How to Treat HER2+ Breast Cancer - Discussion with Dr. Sarah Sammons

This is a FITZ-Y Webrilk podcast. This is a subject that a few of our listeners have brought up with us. And if you're on social media at the moment, you're probably getting this in your feeds, but the word peptides. Now, when I think of peptides, well, you know, the only time I've really heard of peptides is in professional sport here in Australia. With acid and crannulla, and you hear that it's obviously against the rules to actually take peptides. But a lot of people are asking, "What is it?" And how do you get it? Now, it promises tanned youthful skin, weight loss, bigger muscles. And there's a lot of social media users that are dabbling in peptides at the moment. But are they approved for human use? We thought we'd talk about this, so we're going to get some doctors on soon, but we've also got a couple of influencers who are from the Gold Coast. They're currently living in Bali. Their names are Nicole and Simon, and they join us. Whereabouts in Bali at the moment are you guys? - Simon Yacht. - No, I can't find. - Well, it looks very lovely. - Simon, can I ask first up? Are you taking peptides? I've taken an array of peptides. OK. And do you know what you're taking? What the peptides are? Yes. So I understand they are research used, right? Which I classify myself as a research. So I'm currently taking line-on-a-10-2, retotry-tied GHKCU and MOTC. Right, OK. OK, so when you talk about people trialing on you, have you been approached, or have you put your hand up to do this, or where did you first come across it, peptides? I guess more so curiosity, obviously you hear about them. And I thought, you know what, I'm a very tri-myself person, so I don't really look at much of the internet, or not, I just rather do it myself, and then conduct my own research in that manner. And so far, nothing but positive experience. I'm loving it. OK, what are the benefits? Or what are you hoping to get out of it? So with MOTC2, that's a peptide that will uptake your melanin production, increased pigmentation, which will give you a better tan in a much shorter manner of time. GHKCU will uptake your collagen pathways, which will give you like a useful looking skin glowing effect. Sika hair, MOTC is a mitochondrial peptide, which is a powerhouse of yourself, which will give you more energy out of cell level, so better performance, uptake through the ATP system as well. Renatrucide, gelpy1, GIP, and glucageon receptor, which will help with appetite suppression, blood sugar levels, food noise, fat loss. I think when you see the explosion of peptides and steroids in this conversation around human growth, when there is so much now available on the market and off the market, it really is where a lot of them exist. My concern is, like you talk about Renatrucide, that one, I mean, it's not even FDA approved in the US. It's not approved anywhere in the world. And you'd normally in Australia for it to find TGA approval here, it takes two years after the US. Doesn't that concern you a bit that nowhere in the world has said, good to go with that one, guys? So, typically, when you mean TGA approved, it means big pharma can sell out a huge cost. Like, ozempic, you can get that for maybe $700 a month, $500 a month, out of pharmacy, but that only cost about $20, typically. Right? Yeah, right. So, when it comes to peptides, right, don't get the mixed up, the not steroids. No. Peptides are amino acids, which create signals in your body, which you already have, and we're told you're body to do more of a certain task. Good, yeah. How do you source it, guys? So, is it illegally? Like, is it from overseas? Or how do you get it? So, because we were at the time, I can't remember where we first got it from, but when I started documenting my journey, I ended up getting reached out by a company, by Brenna Trilling. They reached out to me and we actually got stuff from there now. And as of July, last year, and we're just getting from there ever since. So, wait, what's that? I mean, is that a legal company or is that black market? Because my understanding is you can get on the dark web. Well, I guess because they label everything as research use only. Sorry. Okay. Right. So, you're. I've got a bit of a great area around that. It's your research. And just before you go, guys, do you think there is a danger? Aren't you guys seem to be taking it in moderation, which is great, but do you think that people could get addicted to this? Yeah. Yeah, I can see that. There's more peptides out there that had been researched and some that haven't been researched as much, you know, and I guess your ones we are targeting your growth, like IGF1LR3, that's a bit riski, you know. There's more side effects to the more advanced peptides, which I don't really care to try. You know, I just want to go to 10, have clear skin and be shredded. I do understand. There's a lot of people out there that do, you know, they look at their appearance and they really want to change it. So, in a way, I can understand. Guys, we really appreciate your time. We're going to get a cup of doctors on next. But thank you so much and enjoy the beautiful sun over there in Bali. Thank you. A pleasure. Good on you, guys. Thanks for coming. