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Comment by mint5 | Hacker News Reader

My take on the peptides craze is it’s like random people started injected insulin because they have a hazy idea of it being helpful for something or other based on the word on the street but they aren’t sure about dose and also can’t be sure what they’re injecting is actually insulin or uncontaminated. They also aren’t diabetic.

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Most peptides don't seem nearly as dangerous as insulin, luckily. Injecting insulin without medical supervision is a good way to give yourself hypoglycemia and die - blood sugar regulation is not something you want to mess with!

People don't seem to be regularly dying from peptides, at least not now.

I'd love to be able to make that statement with such confidence, but you just don't know. Literally no one has any clue what the long-term effect of injecting BPC-157 or what ever stupid well-marketed bullshit is the flavour of the week is, is.

It is true. Because the short-term effects of incorrectly injecting insulin are far greater and known risks. I agree that the long term effects are unknown but considering you could basically kill yourself quite easily with insulin... its clearly far more dangerous.

I get the point but given we don't have any rigorous studies on these substances, the only thing we can say with any certainty is that they likely won't kill you now. It's ludicrous of course but we could have a 100% fatality rate over 5 years from a given peptide and we...just wouldn't know at this moment.

Don't take insulin if you can avoid it. Don't take other stupid shit if you can avoid it. You can definitely avoid this stupid shit.

Doesn't this suggest that all these "Chinese peptides" which Silicon Valley people are injecting are probably fake placebos or just ineffectual?

If these substances actually had substantial effects on the body, people using them without medical supervision would almost certainly be overdosing with some frequency, I think.

(As I understand it, it is very possible to overdose on Ozempic… the reason it doesn't happen is because the purity is controlled, and people are taking specific medically-recommended doses.)

It doesn't suggest that at all? There are a lot of degrees of impact between "directly affecting blood glucose uptake in cells for respiration" and "nothing burger placebo".

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