Anna Howe 0:04

Welcome to Vitality by Design, the podcast where we explore what it really means to live longer and better.

Carey Howe 0:13

We're your hosts, Anna and Carrie, coming to you from Costa Rica, home to one of the world's blue zones, where longevity isn't a trend, it's a way of life.

Anna Howe 0:24

Each week we dive into the science, strategies, and mindset behind optimal health and intentional living, blending modern longevity research with the rhythms, values, and wisdom of life well lived. Because longevity isn't just about adding years to your life, it's about adding life to your years. Let's dive in.

Carey Howe 0:57

This is actually part two of a previous episode we did on peptides, but this became such a popular topic that we decided we'd better cover it a little bit more and a little bit more of the current sort of topics going alongside with it, right? But this is still a new episode, so I guess we'll call it uh I guess we'll call it part two of the peptide episode. Great. Let's get started. All right, ready, set, go.

Anna Howe 1:23

Welcome back to Vitality by Design. In our last episode, we covered the basics of peptides and why they become such a hot topic in longevity and regenerative medicine. Today we're diving deeper into questions everyone's asking from the latest FDA actions and regulation to where peptides are actually manufactured, common misconceptions, and how to separate fact from fear. Our goal is to give you balanced, evidence-based information so that you can make informed decisions about your health. Hi.

Carey Howe 1:56

Hi. Um, that's good. Yeah. I mean, let you know, I think those are pretty much quite a few of the most important things, right? You know, questions to ask before using peptides might be one. Um, like you said, the common misconceptions, you know, where are the peptides made? Well, they're all made in China. We know that now. Like, and so uh and then the FDA and the regulation and what you know, the misinformation and these kind of things. So a lot of stuff to cover. Um, this is uh, you know, it's worth noting that of all the things that we've talked about, we get so much feedback on peptides. People always asking us, hey, I see you guys are taking peptides, you know, what does it do? How does it work for you? Which one does what? How does this work? What are they? There's so many questions about it, and people are definitely excited about peptides, but there's also a lot of fear-mongering and stuff that's going on in the media and you know, all for money, right? Everything's based around money. And so we'll get to all of those things.

Anna Howe 2:55

Yeah, well, I mean, and where does that fear come from? I mean, the thing that everyone now, if we you want to start with the topic of the FDA, that's a huge one because that's what every well, they're not FDA approved. And and the FDA has increased scrutiny and uh of compounded peptides in recent years. So I think everyone's just stuck on that. I mean, what does FDA approval mean? Can you do that?

Carey Howe 3:17

Well, let's let's be, you know, let's start with what is the FDA, right? So the FDA um isn't exactly um someone that has a track record of having your best interests at heart, right? Um have a long-standing history of siding with big pharma and um where they can control the money and drugs, right? And so um they approve things like baby formula that have lead in them, but you know, people are making big deals about oh, where do your peptides come? One bile had some concentration of lead, you know, a tiny amount, or whatever the case may be. You hear these stories all over. Um, I can tell you one thing that for sure, if you're a critical thinker that you know the FDA doesn't have your best interest out. And so I wouldn't put it and hang all my um thought process on whatever the FDA says is what I'm gonna take as the um the gospel, right? Uh and that's that's a that's a big part of it, right? And and why do we have the FDA um even in our conversation? You know, what what's happened was six years ago, um the United States made peptides illegal, right? And this didn't mean that they didn't know how huge the industry was. What happened was the big pharma went to China, built the the most the best labs, and there isn't better made peptides, more clean, more sterile, more anything than in China. China is absolutely the best. Their labs are better than the U.S., hands down. It's not even a question. People don't understand the people don't understand that they think it's you know some Chinese guy in the basement of a you know a damp swamp town. But that's not what it is. They're high-tech American companies that went out there and knew the market, and um European companies as well. Um, and they're they're capitalizing on it. China saw something and they and they moved on it. The U.S. is behind, but now a new administration comes into power and they want that back into the hands of the U.S. So what do they do? They make all these FDA restrictions, they poke holes in in the uh in the Chinese peptides and the sourcing and whatnot. But let's, you know, if you're a critical thinker, think about this. If there was all these peptide injuries and all these things that happened, the FDA would have attacked that first. There aren't. There aren't any horror stories about probably the largest um human study has been done by all the people over the last 16 years have been doing peptides and talking to each other online and back and forth and in our groups that we chat on. Um yeah, it's the it's study.

Anna Howe 5:55

Yeah, well, I mean, then the regulation is primarily primarily about safety and manufacturing standards and whether certain peptides can legally be compounded, not necessarily a statement that every peptide is unsafe. And people need to understand that the difference between an FDA-approved medication and a compounded preparation and a research chemical.

