← The Neuro Experience
The Neuro Experience
Neuroscientist: Why Women Are Being Sold Untested Brain Drugs (The Peptide Lie)
00:56:25
Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:00]
A
There is not one randomized controlled trial in humans to show that peptides are not just not beneficial, but not even safe. The documented side effects include intense nausea, facial flushing and most importantly, cases of kidney failure. 40% contained incorrect dosages or undeclared ingredients. Peptide imports from China nearly doubled $328 million worth in nine months. That's ins fastest growing consumer segment buying these compounds is not 25 year old bodybuilders, it's women. Women who went to their GP with brain fog and fatigue and joint pain. Kind of brain fog where you're mid sentence in a meeting and the word just leaves and were told that their bloods were normal. That sentence has done more damage to women's health than almost anything that I can think of. You open up Instagram. Someone with great lighting is saying peptides gave me my brain back. And honestly I would listen to it too. They sound more interested in your problem than your doctor did. And I'll tell you right now, the things that protect your brain are not sexy. So what do you do? Put down peptides BPC157, put down the TB500 for God's sake. Your body is not a Reddit experiment, the single most evidence backed intervention. For every problem peptides claim to solve, it works better than anything you could inject. This is. I'm Louise Nicola and this is the neuro experience. 60 million people worldwide are living with Alzheimer's disease. That number will triple by the year 2050. That means 110 million females will be living with Alzheimer's disease by the year 2050. There is no cure and there is no going back. The sad thing is one out of the five of us listening to this will get the disease. Alzheimer's disease is the number one cause of death in the UK amongst women, the number one cause of death in Australia. And that is not okay with me. My name is Louisa Nicola, I'm a clinical neurophysiologist and I'm an Alzheimer's disease scientist. I have dedicated the last decade and more to studying this disease. And what I can tell you is this prevention is key. We now know that you can prevent the onset of this disease no matter what the trajectory of your genetic profile lists. Even if your mother had this disease or your father had this disease, it does not mean that you have to get it. And this is exactly why brain code exists. Because Alzheimer's disease is not a disease of old age. It's not part of the brain aging process. It is a disease of midlife. And we used to think that the reason why women were disproportionately affected is simply because women lived longer. But that is not true. We have enormous amounts of data now to prove that it is because women go through this hormonal transition that begins in our 30s and creeps up in our 40s. And that is is menopause where we get the reduction of our crucial hormones that are not just reproductive hormones, they are neuroendocrine hormones. So over the course of this incredible Brain code journey, you'll be joining me and thousands of other women globally to combat this disease head on. I'm going to teach you the things that you need to know to prevent the disease. We're going to go into lifestyle interventions because it turns out that upwards of 95% of all Alzheimer's disease cases could have been prevented through lifestyle. We're going to talk about what are the best workouts for you to not only build muscle, but to build a better performing brain. We're going to talk about what Alzheimer's disease is. What are the blood tests that you need to order with your doctor to discuss whether you have any predispositions of getting the disease. We're going to talk about sleep interventions. You're going to know my top tools for diet, sleep, exercise, social activity. Absolutely everything that I know, I am giving to you ladies. Just remember, we are the majority, so we need to start acting like it. And by acting like it means starting by understanding your brain. I hope you'll join me in brain code and I can't wait to see you there. So come along with me, join brain code so we can change the statistic and live out my mission, which is to end Alzheimer's disease. Peptide imports from China to the United States nearly doubled in the year 2025. $328 million worth in nine months. That's insane. And then if you go through and do the Google searches for BPC157, it hit an all time high in June of 2024. TikTok and YouTube peptide content has generated over 50 million tagged video views. And the fastest growing consumer segment buying these compounds is not 25 year old bodybuilders. It's women. Women in their 30s, women in their 40s and 50s, women in perimenopause. Women who went to their GP with brain fog and fatigue and joint pain and were told that their bloods were normal. Women who are desperate for something to work because the system that was supposed to help you didn't. So ladies and gentlemen, if you're Joining me today, I am going to do what I've always done on this podcast. I'm going to go through the actual evidence, not the influencer evidence, not the Reddit testimonies, not the my mate Dave injected it and felt amazing evidence. I am going to give you the peer reviewed, published, randomized control trial evidence. And I'll tell you right now, for most of what's being sold to you as peptide therapy, that evidence does not exist. Not incomplete, not early stage, not promising, non existent. There is not one randomized controlled trial in humans to show that peptides are not just not beneficial, but not even safe. So let's start why women are reaching for peptides. Before I take any part of the science, I really want to say something. Clearly, if you're a woman who's looked into peptides, I'm not here to make you feel stupid. You are not stupid. The impulse that led you here is entirely rational. Perimenopause does not start at 50, it doesn't start at 45. Progesterone, the first hormone to decline, starts dropping in your late 20s. Estrogen follows in the late 30s and into the 40s. And the cascade