Inside the World of BioEnhancement (Addiction Cures, Disease Detection, Peptides, EAAs, GLP-1, NAD Therapy)

Nick Urban [00:00:07]:
Are you a high performer, obsessed with growth, and looking for an edge? Welcome to MINDBODY Peak Performance. Together, we’ll discover underground secrets to unlocking the full potential of your mind, body, and spirit. We’ll learn from some of the world’s leading minds, from ancient wisdom to cutting edge tools and everything in between. This is your host, Nick Urban. Enjoy the episode. How far would you go to upgrade your body and mind? In this episode, I sit down with biohacker Zach from Vitality Saint Pete to explore the science of bioharmonization from next generation peptides to cutting edge mitochondrial support to the deep restorative power of flow tanks and sensory deprivation chambers. If you’ve ever wondered how the world’s top optimizers stay ahead, you’re about to find out. Some of the topics we discuss include biohacks and health technologies, such as early diagnostics, full body MRIs, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, PEMF therapy, cancer methylation tests, getting regular blood work, peptides like BPC one five seven, TB 500, copper peptide, other peptides, wearables, and self quantification, and making use of all that data you collect, as well as the importance of personalizing health.

Nick Urban [00:01:43]:
Our guest this week is Zach Lowenstein, aka Biohack Zach. His journey to optimal health began in 2014 and has led him to the forefront of biohacking and lifestyle optimization. Unlike a traditional personal trainer, Zach goes beyond fitness, helping clients heal injuries, enhance immunity, and promote longevity and vitality. His expertise spans muscle building, fat loss, total body optimization, and he’s worked with everyone from professional athletes and high level CEOs to grandmothers and celebrities alike. He has an interesting Instagram profile. So if you’re on that platform, go ahead and check him out at biohackzach. You can find that link and everything we discussed in the show notes for this episode, which will be at mindbodypeak.com/thenumber19six. There, you’ll also find a link to the article I wrote on the downsides of GLP one drugs.

Nick Urban [00:02:49]:
You’ll find a link to his Vitality Wellness Center. And if you want to explore the world of peptides in a little more depth, I’ve done a bunch of episodes on them. Most recently, copper peptide, GHKCU, with doctor John Harmon back on episode number one ninety. Whether you’re just beginning your health journey or you’re an advanced health optimizer, dare I say biohacker, I’m sure you’ll get something useful out of this conversation. Alright. Sit back, relax, enjoy this interview with Zach Lowenstein. Zach, I’ve been looking forward to this conversation for a while now.

Zack Loewenstein [00:03:27]:
Me too, Nick. Bro, it’s been a long time coming.

Nick Urban [00:03:29]:
I think we first met at was it PillioFX years ago?

Zack Loewenstein [00:03:34]:
Yeah. Over and over. Yeah. Probably, like, two years ago now.

Nick Urban [00:03:37]:
At least. Because I think they they shut it down.

Zack Loewenstein [00:03:39]:
That was my great that was the greatest weekend of 2022. That was so cool. It was my first time in Austin. And, like, you know, Austin’s a vortex of amazing thinkers and shakers and movers. And it was just so cool. Like, I don’t know. It was just a really special weekend for me.

Nick Urban [00:03:59]:
Yes. Exactly. Me too. So I wanted to have you on the podcast because you are inundated with a lot of the latest biohacks and technologies and tools, and you also have some understanding of ancestral wisdom and everything. And since you are surrounded by all this, I thought it’d be fun to discuss what you’re coming across and what has your attention these days.

Zack Loewenstein [00:04:23]:
There’s a lot there, you know, when it comes to disease prevention. Because honestly, like, why why do we want to be healthy? Why do we wanna do biohacks or optimize our health? In my opinion, it is one to prevent disease states when we’re older. And two, it is to stay younger longer or at least make that attempt and feel good. So, I think when it comes to the first thing I mentioned, which is preventing disease states, there’s a lot of really cool disease prevention or, excuse me, early detection for a ton of different stuff right now that didn’t exist a couple of years ago. For one, there’s, like, full body MRIs where they do a whole scan of your entire body, and then they put that through AI and can determine, like, tumors a size of a millimeter on your pancreas or, the early stages of vascular disease in your aorta. Like, the the the amount of data you can get is so cool right now. And, also, cancer methylation tests are really interesting too. You can detect you can detect a tumor that is just a couple of millimeters in size twenty years before you would start seeing symptomology.

Zack Loewenstein [00:05:43]:
So I think when it comes to disease prevention, we’re living in a really interesting time right now. But when it comes to feeling good and and being vital and being young longer, we have more stuff today than ever before. Things like hyperbaric oxygen, peptides, PEMF, and more. It it it’s really, like, what do you wanna improve? Because there’s a whole constellation of therapeutics out at our disposal now that didn’t exist when I graduated high school. You know?

Nick Urban [00:06:19]:
Any top diagnostics, if you were to restart and you had to choose between everything out there, you’re feeling pretty good, healthy. Where would you begin your cell quantification diagnostic journey?

Zack Loewenstein [00:06:34]:
Mhmm. Well, I think everybody under the sun should be doing blood work at a very minimum twice a year, but ideally with each passing season four times a year, because you may feel pretty good, but your liver enzymes are elevated or, your testosterone is declining. So I think that is first and foremost, it’s obtainable for people. It’s relatively inexpensive, especially if you go to, like, a med spa versus going through a doctor and insurance. I mean, like, at Vitality, we do blood work for, like, a hundred $50, a full panel. Can’t beat that. You know? It’s basically cost. So blood work would be the first thing.

Zack Loewenstein [00:07:16]:
But

Nick Urban [00:07:17]:
Are there any top tests that you like to see? I mean, there’s so many out there. I know there’s a lot of important ones, but, like, any you to choose top five tests in your

Zack Loewenstein [00:07:24]:
Like for blood work? Yeah. Yeah. Like, the yeah. So, of course, a hormone panel, whose hormones dictate how you feel. A cardiovascular panel is really important. The the true answer to your question is what does your family history look like? Like, did your did you is cancer more prevalent in your family? Are heart attacks and strokes more prevalent in your family? I think that answer will determine which test you should explore. In my case, there’s not that much heart disease in my family. Everyone’s you know, I I don’t think anyone’s died from a stroke or anything.

Zack Loewenstein [00:08:00]:
So, for me, it’s a cancer test. So that means I’m testing for inflammation. I’m testing for, blood cells, things like that. So, I would yeah. It just really depends on what you’re trying to address. But when it comes to a little bit more fancier testing, I think the full body MRI should be a part of everyone. Like, once you hit 30, like, at least once a decade, we should be getting a full body MRI. So that’s gonna be my thirtieth birthday present, because I lost my father to leukemia, and then his mom died from a brain tumor both within the ages of, like, 39 and 42.

Zack Loewenstein [00:08:44]:
So, like, relatively young. So, that means that early detection is key for stuff like that. So the gallery, the cancer methylation test also is pretty interesting. It’s about a thousand bucks. And like I said earlier, you can detect the cancer twenty, thirty years before it would ever manifest with symptomology.

Nick Urban [00:09:03]:
So My question about those types of things are what are the false positive and false negative rates of those tests. Do you know?

Zack Loewenstein [00:09:11]:
So the gallery test is a ninety nine point eight percent accuracy. So, like, if you test positive, you you you have it. Like, there are that is present in your blood. But the full body MRI, that’s a whole another story. I still think you can get, like, maybe, for example, see a cyst on your liver, and you don’t know if it’s a cancer or not. And then you might start freaking out, spiking cortisol, overthinking, losing sleep, and then then other health markers go down. So, you know, knowledge is power, but it’s also, ignorance is also bliss. You know?

Nick Urban [00:09:53]:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that’s a good idea. I haven’t thought much about full body MRIs because they’re expensive and they I think they expose you a good amount of radiation.

Zack Loewenstein [00:10:03]:
So so yeah. It’s actually full body MRI has exposed you to a ton of magnetism.

Nick Urban [00:10:08]:
Magnetism. Yeah.

Zack Loewenstein [00:10:09]:
So it’s almost like a super mega PEMF device. I’ve heard people feel very good after MRIs, because of the way that magnetic fields improve blood chemistry and blood viscosity. But it is very expensive. You could expect to pay anywhere between 600 and 50 and $3,000 depending on your city. So, and also your connections. Like, if you have a doctor that writes you the script versus just walking in and paying out of pocket, you know, it depends.

Nick Urban [00:10:41]:
Yeah. Okay. But, I mean, once per decade though, that’s making it a lot more attractive than six times a month or

Zack Loewenstein [00:10:49]:
For sure.

Nick Urban [00:10:49]:
Once a quarter.

Zack Loewenstein [00:10:50]:
For sure. I think, personally, I’m gonna do it, like, every five years once I hit the age of 30. Also, because, like, cancers are really becoming prevalent in younger and younger people. So and I think there’s many things to to there’s many reasons for that, from the EMFs to the endocrine disruptors to stress. I think stress is just, like, such a under discussed topic. You know? Especially here in America. You know? We’re just, like, conditioned to overwork and thinking that that’s normal. And then you go to Europe or you go to Latin America, and you’re like, wait, you could like, you feel like you can breathe for a second.

Zack Loewenstein [00:11:32]:
Like, yeah, you’re on vacation, but it’s just the pace of life around you is a lot slower, you know?

