Gifted article:
NYT: Chinese Peptides are Latest Biohacking Trend in Tech Industry
Based on the upsurge in interest in peptides on this forum, it looks like we’re a trend. ::
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Seems like the writer just followed up on this podcast:
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I’m very cautious to try Chinese peptides. In a world of glossy marketing and gray markets, disciplined skepticism is a survival skill (especially for me).
The following is a basic checklist for safety (if there’s any) that I would use:
- COA (Certificate of Analysis). Must include HPLC and Mass Spec data, batch-specific
- Third-Party Testing. Independent U.S. lab verification is ideal.
- Sterility & Endotoxin Testing. Especially for injectable peptides.
- Reputation of Vendor - look for long-standing, transparent companies with verifiable sourcing
- Community Vetting. Forums like r/Peptides or Longecity can offer anecdotal insights—but take with caution.
Good luck with Chinese peptides!
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Some sources mentioned in The NY Times story:
Anelya Grant, 41, is a co-founder of an A.I. billing start-up by day and an amateur peptide blogger by night. Asked if she had any background in biology, she laughed. “Absolutely no.” Like many fellow peptide enthusiasts, she gets her information primarily from word-of-mouth testimonials, Reddit threads, podcasts and conversations with ChatGPT.
As a tech founder based in SF, I agree with this doctor’s general assessment of the peptide landscape as I’ve seen it so far:
Several other founders analogized their openness to untested peptides to their tolerance for business risk.
Dr. Abramson, whom Ms. Grant interviewed for a post on her blog, was less convinced. “The entrepreneurial parallel isn’t funding a scrappy start-up,” he said to her. “It’s wiring money to an unregistered offshore entity based on a pitch deck.”
There is smart and calculated risk-taking (based on data) and foolish risk-taking based purely on hope and word-of-mouth testimonials.
Peptide Tracker Apps (a sample):
Perhaps people here can suggest ones they like:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details
It doesn’t help the field when these are the spokespeople for this peptide movement:
“My hair started falling out after a month because I was malnourished,” Ms. Bowman said. “It made my heart rate go up 10 beats per minute at night.”
Still, she plans to keep going.
Ms. Bowman never thought she would use syringes again — in 2020, she got clean from an addiction to recreational drugs. Peptides changed that.
But, perhaps there is some truth to this statement in the article:
But from the start-up founder’s point of view, “we might all be better off if we let the crazy people try the crazy peptides and filter down to the rest of us, instead of the system, which takes 10 years and is meant to protect everyone from everything.”
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Curious to see how Silicon Valley will apply its enshitification playbook to peptides.
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You’re going to see it shortly… between JFKjr and all the online shops pushing “wellness” peptides with little or no clinical validation or safety testing, its going to be a wave over the entire US this year, I suspect.
Of course, the difference between the “tech elites” and the “biopharma elites” is that the biopharma people have actually studies biology and understand the risks better. (and I’m a tech guy, who has also worked in biotech, so I know enough people in both camps).
Source: https://x.com/maxmarchione/status/2007547316279087528?s=20
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So “peptide” is a buzzword now? Technically, if people love injecting stuff someone could create an injectible rapamycin and call it a longevity peptide with an asterisk.
Drugs, compounds is what matters – not whether it is a peptide or not, this is a ridiculous fad. Or is there something specific about peptides that make them better than other drugs?
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Injectable rapamycin has been available for the past 4 year.
Several threads on this forum.
“Fyarro (sirolimus protein-bound particles) is a very expensive drug for advanced PEComa, with a wholesale cost of around $6,785 per 100mg vial”
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I’m sure there’s more to it, but one issue is that, due to influencers, many people who aren’t on forums like this simply assume peptides are perfectly safe because they’re ‘something already in our bodies.’
I know someone who said their friends use peptides and they all have ‘a guy’… they don’t know anything about testing, and none of them know to check labs or to talk to people much smarter then they are… you know, like I do!!
Also, the idea of peptide raves freaks me out… it reminds me of all the Botox parties that I refused to go to… it might have been perfectly safe, but I dunno
The “Peptides Party’s” by the “expert’s” have been going on for sometime.
Conniving is always on the horizon.
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I spent some time over the holidays in the SF Bay area in some of the wealthier tech hub cities (Menlo Park, Los Gatos, etc) and was surprised by the number of new peptide clinics and store that I saw relative to previous visits…
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QB$
Quick Buck $yndrome
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But peptides are affordable even to us Europoors.
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What peptide does this?
I love small molecules. Small molecules are good for health! lol.
From the article @WJ_PhD posted
But on Silicon Valley’s frontiers, a wider array of unproven, unregulated peptides has taken hold: People are trying BPC-157 and TB-500 for healing injuries by stimulating new blood vessel growth, oxytocin for improving eye contact (one OpenAI researcher called it “Ozempic for autism”), epitalon for sleep and retatrutide — a next-generation weight-loss drug still in clinical trials — for everything from appetite suppression to increased focus.
I have my first bottle of oxytocin nasal spray here and I don’t notice anything, so ?
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I’ve used oxytocin nasal spray and injectable and I had no good results from it. I had skin flushing red, a weird metallic taste in my mouth and increased heart rate.
Now I have 9 extra vials of this stuff and no desire to use it haha.
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i lived in china for 2 years
after that i have never eaten any MIC foods as far as I can avoid it i avoid it
i have zero trust in their food safety. their medicines are even worse. i just hope these people are merely getting saline and not something more dangerous that will eventually kill them.
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