Maintaining Strength in Aging Population with Peptide Strategies

Greg Jones, NMD

Oh, thank you. Thank you, Matt. Dr. Cook, I’m excited to be here. And it’s funny you mentioned going to conferences and being positive and happy, and it’s kinda reminds me of being on this, because I’ve actually watched the Peptide Summits, right? I’ve actually been a spectator. And going to these conferences where I meet guys like yourself and it’s like, ’cause I like grew up playing sports, it’s almost like holy crap, I’m in the league now, man. This is it. Like I’m on the court now. I’m on the field now. And I’m meeting these guys and women who I looked up to as I started learning about peptides and regenerative medicine and anti-aging medicine. So for me, I’m still kinda, for the kicks, I’m still a fanboy like, oh my God, Matt Cook. Holy crap, it’s Jean Francois, oh my god, look at that, it’s Dr. Seeds. Oh my God, it’s Jim Lavalle. And I get so excited, because it’s like, I’ve always followed you guys. And I’ve learned so much just from afar and now being able to have these conversations and learn more and share ideas and share resources, man, it’s blessed to charm life that I get to live doing this so.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

And that’s neat, what sports did you play?

Greg Jones, NMD

I was a baseball player. I was-

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Oh, were you, what position?

Greg Jones, NMD

I was a catcher. This is why we’ll talk about these. This is why BPC and peptides and PRP have been my friend, because my knees, or they did not come out happy, from all that squatting down. So, yep. That was it. And that was my primary, a little baseball, little basketball here, but baseball was my first love so.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

That’s awesome that you shared that story. A positive attitude will take you far but then we’re at such an exciting moment in medicine. And I think part of it is we can just Zoom around with each other and share information like this. That I remember when I started this, I would hear somebody had an idea and that I would like get in a plane and go to Atlanta to meet and stand outside their door and talk to ’em and stuff. And so it took the longest time to figure things out. And now I feel like there’s this groundswell of people sharing information and I’m so excited about it. I’m more excited actually than I’ve ever been. And the great thing is, we were talking about, you started your practice and you started with 16 people, and now you’re are so busy, you don’t know what to do. And I was thinking if you’re in Arizona, you should go see Greg. You should give him a bigger problem with too many people, ’cause he’s a great doc. Tell me about your philosophy of medicine. And then let’s start with one area that I think is a great area to think about is how to balance hormones in the body. And so maybe share your perspective of that and how you think about that at a high level.

Greg Jones, NMD

Gotcha. I’m glad we’re editing this. So, I’m at a podcast right now. So philosophy-wise, that’s how busy it is. They’re just knockin’ it on the door. So philosophy-wise, it’s interesting because I remember reading some articles on the hallmarks of aging. And they talked about stem cell exhaustion and inflammation as a whole, I think the list is like nine long, but that list, I realize if you didn’t go to medical school or you’re not geeking out on anti-aging medicine or regenerative medicine, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. And so for me, I realized, and this kinda goes back to, I tend to see a lot of men and women who are getting a little bit older, 40 and up, 45 and up, who really just want you to feel better, right? They know how to eat, for the most part, and we’ll talk foundational stuff here in a second. But they know how to eat. They work out. They’ve got some semblance of where there are with their hormones or their supplementation, they just don’t have it anymore, they kinda lost that mojo, right? And so when I sit them down, I talk about, okay, let’s talk about why you feel like crap, right? And so I’ll little list for them and obviously everyone doesn’t fall in every category, but the list goes, I’ll say, okay, we’re getting older. I know your hormones are going to, you know as you get older, your hormones are gonna decrease, right? So you know there’s gonna be reduction in hormones. 

And then I break it down and say, hey, it’s not just testosterone. There’s several, there’s so many hormones that need to be balanced. It’s a symphony. And whether you’re, men were easy. Our Symphony’s like a three, four-piece band, for the most part, right? For most guys, but women, it’s an orchestra, man. It’s filled with harmonica, all these hormones need to get balanced, right? And then, okay, we know that. Number two, makes you feel like crap is you have a reduction in brain function, right? You just don’t remember as much as you used to, you got some brain fog. You’re not as sharp. The memory’s not there. So you know your brain function is gonna be reduced. Three, and this, it’s a cellular repair, cellular function thing, right? And I always tell ’em that the way you look at that is, think about how your gut is functioning, right? Think about how you sprain your ankle, how long it takes to heal. How you have an injury, it takes forever to heal. And then I’ll go to mitochondrial dysfunction, I’ll talk about energy and ATP and how mitochondrial dysfunction is associated with all these diseases of chronic aging. And then we’ll go inflammation. Then we’ll go oxidation, and then we’ll go senescence, all right? And so I know, this is where I’m gonna get into philosophy. if I know these are the seven things that are gonna make you feel like crap and make you age, I’m not gonna wait until you come in and say I’m, oh my God, I’m tired. I’m not healing. We know what it is. Let’s create a strategy to address these seven things in advance and then we layer it, right? So I don’t just say, hey, let me treat all seven of these. Here’s your MoDC. And here’s your NAD, and here’s your hormones. 

And they’re just like, all right. Here’s your, and now you got a bag of things and you don’t know what to do with them, right? So when it comes to philosophy, we start with the foundation, your diet, your exercise, what are you eating? What are you taking? The things you have control over, no matter who you are, where you’re starting this journey, I start with the things you have control over, that external environment, sleep, diet, stressors, and for the most part. The water you drink, the things in your house. What are you cleaning your house with? What are you putting on your clothes? And so we create that, we establish foundation. Then, and I’m gonna stop talking here, ’cause this is a happy ramble, ’cause I’m happy to talk about this, ’cause this is what I talk to my patients about all day, every day, and I get to talk to someone else about it. And it’s Dr. Cook. And I’m gonna tell him my philosophy. This is kind of, if I was a basketball player, this is like me shooting a three pointer in front of Steph Curry and then, hey, how do you like that, right? And so first, we say, okay. Now we establish our foundation and then the next step is, hey, let’s optimize your hormones. I use HRT, TRT interacoustics. Everyone knows what it is. I like HOT and TOT, hormone optimization therapy, testosterone optimization therapy. I like that, ’cause I can replace you and not optimize you, right? And so that’s one and two. And from there, we build up into, we talk about peptides. And the really cool thing when I draw this on the board is I’ll have my list of seven and I’ll talk about hormones and peptides and mitochondria. And then I’ll put the numbers that associate with that. And you realize, like peptides almost cover all seven of those things. And in many cases, all seven. Then you can say, okay, no matter what we do, the philosophy is no matter what we do is gonna be addressing these seven things, ’cause we know this is what’s gonna make you age and not feel like yourself. And this is how we optimize your health. So that was an elevator speech going from the first floor to 254th floor.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

So I loved that. Before we go into things, what water do you recommend people drink?

Greg Jones, NMD

For me, I tend to, at the base I say, do not, bottle, oh my God, I hate bottled water. I hate it with a passion. I know it sometimes a necessary evil. But the fact is is that most people who have bottled water that they buy in a store that’s at room temperature has been, if not sort of room temperature, it has been transported in the back of a truck, it’s gotten hot, and those plastics get into the water. So at the very least, I’ma say, hey man, let’s come out the bottle of water. If you can, in a perfect world, if you can get your RO water or get filtered water, alkaline water, I love that. But at the very least, if someone, depending on their means and their access, like the very least get a good filter and have your water, at least do that if you have to do tap water. So like I don’t have necessarily a favorite brand, but I am so against bottled water. It’s not even funny. Unless you’re about to dehydrate and you’re like you need this, it’s an urgency, I just don’t like that. So we try to get water as clean as possible.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Yeah, I would agree with that. And then I would say, I do probably half spring water, half reverse osmosis water. And I’m hearing more negative about the alkaline water. And so then since you’ve mentioned that, I love that you said that, fluoride is the toxin and I would avoid fluoride like the plague. For people that need a filter, my friend Winston has a company called HydroSip, a great filter for filtered water. If you want a portable container. But I just, since you said that, this is a topic that we’re gonna start to delve into and get into, from a diet perspective, this is just rapid sequence before we get going. But from a diet, what diet do you like to put people on?

