Oral pills. Injections. Black market suppliers. Influencers jockeying to get their audience to buy the latest beauty / anti-aging “stack.”
I’m sure you’ve heard of peptides by now, they’re all the rave despite being of scientific interest for decades now.
Peptides are here to stay, and they’ll remain relevant as the medical and beauty industries progress.
It’s important to be peptide literate.
Not just because they’re infiltrating the beauty industry or because they may improve quality of life, but because it’s equally important to know when not to use them, and to decipher the validity of the claims being made about them.
Dosage matters. Context matters. Formulas matter. Application matters. Timing matters. Sourcing matters. Purity matters.
Nuance often gets left in the dark when the driving sales force behind online peptide sales is FOMO, aka, “the fear of missing out.”
Everyone wants to be a part of the next big “breakthrough” to make them younger, hotter, healthier. Influencers and sales reps are using this to their advantage.
I want to make it clear that I am NOT anti-peptide.
I am anti-money grabbing, shady sales tactics, and the general lack of due diligence when it comes to sourcing and third party testing.
With that being said, it’s time for a peptide series. Welcome to part one.
Let me introduce you to my dietary frontier for supporting superior health, beauty, and vitality throughout life.
It is my belief that prioritizing peptide rich foods within a well balanced diet is a framework for superior health and physical excellence.
You knew what peptides were before they became “popular”.
The trajectory of science and medicine changed forever in 1921, when Frederick Banting and Charles Best isolated insulin from the pancreas of a dog, saving a diabetic child from imminent death.
This was the first time a naturally occurring peptide (insulin) was extracted, purified, and injecting into a human, and it was a revolutionary success.
A new paradigm emerged, inviting a future of treatment that wasn’t oriented around killing, blocking, suppressing, or silencing underlying pathology, but rather working with the body to restore order and resilience.
This breakthrough inspired the exploration and the making of a synthetic form of insulin, creating the ability to treat other diabetics in larger quantities, more efficiently. And to this day, it is a revolutionary discovery that saves lives.
When used appropriately, peptides have the potential to assist in our body’s innate ability to restore balance, and possibly heal itself.
When curated and administered effectively, peptides can completely change the trajectory of someone’s life for the better.
By restoring balance, harmony, and by working with the body’s innate intelligence, we can foster an environment for the body to heal, regenerate, and in the case of insulin for Type 1 Diabetics, live to see another day.
The problem with peptides arises when they are mismanaged, impure, applied in unwarranted circumstances, and utilized in a way that is divorced from an individualized, wholistic approach to medicine.
The first priority of a good practitioner is to do no harm.
Peptides: The basics
A peptide is a molecule that contains a string of 2 to 50 amino acids, linked by peptide bonds.
Peptides that contain many amino acids are called polypeptides or proteins.
Amino acids formed into peptides are recognized as a powerful component of integrative and regenerative medicine, with the potential to act as biologic messengers.
Peptides are small, yet highly complex in their own nature, giving them the potential to penetrate barriers with precision.
Science has been (for decades now), exploring the customization of peptides by creating unique amino acid sequences, utilizing different delivery systems, and exploring various mechanisms of action.
It’s changing the medical landscape as we speak.
But what about the bioactive peptides present within the foods widely available to us, and have been available to us for centuries?
This is something that is rarely talked about or explored because there is little financial incentive to do so.
Could the peptides within the foods we eat influence regenerative capabilities, healing capabilities, and epigenetics similarly to the peptides being engineered in labs?
After insulin was discovered, there was a rapidly growing interest, and successful discovery / utilization of various other peptides.
Scientists spent long and labored nights in the lab. Failure, frustration, error, and puzzle-piecing turned into breakthroughs that eventually changed science forever.
Fascinatingly enough, there was also a growing exploration of peptides through food and extracts.
Organotherapy: The art of treating what is deficient with what is similar
Organotherapy is the treatment of disease by the administration of animal organs and their extracts.
Since the dawn of human existence, various populations throughout time had a universal belief that organs harbored biological compounds that promoted health and vitality more profoundly than most other foods.
The Comanche were historically noted as being incredibly well nourished and physically resilient people. Historical accounts deemed them among the tallest, most physically capable men in all of North America. This was attributed partly to their diet, which was nose-to-tail consumption of bison, with organs prioritized.
“Children would rush up to a freshly killed animal, begging for its liver and gallbladder. They would then squirt the salty bile from the gallbladder onto the liver and eat it on the spot, warm and dripping blood” S. C. Gwynne, Empire of the Summer Moon (2010).
