Peptides for Cellular Healing

Overview

In Episode 7 Redox Revolution, Dr. Seeds and the team delve into the significance of peptides in cellular health, covering their role as signaling agents composed of amino acids essential for various cellular processes. The discussion highlights how peptides can enhance cellular adaptation to stressors, particularly in aging and chronic diseases, and their potential therapeutic applications. The episode contrasts regenerative and cellular medicine, emphasizing the importance of environmental factors over mere cell quantity in stem cell efficacy. Future prospects for peptide therapy, including scalability and the need for tailored treatment protocols, are also explored, with a reminder that the information provided is educational rather than medical advice. Listeners are encouraged to consult healthcare professionals before making health decisions and to subscribe for updates on upcoming topics, including technology and AI's impact on cellular health.

Notes

Introduction to Peptides(00:00 - 10:32)

• Peptides are signaling agents for cells, enzymes, receptors, or hormones.
• Peptides consist of amino acids connected by peptide bonds, ranging from 2-30 amino acids.
• Peptides help cells with signaling processes, improving enzymes, receptors, and making ATP production more efficient.
• The body is already familiar with peptides, making them effective therapeutic agents.
• Discussion of difference between regenerative medicine and cellular medicine.
• Cellular medicine goes deeper upstream at the cellular level with molecular pathology, biochemistry, and quantum physics.
• Functional medicine paved the way for cellular medicine.

Factors Affecting Peptide Efficacy(10:32 - 20:44)

• Cell function remains consistent across different tissue types (liver, muscle, brain).
• All cells use glycolysis, Krebs cycle, oxidative phosphorylation, and beta oxidation.
• Cells must adapt to environmental stressors regardless of location in the body.
• Age affects cellular function - thymus gland involutes with age affecting immune function.
• Peptides can help aging cells adapt to changes over time.
• Example: peptides can help skin maintain elasticity and collagen production with age.
• Strength training highlighted as crucial for collagen and elasticity improvement.
• Combination of peptides, strength training, diet, and sleep works together over time.

Chronic Disease and Peptide Therapy(20:44 - 30:54)

• Chronic disease affects cellular adaptation to stressors.
• Cells experience increased reactive oxygen species, protein misfolding, membrane breakdown.
• Peptides can help improve energy production through oxidative phosphorylation.
• Aging is considered a stressor on cells - peptides help cells adapt to this stressor.
• Aging is a predictor for increasing incidence of disease across all disease states.
• Senescent cells play different roles in injury, chronic disease, and cancer states.
• Peptides can help cells control their environment across different conditions.
• In injuries, peptides change the inflammatory environment to help healing, not 'fix' the injury.
• Example: rotator cuff tears aren't directly 'fixed' by peptides or stem cells, but the environment is improved.

Comparing Regenerative Therapies(30:54 - 40:18)

• Stem cells exist in a quiescent metabolic state different from active cells.
• Quality of stem cells is more important than quantity.
• Peptides help stem cells maintain quiescent state and rapidly change to active state when needed.
• The 'old stem cells' theory is a fallacy - the environment is what matters.
• Stem cells must be quiet and use minimal energy to avoid reactive oxygen species.
• Gene therapy is also important for the future but requires understanding how cells work.
• Multiple genes working in circuits affect cell function, not just single genes.
• Peptides can help cells work around gene circuits that aren't functioning correctly.

Future of Peptide Therapy(40:18 - 49:45)

• Peptide therapy could be more scalable than other regenerative approaches.
• Current challenges include manufacturing costs and quality control requirements.
• Peptide bonds are fragile and require high-quality production.
• Mass production could make peptides more affordable and accessible.
• Peptide protocols must be tailored to individual patients - no universal protocols work.
• Treatment approaches vary based on targeting metabolism, immunity, microbiome, mitochondria.
• Next episode will focus on technology and AI's role in cellular health.
• Reminder that information shared is educational and not medical advice.

00:00
Dr. William Seeds
Are peptides the future of medicine? More of that to come today on Redox Revolution. Welcome to Redox Revolution. And I'm here with Matt and Maddie, and we're ready to take it on today and get together with you on this journey to improve cellular health. Let's get going. 

00:35
Matthew Seeds
Today's topic, very, let's start off very simple. What is a peptide? I feel like that's a question we get a lot, especially at the ssrp, people coming in, new to the ecosystem, they go, hey, what is a peptide? And we've had different answers for that over the years. But let's just dive into that. 

00:56
Dr. William Seeds
I think, to keep it simple. Peptides are just consider them as a signaling agent for a cell, an enzyme, a receptor, even considered a hormone. They play lots of different roles. But basically a peptide is an amino acid that is connected to another amino acid by what's called a peptide bond. And it can typically be, you can put three amino acids or two amino acids and come up with a significant peptide, or it could be 20 or 30amino acids that make up a specific peptide. And those peptides then are utilized by the cell to specifically start some type of signaling process or helping in improving a specific enzyme or a receptor. Or the aspect of changing, like, say, the cytochromes in the electron transport system to make it more efficient in making ATP. It can get as specific as you want. 

