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Levitating 4 hours ago [-]
I wonder if AI companies already have a good way of filtering out these generated sites, or if the internet has just become worthless for training.
dlenski 1 hours ago [-]
Given that AI companies are buying up tons of old books and scanning them destructively… I'd bet that the Internet has already become relatively useless as a source of new training material.
chvid 54 minutes ago [-]
My guess is that a llm would swallow a slop site like this raw.
Look at what companies like Telus or ScaleAi are doing. There are probably tens of thousands contractors at the moment sitting carefully tuning LLMs with quality, vetted, question answers.
andai 3 hours ago [-]
Hey, could be worse. At least the amino acid chains themselves aren't LLM-generated. Right..?
cgyvbunji 2 hours ago [-]
One sec let me ask an LLM..
MPSimmons 15 hours ago [-]
I do like the Potemkin Village metaphor for things like the website in question. Given how little effort something like this takes, I imagine there are a lot more of them than I've considered before, and given the way search engines operate and index, and LLMs scrape relatively indiscriminately, it seems to have implications that go beyond Google's stupid summarized answers at the top of the results page.
brookst 4 hours ago [-]
I mean, are you fooled by these websites?
Training corpuses (corpii?) have always had lies, propaganda, derangement, you name it.
dlenski 1 hours ago [-]
> corpuses (corpii)?
The Latin plural of corpus is corpora. It gets used a lot in linguistics articles, perhaps other fields as well.
jijji 3 hours ago [-]
The problem with certain peptides (the Eli Lilly patented ones like Tirzepatide and Retatrutide) is that when you carefully look at whats going on, you'll notice that they are recently filing lawsuits for anyone who mentions those words on their website, even med spa's and compounding pharmacies [0].
It is legal to sell research only peptides that are not FDA approved, but as soon you talk about efficacy and human use, you also become a target for the FDA warning letters. [1] [2] [3].
Anyone selling these peptides who are indexed by search engines face increase scrutiny immediately, especially if you're going to try to sell the patented ones, because then you're a Target of not just the FDA but also Eli Lilly... peptides are big business but it's big risk if you do it wrong.... Eli Lily wants people spending $1,000 per month to use these peptides.
I think the trick about selling peptides to people is to probably do it word of mouth, no indexing by google, no ads, double gated website with invite only structure.
There are some peptides which have been abandoned by the pharmaceutical industry before completing phase 3 trials and which can be sold through an FDA exception by compounding pharmacies.
That being said, there’s usually a reason they were abandoned by the pharmaceutical industry; they were ineffective or had a worse side effect profile compared to other drugs already in the pipeline. Good example of this is the “Barbie drug” melanotan II which was abandoned in favor of bremelanotide for treating hypoactive sexual desire because the latter targeted fewer receptors and was less likely to cause hyperpigmentation and other side effects.
Ultimately, most people should probably just stick to pharmaceuticals that have been FDA approved.
elliotec 18 hours ago [-]
A robots.txt explicitly allowing LLMs has nothing to do with whether it was made for humans or not and is generally the right move assuming you want your site picked up and recommended by AI tools. No different than allowing search engine crawlers to pick it up and the authors focus on that is bizarre when the rest of the evidence is so stark.
xyzelement 17 hours ago [-]
His point is that the goal of this site is to skew the knowledge of future models, to which this is a relevant point (though.i agree not smoking gun alone)
SilentM68 2 hours ago [-]
I was researching this topic to see if any peptides existed that were isolated from Ratfish-aka Chimaera monstrosa- Liver to help rejuvinate the pineal gland via decalcification. As I understand it, ratfish liver oil is a lipid-based supplement though I've read that bioactive peptides could theoretically be isolated from the liver tissue itself (the solid matter left after oil extraction) through enzymatic hydrolysis. Thus far, I've researched a couple of sites that carry peptides but don't see any Ratfish Liver-based products. Ratfish liver oil is hard to come by, expensive due to the fish being endangered.
aweb 17 hours ago [-]
"Anyone who’s not been living under a rock knows that we’re in full peptide mania."
