Peptides for Lyme Disease and co-infections

dcd & Garzie check this out, I wonder if this would help with Bartonella's fibrinogen issue:

GHK-Cu Peptide

"Suppression of Fibrinogen

GHK was isolated as a plasma molecule that suppressed fibrinogen. Fibrinogen is best known for its ability to form blood clots. However, it also heavily influences the flow of blood through the microcirculation, where blood acts as a thixotropic fluid, somewhat like toothpaste, flowing under increased pulses of blood pressure, then reverting to a semi-solid gel. Elevated fibrinogen greatly increases the blood viscosity in the microcirculation by increasing red blood cell "stacking" or rouleaux formation. Studies in Germany and Scotland have found that fibrinogen levels are the top risk factor for cardio vascular diseases (CVD). The Prospective Cardiovascular Münster (PROCAM) study followed 5389 men for 10 years. It found that the incidence of coronary events in the top third of the plasma fibrinogen levels was 2.4-fold higher than in the bottom third. Individuals in the top third of levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol who also had high plasma fibrinogen concentrations had a 6.1-fold increase in coronary risk. Unexpectedly, individuals with low plasma fibrinogen had a low incidence of coronary events even when serum LDL cholesterol was high [42].

The Scottish Heart Health Study followed 10,359 men and women for 2 years, and fibrinogen was the single most powerful risk factor for CVD risk or death and more predictive than lipoprotein cholesterol. The increase in (relative risk) between the highest and lowest fibrinogen levels was 301% for men and 342% for women (CVD death) and 259% for men and 220% for women (death from any cause) [43].

As mentioned above (Park et al.), GHK suppresses the production of Interleukin-6, a main positive regulator of fibrinogen production, both in cell cultures and in mice. As our gene profiling data indicate, GHK downregulates (−475%) the gene for the beta chain of fibrinogen. Since equal amounts of all three polypeptide chains are needed to produce fibrinogen, when synthesis of one of the chain of fibrinogen is suppressed, it will have a general inhibitory effect on fibrinogen synthesis [44]."

From: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc6073405/

Garzie said...
the other thing that i found a slight concern is that the paper says it effects gene expression of something like 50% of all human genes by 30% or more - either up or down - if i understood it correctly

Thank you Garzie, I was actually worried about the DNA expression so this is very helpful. It's a bit concerning to me as well. Maybe it's better to keep an eye on this one but skip it for now. Or possibly using it topically on these awful Bartonella scars.

hard for me to know what to think Rainy

haven't dug deep into them at this point

see them as interesting - but also as a very early technology in its cycle - so there is a great deal more unknowns than knowns - and this includes safety related unknowns

that's why they are not v high on the list for me personally

its also a bit of a wild west in terms of manufacturers trying to cash in on the curve early - and not all are scrupulous in how they go about it - leading to increased risks for people taking them - in terms of purity, dose, etc.
the approach of many of the companies making these things seems to be
"this seems interesting - there are a couple of papers on it - looks like there might be a market for it - lets make it and sell it quick before the loopholes get closed"

everyone does this equation differently - but for myself - i have fought v hard over the last 2years to get my health even half way back - these things could be great - but could also be bad - so the equation for me is that i have to much to lose to simply roll the dice.

i might be convinced to tray some of the oral ones if i had done enough research on them to convince myself on the safety aspect - less so the injectables

RainyCloud said...

Just to give a bit of background, I'm struggling with Candida again . . . . , and the Candida keeps coming back,...

Rainy,
How do you know?

P.S. - Hope things continue to go well with the peptides.

Hi,

Not sure if there's still interest in this thread but will give an update just in case. Today was day 9 of KPV (skipped yesterday).

So far it's been a really helpful peptide. It's helping a lot with inflammation which I think is going to make my antibiotic treatment easier going forward. In regards to candida, it's hard for me to say if it's helping with that. I might try the oral KPV version next month to see if that's a better fit for candida.

The downside of KPV is that it can sometimes cause me to sleep more. I can't really pinpoint what's causing this but I'm currently at 600 mcg/day so I'm going to go back down to 200 mcg/day. It happened in a curve, the first few days I felt more energy and then it started making me sleep more, so will try a lower dose tomorrow and see how that goes!

I've also been trying to figure out if the amino acids that form the peptide will also be individually absorbed in the end of the chain?

What I mean is that KPV (for example) is in the following sequence:

"KPV is a 3-amino acid peptide, lysine-proline-valine"

So I'm trying to figure out if they are broken down in the end individually, because if that's the case, the sleepiness that I sometimes feel might be because of one of the individual amino acids being too abundant. (ie. From memory I think lysine needs to be in balance with arginine, but I could be mistaken it for a different amino acid).