that follows is not subtle brain fog, not I forgot my keys, brain fog. The kind of brain fog where you're mid sentence in a meeting and the word just leaves. Then there's visceral fat, the fat that appears around your midsection and does not respond to the same exercise that keeps you lean at 32. Then you've got joint pain in places that you've never even injured. You've got sleep that's fragmented. You fall asleep fine, but you're wide awake at 3am staring at the ceiling. Muscle starts disappearing even though you're still training. Fatigue that coffee doesn't even touch. And then you go to your doctor, you describe all of this. They run a blood panel and they say, honey, your labs look fine. That sentence has done more damage to women's health than almost anything that I can think of, because the labs are fine by the reference ranges they're using, which are population averages, not your optimal and not your peak. You are not the population. You're a specific woman going through a specific biological transition. And the system was not built to catch what's happening to you. So what do you do when you feel like this? What do you do? There's got to be an explanation as to why so many women are taking peptides. Well, you open up Instagram and someone with great lighting and with a confident voice is saying, BPC157 fixed my gut. Ipamoralin, changed my body composition. Peptides gave me my brain back. And honestly, I would listen to it too, because they sound more interested in your problem than your doctor did. So this is not a failure of individual women. This is a systemic failure. Because women's hormonal transitions have been medically under researched and undertreated for decades. Two thirds of all Alzheimer's disease patients are women. I will scream it from the rooftops till the day that I die. But the vast majority of brain health research was conducted on men. The Women's Health Initiative, which we don't need to go into in 2002, terrified an entire generation of clinicians away from hormone replacement therapy. And we're still recovering from that. Peptides now are filling a vacuum that mainstream medicine created. But here's what nobody selling you a vial is telling you. The majority of these compounds have never been tested in a single randomized controlled trial in a human being. You are not getting cutting edge medicine. You are the clinical trial, and you didn't sign up for it. And to think that context matters enormously. Before we get into what the data actually says says, because the impulse is right, women should be demanding better solutions for what's happening to their bodies. The question is whether this particular solution, these particular peptides, is backed by the kind of evidence that you'd want before injecting something into your body. So let's start with basics. I want you to know what a peptide is, and I guarantee you, you will change your mind. So let's get into it. A peptide is a short chain of amino acids. That's it. Think of amino acids as individual Lego bricks. When you link a few of them together, anywhere from two to about 50, you get a peptide. Link more than 50, and we start calling it a protein. You've probably heard of small amino acids like leucine and all of the other ones that you can get in amino acids when we drink. Okay, so we're getting closer. These peptides are just basically small proteins. But small doesn't mean simple. These molecules act as signaling messengers in your body, so they tell your cells to do things. Your body makes thousands of peptides naturally. Insulin is a peptide. Oxytocin is a peptide. GLP1, the molecule behind Ozempic and Mounjaro, it's a peptide. They regulate appetite, growth hormone release, tissue repair, collagen production, immune function. Peptides are running the show behind the scenes in virtually every system you have. But here's the really crucial bit. The Peptide pharmaceutical market is legitimate. There are over 80 FDA approved peptide drugs on the market right now. Let's for a moment talk about insulin because insulin's been saving lives since the 1920s and this isn't just a fringe category. The problem, and this is where it gets dangerous, is that the word peptide has become a marketing umbrella. It now covers everything from rigorous tested pharmaceutical drugs with decades of safety data to compounds that have literally never been inside a human body in a controlled trial. That's all living under one word. You guys know how much I believe in testing instead of guessing, especially when it comes to longevity and brain health. I do my blood biomarkers every three to four months because I want to know how I'm moving forward. Function Health gives you access to over 100 biomarkers from insulin sensitivity and inflammation to liver and thyroid health, all tracked over time. I use Function Health every three to four months. I know that's crazy, but this is how you catch quiet issues before they become problems. If you haven't had your Function Health labs done before, you need to check this out. Visit functionhealth.com louisa or use code neuro100 to get started. I've also linked this below. Go through and just simply research about what blood work can do for you. That is functionhealth.com louisianicola or use code €100 to get started. So that's quite scary about this whole industry. It's like saying chemicals. Water is a chemical, cyanide is a chemical. The word tells you nothing about the safety. Everything depends on which chemical, at what dose, tested how and in whom. So when someone says I'm taking peptides, that sentence is meaningless without specifics. It's like saying I'm taking chemicals. Great. Which ones, tested where, on whom, for how long, published in what journal, with what sample size. This is the only framework that matters, not my coach recommends it not. There's a Reddit thread, not a doctor on a podcast said it was promising. The question is, has this specific compound been tested in randomized controlled human trials, published in a peer reviewed journal with a sample size large enough to detect both ends, efficacy and harm? If the answer is yes, brilliant. Let's talk about it. Let's see what the data