No, they don't, it's a very Silicon Valley specific thing and I never heard about them here in France. People need to stop thinking their experience generalizes by default
shitcoder 3 hours ago [-]
They are pretty big in Australia, and have spread through TikTok, Snapchat and IG. I doubt there's many people here who are across all of these circles and I only found out when it was mainstream news
They might have been too hyperbolic with the "living under a rock" comment, but at least in the US they're very much the latest health thing (among those with the money/access to get them). Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr. touts them.
andai 3 hours ago [-]
I think it's more generational than geographic.
I shall consult the zoomers.
rconti 2 hours ago [-]
I mean, I _live_ in Silicon Valley, work in tech, and I've only ever heard of them from podcasts allegedly reporting on Silicon Valley.
I've never heard an actual human in person talking about them.
One of America's biggest exports is culture - but primarily in English. I bet the UK knows it.
PessimalDecimal 16 hours ago [-]
Yeah, France should try to export its culture sometime!
ShinyLeftPad 4 minutes ago [-]
He said, eating a croissant...
pseudohadamard 1 hours ago [-]
You've never heard of Asterix comics? Of which I think the other reply to your comment is a reference.
ggm 4 hours ago [-]
"Ils sont fous, ces Anglais!"
4 hours ago [-]
holbrad 16 hours ago [-]
As someone from the UK, Techy, nerdy people can know, but normies don't.
Also, I'd add that gym bros definitely have heard of them, especially if they are familiar with steroids.
The GLP-1 drugs are probably the main cause of this. We have this amazing class of compounds that work really well, But are priced pretty high, at least considering lower UK wages.
So there is a big incentive to look at getting these much cheaper from China. You hear about this happening, and then you see the fact that these companies have big catalogues full of other peptides that are a crypto payment and a click away.
roryirvine 12 hours ago [-]
I strongly suspect that peptide use is more common amongst the botox/filler crowd than techies in the UK. Most aesthetics clinics have been pushing peptide-based skincare for years, so it was only a small step into injectables for them.
And, as you say, the gym performance / sports crowd.
The BBC and the Guardian have covered it fairly neutrally, but the likes of the Daily Mail and gossip mags have been both more frequent and more breathless.
pydry 16 hours ago [-]
The only reason I know it is because I keep seeing spam for it on reddit.
Not every aspect of american culture makes it overseas and much less does now than used to 20-30 years ago.
I think peptides (and medicating yourself out of a hole in general) are a pretty uniquely american thing.
inigyou 16 hours ago [-]
You reading things on Reddit is one way that America exports culture, yes. Or on Hacker News.
jappgar 16 hours ago [-]
But in this case it's "exported" primarily to be ridiculed.
We're amused by your antics but no one wants to emulate American culture anymore.
inigyou 15 hours ago [-]
It doesn't work that way. You're not immune to advertising.
bluefirebrand 15 hours ago [-]
"you're not immune to advertising" does not imply that "any sort of advertising will work on you, guaranteed" though. :/
jappgar 15 hours ago [-]
Deep
pydry 15 hours ago [-]
did you think I was ignorant of them being american?
if I asked 20 of my friends about peptides I'm probably the only one that subscribes to that american leaning, peptide-spammed subreddit.
sajithdilshan 16 hours ago [-]
I don’t think it’s popular in Germany as well. I know some Leo taking steroids, but seems like peptides are yet to be popular
MrBuddyCasino 3 hours ago [-]
Everyone with ADHD knows about peptides. But the normies still have no idea.
zzzeek 16 hours ago [-]
East Coast exurbs of NYC here, these things are everywhere, go to a gym the whole place is on them
Maybe a US thing
CerebralCerb 16 hours ago [-]
It's all over in Norway too. Anecdotally it is definitely more common than steroids already. I can only find statistics on the legal ones, but they show that 10% of all women in their 50's are prescribed the ones for weight reduction <https://www.fhi.no/he/fr/folkehelserapporten/samfunn/legemid...> (Fig 13).
annzabelle 3 hours ago [-]
I'd make a distinction between Semaglutide/Tirzepatide and other GLP-1 agonists that are available through the regulated pharmaceutical system with strong evidence for particular uses, and ordering unregulated peptides from China based on a subreddit's recommendation.
I used to be on a biohacking/nootropics discord a decade ago. People were trying to treat their depression by ordering research chemicals from Russian labs or synthesizing them themselves. Huge difference between that and going to the GP and getting a Prozac prescription, with semi-regulated supplements being in the middle. That's analogous to ordering peptides from sketchy suppliers, getting a GLP-1 prescribed by a doctor, and getting a peptide facial from a medspa.
