." I'm like, "Have you had enough darkness to regenerate melanopsin levels?" Because we know that in animal studies, five days of pure darkness dramatically increases the amount of melanopsin in the retinas.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm. This is interesting, and I certainly have a lot of close friends that are in a position to do these studies.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
And the podcast is obviously available free to everyone, but we have a premium channel that funds research.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
We don't talk a lot about it, but we've given a lot of money away to excellent laboratories where they're free to explore these things. I'd love to see some of the studies that we're talking about today-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... supported. And by the way, that's done in collaboration with donors that do a match. So we could get the right people to do the right studies with no bias toward what the preferred outcome is.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
In fact, the scientists that we both know, the right ones, would try and disprove the hypothesis-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... that any of this stuff was real.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
And if something makes it through that filter, then they would conclude it's real.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Otherwise, they're trying to essentially knock down the-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... the "positive outcome."

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep. And I think as a clinician, one of the key things for people to remember is that we've screwed up a lot of times as clinicians, through different grotesques, abuses of our trust. We've done interventions or drugs that weren't the most efficacious. For example, in the 1910s to 1940s, we irradiated the thymuses of young kids to prevent SIDS. This was considered gold standard medicine.

Andrew Huberman:
Does this have anything to do with SIDS?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
No, they thought that the-

Andrew Huberman:
Sudden infant death.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
They thought that the thymus was too big and was sitting on the heart, and that might be the cause. So tons of these kids, I think at least 10,000, died from cancers. I think the only person that's talked about it is Sapolsky. He has a video talking about this. So we've had a lot of issues as a field, and we have to be very cognizant of that and know the history of where we've been. Like Virchow of the famous Virchow's triad, he was pro this therapy.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
And we all learn about it in medical school, but no one talks about this aspect. So there's a lot of grotesque abuses of medical power, let's say. We have to be very careful in which interventions we give people, and the first thing's do no harm. So while we are excited about these therapies, we have to be kind of careful in where we're taking people.

Andrew Huberman:
Appreciate it. Wasn't aware of that study.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Perfect tee up for, no pun-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... for the thymus.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Tell me about the thymus. Super interesting organ.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
Gland.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
We all have one when we're born.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
By time we're what age is it mostly gone?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
So the thymus is grown under the influence of a lot of these youthful hormones, melatonin, growth hormone, DHEA, and then is shrunk at the moment you hit puberty. So until from the day of birth until puberty, you grow this massive thymus.

Andrew Huberman:
Where is it sit?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
It's right above your heart, right behind the collarbone.

Andrew Huberman:
How big is it?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
In a baby, it could be quite large on the chest.

Andrew Huberman:
As big as a baseball?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Maybe the size of half the heart, let's say. Maybe bigger, depends on the size. Right now, in our bodies, it's going to be a bunch of fat with a couple of different globules of thymic residue.

Andrew Huberman:
Tiny.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Very tiny. In fact, most surgeons will just remove it when they do surgery nowadays for open heart. But there's good data from "New England Journal of Medicine" that removing the thymus residue tissue leads to a mortality signal within the first five years after those surgeries.

Andrew Huberman:
So people have died because of thymus removal?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
They'll have either higher rates of cancers or higher rates of autoimmune diseases if they have their thymuses removed. Now, there are thymomas where people have to have their thymuses removed, but we're talking about people that the surgeon's going in to do a coronary artery bypass surgery.

Andrew Huberman:
Is the thymus neurally innervated?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes.

Andrew Huberman:
So it's getting signals from brain?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Vagus nerve, yep.

Andrew Huberman:
Sorry to get technical here, but since I did the episode on the vagus, some people might remember there's a lot of ascending-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... sensory information from the vagus going up to the brain. There's also motor control from the brain going down through-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... the vagus, so it's a two-way street.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
Mostly up, some down. Is the thymus controlled by the descending? In other words-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
That's a good question

Andrew Huberman:
... is something going on in our brain, like stress level-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes

Andrew Huberman:
... or sleep controlling our thymic output?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
So there's sympathetic and parasympathetic innervation to the thymus-

Andrew Huberman:
Interesting. Uh-huh

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... that dictates its hormonal output, because the thymus... Well, what is the thymus?

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah, what's it secreting?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
It's a gland that both secretes hormones-

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... and develops the T cells. So your lymphatic cells are found in your bone marrow. That's where they're made. The T cells will travel up to the thymus and get trained, so they don't kill you.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
And they don't attack your own tissue, but attack a foreign invader or a cancer or whatever it may be. That process is very good in youth, and as you age, you get more autoimmunity, more cancers, et cetera, because the immune system is not as robust.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Both because the thymus makes less of the hormones that train the immune cells and makes less of these immune cells themselves. So when you're 15, you're making 10 to the 8th magnitude of these cells every single day. They're called naive T cells. They will eventually become your CD4 and CD8 T cells. As you age, this number dramatically decreases, and those cells will live somewhere between 10 and 15 years, and that can kind of gauge when the mortality window kicks in for a lot of these different disorders. When your thymus reaches a minimum level of output, you get a lot of these disorders like cancers, heart disease, autoimmunity. If you put almost any disease and look at the thymus risk associated with it, it increases as the thymus function decreases. There's a nature paper, 2026, just came out that looked at cardiovascular disease and cancer mortality and all these different metrics that they did MRIs of people, and the people that had the higher thymic scores had less mortality across every single one of these conditions.

Andrew Huberman:
But you said, not challenging this-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... but what's surprising about that very interesting result is that you said that by time you reach your, you're in your 30s, I'm in my 50s-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... those ages, our ages, you've got just a bit of residual tissue there.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
It's just a few cells, and yet it's somehow maintaining function.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
The rate of decrease varies dramatically from person to person. So we call this thymic involution. So from the moment puberty starts till you die, your thymus is slowly shrinking. That really happens in your 20s and 30s, the majority of that, under the pressure of androgens, estrogens, progestins, and corticosteroids. Those are driving a lot of the shrinkage.

Andrew Huberman:
So the hormones that everyone seems to want to increase-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes

Andrew Huberman:
... the rest of their life and that become active a lot during puberty-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes

Andrew Huberman:
... actually cause thymic involution.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes. So, castration will undo some of the thymic involution. Pregnancy is a great time to involute your thymus, which makes sense because you don't want to be having an autoimmune attack against the baby, or I guess an immune attack against the baby.

Andrew Huberman:
Do women's thymus disappear after pregnancy?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
They involute-

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... and then will regrow during the breastfeeding period under the influences of growth hormone and prolactin. So hibernating animals will have a dramatic shrinkage of the thymus during hibernation and then a regrowth during the feeding window.

Andrew Huberman:
Is there any benefit to doing or taking something to either maintain or regenerate thymic size?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
So there was a-

Andrew Huberman:
As a, let's just say, somebody 25 or older.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah. There's an interesting study, TRIM trial, from Dr. Greg Fahy. He's doing a study where he's giving a cocktail of growth hormone, metformin, and DHEA. Gave that for 12 months and had the thymic size increase on imaging. The amount of CD4 or CD8 T cells increase, and the ratio of which improved. And then some of the markers that would show immune cell exhaustion, like PD-1 and all these different aspects of T cell dynamics, also improved. So they're trying to use growth hormone to regrow the thymus.

Andrew Huberman:
Getting us directly to peptides, many people who are peptide curious-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... start asking about thymosin alpha.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
Is thymosin alpha a peptide that comes from the thymus?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes. So-

Andrew Huberman:
Thankfully, they named it appropriately this time.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes.

Andrew Huberman:
Great for that.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
What does thymosin alpha do endogenously when you're not injecting it or taking it?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
What's its normal function?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
So, thymosin alpha one is part of this thymic family of hormones that gets secreted. It's these 21 amino acids. It increases T cell development in the thymus, increases T cell proliferation outside the thymus, and makes the T cells more likely to properly attack a pathogen. It's like a jet fuel for the T cells.

Andrew Huberman:
So it's pro-immune?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes.

Andrew Huberman:
I've heard of people taking it when they feel run down.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
If they're traveling, they're sleeping less than usual, they're a new parent. So obviously, that's kind of Peptide Wild West kind of indications.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
It was FDA approved as Zadaxin-

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... for kids that were born without a thymus or a malfunctioned thymus, like DiGeorge syndrome, these different kind of genetic abnormalities, to be used for these kids to help develop the T cells that they had that weren't in the thymus because they'd have bone marrow T cells that weren't properly developed. So there was good support from thymosin alpha one for these kids. I don't think that FDA approval still exists, so the people are trying to grandfather thymosin alpha one into this peptide conversation. In other countries, it's approved for adjuvant therapy for hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and in different cancers. So far, the sepsis literature and the infectious literature is not that promising. It might be like if you take antibiotics with thymosin alpha one, you might have a quicker bounce around. What I would be interested to see is if you went to nursing homes, injected everybody with thymosin alpha one in November, in December, would you have less flu in January and February? That'd be the interesting thought experiment. Both thymosin alpha one and thymosin beta four come out of the Goldstein Lab. That's the very famous lab that studied the thymus in the '70s, '80s, and '90s. But thymic research kind of fell out of favor the last few decades, but now it's being-

Andrew Huberman:
It's almost as sexy as the-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Pineal gland

Andrew Huberman:
... pineal gland. I say that sort of tongue in cheek because I think these are fascinating glands.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes.

Andrew Huberman:
And the reason I ask if they're neurally innervated-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... is that nowadays there are a lot of reasons why people choose to study one thing or the other. But these understudied glands, if neurally innervated, then open up a lot of interesting questions about brain control-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... behavioral stress control.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
And the experiments kind of write themselves.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
Doing them still takes a lot of work. Interpreting them is no easy task either. But I think there should certainly be more work on the pineal and on the thymus. So I want to make that clear. Have you taken thymosin alpha?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Oh, yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
I've used thymosin alpha one when I travel to avoid the cesspool of planes and hotels and all these places, which I would say traveling and then this year on the wards, the first time I don't get flu, cold, whatever kind of infection, I'm dosing thymosin alpha 1 throughout, and I didn't get sick a single time.

Andrew Huberman:
What time of day or night are you injecting?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Twice a week, time agnostic.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
We're talking about 2.5 milligrams as a prophylactic. That's not FDA approved or-

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Or that-

Andrew Huberman:
This is just you doing your thing.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
No, I'm curious and see if it would work and-

Andrew Huberman:
And you're trying to stay healthy so you can-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... take care of patients.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Exactly.

