Welcome to Special Guest Episode 451 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast, hosted by Melanie Avalon, biohacker, founder of AvalonX, and author of What When Wine Diet: Lose Weight And Feel Great With Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, And Wine, and Barry Conrad, actor, singer-songwriter, and creator and host of Banter with BC.
Sarah Morgan is currently the CEO and co-founder of InstaMed Pharmaceuticals focused on innovative delivery technologies for peptides, hormones and functional pharma actives. She is a seasoned innovator, founder, author, inventor, and thought leader in the health & wellness field, known for her patented technologies in dietary supplements, medical foods, and functional pharmaceuticals such as peptides and bioidentical hormones. Sarah earned her Bachelor’s degree in Biology and Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire, and holds a Master of Science in Clinical Nutrition from the University of Bridgeport. Committed to lifelong learning, she avidly delves into the latest scientific discoveries.
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TRANSCRIPT
(Note: This is generated by AI with 98% accuracy. However, any errors may cause unintended changes in meaning.)
Melanie Avalon
Welcome to Episode 451 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. If you want to burn fat, gain energy, and enhance your health by changing when you eat, not what you eat, with no calorie counting, then this show is for you. I'm Melanie Avalon, biohacker, founder of AvalonX, and author of What, When, Wine. Lose weight and feel great with paleo-style meals, intermittent fasting, and wine. And I'm joined by my co-hosts, Barry Conrad, actor, singer-songwriter, and creator and host of Banter with BC. For more on us, check out MelanieAvalon.com and BarryConradOfficial.com. You can submit questions for the show by emailing questions at iapodcast.com or by going to iapodcast.com. We would love to hear from you.
Please remember, the thoughts and opinions on this show do not constitute medical advice or treatment, so pour yourself a mug of black coffee, a cup of tea, or even a glass of wine. If it's that time, then get ready for the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. Hi friends, we have a very special episode today for you guys on the intermittent fasting podcast. This is a guest episode with the incredible Sarah Morgan. She is the founder of InstaMed and you are going to learn everything you could want to know about peptides and specifically oral peptide strips. Yes, that is an easy way to get the incredible benefits of peptides in a strip that you put into your mouth. I love it so much. I'm currently using the Thymacin Alpha 1 and the GHK-CU. And then once I finish these, I'm going to do the BPC157. I also plan to use the PT141 Plus on nights before I go out, if you know what I mean. If you want to get these strips for yourself, I cannot recommend it enough. You can get 15% off site-wide with the code Melanie15 at getinstamed.com. That's 15% off site-wide with the code Melanie15 at getinstamed.com. We talk about so many things in today's episode, including what peptides actually are and what they can do for your body, how you can take them in the form of oral peptide strips, specifically the benefits of BPC157, GHK-CU, CJC1295, PT141 Plus and Thymacin Alpha 1. I think you guys are going to be blown away and how these peptides can support sleep, weight loss, muscle, skin, libido, and so much more. We talk about how to use them, how to dose them, if you can stack them, whether or not to take them fasting and all of the details that you need to know. We also talk about the difference in general between drugs versus supplements and the future of GLP ones. All right, I think that's all the things. As a brief reminder, you can get 15% off site-wide with the code Melanie15 at getinstamed.com. And now enjoy this fabulous conversation with Sarah Morgan. Hi friends, welcome back to the show. I am so incredibly excited about the conversation I am about to have. This is a conversation that I know in particular, you guys are really excited for me to have because I have been talking quite a bit about peptides recently. I just recently really honestly started getting into the world of them, which I'm a little bit embarrassed to admit because in the biohacking sphere, I feel like people have been doing peptides for quite a while.
Melanie Avalon
But I just recently started going into the science of it. I had Jay Campbell on both this show, as well as the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. And that was a really great comprehensive overview on peptides. And then through Jay, he was so kind. When I first met him, he immediately wanted to introduce me to this incredible woman, Sarah Morgan, which Sarah, by the way, like literally the praises he sung of you were just absolutely beautiful. Talking to you on the phone afterwards, I can totally completely see why with everything that you're doing.
But for listeners, so Sarah is currently the CEO and co-founder of InstaMed Pharmaceuticals. And they make an innovative delivery technology for a lot of different things, hormones, functional pharma actives, and in particular for this conversation, peptides. And I know this is really exciting for people because I think one of the biggest barriers to people using peptides has been a few different things. It's been the gray market area nature of a lot of the sources of it. Do you know if you're actually getting safe products? Do you know if it's effective? Do you even know what you're getting? And then on top of that, the way of typically taking peptides, there are some oral supplements, but there's debates about how well that is even absorbed. So typically you're injecting yourself and people, that is a barrier for a lot of people. So the idea of having peptides in the form of a sublingual oral strip I know is overwhelmingly exciting. And currently right now we'll talk about this, but InstaMed makes five different, I have them all in front of me right now, peptide strips that we'll talk about. Yeah, and I know you guys have a lot of questions because when I asked you for questions specifically, not just about peptides, but about peptide strips, I got inundated with questions. So Sarah, I've been looking forward to this for so, so long. Thank you so much for everything that you're doing and thank you for being here.
Sarah Morgan
Oh, thanks for having me and huge shout out to Jay Campbell for connecting us. He is an incredible human.
Melanie Avalon
Yes, he really is. It's funny. I don't know if we talked about this, but they say that your first impression of people is not usually wrong. Like normally when we have a first impression of somebody, it's very rare that we actually change our opinions.
I did change my opinion with Jay because when I first saw him, like his platforms, I was like, Oh, he looks like a Jim bro. Like he looks a little, I don't know, but he's so nice and kind and intelligent and it's just funny because it was not, he was not who I thought he was just from like brief glimpses of social media. Yeah. Thank you.
Sarah Morgan
It's very sophisticated, so is Hunter, a very sophisticated gentleman.
Melanie Avalon
So shout out to him and very very grateful. Okay, but for you So first of all before we get into all of the peptide stuff When we talked on the phone before you just have a really really impressive background You're doing incredible work with the technology that you're working on Especially with peptides because I know there's been a lot of debate like can you even take peptides in an oral?