I would assume that an order of magnitude more people are getting prescription GLP-1s than are ordering other peptides from online suppliers and injecting them.
8 hours ago [-]
UncleMeat 13 hours ago [-]
I live in a college town on the east coast and it is highly advertised at all of the wellness businesses here.
uh, a friend of mine in barcellona is going all in on peptides as well, along with his friends.
it's not a sv-only thing.
aweb 16 hours ago [-]
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adammarples 9 hours ago [-]
You've never heard of Ozempic? It's not a silicon valley thing, it's made by Novo Nordisk, Denmark's second biggest company, and Ozempic is partly why they're so big.
aaron695 4 hours ago [-]
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HtmlProgrammer 16 hours ago [-]
“stay strapped” is a fantastic sign off.
andai 3 hours ago [-]
ESL here, apparently this phrase has multiple meanings. The first result was "broke", and "stay broke" definitely doesn't sound right. The second one was "having a gun", which I assume is metaphorical for staying on your toes in the context of an increasingly hostile socioeconomic environment.
derektank 1 hours ago [-]
Yes, it’s the second one. “Strapped” alone generally means “broke” or “in a bind”, but native English speakers would rarely if ever use it in the imperative.
pseudohadamard 1 hours ago [-]
There's also another meaning when it's spoken by someone in black leather whom you have to address as "Mistress".
bamboozled 18 hours ago [-]
But, what actually are the benefits of all this peptide ingestion ? Does it replace,
Good Food, Sleep and an exercise ?
zemvpferreira 17 hours ago [-]
Ozempic and Mounjaro are peptides. They are a silver bullet for obesity and orders of magnitude more effective than anything up to a gastric band surgery. Insulin is a peptide and keeps some 50 million people alive globally. You could go on and on.
The real question is: Should you be putting novel, poorly researched and dubiously manufactured substances (which happen to be peptides) in your body via injection? To that I say, to each their own but I'll wait for the pharma industry to catch up. I'm not that bored.
mint5 17 hours ago [-]
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.
Legend2440 17 hours ago [-]
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.
zemvpferreira 15 hours ago [-]
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.
BenzeneDream 12 hours ago [-]
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.
dlenski 1 hours ago [-]
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.)
wpm 35 minutes ago [-]
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".
znpy 16 hours ago [-]
> The real question is: Should you be putting novel, poorly researched and dubiously manufactured substances (which happen to be peptides) in your body via injection?
on one hand: no, absolutely not, hell no.
on the other hand: these people are voluntarily doing human sperimentation. things like this are going to happen anyway so we might as well collect the data (samples, effect etc). it's not much different from the safe needles initiatives.
estearum 16 hours ago [-]
Except the data is completely useless. Especially given the extremely strong selection biases towards: status/image-obsessed; high-risk; low-intelligence; generally high appetite for a constellation of dubious interventions.
bluefirebrand 15 hours ago [-]
The data isn't entirely useless. It might be a good signal of areas to point legitimate research toward
Narrowing down areas into "Anecdotally many people say it works, we should check" does have some value, even if it does just wind up debunking the claims
estearum 14 hours ago [-]
In theory, maybe. In practice, there are far better sources of signal for far more valuable therapeutics to develop.
There are far more promising development targets than there is development resources. Self-reports from a bunch of the most drug-addled people in the world are not going to make it to the next-most-viable target.
Arodex 15 hours ago [-]
So, chemical pollution and the destruction of our microbiome with excessive antibiotics cause a global obesity problem, and we pump more chemicals into the body to try to solve it.
Life out of balance, indeed.
armchairhacker 15 hours ago [-]
What other solution do you propose?
(Yes, eating healthy and exercising would probably help most people, but many remain)
tptacek 31 minutes ago [-]
That's what GLP-1s do: they make it trivial to eat healthily.
sajithdilshan 16 hours ago [-]
Peptides are basically protein chains. Proteins are instructions to certain things in our bodies, proteins can activate/deactivate certain processes in our bodies among many other things.