Andrew Huberman:
So you're willing to be your own experiment. When we hear about thymosin alpha, we usually hear about TB 500-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... also. What's TB 500 and how are the two related, if at all?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
So while Cavenson's finding thymulin and he's injecting that into people, the Goldstein lab finds thymosin fraction five, which is this giant protein that has many different peptides in it, thymosin alpha one being one of them, and then thymosin beta four being the other one. Thymosin alpha one, thymosin beta four were discovered in the thymus, but they're not exclusive to the thymus gland. They're also made in other tissues. Thymosin beta four seems to be this 43 amino acid peptide that helps in the actin cytoskeleton of cells. So if you think about it, immune cells have to move a lot.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
So they have to reorganize their actin cytoskeleton quite quickly, so it seems to upregulate that movement.

Andrew Huberman:
Hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Which the horse community for doping, and other athletes have found a niche for thymosin beta four to use it as a doping-

Andrew Huberman:
You said the horse community?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah, horse races, thymosin beta four is a very common doping agent.

Andrew Huberman:
For the riders or for the-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
For the horses.

Andrew Huberman:
For the horses.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes.

Andrew Huberman:
Do they test the horses for doping?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah, no, there's a big doping scandal when it comes to horses and thymosin. I don't know if they test them or they like-

Andrew Huberman:
You know what's funny? This is a very relevant tangent. Occasionally someone will say, "Hey, does all this morning sunlight stuff, does that work on dogs?" And I go, "Listen, I hate to tell you this, but a lot of the literature came from animals-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah. Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... not necessarily dogs, and they have melanopsin ganglion cells.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep. Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
They have super charismatic."

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
Yes, yes, and yes.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Same physiology.

Andrew Huberman:
And then recently, won't say who, wasn't me, truly I have a friend whose dog was injured and the question becomes, would BPC work? And you can actually say, well, there's a lot more animal data than human data. Talked to a couple vets, and vets, they're a lot more adventurous than we might think. And I thought, well, listen, now of course these are pets.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
I love my dog. It isn't not the same as a human. I am a bit of a speciesist, but love them tremendously. And I think the pet peptide industry-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Okay

Andrew Huberman:
... is going to be enormous.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
It's blowing up already.

Andrew Huberman:
So here's the question-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... and then we'll go right back to what we were saying before. There's been so much interest in NAD.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
NMN and NR to upregulate NAD, but as a prolong longevity, NAD for one of these things that drops over the lifespan.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Although the paper last week says that it doesn't drop in blood.

Andrew Huberman:
Right.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
The landmark paper.

Andrew Huberman:
I will say-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Which is debated, but-

Andrew Huberman:
The news stories on that claim that I called it a longevity drug. I've always said that NAD, I do augment NAD using NMN.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Sure.

Andrew Huberman:
It gives me more morning energy.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Sure.

Andrew Huberman:
I will say it does make my nails really thick-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... and my hair grow fast. Two effects I was not looking for.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
But I like the energy effect. I've never said it increases lifespan, ever.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
So, this was mentioned in the "New York Times" and elsewhere, and it's absolutely false that my name's included in that statement. So their fact-checkers need fact-checking. NAD has been kind of the thing for a lot of people-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... who want to go beyond supplements.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
Right? They kind of beyond creatine, beyond magnesium, beyond what they can get just on-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... Amazon or whatever, but they don't want to go all the way to blood cleansing and all this other stuff which-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Right

Andrew Huberman:
... I certainly don't do myself, and I think that's too extreme, at least for me.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Sure.

Andrew Huberman:
To each their own. When I hear about thymosin alpha, TB 500, BPC, it occupies this kind of middle ground, right?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
And so I think this is why a lot of people are saying, "Hey, listen, I love my dog. I love my cat. I don't know if NAD's going to do anything for their longevity. It doesn't look like it." May or may not, I don't know. But I think a lot of people are starting to think, "Oh," and here we go. Pavlov and his dogs.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
So I do think this is another category of interest, and of course, we're the curators. They don't get a vote. They can't consent.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
Right?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
So we have to be very thoughtful there, too.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
If I ask you, let's say I had an aged dog and I come to you and I go, "Listen, I know you're a human physician, but he's getting sick a lot. I don't know. Maybe get him some thymosin alpha. He's kind of creaky joints, get some BPC. He's probably got a couple years to go, and that's it." Would you say like...

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Well-

Andrew Huberman:
I know you're not a vet

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... the veterinary board is going to sue me now, but

Andrew Huberman:
No, they're not going to. Actually, I have relatives who are vets. They are very open.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Oh, interesting.

Andrew Huberman:
Very open. The veterinary community's been very open. I injected my previous dog-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... with testosterone later in life, and I expected the vets to come after me with pitchforks, and I got calls that said-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
No

Andrew Huberman:
... "We would love to prescribe this. In fact, we wish we could just do vasectomies on male dogs, let them keep their testosterone, and then you don't have to worry about this breeding problem, and then you let people train them not to hump."

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep. No, my sister was at a compounding pharmacy here locally that would give dogs their testosterone, and people loved it.

Andrew Huberman:
It made him so much healthier and happier.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
I have zero regrets.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
I'm pro peptide for pets, let's say. I think there would be beneficial effects. We know dogs, when they vomit, they end up licking some of the vomit. You've seen this before.

Andrew Huberman:
Yes, unfortunately.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
As I saw that, I'm like, "Is he trying to get peptides back from the gastric tract?" Like, that's the first-

Andrew Huberman:
Maybe

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... from a Pavlovian thought.

Andrew Huberman:
You're being kind to dogs.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
So I'm like, I mean, intuitively, instinctively-

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah. Sure

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... there might be something there, they might be trying to get BPC out of that, who knows? But, I think there would be less hesitation for people to use these on animals. They come from animal literature, like you said. We don't want to be harming these pets, right? But I think a lot of the positive signals are going to come out of people giving them to their pets. Unfortunately, there's so many brands now that are popping up every day giving their pets peptides.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Because BPC, is it going to be treated as a supplement when it comes to oral capsules, or is it going to be treated as a med? We haven't got that answer from the FDA. RFK himself has kind of said like, "Oh, these are supplements. They're not medications." So FDA-

Andrew Huberman:
He said that?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
He said that. "We're not going to regulate them as meds because they're not meds." Which I don't know if the agency themselves is going to be too happy with that.

Andrew Huberman:
I mean, there's a big, well, Makary, I don't ever know how to pronounce his last name-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... recently left, so there was a, from what I understand, a kind of a split.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
I don't think he left because of peptide anything.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
No.

Andrew Huberman:
I think it was related to other things that I'm not aware of. But I do think the question that you're raising is one of the most important questions Is BPC going to be taken seriously as a drug?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
Or is it more creatine-ish?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep. For example, I could give you a B12 supplement. You could buy that on Amazon, or I could prescribe that to you. But if I was to give you an injectable B12 shot, you would need a prescription for that.

Andrew Huberman:
Hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
So is that distinction going to apply to peptides also is the big question that no one's answered. And pinealon is a supplement you can find in Kazakhstan and Russia and Ukraine, wherever, all these different countries, over the counter in different pharmacies. So-

Andrew Huberman:
Is pinealon available as a capsule?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
It's available as a capsule.

Andrew Huberman:
Does it work as well as a capsule? Or-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
In a capsule, a higher dose is needed, but it still works.

Andrew Huberman:
What are the dosages, excuse me, that people are injecting versus taking orally?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
So when it comes to the bioregulators, the epithelion, pinealon, the Cavinton literature looks at microgram dosages, from 10 to 100 micrograms of the actual raw peptides. Of the peptide mixes, we're talking about 10 milligrams. So 10 milligrams of desiccated cow brain, that might give you a few hundred micrograms of pinealon.

Andrew Huberman:
Ooh, man. Desiccated cow brain makes me think-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... of Creutzfeldt-Jakob-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... AKA mad cow, prion-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
That was the-

Andrew Huberman:
Prion prion

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... first patient I had on wards in third year of medical school

Andrew Huberman:
Had degenerative brain-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... from Creutzfeldt-Jakob.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep. They were, it was a bad case-

Andrew Huberman:
Oh, my goodness

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... on neurology wards.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah. Please, folks-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... do not be consuming brains. I know there's some people like, "Oh, he's got all this stuff that can help you." Please, please, please. These prion things are really serious.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Scary.

Andrew Huberman:
It's really scary.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
It's really, really scary. And not just from Wild Game, but it's-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
No

Andrew Huberman:
... really scary.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
By the way, I think this set back all that research in the, when the prion stuff happened in the early 2000s, that set back a lot of these animal-derived peptide research dramatically because people were like, "Oh, we don't want to touch these extracts anymore."

Andrew Huberman:
Makes sense.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Because there was thymus extracts. There was about 10 different groups in Eastern Europe that came up with their own thymus peptide drug-

Andrew Huberman:
Hmm

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... which was a polypeptide fragment with thymus alpha-1, thymus beta-4, Thylon, Thymogen, like all these different peptides that you'd get together. The Eastern Europeans went down this mix of just mixing up young thymuses, because you don't want an old thymus from a cow. You want a six-month-old cow that has the giant, juicy, big thymus with all the healthy hormones in there. They'd grind that up and inject that into humans with positive effects, like hundreds of papers on that. The American side, the Goldstein group, came up with Thymosin fraction 5, which has thymus alpha-1 and thymus and beta-4 in it. Also, thymus and beta-10, thymus and beta-9, a bunch of different thymosins. But studied these two dramatically, thymus alpha-1 and thymus and beta-4. The French came up with the actual main thymus hormone, which is thymulin, not thymalin.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Thymalin's the Russian polypeptide mix. Thymulin is a nine-amino acid, peptide that is the marker of thymus function. It also has very interesting neurological effects, which I think you'll find interesting because it modulates the, what we're calling the thymus pituitary adrenal axis, the thymus pituitary gonadal axis. Thymulin is this peptide that's secreted by the thymus, dramatically decreases with age, is zinc dependent. So biology likes to use metals with different amino acid structures, hemoglobin with iron, GHK copper with copper. Thymulin is zinc dependent, so it's a nine amino acid peptide with zinc inside of it to do its effects. That will develop NK cells and T cells, stimulate the immune response. But also in the animal models, not replicated in humans yet, when they take out the pituitary and then inject ACTH or hCG, the amount of thymulin sensitizes the end organ to production of the targeted hormone. For example, if you were to give hCG alone to the animal-

Andrew Huberman:
HCG.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah, hCG.

