Dr. Daniel Stickler, co-founder of the Apeiron Center for Human Potential, discusses the potential therapeutic applications of peptides in human health and performance. Peptides are short chains of amino acids found in various sources and have a range of biological functions, including the regulation of hormones, influencing neurotransmitters, and modulating the immune system. They can also have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and antimicrobial properties. Dr. Stickler also presents a few examples of using wearable devices to gather biometrics, interpreting the data and acting on the insights gained to effect positive changes.

The original presentation was filmed during Biohacker Summit Helsinki, Finland, in October 2019.

Check https://biohackersummit.com for upcoming events & tickets!

Devices, supplements, guides, books & quality online courses for supporting your health & performance: https://biohackercenter.com

Key moments and takeaways:

00:00 Introduction by Teemu Arina

01:10 Peptides for Performance and Health

03:12 Examples of Peptide Applications

06:20 Dr. Daniel Stickler: Biologics and Peptides

09:12 Peptide Sequencing and Manufacturing

10:07 Peptides and their Mechanism

11:03 Neurologic Peptides

11:58 Cerebrolysin

14:27 Cellink

15:41 Dihexa

16:34 FGL

17:28 Rg3

18:23 MT2

19:00 Peptides for Therapeutic Applications

19:21 Data-Driven Health

22:39 Measuring Stress and Adaptability

23:49 Using Biometric Wearables

25:00 Measuring Sleep

24:43 Teemu Arina: Cautionary Advice on Peptide Use

Music.

Welcome to the Biohacker's Podcast, where we explore the latest advancements in health, biohacking

and general human optimization.

I'm Teemu Arina from Biohacker Center, and today we talk about the wondrous and mysterious

world of peptides. Peptides can be found in a variety of sources including food, plants, animals and microorganisms.

Some peptides have been identified as potential therapeutic agents for a range of health conditions.

Peptides can have a range of biological functions, including the regulation of hormones, influencing

their neurotransmitters and modulating the immune system.

They can also have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial properties.

Peptides can also be used therapeutically to treat various conditions such as diabetes,

cancer and cardiovascular disease.

Additionally, peptides have potential applications in biotechnology, such as in drug development or gene therapies.

Shortly speaking, peptides are short-chain amino acids. Peptides are, for example, formed when proteins in the food are broken down by enzymes in

the digestive system.

These peptides are further broken down into amino acids, which are used by the body for

various functions including the synthesis of new proteins.

The specific peptides produced during digestion depend on the type of protein being consumed

and the enzymes present in the digestive system at the time.

As an example, many of the functional mushrooms that people like you and me take include polysaccharide peptides.

These peptides from mushrooms like turkey tail, lion's mane and cordyceps have been

shown to have properties for immune system modulation, anti-inflammation, anti-cancer

activity and cholesterol lowering effects.

It all depends on the type of the peptide in question. In another popular example, you have collagen peptides that are derived from collagen,

a protein found in animal connective tissue such as bones, skin and cartilage.

Collagen peptides have been shown to have benefits for skin health, joint health and muscle mass.

Peptides are interesting for longevity and performance because they can interact with specific receptors in the body,

promoting various physiological effects such as tissue regeneration. Some peptides such as BPC-157

have been shown to promote tissue repair, leading to faster healing times. BPC-157 is a synthetic

peptide derived from the naturally occurring protein in the human stomach called body protein

compound or short for BPC. That's where the BPC-157 comes from. Other peptides such as growth

hormone releasing peptides, GHRPs, have been shown to stimulate the production of growth hormones.

Which can have a variety of performance enhancing effects, including increases in muscle mass and

reduction in body fat. Additionally, peptides can be designed and synthesized to specifically

target certain receptors or pathways, allowing them to be more precise and tailored in their

effects. Overall, peptides have the potential to improve various aspects of human performance and

health, making them an interesting area of research and development. Just to give you

some examples for biological processes that can be targeted with peptides. Number one,

peptides can bind to receptors on the surface of cells influencing cellular responses. Number two,

Peptides can inhibit or activate enzymatic activity leading to changes in metabolic pathways.

