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

**Dr. Abud Bakri** (0:00)
People are now stacking their GLP-1 as their insulin sensitivity tool, their growth hormone or their GHRH, and their androgen modulation therapies as this Trinity stack.

**Andrew Huberman** (0:11)
Trinity stack.

**Dr. Abud Bakri** (0:12)
To get very fit, very healthy quickly. So a lot of these transformations you see in CEOs and celebrities and stuff is using a combination of those three things, your TRT plus terzepatide, red trutide, whatever it may be, and then using a growth hormone modulation, either if you can afford growth hormone or that's a more or less, and you're seeing people lose a lot of fat, gain a lot of muscle in short amounts of time. Is that healthy? We'll find out. But that is like the celebrity protocol.

**Andrew Huberman** (0:38)
Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life.
I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Dr. Abud Bakri, an internal medicine physician who is also extremely knowledgeable on the science and use of peptides.
When I say peptides, I mean both FDA-approved peptides, such as the GLP agonists. You probably know these as things like the Ozempic, Monjaro, and Retatrutide, as well as peptides, such as Body Protection Compound 157 or BPC 157, which, as you'll learn today, has a very long history of being used in humans for gut health and tissue repair and many interesting studies in animals supporting its potential use in humans, but a minimum of formal studies in humans, meaning one. We discuss BPC 157, what it does and how, as well as things like growth hormone secretagogues, like Tessamerelin, MK 677, and others. And we talk about things like GHK copper, which nowadays many people are using to promote collagen synthesis and repair for aesthetic reasons, like improving skin, hair, and so on.
We also talk about peptides that have been studied for the purpose of DNA repair and longevity, like epithalon and pinealon, which also have been touted to improve REM sleep and for improving cognitive function. You'll also learn what is known and what is not known about these peptides, both in terms of function and safety. During today's episode, you will come to appreciate that Dr. Bakri has truly encyclopedic knowledge about these peptides. He is also formally trained as a physician. And as a consequence, you will learn how to think about peptides based on whether or not they have known receptors or not. That turns out to be very important. And what their real safety profiles are, as well as what particular concerns you ought to have if you are considering using peptides of any kind. As a formally trained board certified physician, he comes at this topic through the lens of a physician, but also somebody who is very interested in the current status and future of peptide medicine. Today's discussion, thanks to Dr. Bakri, is a true masterclass on peptides. By the end of today's discussion, I promise you, again, thanks to him, that you will be among the most informed, doctor or otherwise, about peptides from the GLPs to BPC 157 and all the others that I mentioned, including some that I didn't mention here in the introduction. So it is a real gift and honor to have this knowledge presented to all of us. So buckle up. You're about to learn a lot about peptides. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, today's episode does include sponsors. And now for my discussion with Dr. Abud Bakri.
Dr. Abud Bakri, welcome.

**Dr. Abud Bakri** (3:36)
Good to be here.

**Andrew Huberman** (3:37)
Peptides, huge topic and huge category of biology and medicine. So, we should start off by breaking this into categories so that people can wrap their minds around it. Because that word peptides has come to mean stuff people buy and take and maybe should or shouldn't buy and take. But there's a lot of important and quite simple biology to understand before anyone should even be thinking about any of that. So, if I just push the word peptides towards you, how do you carve that up in terms of thinking about it as an MD as a clinician and maybe also put yourself into the mind of interested, let's call it a peptide curious person out there?

**Dr. Abud Bakri** (4:21)
So, scientifically I would say it's one of the languages of the human body, right? So, the body likes these different languages to communicate between cells going from DNA to RNA to proteins, which can be broken down into polypeptides and peptides.