Transcription
When people ask the question of what peptides do I take to grow muscle, the answer to the question is there are no peptides that grow muscle. If there were very powerful muscle growing peptides around, almost every enhanced bodybuilder would probably know about it by now and be all up in that muscle. The weight loss peptides are magic fat loss and health elixirs. Many of these though you have to get through gray market online labs, peptide shops. Just know that you're rolling the dice when you buy through online peptide shops.
Hey guys, Dr. Mike here for RP Strength and today we're going to talk about peptides. Specifically, do peptides grow muscle? And kind of a grand tour of all the common classes of peptides? I must get asked at least once a day, sometimes more, hey, what do you think of peptides? What about peptides? Peptides? What peptide should I be taking? You want peptides, bro? Peptides for muscle growth? Peptides are absolutely trending. So, we're going to take this video to answer the biggest questions about what peptides are, how they work, what they do, what they don't do yet, how safe they are, and especially if they grow through godamn muscle or not. People, that's why we're here.
The chemical definition of peptides has to go first. Peptides are amino acid chains typically less than 50 amino acids in length. Much over that is something that would be described as a complete protein. They function primarily as signaling molecules in the body binding to receptors and telling the cells that those receptors are on to do some kind of stuff like grow more muscle or grow less muscle or speed up the metabolism or what have you. Many hormones in your body naturally are already peptides. Insulin is a peptide. GLP-1 is a peptide. And that means they're a part of normal human physiology and slot right into interacting with the human body super super swell. Synthetic peptides, manufactured ones that are used in medicine, are engineered versions oftent times of these natural signaling molecules modified to make them more stable, have longer half- livives, or have more in intense receptor sensitivity so that when they clip into a receptor, shit really, really happen.
Getting these peptides from the vial into your body isn't as easy as just eating the vial and chewing the glass and swallowing the powder. Though I know that sounds tempting. Most peptides are injected subcutaneously, which means just under the skin because the digestive tract breaks down amino acid chains. It's one of its number one jobs. And so if you just like drink a bunch of peptides, you're wasting a lot of money. So they have to be injected almost certainly for the time being. Some of these peptides are modified with fatty acid chains or binding domains to increase their half-life or make them clip on to other molecules better and thus also increase their half-life. There are a few that have nasal introduction or they have dermal introduction where you rub a cream on and you get the peptides, but uh that tends to be inconsistent in bioavailability and is pretty rare. There are emerging technologies that are going to allow peptides to be oral, but they're again for the purpose of this video as when we're making it very rare. When you're taking peptides, if you plan on taking peptides, you're probably going to have to do some injecting pretty regularly.
Now, in order to inject peptides, you have to make sure you're managing that injection process well. So, we have to talk about how they're stored and managed. Peptides are biologically active amino acid chains, meaning they are really prone to degradation from heat, from light, from agitation, which means you show them a meme, they hate, brain rot, they get pissed. No, sorry. It means when you shake the vial, then literally like parts of the chemicals can fall apart or bind together in a way we don't like. And of course, contamination. So, if you shove a needle in there and pull it back out, shove a needle, pull it back out. Bacteria gets in there, the bacteria contaminates everything, and then you don't have any peptides. You just have an uh an infection waiting to happen.
Most peptides, once they are mixed and have water in them to prepare them for injection, require refrigeration between 2 and 8° C, which is really cold. And once reconstituted, they have a halflife as they're reconstituted. So you typically get them in a freeze-dried powder and that if you especially shove it in the fridge can last for like g whiz months and years but as soon as you mix them with the appropriate amount of water bacteria statatic water in almost every case then they start to have a half-life and a degradation time that is usually measured in weeks and not months. So if you have a situation where you have tzepide for example and you've premixed it just a few weeks of taking it and then it's no longer going to be super effective. So sometimes you'll see some peptide shops will sell like 30 milliliters or so 30 milligs of tepatide in one vial. Well shit unless you take 10 milligrams a week that's probably too big of a vial to to buy because by the time you shoot the end of the vial it's going to have way less effect than it typically would. And once you mix these things, you can't travel with them unless you have a cooler that you also can't shake much. I mean, Scott, what's it like to get through TSA with a drug cooler? It actually has like So, I've traveled with folks that have valid prescriptions for these things. It's totally possible. It's a pain in the ass cuz, you know, you're on a 13-hour flight to like Singapore or some shit, you got like ice packs or something that's going to work out to keep the cooler cool. It's a giant mess. So, a lot of times these peptides are shot once weekly. You shoot it and then you go on whatever trip you're going to go and that's just how the cookie crumbles. Or you bring your vials and you bring your back water and you bring your prescription or you bring needles and then it all works out in a sense. But it's not the most convenient thing in the world. It's not inconvenient, but it's like uh I just don't want people watching this video to think peptides come in a pill. You take it every day and cool things happen.