02:15
Dr. William Seeds
So that's the beauty. And it's how cells, there's inner communication of a cell and outer communication. And, and this is where all the research and all the greatest, I think, work in the future is headed. Because the other nice thing about peptides is, are that we're trying to utilize signaling agents that the body's familiar with that we already know it has a role and the cell knows how to utilize it. So doesn't it make sense to work with those type of. Those agents that the cell is familiar with? It doesn't say, hey, what's this? It says, oh, I can use that. And, and that's the fascinating place of where we're going with peptide. 

03:04
Madison Lepore
And that's how we connect a lot too, with our patients, because this is a newer type of medicine that they have a lot of fear and anxiety when first getting started with. So that's a big thing that we emphasize is these aren't foreign to your body. Your body makes this just because of what you've gone through. Your body's not making it as efficiently as it once did. So we're just Giving it the signaling agent that it knows how, what to do with it. 

03:28
Matthew Seeds
I feel like that's a good place to differentiate what type of medicine it is that you guys practice. Because, you know, you've gone a long way in trying to coin this term cellular medicine. Right. And the big one that a lot of people are familiar with today is regenerative medicine. And what. Well, and let's like, define what that is. Right? Regenerative medicine, the very classic definition is it's a field of medical science that aims to restore or replace damaged or diseased tissues and organs. Focuses on developing therapies that stimulate the body's own regenerative processes using external materials to create new tissues and organs. Like I said, you prefer the term cellular medicine. So that's basically going further upstream and applying therapies at a cellular level. 

04:18
Matthew Seeds
So is it fair to say that cellular medicine is a deeper, more advanced, more biochemical approach than regenerative medicine? Kind of like the next evolution on that pyramid, it's going further into the. 

04:32
Madison Lepore
Cell, I would say more biochemical. 

04:34
Dr. William Seeds
Well, absolutely. It's. It's more molecular pathology, it's more biochemistry, it's more quantum physics. It puts it all together. Yeah. 

04:45
Matthew Seeds
And that's not to say anything against regenerative medicine at all. It's been fantastic to watch how that's helped to evolve the way that people are taking care of patients. And this is essentially just the next step, the next. The next notch down into the rabbit hole. 

05:00
Dr. William Seeds
Regenerative medicine, integrative medicine, anti aging, functional medicine that they've paved the way for me to get my messaging to where now people are paying attention to what we're talking about. 

05:14
Madison Lepore
I mean, I feel like it kind of went like functional medicine became popular, then it kind of went a little bit deeper to the regenerative medicine. And now it's going like that next level, even deeper to like the cellular. It's been a step. I like that it's adapting. 

05:31
Matthew Seeds
So you said when it comes to peptides, because now the focus is on peptides. Right. Since we are working in the cell, you said we can get as specific as you want. So let's get specific. Some of the things that alter how they work, factors that affect peptide efficacy. So some of the ones that I was looking into before the show, you know, like tissue type, age, underlying health, and then the extent of the damage that is already present in the cell. So if we can kind of jump into those one by one and how that might impact the usage of peptides, starting with different tissue types. 

06:16
Dr. William Seeds
So you're talking like muscle versus fat, tissue versus collagen. 

06:23
Matthew Seeds
Anything from skin to liver, maybe to brain, or even that imaginary thing you guys keep referring to, like the pancreas. 

06:30
Dr. William Seeds
Well, beta cell of the pancreas. You men, you're adapting. You're getting there. Remember that. Here's. Here's the. Here's the beautiful part of what I would like everybody to get out of this answer that relates to all of what you said. A cell is a cell in what it needs to do or. Or how it function, as in utilizing an energy source to make energy, right? And it has all of the states of. Of having to go through glycolysis, the Krebs cycle, oxidative phosphorylation, and beta oxidation. And these are just things that make a cell functional and make ATP. Every cell has to do that. So here's the beauty in this. Doesn't matter if it's in the liver, doesn't matter if it's in the muscle, doesn't matter if it's in the brain. 

07:32
Dr. William Seeds
It's the same concept of how the cell is doing what has to adapt to the stress that the environment brings on, right? So the brain cells, the neurons, the microglial cells, the astrocytes, depending on what's happening, how are they adjusting and adapting to stress or just learning or whatever. And how are the lungs, you know, how are the mucosal cells in the lungs or the. The immune cells in the lungs? How are they adapting to breathing and what you're bringing in from the environment? Or how is the gut, how's the colonic, the. The epithelial cell of the colon? How is that adjusting to what you eat and that environment? And so that's the beauty of this. It's. It's. 

