How peptide injections became the answer to everything | Hacker News Reader

How peptide injections became the answer to everything

wsj.com

64 pointshammock77 comments

Professional sporting teams in Australia have been doing this a decade ago. In 2012, an AFL (Australian Football) team injected 34 players with the banned peptide Thymosin Beta-4.

FWIW they were crazy fit and won their first 8 games of the season. Their captain won the highest award at the end of the season while the coach was even said to be injecting a peptide (Melanotan II) for a summer tan.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essendon_Football_Club_suppl...

Saga sure sounds a lot more poetic than scandal. I propose we rename it all: "The watergate saga", "Anthony Weiner dickpic saga", "The windrush saga", etc.

I read stories like this, and all I can think is - how can I try some of this stuff? If it is safe, well-tolerated, and improves muscle building/repair, I would happily enjoy easier muscle improvement without feeling any Puritanical misgivings. They can even pre-abolish me from all professional sports for life.

It's pretty easy to find vendors if you go lurking web fora. I recommend the one that only operates over email.

I mean more over-the-counter and less dark web.

I find the topic of peptides interesting. Recently, I tried Kambo (a frog toxin that is applied to burns in your skin by a shaman, a traditional remedy in the Amazon). It led to an instant remission of my autoimmune condition. Research about how it works is scarce, but the general information I could find is that it's related to the peptides contained in the Kambo. I may start looking into peptide injections, since the science on those seems a little more mature.

If you're comfortable sharing (no worries if not), what autoimmune condition?

Not the commenter, but as far as unconventional anecdotes for autoimmune disorders go, how does intestinal worms whet your appetite?

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/patients-resorting-to...

Study from the article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3894910/

The worms actually make a lot of sense if you think about the hygiene hypothesis. A highly simplified explanation is that Autoimmune diseases are the body fighting with itself, but by introducing a clear 100% threat of the kind our immune systems have evolved for millennia to fight, even if it doesn’t have to fight very hard, it’s basically a distraction, a lot of the time (because medicine is mostly statistical it’s never always the case with anything) the immune system attacks the “clear and present threat” instead of the stuff it was fighting in the patients own body.

It makes a lot of sense, it’s gross but it does actually make sense and appears to work with measurable results… but it’s extremely hard to push for its development into a normal medically prescribed treatment given that it’s a parasite that we actively try to get rid of most of the time, it’s potentially infectious to other people, it’s gross and off putting to a lot of people (including doctors), and I’m sure there’s probably some sensible FDA related red tape reasons I’m not aware of too.

But at least it makes sense. Weird medicine that make sense is still at least medicine.

I'm thinking that perhaps in time it could be something like an IUD and not a parasite.

That said leeches are also a parasitic worm that is successfully used in medicine - so maybe we just need to change our viewpoint for the short term.

Familiar with this -- very interesting!

He probably shouldn't lest people take his anecdote too seriously.

This is an awful article. It offers no hard science, and functions at best like an ad for something which could very-well be dangerous. It's nice to know the "miracle cure fad" of the day, but I'd expect a more nuanced approach from a newspaper.

I ordered a 1/4" guitar cable on Amazon the other day, and in the envelope they accidentally included a huge jar of dietary supplement pills, apparently made out of ox bile.

Ox bile.

I called my girlfriend, I said I know you take every supplement known to Man and I'm gonna throw these out. She was like "oh it probably helps you digest, save them".

And so it goes.

It's very thoughtful of Amazon to recognize that you might need some help digesting that guitar cable.

Favorite comment on HN this year ;)

Ox bile is very helpful for folks who have had their gallbladder removed. It becomes more difficult to digest fats which can lead to "discomfort".

Hey, just to let you know, your comment may have really helped out my friend.

He recently had his gallbladder removed. I saw your comment, did some searching, and asked if he'd heard about it. Apparently he never had.

His wife has a variety of health issues, too, and it sounds like it may help her out, too, so two birds with one ox bile comment, apparently!

> Ox bile

Is that really weird? I take lactase enzyme which was far as I know was originally extracted from cow intestines (until they developed a better method using yeast).

There's also a lot of interest in fecal transplants for people with digestive issues.

So, while I've never heard of ox bile supplement it doesn't seem unreasonable that it would work. Rejecting it out of hand because of the name is kinda silly. You should listen to your girlfriend here, it sounds like she's more educated on this topic than you are.

I don't ever take anything without at least making a concerted effort to understand the pharmacology of what I'm ingesting. So I'm at one end of the spectrum. She's more at the other end where "they wouldn't sell it if it was bad for you." It leads to some interesting conflicts. Admittedly, we're at opposite extremes...

It seems like something to maybe do a little research on rather than taking the first one that randomly shows up on your doorstep though.

Also a lot of people are hesitant to put anything into their bodies from Amazon, though with supplements I think a lot of it tends to be bullshit filler materials anyway.

Amazon doesn't even exist where I live but I can still find most supplements. Your point about doing research before taking any supplement is good common sense though.

Reminds me of Premarin - sounds like just another pharmaceutical - until you learn that it's manufactured from PREgnant MAres uRINe

> Ox bile

Why is that weird? Prior to synthetic insulin, diabetics were taking pig insulin. Proteins/peptides are proteins/peptides.