Carey Howe 6:16

So Yeah, I mean the whole research chemical, not for human consumption, that's all to get by the laws of the FDA and to basically be able to sell peptides in the States. You know, let's not confuse it. It's the exact same peptide that they're selling you constituted from a 503B pharmacy or whatever, and then and giving it to you. There's no difference in the raw materials or the peptide. People have to understand that, right? Um, it's just a grab for money and to try to turn um you know the peptide business into controllable by a governing body and and make it that you can only prescribe it from a doctor. And and this is you know, we saw this in the the weed game, the marijuana thing, the same thing happened, right? Yeah, and so this is very similar. So there's there's when somebody says research chemicals, that's just to as a disclosure or or disclaimer that that's what they gotta say to be able to give you the information they're giving you, right?

Anna Howe 7:18

Yeah, and um, you know, and just continuing talking about China, you know, it's uh China is used because it's a major global manufacturer of pharmaceutical ingredients. So uh many pharmaceutical companies worldwide source ingredients internationally, and then they perform additional purification and quality testing and sterile processing and and then dispensing elsewhere. So it's what matters most is quality control, the testing, sterility, and and sourcing. It's not simply the country where the starting material originated.

Carey Howe 7:52

Here's the truth China is by far the best producer of active pharmaceutical ingredients, period, across a ton of drug categories, not just peptides. This isn't just peptides. The Chinese labs are better. There's no secret about it. We've been going there to make all kinds of other drugs that are made in China, but they don't talk about that. They're only trying to control peptides. And so um, well, you know, the peptides are safe that are from chain. The biggest um question has always been the chain of custody, right? So uh when you work with someone in China, you might be working with a broker, you might be working with a second broker or third broker, and this is where the chain of custody could get weird. So if you're getting directly from the manufacturer in China, you have as good or better of a product than you get in the United States. In the United States, they're even wanting to constitute your peptide before they send it to you. Yeah, and that's a problem, I think.

Anna Howe 8:51

That's a big problem.

Carey Howe 8:52

The peptide once constituted is only good for 30 days. So now how long till it got to you, or how long before they constitute it, till they put it in the box that they then sent to you, right? So if you're losing 10, 14 days on a constitution and you're supposed to use it for a month, it's only going to be good for two weeks. So the whole US thing, um, they've screwed it up once again. Not only did they mess up by by letting the peptides go to China, now they're messing it up by by how they're making it have to get to you, is wrong. Uh it's it's just wrong on many ways. So uh, you know, this is a an argument I'm I'm sure we can have. Does there need to be um people feel safe about putting clean peptides in their body? 100%, right? But that that doesn't mean that the FDA is the one that's gonna do it for you. Yes, correct, correct.

Anna Howe 9:42

So um well, uh let's move on and talk about some common misconceptions of peptides. Uh one of one of them that I've heard several times now is people think that peptides are steroids. So peptides are not anabolic steroids. And then other a lot of of most people think that they're just for weight loss. That's another thing. Um and uh yeah, yeah.

Carey Howe 10:10

Let's just knock out a few of these myths quickly because um I think a lot of people walk into this space with the wrong mental model in their head, you know. Peptides are not anabolic steroids. They're they're not weight loss drugs. Um, they're not anything but um helping your body's signals signal what they already do. Right? And so uh they're not magic bullets. Um you still gotta have good nutrition, good exercise, good sleep, good stress management. That's still the foundation of any health. But peptides are a good way to to, in addition to your health journey or your wellness journey, to help you um you know do some things a little bit more efficiently.

Anna Howe 11:00

Well, I think that they're like the cherry on top, and I think it's worth kind of uh just talking about that a little bit more. There's I've heard some several people say, well, I use this and it just didn't work for me. Well, uh you need a strong and clean foundation, number one, for the peptide to actually work to be able to uh get receive that signal from the peptide because it's not magic. It's not a magic bullet. So if you're let's say you want it for energy and you want it for weight loss and you you want it for just overall, you know, an enhancement and and muscle definite and all those things, you know, whatever it is that you're looking for, better sleep. Well, it you can't continue living a lifestyle where you're not doing those things and you expect to to inject yourself with a peptide and everything is gonna be better. You have to make an effort and be really deliberate in how you live your life. What's what is your lifestyle? Do you do you get enough rest? You know, do you eat well? Are you are you consuming alcohol? Are you, you know, all of those things.

Carey Howe 12:03

Yeah, these this is very, very, very important. I mean, just like uh just working out, right? There's no um great workout program if you have a bad diet. Right. It won't work, right? And there's no great peptide um solution if you don't have basic things down that you're that that you're improving your life. Yeah, you you drink alcohol, you smoke cigarettes, that's gonna give you a step put you a few steps back on no matter what you're trying to do, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:31

Right.