08:28
Dr. William Seeds
They all have to adapt and they all have to utilize glycolysis, TCA cycle, and oxidative phosphorylation to some degree, except for, like, the red blood cell, which doesn't have mitochondria. It's purely glycolysis. So it's again, understanding cells and what they have and how they manipulate their food sources and what they need to do to make energy or ATP, because that determines the. The beginning of making energy, then sets in the process of how, if I'm efficient making energy, well, then I'm doing a good job. If I become inefficient, then things start to happen and metabolism changes and morphology, the mitochondria changes and redox balance changes. So is that something different in every tissue yes, it is. But it's always the same concept and process. Isn't that fascinating? 

09:29
Madison Lepore
Yeah. 

09:29
Matthew Seeds
So then is it the same concept and process at different ages? Let's go into the next bracket. Age. 

09:37
Dr. William Seeds
Absolutely. So, so let's bring up how would you best be able to address this? 

09:49
Madison Lepore
Because what about like, so, like immune wise, as you age, your thymus gland starts to involute. So when you're younger. 

09:59
Dr. William Seeds
Very nice. Yeah. 

10:00
Madison Lepore
When you're younger, you might not need what you need as you get older unless you have other diseases or disease processes working against you. 

10:09
Dr. William Seeds
Correct, sure. Well, that's, that gets into the concept of are there ways to. So that's as aging occurs. Are there things that happen in organs and cells that become depleted to where the cell doesn't have its resources to handle that aging. And so potentially the thymus, because it's not producing the T cells that are needed or not producing potentially enough of them to be available to help modulate the immune system as you get older, you may be losing out on that control and modulation of the immune system, which. Well, are there ways to potentially change that? And the answer is yes, there are. And so those are the things you need to know. 

11:10
Dr. William Seeds
I think a great analogy here would be let's look at something that's universal here with, where people are very concerned about their aesthetics, their look, their skin and how we age and how skin changes and potentially becomes less. It loses, it loses its process of how elasticity and collagen production are important in keeping skin tight, if you want to call it tight, or in keeping its viability of how it looks from it, from young to old. Well, we can absolutely clarify that process is happening as we age because of the issues of the cells like around the skin, the keratinocytes, the melanocytes, the fibroblasts, how they change in just what we talked about and how they utilize energy, make ATP and how they produce biomass, which is in the Krebs cycle, which has everything to do with how ATP is made. 

12:39
Dr. William Seeds
And if you understand that, then you start to get you, you can understand that. Okay, well that's happening over time. What are some factors that may be affecting that change over time? Why people do all the right things? They exercise, they eat, but they're still having issues with, you might call it saggy skin or just it's not as crepey. Is that what women say? 

13:09
Madison Lepore
Yeah, they say, they call it creepy. It's like wrinkly inside. 

13:12
Dr. William Seeds
I'VE never heard that either creepy or creepy like it's creepy. 

13:17
Madison Lepore
It's crepey skin. Like that's what a lot of our females will say is like their skin's getting crepey. It's like almost dry in a way and wrinkly and just. 

13:27
Matthew Seeds
She's making this up. I've never heard of this. 

13:29
Dr. William Seeds
Yeah, yeah. Okay. 

13:31
Matthew Seeds
All right. 

13:31
Dr. William Seeds
Adaption. I've adapted to a new. I have to remember that crepey word. Well, well, so that's. That creepiness is a real process that's happening because of the loss of the cell's ability to be more flexible and handle energy correctly. And then that redox balance gets a little out of control and the skin loses its elasticity, its ability, the fibroblast to control more collagen production in the right direction. It's all about modulation. And so that's where peptides can play a big role in letting people know that. And especially I, I think it, this makes sense with our female population and discussing with them. You know, we've brought this up before. You can do all these things to the outside. You want to the skin to stimulate it, to provoke it, to make it try to adapt, to handle the stressors and. 

14:40
Madison Lepore
But you need to work from the inside out. 

14:42
Dr. William Seeds
But you need to work from the inside out. And doesn't it make sense that you have to kind of. Well, are there things that are changing as I get older that I know about in molecular pathways? Are they affecting this? The answer is absolutely. So do we have a way to work on improving that environment? It's about improving the environment. And I call it aging gracefully. You know, can we ever beat that? I think we will at some point. And that may come up in a later discussion where I have some thoughts about this and it fascinates me. And it's where all my focus is most of the time and ahead thinking ahead, you know, but you got to tell people, hey, if we're going to work on this isn't going to happen overnight. 

15:34
Dr. William Seeds
You know, this is something that is going to manifest itself over years. But it, but it does. 

15:43
Madison Lepore
And I think it's an important part to mention too. What is the one thing that people really don't think helps with their skin and collagen and elasticity? But they're like, I'm taking collagen, I'm doing peptides. But what's something you emphasize, especially to the female patients that is so important to help their collagen and elasticity? 

16:04
Dr. William Seeds
Well, I mean, this gets into the process of exercise strength training. I mean, this is where strength training is very big. It's not just, hey, I run or, hey, I walk. It's like, no, tell me what you're doing with the strength training. I mean, great paper, right? We've discussed that came out that got down to the basics of what muscle does to produce signaling for collagen is incredible, right? So it's called real strength training. And that's how we can determine with certain people, like, hey, tell me what you're doing while I work out. And if you don't ask these questions. And that's a great point, Maddie, because you hit on something where even I, sometimes I have. Maddie and Grace have to intervene and go, doc, what kind of training are they doing? 