In other news (haha), I found out KPV: "Inhibits NF-kB and inflammatory MAPK signaling"

So I did some research and found out that Bartonella up-regulates NF-kB, see here:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc98604/

This might explain why it helps with the inflammation/cytokine issue.

Hi Garzie!

It's funny you said you haven't dug into peptides and then proceed to post a really helpful and insightful response on the matter haha. Thank you!

That makes a lot of sense what you're saying and great catch on the dosage thing, I had not considered that but yeah, there's no way that would cause fatigue at those levels, indeed.

I hope I'll figure out what else can cause it, forgot to use it today at lower dose. With MOTS-c I did eventually find out it uses up Folate so it causes fatigue for people after taking it, because of that. I found out about that on the phoenix rising forum where someone else was having the same issue.

Thank you Garzie!

That makes sense about the overlap. It was just my strange way of saying that I am grateful for your response and that it was very helpful 🙂.

I understand people being wary and I think that's a good thing. Generally speaking, I am too about many of the peptides, there are some that I will never try for that exact reason.

For me personally, I tried weighing the pros and cons of trying KPV and decided it was worth it for me. But the outcome of that question is very different for everyone. So I truly understand.

To be honest there are some days where I am still a bit wary myself but overall it's going well. Very grateful for the anti-inflammatory benefits I'm getting 🙂.

Quick mini update: tried a lower dose of KPV today - somewhere between ~200 mcg and ~300 mcg (hard to measure haha) and didn't have the sleepiness. I think my dose was just too high. Also, I took yesterday off, I think that helped too.

Hi Lymie24,

I'm so glad to hear you got something useful out of this thread!

So the first time I heard about peptides was in the fitness/weightlifting community, which has always been a hobby of mine but had to come to a halt due to Lyme.

However, at the time I never really looked into it any further because using peptides for weightlifting goals isn't something I'm personally interested in.

Then suddenly people were talking about BPC-157 as a peptide that helps in healing all kinds of injuries and also has other benefits.

I think that's the point where I started wondering if maybe peptides could be useful for Lyme/Bart etc.

One of the first articles I read about it was actually this one:

https://bengreenfieldlife.com/article/supplements-articles/how-to-use-bpc-157/

I was already on testosterone replacement therapy so I was comfortable with using needles and kind of went from there. I never expected it to cure my Lyme and it hasn't, so that's something to keep in mind. It's more of a supportive thing to existing treatments.

So then the first "general health peptide" I came across was Thymosin Alpha 1 because I was reading about how it helps the immune system stay in balance. I posted my experience with that earlier in this thread and was quite satisfied with it. After that I tried MOTS-c, which has been useful also.

Then my peptide experience kind of came to a halt for a while. However, not long after I started noticing that LLMD's were starting to use peptides. So I figured maybe I was onto something after all. That's when I tried KPV and it's going pretty well so far

I will also share the resources that I have found useful below.

In terms of capsules, yes that can definitely work, but it won't work for all the peptides. From the top of my head bpc-157 should work orally, kpv does for sure. There's also an oral Thymosin peptide (I think that one is called ThymogEn) that they claim works orally but I'm a bit skeptical about that specific one, just because there's only 1 product that has it in oral form and I've never read it works that way anywhere else.

That's so cool how there's a peptide clinic that opened nearby! Honestly, if you can get them to do the first injection with you together, then I think you'll be comfortable doing them yourself shortly after. That is, if that's an issue for you at all (you might already be comfortable with needles). This really makes a lot more peptides available to you.

Here are some of the resources I found helpful:

-- This book doesn't have a whole lot of text but it's a great way to get an overview of every peptide: https:// https://www.amazon.com/peptide-protocols-william-seeds-md/dp/0578624354

-- This clinic that I've never been to has a good overview of every peptide if you go into the menu section and hover over peptide: https://www.transformyou.com/peptide-therapy

-- I also came across this website recently, (which I think is also a clinic) that has a great overview: https://koniverwellness.com/cutting-edge-peptide-therapy-protocols-by-koniver-wellness/

So basically what I do is I use some of the above websites to get sort of an overview of a peptide and then I try to verify some of the claims. Which usually makes me end up on pubmed or other scholar websites, which I'm sure you're familiar with, but here is pubmed, regardless:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/

Then if I am still missing information I use a normal search engine to find out if there are reviews or concerns about a specific peptide.

And then again, I try to verify parts of it, the best way I can (some of it goes over my head).

And last, Reddit also has a peptide community, but it's often focuses more on fitness/weightlifting peptides:

https://reddit.com/r/peptides

Hope this helps a bit

You're very welcome Lymie24!