Robust Gaelic fisherman living off the coast of Scotland consumed a diet rich in fish. Fishheads were often stuffed with oats, and chopped fish liver was a common dish, considered extremely important for children. According to Weston A. Price, despite living in a cold, wet environment, with almost no plant food variety, these people had essentially no tuberculosis, no childhood illness, and exceptional dental and skeletal development.
Traditional Chinese Medicine created one of the most impressive frameworks for organ consumption as medicine. Some of the oldest and commonly utilized remedies and recipes in the TCM tradition highlights healing "like with like.”
The framework here is that we can encourage resilience within our own organs by consuming the organs of other animals.
This looks like eating liver to support liver health, eating kidney for good kidney function, consuming heart for heart health, utilizing thymus for robust thymus function, etc.
Fast forward to the late 1800s into the 1900s, as scientists were exploring peptides such as insulin, there were simultaneously scientists and clinicians exploring and experimenting with organs and their extracts. German and Swiss clinics were utilizing adrenal, thyroid, and pituitary extracts (for example), which were often a mix of peptides, protein, fats, and other molecules from each organ.
Some of my favorite “organotherapy” adjacent supplements:
Female Cycle Support: includes bovine ovary, fallopian tube, uterus, and liver. I think this product is incredible because these organs and tissues are extremely difficult to find fresh (discount code vitally works site wide).
MultiOrgan Blend: includes bovine liver, heart, pancreas, spleen, kidney and thymus. Its a great blend, especially for those who don’t enjoy eating organs but want to include it in their daily routine (discount code vitally works site wide).
Thymus: pure sheep thymus (more on the thymus coming!)
Pancreas: pure sheep pancreas
Liver: pure bovine liver (discount code vitally works site wide).
I could go on and on about this. I might have to do a separate article on my favorite places to source organs. Of course, fresh is always best!
Live Cell Therapy
Imagine having thyroid surgery in the early 1930s.
You awaken to your surgeon informing you that he accidentally removed your parathyroid glands.
You develop tetany (involuntary muscle spasms, cramps, and tremors) as a result.
There is no remedy available.
Except…
There’s a man who was called upon on your behalf.
He wants to inject you with fresh parathyroid tissue derived from a newborn animal to address your ailments.
Is this standard practice? No.
Is this experimental? Yes.
There was no other remedy available at the time, so you agreed.
Eventually, fresh parathyroid tissue extract was carefully prepared and injected in you.
One giant leap of faith…. a Hail Mary.
And almost immediately after the injection was administered…it worked to resolve your symptoms.
This is one of the well known stories of Paul Niehans, often referred to as the “father of live cell therapy”, and his success with injecting parathyroid tissue into a patient with tetany.
Niehans became well known, allegedly treated patients including the Pope and various kings.
Because live cell therapy injections required peak freshness of perishable tissues, there were difficulties keeping up with growing demands.
As a result, Niehans and his team created freeze dried extracts, allowing extracts to be transported and stored for longer periods of time. Of course, the potency of these extracts were not equivalent to the fresh cells, but it was helpful nonetheless.
Prior to Niehans, there were others experimenting with a similar line of thinking.
In April of 1891, George Murray obtained fresh sheep's thyroid from a slaughterhouse and carefully injected his prepared extract to a 46-year old woman with the signs and symptoms of myxedema (severely advanced hypothyroidism), improving symptoms dramatically.
Portuguese researchers were also utilizing their own organ extract injections around this time.
Bringing these concepts to life did not happen without road blocks, concerns, or harsh critiques from other medical professionals, but it changed the future of medicine and healing modalities as we know it today.
Soon after Murray’s documented successes, there were reports from other medical professionals of success with whole sheep thyroid or thyroid extract taken orally rather than injected, noting patient improvements in pulse rate and body temperature.
“The effects produced in cases of myxedema (severe hypothyroidism) by a relatively minute quantity of thyroid extract, the rapidity with which all the characteristic symptoms disappear, and the extraordinary improvement, both in the physical and mental condition, of sporadic cretins, are very remarkable.” - Byrom Bramwell
And just like that, we circle back to the realm of organotherapy :)
Diet as a source of bioactive peptides.
Bioactive peptides are essentially inactive while they remain within their parent protein.
They become active during digestion, food processing, and fermentation, for example.
So far, it is known that the intestine is able to absorb di-peptides and tri-peptides fairly well. As we advance in science, I am hopeful that we will learn more about longer peptide sequences and their absorption / utilization potential.
I will also be exploring the impacts food derived peptides may have on the gut microbiome and the digestive tract.