If you artificially inject the correct protein into your body to mimic a naturally producing one, it would do the job and in that way peptides works. However, most of peptides injected by people are hardly human tested for long term effects. Human body is remarkable at adjusting and maintaining a baseline and we don’t know what would be the unintended side effects of these peptides because the body would try to counterbalance it. At best it could be just a mild headache or stomachache and at worst it could be cancer
fl0id 18 hours ago [-]
You can feel like you have control of your life and body, without doing anything about sleep, exercise or food. If you like that control.
bamboozled 18 hours ago [-]
I guess "feeling like", sounds like a placebo.
From what I've read there is some real risks associated with using them. Sounds a bit like the marketing of steroids in the 70s.
victorbjorklund 17 hours ago [-]
Insulin is a peptide. Not sure if it is really a placebo when a diabetic needs insulin.
inigyou 16 hours ago [-]
Peptides aren't all insulin.
victorbjorklund 15 hours ago [-]
exactly my point. That it is dumb to dismiss all peptides as useless when at least some are necessary for survival for some people.
bamboozled 8 hours ago [-]
Clearly I’m not talking about insulin , people aren’t having insulin injecting parties.
estearum 16 hours ago [-]
Hormones control a lot of what you describe as "feeling like."
The drugs (coincidentally of shape "peptide") that have been through clinical trials are obviously measured against placebo, and they (like the approved GLP-related set of drugs) are outrageously effective beyond placebo. And have very little downsides compared to the downsides of being obese, which are far more immense than people appreciate.
victorbjorklund 17 hours ago [-]
Clearly they have effects. Heck insulin is a peptide. And pretty sure it has a benefit for those with diabetes. Dismissing peptides outright is just as silly as thinking peptides are the solution to everything
estearum 16 hours ago [-]
"peptide" is just a category of chemical. Some of them do good things, some do bad things, some do nothing at all.
Anyone talking about "taking peptides" as a meaningful sentence is absolutely dismissible in the same way someone talking about "taking chemicals" is dismissible.
victorbjorklund 15 hours ago [-]
Yup
Legend2440 17 hours ago [-]
You also wouldn't want to randomly inject yourself with insulin outside of medical supervision, because it can kill you pretty quick.
Injecting poorly-studied grey market peptides seems like a bad idea.
victorbjorklund 15 hours ago [-]
For sure.
timcobb 17 hours ago [-]
How is insulin a peptide? Insulin is a giant folded protein
twic 5 hours ago [-]
The terminology is all a bit loose. Proteins are peptides, but we don't usually call them that. But when a hormone is a protein, rather than a small molecule, then we call it a "peptide hormone". I suppose because we're making a chemical point, that the hormone is in the family of peptides rather than steroids or eicosanoids or whatever?
As you say, insulin is a fully fledged protein, albeit a small one, and i wouldn't call it a peptide myself. But then, insulin is 51 residues, whereas tirzepatide (Mounjaro) is 39; is that such a big difference? FWIW i think a lot of other "peptides" are even smaller, eg CJC-1295 is about 30 residues.
jijji 2 hours ago [-]
peptides (2-50 amino acids) are smaller than proteins (50+ amino acids)... it's impossible to call a complex protein a peptide, it fails to meet the definition.
andsoitis 16 hours ago [-]
Insulin is a peptide hormone. It is a small protein made of 51 amino acids in two chains linked by disulfide bonds.
victorbjorklund 15 hours ago [-]
Probably better people to explain it. First sentence on wiki ” Insulin (/ˈɪn.sjʊ.lɪn/ ⓘ;[5][6] from Latin insula 'island') is a peptide hormone produced by beta cells of the pancreatic islets encoded in humans by the insulin (INS) gene.”
Ekaros 17 hours ago [-]
Seems like it is very much on the edge of categories thus fits both. And it really is not a giant as proteins go and instead is on smaller end.
jijji 2 hours ago [-]
peptides seemed to have popped up about 10 years ago.... now we've got probably over 100 common peptides that are used for various things, here is a sample:
1) PT-141 is a peptide that releases sex hormone into the blood and literally makes you horny, and its primary use is for premenopausal women that have low sex drive.
2) PNC-27 is a peptide that supposedly attaches to the cell membrane of tumor cells and performs cell lysis (death) of the tumor cell, and it's supposedly affects many different kinds of tumor cells: breast, pancreatic, lung, colon, ovarian, cervical, and leukemia
3) Epithalon is a peptide that is noted for extending telomers on chromosomes, leading to longevity benefits.
