Peptides the Future of Medicine—or the Most Misused Health Trend Right Now? Regan Archibald
Peptides are everywhere right now.
From fat loss and muscle growth to injury healing, anti-aging, and longevity, these tiny signaling molecules are being marketed as the future of medicine. But between influencer hype, online “research peptides,” and biohacking trends… most people have no idea what’s real—and what could actually hurt them.
In this episode of the Crackin’ Backs Podcast, we sit down with Regan Archibald to break down the truth about peptides, longevity, and regenerative health.
This is not a surface-level conversation.
This is about understanding how peptides actually work—and how to use them responsibly.
In This Episode, We Explore:
What peptides actually are and how they function as biological signaling molecules
The biggest misconceptions about BPC-157, TB-500, GLP-1, and peptide “stacks”
Where peptides show real promise in healing, metabolism, and performance—and where hype gets ahead of science
Whether peptides can impact autoimmune conditions, inflammation, and recovery
The truth about oral vs injectable peptides
How people misuse peptides—and where dosing and stacking go wrong
What reactions like itching or inflammation at injection sites really mean
Whether peptides are necessary—or if foundational health still matters more
If you’ve ever searched:
“Do peptides work?”
“Are peptides safe?”
“Best peptides for healing or fat loss”
This episode gives you real-world insight from someone working directly in the field.
About Regan Archibald
Regan Archibald is a licensed acupuncturist, functional medicine practitioner, and one of the leading peptide and longevity specialists in the United States.
He is the founder of East West Health, an award-winning clinic focused on regenerative medicine, peptide therapy, and functional health optimization, where thousands of advanced lab panels have been used to identify root causes of disease and performance limitations.
Regan is also:
Author of multiple books including Never Stop Healing and The Peptide Blueprint
Creator of the Peptide Mastery Course
Founder of Ageless Future, a longevity-focused health platform
Host of the Unreasonable Health Podcast
His work focuses on helping individuals improve energy, recovery, metabolism, and long-term health using both cutting-edge therapies and foundational lifestyle strategies.
Learn More About Regan Archibald
Website: https://reganarchibald.com
Clinic (East West Health): https://acueastwest.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/regan-archibald-ab70b813
We are two sports chiropractors, seeking knowledge from some of the best resources in the world of health. From our perspective, health is more than just “Crackin Backs” but a deep dive into physical, mental, and nutritional well-being philosophies.
Join us as we talk to some of the greatest minds and discover some of the most incredible gems you can use to maintain a higher level of health. Crackin Backs Podcast
Dr. Spencer Baron (00:01)
Peptides may be the most talked about molecules in modern health from weight loss drugs and injury healing, Wolverine stacks and aging biohacks, but between influencer hype and people ordering powders online, the real science is getting lost. Today we're joined by the peptide expert, Reagan Archibald, to separate myth from medicine and show us how these tiny signaling molecules may shape the future of longevity if...
Regan Archibald (00:16)
Thank
Dr. Spencer Baron (00:29)
We use them wisely. Welcome to the show, Reagan, again.
Regan Archibald (00:33)
Man, so good to be back.
Dr. Spencer Baron (00:35)
Welcome, welcome.
Dr Terry (00:37)
I am so excited for this show. I'm so excited to see you. This is great.
Dr. Spencer Baron (00:41)
Hey, Reagan, let
me ask you, I was asking Terry, just for the audience, man, what makes you an expert? Give us a little history of why.
Regan Archibald (00:50)
man, well, I've heard the
definition from Peter Diamandis that an ⁓ expert is somebody who has all the answers and that is not me. but ⁓ it should be, ⁓ you know, it's an obsession. And you know, when you learn something and it feels like you've already learned it before, it's like intuitive. That's how peptides were with me about a decade ago when I jumped into them.
Dr. Spencer Baron (00:59)
You
Very good.
Regan Archibald (01:14)
I just, they came so naturally and understanding the pathways, the mechanics of them, understanding the energetic expression because all peptides are is these little amino acids that are folded in very particular sequence. And if they've got the right bonding and if they've got the right end caps, you're going to get this crazy physiological response with no toxic burden. so I think the only thing that makes me an expert is I probably, ⁓
spent more weekends studying peptides and experimenting with peptides than most humans on the planet.
Dr. Spencer Baron (01:51)
Well, you definitely had the jumpstart on it. So I'm looking forward to some of the new questions to ask, because, yes, they are exploding online from TikTok biohackers, you know, and these forums with anti-aging clinic. But, you know, a lot of people think that they could just order them from research sites. Man, could you answer what the hell is going on out there and fix? You they think they can fix their health. I hear it all the time at the office.
Regan Archibald (02:03)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, well, and we see that too, where clients will say, hey, I found a place where I can get my peptides. And we're like, OK, ⁓ that's great. Where are you getting them? And they're like, no, as a friend in there, it's a really good source. No, no, it's all tested, and it's above water. And I'm like, OK, well, yeah, who's the pharmacist that's making the peptide? What do you mean? There's no pharmacist. And so I mean, the big red flag is, if there's no pharmacist,
then there's no regulation, there's no testing. And yeah, they're going to test it out of any manufacturing facility and send you the COA. Everyone thinks the COA is like, ⁓ it's authentic and it's clean and you had one test on it. But that, know, even if it's 99 % pure, that does not mean that those amino acids are sequenced in the right way. You don't know the dosing. So if you're taking like a GLP-1, for example, you may have a
that's got twice the volume in it and you're putting your body at enormous risk and then when we've tested it at our 503A pharmacies what we've seen is contamination arsenic cadmium
heavy metals, and then there's lipopolysaccharides. So there's risk of infections. And this is really why the FDA, they're cracking down on a lot of these, what are called RUO, or human, not for human consumption, ⁓ peptide ⁓ manufacturers, because they are putting a lot of people at risk. And the worst is,
People are expecting to get a certain result from peptides and it's just not happening because it's not the right molecule and that structure is degradated before it can ever reach the side of the cell. mean, you take something like Tessamerelin. Tessamerelin does have FDA approval, but it's a very popular growth hormone releasing peptide. But what a lot of the Jim bros or whoever taking it from research use only, they don't realize there's a fatty acid on the end cap because it's a very long
amino acid chain, it's 44 amino acids. And if you don't have it properly structured by a pharmacist, then that peptide gets completely degradated before it even accesses that site where you want it to go. And we could go on and on about this, but peptide science is the largest distributor of these. ⁓ They close down, they're getting cease and desist. And the problem with a lot of these companies though, I mean, it's a billion dollar industry in the United States.
80 % of people using peptides are using research use only and hopefully that will change. these companies, they'll just have another business that they open up and another business. It's a Chinese knockoff product of peptides is all it is. It all comes from the same source.
Dr. Spencer Baron (05:13)
You know, you brought something up really important and that is how almost, I'd say 80 to 90%, 80 % of the people that come into my office ask about peptides, they're all into the natural healing and they think that's the way to go, but they get them online and all they have to do is check that little box that says ⁓ research for animals and.
that has skirted any kind of valid approach to injecting these substances. It's absolutely fascinating. So how do you do things differently than what goes on online?
Regan Archibald (05:55)
Yeah, well we've always used a 503A and when I was looking into peptides, I understand you know you just have this itch you want to try them and so the first couple of months you know this was over a decade ago I was like all right I'm going to just order some of these from this site where I could and just say I'm a researcher because I am but I'm the I'm the rat and ⁓
And then I just like I started like noticing like this is not smart because I have long. I mean I want to live to be 222. It's like why would I?
take a risk on something that's not for human consumption that I'm injecting into my body. It made no sense. So I actually spent an enormous amount of money to get the pharmacist, I found a pharmacist who loved peptides, was his PhD, was in ⁓ researching peptides. And so he knew how to structure them and he knew the covalent bonding work, how to use the acetylation.
And so I bought all the API. just said, okay, we'll invest a bunch of money. And can you compound the peptides with 503A? And he's like, yes, ⁓ absolutely. And so that's how it all started. And we've always used 503A, 503B compounding pharmacies. And it is not easy. The regulations because big pharma does not like compounding pharmacies. I mean, it's the only competition. I mean, they have a monopoly anyways.
Dr. Spencer Baron (07:22)
Yeah.
Regan Archibald (07:23)
but it's that
one competition that they wanna obliterate. mean, anyone that's taking a drop of their profits, they wanna take them out. But in the medical establishment, 503A Compounding Pharmacy is the oldest form of medicine, of allopathic medicine, because you can have this customized ⁓ drug made in a compounding pharmacy that's not.
mass distribution like Big Pharma wants. so yeah, it's very unique, but we've always used these licensed 503A pharmacies and vet them out, make sure they're the best of the best.
Dr Terry (08:01)
What is a 503A? What does that mean? Is that just a certification or what is that?
Regan Archibald (08:05)
It's
a very particular designation that means 503A pharmacies can take prescriptions in from doctors or prescribing providers and send it directly to a patient. So it's compounded in a personalized way. A 503B is they make more of the bulk substances for a lot of the 503A pharmacies when there are shortages.
Dr. Spencer Baron (08:30)
So can you explain how actually some of the more popular peptides, how do they communicate ⁓ with the signal and signal the cells to repair or grow or regulate? I think some of the audience needs to really get a deep dive into understanding how healing, aging and performance really works.
Regan Archibald (08:55)
I think the coolest thing about peptides is they naturally exist in your body and that's what researchers have been looking at. You take one of the most popular peptides, ⁓ BPC157, your body protective compound.
this is made naturally by your gastric secretion. So if you think of your stomach, it's a hostile environment for almost anything. It's like a brick oven. You want to heat it up so you can denature your proteins when you eat. also, peptides are very fragile molecules. mean, you don't want to expose them to a lot of hydrochloric acid. But
What researchers discovered out of Zegrab University in Croatia, this was 40, almost 50 years ago now, they discovered that there's this peptide that protects the lining of the stomach from the acids. And as they start, they wondered like, why doesn't this acid just completely ruin all the tissue structures in the body? And they found that it was BPC157 that's there as that protective agent. And BPC, every cell in your body has
as a receptor for BPC and they started looking at it. They're looking for like a panacea. said, well, if this is protecting...
the and that's why they call it the body protecting compound. So it's like a, it's like, it's a leverage point. It's like the master key that unlocks all the genes. And so when they started looking elsewhere, they found, okay, this, actually improves ⁓ fibroblasts. And so you get this is fibroblastic growth factor that helps with tendons. anyone who wants to build muscle, you know, your limiting factor is when the tendons start getting inflamed and it's hard to build muscle when you've got tendonitis.
And they found that, okay, you need fibroblasts and that's where BPC just shines. It promotes VEGF. So this vascular endothelial growth factor, it turns on the receptors for growth hormones. So if you're using BPC, you stack like a, mentioned Tessmorelin earlier, you stack those and now you have this compounding benefit of having more growth hormone expression and that's going to help you heal. It's a dopamine modulator. So it works on the brain. It's this neurotransmitter.
you know. ⁓
it's a refuel for the dopamine that we all have this like dopamine deficiency because we're on our phones. So BPC seems to help with that. I mean, it helps with nitric oxide. And anytime you have nitric oxide, you're going to have more mitochondrial biogenesis. So you're going to turn on energy pathways. So that's just one little example of how, you know, these peptides, they tune up the signaling, but it's not like a small molecule drug where you're suppressing one system in your body and you're pulling nutrients like you use a
statin
for example, now your liver is not going to make as much cholesterol and then but it's pulling CoQ10 which is the very thing our hearts need. It protects the mitochondria in your heart the cardiac cells have almost more mitochondria than any other system in your body and yet we're starving it out from CoQ10 just to suppress the cholesterol production instead of asking why is cholesterol high in the first place?
