Today, Explained - Pushing peptides

Episode Date: April 1, 2026

The FDA and RFK Jr. want to make it easier for you to take peptides. This episode was produced by Miles Bryan and Danielle Hewitt, edited by Amina Al-Sadi, fact-checked by Andrea Lopez-Cruzado, engineered by Patrick Boyd and David Tatasciore, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. A peptide user's supply. Photo by Michael Friberg for New York Magazine. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. New Vox members get $20 off their membership right now. Transcript at ⁠vox.com/today-explained-podcast.⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Christine Noam's husband. No, no, April Fool's, peptides. Peptides. I keep seeing ads about them. You probably keep seeing ads about them. Want to bulk up. Take this peptide. Want to have healthier skin. Take that peptide. Want to cure that ankle injury. Peptides. Chains of amino acids you can inject from the comfort of your own home. Maybe you already have, or maybe not, because you're scared or skeptical. But maybe you don't have to be. I bet there are a few peptides you're already familiar with. Insulin is one of them.

O-Zempic is another. Turns out the P and GLP-1 stands for peptide, but what about BPC-157 or CJC-1295 or TB-500 or GHKCU? Sounds a little R2D2C3PO to be. Should we really be shooting these things into our bodies? On today explained, we're going to hear from a guy who did, and he's still alive, so yay. Tide.

Tide. Your step. Tide. Your step. Tide. Your step. Today explained Sean Ramos from, I've never shot any peptides

into my already perfect body, but Ezra Marcus has. I'm an investigative reporter for New York Magazine and other publications. Ezra's latest opus for New York Magazine was called Life on Peptides feels amazing. We asked him what made him

want to live that peptide life. I became curious about it. When I just started hearing people I know bring up that they had started taking these injectable substances that I didn't really understand. And I felt like the term was just sort of popping up. Like you'd hear somebody at a party say, oh, yeah, I've started taking this or that peptide for, you know, a joint pain or anti-aging or weight loss or what have you.

Is there a reason that literally every single person and their mother are on peptides at this point? I'm starting a new peptide today. This one is for pain and inflammation. I'm starting with GHKCU Glowstock. I take peptides. So what? So what? It's for my help.

And it was just sort of a felt like a buzzword that was increasingly everywhere, not just in, you know, real life, but online, influencers, celebrities, this and that. So it just felt like something that I was just sitting out there and was percolating, and I wanted to know more. Before we get to how it went for you particularly, tell us about the influencers. What are they saying about peptides and who are they? There's a huge, endless constellation of influencers pushing, you know, health and wellness trends online. Obviously, there has been for years and that ecosystem is flourishing more than ever. And they're always looking for what, you know, it feels like the hot new thing, the kind of like just around the corner invention that's going to change everything about anti-aging and weight loss. and muscle growth and, you know, everything under the sun,

especially when it comes to kind of, you know, vanity outcomes that typically move the needle for large numbers of people in America. And so we're talking about everyone from, like, you know, maha, like life extension RFK types of influencers. Yeah, I mean, I'm a big fan of peptides. I've used them myself. I was talking to a pro football player who pulled his hamstring. He's like, dude, I shot that shit right into my hamstring for two weeks. and I was right back on the field.

Wow. I was like, that's nuts. To just, like, straightforward beauty influencers to gym bros. If you want one peptide that you can actually see when you look in the mirror, you're going to want GHQ CU. If I was anything under 200 pounds, there's a three peptide stack that I would definitely be taken right now to put on some weight. To the so-called look smacksers.

Everything I'm taking to look smacks as a woman. So what's the best way to improve upon your coloring, right? So, Melanotent2, guys, Milano 102 is the best peptide that you could take for your coloring, right? It's almost every sector of people talking about how to optimize your life. At some point, dip their toes into the peptide hype cycle over the last year or so. When you want to take peptides, there are a few doors you can open. Let's talk about the door that you chose to open. Where did your journey begin?

Yeah, so when I was researching this, I was talking to people and I was sort of coming across, like you said, a variety of entry points for the consumer. And I explored two different ones, the sort of aboveboard way and the gray market way. And the above board way is just you go to any number of wellness clinic, you know, med spa, whatever. And all of them sell peptides now. And I basically just went to one in the city, made an appointment, talked to the nurse. I said, you know, I'm a reporter working on a story about peptides, but I'm also curious about trying one. What do you got for me? And he was like, well, what do you want to fix about yourself? And I was like, well, I guess I, you know, I could use a little more energy. I freelance. I get,

I get sleepy in the afternoon. What do you have for me? And he suggested a compound called NAD plus, which is a really popular compound that people take for a variety of supposed benefits, including more energy, anti-aging stuff. Week 3 update, and I think it's an obsession at this point. You guys, I am aging backwards. Truly, I feel 15 years younger than I did a year ago. I simply am taking in AD. I basically paid for a six-week supply.