Carey Howe 12:31

And so I think that yeah, there's a lot of misconception. If you're doing a lot of things right, peptides are gonna work better. It's like uh you can't put wax on the car and the car's not washed. You know, you gotta have a clean car to put wax on it.

Anna Howe 12:45

So that's a really good analogy. I like that.

Carey Howe 12:46

So um keep the car clean and then the wax works better, right? And so peptides are just gonna wax on top of a protocol and a lifestyle you should already be following. And you know, as we know very well, like we've been doing a lot of studying lately, like the best things in wellness and longevity are free, right? This isn't something you have to be a multi-millionaire like Michael Johnson and putting in uh Brian Johnson, sorry, and uh putting in all this money into something and being the most studied person and all these things. We're talking about sleep, sunlight, good diet, whole foods, whole foods, right? And um recovery and exercise. Yes, those five things.

Anna Howe 13:33

All those things, yeah.

Carey Howe 13:34

And and of course, um meditation and prayer are are are high in there too, and and community could be added to that as well. And these are things that we know to be true on why you know the blue zone we live in is is a blue zone, is because people really get these foundations here. The foundation of life is those things we talked about: good sleep, good uh recovery, good exercise, good meditation, and and good faith, and um and a good community. And those are all free, every single one of them.

Anna Howe 14:09

They are, but a person needs to be really intentional and really make put forth some effort and uh and really make changes in their life because there are the the biggest excuse that I hear all the time is well, I don't have time. I'm too busy, I have a full-time job, I have children, I have uh dinner to put on the clean the house, you know, those things. But even if you just change one thing and little by little it's it's a matter of making time, making time to go outside and walk your dog. There's people I know that they literally, and and let's say uh talking always about peptides, you know, let's say they you will lose weight. They wanted to lose weight on on uh uh GLP. Sure, you're gonna lose the weight. That's you know, if you're gonna lose the weight, but are you gonna lose muscle? Are you gonna lose this? Are you gonna sleep well? So it's all of it goes together, you know. Yes, you will lose the weight, but if you're not being intentional, waking up, walking, getting the sunlight, and all those things, and and working out, lifting weights, that's the most important thing. You're never you will reach your weight loss goal, but are you gonna reach your longevity uh strength goal? Uh it's it's not just one or the other, it's just a a combination of everything if you want to go to that next level and and really think about longevity and think about how you're gonna feel in your older age. Um and again, peptides like uh I we said before, to me, they're like a just a cherry on top. You first have to do all the things, and then they're just enhancements. They're they're gonna help you reach that next level.

Carey Howe 15:49

Yeah, I mean, I agree. Like if you have your goals and and your and your life, you know, kind of in a new direction, all these peptides are gonna help you, you know, heal better, have better body composition. There's peptides for better skin health, metabolic health. Um but they'll work a lot better if your core principles are earthed in some really good practices, right? Yes. And um, you know, so I as we go back to peptides and talking about, you know, we talked about where they're made and and so you know the whole FDA uh and regulation. Yeah, and regulation. I I don't want to use the term BS, but it is BS. And um the misconceptions about peptides being anabolic steroids, which they're not. And and you know, the the question they always throw at you is, oh, there's no human clinical evidence behind the specific peptide. You know, those questions are valid, right? But in my eyes, the largest human experiment has been done in the shadows, not with the money of uh big pharma and special interests, um by for the last 16 years by people online talking to each other, and there aren't any horror stories. There might be, you know, the the worst stories I see is from people with unclean uh injection sites and a lump or a redness or something. I've seen that a lot. You've seen a rash where they overdosed a little too much redotide or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 17:20

Yeah.

Carey Howe 17:21

And those things happen, but for the most part, it's been a human error, not the actual peptide, right? So it would be better if we spent our time on educating people on how to dose correctly, what you know, what the word is out about the particular peptides, and if you are in good condition and good shape and using good health practices, um, what works for what.

Anna Howe 17:43

And we live in the uh in a world of of free information all over the place. It's so easy to do your own research and and um you know, put in the time and try to educate yourself on on what's available and everything else. And I think it's so such a great thing that people are now sort of taking their own health into your own hands. Like we're able to do that, or or we have uh, I guess there's less fear. I can only speak for myself, you know. Before we just always listened to uh the medical doctors and what we were told and taught and throughout our lives, and now it's kind of like, well, wait a minute, now we have all these different tools and sources like artificial intelligence that can I mean I upload my labs, my blood labs into Claude or ChatGPT, and it literally tells me, I mean, everything I need to know. More it explained more to me than a doctor has ever explained to me in my entire life.

