This Podcast Will Kill You - Ep 225 Peptides: What your peptide dealer doesn’t want you to know

Episode Date: October 20, 2026

Looking to get swole (do people still say that)? Want to rewind the clock and smooth those bothersome wrinkles? Trying to lose weight rapidly and without a prescription? If you’ve spent any time on social media lately, chances are you’ve been inundated with ads, influencers, and podcast bros extolling the seemingly unlimited powers of peptides. With GLP-1s turning ‘peptide’ into a household word, the online “wellness” market has been flooded with the newest iteration of snake oil salesmen. According to them, these bespoke peptide combinations can reverse baldness, build muscle, and restore youth, all for the low, low price of… you get the idea. But what the heck even are peptides? How are they regulated? Is there any evidence to support these bold claims? What isn’t your peptide dealer telling you? Tune in to find out. Support this podcast by shopping our latest sponsor deals and promotions at this link: https://bit.ly/3WwtIAuSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is exactly right. I'm Lacey Mosley, author, actor, stand-up comedian, creator, and host of Scam Goddess Podcast. The True Crime Comedy Podcasts, all about robbery, fraud, and those who practice it. Each week, I bring on an amazing guest. Ooh, I scammed them. What? I can talk to you for an hour.

You're a generational yapper like me. That's why I had to make yapping a job. And now you can catch full episodes of my show on YouTube. Start listening to Scam Goddess on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. FDA's war on public health is about to end. This includes its aggressive suppression of psychedelics, peptides, stem cells, raw milk, hyperbaric therapies, chelating compounds, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, vitamins, clean foods, sunshine, exercise, nutraceuticals, and anything else that advances human health and can't be patented by pharma. If you work for the FFRAE.

and are part of this corrupt system, I have two messages for you. One, preserve your records. And two, pack your bags. Okay. That was a tweet from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on October 25th, 2024. Okay. And I feel like it sets the tone. It really does.

Some of those things are not like the others. Do you think, Karen? Oh, God. Yeah. So this is what we're dealing with today. Sounds about right. Sounds about right. Mm-hmm.

Welcome. Welcome. Hi, I'm Erin Welsh. And I'm Aaron Alman Updike. This is this podcast will kill you. Sorry, I'm still laughing from the first-hand account. Today we're talking about peptides. Peptides.

Today I'm talking about, I'm talking about peptides today. Yeah. What I, you know, Erin, I have, maybe it's a little head in the sand, but I'm like, any time I see peptides, I'm just like, Liz Lemon Eyeroll and I'm not engaging. And I'm like, this is nonsensical. So I can't wait. I don't know very much, and I cannot wait for you to tell me all about them. I will tell you as much as I possibly can. in the time allotted. If you guys missed last week's episode, we're doing something a little bit

different last week and this week. Last week, Erin Welsh told us all about snake oil because we decided we just want to pick topics and just tell each other about them. So that's what we did. You got to listen to it if you haven't already because it is truly phenomenal and like sets the stage for today's episode in a way that we could never have predicted how perfectly it does so. We're just, we work together really well. We're best friends. We mesh. But today I'm going to talk about peptides.

What they are, what they do, why is everyone talking about them online? Do you need a peptide dealer, etc.? Are they actually called peptide dealers? Yes, Erin. Yes, Erin. Okay. They have other names as well, too, that I'm probably not hip enough for. Okay, okay.

But before we can do that, it's quarantini time. It's quarantine time. Aaron, tell me, what are we drinking this week? We're drinking my stack, which by the end of this episode, if you don't already get it, you'll get it. And if you do get it, that's a wink. Beautiful. What's in my stack? My particular stack is iced coffee with a vanilla maple cold foam.

Oh. So it'll really get you going. Wow. Okay. So you can. That sounds really good. Caffeine, you know. It's helpful.

It is actually really good. It's what I've been drinking, like, almost every day. day. You make a maple cold brew foam. I do. I do. Vanilla maple cold foam. How do you do that? My mother-in-law, thank you so much, Chris, bought us for Christmas last year, like one of those little milk fomer things. Yes. And it can do cold or hot foam. So I just put the milk in there and then a tiny bit of maple syrup and a tiny bit of vanilla extract. And then I press the cold foam button and then I pour it over my ice coffee and it is legitimately so good. Oh my gosh. Okay. Next time I visit you, you're making me this. Next week, Eric. I will make you one. Okay.

Okay, but that's it. We have an episode. We'll post the, what are, what am I doing? Quarantini recipe on our website and on our socials. Our website has the usual mix of things that we talk about every week. And, you know, just in the interest of time, let's go straight to the episode. I can't wait. Let's let me tell you all about peptides.

Hello? What's your favorite scary podcast? IHard Radio presents the soundtrack to your October. From spooky podcasts and chilling playlists to nonstop Halloween radio and more. We have all the thrills and chills you're craving this season. Press play. I'm Lacey Mosley, author, actor, stand-up comedian, creator, and host of Scam Goddess Podcast. The True Crime Comedy Podcasts all about robbery, fraud, and those who practice it.

Each week I bring on an amazing guest. Ooh, I scammed them. What? I can talk to you for an hour. You're a generational yapper like me. That's why I had to make yapping a job. And now you can catch full episodes of my show on YouTube. Start listening to Scam Goddess on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

In case anyone listening is chronically offline, unlike us. I'm jealous. Uh-huh. Me too. But like my mom, who when I told her we were doing this, she was like, what are you talking about? And then the next day sent me not one but two New York Times articles about peptides. So she's in the loop now. That's just her phone listening to her as well.

100%. But also there was two articles in the same day that came out about peptides. Anyways, what we're talking about today are drugs, really, called peptides, that people are primarily injecting into their bodies, usually either under the skin or sometimes into their muscles. Sometimes these peptides might be spread around in topical creams. And very rarely they might be used as ingestibles. or peptides suppositories. All right? And the peptides in question

have such names as BPC 157, which stands for body protection compound 157. No. Yes. Okay. KPV, which I forget exactly what that one stands for. Actually, no, it stands for just the three amino acids that are in that peptide.