4) MOTS-c is it peptide that in animal studies is shown to boost physical endurance and mimic molecular changes associated with training/exercise.
ggm 4 hours ago [-]
Sometimes it IS good food. Protein is peptides. Collagen is peptides. Eat hearty beef stew, Salmon and you're eating .. peptides.
Unfortunately many peptides break down in the GI tract. However there is some reason to believe eating protein, like collagen in meat does produce an outcome in terms of muscle mass and skin condition. I guess because those breakdown products make their way through the blood/lymph system to where they're needed.
All those people huffing Whey powder after Gym? peptides! Just enjoy a low sugar yoghourt at lunchtime guys. same-same
TFNA 18 hours ago [-]
I have seen so much talk of Bay Area "peptide parties", so at least there is some social benefit?
bamboozled 17 hours ago [-]
I'm not sure I'd agree that a "bay area peptide party" has any real, useful social benefit. Sounds like hell.
phoghed 16 hours ago [-]
Just because you wouldn’t like it doesn’t mean no social benefit. Going to mar a lago and watching the president put ketchup on a well done steak doesn’t sound fun for me, but could be very socially beneficial for a lot of people.
bamboozled 16 hours ago [-]
I mean both things sound like hell, has the USA ran out of ideas?
phoghed 16 hours ago [-]
Yes, those are the only two things that happen here
bamboozled 8 hours ago [-]
And the Super Bowl
ElProlactin 6 hours ago [-]
And the $15 acai bowl
MPSimmons 15 hours ago [-]
Ingestion, like eating?
zzgo 16 hours ago [-]
> what actually are the benefits of all this peptide ingestion ?
50 years ago it was cocaine, 40 years ago there was crack, 30 years ago it was heroin, 20 years ago we had bath salts, 10 years ago it was gas station drugs and meth, 5 years ago it was Ivermectin, this year it's SF techies doing their own research into peptides and taking some. Taking the latest drug (or peptide in 2026) is its own benefit.
mvdwoord 16 hours ago [-]
Ah yes... Ivermectin, very much like the crack epidemic.
"It's for horses!!1!" "They do their own research!"
As with any substance, there can be use, and abuse. If you would have told people 30 years ago you use creatine, you would be stared at as if you inject steroids or growth hormone. Today it is in the supermarket, literally next to the protein bars. Throwing Ivermectin on the same pile as crack and heroin though.. :D
I am sure there are dozens (dozens!) of idiots who inject whatever they think it is for whatever reason, valid or not. Peptides is a craze, and it is also emerging here in the Netherlands, but as people have pointed out, lots of things are peptides, and lots of them seem to have significant health benefits, when used properly. Give it another 30 years... they will be next to the protein bars as well, once someone has figured out how to capture the profits.
zzzeek 16 hours ago [-]
This article is not so much about peptides it's about entirely AI generated ecosystems. The goal is to promote questionably scammy commercial interests, or obviously political interests as I'm sure is happening also, by creating whole webs of semi convincing looking portals, discussion boards, review sites, community activity, etc, all fake.
The blog post rightly points out we should get good at spotting all this but this is not the scary part, the scary part is that the audience for these ecosystems is not even humans, it's the big AI players like Gemini and ChatGPT, and those are places that a lot of people are going to get information and advice on things.
I use Gemini quite a lot and lately I've already noticed it's very quick to give me a broad spectrum vibe on some issue or topic and not good at all at backing it up with reputable sources. So I think this is potentially a very ominous development of the entire web itself becomes a giant poisoned cauldron of untrustworthy AI maliciously influencing "trustworthy" AIs.
Update: i fed this comment into Gemini and asked "what is Google doing about this?" and it produced a very long, detailed answer, leading off with tagging this as the so-called "internet ouroboros" problem. For those who don't feel like doing the same, I can distill it's answer as follows: "Yo. Chill. We got this, bro. Lol" so we're good!
billyp-rva 16 hours ago [-]
The battle between black-hat SEO and search engines has been going on for a long time. They may or may not "got this," exactly, but they definitely know a lot about it. I'd wager if a blogger can sniff this out, the search engines at least stand a chance.
igor47 3 hours ago [-]
Back when I still used Google, in the dark old days of mid-late 2025, it sure seemed like the SEO was winning. Once you got to page 3, where the ads ran out, you would then smoothly transition into total scam. A common one was where they'd show you scraped SO (remember that one?) content which somehow placed higher in the rankings than actual SO, and there'd be like 3 of those in various skins. I assumed they wanted to show me more ads, though those were much more easily handled with an ad blocker, unlike Google's search results. I assume it's continued to deteriorate from there, does anyone know?
sergeo 15 hours ago [-]
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18 hours ago [-]
bbor 2 hours ago [-]
This was fascinating right up until the confident use of an AI detector extension of some kind, as if that was a valid investigation of the matter.
