Peptides are currently having their time in the sun as the next big thing in wellness and anti-aging. But like many popular healthcare treatments, they have rather humble origins in helping everyday people treat ordinary health concerns.
Washed out by all the spotlight, the true merit of peptides can be traced back for years, just in far less conspicuous ways. This is what we will touch on today.
Today at Revive Wellness Clinic, we want to shine a light on the science behind peptides. By sharing a bit about how we use injectable peptides in Oxford, we can explore more about our approach to treating a variety of health concerns for our clients.
We will also discuss the current status of peptides in the American healthcare system and how you can be sure the peptides you are receiving for your treatment are sourced safely.
How can peptide therapy help me improve my health?
When administered by a medical healthcare provider and sourced from a compounding pharmacy, peptides are a safe and effective form of treatment. For many years, peptide therapy has been helping people improve energy levels, sleep, physical health, and sexual performance. The following are some of the ways we use peptides to treat common health concerns:
Improve Athletic Performance and Injury Recovery
One of our most popular peptides is a growth hormone secretagogue. This peptide naturally stimulates your body’s production of the growth hormone.
The Growth Hormone
The growth hormone is produced in the pituitary gland (located at the base of the brain) and is quite literally responsible for helping you grow throughout childhood into your adult body.
After you have reached your full growth, this hormone still provides vital help managing the development and maintenance of your bones, muscles, tissues, and other structural elements. This hormone also helps maintain your metabolism. So while the levels typically decline with age, our bodies still need growth hormone
Naturally, this hormone is quite adept at improving physical performance. Just think about what your athleticism was like as a teenager—that’s when the growth hormone hits its peak. For years, scientists sought to capitalize on the unique abilities of the growth hormone to help people increase their strength and resilience against injury.
The Problem With Replacing Growth Hormone
Many of our patients ask us why we don’t want to just give growth hormone. The issue with giving growth hormones directly is that they can present many health risks, including:
- Type II diabetes
- Carpal tunnel syndrome
- Some cancers
The risks associated with synthetic growth hormones are too significant to stand up to their efficacy as a treatment for improving athleticism and mobility.
Secretagogue Stimulates the Growth Hormone Naturally
The story with the secretagogues is different. Secretagogues are not the growth hormone itself, but a peptide that is able to stimulate the pituitary gland to secrete growth hormone. When we use secretagogues as one of our injectable peptides in Oxford, we encourage the production of the growth hormone. This helps the body produce more of it naturally and in a safer way
Encouraging the production of growth hormones with secretagogues can result in:
- Increased muscle growth.
- Better fitness and exercise capabilities.
- Faster recovery times from injury.
- Better sleep patterns.
Resolve Problems of Sexual Function
Sexual desire, arousal, and performance can let us down at the most inopportune moments. The change in hormone levels as we age is often responsible for this subsequent change in sexual function.
With peptides, we can counteract many of these hormonal changes. There are a couple different peptides we use to help people with problems concerning sexual function.
Apomorphine
Apomorphine is a dopamine agonist. This means it is able to activate your brain’s dopamine receptors as if it were dopamine. You may think of dopamine as a “feel good” chemical. It is well-known for its role in regulating emotion, but a lesser-known fact is that it also stimulates libido, extending to erectile function in men.
When the peptide apomorphine acts as dopamine, it is able to latch onto the dopamine receptors in the brain that engender sexual response.
Oxytocin
Another injectable peptide in Oxford we often use to treat problems of sexual desire and function is oxytocin. The oxytocin hormone does more than stimulate sexual desire. This hormone secures partner attachment in both males and females.
When oxytocin is released in the body, it creates feelings of bonding, social recognition, and trust. For these reasons, oxytocin is sometimes referred to as the “love hormone,” or the “cuddle hormone.” Increasing this hormone with injectable peptides in Oxford can enhance the pleasure of orgasms and improve libido by increasing partner attachment.
Bremelanotide
Bremelanotide is a peptide we use in men and women who struggle with hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) or other arousal disorder. Women with HSDD experience distress from a lack of interest in sexual activity.
Bremelanotide is able to activate several kinds of melanocortin receptors—most crucially, the melanocortin receptors in the brain that control the release of dopamine in response to sexual activity.
