The Cutting Edge of Human Optimization: Peptides, Exosomes, Hormones, Brain Chemistry, and Sexual Health with the Prep Coach Alex Kikel. EP 020

Stephen McCain: Alex, welcome to the Steven McCain podcast.

Alex Kikel: Thank you so much for having me, man. I really do appreciate that. It was an honor to meet you in person at FOH Live. We had some good conversations. It's cool to kind of follow up from that.

Stephen McCain: Oh, man, I'm, I'm so excited about this you are one of those people that you, I might come across once every five years, maybe. I attend a lot of conferences , and I was like, oh man, here we go, this guy, because, you know, this is what I've said about you. You are incredibly versed in bio biochemistry, and yet you are incredibly versed in having just tried so much stuff, which, , in and of itself, , there's people on, on, usually just on one camp.

They're brainiac, you know, biochemist people, and , they all up, they operate in that, that, that sort of space. And then you get these people that are just like, well, I've just tried everything. I know the way the body works and it just, here's how you do this, but you're just. You're like the perfect combination of that and I'm, I, I just can't wait to pick your brain [00:01:00] on this podcast.

Alex Kikel: Well, thank you. I, I appreciate that. I think a lot of what I see the world is not black and white. It's always gray goes for everything. Like nothing's really good or bad. People aren't good or bad. It's many shades of gray. Just kind of apply that to everything.

Stephen McCain: Yeah. , and , you gave a speech that was, uh, the premise was you can biohack anything. And I've always had that philosophy that like you can, your body is an adaptive thing and you can cause it to adapt to in any direction that you want. You just gotta give it the right material and stimulus. Right.

Alex Kikel: That's exactly right. It's so the word's plastic, right? So that plasticity, anything can change. Like what? 20 years ago they thought the brain like could never grow or improve. It was like, oh, you have Alzheimer's or dementia, or you have a TBI. It's like, you're done, sorry. Like your life's over. And for all those people the doctors said that to, it's like how could you imagine being that person who's told you are done living your life?

'cause you just got punched in the face. And then they didn't listen. They went out [00:02:00] and did their own thing and they realized, oh, I can change my brain. It applies to everything.

Stephen McCain: Yeah. In fact they were actually, , by even saying that the brain can't do that, they were informing their own brain and, and building neural pathways to strengthen that belief system.

Alex Kikel: Oh, okay. So I'm gonna kick off this Power caused really cool with

that. Okay. Okay.

You're gonna love this. Um, okay. So this goes back to how your thoughts become things, how your thoughts become reality, and really the whole placebo effect. So I don't think anyone's really ever elucidated the placebo effect, at least in this manner.

We saw how, through my lens and how I see things working. First of all, it's a conversation between mitochondria, our bodies, water and fascia, meaning mitochondria are not reactive, they're proactive, they are anticipatory. Meaning before you do anything, they're already reacting. They know what's gonna happen.

In the same way that water is very reactive and it's a communication system. So water look out in the ocean, it gets hit by lightning. What happens? It tenses up. [00:03:00] How can it do that before the lightning hits it, unless if it knew it was gonna come? Or you jump off a tall building into a pool, and if you're high enough up, guess what?

You're not dropping into water. It's like you're hitting cement. It tightens up. You're not just gonna go into the water. So how would that happen if it wasn't reactive in the same manner? Then we look at the fascial system in our body. So, okay, we have something's about to happen. Our fascia in our water are communicating with each other before we even do that action, or take that supplement or eat that food. But how does it move throughout the body? Our fascial system that actually moves faster, communicates with water and mitochondria faster than our neurons. Our neurons fire in our brain. So those things are firing at peak a seconds. Like you really can't even measure that these anticipatory actions are happening faster. So the whole placebo effect, the whole, your thoughts become things. It's because you're doing that. If you think, like, if you think you're gonna take a supplement, for example, like you're about to pop a pill, SS 31 or like whatever, and then you hear something crash down upstairs and you'd run up to, again, you forgot to take that pill. [00:04:00] Your body would still respond as if you took that pill, even though you didn't take it. Because in that environment, you are about to, it's not like you, you can't fool yourself kid like, oh, I'm gonna take it and not do it. No, you're not gonna take it. It's that anticipatory programming response.

Stephen McCain: Yeah, anybody that's taken enough stuff or paid attention with enough awareness to their physiology for a long enough period of time, they know that that is real. You. You like there, you could have a headache. Even, I know everyone has probably done this. You have a headache and you take like an ibuprofen or something, and just as you're even entering it into your mouth, your headache starts to subside a little bit.

Right? It, it's, yeah. I'm more fascinated by not just how that works with these placebo effects, but I'm more fascinated with how every thought that you have can make your life better or worse. Really, at the end of the day, like when I was a training to be a world class athlete and try to make an Olympic team, you literally had to control troll everything that , your brain was thinking [00:05:00] because you couldn't let anybody rock you off your mountaintop, you know, and it was a, an art to do that.

Alex Kikel: Right. And that's, to me, it's a learned skill. Like I always use myself for the example, just 'cause it's the easiest. Like I was not always naturally positive person. I was not naturally healthy, I was not naturally intelligent, had poor memory, like the opposite of who I am today. And I made the decision to become this person.

It literally is an active process every second from every single day. And that sounds laborious in nature, but it, it's really not. It's a learned skill over time. So if you could start slowly, like you said, getting to the top of the mountain and staying there, not letting anyone or anything really derail you from that, anything comes into your life.

My biggest mantra that I tell myself and everyone I work with is everything in life's an opportunity. 

So the moment something negative happens in your brain, find the positive and say it out loud, confirm it to the world, and do not even go down that other path. If you can get good at that alone, your quality of life, how good you are at your job, how good of a partner you are, it just goes up crazy.

Stephen McCain: Absolutely. I mean, no, to think that, nothing bad is [00:06:00] ever gonna happen or, , that we're just impervious to negative situations. It's all about how you react and your relationship to it, , and within all difficulty lies in opportunity. That's one of my, that, I think that's my favorite quote.

It's Einstein quote, and I always, I do that, try to do that exact same thing just to say, what can I learn from this? Or how can this better me? And how can I, just move forward , with, knowing something that I didn't know that can make me more equipped in the future, you know?

And, uh, fantastic. Well, I, I'm glad we, we kind of got a, a little bit of a, a mindset, start to this. , I did wanna ask, what is your formal background in terms of this education? Because you showed me a couple of books where we got started. I mean, I. Obviously , you are a self educator, but what is your formal background in like this chemistry and biochemistry and biology?

Alex Kikel: So actually nothing in that world. I got my master's in performance enhancement, injury prevention, whatever, 10 years ago, a decade plus whatever. Um, and then I was gonna go for my PhD. 'cause [00:07:00] originally I wanted to work in the human Performance Research lab and teach. 'cause I just liked education at that point. 

And at that point my business blew up just doing online stuff on the bodyboard.com forms when it was big. And I was like, I'm not gonna spend more money in school for a doctorate. I'm just gonna see if this thing works. And again, that was like 13 or whatever years ago. So it was just a master's, a couple scattered certificates and stuff like that.

But I think what college taught me the best was how to learn. So how to find information and how to interpret that information. Everything I know today, I learned after college, but I love traditional academia because you learn how to learn, it sets you up for the right way to continue the rest of your life.

So I, I think that was very invaluable for me.

Stephen McCain: Yeah, when I went to UCA, I was pre-med and I, I wasn't really ready yet 'cause I, I, I didn't know how to really, I just wanted to be an Olympian. And then when I subsequently went back and I moved to Olympic Training Center and then I went to college at University of Colorado and I, I switched everything to finance degree in business.

At that point, it was when I really learned how to [00:08:00] learn and I graduated summa cum laude. And then from there I've always felt like a, an academic at heart , and how I've picked up a lot of this health stuff and, and, what's fascinating is you never can really stop. And I, I feel that's why I always feel kind of bad for doctors in this, in this realm because they go to school for so long and by the time they finish, it seems like their education is just beginning because it's, everything is, it's so hard to keep up with everything.

I mean, I, there's every time I feel like well, that's pretty much it. I think I'm just gonna, there's not a whole lot else new going on and then all of a sudden just a wave of all this new stuff comes down and I'm like, uh, I gotta wrap my head around this stuff.

Alex Kikel: dude. So, okay, so good example. In the peptide space, we are learning of about a hundred to 200 new peptides every single day. So if you keep up with all the journals, talk to all the researchers. 'cause I'm good friends, or at least I know I'm in acquaintances with a lot of different people all the time.

They'll be, Hey, did you ever hear about this? Hey, this is new. There's always learning. So I spend more than half of my week going dumb, which is kind [00:09:00] of the perfect place to be at because you're always learning, you're always receptive information. So as long as you can encode those memories, you're good to go.

That's been like, for me, that's the hardest place where I'm at right now. Like my food intake has gotten ridiculous just because of how much I'm learning. Every day I'm at like 4,500 calories. It's like 400 grams of protein, 600 grams of carbs, a hundred grams of fat ish. And, uh, and I'm, I'm, I'm going hypo by 4:00 PM every day after I take my PBO walk outside.

'cause it's like after the workday and training and learning so much, I'm just going hypo from that walk because it just sets me over the edge. So fueling the memory, encoding side of things has been hard for me.

Stephen McCain: Wow. Yeah. Well, I we're, let, let, let's dig in a little bit 'cause you mentioned peptides and, I have been using peptides for 11 years. It was pretty underground when I started. And, I host the World Peptide Congress now with Dr. Seeds event for the last two, three years. And I've been able to speak there.