Dr. Spencer Baron (12:07)
I love that he is bringing this up, man, because I hear about this all day long. Okay, quick question. BPC-157 is an injectable, I guess, for the most part, I understand that it can also be a capsule that you can ingest, which makes it maybe more bioavailable because it is digested in the stomach. Can you just kind of comment on the difference?
Regan Archibald (12:10)
you
Yeah.
Yeah,
because you BPC. If you have an injury, you're probably you're going to get some benefits oral, but you'd be better off just using it as an injectable. And just so everyone knows, it's not FDA approved. It was put on the category two list at the end of the Biden administration. RFK is trying to change that. he's he was very he's been very public about the fact that the FDA, they did that legally, moving these substances down. But and a lot
of people there's a lot of criticism that there's not a lot of human studies on BPC ⁓ but there's there's a lot of clinical data like yeah I mean clinicians there's millions of prescriptions that have gone out every year for the last almost decades so so we do have that and and there are there are some European studies on humans there's there's actually a you know there's a study on bladder pain in women for example they found it it was very helpful for for that ⁓
So there are some interesting studies. We're actually starting what are called IRBs. And IRBs is like a pre-study before you apply for an IND, an investigational new drug. And so we're working with some PhDs right now on that.
But BPC157, if you take it orally, a lot of these, okay, research use only pharmacies or someone just kind of working in their own warehouse, they put it in the wrong material. So if you put it in the wrong capsule, the enzymes in some of the capsules can already cause these peptides to degrade.
And so you may not be even getting ⁓ any kind of benefit from it. But when it hits the stomach, because BPC 157 is already there, ⁓ it actually there's, and the way that our pharmacist makes it.
is there's enzymes that you want in that peptide structure so that when the peptide hits the stomach acids, now you've got enzymes that turn on the activation of the peptide and then those enzymes open up the gap junctions in the gut so that it can bind to the right receptors and then get transported into the blood. So if you have the right kind, and very few pharmacies actually know how to do this, they just think, can put peptides
Tied into a capsule just like anything else and it will be fine but it's not. You've got to have the right enzymes, the end caps. One thing you can do is you can tie the end caps together so that you get a better expression cellularly.
Dr. Spencer Baron (15:11)
So injecting BPC 157 does make it more bioavailable to obviously all the receptors, even in the gut and so on, right?
Regan Archibald (15:22)
It
does, but you can take it orally and you'll get about 80 % of absorption if done properly.
Dr. Spencer Baron (15:28)
if it's done properly. Could you also, I love that you're talking about the research and you you hear so much about social media has gone crazy about it, but can you clear the air about TB 500, GLP ones and the research that, you know, whatever strong evidence that is out there or is it overhyped? you know.
Regan Archibald (15:48)
Well, TB 500 is a fragment, you know, it's 15 amino acid of the larger, what's called thymus and beta four, and that's 43 amino acids. so what the researchers found is that there's these 15 fragments and that's TB 500. And that's the most active part of it. But if you're looking for immune modulation, we found thymus and beta four is just a little stronger. And actually it was discovered in the 60s.
And they really did a lot of research out of the Albert Einstein School of Medicine and TB 500 does have plenty of human clinical trials. And a lot of people don't, they don't, just take it at face value. Like, there's no, no data, but.
It's made by your thymus gland. It's very well documented as far as what it does with cell migration. So if you think you and I get an injury and now our body has to repair itself, well, thymus and beta-4, it predates anything else that's going on in your body to mobilize like your stem cells into the area to help you recover. And it's...
It's a really beautiful molecule. also, you know, macrophages are like, they're kind of like the, go in there and beat things up. You know, that's like the, you know, it's like the brute police force that show up and say, okay, we're evicting you get out now. And, and so, but there's macrophage one and there's, there's these two macrophages. And if you get stuck in this kind of chronic inflammatory response, your macrophages are always there beating your body up and you want to shift it over to the two.
where things get, now it's just police surveillance. And that's what thymus and beta four does, is it just creates this environment where you can pull your body out of these chronic inflammatory states. In one of the studies, ⁓ they looked at mice. First they did it on mice who had, they induced cardiovascular events, myocardial infarction.
and they ⁓ looked at the tissue, you know, they had the placebo group and then they had the thymus and beta-4 group and they looked at the cardiac tissue and the tissue becomes really fibrotic and rigid when you've had a heart attack or any kind of cardiovascular event and they found that the mice that had the thymus and beta-4, their cardiac tissue had not near the rigidity of the other mice and now you'll see in human studies they've actually found that it can help re-branch
a lot of that ischemic damage from myocardial infarctions. this, you know, these studies, it goes way back and I'm not really sure why no one's brought it to market because the evidence is overwhelming. I mean, it's angiogenic, so you get new vascularity in areas. It regulates that TH1, TH2 response. In some cases, you know, it can revitalize stem cells in the hair.
So otherwise it's not really that important. mean, but yeah, it's such a good peptide. It's such a good peptide.
Dr. Spencer Baron (18:49)
⁓ good.
I'm going on. Yeah. Let me let me
let me ask you, because there is some confusion. know, yes. R.F.K. Jr. wants to move from 12 or so of the 17 that are on the category two list into the category one list to make it more 14, is it? Yeah. So but how did if there's that?
Regan Archibald (19:14)
Yeah, 14 of the 19 is what he's talking about.
Dr. Spencer Baron (19:22)
kind of research out there, why is it so sluggish to move all those, you know, several of those popular ones onto category one? And how did GLP-1 become, you know, by the way, for the audience doesn't know, GLP-1 is not a drug, but it's a peptide. But some people think of it because you can get it by prescription that it's a drug or you have to get it by prescription for a doctor. Can you go over some of that?
Regan Archibald (19:47)
Yeah,
yeah, and if I'm getting too nuanced, you guys just cut me off and we can have more fun. But this is like, if you just look at what is classified as a drug, ⁓ if the three of us were on here and Terry is like, hey, an orange cures cancer, right? And I've got it's curing cancer, then the FDA is gonna say, okay, cool, have you ran it through the...
three phases of clinical trials. And first of all, you got to establish safety. And then second, you have to establish efficacy and that's phase two.
And then phase three is where, okay, now we need to know that it's safer and more effective than any other drugs on the market. And so we'd have to have a condition and Dr. Terry would be like, all right, oranges treat cancer. And so here's, here's what we're going to do. And then an orange would literally be a drug. so, ⁓ I mean, you could classify anything as a drug if you're treating a particular condition. so with peptides, you know, this is, this is where like the GLP ones, they,
they are a peptide that naturally occurs in your body. And liraglutide was one of the first GLP ones ⁓ ever made. it was, you know, it's been around for about 20 years and it had a lot of side effects. And then they, they just kept kind of iterating and they found that semaglutide was a little better. And then we all know ozembic, but the way pharmaceutical companies can get a patent on something natural is it's the administration of it. So, so Terry would say, well, with this orange, you have to eat the pills and you have
boil it in water and then there's a whole distillation that you want to do and you want to put pressure on it and that would be the administration of the orange because no one can patent something that already exists in nature but you can patent the administration. That's what they did with those Zimbik. They said here's our clinical trials and no one else can copy it so even the 503A compounding pharmacies that are producing semiglutide and they're doing it the same dose and same recommendation
as Ozembic, for example, they're getting sued and because they're violating the patent that Eli Lilly has. so it's been a renovonordisc or whoever is making these. And so that's kind of the thing that's not happened with thymus and beta-4. It's not gone through the clinical trials for specific conditions. They've just said, okay, and that's when we're starting an IRB, ⁓ if we wanted to
it to an IND, then we have to mobilize you know 150 to 100 million dollars just to get it down that pathway for drug manufacturing.
And in order to do that, you've got to have shareholders. There's got to be, there's got to be some financial gains at the end. And it's really hard to patent something natural like Thomas and beta four, because you know, people already know about it. BPC one five seven. It's like, how are we going to enforce all these patent violations, even Reddit True Tide, which is the big triple agonist. This Reddit True Tide is by the way, it's a, it's
Dr. Spencer Baron (22:55)
gonna ask you. Yeah.
Regan Archibald (22:57)
It's the biggest medical breakthrough of our lifetime. mean, it's amazing. And I think there'll be bigger ones every year in the near future. But even rather true to Eli Lilly is the reason why it's not on the market. And I could be speculating, I don't work for Eli Lilly, but ⁓ they're trying to get as many indications for it to turn this into a drug that treats.
Osteoarthritic knees, they're triumph for studies. 76 % of people using it had a significant reduction in osteoarthritic knees. Sleep apnea, ⁓ obviously weight loss. You can lose almost 30 % of your total body fat. And that was another finding in phase three. So obesity, diabetes, they're even considering it ⁓ for like...
fatty liver disease. it's, it's actually, but they want to get as many indications as they can so that they can sue anyone who's compounding it or anyone who's marketing it because that's theirs.
So again, they put the money into it. They're the ones that landed on using this triple agonist, but hopefully that gives people a little better perspective on what natural medicine is up against when it comes to the FDA and then big pharma.
Dr. Spencer Baron (23:59)
Right.
Reagan, just wanted to ask you about, know, that you had mentioned there are so many iterations of the GLP ones and then the most recent one being red atrootide. I was going to ask you about that because I've been hearing about that, that people are getting it online and so on. But from what I understand that red atrootide ⁓ different from the other ones, it allows you to retain muscle or ⁓ provides. As a matter of fact, I read a New York Times article that talked about this this hormone.
Regan Archibald (24:27)
Yeah.
Dr. Spencer Baron (24:45)
called Ostarine that is in Rettichrutide. Is that true? I mean, is that what helps retain muscle or?
Regan Archibald (24:48)
Yeah.
No,
mean, you can stack it with Austrian or ⁓ Nandrolone. mean, those are, know, for like osteoporosis, like Nandrolone is another, you know, some of the bodybuilders use it as a performance enhancing drug.
I've never seen red or true tide compounded with it. So if you could send me the data, that'd be interesting. But red or true tide is a GLP one, but the GLP one is where you get the most side effects because it delays gastric emptying. So we feel full longer and it's, it's about eight times weaker than like the GLP one in semiglutide.
So it's just a tiny pulse. So you maintain your appetite, which a lot of people, they're like, I'm still, I'm still hungry on this, but your appetite is a good thing, folks. Like you want to be hungry. Like, I get it. Not all the time, just turn off the food noise, but eat some damn good food. And then you, you don't have to worry about it. and that's where most people lose muscle cause they, they're on such a high dose because in the, in the trials, you know, the, at the highest doses where people have the most dramatic weight loss.
Dr. Spencer Baron (25:46)
⁓
Dr Terry (25:46)
Right.
Dr. Spencer Baron (25:57)
Yes.
Regan Archibald (26:03)
And, but that's also where they have the most dramatic side effects.