BPC-157 is a small (15 amino acid) gastric peptide that's resistant to hydrolysis. All evidence suggests that it's orally bioavailable -- which means that you can get all of its benefits from consumption of BPC-157 pills or tablets -- and I've seen ZERO evidence that it's more effective via injection. I think that the people who rush to inject it, rather than simply take it orally, are addicted to needles or want to feel "hardcore."

Dexamethasone is orally available too but the general wisdom is that it's better used as a targeted injection. BPC-157 isn't well studied in humans so I wouldn't expect there to be any evidence either way.

What do you mean by "general wisdom" and "targeted injection"?

We are explicitly trained in the ED that oral steroids have been proven equivalently effective and much cheaper than parenteral administration, and so should be preferred for patients that can take them by mouth.

BPC-157, when injected, is almost always injected subcutaneously. In which case it's not "targeted" at all.

Is that true? Genuinely asking. Because all of the "conventional wisdom" I've picked up is that ingesting it works great for stomach ailments like ulcers with a small amount of 'fixing' throughout the rest of the body. But if you sprained your knee, you're better off injecting it at the knee site than eating it. People and probable placebo seem to think injecting really targets it.

Is subcutaneous injection really that untargeted? And does the highly interested patient have the background to know how to inject it properly, if there really is a way to target it?

Yes. The paper "pentadecapeptide BPC 157 (PL 14736) improves ligament healing in the rat" (Sikiric et al. 2010) examined BPC-157 orally and via IP injection -- there was very little difference between the two methods. And this was in an animal model where the MCL ligament, in the leg, was surgically transected.

Further, consider insulin. It's typically administered as an aqueous solution injected subcutaneously, and it's absorbed quickly and systemically, with local effects in the near-zero range.

It's possible to make an aqueous solution for SC injection that might have some degree of local efficacy, if it's injected near a target site. This, however, would involve tinkering with the PH of the solution to induce drug precipitation, post-injection, near the injection site. It's complicated, and not the sort of thing that gray market research chemists do.

Would BPC-157 be something that could be packaged in a liposome? Everything I've read about liposomal supplements has pointed to it having superior absorption, distribution and bioavailability when compared to injection

Yeah, you can incorporate BPC-157 and other small peptides into liposomes.

Liposomal delivery might even work for far larger peptides and proteins. For e.g., there has been quite a lot of research into liposomal insulin: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2226109 and others.

The thing about BPC-157 in particular is that it has, in principle, pretty good oral bioavailability, and it's not clear that it would benefit from liposomal delivery. You'd probably want to run a comparative analysis -- liposomal suspension vs. plain aqueous solution -- which would be expensive no matter how you go about it.

My doctor uncle told me how people want targeted injection even though "the stuff will spread to the whole body anyway". He says "it makes them feel good so we do it that way."

What is "general wisdom" referring to? What doctors do?

How long til we have cellular peptide cake with mint frosting?

max. 347 years 20 days 41 minutes 29 seconds [0]

[0] https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=Mar+24%2C+2370+9%3A07%3...

The "research chemical" community on Reddit is fascinating and horrifying. People setting up scientific sounding LLCs to virtual offices and ordering all sorts of not for human consumption chemicals that are variations of Ritalin, alzheimer drugs, and more in the name of cognitive enhancement. It's basically legal pharma abuse without even needing a shady doctor but actually even more risky since these chemicals haven't undergone human trials and these people could well be doing permanent damage.

Someone's gotta do it, and if they're volunteering themselves and sharing results, they're near good company: https://www.eater.com/2020/1/28/21112258/pbs-the-poison-squa...

In this case they do not. These are research chemicals already in various stages of trials and are intended to help serious scientists conduct experiments. The promotion of potentially very damaging pharmaceutical level drugs is concerning.

I take plenty of supplements, including not particularly well known ones like Agmatine, NAC, etc. but research chemicals is a whole other level and has serious potential for lifelong issues. It shouldn't be promoted imho.

It's not really research unless it's blind. Plus who knows what long-term side-effects may come up down the road (some people were discussing cancer risk of BPC one peptide reddit thread)

I was just talking about this with my coworkers. Another big anti-aging trend among the wealthy is intravenous NAD treatments ($800/session). Apparently people who do so feel wonderful afterwards. I want to know who is peddling these ideas. I am literally in the process of researching this and it is such an early hypothesis in the field. Who decided this was something worth trying? Clearly we are thinking along the same lines, and I’d love to hear their thoughts!

med spa's are pretty unregulated. I'd imagine premium med spa's in premium locations try to be at the forefront of everything.

Does bpc-157 even do anything?

Yeah what is this article saying?

It is basically a long list of names of pseudo-celebrities that inject themselves with these peptides... but no actual insight into what science says. Except for someone practicing "generative medicine" stating that it works.

> It is basically a long list of names of pseudo-celebrities that inject themselves with these peptides... but no actual insight into what science says.

I get the impression that, for the author, "person you should have heard of does it" is the science.

It's an advertisement.