Greg Jones, NMD

I love Mediterranean diet. That is my jam. That’s my go-to. Number one because, especially me being, I used to be like, oh man, let’s do the whole, we talk about Whole30 and keto and paleo, and all that stuff. And they’re great, and they serve their purposes, but I am a fan of whole foods, and not just whole foods, but here’s the thing what I like about the Mediterranean diet, it’s sustainable. I get excellent compliance with it and I can actually pull out a stack of research papers a ceiling high and say how this benefits you. If you’re looking at cardiovascular disease or diabetes or cholesterol levels, that diet just has so much research on it and there’s variety to it, and it’s not overly restrictive. That’s normally my go-to from a clinical perspective is like a lot of times when it comes to these diseases of chronic, of lifestyle, that Med diet, man, it takes care of so many of them, right? And so now someone’s like, ah, I can’t do this. Can’t do this, okay, well, foundationally, I just want you to eat whole foods, man. I really want you to make sure that if you’re gonna go grocery shopping, and I simplify it for ’em, stay on the outside. If it’s sitting on a shelf for a very long time, it’s probably got preservatives in it, and it’s probably not the best for you, right? So I’m a big fan of that. Now as an athlete, we used to be all about high protein, like, oh my God, how much protein can you eat? And at one point, I remember I was doing like 300 grams of protein a day. And I was like, oh my God, why is my GFR so low? And why is my creatinine so high? And my BUN is through the roof. And I’m crushing my kidneys with a high level of protein. So I don’t necessarily say, hey, protein is not exactly the answer in all times, and at all times, and depending on who you speak to, there’s a camp that’s pro-mTOR and anti-mTOR, depends on who you talk to about the value in that. So to kinda answer your question, Matt-

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Where are you gonna fall out on that?

Greg Jones, NMD

On the mTOR thing? Oh, I’m mid ground. I don’t want mTOR so low that you’re not getting protein synthesis. But I also don’t want it so high when it’s becoming detrimental, right? So with that being said, I tend to peep, I say, hey, it may not seem like a lot if you’re coming from a high protein diet, but I am very much on board with 0.8 to 1.2 grams per kilogram. That just, it just works well, man. And they tend to do well and they still see, they still see muscle building, they still see fat loss, but they’re not causing any type of cellular dysfunction, because they’re just overeating protein.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Yeah, and that’s basically what I do also. People, that’s not that far from something that, let’s say a Mediterranean type of diet, people have been doing for a long time. And so then I always think about that. Okay. So that was the just couple background, but I’d like to get a couple thoughts-

Greg Jones, NMD

The one thing. Oh yeah. This is, sorry, I didn’t mean to backtrack here. Two things, one, that filter, you said Hydros, is it H-Y-D-R-O-U-S or.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

H-Y-D-R-O-S.

Greg Jones, NMD

Okay, perfect. And second, when it comes to that diet thing, and this is because again, as naturopath, we’re trained in clinical nutrition and I can give you a handout a mile long on the diets, but at the very least, you can affect so much change by saying, hey, I want you to eat more fruits and vegetables. And here’s what I want you to do. It’s gonna be a struggle. It’s gonna be a challenge, right? But I need you to avoid dairy, sugar, processed food, fried foods, fast food. If you can eliminate or minimize that, your health can change like it’s so quick and it happens so fast. You see their CRP go down, you see their ESR go down, you see their lipids change, you see their, oh my god, HbA1c changed just from that. And that’s not even chart, that’s nothing extra. That’s no handout. That’s literally, this is the sh- I’m sorry, I was about to curse. These are the things that are bad for you.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

I love that, so you said avoid?

Greg Jones, NMD

Sugar, dairy, processed food, fried foods, fast food. If you can lay off of that, oh my goodness, man, your skin changes and you feel less bloated and less inflamed just from cutting those things out, because they’re so pro-inflammatory, and they put you into metabolic inflammation. And now you’re in a cycle, right? Obesity, inflammation, inflammation, obesity.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Yeah, so then I’m 100% with this. And so then within that, like this is a home edition, so I’m looking over.

Greg Jones, NMD

Yeah.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

I would 100% agree with that except we eat goat dairy. And so then this is an interesting one to think about. And then one little tidbit tip, because I looked over and I left a sweet potato out from last night but what is a little tip on diet, as you’re thinking about these things, what we do is basically eat a salad 100% of the time every day with every meal, every dinner and then, generally, we’re gonna be on the non-vegan, and so then I have vegetables and meat, but generally I eat the meat first and then the vegetables, and then I’m not dying of hunger for carbs at that point. And so then I looked over and I ate a quarter of a sweet potato. And so then that’s kinda, and interestingly, different root vegetables will feed different aspects of your microbiome. And so then you get this idea where you’re staging, and so you don’t fill up on carbs too early. And then that has been a little hack for me that allows me to kind of get through a dinner in a pretty balanced way where I, and then I basically don’t ever overeat anymore. And I used to. And so then that’s just an interesting little tip.

Greg Jones, NMD

I like that. I like that. Yeah, so I haven’t really got upon the goat dairy here. And with that with goat cheese, you haven’t seen any type of inflammatory effects with it and you’re feeling pretty good on it too?

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Well, so then I do great with the goat dairy. And so then I’m… And so then that one, this then becomes an interesting journey of, and I think the food-water diet lifestyle, toxins, like where this is home edition. And so then we go like wildly out of our way to have like no dyes, no perfumes in anything in the laundry. And all of those things, I did a thing with Fran Drescher, who’s amazing person. And one of her really big deals is detoxifying your house. ‘Cause whether that be from toxins and cleaning supplies, or from mold, or what have you. But then once you detox your house, you detox your life. Once you detox your diet, you detox your body. And so…

Greg Jones, NMD

Nice.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

It’s good stuff. So then now take me, let’s get into this hormones. And so we’re gonna, let’s talk about testosterone optimization and then talk about the growth hormone. And so let’s talk about those two, let’s do that with guys and then just take me through women, how you think about it.

Greg Jones, NMD

Okay. Gotcha. And it’s fun to talk about it, because the more I get into practice, I realize that the numbers are different, the game’s the same. What I mean by that is that I want that testosterone optimized in both my male and female patients, because the benefits are almost the same. So if I have testosterone optimized, whether you’re male or female, you’re going to have more energy because, and this, it can branch off, because obviously your testosterone will up-regulate the production of erythropoietin, you get more red blood cells, more oxygen in tissue, more nutrients out, and all that stuff. But again, you don’t produce more blood, and we can talk about side effects, and that could be a whole other podcast right there on managing the side effects, potential side effects, because some people gonna get that chromatic rate increase, but more energy, better focus and concentration, better libido, better motivation, confidence, assertiveness, better muscle building, better fat loss. And that’s just what they feel, right? So if you get into some of the further research to understand that it can also help lower the risk of Alzheimer’s and dementia and cardiovascular disease and diabetes and metabolic syndrome, and you go on and on and on, but at the end of the day, like I want that for both my male and my female patients, right? You want the benefits of testosterone because, again, females need testosterone too. And I’ve had so many patients come in, like, oh, my primary care doesn’t wanna do testosterone, ’cause they’re worried about like all these effects. I’m like, well, I’m not worried about it, because I’m not gonna, the average male patient is on 150 milligrams. You might be on eight, but this is something that’s gonna benefit you, right? So that’s where it comes down. The difference comes in in how much testosterone we need, right? And so benefit-wise, like I, outside of there being some type of contraindication, or in a female’s case, if they’re looking to get pregnant, I am all on board with using testosterone therapy in both males and females to optimize for health, because the benefits just go across the board in how they feel. It can be life-changing for someone.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Perfect, and now tell me about growth hormone. How do you put that together?

Greg Jones, NMD

Well, growth hormone is amazing too, because again, this is the, and we can, we’ll shift gears into peptides here hopefully in a little bit, but I understand-

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Well, we’ll talk about the growth hormone with peptides maybe.