And doctors are trying to escalate patients up onto the highest dose as quickly as possible. It's more money for the big pharma. But the second peptide in Rettutrutide is called, it's a GIP. And the GIP is an incretion molecule and it helps stabilize the insulin resistance. So it gets insulin into the cell. And so semaglutide is just GLP-1. There's a little bit of insulin regulation but nearly as robust as trisepidotide.
which is, you know, dual agonist. And so you get that that GIP and now it's like, okay, now we're getting better results, fewer side effects, we're on to something. And then the third peptide was glucagon. And glucagon is the one that you mentioned, it actually increases your blood sugar. And so it's there because your liver is more responsible for regulating your blood sugar between meals and when you're sleeping than your pancreas is. And so that glucagon, what it does is it
turns on PGC1 alpha so you get more mitochondrial biogenesis. So now the engine's turned on and when you turn on the engine, now you're gonna burn more energy even when you're not moving. And that's what they found is it protects the lean muscle mass.
Dr. Spencer Baron (27:26)
Were you starting, I think you almost started to ease into the microdosing aspect now for the GLP ones as more of a benefit than the big bolus of doing it at a high level being more ⁓ of an advantage.
Regan Archibald (27:40)
Yeah. Well, in
And this is where the 503A compounding pharmacies have been great because a lot of most people do not need that, that mega dose. And, you know, like our clinic ageless future, like we just, we don't, I mean, we, don't treat disease. just, we help healthy people get healthier. That's, that's what we do. And so now our providers, our doctors are able to write prescriptions as a micro dose or a dose that's below what would be considered therapeutic.
in the clinical studies. And we've actually had doctors from other places like write us letters and like you're under dosing your patient. I'm like, well, yeah, they lost 20 pounds and they've got like, look at their six pack and they feel great. Like this is medicine, it's personalized. And some people just don't get that.
So the microdose, and some people would mistakenly say that microdosing is where you just, you do small amounts, you two times a week or three times a week. Don't do that. The GOP1s have a half-life of 144 hours. So that's roughly six and a half days. So if you're doing these microdosing, you're just confusing your physiology. But a microdose would be something that's ⁓ lower than the lowest dose.
in the clinical trials.
Dr. Spencer Baron (29:07)
Nice.
Dr Terry (29:07)
Hey, to make
it even simpler for the laypeople and stupid people like me, I hear all the time people coming in and they're going, have you seen all these celebrities on Ozempic and they look gaunt, they look terrible, they've lost so much weight. so...
Regan Archibald (29:15)
Wait.
Dr. Spencer Baron (29:25)
Yes, yes.
Dr Terry (29:30)
you're touching up for the lay people what do they need to pay attention to because I guess there's since it's natural I guess there's some some good things yeah yeah but I guess there's some good things that they they can come out of it but you know if they want to lose weight but don't want to look gone and then they hear well once you lost it you'll never get back and they look terrible blah blah blah and you see all these celebrities over and over and over what's some strategies for the lay person who doesn't know doesn't know what's going on
Dr. Spencer Baron (29:37)
The mirror.
Dr Terry (29:58)
We don't want them ordering stuff on Amazon. We don't want them to go to the doctor and go, need ozempic. What's some strategies that you can put in a layperson's head who doesn't understand chemistry of how to handle the proper way to use a GLP-1?
Regan Archibald (30:02)
All right.
Well, the proper way is finding someone who understands health holistically. they're not just looking at, let's get your weight off at all costs. mean, weight is just one number. so it does, know, where you want to start, get your blood labs ran because then in your blood labs, you can see if maybe you're not breaking down proteins. You know, we talked about the stomach earlier. And so you want to make sure that you've got lifestyle and habits that are going to support the weight loss because when your body
let's go wait. It's really hard on your liver, on your kidneys to get rid of all those toxins that your body's releasing. So you want to make sure that, okay, are they going to put you on a detoxification plan? Is there health coaching so that you make sure you're getting your macros? You're getting roughly one gram of protein per pound of
ideal body weight. I mean, that's a lot of protein. And when you don't have an appetite, then it's like, okay, we need to titrate this dose down even lower until you can start hitting your protein targets. it's like, instead of having the goal be, let's get the weight down, the goal needs to be, let's optimize your health.
And then as you get healthier, your weight's going to come down. But I've seen too many people end up in much worse shape. mean, sick for months, being on it, they have no energy. There's actually a study that they found that if you turn off GLP-1, it is a pleasure pathway in the brain.
You guys like eating. I love eating, right? It gives pleasure. But when you're muting that signal too much, people actually have a GLP-1 induced depression, and it's very well documented.
But it all, you know, the flip side of that is, help with addiction. And so I don't, I don't know very many celebrities, but, uh, you know, know a lot of them struggle with the there's addictive profiles there and you know, the smoking cessation is amazing with the, the GOP ones, uh, and food. So I think the biggest thing is get your blood labs ran and then it's not just using a single peptide. Like we would never prescribe just a GOP one. We'd always say, well, let's protect the gut because.
you're slowing down gastric damping. get you on like BPC 157. We want to build muscle so let's bring in Tessamerelin or maybe a myostatin inhibitor like MOTC or ACE 031. I mean there's things that you can do to really help increase the performance of this person but the peptides we found it's like a band. It's really nice to listen to an acoustic guitar but man when you bring the drummer in it's like okay now we're rocking. Now maybe you bring the cello
in, you got a lead singer, that's what peptide stacking does. just enhances the signaling of everything around it. Like I mentioned with BPC 157, it's activating the growth hormone receptors. So why not give your body a little more growth hormone if you're somebody who's over 40 and you have some robust longevity goals.
Dr Terry (33:14)
You know the first thing that I heard was you brought a cello in with an electric guitar so... ⁓
Regan Archibald (33:19)
I just came to mind. I'm obviously not a musician. give me, I hope the analogy
worked for everyone but Terry. Terry's like, this guy doesn't know what he's talking about.
Dr. Spencer Baron (33:30)
Yeah.
Dr Terry (33:30)
Thank you.
Now I'm so simple
minded. just, you know, hey, so what I am hearing is that I want the people to listen is you have to have a strategy and you can't just, I need to lose weight. I'm going my doctor. Give me a pill. If they're not doing blood work, if they're not watching things, if they're not looking at what you actually are needed, that's a huge issue. So you don't want to be your Amazon doctor, your Google doctor. You want to actually have people that understand what they're going on. And a question I had when I heard when they, when I was
Dr. Spencer Baron (33:36)
That's great.
Dr Terry (34:02)
talking about you coming on the show was I have people and I've had three of them talk about Hashimoto's disease and RA and using peptides for handling these conditions and I'm like are we talking symptom management are we talking immune modulation we're talking something deeper what's what's your thoughts on those conditions?
Regan Archibald (34:21)
Yeah, well, you may remember last time we talked, I got out of the conventional medical route and went to Chinese medical school. And that's where I got exposure to Eastern medicine, holistic healing. also did an internship at the Northern Hawaii Community Hospital. So I got a really good understanding of ⁓ Western medicine.
and but Hashimoto's was the thing that got me there. So ⁓ if you're using peptides for these, know, first thing is what's the cause? And Hashimoto's, you know, we found there's four triggers that we call in the epic triggers. So there's an emotional
part of it that can be a big component of that autoimmune condition. know, PTSD, that can just dysregulate your immune system. The second one is if there's chronic pain and the body ages much faster when there's chronic pain, which is like Kraken Back's podcast, you guys help get people out of pain. And what you may or may not realize is you're making their brains younger just by doing that and their whole body younger. So...
Brilliant. And then the third one are infections. And that's the biggest one that I see is infections and chemicals. So with Hashimoto's, you know, there's there's a good peptide called LL 37 that can help eradicate infections. It's gentle. We call it the silent assassin. The compassionate assassin is actually I have these peptide cards and I have like these these kind of avatars on it. And it's got the samurai and it's like the compassionate assassin because it the
The LL37, it knows what is foreign to your body that's going to hurt your body, but it doesn't target any other bacteria. like an antibiotic is like, it just crushes everything. And LL37 is brilliant. It's an antimicrobial peptide known as a catholicidin, but it regenerates the tissue.
as it's eradicating viruses or fungal infections or bacterial infections. And so that can be a critical component of thymus and alpha one. The second thing that we found is if you can stack an immune modulator like thymus and beta four, we talked about that earlier. And then thymus and alpha one. Thymus and alpha one is approved in over 30 countries for autoimmunity. They use it as an immune.
protectant and chemotherapy. It's a vaccine adjunct, so it can actually help vaccines have fewer side effects and be more targeted to the immune system. So thymus and alpha want to be great. then most people with Hashimoto's, mean, probably like everyone has some kind of leaky gut. And that's where like BPC 157, KPV, the other peptide that is really helpful at down regulating systemic inflammation of the gut is called lorazetide. And lorazetide
was it's a peptide that was approved for celiacs patients because you know a lot of times the celiacs you go wash your hands and there's gluten in the soap you you wash your you put shampoo in your hair because gluten gives everything that texture and then they end up in the bathroom all day but if they if they have lorazetide then they can have these minor exposures to gluten and it doesn't upset their gut but but even if you don't have celiacs lorazetide is very protective for the gut lining
Dr Terry (37:48)
fascinating. You know, you're talking about stacking, you know, you just mentioned that word, that just means adding on to right. And then before the show Spencer brought up ⁓ in California, especially the young adults are having these peptide parties. And, and it's like all these young guys are trying to get all pumped up and they're taking these peptide parties. Can you talk to us about the dangers of that and, and how stacking multiples every day can be dangerous? And what do people get in trouble
Dr. Spencer Baron (37:48)
Brilliant. Freaking brilliant.
Dr Terry (38:18)
this dosing thing and and what to avoid in these stacking parties or whatever.
Regan Archibald (38:24)
Yeah, and you mentioned a rave, Spencer. that's like a big, I don't know what they're doing, but oxytocin hopefully is part of it. ⁓
Dr. Spencer Baron (38:26)
Yeah. Yeah.
I'll send you
Dr Terry (38:33)
you
Dr. Spencer Baron (38:34)
the article that came out. It's
whacked. Yeah, go ahead.
Regan Archibald (38:36)
That's great, because
here's the truth. mean, I think I was the first person to host a peptide party. And so we have these longevity retreats. And so we'll have nasal sprays and like some oral sprays. So it's just basic. not doing injections or anything at a therapeutic level, just enough so people can experience what it's like to use some of these peptides as an educational tool. And what you're referring to,
is some people who get very aggressive just thinking that more is better. It sounds like they're very American, which I love, but...
with peptides, there's going to be a diminishing return because you can stack peptides together. But a lot of times when clients come in and we look at their protocol, we're like, well, who put you on this protocol? they're like, well, you know, my chat GPT or whatever, know, it's, you know, I, just following some influencers stack, like what they're doing and they're working on the same pathway. And so when you have like two peptides working on the same pathway, and especially like if you're using growth hormone, ⁓ releasing peptides,
like
IGF-1, LR-3, CJC, 1295, Sermerelin, Test Sermerelin.
and you're using those together. Well, the first thing is you're, it's a lot of money that you're injecting into your body and you're, you can only pulse growth hormones so much. And you want to have this nice pulse of tile range where you pulse it and then it calms down, pulse it and it calms down because it's a feedback loop. And so if you're over saturating your receptors, then you're not going to get the same benefits the next time you do it. And this is where you want to cycle peptides. So you can stack peptides together as long as you're
on different pathways and it's congruent with what you need in your labs. Otherwise you're just kind of wasting money but the danger comes when I see clients doing like IGF-1, ⁓ LR-3 and that one is not nearly as pulsatile. So you've got to be careful when you use it because it can cause a disruption in your blood sugar.