3. Peptides can interact with transporters, affecting the uptake or release of molecules

into the cells. 4. Peptides can modulate the activity of ion channels, altering the flow of ions across cell membranes.

5. Peptides can disrupt or enhance protein interactions, leading to changes in cellular

signaling pathways. 6. Peptides can interact with cell membranes,

altering their permeability. 7. Peptides can interact with components of the extracellular matrix affecting tissue structure and function.

Number 8. Peptides can target and kill bacteria, viruses, and other microorganisms.

Number 9. Peptides can be designed to target specific tumor markers or receptors,

leading to selective destruction of certain tumor cells.

Number 10. Peptides can modulate the activity of cytokines and other immune system molecules,

affecting the inflammatory response.

Some peptides have been found to improve cognitive performance.

As an example, Cerebrolysin is a peptide mixture derived from pig brains that has been shown to

improve memory and cognition. Out of all countries, Russia has been quite a lot on the forefront of

developing cognitive performance enhancing peptides. For example, Semax is a synthetic

peptide developed in Russian Academy of Sciences that has been shown to improve cognitive function,

memory and learning. Selank, on the other hand, from the same institute, is a synthetic peptide

that has been shown to improve cognitive function, reduce anxiety and improve mood.

Another peptide that is quite interesting from Russia is called Noopept.

It is very popular in some of these nootropic blends, especially on the US side.

It was recently developed in the 90s as a d-peptide. It's a derivative of the popular nootropic substance called Piracetam,

which was originally developed in the 1970s and has probably one of the greatest safety profiles

of all of these so-called classical nootropics.

Noopep contains a peptide bond that joins two amino acids, proline and glycine, to the Piracetam molecule.

This modification changes the pharmacological properties of this neuropeptide,

making it a more potent cognitive enhancer, and it is also considerably more bioavailable than Piracetam.

In any case, today we have a presentation from Dr. Daniel Stickler from US on peptides.

Dr. Stickler is a renowned expert on the field of functional regenerative medicine

and the co-founder of the Aperion Center for Human Potential.

In his presentation at the Biohacker Summit 2019 in Helsinki, Dr. Stickler discusses the potential of biologics and peptides for targeted effects,

highlighting their benefits over certain medications.

So sit back and relax and get ready to learn from one of the leading experts

in the field of biking and human optimization.

Without further ado, let's listen to Dr. Daniel Stickler. So today I'm here to talk to you about some neuropeptides, but I also wanted to talk a

a little bit about wearable technology.

When we developed our company, which is called Apeiron, we wanted to look at something that could identify the human system

as a limitless potential.

And that's what Apeiron means. Apeiron is Greek for limitless.

And this is what we look at in human beings. We look at each human being as an N of 1.

So we biohack, essentially, every individual that comes to us,

whether it's through our medical program or through our coaching program.

So, biologics are a new form of medicine. They've been around for a while, but they're coming on really strong right now.

And when we talk about biologics, we're talking about stem cells, we're talking about the

peptides, and we're talking about exosomes.

And I'm not going to spend any time on the stem cells today.

Stem cells are kind of in that vague area of we're looking at the possibilities with them.

Peptides, on the other hand, are already being used in clinical trials that are showing very

positive outcomes, very good safety features when it comes to humans.

And exosomes are also fairly new, but they're very exciting in what they do.

And the exosomes are pretty impressive with the effects that we're seeing in human systems.

So I'm excited to see what happens with that.

But think about this. When we talk about biologics, biologics are...