When used as a treatment for hypoactive sexual desire in women, bremelanotide has been proven to increase sexual desire by encouraging these melanocortin receptors to release more dopamine.
Improve Body Composition
Another aspect of our bodies that is hard to have control over is the composition and distribution of weight, including both fat and muscle. Many people who struggle with their weight go to medical weight loss right away.
But being overweight isn’t always the precise issue these people are facing. If it’s visceral fat you want to treat, or if you are looking for an alternative to medical weight loss, injectable peptides in Oxford, specifically secretagog or tesamorelin, might be a good option for you.
Secretagogue for Improved Body Composition
We have already discussed how secretagogue works to improve athletic performance and healing capabilities in the section above. When it comes to improving body composition, secretagogue has proven to increase production of the growth hormone, which has successfully reduced visceral fat.
By increasing the production of the growth hormone, secretagogue reduces visceral fat, increases muscle mass, and improves insulin sensitivity, all of which contribute to improved body composition.
Tesamorelin, a Secretagogue for Fat Loss and Muscle Gain
Tesamorelin is a growth hormone-releasing hormone (GHRH) secretagogue. This injectable peptide in Oxford mimics a hormone produced naturally in the body that communicates with the pituitary gland to release more of the growth hormone.
This peptide was first used as a treatment for HIV/AIDS patients to help reduce fat in the abdominal region. Tesamorelin improves the metabolism and increases the production of muscle mass, both of which contribute to fat reduction.
How to Use Peptides Safely
The FDA has recently restricted the use of peptides, making it more difficult for general care facilities to offer these treatments. The FDA restrictions in relation to peptides are not about the safety and efficacy of peptides themselves, but rather concerns about impurities in the manufacturing of some peptides.
Injectable peptides in Oxford are a safe and effective treatment option, but they must be sourced through compounding pharmacies. When people experience issues with peptides, it is because the peptides they are receiving are not properly regulated.
When you purchase peptides from any source other than a compounding pharmacy, you risk receiving peptides that have not been checked for quality. Peptides from other sources could contain impurities; other substances could be added, like hormones, performance-enhancing drugs, or other banned substances. Your peptide could even be a placebo.
All peptides are off-label. When you go through a compounding pharmacy, you are guaranteed sterility, correct manufacturing processes, and safety.
Complementary Treatments
At Revive Wellness Clinic, we often use peptides in combination with other treatments to maximize efficacy, such as our hormone therapy and our body sculpting treatment, Emsculpt NEO.
Peptides and Hormone Therapy
Our clients use hormone therapy to treat a variety of concerns. Hormone therapy can help improve energy levels, quality of sleep, and sexual performance, and it can be used to treat symptoms of menopause or improve overall strength and vitality.
When a client has been using hormone therapy for a long time, injectable peptides in Oxford can provide a reset and open up new pathways in the body to treat these same concerns. Using these treatments in alternation or combination improves the efficacy of the work these treatments do in the body.
Peptides and Body Sculpting
At Revive Wellness Clinic, we use Emsculpt NEO for body sculpting. This device breaks down fat and builds muscle using a combination of radiofrequency and high-intensity focused electromagnetic technology.
For some of our clients, we suggest combining this treatment with sermorelin or tesamorelin peptide therapy. Both of these peptides increase the production of the growth hormone, which helps improve the metabolism and production of muscle. When used in combination with Emsulpt NEO, peptide therapy can improve fat reduction and muscle growth.
Are You a Candidate for Injectable Peptides?
In Oxford, peptides prove to be miraculous in their versatility and the results they are able to achieve. At Revive Wellness Clinic, we noticed a gap in our offerings, and we felt like we could do even better for our clients.
Our team noticed our clients needed something to elevate their overall wellness. With our treatments, we are not just interested in resolving health issues, but in helping our clients improve their quality of life. This is what peptide therapy is all about, elevating the right chemicals in your body to improve overall function and vitality.
Let’s Talk About Peptide Therapy
It’s important to know that the use of injectable peptides in Oxford is considered off-label treatment. To ensure the safety of our patients, we highly encourage that you see us for an evaluation to help determine if this may be a good option for you.
Schedule a consultation with us today to see if you would be a good candidate for peptide therapy.