16:58
Dr. William Seeds
Because I'll just assume they're doing strength training because they're talking to me, right? And. And they're not. And I get. I'm like, how did I miss that? You have to be working on muscle, and it's got to be real strength training. But that is where that's where this comes together, where strength training and the peptides to improve that machinery that is taking advantage of the exercise. That's where it all comes together. With diet, with sleep. I mean, and that takes time. I mean, that doesn't just. 

17:37
Madison Lepore
It's not overnight. 

17:38
Dr. William Seeds
It's not overnight. And the best part, the patient starts to. To appreciate over time. The changes we're making take time, the work, the effort. And that's when it gets to be an amazing journey with people. That's when you've really set into motion a lifelong process, when they start to see that and you gotta give. So what I was getting at with the older females that are trying that say they're active. Well, are they really doing strength training? Great thing to bring up. Brilliant. And on top of that, besides diet and sleep, it's what can we do to help that machinery of making energy, working on oxidative processes, lowering cell senescence? What can we do to make that environment better? And that's the key. 

18:38
Matthew Seeds
And that's where peptides come in. 

18:40
Dr. William Seeds
That's where they come in. And they play a tremendous role over time. 

18:44
Matthew Seeds
So speaking about playing a role over time, let's move on to that third bracket, the presence of chronic disease states. Haven't we talked about this before? Chronic diseases? We talked about it last week, but now last week we're more so focused on, you know, it became a lot about intermittent fasting, but last week was. 

19:03
Dr. William Seeds
More similar it wasn't just intermittent fasting, it was a fasting program of a calorie restriction, which is what people should really be concentrating on. 

19:13
Matthew Seeds
But we didn't start to implement peptides yet. So now let's say, you know, cellular dysfunction is present. There is a chronic disease state there. 

19:22
Dr. William Seeds
See where you're going. 

19:23
Matthew Seeds
How do peptides help? And. Or how are peptides maybe less effective when those things are present? 

19:30
Dr. William Seeds
So imagine this is. Let's get back to adaptation of the cell and how it has to deal with the stressor and how it loses that ability for adaptation. What happens? Well, more reactive oxygen species and we're. That leads to all the things that progress in a cell of where you get the breakdown of proteins, you get proteins that misfold, proteins that can't signal appropriately for the cell. How to adapt those then can even be. Those proteins can even be reactive. And then they can act against cell membranes, they can break down membranes. And then you get fats in the membranes that get oxidized. And then you get this process of. Then DNA of the mitochondria and the nucleus that become affected. And so then the cell. I have to get into a little of this. Come on. 

20:39
Dr. William Seeds
Then the cell has to do its job in repairing, which it knows how to do. And it loses that sense of repairing or it's constantly in the state of repairing and that's when things go bad. And so here we have a chance to rewrite the script to help the cell improve that energy production. What if I can tell you we can actually help the cell with. In that production of energy ATP through oxidative phosphorylation, where we can affect the cytochromes that are these very important complexes that have everything to do with making energy. What if we can help them perform better? And that's by. What are we doing? We're giving the cell the ability to change the proteins that are needed to adapt to that change in aging or stressor. And I consider aging a stressor that they can adapt. 

21:47
Dr. William Seeds
So imagine aging as a car that just keeps running. Right. A car that never stops. 

21:55
Matthew Seeds
Yeah. 

21:56
Dr. William Seeds
Well, is that putting a. Is aging put a stress on that electron transport ATP? Absolutely right. Because aging is a. It's over time. That cell has to keep working. So can we help that cell? Can we give it the capability to handle that environment better, to be more efficient? And the answer is yes. And that's where it all comes down to this concept again of just understanding energy production, metabolism, morphology of. Of the mitochondria, how it changes and redox balance, it always comes back to that. So aging then, if you can imagine, I mean, if you've got things going wrong, if I were to say that aging means that the cell just doesn't have the capability to handle the stressors like it used to. 

22:55
Matthew Seeds
Right. 

22:56
Dr. William Seeds
Does that also relate to chronic disease? 

22:59
Madison Lepore
Yes. 

23:00
Dr. William Seeds
Yes. Right. Because what is the number one in every disease state? What can we say? Can we say aging is a predictor, a potential of increasing the incidence of a disease? Yes, we can. In every disease state. And cancer. Whoa, whoa. 

23:25
Matthew Seeds
Well, you did just call it a stressor. 

23:27
Dr. William Seeds
A stressor. 

23:27
Matthew Seeds
So that brings us into the fourth bracket. The extent of damage that's already in the cell. So how can the severity of injury affect, you know, the ease or the success of regeneration? How can it affect how useful peptides are? 