They gave me a bunch of insulin needles and taught me how to inject and sent me on my way. How much did it cost? It cost $250 for a six-week supply. So, you know, it's expensive. Definitely not covered by insurance. You go home and what? Do you immediately start shooting peptides? Straight up. Tell us how it goes. What do you do?

You know, it's given to you in the form of a, it's called a lyophilized powder, which basically just means powder in a vial. You mix that with something called bacteriostatic water, which is just water with a bit of alcohol mixed into it. That turns it into a fluid, which you then draw into a syringe, and then you inject it in your fatty tissue. So in my case, that I was into my stomach. That's pretty much that.

I wouldn't say that the NAD produced particularly dramatic effects. It felt a bit like taking a very mild dose of Adderall for the day that I'd taken it. But without the kind of come down or anything like that, the next day it didn't feel much. It sounds like basically it felt like you drank a matchel latte one day, but there are definitely power users out there. And you spoke to a bunch of them. How much differently are they? their peptide experiences to the one that you had? Well, it's not really comparable just in that people are taking so many different kinds of peptides

for so many different things. I would say probably the peptide that had the sort of biggest hype cycle around it and the biggest push on social media and that was making the most dramatic changes for people is really just the GLP1 drugs. There's also a drug called Reddit Trutide that's a sort of the next generation of GLP1 that Eli Lilly, the pharmaceutical company is developing, that's not on the market yet, but it's basically being synthesized, you know, technically illegally and sold at scale. And a lot of people were taking that because it seems to have much stronger effects than even

the current class of GLP1 drugs on the market. What if I told you that there's a weight loss drug that is going to make OZempic obsolete? Would you believe me? So today we're talking more Red of Trutide. And I will say it works freaking wonders, okay? And I took that one as well. How'd that go? So that's the other pathway into the market that I explored, the Greg market.

Oh. I went on Reddit and started talking to people that were posting about taking peptides, and I came into contact with somebody who introduced me to his Discord server, where he helps coordinate a group of a few hundred enthusiasts per person. purchase peptides from a Chinese factory. And the representative from the Chinese factory, who was using the name Jasmine, was posting in the Discord and letting people know, you know, we have this X, Y, Z product. We have a special for the Lunar Festival. We have, you know, bulk discounts.

Dear friends, happy New Year. Wishing you a joyful holiday with family. Our exclusive sale is on. Perfect time to stock up. So I started talking to Jasmine on WhatsApp, and I basically said, look, I want to buy a GLP1 called Reddit Trutide, which is not available yet in the legal market, but is being synthesized in China. And she basically said, great, send me $150 in Bitcoin, which I did.

You can send me a screenshot after payment. I also need your name, phone number, and address to make an order. Thank you. And then, you know, half expecting basically nothing to happen. But then two weeks later, I got a shipment, which was labeled as face masks from the Philippines, but in fact contained a six-month supply of Reda-Trutride, 10 vials, five milligrams each. Were you nervous to try the Chinese peptides? So I went to a third-party testing company, which have a number of them have sprung up, as these things.

have grown popular, people are understandably wary about injecting the stuff that they're buying sight unseen, you know, from overseas. I sent them one of the vials. They tested it, and it came back that it was what it was supposed to be. It was, in fact, five milligrams of retitutide without any toxins or anything. You know, some 20% of the vials that they get in for testing have something wrong with them. They're over or underdosed. It might be contaminated in some way, you know, all things you don't want to be injecting. So yeah, I mean, the risks are very real. But in my case, it was what it said it was. I injected it. And it did exactly what it's supposed to do, which just curb my appetite. So I became really curious about how much of this stuff, these factories in China were actually

capable of producing and selling to America. Because I think a lot of this stuff is being bought it at scale white labeled and sold for huge markups. So I started just messaging dozens of these factories who all had enthusiastic representatives on WhatsApp who largely had AI-generated images of young, beautiful women as the representative. And I just started asking like, hey, how much of this could I buy per month? Let's say I operate a storefront in the U.S.