So I think this is, for the most part, there's very, very low risk, but outside of ⁓ having a very expensive stack that is getting you nowhere fast.
Dr. Spencer Baron (40:41)
Very nice.
Dr Terry (40:56)
But the danger could be where you're getting them from, they're getting these, yeah, so if you're getting these rays from China, that could be your danger stuff,
Regan Archibald (41:00)
That's the real... Yeah, cause these...
I think you're on, I think that would probably be your biggest risk and whether you're using a small amount or large amount, these endotoxins, they compound over time. So, you know, we had a client a couple of weeks ago and, um, you know, he reached out to us and he said, Oh, I'm getting all these like nodules on my skin from CJC and I'm starting to notice that I'm getting like eczema. And, um, you know, I looked up his name. like, I don't see in our system who, like, I don't think we were working together. he said, Oh no, my friend said that you're
you're
the guy to talk to and your team. And as we looked up, you know, he said, no, it's not, it's not a research use only peptide. It's from a great source. And, ⁓ and then I just, I had him send me a picture and then I showed him right on their website, this tiny, tiny font, like almost had a map, had to have a magnifying glass for it as like three, the font size and not for research use only. And so, but it was, he'd been using it for months, but it was the endotoxin
can build up and accumulate. you can imagine, Terry, at these parties, they're just loading their body and so it's only a matter of time before the system breaks.
Dr. Spencer Baron (42:19)
really good information because I'm hearing things like that too. How about sometimes I hear about itching at the injection site redness like a histamine type of reaction ⁓ oftentimes like with GHKCU or something what's actually happening with that and is there a way to I mean the itching is uncomfortable for a short period of time but what's actually going on is that a negative thing is that just what happens?
Regan Archibald (42:35)
Sure.
Well, with the peptides, know, there's a specific buffering agent that, you know, can change the pH and GHK copper has a little more acidity. And so it does trigger a little more of that like histamine response. It's not dangerous, but if you're getting it on a regular basis, then you may be either pushing the peptide in too fast or you've got the wrong angle on the needle or you need to give yourself a
break on the peptides or it's just run your blood labs and you can see when if your eosinophils are really high, for example, you're just going to have an overactive histamine response. And so get on an anti-histamine diet. ⁓ KPV is a really great peptide that helps kind of solve that problem for, you know, clients of ours who've had the, you know, they just they have a very sensitive immune system. ⁓ KPV can be really helpful. But if you are getting those nodules on a regular basis from a variety of
peptides.
You really want to work on your immune system first because you could put yourself in anaphylaxis and so make sure if anyone's using peptides just have some Benadryl just in case ⁓ just some kind of antihistamine in case your body does have a reaction to it.
Dr. Spencer Baron (44:06)
All right, so now we're in the baby boomer era here that wants to live longer. Forty five and sixty year olds, you know, want all that longevity and so on. did they really? mean, you know, is would you say that peptides is the is the new way?
Regan Archibald (44:18)
Yeah.
Do they really? Are
Dr Terry (44:23)
Thank
you.
Regan Archibald (44:25)
you just asking like how crappy is their life? mean, is that...
Dr Terry (44:31)
The guy
wants to 220 years, yeah.
Regan Archibald (44:34)
You're right. Well, and it's like that quote, know, everyone wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die.
Dr. Spencer Baron (44:34)
Yeah, right, right. Yeah.
Perfect. know, peptides in the, what do you see maybe in the next 10 years? you, honest man, do you see peptides being the, you know, this new fad or is this something that you see is going to be implemented as part of a future to foundational health?
Regan Archibald (45:05)
You know, when we started getting into these, I created this peptide course in 2019 for doctors. And I was like, because I trained my team and, and, I was like, then I had so many people reaching out. like, okay, here's how you can learn it. Just get on my course. And then we'd have live events as well. And I thought peptides would be as big as they are today in like a matter of two or three years. said, I can't believe that people aren't using these more because you know, I've been practicing about 15, 16 years at the time.
And
I just saw the difference in the progress that my clients were making. I mean, these really challenging conditions to treat, suddenly people are just getting enormously better. And then we started to see, you know, metabolically when the GOP1s came out, like roughly 21, we just saw this, like, just took out the guesswork. It's like, let's just turn, mute the signaling in the brain and then people lost.
weight and it was very simple. It made our job 10 times easier. ⁓ But I think peptides, we have just scratched the surface. So I'm in a group called DaVinci 50 on ⁓ the medical advisory board. And so I get a front row seat to all of the new medical innovations. And these are not just speculative therapies. These are where there's humans having work done. And so a lot of them are outside of the country. And I can tell you stem cell therapy and peptide therapy is in its
infancy and peptides, especially because, you know, we've sequenced still maybe 10 % of, of, you know, some of these beautiful active peptides in the body. And we still like even, even the addition, if you take, you know, GLP one, we'll take red or true type, for example, and, and they had studied extensively, well, what if we just give someone glucagon? Is that going to help them lose weight? And it was really hard on the liver, hard on the body. didn't work well in isolation.
What about GIP, know, that that increase in molecule that helps with insulin sensitivity? Same thing. People did not lose weight. It was very hard on the body. GLP-1, you can use it alone. But when you stack them together, now you've got the electric guitar and the cello, which doesn't go very well, but it does go well. ⁓ But yeah, so I think just the ability where we have and that's one reason why we're starting our own just
kind of scientific ⁓ advisory board and we'll be announcing you know kind of our results is because you know it's it's what are the right combinations and we actually were awarded a patent called the peptide pathway bypass this year.
And so I was able to prove ⁓ with certainty that we can find out what's going on in your labs, what genes are not expressed and what peptides can actually make the strongest changes in your labs. And so ⁓ we've got that technology and so we're going to be applying it in these clinical studies. And then you have pharmacists and our pharmacist is brilliant. Like he's got so many ideas of things he wants to stack together. And then there's all these peptides that are still like out
there in you know in kind of the ethers where they haven't really made it through a whole lot of these animal models but with AI I think we're gonna just be able to fast flow that and start understanding how these cool proteins really work.
Dr. Spencer Baron (48:37)
Terry, you got any more questions for our expert testimony? Because I'm ready.
Dr Terry (48:40)
I'm still trying to
process question number one. So yeah, we're good.
Dr. Spencer Baron (48:45)
Reagan
Regan Archibald (48:46)
Okay, well
here's the big breakthrough that we'll see is in the mitochondrial side.
Dr. Spencer Baron (48:49)
if you
Regan Archibald (48:53)
And so that's where I would say look for that first because, you know, we got SLUPE 332 coming out. We've got ⁓ SS 31 that got FDA approved last year for Barth syndrome. So this mitochondrial deficiency and the FDA fast floated because there's no other treatment. And, and these kids now have a life because of SS 31. It's four amino acid chains. It's like tiny. And then you look at human and they're testing it for Alzheimer's, know, mitochondrial imbalance.
MOTC, exercise mimetics. So I think that's where the biggest breakthroughs will be is in mitochondria.
Dr Terry (49:30)
I actually do have one more question. you know, there it is. See, it took a while for my process to happen. All right. So, uh, Oh, I need more than that. So we are, you're our guy. We love you. And, uh, you're the only guy that, you know, that I refer to, but when it comes to somebody listening to show whether they're anywhere else and they want to, to do this the right way. And let's say they're a chiropractor or PT or somebody.
Dr. Spencer Baron (49:33)
There it is.
Need some matzi, bro.
Dr Terry (49:58)
What can they look for in their town to try and help their patients? So you mentioned trying to find a compound pharmacy that knows this and doing blood work. What would the other person taking yourself out of the equation, what do they need to do to make their patients healthy?
Regan Archibald (50:16)
man, well.
they can, they can reach out. have a telemedicine platform if they want to get into peptides and, and they, ⁓ want to have a prescribing, ⁓ physician or a nurse practitioner who's licensed in their state to collaborate with them. Then, they can just reach out and I'll get them connected with, ⁓ telemedicine platform that, ⁓ is licensed in all 50 states. They work directly with, ⁓ you know, our approved pharmacies and.
That would be easy for him to get rocking with.
Dr. Spencer Baron (50:52)
Reagan, if you remember from our first interview, this is the time that we do the rapid fire questions and we got five of them. You're quick on your feet. I'm sure you're loaded with the good peptides. They'll get you to answer concisely and quickly. If you're ready for question number one, you good? All right, man. Reagan, if peptides truly represent the next frontier of precision medicine, what is one message you want people to remember?
Regan Archibald (51:05)
We'll find out.
Dr Terry (51:08)
Yeah
Regan Archibald (51:12)
Good.
Dr. Spencer Baron (51:21)
so they don't get lost in the hype, especially with all these social media ⁓ mavens out there.
Regan Archibald (51:28)
Precision depends on the environment, so you always have to take care of your health.
Dr. Spencer Baron (51:34)
Question, okay, question number two. You are one of the few guys that talks about acupuncture and epithelium in the same sentence. If you had to choose one for the next 20 years, ancient medicine or modern peptide science, which one wins?
Regan Archibald (51:53)
Well, is it just epitalin or is it all the peptides?
Dr. Spencer Baron (51:58)
Well, let's do epithelin and then comment on all the peptides.
Regan Archibald (52:02)
Yeah, I'll take
acupuncture, especially if I had like a really gifted acupuncturist that I could just take around with me the rest of my life, like absolutely. But if I had to give up all the peptides, I would just say, sorry, I'm going to leave acupuncture behind.
Dr. Spencer Baron (52:12)
All right. All right.
Beautiful. I agree. All right. Question number three, what's the one health habit, you know, you should do every day, but still occasionally skip like the rest of us might do.
Dr Terry (52:19)
There you go.
Regan Archibald (52:21)
Thank
Well, I'll tell you one that I just, do and I don't skip, which is I love like bakeries and I live in a town where there's all these like European bakeries coming. So maybe once or twice a week, I end up with a croissant in my hand, but don't tell anybody.
Dr. Spencer Baron (52:51)
Man, I love croissants. my gosh, they're great. Right? Question number four, if someone spent one day following you around from morning to night, what's something about the way you live that would surprise people who only know you as the peptide expert?
Dr Terry (52:52)
yeah, my god.
Regan Archibald (52:54)
Woo, so
good.
⁓ They'd probably be surprised at the amount of ⁓ physical activity I have maybe, or they probably would realize I'm not as serious as a lot of people think I am. It's what I've heard more often than not. They just feel like I'm just like this surfer bum from California or something like that. So that's probably one of the things.
Dr. Spencer Baron (53:37)
Love it, All right, last question, buddy. Imagine you're 95 years old sitting on a porch, obviously in a rocking chair, somewhere in the mountains looking back at your life. would have mattered more to you in the end, the science you discovered or the lives you changed along the way?
Regan Archibald (53:57)
I think it would be the lives I changed along the way because of the science I was really interested in. And I like taking discoveries and helping apply those discoveries in people's life because I know it's going to help them. So it's always about how many people had a health transformation because of the work I'm doing. And that would be kind of my test ⁓ of a good life.