Nick Urban [00:11:37]:
Yeah. Also, it’s one of those things that we adjust to it and our biology is really good at making the adjustments. So we don’t even notice that that’s our state. Yeah. We might have a period of stress and then all of a sudden it feels normal. Like, I’m not stressed. But then if you actually look at your biomarkers or you get away from the stressor a bit, you’re like, wow, It feels so different here.

Zack Loewenstein [00:11:57]:
Yeah. And then you’re sleeping for nine hours and, you know, like, your libido goes up. Like, everything starts to improve because you don’t realize how much stress is weighing you down. I’ve noticed so, like, for for the listeners, I manage a biohacking antiaging facility here in Saint Petersburg, Florida, and we have many therapies from hyperbaric oxygen and PEMF to float tanks and infrared saunas and, like, 15 other things. It’s pretty insane the amount of stuff that we have access to. But I’ve noticed the float tank, like, when you haven’t floated in a while, you have no idea how much stress you’re holding in your body because of a deficiency in magnesium. Magnesium is imperative for reducing bioenergetic stress, and, like, it has a inverse relationship with stress. Like, as stress goes up, magnesium goes down and it makes supplementing it just so imperative.

Zack Loewenstein [00:12:54]:
So, floating. Have you ever floated before?

Nick Urban [00:12:57]:
I haven’t floated, but it interests me for a number of reasons. First of all, that, like, you get a huge dose of magnesium because I don’t even know how many, like, hundreds or thousands of pounds of magnesium are dissolved in the water, but also what it does to brain activity and the default mode network and all that.

Zack Loewenstein [00:13:11]:
Yeah. Yeah. Most floats are 800 to a thousand pounds of Epsom salt. And you can imagine you buy a bag at the grocery store and you put it in your bathtub and you’re putting half a pound in the bathtub and you feel amazing. Yeah. You can only imagine how much a full saturation would would feel. You know? It’s a good once a week therapy just for managing stress. It’s a good Sunday evening therapy.

Nick Urban [00:13:36]:
I like it. So you guys have a ton of things. We talked about diagnostics a little bit. So a full body MRI is one. What about the again, and blood work is another. Are there any other things you’d add to that, whether it’s a daily wearable or it’s your gut microbiome testing, organic acids testing, epigenetic methylation, biological age of some form? What else would go into your quiver of tools?

Zack Loewenstein [00:14:02]:
Yeah. I think, you mentioned a lot of cool ones. I think the most obtainable for people would be a wearable. Like, I have the Whoop. I’ve used Aura. I’ve used another competitor of Aura. And just to have data is so important as long as you don’t let that data rule your life. You know? But it’s really important to develop an understanding of how your lifestyle affects your physiology.

Zack Loewenstein [00:14:31]:
So, tracking heart rate variability, tracking respiratory rate and temperature, resting heart rate is so important. You know, I experimented with the GLP one peptides, both tirzepatide and semaglutide, and, like, I can’t stress enough. It annihilated my nervous system. Within a few months, my HRV dropped by 40 plus percent. My resting heart rate went up by 10 to 15 points on average. And I was sleeping eight to nine and a half hours every single day and feeling just wrecked every morning. So and the flip side coming off of that, my my vitals have just dramatically improved. And, Yeah.

Zack Loewenstein [00:15:20]:
That’s a sign for me that there is some level of mitochondrial dysfunction. Perhaps I’m too lean. I don’t know. Like, I I I really don’t know because these drugs affect people so differently. But, you know, I could have pushed through. If I didn’t have a wearable, I could have thought, like, oh, this is just I’m tired today. I’m tired today. But, like, truth be told, the biometrics don’t lie.

Zack Loewenstein [00:15:41]:
So I think the the a wearable is just a really appliable one for for the listeners. And if I can make a suggestion, I think women should tilt towards the Oura ring because it tracks your cycles. And then the loop for for men because it’s a bit more tilted for physical activity. You know? And I’ve had both. I really personally get way more data from the loop. But I do think the app of Oura is super sexy. So, like, you know, pick and choose. But when it comes to biological age test, glycation test, methylation test, stuff like that, I actually haven’t explored them too much yet.

Zack Loewenstein [00:16:20]:
For one, I think they are relatively in their infancy. And there’s actually a new test that came out called MeScreen, and that measures, I wanna say, 12 different metrics of mitochondrial health. And in my opinion, that is likely the most accurate and, yeah, the most accurate test for cellular health. Because when your mitochondria are not doing too hot, the whole system starts to fall apart thereafter. And you can get really, like, detailed information about mitochondrial health from, glycation to cell respiration. And based off of that data, you could actually change your lifestyle to improve, or yeah. To improve mitochondrial health. So the human body is a huge adaptation machine.

Zack Loewenstein [00:17:12]:
We’re constantly adapting to our internal and external environments. So when you get that information, you can see, like, oh, like, my my mitochondria are are poor methyl or poor, their glycation. Like like, they’re not doing too well. So that means I should probably not eat sugar before bed. I should maybe explore, more ketogenic or, fasting mimicking diet type of, lifestyle. You know? So, data’s power, but, you know, it’s, you have to do it. Yeah. Like, knowing that you could knowing that you should be fasting is one thing, but actually fasting and applying that knowledge is an entirely different ballgame.

Zack Loewenstein [00:17:53]:
You know?

Nick Urban [00:17:53]:
Yeah. But having the knowledge is a good first step.

Zack Loewenstein [00:17:56]:
For sure.

Nick Urban [00:17:56]:
Really interesting that you’re mentioning about the GLP one drugs and your vitals because back about three years ago, I started researching them and I wrote an article about the downsides of them because no one was talking about them. They just saw them as these cure alls basically for just about everything and including addiction and all kinds of stuff. And for the right population, it makes sense. But also like there was that same trend that I saw in the research where people were having elevated resting heart rates and lower HRPs and a lot of other deleterious changes. But I didn’t realize it would be so significant. I didn’t look into the actual numbers for each person, and a lot of people in the studies were not healthy, young, and fit like you are. So it’s interesting to hear just how dramatic the changes were for you.

Zack Loewenstein [00:18:42]:
Yeah, man. I’ve heard that it’s also, like, a feature, not a bug. Because when you have a lower HRV and a higher resting heart rate, your metabolism is working a bit harder. Like, your nervous system’s a bit more sympathetic driven, so you actually burn more calories at rest. And to be fair, like, I think GLP one peptides could potentially be the most important discovery in the last twenty years for Americans because we’re so metabolically unhealthy. I think it’s, like, incredible for the right person, if used properly, if you’re eating the right amount of protein, if you are doing resistance training and, prioritizing self care, I think it could be a really useful tool. But for me, it it didn’t really yeah. It didn’t it didn’t really jive with my physiology, but I did notice a massive decrease in addiction.

Zack Loewenstein [00:19:38]:
Not that I’m, like, you know, an addict, but I definitely barely drank at all when I took that or barely smoked any pot. Like, it made I I look at GLP one peptides like an impulse control drug. Like, it it lowers the noise so you are less likely to act on your impulses, and you’re just more content with how you feel in this moment. So, I think there’s definitely a time and a place. I think, much of the population would benefit from experimenting with it for three three months or so just to, like, kind of get a grip on their life a little bit. But not for everybody. Yeah. Definitely not for everybody.

Zack Loewenstein [00:20:19]:
I do acknowledge that my side effects are a little bit more extreme than others. I have a lot of friends that are fit and healthy, and they absolutely swear by it. They have a ton of energy from it. So, you know, we’re all different creatures walking this earth.

Nick Urban [00:20:33]:
Yeah. My biggest concern with it is the way they work in the body doesn’t mimic the natural way GLP one does. And also, like, there’s a lot more incretins and other hormones associated with digestion and satiety and these practices, these processes in which the body naturally stimulates it. Have you played around with any of the alternatives that more mimic the natural half life of GLP-one instead of being a hundred and sixty hours, like, I think the semaglutide is?

Zack Loewenstein [00:21:02]:
It’s ridiculous, bro. It’s like, if it was a shot that you took every morning, sign me up. Like, if it starts to wear off by the time I’m going to sleep, I would I’m gonna experiment with that. I was actually my friend owns a, weight loss clinic, and he said that, yeah, man. We can get these, trochees. They last for the day. And I’m like, okay. Maybe I’ll try that because maybe maybe I will it’ll be out of my system by the time I’m going to sleep and recovering overnight.

Zack Loewenstein [00:21:29]:
Or, you know yeah. If you’re gonna go on vacation and you just, like, know, like, hey. Like, I’m gonna be in New York City. There’s gonna be food everywhere. That might be a good time to, like, be on a GLP one for a week. You know? But, using it more as a tool versus, like, a lifestyle drug. But I hear you, bro. I have explored resistant starch, red pigments, various prebiotics, and they definitely suppress the appetite.

Zack Loewenstein [00:21:56]:
They definitely improve digestion. But will someone lose 80 pounds from taking resistant starch every night? Maybe, but probably not. You know? Yeah. But, for someone healthy like us, like, it would likely be a better alternative. But I think, like, if someone’s dealing with addiction, likely, the peptides peptides would probably be a better fit. And I’m really excited to see what some of these new studies coming out with alcoholism, where they they take this whole industry because I think it could be the first addictive addiction drug.

Nick Urban [00:22:29]:
Yeah. The first addiction drug that’s successful.

Zack Loewenstein [00:22:32]:
Yeah. And makeshift, like, leaner. Like, I mean, I don’t know. I think I think it’s good.