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Bye-bye. We need to speak to professionals. We've got Dr. Kieran Dang, who is a general practitioner and the chief medical officer at Mosh, an online men's health clinic. And also Dr. Dominic Schaffner. Dr. Dominic Schaffner is an orthopedic and trauma surgeon. He uses peptides at his Sydney based clinic BioGenics. Doctors, welcome to the show. Thanks for coming on. Pleasure to be here. Thank you, guys. I'm happy to be here. We've obviously encouraged a discussion around this because I think it's a general public and especially with a surge of coverage received on social media, we're fascinated by the topic. So I might start with you, Dr. Dang. I might ask from your understanding of the explosion and interest in peptides, human growth steroids. I know that's a very broad topic. But what are the major concerns that you see regarding? Let's call it peptides. Yeah, so firstly, peptides is a very broad term. Peptides just mean the short chain of amino acids. And there's natural peptides, like insulin, that's a natural one. There's the medication peptides, like would gov and ozempic. But what we're talking about is the peptides that are unregulated, unproven and untested and human. And each compound carries its own risk. There's some very serious ones like liver failure, brain swelling, cancer. And that's the kind of thing that we really worry about. So as an example, there's a very common one called BPC157. It's promoted for faster recovery, better healing, you know, chronic injuries. But it works by promoting new blood vessel growth. That's called angiogenesis. The scary part is that's the same pathway that cancers use to grow. So it may turn out that people who use this compound develop cancer after a few years. The problem is we simply don't know we haven't even done phase one trials on these medications. All right, well, let's talk trials. Can we go to Dr. Schaffner? And because you use peptides at your clinic biogenics, when it comes to trials, are you only using peptides that have been trials? So generally speaking, I agree with what was said, and the main issue is that all of this is in the infancy right now, right? So there are, as we heard, peptides that are quite well known, such as the CHILD-1 medications that are being used for weight loss. They are peptide medications. Now, another term is peptides, for example, is insulin. And it's highly important to agree on one thing. You have to stick to the evidence, and you have to obviously really rely on the data that's available. And as you just heard, the data on what we call the regenerative, the regenerative medicine peptide is very limited. Hence why these peptides have never been used as first-line treatment. And shouldn't be. And hence why it's also very dangerous than people just buy them online or are being recommended peptides from their social media. So when you took them in, I mean, the one Dr. Dange spoke of, was it CPT-1 or something like that? What was that? Was that correct, Dr. Dange? That was BPC-157. That's one of the most common ones that's promoted online. Yeah, and Dr. Schaffner, are you familiar with that? Is that something you've prescribed? The BPC-157 is out of this whole family, probably the most well researched. Peptide, and there are some limited clinical trials, as in human trials, a lot of the data is based on translational data or mechanistic data, what we call it. So you recommend that one. You can't say, I recommend anything, because you can't give medical advice. You have to see everything based on its merits. Right? Yeah. If a patient has exhausted all conventional avenues in their treatment, and they have tried first line treatment, second line treatment, and third line treatment, and they are aware of the risks and after proper assessments and blood testing, and pathology testing. This is a-- appears to be the only hope in the horizon, then it can be used in an off-label context for these patients. But no means is it a golden bullet? - Yeah, I think that's sorry. But I think that that's what people are looking for is the golden bullet. It feels like, I mean, look, I know it's been floating around for a very long time, treating injuries and things like that. But as you just mentioned, the explosion of chat of it around social media, I mean, what are the numbers, Dr. Dangan on, who wants to know about peptides? Because they want to improve an injury they have, and who wants to know about peptides? Because they want to lose weight and look beautiful on the grant. - Yeah, that's right. And