Elizabeth Yurth, M.D.

So how do you define peptides?

So basically think about peptides as small protein chains.

So if you look at a protein, it's really greater than 50 amino acids.

So proteins are just amino acid chains like glycine, arginine, lysine, right?

They're just strings of amino acids linked together by bonds.

Protein makes it greater than 50 amino acids.

And then a peptide is anywhere from two to 48 amino acids, right?

So it's very large peptides.

And there's very small ones that are two or three amino acids.

So GHK copper, things like that are just like three amino acids.

They basically are, think of them as just signaling molecules in your body.

So where proteins do one thing, hormones do one thing.

Peptides have very specific signaling messages that they tell your body.

That's why they're kind of unique is because they have very specific messages.

So you can't really do as much harm with them as you might with other things.

So when you think about the categories of peptides, the different types of peptides, people forget that we actually make peptides.

So a lot of our peptides are what we call endogenous.

They're made by our system, right?

And in that way, they're a little bit natural, just like hormones.

So people are doing hormone replacement.