Category: Peptides Research
Research articles and educational content on peptides and longevity compounds, authored and reviewed by Dr. James, a board-certified neurosurgeon trained at Yale University, and Dr. Tom, a licensed pharmacist. All content is for research and educational purposes only.
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NAD+ and Neuroprotection Research: What the Data Reveals About Brain Energy Metabolism
Three years ago, I stood at the bedside of a 58-year-old engineer — a man whose hands had built bridges — watching him struggle to recall his daughter’s name six months after what should have been a routine procedure. His scans were clean. His labs unremarkable. But something had dimmed. That case sent me down…
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SS-31 Peptide and Mitochondrial Research: What the Data Shows About Cellular Energy Restoration
I’ve been thinking about mitochondria differently since I started reviewing the SS-31 peptide research literature. Most of us in medicine learned to think of mitochondria as the cell’s power plant — a simplified metaphor that, honestly, undersells how critical their dysfunction is in nearly every major disease state. What SS-31 does, at least in preclinical…
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Semax and Cognitive Enhancement Research: What the ACTH-Derived Neuropeptide Data Shows About Brain Function
I’ve spent a career operating on the human brain, and I still find it remarkable — a three-pound organ that somehow generates consciousness, creativity, memory, and the capacity to ask questions about its own nature. What I’ve also observed is how fragile cognitive function can be, and how variable recovery looks after neurological insult. That…
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Selank and Stress Resilience Research: How This Tuftsin-Derived Peptide Modulates the Stress Response
Chronic stress doesn’t just feel bad — it restructures the brain. I’ve reviewed the neuroimaging literature on stress-related brain changes extensively, and the data is sobering: sustained elevated cortisol reduces hippocampal volume, impairs prefrontal cortical connectivity, and drives the amygdala toward hyperreactivity. The stress response system, designed for acute threats, does measurable damage when it…
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Epithalon and Circadian Rhythm Research: The Pineal Peptide’s Influence on Biological Clocks
There’s a patient population I see more than most neurosurgeons: night shift workers, frequent transatlantic travelers, people whose sleep schedules have been systematically disrupted for years. The neurological consequences of chronic circadian disruption are well documented — cognitive decline, increased neurodegeneration risk, impaired immune function, accelerated aging biomarkers. What’s less well understood is the signaling…
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BPC-157 and Tendon Repair Research: What Gastric Pentadecapeptide Data Reveals About Connective Tissue
Tendons are some of the most underappreciated structures in human biology — until they fail. In neurosurgery I work extensively with the hands and wrists of surgeons, and I can tell you: a damaged tendon is a career-threatening injury. Tendons transmit force from muscle to bone with extraordinary efficiency, but their repair biology is deeply…
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LL-37 and Wound Healing Research: What the Antimicrobial Peptide Data Reveals About Tissue Repair
The next time you scrape your knee, something extraordinary happens in the first few seconds. Before the adaptive immune system even knows there’s an injury, your innate immune defenses are already deploying antimicrobial peptides — biological weapons that can kill bacteria, viruses, and fungi on contact, while simultaneously signaling to the tissue repair machinery to…
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KPV Peptide and Gut Inflammation Research: How This Alpha-MSH Fragment Modulates the Intestinal Immune Response
Gut inflammation is one of medicine’s most complicated problems — not because we don’t understand what’s happening, but because what’s happening involves so many overlapping systems. The intestinal immune system is the largest immune organ in the body, constantly making decisions about what’s foreign and dangerous versus what’s food and microbiome. When that decision-making breaks…
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MOTS-c and Exercise Research: What the Mitochondria-Derived Peptide Reveals About Physical Performance
Exercise is medicine — that’s a phrase we say in medicine, but we rarely ask the mechanistic question underneath it: what exactly is the biological language that exercise speaks? Recent research has identified a peptide called MOTS-c that may be part of the answer. It’s produced inside mitochondria — the organelles that power cells —…
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Tirzepatide and Type 2 Diabetes Research: Unpacking the Dual GIP/GLP-1 Mechanism Data
For three decades, the treatment of type 2 diabetes operated on a relatively narrow pharmacological runway. Metformin, sulfonylureas, DPP-4 inhibitors, SGLT-2 inhibitors — each incrementally better, but none delivering the kind of transformational metabolic results that would constitute actual disease reversal in a meaningful number of patients. Tirzepatide changed that conversation. The SURPASS trial data,…