And I want to purchase 10,000 vials of Reddit True Tide a month. Could you sell me that? And they were like, of course. I said, how about 100,000? They were like, no problem. And I got to the point, I was like, could I buy a million vials a month? And they said, absolutely. We are airlifted.

Don't worry about customs. We will give you a refund if you are detained. And we have other customers buying this much as well. And we'll help you get it through customs. Send the cash now. And I was blown away, just that it was as seamless as that. You're obviously not a doctor, but you wrote this piece in which you waded into this world that a lot of people are curious about right now. What was the reaction?

I had a lot of random people emailing me asking for the name of my Chinese supplier. Because there's an implication in your piece that this is a great way to get rich. Well, no, because they wanted to buy and use peptides for themselves. I heard from other people that were like, oh yeah, my cousin took this and had kidney issues. I heard of some of that. And I heard a lot of people just basically being like, okay, so should I do it? And I was like, I mean, kind of the whole point of the piece is like, I don't know. And I don't think anyone really does. You know, that this is a total Wild West.

And, you know, when people are telling you about it on social media, that's because they're making money off of that. And they're not experts. There's just these like economies of people with skin in the game trying to pump their bag, essentially. And that, you know, basically buy or beware. At the same time, these things have real effects. You can read Life on Peptides Feels Amazing in NYMag.com. It's a good read. The FDA would like to make it easier for you to shoot peptides.

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After 10 years avoiding them, how and lowest demand Malcolm be at their anniversary party, pulling him straight back into their chaos? Welcome in the middle. Life's still unfair. A special four-part event. Streaming April 10th on Hulu on Disney Plus. Sean Ramosstrom, let me ask you a question. Which journalistic endeavors do you pay money to support? Oh my gosh. Which or like how many?

Let me think. That one and that one and that one and that. A bunch of public radio stations. Mm-hmm. A big newspaper that I can think of. Some substacks? My gosh. So many newsletters. I don't know if there's substacks, but like I was trying to count the other day

because someone asked me and I think it's like six newsletters. at least. Dang. Like a lot. How about you? Are you in the newsletter camp too? All of that, not so much newsletters. A lot of podcasts on Patreon. Heck yeah. Which reminds me. Oh, yeah. You were like, yes anding me. Okay. You, dear listener, can support this show today explained and in doing so support Vox,

which makes this show possible by going to Vox.com slash members. There's benefits. You get to listen to the show. without ads, you get little perks, check it out. And thank you. Today, Explain is back. I'm Sean Ramos from here with Lauren Gardner. She's an FDA and pharma policy reporter at Politico. Lauren, we just heard from this guy, Ezra Marcus, about the growing popularity of peptides.

Where does Uncle Sam stand on them? As of now, the United States government is generally not on board. But this is for specific peptides. the kind that I'm sure you were talking about with Ezra. So essentially what happened is the FDA reclassified a little more than a dozen of these peptides, basically saying we don't have enough safety information to confidently allow these things to be made

for American consumers without stepping in here. So what this did was it moved several of these peptides to this agency list that, refers to them as bulk drug substances that may present significant safety risks. Now, the thing about that is that in some cases, FDA really doesn't know whether they're safe or unsafe. They truly just don't have, or they say they don't have enough data to make that call. What happens in 2023 when FDA comes out and says, without a whole lot of data, like some of these things are unsafe, we don't like them? According to several of these

wellness influencers, compounding pharmacists who are big in this space. To them, they said this made their market essentially dry up. The peptide industry is collapsing. The U.S. government is stepping in and finally regulating peptides. Guys, I don't lie when I say things like this. I would get it while I can because who knows if it's ever going to come back. A lot of these online platforms, you know, there's a well-eastern, clinic side to it, and then they might be tied to a specific compounding pharmacy.

So the compounding pharmacy being the entity that, you know, has a lab and they make these concoctions for people if they can get a prescription for them. By this action happening, the compounding pharmacies couldn't legally make them anymore. So instead, people who had been getting them from providers, you know, wherever in the United States, turn to kind of black and gray corners of the web. So FDA tries to come out and say, hey, guys, we're really worried about these peptides. We're going to say maybe don't.

And then everyone says, but I want to, and goes online to China, gets them. Sometimes they come disguised in the mail and uses them anyway. Surely that isn't the system we want. And the implication is that Robert Floride Kennedy Jr. wants to do something about it? Yes. So if you listen to Secretary Kennedy in some of his many podcast appearances,

particularly on Joe Rogan. During the Biden administration, they illegally move those to category two, which says, do not formulate. It was illegal because they're not supposed to do that unless there's a safety signal. And they didn't have a safety signal. They're not allowed to look at efficacy.