Sadly, my view on the AI literacy of people who gleefully use 'slop' stays steady... which is a shame. Cause we're all on the same side, in the end.
serf 16 hours ago [-]
was any evidence ever given?
>"The trained eye, weary of vibe coded designs, will see Claude Code’s aesthetic fingerprint all over this. "
yeah, everyone is re-doing old interfaces with LLMs.
>"They're hosted on AlexHost"
yeah, they're selling grey market pharma.
Now, I have no problems saying that the whole thing is a bot driven scam -- it probably is , grey market web is filled with scams -- but there was no evidence given; just an ad for a magic tool that detects AI... somehow.
...which makes me feel like an asshole for putting in the time looking for the anchor and hoping it wasn't an advertisement.
duskwuff 29 minutes ago [-]
> was any evidence ever given?
Try browsing through the offtopic forum [1] if you're not convinced. About half of the threads lead with a post which uses the phrase "food noise" (often "the food noise came back"), even in topics like "Pet photos thread" or "TV shows to binge while on the treadmill" [2] where that content is completely inappropriate.
Or, along the same lines: try reading the "welcome thread" [3]. No one actually introduces themselves; all of the replies immediately start treating the thread as if it's a discussion of some vague topic. "Admin" even comes back several times to "close the loop on my own question" and to return "with an update, since a thread like this is useless without one" [4].
In short: all the simulated user behavior on the forum is wildly unnatural.
Interesting what athletes get popped for a few years ago = what optimize bros will inject into heir body, from test to peptides. Honestly lowkey glad Muricans willing to guinea pig when it comes to "performance". Asians have passed west in doing stupid beauty regimes, I like that US has big enough athletic culture to focus on performance. Hopefully Hegseth diverts billions into testosterone research, actual good use of department funds.
18 hours ago [-]
17 hours ago [-]
cure_42 16 hours ago [-]
Is this an ad for "pangram"? Reads like one to me. Not much of anything related to peptides was actually communicated, which makes the insult about your reader's potential ignorance of peptides even more unnecessary.
Look at what companies like Telus or ScaleAi are doing. There are probably tens of thousands contractors at the moment sitting carefully tuning LLMs with quality, vetted, question answers.
Training corpuses (corpii?) have always had lies, propaganda, derangement, you name it.
The Latin plural of corpus is corpora. It gets used a lot in linguistics articles, perhaps other fields as well.
It is legal to sell research only peptides that are not FDA approved, but as soon you talk about efficacy and human use, you also become a target for the FDA warning letters. [1] [2] [3].
Anyone selling these peptides who are indexed by search engines face increase scrutiny immediately, especially if you're going to try to sell the patented ones, because then you're a Target of not just the FDA but also Eli Lilly... peptides are big business but it's big risk if you do it wrong.... Eli Lily wants people spending $1,000 per month to use these peptides.
I think the trick about selling peptides to people is to probably do it word of mouth, no indexing by google, no ads, double gated website with invite only structure.
[0] https://www.npr.org/2026/08/13/g-s1-138594/eli-lilly-files-6...
[1] https://www.fda.gov/inspections-compliance-enforcement-and-c...
[2] https://www.fda.gov/inspections-compliance-enforcement-and-c...
[3] https://www.raps.org/resource/fda-warning-letters-target-mar...
That being said, there’s usually a reason they were abandoned by the pharmaceutical industry; they were ineffective or had a worse side effect profile compared to other drugs already in the pipeline. Good example of this is the “Barbie drug” melanotan II which was abandoned in favor of bremelanotide for treating hypoactive sexual desire because the latter targeted fewer receptors and was less likely to cause hyperpigmentation and other side effects.
Ultimately, most people should probably just stick to pharmaceuticals that have been FDA approved.