Substances the body is familiar with. It means that they are proteins essentially,

strings of amino acids that the body understands. And the body responds to biologics instead of

reacting to them. Now what I mean by that is they're very on target. So when we give a biologics

they tend to go in and they tend to do exactly what we expect them to do without much off-target

effects with medications and even with nutraceuticals. We see a lot of off-target effects, so the body

is reacting to them rather than responding to them. That's the big difference that we see with

these and this is why I'm so excited about the biologics and what we're seeing in my medical

practice with them. So this is a bold statement but it is something that I believe is actually

happening. I think we're going to see these peptides, they're coming on so strong right now

that they are going to really overtake the pharmaceutical industry pretty quickly on

this too. The rate at which they're coming on, they're not available really from the medical

standpoint in Europe in general, but in the United States and in Australia, we have over 70 peptides

available for us to use in the medical world. So let's talk about what a peptide actually is.

It's basically just a string of amino acids. It's a protein. And the only difference between

a protein and a peptide is a number of amino acids and it's purely nomenclature. But what.

We're talking about is these strings of amino acids. They'll call them polypeptides or proteins

or peptides, but it's all just nomenclature. It's all just a string of amino acids. Now,

the body makes tons of peptides, proteins, peptides, whatever you want to call them.

And there's even just in the hormonal peptides, the body makes over 50 of these. And we can

sequence these in the lab. They're very easy to sequence in general, especially when you get to

the shorter versions of them. So this is an insulin peptide, or insulin protein, insulin

polypeptide, whatever you want to call it, but it's two strings of amino acids. And you can see

how a peptide is actually sequenced, is they just string together the amino acids. And as long as

you know that sequence, you can create these in the lab. And that's why peptides are inexpensive

to manufacture. You just need a peptide sequencer, you need to measure and make sure it's doing

exactly what you think it's doing, and you move forward with it. But in general,

proteins and peptides are what we call pleiotropic.

Which means they're like a, this is a growth hormone peptide, and each tissue in the body.

Has a different response to that based on a lock and key mechanism of receptors. So we have these

little yellow spots, which would be different areas on there that are different keys for

different tissues. So there's one key up here may be the key for fat cells, the other one may be

muscle, the other one may be liver, but it's just like the protein is a string of keys. And what we

do when we take a peptide is we just take a piece of this protein and we say we just want this

segment with this one key on it and now we're going to inject that. That's what I'm talking

about when I say that we are getting to the point where it is very on target. It's very specific for

what we're trying to achieve. You can take pieces of growth hormone and target just cartilage and

and just say we want to rejuvenate cartilage without any other effect in the human body.

It's pretty amazing how accurate these peptides are.

Now today, what I wanted to talk about are the neurologic peptides.

These are the ones that we're using in clinical practice right now to really, my practice

is more performance model.

So what I'm looking at is how do we increase cognitive performance?

How do we really substantiate longevity and that using these peptides?

So a lot of what I'm going to talk about today is more performance medicine, but I'm also

going to tell you about some of the areas where these are being used in disease medicine as well.

One of the most popular ones that we have is cerebrolysin. And cerebrolysin is a very interesting mix of peptides that are derived from the pig

brain.

This is a mix of BNF, GDNF, CNTF, and NGF.

So I know it's a lot of acronyms there.

But essentially, cerebralysin is not only a treatment type of peptide, but it's a performance

enhancer and we're seeing outrageous results with this stuff.

It's neuroprotective, promotes cell growth, it improves connections, enhances learning,

increases energy and metabolism, decreases beta-amyloid, and this is one of the things

that we're seeing with its use in Alzheimer's, and it decreases neuroinflammation.

So there's a lot of human trials right now on this stuff. And we found that it improves the memory and learning.

It aids in stroke recovery. They're using it in TBI and some clinical trials.

They're also looking at clinical trials in Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease. Anti-anxiety.

Now, the interesting thing is they use this to treat ADHD kids.

And they found in these 9 to 12 year olds that 80% of the respondents actually got better with this.

And this is typically a four-week injection. So you're doing a subcutaneous injection five days a week for eight weeks.

It's 40 injections is the course for this.

Now what we're using it for, we map everybody's brain in the practice.

I'm not a neurologic practice, but part of the human performance is that we get brain maps on everybody.

We look at their cognitive function. We look at how they perform in different areas.