Sublingual form and clearly you guys are cracking the code on that. So just your personal story Like what you're doing right now. Is this something that you saw yourself doing growing up? Where did this come from?
Sarah Morgan
you personally? Great question. I come from a family of cardiologists. I watched triple bypass surgeries in high school. I was planning on going to medical school. And I actually worked on a neuropeds and trauma floor in a hospital system associated with a Mayo Clinic. And I was like, oh, I don't think I want to do this. And I saw some of the brokenness of the healthcare system. It really made me kind of reevaluate my goals and really the type of education that I wanted to get. So I actually pivoted away from medical school, which at the time was really scary because there wasn't a lot of established alternative paths.
I got a master's degree in clinical nutrition through a program that taught amazing biochemistry because I'm totally a geek at heart. And I've worked in clinical practice for a while. And then I realized, gosh, I love innovation. I love solving problems. So I've started supplement companies, medical food companies, and what I like to call functional pharma. I think it's an interesting thing that we're really seeing a convergence of nutrition, nutraceutical supplements with pharma in a really beautiful way. And peptides are actually the category leading the charge. So I got introduced to peptides probably about a decade ago. For the US, that was pretty progressive if you're over in Europe. Not so progressive because they've been using them for almost 50 years in humans. But I fell in love, Melanie. And I think that's the first thing if people are listening to this podcast, you've never interacted with peptides, get your own personal story because they're just phenomenal. And from there, I really realized, gosh, these are so cool. But as you pointed out so eloquently, people don't like to do injections. They're scary. We kind of get this a little bit of an empathetic viewpoint into what it's like to be a type one diabetic and what they have to do on a daily basis. And a lot of people get injection fatigue. It's messy. It's like, did I get the dosing right? Did I do all the pieces of an injection right? You can have swelling and redness and all these things that happen after an injection. So I asked myself the question, what would be a way to replace injection with a technology that actually worked so that we can utilize these tools and introduce them to the masses?
And really, that's where kind of my journey and path evolved to this day. So if you ask when I was a kid, would I know I'd be standing here now? Not exactly. It's been a fun journey to find my way. But it's a really cool time to be alive because the technologies that are being pushed and advanced in science and health care, like true health care, not sick care, are some of the coolest things that I think we're going to get to see over the next 20 to 30 years.
Melanie Avalon
I love that so much. I feel like you ended up exactly where you're supposed to be with what you're doing. This is so amazing. Yeah, it's interesting.
So I mean, because when you hear you're talking about like the power of peptides as an alternative route to conventional pharmaceuticals, people might not realize because I know actually I didn't realize this. Things like insulin are peptides and things like the you know, the glp one medications that people are using like those and pick and all that those are peptides. So like peptides are everywhere very mainstream. And then also, there are all these other ones that people are using for specific reasons and causes. So just for people who are not familiar with the world of peptides. So you guys have I was right when I said you have five, right? So you have BPC 157, GHK CU, CJC 1295, PT 141, and thymosin alpha one. And I'm just laughing because I was talking with a friend who does do peptides. And then there was another person in the room the same time, he was laughing about how whenever she talks about peptides, it just sounds like this, you know, future language like number letter thing. It's like a code that you have to crack. These five that you have are actually just stepping back. So the world of the world of peptides in general, you're mentioning how how incredible they are, how you've been using them for so long. But they're, you know, especially in the US, relatively becoming more mainstream. How would you describe them to people like what they actually are? Because it's just so broad.
Sarah Morgan
Peptides are very simply put a mini protein. They're a sequence of amino acids that are kind of like little pearls on a string that make up a necklace and they can be anywhere really from 2 to 50 in length is what we would consider a peptide. Insulin is 52 amino acids in length so it's a bigger peptide and so all of these are considered as small molecules and what peptides do, one they're natural. This is why it's such a cool new space because our body is making about 7,000 peptides every single day.
So when we think about these different peptide sequences that we're utilizing they're already naturally occurring. So BPC157, I call them letters and numbers, people are like what in the world does this mean and it's it is almost like you know learning code for you know doing something on your computer you know you're learning that of like what your biochemistry as a computer is and what you're gonna plug in of these different peptides. They are impacting different pathways in your body and peptides are acting as signaling molecules so they are going to go into your body and elicit different benefits whether that would be something like immune function, metabolic health, helping with your metabolism, fat burning, mitochondrial function. There's all kinds of different peptides. What's going to be a massive explosion of personalization. So we have probably about 20 peptides that are somewhat popular if we think about more the biohacking or progressive space and I think we're gonna see hundreds of them come to market in a variety of different ways and we can talk all about that regulatory wise because you're absolutely correct that peptides some of them have already been classified as drugs, others we don't really know how to classify them and others are actually dietary supplements and glutathione is an example of a dietary supplement peptide it's a tripeptide that a lot of people know it's the body's main antioxidant it helps with detoxification and it's a little tiny tripeptide that's very magical.
Melanie Avalon
Oh my goodness. Okay. So many questions from there.
One question, because you were talking about, you were saying some of them are pharmaceuticals, some are, you know, supplements. What determines whether or not something becomes a pharmaceutical? Is it just like a patent on the organization of the peptide? Like, like what determines that?
Sarah Morgan
Yeah, it's a great question that I think we're seeing even an evolution of these different categories. So if we think about pharmaceuticals, there's prescription pharmaceuticals and then there's over-the-counter pharmaceuticals. So there's even a couple of different classes regulatory-wise. There's also a regulatory class called medical foods. Medical foods are sort of a crossover between a dietary supplement and a drug, and they're used for the specific nutritional needs of a disease state. And then we have dietary supplements. Dietary supplements were actually established in the 1990s with disheay laws. And dietary supplements, basically they can't cure, treat, prevent any kind of disease state. And this is where the big difference of a drug to a dietary supplement according to the FDA in the United States occurs.