shows. If the answer is no, then what you're doing is not cutting edge biohacking. What you're doing is being a test subject and you didn't sign a consent form. So let's sort through these buckets. I know so many people are going to get really pissed off with this podcast because so many people are taking peptides, I can't tell you. I get probably two or three text messages from close friends every day saying, which peptides should I be on? It's so exciting, right? Let me tell you, I'd be the first one to take a peptide. I'd be the first one if a peptide promised to reverse aging. God knows I hate that sentence. But if a peptide said, if you just take this and inject this just once a week or once a month, you'll have better collagen synthesis, your skin will look much more plump, you will reverse the signs of aging. I'd be the first one on that, no matter what the cost was. What actually has evidence, what promise but isn't there yet, and what is basically a hope and a prayer sold in a vial is what I'm about to talk about. I know this whole podcast right now is seeming like I'm demonizing peptides, but I'm really just trying to get it through to you about the science of it. And I'm going to be honest about what works and what doesn't, because we have to be equally honest about all of this. So let's talk about GLP1s. GLP1 receptor agonists. You know them, their brand names are Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, and Zepbound. They are peptide drugs, Semaglutide and Tirzepatide. And unlike almost everything else we're going to talk about today, these are by far the most extraordinary thing behind them. They have actual data. GLP1s have thousands of patients. They've been through what we call phase three randomized controlled trials. They've got FDA approval and now cardiovascular outcome data. So let's talk about it, because numbers matter. Semiglutide, that is Ozempic and Wegovy. The step trials showed approximately 12% placebo corrected weight loss and in real world, use roughly 14% at one year. So that's not trivial. That is clinically significant weight loss that changes metabolic risk profiles. But then you've got my favorite, which is Tirzepatide. That then came along after Ozempic. That's Manjano and Zeppbound. This is a dual agonist. It hits both GLP1 and GIP receptors. And we've got the Surmount 5 trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine, which for anyone unfamiliar is the single most prestigious medical journal on the planet. Put them head to head. Tirzepatide versus semaglutide, directly compared the result showed a 20.2% weight loss for tirzepatide versus a 13%, 0.7% for semiglutide. And on the higher doses, 89 to 91% of participants achieved at least 5% body weight reduction. Now, I know some of you are thinking, louisa, I don't want to talk about weight loss drugs. I hear you. But this is not just a weight loss conversation. This is a metabolic rehabilitation conversation. The select trial showed that semiglutide reduced major adverse cardiovascular events in adults with with established heart disease. That means heart attacks, strokes, cardiovascular death reduced by a peptide. And for women specifically, because this is what I always come back to. A Meta analysis of GLP1 receptor agonists in women with PCOS showed significant reductions in BMI, waist circumference, triglycerides and testosterone levels. So if you understand pcos, you know that these are the four markers that define the metabolic disruption driving the condition. So on the one hand, you can say that these GLP1s are not just cosmetic, because we've seen meaningful clinical improvements in a syndrome that affects up to 1 in 10 women. So why am I focusing on this? Why am I putting this out there in a peptide episode? Because I need you to understand what real evidence looks like. Right? Thousands of participants. Right? Thousands. Randomized, controlled, double blind, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, replicated. That is the bar. Remember that bar, because in about three minutes, I'm going to introduce you to a peptide that has 12 participants in the entire human evidence base. And I need you to feel the size of that gap. So, GLP1 receptor agonists, thousands of participants. Phase three trials, as I said. FDA approval, cardiovascular outcome data. Cardiovascular outcome data published in the New England Journal of Medicine. That's what real evidence looks like. Hold that picture in your mind because now we need to talk about BPC1. Actually, just cut that last bit and let's start from here. Let's talk about BPC157, body protection compound. So if you've been anywhere near the Internet or the wellness space on the Internet in the last three years, you've heard of it. It's marketed as a healing peptide. Tendons, gut healing, ligaments, muscle, brain fog, inflammation. The claim is essentially that you inject this compound and it accelerates repair like wolverine in a vial. And the testimonials are everywhere on Instagram, they're everywhere on Reddit, longevity clinics charging hundreds to administer this, coaches recommending it to clients with shoulder injuries. Let's get into what the Science actually says in 2025 there was a study published. It was a systematic review in HSS journal. They screened 544 studies on BPC157,544. They included 36. Of those 36. 35 were preclinical. That means animal studies. Rats, not women, not men rats. One study, one involved humans. Lee M. Paget, 2021. Published in Alternative Therapies in Health Medicine. It was a retrospective case series. 12 patients, no control group, no blinding, no randomization. 12 people looking back at what happened with no comparison group to tell you whether what happened would have happened anyway, if that makes any sense. So that is the entirety of the human base evidence for a compound that millions of people are injecting into their bodies. That's it. 544 studies were screened. I don't know if you understand this, but I'm currently conducting a systematic review and matter analysis. We are screening over 12,000 studies. 