And we use a lot of neurofeedback, neurostimulation, both AC, DC, and transcranial magnetic stem.

But this is what is so fascinating. We have been putting people on cerebral lysin and then doing the neurostimulation with these

clients and we do typically twice a day for about 30 minutes for five straight days.

So we do 10 sessions and we're seeing responses at such an accelerated rate that used to take

us 40 to 50 neurofeedback sessions to achieve the outcomes that we see.

But we've also got all these protocols that are very specific for what we're trying to

achieve for better focus, learning and memory, to increase beta, to increase alpha states.

So we're able to actually accelerate this whole process using these peptides. And it's not just

cerebral lysin. We've got other neuropeptides that I'm going to talk about that we're getting

very similar results with right now. But cerebral lysin has been our go-to. It's a really amazing

one to work with. One you may have heard of is Cellink. Cellink is interesting. It's a nasal

spray. It's a very small amino acid. I think it's seven amino acids, but it is one of the most

potent anti-anxiety. They've actually used it in clinical trials with generalized anxiety disorder

and found outstanding results with this. Now the one thing that people have to be aware of is that

only 40% of the people who start taking this are going to respond quickly.

So, what'll happen is somebody will get this and they'll do a day or two of the nasal spray

and they'll say it didn't have any effect at all.

They may be the slow responders and they're going to have to be on this for a week or

so before it really kicks in. But when it kicks in, it's really potent.

It works really well. Anti-depressant, anti-viral, improves memory and focus, improve blood flow to the brain.

It's similar to a protein that the brain makes called Tufsin and it has an effect on metabolism of serotonin.

Dihex is another one that we use. This was developed out of the University of Washington and dihexa is a very short peptide

as well. I think it's six amino acids long. It can be applied in a topical cream and that's the way we typically use it.

But dihexa is amazing for learning and memory. The acceleration of learning and memory with this.

They're doing it in clinical trials with Alzheimer's disease, dementia, stroke, and TBI.

They're looking at spinal cord injuries and MS with its potential for remyelination of the nervous system.

Hearing loss, they've been seeing effects with that and with macular degeneration.

Dihex is really good for working with somebody who's learning something new.

If you're learning to play the guitar or you're learning a new language,

doing the dihexyl with this or doing neurostimulation, getting that moving forward.

Dihex is really good with creating that kind of a response. FGL, this is a fairly new one. It's an

N-cam molecule, so it's a whole new spectrum of what they're using. FGL is being used in clinical

trials in Denmark right now. It's in phase two clinical trials in a nasal spray. And this is

mostly being used right now for stroke recovery and post-traumatic brain injury. But it's found

to substantially reduce neuroinflammation, mobilize neural stem cells, which is interesting.

It enhances regeneration and amplifying remyelination. Now, I know some people that

have been using this in the United States in MS patients, and they're reporting,

and again, this is anecdotal, these are not studies, but they're reporting significant

improvements in the MS patients with the remyelination capacity of the FGL. It has

been through phase one clinical trials found to be very safe in humans. Comes in a nasal spray,

as well as a subcutaneous injection but it's kind of expensive so the volume that you have to use in

a nasal spray is pretty substantial. We're talking 200 milligrams here but you're closer to 400 to

600 milligrams in the clinical trials right now but the subcutaneous injection can be a lot less

expensive in that regard. Now through in RG3 here, RG3 is not really a peptide. RG3 is a

Ginsenoside derivative, but it's such a potent brain molecule that I wanted to add this in

Here.

RG3 is a nasal spray and it really affects PGC1A activation.

And so what it essentially does is it mimics exercise.

You do this nasal spray and you can see what happens with PPARGC1A activity.

Relative to exercise, you almost get the same response of PPARGC1A.

Protein levels of NRF2, NQO1 catalase, and MNSOD. These are all kind of the body's ability

to manage free radicals. So upregulation of all of these is really a beneficial aspect.