So a drug would be something that is actually going to be utilized to prevent, treat, cure some kind of disease state. What's interesting is I think we're seeing a blurring of those lines with peptides, and it's going to get very interesting. We work with one of the top FDA regulatory attorneys in the country with Instamed, and it's a very, very interesting evolving space because again, these are in our body. Our body's making them, right? You can measure some of these peptides like GHK-CU, you mentioned that, that's a tripeptide, we can talk more about that. But it's in human plasma, our body's making it. It's a very interesting conversation that we're going to have about peptides. And I think it's not only use, but it's also going to come down to delivery format. So it's really interesting. NAC, N-acetylcysteine, which is one of the amino acids that makes up glutathione, was actually approved for treatment IV for Tylenol, acetaminophen overdose. So if your kid got too much Tylenol, you took them into the ER, they're going to get an NAC IV, and that's actually going to treat the acetaminophen overdose, that is a drug. But NAC was a really popular supplement. It helps with mucus, breaking up mucus during COVID. And it's a really key player, kind of the rate limiting amino acid is what most people would say for the production of glutathione. Glutathione and NAC in an oral format are considered dietary supplements. So we are in a very frontier cutting edge space that I think is going to require years and years of definition, it's very gray in terms of really not understanding everything. And I also really deeply believe that peptides should have their own class because I don't really think they are drugs at all. Are they nutraceuticals and can be applied that way potentially, but they're like souped up supplements is what I would like to summarize them as. But our current products that we have, we do classify them as nutraceuticals as an oral delivery format.
Melanie Avalon
Was the NAC that approval for the Tylenol overdose treatment, was that the time period when they were trying to make any like take NAC off the market for like a brief moment?
Sarah Morgan
Yep. So that was the Tylenol approval of a treatment was, I want to say like back in the 80s or 90s. It was a long time ago.
It was approved as an IV treatment. And then more recently during the pandemic is when it surfaced. Yeah.
Melanie Avalon
The frustrating thing when things like that happen and this is why i'm just i'm really really not to make the whole episode about like that. Classification of pharmaceuticals and medications but i'm so fascinated by it and i'm fascinated fascinated by how.
Like casual seems at times like cuz i'll think about i'm like why is melatonin and over at the counter supplement when it's a hormone compared to like these other hormones that you have to get by prescription doesn't make sense to me. You know things we have here in europe will be classified differently and then like when the nac thing happened during covid. I just felt like all these things are coming out saying nac was dangerous and i was like no it's because they're trying to like do it for other like pharmaceutical related things like you know so i'm just really interested by it and then i have my own supplement line so i'm always dealing with like the claims and so i just love this conversation and i agree with you about peptides you know the need for them being their own category. So huge question that i have personally the peptide itself does the body have any i guess indication if a peptide is endogenously created versus taken from an exogenous source or is it blind to that.
Sarah Morgan
I mean, it's sort of the way to think about it. If it's the same sequence the body is making, it's the same in a very similar way that bioidentical hormones are truly identical to our own biology of what the hormones are making.
Now, sometimes there's different esters, you know, that are attached to parts like a testosterone, for example. They can alter some of that. But yeah, I mean, it is basically body identical when we're thinking about these peptides.
Melanie Avalon
Okay. So taking the peptide to the body, it communicates as if we had made it ourselves naturally, essentially. Amy has a really good question that kind of covers what we just talked about, then adds a little bit of nuance. So I think I'll read it.
So she said, given the stability and absorption challenges of peptides, what independent data exists comparing oral strip bioavailability to injectables? And are these considered supplements or prescription medication in terms of regulation? In addition, how do manufacturers verify that peptide integrity is maintained during the strip formulation process and what assurances exist around peptide sourcing and purity? So basically, she was wondering about the regulation, which we kind of talked about. But when it comes to actually formulating the peptides in this oral strip form, which I guess we can hear about, we should probably hear about the technology that you're using here. How are you doing testing? Is there third-party testing, the sourcing, the purity? People are really, I think, nervous about the whole peptide world. So what is happening there?
Sarah Morgan
Yeah. Well, Juan, thank you for asking the questions. We should ask the questions in terms of quality and manufacturing processes. So in terms of what we do in the manufacturing process, and this happens in dietary supplements, this happens in pharma, medical foods, all of that, we receive raw materials of everything that we use for our strips. And those all have COAs, so certificate of analysis. And we're an NSF certified GMP facility. So we have a lot of requirements in terms of what kind of raw materials that we can receive and accept in terms of the COAs done. We also send things out. If we're working with a new supplier, let's say for something that's in our strip, we test that ourselves. And we do that every now and then just to kind of keep up with quality. Any good manufacturer will do that. So that's the first part.
And then our strip manufacturing process involves a homogenization. And so, and then when we actually make the strips, it's made on this almost like a big fruit roll up is a way to think about how the strips are made, and then they're actually cut. And so we can produce the strips at any thickness we want, and then any size that we want. Some of that has to do with the dose. Some of it has to do with how fast or how slow we want it to dissolve when we stick it on the oral mucosa. Then what we do is cut it into a very specific size. And all of that is tested in terms of dosing. So we send that off after production, a post-production testing to look at all the microbials, all the heavy metals, everything a lot of people would be familiar with for a dietary supplement, as well as label claim, which is you'd want that in a dietary supplement as well, to show the peptide stability and the content of the strip. And we typically use Eurofins for testing. They're one of the top labs in the country and world to do that kind of testing.
Melanie Avalon
John had a question. He said, how to make sure you are safe and not getting endotoxins that will show an effect in a few years from now.
And it sounds like in general with this world of peptides, I'm not trying to answer the question for you, but it sounds like you would need to get peptides from a source like Instamed where there is all this testing. Would that be important for that?
Sarah Morgan
Yeah, it would. And endotoxins are... There's a couple of famous podcasters that have made this one an important talking point. I think the piece of endotoxins is an important one to understand. It's incredibly important if you're doing injection.