Andrew Huberman:
Right. Synthetic luteinizing hormone.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes. Yes, yes, yes.

Andrew Huberman:
Essentially.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
HCG is binding to the, it's called the hCG LH receptor. So they would get more testosterone produced when they got hCG with thymulin-

Andrew Huberman:
Hmm

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... versus hCG alone.

Andrew Huberman:
So what you're saying is that thymosin alpha, potentially, or TB500, or other thymic hormones-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Thymulin specifically.

Andrew Huberman:
Okay. Thymulin specifically.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Okay. Thank you.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
The other ones do different effects on the pituitary axis.

Andrew Huberman:
Okay. So thymulin specifically-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes

Andrew Huberman:
... can augment-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes

Andrew Huberman:
... the effects of endogenous and perhaps also exogenous hormones.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
Interesting.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
And it makes sense because if you're not robust when it comes to immune status, because you can think of your thymulin as high in youth, low in aged.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
You have no business investing in reproduction. You have no business in creating a lot of corticosteroids, because that gives you that youthful energy in the morning. But if you're making a lot of corticosteroids, you're shrinking your thymus. So it creates kind of a feedback loop, negative feedback loop, to prevent you from overrunning your system. A lot of young guys will be like, "Oh, my immune system sucks and my testosterone is low." Is there a thymus link there, is the question.

Andrew Huberman:
Interesting. And I'm sure that you're the first person in the last 20 years to be talking about this publicly. And I really appreciate that you are, because of course you knew what the thymus was. Don't know a lot about the biology-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... but you've really opened people's eyes to what it is, that it goes away over time. People taking thymosin alpha, TB500, and thymulin-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... is this something that people would cocktail, or is taking thymulin something that generally could be a good idea under certain circumstances?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Thymulin itself has a very short half-life. The goal would be to increase endogenous production of the thymulin itself.

Andrew Huberman:
How would you do that?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
So sufficient zinc status is necessary to make thymulin. The first sign of zinc depletion before RBC zinc or serum zinc decrease is your thymulin levels tank.

Andrew Huberman:
I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge one of our sponsors, LMNT. LMNT is an electrolyte drink that has everything you need and nothing you don't. That means the electrolytes, sodium, magnesium, and potassium, all in the correct ratios, but no sugar. Proper hydration is critical for brain and body function. Even a slight degree of dehydration can diminish your cognitive and physical performance. It's also important that you get adequate electrolytes. The electrolytes, sodium, magnesium, and potassium, are vital for the functioning of all cells in your body, especially your neurons or your nerve cells. Drinking LMNT makes it very easy to ensure that you're getting adequate hydration and adequate electrolytes. My days tend to start really fast, meaning I have to jump right into work or right into exercise. So to make sure that I'm hydrated and I have sufficient electrolytes, when I first wake up in the morning, I drink 16 to 32 ounces of water with an LMNT packet dissolved in it. I also drink LMNT dissolved in water during any kind of physical exercise that I'm doing, especially on hot days when I'm sweating a lot and losing water and electrolytes. LMNT has a bunch of great-tasting flavors. In fact, I love them all. I love the watermelon, the raspberry, the citrus, and I really love the lemonade flavor. So if you'd like to try LMNT, you can go to drinklmnt.com/huberman to claim a free LMNT sample pack with any purchase. Again, that's drinklmnt.com/huberman to claim a free sample pack. GHK-Cu.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Most of the questions I get about it are from women.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
I sent out a little informal poll to the, I have to be careful how I say this, the women in my life including siblings and things like that, and almost all the women said: "What about GHK copper? I hear it can be good for my skin. Should I use it topically, take it orally, or inject it? If I inject it, should I inject it locally?" I'm like, "Please don't inject it in your face," because as much as I'm comfortable with people giving themselves a little-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... sterile injection in the belly or something like that, I get worried about non-experts injecting themselves in the face and other tissues. So, a lot of interest in this.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
What is it? Why has it made it into this kind of aesthetic category? Because I'm guessing it has a lot of other effects, too. But it's kind of funny how things kind of land in one region.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Like creatine was the muscle thing for a long time. Then it got some kind of like, maybe it's good for cognition, maybe for people with Alzheimer's, maybe women should take it, too, for all those reasons and more, and it kind of reverted back to the muscle thing.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
GHK-Cu is a tripeptide with a copper ion in the middle. It's glycine, histidine, and lysine. It's actually found in type I collagen fibers. So-

Andrew Huberman:
Tell me where type I collagen fibers are.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
All over your skin-

Andrew Huberman:
Great

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... hair-

Andrew Huberman:
Okay

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... and connective tissue. So, just like Vladimir Khavinson discovers these 40 different peptides and liver peptides, brain peptides, penile peptides, whatever it may be, there's an American researcher, Lauren Pickart, Dr. Lauren Pickart, who has passed now. He discovered GHK-Cu in the collagen tissue, and he's like, "Hey, this might be the factor that controls collagen synthesis and also collagen breakdown." So, he does a bunch of studies. His work is all about this. Almost all the literature comes from this one lab, a common theme in peptides, unfortunately. He discovers it in maybe the mid-'70s. It's found to be very high in youth in serum levels. So, you'll find this in the blood of anyone that we test, up to 200, I think, nanograms, whatever the unit was, and then it gets down to in the levels of the 60s by the age of 65. So, it dramatically decreases with age. It's thought to be maybe what leads to the youthful appearance of young skin, and with age, you lose that effect. So, he did a whole bunch of trials, both topically for skin, for hair. There's now injectable work being done. So, similar to the BPC, they would cut rats open, inject GHK copper in a different site, and they'd get faster wound repair-

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... of the skin tissue from injecting this. So, it's become synonymous with BPC-157, TB-500, the Wolverine stack, which someone online just made up. And-

Andrew Huberman:
That's the Wolverine stack?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
It's those two, yes.

Andrew Huberman:
TB-500 and BPC, and alpha.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
No.

Andrew Huberman:
Sorry.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
TB-500 and BPC-157.

Andrew Huberman:
And BPC-157.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes.

Andrew Huberman:
Okay.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Now people will add on GHK copper and call it the Glow Stack.

Andrew Huberman:
The Glow Stack?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Oh, interesting.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Okay.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Someone's made it up in the research chemical company ends.

Andrew Huberman:
No, I like it. I like it. Glow, Wolverine. Yeah.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah. There's a big debate about whether or not mixing those together will cause denaturing of different peptides. That's beyond this discussion. The point is GHK copper, it both upregulates the synthesis side of collagen and the breakdown side of collagen. So, because when you're remodeling tissue, if you're just rebuilding it, you're going to get very pathogenic structures. And if you're just breaking down, you're getting bad structures. So, you're doing both. So, the idea is does it, number one, have a skin effect? Which it seems to be. Pickart's compared it to retinol and vitamin C creams and all these things with positive effects, and people anecdotally talk about their crow's feet going away and topically it does good for them. There was a study on hair that didn't seem too promising. So, the peptide sites try to tell you, "This is better than minoxidil." Mm, not really. Maybe it could be an adjunct, and a lot of patients will have that success using that with some of their other topical hair loss agents. And now there's a Chinese group studying it for lung regeneration because there's a lot of connective tissue in the lungs between the different alveoli, and there's some hype there of using GHK copper as a regenerative from that side.

Andrew Huberman:
How many people are trying to regenerate their lungs? Is this for like COPD?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
COPD and smokers. It's a big industry.

Andrew Huberman:
Maybe long COVID, from what I hear, is a real thing.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
Lung damage from COVID.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
I know some people debate it.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Sure.

Andrew Huberman:
But it seems like there are enough people walking around who were vaccinated and non-vaccinated who claim that they have-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... symptoms post-COVID that have lasted a long time-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... AKA long COVID. So, that might be an interesting place for them to remain peptide curious.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah, and thymic atrophy is a big part of the, I suspect-

Andrew Huberman:
Post-COVID?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah, because any infection actually leads to, we talk about the thymic involution that happens with age. There's thymic atrophy that happens after every infection. The thymus kind of shrinks down, and then the idea is that you recover, you convalesce. We used to have convalescent homes for sick patients, and then you regenerate your thymus in the state of health. And the problem in modern day, people are stressed out, they're at work, they get sick, and they keep getting sick, so they never get this chance for that thymus rejuvenation. So, then they're constantly getting hit down, and they're ending up with these diseases of aging that could've maybe been augmented, ameliorated, maybe pushed down, had their thymus function been better in youth.

Andrew Huberman:
Raise my hand.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Professor Brockery. I'm only half- I really feel like I'm in school. This is so cool for me. I'm truly in heaven right now. If you look back at the literature on convalescing, how long were people recommended to take some time off after a cold or a flu or some other-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
That's a good question

Andrew Huberman:
... because I think this would tell us, just like with sort of how long maternity leave-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... type things. The idea now is people are being forced to go back too quickly-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Right

Andrew Huberman:
... in countries like in Scandinavia, perhaps, where they get more time-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... positive outcomes for baby and mom.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
I think it's an interesting and important question because our biology hasn't changed that much-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
No

Andrew Huberman:
... in the last couple thousand years-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... at least. After one has a cold, typically people go back as soon as they deem themselves non-infectious-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... which really worries me.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
But do you think people are getting back to work too quickly?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes.