TB 500, Milanotan is another one. But far more often, they actually go by these really fun, even more colloquial names, because all of those are not scientific names, even though they sound scientific. They go by these really fun names for the so-called stacks that people build out of them. So people will take multiple peptides and combine them together in what they call a stack, and those will have names like Wolverine stack. No. Which is purported to get you swole and to recover as quickly. Like body spray names essentially? Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yeah. So that you can be like Hugh Jackman. Wolverine's going to get you swole, the technical term. Swole and then also recover very quickly the way that Wolverine can if you've seen X-Men. Long time, like the OG, yeah. Okay, yeah, yeah. They like, he can like, you know, get totally beat up and then he heals himself. That's really why it's Wolverine stack. Yeah. There's also Barbie peptide, which will tan your skin, snatch your waist, and increase your libido. Is that for real?

Yes, I'm 100% for real. I don't know if it will also give you a perma high heel like Margot Robbie pulled off in the movie, but one can only hope. Basically, these substances have been purported to treat and or cure pretty much any ailment that you can think of. They are claimed to improve recovery times, to dissolve fat while building muscle, to improve your mood and cognition, to give you energy and focus. Peptides are truly this season's cure-all. That's why I said last episode, Erin. Nothing has changed since the 1840s.

It is so, honestly, there's a certain poetry to it. If I weren't crying at the same time. I also have to say, for anyone who doesn't know me that well, so not you, Aaron, because you know this about me. Honestly, most people who have listened for a long time could probably have figured this out, but some of you might not really know me. I am a fun sucker. I am not like a fun person to be around. I can get bogged down, for example, in the semantics of things. Yeah, you don't like when I play hypothetical games with you because you say that would never actually happen. And I'm like, well, but if you did have to choose between never having pizza or ice cream again, and then you don't like to answer those questions. No. Who does? I wouldn't call you, because we have the most fun together. No, we have fun. But I think we suck the fun simultaneously. There are things that I just

cannot let go of. And so to say that like I get frustrated when I hear people talking, like throwing the word peptide around as if a peptide is a single thing. Is a meaningful term. It's in itself. Right. Like the word peptide does not mean what people are meaning it as. And so it is, it is a, it frustrates me deeply to my core. So apologies if that comes out a little bit. But what I want everyone to get out of today's episode today, today's episode today, is I want you to understand what is actually going on with some of these most popular peptides. To know that, we first have to learn some pretty basic biochemistry so that everyone is on the same page about what does the peptide actually mean if you're throwing this word around.

we're going to talk about where we actually use peptides as medicines today because we've actually been using them for a really long time. And then we'll get into why do we think, why do I think, really, it is now in this moment that we are seeing peptides specifically explode in popularity. And like, why are they having such of this moment? And I'll talk in a little bit of detail about some of the specific, like, stacks and combinations, especially because the FDA recently had an advisory committee on whether they were going to, like, allow these to be basically used as pharmaceuticals again in the U.S. We'll get into it, okay?

I mean, yeah. So I hope that you all can understand by the end of this episode what peptides are and how they could be used and then recognize some of the drivers of their popularity to then be equipped to suss out claims about these peptides for yourself. like you said at the end of last episode, Aaron, we all need to know where to direct our skepticism and how. Yeah. Can we do it? I love this.

I love this. Okay. The word peptide. What that actually means is just a string of amino acids. Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins. Amino acids are just carbon-based compounds that have what's called an amino group, which means a nitrogen and a couple of hydrogens. and they have a carboxal group, which is two oxygens and a hydrogen, and then they've got side groups. And there can be a whole bunch of different side groups to make several hundred

different amino acids that have been identified. A few dozen of these amino acids are important in our human bodies. Nine of them are the essential amino acids, which means that we don't make them in our bodies, so we have to get them from our diet. So just like simple sugars are the building blocks of complex carbohydrates, when you, you string multiple amino acids together in a chain, you first form a peptide. And then if you string many strings together of peptides, you fold them in complex ways to make a protein. Okay. Yep. That's all a peptide is. We make in our bodies a whole bunch of peptides, and we use them endogenously for so many tasks. Oxytocin, our love hormone, that's a peptide.

Is that in a stack or? I'm sure. I don't know. Can we stack that? I mean, we use it in medicine. We use synthetic oxytocin. People hate on it. It's called pitocin.

It saves lives. Insulin, which is essential for regulating our blood sugar, also a peptide. A lot of our hormones, it turns out, our peptides, like a whole bunch of our hormones, are peptides. And that's because they are really good at traveling throughout our bloodstream. And they, this is an important part about. peptides. They do not last very long in our bodies. Keep that in your brain. Okay. Okay. How long is very long? It depends on the peptide, but it can be on the matter of minutes to the matter of hours.

Okay. Okay. Many of our neurotransmitters are peptides. Growth factors that we use in our body are peptides. Antimicrobial compounds are sometimes peptides. Okay. It is not wild. It is not new. It is not novel. It is not like, holy crap, what an interesting idea to use peptides as medicines. The very first peptide that was ever used as a medicine was insulin. Then-na-na-na-da. See our diabetes episode for how we figured this out. And by we, I mean, what was it? I wrote their names down. And Frederick Banting in like London, Ontario. That's all I remember. Something like that. There was like a few of them. Yeah, there was a few. I'm sorry. I can only remember Banting. No, that's okay. You are right. So they initially extracted insulin from bovine and porcine

pancreas to develop insulin, and that saved millions and millions of lives. That was in the 1920s, 1921 was when it first came on the scene. Then in the 1950s, was when scientists were first able to figure out how to synthesize peptides. There was yet another Nobel Prize in chemistry. that was awarded for this in 1955. And then in 1984, scientists figured out a newer, better, faster way to synthesize peptides. Yet another Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1984 for this. Okay. This is my version of history, by the way.

Love it, love it. So we have been using peptides in medicine since at least 1921. And through the 1950s and especially since the 1980s, we've been using more and more of them because we have had the technology to be able to come up with them, to synthesize them, to test them, and to figure out what they do and put them through clinical trials to be able to use them as medications. As of 2021, there were 80 approved drugs on the market that were FDA approved in the U.S. and they're used in many other countries across the globe that are actually peptides. And we use these peptide drugs for everything from diabetes control to weight loss to cancer treatment.