I used to attend it as just a, one of the only non-doctors, you know, I 

Alex Kikel: cool. 

Stephen McCain: like. Yeah, I, I would just sit in the back and just listen. And then I, you know, got to know [00:10:00] him and introduce myself, said, thank you so much for allowing non-doctors to be here. He is like, yeah, of course. You know, and, and, uh, I, I'm a huge, huge, I've had a love affair of peptides for a very long time.

 And I haven't really covered them that much on this podcast. It's, it's so weird. I don't know why I sort of have, um, you know, I never really, uh, uh, like I, I never thought people were gonna put, inject themselves with needles. And now it's like, no big deal, 

and 'cause I had people that would come over to my house and they're like, dude, what are you doing? You know, like this, what is all this stuff? You know? And, but, but, . I mean, look, we have like the, , the basic core peptides, you have your BPC and your TB 500, which everyone talks about.

But, , let's run through these a little bit, , because I think you might have a different perspective on it, and maybe I do too. , at least on those, those two that are like the, the considered the Wolverine healing stack. But, I've always said that the TB 500 also is like a thymus peptide.

So there's an immune system, a aspect to that peptide that [00:11:00] is very beneficial as well, , and anti-inflammatory , and a, so, , you have any inside tidbits on some of these core ones, that no one knows about or that, that maybe a different way of looking at them.

Alex Kikel: Lots. So if you ever wanna learn about any supplement, peptide, whatever, go to it. Look at the Cascades and all the biochemical processes and then just start Googling. Oh, if there's API three KAKT Cascade, probably gonna drive mTOR in in Anabolism in some degree if it has. You just go through that for absolutely every single aspect. TB 500 again. 'cause there's. 20 to 50 things that these peptides do. So I try and make it as easy as possible. We break it down to the top four things. So there's a primary, uh, secondary, tertiary, and quaternary aspect. So 1, 2, 3, and four. Right? With TB 500. The reason why I love it, so the first primary reason for everyone is it's pretty much the only peptide out there that'll activate neonatal genes. So those are the things right now in your system that will turn on and it'll be essentially, if you are at this point in life with zero trauma, oxidative stress, [00:12:00] inflammation or damage, it's the only peptide out there that does that. And this is research that's been out for over a decade at this point. Only compound that does that. So activation of neonatal genes, TB 500. Wow. Is that cool?

Second one, if you start looking at some of the, the research with strokes, okay, this is some really cool research out there. It's ability to actually heal and recover from a stroke in the moment. An hour or two later will show up as if you did not have a stroke, meaning the TBI and the traumatic, traumatic brain damage effect you get while you're having a stroke.

If you can make it to your fridge and pop five to 10 milligrams of TB 500, go to the hospital. Obviously make sure you're doing your due diligence. They will basically ask you to leave four hours later because the secondary scans will show up as there's no damage.

We've had that happen multiple times over years.

I think Carl Leno, who used to have a big podcast back in the day,

superhuman Radio, love that dude. I

think he's like, I always wanna give him credit for that 'cause he's the biggest proponent of that and he actually did it himself. So anyone in that kind of age range, I'm like, Hey, just have TV reconstitute ready to go in your fridge.

So if it does happen, just go [00:13:00] there. You're kind of good to go.

Uh, so that's two, right? Uh, if we go down, 'cause there's tons of different interactions. Let's look at one interaction most people don't know about. If you look at the ability to potentiate antibiotics, so let's say you have to take a course of any of the penicillins or any of the cephalosporins, whatever, antibiotic or over the counter herbal antibiotic.

So anything that will manage bacteria, could be a methylene blue, could be an Allison, could be an oregano oil, whatever. You're trying to clear up bacterial problem. TB 500, potentiates their action. So if you do have to go on a traditional pharmaceutical

from your doctor and you're worried about your gut biome, you could do half the course, half the dose and take TB 500 to make up the difference.

It'll potentiate its effects. So like, people with SIBO could maybe cut well, 'cause sibo, you actually are trying to annihilate a lot of that overgrowth of bacteria. But I wonder, could you get away with, I mean, 'cause the thing with antibiotics is you don't wanna become immune to using the antibiotic again, right.

Stephen McCain: Resistant. So, uh, I think the herbals are. One way to avoid the resistance. Right. You know, that way. [00:14:00] But, uh, that's fair. I did not know that about TB hundred. Uh, I did not know that at all. But keep going. This is fantastic. I don't wanna slow you 

Alex Kikel: Yeah, no, you're good. Um, everyone likes to discern between BPC and TB in terms of which will heal soft tissue. What should heal muscular tissue? And over the years of doing torn pecs, bicep tend ruptures. I mean, every kind of injury you can imagine. I've seen so much crossover and spillover. It's pretty dramatic between the two. So with TB 500, we've seen an application be able to heal muscular tissue, tendonous fiber space, collagen tissue. We've seen if you locally inject it into erectile tissue, males and females. Kids start to re hypertrophy that erectile tissue. If there was some kind of like trauma from like a bad sexual incident or like if you were hit with a baseball bat and they're groin, something like that.

So even that fibrous, connective, tunica based uh, uh, architecture of like the

penis for example, or even the clitoral network, you can locally apply TD 500. It's a little bit harder to those kind of clitoral based injections, but if there was a clitoral based damage event, you can kind of bring that tissue back.[00:15:00] 

So I see TB 500 or BPC as both being more global tissue healing players because of how many cascades they work through.

Stephen McCain: Wow, that's great. I mean, you, you bring up the, penile health and all that, and that is a rabbit hole. I think we're probably gonna go down here, although I don't want to derail the peptide stuff just yet, so I'm gonna put a pin in that one. But, uh, you know, it's something that I think, you know, a great deal about.

And you've worked with some, go ahead. 

Alex Kikel: I was gonna say, so I don't wanna interrupt you, I wanna do one more just 'cause you're wearing glasses. Have we talked about TB 500 eyedrops?

Stephen McCain: you told me at FOH at the party, or like the little dinner afterwards? , I told you, I said I wanna do my eyes. , and you said, uh, 50 micrograms. You make 50 microgram drops. Just TB 500 right?

Alex Kikel: So you can do both. TB 500, BP 1 57, and you can also add in, it's a product called KNC, and that's a C related Caron for that was originally for a macular degeneration in the canine world, but works on humans extremely well. But [00:16:00] to focus on TB 500, if you get normal five milligram vial, add one milliliter of bacteria, static water, it'll be basically one drop or one iu. So you would transfer that to any kind of eye drop, or one drop is roughly 50 micrograms per eye. It'll start to actually rehydrate the eye. It'll heal that corneal lens. It'll penetrate through that ocular tissue and start healing every different fibrous. There's three different tunics. There's multiple different tunics, small different cascades, obviously, but it's healing every aspect of eye health.

So it's

really big and like right. 

Stephen McCain: Done. Okay. I, I actually, um, I, I always have TB 500 BPC 1 57. Gh, HKCU, , growth hormone peptides. A, a thymosin alpha one always. Like I always, always, always. So I re-upped my BPC 1 57 and TB 500, , specifically to do this protocol. The eye one,

because it's the only thing I've noticed.

Like I'm 51 now and it's the one thing and it's not farsighted. Farsighted is perfect. I'm like a hawk, but up close. , and I, I just, I'm really [00:17:00] sensitive to blue light and I think it's all these damn screens. But I'm gonna, I have the can ci eyedrops. I've used the methylene blue eyedrops.

I have the VI mitten.

Eye drops that come from Russia. I've actually purchased those in Russia and when you, if you can get them in, I got 'em in Moscow. Uh, if you can get them cold there without them being shipped here, , they work amazing.

I don't feel like they work as well here after , , they come through customs or whatever.

, and then I do have, , uh, exosomes that I thought about doing a round , of drops of exosomes. I mean, I think exosomes and peptides play very, very well together. I've been, I've been tinkering with those protocols for two years now. Uh, so, but I'll, I'll take it one step at a time, but I'm gonna do your eyedrops for sure.

Alex Kikel: So you're, you're a thousand percent right on the exosomes, they will potentiate the action of any peptide you introduce it to. So the whole new wave should be, uh, hopefully it catches on sooner rather than later. Should be reconstituting your peptides in exome based water. It's slowly starting to go in that [00:18:00] direction, but that potentiation effect is pretty high.

Usually it's just

more the sourcing of the exosomes that makes it harder.

Stephen McCain: Yeah, exactly. I've been in the exome business. I mean, look, I'm wearing club exosome, you know, for most 

Alex Kikel: I saw,

Stephen McCain: Yeah. Like, uh, Sandra Kaufman and I've been doing this. She introduced me to them and, and I haven't stopped since, , every quarter I do them sometimes more, but I, I've been, , trying them with various peptides , and I-G-H-K-C-U, I don't know what, it's kind of like that thing we alluded to when we first started talking, like your brain, , kind of like knows something, you know?

I don't know exactly. I know it could be the stem cell recruitment or something, but I love taking G-H-K-C-U when I do exosomes. Do you have anything with that peptide in particular that might be why this is happening?

Alex Kikel: oh God. Yeah. So I've used, I've been able to wean off people off of antidepressants and SSRIs and SNRIs by using GH HKCU, so to modulate cortical centers in the brain to basically normalize neurochemistry. So [00:19:00] we're literally using it to modulate things like dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, but again, it's not, I say modulate specifically, meaning it's not going to increase or decrease by default.

It's going to bring the levels to what you need them.