23:44
Dr. William Seeds
So that's a great. That's another great question. And the answer is the. So you have to understand. So when a state gets into a chronic state of, or a, A cell and the cells around it and how they influence an organ or, you know, a skeletal muscle, liver, kidney, heart, and so forth, what changes in. In chronic states? Well, in chronic states, this is where you start getting a change in cells that you don't want, like these things called senescent cells. 

24:24
Matthew Seeds
And what about in not chronic states, injury being present? 

24:30
Dr. William Seeds
So, okay, I was gonna go somewhere with that, but I'll stop and I'll go to injury. 

24:37
Matthew Seeds
It can be both. 

24:38
Dr. William Seeds
It can't. Well, so injury. No, this is a good point. So, so injury, you make senescent cells, but they also, they're necessary to stop this process of inflammation, and that just doesn't keep going. It knows how to. It's an intricate part of turning off mechanisms of inflammation that you need to heal. 

24:59
Matthew Seeds
Perfect. So then how does that help or hinder the effectiveness of peptides when you're using them in an injured state? 

25:08
Dr. William Seeds
So peptides are. Their goal is to. Specific peptides, their goal is to give the cell a better. A better capability of. Of timing of when to turn things on and off with the inflammatory phase, followed by the repair and restoration phases of the cell, which mean proliferation, maturation, differentiation, that kind of stuff. So it has the timing down and you're just again, giving that cell in that repair process. In the acute phase, you're helping it do that. In a chronic phase, you're going to try to help it do that. But you got to understand what the cell's energy demands are, because they are. They are different in an acute and Chronic phase. And then you can relate that to chronic diseases in where what happens is these inflammatory pathways, they don't turn off. 

26:10
Dr. William Seeds
It's because the cell's been constantly bombarded and it can't turn off some mechanisms. 

26:16
Madison Lepore
And is that when it's in the mtor dominant state? 

26:22
Dr. William Seeds
Who's been training you? I think that would be me. Yes. So you bring up a good point. It's this ampk mtor state of a cell and where a cell is in a state of cleaning up and where a cell is in a place of rebuilding. And when a cell gets caught into trying to have to constantly catch up and build, it can be in an mtor dominant state. And that is a. It's a highly energetic state. It changes the way the cell utilizes energy and it creates more reactive oxygen species. And that's exactly. You could. It's what leads to the potential of improved or increased senescent cells. And so, yeah, that's that kind of as a dive into some concepts. But aging is you. You got to consider ampk like a sensor of energy and aging over to the second bracket. 

27:27
Dr. William Seeds
And so with aging, we'll go through all the brackets. Aging, is there a decrease in ampk sensing? Yes. In chronic disease, is there a decrease of ampk sensing? Yes. In cancer, is there a change in ampk sensing? Yes. And it's manipulated by this, by the cancer cell. And the same thing in a senescent cell, is it manipulated and which are. 

27:56
Matthew Seeds
Present injury states, senescent cells? Because if that fourth bracket is injury, it's relating it back to that. 

28:04
Dr. William Seeds
Well, you need senescent cells injury where it's good, but too many senescent cells then create an environment of bad things. But yeah, so senescence plays a role, different roles in cancer, in chronic disease, injury repair. So that's a specific cell that you have to know. How do I work with that? Because it's different in different environments. So it's having that, I think, that conceptualization of what is happening in aging, disease states, cancer, immune problems, injury. Injury. That's where you put all this together. And can peptides be effective in any of those areas in helping the cell, again, control its environment or take advantage of changing the environment. And the answer is yes. 

29:01
Madison Lepore
And I feel like that's important to mention with the injury is because patients ask us all the time, okay, so is this going to fix my injury? No, it's not going to fix your injury, but it's going to fix the environment so that you could help heal correctly. Like when patients have a tear and. 

29:19
Dr. William Seeds
Well, so you're talking. So that's a great thing Maddie brings up like, so she'll. I know exactly what you're referring to. It'll be like a patient who says, I have a rotator cuff tear. And I've been led to believe if I take these peptides or if I take stem cells and inject them in my joint, I'm going to repair this displaced rotator cuff tear. That when it cuff, if it's a full thickness tear, it retracts. It's literally. Well, are you going to repair that back? Absolutely not. That's total bullshit. When people say that, that happens. But what's changed in that shoulder is the environment. Because you've got four rotator cuff muscles. There's ways to work with, there's lots of again, ways to help the shoulder adapt to the change of a specific tear. 

30:08
Dr. William Seeds
So we're going to make the environment in the shoulder, which is inflammatory, better. So that's what, like when people say stem cells. I healed my rotator cuff with stem cells. Bullshit. You did not. You're, you've changed the environment. But we do that specifically with peptides to make the environment better. So you can start adapting to the change by changing three of the four rotator cuff muscles to learn what you can do to get by with that tear. 

30:41
Matthew Seeds
Let's, let's go further down that road. 

30:44
Dr. William Seeds
Does that make sense? 