12,000. So think about that. 544 studies were screened. One human study found 12 patients, no control group. That is not evidence. That's a dinner party. Now here's something else you need to know. The overwhelming majority of BPC157 research comes from a single group based at the University of Zagreb in Croatia. One lab. Imagine if everything you knew about a medication, everything came from one lab, one laboratory in one city run by one group of researchers, and no one else on earth had independently replicated their results the same at the same scale. Would you inject this thing? Because that's what BPC157 is, one lab. And the rest of the world is taking their word for it. And if you read through their publications, BPC157 apparently heals tendons, gut mucosa, liver damage, spinal cord injuries, retinal damage, and modulates dopamine, serotonin and GABA systems. One compound fixes everything isn't medicine, It's a horoscope. When I was training in clinical neurophysiology, there was an informal rule. If a compound claims to fix everything, it probably fixes nothing. And that is a pleiotrophic red flag. And I'm not the only one saying it. Actually, a very famous neuroscientist who is not exactly known for being in anti supplement, he made the exact point. Andrew Huberman. In April of 2024, he did a peptide episode where he stated that there is no way to avoid the pleiotrophic nature of what these compounds are. You will activate additional pathways regardless of your intended target. You are not ordering a specific repair, meaning that you may be taking BPC157 to heal your gut, but you are sending a signal that goes everywhere else. And here's the part that genuinely concerns me. The FDA classified BPC157 as Category 2 in late 2023. Category 2 means significant safety concerns. Specifically, they cited the risk of immunogenicity. Let me explain what that means in plain English, because It's very important. BPC157 is a synthetic version of a peptide fragment found natur in your gastric juices. So when you inject a synthetic peptide, your immune system may recognize it as foreign and start building antibodies against it. That's normal. Your immune system does that with lots of things. But the danger is those antibodies can cross react with your own endogenous proteins, meaning your body's own natural version of similar peptides. So your immune system, having learned to attack the synthetic compound, starts attacking you. Your immune system doesn't care what your coach on Reddit says. It sees a foreign protein, it builds antibodies, and then it starts looking for anything else that looks similar, including your own tissue. So that's not a side effect. That's just a friendly fire, if you will. This is not theoretical hard ringing. This is the specific mechanism that the FDA cited when they moved BPC 157 to Category 2 and told compound pharmacies that they could no longer legally prepare it for human use. And the pharmacokinetics are essentially unknown. What do we know? We know that the half life of BPC157 is under 30 minutes. Hepatic metabolism, renal clearance. What we don't know is what happens with chronic exposure. What happens when you take it for weeks, for months, what cumulative immunogenic load looks like? Nobody knows because nobody has studied it. And I think what most people forget is that just because your rotator cuff felt better after BPC157, it doesn't mean that the compound did anything. Because time heals, placebo heals. The natural history of most soft tissue injuries is improvement over weeks and months, regardless of any intervention. So without a control group, you cannot separate the signal from the noise. And with 12 patients and no control group, there is no signal. There's just noise. And you're paying $300 a vial for it. If it hasn't been tested in a human trial, you're not the customer, you're the experiment. And the vial doesn't come with a consent form. So let's talk about TB500, the other healer. And while I'm here, let me talk about this, because women are being sold this one far too often. You've got to stack BPC157 with TB500 as your healing protocol. TB500. What is it? Well, it's a synthetic fragment of a protein called thymosin beta 4. And I want you to notice that word for a moment. Fragment is not a full protein. It is a piece of it. So injecting TB500 and expecting it to do what thymus and beta does, it's like ripping a chapter out of a textbook and expecting it to get you through the exam. It's just part of the machine. It's not the machine itself. And assuming that a fragment delivers the same clinical effect as the parent molecule is a leap that no published data supports. When we talk about aging, well, we're really talking about mitochondrial health and how to power up our mitochondria and how to produce better functioning mitochondria because that's where we produce our energy. Now, mito pure from timeline supports mitochondrial renewal, which is helping cells produce energy more efficiently over time. I take it daily for steadier energy and better cognitive endurance. And I have to say, by far this is the only supplement other than creatine that I solely think that everyone should be taking. It really helps as well with muscle health. Go and check it out. Read more about it and you can get 20% off@timeline.com neuro ps their gummies taste so good. So thymus and beta has some interesting research behind it. Topical application, meaning on the skin surface, has been shown to accelerate healing of surface wounds, but it failed in clinical trials for cardiac regeneration. So they tested it for heart tissue repair after a myocardial infarction, and it didn't work for muscle tears. They tested it, which is what most people are actually injecting it for. And I also think that people taking it, they tell me or they claim that they're having deep sleep, so they like to take TB500 at nighttime. But listen, injecting it also has no human data. Zero. None. People are injecting a fragment of a wound healing protein into deep tissue injuries based on extrapolation from surface wound studies and rodent models. There's a theoretical concern that genuinely worries me, and that is the mechanism by which TB 500 promotes tissue repairs involves cell migration and proliferation. I