So if you are too high dopaminergic and you're starting to get the little shakes, or you're too low dopaminergic, you don't have the motivation at all, it's gonna bring it up or pull it down based on what your neurochemistry needs.

Stephen McCain: Interesting. 'cause I, you know, this is a, this is a whole nother topic. I would say, like, the one thing I always feel like I'm trying to work on, like, everyone has their like, uh, legacy things that , they , pretty much work on for their whole life, right? Or, , they spend a good amount of years trying to figure out, and one of them for me is I feel like I have a unique brain chemistry.

I mean, I, I, I probably didn't help it by being. So one dimensional for so long, like when you're trying to, when you're an Olympic athlete, it's like you're just like, everything is this, everything, everything is sa. I sacrifice everything in life for this, for this, for this. So I tend to be [00:20:00] a rabbit holer where if I'm into something, I'm into it like 24 7 and then I'll just burn out and I'll be like, I need to take three days and just not even think about anything.

And just, but my brain chemistry , is you know, maybe GHKK, uh, G-H-K-C-U. The copper peptide is actually balancing my brain chemistry a little bit. , maybe that's what it is.

Alex Kikel: that's that's usually, uh, how it comes in and how it acts. So question follow up for you is what doses are you normally getting that at? Because it could be a big dose range depending on the person.

Stephen McCain: do. , One to two milligrams injectable. Yeah. Just, 

Alex Kikel: You could probably have that one milligram in daily in the morning fairly long term, as long as you're not getting too high of copper levels, which you have

to take a lot of GH HK for that even happen. You take it as that morning am circadian ligand, get outside, let your IC first sun, it'll potentially the effects even more.

So.

Stephen McCain: Okay. Okay. Yeah, I go like through like where I'll go, maybe two weeks and then I'll [00:21:00] take a little break and then I'll go two weeks and take a little break. So I'm always kind of off and on it. , but lately I've been off of it for a while and, , and, which is rare for me.

Like, I, I love it. I love the skin, you know, like, oh my God, it's just, I, it's, I love that peptide. I just have a really good connection with it. And I did not even consider the brain aspect of it so that that could be, um. That could be something. What about, uh, thymosin Alpha one? Because I think that for the immune system , and autoimmune conditions and rebalancing the innate , and , the, adaptive immune systems, , got any tertiary and set primary and effects of that.

Alex Kikel: A lot. So real quick, back to the GHK, I've had people do it daily for upwards of a year to replace their medications and zero negative side effects. Again, we monitored copper levels obviously, but as long as there was no copper toxicity than it was perfectly well tolerated, I'd rather have them have that in play than an SSRI or SNRI that's causing other kind of neuro atrophies.

So the [00:22:00] traditional cycle length, it could be dramatically high. You can also do it Monday, Wednesday, Friday, or infrequently throughout the week. It doesn't have to be a daily thing 'cause it operates on a very genomic principle, meaning long-term chronic, you're changing your genes with that. So

when to say, just so you know, like the window's huge for,

for frequency and application. 

Stephen McCain: We, and we had mentioned before I got on this that I, , had used Kratom to spend , a lot of hours sitting in front of a computer because I, if anyone that may not know, like if you go to my website, I built that thing. If you go to club exosome like.com, like I built that thing like, I tend to like to learn things, but, I can't sit still for long periods of time 'cause I'm so active.

But Kratom, which it's an opioid , and they, I would do the one that was blended with kava. And so , I typically, I know I have a low gaba, but that allowed me to work. But it was doing something to my brain that I was like, uh, I don't, I don't really, I feel like this is killing my motivation.

So maybe this copper peptide kind of helped re, . [00:23:00] Architect and modulate a little bit of those levels so that , they're more normal, I mean, I, I feel pretty good, but I do feel like sometimes I sit down at a desk and I'm like, uh, uh, I don't even know where to begin, 

Alex Kikel: yeah, yeah. And you want, you wanna be just like everything else we talked about, like before we recorded, you wanna be 110% every single day in every aspect of life. I feel like

with our technology, our tech, just the information we have, the education, all the tools we have, I don't see why that's like a fallacy.

I don't see why everyone shouldn't be living their best life every single day. So I think shooting for that is just what everyone should be doing.

Stephen McCain: exactly. , I totally agree with you. Alright, let's move on to, uh, you know, how much time we got here. Do we wanna spend all this time on peptides? Well, how about this? . Are there any peptides out there that you really, are just so surprised at what you're getting out of it or anything new with peptides?

Like, I recently just started doing SS 31 and I was like, wow, this, this peptide feels like someone put new batteries in me. I, it was, it was phenomenal. , you helped me figure out the dosing for that. And, uh, I, I kind of, I never, [00:24:00] I kind of wrote off, not wrote off, but I, I sort of put on the side the mitochondrial peptides for a long time.

'cause I Mots C, I hated injecting, like, how do I get enough water in there to inject all of this without it being this massive five injections everywhere. But SS 31 is a little bit more of a, a, a tolerable amount that's simple and easy to do. And man, I, I love that peptide. I really like it.

Alex Kikel: How are you dosing MOT C.

Stephen McCain: Well, you know, there's so many, there's so many ways to do it. Like there's the one time a week, there's the multiple times a week, there's five or 10 milligrams once a week, uh, for 10 weeks. , there's Dr. C's protocol. There was a protocol that, , various people had put out that kind of rose to the top how do you recommend dosing Mott c?

Alex Kikel: Yeah, that's why I asked too. 'cause I think this would be a cool side step in the conversation as well, the whole application. 'cause I think it's very misunderstood, right? So I'm someone who used to learn about half lies peak positive concentration, and that really meant a lot, right? That [00:25:00] has a place in pharmaco connects dynamics to understand how drug supplements, how everything works, right? The problem with that is, especially in the peptide world, they're operating more on non genomic and genomic chemical signaling principles. Meaning non genomic happens right now, peak of seconds. So if you're injecting S 31, actions are happening, okay? That signal transduction that happens as you're injecting it, it, doesn't have to be all the way in.

There could just be a little bit and it's starting to work. Then the genomic side of things, that's the chronic long-term changes that happen over days, weeks, months, and years. So anytime you take one injection of one peptide, you are technically changing your gene genome forever. If you're doing it in the right fashion, it could be very good.

If you're doing it in the wrong fashion, it could be bad. So that sounds scary. But in reality, think about it. As something's happening right now, something's happening long term.

So in that kind of vein, if we can have a compound that we can get action right now and long term, wouldn't it make most sense to apply it in a daily fashion for the vast variety of reasons, because then we're getting a chemical signal here and another chemical signal there

versus just one [00:26:00] long-term keal signal. 

So, and again, generally for like Mott C, it could be used in that daily fashion doses. Usually 200 to 500 micrograms, you know what I mean, upon waking pre-workouts, something like that depending on the goal.

But the doses can be worked up very high based on the individual. So there's

always that individual based response.

It could be worked up to multiple milligrams depending on the reason motc specific, 'cause it's working on the, the, the mitochondrial. So it's that short open reading frame. So you zoom in on the DNA, you look at the mitochondrial DNA, it spits out short open reading frames, spits out motc, so it's mitochondrial open reading frame of the 12th.

Srna C just tells you where it's acting, what it does. Basically what that does a really good job of is it'll actually up regulate the entire serin family. So if you're taking

Motzi to upregulate the serin and all the cool things everyone has NAD for, then that's a different protocol than if you're taking the drive A and PK, which is different trying to drive like actual mTOR with it. So many things. And that's to me where the frequency in dosage is really changed.

Stephen McCain: Interesting. Yeah. And if you're trying to get, , some DNA [00:27:00] repair, I imagine that Mots C was probably pretty good, right?

Alex Kikel: Right. Yeah. So whenever you have your, you know, Ivy girl or guy show up with your NAD, maybe you throw a little want see in the bag, like just gonna potentiate it, you know?

Stephen McCain: Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad , you've mentioned this, , because other peptides, like I know , the Epitalon, protocol , , that the Soviets were doing for a long time. That people use it for telomeres or, , 

Alex Kikel: That's a good one to talk about. That's a good one to talk about.

Stephen McCain: Yeah. And so PE people would do, five or 10 milligrams, you know, for 10 days.

It was like either you do 50 milligrams or a hundred milligrams. So, uh, but it was these big doses. Then it was sort of like, well, what, what about one milligram a day? And. So I kind of moved away from the five to 10 milligrams a day, , towards, , just doing the one milligram. And, and I liked it, and I don't, I've been using that protocol for a long time and I've had my, I don't know if these telomeres tests are like, even from true, not true diagnostic.

I don't know if that stuff is legit, [00:28:00] but my telomeres were 15 years, you know, younger than me. And so, maybe they're working, and I do find that my sleep reset, like my circadian rhythm reset with Epitalon is very real for me.

Alex Kikel: No, it is too. And so, okay, if we go down the Epit talent conversation and remember all the, like the dosage, protocols, things like that, it's through my lens, my experience of people for the past 13 years. I don't think anyone's wrong. It's always your own lens and your experiences. 'cause there's thousands of different ways to do things.

In my world, looking at epit talent, you can dose in multiple different ways. But again, if we just look at it from a telomerase aspect, so trying to actually lengthen telomeres, you're looking at that three prime overhang. So like DNA works, you have that parent strand, so you have a three prime to a five prime.

Then below that it goes the opposites of three to five prime underneath. That's the new strand. And then that little overhang, that three prime, that's the thing that slowly shortens over time. Oh, so then the DNA gets shorter and shorter. Everyone knows that, right? The problem is, what if that strand, what if that three prime overhang goes too far? It'll spill over and it can start [00:29:00] fueling senescent cell and cancer cell growth.