Andrew Huberman:
I understand the reasons why, but do you think that adding a stage of really getting back to full functioning without getting into the back to the gym, back to work-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Sure

Andrew Huberman:
... back to everything could be beneficial for these longevity effects?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Well, if you think about it, nothing that they do once they come back is additive to healing. Their circadian rhythms are thrown off. They're under mal-illuminative lights all day. They're not getting sunlight. Their vitamin D levels are atrocious. Their blue light exposure at night is high. Their stress levels are very high. Their guts are inflamed from eating hyper-processed, hyper-palatable foods. They have obesity or they're pre-diabetic. So, all these things now lead to this inflammatory state, and they just got sick, and their thymus didn't bounce back.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
So then they get sick the next time in two or three weeks. Post-pandemic, a lot of my colleagues were like, "Dude, I get sick three, four times a winter now, before I'd get sick once a winter." So this is where the interest in thymic peptides is very elusive. We have to figure out if the STPs or the PTEs are the more interesting ones. There's synthetic thymic peptides, thymus alpha-1, thymus beta-4, thymulin, and there's purified thymic extracts. These are the two different research committees that exist when it comes to the thymus. Which one will be more advantageous? Vladimir Khavinson came up with the thymulin injectable and oral versions of that, and he had positive immune markers, and he showed CD4 cells come up and CD8 cells improve and all those immune markers become a more youthful state, let's say.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
But unfortunately, what's happening here is we don't have thymologists. We don't have a branch of medicine that's dedicated to this aspect of immunity. There's allergy and immunologists, but they focus more on allergies to different agents or very severe immune diseases. They're not really addressing the immunity of the general public and how you can boost that. And I think post-pandemic, a lot of people started to ask, "Hey, how can I have better immunity for myself?" And now finally, people are starting to talk about the thymus. Unfortunately, it's been too little too late. That would've been great during the pandemic because we could've used these thymic-focused interventions, whether it be zinc or thymic peptides or your purified thymic extracts, to augment immunity of the population as a whole. Especially because Dr. Khavinson was doing this in the '70s in Russia. Even in Russia, they don't really look kindly to this research. The Soviet-era research has been kind of pushed aside, and it's more Big Pharma style because it's more profitable, because how many thymuses are you going to inject into people, and how many thymuses exist on the planet to make these different peptides from?

Andrew Huberman:
But you could inject a lot of synthetic-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes

Andrew Huberman:
... thymosin alpha TA500-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes

Andrew Huberman:
... and maybe BPC. So Wolverine stack plus thymus now.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah. So it'd be very interesting if we can get that because now that everyone's getting these Penulo scans and different full-body MRIs-

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... we can see the thymus size.

Andrew Huberman:
I was going to ask you, can I get some sense of my thymic size and output from a blood draw, or do I have to do whole body imaging? I've done whole body imaging. It is somewhat costly and that's-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah. It is costly

Andrew Huberman:
... a barrier for people. But if people can afford it, I actually think it can be useful. I have a number of friends-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... including a neurosurgeon friend who said that some people are still alive now because they got that scan. A lot of people get scared about what they see.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
Wouldn't you rather be scared about what you see and be told that it's okay, than not know it's there and then have a catastrophic event?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
We always have a patient that comes in, car accident, young 45-year-old, car accident, comes in, has a pancreatic mass they would have never known about had they not had that accident. They get a CT scan just to check for any kind of internal bleeding. They find the pancreatic mass. That gets removed. It ends up being a malignant mass that had they waited six months, they would have had stage four pancreatic cancer and passed away. So that's the theory. There is the concern about false positives and false negatives when it comes to these screening modalities. Any screening modality is not perfect. So, there's a big debate on whether or not to do these that we'll leave to people and their physicians. But I've been trying to lobby them to give the thymic score to everybody who gets one of these scans.

Andrew Huberman:
Great.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Because they could see, like, hey, can you see where the thymus is at?

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Because someone might come in for five different scans over five years. They did a TRT protocol or a GH protocol or whatever it may be, and we could see did that improve thymic status or make it worse, or different infections, different interventions. That'd be very interesting to kind of tease out. On blood tests, we've been trying to work with a couple different labs to figure out a thymic score.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
The most commercially available is going to be a lymphocyte count, which will look at CD4 to CD8. There's an ideal CD4 to CD8 ratio that's more youthful. You don't want to have more CD8 cells than CD4 cells. You don't want to have too few of either of them. That goes more into the HIV literature. But the most simple thing that almost every single person has gotten done but no one's looked at is their lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratio on their CBC. So almost everybody's gotten a CBC with diff. It's a $3 lab test. If you type in any disorder, cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, and put lymphocytes and monocyte ratio, there's a study that will talk about how low lymphocytes and monocyte ratio is associated with poor outcomes when it comes to that disease state.

Andrew Huberman:
Hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
So, it gives you kind of a general gestalt of what's going on with immunity because you want a high absolute lymphocyte count, not too high because it's associated with lymphomas. But somewhere, when you look at the charts, around 1,000 total lymphocytes is where the hazard of different cancer sites starts to increase. A young healthy person will be between 1,500 and 33,000 total lymphocytes. And you want the ratio to the monocytes. Monocytes are different types of immune cells that are more inflammatory. So, if you have a robust amount of lymphocytes with a low amount of monocytes, that suggests you have a more, let's say, ready and robust immune state.

Andrew Huberman:
Hmm. Interesting.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
So $3 lab test that everybody gets. Almost every lab testing company now checks it, and no one really reports on it. But you can kind of stratify people into disease risk based on that score.

Andrew Huberman:
Out of 100 randomly polled physicians who received their license in the United States, how many of them probably know what you just described?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Zero.

Andrew Huberman:
Why not?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
It's like rabbit holes that you kind of go down and find out. I've been lobbying everyone in the hospital to look at this.

Andrew Huberman:
But it's very easy, right? The data are there.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
No, I look at-

Andrew Huberman:
It's not like you're saying, oh, you got to do all this additional work, you got to bill insurance. I mean, this is-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
No, it's all there

Andrew Huberman:
... all there.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
I started to care about the thymus post-pandemic because I noticed people's lymphocyte counts were lower.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
And I could notice that anecdotally or looking at small data sets like, hey, people who had lower lymphocyte counts had worse disease or people that had cancers in their late 30s or early 40s. I'm like, huh, they all had lower lymphocyte counts. So, I started to dig into the literature, and I'm lobbying a lot of the hematologists and infectious disease doctors in my hospital to start to look at this. Unfortunately, they kind of are textbook. It's not part of the guidelines. It's in a space that's not pathology So it's not clear like, hey, if I check your lymphocyte-to-monocyte count right now, is it going to change my management of you in the hospital today? Not really. It's more of a long-term look. So that's where all these direct-to-health, direct-to-consumer companies have an opportunity to kind of modulate the way medicine is practiced in the United States. But if we have this metric that we can study, why not use it and then try different interventions and see what actually helps people? We've gotten sometimes peptides. We've had people go from a four-to-one lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratio to an eight-to-one ratio. Now, is that significant? That seems to be significant. But no one's really kind of discussing it, unfortunately.

Andrew Huberman:
I know who I'm putting my vote in for surgeon general- ... if ever there's a turnover. I haven't explored the most recent person, so that's not a comment on her. I know they elected to not vote Casey in, so that's truly not a mention. I haven't done-- But I think your voice should be heard far and wide on these things. More data is good. The scientist in me just says, you got the data, data could be informative-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... take a look. There's a category of peptides such as growth hormone secretagogues-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... tesamorelin, ipamorelin, MK-677, that we could do the deep dive-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Sure

Andrew Huberman:
... on all those, but I'll just batch those.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Sure.

Andrew Huberman:
And maybe we parse them a little bit. And things like melanotans.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Sure.

Andrew Huberman:
These are, to my understanding, FDA-approved for certain indications, so they've gone through the randomized control trials for growth hormone secretagogues for small stature in kids, they might use it for that, or for post-surgical burn recovery. I think-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Tesamorelin

Andrew Huberman:
... some are for HIV

Dr. Abud Bakri:
For HIV lipid distribution.

Andrew Huberman:
HIV. So the idea here, the sort of framework that I'm teeing up, is that these molecules have been explored-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... for their known biological function in animals. It's established. These molecules lead to an increase in growth hormone above what would normally be secreted. They do it indirectly, so they're sort of the gas pedal on that system.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
Growth hormone secretagogue, cause more growth hormone to be secreted, not actual growth hormone. They vary in terms of how much they stimulate hunger or don't stimulate hunger.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
And on and on. You should take them, if you're going to take them before sleep, but not having eaten in the last two or three hours, all that stuff. We can save ourselves some time here.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
Most people who are taking these things, whether they get it from pharma or compounding pharmacy or gray market, research purposes only-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... or black market, God forbid, they're doing this because they want to lose fat, gain muscle, recover from exercise more quickly, and look more youthful.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
Can we assume that those effects are real, given that they were FDA-approved for other things?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah. So let's parse out the effects and the different types of compounds that exist in this category. So there's the ghrelin side, the ghrelin agonist, like MK-677, not FDA-approved, orally available pill that makes you bleed out growth hormone. Like, you make so much growth hormone in response to that. And in non-pulsatile fashion. Growth hormone's a very circadian hormone that gets released in the first 90 minutes of a slow-wave sleep. And if you miss that big pulse, you're going to get small pulses throughout the day. The question is, is that big pulse better than small little, mini pulses throughout the day? These secretagogues will address the broader category of something called somatopause. So you've heard of menopause, you've heard of maybe andropause. Somatopause is this event that happens somewhere in the 30s where growth hormone production dramatically decreases. So if we kind of paint a picture, your pineal gland's aging before puberty, your thymus right after puberty, in your 20s. And in your 30s, you're having somatopause. That's where your growth hormone production is decreasing. You're having, they call it adrenopause, where your adrenals stop making as much DHEA and the different ratio of cortisol. And then you're having menopause, andropause, and all the other chronic conditions. So that's like your first 50 years of your life, that's what you have to expect. The question has been, and it's a big debate in the medical community, is replacing growth hormone and addressing somatopause useful? Because you can measure if we had your IGF-1 when you were 18, and your IGF-1 when you're 30 and 50, that's going to be a dramatic decrease in that. Should we now replenish this IGF-1? The proponents will say IGF-1's important for skin and good quality sleep and for muscle recovery and joints and all these things. And those are true. We know growth hormone has all these beneficial effects on that. We also know growth hormone is thymoregenerative because it stimulates the regrowth of an aged, involuted thymus gland based on Dr. Fahey's work. The question is, is there an oncogenic signal when it comes to growth hormone?

Andrew Huberman:
Does it cause cancer?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes.

Andrew Huberman:
Sorry. Can it promote-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes

Andrew Huberman:
... more rapid growth of existing cancer?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes, because it's-

Andrew Huberman:
I don't think anyone thinks it causes cancer

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... it's not mutagenic. This is the big debate when people are like, "BPC causes cancer." There's no mutagenic effect from BPC. Is BPC like smoking a cigarette? Smoking a cigarette, you get carcinogenic damage to the lung tissue that causes a cancer later on. There's no direct mechanism that would link any of these peptides to a carcinogenic effect. But is it a growth factor that could grow a cancer? Potentially. There isn't good data showing that. The debate may be like, hey, by boosting thymic function from growth hormone, are you increasing immunity and then immune surveillance of different tumors?