What are examples of peptides? Just to get you guys thinking about it. You've heard a lot of these before. B D B D B D B D B D B D B D B D B D B D B Dc157 Camarrellin MC C T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T T TB 500. But all of these are very different compounds and in my estimate five classes of different types of peptides exist currently and that accounts for man maybe 90% of all the peptides that are around. So let's talk about these classes of peptide effect and make some sense out of them because when people say peptides they are usually unaware of the fact that a lot of the peptides do really really different stuff and there's a thing that peptides don't do hardly at all which we're going to talk about and is a big big part of this video.
Class number one I would term the modern weight loss drugs. These are simaglletide tzepide and soon to be approved ratide. They are amazing for health and weight loss but do not have any anabolic muscle growing effects. They just don't. I wish they did.
Number two class are what I termed the recovery peptides. These are things like BPC57, TB500. People inject these to heal from injury faster. They have mixed results and uh mixed safety data for rapid injury healing, but also have seemingly no muscle growth effects.
Number three are what I call the exercise mimemetics. They replicate something, some part of the chemical cascade that you typically get from exercising, but they do it with just an injection. Mat C is an example of this. A typical example given is SLUPP 332, but that's actually an oral small molecule and technically not a peptide, though it is available in many peptide stores. These are promising for aerobic and systemic health and energy but are very underresarched for safety and effectiveness. And there are mechanistic reasons to suspect that these exercise mimetics are currently somewhat anti-anabolic. They suppress the mTor anabolic pathway to some extent which isn't great but is a real thing.
Number four are the GH the growth hormone secrets. These are things like serarellin, CJC1295, ipamearellin etc. There are lots of morelins and they just tell your body to secrete a bit more growth hormone than usual. They are what are called permissive anabolics. They're not primary anabolics. They support muscle growth if everything is going otherwise well and can enhance it to some degree, but they don't cause muscle growth. They don't tell your body to grow muscle like anabolic steroids do for example. So I don't want to term these as anabolic cuz they're not. They're a bit anti catabolic and they're a bit permissively anabolic but you're not going to shoot these drugs these morelins and just get super jacked like the liver king. I suspect the liver king was on other shit to get jacked.
Lastly are the insulin like growth factor modulators. the IGF modulators including including IGF-1 LR3 IGF-1 dees and mechano growth factor MGF they act like insulin like growth factor does on your muscles they don't have massive anabolic drive in the real world unfortunately unless you pin cushion yourself with the shit numerous times a day they typically have very short half- livives lots of side effects and poor tissue selectivities kind of grow everything and that's super not great for disease management. This isn't the whole list, but it's the vast majority.
Now, what's missing here? Where is the peptide in this list that straight up grows muscle? Like, you take it and it grows muscle. It's not here on this list. It's not on this list because it doesn't exist yet. And you guys, if it does exist, please let me know about it. Holy shit, would I love to take it. No joke.
So, the not great news for this video is that there are no muscle growth peptides yet. So, when people ask the question of what peptides do I take to grow muscle, which I get asked three times a day, the answer to the question is there are no peptides that grow muscle. I have a facicious bone in my body every now and again for comedic purposes. And uh people will be like, "Yeah, so like peptides for muscle growth." And I'm like, "Oh, which ones?" And they're like, "I don't know. You tell me." And I'm just like, "I don't know of any." and they're like, "What?" It's kind of a shock cuz people talk about peptides so much. You figure they grow some muscle, but apparently they just uh permissive at best. We know this from mechanisms. There are no peptides that mechanistically claim to grow lots of muscle. We know that the limited research on peptides does not show any that are very anabolic. And we know it very importantly from realworld feedback. If there were very powerful muscle growing peptides around, almost every enhanced bodybuilder, especially the professionals whose job it is to take these things, would probably know about it by now and be all up in that m. But it's kind of crickets when you look into it. And that's how you know the shit you want to work probably doesn't work.