30:45
Madison Lepore
Yeah. And like even arthritis too, like, you're just changing the environment so that it's not inflammatory and you could adapt and do your exercises and correct. 

30:54
Dr. William Seeds
You're, that's another good point. With chronic disease like arthritis and you're trying to preserve the good chondrocytes that are there. You want to give them an environment to continue to thrive because they're making they're helping with the nutrients that are needed to keep that environment the best it can be. And so yeah, that's a great concept to. 

31:25
Matthew Seeds
Let's relate it to, let's pull back the curtain on something. You were talking about stem cells, right. And let's compare those, you know, stem cell therapy, gene therapy and peptide therapy from a very surface level answer. How are peptides different from some of these other regenerative therapies that have been popularized over the last decade or more? 

31:46
Dr. William Seeds
Well, I think you've got to look at, you know, stem cells. Listen, no doubt. And I, I'm a researcher in stem cells. I've, I present Abstracts at meetings. I, I, I'm wholeheartedly in that space of understanding stem cells and their niche in where? 

32:10
Matthew Seeds
Well, we talked about it from the jump, how regenerative medicine helped pave the way to really dive into cellular medicine now. And that's essentially what you're saying is stem cell therapy. 

32:19
Dr. William Seeds
Well, it's understanding, it comes down to this concept, and I won't get too complex, but a stem cell is a totally different cell that is in a quiescent state. Okay. It's in a state that is totally metabolically different than an active state of other cells. So if you understand that, then if you have that knowledge that cell needs to be flexible to go from a quiescent state right into a repair, remodeling, active state. You know, how do we work with that? Well, we use precision pro, what I consider more focused processes of making that stem cell work better by utilizing certain peptides. And it's not about the quantity of the stem cell. It's the quality of the stem cell and its ability to, number one, maintain its quiescent state and then rapidly change into an active state. 

33:23
Dr. William Seeds
And that has to do with changing metabolism, adjusting the proteome of all these cytochromes, making ATP and oxidative phosphorylation, all these things we talked about. It's got to be able to do that on a dime right at the right time. And, and so that's what I'm getting into. Like, stem cells were like shooting a bazooka at somebody early on. Like, hey, how are we gonna make you better? We're gonna shoot a bazooka at you. And it's, let's this big bomb that's coming at you, which, again, was beneficial. 

33:53
Matthew Seeds
And a revolution at the time. 

33:55
Madison Lepore
Absolutely. 

33:55
Matthew Seeds
Yes. 

33:56
Dr. William Seeds
And I, and still is. Still. There's still, oh, my gosh. I mean, we could, we'll get into this at some point. I mean, it is the future. There's no doubt about it. It's how do we utilize? 

34:06
Madison Lepore
And I think you need to emphasize too, like, one of the common things when patients come to us who've done stem cell therapy, some benefit, some don't. But when they say, well, my stem cells aren't good because they're old, that's fallacy. Yeah. 

34:21
Dr. William Seeds
Again, it's, well, what are you doing to work from the beginning and in making in that population of stem cells that you have in particular, like mesenchymal stem cells in the bone marrow, what can you do to improve that environment, to Improve your. The reproduction of those cells, but also at the same time, the quiescent state and the resistance state. Remember, adapting resistance. These cells need to be resistant. I mean, think of a stem cell like this. If I'm a stem cell and I want to live around, I want to be around for a long time to be ready to go, or let's even take the same concept into a female, the oocyte for fertilization to, you know, you have these eggs that sit around for 10, 20 years. What do they. They're kind of like a stem cell. 

35:16
Dr. William Seeds
What do they have to be? They have to be very quiet and not use a lot of energy. Because if you use a lot of energy, you're going to make reactive oxygen species. So I don't want to do that. I don't want to stress the cell. I want to just maintain myself. So they're all in a quiescent state. And the cell has the capability to manipulate the. The oxidative phosphorylation, the glycolysis, the Krebs cycle, all that to do that. And if you understand that, well, my gosh, look at what. Look at your opportunities here to improve these areas that, for instance, we're talking about stem cells. And you could even take it into infertility and so forth with females. You could go everywhere with this. But you have the opportunity to give those cells the capability to reestablish themselves and. And be effective. 

36:13
Dr. William Seeds
So that's what I'm saying about stem cells, that there's. There's a role there. But in going into the use of peptides. Why, you know, what have I done to create the state that's better for the stem cells? Well, I'm using or. Or fertilization or the fertile oocyte, you know, an egg of a female. What have I done to make that better? Well, I'm using peptides to help that. Messaging that machinery of the cell to be what, flexible and its ability to control that environment and be where it wants to be to. To be at its optimal state. 

37:00
Matthew Seeds
Back to gene therapy, because that's another one that's kind of a prop. A popular regenerative medicine approach. 

