Peptide Protocols: Volume One

Introduction

As an orthopedic surgeon used to the straightforward surgical protocols that mend broken bones and address soft tissue injuries, I have simply been amazed at how a handful of peptides has changed the nature not only of recovery, but of performance. I’ve been working with peptides for almost 10 years—at first helping my athlete patients recover faster and then helping them return to the playing field stronger, more agile, and more capable. I’ve also been fortunate enough to create tremendous, measurable outcomes with non-surgery patients. Indeed, I’ve developed an entire supplementary practice in which I consult with other specialists and use peptides as adjutants that achieve faster, better medical results. For example, I have used them on a traumatic brain injury (TBI) patient who went from being nonresponsive to walking and talking; on a teen girl whose kidney disease completely resolved; on an ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) patient who has since recovered motor skills; and on a young woman with chronic myelocytic leukemia (CML) who was able to lower her white count so she could avoid tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs), which decrease infertility, and eventually conceive and deliver a boy. These are all remarkable cases, but they don’t have to be. Peptides offer us nearly miraculous opportunities to change how we treat illness and disease; they also offer us life-changing tools and strategies for preventing disease in the first place.

This handbook, the first in a series, unpacks how disease—both chronic and acute—occurs at the level of the cell and how peptides can halt disease by enhancing cell functioning. It then introduces a number of essential peptides that address cell dysfunction and loss of efficiency and how to safely and strategically use these peptides to address the cell and intervene in common, debilitating conditions. However, what is perhaps most paradigm-shifting is that when you look through this powerful lens of the cellular level, you come to realize that peptides offer us a radically new way to define aging. Indeed, aging, as we’ve come to accept it, is simply cell cycle arrest. Peptides can target this arrest and the reasons for it. This is a gross simplification, to be sure, but there is great truth in the simplicity of the cell.

As the first in a series, this book serves as a general overview of an initial group of basic, though powerful, peptides; it covers their uses and their mechanisms for action within the cells and provides protocol examples. Although thousands of peptides are now in existence, with many more being developed every month, this handbook offers the first-ever comprehensive explanation of how and why peptides work. The Peptide Protocols, Volume 1 is designed as an introductory guide; it provides the necessary background for any trained physician or professional healthcare practitioner who is interested in supplementing their practice to achieve more favorable outcomes. Some biohacking and self-improvement researchers around the world will also gain significant insight into the influence of peptide signaling on the cell.

All the information and advice pertaining to peptides is substantiated by significant peer-review studies (which are cited in a comprehensive bibliography at the back of this book). For continued education that focuses on the development of, maintenance of, and interaction with peptides, updated research and training can be found at Seeds.md.

This handbook accompanies workshops and training modules that I have created for the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine (A4M), along with several professional training programs that stem from my work with the International Peptide Society (IPS), a foundational organization of physicians and healthcare providers who are committed to best practices in the use of peptides. More recently, my work with peptide training and medical education has led to the establishment of the SSRP education program, which will take practitioners to the next level by offering continued, in-depth educational programming directed at cellular medicine.

This handbook serves as an introduction to what peptides are, how and why they work in the brain and body, and how they can be used judiciously to improve health and outcomes. It is meant to be used in conjunction with professional training and continued research in the fast-moving arena of peptides. You can use this handbook as a guide as you become familiar with various peptides, their mechanisms, modes of use, and interactions. You can also use this guide as a way in which to introduce peptides to your patients and inform them of their options and choices. Indeed, I am a strong believer in empowering our patients with knowledge and confidence; such patients always make more successful outcomes.

In Part 1 of the book, we take a close look at the cell cycle, cell behavior, and what happens when cells don’t get what they need and begin to morph or make bad decisions. When cells get to this stage, they become senescent—and that’s what we are really after with peptides. By interfering with or stopping cell senescence when necessary, peptides give us the opportunity to help our patients prevent disease, recover faster, harness aging, and improve overall health.

We have also introduced a new section that addresses COVID-19 in the chapter Preparing the Immune System in the Age of Viruses, Bacteria, and Other Pathogens to underscore the significant relevance of peptides, nutrition, and exercise in preparing people for a future in which viral and bacterial pandemics will increase. A key method for prevention and stemming the tide of disease is understanding the importance of cell efficiency and its role in optimizing immune modulation of the innate and adaptive immune responses.

In Part 2 of the book, we review the most commonly available peptides, their modes of action, their applications, and examples of protocols.

These topics will act as a guide that begins to unravel the puzzle of epigenetics and how we can utilize our current knowledge and understanding of how the genome reacts to epigenetic forces to create new phenotypes. Darwin was the first to recognize the process of evolution, which radically changed our understanding of the fate of the human race. Though Darwin had no knowledge of genes and the epigenetic forces that can alter phenotypes to change the programmed genomic makeup of a cell, he did understand that physical and behavioral adaptations could alter selective forces that would produce progenity, which in turn would predominate or desist in the environment, according to their level of fitness.

Almost one hundred years later, Richard Dawkins extended our understanding of this adaptable genome. In the 1970s, Dawkins recognized that the fundamental level at which natural selection acted was at the replicator (what he preferred to call genes) level—not at the species level. Since that time, scientists and physicians have assumed that the gene pool is the battleground on which phenotypic alterations competed for dominance.

Now it’s time to update our understanding further and look at how and why this genome adapts, dies, or survives. Indeed, it’s our responsibility to understand how this epigenetic signature change by phenotypic alteration is the basis for disease and aging. Ignoring these truths will have insidious effects in future generations. The cell and peptides lead us in this direction. And the time is now.

Part 1

An Introduction to

Cellular Senescence

1

It’s Time to Redefine Aging

Since the beginning of time, humankind has aspired to take the reins on aging, defeat death, and discover—once and for all—a fountain that promises eternal youth. Our appetite for preserving youth continues and is perhaps even more intense at this moment than ever before. But often the approach to turning back the clock and holding onto youth is foiled. Hand and face creams, vitamin pouches, cosmetic procedures, and even growth hormones have never been able to deliver what they promise: an arrest of the decline in physiological and cognitive functioning that’s associated with advancing age.

We are looking in the wrong direction.

Part of this confusion is based on our long-held adherence to the typical Western medical model that frames our understanding of biology in two basic ways: developmental and disease-oriented. This framing is rooted in the evolutionary lens: we are born, we develop to maturation so that we can reproduce, and then we die. Intellectually, we know that we have eclipsed this evolutionary schema—as evidenced by our long lifespans. Indeed, living way beyond our fertile periods is testament enough to the need to reframe our understanding of our own biology that is constrained by a view that the original evolutionary purpose is to design our genotypes and phenotypes.

The Western, allopathic model that has produced modern medical discoveries, procedures, inventions, drug therapies, and other treatment protocols is rooted in the study of disease, and its etiologies, complications, and risk factors. This means studying diseases themselves and trying to trace causes or triggers, assembling risk factors, analyzing complications, and hoping that a certain treatment method or protocol will erase the disease or arrest its progression. Most of the medical training that we all have received stems from this view of aging and disease, which inherently gives aging and disease the upper hand.

As functional and integrative physicians and healthcare practitioners, we have questioned this very premise for