Andrew Huberman:
Right.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
And therefore decreasing and then causing the scale.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
There's a big debate of whether growth hormone's even beneficial when it comes to aging because growth hormone does grow certain tissues. There's models where people are growth hormone deficient and live a lot longer.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
And growth hormone is not positive when it comes to a cardiometabolic perspective.

Andrew Huberman:
And in species like dogs, where there's tremendous variation in the amount-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... of IGF-1 that's made between, say, a chihuahua and a Great Dane, the breed that makes more IGF-1, downstream of growth hormone, of course, lives a lot shorter lives-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes

Andrew Huberman:
... than smaller versions of the same species.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
So you want a dog around for a long time, get a chihuahua. You want a real dog, get a-- Excuse me. You want a dog that lives a long time, get a Great Dane or a bulldog.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
There's that whole discussion of what's better, and then you get into antagonistic pleiotropy. Is this something that's good in youth but detrimental for longevity, or is it for longevity? And that's the big debate in the longevity field, whatever that field is, of whether or not to use growth hormone. So now growth hormone's become very difficult to acquire through clinical prescriptions after the whole anabolic steroids act and Barry Bonds and all that stuff. So people have now shifted to using the secretagogues in lieu of growth hormone.

Andrew Huberman:
Also, growth hormone is very expensive.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Very expensive. Yeah, like Pfizer's pens are in the thousands of dollars. So if you're rich, you can afford to have that growth hormone habit. But otherwise, a secretagogue costs less than 100 bucks.

Andrew Huberman:
I'm told that growth hormone doesn't shut down one's own production.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah, it's not a strong shutdown like the testicular axis.

Andrew Huberman:
I'm also told that when people take it, they feel awesome.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
Which is scary to say on a podcast because you're like, "Oh, no, I don't want everyone running out and-"

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... young people are already making tons of it. But that combination of looking younger, feeling great, cognitively feeling great.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
I have some friends who've taken an IU a night-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... or even two IUs a night, five nights a week for years.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
And you go, "Hey, aren't you worried about some of the tumor effects?" And they're like, "You just function at a whole other level." And then you go, "Oh, God, that's really enticing." But even with great imaging, you don't know if you've got tumors-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
No

Andrew Huberman:
... that you're accelerating in that case. So it's kind of scary.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah, and we don't have a data set that would show that. Where's the body count from growth hormone? The bodybuilder body counts are from other compounds, not necessarily-

Andrew Huberman:
Oh, they're doing everything.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah, exactly. When you go into a gym, you can tell who's doing growth hormone versus not based on-

Andrew Huberman:
How so?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... their skin shining.

Andrew Huberman:
I see.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
You see a 45-year-old dude that's through somatopause but has perfect young skin and there's Botox and other things involved, but you can tell there's that growth hormone look. The hair looks a little bit healthier.

Andrew Huberman:
Hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Because growth hormone favors the conversion of T4 to T3, so it changes the thyroid dynamics. It can have pro-testicular effects as well from the IGF-1 perspective. So there's a lot of youthful effects to it. The question is, has that been a good idea to replace it? Traditionally, the medical field's kind of anti using these secretagogues to augment somatopause. But I think there's going to be a role for it, perhaps cyclically. Because I don't think anything in nature is year-round. So what if you did a cyclical cycle of, and this is not medical advice, but just theoretical, cyclical cycle of tesamorelin for a certain amount of time, got your IGF-1 to a certain level under clinician guidance, measured your thymus on an MRI before and after, and then you saw that the thymus grew and you had higher CD4, CD8 count.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
That would be pretty interesting.

Andrew Huberman:
It'd be interesting, a few years back, and I've told this story publicly before, I tried sermorelin.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Which is different, obviously, than tesamorelin, but similar in the sense-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Sure

Andrew Huberman:
... the endpoint you're seeking is more growth hormone, IGF-1. And it dramatically increased my deep sleep.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
And nuked my REM sleep.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
It was like the opposite of pineal lock.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep. Take them together.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah. Well, didn't try that. The other thing that it did, and the reason I halted it almost right away, because I was really just running it as an experiment on myself, was that it spiked my PSA, my prostate-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... specific antigen.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
It had always been in range and relatively low. Boom, spiked it. And I was like, "Whoa, that's wild," and I don't want that. Came off it.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
It reverted-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... to a low level. So that was pretty striking. So obviously, a hyperresponsive prostate to sermorelin. Maybe it wouldn't have been to tesamorelin, et cetera.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
But those are the kinds of things that you worry about.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
It might just be the growth hormone itself. The increased growth hormone secretion-

Andrew Huberman:
That's a good point

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... as you age, your prostate gets bigger. The bane of every man is going to be BPH. That's going to be the reason that you hate your life in your 60s and 70s because you have to-

Andrew Huberman:
Oh, man

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... wake up at night to pee.

Andrew Huberman:
Oh.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
And then when you're at an amusement park, you're going to have to find the nearest bathroom very frequently because your bladder size is depressed.

Andrew Huberman:
They'll work it out by then.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
They'll work it out.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
There's some prostate peptides we're looking at.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah. Thanks.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Well, solutions-

Andrew Huberman:
There's young guy, old guy taunting.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
You got 10 more years before you're miserable. Thanks.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
There's prostate peptides that Cavinton looked at that we're trying to translate some of that literature.

Andrew Huberman:
You'll save me.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
No, there's people, this guy named Brendan Henry, who's translated thousands of these papers from Russian to English, so shout out to him. No affiliation, but he's translated a lot of this Russian literature and helped us from that, so that's great. But the prostate is growing with age under the control of DHT and estrogen, and then probably growth hormone. So the question is, do you want to be messing with that and increasing the size of that? There's concerns about cardiac growth, liver growth, so there's all these things. But also growth hormone and the secretagogues have a negative effect on insulin sensitivity.

Andrew Huberman:
Right.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Some people's A1Cs will usually jump. The joke in the bodybuilding community is you have to get lean enough and healthy enough to be able to take growth hormone. What's happening-

Andrew Huberman:
Oh, growth hormone or the secretagogues?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
The growth hormone more so. The se-

Andrew Huberman:
It can make you insulin insensitive.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes, especially with more like tesamorelin, especially when combined with ipamorelin. Sermorelin's kind of a weaker GHRH. Tesamorelin, especially when combined with ipamorelin. Tesamorelin is FDA approved, ipamorelin is not. The GHRH versus GHRP, kind of in the weeds there, but those two together can create a giant growth hormone response where your IGF-1 is in the 380s, 390s. So that's quite high, like puberty levels of IGF-1.

Andrew Huberman:
And you're hungry all the time.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah. With MK, for sure. With tesamorelin, so tesamorelin has more fidelity, less ghrelin effects, especially because you can have ghrelin effects, prolactin effects, and cortisol effects from whenever you're mucking around with the pituitary, because they're all in that same area. I think MK bleeds out the worst when it comes to having the other effects. MK is not a peptide. It's a non-peptide-

Andrew Huberman:
Hmm

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... GHRP.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
What's happened now is people are now stacking their GLP-1 as their insulin sensitivity tool, their growth hormone or their GHRH-

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... and their androgen modulation therapies as this trinity stack-

Andrew Huberman:
Trinity stack?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... to get very fit, very healthy quickly. So a lot of these transformations you see in CEOs and celebrities and stuff is using a combination of those three things. Your TRT plus maybe Anovar with tirzepatide or retatrutide, whatever it may be, and then using a growth hormone modulation with your, if you can afford growth hormone or tesamorelin, ipamorelin. And you're seeing people lose a lot of fat, gain a lot of muscle in short amounts of time. Is that healthy? We'll find out. But that is the celebrity protocol.

Andrew Huberman:
Very interesting. And I'm guessing that for women, it's the combination of growth hormone secretagogue plus something like, and we'll talk about these now, retatrutide-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... or one of the other GLPs.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
I'm going to acknowledge because people are going to start throwing darts at me about this. Yes, retatrutide is hitting things other than GLP pathway.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes.

Andrew Huberman:
It's also GIP and glucagon pathway. But most people put it under the category of-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... GLP. So you are encyclopedic, my friend. I really, really appreciate the clarity and the thoughtfulness of your answers on these. And as people are probably becoming aware, we could spend 50 hours. Talking about selank, about cerebral lysin. I think we will have to have you back to explore those other ones. There are a few other things I'd like to talk about-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Sure

Andrew Huberman:
... if you're willing to give us the time.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Of course.

Andrew Huberman:
We should close the hatch on GHK-Cu.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
I misspoke.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
And I saw it in your eyes, you're like, "He said it wrong. Do I correct him?" Yes, correct me. Everyone else does. GHK-Cu-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... for the collagen effects, it's available in a lot of creams. Assuming it's real-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... assuming people are doing this medically supervised, is there any benefit to putting it directly on crow's feet or other wrinkles or face versus injecting it for it to go systemically?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah. I think if you have a well-formulated topical that's actually not broken down, because from these research chem sites, they sell topicals now because everyone's in skincare. They're poor quality. They're not even blue. The GHK should be blue, but that is-

Andrew Huberman:
Should be blue?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
From the copper, yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Oh, okay. That makes sense.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
My copper pills are blue.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
There you go. That makes sense.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah, see?

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah. Okay.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
But that doesn't mean that it's real. It could be copper that's fallen out of the complex of the GHK. So yeah, you want a well-formulated, a good skincare brand that knows how to formulate these and deliver them into the skin, because that's another thing. So like-

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... every skincare brand has their now GHK formulation-

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... because people are demanding it. But it's been around for 30, 40 years on topical. The injectable is not FDA approved, of course. I think it's going to be on the second round of discussions when it comes to the peptides coming back to category one. The first round is going to have the seven peptides, BPC, TB, et cetera. I think the second round is going to look at GHK. I don't imagine that that makes it. There's no good human data on that. But topically, there's great human data on different aesthetic outcomes, especially when coupled with red light therapy, because it seems that the blue pigment and the red light seem to be synergistic in that effect.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
There's also some literature when it comes to GHK-Cu for post-UV damage. So people that are sun-friendly-

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... can use GHK-Cu topically to alleviate some of the photo damage. Of course, dermatologists are going to get mad at us and say, "Just use sunscreen, and you don't get the damage in the first place." But for people that aren't as responsible, you can use GHK-Cu as a post-sunscreen.