Nick Urban [00:22:37]:
Yeah. So there’s a lot of, like, the natural alternatives. They don’t have a large enough magnitude of effect on GLP to actually stimulate like a clinical outcome change. So there’s I’ve only found one so far. This one right here, Calocurve. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, but it Yeah.

Zack Loewenstein [00:22:54]:
Jake Campbell talks about that one.

Nick Urban [00:22:56]:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. So it has an active ingredient called amarsate in it. And it’s supposed to be super bitter that like it causes a huge increase in GLP-one. And it only lasts for like six to ten hours or something. So you take that and then it wears off at night when you’re not supposed to have naturally, you would never have elevated levels of GLP-one.

Zack Loewenstein [00:23:18]:
What have you noticed from it? Do you feel it?

Nick Urban [00:23:20]:
I don’t like it because I don’t have, like, I don’t want to be eating less. But it does work. I took one capsule and noticed nothing. I talked to them. They were like, oh yeah, sometimes you get to take two or three. And I took two. And then I had very little hunger for my next meal. I took like an hour before the meal, hour and a half before the meal.

Nick Urban [00:23:38]:
And it worked, but then I realized that that’s not actually something that I want currently. And I haven’t used enough for that to see if it carries over to other like, the addiction component too. I would assume it would.

Zack Loewenstein [00:23:51]:
For sure.

Nick Urban [00:23:51]:
But it’s hard to know without actually testing it and seeing research.

Zack Loewenstein [00:23:54]:
Yeah. I’d be curious because I suspect a lot of the addiction part is that, like, subtle underlying nausea that you kinda just get used to on a GLP one where you know, like, hey. Like, if I have a beer with dinner, like, that’s gonna make me feel like shit. You know? So I’m just not gonna do that. I wonder if it would do that. I’m gonna have to try some of that because, I just want it for just appetite, like, control. But the truth be told, like, from doing GLP ones, I started with your zepatide for, like, four months, which was horrendous. I felt horrible on it, but I loved having total control over what went in my body.

Zack Loewenstein [00:24:32]:
Like, I it it was like a blessing and a curse. I came off of that for a year, and then I broke my knee. So I was on a couch for two months. So I started taking semaglutide, and, like, it agreed with me a lot better. Until six months down the road, it just started to, like, build and, like, not feel too hot. So I did it just for appetite suppression. But, yeah, I feel like the addiction piece is a side effect, you know.

Nick Urban [00:25:01]:
Were you using anything else with your injury? Were you using any other any other peptides or therapeutics?

Zack Loewenstein [00:25:08]:
Yeah, man. The injury was such a blessing in all honesty because, it allowed me to apply a lot of the things that I’ve been learning about over the last ten years or so. So right off the gate, like, the day it happened, I intuitively knew that ice was not what I needed. I tried putting ice on it, like, an hour or two after, and it locked up my knee. It, like, literally just, like, became stiff. So I put infrared light. I have a, you know, a red light panel. Actually, got it right here, like, a nice, like, little red light panel and infrared.

Zack Loewenstein [00:25:44]:
And I would do that twice a day for twenty minutes on the knee. I used electric stimulation just to put current through the knee and stimulate blood flow.

Nick Urban [00:25:54]:
What form?

Zack Loewenstein [00:25:56]:
What form?

Nick Urban [00:25:57]:
Of electric stimulation.

Zack Loewenstein [00:25:58]:
Yeah. It was EMS. So it was running around I I believe it was, like, 250 hertz, which is, like the hertz are interesting. The lower the hertz, it contracts muscles, and the higher the hertz, it elongates muscles. So just running, like, a subtle current through it for, like, an hour, this brings more energy, electricity, oxygen, blood, nutrients to the area, which helps facilitate, healing. But that immediately made me go down the peptide rabbit hole. I had done DPC a few years before that just out of an experiment, but I dove head deep into into the peptides after that. It really triggered this, like, snowball effect.

Zack Loewenstein [00:26:38]:
So I was doing, some of the growth hormone secretagogues. I was doing BPC, and t p five hundred. And I think the major thing that helped me was I was using high intensity pulse electromagnetic fields on the knee for an hour a day every single day. I mean, I didn’t skip a day for, like, thirty days. I it was, like, my job to heal as fast as possible. And two and a half weeks after I fell, I got an MRI about a week a week after I fell. And then I went into the doctor’s office, and the orthopedic surgeon was just looking at my MRI. He’s like, hey.

Zack Loewenstein [00:27:16]:
You don’t need surgery. You have a fractured tibia, a crushed meniscus, and strained ACL. And he’s just looking at the scan. He’s like he’s like, how are you walking right now? He’s like, you don’t have crutches? Like, you’re like, you seem pretty pain free. And I’m like I told him. I’m like, yeah. I’m doing peptides, infrared light twice a day, PEMF. He’s like, what’s PEMF? And I’m like I’m like talking to an orthopedic surgeon telling him about an FDA approved therapy.

Zack Loewenstein [00:27:43]:
Like, I’m like, you don’t know what PEMF is? I’m like, it’s all solution magnetic field. It’s approved to heal bone to heal broken bones. Accelerate bone metabolism and a ton of other things. And he kinda smirked. He’s like, yeah. Too bad insurance would never cover that. And I’m like, yeah. It is too bad that insurance won’t cover an FDA approved therapy for a broken bone.

Zack Loewenstein [00:28:04]:
Like, what? And he and, you know, we kinda shoot the shit a little bit going back and forth. He’s like, listen, man. You don’t need surgery. And, honestly, you you your protocol is interesting. Like, you you don’t really need to come back and see me. You should for a follow-up because I just wanna see about how this protocol is, like, how how it’s working for you. And, yeah. I came back ten ten weeks later, and he was like he just asked me a bunch of questions.

Zack Loewenstein [00:28:31]:
It was really cool. Just, you know, I’m, like, a younger guy. He was an older guy and just, like, learning about all this stuff. So I feel like someone in his position could really help somebody. And, yeah, ten weeks after my fall, I went to a music festival where I walked 20 plus thousand steps a day. And, you know, I had a little bit of an a limp. I wasn’t super stable. I wasn’t jumping, but, like, I was able to live my life.

Zack Loewenstein [00:28:55]:
You know? So, the knee injury, it honestly took me about a year to go to get a % to where I can, like, go for a run or deadlift really heavy weight. But it was it’s just been a really interesting journey into myself because, like, your knees, they create motion in your life. They they keep your your vessel moving forward. And when you lose the ability to do that and you’re forced to sit still, it makes you like reevaluate things, you know?

Nick Urban [00:29:25]:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that’s for anyone who’s very physically active, the thought of like a debilitating injury that literally puts you on the couch or in bed for a while.

Zack Loewenstein [00:29:35]:
It’s like jail. It’s like going to jail. Yeah. But, you know, I like, for anyone that’s going through an injury, the arguably, beyond the biohacks that I did, the most important thing you can do is actually rest. Like, let your body do its thing. Don’t try to go to the gym and shoulder press if you have a torn delt. Like, stop doing that for a few months. Like like, let your body heal so you could work out when you’re 50 or 60.

Zack Loewenstein [00:30:05]:
Like, otherwise, you’re gonna have major structural issues. And another thing that I didn’t mention earlier that I think was really foundational to my healing was megadosing, essential amino acids. So I took an entire bottle of Keyon aminos within the first three days. Like, I literally just every two hours, I would take a double dose. And I think that also played a major role in healing as well. A lot of people, they might take essential amino acids, but take one serving. It’s like, dude, like, you got to take fifteen to twenty grams a couple of times a day to really see what the stuff can do. You know?

Nick Urban [00:30:44]:
I think essential amino acids are one of those like foundational supplements that are so often overlooked. And if people have heard of aminos, it’s usually the branch chain amino acids, the BCAA’s And those from the research I’ve done have very conflicting effects. They work well for certain things and they work negatively for other things. It’s like, why not just take nine of the twenty, twenty three amino acids and instead of taking three, because you’re getting more everything that you’re in the mind that the body needs to be able to build tissue and beyond just muscle too.

Zack Loewenstein [00:31:16]:
Yeah. And it’s not just like the building blocks to build tissue. They’re also signaling molecules to turn on mTOR and anabolism. So, like, it’s both the blocks and the the signal to create repair. You know? Yeah. I think BCAA is honestly a scam. They actually can, like, hurt insulin sensitivity, and you get them with every single meal. Like, you need the essential amino acids.

Zack Loewenstein [00:31:43]:
They’re not you’re you can’t make them. You know?

Nick Urban [00:31:45]:
You can make the rest of them. And, like, a lot of the other ones that are outside the three BCAAs, the other six in EAAs are much harder to get in diet. And why not just gear yourself a little bit extra there? And you’re not going to downregulate any processes. There’s no negative feedback loop where your body is going to stop producing them because you need to get them from diet anyway.

Zack Loewenstein [00:32:03]:
Yeah. For sure. For sure.

Nick Urban [00:32:05]:
Cool. Well, let’s go into some of the other stuff, the technologies, things that you’ve been researching or looking into these days.

Zack Loewenstein [00:32:14]:
So after my experience with my knee, it really brought me down the peptide rabbit hole. And I think peptides are the like, literally the future of medicine. And I know a lot of people say that, but I don’t think people realize, like, what they are. They’re literally molecules that interact with your body that allow your body to work at its highest potential. Like, you can improve mitochondrial efficiency, and you can reduce senescence cells. You can, you know, improve BDNF through using your your your body’s mechanics for, you know, your damage. So, peptides have been just, like, the funnest thing to dive into because they work best over time. And I believe that, like, I I just have seen the effects firsthand.