So an injection peptide has to be sterile or it's extremely dangerous for you to use. We're an oral facility. We still, again, have certified GMP, NSF, which is the highest level certification in the United States. Because you're not injecting it right into the body, it's not really the same conversation in terms of delivery. But yeah, all of our peptides are tested for all of that if that was part of the question he was asking.
Melanie Avalon
Okay, so I was wondering about that. So is there a conversation out there? So the endotoxin specifically, is that something that associates with the peptide production process for injectables?
Sarah Morgan
Yeah, it's more important and injectable and it would be like a 503b which is a sterile compounding pharmacy because it's not just in the peptides but actually could be in the manufacturing process and bottling process that there could be some kind of contamination let's say in a vial which is yeah something that you know you definitely don't want to have but at the same time the other nuance and caveat here because I like bringing full information is every product that exists on the market actually has a limit of endotoxin so like even bacteria static water that everybody buys for their peptides if they're doing that way that has a limit of the amount of endotoxins that can exist in it so it isn't the fact that like there is nothing in anything that exists on planet earth it's that it doesn't have a level that would be dangerous to human health and I know you had mentioned like that could show up a couple years later it doesn't even show up a couple years later it's something that can be problematic like with one injection.
Melanie Avalon
Okay, wow. Yeah, this is so, so helpful.
So the part that I think we can still talk about from Amy's question, and I will actually combine it with Teresa's question as well to make it a broader question, but she asked about given the stability and absorption challenges of peptides, or she was you know mentioning that. So my broader question there, because I know when I, so to a few people, I have mentioned the idea of a peptide oral strip, and the immediate reaction is that doesn't work. Like peptides need to be injected. People are skeptical about the oral absorption route. So we love your thoughts there on the technology that you've created to, you know, make this really effective. And then on top of that, for example, Teresa says, I feel like there is so much area to get scammed here. What are the peptides that don't work via strip to watch out for? What are the most effective? And then she also wants to know the actual ingredients. Are there plastics or other chemicals? So to like put that on to one easier to answer question, this oral absorption technology that you've created, how does it work for peptides? You know, is it as effective as injectables? Do all peptides work that way? Do some not work? Do some work better? Yeah, I'd love to hear about that.
Sarah Morgan
Our delivery technology, it's sublingual because we are dietary supplements on our box, we have to say that. The best way to use our strip is put it on your tongue and let it stick to the roof of your mouth or stick it on your cheek, which is transoral mucosal delivery. This is a known delivery technology that a lot of different actives are delivered through this way because it's leveraging the magic of your mouth. Your mouth loves sugars and amino acids, so peptides work perfectly for this delivery format. So one thing for people to know is this isn't new in terms of a delivery format.
There's a lot of things that can be delivered, including nicotine. Sometimes people are like, oh, yeah, is a substance that can be delivered this way. So our technology, not every strip is created equal, and that's something that's really important to understand. We have filed eight patents to date and we have what's called an insta-release technology.
That insta-release technology has three different aspects of our delivery mechanisms for this oral mucosal strip. The first one is that we need it to adhere. It needs to stick really well to the mucosal lining because that's creating the surface area for those actives to actually cross that mucosal lining. The second aspect is we give our actives a molecular hug and we use different ingredients. This is all part of our technology. We're patented. It's not published yet, so once it's published, we can talk way more details. We can't talk about all the different things that we use, but I will tell you this. They're natural, same as peptides. We don't use weird chemicals or things that would irritate your mouth. If you chat GPT stuff, too, just please remember, chat GPT is not going to pull data newer than five years old.
So this is a space that is rapidly evolving. This delivery type format, I should say, is being worked on for up to insulin, which is a massive peptide, huge jalton size. So there's all kinds of cool advancements that are happening. So first we stick it and we stick it good. Then we give it a molecular hug. Then we actually cross the mucosal border is the third step. And we use different penetration enhancers that are also part of our patented delivery technology based off of Dalton size and the chemical characteristics of that peptide. Now, in general, the smaller the peptide, the easier it's going to cross the border. The bigger it is, it gets more challenging to an extent. And so we actually make our delivery technology more complex, the larger and the more complex that peptide molecule is. If you chat GPT, which I've had a lot of people reach out and they're like, you can't do over 500 Daltons. And I'm like, that is correct without delivery technology that allows this to happen. So there's a lot of nuance here. And then I love all the questions about what ones and what percent efficiency we are working on all that data right now. We have a GLP in a pharmokinetic study with a partner pharmaceutical company with 20 humans.
Sarah Morgan
We are tracking not only blood levels of the peptide, but we're also looking at clinical outcomes. And our goal is to present that data at a forum's longevity annual conference in Las Vegas in December.
We also have two other studies happening right now with our CJC, which is a secrete agar. We're looking at growth hormone IGF one levels, which that's how that peptide works. So peptides are really interesting because they're small molecules. So to catch them in the blood can be very challenging because detection limits aren't set. They're not commercialized. They're in and out so fast because they're going to these target tissues really quickly and then they're eliciting a response. So some of our study designs that we are implementing are actually efficacy. And what we're expecting is to get similar biomarkers that move in a way that we would expect from injection. So injection in general is about 89 percent bioavailable. That number depends on the peptide, depends on you as a person, depends on where you inject it, how much fat you have under your skin. There's a lot of variables. There's going to be also some variation and variability with our oral, too. I think it's interesting, like someone who has like a more acidic pH, they're probably going to, in their mouth, they're probably going to dissolve the strip faster, right? Or someone who has dry mouth, it might dissolve a little bit slower. Is that going to impact efficacy? Those are things that we're going to have to learn over time. We don't know that yet. What I would say is, yes, we want to know all of it, too, to some of the questions that were asked. We don't have all of those hard data points yet, but we're working on it.
Melanie Avalon
for peptides, the most effective way to evaluate effectiveness is more to look at, is it changing the, like the intended health goal biomarkers rather than the actual peptide in the bloodstream?
Sarah Morgan
Correct. And most, there are two labs in the United States that can even measure a couple of peptides in human blood. So we are very, very early in this level.