Greg Jones, NMD

Yeah, yeah, exactly. ‘Cause I always talk about my benefits of growth hormone and I’ll say, okay, well, it goes down that what I said a little while back about it’s not just that one hormone. And when I’m making my list of hormones I wanna optimize, I put growth hormone actually right after testosterone, and then I’ll put thyroid next. So because growth hormone is gonna benefit in some of the similar effects of testosterone, but obviously you’re gonna get better body composition, better sleep, puts you in a deeper restorative sleep, better skin elasticity, better brain function. But what’s really cool about growth hormone, you also get some protection of the heart and the bones as well, but growth hormone is actually, and I’ve seen some studies on that actually being protective of cells and actually having the benefit, and this goes into that way back in the beginning, I talked about those 10 poles of my philosophy in that whole autophagy thing, getting rid of old senescent cells that are not doing their job anymore and actually causing inflammation and oxidation, right? So you’re getting all of that with growth hormone, right? And so what’s great about peptides though is like, ’cause again, I get the look, and I know when the look’s comin’, and I get the eyebrow raise and it’s like, if growth hormone is that great, why don’t you just give me growth hormone? Why are you giving this peptide? Give me the good stuff. And then that’s a conversation about side effects and suppression of your natural growth hormone access and expense and then, depending on where you’re reading at, when you’re doing a recombinant growth hormone, you’re only getting one isomer, where doing a peptide, since you’re not releasing your natural, you get all five or six. And so I think growth hormone is essential in many cases, but again, it’s not for everyone, right? You think about pregnancy, you think about someone that’s had like potentially a pituitary adenoma. There’s some people, I’m just like, “Yeah, probably not the best thing for you.” And then something else I’m finding is that, this goes back to the male/female thing, is that females on birth control, ’cause there are some studies showing that oral estrogen actually blocks the effects of growth hormone at the liver. So not gonna produce as much IGF-1, which is kinda the driving factor of why we’re doing the growth hormone, so there’s certain strategies I do with females on birth control that are lookin’ to get some of the benefits, but yeah, it’s so essential, man. It makes such a difference just in sleep itself and just peoples, they just come in, they say, “I just feel better.” Even if they don’t start seeing the body composition effects right away, they just feel better.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Right, so then we’re gonna… we’re talkin’ about hormone optimization. And so then with some hormones, you’re just gonna take a hormone. So you’re just, you’re literally gonna take testosterone and you could do that as an injection. You could do that as a cream that you could rub on, or you could put a little pellet under the skin, so that would secrete testosterone. When I got into doing this, and I first went to A4M and started studying integrated medicine, I always talked about the gangs of functional medicine. And then the biggest gang was always like the hormone replacement guys that were all doing, and a lot of ’em were doing the growth hormone, and I always felt like you could kinda tell the people who were taking too much growth hormone, and in about six or seven different ways just by looking at ’em and then it is imbalanced compared to the way that you get it when you take a peptide that causes your brain to secrete growth hormone. ‘Cause when you do that, it’s much more a balance and I think that that may be because of the isoforms. And then it also, it leads to a smoother effect on the body. And then when you take it, some people like to take it in the morning before a workout. A lot of times people will like to take it at night before they go to bed and sometimes people will do both. And that night one really can help people sleep. And then almost everybody that I know has totally abandoned injecting the growth hormone because the peptides are so much better. Would you agree?

Greg Jones, NMD

Oh, so much better and so much less expensive too, ’cause if you’re getting legit growth hormone, not the overseas, I got this from a friend of a friend who has a friend in Europe or whatever. ‘Cause you can get this stuff on the internet, but that’s an entirely different conversation even with peptides that we can have on why, for the love of whatever you worship, did not buy researched peptides, but that’s a whole other subject. And that we can talk about a lot. But that being said, I think that, and this is where you talk about the release part of it, And to me it’s a control thing. What I mean by that is if I’m taking, let’s say for example, CJC-1295 and ipamorelin I know that that peptide is going to work for that half life, and I wanna say it’s 24-32 minutes, ah, man. It might be, I think sermorelin was like 8 to 12 minutes, and CJC and ipamorelin is like 8 to 24 and tesamorelin as well was longer. Is I know I’m gonna pulse that growth hormone for that period of time. So it’s kind of control pulse, right? And so that’s kinda it, whereas people who are taking some of the other forms of it, it’s like it’s too much and potentially you just don’t have that control of the release of that you get with the peptides, right? And then that being said, it’s like another thing is that with the peptides, because you’re producing it from your pituitary gland, and I love, I read this article that talked about how the growth hormone-releasing hormones will kind of increase the production in the ghrelin receptor agonist. Like your ipamorelin will actually stimulate the release, so you’re kinda getting both more production, more release, right? But at the end of the day, they’re not gonna suppress your natural production. So when you stop taking these peptides, your body will still produce this growth hormone as it was before where if you’re gonna take growth hormone, I read this article that talked about up to a year of, depending on how much growth hormone they did recombinant, and how long, up to and greater than a year before you actually start making your own growth hormone again. And that’s a long time to not have those protective effects, benefits of it rather.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Now have you used kisspeptin?

Greg Jones, NMD

I have not. I’ve read about it. And I read some studies on it. I think one of the things that I, man, I maybe mixed my kisspeptin and my gonadorelins up. I think there was one, ’cause we were looking at, ’cause ACG is obviously very difficult to get these days and using kisspeptin as a luteinizing hormone stimulator is, and you can correct me on this, one of those you had to take several times a day to get the benefit. That might be the gonadorelin.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Yeah, so kisspeptin, you can just take it once a day.

Greg Jones, NMD

Okay. Great, great, great.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

And so then this one to is an interesting conversation to think about just because I do think if you’re taking growth hormone, then what happens is is that the body is sensing that and the body goes, oh man, there’s a lot of growth hormone here. And so then the body goes, we don’t need to make growth hormone up here. And so then it stops making it. So then that’s what we’re talking about with suppression. So we we’re suppressing that growth hormone. Now the same thing will technically, if somebody has a really low testosterone, then what happens is is we give testosterone, it was already low, and then the body goes, oh great, we got testosterone, and that will suppress testosterone. And so now kisspeptin will basically tell your brain to secrete and stimulate the testicle to make testosterone. So then kisspeptin is to testosterone kinda like the growth hormone secretagogues are to growth hormone. And so then one interesting direction, I think, to think about on this whole hormone replacement conversation is that synergy of starting with just stimulants before the testosterone. That being said, some people have been so low for so long and testosterone replacement is such a home run to get people feeling better, to use a baseball analogy for a baseball player. I was talking to somebody and they’d go, “You know what? You were saying some stuff, and I wasn’t sure what you were saying, but then you said it was gonna be a home run, and I knew what that meant.”

Greg Jones, NMD

Right.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

But regardless, the growth hormone secretagogues for sure now are gonna be better than growth hormone. And so then there’s two that go together, CJC and ipamorelin. And then there’s another one tesamorelin, and that’s probably your, and then often people combine almost always when they have tesamorelin, they’ll combine it with ipamorelin. What’s your thought process on where you go between those?

Greg Jones, NMD

So for me, I kinda feel like there are two peptides, and I don’t wanna get ahead of it, that I feel like if I had to give you a starter kit of peptides-

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Oh, perfect.

Greg Jones, NMD

I’m most likely gonna say, hey, here’s CJC-1295 and ipamorelin and here’s BPC-157. Like this is it. You’ve never done peptides before. Like, we ran your labs, we’ve done your HPI. We have your history as a patient. The thing is safe. This is for you. Here are these peptides that you can start with. Now the CJC-1295 and ipamorelin, I like that because you have two peptides that works, we’d mentioned, alluded to it a little bit earlier, is that these two peptides work together synergistically to help your pituitary gland release more growth hormone, right? And again, this kinda goes back to, I like them together, because again, the GHRH or growth hormone-releasing hormone receptor, agonists such as CJC-1295 and tesamorelin, they actually help you increase the production. I like ipamorelin, ’cause you get more release, so make more, get more out, all right?

Matthew Cook, M.D.

100% . 

Greg Jones, NMD

And that’s great. And the safety of it, right? But I like that it doesn’t, it’s gentle. And what I mean by that is because tesamorelin is very awesome, but you get more growth hormone released from tesamorelin, ’cause it’s, and this might be something, I gotta do the research on this, but I think it’s a little bit almost more identical to GHRH than CJC-1295 is. I just gotta figure out why you’re getting more from this. And I don’t know if it’s a longer amino acid sequence, ’cause you’re looking at, I think tesamorelin is like 43, 44 versus CJC-1295, which is 29, but I gotta do some research on that. But you’re getting, I think I saw Jean Francois talk about this one time, about how many units growth hormone you get from CJC-1295-morelin. I think it was like two or three units if you compare that to actual recombinant growth hormone, which isn’t a lot, but it’s enough to have effect. And so I like that because it’s gentle and you can get them started, they start getting the benefits, their sleep gets better. They start seeing improvements in body composition. They feel better. Sometimes they’ll start, hey, my skin looks clearer. Like I’m definitely thinking clearer. I feel more focused. That’s a great start, right? And so now the cool thing about CJC-1295-morelin is that we can actually titrate it depending on their goals. And you’ll say, hey, I feel great. It’s been a month or two. Like I really wanna focus on body composition and losing fat. I can bring you up twice a day safely, right? We mentioned in the morning and the night. And one thing I will mention in the morning is that I’ve been noticing that people who’ll take it before a workout in the morning tend to see more fat loss and people who are doing it afterwards, I think they’re getting more of an anabolic effect. 

