Benefits & Risks of Peptide Therapeutics for Physical & Mental Health

**Andrew Huberman** (0:00)
Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life.
I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. Today, we are discussing peptides. Peptides are a topic that's receiving a lot of attention these days, in part because of the excitement about the so-called GLP-1 analogs or agonists. GLP-1 stands for glucagon-like peptides. These are drugs used to treat type 2 diabetes as well as drugs used to treat obesity. Today, we are not going to discuss the GLP-1 analogs. However, we are going to discuss some of the other peptides that are receiving a lot of attention these days, including peptides for tissue healing and repair, as well as peptides that impact longevity and vitality. Now, in principle, any discussion about peptides could be enormously vast. And that's because there are so many different kinds of peptides. And by the way, I will explain what a peptide is in just a few moments. But for instance, insulin, which is involved in regulating our blood sugar or blood glucose levels, is a peptide. Oxytocin, which is sometimes called the love hormone, although I wouldn't say that's the best description of what oxytocin is. It's a neuropeptide slash hormone that is involved in everything from pair bonding to socialization, but a bunch of other things as well. Those are just two examples of peptides that are familiar to most people, at least by name, and that exist within the tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of different peptides that exist within our brain and body. Today's discussion is going to focus on peptides that are increasingly being used for therapeutic purposes. And I want to point out something very important about this topic area. First of all, it is a topic area for which there is a lot of confusion. The mere naming of the peptides is confusing. Oftentimes they're referred to simply by virtue of acronyms and numbers like BPC157 or MK677, et cetera, et cetera, such that if you're not really familiar with them, it can be a bit overwhelming and confusing. Today I'm going to provide a very simple organizational framework that will allow you to understand what these different therapeutic peptides are, why certain ones may be advantageous for certain purposes, of course, also highlighting the potential risks and in some case outright dangers. And I'll tell you how they each work alone and in combination toward achieving specific physical and in some cases even mental health goals. I'd be remiss if I didn't say at the outset here that a lot of what's happening with applied therapeutic peptide biology falls into one of three categories. There are peptides that are being prescribed by physicians. So these are prescription peptides for specific purposes. These are FDA approved. There are other peptides that reside in kind of a gray market area. You can purchase them online, but the safety and efficacy of those peptides is a bit questionable in some cases, very questionable. And I'll give you some filters to determine which category certain peptides fall into. And then of course, there's the black market peptides. It is possible to buy peptides online through any number of different sources. And of course, I do not suggest people purchase black market peptides. It's very clear that a lot of them are contaminated with things that both in the short term, but especially in the long term can be problematic. So if you're interested in understanding or using therapeutic peptides, today's episode is for you. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast. Our first sponsor is Mateina. Mateina makes loose leaf and ready to drink yerba mate. I often discuss yerba mate's benefits such as regulating blood sugar, its high antioxidant content, the ways that it can improve digestion, and possible neuroprotective effects. I also drink yerba mate because I love the taste. While there are a lot of different choices of yerba mate drinks out there, I love Mateina because, again, they have the no sugar variety, as well as the fact that both their loose leaf and their canned varieties are of the absolute best quality. So much so that I decided to become a partial owner in the company. Although, I must say, even if they hadn't allowed me to do that, I would be drinking Mateina. It is the cleanest tasting and best yerba mate you can find. I love the taste of brewed loose leaf Mateina yerba mate, and I particularly love the taste of Mateína's new canned cold brew zero sugar yerba mate, which I personally helped them develop. If you'd like to try Mateina, go to drinkmateína.com/huberman.