Andrew Huberman:
Or listen to the derms who are slightly more sun positive.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
Especially low UV index-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... sun, when the sun is low in the sky.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
Dr. Abud Bakri is perhaps the only other person on the planet besides my friend Samar Hattar, who's been on this podcast, who's as excited about circadian biology as an organizing feature- ... as I am. There are a couple others out there, but in terms of people who are really grounded in what's real, I put him in that category whether he likes it or not. So people are taking GHK-Cu cream, putting it on, and then doing red light therapy.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
And there are human data that perhaps can augment some of the collagen reparative-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... effects.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Some of the photo aging effects, some of the effects of aging, when compared to different retinols and stuff like that.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
I think the consensus in the field now is to use it with the rest of your skincare routine, not in place of it.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
But a lot of people, especially bros that have never been into skincare are now into skincare because of GHK.

Andrew Huberman:
Oh my goodness. Okay.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah, so-

Andrew Huberman:
Okay

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... there's that, but it's promising.

Andrew Huberman:
The bros are into skincare.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
There'll not be a documentary before long. What do you call that, the manosphere? It's like the skinosphere?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Well, with looksmaxxing, it's the looksmaxxing peptide now, GHK, because all these guys that are into looksmaxxing will use GHK topically.

Andrew Huberman:
They're dipping their hammer in GHK Cu and tapping themselves on the... By the way, if you want great long wavelength red, near-infrared, and infrared light to augment your GHK-Cu peptide, by the way, I'm not suggesting that, there's this thing called sunlight that provides that.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
You just have to be careful not to get too much UV in the process.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
So before people start thinking they absolutely need a red light device.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep. Full spectrum, too. Free.

Andrew Huberman:
Full spectrum, balanced. Great article in "Nature" we can link to recently that describes the different spectrums coming out of different devices, and that thing that we call the sun, which is the best source of all of that.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Mm-hmm. And better blue light, too.

Andrew Huberman:
And better blue light.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Because we're deprived of 480 nanometers in this setup. Unless you have full-spectrum lighting that we don't know about.

Andrew Huberman:
I don't get paid to say what I'm about to say, but I'm really excited about something. For a long time, I've used Boncharge's-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... bulbs because they have these bulbs that switch from full spectrum in the day. Then you-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... just flip the same switch, and it goes to yellow, and then flip the switch again, and it goes to red. I find the red to be kind of difficult to navigate at night. Raw Optics-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep. They made the new one

Andrew Huberman:
... made one that goes from a morning-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... really bright light, full spectrum, with a lot of blue in there on purpose to wake you-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... part of the week.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
And the right blue, the 480 cyan-

Andrew Huberman:
Right

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... blue.

Andrew Huberman:
Switch the same switch, don't have to change the bulb. It goes to a late morning mode-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... to afternoon mode, and then goes to candlelight mode in the evening. And here's the cool thing. Not only do they get the spectrum and the balance right, but it doesn't flicker.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Mm-hmm.

Andrew Huberman:
They got rid of the flicker that you get from LEDs, and yet it's an LED, so it's energy efficient.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep. It still has infrared and-

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah. And I have no affiliation to them whatsoever. I pay full price for these things, and I have to say, I really, really like them. Even my bulldog puppy has a little one. I have this little monkey holding a lamp, and I say, "When the monkey goes to candlelight, you're going to sleep." And he knows. He's learning when it goes to candlelight. Now, he's a dichromat, not a trichromat, but that's a different podcast. All right. GLPs.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
Now we can comfortably exhale into your colleagues can... You can feel completely comfortable about anything that they might think or say because the GLPs are the reason why people are comfortable injecting themselves. It's why this whole thing of peptides has really taken off. BPC kind of rode in on the GLPs-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... in my opinion, even though it's been around for a long time.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
And so have all the other peptides we've been talking about. So what are your thoughts? I've never taken one of these. First things first, we're hearing that some people, I think Sam Altman actually talked about this publicly-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Overdosed

Andrew Huberman:
... with Kara Swisher about, what? Yeah, where he overdosed. And actually, a compound pharmacy issue-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... he thought was what did it. I trust him to do the right calculation, so it does sound like that was a compounding pharmacy issue.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Could afford it, just buy the pharma-grade options and-

Andrew Huberman:
I think back then people were just getting them where they could.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Where they could, yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
I didn't ask him why-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... why that happened. But nonetheless, get the dosage right. Make sure you're getting the right stuff clean. But he talked about the kind of lack of-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Desire, yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... motivation. Which many people have described anecdotally, okay, it lowered their food drive but lowered their drive, period

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
Makes sense

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
Depending on which pathways are being affected. But do you think that's a real effect? Is that something that people need to be concerned about? Do you think people can microdose this stuff? Because a lot of people are microdosing it, regardless of what their source is. They're taking a lot less than the kind of standard clinical trials would be. And we're leaving out retatrutide for now.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
Because it's so new. We're going to talk about it, but I'm talking about the standard, if-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah, semaglutide and tirzepatide. Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
So you have your semaglutide, which is Ozempic and Wegovy.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
The Wegovy is the FDA-approved version for the weight loss. For tirzepatide, you have Zepbound and Mounjaro, Zepbound being the FDA-approved version for weight loss that allows them to keep their patents for longer. These medications are kind of transforming medicine, especially where I practice, right? If we zoom out, our medical system, if we didn't have these interventions, was going to collapse on itself thanks to the obesity, pre-diabetes, diabetes epidemics. Because we don't have enough clinicians or finances to get everybody who was pre-diabetic in the last 20 years, had they all transitioned to diabetes and ended up with diabetic medications and dialysis and eventually cardiovascular disease and all these things, we don't have the resources to take care of all these people. Our medical system was going to collapse, and there wasn't enough finances to take care of it. Now, these GLP-1s are coming in and kind of transforming that phase of medicine because now we have a chance to dramatically change the rate of obesity, diabetes, pre-diabetes, and all these cardiometabolic disorders. So where do we stand? We needed something to happen. Ideally, everybody would get morning sunlight and eat only healthy foods, unprocessed foods, and have low stress and sleep great at night, and maybe no one would develop to become obese. But the reality is people become overweight, obese. They get stuck in that hole, and if you just try to step out of the hole the way you came in, sometimes that doesn't work. You need a different path out of that problem. And that's been the diet and exercise literature for the last 40 years. Millions of books have been sold on how to get people leaner. We now have interventions medically that can dramatically change people's weights for the first time. We've had drugs in the past that 5, 10% of body weight. Now with the GLP-1s, we're getting 10, 20, even 30% of body weight being shaved off of people, especially with the new retatrutide data. Is there a free lunch? That's the big question. Like we talked about earlier, there's always been these medical mishaps that have happened. So far, the data is very promising when it comes to GLP-1s, in that we are now reversing this rate of chronic disease. Is it going to stay that way? That's a good question. I'm cautiously optimistic when it comes to these medications. I've been prescribing them since I was a resident. In my VA clinic, I was putting all these vets that are 300 pounds on GLP-1s. They were losing 50, 100 pounds. Before it was even FDA approved for weight loss, we knew that if you put diabetics on this drug, they would lose weight, thanks to a lot of the bodybuilders that kind of pioneered that.

Andrew Huberman:
When did the bodybuilders first start using GLPs?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Late 2010s.

Andrew Huberman:
Wow.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
And then the signal. I don't think Novo or Lilly wanted to make these for obesity. They were focused on making diabetes drugs. Because if we zoom out even further, this is another animal-derived compound, right? It's found in the saliva of the Gila monsters. GLP-1 was discovered. It's too short-acting to have worked on its own. Then pharmaceutical companies, this is where you got to give pharma their credit, they developed these drugs into more functioning versions that had longer half-lives and could stick around in the serum for longer to have the clinical effect. So then we started noticing that diabetics, like my grandma got Byetta, which was one of these first GLP-1 drugs, like 25 years ago. Out of all the drugs she was on, the reason I went into medicine, that was the drug that changed her whole trajectory, because she had less insulin needs, and she was losing weight and more energetic. So we had seen the effects on diabetics, and then you get liraglutide, dulaglutide, and then eventually semaglutide was the blockbuster. But you get all these positive effects coming from these drugs on diabetics. It gets translated into obese people and overweight patients. The question is, what is the long-term effect of this? Do you have to stay on this drug forever? Can you titrate off? The pharmaceutical companies have not given us good guidelines on that. They've shown us what happens if you stop the drug. You max out on maximum dose tirzepatide, pull the brakes on. People tend to sometimes gain the weight. Some people don't, but some people will regain back to baseline. Because if you think about it, the better way to think about weight loss, it's a calculation your brain does every single day with all the different hormones and peptides that are made from the gut, the GIP, GLP, glucagon, insulin, testosterone, estrogen. All these things can modulate, and there's this thing called the set point theory, or settling points, and they integrate, should I eat or not eat? Right? So the GLP-1 is a giant signal to the brain of, "Don't eat." So we're modulating this pathway. What happens to all these young kids that are 18, 19 years old on five milligrams of retatrutide that have lost 30, 40 pounds? Are they going to have to be on that for life now to maintain that weight?

Andrew Huberman:
Can I ask you about that? Because when people say perhaps you have to be on a drug for the rest of your life-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... I think, okay, what's the availability? What's the cost?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes.

Andrew Huberman:
What's the real-world cost of taking six months off-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... because you can't access it?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
There's a shortage, and maybe better drugs will come along. I don't necessarily have a problem with it, although if you talk to type 1 diabetics, in the old days, they weren't crazy about the idea that they had to constantly-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... inject themselves with insulin. Now there are better delivery devices. I kind of feel like eventually there'll be some slow-release-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... polymer that will just give you a microdose of it. You could dial it up-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... if you want.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Those are all pills now.

Andrew Huberman:
Personally, I don't worry so much about for the rest of your life. I worry more about the much shorter life-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Sure

Andrew Huberman:
... if people are obese. But what about these brain effects?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
I do worry about a brain that's developing in the context-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... of a thousand-fold or more increase in these GLPs, because when we had Zach Knight on the podcast, he's not a clinician, he's a scientist up at UCSF, Howard Hughes Investigator, which means he's like a superstar and deserves to be in that category. He described that the diabetic drugs would increase GLP by double, quadruple, but the weight loss effects weren't really there. But the drugs that you rattled off a few minutes ago, Mounjaro, Ozempic, et cetera, and certainly retatrutide, we're talking about

Dr. Abud Bakri:
thousandfold increases in GLPs. We don't know what the long-term effects-

Andrew Huberman:
No

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... of those are on neural plasticity and learning.

