August, 2025
A big thank you
Opting in to a monthly “Wire” from Well Past Forty LLC and me is your act of trust. For that trust, I am grateful. These Wires are not marketing or sales-oriented. I’m not sellin’ nuttin’ – to coin a phrase.
I am sharing vetted information and knowledge to help you gain and sustain your healthitude. Think sweat-based and science-backed!
Peptides?!
If you are like me, you have recently seen and heard much ado about “ buzzy” Peptides as ergogenic nutrients for muscle gain, weight loss, skin support, and more.
What the heck are Peptides?
Let’s start bottom-up with four organic elements, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. Recall that ~90 percent of our healthy bodies constituted these four elements.
With the right chemical bonds, these elements can form vital biochemical building blocks for us that are called amino acids. What is an amine, and what is an acid?
Well, an amine is a molecule that has nitrogen (N), that is it.
An acid is a molecule that can accept electrons and form “covalent” chemical bonds. An acid does not always contain Hydrogen. An acid turns blue litmus paper red, and has a pH of 7 or less. The lower the pH, te “more acidic” is the substance. An acid often can taste sour – like citric acid. Yet don’t be cavalier in tasting possible acids – trust me.
These four [C,H,O, and N] elements can form nine (9) essential and eleven 11 non-essential amino acids that scientists know of. All can be found in macronutrients, or the 11 non-essential amino acids are fabricated in our quite amazing bodies.
The essential amino acids – nine of ‘em – cannot be made in our GI system, so we need to consume complete essential amino acids from individual food items or from groups of macronutrients. Yes, it is possible for vegans to consume adequate amino acids…
The mnemonic PVT TIM HILL helps folks remember most or all of our nine essential AAs –
P – Phenylalanine
V – Valine
T – Threonine
T – Tryptophan
I – Isoleucine
M – Methionine
H – Histidine
I – LeucIne (note that this second ‘I’ in the mnemonic is stylized to make the PVT TIM HILL acronym work)
L – Lysine (We skip the last “L” in HILL 🙂)
Brick Building
From little building blocks to impressive 3-D structures, here is a physical metaphor for how amino acids, peptides, and proteins are constructed::
Amino Acids are Individual bricks: Imagine them as the individual, unique bricks you have in your bin. Each brick has a slightly different shape or “color” appendage that gives it unique properties. Let’s take Leucine as an example, with essential AA food sources like these to promote muscle synthesis and growth:
Credit: Optimising Nutrition
Sarcopenia is the result of insufficient muscle synthesis from aging, underuse, or glandular dysfunctions. Most adult Americans, particularly baby boomer women are protein (and leucine deficient).
Next, Peptides are short “2 dimensional” brick-to-brick constructs of amino acids: Peptides can be from 2 to around 50 amino acids in length. Peptides are your simpler creations. If you were using a certain Danish version of plastic bricks, you could make a railroad, or a planar surface. Peptides have specific jobs in the body, like as hormones or signaling molecules.
- An artificial sweetener – aspartame – is a dipeptide of 2 amino acids.
- Glutathione is a very important tripeptide
- Long polypeptides – or those peptide chains of up to ~ 50 amino acids then become classified as proteins. Some proteins in our bodies can be formed from thousands of peptides. Now, that is POLY! These “polygons” have folded, three-dimensional shapes instead of linear chains.
Proteins (Long, Complex LEGO Structures): Proteins are much larger and more complex structures made by linking together a lot of amino acids (usually 50 or more, sometimes hundreds or even thousands!). Crucially, these long chains then fold up into very specific and often intricate three-dimensional shapes. This folding is essential for them to do their job. Think of a protein as a highly detailed, functional LEGO castle or spaceship. These complex structures allow proteins to perform a huge variety of functions in your body, from building tissues (like collagen) to carrying oxygen (like hemoglobin) to speeding up chemical reactions (like enzymes).
In a healthy walnut shell:
- Amino acids: The individual building blocks.
- Peptides: Short chains of amino acids.
- Proteins: “Long and folded “3D” structures of 50 or more amino acids.
Danger Zone !
Prolonged use of what seems to be goodness may very well have its dark and dangerous side. Trust me.
Quoting Hone Health, “Long-term effects of many peptides remain poorly understood. Although some studies have demonstrated benefits such as increased lean body mass and improved body composition (in populations with clinical need for the drugs), these gains have not consistently translated to enhanced muscle strength, physical performance, or overall quality of life.
“Data on the safety and efficacy of such therapies over decades are lacking, creating uncertainty about their role in chronic use,” Roberts says. “while short-term outcomes appear favorable, the cumulative risks associated with prolonged GH manipulation remain a significant concern.”
Remember that I ask each committed Strong to Save person to be a true student or your endeavor, and to only take risks for which you are accountable. Period.
X Factors
As your experiential coach and operating system tester, I am inevitably on the lookout for X-Factors that I use to enhance my healthitude and to help me down-age. I do not suggest your investment in an X Factor item unless I have tried it and experienced a favorable outcome. For this month’s WIRE, I offer my feedback to you about my positive experiences with:
- Heat, Vibration, and Red Light Therapy Device or “Sleeve”
- TENS electrical stimulation unit and
- Vibration Stands
Mindful of costs, I let you as an informed follower to do your own market survey for “best value” items. It is little surprise that a majority of X-Factor items are built offshore, many in a certain Asian country nicknamed “The Middle Kingdom.” Caveat Emptor.
=> A Heat, Vibration, and Red Light therapy “sleeve” or device may look like this model:
=> Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS) Unit
These reasonably priced units are USB-chargeable. I have had great success in use of a TENS unit for stimulation and healing.
My acupuncturist used a TENS with her acupuncture needles to promote healing of my Medial Cartilage tear:
=> Vibration Plate or Stand
I use a Vibration Plate for my personal training with a gent who has a spastic paraplegia. I also use the plate for me 🙂 This link provides some Vibration plate models with different features and functions. I spent about $85 for the plate that I’ve very happy with.
Benefits of Vibration may include:
balance, gait, posture, and motor coordination. Muscle strength and mass may also increase. Some reports suggest that a Plate can mollify fibromyalgia.
Safety first, and don’t invest more money than you afford for perceived benefits of X Factor.
August Haiku
Dog Days of Summer
Sirius crossing our Sky
Autumn draws closer.
Benefits of Exercise
As John Wayne’s character once shared on screen, “Life is tough enough without being stupid.”
And, as I believe, our Universe doesn’t exist to do me any favors.
So, what’s a KABOOMER or GenX to do?
- Facing Cancer – Exercise.
- Facing ASCVD – Exercise.
- Staving off Dementia Related Diseases – Exercise.
- Improve Night Life – Sexercise.
- Carve out 7-12 extra healthy years – Exercise.
What’s not to Love?
It is my goal to help you learn to immerse and enjoy your “Motion as Lotion.”
Please contact me to build your habitual success to thrive and strive longer than your peers.
Stay well past forty,
Dave F.