No, they don't, it's a very Silicon Valley specific thing and I never heard about them here in France. People need to stop thinking their experience generalizes by default
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-05/unregulated-peptides-...
I shall consult the zoomers.
I've never heard an actual human in person talking about them.
Also, I'd add that gym bros definitely have heard of them, especially if they are familiar with steroids.
The GLP-1 drugs are probably the main cause of this. We have this amazing class of compounds that work really well, But are priced pretty high, at least considering lower UK wages.
So there is a big incentive to look at getting these much cheaper from China. You hear about this happening, and then you see the fact that these companies have big catalogues full of other peptides that are a crypto payment and a click away.
And, as you say, the gym performance / sports crowd.
The BBC and the Guardian have covered it fairly neutrally, but the likes of the Daily Mail and gossip mags have been both more frequent and more breathless.
Not every aspect of american culture makes it overseas and much less does now than used to 20-30 years ago.
I think peptides (and medicating yourself out of a hole in general) are a pretty uniquely american thing.
We're amused by your antics but no one wants to emulate American culture anymore.
if I asked 20 of my friends about peptides I'm probably the only one that subscribes to that american leaning, peptide-spammed subreddit.
Maybe a US thing
I used to be on a biohacking/nootropics discord a decade ago. People were trying to treat their depression by ordering research chemicals from Russian labs or synthesizing them themselves. Huge difference between that and going to the GP and getting a Prozac prescription, with semi-regulated supplements being in the middle. That's analogous to ordering peptides from sketchy suppliers, getting a GLP-1 prescribed by a doctor, and getting a peptide facial from a medspa.
I would assume that an order of magnitude more people are getting prescription GLP-1s than are ordering other peptides from online suppliers and injecting them.
https://pro.inserm.fr/press_synth/peptides-les-autorites-ale...
it's not a sv-only thing.
The real question is: Should you be putting novel, poorly researched and dubiously manufactured substances (which happen to be peptides) in your body via injection? To that I say, to each their own but I'll wait for the pharma industry to catch up. I'm not that bored.
People don't seem to be regularly dying from peptides, at least not now.
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.)
on one hand: no, absolutely not, hell no.
on the other hand: these people are voluntarily doing human sperimentation. things like this are going to happen anyway so we might as well collect the data (samples, effect etc). it's not much different from the safe needles initiatives.
Narrowing down areas into "Anecdotally many people say it works, we should check" does have some value, even if it does just wind up debunking the claims
There are far more promising development targets than there is development resources. Self-reports from a bunch of the most drug-addled people in the world are not going to make it to the next-most-viable target.
Life out of balance, indeed.
(Yes, eating healthy and exercising would probably help most people, but many remain)
If you artificially inject the correct protein into your body to mimic a naturally producing one, it would do the job and in that way peptides works. However, most of peptides injected by people are hardly human tested for long term effects. Human body is remarkable at adjusting and maintaining a baseline and we don’t know what would be the unintended side effects of these peptides because the body would try to counterbalance it. At best it could be just a mild headache or stomachache and at worst it could be cancer
From what I've read there is some real risks associated with using them. Sounds a bit like the marketing of steroids in the 70s.
The drugs (coincidentally of shape "peptide") that have been through clinical trials are obviously measured against placebo, and they (like the approved GLP-related set of drugs) are outrageously effective beyond placebo. And have very little downsides compared to the downsides of being obese, which are far more immense than people appreciate.
Anyone talking about "taking peptides" as a meaningful sentence is absolutely dismissible in the same way someone talking about "taking chemicals" is dismissible.
Injecting poorly-studied grey market peptides seems like a bad idea.
As you say, insulin is a fully fledged protein, albeit a small one, and i wouldn't call it a peptide myself. But then, insulin is 51 residues, whereas tirzepatide (Mounjaro) is 39; is that such a big difference? FWIW i think a lot of other "peptides" are even smaller, eg CJC-1295 is about 30 residues.
1) PT-141 is a peptide that releases sex hormone into the blood and literally makes you horny, and its primary use is for premenopausal women that have low sex drive.
2) PNC-27 is a peptide that supposedly attaches to the cell membrane of tumor cells and performs cell lysis (death) of the tumor cell, and it's supposedly affects many different kinds of tumor cells: breast, pancreatic, lung, colon, ovarian, cervical, and leukemia
3) Epithalon is a peptide that is noted for extending telomers on chromosomes, leading to longevity benefits.