We use them for the treatment of osteoporosis. There's some immunosuppressive drugs that we use that are peptides. You remember our leeches episode? Yeah. We talked about a drug that was developed that's a thrombin inhibitor, so it helps to block clots, and it was developed from the saliva of leeches. Uh-huh, yeah. That's a peptide. That's a peptide.

Okay. Okay. Some of our antibiotics are peptides. There was a really early drug developed for the treatment of MS that was a peptide. There was an early drug developed for HIV. We don't use it that often anymore because you have to administer it multiple times a day and it has to be given by injection. So it's not as convenient as the oral medications that we have now, but it's a peptide. We use peptides for the treatment of hormone sensitive cancers.

We use them for the treatment of growth hormone deficiencies. Like, we use them in medicine all the time. And all of these different types of peptides are examples of things that most of the time are peptides that most of the time are peptides that we make. in our bodies, or sometimes they are peptides that are really similar to peptides that we have in our bodies. But every single one of them does very different and very specific things, right? A peptide that we use to treat diabetes is very different than the peptide that we use to treat prostate cancer.

Mm-hmm. Okay. And all of these peptides that we use in medicine had to go through and, and, you know, animal studies, cell culture studies, and three phases of human clinical trials in order to demonstrate that they are safe, that they are effective, in order to come up with dosing and treatment plans for their use to treat a specific condition, then they had to be reviewed by the FDA and approved for use, and the companies that make them are required to follow specific regulatory guidelines, dispense them only with a prescription for the treatment of specific conditions under the

guidance of a medical professional. So then what the heck is going on, Erin? I don't understand. What's happening today is not that use of peptides. No. It's not even the same as the use of supplements, though it falls under many similar gray umbrellas. Right.

So what is it regulated as? the vast majority of the peptides that people are using on themselves today are explicitly not to be used for human medication. They are not regulated as supplements. They are sold under the guise of for research use only. So people are able to purchase them online from either direct-to-consumer mark like peptide manufacturing plants in China or through WhatsApp messages a lot of times or through in some cases compounding pharmacies and we'll get there in a minute and through different organizations and companies that have sprung up in order to sell peptides, all of which, much like in our raw milk episode where you can buy raw milk that is labeled not for human consumption, people are

buying these peptides that are specifically labeled not for human use or for. research use only. I mean, buyer beware. Let the market figured itself out. Oh, my gosh. And in truth, peptide really has become the newest buzzword to mean quote unquote natural, to mean quote unquote beneficial, and it is very tightly linked with the whole anti-aging longevity crowd. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So while, yes, there are many FDA-approved peptides, and some of the ones that people are using are FDA-approved or maybe almost FDA-approved will get their compounds that people are using, but using them in ways that are not FDA-approved. But most of the time, that's not how they're being used. They're being sold through essentially what's called a gray market. I'm not really sure what's gray about it. It seems like it's just not legal, but nobody's cracking down on it, so they call it gray. Well, because the head of HHS is explicitly endorsing it. And so. And so they make it.

Who's enforcing any sort of ban or, yeah. Nope. Yeah. And to say that this has become, like, if you're like, I've never heard of this peptides thing, it is a massive industry. Online advertising of unauthorized peptides, which is what these all are, grew eightfold from 2022 to 2024 via per. a New York Times report, and this market is already worth billions of dollars, just this peptide market. A review from 2026 valued the global market of peptides at $37.8 billion in 2022 and estimated that it was growing 9% a year over the next decade so that by 2013, just peptides alone would be

worth $85.9 billion. So. Yeah. Okay. Why? Yeah, why? Why? Okay. Yeah, why? Why? Why is this springing up now? Yes, that's my question. What are people, like, what is the range of this? Like, when you hear peptide, because like all I hear is peptide and I, I think I immediately associate it with like the men's health, the Wolverine, Let's Get Swole, Podcast Bros, that kind of thing. Yeah. But there's much more out there. So what are the things? Yeah, why and what are the things? Let's get into it. Let me try and answer the question as to why this market has blossomed so much, especially in the last few years. Yeah. And then we'll go into a little bit of detail on some of these and like look at the range of things that they claim to treat or to prevent or whatever to kind of understand how wide it has gotten. It's really hard actually to pinpoint, like why now, why today. But I think in all of the research that I

I've done, there's at least two big things that have happened in the last few years that we can point to as pretty major contributors. And on top of that, we just have this general rise in demand for like health optimization and our social media algorithms, including podcasts, which really helped to mass market this idea that we need to optimize our health. And I think that's kind of a separate part that has played into this. But the other two things. The first one are GLP's. Now, we really do need to do an actual episode on GLPs. I'm sorry that we haven't yet. Yeah.

But GLP1 stands for Glucagon-like peptide 1. And drugs like semaglutide or semaglutide, depending on how you like to say it, which is Ozempic and Wagovi, is a GLP-1 agonist. It acts on this glucagon-like peptide receptor. GIP is gastric inhibitory peptide, and drugs like terseptide or Zepound or Manjaro act on both GLPB. and GIP. Okay. Now, these somaglutide, terseptide, these were not the first of these GLP-1 type of drugs. The first was actually called exenitide, and it was isolated from Gila Monster Venom.

Yes. Uh-huh. And they were first approved well over a decade ago for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. Yeah. So we've been using these type of peptides as drugs in medicine for a really long time. But it became very clear in some of the initial trials that some of these drugs, drugs also had the ability to induce a substantial amount of weight loss in people with diabetes when they were studying them to be used for diabetes. I really want to know the Hila, like,

how did the Hila Monster become, who was looking at it? Who was looking at it? I guess we'll get, when we do the JLP ones episode. Now this is, now this is making you want to do J.FU. Well, I knew, I knew, I knew that they were involved, but I was like, how did the leap, how do we leap from there to? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So after they saw that, in a lot of clinical trials, then pharmaceutical companies saw a way to make more money. And so they studied these drugs, these GLP-1 agonis, for the treatment of obesity, quote-unquote, for to induce weight loss specifically. And that led to the approval of the first weight loss. Well, actually, it wasn't the first weight loss one, but it was the first, like, really good one, because there was one

in 2014, but it wasn't that effective. It required daily administration. It's called Saxenda. It's still on the market, but Wagovi or Simaglutide, which was already being used for diabetes, but got the FDA approval for weight loss for obesity in 2021 when everyone was at home with COVID and still on lockdowns and things, followed by Terseppatide or Zepbound in 2023. That really opened up a market that did not exist before. And we have seen since then so many more come out. We've seen oral formulations of somaglutide. We've seen a new drug that's an oral formulation from Eli Lilly, who makes Zepound.