mean, that sounds great, right? Because when I hear the word proliferation, I think of bdnf, because that helps the growth and proliferation of new neurons in the hippocampus. So I think that sounds great until you realize that cancer cells use the exact same mechanism to metastasize. Cancer cells hijack these pathways to move and multiply. Now, I'm not saying that TB500 causes cancer. I don't have the data to make that claim, and no one does. But what I am saying is that chronically activating a pathway that cancer cells are known to exploit is a gamble that no one can currently quantify because say it with me now, no one has done the long term studies in humans. So now let's talk about growth hormone secretagogues. Because these are being marketed aggressively to women for anti aging, fat loss, skin quality, sleep and recovery. The compounds you'll hear about most are CJC 1295, Epamorelin and MK677. The pitch is so seductive. Boost your body's natural growth hormone production. It sounds gentle. It sounds like you're just optimizing what your body already does. And they promise benefits, especially in midlife, like better skin, less body fat, deeper sleep, faster recovery, more energy. Let's start with CJC 1295, because the history of this compound should actually stop every single person in their tracks. CJC 1295 was originally developed by a biotech firm for HIV patients with lipodystrophy, that is the abnormal distribution of body fat. In 2006, during a phase 2 clinical trial, a healthy subject died of a heart attack. The entire program was shut down. And in pharmaceutical development, a trial halt due to death is not a footnote, it's a siren. It means something. It means something went wrong badly enough that the people running the study, people who had invested millions of dollars and years of work, decided it was too dangerous to continue. And today, that exact same compound is being sold on the Internet. On the Internet, you're injecting something that you bought on the Internet that is not FDA approved. Women are buying it from websites, mixing it with bacteriostatic water in their kitchens, and injecting it based on dosing protocols from Reddit threads. A pharmaceutical company with billions on the line looked at the data and said that is too dangerous to continue. And now it's available on the Internet, which also sells bath salts. Make it make sense. CJC 1295 with DAC, the long acting version essentially forces your pituitary gland to release more growth hormone continuously. So think of your pituitary like a factory that ships growth hormone in natural pulses throughout the day. So CJC 1295 nails the doors open, you get this constant relief, no off switch. And the consequences of that constant release, like, include insulin resistance and joint pain. I think it's also scary to have a constant release of growth hormone throughout the day because, like, what else are you growing? People are doing this in the promise of more muscle. But raising growth hormone in people who are not clinically deficient does not actually increase functional muscle mass. Lean body mass goes up on the scale, yes, but that is largely water and glycogen, not contractile muscle. It does not make you stronger, it does not improve your VO2 max. It does not build the muscle that protects your brain and your bones. It is, it inflates a number on the scale without giving you the thing you actually wanted. We can talk about MK677 for a second here, because this one has actual human data and the data is damning because MK677 is an oral growth hormone, sekragog, that also mimics ghrelin, which is your hunger hormone. Nass and colleagues published a randomized control trial in the Annals of internal medicine in 2008. 12 months older adults, 25 milligrams per day. And then the results showed fat free mass increased by about 1.1 kg. And that sounds really positive, right? But, and this is the critical part, there was no improvement in strength, no improvement in physical function or strength, no improvement in power output. So your lean mass went up, but you didn't actually get stronger or more functional. Once again, water and glycogen masquerading as progress. And the side effects were consistent. And concerning the participants reported, worsened insulin sensitivity, increased fasting glucose, elevated HbA1c. Published case reports exist of overt type 2 diabetes triggered by MK677 use. So there's also reports of significant facial edema, what's colloquially called moon face because growth hormone causes fluid retention. So think about who is being marketed this compound. Most women in midlife, women who are already dealing with increasing insulin resistance as a consequence of declining estrogen. Estrogen is protective of insulin sensitivity, right? So when it drops, your glucose regulation deteriorates. That is a well established physiological reality of the menopausal transition. And into that context, someone who is selling you a compound that worsens insulin sensitivity, raises your blood sugar and gives you no meaningful strength gains in return is crazy. You are adding petrol to a fire and paying for the privilege. MK677 is the metabolic equivalent of lending money to someone who's already in debt. You cannot afford the interest. And for women worried about brain health and Alzheimer's disease, which is my audience, which is why you're probably here. It's worth Understanding the relationship between elevated IGF1 and cancer risk. A review in PNAS found positive associations between high circulating IGF1 and breast cancer, colorectal cancer and prostate cancer. Deliberately elevating a growth factor that does not discriminate between healthy tissue and abnormal cells is a gamble that no one can quantify because again, no one has done the long term studies. You are rolling the dice with a growth factor that feeds everything, including the things you don't want it to feed. So let's just pause there because that's really jarring. I am so, so scared of cancer. I openly admit that I'm transparent about it. I'm petrified of it. So this is really scary to me. All of these CJC 1295, EPA, Morellon MK677 were placed on category two by the