Dr. Spencer Baron (54:23)
That's great. And that is so true for all of us. Thanks, Reagan. You've been extra special, man. You answered more of the questions that I even had for you. It was great having you on again. actually, yeah, I imagine we're going to have them on again. then because the science is just evolving. Terry, you got any questions left for Reagan or?
Regan Archibald (54:35)
My pleasure, so good to be back.
Dr Terry (54:40)
you
The only question I have is when can you come back?
Dr. Spencer Baron (54:52)
Yeah.
Regan Archibald (54:52)
Yeah, I'll bring my pharmacist next time.
⁓ can answer all these nuances. If you want to get in the weeds, let me know. I can set it up.
Dr Terry (54:57)
I would love that.
Dr. Spencer Baron (54:57)
That would be cool.
The end.
Dr Terry (55:02)
I love that. Let's do that and we're going to keep in touch and you know I just can't thank you enough for all your wisdom and and just coming on the show your wisdom is trying to help other people and that's so obvious so thank you for for being you.
Dr. Spencer Baron (55:03)
Absolutely.
Regan Archibald (55:15)
You got it. Thanks, you guys.
Dr. Spencer Baron (55:16)
Thanks.
Thanks.
Dr Terry (55:17)
Take care, bud.
Peptides may be the most talked about molecules in modern health from weight loss drugs and injury healing, Wolverine stacks and aging biohacks, but between influencer hype and people ordering powders online, the real science is getting lost. Today we're joined by the peptide expert, Reagan Archibald, to separate myth from medicine and show us how these tiny signaling molecules may shape the future of longevity if...
Regan Archibald (00:16)
Thank
Dr. Spencer Baron (00:29)
We use them wisely. Welcome to the show, Reagan, again.
Regan Archibald (00:33)
Man, so good to be back.
Dr. Spencer Baron (00:35)
Welcome, welcome.
Dr Terry (00:37)
I am so excited for this show. I'm so excited to see you. This is great.
Dr. Spencer Baron (00:41)
Hey, Reagan, let
me ask you, I was asking Terry, just for the audience, man, what makes you an expert? Give us a little history of why.
Regan Archibald (00:50)
man, well, I've heard the
definition from Peter Diamandis that an ⁓ expert is somebody who has all the answers and that is not me. but ⁓ it should be, ⁓ you know, it's an obsession. And you know, when you learn something and it feels like you've already learned it before, it's like intuitive. That's how peptides were with me about a decade ago when I jumped into them.
Dr. Spencer Baron (00:59)
You
Very good.
Regan Archibald (01:14)
I just, they came so naturally and understanding the pathways, the mechanics of them, understanding the energetic expression because all peptides are is these little amino acids that are folded in very particular sequence. And if they've got the right bonding and if they've got the right end caps, you're going to get this crazy physiological response with no toxic burden. so I think the only thing that makes me an expert is I probably, ⁓
spent more weekends studying peptides and experimenting with peptides than most humans on the planet.
Dr. Spencer Baron (01:51)
Well, you definitely had the jumpstart on it. So I'm looking forward to some of the new questions to ask, because, yes, they are exploding online from TikTok biohackers, you know, and these forums with anti-aging clinic. But, you know, a lot of people think that they could just order them from research sites. Man, could you answer what the hell is going on out there and fix? You they think they can fix their health. I hear it all the time at the office.
Regan Archibald (02:03)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, well, and we see that too, where clients will say, hey, I found a place where I can get my peptides. And we're like, OK, ⁓ that's great. Where are you getting them? And they're like, no, as a friend in there, it's a really good source. No, no, it's all tested, and it's above water. And I'm like, OK, well, yeah, who's the pharmacist that's making the peptide? What do you mean? There's no pharmacist. And so I mean, the big red flag is, if there's no pharmacist,
then there's no regulation, there's no testing. And yeah, they're going to test it out of any manufacturing facility and send you the COA. Everyone thinks the COA is like, ⁓ it's authentic and it's clean and you had one test on it. But that, know, even if it's 99 % pure, that does not mean that those amino acids are sequenced in the right way. You don't know the dosing. So if you're taking like a GLP-1, for example, you may have a
that's got twice the volume in it and you're putting your body at enormous risk and then when we've tested it at our 503A pharmacies what we've seen is contamination arsenic cadmium
heavy metals, and then there's lipopolysaccharides. So there's risk of infections. And this is really why the FDA, they're cracking down on a lot of these, what are called RUO, or human, not for human consumption, ⁓ peptide ⁓ manufacturers, because they are putting a lot of people at risk. And the worst is,
People are expecting to get a certain result from peptides and it's just not happening because it's not the right molecule and that structure is degradated before it can ever reach the side of the cell. mean, you take something like Tessamerelin. Tessamerelin does have FDA approval, but it's a very popular growth hormone releasing peptide. But what a lot of the Jim bros or whoever taking it from research use only, they don't realize there's a fatty acid on the end cap because it's a very long
amino acid chain, it's 44 amino acids. And if you don't have it properly structured by a pharmacist, then that peptide gets completely degradated before it even accesses that site where you want it to go. And we could go on and on about this, but peptide science is the largest distributor of these. ⁓ They close down, they're getting cease and desist. And the problem with a lot of these companies though, I mean, it's a billion dollar industry in the United States.
80 % of people using peptides are using research use only and hopefully that will change. these companies, they'll just have another business that they open up and another business. It's a Chinese knockoff product of peptides is all it is. It all comes from the same source.
Dr. Spencer Baron (05:13)
You know, you brought something up really important and that is how almost, I'd say 80 to 90%, 80 % of the people that come into my office ask about peptides, they're all into the natural healing and they think that's the way to go, but they get them online and all they have to do is check that little box that says ⁓ research for animals and.
that has skirted any kind of valid approach to injecting these substances. It's absolutely fascinating. So how do you do things differently than what goes on online?
Regan Archibald (05:55)
Yeah, well we've always used a 503A and when I was looking into peptides, I understand you know you just have this itch you want to try them and so the first couple of months you know this was over a decade ago I was like all right I'm going to just order some of these from this site where I could and just say I'm a researcher because I am but I'm the I'm the rat and ⁓
And then I just like I started like noticing like this is not smart because I have long. I mean I want to live to be 222. It's like why would I?
take a risk on something that's not for human consumption that I'm injecting into my body. It made no sense. So I actually spent an enormous amount of money to get the pharmacist, I found a pharmacist who loved peptides, was his PhD, was in ⁓ researching peptides. And so he knew how to structure them and he knew the covalent bonding work, how to use the acetylation.
And so I bought all the API. just said, okay, we'll invest a bunch of money. And can you compound the peptides with 503A? And he's like, yes, ⁓ absolutely. And so that's how it all started. And we've always used 503A, 503B compounding pharmacies. And it is not easy. The regulations because big pharma does not like compounding pharmacies. I mean, it's the only competition. I mean, they have a monopoly anyways.
Dr. Spencer Baron (07:22)
Yeah.
Regan Archibald (07:23)
but it's that
one competition that they wanna obliterate. mean, anyone that's taking a drop of their profits, they wanna take them out. But in the medical establishment, 503A Compounding Pharmacy is the oldest form of medicine, of allopathic medicine, because you can have this customized ⁓ drug made in a compounding pharmacy that's not.
mass distribution like Big Pharma wants. so yeah, it's very unique, but we've always used these licensed 503A pharmacies and vet them out, make sure they're the best of the best.
Dr Terry (08:01)
What is a 503A? What does that mean? Is that just a certification or what is that?
Regan Archibald (08:05)
It's
a very particular designation that means 503A pharmacies can take prescriptions in from doctors or prescribing providers and send it directly to a patient. So it's compounded in a personalized way. A 503B is they make more of the bulk substances for a lot of the 503A pharmacies when there are shortages.
Dr. Spencer Baron (08:30)
So can you explain how actually some of the more popular peptides, how do they communicate ⁓ with the signal and signal the cells to repair or grow or regulate? I think some of the audience needs to really get a deep dive into understanding how healing, aging and performance really works.
Regan Archibald (08:55)
I think the coolest thing about peptides is they naturally exist in your body and that's what researchers have been looking at. You take one of the most popular peptides, ⁓ BPC157, your body protective compound.
this is made naturally by your gastric secretion. So if you think of your stomach, it's a hostile environment for almost anything. It's like a brick oven. You want to heat it up so you can denature your proteins when you eat. also, peptides are very fragile molecules. mean, you don't want to expose them to a lot of hydrochloric acid. But
What researchers discovered out of Zegrab University in Croatia, this was 40, almost 50 years ago now, they discovered that there's this peptide that protects the lining of the stomach from the acids. And as they start, they wondered like, why doesn't this acid just completely ruin all the tissue structures in the body? And they found that it was BPC157 that's there as that protective agent. And BPC, every cell in your body has
as a receptor for BPC and they started looking at it. They're looking for like a panacea. said, well, if this is protecting...
the and that's why they call it the body protecting compound. So it's like a, it's like, it's a leverage point. It's like the master key that unlocks all the genes. And so when they started looking elsewhere, they found, okay, this, actually improves ⁓ fibroblasts. And so you get this is fibroblastic growth factor that helps with tendons. anyone who wants to build muscle, you know, your limiting factor is when the tendons start getting inflamed and it's hard to build muscle when you've got tendonitis.
And they found that, okay, you need fibroblasts and that's where BPC just shines. It promotes VEGF. So this vascular endothelial growth factor, it turns on the receptors for growth hormones. So if you're using BPC, you stack like a, mentioned Tessmorelin earlier, you stack those and now you have this compounding benefit of having more growth hormone expression and that's going to help you heal. It's a dopamine modulator. So it works on the brain. It's this neurotransmitter.
you know. ⁓
it's a refuel for the dopamine that we all have this like dopamine deficiency because we're on our phones. So BPC seems to help with that. I mean, it helps with nitric oxide. And anytime you have nitric oxide, you're going to have more mitochondrial biogenesis. So you're going to turn on energy pathways. So that's just one little example of how, you know, these peptides, they tune up the signaling, but it's not like a small molecule drug where you're suppressing one system in your body and you're pulling nutrients like you use a
statin
for example, now your liver is not going to make as much cholesterol and then but it's pulling CoQ10 which is the very thing our hearts need. It protects the mitochondria in your heart the cardiac cells have almost more mitochondria than any other system in your body and yet we're starving it out from CoQ10 just to suppress the cholesterol production instead of asking why is cholesterol high in the first place?
Dr. Spencer Baron (12:07)
I love that he is bringing this up, man, because I hear about this all day long. Okay, quick question. BPC-157 is an injectable, I guess, for the most part, I understand that it can also be a capsule that you can ingest, which makes it maybe more bioavailable because it is digested in the stomach. Can you just kind of comment on the difference?
Regan Archibald (12:10)
you
Yeah.
Yeah,
because you BPC. If you have an injury, you're probably you're going to get some benefits oral, but you'd be better off just using it as an injectable. And just so everyone knows, it's not FDA approved. It was put on the category two list at the end of the Biden administration. RFK is trying to change that. he's he was very he's been very public about the fact that the FDA, they did that legally, moving these substances down. But and a lot
of people there's a lot of criticism that there's not a lot of human studies on BPC ⁓ but there's there's a lot of clinical data like yeah I mean clinicians there's millions of prescriptions that have gone out every year for the last almost decades so so we do have that and and there are there are some European studies on humans there's there's actually a you know there's a study on bladder pain in women for example they found it it was very helpful for for that ⁓
So there are some interesting studies. We're actually starting what are called IRBs. And IRBs is like a pre-study before you apply for an IND, an investigational new drug. And so we're working with some PhDs right now on that.