They're not allowed to say, we don't believe these are efficacious or whatever. They can only look at safety. They move those category two, which means not formulate. He recently referred to what the FDA did a few years ago. He called it illegal. So the kind of gets at the expectation that he is going to institute some kind of change here. The argument that he and many of his allies make who are big in this peptide space is that,

But it's already a wild west out there in peptides. People are already getting this stuff and injecting into themselves. Their argument is it's being done. We might as well, A, have people have access to safe substances that they're injecting into themselves, and B, have them be American made. So that's been a huge part of kind of the context swirling around this, is that we've done it before. They say it was being done safely here until the other.

FDA made this change two plus years ago, let's go back to that. And now we'll be in this situation where people will have more freedom to experiment with these types of things, but to do it in a way where they're under the care of a provider who's prescribing it to them. It's being made here in the U.S. They'll know the sourcing of the ingredients. It'll just be, it'll be better all around for both consumer safety and the U.S. for large. Okay, so RFK wants to do something about this. He is not the head of the Food and Drug Administration. When should we expect some decisive action to be taken on peptides in this country?

There have been lots of indications from people who are very active in this space who, you know, talk to Secretary Kennedy that something is coming on this. And that only ramped up more once the secretary went on Joe Rogan's podcast and basically said as much in February? Oh, I'm very anxious to move. Probably not all of those peptides. Some of them are in litigation, but about 14 of them back to making them more accessible.

And FDA is in the middle of, I think, within a couple of weeks, we will have announced some kind of new action. I have been refreshing the webpage that would contain such an update for several weeks now, and nothing's changed. So, you know, this is the type of thing where there are, like, eyes to be dotted and T's to be crossed on the FDA side. But also, at the same time, what is expected here is that probably about a dozen or so of these peptides will be moved to another category where legally it's okay for them to be made. but it's not like the FDA is going to be saying,

don't worry, they're safe or safe enough, like it's no big deal. It essentially is, it's like a regulatory purgatory. The term of art in FDA parlance is enforcement discretion. But even once that happens, it doesn't necessarily mean it's the end of the road because someone can petition the FDA to do something more formal on it, and then that would unleash a whole separate regulatory process that would take probably years to go through. How soon is it, do you think, before we see, like, the next GLP-1 situation here in peptide town?

Because it feels like insulin? Pretty big deal. All these weight loss drugs, pretty big deal. And then there's, like, a lot of fringy stuff going on that, as we mentioned and that you talked about, too. Is it only a matter of time before we see the next huge peptide trend? Or do you think this is, like, a passing fad? It does seem like there is some kind of craze to be capitalized on here. but whether it's going to be, you know, one or two of these in particular or just like a giant class of these substances that people are just going to be flocking to telehealth sites like Hymns for, I think that's kind of the open question.

I think a lot of it's going to come down to how many, you know, quote unquote, legit actors start to step into this space. And by that, I mean, in particular, the telehealth platforms like Hymns, Rowe, the ones that you see a lot of advertisements for on TV or online. how many of them get into this? Because telehealth has also democratized access to things like GLP-1s in a way that has fundamentally changed the industry. And I think that's how a lot of people would be accessing peptides as well. Because you can easily access a provider and don't necessarily have to look up some wellness clinic in whatever area you happen to live in and see if there's someone who has any idea how BPC-1-5. or might work for you. But one thing that feels true of like our current experience as a society with GLP-1s right now

and what Ezra wrote about with his experience just trying a bunch of stuff out is that like we're all just guinea pigs right now until the government figures this out or even once they do it feels like. Yeah. And these things aren't without risk. And I do think that can get lost in the conversation for instance. there was a case last summer of two women going to a wellness conference in Las Vegas, and they ended up getting really, really sick after they were injected with peptides there at this

festival. And just earlier in March, Nevada regulators find three people who played a role in offering peptides to attendees of this anti-aging conference. So they're certainly not without risk. And I think what is TBD is to what extent will people as like the pool of consumers taking these sorts of things, how many people are going to experience bad reactions like that versus, you know, on the flip side of the coin, actually see benefits or is it all just one big placebo effect? How will that be measured? Who knows? Watch this space to find out. Exactly. Okay.

Read Lauren Gardner at Politico.com. Find Miles Bryan, Danielle Hewitt, Amina Al-Saudi, David Tadishore, Patrick Boyd, and Andrea Lopez Crusado at Vox.com. This is today explained.