Dr. Abud Bakri, an internal medicine physician who joined Andrew Huberman on the Huberman Lab podcast, pulled back the curtain on a phenomenon he sees driving many of the fitness transformations seen in high-profile executives and celebrities. According to Bakri, the results are not coming from a single d*ug but from a coordinated combination of three categories.
“People are now stacking their GLP-1 as their insulin sensitivity tool, their growth hormone or their GHR and their androgen modulation therapies as this Trinity Stack,” Bakri said. “So a lot of these transformations you see in CEOs and celebrities and stuff is using a combination of those three things.”
“You know your TRT plus maybe Anavar, with tirzepatide or retatrutide, whatever it may be, and then using a growth hormone modulation, whether if you can afford growth hormone or tesamorelin. And you’re seeing people lose a lot of fat, gain a lot of muscle in short amounts of time.”
Each piece of the stack targets a different lever in the body. The GLP-1 category, which includes dr*gs like Ozempic, Mounjaro, and retatrutide, improves insulin sensitivity while suppressing appetite. Growth hormone or growth hormone secretagogues, such as tesamorelin, are added to influence body composition, tissue quality, and recovery. Rounding out the trio are testosterone or other androgen therapies, which support muscle development.
Bakri was careful to note that the widespread use of this combination does not mean it has been proven safe over the long term.
“Is that healthy? We’ll find out,” he said. “But that is like the celebrity protocol.”
He explained that growth hormone and its secretagogues come with tradeoffs that are not always discussed publicly, including effects on insulin sensitivity.
“It can make you insulin insensitive,” he said, noting that the bodybuilding community jokes that someone has “to get lean enough and healthy enough to be able to take growth hormone.”
Bakri also pointed out that access to true pharma growth hormone is limited by cost, which is part of why growth hormone secretagogues have become the more common substitute.
“Growth hormone has become very difficult to acquire through clinical prescriptions… So people have now shifted to using secretagogues in lieu of growth hormone,” he said, adding that compounded secretagogues can cost a fraction of the price of brand-name growth hormone pens.
Bakri suggested that once people became comfortable injecting themselves for weight loss, the door opened to a wider range of injectable stuff, including those used for body recomposition and anti-aging purposes.