We're going to see a new one, I'm sure, soon, and we'll talk a little bit more about it later. It's called Rutatututide. And so GLP1s being so successful, getting on the celebrity scene, everyone becoming obsessed with them, and then becoming such a huge topic of conversation among everyone played a huge role in the conversation around the idea of peptides in general. Because now peptide has entered our consciousness. What is this? It's a peptide. What is a peptide? Well, this drug is a peptide and it's helping everyone and everyone's using it. Right, right. And so researchers have said that this induces what's called a halo effect. The halo effect is this idea in psychology that if there is,

if you see a benefit in one area, then you're going to assume that there's a bigger benefit in everything. So the idea behind GLP-1s is like, well, if this new and exciting peptide that everyone is on or everybody wants to be on and nobody can even get their hands on it, that seems to be beneficial. So this other peptide, or all peptides, must be beneficial, right? GLP-1s also, I think, did a few other things that get overlooked a little bit. They really normalized the concept of injecting yourself with a drug and specifically injecting yourself with a drug to improve yourself, which I think is the way that they were marketed, right? And there was another thing, because when these GLP-1s came on the market, 2021, 2021, 2022,

2022, 23, even today, they were very hard to come by. Yeah. So people were finding ways to get these drugs outside of conventional prescriptions because you could not get them from your CVS or your Walgreens or your Walmart pharmacy. So many people started to get semaglutide from compounding pharmacies. And that brings me to point two. Yeah. Why do compounding pharmacies matter? What is a compounding pharmacy? Great question. So glad that you asked. Compounding pharmacies are places that you can go, they're pharmacies, that you can go to get drugs made kind of on demand. You still need a prescription to get a drug from a compounding pharmacy. Okay. But what you

you can get from there is a kind of custom-made drug that is made by a pharmacist for you based on the prescription that your physician sends. So what does that mean in practice? Yeah, give me an example of like a legitimate use of this. Right, a really good example. Compounding pharmacies are really important. If you have somebody who cannot take a tablet formulation of a drug and there's only tablet formulations on the market, a compounding pharmacy can make a liquid version of that drug for someone who's maybe tube feeding dependent or something like that. Okay. So there are many, many reasons why compounding pharmacies are a really important part of, like, our pharmacy ecosystem because major drug manufacturers are only going to make one version of a thing, right?

Where, like, where do compounding pharmacies exist? Are they in hospitals? Are they separate buildings? Yes. A lot of times hospitals will have their own pharmacist who basically will compound in the hospital. So that's really important for things like TPN or parental nutrition. That's got to be made by a pharmacist. There's also standalone compounding pharmacies. So, like, I know the one that's here in San Diego that I know of, and I will sometimes send things there if I have someone who needs something that you can't get at a regular pharmacy. Compounding pharmacies can only make either FDA approved drugs in a different formulation, like that example I gave of a liquid drug for someone who needs it, or they can make drugs

from compounds that are on this list that's called the 503A Bulk's list. which is like a list of substances, a list of things that you can use to make a compounded product. There's also specific rules, and this is what happened with like the OZempic and Wagovi situation in the early 2020s, is that there wasn't enough of it. So if there's shortages, then compounding pharmacies are also allowed to make drugs, even if they're still under a patent kind of a thing. Gotcha. However, compounding pharmacies are not held to the same federal standards. of regulation. They are regulated by their state board of pharmacy. And there are many loopholes that could be used by compounding pharmacies, both local ones. So like, I'm going to go to my

compounding pharmacy. But there's also a lot of compounding pharmacies that have kind of sprung up that are more like mail order type of compounding pharmacies. And they are not regulated in the same way. How, how, how, how does it why? How, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how, how. This is a question a lot of people have asked. Now, why does this matter for peptides? Yeah. Well, back in 2023, there was a large number, I think 12 peptides that were specifically removed from this 503A Bulk's list. And they were instead placed on a list that specifically prohibits compounding pharmacies from using them in medications because the FDA cited significant safety concerns and not enough evidence that they had any efficacy.

peptides were already pretty big in certain circles, like a decade or more ago. They were really big in bodybuilding circles to the point where the World Anti-Doping Agency actually has several peptides on a list of banned substances. Not because there's data that they actually improve your performance, but because people were using them, hoping that they would, there is a theoretical basis by which they could, and there is substantial safety concern. And that's one of the criteria that the World Anti-Doping Agency uses. to make their decisions on what's safe for athletes to use.

So in 2023, when there was this big change at the FDA, many people, including some prominent peptide lovers like RFK Jr., were pretty mad about this. Which is why, in 2024, as you heard in our firsthand account, RFK Jr., who is now our head still of HHS, tweeted that he was going to end the, quote, aggressive suppression of peptides, end quote, among other things, as part of the, quote, FDA's war on public health, end quote. He has actually fulfilled this promise, essentially,

because he replaced eight members of an FDA review committee on compounding pharmacies, whose job it is to review these lists and what substances should be allowed or not allowed on this bulk's list that compounding pharmacies are allowed to use. And at the end of July, they had a hearing, and seven of these peptides were up for you, I watched them, Erin. I watched these hearings so that you don't have to. How was that? Yeah. Emotionally. It was hard. Anyone from the community was invited to give comments on each one of these peptides. Many, many, many people did. Most of them were either peptide users, peptide prescribers, or like ran a peptide company who were selling peptides. And they gave their