Zack Loewenstein [00:33:07]:
For example, there’s a peptide GHK copper. It’s it’s one of these. You you can take it orally. You can do the injection or you can do it topically, but it’s like it it improves connective tissue integrity. So, like, I will do it for eight weeks on my skin and it like, people ask me if I do Botox. Like, no, I don’t do Botox. My skin just like a lot is much more elastic and snaps back from using my body’s mechanics, you know?

Nick Urban [00:33:38]:
But first, GHKCU, the copper peptide, it’s one of the copper peptides. Super cool. There’s so many things just beyond connective tissue and skin health too, like the anti inflammatory actions in the brain as well. And it’s like a master regulator of so many genes. I forget how many. It has, like

Zack Loewenstein [00:33:55]:
I wanna say 6,000. It’s like three or 6,000. Just insane. Yeah. I think anyone looking to improve, health outcomes, that’s an imperative to add into the routine. And it’s a cool one because you can take it orally. LevelUp Health has the best, oral that I’ve seen. But

Nick Urban [00:34:14]:
I think it has to be, like, like, the liposomally encapsulated for it to be orally bioactive and LevelUp Health does that. Yeah. So I think that you wanna make sure you’re getting a good oral product. I’ve heard that I haven’t actually used the injectable form. I have it over here. It has a really nice, beautiful color, like a deep blue color. But I’ve heard that it’s painful to inject. I don’t know.

Nick Urban [00:34:35]:
I haven’t experienced that.

Zack Loewenstein [00:34:37]:
Yeah. Copper does not feel good. Copper and zinc, when you inject those two minerals, like it does not feel too good. Yeah. What’s

Nick Urban [00:34:44]:
cool though is there’s so many different ways of using it and applying it. And like also I have a topical cream that I’ve used and I combine that with red light therapy too. And I had like a really big scar under my eye years ago. And at one point someone looked at my driver’s license photo and they’re like, what happened to your scar? Like what happened here? I’m like, it’s right here. Like what do

Zack Loewenstein [00:35:01]:
you mean?

Nick Urban [00:35:02]:
I’m like, oh, it’s not as nearly as bad as it used to be. And like, that’s really the only major changes I’ve made since then.

Zack Loewenstein [00:35:09]:
How long have you been exploring the copper?

Nick Urban [00:35:12]:
I’ve been using copper for about three years, but I don’t use it regularly. I use it religiously for maybe a month and then I started tapering off of it. I don’t tapering off of it. I I I kinda like rotate it where I’ll use it for a bit, then I’ll forget about it, then I’ll come back to it. And that’s my journey with copper so far.

Zack Loewenstein [00:35:32]:
I feel like that’s like the body’s intelligence because of peptides. Very common question that people ask is, well, does it cause a negative feedback loop similar to testosterone? Like, if you take copper peptide, will it down regulate? And the truth is no. But what it will do is it’ll desensitize those receptors to the higher amount of those peptides. So you have to cycle them. But, yeah, that’s it’s interesting because, like, you know, it takes takes some time for these things to really start to to work. You know? What other peptides have you explored?

Nick Urban [00:36:04]:
Oh, I’ve used so many over the years. My first one I use is a bit unusual for most people. The first one I ever used was melametan because I was going to be out under the hot Baja sun, right next to the tropic of cancer and like really high UV, really intense. And I used to always just get so burnt. So I built like a stack for myself. I removed all seed oils from my diet. I got astaxanthin. I had foods that are rich in melanin, such as mushrooms.

Nick Urban [00:36:33]:
And I added Shilajit, got a lot of the dark pigments, the anthocyanins from like blueberries and stuff. And then I added melanotan to help prevent the sunburn and it worked great. I didn’t get burnt at all. I got a lot darker and it was nice. I built up my melanin in my skin and I got less sun damage as a result. So that was my first. And then I went on to a lot of the usuals, like the usual peptides, like BPC-one 57 and TB-five hundred, TB-four. And then I also started playing around with some of the nootropic peptides like Dihexa.

Nick Urban [00:37:11]:
And I have Cmax right here in front of me. And there’s just so many. It’s a really cool world.

Zack Loewenstein [00:37:16]:
It is a really cool world. When you did melanotan, did you do one or two?

Nick Urban [00:37:20]:
Well, I’ve done both. I like one better than two. It’s a lot harder to find though. And for those listening

Zack Loewenstein [00:37:26]:
in, there’s two

Nick Urban [00:37:28]:
separate ingredients and product two separate ingredients, one called melanotan one and one called melanotan two. And they are similar, but they have, like, distinctly different effects and outcomes too.

Zack Loewenstein [00:37:40]:
I think one is less common because it’s an FDA approved substance. So research sites have the, you know, the risk of, you know, being seized because they’re violating a patent. But, melanotan one, I’ve noticed, has, like, a more natural darker pigment where it could actually, like, darken the shade of your skin. Whereas melanotan two, it’s, like, a bit more targeted, so it actually can cross the blood brain barrier and affect your affect this it’s they call it a pleiotropic. So, like, it affects a few different systems. And it is associated with some sexual side effects where you can be aroused a lot easier. It definitely suppresses the appetite, but I think most importantly is the effect is more of a reddish. Like, it looks almost like you got a spray tan kinda look, and there’s a higher chance of having darkening of moles or the formation of moles, which in theory can lead to skin cancer.

Zack Loewenstein [00:38:44]:
I believe melanotan one, when used responsibly and not dosed not dosed too high or for too long, can reduce instances of skin cancer. That’s purely hypothetical. We don’t have the answer for that. But regardless if you use melanotan, you have to get skin checks, because it I love melanotan just for one. Like, it definitely, you know, like, that feeling when you’re at the beach all day and you feel really good because you’ve been in the sun? The Lansant kinda makes you feel like that. Like, just overall sense of well-being. But what I like about it is once you do it, you don’t need to keep doing it. Like, it darkens your skin.

Zack Loewenstein [00:39:22]:
So, like, the other weekend, I spent ten hours in midday on Saturday and Sunday outside. Five hours one day, five hours another day, and I didn’t burn. And I just have, like, a you can’t really see it because of the lighting right now, but I have, like, a, like, a nice golden hue. And I’ve been taking it in in, like, four or five weeks. So Lansin’s a really cool one, man. Diahexa is another one that you mentioned that I haven’t explored too much. What what was Diahexa like for you?

Nick Urban [00:39:49]:
So I didn’t use it very much because I realized that, like, if I’m gonna use this, I wanna be in a setting where I’m going to be capitalizing on the increased neurogenesis and synapogenesis of forming new neurons and connections between neurons and everything. And it’s so strong that I’m like, I don’t want to just use this when I’m doing a normal day or even a remotely normal day or when there’s a lot of uncertainty or chaos going on. So I have most of it just sitting over there. And it’s sad because I haven’t used as much as I wanted. When I did use it, I just felt a lot more mental clarity. I had a nice subtle, but definite uptick in energy. I don’t know exactly why, but it wasn’t like a caffeine energy. It was more mild than that, but it was more like anti fatigue really.

Zack Loewenstein [00:40:40]:
And I

Nick Urban [00:40:41]:
had an easier time reaching for words and finding those. And I’ve only used it a handful of times. I like Cmax more for regular use than DyeXa. But I think that for, like, neurofeedback too. Yeah. For, like, neurofeedback or, like, those types of practices where you’re trying to unwire certain pathways and and rewire or wire others, I think that’s a great combination, a good great stack.

Zack Loewenstein [00:41:05]:
I can see also Dihexa. For one, there’s, like, there’s concerns over potential carcinogenic properties to it. I don’t think any of them have been validated, but, you know, people talk about that potential. But I I feel like you’re right. Like, on a mundane normal day, like, even for, like, a recording day, like a podcast, it probably wouldn’t be the best because if you catch yourself just having one of those days where you’re scrolling a lot or, like, you know, you’re being sucked into social media, that can create, like, an unhealthy neurological fortification. You know? But, like, if you’re learning guitar or Spanish, that might be, like, the perfect thing to take. So I I tip my hat to you for having that self awareness. Have you explored cerebrolizin? Because that one is, like, my all time favorite cognitive enhancement So substance.

Nick Urban [00:41:56]:
Funny you mentioned that. I actually have that right over here too. And I’m just like, I have the amp fuels. I’m like, who? How do I, like, break the ampoule and then, like

Zack Loewenstein [00:42:04]:
It’s a lot, man. Like, doing a five milliliter injection is it sucks. It’s a lot of fluid. But, I did so earlier this year, I did a protocol. Every other day, I would do cerebolisin. And on the in between days, I would do cortexin. And I did that for twenty days straight. And the improvement in short term memory and verbal fluency was tangible even months later.

Zack Loewenstein [00:42:32]:
So I I definitely wanna do that again. It just had such a profound effect. And, also, like, this serotonin boosting effect, which could actually be bad for some people, like, it could make you, a bit more latte fare, I suppose, and potentially even I don’t know. There could be some emotional things that come up when you start messing with serotonin, but, I found it to be incredibly fruitful. So I I I encourage you to open that ampule and give it a try, bro. It’s cool. It’s really cool. I’m gonna order some here soon.