But BPC157, if you take it orally, a lot of these, okay, research use only pharmacies or someone just kind of working in their own warehouse, they put it in the wrong material. So if you put it in the wrong capsule, the enzymes in some of the capsules can already cause these peptides to degrade.
And so you may not be even getting ⁓ any kind of benefit from it. But when it hits the stomach, because BPC 157 is already there, ⁓ it actually there's, and the way that our pharmacist makes it.
is there's enzymes that you want in that peptide structure so that when the peptide hits the stomach acids, now you've got enzymes that turn on the activation of the peptide and then those enzymes open up the gap junctions in the gut so that it can bind to the right receptors and then get transported into the blood. So if you have the right kind, and very few pharmacies actually know how to do this, they just think, can put peptides
Tied into a capsule just like anything else and it will be fine but it's not. You've got to have the right enzymes, the end caps. One thing you can do is you can tie the end caps together so that you get a better expression cellularly.
Dr. Spencer Baron (15:11)
So injecting BPC 157 does make it more bioavailable to obviously all the receptors, even in the gut and so on, right?
Regan Archibald (15:22)
It
does, but you can take it orally and you'll get about 80 % of absorption if done properly.
Dr. Spencer Baron (15:28)
if it's done properly. Could you also, I love that you're talking about the research and you you hear so much about social media has gone crazy about it, but can you clear the air about TB 500, GLP ones and the research that, you know, whatever strong evidence that is out there or is it overhyped? you know.
Regan Archibald (15:48)
Well, TB 500 is a fragment, you know, it's 15 amino acid of the larger, what's called thymus and beta four, and that's 43 amino acids. so what the researchers found is that there's these 15 fragments and that's TB 500. And that's the most active part of it. But if you're looking for immune modulation, we found thymus and beta four is just a little stronger. And actually it was discovered in the 60s.
And they really did a lot of research out of the Albert Einstein School of Medicine and TB 500 does have plenty of human clinical trials. And a lot of people don't, they don't, just take it at face value. Like, there's no, no data, but.
It's made by your thymus gland. It's very well documented as far as what it does with cell migration. So if you think you and I get an injury and now our body has to repair itself, well, thymus and beta-4, it predates anything else that's going on in your body to mobilize like your stem cells into the area to help you recover. And it's...
It's a really beautiful molecule. also, you know, macrophages are like, they're kind of like the, go in there and beat things up. You know, that's like the, you know, it's like the brute police force that show up and say, okay, we're evicting you get out now. And, and so, but there's macrophage one and there's, there's these two macrophages. And if you get stuck in this kind of chronic inflammatory response, your macrophages are always there beating your body up and you want to shift it over to the two.
where things get, now it's just police surveillance. And that's what thymus and beta four does, is it just creates this environment where you can pull your body out of these chronic inflammatory states. In one of the studies, ⁓ they looked at mice. First they did it on mice who had, they induced cardiovascular events, myocardial infarction.
and they ⁓ looked at the tissue, you know, they had the placebo group and then they had the thymus and beta-4 group and they looked at the cardiac tissue and the tissue becomes really fibrotic and rigid when you've had a heart attack or any kind of cardiovascular event and they found that the mice that had the thymus and beta-4, their cardiac tissue had not near the rigidity of the other mice and now you'll see in human studies they've actually found that it can help re-branch
a lot of that ischemic damage from myocardial infarctions. this, you know, these studies, it goes way back and I'm not really sure why no one's brought it to market because the evidence is overwhelming. I mean, it's angiogenic, so you get new vascularity in areas. It regulates that TH1, TH2 response. In some cases, you know, it can revitalize stem cells in the hair.
So otherwise it's not really that important. mean, but yeah, it's such a good peptide. It's such a good peptide.
Dr. Spencer Baron (18:49)
⁓ good.
I'm going on. Yeah. Let me let me
let me ask you, because there is some confusion. know, yes. R.F.K. Jr. wants to move from 12 or so of the 17 that are on the category two list into the category one list to make it more 14, is it? Yeah. So but how did if there's that?
Regan Archibald (19:14)
Yeah, 14 of the 19 is what he's talking about.
Dr. Spencer Baron (19:22)
kind of research out there, why is it so sluggish to move all those, you know, several of those popular ones onto category one? And how did GLP-1 become, you know, by the way, for the audience doesn't know, GLP-1 is not a drug, but it's a peptide. But some people think of it because you can get it by prescription that it's a drug or you have to get it by prescription for a doctor. Can you go over some of that?
Regan Archibald (19:47)
Yeah,
yeah, and if I'm getting too nuanced, you guys just cut me off and we can have more fun. But this is like, if you just look at what is classified as a drug, ⁓ if the three of us were on here and Terry is like, hey, an orange cures cancer, right? And I've got it's curing cancer, then the FDA is gonna say, okay, cool, have you ran it through the...
three phases of clinical trials. And first of all, you got to establish safety. And then second, you have to establish efficacy and that's phase two.
And then phase three is where, okay, now we need to know that it's safer and more effective than any other drugs on the market. And so we'd have to have a condition and Dr. Terry would be like, all right, oranges treat cancer. And so here's, here's what we're going to do. And then an orange would literally be a drug. so, ⁓ I mean, you could classify anything as a drug if you're treating a particular condition. so with peptides, you know, this is, this is where like the GLP ones, they,
they are a peptide that naturally occurs in your body. And liraglutide was one of the first GLP ones ⁓ ever made. it was, you know, it's been around for about 20 years and it had a lot of side effects. And then they, they just kept kind of iterating and they found that semaglutide was a little better. And then we all know ozembic, but the way pharmaceutical companies can get a patent on something natural is it's the administration of it. So, so Terry would say, well, with this orange, you have to eat the pills and you have
boil it in water and then there's a whole distillation that you want to do and you want to put pressure on it and that would be the administration of the orange because no one can patent something that already exists in nature but you can patent the administration. That's what they did with those Zimbik. They said here's our clinical trials and no one else can copy it so even the 503A compounding pharmacies that are producing semiglutide and they're doing it the same dose and same recommendation
as Ozembic, for example, they're getting sued and because they're violating the patent that Eli Lilly has. so it's been a renovonordisc or whoever is making these. And so that's kind of the thing that's not happened with thymus and beta-4. It's not gone through the clinical trials for specific conditions. They've just said, okay, and that's when we're starting an IRB, ⁓ if we wanted to
it to an IND, then we have to mobilize you know 150 to 100 million dollars just to get it down that pathway for drug manufacturing.
And in order to do that, you've got to have shareholders. There's got to be, there's got to be some financial gains at the end. And it's really hard to patent something natural like Thomas and beta four, because you know, people already know about it. BPC one five seven. It's like, how are we going to enforce all these patent violations, even Reddit True Tide, which is the big triple agonist. This Reddit True Tide is by the way, it's a, it's
Dr. Spencer Baron (22:55)
gonna ask you. Yeah.
Regan Archibald (22:57)
It's the biggest medical breakthrough of our lifetime. mean, it's amazing. And I think there'll be bigger ones every year in the near future. But even rather true to Eli Lilly is the reason why it's not on the market. And I could be speculating, I don't work for Eli Lilly, but ⁓ they're trying to get as many indications for it to turn this into a drug that treats.
Osteoarthritic knees, they're triumph for studies. 76 % of people using it had a significant reduction in osteoarthritic knees. Sleep apnea, ⁓ obviously weight loss. You can lose almost 30 % of your total body fat. And that was another finding in phase three. So obesity, diabetes, they're even considering it ⁓ for like...
fatty liver disease. it's, it's actually, but they want to get as many indications as they can so that they can sue anyone who's compounding it or anyone who's marketing it because that's theirs.
So again, they put the money into it. They're the ones that landed on using this triple agonist, but hopefully that gives people a little better perspective on what natural medicine is up against when it comes to the FDA and then big pharma.
Dr. Spencer Baron (23:59)
Right.
Reagan, just wanted to ask you about, know, that you had mentioned there are so many iterations of the GLP ones and then the most recent one being red atrootide. I was going to ask you about that because I've been hearing about that, that people are getting it online and so on. But from what I understand that red atrootide ⁓ different from the other ones, it allows you to retain muscle or ⁓ provides. As a matter of fact, I read a New York Times article that talked about this this hormone.
Regan Archibald (24:27)
Yeah.
Dr. Spencer Baron (24:45)
called Ostarine that is in Rettichrutide. Is that true? I mean, is that what helps retain muscle or?
Regan Archibald (24:48)
Yeah.
No,
mean, you can stack it with Austrian or ⁓ Nandrolone. mean, those are, know, for like osteoporosis, like Nandrolone is another, you know, some of the bodybuilders use it as a performance enhancing drug.
I've never seen red or true tide compounded with it. So if you could send me the data, that'd be interesting. But red or true tide is a GLP one, but the GLP one is where you get the most side effects because it delays gastric emptying. So we feel full longer and it's, it's about eight times weaker than like the GLP one in semiglutide.
So it's just a tiny pulse. So you maintain your appetite, which a lot of people, they're like, I'm still, I'm still hungry on this, but your appetite is a good thing, folks. Like you want to be hungry. Like, I get it. Not all the time, just turn off the food noise, but eat some damn good food. And then you, you don't have to worry about it. and that's where most people lose muscle cause they, they're on such a high dose because in the, in the trials, you know, the, at the highest doses where people have the most dramatic weight loss.
Dr. Spencer Baron (25:46)
⁓
Dr Terry (25:46)
Right.
Dr. Spencer Baron (25:57)
Yes.
Regan Archibald (26:03)
And, but that's also where they have the most dramatic side effects.
And doctors are trying to escalate patients up onto the highest dose as quickly as possible. It's more money for the big pharma. But the second peptide in Rettutrutide is called, it's a GIP. And the GIP is an incretion molecule and it helps stabilize the insulin resistance. So it gets insulin into the cell. And so semaglutide is just GLP-1. There's a little bit of insulin regulation but nearly as robust as trisepidotide.
which is, you know, dual agonist. And so you get that that GIP and now it's like, okay, now we're getting better results, fewer side effects, we're on to something. And then the third peptide was glucagon. And glucagon is the one that you mentioned, it actually increases your blood sugar. And so it's there because your liver is more responsible for regulating your blood sugar between meals and when you're sleeping than your pancreas is. And so that glucagon, what it does is it
turns on PGC1 alpha so you get more mitochondrial biogenesis. So now the engine's turned on and when you turn on the engine, now you're gonna burn more energy even when you're not moving. And that's what they found is it protects the lean muscle mass.
Dr. Spencer Baron (27:26)
Were you starting, I think you almost started to ease into the microdosing aspect now for the GLP ones as more of a benefit than the big bolus of doing it at a high level being more ⁓ of an advantage.