anecdotal evidence for why they should be able to and why they wanted to be able to prescribe peptides specifically from compounding pharmacies in the U.S. Their main reason, aside from like these are great, they help everyone, they're amazing, was also that the idea is it would be safer to get them from a compounding pharmacy in the U.S. rather than from a peptide manufacturer in China where you don't even know what you're getting when you're ordering online. So the community members were allowed to give comments. And then an FDA scientific review committee reviewed the evidence and presented the evidence on the physical and chemical characterization of like what is the compound in question. What are any safety issues that are raised by the use of this compound

in compounded products? Like do we have any safety data? How is this product going to be used and what's the data on it? What is the evidence of effectiveness or lack thereof of this substance to treat whatever order you're claiming that it treats? And finally, what is the historical use of this compound in compounded products or of this substance in compounded products? Which is really an interesting thing that they consider. Like, oh, well, if it's been used for a long time, then it's probably safe even if we don't have that much data. Ah, no. So the community presented their evidence. This FDA review committee, scientific review committee presented their evidence. And then the panel, which again, was just essentially overhauled by RFK, voted.

do we add it to the let's go ahead and use it list or do we keep it off the list? Okay, so real quick, the peptides that were under consideration were the ones that had been previously removed or this was a whole new batch? It was several of them that had been removed. Okay, okay. Yeah. And for literally every single one, all seven that were reviewed, there were substantial safety concerns that the FDA review committee presented, including concerns of immunogenicity.

Not a single one had sufficient evidence to recommend their use. for any of the conditions that they were being suggested for. And in every single case, the FDA review committee's recommendation was to not add these substances to the 503A books list. But what have to every single case except one, the panel decided to add them to the list, regardless. And most interestingly, the vote was almost always eight, yes, six no one abstain, and RFK replaced eight of the members on that committee.

Yeah, I mean, and how. many of those who's getting paid by these peptide companies who owns them, who owns shares, who whatever, yeah. The music you love. Your favorite radio stations. Everywhere you go. The podcasts everyone's talking about. All in one place.

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Download the free IRR radio app today. So, and so that's how compounding pharmacies play a really big part in this, right? There is a big push from, you know, physicians who have their own longevity clinics who are prescribing these peptides who want to be able to prescribe them more easily through compounding pharmacies. There are bulk compounding pharmacies who want to be able to sell these in the U.S. because they can make a lot of money off of it. Yeah, so a quick question about compounding pharmacies and how payment works. If it's something like you're being prescribed a medication and you have insurance and that insurance will pay for in part or whatever, some of the medication, but you could also then,

as an individual person, with these peptides now approved, as an individual person without a prescription, you could go to the compounding pharmacy and say, give me my stack? Incorrect. Okay, tell me. So, yes, you still, to get things from a compounding pharmacy, you need a prescription. Okay. So them being added to the compounding pharmacy list means that physicians who are selling them are going to be able to do that more easily and claim an air of legitimacy, right?

Make it seem as though this is safer because it's coming from a U.S.-based compounding pharmacy rather than from this sketchy website or whatever. But you still will need a prescription. You still can get these online very easily without a prescription. You do not need a prescription to go get a prescription to go get the them from your WhatsApp dealer or whatever. And so I think that that like this whole conversation around compounding pharmacies and what should be allowed and shouldn't be allowed. And I'm not trying to hate on compounding pharmacies as a broad thing. But you do have to understand that there are

a lack of regulations on what they can and cannot do. And whenever there's a lack of regulation, there's going to be people who are not acting in the best interest of the individual because they can make more money doing it differently. And so it's the normalization of the idea of peptides. It's because of GLP-1s. It's the idea that compounding pharmacies and getting your medication outside of the typical structure is more normalized. And then it's that third and final thing that has allowed this gray market to spiral so far out of control is just our mistrust of science overall, right? We see the rise in so many different areas, not just in health, of these social media personalities, some of whom claim to be scientists like Andrew Huberman, some of whom don't. don't bother like Joe Rogan, but they don't have to because they have so-called scientists and

many actual physicians on their very popular programs to talk about things in scientific language. The word peptide sounds very scientific, while also claiming that it is natural and distinguishing it from the word drug, which sounds bad. And so all of this, I think, has really contributed to why we're seeing the rise today. It's the same, I mean, it's the same thing as Snakewell. It's cherry picking what parts of science you can use in order to sell something while downplaying everything else and not actually being a scientist and not actually doing what scientists do, which is being honest.

Correct. Well, not all of them. But of course, like, the spirit of science is transparency. It is not overstating. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

But so what are, I've just been saying the word peptides in a way that I hate. What are we talking about? What are the actual peptides? What are the peptides? There's a lot. I can't get into every side. single one of them. What I can tell you is that the vast majority of them fall into a few big buckets of what they claim to do. There are peptides that claim to be anti-aging and to improve

longevity. That's really easy to test in a clinical trial. Really easy to test in a clinical trial. There are other peptides that claim, there's a lot around tissue regeneration or repair, faster recovery times. Sometimes they're marketed for like muscle building. These are the types of peptides that were really popular even among like bodybuilders and things like that before we've seen the like more widespread use of peptides today. I mean, which also that to me sounds like another interpretation would be like this is cancer causing because if you're causing self proliferation. You are so smart, Aaron, because a hundred percent, let me get into a little bit more detail on that. It is such an important part that everyone's just like, I'm going to ignore this. Sorry, if you can start replicating yourselves really quickly, you can also just quickly grow cancer.

Yes. Yeah. Sorry, I yelled that. I love that all I had to say was tissue repair and that's where your brain went. I love you so much. I can't even tell you. God, I love you. Okay. Other ones are marketed for fat loss, a big moment right now. Okay. Of course. Pain management, hormonal balance, sexual. health. There's obviously huge money in improving sexual health. Of course. There's other ones that are marketed for neurocognition, which I think is really hilarious because peptides can't even cross our gut barrier. I was going to say, can they cross our blood brain barrier? Also, how upsetting if it could? If it could, that would be bad. Terrifying. And they all, what's so, I think is so interesting is that many of them use these very chemically sounding names, but they are not the chemical names. Like in the FDA hearings, the scientific

Review Committee was like, we don't actually even know what chemical compound you're talking about because you just said BPC 157 and that's a meaningless term. Do you mean the salt form? Do you mean the free peptide form? What are you talking about? Right. So the chemists out there pulling their hair out. Yeah. But I want to talk about a few of them in specific. Okay. These are some of the ones that were, first of all, that are really big and second of all that were specifically recently looked at and probably are going to be approved for use if the FDA approves them based on the panel's decision recently at the end of January. These are BPC 157, okay, and TB 500, which is Thymocin Beta 500.