FDA. They cannot be legally compounded by pharmacies for human use. So where are women getting them from? The gray market Online peptide suppliers, research chemical websites, companies that print not for human consumption on the label as a legal shield while marketing directly to humans with injection protocols and dosage guidance. And Here is what third party testing reveals about these products. There was a 2024 meta analysis of gray market injectable peptides which found active ingredient content up to 39% higher than what was listed on the label. Purity rates as low as 7 to 14%. Some products tested positive for bacterial endotoxins, the toxic compound of bacterial cell walls that can trigger severe immune reactions. FDA testing of online peptide products found that up to 40% contained incorrect dosages or undeclared ingredients. A separate analysis of 44 research chemical products found that only 18 actually contained the compound listed on the label. 10% had none of the active ingredients at all. And beyond what's missing, there's what's present that shouldn't be heavy metals, lead, arsenic, mercury. No pharmaceutical grade manufacturing standards. No independent purity verification, no regulatory oversight. A study tested 44 peptide products from the gray market. Only 18 contained what was on the label. You're not biohacking. You're paying to be lied to. You are playing roulette with what is in that vial and you don't even know how many chambers are loaded. The beauty peptides such as Melanitan 2 and PT141 before I move into what actually works, I need to address what that is. Beauty peptides, because these are specifically being marketed to women And I am seeing them absolutely everywhere on social media. Melanotan 2, the Barbie drug. It is marketed for tanning without UV exposure. I remember like 15 years ago because I was like in the health and fitness space from a very young age. I was a personal trainer in my late teens and I remember going to bodybuilding contests and wondering why these bodybuilders were so dark. And this is where I first heard about Melanotam, right? Marketed for tanning without UV exposure. The promise of a year round golden bronze tan without sun damage. And yes, it does stimulate melanin production. But Melanotan is a non selective agonist. It doesn't just hit the melanocortin receptor responsible for pigmentation. It hits appetite receptors, it hits sexual arousal pathways, it hits nausea centers. It's a shotgun, not a laser. If a compound gives you a tan but kills your appetite and increases your libido and makes you vomit, that's not a peptide, that's a vagus weekend. The documented side effects include intense nausea, facial flushing and most importantly, cases of kidney failure. So there are also reports of this, of a new changing moles, which in the context of compounds that directly stimulate melanocyte activity should raise immediate red flags for anyone with personal or family history of melanoma. Biologically speaking, melanocytes are the cells that produce pigment. They are also the cells that become malignant in melanoma. So melanotan stimulates these cells to proliferate and produce more melanin. So you are activating the exact cellular machinery that skin cancer hijacks. So if you take melanotan, you are microdosing a tan and macro dosing a cancer risk that you cannot undo. That's not a glow up ladies. That is a gamble with your largest organ. I don't know why I'm so upset about this. I think I'm mainly upset because people are just looking for the easy way out. People just want the quick fix, I want to live forever thing that's happening. It's been marketed so heavy and you're being fooled into thinking that we can A reverse age or B, that we can live to 150. And if you do, and I do not judge if you do, it takes so much time and effort that you are actually taking away from the very essence, essence of what life is. And that is presence. One of the simplest longevity upgrades is reducing daily toxin exposure. That's why I switched to Caraway, because their ceramic cookware is non toxic, because it has no pfas, no forever chemicals. And I use it every single day. It's one of those quiet changes that adds up over time. So if you haven't really looked into the science of your cookware and how you're cooking your food, you need to check out caraway. Head to caraway.com neuro to get 20% off anything on their website. Caraway.comnuro 20% off. This is the best cookware on the market. So let's keep going. Let's talk about PT141. PT141 is the most selective cousin and credit where it's due. PT141 is actually FDA approved under the brand name Valesi for hypoactive sexual desire disorder in perimenopausal women. So it's been through clinical trials, it's got real human data. The efficacy is modest, but statistically significant. However, even the FDA approved version has a 40% rate of nausea. 40%, you know, is a big trade off and it's a conversation worth having with your prescribing physician. Shouldn't be just a tap and by decision on Instagram. But the point is, if you want PT141, get it through a legitimate prescription from a doctor who can monitor you. You it exists as an approved pharmaceutical, so it's legal, it's been tested. There is no rational reason to buy a gray market version of PT141. It's FDA approved equivalent, except that the gray market version is cheaper and doesn't require you to have a medical conversation. So we've now been through the peptide, so that's that. Now moving on. We've been through the peptides with rat evidence, the peptides with damning evidence, and the beauty peptides being sold to women on social media. The picture I hope is becoming very clear. If you're injecting something that has been through a human trial, you're not on the cutting edge of medicine, you're not biohacking, you're standing in for the clinical trial that was never done and nobody's tracking your outcomes. So let's talk about what you should actually do. And I promise you the evidence is not just better, it's not even close. And I want you to feel strong and sharp and energetic in all areas of your life. That is not an unreasonable expectation. That is not vanity, that