And I, again, it’s so much out there and it’s like, I think about somethin’ like, oh, there’s gotta be someone, I’m not the only person. I’m not that smart to be the only person that thought about this. There’s gotta be something out there in research. I think when you do it before a workout, you get better utilization of carbs. But I gotta verify that. Where I think doing post-workout because basically you cause that stimulation, that stress on the muscle that now that growth hormone is gonna go into its repair ability. And not to mention, growth hormone’s great for repairing, now that I thought about it, great for repairing, recovering from injuries too. So that’s why I tend to be, that’s my goal too with that one. Now tesamorelin is when usually say, hey, I don’t like having anyone on one single peptide more than three months at a time, just ’cause there is some what we call tachyphylaxis and slowing down the release of growth hormone. And we talked about this in our podcast way back when about if you keep ringing that doorbell, you don’t hear it as well. And so tesamorelin, I love that because, again, you get more growth hormone release. It actually can help reduce visceral fat. Helps more so the lipids than the other peptides do. And I think it’s just great as a transition. Oh, so awesome, right? And I tend to see people who do well on it. I think they tend to lose more weight and body fat on tesamorelin than CJC-1295.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

100%

Greg Jones, NMD

Yeah. They tend to lose a lot more. They lose it fast. They lose it fast too. So those are kind of my go-tos. And I make that adjustment based on what the patient’s goals are and how they respond. But it’s hard to go wrong with a star, a good intro to peptides with CJC-1295 and ipamorelin as a growth hormone secretogogue releasing peptide together.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

And in your starter pack, after we cover those, what comes next?

Greg Jones, NMD

Okay, so BPC-157 or body protection compound 157, such a good peptide for repair. This is, especially your athletes, right? Now when I say athletes, this is gonna be your non, or competitive, but you’re not getting tested, right? Because peptides are absolutely banned from your professional leagues and if they’re testing, ’cause okay, performance-enhancing. And I used to think like, why is BPC-157 performance-enhancing? It just helps you repair. That’s should be a good thing. But then come to find out, it does up-regulate growth hormone receptors so you can talk about it how you will, so it will enhance performance. But so BPC-157, because again, you’re helping repair tendons and ligaments and its anti-inflammatory. And it, again, helps up-regulate growth factors and your growth hormone receptors, so I like those together, ’cause I think you get benefit using them together.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

I read an article. I read an article this morning about BPC-157 and I knew this, but I’d forgotten it, how it actually up-regulates growth hormone receptor on tendons.

Greg Jones, NMD

And that’s amazing, right? So now you have these two peptides giving you more growth hormone and now you have another one, it’s like I got these peptides throwing the ball, I got one catching it. And so that’s kind of really cool when you’re trying to improve performance and actually heal, right?

Matthew Cook, M.D.

How do you like to dose BPC-157, with what?

Greg Jones, NMD

I tend to, for me, especially being a naturopath, I’m very like individualized with things and I don’t really have like a standard, hey, everyone gets 0.10 milliliters, or 200 micrograms. It really depends on what we’re trying to do. If they’re in pain, severe injury, need to recover, I’ll go to 400 micrograms, so 0.20 mils or 20 units on a insulin syringe. I have no problem starting with that if I know I’m trying to, I need to hit this hard and fast and I can titrate down. That’s just my own personal preference because it’s safe, and I tell people like BPC-157, you make this yourself. Most peptides are amino acid sequences, but we literally make BPC-157 in our gut. And so then as a kind of maintenance dose, I’m very okay with doing the 200 micrograms after they’ve got through the injury phase of it, a big fan of that. I do like injecting it, like say at, I mentioned that whole synergistic effect with our CJC-1295-morelin, I do like doing them, in many cases, together, as in one syringe as your CJC-1295. Next ipamorelin, next syringe is BPC-157, doin’ both, right? And then go to sleep and see, because again, if I’m looking, this is that recovery thing, right? You got your growth hormone peptides recovery, you get you deeper sleep recovery, BPC-157, more recovery, right? And amazing to see people’s results, like, oh my god, like I’m able to hit these PRs in my workout. And it used to take me three days to recover from leg day. Now it’s a day and a half. And you’re like, that’s great to hear, so awesome to hear.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

So then that’s a good one. One thing I found, if I’m a great sleeper, and I’ve had my sleep fairly dialed in. And so then for me, if you said take CJC and BPC at night, no problem. I will have a lot of sensitive people where BPC will stimulate them a little bit. And it’ll have effects on dopamine and serotonin. And so there are some people that’ll stimulate and will not wanna take it before bed. So then that’s just a little idea. It’s a short half-life. And so then sometimes for, if somebody has a real significant abdominal inflammatory situation, we’ll dose it two or three times a day for, if people have a real big, I got a bunch of long COVID gastrointestinal stuff lately, including that came out of Omicron. And we’ll do oral sometimes a couple times a day, and then also even do subcutaneous on top of that a couple times a day. Then I’ve had, and then interestingly, you talk about the tendons, we will pinch fat and just go superficial to a tendon and into the subcutaneous area. And we will inject those everywhere where people have pain. And that has been a home run and often we’ll combine that with other things. And we’ll kinda get into that on the sports side of it things. But it’s been a home run, and then obviously it’s great for burns and stuff like that.

Greg Jones, NMD

Oh my god. Yeah. Like I feel like I egregiously undersold BPC-157 right there because again, like we just mentioned before we got on the call, I have an inflammatory bowel disease patient where I’m like, oh, I’m gonna put her on BPC-157. I’m thinking of dosing her two, we’re gonna start with two and I may end up titrating her up to three times a day with the oral capsules. And then on top of that, like BPC is great for any type of corneal injury. So it helps, we’ve got BPC eye drops I’ve used before. I’ve used BPC-157 as a toothpaste to repair enamel. I haven’t had.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Oh, have you? How did that go?

Greg Jones, NMD

Oh, it went well, it went well. I mean, like I said, hey, it’s definitely gotten better. And Dennis was surprised, but he still didn’t believe it was the BPC-157, but it’s okay. You know what? I’m not here to argue. Look at the results. Hey, it is what it is. I’ve not done this-

Matthew Cook, M.D.

How did you make the toothpaste with BPC?

Greg Jones, NMD

Oh, there’s a compound pharmacy that I use. She actually has a BPC paste. She actually makes it in a paste.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Oh, really? Which one is that?

Greg Jones, NMD

Pure in Indiana.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Okay. Yeah, I like them a lot.

Greg Jones, NMD

Yeah.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Yeah. They’re great.

Greg Jones, NMD

Yep, so just had brush once a day in the morning and at night and, hey, here you go. And then, oh, I have not done this yet, but I have a patient that I’m gonna bring it up to, is I did a peptide certification course. And they were talking about hair regeneration actually using BPC-157, GHK copper, and another peptide called thymosin beta‐4, and actually injecting that into the scalp before the PRP. And I was like, this makes a lot of sense, because you’re reducing inflammation, you’re getting more collagen synthesis, you’re getting hair follicle stimulation. I was like, this might be great for my hair regeneration patients. So I was like, oh, this is great. So BPC-157, man, I can’t say enough about it and nerve regeneration, right? I mean, just toxic, and on the oral form, reducing toxicity, angiogenesis, cardiovascular health, brain function. I mean, that peptide is, if the growth hormone peptides are number one, BPC is 1A or 1B.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Okay. That’s a good one. And so then if you think about that, then if you think about unpacking some of the stuff that you just said, you got, if there’s a tendon, there’s a nerve right next to the tendon. So then BPC’s good for the nerve and it’s good for the tendon. It’s like one of my favorite things to do nerve hydrodissection with. And it’s also so good for angiogenesis. And so then you think, oh, okay. If I put it in the hair, there’s nerves and blood vessels there and connective tissues, so it’s kinda, and then BPC really combines well so then you can mix BPC with these other peptides. And so then we’ve actually had very good success with combining BPC and GHK, and sometimes we’ll do GHK copper by itself. Sometimes we’ll do a 50/50 of GHK with GHK copper. The GHK copper can burn a little bit more, GHK by itself doesn’t burn. And then putting the BPC with that, and then you can use the thymosin beta‐4, you can use some of the fragments of thymosin beta‐4. And then I enjoyed that lecture, I was also at that lecture. And I thought she was super great. And they’ve had very good results with fairly high volume of doing that combination with PRP. So then suddenly you go, oh, okay. This is a way to supercharge PRP. And we also know that PRP is good for the hair. And so then now you begin to start to go down this road of being able to synergistically combine things that are regenerative with peptides. And I think that, directionally, that is going to be, for me, the most important thing that I’m gonna be thinking about in the next kinda four or five years, or at least one of ’em.

Greg Jones, NMD

Oh yeah. And they work great. And that layered approach. And also the beauty of it, the artistry in it is determining which peptides work together, and then which ones is gonna work best for that particular patient. And that’s the artistry, man, because again, it’s not just throwing a peptide grenade at people because it’s a lot and it gets expensive. And sometimes, I’m a big bang for the buck kinda doc. It’s like, hey, if I can give you one to three peptides that can help you with the conditions you’re presenting with, and also your personal health goals, man, that’s home run, slam dunk, touchdown, whatever you wanna call it. That’s great for all of us, right? Because we like to see people get better and we love to see the results that they’re getting. Oh, and then you kind of touched on another thing about PRP in combinations like, I actually really like BPC intraarticular.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Yeah.