So in the epi talent based world, you gotta take a lot of epitol, but it's also one of the biggest peptides I think everyone should respect more. So I don't like doing a 50 milligram bolus or something like that. If you do a

10 milligram bolus once or twice a month, every three months, four months, that's more than fine.

Or the, the milligram for like 10 days, 20 days, 30 days, whatever. And then you're doing that a couple times a year. I think that's more than fine. I think it's more of the total dose and total dur ratio. People run into problems. 'cause if you are again, going and overshooting that three prime overhang, it's spilling over into the wrong cascade.

You

can't really get a lot of negative side effects if you overdose on TB or BPC. Maybe the, the dopamine receptor transmission changes with BPC, but that's more dependent on the person, not the dose. But epi talent is the one where I would like to stay away from fueling anything senescent, you know, 'cause they're already not that senescent cells are bad.

They're doing their own life cycle. They're supposed to, they proliferate, die off. Move on to the next thing auto that's supposed to happen. Fueling them further. I'm not a big fan of for obvious reasons. So [00:30:00] I would rather be more cautious with the epi talent dosage. And then, like you said, that that's, that's just for longevity health.

If you're using it to reset your circadian pattern, that's absolutely amazing. Right. You could do a little bit in the morning or before bed, 'cause it will stimulate some people. So like if I would take it afternoon, I will be up for two days straight, but if I take it in the morning, get some first light sun exposure, I'm good that night and I get better sleep. So it'll be stimulatory in different environments based on the individual going back to their own neurochemistry. So you want to

trial it different times a day for you?

Stephen McCain: Yeah. And, and there is some skin health benefits. Have you seen, have you noticed that at all?

Alex Kikel: Oh yeah. And that's actually going back to a lot of the insulin sensitivity changes. So it's acting kind of as like a faux nutrient practitioner where it's improving how you're handling glucose, lipids and nitrogen. So you're storing things in the right compartments, less inflammation, less dermal downregulation, so

the skin starts to heal itself.

Stephen McCain: This is great. I I You are like a wealth of knowledge. I absolutely, I love this. What about, you mentioned all these different, like hundreds of peptides that we're realizing or that we, [00:31:00] that are now, we're finding, , and are people sequencing , and trying these things and using them and what's going on with any of this?

Alex Kikel: So two camps right now there are ones out there that no knows about that we have the cast number for. So the cast number, you can actually get it synthesized made and then sent out more expensive. You have to know how to do like fund stuff, but that's one way we can trial it in person. The other way is they're in the research and there's no cast number. So over in the note cast number world, we have no application for it 'cause we literally can't have it synthesized. That's in very interesting world 'cause I, I can't talk about a couple of them 'cause I wanna eventually bring them to the market, uh, with by Longevity Labs. But a couple of the ones over there that, there's one specifically that stands out in the mitochondria world that's probably gonna reverse Type one diabetes, which is super crazy.

But again, there's no cast number. So that's all in the literature. Maybes, we still gotta try that out. Over here in this world, the ones that no one knows about, but we have the cast number, we're synthesizing, we're getting all the data. I try to never talk about a compound list. If I had at least a hundred people use it, myself

included. Because if, if it's a hundred easy number, 99% of [00:32:00] people responded amazingly well and 1% that one person didn't. And then it builds from there. So I try to not talk unless had at least a hundred I for like 500 ish people, um, just to kinda make sure I have all my bases covered. But over in that world, the mitochondria space is exploding like crazy.

There's a whole, uh, no, I shouldn't say that. Uh, yeah, there's a, there's a lot of mitochondrial things that are kind of taking the forefront. There's a lot of things coming out in the skincare based world. A couple new things come out in the myostatin based world that are gonna be pretty interesting. So there's a little bit of peptides coming in for literally fixing everything.

That's why I made that seminar. We have something to fix everything. 'cause the peptide space is now blowing up to say, oh, there's a skin problem, there's a cancer problem. There's, you know, a brain health problem. There's, they're fixing everything with these peptides, which is super cool.

Stephen McCain: Yeah. , they're so powerful. Anyone that's ever, , had some sort of issue or something they wanted to like change and then used peptides. And I have always said that people overestimate what [00:33:00] peptides can do and underestimate what peptides can do because some people are just very unrealistic, a lot of times there's a lot of magic bullet syndrome or thing where they're like, I want this one thing and it's just gonna fix it. 

, I'm always under the impression that , you, I. You can signal the body to do something, but you also gotta do other things, behavioral things and other things to nurture that adaptation , and facilitate it, but I think this is fascinating. It's a lot easier when you only have a few choices, you know, because I sit there, I remember when I got into like brain health , and all these, , nootropics and I, it was into Raam , , and all this stuff. And you find this stuff that really works for you. But now there's like so many and you can try a lot of stuff and you'd be like, that, that thing is perfect for me and perfect for me.

Stephen McCain: But over the course of 15 years of doing all this stuff, , I'll circle around to something that was like an old school, like a raam, like pheno, phenyl, piracetam. And I'm like, oh my God, I forgot how amazing this thing is. You know? So. It's almost like there's almost too [00:34:00] many choices that are gonna be coming up.

, and then really how do you architect? 'cause everyone wants a framework and they want a blueprint or they want something. And I, every day I do this and then I, uh, just gimme my system. , and really it's a lot more fluid in a way. Right. A lot of these things. And I think you just have to be open-minded and always be learning.

But man, I, I'm excited to hear about some of this stuff you guys are creating with Bio Longevity Labs. ' , 'cause this is an exciting time.

Alex Kikel: It. It is, man. And going back to what you were saying, I think sometimes people see how I do things for myself, for my clients, and they kind of misinterpret that. 'cause like for myself, for example, I take so many things every single day, but I've slowly implemented one thing week after week, month after month for literally over a decade to figure out what works, what doesn't work for me personally.

And now I'm to the point where I have my baseline and if I'm gonna bring in a new nootropic, then I'm gonna pull something else out and then give it a good amount of time to really know what's working with it. So I'll only make one change at a time, and I'll make sure that I have my baseline. So I know that any kind of deviation, but

most people, like you said, you see [00:35:00] there's 20 things and you have 20 things to fix.

You could go that route of putting 20 things in at one time. But if you don't know the science to look out for and then something goes wrong, you don't know which player's causing the issue. So I, I think that's where people have the, the biggest, uh, hurdle to overcome.

Stephen McCain: Yeah, I totally agree with you. And , I always try to tell people, , try to roll things in one at a time so that , you build a relationship with that particular compound or supplement or whatever it is. You start adding, you know, just throwing too many things into the pile. Like you, you have too many variables and you know, well, yeah, it worked, but I don't know what worked.

And, and then, and now you're kind of stuck with that, you know, I gotta take these 20 things every single day, , and it could have just been some very simple thing, right.

Alex Kikel: That's a big one too. So again, these things do not have to be taken every single day. They could be used infrequently or even on an as needed basis. Good example. Um, do you remember the, the movies? My Big Fat Creek wedding,

Stephen McCain: What is it my Big Fat Creek Oh yeah, of that? So remember the guy had the Windex he'd sprayed on everything.

yeah, yeah.

Alex Kikel: BPC 1 [00:36:00] 57 topically applied. Works like that in the movie, meaning it literally fixes almost anything topically. So like my puppies, they scraped our little paws other day 'cause we got a new puppy, uh, a couple weeks ago, and I put her little paw in like a bath of BPC, 1 57 water, healed it overnight. A little scrape on like my daughter's knee to spray with BPC 1 57, heals it overnight. Like that's a compound that everyone should have on hand. Reconstitute, put it in a little spray bottle, keep it in your fridge. Something happens, you just spray BPC 1 57 on it. It heals it usually overnight.

If it's extreme like a gas, you don't wanna do that. But if it's topical, nothing crazy, then you can definitely do that.

That's something where everyone can have easy access to keep it in there just in case, but you don't need it every day. It could just be an infrequent as needed player.

Stephen McCain: Yeah. Dr. Elizabeth YI don't know if you know who she is. She's probably one of my favorite doctors in the whole world. She said B PC 1 57 should just be in the drinking water. Like literally it should just be in the 

Alex Kikel: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

I, I've never talked with her personally, but she always seemed like an awesome person.

Stephen McCain: Oh, she is awesome. I mean, I'm happy to make an introduction at some point because [00:37:00] I, uh, nobody is going to be upset with me introducing you to them.

That, that's my opinion, you know, like,

Alex Kikel: I

hope. 

Stephen McCain: why. Yeah. Well that's why when you asked for Sandy's number, I was like, here you go. , no one's gonna be upset, you speak the language, , across the board. But, , you did mention some sexual, , health with the TB 500, and I know , you've worked with adult film stars, is that correct?

Alex Kikel: Yep. Yeah. Male and female.

Stephen McCain: Male and female. Okay. It's a very interesting, , topic and it tend tends to be something that can be the, , what , you frame this whole podcast because, you know, people sexual, oh, well how do I increase my penis size and all this stuff.

But you've actually laid out , some things in order , to do this stuff in terms of pumping and using a c ring and jelling and, , topical DHT, , red light. 

Alex Kikel: I mean, honestly, like I'm very open about that. Like those are the basics. You do those and then just like everything else, we don't wanna just take something, we're gonna do something and take something. It's just like, like let's, I usually always use the example of creatine. You can take it by [00:38:00] itself and not do anything, but ideally you're gonna take creatine and train if you're taking it for like, the muscular benefits because there's so many other neurological changes.

