What are Peptides, and how they can help improve your health?
At BioBalance we treat our patients for the symptoms and diseases of aging first with Testosterone and or Estradiol Pellets and Lifestyle changes as the basis of our therapy. This treatment generally resolves 80% or more of the problems our patients come to us with. We add supplements, diet and exercise changes and more than 90% of the problems are then completely better, and our patients are much healthier and have much better quality of life. But for the 10% we could not completely cure, we looked for the mystery substance or group of them that could fill in the gap.
In the last year we have began using a treatment called “Peptides” that have helped us finally resolved some of our more difficult diagnostic challenges. Today we will help you learn the secret method of healthy aging beyond the hormone pellet replacement.
PEPTIDES are Communicators
What are they? When referring to them as a treatment we describe them as short strings of Amino acids that make us a fraction of a protein, and we call them peptides. There are over 700 known peptides in the body and they act as “communicator” chemicals that support the anti-aging processes in the body.
What do Peptides do?
These chemicals attach to cells and command them to perform different activities. Sometimes peptides tell the cell to grow and flourish, like neurons in the brain, or muscle cells to grow and divide making muscles bigger, or they stimulate the secretion of hormones such as growth hormone. There are peptides that stimulate the secretion of gastric protection and that provide stomach hormones that work locally in the stomach.
Have I heard of any peptides that are now drugs?
The most common peptide that you have probably heard of is Insulin. It has been around for years and has saved or prolonged millions of lives. Until insulin was discovered, Type I diabetes was a death sentence.
Another newer diabetes Peptide is Victoza, a GLP-1 peptide that treats adult onset diabetes and is provided in prefilled syringe pens.
Women who have had infertility or endometriosis have probably heard of Lupron, a peptide that makes the pituitary stop producing the hormones FSH and LH and puts the ovaries into a temporary menopause.
There are many more peptides that have not come to the market but are made by compounding pharmacies for self injection to treat many of the problems of aging listed below.
Why Do Peptides have to be injected and not taken orally like other medicines?
Peptides are made of the building blocks of proteins which means that your stomach can’t tell if its food item or a medication, so it will be broken down by intestinal enzymes, just like food is.
Those meds listed above are subcutaneous injections, once daily or more often, injected in the abdomen’s subcutaneous fat.
Recently a few peptides have been coated with a material that preserve it and allows it to be absorbed farther down the digestive tract without being damaged.
What is the difference between a subcutaneous injection and a deep intramuscular injection?
Subcutaneous injections are injected right below the skin in the subcutaneous fat. They are usually relatively short acting (lasting from minutes to a day) and are ideal for the time frame required for a peptide to act. These shots can be safely injected by the patient.
Deep Intramuscular injections are shots that are injected deeper than the skin, and the subcutaneous fat into one of the big muscles like the hip or lateral thigh. These injections are not used for peptides but usually are the delivery system for Testosterone Cyprionate, which is a synthetic testosterone that lasts from a week to 3 weeks. These shots must have adequate sterilization of the skin before the shot is given, or they can deliver dangerous bacteria to the muscle, and create an abscess, which can require surgery and removal of part of the muscle. The other risk of deep IM injections is if it is injected in the wrong place or your anatomy is unusual, you can hit a large vein, or artery, or nerves. This can create a medical emergency. The risks are high, and they are why we require patients to come in for IM injections, but not Subcutaneous injections.
This Health cast was written and presented by Dr. Kathy Maupin, M.D., Bio-identical Hormone Replacement Expert and Author, with Brett Newcomb, MA., LPC., Family Counselor, Presenter and Author. www.BioBalanceHealth.com.