If you put these two together, you get Wolverine stack. Okay, great, cool. Okay? I know you'd want to know about that one. Now, neither one of these, BPC 157 or TB 500, has really any safety data in humans, period. BPC 157 at least has a couple of published papers where humans got injected with it, but they were like, one of them was a study of like 17 people and only some of them got only BPC 157. Other ones got BPC and TB4, which is like a different version. It's the larger version of what

TB 500 is. Okay, so it's like Iron Man instead of Wolverine or something? Who knows? Am I mixing my Marvel and And the other one, DC? Okay, my dad. Yeah, good job. Good job. You did great. Thank you. But so there's really no human safety data on either of these two compounds. There is some data on BPC 157.

Most of the data on this is in mouse models of tissue healing. So there are a couple of studies, literally two studies, that show that if you rip off a mouse's ACL or tear their thigh muscle and then inject them with BP 157, they have faster wound healing of those muscles specifically. And TB4, which is thymocin beta 4, this is a peptide that we make in our bodies that has been shown in cell cultures to promote angiogenesis. That means the growth of new blood vessels and to promote cell proliferation. Yeah. And to stop senescence where cells age. tumors love this.

One simple trick. This is literally all we talked about in our cancers episode. This is what cancers have to do. TB 500, which is what everyone is injecting, not everyone, but the people who are, who are. TB 500 is a six amino acid sequence that's a part of TB4. We don't have any data on TB 500, no human studies at all, no toxicity data, no safety data whatsoever. So there's major concern here for the potential for these two in specific to cause cancer. I mean, this is a public health crisis waiting to happen.

It's already happening. It's already happening. I actually have several examples of really serious things already happening from people who are injecting these compounds. And it's quite scary. Another one that recently just got looked at is I also think quite scary. It's CJC-1295. I don't remember what that stands for. but again, it's not like a real chemical name.

This is a long-acting version of a growth hormone releasing hormone. Now, the difference on this particular peptide is that we did study it. There is some data on this in humans on people who had growth hormone deficiencies. So people who do not make enough growth hormone. But the phase two trials on the use of this were stopped after somebody had a heart attack. Probably was not related. Who knows if it was. but the point is that this compound never made it out of phase two trials for the treatment of anything, including growth hormone deficiencies or lipodistrophy, which is where you have issues with how and where you store fat. And so you have issues with a lot of hormones in that particular condition. So this drug has had, it at least has some human data, but it's not great human data. And it was stopped prematurely. In practice, people often combine this particular peptide with another peptide called epamerelline.

which is also a growth hormone stimulator. And so now we're using two different growth hormone-related peptides. And we actually already know what happens if your body starts making too much growth hormone. You develop a condition called acromegaly. Yes. Where you have continuous bone production, especially in your head, your hands, your feet. You can have a heart that continues to grow. You can have pretty major serious issues.

Again, not a lot of safety data. Definitely know what are people using it for? There's no like condition that people are treating that we're using it for. Well, you invent the problem and then you sell the solution. Correct. Yeah. Another one that recently got added to the list of approved, well, is going to be added to this 503A box list because they voted on it, is KPV, which literally is just lysine is K, and valine is V.

It's three amino acids. But it's like the jargony thing really kills me. This one I find so interesting because people are using. using it topically, and the FDA was supposed to look at it for quote-unquote wound healing, what kind of wounds, nobody knows, and inflammatory conditions, which one, nobody knows. Just general inflammation. General inflammation of the skin? We don't know. We have no idea what the molecular targets of this are. It is a part of a hormone in our bodies called melanotropic stimulating

hormone. Okay. Melanin, yeah, our melanchine, yes. If you are worried about skin cancer, Yep. You are correct. Yep. Okay. We don't know if this one targets the exact same parts of MSH as the whole peptide would because we don't have any data on it. Oh, my God, Erin. But here's the good news, Erin.

On the cadaver skin trials that we do have, it doesn't even permeate through the skin. So you're probably not actually getting anything by using it on your skin. There's no studies of it in live humans at all and no toxicity studies, period. One that was not on the list of recently, like, re-added to the bulk's list, but I do think is important to talk about because I think it targets, first of all, an entirely different subset of people than might be targeted from Wolverine Stack and Growth Hormone Stack is Melanotan or the Barbie Peptide. Barbie, yeah.

Melanotan. Melanotan. There are two different versions of this peptide. One is called Melanotanotan one. And this is actually an FDA-approved drug that is used for treatment of a drug. genetic condition that causes extreme sun sensitivity. Okay. When it is used as an FDA-approved drug, it's usually like a subcutaneous implant that people

are given. Again, if they have this genetic condition. Fascinating. It has a compatriant melanotan 2, which is not FDA-approved, but is the one that is being used more frequently as the Barbie peptide. Okay. Which appears to not only tan your skin, but also increase your libido, affect your appetite, etc.

Wait, appears to or is sold as? Is sold to. Okay. Is sold to. It does target your melanin receptors. So it does cause darkening of your skin because you produce more melanin. It also has been shown to cause cancers in at least two people. It has also resulted in rabdomyelysis and renal infarcs in case studies.