the hard part is we don't really know how many people are using this from the black market. And that's very concerning. Look, everyone wants to look good. Everyone wants to feel better and heal their chronic injuries. And as a longevity specialist myself, I'm watching this space very, very carefully. And I'm all for sort of pushing the boundaries in terms of treatment. But I'd say at this point in time, these peptides are not ready for human use, maybe in a couple of years, but not yet. And the concern is people are getting it from the black market. We don't know what they're injecting into themselves. We don't know how they're stacking it. And peptides stacking is a very trending term at the moment where they just inject multiple of these untested drugs at the same time. So again, I understand why people are reaching out and want that help. But I'd say injecting these peptides is not the way to go. If you can stand, chat to a doctor, chat to a longevity practitioner, that's the way to go. - Do you agree with those ZMPIC and Monjaro, Dr. Deng? Like, or is that an area that you still think that we need more research in? - No, so just to be clear, those peptides that have been well studied and approved and they're available as legitimate medication. And that's a really good way to sort of distinguish between something that is safe and effective and something that's just hype and potentially dangerous. So if something's been approved as a medication by the TGA, such as a ZMPIC, would go be Monjaro, those are great options when you need them. They work really well and they have been proven to be generally quite safe. - Yeah, Dr. Staffner, we just spoke to a couple, Nicole and also Simon. Now, these guys are both on retotrotide, which seems to be the one everyone is talking about. It's meant to be the golden bullet, as you mentioned, it's meant to be the one drug with a quick hit solution. What do you know about this drug? And do you get asked about this or would you know what to get it? - So I get asked about retotrotide very often and retotrotid is currently still undergoing phase three clinical trials internationally. Now, retotrotid is a chief gewona medication. It is a metabolic optimization and weight loss medication that works by three different receptors. So it has three different pathways, high work in your body. And it's not currently available. It's not internationally available. So all the retotrotid is being used, used currently from the black market illegally. - So can I ask this question? Because this is what fascinates me. If so many people are on it and I've met people that are on it as well and I understand how popular it is, then where are they getting it from? Like how many labs are there out there? Can anyone just set up a lab and make a batch of black market a black market version of retotrotide? I mean, how many people can be doing this? Where's who's making it? - Look, it's not bad simple. It actually takes quite a bit of set up and experts. - All of the sort. - All of the sort of these compounds. But a lot of the black market product is coming from China. And often these laboratories are branch off from preexisting manufacturers who just see a niche in the market or see the demand. - Yeah. - And then this is essentially being manufactured illegally. Right? Irrespective of the fact that you look at the data that is available, publicly available for retotrotid the data is the testing that is coming out. It's looking fantastic. It has got a very high safety profile. - Still hasn't passed that. - It has it. It's not FDA. It's not TGA. There's nowhere in the world that's legal. - It's not yet approved, but there is a patent has been launched for Alilili. And I don't think it's far away. Normally the next step after phase three clinical trials is the approval. And the data currently isn't solid. But the main concern is really that we have to say anyone who's getting peptide out of a web store is running risk of uncheckting them. So it's a harm for substance. - That is an issue. - It's not even a medicine. - Yeah, yeah. Well, the influences are saying things like the only difference between something that's approved and something that's not is the cost. So once you stamp it with an approval, you're spending $700 on something that you can buy for $20 elsewhere. - But that's not quite true. One, in any research only compound, there's no quality control attached. So these come out of laboratories that don't make these compounds in sterile environments. They don't do third-party testing or any independent testing that would be necessary for this. Often it doesn't even contain the substance that's from the sequence, but. Or it can be contaminated by heavy metals or has some microbial compounds to contamination, no one knows. These are unchecked substances. But so that has to be stated very clearly. There are clinics internationally treating patients every