Greg Jones, NMD

Arthritic conditions, shoulder injections. I’ve seen some amazing results with that. But because sometimes I can be a bit of worrywart, I’m like, “Ugh, you know what? Let’s do some ozone after that too.” So I’ll do a PRP, BPZ, BPC-157, and then I’ll do a little ozone in there too just cause I’m, I like just kinda, ozone in itself is, that’s a whole other conversation right there, ’cause ozone’s obviously gonna stimulate fibroblasts and chondrocytes, but also any type of risk of a reaction, I like the fact that it can reduce that. So what I mean by immune system reaction or infection, oh, it’s just great. That has been that combo, I’ve gotta do that on two patients, PRP, BPC, ozone, man, they are back flips, man. They’re lovin’ it.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Okay. So that’s interesting. I have not combined the peptides and ozones together just really because I’m worried that the oxidative effect would impact the peptide. But I would totally echo that with the idea that, and Edwin Lee wrote an article on PRP joint inject, I mean, peptide joint injections with BPC-157. And I would also say I’ve seen that and I’ve seen both for AC joint injections, which are for people who are out there learning, is on a scale from 1 to 10 of an easy injection, it’s about a two. ‘Cause you just, it’s a really narrow joint, but it’s a really one, ’cause you can just sneak in and then slide right into the joint, and you see your needle right in the joint and then can… And then that’s right up the AC joint, acromioclavicular joint is right above the shoulder joint. So it’s a nice way to kinda get into the shoulder apparatus. And we’ve seen incredible, we’ve seen big results in knees with BPC-157 also. And then it’s also, this is worldwide podcast and I was sitting here thinking last night and talking to Barb, the great thing about my life is I get to hang out with Barb every night. If everybody wants to talk to Barb, I’m like… But I was saying, it’s a really exciting moment to begin to think that there’s options that are gonna be coming into the market worldwide that are an order of magnitude lowering cost to potentially even more than an order of magnitude lowering cost that now you can begin to do things to treat joints that what if you push that, kick that knee replacement down the road five years? Okay, what if you kick that down the road 10 years, what does that do for our society in terms of healthcare costs? I mean, it’s, and then you begin to say, oh, okay, well, what happened if you made PRP and put some peptides in that? And then sure enough, now you’re starting to get into some pretty interesting biochemical ways to affect the biology of a joint. And it’s inspirational, because we’re seeing that it’s working. And then just the financial cost of it being a lot less, I think, is real inspirational to me because I think it’s gonna really change the way we think about sports medicine.

Greg Jones, NMD

Oh, indeed. Indeed. Because it used to, I think way back when, when we first started hearing about PRP, this is before I even was a sparkle in my med school professor’s eyes, was we mentioned professional athletes like Kobe Bryant. And like, oh my god, they gotta fly to Germany to get this. It’s so expensive, right? And now it’s so inexpensive just to do PRP, just to process it and getting the kits, it’s just so accessible now. And I think there’s gonna be more to follow on that and ways to help the joints regenerate and actually prevent surgeries and help people heal. Or as you said, put it off for a long period of time because, and at the end of the day, I know you grew up in anesthesiology where all it’s like, man, that’s kinda like the, and surgeons, that’s what they do. But it’s like I have great friends that are surgeons, orthopedic surgeons, like, look, I don’t wanna do that unless I have to. And if you can help put that off long as possible, they’re okay with that. I’m like, yep. Got it, got it.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

I gotta do a shout out to Tanisha who’s one of my medical assistants and I give them all of these statements like I’m saying stuff. Like I was… And then they always repeat it to me. So like I’ll say like, “Never let the sun rise instead on a bowel obstruction and then never give sedation to a patient prone without oxygen.” And so then I’ll make statements like that. And then they’ll quote ’em to me and I’ll hear them making these little statements, which is useful because that avoids lots of complications. So anyways, I was telling them, they were talking about a surgery to fix something. And I said, “Well, a chance to cut is a chance to cure, but a chance to cut is also a chance to cry.” ‘Cause, man, surgery can go so sideways. And then somebody was talking, and then I just heard Tanisha in the background quietly say, “A chance to cut as a chance to cry.”

Greg Jones, NMD

They’re getting’ it. I mean, that’s good. And I mean, end the day, we have so many options and so many, these cutting edge things, man. It’s just like, we can really make a difference. And it’s just knowing when and how and where, you know what I mean? And why it’s so.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Another thing about like if, and this is a good one. And I gotta get your opinion on this one. In terms of thinking about how to combine these when that has been an evolution that’s going well. And so then when you think about a joint, one thing that happens is is you have a nerve that’s going through a joint and then you’ve got the ligaments and tendons in fascia that are around that joint. And then you’ve got inside the joint and there’s a joint lining in there and then there’s cartilage. So then now in my old world, what I would do is I would use ropivacaine, which is a local anesthetic that lasts for kinda 8 to 24 hours. And so then I would do a nerve block of the nerve that’s going to a joint, like for example, the femoral nerve, and then I would, then they would operate and do whatever they were gonna do. Now what we’ll like to do is we’ll do a nerve hydrodissection to the nerve going to the joint. Now then that means we’re putting fluid around that nerve, could be BPC-157, it could be fragments of thymosin beta‐4, could be GHK. So we have a variety of different things. And parallel to that, we could be putting something around those tendons by the knee, because that’s where, or by the nerves close to the knee, and then we can be going into the joint that could be something regenerative into the joint. It could be stem cells, but the peptides are outside the joint. Or it could be PRP in the joint. And so then now you’re getting fairly robust combinations where we’re treating the entire body and affecting it. So I don’t know what your thoughts are on that, but it’s just kind of, we found that 100% of the time people do really well with the combinations of regenerative stuff and peptides.

Greg Jones, NMD

Yeah. There’s a, wait a second. If I remember this here. Oh man. Okay. So I really like that, but a little bit different. So I’m gonna take it in, ’cause I’ve always thought that a comprehensive approach to treating a joint is a way to go. And what I mean by comprehensive is I wanna treat the joint, the tendons, the ligaments, the nerves, right? And the joint, obviously that’s, hey, I’m going to the joint with whatever my regenerative injections, substances, whether that be PRP or prolotherapy or a peptide. And then with the ligaments, I wanna support the tendons and ligaments. So we’ll say, I wanna support the surrounding structures, right? Let’s say ligament more so than tendon, right? So let’s say like a shoulder. So I want to be able to use potentially like I can use PRP, I can use, I don’t why, tendons and ligaments, right? ‘Cause you may find, on an ultrasound, you may find a tear, you might find some tendon damage, you can actually do that. And so now I’ll treat those that, in thesis, what can I say, ah man, it’s been a long day. My coffee’s kicking in a little bit. My coffee’s wearing out, so to speak, all right? So where that ligament attaches to the bone, I wanna do my prolotherapy there. I can do the PRP where the injury is, but what makes us comprehensive is when I get the chance to do it, when I’m able to talk through my patients that I wanna do this and if it’s indicated, I’ll actually do perineural, which is that hydrodissection treating the nerves, supplying that joint. Because now I’ve hit all the layers. I’ve got the joint. I got the ligaments, I got the tendons. And the reason being is, oh man, I used to mess this up in med school. I was calling it Wilson’s law forever. Finally got around. I got enough questions wrong, enough crazy stares to remember it’s Hilton’s law, right? Because if I remember right, the joint that is, oh, oh gonna mess this up. You might have to correct me, the joint that’s innervating a joint, let’s say the branch of a nerve that innervates the joint also extends to the muscle and across the joint. So basically if I know that that joint is innervated by a branch, by a nerve branch, I can treat the nerve, ’cause that’s also gonna treat the muscle itself. And so I thought about that and I was like, well, this is perfect because now I’m getting all the layers. So is there a better way to say Hilton’s law, man? This has been messing me up for years now.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

So that’s a good one. That’s a good one.

Greg Jones, NMD

Yeah.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

So basically what’s happening with this, I’ll give you an example, if there’s a muscle that’s over a joint, the nerve that is going to that muscle is also going to the joint. And the logic for that is that you want a nerve to go to the joint and the same muscle and they’re gonna be integrated and coordinated, because when that muscle moves, it’s gonna move the joint. And so it needs to act in kind of a coherent way. And so then if the, and so then the idea is that there’s a nerve that’s going down to the joint and then there’s also a branch of that nerve that’s gonna be superficial and cutaneous over the joint. And so then they’re both branches of the same nerve. And so then the concept of perineural was that, and this came from John Lyftogt, who’s a friend of mine, and he invented this idea neuro-prolo. And so then what his idea was that, I’ll go into this a little bit, it’s kinda, you’ll like this one. His idea was that nerves tend to get impinged. They tend to have decreased blood flow. Because they have decreased blood flow, there’s slightly less oxygen. But then because of the less blood flow, there’s less glucose.