And there's also a lot of concerns about the immunogenicity of these compounds because we have no idea what's going into these vials that people are being sent. So there was actually a couple of people who went to a wellness fair convention thing in Las Vegas and ended up sick and hospitalized. One of them had to be intubated after the injection of an unknown peptide. So it's not like, it is not an exaggeration to say that this is already causing effects. It's like best case scenario is that you just get a tube of water. That's exactly. exactly the best case scenario, Aaron. And there are, this also has made a whole new market for people because there have been other companies that have popped up saying, you know, it feels really

sketchy that I'm ordering this thing that I'm injecting my body from WhatsApp or from this website where it's being shipped from China and I don't know what is actually in it. Keep engaging with that skepticism. Yep. So people have said, I'm going to test these compounds. And so they've made new companies, biotech companies, that they can also make money off of to then test. these peptide vials, and in studies where people have looked at this, up to 40% of the time, it is not what it claims to be in the vial. Either it's too much of it, which is really scary, or it's not the same concentration that it claims that it is. In many cases, they find evidence

of bacterial contamination. So they find endotoxins and things like that, which indicate that the manufacturing process is not, you know, safe and not following best practices. I'm not, like, I it's it's so much Aaron there's also a last one that I want to talk about in specific in name is retatutide I mentioned it briefly people are calling it reda that's the short name for it and this is a peptide that is currently still under investigation by eli Lilly and it probably will be approved through the FDA they did phase one two and three trials it is similar to terseptide targeting g LP1 gip and also glucagon. So it targets three different receptors rather than just one. And it has shown substantial

and incredibly rapid weight loss. Oh, God, that sounds scary. Really rapid weight loss. And because those trials have been published and because the peptide, retachutide, was published under a patent, the amino acid sequence is publicly available, which means that plenty of companies

say, oh, I could make that. And you can now buy it through this so-called gray market, not having any idea if it's actually retouchutide or if it's exactly the same version as what would be made through the actual pharmaceutical company, what the concentration is, how much you should be using. So people have been losing a lot of weight with this, which can be incredibly dangerous. Really dangerous. And not doing any of this under the guidance of a licensed medical professional or an ethically licensed, I don't know. No, because you can't, right?

Like a provider cannot ethically prescribe this when there is no data to back this up. And a phase two or three trial without an FDA approval is not enough data to do this. So how are they, I think I'm still trying to get my head around. If you are trying to get your hands on one of these peptides, where do you go for that? You literally just like Google it. Okay. And then you can find. a number of websites that will sell it to you directly.

A lot of times people will reach out to TikTok or other influencers that say this is where I got mine and then they will connect you to their dealer via WhatsApp. And I'm saying all this as someone who I have not done this, but I read multiple like op-eds of people. One was a reporter and one was a physician who went through this process to actually obtain these peptides. So it's not just like, oh, you don't know what is going on. I didn't do it, but it's very easy from everything that I can tell.

It would not be difficult to get your hands on. This is a big question. But tell me the cast of characters who's making money off of this. Is it their peptide companies? Is it the compound pharmacies? Is it, of course, the people who are influencers and getting paid by the companies themselves? Are there physicians involved? Are their pharmaceutical companies involved?

Where are the financial incentives to make this public health? crisis, legal, continue to happen, et cetera? Yes, all of those people that you listed are making money off of this. There are many physicians who have set up longevity clinics or wellness spas and things like that who are able to make a lot of money off of this. Of course, all of the influencers who are making a lot of money off of this. And then, yes, the peptide manufacturers themselves. And what I think is really interesting is to really look deep at to some of the claims that

people use to kind of justify this. One is that a lot of people who are really into this idea of peptides claim that, well, they're already present in our body. These are things that are already there. And so they're low risk because adding more peptide to something that you already have, it's... Don't we have an opioid receptor because we make small amounts for pain relief. So that's not a problem, right?

Can't you die if you? inject too much insulin into your body incredibly rapidly, like it is actually offensive. Like it is deeply offensive that idea that something just because our body makes it is not harmful to inject. It is, that is totally untrue and a really scary and dangerous assertion to make. I mean, it follows all of the same logic that so many of like natural, natural, natural, well, our bodies know what to do. Well, we don't need to take antibiotics because we've been fighting bacteria for millennia. Okay.

Correct. And the other thing that people claim, because you mentioned, are pharmaceutical companies making a lot of money off of this? Yeah. Now, plenty of pharmaceutical companies are because they are selling peptides through FDA approval with insurance, et cetera. Right. Or through their own direct to consumer manufacturing processes, right?

So plenty of pharmaceutical companies are making money off of peptides. The peptides that people are getting through this gray market, the pharmaceuticals, the pharmaceutical companies are not making money off of. And that is one of the things that people say is the reason to trust these peptides because they say there is no incentive for pharmaceutical companies to invest the time and money into these clinical trials because they would not be able to patent these peptides to be able to make money off of them. That is also wildly false. No, pharmaceutical companies can patent so many freaking things. They are. experts at finding shady ways to make money off of their compounds.

This is not a pro-pharmaceutical podcast, yo. Like, they are still making money off of insulin, okay? And I said at the very beginning of this episode, Aaron, that our endogenous peptides are only active for a really short amount of time, right? Yeah, yeah. So literally, none of these peptides that you're injecting are exactly the same as what your body is making, because if they were, then they're not doing anything. They're only there for a number of minutes, right? So anything that you're injecting once a week, if it's having any effect at

all, it is a synthetic, changed version of that peptide, which means that if pharma wanted to, absolutely, they could patent it and they can make so much money off of it, okay? The real fact of the matter is that most of these peptides have been studied in one degree or another and have not shown enough promise to be of interest to pharmaceutical companies or have shown significant safety concerns. And then there's liability. Like they might cause cancer. Yeah. Okay. Tell me, let's say that somebody wanted to buy a stack of Wolverine, et cetera. How much does a stack cost? How much is a supply cost? That's such a good question. That's a really good question. There's a few like op-eds that I read that kind of delved into a little bit more of this. But a lot of times it's on the order of like several

hundred dollars. So it's going to be a lot cheaper a lot of times than like the thousands of dollars your insurance might tell you that you have to pay for Wagovi. Right. You could get retatu tied for a couple hundred bucks and it might last you a couple of months, right? Especially if you're microdosing it, which means what are you even doing? But that's a separate conversation. So yeah, they're on the order of, you know, depending on where you're getting it from, you know, we're talking like a few hundred bucks per vial. But I have seen influencers being like, this is $25,000 worth of peptide. Like, people are spending a ton of money on this stuff.