is a biological right that you have been failed on by a medical system that didn't study your body, didn't take your symptoms seriously and left a vacuum that the peptide industry was more than happy to fill at $300 a vial. So let's talk about what actually works. And I'll warn you, none of it comes in a syringe. None of it has a sexy name. None of it will get you 50 million views on TikTok. Maybe it will, but all of it has something that BPC157, TB500CJC1295 all of these do not have and that is decades of human clinical data. What am I talking about? Resistance training. I will not stop talking about this. And I don't care if you're bored of hearing it. I don't care if it's not novel. I don't care if the most powerful peptide on the planet is the one your muscles release when you pick up something heavy and put it back down. Resistance training is the single most evidence backed intervention for virtually every problem peptides claim to solve. Muscle preservation, Resistance training, Bone density resistance training, Insulin sensitivity resistance training. Cognitive prevention Resistance training. Body composition resistance training. Sleep quality resistance training. Reduction of visceral fat Resistance training. Reduction of all cause mortality. Resistance training. This is not my opinion. This is decades of randomized control trials. Thousands upon thousands of human participants replicated across populations, age group, sexes, comorbidities. You should use load management and progressive resistance training as the primary intervention for tendon and muscle injuries rather than unproven peptides. The thing that actually heals your rotator cuff is not a research chemical from a website that accepts bitcoin. It's progressive overload, done intelligently over time. It's not glamorous, but it has mountains and mountains of data. And when it comes to women, muscle is not a vanity organ. Muscle is a cognitive organ. Your skeletal muscle produces myokines and they're signaling molecules that cross the blood brain barrier and directly influence neuroplasticity, neurogenesis and the clearance of neurotoxic proteins. When you train, when you strength train, your muscle is literally talking to your brain and telling it to protect itself. No peptide on earth can replicate that. Not one. And the reason nobody's marketing resistance training to you the way they market peptides is because no one makes $300 when you pick up a single dumbbell. The plural of anecdote is not data. The plural of thousands of randomized control trials is. And the data says pick up heavy things. Hormone replacement therapy. If you are in perimenopause or post menopausal, you've not had an informed conversation about hormone replacement therapy with a clinician who actually understands the current evidence. I'm talking about if you are anywhere in the world and you've gone to your doctor and you've said, hey, doc, could you check my levels? I've been hearing about this word called menopause. Am I in it? And then your doctor, who isn't up there in the menopause society and who maybe isn't as well informed as other physicians who are practicing menopausal therapies. I call my replacement therapies, does your labs and says, no, you're completely fine. They dismiss you and they give you the wrong diagnosis, when in actual fact you probably are menopausal or perimenopausal, not someone still operating. This person is probably still operating on the 2002 Women Health Initiative. Fear, then the most important thing for you to do after listening to this episode is finding somebody who understands hormone replacement therapy. You can find them on the Internet. You can. You can find them on my podcast. I've interviewed so many of them, it will do you wonders. Because the data on estrogen and progesterone for neuroprotection, cardiovascular health, bone density and symptom management has shifted dramatically in the last decade, the Women Health Initiative study, the one that terrified a generation of doctors away from prescribing hrt, has been reanalyzed, contextualized, and in many respects contraindicated by subsequent research. The timing hypothesis is now well established that hormone replacement therapy initiated in perimenopause or early postmenopause during what we call the critical window has a fundamentally different risk profile to HRT initiated decades after menopause. Estrogen is not optional for your brain. It is neuroprotective. It supports synaptic plasticity. It modulates serotonin, dopamine and acetylcholine. It influences cerebral blood flow. So when it declines, your brain doesn't just feel different, it is different. And the idea that women should just white knuckle through that transition because a misinterpreted study from two decades ago is one of the greatest failures of modern medicine. If your doctor isn't up to date on this, find one who is. That is not me being mean. That is me being direct. You deserve a clinician who has read the literature published after 2002. What else can you do to not take peptides? Well, ladies and gentlemen, you can eat protein. Yes, protein helps you build muscle. Protein helps you stimulate muscle protein synthesis. If you're resistance training, and you should be, aim for at least 100 grams of protein per day. Leucine rich sources, eggs, dairy, poultry, fish, beef Leucine is the amino acid that triggers muscle protein synthesis. Most effectively, it's the switch. And during hormonal transitions, your body becomes less efficient at building and maintaining muscle. The anabolic resistance of aging is real, which means you need more protein as you get older, not less. And most women I speak to are eating about half of what they need. You should be having anywhere between 1.8 grams per kilogram of body weight. So if you are 70 kilos, that would be 1.8 times 70. Very easy to do the math. You cannot out train a protein deficit and you certainly cannot replace adequate protein with a peptide injection. Next on my list is sleep. Consistent timing is non negotiable. Your glymphatic system, which is your brain's clearance system network, operates primarily during diagnosis. It clears out amyloid beta, the