It's not like, I want to go to LabCorp and get my testosterone levels done. We're not there with peptides. So I think we will be. I think peptides are the future of health. I think peptides will be as common as multivitamins in terms of use. And I think we will see commercialization, but it's going to be over the next five to 10 years.
Melanie Avalon
Okay. This made me think of quite a few questions personally for me.
So the first one, speaking of chat GPT. So prior to first trying your strips, I was doing research with chat GPT about where is the best location in the mouth to absorb. It was saying like the interior, like the inside of the cheek and it was saying the roof of the mouth was not ideal. And then I kind of panicked because the first, not panic, but first time I tried one, you're talking about how these strips, you know, adhere to your mouth. I was like, I literally have a memory in my head of like how quickly it like went to the roof of my mouth and it like attached itself. And I was like, whoa, it was wild. And then I was like, Oh no, this is the roof of my mouth, not the inside of my cheek. I'm not getting the absorption. So was chat incorrect with the roof of the mouth or is it better on the inside of the cheek or the tongue?
Sarah Morgan
So we're working on the data there to know that. So I don't like to answer a question with confidence unless I confidently have the data to support it.
What I will say from our case studies, and we actually have a couple of case studies we're going to be publishing here soon, we are getting great response with either placement.
Melanie Avalon
Okay, I've been Sarah, I've been like really over analyzing this placement in the mouth, especially with how sticky it is. So I like literally put it in. I like tiptoe putting it in because I'm like, just go to the side of my mouth. Don't touch the roof of the mouth.
Okay, this is awesome. And I really appreciate what you said about, you know, only providing verified data on things. So I really appreciate that. Actually, to that point, because you mentioned injections being around 89%, really depending on the independent person. Do you have a guess of the percent absorption rate of these strips
Sarah Morgan
We're really hoping it's anywhere from about, and again, it depends on the peptide. So the bigger the peptide, like our GLPs that we're working on, we really had to soup them up with delivery technology like the most of any of our formulas. And I would be thrilled at 70% for that one.
But I think some of our other peptide formats might actually work faster than injection. So anywhere from 70% to maybe 95% I think could be realistic in terms of what we see for some of the peptides that we're studying.
Melanie Avalon
Okay, awesome. This is a question that I have. I just have this in general about medications.
I have it about stem cells. I have it now about peptides, especially thinking about it with what you're saying with the absorption, it going into the bloodstream, but we can't even really measure that that well. Is the effect, especially given that there's, like you said, hundreds of peptides out there, how does the peptide know where to go? Is it like it gets into your bloodstream and then it affects everything all over your body? But then some of these are for very specific purposes. Does it go everywhere in your body? I think about this all the time.
Sarah Morgan
Yeah. So let's take BPC for a second, because this is a peptide a lot of people know about. It stands for body protection compound 157. I don't know what it stood for. And it's a 15 amino acid peptide. We discovered it in gastric juices. So it's somewhat gastric stable. This one is one you'll see in capsule, tablet form. You can swallow it. And I will say, I do think there's maybe some GI benefit to that.
Systemic, I don't know if people get systemic effect to me. I'm like, Oh, that's a clue. You probably have leaky gut because you're getting more across into your bloodstream. That's a whole side conversation. But that is a side conversation.
Melanie Avalon
Same with the brain, I feel, like things getting into the brain, it's like, oh, well, should it be getting into your brain?
Sarah Morgan
Exactly. Leaky mitochondria, all kinds of things to think about. But with BPC1571, we know that areas that are injured in the body, tissues that have injury, do send out signals. Basically, kind of like an SOS, help me, BPC responds to that signal.
What's super interesting about BPC that I find that to me is one of the most fascinating things about the peptide is some people will take our strip, like we were just at a conference 10 days ago and I had people coming up and they're like, I took one dose of BPC and my back felt better. My shoulder is better. I could move my wrist without pain for the first time in six months. I mean, some people have this like almost immediate response to an injury site that they're very aware of, right? Other people will take BPC and they'll be like, Sarah, I don't notice anything. Now I've seen this injection. I've seen it oral. There's a capsule with the strips, all of it. There's this really interesting variance and response. And at first I was like, what is going on with that? And then what I would say is just keep going. I want you to keep taking it. And what would happen is over time, someone who is, let's say, taking it for their back, like, oh my gosh, I have back pain. Two months in, they're like, oh, now my back is better. And it was almost this cliff that they had to get to. And I'm like, oh, I sat down and I finally realized I'm like, the body was prioritizing other areas. BPC is amazing for your brain. We've studied it for TBIs, post-stroke. It is incredible for your gut lining. If you have leaky gut, it is one of the coolest new tools you should be using for gut health, probiotics, prebiotics. All these things are awesome. They're single amino acids that have been used for a long time, like glutamine for the gut. BPC is like souped up peptide for gut healing. A lot of us have gut issues, right? The other thing that BPC does is it works on the endothelial lining of your blood vessels. When I list all this stuff, these aren't necessarily things that you can feel that are injured, inflamed, or wrong with your body. BPC is also really liver and kidney protective. There's a lot of us that have issues with those organs. They don't have any feelings. So we're not like, gosh, my liver is really inflamed today. It hurts. It's not the same process. So they work in a very wise way in the body, is what I would say. And it's wise beyond, I think, what we're going to be able to understand for a long time where they prioritize the most severe issues first.
Melanie Avalon
Sounds really similar to stem cells, stem cell release and being recruited to various injured tissues. And like, where do they go? And what do they do?
Sarah Morgan
Yeah. And BPC would be. Now, CJC is one of our products, which is a secretagogue. That, when you ask, like, is it systemic? Is it specific? That is an example of a peptide that is a very specific action in the body. And it is going to impact the pituitary's release of growth hormone. And what that does, and then IGF-1 levels in the liver, and growth hormone helps kids grow. Growth hormone helps adults repair and heal. We release melatonin to go to sleep. Then we release growth hormone. That's what gets us into a really nice deep restorative sleep.
