#204

Exogenous HGH suppresses natural production for usually less than 24 hours. The moment you stop, natural production returns immediately back to where it would be if you never took it to begin with. It doesn’t act like testosterone. It’s more like exogenous thyroid and DHEA supplementation.

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#205

FWIW, MK-677 has many negative side effects. The injectable peptides work and few side effects: ipamorlin / cjc + tesamorlin.

Hunter Williams channel is very good info on health and peptides. I inject Ipa+cjc and tesa each morning at rising. I add BPC-157 as a ipamorlin / hGH potentiator. My IGF at 4 hr after injecting has been tested at 257. I’m 71yo male.

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#206

What about your IGF-1 at baseline (fasting IGF-1)?

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#207

@Mccoy, Of course good science would test pre and then post. The only data I have is;

  • 3yr ago prior to starting rapa and long before peptides: IGF-1 = 109, probably decent for a 71yo. I always get blood tests at 8:30am on Tuesdays (to be consistent).

  • After at least 2yr on rapa IGF-1 = 157. I would only be guessing why. I’ve been on TRT, thyroid level normalization to decently high levels for 15 yrs. Other nutricals relatively constant. I then added rapa, and a few cycles of traditional kitchen sink synolitic doses: D+Q+F in those few years prior to peptides. Something helped. A few days of D+Q+F never gave me a better feeling or energy boost least what I could tell.

  • Then this latest bump up in IGF-1 from 157 to 257. A decent jump after AM Ipamorlin+CJC+Tesamorlin. Std doses as found on the Hunter Williams youtube channel if you search his channel home page.

Why not blood test, give something a try, test again? The total costs these days is fairly low. Each of us has to experiment on our own bodies since there’s no agreed upon protocols and some protocols are highly variable depending on yiur body’s specific health statuses. IE the mitocondrial rejuvination protocols and dose are highly variable: urolithin-a, SLU-PP-332, SS-31, MOTSC. (would be another thread and Hunter Williams + Alex Kikel are experts).

Good luck to all, curt

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#208

This podcast episode with Kaeberlin is excellent. Unique information and worth listening to. Fahy’s explanations seem strong.

An RCT of his protocol would be great to fund. Fahy reports you will see substantial biomarkers improvements including VO2 max within a year. He says he doesn’t have funding for an RCT.

The synthesis of Fahy’s argument and other data on IGF-1 would seem to be to generally keep it low, but periodically for short times boost it (such as with GH, in combination with metformin or SGLT2i to reduce blood sugar side effects) to rejuvenate the thymus.

When should someone want to start this and how often if he’s right?

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#209

Rapamycin and Thymus: timestamp 20 min

Fahy Protocol - Regrow the Thymus, Reverse Your Age

#210

After listening to the podcast, these were my questions exactly.

Matt K is keen to try the protocol himself, so I’m hoping a series on that will emerge over the next year.
In terms of best age to start therapy my best guess is to look at when thymus function decline accelerates.
“Thymic involution is associated with increased susceptibility to many diseases, including cancer, infection, and autoimmunity”
So looking at cancer and autoimmunity incidence, and also vaccine response… late 40s would probably be sensible. Fahy started on himself at age 46. The TRIIM trial was targeted at 50 to 65 year olds

As to how often to repeat, Id love there to be a proper follow up to the TRIIM trials. Natural involution leads to 3% decline per year up to about 40 and then slows down to 1% per year until about 65. The speed of re-involution following therapy is the big question, and I couldn’t find an answer. Fahy has targeted his own thymus at least twice in 30odd years. And I suspect more than that.

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#211

I’m targeting mine 3 times a month for the past 20 months.

But that is not the only reason I am increasing my “natural” production of hGH. We cover the 3 compounds listed in the TRIIM with 2 substitutions;

  1. Metformin - we use GLP1-RA’s to maintain glucose control
  2. Somatotropin - we use hGH secretagogues
  3. DHEA - we use this one

To be clear, I do not take exogenous hGH (Somatotropin) as I feel that has too many drawbacks.

I do use hGH secretagogues, just before bed time to stimulte my natural production of hGH. When we go to sleep there is a peak of hGH production about 2hrs after going to sleep. What I use has a short 2 hr half life and has lots of clinical evidence for increasing hGH in a pulsitile manner.

I use secretagogues at that time so I do not have excess hGH when it would not be normally produced.

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#212

Matt K is keen to try the protocol himself, so I’m hoping a series on that will emerge over the next year.

Exactly! I agree … trust Matt.

Under my GP’s guidance, I started HGH (a month ago) to regrow my thymus. I will do a complete blood work up and biological test on inflammation and methylation at 3 months use!

So far… my most noteable improvements - is skin quality on neck… chest and forearms.