Usually those trends get started with research papers that find some benefit at the very least in model animals. I'm not current on what peptides are used for what and with what evidence and what effect...

It definitely does something positive for rats. Not clear yet on the benefits for Humans and under what conditions.

Steroids at least work. Injecting peptides…. I guess you could just get them from a healthy diet.

Nope. You didn't read the article. The peptide hormones usually don't even occur in "a healthy diet" or at least a common one, nor would they survive a digestive tract. They are chains of a few aminoacids, essentially very very short proteins. Insulin falls under this category. Yes, they have to be kept relatively cool and have to be injected, most or all of them.

And they are genuinely useful (not just the insulin). Semaglutid for example was first isolated from some reptile's salivary gland (healthy diet??) and is very effective at controlling diabetes and regulating appetite in people who have an obvious issue with that.

> from some reptile's salivary gland

Kissing dragons is part of a healthy diet.

Opioid peptide injections must be very popular.

Casomorphin is a biologically active opioid peptide part of a global market worth US $871 billion globally and you don't have to inject!

Who says illicit drugs cant be legalised?

I swear this is why Fairlife milkshakes are so good. I swear I feel a buzz on it. I was quitting painkillers I was prescribed, and when I'd drink one I swear I'd feel a tiny better mentally. It sounds crazy but think about this-- they have 30 grams of protein per 12oz bottle. This means they have to concentrate proteins, including casomorphin. So it would make sense you might have a concentrated level of these morphine-mimetic peptides

Good thing I horribly react to that for about 3 days! The panic attacks are not worth it.

Or the gluteomorphins for that matter lol, but that's more brain fog/wanting to break out of the sloggy body/state of mind it gives me.

Super crazy stuff.

Phosphatidylserine evaporates brain fog and the corpus cavernosum has a hard time leaving that stuff alone!

I supplement ps100 acutely with exercise. Could you elaborate on your comment a bit?

https://www.webmd.com/vitamins-and-supplements/phosphatidyls...

> US $871 billion

Really???

source?

I believe OP was referring to dairy, digestion of which produces opioid peptides.

“In 2021, the value of the dairy market worldwide was estimated to be about 871 billion U.S. dollars“

https://www.statista.com/topics/4649/dairy-industry/

Dietary supplements, goopy "meal replacement" stuff, injecting proteins now...

Have these people considered this thing called "eating food"?

Peptides in this context are functional not dietary. When you eat protein it gets broken down and rebuilt into numerous proteins or used for energy. In this context they are taking a peptide which is just a short amino acid chain but it has very specific functional characteristics. Normally peptides don't make it past the digestive tract which would ruin their specific functional characteristics so, like insulin which is also a peptide, they must be injected to actually work

"Work" in what sense? Your body makes these out of the proteins it breaks down in your digestive system.

In the sense that administration of these peptides means that we want to increase their concentration over endogenous levels in order to have some effect

Why, though? Sounds like a lot of work for no real reward.

Why do you think there is no real reward

Well, what is it supposed to do? How are you supposed to tell if it makes a difference?

Let's take thymosin beta-4 as an example, it's a protein involved in actin polymerization which is a component of muscle. People use it as a performance enhancer, so theoretically if your ability to recover from high intensity training increases then you can tell it's working. Peptides are no different from other drugs besides the fact that they can be short to long sequences of amino acids

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thymosin_beta-4

There are a ton of different peptides that do different things so there is no "one thing a peptide is supposed to do"

Is this something you can actually measure? Or is it just an expensive and complicated source of warm fuzzies?

When people read "protein" they think food, however proteins can have physiological effects on the body. Human growth hormone, snake venom and insulin are all proteins, and they do far more than just provide nutrients.

Peptides are just small chain proteins, so the same rules apply.

I don't know man can you measure the effects of any other drug? Why do you think these are somehow different? Did you even read the wikipedia article I linked?

The peptide I mentioned is banned by the world doping agency, but it's probably because it just gives athletes a warm fuzzy feeling right?

At this point your comments seem intentionally disingenuous

> I don't know man can you measure the effects of any other drug?

I can measure my blood sugar and my blood pressure quite simply and that is what ensures me the medication I take is working.

Yes, the question was rhetorical.

There are subjective effects that are much harder to measure though, and these peptide injections fall into that area, as there are numerous environmental and genetic factors one would need to control for.

You say "these" like all peptides are in the category. I'm talking about ones like the one I mentioned earlier. Sure there are some ineffective peptides but there are also ineffective drugs. A peptide banned from sport by the world doping agency is not something with subjective effects

Why though? Can't you just take a protein supplement? I can see that it could be useful if you have some disease that makes you unable to get it from diet but if you are healthy what is the point?

Peptides are protein-based drugs, like insulin. With a few exceptions, they're not orally bioavailable -- your stomach breaks apart the amino acid chains and reduces them to their smaller component parts.

The ones mentioned in the article are either agents that assist with soft tissue recovery from exercise, or spur the body to release growth hormone and IGF-1. (i.e. are "growth hormone secretagogues.") You could inject growth hormone directly -- which is a very large peptide -- but it's much more expensive and can also be much harder to get, on account of the fact that it's more tightly regulated and controlled.

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