So as you get older, a lot of people start to lose that ability to get that really great deep restorative sleep. They're waking up more. They're more restless. Our growth hormone levels decrease by 15% every decade once we hit age 30. Okay. So it's like, I wake up in the morning. I don't feel as rested. I'm more creaky. Your growth hormone levels aren't doing the same repair, healing, restoration, good, deep sleep as when you were 20. So this is a very specific action that then has all of these amazing downstream effects, including metabolic health. So CJC as a secretagogue helps with muscle mass. It helps with beta oxidation. So you're going to see better cholesterol levels. You're going to have fat loss because you're burning fat as an energy source more efficiently. It protects cartilage from further damage. It makes hormone receptors more sensitive. So people who are on HRT who pair that with a secretagogue are going to feel fantastic because their hormones are going to work better. So there's all kinds of cool benefits, but it stems from a very specific action in the body that that peptide is eliciting.
Melanie Avalon
So I have a few questions specifically about this one about the CJC 1295. Do you know what a CJC stand for? Do you know?
Sarah Morgan
I don't even know if it has, I don't know that that one actually has an, it's an acronym. I'm going to just self-profess. I'm not sure that it does stand for anything. Okay.
Melanie Avalon
So it's not like the BPC one where it actually was something.
Sarah Morgan
Yeah, they're all like a little different, and I could be wrong on that, but I've never read what CJC stands for. Okay, perfect.
Melanie Avalon
So questions about this one. So first of all, where should I start? So it sounds like it's really great for supporting growth hormone for all these benefits. What about the concept that IGF-1 levels tend to be negatively linked to longevity? Is there the potential of having too much growth hormone turned on? And with this one, would the timing of turning it on matter? Because they know, for example, that like while fasting, one of the benefits of fasting is like lowering IGF-1 levels or like a calorie restricted diet lowering those growth hormone levels. So would this be something where you don't want to be having it like all the time?
Maris had a very similar question. She said, how much is too much? And I'm assuming she's referring to CJC 1295, because she says, for example, is there a threshold where cells start multiplying or growing when they should not be? So basically, this idea of I get nervous about, because I see all these potentials of the growth hormone. Also, I'm like, I don't know that I know when I need to be turning it on, if that makes sense.
Sarah Morgan
Yeah, so we always want to look back to the body, right? What is the body doing? The body naturally pulses growth hormone at night, so we want to mimic that. We have another pulse in the morning, maybe sometime midday as adults. Kids are making growth hormone all the time, but as adults, that's what we're doing.
So we recommend people take our CJC strip 30 minutes before bed because it's mimicking your natural release. Now, this is not exogenous growth hormone. That's a really important distinction. This is just helping your pituitary gland release growth hormone. It's already produced. Your growth hormone is produced from your pituitary gland until you're about 120 years old. I mean, the gland is able to do it really well. Your release of that is really compromised as you get older each decade. Now, the other interesting thing is because it's a circadian hormone, blue light, circadian disruption, all these things that excessive stress, eating at weird times, are going to impact growth hormone release outside of anything to do with peptides. So what I would say is modern life actually would, I would say, it's even more important to optimize those. Now, IGF-1 levels, we have a scientific advisory board that we're building. I can't publicly announce them just yet, but there are some of the best medical doctors in the space who have been using peptides clinically for over a decade in the US. They believe secretagogues are some of the most powerful longevity tools that can be utilized. And again, it comes into it's not a black or white. There's a lot of nuance with peptides. And if you use them well and pulse them, so five days on, two days off is what we recommend, weekdays on, weekends off, and you do a cycle of three months for all or four.
Melanie Avalon
for this one.
Sarah Morgan
I would say it depends. We're talking about CJC, so that's the cycle for CJC. GLPs are a little bit different how people are using them, but I'm a big proponent of cycling everything. And I mean that like your food, your time, your exercise, your supplements, your peptides, because we want to keep receptor sensitivity in the body when we're thinking about peptides.
But some of our scientific advisory boards that use peptides in people 60 plus, they're going to use a secretagogue and they're not going to cycle them off because their growth hormone levels are half what they were when they were 20. Okay.
Melanie Avalon
So the p t one forty one i know people are very excited about no pun intended so this one when people think of anything of it for boosting libido in particular and i know when i actually so when i first when j first told me about you he had did i. Meet i think i recorded with him right after the bio hacking yes i recorded with him right after the bio hacking conference the most recent one in austin.
And he said that he had received samples of the p t one forty one from you like at the conference and that he was handing them out and the people were just raving about it for its effect on like people could really feel it for boosting their. libido and such so questions what are the primary benefits damon he said who benefits more from p t one forty one men or women and how often can you use it. And then i have another question which you might answer when you answer this, so i will i will hold that question but just in general the benefits men versus women how often you can use it.
Sarah Morgan
Yeah, I love this question. Okay, so our formula PT-141 Plus, it actually has a little bit of oxytocin and something called immunophenopyrally. It's another peptide a lot of people have never heard of that sort of works like an ED med. So erectile dysfunction in males is typically addressed with prescription medications like Viagra. We'll just use the brand names as we're talking. That works for a certain percentage of men.
I believe it's about like 62% of men because your nitric oxide pathway actually has to work. There's also off-label use for women because blood flow is a really big part of pleasure, arousal, ability to orgasm. So our formula, the immunophenopyrally is the most similar to a traditional ED med. Oxytocin is a peptide that's like the connection peptide. So we put it in there because I think in modern world, it's where we feel so disconnected and actually use the word disassociated sometimes to connect with your partner is so powerful, not just on a physical level, but emotional as well. And then PT-141 works in the central nervous system.
It's actually working on specific receptors in the brain all the way down to the body to improve arousal, desire, and orgasm. It was originally used in women who had low sexual desire. And what I will say about this formula, because I'm a big proponent of I'm going to tell it as it is, it doesn't work for 100% of people. Similar to how any medication or supplement isn't going to work for 100% of people.