Nick Urban [00:43:04]:
There’s so many cool ones. I was just thinking about the other ones I have. I’ve used p twenty one. I didn’t really like it. Didn’t agree with me very much. It didn’t make me feel any sharper. And same with the other analogs and homologs of Cmax I have. They’re like the different forms.

Nick Urban [00:43:18]:
Like, it’s supposedly like the stronger, better forms. They just don’t work. They, like, make me feel tired. And

Zack Loewenstein [00:43:24]:
Yeah. Cmax makes me a little, anxious. Like, it kind of, like, the gap settle to my to my consciousness or my kind of, like, more, like, you know, but, Celinek. I really like Celinek. So you said the one that agrees with you, would that be the acetate

Nick Urban [00:43:40]:
form? Yeah. C max acetate. Exactly.

Zack Loewenstein [00:43:43]:
Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. I I would like to explore it some more. It’s been a couple of years since I’ve purchased some.

Nick Urban [00:43:49]:
One thing I’ve noticed too is that these things, they affect us differently at different times. Like the first thing I noticed was with nootropic formulations that included the amino acid L tyrosine, they gave me like a really bad headache, like a migraine almost, and they made me feel robotic. And then that’s a common ingredient in a lot of nootropics, brain supplements. And then at some point, some days I can take it and I don’t feel that at all. So I guess there’s other things going on. Yeah. But it’s, like, it’s very clear to me that that’s the cause because I would have it and then I’d feel it thirty minutes later and then I would not take it the next day, then I’ll take it the day after that and I’d get it again. So it was very clear cause and effect.

Zack Loewenstein [00:44:30]:
Mhmm. So tyrosine is an amino acid. So, like, perhaps if you were deficient in that amino acid, it would just act as a supplement and kinda bring you back to baseline and maybe even a little bit more super physiological. And then but if you were saturated with it, perhaps the the excess could be bad for you. Who knows? That’s just my my theory. I like tyrosine. Tyrosine agrees really well with me. I there’s that sleep deprivation stack.

Zack Loewenstein [00:45:00]:
What is it? Couple grams of tyrosine, a couple grams of of creatine monohydrate, and then, like, a hundred milligrams of caffeine, and then a little bit of paraxanthine. That would be, like, the if you were to take that, that’s like sleeping another three hours, you know? Yeah.

Nick Urban [00:45:17]:
Yeah. I like that stack. Yeah. Other peptides I’ve used oh, one that I’ve I’ve used and I actually like is MOTS c for mitochondria and energy. It’s a I want to talk about that.

Zack Loewenstein [00:45:27]:
It’s a really weird Yeah, that one’s really interesting to me.

Nick Urban [00:45:29]:
It’s a really weird peptide because it’s kind of hard to find compared to some of the other ones, but also like that the stability of it is so low that you have to reconstitute a vial and add the bacteriostatic water into the vial and then use the whole thing. Otherwise, like, a lot of it degrades really quickly.

Zack Loewenstein [00:45:44]:
Yeah. Yeah. So, actually, I have a bottle of SS thirty one on the way right now. And I think that’s gonna be, like, the new darling mitochondrial peptide.

Nick Urban [00:45:55]:
Interesting.

Zack Loewenstein [00:45:55]:
Have you heard of SS thirty one? Yeah.

Nick Urban [00:45:57]:
I’ve heard of SS thirty one and Humanin, and I’ve looked into them. They didn’t look as compelling to me as Mott C, but I still was fascinated by them.

Zack Loewenstein [00:46:06]:
So apparently, Mott c is a peptide produced during high intensity output in exercise. So you can take that during or before exercise and get just way more energy and way more out of it. I’ve done MOTS c maybe five times in my life, and I love it. I love it. Love it. Love it. But it’s so expensive Yes. To, like, to do.

Zack Loewenstein [00:46:31]:
And same with SS thirty one. A lot of these research sites, if you were wanted to do it, you’re expecting to pay, like, a hundred $50 a week, you know, or more. You know? So, especially with, like, the clinically validated doses. So, like, for me, when I took five milligrams of MODST, I didn’t notice it. I had to take ten. Yeah. And that’s, like, a hundred bucks. You know? So, it’s just, like, a little bit more obtain unobtainable for where I’m at right now, but I’m really excited to try SS thirty one.

Zack Loewenstein [00:47:01]:
I’m actually gonna couple that with NAD shots on the in between days. And I also wanna, like I I just wanna, like, I don’t know, experiment. Like, I would love to do, like, an extended fast while taking them and then add in some senolytic components and then do hyperbaric oxygen during that fast and just, like, just magnify the the senescent cell reducing inflammation reducing effects. Modesty is is cool, but I’ve heard just been hearing so much about SS thirty one. Like, apparently, it reduces oxidative stress inside of mitochondria, which, like, helps them, like, clear up gunk and then, like, become more efficient. So the cool thing about it is, like, from doing it, you actually have effects months later. Like, it’s, like, kind of tuning up the the body’s ability to create energy. Have you ever done NAD?

Nick Urban [00:47:55]:
As an IV? No.

Zack Loewenstein [00:47:57]:
It’s different. Yeah. Yeah.

Nick Urban [00:47:59]:
So so I’ve heard It’s

Zack Loewenstein [00:48:00]:
like a whole different thing. Yeah.

Nick Urban [00:48:01]:
I’m curious your thoughts on that because

Zack Loewenstein [00:48:03]:
I highly encourage it, man.

Nick Urban [00:48:05]:
I’ve read a number of different things over the years that NAD is obviously a signaling molecule. And when you inject it, it gets into the extracellular space and it’s not normally there in such a bolus amount. And it’s like when it’s naturally produced, it’s distributed throughout the body and it may interfere with like some signaling processes. And I recently heard that circadian rhythm too. I’m not sure if that’s true, but it also has its time and place obviously for addiction use. I think that’s what I’ve heard people getting really good success with it. And also perhaps a good protocol would be like a IV, a push, an NAD push, and then to follow it up with the precursors or, like, addressing the salvage pathway or something like that where it’s a more gentle way on the body?

Zack Loewenstein [00:48:51]:
For sure. Yeah. So there’s a lot of different trains of thought, a lot of different voices when it comes to NAD. Like, people like Andrew Huberman or Peter Attia, they basically are telling people the IVs are not really clinically validated because of exactly what you said. They say, like, well, to absorb it, you need to drip for four hours. And I think it’s just total bullshit because I’ve I’ve it it when I did a NAD loading dose, I did five hundred milligrams four days in a row. It single handedly was the most important thing I had ever done up to that point. It dramatically improved my mental clarity and energy, but mostly my stress tolerance.

Zack Loewenstein [00:49:33]:
It made me able to handle way more stuff on my plate, and my bandwidth just expanded from taking it. So, and also, like, you know, in high school and college, like, I smoked weed. Like, I definitely had addiction when I was growing up. So perhaps it kinda, like, helped me heal some of that. You know? So that could be why I had such a dramatic effect. But NAD, seriously, I think is one of it’s a tool that, like, people just don’t realize is there, partially because it’s pretty expensive to, like, actually do it right. But there are orally available capsules, particularly from wizard sciences. I don’t know if you’ve tried their NMN or their MitoCure, but that stuff makes me feel like I did an IV yesterday.

Zack Loewenstein [00:50:24]:
Like, I feel just so turned on by it and, like, the lights are on to the point where, like, 12:13 hours later, I might have issues going to sleep because I have so much energy. So I highly recommend, like, for Black Friday picking up some from them. I have no affiliation with them. They’re just, like, a a product I truly believe in. You know?

Nick Urban [00:50:43]:
I, Mitchell, the man behind wizard sciences is definitely a wizard too.

Zack Loewenstein [00:50:48]:
Dude, he’s, like, a genius polymath. Like, I don’t know. That man, I just love picking his brain. Yeah. He makes some really good products. The c 60, all that stuff. He’s a really, forward thinker. But yeah.

Zack Loewenstein [00:51:03]:
NAD, I I hear you. You know, like, I believe I’m in the train of thought that the faster you can drip, the more benefit you’ll get. And the reason being is that extracellular matrix, when you have a surplus of NAD, it’s going to essentially create an environment inside of your mitochondria where the the sick, damaged, unhealthy mitochondria cannot tolerate that amount of output, and they will go through apoptosis and die. It’s a process called mitophagy. And when you’re getting the IV, it feels horrendous. Like, it does not feel good. Feels like someone is sitting on on every part of your body. Like, you feel like you can’t really breathe.

Zack Loewenstein [00:51:44]:
You feel maybe a little anxious, you might feel a little weird feeling in your brain or in your nuts, you you’ll swear that you’re having an allergic reaction or something. You’ll feel like, yo, there’s no way that this is good for me. But, once you do a loading dose, you’ll find around day three or day four, you start to be able to tolerate it a lot better.

Nick Urban [00:52:02]:
What was your protocol? How often were you doing this?

Zack Loewenstein [00:52:05]:
So my protocol was I started when I was 25. So I only needed, like, four days of a loading dose. But depending on the state of your health and your age, you might need five, six, anywhere up to twelve days of continuous, continuous dosing. The protocol, no alcohol for a week before, no caffeine for a couple days before. You wanna do it fasted in the morning. And if you can, try to fast for a couple hours after that. But usually, you’re pretty hungry. So, but at least eat low protein afterwards just so you can kinda keep up that, you know, mTOR will suppress autophagy and whatnot.