4) MOTS-c is it peptide that in animal studies is shown to boost physical endurance and mimic molecular changes associated with training/exercise.
Unfortunately many peptides break down in the GI tract. However there is some reason to believe eating protein, like collagen in meat does produce an outcome in terms of muscle mass and skin condition. I guess because those breakdown products make their way through the blood/lymph system to where they're needed.
All those people huffing Whey powder after Gym? peptides! Just enjoy a low sugar yoghourt at lunchtime guys. same-same
50 years ago it was cocaine, 40 years ago there was crack, 30 years ago it was heroin, 20 years ago we had bath salts, 10 years ago it was gas station drugs and meth, 5 years ago it was Ivermectin, this year it's SF techies doing their own research into peptides and taking some. Taking the latest drug (or peptide in 2026) is its own benefit.
As with any substance, there can be use, and abuse. If you would have told people 30 years ago you use creatine, you would be stared at as if you inject steroids or growth hormone. Today it is in the supermarket, literally next to the protein bars. Throwing Ivermectin on the same pile as crack and heroin though.. :D
I am sure there are dozens (dozens!) of idiots who inject whatever they think it is for whatever reason, valid or not. Peptides is a craze, and it is also emerging here in the Netherlands, but as people have pointed out, lots of things are peptides, and lots of them seem to have significant health benefits, when used properly. Give it another 30 years... they will be next to the protein bars as well, once someone has figured out how to capture the profits.
The blog post rightly points out we should get good at spotting all this but this is not the scary part, the scary part is that the audience for these ecosystems is not even humans, it's the big AI players like Gemini and ChatGPT, and those are places that a lot of people are going to get information and advice on things.
I use Gemini quite a lot and lately I've already noticed it's very quick to give me a broad spectrum vibe on some issue or topic and not good at all at backing it up with reputable sources. So I think this is potentially a very ominous development of the entire web itself becomes a giant poisoned cauldron of untrustworthy AI maliciously influencing "trustworthy" AIs.
Update: i fed this comment into Gemini and asked "what is Google doing about this?" and it produced a very long, detailed answer, leading off with tagging this as the so-called "internet ouroboros" problem. For those who don't feel like doing the same, I can distill it's answer as follows: "Yo. Chill. We got this, bro. Lol" so we're good!
Sadly, my view on the AI literacy of people who gleefully use 'slop' stays steady... which is a shame. Cause we're all on the same side, in the end.
>"The trained eye, weary of vibe coded designs, will see Claude Code’s aesthetic fingerprint all over this. "
yeah, everyone is re-doing old interfaces with LLMs.
>"They're hosted on AlexHost"
yeah, they're selling grey market pharma.
Now, I have no problems saying that the whole thing is a bot driven scam -- it probably is , grey market web is filled with scams -- but there was no evidence given; just an ad for a magic tool that detects AI... somehow.
...which makes me feel like an asshole for putting in the time looking for the anchor and hoping it wasn't an advertisement.
Try browsing through the offtopic forum [1] if you're not convinced. About half of the threads lead with a post which uses the phrase "food noise" (often "the food noise came back"), even in topics like "Pet photos thread" or "TV shows to binge while on the treadmill" [2] where that content is completely inappropriate.
Or, along the same lines: try reading the "welcome thread" [3]. No one actually introduces themselves; all of the replies immediately start treating the thread as if it's a discussion of some vague topic. "Admin" even comes back several times to "close the loop on my own question" and to return "with an update, since a thread like this is useless without one" [4].
In short: all the simulated user behavior on the forum is wildly unnatural.
[1]: https://www.compoundtalk.com/forums/offtopic/
[2]: https://www.compoundtalk.com/threads/t29681/, https://www.compoundtalk.com/threads/t31154/
[3]: https://www.compoundtalk.com/threads/t34774/
[4]: https://www.compoundtalk.com/threads/t34774-page-10/#post-47, https://www.compoundtalk.com/threads/t34774-page-20/#post-98
* Use pangram for catching AI slop
* Be good at spotting AI slop
* Beware of website built for AI crawlers only
* Do not buy stuff from China
* Do not consume peptide supplements
* Peptides are good but buy local
* Do not live in SF