And you can see with the RG3, you're actually getting greater activation of some of these,

than you get with exercise. Now, we've always known the benefits of exercise on the brain,

this is pretty impressive. Now we also saw here with NRF1 and TFAM which are really more longevity,

markers. So amp K is a longevity activator, and to where you want suppressed

So all of these things are showing improvements in longevity.

So this is part of our longevity protocol is putting people on the ART G3.

And it's simple to use. It's inexpensive. It's a nasal spray.

Melanotan 2. It's mostly used for people who want to get a tan.

You can get a tan, a full summer tan in about three days with about 40 minutes of sun exposure a day.

And it'll last for four months. It's wonderful. It activates melanocytes.

But there is a huge neurologic component to MT2 as well.

MT2 stimulates alpha MSH in the brain, and alpha MSH has been implicated in a lot of aspects of the symptoms

of chronic Lyme disease, of chronic mold exposure and all that.

So in the US, a lot of us in the functional realms are using this to help people get over

that chronic inflammatory response syndrome that occurs.

It really activates the melanocortin-4 receptors, melanocortin-3, it decreases nitric oxide,

TNF-alpha and interleukin-6, increases IL-10, which is anti-inflammatory,

and it may increase the nerve growth factor in the cholinergic pathway.

The other ones that we use in the brain, thymosin alpha-1, thymosin beta-4,

thymolin, BPC-157, and C-max.

I could go all day on some of these. The ones that I mentioned are the primary ones that we're using.

We still use a lot of thymosin alpha-1, thymosin beta-4 and BPC.

We mostly use for soft tissue recovery and repair, but great nootropics, especially post-traumatic brain injury.

All right, so I guess the next aspect of this presentation, which was supposed to be the

the first, but data-driven health.

So, rule is, if you can measure it, you can manage it. And this is where we are right now in health.

We do this in our medical centers. We do this with our coaches.

We train people how to use wearable data.

Most of you are probably familiar with Dexcom. Dexcom gives us access to watch a person's blood sugars.

Now, in my medical practice, what I do is I actually creep on my patients.

I look at their data every week.

I look at their stress. I look at their sleep. I look at their activity levels.

I look at their resting heart rates. I look at their glucose. It's their measuring with a Dexcom.

So all of this stuff is giving me instant feedback on what we're doing with each client

and everything we do we measure it and we manage it. I don't put anybody on anything without knowing

what I'm measuring. I've got to have a measurement for that. I'm not okay with saying let's try this

and see how you feel. I want to know how you feel but I also want to know what the data is telling.

Me. We saw this with Fitbit. Fitbit had 150 billion hours with 10 million users. And they,

found that with weekly activity minutes, resting heart rate came down pretty dramatically in

people. That is very impressive to see this data. This is new data that's out. Resting

heart rate with sleep. Now this was interesting because we've always heard seven and a half

to eight hours of sleep is ideal. But if you look at seven and a half to eight hours, you're

the upslope of the heart rate curve. So ideally it looks like six and a half to seven and a half with

seven being the sweet spot. Kind of surprised me when I saw this but seeing that resting heart rate

made me want to look more into what we were seeing with that. Now in our medical practice.

We recommend the Aura Ring, the BioStrap or the Garmin Fenix watch. Now that's what I'm wearing.

I put most of my clients on the Garmin Fenix. This is the Fenix Mark Athlete but the Fenix is what

we use currently and this uses a lot of the algorithms from Firstbeat technology.

Firstbeat out of Finland. I'm gonna give a kudos to Finland because I think Firstbeat technology

is probably the top biometric measurement and algorithm company out there right now.

The other ones that can be used, the Fitbit, the Apple Watch, Garmin, Oura Ring, BioStrap,

Hilo, Whoop. Most of the ones that don't have an API I don't recommend because right now we're

building platforms, we're seeing platforms that have APIs that will draw this data off.

And the reason you want to have this stuff is that the human system is adaptable.

So we have a familiar zone that we function in.

And in order to grow, we need to get uncomfortable.