Also, I gained 10 pounds (to be expected some is water retention)… stronger… bigger biceps/arms and fuller chest- was gettinga bit boney in the center - now full. But overall still lean.
I am pleased.

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#213

Could you elaborate a little bit on your protocol?
Dosage regimen, HGH or GH secretagogues, DHEA, Metformin,…
Do you target one year of HGH use or only 3 months.
What’s your IGF-1 target level?

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#214

With me, that’s N=2 for @Steve_Combi 's protocol

I started the TRIIM protocol in December but since then I replaced hGH (somatropin) by hGH secretagogues:

  • hGH 2IU => CJC-1295 (250mcg) + Ipamorelin (400mcg) 5 days a week before bed
  • Metformin => Tirzepatide 4mg once per week
  • DHEA: 10mg/day. I started with 25mg but that was putting me way above the reference range
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#215

Hey… I am using meditrope… the gold standard for generic gh.

Seems to be great stuff. Initially had slight swelling and itchy at injection site. For the first 2 weeks. My body has acclimated… no reactions now.

I take 2iu 4 days in a row and rest 3 days.
Also take 10 mg DHEA… prevents insulin issues.

Easy peasy.

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#216

Like I’ve said, the weight gain is definitely water retention, but the fullness and lipolysis are nice because you lean out and your muscles inflate. The strategy of 4 days on 3 off is a smart one. I see a lot of 5 on 2 off and every other day dosi g.

I would just advise that people monitor eGFR and cystatin c because the water retention can put a lot of stress on the kidneys. That’s a good reason to titrate up slowly. Maybe this is complicated by the fact that HGH directly increases cystatin c production in adipose tissue. Someone here might know how big or small of an effect this is.

I also keep an eye on thyroid markers because it increases conversion of T4 to T3.

A body of anecdotal evidence suggests that relatively lean, fit people who exercise usually don’t experience insulin resistance on doses up to 4IU a day, so I don’t think most need to worry about that too much.

Now even at low doses, over years, one can grow excess skin and end up with a saggy, older looking face, so that’s something to be aware of.

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#217

Can you comment on this more?

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#218

Thank you. You will take Rapamycin at one of the HGH rest days?

I am wondering why you, Steve or others don’t stick to the TRIIM protocol if they want to rejuvenate the thymus (at least this seems to be the focus for you). It’s the only protocol which seems to indicate that it has an effect on the thymus.Modifcation of the protocol seems to be just unnecsseary risk and gamble.

We don’t know if lower doses of HGH have the same impact on thymus rejuvenation, how long you need to take HGH, impact of secretagogues etc. I think it was mentioned that you need to have a certain level of HGH to motivate the thymus to rejuvenate. Besides this, it seems that IGF-1 levels are only a very rough metric for rejuvenation. CD4/CD8 seems to be a good metric to follow up, but it is expensive.

Looking forward to your blood work results.

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#219

I was a bit sloppy with my wording. It’s more of stretching than direct stimulus of skin growth, though acromegaly especially of the nose, chin, and forehead will force some. The effects we don’t want are disruption of collagen remodeling that initially lead to deposition and collagen thickening, but can lead to degredation upon stopping administration when fibroblast stimulation drops back off. So after you stop, you can end up with less elastic, thinner skin.

Indirect “growth” can be caused by water retention that slowly stretches the skin over time, so when you stop you essentially deflate and have looser skin.

In top of that, the lipolytic effects are significant in subcutaneous facial fat, so you can wind up with hollowed out cheeks and lose the skin support … more sagging.

This won’t happen overnight and is dose dependent, but look at HGH users/abusers who have been on it for a few years and you’ll see all of these features. Joe Rogan is an example of long term, low dose impacts, but it can be much worse. I’ll try to come back and provide references later when I’m at a computer.

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#220

You wrote: will you take Rapamycin at one of the HGH rest days?

Yes, as not to have HGH conflict with rapamycin. I have listened to several podcasts and studied Dr. Fahy thymus regrowth protocol. If I followed him completely I would have stop rapamycin completely because from his perspective… degrades the thymus.

Which Fahy doesn’t seem to understand low dose intermittent (weekly) rapamycin protocols work.

In his Kaeberlein interview… which I think is the best one because of Matt’s deeper dig on things like rapamycin in combination and DHEA supplements while dosing. He is curious by nature and really asks great fact based questions… and already knows how the body functions… to challenge or ask a deeper question.

In the end, it’s Matt that shows rapamycin should have no real effect on thymus degradation… based on a 6 mg dose weekly… not daily. These things make me a bit skeptical of being lock step with Fahy. He seems to be tunnel visioned on his protocol. Good for him.

Hence, I am adapting (as with rapamycin) as I go based on qualitative feeling… and quantified testing.

Again, so far so good. Testing in another month should point to HGH doing good and continue… no affect… or any detrimental changes… and stop. Reevaluate.

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