So maybe that's a bad, I'm bad with analogies as an example, so maybe that was a bad one. But we also wanna do something. We wanna do an action and take something. I don't like just the supplement and the no action.

Stephen McCain: That's my, that's my philosophy. 

Alex Kikel: yeah. Right. I mean, it should be like that. So in this world, you do the manual work, you break up the, the fibrous connective tissue of the penis.

Uh, clitoral difference will save that, uh, for a second. In the erectile tissue for male world, you're breaking that up. You're changing the mitochondria being more blood flow, oxygen nutrients, that's hemodynamics. Then you do things to potentiate that. So like you said, with the DHT gels, you could do localized applications of injectable DHT. You could do localized applications of igf DES to spark growth in the area. Specifically, you could do all

okay. So hold, so you can do, uh, an injecting some sort of IGF. So like a growth hormone, uh, secretagogue or like pep or a growth hormone, or what are you suggesting on that [00:39:00] So actually IGF, we can use either an incre X or an IGF DES. The LR three version of IGF is more of a circulatory insulin regulatory player, which is cool. That handles a lot of nutrient partitioning. But if we want localized growth, 'cause you can do this for your biceps, your shoulders, your glutes, your penis, doesn't really matter. You would locally apply igf DS or incre. Incre is straight IGF. That tends to spill over into the global system and cause some organ-based strains. So we usually say, I'll say I'll hold off on the actual IG F straight, like an incre go with the IGF DES, which is staying a little more locally

Stephen McCain: Interesting. So I've been, I've been into this for a long time 'cause I, , I try to bio hack everything and you know, I've, I. Use the Joel Kaplan, , pump for years.

I, which I think his is the best one. I'll include a link in the show notes. , I'm on my third one. I mean, so, and those things are pretty, pretty, uh, you know, they last a long time, but I've always considered getting blood flow and oxygen. And then, , like you said, like the joking, the massage.

I mean, you, you can definitely [00:40:00] increase size with doing that stuff , and , the health of it. And then I use this, um, red light. I have it sitting right here. Let me grab this one second.

Alex Kikel: Yeah, while you're grabbing that too, just is listening. There's also the red light that you'll put directly on your erectile tissue, so it, it just literally looks like a, like a normal, like, uh, pump, but there's red light built into it. You can

Stephen McCain: Oh yeah, I've, I'm , always like somebody needs to just hit a home run with that. But I use this, , this a Flex Beam so 

Alex Kikel: Oh, nice. 

Stephen McCain: You can literally like wrap around , and these things are pretty, pretty powerful. , you can do, , red or a combination 

Alex Kikel: So, so, no, no one else should touch that one. Right?

Stephen McCain: no, no one should touch that. You know, that that's,

Alex Kikel: That's yours.

Stephen McCain: that's mine.

Yeah. So, uh, but I mean, I keep everything I know. Yeah. 

But I've, I've never done any of the, , IGF, , or you know, or the, uh, even the, can you even get DHT cream

like you, I imagine. Okay. So you know where to get it, right? I mean, that stuff's not easy to [00:41:00] come by, I imagine.

Alex Kikel: So certain compounding pharmacies will do it 'cause females can use it also to drive that clitoral growth change. So if they wanna get more sensitive clitoral, uh, interactions, uh, better orgasmic strength, certain compounding pharmacies will do that. That's usually hard to find. It's usually, you know, other routes to go get it.

Stephen McCain: Yeah. I'll tell you another thing , I've done. Which , I think , are great. , and I'm very happy with, I've injected exosomes, 

Alex Kikel: Oh yeah. 

Stephen McCain: and man, it's like you're an 18-year-old again.

You, the response is, it's almost annoying. Like, it literally is almost like, oh my God, this is like an 18 year old's penis.

Alex Kikel: Right.

Stephen McCain: know? Because, you know, you think at, at a FIPSE year old man, you're like, yeah, well, that I want that. And then, but then when you actually start having that and you, , these, , spontaneous erections anywhere or anything, and it starts having this response, it's, it's, it's, it, you can bring it back, is what I'm trying to say.

You [00:42:00] know?

Alex Kikel: Ooh, that. So that's the perfect way to word it. So, uh, using exome therapy directly into the penis or in the clitoral tissue, if it's working that well, it's usually 'cause there's some kind of damage occurring in that tissue. If you have a perfectly healthy, if you took that 18-year-old with no erectile tissue problems, you won't get any effect.

Exomes are amazing at repair, so there has to be damage there to bring the oxygen, nutrients and dry those cellular repairs. So, to me, that's a good sign. If you respond that welder, you go, oh, okay, I have to change something in the meantime. But you're not gonna be doing that every single day.

But doing that every quarter, like you said, absolutely.

Awesome. Have you, have you played with, uh, like oxytocin or dopamine,

Stephen McCain: So I have oxytocin lozenges, TRS or whatever. Um, and I kind of just did it to do it, and this was years ago. , I now feel like I would like to do it with a more conscious approach to doing something. , and then with dopamine, I've played around with, I mean, there's all the precursors, you know, like just the, [00:43:00] the Una p purines and , the various nootropics that do dopamine precursors, , also the, , cell selegiline, , which is a pharmaceutical to MMAO inhibitor, it basically slows down the breakdown of dopamine.

Um, 'cause dopamine, I know for sure there's a connection with that. And your sexual drive, right? It, it's sort of like the testosterone of the brain. Right.

Alex Kikel: Okay, cool. So let's get into that real quick then. So let's give the female some love for this part of this conversation.

Um, so first of all, in the brain, male or female, doesn't matter. It's this oxytocin, dopaminergic based metabolism that's occurring that then sends signals through the spinal cord.

All the pro recile centers for females, it'll bleed off into the actual breast and nipple architecture, then go down through the spine and then go into the clitoral network, which will literally space out and branch out. Super crazy cool if you ever look at a picture. Whereas guys, it'll go through the actual testicles and then into the actual penis.

For females, that process to stimulate blood flow and hemodynamic changes to breast nipple and [00:44:00] clitoral tissue architecture, most of the time is five to 15 minutes, usually closer, 10 to 15 guys, depending on how healthy they are. 60 seconds. A couple minutes. Right? Exactly.

That. I mean the old, uh, old adage of. The foreplay needed for females and not for males as much. It's true biologically because they just don't push blood that fast and they're not pushing and moving dopa and oxytocin around. So in the female based world, keep in mind by the way, males basically orgasm one way. Two. I mean there's like a couple for guys depending on where you're stimulating, what tissue Females have like dozens of different types of orgasms.

So if you understand that, then you go back and say, okay, if it's starting the brain, we can modulate that oxytocin and dopaminergic metabolism to then push orgasmic strength potential. And then you modulate hemodynamic flow and then you take that 10 to 15 minutes down to two minutes. And I think I use this example at the seminar 'cause I give it all the time.

It's that the red light or the stoplight effect to where once you start improving that clitoral tissue sensitivity and improving how blood flow will get down to that vaginal [00:45:00] bowl. So vaginal bowl being clitoral tissue, um, the vaginal hood, which is the lips and all that fun stuff. Every woman, once you fix these problems, they will have a small shearing effect.

So literally pants will just rub on the clitoral tissue the wrong way. Whenever you stop at a stop sign, you gotta slam in your brakes. It'll rub and there'll be a spontaneous orgasm. We've had that happen. Like li I've gotten that dozens and dozens of times over the years after we fix the sexual problem. Going back upstream, if you have the hormones fixed, 'cause usually it's testosterone, driving libido in females and estro for males. So it's kinda the opposite of what people would think. You fix the dopamine, oxytocin, you're good to go. So intranasal oxytocin is a really good player 'cause you're getting straight in through that nasal cavity.

And it's also, remember through the nose, it's driving a hippocampal and amygdala based changes. So

emotion and memory. So now all of a sudden you can literally train yourself to be easier aroused. So protocols I put together for certain couples is they'll literally sit together in red light therapy together.

So they'll have two models set back to back. They're on the ground. Legs spread both naked. Uh, red light therapy near infrared on both genital tissues [00:46:00] beforehand will have them do their protocols, whether it be self-stimulation, the geling. Uh, there's also clitoral pumps for females as well that works extremely well.

Could be the oxytocin. Intranasally could be like a nine ME, BC to drive up dopamine receptor function. So it actually improves the repair process of dopamine receptors if that's an issue. And they literally sit there and they'll self stimulate and they'll usually have a conversation about that first time they were together or some kind of fantasy that they personally enjoy. What we're doing in this environment is training the brain to remember all of the emotions that happened in that moment. Like when you're with your wife for the first time, thinking back, you're like, I wish I could relive that. Just just to remember that if you go into this environment and maybe add some neeps beforehand or some nootropics, you're ingraining that memory.

You're encoding those memories to come back to life. 

So then all of a sudden the marriage of 30, 40 years or maybe your, your, your love life, your agency life was, was petering out a little bit. You, you can bring that back by just changing how you're remembering those memories. Then even the smell of your wife or of your husband, depending on who you are in the [00:47:00] situation, that'll automatically drive arousal 'cause it's still through that nasal cavity

Stephen McCain: Yeah, , it really does point to the, you know, that the. Arousal process really begins in the brain,

Alex Kikel: does. Yeah, for sure. 

Stephen McCain: and, and that, , how powerful that, , it is to circle back up to that and really, , use that as , the driver, , and if you're with somebody and you marry them, and there's a, there's a reason you probably went through a very, intense, , sexual, , , experiences together and, , those things are ingrained and you might not try to , bring those up to the surface again.