protein that aggregates in plaques in Alzheimer's disease. And every night that you sleep well, your brain is taking out the rubbish. And every night you don't, the rubbish accumulates. And this is free neuroprotection. You don't need a prescription, you don't need a vial, you don't need a longevity clinic. You need a dark room, a consistent bedtime, and the discipline to put your phone down. If you have symptoms of sleep apnea, like snoring, waking up, unrefreshed daytime fatigue, just get a sleep study. Untreated sleep apnea is one of the most potent modifiable risk factors for dementia and it's actually wildly under diagnosed. We think that it's just men with sleep apnea, but it's not. It's misdiagnosed and underdiagnosed in women because clinical representations differs between men and women. And most screening tools were validated on male populations. Sound familiar, right? Okay, so guys, if you're considering taking GLP ones, any type of these, have an honest conversation with a qualified prescribing physician. Not an Instagram clinic, not a telehealth app that prescribes. After a five minute questionnaire, you want to go to a doctor that will take all of your markers and will insist that you pair the GLP1 with adequate protein and with resistance training. And you want a doctor that is going to monitor your progress, look for an endocrinologist. GLP1 receptor agonists are legitimate evidence based. These tools are great for metabolic health when used appropriately. I showed you the data earlier, it's robust. But they're just tools. They're not solutions. They work best in the context of the foundations we just discussed. And for the love of everything. Get them from a pharmacy, not the Internet. There is an FDA approved, clinically tested, pharmaceutical grade version of these drugs. There is no reason on earth to buy a gray market kickoff of a medication that you can get legally with a prescription. So let's bring this home because I know I've thrown a lot of science at you today and I know some of it is uncomfortable. Some of you listening right now have BPC157 in your fridge. Some of you have already spent thousands of dollars of on one peptide protocol from longevity clinics that now you're questioning. And I'm not saying this to shame you. I'm saying this because I need you to hear this next part. You are not too smart to be sold something that doesn't work. That is not an insult. That is a statement about how good the marketing is. The peptide industry has specifically identified women in midlife, women who are suffering, who have been dismissed by their doctors, who are desperate for something to work. And it has built a multi hundred million dollar supply chain to sell them compounds that has not been tested in a single human clinical trial. That is marketing. Wearing a lab coat. The testimonials are real in the sense that real people genuinely believe they felt better. But belief is not evidence. The placebo effect is not a minor footnote in clinical research. It is one of the most powerful forces in medicine. People feel better because they spend money, because they took action, because they believed something would help. That is human. That is understandable. But it's not data. And the plural of anecdote is not data. It's a marketing budget. So here is what I want you to take away from this episode. The things that protect your brain, preserve your muscle, regulate your metabolism and set you up for the next 40 years are not sexy. They never will trend on TikTok. They don't come with a reconstitution protocol and a 30 gauge needle. They come from picking up heavy things, sleeping enough, eating enough protein and working with doctors who actually listen to you. That is the evidence. That is your brain code. And honestly, it works better than anything you could inject. I know that's not the answer some of you came to this for. You probably came here thinking yay, Louise is going to tell us how important peptides are. I know lift weights and sleep more doesn't scratch the same itch as this peptide healed my gut in two weeks. But I've spent over a decade studying the human brain. I see it in neurosurgery every single week and I'M telling you, the data is overwhelming and it is clear the foundations win every time. Not because they're trendy, because they're true. And if you're a woman who's been dismissed by her doctor, who has been told her symptoms are not normal, who has been gaslit into thinking her brain fog and fatigue and joint pain are just part of aging, you deserve to be furious about that. You should be. Because that's not systemic failure and it is real. But I hope you enjoyed this episode on peptides. And let me tell you, I hope to dear God that maybe one day we'll have regulated approved peptides that we can see working. And they've been through phase three clinical trials to show some form of change. But for now, put down the peptides BPC157, put down the TB500, put down the skin ones, put down the reproductive ones, for God's sake and just work on you. Work on your life. Get a community around you. Your body is not a Reddit experiment, your brain is not a biohackers beta test, and you are worth more than someone else's profit margin on a research chemical. Here is to protecting your brain with evidence, not hype. This Valentine's Day, the UPS Store certified packing experts are helping pack and ship all the ways we care. From the lovey dovey XOXO Gifts gifts for your Galentine's gal pal. Even pet gifts for Doggy Dearest. When you ship UPS Air at the UPS Store, your items arrive on time or your money back. Guaranteed at no extra cost. Exclusively at at the UPS Store US retail locations. Send your Valentines on time at the UPS Store. Visit theupsstore.com airguuaranty for full details. Terms and conditions apply. What is Natural? When you read natural flavors on a label, most people don't realize it's often not real food at all. Those hidden ingredients quietly work against how your body feels and functions over time. That's why Just Ingredients uses only real food ingredients so you know exactly what you're putting in your body. Stop guessing. Start knowing. @justingredients us.