Best Peptides, Stem Cells, Testosterone & Exercise Hacks - Biohacking Roundtable

The episode opens with a housekeeping request rather than the topic at hand. Chris Williamson asks listeners in the UK and Ireland who are coming to see him on tour to submit their problems, their worst first dates and any questions they want answered, promising that some of them will be brought on stage to discuss those submissions with a microphone in front of their faces.

He then sets the tone for what follows by declaring that the only thing he actually cares about is which peptides each guest is currently running, and hands the conversation over to the roundtable.

The first substantive answer reframes peptides away from the rigid, everyday dosing schedule that dominates online discussion. They are described as closer to a condiment kept in the refrigerator: something pulled out for a specific reason, rather than a fixed protocol followed daily.

The concrete example given is travel. Thymus and alpha-1 are used while travelling for immune support, and one speaker notes he is on them during the recording itself. BPC-157 and TB-500 are kept on hand for injuries. A few times a year a cycle combining tesamorelin, ipamorelin and CJC-1295 is run specifically for growth hormone. Two intranasal compounds round out the list: CMAX, described as more of a cognition and BDNF booster, and C-Lank, described as more anxiolytic.

The second speaker endorses essentially the same protocol and adds the framing that keeps the whole discussion grounded: the answer is not at the bottom of a peptide bottle. Diet, lifestyle and nutrition come first, and the compounds function as additives that help optimise health, particularly given how stripped of nutrients modern food sources are.

The one compound raised that had not yet been discussed is IGF-LR3, insulin-like growth factor LR3. The argument for it rests on what growth hormone is actually being used to achieve. Historically people took growth hormone in order to obtain the therapeutic benefits it produces once it converts to IGF, so using the peptide directly is presented as a way to get those same benefits without disturbing the body's own growth hormone production.

The trade-off being avoided is spelled out in some detail. With pure HGH there is something closer to a glucocorticoid-like effect: a cortisol surge, higher resting glucose, and worse sleep for many people because the compound runs down a downstream pathway. Using IGF-LR3 is said to skip a large part of that.

The larger point, though, is the preservation of natural output. The speaker notes his own age, 46, as a reason to be careful, and describes running IGF-LR3 for four to six weeks before coming off and cycling onto CJC and related compounds specifically to boost endogenous growth hormone levels.

The third protocol offered is the simplest: an occasional microdose of GLP-1 for inflammation. The context given is a protein working group summit described as the Oscars for nerds and protein scientists, an invitation-only gathering of roughly a hundred researchers, where the discussion centred on the challenges the field faces.

At that summit the speaker sat with Arne Astrup, the researcher credited with discovering GLP-1's effect on appetite, and therefore with much of the current era of GLP-1 use in what is characterised as an obesity, and increasingly sarcopenic, epidemic. The speaker is explicit that he is entirely in favour of GLP-1s while still finding the science compelling.

The claim under discussion is that low-dose GLP-1 may affect cancer, and the mechanism is not established. Astrup is said to believe it works through inflammation. Chris Williamson immediately presses the alternative explanation: perhaps what is really happening is simply a reduction in the turnover of food, meaning less consumption of cancer-causing food. The answer is an honest admission that nobody knows, and that this remains an open question.

The epidemiological backdrop offered is that age is the leading cause of cancer and obesity is second, so addressing both would naturally reduce cancer risk, making a correlation with weight loss almost certain. Inflammation independent of obesity is raised as a separate pathway, along with the observation that a relatively lean person can still be turning over enormous amounts of sugar and simply training it out, or be young enough that metabolism still absorbs the damage.

Autophagy is offered as one plausible benefit of intermittent fasting, giving reactive oxygen species production a break. The practical version of the GLP-1 microdose is then described: use on flight days, where food noise is quietened, good food is unavailable anyway, and the day is largely sedentary, so even if eating were possible it would not be the best scenario for it.

The dose is quantified to make the point concrete: roughly 0.25, against a normal dose of 8, 10 or 12 milligrams depending on the compound. The observation that this produces a noticeable effect is described as consistent with what has been seen anecdotally across a patient population now above 70,000, where many patients are microdosing GLP-1s and reporting a large difference in inflammation.

The closing argument of this section is that GLP-1s are here to stay in a way earlier medications never were, with nothing comparably revolutionary before them. The historical contrast drawn is the 1990s food guide pyramid and the obesity that followed it.