You know, that's a cool protocol. Like, that's so cool that you're doing that kind of stuff. What about this,, what is it called, cabergoline? ,

, because that basically what inhibits prolactin. And it does some stuff with dopamine, right? 

Alex Kikel: Yeah. So you look at like dopamine inhibitory hormones. So if you look at prolactin being high, dopamine's gonna be low, dopamine's high, prolactin's low. So that's just, it's how it works in biology. It's a checks and balance system. So if someone has that hyperprolactinemia where prolactin weights too high, dopamine's gonna be low, that [00:48:00] could be the problem.

Problem for the poor erections or the no motivational, no motivation at all. Uh, poor strength in the gym, like low doping cause a lot of negative effects. Cabergoline, um, PAREXEL drugs like that are very big over in a lot of the neurological dysfunctional diseases like Parkinson's. They're very chemically powerful.

So in this world, for the sexual dysfunction. We might bring it in if there's like a post asteroid syndrome case. But that's kind of far and extreme amounts of, of dopamine that tend to cause a lot of problems. 'cause in biology, again, we don't want crazy lower, crazy high one right in the middle and it's pretty hard to dose caba properly.

So if you are gonna try it, it's a one time pre application 0.125 milligrams of very, very, very low dose and see how you respond. You can cause problems and uh, it'll drive a lot of neuro atrophy over time if you keep it inconsistently. So unless if you do have Parkinson's or like a PFS like extreme sexual dysfunction scenario, I'd probably stay away from it.

For most people

Stephen McCain: Okay, so no, no. Using that for like male multi orgasm , you never had your adult people 

Alex Kikel: yeah, I mean I have like, 'cause [00:49:00] that's a different world though. That's their job. They have to

perform. So in the adult industry, like some of my girls on the browser circuit right now, the way they do a lot of their scenes is they'll do all their scenes in the course of eight, 12 or 16 weeks and they're done for the year. A couple girls will do it, like scattered throughout the year, but a lot doesn't like to clump it all together. So if you are doing that much sexual action over a couple months, you get worn out. Neurochemically, just like imagine training for the Olympics. Imagine if you had to train for the final six weeks, but you did that for three, four months.

Like, like I'm sure you actually did. 'cause

at that level you have to, but it destroys your body, it

destroys your brain. So you do have to supplement for that. Accordingly,

Stephen McCain: yeah, yeah. wHen that you start getting into the performance world, real quick, I wanted to follow up on the oxytocin. , I've always been a little bit, . Kind of shy of doing it. 'cause I'm already a nice guy in my opinion. I mean, maybe 

Alex Kikel: you are. 

Stephen McCain: I'm a, well, yeah, maybe some people think I'm a jerk.

But I mean, I've always felt that, uh, I don't, I'm, , I'm afraid I don't wanna be so gullible , 'cause oxytocin can kind of make you trust everybody. Right. [00:50:00] But is that maybe the wrong way of thinking about it? Because it's like, no, you wanna just use it discreetly in this window for your life and not when you're like out and about working or having a, , negotiation or something like that.

Alex Kikel: Yeah, pretty much. If you're that person that has that social anxiety, you could use it before then 'cause you need that extra push in bolus of oxytocin. But if you're using it in this kind of sexual improvement world, and you can always take, also take the injectable oxytocin. So it's the only compound out there that will drive biotransformation of adipocyte to myocyte. So you're taking energy from fat cells and fueling ena, building new muscle tissue with it. So depending on

how you use it will also change its end fate. That's how trend blown in like the body, bone world and all back in the cow, the cattle research, it's how it got so big was because of its, uh, modulation on oxytocin levels. So intranasal, lot of good neurochemical players for the sexual performance based world and some other things as well. Social anxiety, injectable still gonna spill over a little bit into everything else, but also driving the anabolic effect. Um, the one thing with oxytocin though is if you, 'cause you have to slowly work the dose up for all of these. [00:51:00] If you take too much, your ears get beat, ready to get a ton of head pressure in your heart. You don't get tachycardic but your stroke volume. So it'll feel like thump, thump. It feels like you're

having a heart attack. If you're not having a heart attack, that generally means, hey, you took a little too much, take a little bit less.

So we

try to slowly work up. That's a normal effect. But if people don't know that's gonna come, you'll freak out like crazy.

Stephen McCain: Interesting. That's just somebody who has been around the block and knows, here's the ranges and here's what happens. , that's why, , you're such a great person to, to learn all this stuff from.

'cause you say, well, here's the science of it and here's how to do it. But also at the same time, here's how, you know, you did too much. You know, like that, that's pretty powerful. Like, to, to have that as a resource, you know. , I did want to talk briefly about, , God, I can't believe how much, how fast time is going.

I feel like I pick your brain all day, but, I did wanna mention male hormones, maybe even female hormones, because. I am under the impression now that at some point in every person's life, their life would be improved by [00:52:00] optimizing their hormones at some point. Every single person on this earth at some, you know are, do you agree with that?

Alex Kikel: Completely agree with the caveat that if the world suddenly changed in terms of the poor water, the malnourishment from our food sources, all of the blue light exposure, like we would have to completely change our society around, which will probably never happen. If that happened, no, we probably wouldn't need it. The problem is this has changed over the last hundred years. It's gotten worse and worse. Probably won't get better except for the crowd like us that are actively doing things like wearing our blue light blocking glasses or getting our sun exposure or structuring our water or doing whatever we're doing.

So I agree, I think everyone should be, unless the word completely changed, which it won't, but I think it's a good way to preface that. 'cause people need to understand it's only because the environment that we've created for ourselves. And I also don't wanna give up technology. Like we wouldn't be able to have this podcast if this technology wasn't there. 

So we just have to do the right things in the background to, to bridge that gap, to adapt to the new society we're [00:53:00] in. 'cause we can't really do what our ancestors did 'cause the ancestors didn't have 5G, you know? Right.

Stephen McCain: yeah, yeah, exactly. And the ancestors, , didn't really live beyond 1 20, 1 25 or whatever. And that's our goal is to expand , the life, , span of a, of a human being and the health span. And for me, the fit span, you know, I always, I am like, well, I don't wanna just be here and be even remotely healthy.

I wanna be like an ass kicker. I wanna feel great, you know, so,

Alex Kikel: dude, I, I I loved your seminar at FOH Live 'cause you're up there like doing pushups, jumping jacks. You fell off the stage at one point. You're like doing flips. Like I was getting jacked up. Like I wanted to go up there and join you doing all the stretches.

Stephen McCain: That's awesome. Cool. Yeah. 'cause the, one of the first, I gave this speech a couple years ago at Rad Fest, and, , at the end of it, I just, I gave it on, uh, exercise and I was so fired up and everyone got really lit up and I didn't even think, I just, I just kicked to a handstand and I started doing handstand pushups like this, and everyone went nuts.

And [00:54:00] so a lot of times, , I can't help, but I get so excited and everything and I, I just feel like, I think exercise is, man, I, I thank God for exercise. Like I, I am, I literally left the gym yesterday and I said that to myself. Thank God for exercise. It is, I just love it. But I don't want to get off the, the, , hormone thing, like guy.

Okay. Let's say this guy calls you up. He's around 35. I. Something's going on. I, I don't feel, I'm not responding. , and classic signs, brain fog, like low libido. , not responding to workout just doesn't, I just don't feel like I used to.

, what do you recommend to these guys besides getting a blood test?

Obviously

Alex Kikel: so like we've talked about before recording too, the, the nanograms per have changed over the years as society has gotten sicker and sicker. Those blood levels get lower and lower, so it used to be up to 50, a hundred nanograms per was the top end of normal. Now it's like 800, 900 I've seen somewhere it's at [00:55:00] 700, which I can't even believe that's out there as top end of the reference range.

So most people are gonna respond best to about 800 to about 1500 grams per deciliter. If you wanna be ultra on the longevity side, 800 to 1200 grams per deciliter, and then kind of pushing things a little bit more, 1,215 or so, something like

that. Um, usually the conversation is how do you wanna proceed? Because although I'm a big fan of HRT, certain people don't wanna go down that route or don't wanna inject anything yet. So it could be the over the counter supplements first of like tga, LE stance fi, doja, like some of the basic things. Maybe graduate to like a test alute and bio regulator, things like that.

And then

things still aren't working. Then you go into the H-R-T-T-R-T space. So that could be the slow introduction of the creams. The creams, again, the kinetics are pretty tough. Same with the lozenges. They work in Mason well for certain individuals. But it's all about the timing and then how many times you would take it during the day and is the risk of contact exposure from like the cream-based world and

the application process.

So a lot of different ways to do it before you even have to take an injection. 

Ultimately, I love the kinetics of the injections. They're the most reliable and they're a lot easier to time. But then [00:56:00] once you have a long Esther testosterone, let's say a traditional cate, right, everyone's gonna dismantle and cleave that Esther differently.

So it should be an application one time per week, right? It does not happen that way. Certain people have to microdose it daily, subcutaneous get less estrogen spillover. Other people do intramuscular Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Some people like myself, I cleve these things terribly. I could take a shot once a week, probably once every two weeks and be fine 'cause I just don't break these things down that

fast. That's for my metabolism. Certain people could be doing it twice a week, three times a week. It just depends on the individual there. So there's no right or wrong way to do it.

Stephen McCain: Interesting. And how do you know that? Are you using like a Dutch panel or something to see the metabolites or like what do you,

you just, what's Feedback? Feedback.