Regan Archibald (27:40)
Yeah. Well, in
And this is where the 503A compounding pharmacies have been great because a lot of most people do not need that, that mega dose. And, you know, like our clinic ageless future, like we just, we don't, I mean, we, don't treat disease. just, we help healthy people get healthier. That's, that's what we do. And so now our providers, our doctors are able to write prescriptions as a micro dose or a dose that's below what would be considered therapeutic.
in the clinical studies. And we've actually had doctors from other places like write us letters and like you're under dosing your patient. I'm like, well, yeah, they lost 20 pounds and they've got like, look at their six pack and they feel great. Like this is medicine, it's personalized. And some people just don't get that.
So the microdose, and some people would mistakenly say that microdosing is where you just, you do small amounts, you two times a week or three times a week. Don't do that. The GOP1s have a half-life of 144 hours. So that's roughly six and a half days. So if you're doing these microdosing, you're just confusing your physiology. But a microdose would be something that's ⁓ lower than the lowest dose.
in the clinical trials.
Dr. Spencer Baron (29:07)
Nice.
Dr Terry (29:07)
Hey, to make
it even simpler for the laypeople and stupid people like me, I hear all the time people coming in and they're going, have you seen all these celebrities on Ozempic and they look gaunt, they look terrible, they've lost so much weight. so...
Regan Archibald (29:15)
Wait.
Dr. Spencer Baron (29:25)
Yes, yes.
Dr Terry (29:30)
you're touching up for the lay people what do they need to pay attention to because I guess there's since it's natural I guess there's some some good things yeah yeah but I guess there's some good things that they they can come out of it but you know if they want to lose weight but don't want to look gone and then they hear well once you lost it you'll never get back and they look terrible blah blah blah and you see all these celebrities over and over and over what's some strategies for the lay person who doesn't know doesn't know what's going on
Dr. Spencer Baron (29:37)
The mirror.
Dr Terry (29:58)
We don't want them ordering stuff on Amazon. We don't want them to go to the doctor and go, need ozempic. What's some strategies that you can put in a layperson's head who doesn't understand chemistry of how to handle the proper way to use a GLP-1?
Regan Archibald (30:02)
All right.
Well, the proper way is finding someone who understands health holistically. they're not just looking at, let's get your weight off at all costs. mean, weight is just one number. so it does, know, where you want to start, get your blood labs ran because then in your blood labs, you can see if maybe you're not breaking down proteins. You know, we talked about the stomach earlier. And so you want to make sure that you've got lifestyle and habits that are going to support the weight loss because when your body
let's go wait. It's really hard on your liver, on your kidneys to get rid of all those toxins that your body's releasing. So you want to make sure that, okay, are they going to put you on a detoxification plan? Is there health coaching so that you make sure you're getting your macros? You're getting roughly one gram of protein per pound of
ideal body weight. I mean, that's a lot of protein. And when you don't have an appetite, then it's like, okay, we need to titrate this dose down even lower until you can start hitting your protein targets. it's like, instead of having the goal be, let's get the weight down, the goal needs to be, let's optimize your health.
And then as you get healthier, your weight's going to come down. But I've seen too many people end up in much worse shape. mean, sick for months, being on it, they have no energy. There's actually a study that they found that if you turn off GLP-1, it is a pleasure pathway in the brain.
You guys like eating. I love eating, right? It gives pleasure. But when you're muting that signal too much, people actually have a GLP-1 induced depression, and it's very well documented.
But it all, you know, the flip side of that is, help with addiction. And so I don't, I don't know very many celebrities, but, uh, you know, know a lot of them struggle with the there's addictive profiles there and you know, the smoking cessation is amazing with the, the GOP ones, uh, and food. So I think the biggest thing is get your blood labs ran and then it's not just using a single peptide. Like we would never prescribe just a GOP one. We'd always say, well, let's protect the gut because.
you're slowing down gastric damping. get you on like BPC 157. We want to build muscle so let's bring in Tessamerelin or maybe a myostatin inhibitor like MOTC or ACE 031. I mean there's things that you can do to really help increase the performance of this person but the peptides we found it's like a band. It's really nice to listen to an acoustic guitar but man when you bring the drummer in it's like okay now we're rocking. Now maybe you bring the cello
in, you got a lead singer, that's what peptide stacking does. just enhances the signaling of everything around it. Like I mentioned with BPC 157, it's activating the growth hormone receptors. So why not give your body a little more growth hormone if you're somebody who's over 40 and you have some robust longevity goals.
Dr Terry (33:14)
You know the first thing that I heard was you brought a cello in with an electric guitar so... ⁓
Regan Archibald (33:19)
I just came to mind. I'm obviously not a musician. give me, I hope the analogy
worked for everyone but Terry. Terry's like, this guy doesn't know what he's talking about.
Dr. Spencer Baron (33:30)
Yeah.
Dr Terry (33:30)
Thank you.
Now I'm so simple
minded. just, you know, hey, so what I am hearing is that I want the people to listen is you have to have a strategy and you can't just, I need to lose weight. I'm going my doctor. Give me a pill. If they're not doing blood work, if they're not watching things, if they're not looking at what you actually are needed, that's a huge issue. So you don't want to be your Amazon doctor, your Google doctor. You want to actually have people that understand what they're going on. And a question I had when I heard when they, when I was
Dr. Spencer Baron (33:36)
That's great.
Dr Terry (34:02)
talking about you coming on the show was I have people and I've had three of them talk about Hashimoto's disease and RA and using peptides for handling these conditions and I'm like are we talking symptom management are we talking immune modulation we're talking something deeper what's what's your thoughts on those conditions?
Regan Archibald (34:21)
Yeah, well, you may remember last time we talked, I got out of the conventional medical route and went to Chinese medical school. And that's where I got exposure to Eastern medicine, holistic healing. also did an internship at the Northern Hawaii Community Hospital. So I got a really good understanding of ⁓ Western medicine.
and but Hashimoto's was the thing that got me there. So ⁓ if you're using peptides for these, know, first thing is what's the cause? And Hashimoto's, you know, we found there's four triggers that we call in the epic triggers. So there's an emotional
part of it that can be a big component of that autoimmune condition. know, PTSD, that can just dysregulate your immune system. The second one is if there's chronic pain and the body ages much faster when there's chronic pain, which is like Kraken Back's podcast, you guys help get people out of pain. And what you may or may not realize is you're making their brains younger just by doing that and their whole body younger. So...
Brilliant. And then the third one are infections. And that's the biggest one that I see is infections and chemicals. So with Hashimoto's, you know, there's there's a good peptide called LL 37 that can help eradicate infections. It's gentle. We call it the silent assassin. The compassionate assassin is actually I have these peptide cards and I have like these these kind of avatars on it. And it's got the samurai and it's like the compassionate assassin because it the
The LL37, it knows what is foreign to your body that's going to hurt your body, but it doesn't target any other bacteria. like an antibiotic is like, it just crushes everything. And LL37 is brilliant. It's an antimicrobial peptide known as a catholicidin, but it regenerates the tissue.
as it's eradicating viruses or fungal infections or bacterial infections. And so that can be a critical component of thymus and alpha one. The second thing that we found is if you can stack an immune modulator like thymus and beta four, we talked about that earlier. And then thymus and alpha one. Thymus and alpha one is approved in over 30 countries for autoimmunity. They use it as an immune.
protectant and chemotherapy. It's a vaccine adjunct, so it can actually help vaccines have fewer side effects and be more targeted to the immune system. So thymus and alpha want to be great. then most people with Hashimoto's, mean, probably like everyone has some kind of leaky gut. And that's where like BPC 157, KPV, the other peptide that is really helpful at down regulating systemic inflammation of the gut is called lorazetide. And lorazetide
was it's a peptide that was approved for celiacs patients because you know a lot of times the celiacs you go wash your hands and there's gluten in the soap you you wash your you put shampoo in your hair because gluten gives everything that texture and then they end up in the bathroom all day but if they if they have lorazetide then they can have these minor exposures to gluten and it doesn't upset their gut but but even if you don't have celiacs lorazetide is very protective for the gut lining
Dr Terry (37:48)
fascinating. You know, you're talking about stacking, you know, you just mentioned that word, that just means adding on to right. And then before the show Spencer brought up ⁓ in California, especially the young adults are having these peptide parties. And, and it's like all these young guys are trying to get all pumped up and they're taking these peptide parties. Can you talk to us about the dangers of that and, and how stacking multiples every day can be dangerous? And what do people get in trouble
Dr. Spencer Baron (37:48)
Brilliant. Freaking brilliant.
Dr Terry (38:18)
this dosing thing and and what to avoid in these stacking parties or whatever.
Regan Archibald (38:24)
Yeah, and you mentioned a rave, Spencer. that's like a big, I don't know what they're doing, but oxytocin hopefully is part of it. ⁓
Dr. Spencer Baron (38:26)
Yeah. Yeah.
I'll send you
Dr Terry (38:33)
you
Dr. Spencer Baron (38:34)
the article that came out. It's
whacked. Yeah, go ahead.
Regan Archibald (38:36)
That's great, because
here's the truth. mean, I think I was the first person to host a peptide party. And so we have these longevity retreats. And so we'll have nasal sprays and like some oral sprays. So it's just basic. not doing injections or anything at a therapeutic level, just enough so people can experience what it's like to use some of these peptides as an educational tool. And what you're referring to,
is some people who get very aggressive just thinking that more is better. It sounds like they're very American, which I love, but...
with peptides, there's going to be a diminishing return because you can stack peptides together. But a lot of times when clients come in and we look at their protocol, we're like, well, who put you on this protocol? they're like, well, you know, my chat GPT or whatever, know, it's, you know, I, just following some influencers stack, like what they're doing and they're working on the same pathway. And so when you have like two peptides working on the same pathway, and especially like if you're using growth hormone, ⁓ releasing peptides,
like
IGF-1, LR-3, CJC, 1295, Sermerelin, Test Sermerelin.
and you're using those together. Well, the first thing is you're, it's a lot of money that you're injecting into your body and you're, you can only pulse growth hormones so much. And you want to have this nice pulse of tile range where you pulse it and then it calms down, pulse it and it calms down because it's a feedback loop. And so if you're over saturating your receptors, then you're not going to get the same benefits the next time you do it. And this is where you want to cycle peptides. So you can stack peptides together as long as you're
on different pathways and it's congruent with what you need in your labs. Otherwise you're just kind of wasting money but the danger comes when I see clients doing like IGF-1, ⁓ LR-3 and that one is not nearly as pulsatile. So you've got to be careful when you use it because it can cause a disruption in your blood sugar.
So I think this is, for the most part, there's very, very low risk, but outside of ⁓ having a very expensive stack that is getting you nowhere fast.
Dr. Spencer Baron (40:41)
Very nice.
Dr Terry (40:56)
But the danger could be where you're getting them from, they're getting these, yeah, so if you're getting these rays from China, that could be your danger stuff,
Regan Archibald (41:00)
That's the real... Yeah, cause these...
I think you're on, I think that would probably be your biggest risk and whether you're using a small amount or large amount, these endotoxins, they compound over time. So, you know, we had a client a couple of weeks ago and, um, you know, he reached out to us and he said, Oh, I'm getting all these like nodules on my skin from CJC and I'm starting to notice that I'm getting like eczema. And, um, you know, I looked up his name. like, I don't see in our system who, like, I don't think we were working together. he said, Oh no, my friend said that you're
you're
the guy to talk to and your team. And as we looked up, you know, he said, no, it's not, it's not a research use only peptide. It's from a great source. And, ⁓ and then I just, I had him send me a picture and then I showed him right on their website, this tiny, tiny font, like almost had a map, had to have a magnifying glass for it as like three, the font size and not for research use only. And so, but it was, he'd been using it for months, but it was the endotoxin
can build up and accumulate. you can imagine, Terry, at these parties, they're just loading their body and so it's only a matter of time before the system breaks.