I think most people get some kind of benefit or they'll notice something. But here's the really interesting thing about PT-141 specifically, no matter the format, if it's a strip injection, there's even intranasal. Everybody has a little bit of a different type response in terms of timing of effect. And what I mean by that is we tell people like take a strip 30 to 45 minutes before desired connection time. Most people are going to get that peak benefit around that timeframe. But there's a percentage of the population that are delayed responders that have maximum benefit four to six hours after they take a dose.
And most of those people, when we're thinking about a date night and connection, they're asleep at that point. And they're like, oh, it didn't do anything for me. Now there are people I think it doesn't work as well. So you have to give it a try is really the way that I say it. We have people who absolutely love our PT-141 plus formula. And then we have people who are kind of playing around with ideal timeline of dosing to really see where their effect is. And also men can take a little bit of a higher dose than women. So sometimes like a bigger male, if you're like 230 pounds, I'll say take two strips. Now the other piece of this that you asked or this person who asked the question, it was really smart, how often can you use it? This is another peptide that's really interesting as a formula that you have to have a 24 hour period of a washout between you.
Sarah Morgan
So I had a guy reach out and he's like, Sarah, my wife and I had the best sex we've had in like 10 years. It was a magical night.
And then he's like, and then we used it again the next night and it didn't do anything. And I was like, yeah, you have to let those receptors fully kind of wash out to get that sensitivity back. So the max you really want to use the formula is three days a week. And I would, you know, some of that is you just have to play around maybe it's like two days a week to really get the maximum effect. So this one is very specific to your metabolism, your body, and in terms of timeline, and then a little bit on dosing too. And you do have to take breaks between use.
Melanie Avalon
So would a good protocol or approach be like when you first get it, take it maybe during the day and see if you naturally get a boost at some point to figure out when it's hitting you?
Like would you notice like will you notice like if you took it and then just go about your day would then will you have like a moment where you're like huh let me let me find a man.
Sarah Morgan
Some people, it's like really fast.
I was at a conference and I had a doctor take a strip, but we were all just sitting there meeting and she's like, I wanna see how this works.
And she was like, whoa.
And for her, it was a circulation, like blood flow, massive change.
She had within like two to three minutes for her.
Now, another thing about peptides, they're better to use in a fasted state because they're signaling.
I was gonna ask that.
So that's another thing that if people are like, well, I'm not really sure if I'm noticing anything with the PT-141, what I really encourage them to do is to take it away from food a bit further.
So an hour is great, but if you're really struggling to notice anything with a peptide, do longer during a fasting period, just in general, no matter what kind of peptide you're using.
Typically, that's really helpful.
Melanie Avalon
Okay, okay. And is that is that the reason that it comes in a 10 count rather than 20 count like the others because you don't take it as much?
Sarah Morgan
Yeah, and one of the things, we had a really great suggestion. We're always open to suggestions, so everybody listening, they're like, give us all your feedback because we want to learn.
We are also going to start selling them in a two-pack, which we're really excited about, so that you can try them, you know, it's like a date night two-pack, you know, kind of deal which we're really excited about.
Melanie Avalon
This is so funny. My suggestion just from this would be, I, okay, well, how to how to use are there other instructions inside the box, like all this information you're giving about when to take it is so helpful and I don't see it on the box.
Sarah Morgan
Yeah, we have a bunch of educational materials we just created that are available, including like a chart with dosing and protocols and kind of how to cycle five days on, two days off. You know, an ideal cycle is eight weeks or 12 weeks and, you know, things like PT 141, three days a week max, we have all of that.
And then we even have stacking charts to really show how you can stack the different peptides because they can be synergistic in effect, which again is a really neat thing, depending on the benefits, health outcomes that you're looking.
Melanie Avalon
for. Okay, that's incredible. And will that be at your website, at your website, getinstamed.com? It is.
Sarah Morgan
Yes, yet we're building all of those educational materials.
Melanie Avalon
Well, okay, perfect. And then there's so there's one more I think I feel like listeners are really going to want to be getting this PT 141. Plus, I now realize I didn't realize that there were the other ingredients in it. That's incredible.
So the GHK CU so people, when they think about this one, I think they think skin health, yeah, glowing skin, things like that. Is that the primary use case for this one? Or what else is it for?
Sarah Morgan
Yeah, it's so many use cases that are even, I would say, more medical in nature as we go. You know the people who are really bendy? They have connective tissue, EDS-type spectrum of disease. This is, I think, a peptide that we're gonna see utilized to stabilize connective tissue in these individuals.
So this peptide is sort of like a stem cell. We're studying it for anti-cancer properties. It regulates our epigenome. So it turns on and off the light switches above our genome, which is very, very powerful. It helps with collagen and elastin, which is why we love it for our skin health, and it really does work. I mean, within 10 to 12 weeks, and most people notice it sooner. They're like, wow, my skin looks better, especially perimenopause, our estradiol levels go down. We need a little extra support to get that good skin texture, tone, thickness. This is a really great demographic to use. And for men, right, as we get older, just in general, it also helps with hair follicle size. So your existing hair follicles are healthier, stronger, and new hair follicle development.
Melanie Avalon
Wow, okay. Yeah, I know this is the one peptide that, especially when I was talking with Jay, he was saying this is the one peptide that, you know, people do use topically often because it directly affects the skin.
So yeah, I was curious if you would get the effects systemically from taking it orally. So Mary wanted to know about post-minipause peptides. So you said perimenopause, would this be good post-minipause as well?
Sarah Morgan
Yes, perimenopause, postmenopause, that whole scenario, yes. And anyone who's just looking to have better appearing skin, hair, I mean, we've had people within weeks, we've had men say their beard repigments, so they'll have gray hair grow back with the color, which is so incredible.
You know, again, I think we'll see some more medical use cases like EDS to stabilize connective tissue for joints, for, you know, their veins and their arteries and some other really kind of important pieces that can be life changing for people.
