Live data from Hacker News

Peptides: where to begin?

science.org

381–390 of 431 posts

Re: Peptides: where to begin?

#381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, all I have to do to make it clear is say "I'm not opposed to vaccines as some kind of principle, ideological or otherwise", and then you can either believe me or not. That's what anti vaccine means, despite all the efforts to redefine it. It doesn't mean "won't recite the marketing materials for a specific pharmaceutical product when prompted".

It sounds like you don't want to say that you think vaccines are generally safe. So, I'm going to go ahead and call you an anti-vaxxer.

Generally safe is meaningless in this context. That's not a reasonable way to talk about entire classes of drugs. All that matters is for a given person with a given medical history and context, does the specific drug have a net benefit.

Here's a good test case: have you had the rabies vaccine? If not, does that make you an antivaxxer? How about vaccines that have been pulled off the market? Are those no longer vaccines?

Something reasonable to say would be there are vaccines that have a net benefit, and you should take those if that applies to your situation.

This whole "say the slogan or you're an antivaxxer" is like giving kids the nontoxic glue because you know some of them are going to eat it. The adults in the room don't need this shit.

Re: Peptides: where to begin?

#382

I'm not inclined to be a guinea pig for these. I suspect maybe later in my child's life they will have been proven long-term safe (or not). I'll be old or dead at that point. I'm really wary of putting anything not known to be standard food or medicine into my body.

[flagged]

Care to share what those “other things” you’re concerned about are? If you mean what I suspect you do, then this is a complete false equivalence. But it’s hard to evaluate when you don’t actually state your claim or concerns.

Re: Peptides: where to begin?

#383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you don't want to say that you think vaccines are generally safe. So, I'm going to go ahead and call you an anti-vaxxer.

Generally safe is meaningless in this context. That's not a reasonable way to talk about entire classes of drugs. All that matters is for a given person with a given medical history and context, does the specific drug have a net benefit. Here's a good test case: have you had the rabies vaccine? If not, does that make you an antivaxxer? How about vaccines that have been pulled off the market? Are those no longer vacci…

I don't care what "slogan" you say, I'm just trying to see if you hold the opinions of an antivaxxer and for some reason you refuse to make any claim that would help avail me of that position.

Re: Peptides: where to begin?

#384
post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any reason to think that freshly squeezed juice is chemically different from, for example, frozen juice concentrate?

There is reason to think the differences are biotic vs. abiotic, between the two. Our digestive system is dependent on healthy microbiota. Pasteurization would be the difference here.

So it's essentially the same argument as for raw milk, but at least it's less likely to make you sick (?).

Re: Peptides: where to begin?

#385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

can you talk about how semaglutide improves ME?

I don’t know the mechanism, I think ME/CFS is an autoimmune condition and semiglutide appears to help with autoimmune conditions in general. That was my reason for trying it. The improvements snuck up on me after many months as I noticed I was having fewer and fewer bad days.

If you felt improvements with semiglutide only after many months, how long did the other trials last? It sounds like you went through hundreds of trials. Did they all went on for many months? When did you determine that a drug wasn't effective and abort the trial? How come you didn't abort the semiglutide trial earlier?

Re: Peptides: where to begin?

#386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Peptides are a revolution and you don't need to know how they work to know that they work Perhaps. But knowing the mechanism of how they work sure seems fundamental to ensuring that they are safe to use.

If a lot of people take the mediation and die is that evidence that the medication is unsafe? If they live is that evidence that the medication is safe? Either both are true or neither is true. The relative weight of evidence is dependent on priors but it is still evidence.

Your comment reads like someone with no experience in medical trials - neither pharmaceutical nor medical devices. Death is not the only negative outcome. Nor is a procedure that is commonly followed by death necessarily a bad procedure - many cancer treatments for example fall into this category.

Re: Peptides: where to begin?

#387
post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting you mention this (anhedonia), since the guardian just published this article: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/apr/06/is-retatruti... How did you actually feel? Disinterested in stuff, ennui, or other?

Yeah, basically disinterested. Somewhat burnt out from doing things I normally love doing such as going on walks, programming on weekends, gaming, and work. It wasn't a really big problem, I only noticed it when looking retroactively at my experience.

How much of that is just from your hormones being trashed due to a severe deficit?

Large caloric deficits (1000+/day) in leaner people is known to tank T levels among other things. When I was on such large deficits, I had very weird mood/arousal swings. Nothing that problematic for someone with as much executive control as me but it was very weird to be held hostage to.

Re: Peptides: where to begin?

#388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally safe is meaningless in this context. That's not a reasonable way to talk about entire classes of drugs. All that matters is for a given person with a given medical history and context, does the specific drug have a net benefit. Here's a good test case: have you had the rabies vaccine? If not, does that make you an antivaxxer? How about vaccines that have been pulled off the market? Are those no longer vacci…

I don't care what "slogan" you say, I'm just trying to see if you hold the opinions of an antivaxxer and for some reason you refuse to make any claim that would help avail me of that position.

Did you miss this one?

> Something reasonable to say would be there are vaccines that have a net benefit, and you should take those if that applies to your situation.

Re: Peptides: where to begin?

#389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know the mechanism, I think ME/CFS is an autoimmune condition and semiglutide appears to help with autoimmune conditions in general. That was my reason for trying it. The improvements snuck up on me after many months as I noticed I was having fewer and fewer bad days.

If you felt improvements with semiglutide only after many months, how long did the other trials last? It sounds like you went through hundreds of trials. Did they all went on for many months? When did you determine that a drug wasn't effective and abort the trial? How come you didn't abort the semiglutide trial earlier?

Because I started at such low dose 0.025mg and ramped slowly I didn’t expect to see much of an effect until I got to more normal doses so I was unusually patient with it. Additionally extended water fasting (>5 days) was the only thing helping my headaches so I was focusing on ways to emulate this effect without an unmaintainable amount of fasting. I also had uncontrollable weight gain so I figured that was either related, or if not it would still help to lose weight anyway.

Most of the stuff I’ve tried that worked usually has an immediate or overnight effect. Notably Low Dose Naltrexone was overnight, Low Dose Abilify was near immediate. I believe this is due to their immunomodulator properties. So I studied psychopharmacology and focused in on finding weaker ligands than typical as a way to try and safely modulate my immune system. I landed on Modafinil in the morning and Amitryptiline at night, both off label treatments for the probably related dysautonomia.

The N of 1 with many overlapping signals and medications was of course very noisy but I treated it like a ML optimization problem. I could tell it was likely beneficial within the first week even with the small dose. I probably could have statistically determined it was working within a few months but I was distracted by work so it took a little longer to be sure.

Re: Peptides: where to begin?

#390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not as far as I know. The ratio of fat-to-muscle loss depends on several factors, most notably the rate of weight loss (see https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34371981/ ). In fact, retatrutide is popular notably because it is known to preserve lean body mass better than other weight loss drugs.

> because it is known to I thought that this was not yet substantiated in human trials? There's a plausible mechanism and, I think a mouse trial, right?

Seems you are correct according to https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40609566/: "The proportion of lean mass loss to weight loss was similar to other obesity treatments."
Post reply on HN