Zack Loewenstein [00:52:45]:
So But

Nick Urban [00:52:45]:
with peptides in general, it’s usually a good idea to space protein away from them because peptides are amino acids, and you don’t wanna have those competing.

Zack Loewenstein [00:52:53]:
Yeah. %. So I did that. And then, what, four to six weeks later, I did another maintenance dose. Did that for a few months and honestly kind of fell out of the rhythm of it, partially because I started working at another biohacking facility that didn’t offer it, and I was getting the employee discount. But even working there, I would still pay the retail price. Of course, I’d get, like, a little discount, but, like, I would still pay to to maintain that. And then I fell off of it for about a year or so, and I started feeling it was like this period of my life, I started feeling really depressed and, like, distressed, weighed down.

Zack Loewenstein [00:53:31]:
And I had an opportunity to do NAD, so I did it. And within twenty four hours, it’s a hundred percent one eighty. Just I started feeling so good, and it just showed me that, like, a lot of the times when we are down, we are experiencing a lack of nutrition or a lack of energy to the brain. So, like, what can we do to improve energy to the brain? We will likely improve the, you know, your emotional health as well. And what I found to be super fascinating is during that time of stress, my ADD seems like it went away. I just started feeling really depressed. And then as soon as I did NAD, I started feeling like I was a kid again. Like, I have energy.

Zack Loewenstein [00:54:12]:
I’m, like, going from one topic to the other, like, reading one book and then looking at one paper. Like, I was just, like, all over the place, but it felt good because that’s me. Mhmm. You know what I mean? It made me feel like me.

Nick Urban [00:54:23]:
Yeah. I was gonna say it made you feel like more of yourself. And this is also after you’re already doing the basics. You’re already moving. You’re already getting outside. You’re already doing stress reduction. You’re eating clean. I’m assuming fairly clean.

Nick Urban [00:54:32]:
It’s not like you were just neglecting all these and looking for a magic bullet. Like, you’re already doing the the basics right.

Zack Loewenstein [00:54:38]:
Yes. %, bro. I I it yeah. Focusing on sleep, stress reduction, seeing friends, all that. You know, I’d I’d that was definitely a wake up call for me, honestly, man. Like, we do have tools now that can help us when we’re not feeling too hot.

Nick Urban [00:54:54]:
Yeah. Other peptides, I have also when I travel, I bring LL thirty seven and thymosin alpha one with me as, like, an immunity thing. In case I start feeling like I’m going down with something, I’ll use that. And it is extremely effective. I was mind blown just how effective that is, and that’s, like, a usual stack for me whenever I travel.

Zack Loewenstein [00:55:15]:
Yeah. I haven’t done l l thirty seven, but t a one. It’s just weird how, like, when you do that, you, like, you’re you feel stronger. Like, your immune system feels more I don’t know how to put it. Like, you just it feels seems like allergies don’t affect you anymore. And, like, someone could be coughing around you, and you just feel like you can handle it. I love TA one, and that’s another one that most people should do a couple times a year just just to the the constellation of effects that it has on our immune system. And and when you are sick, you are stressed, and things start going wrong when you have a viral load.

Zack Loewenstein [00:55:57]:
You know? That’s where autoimmunity can set in or cancer or chronic disease. So anything that could make you more tolerant to viruses and bacteria are really important. Of course, you don’t wanna overdo it. And I think also just taking a shot could be, like, a limiting factor for a lot of people. There’s just a a stigma with needles, rightfully so. But you can, I mean, take bioregulators, which are an entirely different class of peptides, and get those effects? The difference between, like, a peptide and a peptide bioregulator, a peptide is like a signal to a cell to create a a change or a function. Meanwhile, the bioregulator is a signal to your DNA to up regulate or down regulate certain genes. So it’s, like, affecting the entire gland or the entire organ versus a peptide, which is like a sniper affecting this one aspect of a cell.

Zack Loewenstein [00:57:00]:
That makes sense.

Nick Urban [00:57:01]:
Yeah. And bioregulators are nice because they’re also orally bioavailable. So you can just consume a short course of capsules and you can get better thymus gland activity or whatever your chosen organ system is.

Zack Loewenstein [00:57:16]:
Yeah. And that’s another one that people should should be doing throughout their year. Because, like, there’s been really interesting papers. Like, people that use bioregulators throughout their lifespan have better all cause mortality outcomes than people that don’t. So it’s another relatively inexpensive, therapeutic that is obtainable for people. It’s easy to take two capsules before bed. You know? Yeah. I’ve explored those a bit.

Zack Loewenstein [00:57:46]:
Especially after I fell, I did the bone marrow bioregulator and the blood vessel bioregulator because bone marrow produces stem cells. And the thing with the bioregulator is, like, you don’t feel it. So it makes you a little bit less inclined to keep up with it, but it’s it’s still I feel like it it probably did something, you know?

Nick Urban [00:58:07]:
Yeah. Yeah. Because it’s so convenient, like, uphill is much easier for most people to use. And, like, five years ago would have been easier for me to do than a needle. I would have just said no because of the needle in itself. But like, that’s a good place to start. And also like the protocols are pretty short and like easy to do. There’s some research on them coming out of Russia and now some coming out of The US, and there’s a lot of different places you can target.

Nick Urban [00:58:32]:
I don’t know if there’s been any research on the stack of peptides plus bioregulators. I think that’d be fascinating because there’s probably some good synergy there.

Zack Loewenstein [00:58:40]:
Totally agree. Speaking of bioregulators and peptides, some peptides are bioregulators. Like, the GHK copper peptide is the skin bioregulator, but I believe my all time favorite is Epitalin. Like, no conversation about peptides would be complete without Epitalin because that is the pineal gland’s bioregulator. And the pineal gland is, like, the most upstream system in our body that can control just so many elements of health because it’s like your circadian gland. It improves sleep quality, sleep duration, sensitivity to melatonin, and telomere activity. So it actually can, like, produce an enzyme to repair telomeres, which protects your DNA. So it’s the only peptide that I’m aware of that people call an antiaging peptide.

Zack Loewenstein [00:59:38]:
And the sleep from Apatalyne is just unmatched, man. Like, I’m just saying dreams all night. You wake up, feel clear. Like, it just it’s doing something for sure.

Nick Urban [00:59:48]:
What caught my eye about it is, as you probably know, melatonin has been, like, one of the hot topics of the last couple of years in the health space. And it’s because, like, we’ve realized a lot about it and now it’s being called the master antioxidant. It’s no longer glutathione. It’s now melatonin. And the issue with melatonin supplementation is that if you consume normal powder or even capsules, you get a big spike and then it just drops away. And that’s not all how it works in the body. So for a while, and what I usually do is I’ll take a liposomal or extended release melatonin, and that mitigates that issue. But it’s still not the way the body produces melatonin on its own.

Nick Urban [01:00:26]:
It produces melatonin like growth hormone and pulses. And so by using, Epitalon or other bioregulators that work on the pineal gland, you’re able to strengthen those pulses and get the body to produce more melatonin and do it on its own in a more effective, like bio harmonious way than just taking a melatonin sledgehammer and just like jacking out the body. Even if it’s a protective antioxidant and everything, like it still makes more sense to do it that way, unless there’s like a you’re dealing with a chronic condition or something that might make sense to keep levels elevated for long periods of time without any break.

Zack Loewenstein [01:01:05]:
Yeah. Have you ever tried the John Laurence’s products? Was it MitoZen with the high dose melatonin? Yeah. That stuff is crazy. Yeah. I love it, but, like, a lot of people, they’re wary about melatonin, right, and rightfully so because, like, when you super physiologically spike melatonin in your body, like, it’s not that your body will stop making it. Your body will as long as it’s light and it’s dark, like, your body will make cortisol and melatonin. But it’s you will desensitize those receptors. If you’re, like, taking a million times more than what your body makes, even once a week, you’ll make your body less receptive to your body’s natural melatonin.

Zack Loewenstein [01:01:47]:
But that stuff, I love how it feels like it washes your brain overnight. Like, it really improves the glymphatic system in the brain. And I think melatonin could be reused as a tool, but a lot of people use it improperly. Like, they’ll take it right before bed instead of taking it at, like, sundown where it makes you wanna go to bed earlier. But, yeah, I have Laurence’s products in the fridge right now. And, it’s a good, like, once or twice a month kind of reset when you need really good sleep.

Nick Urban [01:02:20]:
Yeah. Exactly. Any other peptides we haven’t covered? Because we’ve talked a lot about peptides, and there might be some other hidden ones there that you really like and no one else knows about.

Zack Loewenstein [01:02:30]:
Ones that I’m, like, curious about, I’m curious about, like, some of the more obscure peptide. See, they’re, like, hard to remember because we’re talking, like, numbers and letters.

Nick Urban [01:02:41]:
Like, I

Zack Loewenstein [01:02:42]:
believe it’s p n c twenty seven. Could be a cancer prevention peptide because it reduces cancer apoptosis. One that I wanna talk about is FOXO four DRI. So FOXO four reduces senescent cells, but I’m, like, kinda scared to take it because there’s no human data, or none that I’m aware of. There might be. But, it it seems like it could be a really potent analytic that could be awesome to couple with SS thirty one and Humanin and NAD. So FOXO four is one that I really wanna, like, learn more about, but I’m just a little wary about experimenting, like like, on myself like that, especially with something as important as cellular senescence.

