Age-Less LL-37: The Antibiotic in Your Blood | The Age-Less Top 20 Peptides
About this episode
This episode explores the dual role of LL-37 as both a defender and a potential driver of disease in the human body.
LL-37 is the odd one out in the Age-Less peptide series. Where Humanin and MOTS-c were mitochondrial longevity signals, LL-37 is the human cathelicidin — your body's own broad-spectrum antibiotic, a small positively charged peptide cut from a larger precursor and stationed at every barrier where you meet the outside world. Dr. Ethan walks through what it actually is: how it's encoded, how it's stored and released, and how that little two-faced helix kills bacteria on contact, neutralizes endotoxin, recruits immune cells, heals wounds, and links your innate immunity to your vitamin D status. Then he turns the coin over. LL-37 is genuinely double-edged — a superb defender when it fires correctly, and a documented driver of disease when it doesn't. This episode lays out the mechanisms behind its role in psoriasis, rosacea, and lupus, explains why "more is better" is exactly the wrong instinct here, and separates the strong evidence for your own endogenous LL-37 from the thin, narrow evidence for LL-37 as an administered therapy. Along the way: the real vitamin D connection (and why supplementing on top of sufficiency won't reliably raise it), and why a regulator has specifically…
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