Carey Howe 18:38

And and it remembers it in the next time you come back with something. So yeah.

Anna Howe 18:41

And it well, and it explains it in in plain English too. So it's like, oh, so you know, you're just having more of a hand and more control, I think, of that's how I feel, more control of my own health, my own body, and what I I just I'm I'm so happy about that.

Carey Howe 18:57

I mean, that's a whole topic in itself, how we believe AI is gonna take over the medical industry and and it's gonna improve it and make it lower cost. And that and that's a good thing. Maybe this is what's needed to fix um, well, definitely the American Medical Association and and its sort of shortcomings, right? But I think, you know, in general, uh wellness is growing. You don't have to believe a word I say to see how fast that's growing. People are tired of the 45-minute wait to see a doctor for seven minutes and two minutes into it, he's writing you a prescription for a drug you don't want to take and telling you come back in two weeks and we'll talk about it, right? Yeah. Um you literally can get your own blood labs, you can get your own biomarkers made, you can measure your own um body measurements, you can get AI advice. Um and so, you know, we already trust AI to land planes, to make trades on Wall Street and to control billions of dollars. Um you know, it's not a question of is this gonna happen to medicine. It's just medicine is next and it's coming.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

Yes.

Carey Howe 20:02

So, you know, uh an AI machine is gonna be able to do a surgery way more efficiently efficiently and precisely than any doctor's hand ever did. Yes. You know, the doctors of the future are gonna be managing these kind of machines and managing AI and managing the protocols and data and people and we'll never have the the we'll never we'll always need the human touch, you know. So what's what's strange is that the nurse is gonna survive through this whole thing, I believe. You know, and you do need that bedside manner and whatnot, but AI is definitely gonna take over medicine, and we'll get to that podcast.

Anna Howe 20:38

Yeah, because you know, yeah, that's a whole other topic. I think people should start to embrace it and not work against it because that's the world that we are living in, and that's where we're going in the future. And and I I I personally think it's wonderful. And so um, yeah, people better get on board.

Carey Howe 20:54

And you know, not to go back to China again, but this is already happening in China where you walk into a pod, you you have all your vitals taken, your blood pressure, um, they measure everything.

Anna Howe 21:05

Um kind of like what we have at the clinic.

Carey Howe 21:07

Yeah, at the clinic we have you know some machines that measure all these things that a nurse used to do for you in the beginning of it. It's all done automatically by yourself. The records are emailed to you, all 180 biomarkers from your eye. And um, yeah, this is this is the future, and and this is gonna make healthcare more affordable. And isn't that what we want? Healthcare more affordable, real healthcare and for everybody, right? Yes. So, anyways, that that those topics are gonna come up, and we'll definitely get into peptides, you know, a little more and more, and uh maybe we'll get it into the in individual peptides so we can go one at a time through a lot of them, right? Because there's there each peptide um has so much information and and and so much there is a lot of research on quite a few of them, and it's important for people to understand them. And the more we can know about them, the less fear we'll have about them. Yes, and you know, I think it's all moving in a good direction. We're literally at the ground floor of uh whole medical system and wellness system being overhauled, you know. It's exciting. Yeah, it's we're we're definitely at the the bottom floor of that, and it's gonna go nowhere but up.

Anna Howe 22:22

Right? Yes.

Carey Howe 22:24

Okay. So um I would say that that's the end of our podcast. If there was somebody that's kind of moved by what you heard here today, maybe you know, give us a uh jingle, drop a line, a message anywhere. Um we can go deeper into explaining to you. We always like to talk about this to anybody and everybody uh to get to get everybody on the same page and wellness and and understanding it and being um you know, making sure you're in control of your health, not leaving it up to somebody else.

Anna Howe 22:56

Yeah, that sounds great. Yeah, if anyone has any questions about peptides, that's kind of our or any vitality you know issue.

Carey Howe 23:04

Um, and it's you know, it's it's by design, right? It just doesn't happen to you. You gotta think about these things and work on them and monitor them. Yes, right.

Anna Howe 23:12

Mm-hmm. Great.

Carey Howe 23:14

All right. Well, until next time.

Anna Howe 23:16

Thank you for listening, and we will talk to you soon.

Carey Howe 23:20

All right. Ciao from Costa Rica.

Anna Howe 23:26

Thanks for spending time with us today. If this episode sparked something for you, be sure to subscribe so you don't miss what's next. Share the show with someone who cares about living well and building a longer, more vibrant life.

Carey Howe 23:40

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Anna Howe 23:48

Until next time, live with intention, stay curious, and design your vitality.