Andrew Huberman:
No.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Could be great.

Andrew Huberman:
Yes.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Could be positive. We shouldn't always assume those effects are bad. Yeah. The effects for, let's say, a 60-year-old pre-diabetic, diabetic on Alzheimer's disease seems to be potentially positive. I think the study last year didn't show a good signal on Alzheimer's prevention, but we know diabetes and cardiometabolic disease speeds up that transition, so controlling insulin dynamics might be beneficial there, and obesity's not great for Alzheimer's risk. The question is, what about for these cognitive effects? Is the effect happening from the drug itself? Is it from misuse of the drug, too high of a dose? You're not getting enough electrolytes, you're not getting enough micronutrients, macronutrients, your blood sugar is low. Because a lot of these patients, the way we approach it is training wheel effect when it comes to GLP-1s. Okay, you come to us, you're a patient, you want to use GLP-1s. We'll give you a lowest dosage possible that it has an effect for you, GLP-1, in conjunction with lifestyle modification, dietary advice, exercise programs, et cetera. And then hopefully peel away those training wheels, or keep them on if you need them, until we get to the endpoint that we want. Now, when people do it that way, I don't hear a lot of these effects anecdotally from Berkeley patients that we hear about online, where people are like, "Oh, I'm depressed. I hate my life from these drugs." And the question is, a lot of people have low blood pressure from these drugs because they're not consuming enough electrolytes or enough food, period.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Because some people will take a mega dose of these drugs and end up not eating, like a day goes by, they've eaten one meal. That's not conducive to feeling good. The reason people are obese in the first place is because eating is such a pleasurable experience for humans and a social experience, et cetera. The other thing is, if you're not eating with people on the same table, are you having less of that socialization aspect? A lot of times you meet up to eat or drink or whatever it may be. So I'm very curious when it comes to the cognitive effects, is it from the drug directly interacting with the receptors in the brain? When we've seen that the right amount of dose decreases inflammation in the brain. Or is it because of the social aspects of the drug changing the way you behave and therefore leading to negative output? Or a mix.

Andrew Huberman:
How dare you think of confounding variables? No, it's so cool because you're willing to go outside the box and say, "Hey, listen, this might be due to some of the downstream consequences-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... of reduced appetite."

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah, and we know the literature shows that people now are having less alcohol cravings from this. It might be changing the way the dopaminergic signaling is happening in the brain, which is concerning, right? Because a lot of people will be stacking this with ADHD medications. They might be using some of these peptide stimulants-

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... Semaxanane, whatever it may be. Because what happens is people go to these websites, they buy one peptide, and they go, "I had a great result." And they'll be like, "You know what? Let me add three more peptides on."

Andrew Huberman:
Sensory peptides.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes. It's an increasing AOV problem, so the average sale value goes up

Andrew Huberman:
Right

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... from these research sites.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
We'll see where GLP-1s go. The reality is it's here. There is no pre-GLP-1 world for us as clinicians, as health enthusiasts. We're in a post-GLP-1 world, and everything kind of dictates downstream from that.

Andrew Huberman:
The people I know have taken these, and I don't know exactly which, are taking much lower dosages than-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... were prescribed to them, and they are indeed sharing them with getting the prescription, then people are sharing them.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
People are cost sharing. Now people are trying to get them from other sources.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
Several of those people say they feel like they can think better, but I told them, well, yeah, if your insulin sensitivity is improved-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... if you're carrying less body fat, body fat's an endocrine organ.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
You need some body fat, but there could be a number of reasons for that. I don't know if these are direct effects on the brain.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah. Well, that'd be leptin sensitivity increases as you decrease the body fat mass. There's GLP-1 receptors on the POMC neurons in the brain, and no one's kind of examined what that means downstream for the leptin melanocortin pathway, and what that means for energy status, thyroid hormone production, reproductive status. We know a lot of people are Ozempic babies in that a lady will be subfertile or infertile, start a weight loss drug, and then find out by accident she's pregnant.

Andrew Huberman:
Was she obese before?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah. There's your overweight, obese women-

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... that are having their fertility improve as a result of losing-

Andrew Huberman:
Wow

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... the weight. Because we know your leptin status is a key driver of fertility, because if you're having low leptin levels, you're starving, you shouldn't be fertile. If you have too much leptin and you're leptin resistant, you shouldn't be having kids either. So both of those things kind of get modulated by these drugs as well.

Andrew Huberman:
There was a science paper some years ago that leptin hitting a certain threshold is actually what signals the onset of puberty in females.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
Is that still considered true?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
I think that's part of it.

Andrew Huberman:
Makes sense, like enough body fat-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes

Andrew Huberman:
... to signal that there are enough resources and then-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... animals, or that was an animal study, or the idea was that people perhaps also become, females become reproductively competent at the point where there's enough energetic resources-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Right

Andrew Huberman:
... that, interesting. Have you ever taken one of these?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Oh, wow. Yes. I had a family member with a GLP-1 pen from four years ago that said it wasn't working. So I'm like, "Okay, let's see what's going on here." I got a pen. Don't do this at home. And I was like, "Yeah, it's not working. It's bunked." They got them from overseas. It was a brand name Ozempic pen, but gotten from overseas. Got the pen. I was like, "You know what? If it's bunked, let's see what it is." Don't do this at home. Biohackers in me came out and tried it. I injected, I think it was a milligram of Ozempic.

Andrew Huberman:
What's a standard dose?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
You start at 0.25-

Andrew Huberman:
Okay

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... then escalate to 0.5.

Andrew Huberman:
You went straight to a milligram?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah, because I was like, "Ah." They're like, "It doesn't work. I'm eating so much." I'm like, "Okay, whatever. You got bunk pen from overseas." I go to do a shift. I was on night shift that day, and I've never had Charizard-like projectile vomiting.

Andrew Huberman:
Oof. And low blood sugar, presumably.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
The blood sugar effects for non-diabetics don't get that low, but it was just miserable.

Andrew Huberman:
Oh.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
I would go admit a patient, go upstairs, vomit in the call room.

Andrew Huberman:
You just gave a really good reason why people shouldn't just do what you just described.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
No, they shouldn't do that. Then go back to the ER, admit a patient, and then it was the most miserable night of my life. So be very careful how you use these drugs.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
That's why titrate very slowly. Luckily with the newer ones, the effects are much less. People who report tirzepatide and retatrutide even have less of these gastrointestinal effects.

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
But that's a peptide gone wrong story.

Andrew Huberman:
Peptide gone wrong. Retatrutide.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
I put out a post on X, I thought, and I still think that retatrutide is going to be a trillion-dollar industry, not because so many people are necessarily going to use it for weight loss-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... but because many people will use it for weight loss, many people will use it for other things because you can be sure, absolutely sure, that Lilly is going to find other ways to-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Market it?

Andrew Huberman:
... market it.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
And you can protect a patent by finding additional uses-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... for things. A lot of the blockbuster drugs for eye diseases, the patents to prevent generic forms were continued by-- Here's the deal, folks. Companies are really incentivized to take the hundreds of millions of dollars that they spent on clinical trials and research and development and not have to do it again.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
So if you can find another valid use for a drug, you don't have to run all the safety stuff. You don't have to do a lot of stuff. You just have to show efficacy and a few other things. But that's the way that drug companies continue to play the game to protect their investment, right? You can understand why they do it.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
They got shareholders.

Andrew Huberman:
If you like it or not, that's your business. So I'm guessing that retatrutide, we're going to discover that it's useful for a number of things, and from the clinical trials. There's a reason to believe that's going to be the case.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
And the big thing they're trying to do now is classify it as a biologic.

Andrew Huberman:
Right.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
So retatrutide has 39 amino acids. To be a biologic, it'd be above 40 amino acids.

Andrew Huberman:
And once you get to above 40 amino acids, if you are a biologic, then the patent lasts-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Way longer. I don't know the exact numbers

Andrew Huberman:
I think it's like 15 years.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
I think so, yeah. Much, much longer.

Andrew Huberman:
Whereas if it's 40 or below amino acids-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... then it's something like five-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... five to seven years.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
That's something patent law will have to-

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah. So we're talking hundreds of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes.

Andrew Huberman:
Maybe billions of dollars. And you can tinker with this. You can add amino acids.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
And more importantly, no one can compound it if it's a biologic or if it's very difficult to compound, like you said, with the right certificates. Something similar happened with hCG where it was taken out of the compounders recently.

Andrew Huberman:
Really?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah. So hCG-

Andrew Huberman:
Human chorionic gonadotropin. This is commonly prescribed for trying to restore fertility to men, but it's mostly being given in IVF cycles to women.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
Yeah.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
There's a big controversy about hCG and compounders and who can compound it and who can't. That's beyond this, but this is a very important thing, because if Lilly gets retatrutide as a biologic, then the compounders are out of luck. Because the compounders all have the formula for reta. They're ready to make it. They can get the API from China and start compounding it as soon as it's available. It will make them all billions of dollars. But if Lilly's able to do this, they'll be able to protect themselves from what's going to happen. The Trump administration now is trying to get with Trump Rx, Lilly, and Novo Nordisk to drop their prices to make them more available, which has happened. Now, I think you can get a $300 monthly dose of tirzepatide available through these websites.

Andrew Huberman:
Used to be 1,500.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah, 1,500 without insurance. Some insurance will cover it, some wouldn't. You'd have to get a savvy clinician that will advocate on your behalf to get these covered. But cash pay between even some of the pills, I think you can pay 150 bucks a month for the orforglumide, which is not a peptide, but still a GLP-1 agonist. Which kind of gets into the point, it doesn't matter if it's a peptide or not. What matters is where it touches, what receptor it touches. Because orforglumide is more similar to semaglutide. Both of them are GLP-1 drugs. One's a peptide, one's not. Then BPC is to semaglutide. So everyone online talking about peptides are good or peptides are bad, there is no actual scientific category of peptides that gives you a functional definition that's discussable between two people. Because what do you mean by peptide? Do you mean carnosine, or do you mean retatrutide?