Nick Urban [01:03:34]:
I was gonna mention that one because it’s one of those that, like, it seems interesting. And to me, cellular senescence is a really important topic and it’s one that most of us don’t address at all through diet and lifestyle and through even supplementation. Now that’s changing with the emerging research and the companies that are creating products around it. Kind of like antioxidants, where you want to balance redox, oxidation and reduction. I’m wary of taking a bunch of things, stacking a ton of, like, really powerful, senolytics together because senescent cells also are important signaling cells. So signaling they have important signaling roles in the body. So I don’t know if, like, just crushing, destroying, wiping out all senolytic cells is gonna be a good thing. Especially when we’re younger, perhaps there’s gonna be a like, there there is a larger burden when we’re older, so maybe it makes more sense then.

Nick Urban [01:04:26]:
But, like, finding that sweet spot of, like, how much do you like, how many senolytics do you use? Like, what dose what concentration?

Zack Loewenstein [01:04:34]:
Yeah. I’ve used Neurohacker Collective’s senolytic, but only, like, twice. You know? And, like, I don’t notice anything from it. And, like, I love I love NeuroHacker Collective. I do think it’s, like, a little expensive to pay, like, $40.50 bucks for two servings of a product. But, I mean, whatever. Yeah. I I agree with you, man.

Zack Loewenstein [01:04:56]:
We really just don’t understand it enough just yet, which is why I have reservations with Fox o four. But I don’t know, man. Maybe I mean, maybe, like, doing at at our age, like like, I’m 29. I’m assuming you’re around the same age. Maybe, like, once or twice a year at our age would be good, but, like, as you get older, just increasing the frequency. We just don’t know. And that’s what, we’re here for. Right? So, like, kind of pioneer a space, but you don’t wanna be too like, you you have to be wary.

Zack Loewenstein [01:05:30]:
You can’t be too, like, believe everything you hear. You have to have some discernment.

Nick Urban [01:05:34]:
Well, Zach, that reminds me. Are you doing, like, before and after blood work? How are you making sure that it’s having the right effects and it’s not taking your biology down some routes you don’t wanna go down?

Zack Loewenstein [01:05:44]:
That’s a really good question. I actually had gotten blood work earlier this year, and I had elevated liver enzymes. So, which actually really scared me because when you’re when when a doctor said, hey. Like, you should get a liver scan, like, a, whatever, that, like, honestly, rocked me a little bit. I’m like, damn. Like, you really need your liver. So I actually cut back from all the peptides. I I cut back from a majority of my supplements and just start you know, just drink water.

Zack Loewenstein [01:06:16]:
And, interestingly enough, during that two week period, my resting heart rate decreased by a couple of points. So and my HRV improved as well. So I don’t know what it was. But, yeah, in two weeks, I brought my my extremely elevated levels down to within normal ranges. So, like, I’m wondering, is it the copper peptide? Like, taking copper for three months every couple of days, like, maybe there’s just a copper toxicity in my body. Then I also realized that, hey. Like, I drank alcohol the weekend before. I had I had two drinks, but still, like, I had alcohol.

Zack Loewenstein [01:06:55]:
You know? Like, I don’t know what my body does, how long it takes to to lower those enzymes. So, you know, I I really should do more. And that’s one thing I’ve been realizing for how as much as I do and the access that I have, I should definitely capitalize on it and do blood work more frequently.

Nick Urban [01:07:13]:
That’s one thing that if it came back as elevated in my blood work, I would be concerned because there’s so many things that can elevate liver enzymes. Like all supplements potentially have that issue because of contamination and other things, especially herbs. I’m a big fan of herbs and adaptogens and everything, but, like, that’s even bigger of an issue there. Peptides, then also, like, foods. Are you eating chocolate? Does that have high lead or arsenic or mercury or any of those things in it? Are you eating sushi? It’s like is your does your home have some kind of problems with heavy metals? There’s, like, a million different places this can come. I think even, mold and different things like that can elevate liver enzymes. And it’s it’s one of the

Zack Loewenstein [01:07:54]:
Dude, absolutely. It’s one

Nick Urban [01:07:55]:
of, like, the first things to go in terms of, like, overall health.

Zack Loewenstein [01:07:59]:
Yes. Yeah. And it’s a real that’s a really good point. It’s like a very good early detection, like, you know, what’s it? The check engine light, you know, for your body. If your liver enzymes are high, like, you need to reevaluate. You know? I personally think it was from taking Enclomiphene. So, I was I was going through, like, a period earlier this year. I just had low energy, just didn’t feel good, and I got my blood work.

Zack Loewenstein [01:08:26]:
And I had, like, really low testosterone. It was, like, 360, and my free testosterone was, like, seven. You know? So I started taking clomiphene. And even then, my liver enzymes were slightly elevated, like, almost to the point of, like, hey. Like, you should be worried about this or concern. So I started taking clomiphene every day. And a few months later, I tested my blood, and my liver enzymes were so much higher. And I also felt, like, not good.

Zack Loewenstein [01:08:53]:
Like, I felt like when I would urinate, it was, like, super dark and, like, it just something was off. So I stopped taking that entirely. And, yeah. I mean, I I felt better. So I wanna say it was probably from taking Enclomiphene on a daily basis. Interesting.

Nick Urban [01:09:10]:
Because that’s billed as, like, the number one alternative to, like, PRT injections.

Zack Loewenstein [01:09:16]:
Yeah. A lot of men

Nick Urban [01:09:16]:
are going for these days. And I’ve also think that I’ve heard that people advocating it say that it doesn’t impact your liver enzymes like a lot of the other anabolic hormones do.

Zack Loewenstein [01:09:27]:
Yeah. Who knows? I might just be like, I might just have one gene that that cannot process one byproduct of it. And, like, for me, it doesn’t work. Who knows? Or maybe it was something else. But I think me taking a drug every single day and also, like, occasionally taking modafinil and then the entire other medicine cabinet of supplements that I have, something was not working with my body for sure.

Nick Urban [01:09:54]:
Uh-huh. So you mentioned your genes. Are you did you have your your genome sequenced? And do you use that

Zack Loewenstein [01:10:00]:
information at all? I do. My buddy, doctor Tyler Pantner, you gotta have him on your show, bro.

Nick Urban [01:10:07]:
He is He’s he’s awesome.

Zack Loewenstein [01:10:08]:
Yeah. He is so yeah. He is so cool. But he helped me dive into my genes and just get a better understanding of, like, c o m t and, MTHFR. And, like, his recommendations really change people’s lives, and it is all from the genome. I yeah. And there’s you can go through 23 me or whatever and get your raw file and then send it into various companies. I think there’s, like, Prometheus, which I probably wouldn’t recommend, and then there’s Genomelink, which I thought was really cool.

Zack Loewenstein [01:10:43]:
Genomelink, this is a really funny story. So I bought the premium. I was learning about my genetics, and it was funny. So you can go into, like, cognition and mental health. And it was kinda funny. Like, I have on statistically, I am likely to be average intelligence, but my linguistic verbal skills are above average. So it’s kinda funny. Like, I’m, like, not that smart, but I sound smart.

Zack Loewenstein [01:11:12]:
You know? But also what was really interesting was my my memory was very below average. So I’m, like, curious, like, does that mean I have a higher likelihood of dementia? Like or does memory and and Alzheimer’s or dementia, are they, like, not mutually exclusive? You know what I mean? Like like, I could have poor memory because I have ADD. And I’m, like, in my own world, and I’m, like, not paying attention to things. You know? So I don’t know. I don’t know. But that it was it was interesting. Genes, I think, are one of those fundamental tests that everybody should just do right off the gate, you know?

Nick Urban [01:11:53]:
And I found that for me, it’s really helpful because in my interview with doctor Panziner, we were talking about those specifics. And he was it might have been before the call. We were going through some of my results, and he shared that based on my results, I am less likely to do well with green tea extract. But, like, if you talk to anyone, look in the research, green green tea extract is so promising for so many things. It’s like almost a superfood. And for some reason, when I take it, it just makes me feel off, and it makes me feel, like, wired and jittery and, like, not in a good way. And, like, for me, it just doesn’t fit with my biology. I think it’s because of my COMT gene expression or not expression, but just the the gene, the variation.

Nick Urban [01:12:41]:
And there’s so many things about it. We all hear about how good these certain things are, even in certain cases, how bad certain things are. And that might be true in general on average to the population, but not to us as individuals. It can be the absolute best product or ingredient on paper, but if it doesn’t work through biology, it doesn’t work. And if you’re doing taking ten, twenty, 30 different things, it’s hard to say. Okay. It’s probably the green tea over here that’s causing me to feel more generous.

Zack Loewenstein [01:13:05]:
Like, the last thing you would think of eliminating, yeah. We same same deal. We both have the same that COMT mutation. And, yeah. It was kinda wild. It was like, hey. Do you get anxious when you take green tea? I’m like, no. And then the next day, I took it.

Zack Loewenstein [01:13:20]:
I’m like, wait. Like, I actually am like like, my baseline anxiety is definitely higher than it would be if I didn’t take it. Really valuable information. Same with quercetin. Quercetin, like, like, yeah. Like, that that makes me anxious. So I didn’t I didn’t realize. So yeah.

Zack Loewenstein [01:13:36]:
Shout out to doctor Panzner. Yeah. That’s that’s my brother for sure.

Nick Urban [01:13:41]:
Yeah. Absolutely. So based on all of this, what are parts of your stack now that are integral to your routine? Whether it’s modalities or supplements or rare exotic foods you can only import from one country a certain time of the year?