And what that means is we need to get out of that zone of familiarity. This is stress.

This is good stress. It's when we exercise, we get into a zone that's unfamiliar to us.

The body has to adapt. And this is epigenetics.

This is where gene expression actually changes to adapt.

Because our genetics, our DNA is most fascinating stuff.

What it does is it's constantly assessing environment and our function in that environment,

and it's saying, are we ideally set to live in this environment?

And when you give it an unfamiliar environment, it has to change.

It's like when you lose 20 pounds from doing diet and exercise,

going from being sedentary, so in three months you lose 20 pounds.

Three months later, you're doing the same thing and you haven't lost any weight. What's happened?

What happened is that familiar zone moved.

After you give enough stress time in getting out of the familiar zone, the body adapts.

The gene expression changes, the familiar zone moves up.

And suddenly you have to be doing more. Now this is what I loved about the Garmin watch

is it has this thing called training load in it.

So it actually pushes me because it changes my familiar zone.

This zone kept going up. I was training for a Spartan race

and the familiar zone kept changing on me.

So I had to work harder every week or so to get into a zone of growth.

But it gave me that kind of feedback, which I loved. Stress is an easy score to look at, but it's essentially HRV.

Down below was me having a glass of alcohol.

The stress level changed from one glass of wine.

After I saw this data, I started paying attention to it, and it happened every time I'd have a glass of wine.

So what I did is I changed my ways. My stress level was really up around 45 March through June of 2017, I think it was.

And then all of a sudden it plummeted. So what happened in June that carried through October

for me, one of the things I found is I went on growth hormone and releasing hormone. And

that was the thing that had the most substantial effect on my stress levels.

So there's ways to actually measure when we're doing these different peptides and things like

that. This is what's really cool about wearable technology. So we have the ability to measure

these things. Sleep. Generally, I sleep fairly well. I sleep on average about seven and a half

hours a night. Here's a new metric that Garmin just added. Again, a Firstbeat technology

algorithm, which they call the body battery. I absolutely love this. What happens across a week

or so with the body battery recharges at night and then these things that impact

it and you can start looking at things like and like they say here a glass of

drinking alcohol metabolizing alcohol taking a nap so you can start to actually

get feedback from your system on what's happening. All right so this is the end

of the wearable technology piece and thank you for your time.

Thank you Dr. Daniel Stickler for such an advanced presentation on peptide-based

biohacking. Although it all sounds rosy and great and awesome to use peptides

for a wide variety of reasons, as a side of caution it is important to note that

some peptides may have concerning side effects, especially if used improperly

and in excessive dosages without medical supervision. For example, growth hormone

releasing peptides, GHRPs, may increase the risk of certain cancers such as breast and

colon cancer and may also increase the risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Additionally, some other peptides used for athletic performance, such as IGF-1 or beta-alanine,

may actually increase the risk of tendon and ligament injuries, as well as muscle cramps

and spasms if dosed improperly.

Although some influencers may convince you otherwise, peptides can have serious side effects.

For example, a commenter on our YouTube channel reported on adverse nervous system-related

reactions to the aforementioned Cerebrolysin. Her onset of neuropathy that was linked to it

is certainly countered to the fact that Cerebrolysin is supposed to help regenerate the

nervous system. The use of some peptide hormones, including those with anabolic or strength-enhancing

actions, are on the WADA anti-doping list. BPC-157, for example, is such a prohibited peptide that was

added on the list in 2022. There is currently no legal basis for selling BPC-157 as a supplement,

so if you go searching for it, keep that in mind. It is important to note that the use of peptides

for non-medical purposes such as for performance enhancement, cognitive enhancement or aesthetic

purposes is illegal in many countries outside of medical supervision, so you may want to take a

look at the laws in your own country. Thank you for your attention. To learn more about buyhacking

and get some products like the functional mushrooms, check out biohackercenter.com where

you can find best content, supplements, technologies, courses, retreats and events, including the

world's top human optimization conference, the Biohacker Summit.