Greg Jones, NMD

Right. Mm-hmm.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Because there’s less glucose, they have less energy, they have less energy and then they become dysfunctional. And then that can lead to muscle spasm and dysfunction. And so they call it glycopenia. So then, which is low glucose. So then that was the idea. And so then, and if somebody had pain over a joint, often they would find the nerve that was going to that joint and sometimes they would go a little proximal. If we were working in the wrist, sometimes they’d go a little proximal to the joint, but then also potentially come right over the joint, working on the muscle over the joint, and then the nerve going to the muscle and then doing that. And traditionally the way that they were doing that was with a 3cc syringe and a 30 gauge needle. And so then that that’s good, and that now is half inch needle. So then that was an idea. And then he changed that from neuro prolo, because there was a big community of people doing prolotherapy, and so then they changed the name to perineural, so close to the nerve therapy. The good thing about that is is that dextrose also has some benefits to nerves. And it probably is a, it can block unmyelinated C fibers and the unmyelinated C fibers control blood flow into a tissue bed. And so if you treat with dextrose, then that can cause a block of those unmyelinated kind of pain fibers, which can improve blood flow. And so this was the nerve idea. So then what I said was, oh, okay, what would happen if you started doing something very similar to that? But instead of, and ’cause we had done that and he came to my office and we had a great time and I showed him nerve fighter hydrodissection and stuff, which was awesome. 

And I had like a big meeting of the minds with him. And then what we started doing is I started saying, wait a second, rather than use a half-inch needle, let’s start doing the same thing with an insulin needle. And instead of doing, and so we started doing perineural injections with an insulin needle and liking it way better. And then I said, “Wait a second. BPC is good for nerves. What if I started doing perineural injections, but instead of using 5% dextrose, we start using thymosin beta-4, BPC-157, fragments of thymosin beta-4, GHK? And so then I started doing perineural injections and peritendon injections with in insulin syringes basically all over the body. And so we got into doing that in COVID just ’cause people couldn’t come to see us. And then that became kind of one of our favorite ideas. And so then that is kind of my explanation of that idea. Now then interestingly, if you think of an evolution and so then like they came out with this idea of using dextrose. And then this is from the prolo kind of community. And then this idea of, and the idea was is that nerves like 5% dextrose, so this is the concentration stuff. If you use 17% dextrose, it’s kind of toxic, as well hypertonic, and it can scar connective tissue, okay? So then nerves like 5%, but then what happened is people said, well, what if you put like 15 or 17% dextrose around tendons? And so then traditionally what happened in prolo was if there was a ligament that came down and attached to a bone, then what they would do is do needling all around that to create an inflammatory concept around that tendon, the dextrose would be hypertonic and would cause scarring. And that was kind of like this, and this idea started maybe 60 or 70 years ago. 

And so it’s been going on for a long time. Now when I started doing ultrasound on a lot of people, that would have lot of prolotherapy, I would see scarring. Now then what happened is, and then especially with some of my friends that come from other countries that don’t have what we have in terms of regenerative medicine. So they’re stuck with doing dextrose on themselves. So I was kind of horrified when I would start to see some of these guys on ultrasound. So then what happened is, and this I think is important, what I do now is I’ll look and I’ll look at where that tendon comes down with an ultrasound, and then I will come down and then do something kinda like prolo, but I’m not doing damage, because you had to do damage if you wanted to get something to happen, to heal, if you were doing with a 17% dextrose. But if you can put peptides, they have so much regenerative potential that I found you don’t need to do the needling in damage. And so then basically you can just come down and then gently touch, and then I’ll gently come down to the bone and then thread peptides through where the tendon is. And then hydrodissect the fascia a little bit. But then my current concept is using relatively high concentrations of peptides, low volume, and then extremely low trauma. And so then now I don’t do any needling. And then combining that with something a little proximal, that’s gonna treat the nerve, and then doing our joint concept. But then do your thing also, which is give that person CJC and ipamorelin and then give them systemic peptides that then are gonna continue to stimulate and heal that as time goes on.

Greg Jones, NMD

Wow, that’s awesome. I like that. Yeah. ‘Cause I always think about, and I guess with prolotherapy, that’s a whole, like you’re trying to, in that whole scarring, and I guess, the whole concept, is that you’re trying to correct ligament laxity, right? You do that by trying to stimulate collagen, fibroblasts, and get the FGF, and all that stuff, you’re trying to get those growth factors to create that. But it’s kind of an uncontrolled process. And so you might, yeah, you’ll get the correction of ligament laxity, but it might be too much, you know? So that’s actually really cool to think about that and, hmm, I like that, maybe-

Matthew Cook, M.D.

And so then here’s another one. Here’s another good one. And so then, and I’ve had this one and I have somebody that looks like you, almost anything I do is gonna work. Your body’s kinda perfect. Your biology is perfect. You’re strong, and then I’m almost certain that you don’t have complex illness.

Greg Jones, NMD

I’m a lucky guy. Yes.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Now then what happens is I have them, then on the other end of the spectrum, we’ve got these people that are super sensitive with lime and mold and all of the inflammatory kind of conditions that people will have. Now a lot of those people also have ligamentous laxity. And I think part of the reason that they have ligamentous laxity is that there’s inflammation at where those tendons are attaching and those tendons are not doing what they’re supposed to do, because they’re in pain and they’re dysfunctional. And now interestingly, one idea would be just to follow your 1A and 1B, give them CJC, ipamorelin, and BPC, start to manage that and optimize what’s happening from a systemic level. And they’re just gonna start to fix those tendons. And then one thing you will see is that that stuff starts to get better. But then the other idea is then going in there in a careful way, one idea is to go in with an ultrasound. Another idea is to just get close to that joint and then do something that’s kind of like perineural. And then we’ve had, I think that the evolution of prolotherapy is going to be sort of an earth-shattering idea, ’cause I think that probably you could just take prolotherapy and if you added peptides to it, it would be like probably five times more effective.

Greg Jones, NMD

It’s gonna be super exciting to see that. Oh man, it’s gonna be super exciting to see that too. And especially if you don’t need as much volume, because again, a lot of times you’re looking at prolotherapy of a joint, depending on the joint, you might be looking anywhere from 2 to, I mean, 6cc’s, depending on which joint you’re going into. So that’d be great to get the same effect, a better effect, and less volume and less pressure in a joint. So I’m excited about that, man, I really am.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

And then along those lines then, that’s another one that has been kind of a game changer for me, which is is that a knee, you could put 10cc’s in a knee or you put 5cc’s in a knee. I started, if I’m coming into a finger joint, I only use an insulin needle now. And so then I looked with my ultrasound and then I can see right into the joint. And then I’d literally stick a needle, under ultrasound, into the joint. And then you might only put 10 units in, but then you can have something that’s relatively concentrated and have kind of an effect that way.

Greg Jones, NMD

I have a patient, I did a thumb injury right at the first MCP. And I was doing, I wanna say I did HOD 9064 with hyaluronic acid.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Ah-ha. Oh yeah.

Greg Jones, NMD

He’s gonna be pissed if he sees his podcast because I used, I had a 31 gauge, actually was it, what, what?

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Yeah. That’s the one, yeah.

Greg Jones, NMD

Because, no. But no, I used a regular H needle, ’cause the AHA was so thick.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Oh yeah.

Greg Jones, NMD

And so I had to use a 27 x 1/2.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Oh, that’s fine.

Greg Jones, NMD

But still, it’s not a insulin syringe. It’s not that. He’s gonna be like, oh man, you could’ve done this with a small needle, but, so yeah, that’s actually-

Matthew Cook, M.D.

For that joint, I think a lot of times I might use a 27 gauge.

Greg Jones, NMD

So about 27. Okay. All right, we’re in the clear, we’re in the clear.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

We’re in the clear. We’re in the clear. Now we covered 1A, and 1 and 1A, what’s your next peptides that are your go-to every day that you like to tell people about?