So, are peptides worthless? No, they are not. So, what are peptides useful for? The weight loss peptides like simaglletide, tzepide, and retatride are magic fat loss and health elixirs. They are incredibly well tested. They are super safe and with proper dosing and diet all around awesome. With improper dosing and improper diet, you're going to have a bad time.
The recovery peptides like BPC and and TB and stuff like that have a lot of community hype behind them. So, we have a suspicion that they might work really well, might, but we have basically no good human trials so far. And we have very questionable safety profiles on these drugs, especially mechanistic hypothetical safety profiles because they might do some things to cancer cells like kind of helping them out a bit. We might not want to happen. Those are maybe, not fores, but definitely requires a bit of a standing back. A lot of times folks will take these when they tear a muscle and they want to do everything they can to rehab ASAP. Even questionable things like taking this class of peptides which has almost zero human safety data or effectiveness data.
The exercise mimedics things like Mati can likely boost daily energy and even health, but are so underresarched that we cannot state with any confidence what the risks are or really with much confidence what the benefits are. I want to be very clear guys, you're really rolling the dice here if you take these things. And if you're into gambling, yolo. But if you're not, I wouldn't do this kind of stuff. And so far, none of these exercise my medics burn a radical amount of fat or anything like that. Some very effective ones like SLU PPP 332 aren't even peptides. Uh they are oral small molecules. It's like telling people that your family has really good genetics for like doing some kind of sport. Then the only person in your family who can do that sport is somebody who married in and you're like nah. But he's this is our family.
The GH secrets the Melons I call them. um they work right they work to raise your growth hormone to high normal levels but they underperform in almost every category to just taking growth hormone itself. Now if you like the gray market versus the black market and you can't get legal growth hormone these are totally fine drugs to buy off your local peptide shop if you trust those folks. But uh a lot of times if you're one of these folks that will take drugs you just go to the real deal and you just take growth hormone. These drugs can absolutely enhance your already awesome fitness plan, but you will not in any world take them and they will not transform your experience. They just enhance it on the margins. They cause a a little bit more permissive muscle growth. They let fat loss happen a little faster. They have healing effects on joints and connective tissues. They keep you a little less dry so that your joints work better. They do enhance sleep. But these are all very small, very partial effects. There's no magic here.
The IGF-1 access drugs are too systemic because they hit everything to replicate animal trials that were done locally that caused animals to grow a shitload of muscle. They can be added to a very advanced stack of growth hormone and anabolic steroids. Uh but then you have to shoot them multiple times a day in specific areas and the effect is small and very side effectrone. So these are not exactly the things you want to be taking dependably from muscle growth, especially if you're just a regular person trying to enhance.
Next question are peptides safe because this is a very common question. The tides as I call them simaglatide, tracepatide retatide are incredibly safe. If you dose them properly and you eat well, they are technically safer to take than not to take because we already have multi-yearong data on them. For older folks reducing all cause mortality by being on these drugs than not on these drugs. And mechanistically, this is exactly what we would expect based on their effects, especially their overall anti-inflammatory effect, which is unprecedented and massive. I really do believe these drugs are health elixirs and longevity boosters. So, go get them yolo with your doctor's approval and prescription.
Of course, the recovery peptides like BPC have basically no human safety data or very limited human safety data. And there are mechanistic reasons to suspect that long-term risks from high dosing can include increases in cancer rates. No, these drugs do not cause cancer, but we can't yet rule out that they don't help it along if it's already on its way. If you're going to take these drugs, this is me putting down my former professor of exercise science hat and putting on my bro hat. If you're going to run BPC and TB500, do it. Do it at a dose that you think will work. Don't no micro dose the shit so that nothing happens. Do it for the duration that your injury needs to be healed from and then stop. Scott, I know people that just run the stuff year round all the time. It just seems like not a great idea. >> Interesting. >> Very interesting. I just wouldn't do it. I just wouldn't do it. And maybe it's not going to be a bad thing, but maybe it is going to be a bad thing. You want to run something year round that helps keep you healthy and keeps your joints healthy. That's just regular growth hormone at moderate doses. You don't need to run all this other crazy stuff. You can.