Dr. Spencer Baron (42:19)
really good information because I'm hearing things like that too. How about sometimes I hear about itching at the injection site redness like a histamine type of reaction ⁓ oftentimes like with GHKCU or something what's actually happening with that and is there a way to I mean the itching is uncomfortable for a short period of time but what's actually going on is that a negative thing is that just what happens?
Regan Archibald (42:35)
Sure.
Well, with the peptides, know, there's a specific buffering agent that, you know, can change the pH and GHK copper has a little more acidity. And so it does trigger a little more of that like histamine response. It's not dangerous, but if you're getting it on a regular basis, then you may be either pushing the peptide in too fast or you've got the wrong angle on the needle or you need to give yourself a
break on the peptides or it's just run your blood labs and you can see when if your eosinophils are really high, for example, you're just going to have an overactive histamine response. And so get on an anti-histamine diet. ⁓ KPV is a really great peptide that helps kind of solve that problem for, you know, clients of ours who've had the, you know, they just they have a very sensitive immune system. ⁓ KPV can be really helpful. But if you are getting those nodules on a regular basis from a variety of
peptides.
You really want to work on your immune system first because you could put yourself in anaphylaxis and so make sure if anyone's using peptides just have some Benadryl just in case ⁓ just some kind of antihistamine in case your body does have a reaction to it.
Dr. Spencer Baron (44:06)
All right, so now we're in the baby boomer era here that wants to live longer. Forty five and sixty year olds, you know, want all that longevity and so on. did they really? mean, you know, is would you say that peptides is the is the new way?
Regan Archibald (44:18)
Yeah.
Do they really? Are
Dr Terry (44:23)
Thank
you.
Regan Archibald (44:25)
you just asking like how crappy is their life? mean, is that...
Dr Terry (44:31)
The guy
wants to 220 years, yeah.
Regan Archibald (44:34)
You're right. Well, and it's like that quote, know, everyone wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die.
Dr. Spencer Baron (44:34)
Yeah, right, right. Yeah.
Perfect. know, peptides in the, what do you see maybe in the next 10 years? you, honest man, do you see peptides being the, you know, this new fad or is this something that you see is going to be implemented as part of a future to foundational health?
Regan Archibald (45:05)
You know, when we started getting into these, I created this peptide course in 2019 for doctors. And I was like, because I trained my team and, and, I was like, then I had so many people reaching out. like, okay, here's how you can learn it. Just get on my course. And then we'd have live events as well. And I thought peptides would be as big as they are today in like a matter of two or three years. said, I can't believe that people aren't using these more because you know, I've been practicing about 15, 16 years at the time.
And
I just saw the difference in the progress that my clients were making. I mean, these really challenging conditions to treat, suddenly people are just getting enormously better. And then we started to see, you know, metabolically when the GOP1s came out, like roughly 21, we just saw this, like, just took out the guesswork. It's like, let's just turn, mute the signaling in the brain and then people lost.
weight and it was very simple. It made our job 10 times easier. ⁓ But I think peptides, we have just scratched the surface. So I'm in a group called DaVinci 50 on ⁓ the medical advisory board. And so I get a front row seat to all of the new medical innovations. And these are not just speculative therapies. These are where there's humans having work done. And so a lot of them are outside of the country. And I can tell you stem cell therapy and peptide therapy is in its
infancy and peptides, especially because, you know, we've sequenced still maybe 10 % of, of, you know, some of these beautiful active peptides in the body. And we still like even, even the addition, if you take, you know, GLP one, we'll take red or true type, for example, and, and they had studied extensively, well, what if we just give someone glucagon? Is that going to help them lose weight? And it was really hard on the liver, hard on the body. didn't work well in isolation.
What about GIP, know, that that increase in molecule that helps with insulin sensitivity? Same thing. People did not lose weight. It was very hard on the body. GLP-1, you can use it alone. But when you stack them together, now you've got the electric guitar and the cello, which doesn't go very well, but it does go well. ⁓ But yeah, so I think just the ability where we have and that's one reason why we're starting our own just
kind of scientific ⁓ advisory board and we'll be announcing you know kind of our results is because you know it's it's what are the right combinations and we actually were awarded a patent called the peptide pathway bypass this year.
And so I was able to prove ⁓ with certainty that we can find out what's going on in your labs, what genes are not expressed and what peptides can actually make the strongest changes in your labs. And so ⁓ we've got that technology and so we're going to be applying it in these clinical studies. And then you have pharmacists and our pharmacist is brilliant. Like he's got so many ideas of things he wants to stack together. And then there's all these peptides that are still like out
there in you know in kind of the ethers where they haven't really made it through a whole lot of these animal models but with AI I think we're gonna just be able to fast flow that and start understanding how these cool proteins really work.
Dr. Spencer Baron (48:37)
Terry, you got any more questions for our expert testimony? Because I'm ready.
Dr Terry (48:40)
I'm still trying to
process question number one. So yeah, we're good.
Dr. Spencer Baron (48:45)
Reagan
Regan Archibald (48:46)
Okay, well
here's the big breakthrough that we'll see is in the mitochondrial side.
Dr. Spencer Baron (48:49)
if you
Regan Archibald (48:53)
And so that's where I would say look for that first because, you know, we got SLUPE 332 coming out. We've got ⁓ SS 31 that got FDA approved last year for Barth syndrome. So this mitochondrial deficiency and the FDA fast floated because there's no other treatment. And, and these kids now have a life because of SS 31. It's four amino acid chains. It's like tiny. And then you look at human and they're testing it for Alzheimer's, know, mitochondrial imbalance.
MOTC, exercise mimetics. So I think that's where the biggest breakthroughs will be is in mitochondria.
Dr Terry (49:30)
I actually do have one more question. you know, there it is. See, it took a while for my process to happen. All right. So, uh, Oh, I need more than that. So we are, you're our guy. We love you. And, uh, you're the only guy that, you know, that I refer to, but when it comes to somebody listening to show whether they're anywhere else and they want to, to do this the right way. And let's say they're a chiropractor or PT or somebody.
Dr. Spencer Baron (49:33)
There it is.
Need some matzi, bro.
Dr Terry (49:58)
What can they look for in their town to try and help their patients? So you mentioned trying to find a compound pharmacy that knows this and doing blood work. What would the other person taking yourself out of the equation, what do they need to do to make their patients healthy?
Regan Archibald (50:16)
man, well.
they can, they can reach out. have a telemedicine platform if they want to get into peptides and, and they, ⁓ want to have a prescribing, ⁓ physician or a nurse practitioner who's licensed in their state to collaborate with them. Then, they can just reach out and I'll get them connected with, ⁓ telemedicine platform that, ⁓ is licensed in all 50 states. They work directly with, ⁓ you know, our approved pharmacies and.
That would be easy for him to get rocking with.
Dr. Spencer Baron (50:52)
Reagan, if you remember from our first interview, this is the time that we do the rapid fire questions and we got five of them. You're quick on your feet. I'm sure you're loaded with the good peptides. They'll get you to answer concisely and quickly. If you're ready for question number one, you good? All right, man. Reagan, if peptides truly represent the next frontier of precision medicine, what is one message you want people to remember?
Regan Archibald (51:05)
We'll find out.
Dr Terry (51:08)
Yeah
Regan Archibald (51:12)
Good.
Dr. Spencer Baron (51:21)
so they don't get lost in the hype, especially with all these social media ⁓ mavens out there.
Regan Archibald (51:28)
Precision depends on the environment, so you always have to take care of your health.
Dr. Spencer Baron (51:34)
Question, okay, question number two. You are one of the few guys that talks about acupuncture and epithelium in the same sentence. If you had to choose one for the next 20 years, ancient medicine or modern peptide science, which one wins?
Regan Archibald (51:53)
Well, is it just epitalin or is it all the peptides?
Dr. Spencer Baron (51:58)
Well, let's do epithelin and then comment on all the peptides.
Regan Archibald (52:02)
Yeah, I'll take
acupuncture, especially if I had like a really gifted acupuncturist that I could just take around with me the rest of my life, like absolutely. But if I had to give up all the peptides, I would just say, sorry, I'm going to leave acupuncture behind.
Dr. Spencer Baron (52:12)
All right. All right.
Beautiful. I agree. All right. Question number three, what's the one health habit, you know, you should do every day, but still occasionally skip like the rest of us might do.
Dr Terry (52:19)
There you go.
Regan Archibald (52:21)
Thank
Well, I'll tell you one that I just, do and I don't skip, which is I love like bakeries and I live in a town where there's all these like European bakeries coming. So maybe once or twice a week, I end up with a croissant in my hand, but don't tell anybody.
Dr. Spencer Baron (52:51)
Man, I love croissants. my gosh, they're great. Right? Question number four, if someone spent one day following you around from morning to night, what's something about the way you live that would surprise people who only know you as the peptide expert?
Dr Terry (52:52)
yeah, my god.
Regan Archibald (52:54)
Woo, so
good.
⁓ They'd probably be surprised at the amount of ⁓ physical activity I have maybe, or they probably would realize I'm not as serious as a lot of people think I am. It's what I've heard more often than not. They just feel like I'm just like this surfer bum from California or something like that. So that's probably one of the things.
Dr. Spencer Baron (53:37)
Love it, All right, last question, buddy. Imagine you're 95 years old sitting on a porch, obviously in a rocking chair, somewhere in the mountains looking back at your life. would have mattered more to you in the end, the science you discovered or the lives you changed along the way?
Regan Archibald (53:57)
I think it would be the lives I changed along the way because of the science I was really interested in. And I like taking discoveries and helping apply those discoveries in people's life because I know it's going to help them. So it's always about how many people had a health transformation because of the work I'm doing. And that would be kind of my test ⁓ of a good life.
Dr. Spencer Baron (54:23)
That's great. And that is so true for all of us. Thanks, Reagan. You've been extra special, man. You answered more of the questions that I even had for you. It was great having you on again. actually, yeah, I imagine we're going to have them on again. then because the science is just evolving. Terry, you got any questions left for Reagan or?
Regan Archibald (54:35)
My pleasure, so good to be back.
Dr Terry (54:40)
you
The only question I have is when can you come back?
Dr. Spencer Baron (54:52)
Yeah.
Regan Archibald (54:52)
Yeah, I'll bring my pharmacist next time.
⁓ can answer all these nuances. If you want to get in the weeds, let me know. I can set it up.
Dr Terry (54:57)
I would love that.
Dr. Spencer Baron (54:57)
That would be cool.
The end.
Dr Terry (55:02)
I love that. Let's do that and we're going to keep in touch and you know I just can't thank you enough for all your wisdom and and just coming on the show your wisdom is trying to help other people and that's so obvious so thank you for for being you.
Dr. Spencer Baron (55:03)
Absolutely.
Regan Archibald (55:15)
You got it. Thanks, you guys.
Dr. Spencer Baron (55:16)
Thanks.
Thanks.
Dr Terry (55:17)
Take care, bud.