The warning that anchors the discussion is that we are at the precipice of trading obesity for sarcopenia. Sarcopenia is defined for listeners as a decrease in muscle mass and strength, the frailty that appears when parents and grandparents suddenly become frail. The risk is that the early warning signs get missed, with the visible transformations in Hollywood offered as the example.

The point is sharpened by reference to the book under discussion: the problem is not only that people are over-fat, it is that they are simultaneously under-muscled. Maintaining lean muscle mass and bone mineral density as we age is described as one of the leading indicators of health span and longevity.

Asked for interventions he believes in without data to support them, one speaker nominates the Biocharger, and the room immediately splits. One participant owns one, having borrowed it from Tony Robbins, who reportedly keeps one in every room of his house. Another refuses to be recruited into the endorsement.

The purchase story is a patient who credited the device with raising her sex drive and told him to pick any piece of equipment he wanted. Having already owned a sauna and a cold plunge, he took the Biocharger. His husband reports feeling something from it; whether it works remains undetermined.

The technical description is offered with its own caveat attached: pulsed electromagnetic frequencies based on a Tesla coil, surrounded by twelve noble gases arranged in twos, and zero clinical data. What it reliably does provide is the experience of holding a cool lightsaber.

The anecdotal case for it is framed as a recipe: a session described as useful for constipation after travel, where sitting in front of it for twelve minutes produces an unmistakable urge. Against that, the borrowed unit used semi-consistently for about a month produced no noticed difference, and the interviewer concedes he probably did not use it consistently. The one objective observation is that a phone placed near it begins to glitch.

The next device is a Windback machine, lent for trial and described as some form of tech heart therapy. Nobody in the room can fully explain it. It appears to involve high radio frequency rather than being a straightforward EMS device, it uses patches, it has a controller that produces electricity, and it is being used on a hamstring with apparent tissue-healing effect.

The honest limitation is stated plainly: there is no good US data on it. The working assumption offered is that feeling better has to work through some mechanism, and that it is not a stim device. The one striking detail is that it localises to where the pain is, which is described as really weird.

The Roxiva is then introduced as a sound lounge: a vibroacoustic bed you lie on, paired with a lamp that has headphones, connected like an AV cable with one channel to the bed and one to the headphones. Around a hundred sessions run from five minutes to sixty, ranging from blast-off to a full psychedelic experience, with the explicit claim of zero biological payback because nothing is swallowed or dissolved under the tongue.

The proposed mechanism is light-sound entrainment, shifting the listener into different brain wave states through light and sound. The comparison drawn is to a Shiftwave, except that a Shiftwave only vibrates while this device, in the speaker's words, shakes the roof, and is lined with something that produces sound as well as vibration.

Two practical observations are added. Guided breathwork sessions run through the device, and breath holds can be extended by roughly 25 percent purely because the vibrating chair distracts you from the discomfort, while a fingertip HRV monitor shows HRV climbing during the session. Add flickering light and the state shift becomes more pronounced still.

The session called Rebirth is described in detail: whooshing sounds and a fetal heartbeat recorded to resemble the womb, headphones on, eyes closed, lying under the device for forty-five minutes, drifting in and out of consciousness. The final five minutes build to a crescendo, the lights brighten, heart rate rises and adrenaline dumps, then everything goes dark and you sit up feeling ready to conquer the world at two in the afternoon.

The verdict stays measured. The story is compelling and the device is conceded to be genuinely cool, but the interviewer notes he has used the Shiftwave, and that the Shiftwave is not as comprehensive.

The womb-sound element prompts a reference to Stephen Porges, the polyvagal theorist, and to the Safe and Sound Protocol, described as a mode of nervous system re-entrainment combining something like meditation, mantra, psychotherapy, sound wave work and breath work, delivered with a facilitator.

The specific finding passed on is that the soft, gentle, reassuring sounds mothers make to their children sit at a particular frequency, which is where the segment ends and the next part of the conversation picks up.

The thread from the previous segment is picked up: the Safe and Sound Protocol works through the same narrow band of sound frequency, the tone rather than the content. The striking claim is that the band is identical for dogs and for horses, which is offered as the explanation for why equine-facilitated therapy functions and why humans can connect with horses and with dogs at all. In every one of those species, the frequency mothers and children share sits within the same band.

The joke that follows is that a mother with a very low voice is probably simply jacked, so it makes no difference.

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy is conceded to be neither experimental nor particularly sexy, but the experience is described in unusually strong terms. The protocol is a hard-shell chamber at 2.2 atmospheres, 20 minutes on and five minutes off, 100 percent oxygen through a mask and normal oxygen outside those windows, inside a 90-minute session at depth.