Well, and then there's that psychological game, the psychological effect of when you spend a lot of money on something. Yes. You think it's worth more. You think you're more likely to think that it works and you're more invested into thinking, like, I did not waste my money. I did not waste my money. A hundred percent.

Yeah. 100%. Like, the truth is that these wellness companies just found a workaround, right? everyone who is profiting off of peptides right now has found a way to do that without having to do any of the research, gather any of the evidence to show efficacy and safety, because that is hard work and it costs a lot of money and is required for something to actually be sold as a medication. Do you have any other questions about peptides before I TLDR for anyone who didn't want to listen? I feel like to me the biggest question is about how we can tell the difference between,

the peptides prescribed as medication, and then there are the peptides that are not. So what is the delineation there? Like, how does someone know, you know, when they're being told this is a peptide, just like insulin, just like GLP1, just like whatever? Like, how do they know that it's not a legit peptide? I think that when people talk about peptides as a single word, oh, do you do peptides? Oh, are you on peptides? that is a huge red flag, right?

Let me tell you about my peptide stack. That is a huge red flag. The peptide stack alone is just all the red flags just cross the horizon. And then I think also like really asking about what the evidence actually is to support any of these, right? Because we have really clear evidence to show what the effects, the risks and the benefits of FDA approved drugs are. And so if something is saying, here are all of the benefits with absolutely no risk, that's a red flag. Yeah. That's a huge red flag.

Yeah. Just like in the same quote. Yeah. This will do it faster, cheaper, easier, less painless, guaranteed results. And guess what, there are no side effects. And your doctor doesn't want you to know about them. Yeah. If it's a secret, that's a red flag.

Also, I keep seeing, this is just because you know my algorithm is tailored to me, but I keep seeing people be like, do you actually think that scientists are keeping things a secret? Like, have you met a scientist? They want to tell you every detail about everything ever. So true. They don't know how to keep a secret. This idea that we're hiding things from you. I mean, yeah. But yeah, I mean, it's hard because there are so many ways that I think things can be spun, right? And so as soon as we say, like, oh, this is the red flag to look out for, they're going to change the rhetoric on how they're selling something. Sure. In terms of all of the peptides that are being sold outside of prescriptions, outside of FDA-approved medications right now.

All of the ones that I looked into, and there are a lot more that I didn't name specifically, but for all of them, there is literally no good evidence that any of these are safe to use in humans. There is simply no good safety data on them. There is also no good evidence that any of these unregulated peptides are actually effective at treating or preventing the conditions that they claim to. They're all based on anecdotal data or they love to use mouse model and animal model data, which I think is so, so dangerous because it lends it this air of scientific legitimacy, right? But if there's no studies outside of a mouse model, that means that there are no efficacy studies, right? Yeah. And most importantly, whether we are talking about a compounding pharmacy or an overseas research-grade manufacturing facility, there isn't any real oversight to ensure that the vials that you're buying actually contain the drugs that they claim to at the concentrations that they claim or that they're free from impurities.

At least be mad that you're ripped off by these companies. Exactly. A lot of the argument for these. should be allowed at compounding pharmacies, is that that would at least ensure that you are getting what you are supposed to be getting. But again, when we don't have any evidence that they're safe and we don't have any evidence that they're effective, what are we doing by saying this should be allowed to be compounded? We are undermining scientific expertise and we are undermining our safety and efficacy and regulatory environment. And at the end of the day, companies are making billions of dollars off of us. And they are never going to be held liable,

when things go badly, period. Nope. Nope. The end. The end. Wow. I loved this two-parter. It wasn't meant to be a two-parter, but it definitely was. But it turned out to be. Yeah. I'm, there was so much about peptides I had no idea about, I mean, I really knew nothing. And it's, uh, it's more horrifying than I imagined. But I think if I had imagined more of it, it would have, yeah, it sounds about right. Well, it's also, It's just so weird how it's everywhere. Like, I get a lot. My algorithm gives me a lot of skincare content. I don't know why.

Maybe because I engage with it. But they give me a lot. And there's always like, well, you need to add peptides to your regimen. And I'm like, what are you talking about? What peptides are you talking about? It's just the newest thing. I mean, it's just like how, honestly, except this seems even more insidious and dangerous because it's not just like a buzz phrase of, or like,

a buzzword of the paleo diet or keto diet or whatever, you know, it is or like, oh, omega-3s, it's actually like these are things that people are injecting into their bodies and we do not have any good research or very good research on long-term effects of it. So it seems to me more like when radiation was a thing. Fascinating. Then it is, you know, and like here's some radiated water. We'll just use it for everything. Yep.

Here's whatever, all these different medications that had radiation. Yeah. Yeah. It's really scary. And like, might some of these end up being drugs someday after more research? Maybe. So it's not like we're saying, oh, they can't possibly have an effect. It's like we literally have, you have no idea what you're, no idea. Also, consider what it. It's like anti-aging. It's stuff that it is impossible to actually quantify. Hondo. Which is, which is all part of it. Like that is by design. Listen, I have so many sources if people want more on these and so many more. If you want to know about your specific peptide that you have questions about that your friend is taking and you're like, what about this one? I probably have a paper on it or I can tell you where you can get more information because I have like 16 more pages just on individual peptides, Aaron. Let me tell you about some of my favorite.

I don't even know where to start. Okay. Do you want to just direct him to the website? I think I do, yeah. Okay. I think I do. There's a lot there. I got...

Go to our website. This podcast will kill you. I promise you this was all researched from actual sources, okay? Thank you to Bloodmobile for preventing the music for this episode and all of our episodes. Thank you to Leanna and Mark and Tom and Pete and Jessica and Christina and everybody else. And exactly right, who makes this possible? Yes, thank you. you to you listeners. Let us know what you thought of this two-parter or of this two individual

parters, whatever. Let us know what you did. Let us know what you think. What other questions, what other topics would you like to see highlighted? Yeah. Please reach out. Do you, are you getting peptide content? I want to know what everyone else is talking about with peptides because I feel like I just got really deep in it anyways. Thank you also to our patrons for your support for your Patreon. Sorry for talking so much for you really enjoy your support. Yeah, we really appreciate it. Well, until next time, wash your hands. You filthy animals.