DIY Peptide Injections: The Dark Side of Injectable Peptides & Copper Hype

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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SPEAKER_2 (0:16)

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Dr Ellie Rashid (0:45)

Here's what's coming up on today's episode.

Dr Emma Craythorne (0:47)

And the result was negative for the Copper Peptides.

SPEAKER_2 (0:51)

No way.

Dr Emma Craythorne (0:53)

This is just wild.

Dr Ellie Rashid (0:56)

It's gone wild.

Dr Emma Craythorne (0:57)

The evidence in itself for their benefit is absolutely rubbish.

Dr Ellie Rashid (1:01)

Yeah, it's just non-existent. I mean, that will kill me.

Dr Emma Craythorne (1:04)

It will kill you.

Dr Ellie Rashid (1:10)

Hello and welcome to the After Hours Skin Clinic. I'm Dr Ellie Rashid.

Dr Emma Craythorne (1:14)

And I'm Dr Emma Craythorne. We're both consultant dermatologists here in central London.

Dr Ellie Rashid (1:19)

But this is our favourite clinic where we unpack the evidence, challenge the trends and answer the questions that you might not always have time to ask your dermatologist.

Dr Emma Craythorne (1:26)

And if you don't have one, you do now. So I think you have a story for us, Ellie.

Dr Ellie Rashid (1:31)

Yeah, so my story. So Jennifer Aniston, who we all know and love.

Dr Emma Craythorne (1:35)

Love.

Dr Ellie Rashid (1:36)

Love her. She did an article and mentioned in an interview for the Wall Street Journal that she injects peptides. And I have been asked this question, probably second to the question of, should I take oral collagen, is, should I start injecting peptides?

And what health and skin benefits does it have? So I thought it would be a good opportunity for us to talk about what the data shows, what the different peptides are, what the most common peptides are that people are thinking about when it comes to skin health, and sort of debunking some of the myths that are out there.

Dr Emma Craythorne (2:12)

This is just wild.

Dr Ellie Rashid (2:14)

It's gone wild.

Dr Emma Craythorne (2:15)

It has gone crazy. Even this summer, whenever I was on holiday with our family, my nephew came and said to me, with a little bit of acne, Emma, how do I get these copper peptides to fix my acne?

Dr Ellie Rashid (2:31)

No.

Dr Emma Craythorne (2:32)

I swear.

And I said, well, you don't need copper peptides to fix your acne. There's other stuff that will help and work, and it's certainly not copper peptides.

And so I think that every social media feed, every so many YouTube videos, they're just full of this word peptide. It's just absolutely everywhere.

Dr Ellie Rashid (2:52)

So should we start by explaining what a peptide even is?

So essentially peptide is just a combination of amino acids.

So it's just a link of these building blocks of proteins. And that's essentially what peptide is. And there are so many different types of peptides that you can have. So insulin that people inject if they're diabetic, is a form of a peptide.

Dr Emma Craythorne (3:17)

I mean, it's exactly that. So when we think about so many of the different functions that are happening within our body, they are all because of peptides. Almost all of the hormones really in our body are these peptides. And hormones are essentially like these chemical messengers that are working at one part of our body. And they're going to another part of our body to tell it to do a job. So just like you say, insulin is a peptide.

And then we have peptides that are, really have made such a difference in the world of obesity and metabolic syndrome issues and probably going to make a big impact in terms of how well people live for how long. And that's in the form of these GLP-1 peptides. So you have heard the terms, things like Mounjaro and Ozempic. And these are the brand names of these GLP-1 peptides. And they essentially work by reducing the emptying of your gastric. So whenever you eat something, it reduces the rate at which that's going into the rest of the digestive system. And it also essentially then makes you feel less hungry, so you're not motivated to eat in the same way. And so for many people who have problems with their metabolic state as such, taking these peptides can be hugely beneficial. And they've gone through multiple studies. They've been investigated by Big Pharma. And so I think that term peptide at the minute is really running on the coattails of these new medicines that we have. But then it lands in the world of the unregulated medicines where completely people are taking them because they think that it's going to have a benefit for their skin, for aging reasons, to help them live longer, to help their wounds get better, to stop them having acne. And there's a whole host of these peptides which have quite recently been discussed a lot at an FDA level. And as a consequence in certain groups, so, you know, groups that are concerned with longevity or wellness or body image groups, lots of bodybuilders might be using some of these peptides in a way to, for what they think is beneficial for their health or to achieve a specific goal with their body. So some of these things are peptides like BPC157, which is associated with trying to get a bit with angiogenesis and wound healing. So in other words, if you, there's animal studies showing that in rats, they were able to repair their tendon issues more quickly.