day with prescription peptides. In Australia, some of the regenerative peptides can also be prescribed for off-label users in a chunk of this protocol. There's scheduled medications in Australia, they come from TGA, registered and licensed compounding facilities in Australia. But it's much more than just that. All of this has to be done under medical supervision. Evidence-based as much as possible, of course, because it's all still in the infancy. And it needs to be overseen by an expert in which I'm just medicine, although I'm heavy-to-medic. - Excuse me, my wife. - Excuse me a bit, Dr. Dane. - Yeah. - It does. Well, Dr. Dane, can you tell us, I mean, the explosion and AI being introduced as well, but regenerative and longevity medicine it just seems to be that everyone is looking for such a quick solution. Like, how much have you seen explode in your industry with people asking about it? - Yeah, absolutely. It has exploded. And look, I've been involved in longevity for the last 10 years or so. And, you know, that was before it was trendy, but in the last couple of years, particularly, it's really exploded. Everyone is interested in this. Everyone's interested in how they can live better, live longer, and peptides and all these trends are being sold as some sort of miracle that's gonna, you know, fix all your problems, right? But unfortunately, the reality is the basics are what's gonna do it. You know, if you're not eating well, if you're not exercising and not sleeping, injecting your peptide isn't gonna solve your problems, right? You need to solve those core things first. And that's where a good longevity doctor will really help. You know, that's why at Mosh, we're launching a longevity program specifically to address this gap where people are going online and finding information from influencers where we'd rather have them see a proper doctor picking guide them through this and really try and sort of separate the false from the, and the hype from what really works the science. - It's good as an, I'm also interested too, if it's just asking from eight, if there's any new medical research being done on hair loss. - No, don't know. And Dr. Schaffner as well, like I mean, you know, Whippa is, he's allergic to gyms. So that, oh, gyms, the rare race. (laughing) - So like, he wants a quick fix. This is the thing, there's a lot of people out there that want the quick fix, but please, doctors, can you tell the people of Australia that just your good old fashioned exercise and your fruit and veg is the way to go? - That's correct, yeah. Like, look, I think at the end of the day, you know, that's what we doing at Biogenic Considual, it's very important to see the whole picture, right? And advise people and put alternatives medicine back into expert hands where it belongs, right? And, you know, make sure everything is evidence-based. Because otherwise, you don't have a follow-up plan and there's no safety attached to any of these treatments. And that's why it's really, really important that this should obviously be an expert hands at clinics that specialise what is. And, you know, as was just that in conjunction with life-fade modification and all the right implementations, because longevity medicine at the end of the day is a lifestyle and a beautiful one. - Yes, it is. - Yeah, and must be very frustrating when you've done many years of study and then you watch social media with people who have just woken up and have thousands and millions of followers. But just quickly, the advancement of medicine and AI being introduced Are we going to be living until we're 120, 150 years of age at some stage? David Sinclair with the head of genetics at Harvard has 150 years possible. He's working on a program at the moment that is based on epigenetic reprogramming and he's probably worth leading in the sector. I wouldn't go as far, but I believe that with AI, we would be able to do much more testing. We can simulate studies, but we don't have to do studies that are just based on an actual patient. We can simulate studies than outcomes. So I think that this will enable us to have decided much faster. And I think with the implementation and the understanding of how our biology works, we will be able to live to 130. But most importantly, it's not just stretching the years you're on the planet, it's actually stretching how well you lift the leaves. That's expected a definition, right? The definition of longevity medicine is, you know, lifespan versus health span. Health span is the years lift in good health, whereas lifespan is just the time on the planet. That's a good point. It's a very good point. Dr. Svina, how busy you are. We really appreciate your time. Thanks for coming on the show today. Thanks so much for having us. Thanks, Dr. Svina. This is the Fitsy We're Bren Kate Podcast. For all great shows like this, download the Nova Player. Buy the App Store or Google Play. The Nova Player.