Seeing this referenced everywhere the past few weeks. No idea what is about? Is it a new social media trend or something?
You must log in or register to comment.
Peptides are basically protein precursors. A bunch of workout gym bro types have been taking concentrated supplemented peptides for “building muscle” and other purported health benefits, which idk if it really helps or not.
But they are a grey market “supplement” that is not regulated and often imported from overseas pharmacies, pushed heavily by tiktok/Instagram influencers because there’s money to be made in shipping them.Adding onto this, they’ve been big in bodybuilding circles for about two decades, but have been gained popularity in recent years due to Joe Rogan types and the MAHA crowd boosting them.
The safety profile is marginally better than other grey-market compounds due to them being protein “fragments”, but there are overall major risks around contamination, QC, and secondary effects, generally speaking.
The big names are the GHRPs (growth hormone releasing peptides), used as anabolics, and the healing accelerators BCP-157 and TB-500.
I was legally prescribed BCP-157 by my doctor (PO as a GERD treatment) around 2022, and can speak to it pretty well if anyone has questions.
Sure I have a question for you: What does a peptide look llke? In my head I’m imaging them as colorful pebble-shaped tablets, mostly thanks to the name. Is it a tablet? A capsule? A liquid? Do you swallow/drink/inject it?
It’s a nondescript off-white powder, in the raw. Mine was packaged into capsules by the pharmacy, but I did pop one open to inspect because I had exactly the same curiosity lol.
I don’t have personal experience on this front, but I imagine for injected administration, which is the more common route, it would be made into solution or suspension and kept in a refrigerated multiuse vial, e.g.:
For what kind of injury did he prescribe it, did it work and did you have side effects? IIRC it causes formation of additional blood vessels?
I had chronic heartburn issues for a few years, preceding and during the COVID era.
My doctor asked me about the heartburn during an annual visit, told me she’d had success treating people with a 30-day oral regimen of BPC, and asked if I would be interested in trying it as an unproven-but-promising approach. I had no idea it was being used in that way at the time, but understood the risks and decided it was worth trying.
The compound itself came prepared in capsules from a local compounding pharmacy and cost ~$200 for the full supply.
I took it daily, and while I still had heartburn for the first few weeks, it felt like I could shrug off the damage better and had less esophageal discomfort. Around the three week mark, there was a notable remission of reflux, and after the full course, I’ve been able to live and eat normally without any GERD-related symptoms. I don’t know how much of the QoL improvement can be chalked up to direct action of the peptide, versus the peptide acting as a salve to wean off the PPI I was taking — but if nothing else, it made that transition far more bearable than it otherwise would have been.
I did not notice any systemic effects on healing and recovery during the 30 days, nor any sort of unpleasant side effect.
Intriguing. I have chronic silent GERD due to a sphincter not closing properly.
Dumbasses playing with fire is what they are
isnt that instead about shady ozempic or similar from some random shop in hebei that will be shut down in a month?
As other people mentioned peptides are technically protein precursors. Recently there was the huge increase in the usage of Ozempic, which is a brand name of a peptide called Semaglutide. Other peptides supposedly have different effects on your body. But it’s a relatively new class of medication and for most we have no real data of any positive or negative effects.
Since one peptide was proven to work, suddenly a lot of snake oil salespeople jumped on the bandwagon trying to sell them as some kind of miracle supplements. Take them at your own risk. Might give you muscles. Or you might grow horns or something. Who knows, none of it is tested properly.
Thanks, that is a lot of great context. So they are trying to just downmarket the GPL-1 rush, since that stuff is mostly sold to rich folks?
That’s one aspect. Although most of the marketing is not so much about weight loss, but muscle gain.
They are trying to convince gym people that the same way you can use GLP-1 to lose weight, there are other peptides out there that will grow your muscle without exercise. The same target group as for steroids basically.Not just muscle gains. Naturally since peptides are pieces of proteins, and there are a lot of kinds of proteins in your body, so artificial peptides would be capable of a whole lot … of nutrition supplement. Most aren’t going to have an effect anywhere near as strong as glp-1ra does.
For example, collagen peptides are popular right now, and they do far less than properly fixing a shitty diet ever would.
As others have noted, they are molecules that make up proteins. So not one thing at all, just a description of the type of molecule.
Most are being rushed to market in front of the science, and some are unavailable through legit channels so there’s no guarantee what you are shooting up.
But the ones that are studied and work are really cool. GLP drugs have helped so many people, and the research keeps getting better and better on them. CBL-514 looks like a miracle - something that can dissolve abdominal fat preferentially, sparing all other tissues. I would love that - if I lose weight it leaves first from my legs & ass and boobs, stomach does not budge until I am a ruler shape. Sermorelin is pretty well studied too - growth hormone releasing hormone. Copper peptide speeds wound healing.
So I think they will become a drug category and get regulated, especially as people discover new ones and patent them. Right now it’s sort of the wild west, people are likely harming themselves.
OMG me too! I’ve never met another person that puts on/takes off weight this way. Currently still have a tummy at 19 bmi.
Yeah my husband asked me to bulk because I was very thin, and I know my proportions are more conventionally attractive at this weight but the abdomen bothers me. I’m 5’9" and went from 32-30-33 to 37-32-42, and the leg/ass gains are more muscle, the torso is fat gain, I dislike it. If that stuff makes it to market here I will be saving my money to get it.
If it does, I hope it works for you
additionally, WIRED’s stance is they’re likely a scam
Is it a new social media trend or something?
Yup. TLDR its basically a step below steroids. While I can’t really speak to their safety etc, I do know that there are no legal OTC peptides in Canada. However that could simply be because Health Canada has very high standards and a lot of hoops to jump through, making our 40 million people market not worth it.
The reason peptides are largely a grey-market phenomenon is because they’re not easy to patent or otherwise monopolize through IP laws. Unlike your ordinary run-of-the mill medication, peptides are chemically simple, and often mimic or occur as endogenously-produced compounds in living animals.
They’re promising research targets from a medical POV, but the pharma industry has been systematically ignoring them for decades due to difficulties around profiting from them, as demonstrated by the current rush of GLP-1 analogs. Any firm that invests in the clinical trials to prove safety + efficacy of a given compound won’t be able to stop competitors from ripping off their work.
And to be fair, this incentive misalignment is a global issue rather than a US/Canada problem.
So it’s like Kratom, but replacing Steroids instead of Heroin? Can you get it at gas stations too?
The only way I know to get it is through a guy I met at BJJ. No fanny pack but still so sketchy its cliche
I believe you can buy most peptides and other substances legally if they’re labelled research chemicals and not as a product for human consumption / use in humans.
RFK jr’s new grift
Good Work summarized it better than I ever could: https://youtu.be/W0ltbBby9FU
Good Work is good
There are a lot of different peptides. While there are some that are used by bodybuilders, there are others like collagen, which people take to improve their hair, nails, and skin. Collagen supplements are available anywhere in the US, some of the others are only available from “certain sources” (as noted above).