Andrew Huberman:
Excellent point. Speaks to a lot of the confusion. You are a beam of clarifying information on this. Actually, I'm going to put in a vote publicly right here and now, but also I'm going to do what I can to contact folks that are relevant. I think you should, no joke, I think you should be in charge of a nomenclature committee. I think in the world of genetics, for a long time there, people would just name gene Sonic Hedgehog or-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... Sync1, or people would name it after their cousin. And it was a mess. And so what ends up happening is you find similarity between genes across different laboratories. Eventually, you have a meeting-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep

Andrew Huberman:
... and you have a nomenclature committee.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
And then you say, "This is Ephrin 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6."

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Right.

Andrew Huberman:
"These are the sequences." The general public doesn't think about molecules in that way.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
No.

Andrew Huberman:
But the general public are diving right into this. They are the experiment. And so what I think would be very, very useful would be a clear and accessible nomenclature to divide up what we've talked about today. BPC 157, peptides with and without known receptors, the regenerative peptides, as you've called them, things like thymosin alpha, TB 500, which are immunogenic peptides. I think the word peptides is just too general.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
It's too general.

Andrew Huberman:
I'm putting my vote in for you- ... not that you don't already have enough to do, to come up with some nomenclature that maybe I can help propagate and some of the other people in the podcast community.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Sure.

Andrew Huberman:
We'll even contact our close, close friends in legacy media and explain to them how this works, and maybe they can help propagate it. Just for sake of clarity.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep.

Andrew Huberman:
Right? We're not taking the stance these are good or bad, but just for sake of clarity, given that there's so many people that are peptide curious. Okay, so before we wrap, I solicited X and Instagram for questions about peptides. I did not reveal exactly who you are, but I gave some of your credentials and got back many, many excellent questions, most of which, thanks to you, were answered during the course of our conversation up until now.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Sweet.

Andrew Huberman:
But there are a couple of them that many people asked we didn't touch on, at least not directly. One thing that's come up several times is the question about for women who have endometriosis or fibroids or other things related to reproductive health and potential, can things like BPC 157 help and/or hurt those circumstances given their potential role in angiogenesis and the other things you described?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
No literature exists on either animal or human data that relates those peptides. I'd say those are more hormonal/metabolic issues that a good OBGYN should take care of. They're very difficult to treat conditions and very miserable to have for people, and they have fertility implications. But those are more on the hormonal side. I think the hormonal lever is way stronger than a peptide lever like BPC or any of those. And as far as I'm concerned, there's no case reports or studies that would suggest positive or negative

Andrew Huberman:
CNS effects, central nervous system-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Mm-hmm

Andrew Huberman:
... excuse me, of BPC 157 or other peptides that we've talked about that don't fall under the typical umbrella that people go to when they think about BPC 157. Now, you talked about some of the stuff related to alcohol-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... and perhaps other things like Adderall. But anything known about people feeling better or worse on different peptides, just psychologically, neurologically? TBI, I'll throw TBI in there for myself.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
I don't have TBI, fortunately, but I know many people that do. They reach out to me. Could it be beneficial in those cases?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah. There were studies in Russia on TBIs when it comes to cortexin and cerebralysin, which will probably never be available in the United States, so we'll skip those. There's no good data on BPC and TBIs. They theoretically could be useful from an anti-stress perspective. That'd be interesting to explore that. BPC's neurological effects are very homeostatic in nature. They don't let you get too high, in the mice data at least. The mice can't get too drunk, and they can't withdraw from alcohol. They can't get too high on, they'll give mice methamphetamines, and they can't get too high on the methamphetamines, and they don't withdraw either. So there's a homeostatic mechanism that might explain some of these anhedonia side effects that people are reporting, where BPC modulates the gut-brain axis in a way which we do not understand, it's kind of woo-woo, that makes it so that your brain can't go too far in one direction.

Andrew Huberman:
Hmm.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Maybe if we think of a just-so story, it's putting you into a rest-and-digest state to heal whatever problem you have, if that's why BPC exists as a big parent compound. That might be part of the fact that if you squeeze BPC, your body goes into a convalescent mode. Because it will take away stimulants, it'll take away sedatives. Don't try this, of course, but there seems to be a homeostatic mechanism in BPC that needs to be explored further with good data.

Andrew Huberman:
Very interesting. Thank you. The major question was: What should people do if they are actually interested in obtaining peptides? Let's just set the GLPs aside because it's kind of a separate category.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Sure.

Andrew Huberman:
And they want to explore their use, and they want to be as safe as possible. Where shouldn't they look-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... is how I'll phrase the question. Where should they look? Who should they talk to? At what point can they be confident that what they're taking is what the bottle claims and that it's free of contaminants-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah

Andrew Huberman:
... and so on? I have many questions, but I think this is the-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yep. It's the most difficult question to answer because the majority of people are getting their peptides from research-only websites. Unfortunately, those are not reliable. We don't know what's in them. They could be good, could be bad, could be as good as a compound pharmacy, could be much worse, could be the wrong peptide-

Andrew Huberman:
Mm-hmm

Dr. Abud Bakri:
... in the vial. So we don't know what's in there. What should happen over the next six, 12, 24 months is there will be a lot of physician-led options for patients to get peptides. Number one, you should encourage your physician. If you don't have one, get one and get a good relationship with one, because having a good relationship with your physician is a key aspect of driving good health. But having a physician that's educated on peptides, to my doctor friends, all of you guys now live in a peptide era. You have no choice but to get educated, so get educated. We should create resources for that. There will be a lot of telemed options opening up soon through various companies that will offer these peptides, and it will be good for the consumer because it'll be a race down in price. And then we'll know which compounding pharmacies are better, which ones are worse, so you can get better source peptides. But you should get them from clinicians. The question that's going to happen is there's going to be a lot of these orally available peptides, and they're going to be all over supplement websites. You'll find them with your magnesium, your creatine, and then your pinealion or your BPC 157. The question is, what is that going to look like? So we'd like our FDA overlords to give us some guidance there on what can and cannot be sold and bought. But it should be physician-led. You should be doing this under the guidance of a physician that's monitoring you. You shouldn't be taking tesamorelin without checking IGF-1 levels. A GLP-1 even should be monitored with a physician that can counsel you on too much weight loss. Some of these celebrities should have had better clinicians monitoring their GLP-1 journeys because they lost way too much weight. That doesn't look healthy at all. Unless, first of all, someone's not having the basics in place, there's no point in putting all these peptides in.

Andrew Huberman:
Morning sunlight, sleep-

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes

Andrew Huberman:
... darkness at night.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes.

Andrew Huberman:
Good diet, minimally processed food.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yes. The next phase of peptide curious and peptide-driven discussions is going to be how do you incorporate it into a giant health system? You do morning sunlight, blood blockers, and epitalon. You do BPC, and you work out in the gym, or whatever it may be. There's going to be protocols that develop. But I think within six months, there'll be very good physician options for everybody.

Andrew Huberman:
Abood, amazing. Thank you so much for coming here today and, again, shedding so much light on what all of these things are. You have clearly a virtuoso-level- ... understanding and ability to communicate about the history of these things, what they are, what they aren't, what we know, what we still don't know, the potential upsides, the potential hazards, the regulation, and on and on. There are 50 other topics that you and I must talk about at some point.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Yeah.

Andrew Huberman:
Your knowledge of hormones in men and women, pregnancy and women's hormones affecting the fetus, how progesterone impacts DHT in male offspring. Incredible. Absolutely want to have you back to have that discussion, but we'll let people digest this in the meantime. We'll put links to where people can find you. And I just want to say thank you for doing what you do. And if you don't mind me sharing, you're 33 years old?

Dr. Abud Bakri:
That's right.

Andrew Huberman:
I love that you're a clinician and you're practicing medicine, but please keep, wherever you can, keep up your efforts as a public educator. Come back and talk to us again. You're a gift to us all, and thank you so much.

Dr. Abud Bakri:
Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here, and thank you for the kind words.

Andrew Huberman:
Thank you for joining me for today's discussion with Dr. Abud Bakri. To learn more about his work and to find links to the various things we discussed, please see the show note captions. I should also mention that Dr. Bakri has just released a new app which is focused on circadian biology, which we didn't talk about today, but he's a true expert there as well. You can also find a link to that app in the show note caption. If you're learning from and/or enjoying this podcast, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. That's a terrific zero-cost way to support us. In addition, please follow the podcast by clicking the follow button on both Spotify and Apple. And on both Spotify and Apple, you can leave us up to a five-star review, and you can now leave us comments at both Spotify and Apple. Please also check out the sponsors mentioned at the beginning and throughout today's episode. That's the best way to support this podcast. If you have questions for me or comments about the podcast or guests or topics that you'd like me to consider for the Huberman Lab podcast, please put those in the comments section on YouTube. I do read all the comments. For those of you that haven't heard, I have a new book coming out. It's my very first book. It's entitled "Protocols: An Operating Manual for the Human Body." This is a book that I've been working on for more than five years, and that's based on more than 30 years of research and experience, and it covers protocols for everything from sleep to exercise to stress control, protocols related to focus and motivation, and of course, I provide the scientific substantiation for the protocols that are included. The book is now available by presale at protocolsbook.com. There you can find links to various vendors. You can pick the one that you like best. Again, the book is called "Protocols: An Operating Manual for the Human Body." And if you're not already following me on social media, I am HubermanLab on all social media platforms. So that's Instagram, X, Threads, Facebook, and LinkedIn. And on all those platforms, I discuss science and science-related tools, some of which overlaps with the content of the Huberman Lab podcast, but much of which is distinct from the information on the Huberman Lab podcast. Again, it's HubermanLab on all social media platforms. And if you haven't already subscribed to our Neural Network Newsletter, the Neural Network Newsletter is a zero-cost monthly newsletter that includes podcast summaries as well as what we call protocols in the form of one to three-page PDFs that cover everything from how to optimize your sleep, how to optimize dopamine, deliberate cold exposure. We have a foundational fitness protocol that covers cardiovascular training and resistance training. All of that is available completely zero cost. You simply go to hubermanlab.com, go to the Menu tab in the top right corner, scroll down to Newsletter, and enter your email. And I should emphasize that we do not share your email with anybody. Thank you once again for joining me for today's discussion with Dr. Abud Bakri. And last but certainly not least, thank you for your interest in science.

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