Greg Jones, NMD

Okay, so after CJC and ipamorelin and tesamorelin, and the BPC-157, if that layered approach is like, hey, okay, all right, doc, what’s next? And it depends on what they have going on, right? So if they’re into the more aesthetics, more inclined into like, hey, I want to improve that body composition, muscle mass and, and lose body fat, depending on their status, right? Because this is another thing. You can’t just throw it at everyone. I might consider IGF-1/LR3. Thought process of that is that when, we talked way back when like, hey, the growth hormone peptides, I’m releasing growth hormone from the pituitary, going to liver, releasing IGF-1. That IGF-1 is what’s going to, has receptors on the bone, muscle and fat cells and does all the good work, right? Stronger bones, build muscle, lower fat. But that half-life though is how long that’s, if I wanna extend that half-life, I may consider an IGF-1/LR3 combination with that if I wanna push that forward. Now this goes back to being careful with the patient, because again, I have to see where they are, because again, if I have any inclination that they have any type of insulin resistance or glucose insensitivity, I’m probably not gonna do that, because I don’t wanna push them into insulin resistance by giving them, by flooding them with IGF. So I look at that situation there. Now I’m gonna kinda like rapid fire a few of them. And this goes into situational stuff. Right now if someone is like, hey, I’m having a little bit of sarcopenia or muscle loss. I’m struggling with putting on muscle. I’m eating well, I’m workin’ out. I like what the CJC-1295 and ipamorelin and BPC are doin’, I might consider doing, I love adding a peptide called PEG-MGF or Pegylated Mechano Growth Factor. And some people say it doesn’t work. I’ve seen great results with that peptide. But again, this goes back to foundational. It’s not gonna work if they don’t, as in you gotta work out, ’cause this peptide literally repairs muscle cells and increases muscle cell-like stem cells, right? So if you’re not stimulating the muscle to grow with exercise and muscle contraction, it probably not gonna work as well. It doesn’t really work in a vacuum. I do like that one post-workout in athletes as well.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

How much do you give ’em?

Greg Jones, NMD

Just 200 micrograms, 0.1.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Okay.

Greg Jones, NMD

Has worked really well, really well so.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

How frequently will you dose that?

Greg Jones, NMD

That one, most people, say if you’re doing weight training, sometimes four times a week, five times a week, does really well. It doesn’t necessarily have to be an everyday peptide. So I kinda like if you’re, especially if you’re having a hard, kinda like a weightlifting session or training, I like it after that, so doing that. But the hard part is I tend to like it as soon as possible after a workout. So unless you’re carrying your vial, your syringe with you, you gotta wait till you get home, I still think it’s effective doing that. So those two, I like those in combination with it. Now for my, say my pain people as in, hey, I’m recovering. And this depends on what I see in how they present to the clinic and the lab work. If I think there’s a ton of inflammation going on, I really like KPV. KPV is, man, I am getting a crush on that peptide, man, because I’ve seen just almost instantaneous reduction of inflammation. It’s probably, to me, as close to a corticosteroid that a peptide can get without being a corticosteroid. I mean, it drops inflammation like incredibly. Like I actually had a cystic acne patient and she had a painful cyst. It was like, oh my god, like this is, man, this is triamcinolone right here. This is ketorolac, the first thing came to mind. I was like, “You know what? Let’s not do that.” And I actually took an insulin syringe and I did 25 units of KPV three days in a row, cyst gone. I was like, this is really cool. Each day you saw it reducing in size and the pain getting less. So that was really-

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Where was it at?

Greg Jones, NMD

The location of the cyst? It was on the chin.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Really?

Greg Jones, NMD

Yep.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

And you injected, not in into it, or just close by?

Greg Jones, NMD

Close to it.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Yeah.

Greg Jones, NMD

Close to it. And then I actually had a, I have probably, I dunno if it’s back from med school, I probably have the worst QL attachments at iliac crest in the history of the world. If I squat the wrong way, I will flare up like no one’s business, right? And I do chiropractic, stretching, cupping. It manages it, but every now and then I get a flare and I had a bad one a few months ago. And I actually called the head pharmacist at Pure. And I was like, “Like this,” I’m like, “dude, I’m struggling. I can’t get out of bed.” Like I had thymosin beta-4 ain’t touching it, BPC ain’t touchin’ it. Like what the hell? And I had, speaking of in regenerative injections, I had, at one point in time, it’s hard. No one else was here. I’m like, crap. I had another doctor that came by and we did a very low dose prolotherapy kind of threaded at that attachment on iliac crest, got me out of pain there. But I’m like, “Hey, I’m struggling.” And she was like 1cc of KPV five days in a row, right near the area. By day three, I didn’t need to do it again. So I was like, I was pretty sold on it. And I’ve done it systemic, subq now for injuries. And I’ve seen that ESR and CRPs go down tremendously. Like I’m a big fan of that. This is more on that repairing. If I know that I’m in an active, more of an acute injury, I need to get that of inflammation down without, and this is timing, right? I don’t wanna knock it down so much that I suppress the body’s natural ability to heal by suppressing inflammation, but if we’re kinda at that point, like, wow, like you’re two weeks out from the injury and it’s still there, I might be more inclined to do that one. So.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Oh, okay.

Greg Jones, NMD

Yep.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

So then the… I have a crush on KPV too.

Greg Jones, NMD

Love it, man. Yeah.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

That’s a good one. I love it.

Greg Jones, NMD

Oh, man, oral. I didn’t even talk about oral and topical and that’s just systemic, injecting it right there, so yeah.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

So KPV is this anti-inflammatory. And then it has some benefits in terms of mast cell activation. And so then particularly when I think about mast cell and sometimes food is a trigger for that and gastrointestinal stuff. And so then we’ll use KPV and then we will use a combination of BPC and KPV orally. And then I do that for all of the inflammatory bowel people that we see. But then I also noticed that it has that effect, and so there’s probably an effect of KPV on nerves. And so then when you think about that iliac crest basically what happens is a lot of times if you think the spine is down here and then in the back part of the spine, there’s a facet joint. And so then what happens is is the nerves that come out, they come out the lateral side of the facet joint, and then they gotta come up and they gotta climb up and go over the Ilia crest.

Greg Jones, NMD

You’re talking ’bout cluneal nerves?

Matthew Cook, M.D.

The cluneal nerves.

Greg Jones, NMD

Yeah, correct. Right.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Right. Yeah. And so then now I always tell everybody, I go, these are some extremely important nerves, ’cause they were named after George Clooney.

Greg Jones, NMD

I see.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

It’s a different spelling. It’s a different spelling. And so then when I see pain there, then I have sort of two ideas. One, okay, it could be a QL attachment, could be laxity or pain around like the iliolumbar ligaments, could be, and so then, but then if you go, and there used to be a lot of prolo ideas of going along that iliac crest and then doing and if you look under ultrasound, a lot of times you can see a little tunnel where the nerve comes through. And then if you look under ultrasound and turn Doppler on, a lot of times you can look, and sometimes you can find an artery and then that’s gonna be where the nerve is. And it’s basically like at the junction of like glut med and glut max, you’ll see where it comes over.

Greg Jones, NMD

Nice.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

And so then, but then it makes me go, oh, okay. So you did that treatment. Did that actually kind of hydrodissect your cluneal nerve and then that reset the nerve going back to the facet and then that basically resets the muscles. And then because if they’re in pain, then they go into spasm, and now you’re moving dysfunctionally, which causes more pain. So it’s just, that one is interesting to think about, because think about back pain and then that, and then you think about, go back to this idea of, okay, we have however many billion people in the world there are. And so then starting to be able to do subcutaneous peptides in the lower back will, we do hydrodissection of the thoracolumbar fascia, treat the facet joints. For a quadratus lumborum, what I’ll do is I’ll look with an ultrasound at, usually at L3, and that’s just because the L3 transverse process is high. L4 is down like this. And so they come down. But L3, you’ll see, and then you can see the quadratus lumborum muscle. And then basically what I’ll do is I’ll hydrodissect the superficial and deep plane of quadratus lumborum. And then basically what you’ll see is you’ll see fluid open up and then you’ll see, and so you’ll just see black where that fluid is. Now you get up and walk around, that fluid is tracking north and south, and then lives in that whole plane where quadratus lumborum is. And so then now, you gotta come up, and I’ll do it for you.

Greg Jones, NMD

Okay.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

And so then this is, to me, this is the future of how you take care of back pain, because then at a 1.0, my idea is kind of make an assessment of, try to figure out what’s going on, is it more facet? Is it more myofascial? And then beginning to kinda treat with the same type of steps that we’re talking about for treating a wrist joint. Now you say, oh, okay. And it used to be that, and then this is a big one, okay, for… It used to be that what people said was, oh, okay. If this is a facet, you gotta go down and needle the crap out of that. And and then create inflammation so that you could have stability at that facet, which was and when we would do that and then put placental matrix and things like that there, it would be amazing. However, then I found out, oh, placental matrix is so regenerative, I don’t need to do the needling. I just go down. And then I look and I’ll watch it spread and then slightly move around carefully and treat that. Now where the evolution is is that peptides are an amazing initial treatment, because they start to heal things, get things better, and it’s low cost. And so then now I’m just thinking about that, but the back, as interesting as it comes, from a peptide perspective.

