The Little-Known “Throwaway” Gland That Is CRITICAL For Immunity (& The Unexpected Peptides To Support It) - With Abud Bakri

Ben Greenfield (0:00)

My name is Ben Greenfield, and on this episode of the Boundless Life Podcast.

Abud Bakri (0:05)

That's a big concern, is that the combined estrogen progesterone growth control is simulating really pregnancy. The concern is what if this is shrinking the thymus earlier for these ladies, and that's maybe contributing to this autoimmune disease risk in ladies. And on top of that, is that contributing to the risk of PCOS and all these other conditions. No one has a good answer, but I'm kind of sounding the alarm bell, like people should be looking at this because we're putting millions of young girls on these treatments without really telling them that there are some risks.

Ben Greenfield (0:30)

Welcome to the Boundless Life with me, your host, Ben Greenfield. I'm a personal trainer, exercise physiologist and nutritionist. And I'm passionate about helping you discover unparalleled levels of health, fitness, longevity and beyond.

My guest on today's show is Dr. Abud Bakri. He's a board certified internal medicine doctor, a graduate of the University of Colorado School of Medicine. And he's an active practicing physician, but he also has a deep knowledge of circadian timing, sleep, peptides, hormones, metabolism. I recently had a chance to get to know him a little better and decided I really wanted to interview him about one of his areas of expertise, the thymus. So brace yourself. We're going to talk about some stuff we haven't discussed before. Some cool stacks and cool peptides.

bengreenfieldlife.com/thymuspodcast is where the show notes reside. Let's go talk with Abud. Abud, dude, we just hung out in Washington, DC., which is pretty cool.

Abud Bakri (1:30)

Yeah. We should have done this in person.

Ben Greenfield (1:33)

Yeah. Well, we probably could have.

We didn't have better things to do. I usually like my ears perk up when I hear somebody who's done podcasts before who knows what they're talking about, but then I could tell you practice what you preach because you look like you're pre-fit, you maintain some muscles. So have you been into fitness parallel to getting into medicine or how did the two co-evolve?

Abud Bakri (2:00)

I think fitness led me to medicine actually. I was a bodybuilder, powerlifter before I was a doctor, computer powerlifter.

Yeah, I used to have the state deadlift record in deadlift in Colorado when I was in med school.

Ben Greenfield (2:13)

Oh, interesting.

Abud Bakri (2:14)

Yeah.

Ben Greenfield (2:15)

Wow. Crazy.

So you were bodybuilding and powerlifting starting when?

Abud Bakri (2:21)

Like 16, 17 years old. Wow.

Ben Greenfield (2:25)

What do you mean when you say that got you into medicine?

Abud Bakri (2:29)

Yeah, the physiology, the anatomy of it all, studying the body, trying to optimize both the aesthetic proportions, the physical mass. And then when I discovered that I had the myostatin mutation, that made me realize that, oh, like there's the whole genetic component to this muscle game.

Ben Greenfield (2:48)

You have the myostatin mutation?

Abud Bakri (2:50)

I have, I'm heterozygous for the myostatin knockout, so.

Ben Greenfield (2:53)

Interesting.

Abud Bakri (2:54)

Okay.

Ben Greenfield (2:54)

So for people who don't know what that means, explain.

Abud Bakri (2:57)

Yeah. So myostatin is a protein secreted that limits the amount of muscle you make. So if you've seen those really muscular cows, you probably have seen them around, they have a double knockout of that gene. So men in my family, on my father's side, there's about 50% of them have this gene, where they're very muscular and built despite not really lifting weights.

But when I did start lifting weights, it was like, oh, like three months in 500 pound deadlift wasn't a big deal. So it's interesting, the little thing, but it also comes with a higher injury risk when it comes to your ligaments and tendons.

Ben Greenfield (3:26)

Yeah, I was going to say, like, there's got to be a downside somewhere because you hear about like, I don't know, there's like guys who are like big and inspirational, like Tony Robbins, for example. I know he has some kind of a pituitary growth hormone, gigantism thing going on. And I interviewed him and he said he gets a lot of joint pain from that. So it's not all, you know, not all just pure muscle without any side effects. So for you, it's higher risk of injury?

Abud Bakri (3:52)

Yeah, yeah. So when I did jiu jitsu, I tore my ACL pretty easily, actually, unfortunately. So that was unfortunate. But like cardiometabolic markers, like I could be eat whatever almost. And my A1C is going to be like 4.9. My lip is going to be pretty good.

So it's interesting.