37:07
Dr. William Seeds
Genetic. So gene therapy. Absolutely. The future also. But it's understanding where is this utilization of gene therapy going to be important? Well, it's only going to be important if we understand how a cell works, how it works efficiently and flexibly in the right environment. And then what goes wrong, because what actually happens is here. Here's where we're stuck in the world today. We're stuck. That it's one gene, and when one gene goes wrong, this is what happens. Well, let me break it to you. It's many genes that go wrong. It's actually a gene regulatory circuit. 

37:54
Matthew Seeds
It's not a vacuum. 

37:55
Dr. William Seeds
It's not a vacuum. It's a circuit of genes that all that work on specifically, again, changing and adapting the cell. So it's many genes working together to make that happen. It isn't just one gene. There's this huge push in synthetic biology right now that is focusing on. These are things we never talk about and not at the dinner table and not at work. But this synthetic biology is the future of where we can alter gene circuits, regulatory circuits, because we know what goes wrong in a cell. Well, this is where CRISPR and antisense oligonucleotides, all these ways we can change a cell. And, and maybe. You know what? Maybe this will be a better talk. Whenever that AI talk comes up, whenever you telling me this happens, that's probably where we should bring it into play. 

38:51
Matthew Seeds
But these genes, we can dive into AI a little bit next week if you want. 

38:56
Dr. William Seeds
These genes work together to have feedback mechanisms to turn off processes or turn on like a switch, basically. And it's not one gene we're focused on. It's one gene. It's one methylation change, it's one acetylation change, it's one demethylation chain. No, no, no. This is beyond our comprehension. And it's, it's multiple circuitry of these genes, circuits that enable a cell to adapt. So is that. Did. Does that help you understand the gene part? Because it's brilliant stuff. I think we're being a little bit. I think. Yeah, go ahead. 

39:45
Madison Lepore
My question was just so, like, even if it was just that one gene, wouldn't it still be different? Because everyone's heterogeneicity is different. So how it's one gene, it might affect that person differently than that one gene in another person. 

40:00
Dr. William Seeds
Well, so that gets into. Yeah, so those are more like inheritable traits and. Yeah. One gene specific. But we're kind of learning that even that one gene specific, there are other genes that change in reaction to that gene that's mutated. 

40:18
Matthew Seeds
So then how does peptide therapy make that better? 

40:23
Dr. William Seeds
So that's a great question. So without getting caught in the complexities. 

40:27
Matthew Seeds
Yeah. 

40:28
Dr. William Seeds
Of gene manipulation, gene circuitry, it gets back to. Well, okay, we realize that, remember, a gene tells a cell basically how to function and how to make a specific protein to deal with certain stressor. Right. It's how the cell reacts to something. It has a gene that then produces a protein or an enzyme or whatever to react. And there are many genes that can influence one specific stressor or like AMPK or the p53 tumor suppressor gene and all that kind of stuff. So peptides can work? It's not a workaround, but it kind of is. Because if we know. If we know what we're trying to accomplish or how, let's say certain genes have the ability to help the cell produce these proteins for this stressor, like aging. Okay, well, do we have peptides? Like, say, some of those gene circuits aren't working correctly. 

41:37
Dr. William Seeds
Do we have peptides that can possibly affect how that cell can work around that, even though the gene says, I'm not participating? Can we influence that? And the answer is, yes, we can. 

41:52
Matthew Seeds
Before we wrap up here, can I pose a thesis and you tell me if you think it's stupid or if you think maybe it's something that is beneficial to think about. So when comparing cellular medicine and peptide therapy, asking if it's a preferable approach to some of these earlier regenerative medicine practices, it seems like regenerative medicine's biggest obstacles have always been manufacturing in scale. Like we're trying to think of what actually stops this from helping more patients. Biological components like cells and tissues and organs, they're more difficult to manufacture at scale and maintain long term. And then, of course, there's the cost factor. 

42:37
Matthew Seeds
As peptide therapy gets more widely accepted, that seems like something that would lean a little bit more favorably into that scale approach that you'd be able to manufacture at a lower cost to be able to get it to more people. 

42:50
Dr. William Seeds
It's always been our goal that's our primary goal. And that's absolutely true because it's a very expensive proposition right now. Because, again, these have to be perfect. Right. They have to be close to perfect. 

43:02
Madison Lepore
They have to be compounded in a pharmacy. 

43:05
Dr. William Seeds
They have to be real. They have to go through toxicity. They have to go through antimicrobial checks. I mean, all the things that any drug does, it has to be even better because it's such a. We're in a significant timeframe right now of where scrutiny is on us. Scrutiny is on the peptide. It has to be the quality. 

43:25
Matthew Seeds
Yeah. 

43:25
Dr. William Seeds
And you can demand nothing else but that. And that's what my patients get. 

43:29
Madison Lepore
And it's important too, because the peptide bonds, it has to be that good quality because the bonds are so fragile. So if it's not that good quality, when you're injecting, those bonds break. Therefore, that peptide's fragmenting and you don't know what that fragment one, what it is and what that fragment can do to you in your body. 