Greg Jones, NMD

I know, that’s not even, that was just talking about the QL and the facets and let’s not even getting into the SI joint. So it, ah, it goes on and on and on. So I know we’re probably like runnin’ low. It’s like, I can go all, this is such a fascinating thing. Its like-

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Gimme one more. Gimme one.

Greg Jones, NMD

Oh, man. Oh, if I had pick one more, I am gonna go, last but not least thymosin alpha-1.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Okay, good.

Greg Jones, NMD

So if you trap me on a desert island, I’m taking CJC, ipamorelin, BPC-157, thymosin alpha-1, KPV. Just gimme that. I think I’ll be okay. So with thymosin alpha-1, because people start hearing about it more in the COVID days because there’s a whole thing with the FDA and, oh man, they’re sending grams out because people were claiming that, you know, whatever. But at the end of the day, thymosin alpha-1, what I love about it is because it’s so pleiotropic, it does so many things. That goes back to, way back in the beginning of our talked today is like, what can I give someone, if I want one peptide to do a lot of different things, those are the ones I really wanna go to. With thymosin alpha-1, we’re talking about reducing inflammation. We’re talking about balancing the immune system. And when I mean immune system balance, we’re talking Th1, Th2, Th17. So thinkin’ about Th1 being more antiviral, Th2 being kinda up-regulated if we’re talking about autoimmune conditions. I want that more balanced. I don’t want too much of one, too much of the other at the right or the wrong kind.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

100%

Greg Jones, NMD

We have, yeah, we have that. Oh my goodness, man. Just from a general, it does autophagy, it literally does direct autophagy. So a lot of times when I talk about senescence and things that increase autophagy, there’s some steps in there. There’s some pathways in there, but there’s some studies showing thymosin alpha-1 actually directly stimulating that.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

So then autophagy for people is how a cell cleans itself up.

Greg Jones, NMD

Yep.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

And autophagy and senescence are two of your pillars, right?

Greg Jones, NMD

Oh, yeah.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

And senescence is a zombie cell that’s kinda dysfunctional that can create inflammation basically.

Greg Jones, NMD

So thanks for clearing that. Sometimes I almost assume that people know what it is, ’cause I talk about it so much here. They’re like, oh, there’s Jones talking about autophagy, There he is again talking about zombie cells and SASPs, and all that stuff. So I like that with thymosin alpha-1. Now what I also like about thymosin alpha-1, is really cool, is I’ll start thinking about, because I do a lot of NAD in clinic.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Oh good.

Greg Jones, NMD

And so that being said, I’ve been to a couple trainings. We started talking about the NAD metabolism. And because of, and I thought about this way back when, it’s like, okay, I’m about to give you a lot of NAD, it’s gotta go somewhere. You’re gonna use it for ATP production, neurotransmitter, detox pathways forward, but how do you get rid of it? Right, just like anything else, you gotta metabolize it, right? And again, with our body, you use things to do things. And so the first thing I thought about initially was the methylation factors, right? ‘Cause if you’re going to metabolize NAD, if you look at the pathways, I don’t want to get too biochem for the listeners here, is that you’re gonna use methyl factors to metabolize that NAD and get rid of it, right? To actually get rid of it, actually excrete it, right? Into its final form. I wanna say it’s 1MN is the final form, 1MNA, yeah, I’ll have to look at my notes again. I wanna say it’s 1MN. So that being said, I would think about if I’m using methyl factors to metabolize NAD, that I wanna replace those, because people would get super tired after an NAD. So I look at betaine, or I look at TMG, or I look at SAMe. And that was the first pathway that I learned about when it came to NAD metabolism. 

And that was where I was laser-focused on that. Come to find out, if you go higher up in the metabolism pathway, that you actually, the metabolism of metabolism of NAD competes with CD38. I’m like, wait a minute here. Oh sh, wait a minute. I could be longterm actually affecting someone’s health by dropping their CD38 as it’s trying to compete to metabolize NAD. And again, this is my thought on that was like, okay, what helps up-regulate CD38? Thymosin alpha-1. And so I was like, wait a minute here, if I may get better benefits and my results, my outcomes with NAD treatment, if I’m able to potentially do a month or so of thymosin alpha-1 before I do NAD IVs, especially if I’m gonna do high dose or a series, again, this is Dr. Jones kinda lookin’ at some research and actually like trying to put all this together. And I thought about thymosin alpha-1 as a liability and actually being adjunct to NAD therapy. So I haven’t put this into practice yet, and I’m glad we’re here talking about it, because this is something I’ve been thinking about in how to, again, maximize my benefits and outcomes with NAD treatment without causing any side effects from that.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Okay, so then what I learned on that, this is an interesting one. What I learned about that is is that we all always give a methyl donor before we give NAD. And so then we have, and the one that I like the most is TMG, which is trimethylglycine, which is also betaine.

Greg Jones, NMD

Yep. That’s what we’re doing here too, yeah.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

And so then we’ll take that as an oral before doing NAD. Now NAD’s gonna have a whole bunch of pleiotropic effects from, and it’s gonna have some immune stimulating, some DNA stimulating is gonna activate the SIRT2 and super families. Does all of this stuff. One thing that I’ll tell you is the one population you gotta be careful with NAD is people with complex immune problems. And that population can get a little derailed when they take NAD. So then what’ll happen is you’ll see, when I first started teaching some of the Lyme doctors how to do NAD, ’cause we started doing NAD seven years ago or something, six years ago, we were doing it for people with addiction, and you could give them 1,000 milligrams of NAD, and they would do great. But if you take somebody that is really toxic with mold or somebody who’s really toxic with Lyme, and you give ’em 100 milligrams, you may totally derail them. And so I haven’t figured out if that’s an immune aspect of the NAD or if it’s driving a detox, it turns their detox pathways on, and they can’t handle that. But what I did find is that if you put them on thymosin alpha-1. Don’t worry, it’s the home edition. If you put people on thymosin alpha-1, and then you put them on it for a few months, then they basically will, and then you start to introduce NAD. 

And then what we started to do was introduce NAD, we’d had this experience with a few people that had a hard time with NAD. So then what I started doing was doing NAD with an insulin syringe. And interestingly, from a cost-perspective, it’s cost about the same, but then what you’re doing is you’re doing a subcutaneous injection. And so then that’s 100 milligrams, it’s 200 milligrams per mil, and this is from a company called Archway, 200 milligram, and they have the best subcutaneous NAD in the world that I found. So then 200 milligrams per milliliter. And so that means 50 units is 100 milligrams, which means 25 units is 50 milligrams, which means 12 1/2 units is 25 milligrams. So then what we started doing is for some of the complex illness patients, when they start doing NAD, we have them do 10, 15, 20 milligrams of NAD. We’re starting super low, and then they can start to take that. And then their body gets used to it. But your intuition is 100% right. And so then the thymosin alpha-1 is extremely helpful as an adjunct around getting someone ready for NAD therapy.

Greg Jones, NMD

Oh, nice, that was so, I mean, we’ve helped people, that peptide is amazing, helped people with allergies. And it’s good for, we talked about that inflammatory bowel disease case earlier. I mean, it just does so much, and it just really just helps the body feel better through all these effects. So, I mean, there are so many people, it’s just, wow, they love it, and they love how they feel on it. And so that is definitely a peptide I hope never ever goes away, but that’s kinda outta my hands there. So all in all, man, I’m excited about the field of peptides and the work being done. And I just feel like it’s that whole, like, there’s so much, I feel like I know a decent amount about peptides, but there’s so much I don’t know. And there’s so much research. There’s so much research coming out and I’m just excited to keep learning, man. So it’s great times.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

I feel like I got to know you better. I love talking to you, I love, before we get on the podcast today, Greg was listening to Tom Petty in the background. So I knew we were soul brothers 100% forever so-

Greg Jones, NMD

Oh, yeah.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

So, well, you’re doing amazing work. I think you’re an amazing doctor and I’m grateful to have you on the podcast and have you as a friend, thanks so much.

Greg Jones, NMD

No, thank you. I appreciate it, yeah. My office is known for the 80s. It’s like an 80s party in here just about every day. So I kinda will say it’s the music of my youth. It kinda is. I don’t wanna carbon date myself here, but it’s definitely getting up there. But no, this was an honor and a privilege, and I’m excited to be a part of this. And I can’t wait to see it. And it’s gonna be fun, man. And thank you again. I really appreciAte it.

Matthew Cook, M.D.

Okay. Awesome.