Alex Kikel: So the biggest thing you'll know is you'll take your shot of testosterone as a male or female. You'll see a spike. Libido will go up, sleep will improve. You'll feel energetic. You'll start recycling acetyl coin through the spinal cord in the brain. You'll feel like you were 25 again, like you're 30 again,

right? And then by day three or four, you're like, oh my God, I'm not getting my nocturnal erection. Sleep isn't as good. I'm feeling more stressed out. [00:57:00] Oh, I'm cleaving through this, Esther, that fast. I should put another dose then. And you go through this trial and error process. It only takes you four to six weeks. Then you'll know. Like for me, I took that one shot per week, never needed to change it. 'cause I felt amazing from there. I've never come down from that.

Whereas other people might. Once you see that downward curve with biofeedback, that's when you have to put another dose in because at the end of the day, again, reference ranges only matter for you.

So I tell everyone, recreate your own reference ranges. You may feel amazing. So like my reference range, so everyone knows, my testosterone right now is probably 200 nanograms per deciliter, super low. But I'm taking Nandrolone as my h rt, not testosterone. 'cause I respond very poorly to testosterone. I get all the negative side effects.

I get no positives, I get acne, my hair falls out. I just don't respond well. Whereas nandrolone, I've only ever gotten healthier. Better erections, better sleep, be more fat loss everything improved. My mental clarity, memory, recall, everything improved. So on paper, testosterone's crazy low. But I'm fixing the androgen load with manal load.

So there's also that to take into consideration. But reference ranges only matter for you. [00:58:00] 800, 1200, 5000 grams per deciliter. How do you feel? And then get your blood work, you'll say, okay, I respond best in this range. Might be a little bit higher, might be a little bit lower, but it only matters for you.

Stephen McCain: Interesting. It makes a lot of sense. You know, and, , even with myself, 'cause when I turned 40, 39 and 40, I, I started using HCG. Monotherapy. And it worked incredible. I was able to get my levels up to, I mean, 13, 14, I mean, I like really, really well, you know, and, and , my testicles were definitely able to, , get that, luteinizing hormone, mimetic signal and, and really manufacture testosterone.

And then over the course of time, over the course of a decade, I started, uh, implementing some clomophine or on clomophine. And that helped because the, you know, the monotherapy was, wasn't as, as effective, but, it's a bit of a pain in the ass. 'cause you had to inject this stuff all. I don't mind it, but , that's the thing is, you know, a lot of guys are like, well, and you have to [00:59:00] tell 'em like, once, don't you start.

You're kind of on this, I mean, maybe if you're doing like Toka Ali or some of these things and you're just seeing if they work or, 'cause , I imagine that stuff isn't a long-term solution 'cause you're gonna have to cycle it. I mean, Toka Ali is probably not gonna just work indefinitely , nothing is, , I mean, well, until you get to the big boys, you know, 

Alex Kikel: Yeah. 

Stephen McCain: you know.

Yeah. And then now, , for me, , , I'm doing the oral testosterone we talked about, which gives me a pulse throughout the day, , and then six hours later you take another pulse and I love it. Um, just because, I mean, I feel like I got my, you know, getting my, my, my workouts are fantastic.

Um, I don't feel like I'm stepping on the gas too hard. , it's a oral, I mean, it's so easy to take. I mean, it's so nice. So for me, , I'm always like, let me do the. Absolute, like all the sort of precursor stuff until I finally get onto the full blown replacement. And a lot of that was built on this philosophy that I wanted to maintain my fertility.

[01:00:00] But then you were like, well, that's not a problem. You just take some HMG and some, , injectable carnitine. And then what else was, did you mention?

Alex Kikel: Uh, usually h cg, so you wanna drive intra testicular actions, Sato Genesis, and then usually wanna fix motility. If there's DNA fragmentation problems, you could do like a little bit of TB 500, and there's a couple things you could bring in there, but that's like the basic three or four.

Stephen McCain: And, and so you're just like, if you do this cocktail, you're pretty much going to light it up.

Alex Kikel: So I am very proud of this fact. Um, I haven't checked the numbers lately, but I, last time I checked it was over 2000, I think, pregnancies that I'm able to be a part of in actual conceptions, which is crazy to me. Like I help bring like over 2000 babies into this world and like, I'm just so proud. I have tons more to post.

Um, 'cause I always wait, you always wanna wait the danger zones the first 12 weeks. Then after that, you know, first, you know, trimester, then it's like, okay, now you can post about it. But I, I've helped a ton of people with fertility and I'm so proud of that. 'cause

I love my kids, 

Stephen McCain: awesome. Good for you. That I, that is so, , admirable, you know, like, yeah. Good for [01:01:00] you. And, uh, you know, you made me, make me not, not worry as much about, like, if I do decide to go on, , let's say injectable testosterone, that I'll, I'll still have the capacity because, um, yeah, we'll, we'll see.

Right. For now, I think the, the orals are working. What about the, , what about the growth hormone side? Because , I've tried all the growth hormone secretagogues from the cjc 1295, no D with ipa. Ipa and the combination of those two dosing at multiple times a day, the Ibut Moran, which is oral, , the ghrelin, mimetic, uh, the Lins.

, there's a lot, and I like all of them and they all have their sort of nuances, but they're not a, they all have to be cycled, in my opinion. Is that, do you feel the same way?

Alex Kikel: No, not necessarily. Um, so if you look at that Somo tropic system, look at a lot of the old research that was done in, uh, a lot of just when they were trying to figure out the kinetics and dynamics of the actual growth hormone molecule. [01:02:00] And so they were giving, so if you get a vial of exogenous growth hormone, it's the 22 kilodalton variety. So our body produces a 22, a 20 17 15, all these all ligaments, heterodimers, our body produces a ton of different growth hormones. It's not just like one thing, right?

So that vial is a 22 kilodalton. You take that and what everyone thinks is that it'll shut down and cause complete suppression. And then there's no 20, there's nothing else.

That's how they actually get you on the ice form ratio test. It's WADA and the Olympics and stuff like that. It's just a ratio. So the problem with that though is that literally couldn't happen or biologically you wouldn't survive. You need different things like for your eyes to work properly, you need different fragments of those growth hormone that are our, our body's already producing. So what we see is not complete suppression but blunting. So you have a short blunting process from the exogenous hormone itself that things kick back online three, four hours later. And then there's another spill of the different ligaments, heterodimers, the seventeens and things like that to recirculate and do all that fun stuff. They did the research on people using exogenous growth horn for years and years on and every single day. And [01:03:00] the worst case scenario, they came off and within, I think it was 24, 48 hours, complete restoration of normal growth horn cycles actually restored. 

So if we understand at that as the exogenous one, the peptides, all they're doing.

So MK is different. MK works on the enzymatic, so atropic system. So it's driving growth hormone secretion through a different aspect. The traditional IPMs and things like that, that's stimulating the glandular production. So you're technically. Just stimulating your own natural production in that way? NK definitely steps over the line.

'cause it's

extremely strong. Of all them. I'd say NK is probably the only one you shouldn't be on the longest term. We've, I've had people be on it for a year, two years, something that kinda what we're trying to fix, bring the dosage up and down depending, but that's not a long-term solution for a lot of, uh, individuals because it'll have a lot of edema, which will bring a lot of inflammation in insensitivity and causes problems long-term or higher dose. But the IAS, the traditional growth hormone releasing hormones or the peptides or exogenous growth hormone, those could be long-term [01:04:00] therapies depending on what you're trying to drive. Mm-hmm.

Stephen McCain: I I've heard the MK 6, 7, 7. I beat em around like, you shouldn't do more than 90 days in a row according to Dr. Seeds. 'cause he says you can invol, involute the, the receptor, like you can mess up the receptors. , but I like to use that one if I'm going on , like I'm gonna put on some weight like it because it makes you hungry, right?

It activates that, that hunger. And I've heard the CJC 1295 ipa, like that one, you can, you can, it's kind of mild, right? You can dose it multiple times a day. Like right now I have a pen and I'm just hitting that like in the morning and the evening. And then after workout I'm hitting it quite a bit 'cause I'm trying to put on , some muscle.

, and I love Tezo Morelin, but to me nothing is his greatest hormone growth hormone. Like, I've done growth hormone three times and, and, and, but I never can stay on it indefinitely. I start to feel hyperplastic. I just feel I. Uh, I need to come off of this, you know, like nine months into it, I'm like, uh, or a year.

I'm like, mm, something's, , like it's just, it's like a switch is just turned [01:05:00] on, you know? Maybe it's a dosing issue, but, 

Alex Kikel: That's, that's usually it's, I'll have to talk to Dr. Seeds at some point about that. 'cause usually the receptor based changes from an NK enzymatic standpoint, pretty dose dependent. Like if you look at the literature, they've seen IGF changes prolonged and continually increasing in plateauing off after about a year.

No receptor architecture based changes. But you're looking at 25 milligrams, 10 milligrams, five milligrams. Like MK does not have to be dosed crazy high. So that's probably what he's talking about with the, the receptor based change. I'd have to hear his

opinion. Um, but people will go 50 milligrams, 75, like there's always a problem with either the duration or the dosage.

In this case, it's usually the dosage. So like growth hormone, for example, EXOS 22, kilodalton, growth hormone. A quarter of an IU is amazing. A half an IU is amazing. If we're trying to differentiate between like the athletic world over here and the longevity space over here, you're about sub two IU over here.

Over here is about four plus IUs for the athletic world, right? Right in the middle is about three IUs, where you're kind of in both worlds, but it's also coming down to personal [01:06:00] response. Certain people will take half an iu, they'll gain five pounds of fluid overnight. Blood pressure will shoot up to one 70, over one 20.

