What's new in longevity research this week, checked against the full record.

Primary sources

• 83:07 Lloyd Klickstein Buying peptides from online makers is a mistake, Klickstein says. He compares it to buying opioids on a street corner: you have no idea what is in the vial. Even if it is what the label says, the data on what it does are almost non-existent. For BPC-157, he says every study comes from one investigator and none has been reproduced.
• 12:33 Peter Attia Put BPC-157 in the bottom tier of his peptide ranking in August. He found no clear mechanism, no human trials and no safety data.
• 178:29 Rhonda Patrick For her it comes down to safety: a source you trust and someone qualified to prescribe it. She allows that the recoveries she has heard of could be placebo.
• 28:40 Andrew Huberman Finds the animal safety margin wide, but it raises VEGF and growth hormone receptors, which could speed an existing tumor. He cautions against continuous use.
• 03:15 Edwin Lee Calls it a 'Wolverine' peptide for muscle, tendon and joint injuries. His evidence is patient results, his own experience and a rat tendon study.
• 53:44 Tommy Wood High homocysteine goes with faster cognitive decline, Wood says, and the trials put the threshold around 10 or 11: ideally below 10, definitely below 13. Early B vitamin trials looked like failures because they gave B vitamins alone. In the VITACOG trial and the ones that followed, B vitamins slowed brain shrinkage only in people whose omega-3 status was adequate. His rough omega-3 bar is fatty fish two to three times a week, or 1 to 2 grams a day.
• 87:44 Richard Isaacson Same condition. Small doses of B12, B6 and folic acid slowed brain shrinkage and helped memory. That held only for people with high homocysteine who also had enough omega-3.
• 09:02 Richard Isaacson Cites VITACOG. People with high homocysteine who took B complex vitamins had slightly better memory and slower brain shrinkage. Homocysteine over 14 is tied to a 50% higher dementia risk.
• 150:01 Chris Masterjohn Calls the case that lowering homocysteine cuts heart risk 'definitely not an airtight argument'. He does not address the brain.
• 94:15 Tommy Wood An old estimate said people eat a credit card's worth of plastic a week. Wood says a recount found it was off by orders of magnitude. He also doubts the autopsy studies that find more plastic in dementia brains. Poor blood flow may let plastic collect, and the lab method can read fat as plastic. He still counts plasticizers like BPA and phthalates as harmful. So he keeps leftovers out of plastic and filters his water, but still eats canned beans and frozen vegetables.
• 33:47 Rhonda Patrick Cites the autopsy study Wood questions: up to 10 times more plastic in dementia brains. She says it proves no cause but is 'enough to raise serious concerns'.
• 55:25 Andrew Huberman Cites a 2024 study that found polyethylene in the artery plaque of about 58% of patients. He calls it correlative but says limiting exposure is a good idea.
• 14:14 Peter Attia His AMA says the credit card figure has been largely debunked. It puts intake at 10 to 300 micrograms a week, and most of it passes out in stool.
• 21:12 Mark Hyman Never heats food in plastic, stores it in glass and cooks in stainless steel or cast iron. He avoids telling people their packaging is poisoning them.
• 73:55 Tommy Wood In the COSMOS trial, older adults given a basic, low-dose multivitamin had brains that acted about 2 years younger on average, Wood says. The cheap, basic version is what showed a benefit, and he warns that very high doses could do harm.
• 70:08 COSMOS trial Same trial, same size of effect: people on the multivitamin slowed brain aging by 2.1 years, with a benefit to memory.
• 52:05 James DiNicolantonio On a typical multivitamin, he says, almost as many people stay low in magnesium, calcium and copper. Many need extra minerals on top.
• 130:28 Lloyd Klickstein In the BELIEVE trial, the high-dose group on bimagrumab plus semaglutide lost 22 to 23% of body weight and 45.7% of body fat at 72 weeks, which Klickstein compares to bariatric surgery. LDL rose about 20%, a direct effect of the drug on the liver. Earlier trials showed bimagrumab alone added 4 to 8% muscle, but muscles grew without getting stronger unless people lifted. Strength gains in BELIEVE were small.
• 78:26 Zachary Knight Without enough protein or lifting, 25 to 33% of the weight lost on these drugs is muscle. Knight says resistance training can offset some of that.
• 143:01 Ben Bikman Bikman cites a trial where almost 40% of the weight lost was lean mass, but says nobody has shown whether the drug or the diet causes it.
• 13:08 Dr. Tina Says 'the GLP-1s are not coming for your muscle': the loss is the same as any diet without lifting and protein.
• 03:50 Ralph DeFronzo Asks 'why are you so worried about muscle mass', since his patients walk better and feel stronger even as lean mass drops.

Every line above is a video and a minute.