43:47
Dr. William Seeds
Yeah, because she's exactly right. It's a biological agent that we have no idea what it's doing. And that's where you get into all that stuff we talked about before. If you don't have something that's regulated and followed precisely the way it should be, then I think you're in trouble. But imagine it's the same thing with ketone esters, a substrate like ketones. It's very expensive to make the appro. The right ketone blend of one three butane dial and 50% beta hydroxybutyrate. And to do that, to. To do that. Well, and that's a. That's a very difficult and very expensive. But if you do it for the masses, it's pennies on the dollar. It's the same thing with these peptides. Oh, my gosh, just think about this. 

44:36
Dr. William Seeds
If we could produce it in masses, think of the ramifications of what we could do in the world today to not prevent, but prepare people for aging, prepare people for chronic disease, prepare people for. For stressors we don't know are coming. How amazing would that be? I mean, think about that. 

45:01
Madison Lepore
People who have already hit that state or in a chronic disease, being able to help them. Help them get their life back. 

45:10
Dr. William Seeds
Yeah. 

45:11
Matthew Seeds
So helping people get their life back. Let's wrap it up with today's performance protocol. And this one might be a little more in depth than like some of the previous ones. Right. Because we've predominantly focused on lifestyle changes, things you can implement tomorrow. But we're talking about peptide therapy. So talking about peptide therapy in the lens of different tissues in the body, aging, presence of chronic disease states and injury states. How are you integrating peptides while being omniscient for all the different things that you're dealing with in the body? 

45:49
Dr. William Seeds
Again, that's. That's the. 

45:51
Matthew Seeds
I feel like it's a broad answer. It's just work with your provider. 

45:53
Dr. William Seeds
Yeah. 

45:54
Madison Lepore
And it's why no protocols are work. 

45:57
Dr. William Seeds
It's. Work with your provider. It's why no protocol works. It's such. It's. It's specifically tailored to the patient. And, and you got to know where to approach it. So it's timing. It's. It's. Where are you going? Are you going at metabolism? Are you going at Immunity. Are you going at the microbiome? Are you going at mitochondria? Are you going at energy production and mitochondria? Are you going at morphology changes of the mitochondria like fission fusion or quality control of the mitochondria? Or are you dealing right down to the basics of nad of redox balance? Or is it all the above? And it's always all the above. 

46:46
Madison Lepore
So senescence, too. Are you going right after senescence? 

46:50
Dr. William Seeds
Yeah, which is. Which. 

46:52
Madison Lepore
Don't start with that. 

46:53
Dr. William Seeds
Don't start with going right at senescence, but performance protocol. 

46:59
Madison Lepore
Don't start with senescence. 

47:00
Dr. William Seeds
So, Matthew, this is why it's fascinating and this is why it's a higher level of understanding again, your patient, the role in, you know, how's that patient presenting? What are their stressors, how they adapted and what are the tools? I'm going to try to get them started in building a foundation that works for them. Yeah, and here's, here's a, an admission. 

47:30
Madison Lepore
Are you wrapping yourself up? 

47:31
Matthew Seeds
Yeah. 

47:32
Dr. William Seeds
Nice circadian rhythm I'm bringing in there. Hey. And do I get it right every time? Absolutely I do. But really, no, I'd like to think I just, I've got the brain, I can do it. But I, I get humbled every day. 

47:50
Matthew Seeds
Where you work with your patients. 

47:51
Dr. William Seeds
Yeah. I have to back up and go, damn, okay, let's rethink this. And it's heterogeneicity of the cell, the DNA, everything in the patient. It's, it's just a beautiful thing. And if you appreciate that, you can do so much. 

48:08
Matthew Seeds
Well, you appreciate that and we appreciate you. As important as it is to work with, you know, patients, when tailoring these protocols to people, we also try to tailor our episodes to what you're asking for. You know, last week we talked a lot. Well, we dove a little bit into potentially what AI could be. And I know you were juiced to work that into a future episode. And based on the comments we got last week, that's exactly what we're going to do. So next week, you know, we're going. 

48:36
Dr. William Seeds
To focus shy at this. Finally. 

48:38
Matthew Seeds
We're adapting. We're adapting. So next week we're going to focus on technology and its future roles in cellular health. And we're going to, you know, put a little bit of an emphasis on AI. So we're going to do the thing. 

48:50
Dr. William Seeds
Here we go. 

48:52
Matthew Seeds
Please remember to, like, follow, subscribe, YouTube, Spotify, wherever, whatever. We're here for you. See you soon. 

49:00
Dr. William Seeds
Please Note that the information shared on this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered medical advice. Always consult with your healthcare provider before. 

49:11
Matthew Seeds
Making any changes to your health regimen, including starting new therapies, supplements, or treatments. While we discuss cutting edge research and. 

49:18
Dr. William Seeds
Advancements in cellular medicine, individual health needs vary and professional guidance is essential. 

49:23
Matthew Seeds
By listening to this podcast, you acknowledge that neither Dr. Seeds nor the podcast team is providing personalized medical recommend.