Zack Loewenstein [01:13:59]:
Most integral part of my health lifestyle right now is balancing work and my own personal life because, I feel like I give a lot of myself at work, and you start to lose yourself a little bit when you are playing a role or fulfilling a role. So on the weekends, I have a a saying, like, it’s vacation mode. Like, on the weekend I live in Florida. It’s gorgeous. My my job is to disconnect as much as possible from work so I can reset my nervous system. And I would have to say the most integral part would be sharing meals with people. So, like, whether you are, having, like, a Shabbat dinner or by just inviting a friend or two, like, hey. Like, let’s go get breakfast on Sunday morning.

Zack Loewenstein [01:14:53]:
Like, I think that is just so important for my mental and physical health. When it comes to sexy biohacks, PEMF is my all time favorite. For one, we didn’t really talk about the benefits of PEMF, but, like, it’s essentially a very strong pulse electromagnetic field that improves the viscosity of your blood by introducing negative ions to the system. And when you’re doing that, you are hyperoxygenating the bloodstream while activating nerves, which can cause, like, a calming effect on those nerves. So if you have pain, it can reduce pain. If you’re just generally a little bit higher strung, it can turn you into a more parasympathetic state. So doing PEMF is, like, is integral. Doing the infrared sauna is imperative.

Zack Loewenstein [01:15:49]:
Like, we live in such a toxic world. I think, like, three times a week is a minimum, but, like, five to seven times a week is ideal. There is a there there there hasn’t been an observed diminishing returns to doing the infrared sauna. Like, the more you do it, it seems to be better for you. So, as long as you’re staying hydrated, taking your Shiela JIT and and electrolytes and whatever. And, I have to say, yeah, when it comes to, like, BioHacks, the PEMF and the sauna are are my big ones. But one thing that I’ve recently realized, recently being the last couple of days, is we have hyperbaric chambers at Vitality. And the fact that I’ve not been using them regularly is just an absolute shame.

Zack Loewenstein [01:16:37]:
So I did a session yesterday, slept like an angel, and I also have so much more mental clarity and energy today. I’m like, how have I not been doing this? You know? So, I I would like to make hyperbaric a part of my lifestyle. So, that’s what I’m gonna be doing after after this conversation.

Nick Urban [01:16:58]:
Nice. Yeah. It’s a it’s a good routine. So you mentioned in passing two substances, electrolytes. I’m glad you said Shilajit. What are any products that you find supplements that work well for you?

Zack Loewenstein [01:17:10]:
What like, I don’t think what matters is what works well for me. It’s what works well for everybody. Like, what can I recommend to you, like, to a majority of people that would benefit their health? And humic and fulvic minerals are at the very top of that list arguably before creatine and vitamins. Humic and fulvic acid, helps the absorption and integration of minerals, And Shilajit is essentially like a Jurassic forest that is decomposed into a tar, and you can get all of the nutrients from this million year plus old forest. It’s a really easy way to get a high bolus of rare minerals into your system, which can also assist with heavy metal detoxification, immunological, support, and energy support, and hormonal support. So, like, across the board, it is so good. In fact, I I recently started to experiment not with Shilajit, but rather just drinking humic and fulvic minerals. And I it’s good.

Zack Loewenstein [01:18:14]:
It’s less bitter, but I feel like I have more of, like, a oomph when I take Shilajit, so likely gonna go back. But, yeah, I think taking minerals is the most important recommendation anyone can take away from this, because they like, the way I understand minerals is they allow physics to work properly inside of your cells. They allow the cells to, like, function as they’re meant to function and, super important. And it’s so simple. Like, vitamins and minerals. Like, you think, oh, like, you you overlook it because it’s too simple, but it’s so foundational. It is like it’s overlooked. You know? When it comes to other supplements, I think a majority of the population would benefit from creatine monohydrate or what is the new one? GAA.

Zack Loewenstein [01:19:04]:
I haven’t experimented with that one yet, but, creatine is just so important for energy production, and water retention inside the brain and inside of muscles. It’s not a bodybuilding supplement in my opinion. Like, yeah, it makes you look, like, more full, but it is much more of a energy supplement for for the brain. To create a scene, it improves the endurance of cognition and the endurance of physical output. So, that one’s really important.

Nick Urban [01:19:39]:
It’s funny you mentioned that because one of the very first articles I wrote on outlier was about creatine as a nootropic. And this is years ago. And it’s interesting to see in 2024, like, late twenty twenty four, it’s popping up as, like, this multifaceted supplement that seems to support, like, virtually every facet of health. And it’s like, people are now saying that creatine does all this and that. And it’s like, well, yes. It does. And if you go back to decades ago on the forums, the bodybuilders and other people who are using it were pointing out that it does all these other things beyond just helping you beyond helping your muscles look more full and putting on water weight and slightly marginally increasing your power and strength and all these things, like, those benefits have been here the whole time. We’re just finally catching up to what the experienced users have known all along.

Zack Loewenstein [01:20:27]:
Mhmm. Yep. A %, bro. You’ve been ahead of ahead of the times for sure. That’s that’s impressive. Yeah, man. Creatine, I I I cycle it. I tend to, like, forget to take it for a while, and then I pick it back up.

Zack Loewenstein [01:20:41]:
A lot of people won’t take it because it makes them bloated the first couple of days. Push through. It’ll actually make you look leaner once you saturate yourself with it. So, and leaner by making your muscles look bigger. So, creatine’s great. But I think the third would have to be getting your genetics analyzed and learning what specific vitamins you need. You have MTHFR that might be taking more folate and methylated vitamins. I don’t know.

Zack Loewenstein [01:21:12]:
You know? Like, you should you should hit up our buddy Tyler, and he can really help you, like, figure out exactly what your body needs because, you know, you pay for one consultation, one time. Those vitamins you need for life. So, it is such an important investment. I think we all need to make, to live and lead the healthiest life possible.

Nick Urban [01:21:34]:
To add onto that too, it’s like, okay. You might have a genetically higher need for, say, magnesium. You might run blood work and be like, oh, my magnesium levels are fine. But that’s because you’re looking at the serum, and the serum is not gonna give you a true indication of your body’s need for magnesium because you’re gonna pull it from your tissues and your bones and everything to keep that level in the blood stable. So it’s like that information is, in my opinion, worth its weight in gold because then it helps you create a more targeted approach and not waste money on certain things. And then at the same time, instead of adding, say, what’s a good example, vitamin a into your diet, you might already have, like, really high levels genetically. So you could be creating more toxicity even from, like, the dosage recommendation on the bottle of a vitamin a product if you’re following that because you don’t know your own genetics. And that might show up in blood work and it might not.

Zack Loewenstein [01:22:26]:
Yeah. Yeah. I do a %. And, like, the fact it’s I think one reform that we should be making as, like, as far as the FDA is concerned is the doses are way too the doses on supplements are just way too broad. Like, what is good for a man is entirely different from what’s good for a woman. Like, there should be more specific information that’s required out of labels, in my personal opinion. And I’m glad you mentioned magnesium because that is another one that we all need. Whether we’re exposed to EMFs, Bluetooth, Wi Fi, five g, or if we are working forty plus hours a week, you need magnesium not only before bed, but also before you go to work as well.

Zack Loewenstein [01:23:14]:
You know? So that would be another one that I would be comfortable with recommending to everybody.

Nick Urban [01:23:22]:
Sweet. You

Zack Loewenstein [01:23:22]:
know? Yeah.

Nick Urban [01:23:23]:
I’m with you. Universal magnesium. Add magnesium to the water supply.

Zack Loewenstein [01:23:27]:
Yeah. Yeah. Fuck fluoride. We need magnesium.

Nick Urban [01:23:30]:
Well, Zach, we can keep going for a very long time. Perhaps we’ll do another one of these at some point to discuss any changes because this has been a blast for me. If people want to connect with you, you have an active Instagram, is there anywhere else you wanna point them? How do they find you?

Zack Loewenstein [01:23:45]:
So, yeah, you can find me at Instagram at biohack zack, z a c k. Or you could hit me up on Facebook as well, but, honestly, Instagram is gonna be the fastest way to get in contact with me. If you any of you are in Saint Petersburg or Tampa Bay, I would love to show you Vitality. We are we have more recovery biohacking anti aging modalities than anywhere, not only in Tampa Bay or Orlando. It’s, like, here to Miami. So, we got more stuff. It’s come through. And we’re affordable.

Zack Loewenstein [01:24:16]:
We’re really affordable too. So that’s the important piece. So you can also follow Vitality Wellness Center or Vitality St. Pete, excuse me, on, Instagram. And I would love to, to meet you.

Nick Urban [01:24:28]:
Well, I hope at some point I’ll be able to swing by and check out your space over there as well because it sounds like you guys got lots of goodies, and it’ll be fun to connect in person.

Zack Loewenstein [01:24:37]:
I would love that.

Nick Urban [01:24:38]:
Okay, Zach. Thanks for joining the podcast.

Zack Loewenstein [01:24:40]:
Dude, that was great.

Nick Urban [01:24:41]:
Until next time. Thank you for tuning in to this episode. Head over to Apple Music, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and leave a rating. Every review helps me bring you thought provoking guests. As always, you can find the show notes for this one at mindbodypeak.comslash, and then the number of the episode. There, you can also chat with other peak performers or connect with me directly. The information depicted in this podcast is for information purposes only. Please consult your primary health care professional before making any lifestyle changes.