My intention with this series is to not only explore the information we currently have available about bioactive peptides through foods, but to also explore these concepts in historical observational perspectives, where high consumption rates of specific foods were associated with robust human development.
Merging science with ancestral wisdom.
Learning from human excellence while having science connect all the intricate pieces together.
The Comanche didn’t need to isolate dipeptides or understand the intricacies of peptide bioavailability to know that eating nose to tail fortified physical excellence.
They simply ate them, thrived, and passed the wisdom forward.
The beauty here is that modern science is now catching up to this innate wisdom, revealing the mechanisms behind what traditional cultures knew instinctively: that food is medicine, and by reshaping how we view foods, we too can harness physical excellence.
Master The Art of Eating Your Peptides
Peptides through food as a foundation to support health, beauty, and vitality throughout life.
Never forget, the human body is perfectly designed to utilize and assimilate the natural foods we are feeding it. We are imprinted with divine intelligence and highly complex rhythms of repair.
And so are the animals and plants around us.
I am a firm believer that if scientists were given the funding to extensively explore the bioactive peptides available to us within foods, nutrition science would change forever.
The caveat here is that approaches for restoring health and curating physical excellence will always be understudied when there isn’t a profit to be made.
When most people think about food consumption, they think about calories and macronutrients such as proteins, fats and carbs. They think about nutrients such as iron, calcium, magnesium. Maybe they even think about fiber, amino acids, and their impacts on overall health.
But what if bioactive peptides were also included in the discussion? What if we explored the peptides that impact metabolism through mechanisms of action that go beyond what we are currently aware of?
Bioactive peptides are peptide sequences within a protein that exert a beneficial effect on body functions and/or positively impact human health, beyond its known nutritional value.
The current peptide craze is centered around lab-made, injectable peptides (which have their place), but what about the medicine we have naturally available to us? Will the appropriate funding be given to the exploration of bioactive peptides present in food and their ability to survive digestion, influence gut health, and even make it past the GI wall to act systemically?
Little is known about the quantities, bioavailability, and bioactivity of the peptides from the foods we consume, but the potential is immense.
The caveat here is that approaches for restoring health and curating physical excellence will always be understudied when there isn’t a profit to be made.
But again, the Comanche didn’t need to isolate dipeptides or understand the intricacies of peptide bioavailability to know that eating nose to tail fortified physical excellence. Traditional Chinese Medicine didn’t need clinical trials to realize the significance of organotherapy.
Examples of foods rich in peptides:
Dairy
Fermented dairy products
Meat (especially those rich in collagen and connective tissue)
ORGANS
Fermented foods
Seafood
Collagen rich cuts of meat
Eggs of all kinds
Bone broth and meat stock
In the coming posts, I’ll isolate various food categories in detail, exploring potential bioactive peptides, historical context, how to prepare them for maximum bioavailability, and how to incorporate them into daily life.
As the series continues, I’ll also merge in various oral and injectable peptides available on the market. Additionally, I’ll be sharing the pros and cons of various popular peptides, where to buy SAFE options, risk vs. reward, trustworthy experts, resources, NUANCE, my approach, my theories, and much more.
The future of peptides doesn’t have to solely come from injections or pills, they can also come from the foods we choose to eat each day, throughout the rest of our lives.
My philosophy is simple: understand the tools we have available to us and know how to use them appropriately.
If you made it this far, thank you for reading, and I hope this was helpful in some way! ♥️
I followed you on Instagram for years—you were one of the first accounts that made me start questioning everything I thought I knew about my health. I’m so glad I found you again here. This piece breaks down the why behind it all in a way that’s clear, grounded, and—dare I say—actually digestible.
A thoughtful educating explanation that helped to clarify some thoughts Ive been having about wtf actually are peptides lately...The thing I keep wondering to myself is are these new injections etc just necessary now because our metabolism/gut health have been destroyed by environmental toxins, depleted soil, nutrient deficiencies etc that even we try all the natural options first, diet, exercise, sleep etc, the scale still barely budges. Americans are fatter and more hormonallyl sick then we have ever been before.
Its very frustrating as someone pushing 40, who has always eaten clean, exercised, followed the protocols of holistic wellness, detoxed,etc, but after having children, my hormones have been wacked out and its made it very hard to lose weight. Enter peptides. What do they actually do to our hormones? All these people suddenly dropping weight like a switch in their bodies got flipped. Its wild, amazing, and a bit terrifying that maybe these peoples hormones just needed a jump start to get them back into a healthy stasis. I would love your take on this.