Melanie Avalon
Amazing and then I said that was the last one but it's because I didn't have right in front of me the one I've actually currently been taking every day because I'm so excited about it which is i'm a sin alpha one so. This one i'm just so fascinated by this so this actually affects our time and i can help immune conditions is that what's happening there.
Sarah Morgan
Yeah, this was actually discovered in our thymus and a gland. And as adults, you know, that kind of like shrivels up and goes away.
And another thing that I'll call out that's really interesting is Harvard, or excuse me, not Harvard, it was actually Stanford published their omics data last fall. And they basically showed that aging isn't linear, we have a massive metabolic aging event at about age 44. Then we have a big aging event of our immune system. 61. And if you think about people, like when they get cancer, when disease states start to really progress, you look into their 60s and 70s, and immune dysregulation is such a key piece of basically almost every disease process. Thymus and alpha-1 is an immune optimizer. It's almost like an immune adaptogen, sort of like the herbals we think about like ashwagandha that help with, you know, if you're too low or too high, it brings you to this beautiful place of balance for yourself where your body needs to be. That's what thymus and alpha does for your immune system.
So it is an antimicrobial, it has anti fungal properties, antiviral properties, you can use it acutely for immune support, you can use it for chronic issues like chronic viral issues. So these are people with, you know, mold and Epstein-Barr and Lyme and all these things that, you know, they're trying and all these treatments and their immune systems are dysregulated. We also know it works really well for autoimmunity because it helps with Treg cells. Treg cells are going to, they're T cells that are going to really provide that beautiful balance of the teeter-totter of our immune system. This peptide has also been studied as a cancer adjuvant in breast, lung, kidney. I always forget melanoma and liver cancers.
Melanie Avalon
Wow. Yeah. So I'm really excited by this one.
I've had this chronic sinus infection that just feels like it's always, it's just something in my sinuses that won't go away. And like if I get stressed is when it kind of comes out, like peaks its head out. So I'm excited to like be on this consistently and see if maybe hopefully it will help that.
When did you say the first aging thing happens at what age?
Sarah Morgan
Yeah, about age 44, we have a metabolic aging event. And this is where GLPs become really helpful because it gives us our insulin sensitivity back.
And interestingly enough, a lot of people notice this by like, oh my gosh, I can't tolerate alcohol very well. All of a sudden, it really impacts them because part of that metabolic aging is actually our alcohol metabolism in our mid 40s starts to go down.
Melanie Avalon
wow okay oh my goodness well i love this um so important question for you personally what are your favorites and are you do you stack do you change it up yeah just and and do you have a dream a dream peptide that you would make
Sarah Morgan
Yeah. What do I love? I love to switch it up. So currently, I'm obsessed with CJC because I'm perimenopausal. I love hormones. I take bioidentical progesterone too in my second half of my cycle because my sleep really gets impacted. Our CJC strips are incredible for sleep. And I can attest to that myself.
I have an aura ring. I can watch my REM and deep sleep and prove. I've reported that from a lot of people. And then I'm an athlete. I work out. I lift weights. I play soccer every week. I just feel insanely amazing using that peptide. And I've been being more consistent with GHKCU. Actually, my sister was just recently diagnosed with a pretty severe form of connective tissue disorder that does impact her vascular system. I think I have probably like some kind of minor. I'm a little bendy. I have a minor format of that. So I don't know how much it will impact my skin. But I think for me, I'm more focused on even like my vascular system as I get older to make sure that the integrity there is good coming from my family of cardiologists. So those are some of my favorites.
I also love microdosing GLPs. So once we have that dialed in, I'm very excited for that to go to market.
Melanie Avalon
Oh, that's exciting. Yeah, I'm really intrigued by that because I think I was listening to some podcasts about the problems with the current dosings with the GLPs because it's kind of like a one size fits all and maybe like these lower amounts will be better for some people.
So um, that's interesting. Yeah, I love that. Okay. Well, thank you so much, Sarah. This has been absolutely incredible. I know listeners are dying to get their hands on some of these as soon as possible. So thank you, Sarah, we have a discount code for listeners. So if you go to get instamed.com, you can use the coupon code Melanie 15. And that will give you 15% off your entire order. So get instamed.com. Use the code Melanie 15 for 15% off your entire order.
Thank you so much, Sarah for that. Was there anything else you wanted to touch on with with your work and all of this? This was I'm just so so grateful for what you're doing.
Sarah Morgan
Yeah, I would just say thanks for having me on. I think we're all learning about peptides.
So the biggest thing I would encourage you to do is whether you're new or you've been working with peptides for a while, keep leaning in and keep paying attention to the space because over the next five to 10 years, we're gonna see just incredible things happen in this space that are going to benefit humans and I think animals and all kinds of fun things down the road.
Melanie Avalon
Well, thank you so so much and I've never done this before but I am so obsessed with this episode and this content I might I might actually air this episode on both shows. I want everybody to hear this This has been just so incredibly helpful And the last question that I ask every single guest on this show and it's just because I Realize every day the importance the importance of mindset.
So what is something that you're grateful for?
Sarah Morgan
Oh, I love that. That's an easy one for me.
I am so grateful for my family. I'm actually with my family right now. Just realize how precious life is and it goes fast. So taking all the little moments is one of my big things as a mindset that I do related to my family.
Melanie Avalon
I love it so, so much. Well, thank you, Sarah. This has been so incredible. So again, listeners, you can go to getinstamed.com. Use the coupon code Melanie15 for 15% off site-wide.
And yeah, thank you. I would love to have you back in the future, especially with how rapidly evolving all the science is. I'm sure a year from now, it'll just be like a whole entire new world that you're in. Yes, I would love that. Awesome. Well, thank you. Enjoy your time with your family. And we will talk soon. Thank you so much for listening. To the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. Please remember, everything we discussed on this show does not constitute medical advice. And no patient-doctor relationship is formed. If you enjoyed the show, please consider writing a review on iTunes. We couldn't do this without our amazing team. Editing by podcast doctors, show notes and artwork by Brianna Joyner. And original theme composed by Leland Cox. And recomposed by Steve Saunders. See you next week.