I just wouldn't vouch for the exercise mimetics like MC should hypothetically improve health but the research here is basically absent the GH secrets are not life extension drugs but likely have neutral effects on longevity while improving quality of life especially in folks with moderate growth hormone deficiency which could mean like the vast majority of people over 40 by the way however they are also very undervetted in human safety trials so it's a big question mark. The IGF-1 modulators are likely bad for longevity and cancer risk. They really are. And that's going to come like with anabolic steroids as a trade-off to its main effects on muscle growth. But anabolic steroids for sure grow muscle. And we really know about their health trade-offs and how to measure them. The IGF-1 like drugs don't grow nearly as much muscle and gwiz. So that trade-off maybe doesn't make as much sense. If you are already juice to the gills, these drugs can make sense on top of that. If you're anything but these drugs probably don't make a ton of sense health and safety wise.
So how should you decide if you want to take peptides? The biggest thing here is deciding on what effect you want. Should I take peptides is in a sense like asking, should I buy a car? How, Mike? How does that make any sense? Well, little analogy. If you live in the suburbs and you drive to work but don't have a car, it's essential. Yes, get a car. Otherwise, you can't go to work or to the store or to fun things to do with your friends. If you live in London, for example, or some major metropolitan area and you walk to work and you walk to the store and you walk to nightife, a car is a massive continual headache and giant financial expense. So, do not get a car if you live in London is usually good advice.
So, instead of asking if you should take peptides, which Scott, believe it or not, I get all the time that question. Should I take peptides? >> Dude, it's like the craze right now. >> The craze. Ask if you'd like any of their effects, their real effects. If it's for weight loss and overall metabolic health enhancement, then yes, you should probably take trapide and take retatriide when it comes out. Unfortunately, the rest of the peptide classes outside of these are very underwhelming in evidence for both effects and for their safety. I rarely recommend them in real life because the effects are usually either meh or giant question mark and the safety data is usually really massive question mark. You can have compelling reasons to take these, but for overall better fat loss and muscle growth, I would just talk to your doctor about tzepatide. I would talk to your doctor about hormone replacement therapy, which means usually just testosterone for men, and testosterone, estrogen, and progesterone for women that are post-menopausal or pmenopausal. And I would talk to your doctor about growth hormone replacement therapy. I don't think most peptides make sense here and can't really replace any of that shit, though. Trzepatite is a peptide, but probably best acquired through your doctor.
Lastly, how do you get peptides? The vetted ones like Trazepide you get with a doc's prescription. There are a few others that you can get through a script or through onlineies that are legit. Many of these though, you have to get through gray market online labs, peptide shops. Gray market means the drugs aren't illegal. but that the drugs are not approved by medical associations. So, you have to take on some risk. And let me be very clear, a lot of the peptide shops in this space are doing God's work and they're putting out amazing products that work and are not contaminated and are real and are safe. Well, as safe as the product can be. But some of the companies are fly by night and selling bunk or god knows what. Just know that you're rolling the dice when you buy through online peptide shops. Don't just click on things and buy them. Beware. Beware.
All right. What is the future of peptides? Peptides are very cool and no doubt more are incoming. They're actually phenomenally easy to develop and muscle building peptides are very likely in the near future. But peptides are just one class of drug and the real action is likely to be across multiple drug classes, especially in a class of drugs that fascinate me endlessly, the oral small molecule class. These drugs come in pill form. They can be taken by mouth daily and work with incredibly high target specificity, thus very big intended effects and very limited side effects. These are the drugs that have the biggest potential market fit for the pharmaceutical companies developing them. And thus, they are often very much the drugs being the most researched and the most likely to come out at some point and revolutionize medicine. Especially in the era of AI assisted drug research where you could generate a drug candidate that's almost certainly going to do what you think it will within hours, days of research instead of years of trial and error. This is a huge deal. To that end, I think we're just a few years away from oral small molecule drugs for all kinds of things physique, all kinds of things health and even all kinds of things psychology related and muscle growth. They're not here yet, but soon.
So, if you take peptides, know the risks. Have a goal. Don't just get in the c Don't just get caught in the hype just yet. But soon, I think in just a few years, very effective drugs for fat loss, energy, health, and for the love of God, muscle growth will be here. For the meantime, just got to take what we have available. And of course, everyone already knows this. Use the RP Hypertrophy and RP Diet Coach apps to enhance your outcomes so you too can be a machine like like like me. Strange way to end the video, Mike. Cool. See you guys next time.