They get intracranial pressure. That's someone who's just a poor responder. 'cause every drug, again, that's why no drug is good or bad. It's usually how it's used. Or are you a good or a poor responder to this? Right? So if you're a good responder to it, maybe it's the just the dose that might be the problem.

Stephen McCain: Yeah, very interesting. I think I naturally have a little bit low IGF one levels like I'm around. I now, I don't know, I don't know what the, the proper, the reference is for like a 50-year-old, but I mean, I think I'm around like 1 35 if I, if I do nothing. And that's just not good enough. You know, I, I, I think I like to be at least 180.

I feel good once, you know, uh, any, when I go over 200, I start to feel a little bit too much. Like around two 15. I'm like, that's 'cause you, you have some people are like, no, you should move it up to 300, three hundred's Optimal. It's say, not for me, Yeah. Right. , 

That's [01:07:00] just too much. I feel like I'm, I'm exploding like a cellularly, you know what I mean?

Alex Kikel: Well, and it, it's, it's funny you say that too, 'cause like remember like IGF one. So there's only really two ways that I think people should be checking if their growth hormone products are working or valid. First of all, send it for third party HBLC testing. Like actually get it, uh, mass spec to see if it's the right purity, right?

Dimer content. There's no kinda misfolded proteins like so you know, the product's good. And then from there, IGF one is the best thing we can do, but that IGF test is beyond poor. So the liver production process that occurs from taking any of these peptides or exogenous growth hormone, IGF one is one growth factor.

You know how many growth factors we have? I used to have, I took it down. I used to have a growth horn ebook. I called it the So Tropic bible because I thought it was super cool. Good catchy title. Um, I listed in there just to be pedantic about it, hundreds. All of the growth factors that we know about, there's

hundreds of them.

So you may be getting all of the other numbers elevated. So your IGF one may be, you know, lower or mid range and your friend saying, oh, go up [01:08:00] higher. But if you're feeling those effects, it's probably 'cause everything else is working that well. So

even the IGF score, it's, it's tough. And that's why I like going back to biofeedback and also just remembering biology extremes.

We always wanna stay outta the extremes, unless if you're gonna be a professional athlete, that's extreme by nature. 

So that's a different conversation.

Stephen McCain: totally agree with you. I do feel that, you know, performance is basically saying I'm willing to give up some of my health so that I can win right now. Right. I mean, it's, it's just the way it is. And I, I, I've, I've been a performer and been in that performance world and you literally beat yourself to shit.

It's just my language, but I mean, you, you literally red line yourself , and I wasn't in a, a sport where I was doing any sort of redlining with compounds and chemicals and things like that. Like I was just overtrained 

Alex Kikel: Oh, dude, that's, yeah, that's exactly it though. I think, I think everyone hears that and thinks, oh, they're gonna drug themselves to become a champion. I'm not [01:09:00] talking about that. It's literally the training, the eating, like you destroy your relationships. People destroy their joints. Like everything is only about winning that gold. And so your life is just, it's the most unbalanced world you can ever be in. 

So you just, you tank yourself, you know? And there's a time and a place for that. It's not for everyone. Like I could never do that for multiple reasons. I don't have the skill, I don't have, there are many reasons why I could never do that. But another big one is that like I could not give up my family time, my work time. Like I just, I couldn't do that because that in and of itself is hard to do.

Stephen McCain: Yeah. It really, I mean, I was at the highest level for 12 years, which is quite a long time for a gymnast. And , I still have fragments of, of, of, things that I have to sort of wrangle with in my life. I mean, I, I just went to an Ayahuasca experience in, in January, just because. , there's still fragments of this, you know, and I never, you don't, you just, you don't know.

You just know. You just think, I'm just this [01:10:00] person and this is just who I am. But, you know, I saw, um, I dunno if I've mentioned this before, but like, you know, the, the weight of gold that, that, that documentary with, um, Michael Phelps, , and talked to a lot of Olympians about how they're mentally the, the, the, the, the, uh, you know, the, the effects of, of being this person and man, like, you know, I, I, I feel like I've done a really good job.

I mean, physically, I don't have any pain or anything anywhere. And I, I mean, I was supposed to be massively arthritic

and I feel all this stuff that we are doing and we're talking about, like completely saved my life in terms of I can work out and feel. Incredible and love it and not be in any pain. And, and it's just my eyesight.

I'm gonna try those eyedrops, you know? Um, but , it's just a testament to all the stuff that we're talking about. And, , I do believe if you are a person who, [01:11:00] you know, doesn't step on the gas too hard and you can find and people like you, , and maybe listen to my podcast at times. 'cause I, I always try to find people like, you're exactly the type of person that I, I love, I mean, as soon as I heard you speak, I was like, love, I love this guy and I haven't even met him yet.

I love him, but I mean, look, I wanna be respectable. Uh, respect your time. I, I, I literally could talk to you all day because you get me so excited about this stuff and you're such a wealth of knowledge. , how can people find you?

Alex Kikel: The prep coach.com. And then on Instagram, I'm Alex Kle, so it's A-L-E-X-K kl, and then I have a YouTube, I think it's at Alex kle tpc. I'm bad with those. I'll send you the links, uh, to put it in the show notes

or whatever. But really just those three places, I post up a ton of free stuff. 'cause, uh, if there's people I can't help out.

I'm trying to put out as much free content as I can, literally just to try and give back to the world. It's, it's given me everything. Like, for anyone [01:12:00] who doesn't know me, like I'm literally living my dream, my dream wife, my dream life. I have a wife. I have four dogs, three kids, a fourth kid on the way.

Like I wake up every day, excited to train, excited to play with my kids, excited to learn work like. I only can do this because of everyone else out there. So I'm trying, like I'm making a big goal in 2025 to give back to the world as much as I can.

Stephen McCain: That's awesome, man. You're, you're a real inspiration because , you're somebody who alone would just be worth listening to because , your knowledge but you're a super nice guy and you're like a good human being. , I can see it. Like, you really, you're a family man. , you don't curse.

, like, you talk openly about, how much your wife and your kids and your animals like give to you. And so I'm, I just think that, um, I'm really happy that I got to meet you. Uh, I definitely look forward to, , continuing to, I, I'd like to work with you, so I'm gonna reach out to you and sort of be like, okay, like how, you know, tell me how I can work with [01:13:00] you and, and just because I think you're a real, , you are a real diamond in, in this industry.

And I think it's, it's refreshing. To not only find someone like you, but to find someone with you as such a good personal constitution of self. , and man, thanks for being so open , to coming on this podcast and just getting to know you , and, , one of the first things you said to me when I really kind of went up to you, uh, it was like, what are you working on now?

And you were just so eager to offer, help. And so, um, I, I really appreciate you brother. I really do.

Alex Kikel: Again, I, I, I appreciate that anyone wants to hear me babble for an hour, 10 minutes, two hours. Like it blows my mind when people are this nice to me. So like, I'm trying to get better at, at, at receiving compliments. 'cause I'm kind of like, I'm just, Alex like, just having these conversations like, we're just like having fun and, 

uh, especially at FOH like, I think that was one of the key defining moments honestly in my life where I realized like, holy crap, like I could do a lot of cool [01:14:00] things in this world.

And I, I really take that with a lot of responsibility and I appreciate you having me on. It really does mean the world to me, so thank you.

Stephen McCain: Yeah, it's my pleasure. Are you co, are you coming to World Peptide Congress? I know Jay is talking about coming.

Alex Kikel: Uh, when is that?

Stephen McCain: It's, uh, it's in June, like, like mid, like June, maybe 10th, 11th, something like that. But it's here in Vegas. Um, but it, it's, it's really, uh, that's Dr. Seed's event and it's all, uh, cell cellular medicine.

It's all basically with a heavy emphasis in peptides and things like that. But, uh, I love it. I'll be MCing it and, uh, if, if you do want to come, let me know. I'll see what I can do, 

Alex Kikel: very cool. Thank you I, I think that'd be, so we're gonna have baby four on May 28th, so that should, I'm trying to stay home for at least four to six weeks 'cause I wanna make sure I enjoy that time with the family, make sure my wife isn't getting crushed. So depending on how things go with that, I'm trying to not make plans for that second half yet.

But if everything works out good, then I'd love to be there just to see you in person.

Stephen McCain: Yeah. Yeah, it'd be great. , we can [01:15:00] chat offline about it. And so for everyone that's listening, , I'll put all the links to everything we talked about. You can go to Stephen mccain.com/prep coach. So that's Stephen with a pH McCain slash prep coach. Alex, man, kick at. I love it. I, I, I, I feel like I didn't even scratch the surface.

I mean, I, I, you know, but I just get so giddy, , talking to you, but I, I, I think clearly there's some good value here for people. And, , I personally am gonna enjoy editing this podcast because some of the things you said, I'm gonna have to go, I was gonna write notes while you were talking. I was like, well, when I edit, I'll just go back and re redo this.

So, um, yeah. I, I really appreciate it and, , thank you so much for coming on. Did we miss anything? 

Alex Kikel: I.

mean, there's always stuff to talk about, so. We'll, we'll talk off air. I'll come back on whenever, like,

we'll, we'll just kind of keep talking.

Stephen McCain: fantastic brother. Well, thank you so much Alex, and thank you [01:16:00] everybody else for listening to the Stephen McCain podcast and, , stay healthy everyone, and we appreciate you listening and we will see you on the next episode. Uh, take care and I'll see if I can find the button here to end this podcast.

Here we go. Okay, boom. See you guys.