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Peptides: where to begin?

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Re: Peptides: where to begin?

#411

Post by stalfie »

jmcqk6 wrote: post #373
stalfie wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Non blinded self experimentation is not a useful branch of empiricism. I had an ME/CFS patient that had tried 100s of things and documented the effects thoroughly. She had a quite impressive list. Roughly 30% had had an effect to begin with, but the trend she observed was that it lasted for around a month at most. Placebo was her overall conclusion, but she occasionally got relief anyways so we both agreed that there…

What do you think about the mis-alignment between goals here? For medical research, the goal is to find general practices that will broadly help, and identify risks with the intervention. Even then, with many interventions, it's understood that they will effect people differently. For individuals, they don't care about variation in communities, or standard medical practices, they are looking for relief for their spec…

Well, to be honest I think the primary disconnect is in epistemological understanding. The OP did not declare peptides to be a personal revolution, he/she seemingly generalised their own experience to be widely applicable.

Basic human thought patterns usually lead people to think that anecdotes about their personal experience is valuable for understanding the world, but this is wrong. The scientific revolution basically illustrated the flaw in this premise outside of hypothesis generation. It takes specific education to make human beings truly believe that their anecdotal experiences are mostly irrelevant beyond understanding their immediate circumstances. The proportion of humanity that truly think this way is relatively small.

Understanding the world through anecdotes still works okay-ish for a lot of areas, but ascertaining relatively subjective effects of experimental pharmaceuticals is not one of them. But to many people it's non obvious that this is the case. And as a general method of thinking about this issue, it is just the wrong way to go about things.

And that's the disconnect, in my opinion. The OP drew a conclusion from a thought pattern that comes easily to human beings, but that is just wrong in this situation. Of course, perhaps this is reinforced by underlying motivations, but that's not what makes people talk past each other. These kinds of discussion are usually driven by so called "deep disagreements" in epistemological understanding, in my experience.

Re: Peptides: where to begin?

#412

Post by nikitau »

klustregrif wrote: post #403

For the vast majority of people “peptides” is a new word and they assume it’s new science that does something new. It’s like if they had never before heard the term “pill” or “injection” and now someone is marketing it to them. So you have a enthusiastic family member going “omg, I got this amazing injection, it can cure cancer, make you look like the rock, cure baldness and fill your bank account all at the same tim…

I have the same feeling about the whole discussion. I know that colloquially we use terms like "protein" to refer to dietary protein rather than the class of mollecules.

But the way "peptide" is used by all the bro/gal-science influencers that push them online makes it blatantly obvious that they have next to no idea what they're talking about.

Re: Peptides: where to begin?

#413

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

digitalpacman wrote: post #152
kurthr wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, you just described most of the tele-health and compounding pharmacies that carry GLP1s! Where do you think Hims, Ro, Brello, or the rest get the APIs they sell to their customers? They get them from grey market suppliers in China. They don't go to Ely Lilly or NovoNordisk and say, "politely sir, may I skirt around your IP and sell your drugs for 10x what they cost instead of 10,000x what they cost?" Hopeful…

This actually isn't true. Hims compounded the GLP1s themselves. They broke/are breaking the law. Theres lawsuits.

We need to change the law so that the crime is selling mislabeled or contaminated drugs. If you can cook it well enough in your kitchen, you should be allowed to share it with a neighbor in need.

Re: Peptides: where to begin?

#414

Post by kube-system »

groby_b wrote: post #401
kube-system wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GLP-1 prescriptions are easy to get in the US. It's filling the prescription that is the problem, because insurance rarely covers it and it is beyond the disposable income of most Americans. The prescription hurdle is absolutely necessary -- these are not drugs that anyone can safely take without guidance. It's the price that needs to be fixed.

The issue isn't even just the prescription. It's that your health care system the doctor is in builds a few extra hurdles. I've talked to my (non-tele) doctor about GLP-1. I've tried losing weight before, with her, there's a long history. To get approval, between the hospital my doc is in and the insurance, I need to: 1) Have a BMI of >30. Since it's only 29.5, I get to stuff my face if I want to lose weight. 2) Have…

Those are coverage requirements from your insurance company. Consider yourself lucky to even have any path to get these covered under insurance -- most insurance plans do not cover weight loss drugs under any circumstances.

The diagnostic criteria is simply (BMI > 30) OR (BMI > 27 + a weight related comorbidity like high blood pressure or high cholesterol)

> They're neither hard to take - "inject one vial once a week into the flabby part" isn't rocket science

It's not that they're difficult to administer, it's that dosage needs to be managed appropriately.

Re: Peptides: where to begin?

#415

Post by kurthr »

digitalpacman wrote: post #152
kurthr wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, you just described most of the tele-health and compounding pharmacies that carry GLP1s! Where do you think Hims, Ro, Brello, or the rest get the APIs they sell to their customers? They get them from grey market suppliers in China. They don't go to Ely Lilly or NovoNordisk and say, "politely sir, may I skirt around your IP and sell your drugs for 10x what they cost instead of 10,000x what they cost?" Hopeful…

This actually isn't true. Hims compounded the GLP1s themselves. They broke/are breaking the law. Theres lawsuits.

They compounded them, which just means buying the API, reconstituting it, adding another compound (Vit B6), and putting it in sterile vials.

They did not make the peptides. They sourced them from China.

Re: Peptides: where to begin?

#416

Post by butlike »

mpreda wrote: post #406

Given that many people experiment on themselves anyway, I feel it's a pity and a loss for science that the outcomes of those self-experiments are not collected and aggregated. The article itself raises the issue of "lack of clinical data", given that these substances are relativelly new. But the lack of data may originate from a certain stiffness, or lack of accessibility and high cost of clinical trials. An alternat…

You REALLY don't want to open the door to "compulsory self-administration." You don't even want people to think about that door. For everyone else, there's clinical trials where you may get a $50 gift card if you're part of the test group.

Re: Peptides: where to begin?

#417

Post by kjkjadksj »

aduwah wrote: post #251
throwaway2037 wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> some without a ton of continuing education. Where did you get this idea? I did a simple, five second Google search and learned that on average, US doctors are required to complete about 50 hours of continuing education for each one- to two-year recert cycle. (On HN, I also hear similar complaints about public school teachers. It isn't true. Public school teachers are required to do similar continuing education.)

Not US, but the seminars to fill in the hours in my country were closer to legal bribes and/or holidays in often exotic places. They usually were provided/funded by the medicine lobby.

Same in US only sometimes more banal. Signup sheet in front of the stacks of pizza at some research talk at the medical school. Back row entirely asleep. Talk had nothing to do with medical practice but the researcher holds an md phd. Might be talking about their work in yeast.

Re: Peptides: where to begin?

#418

Post by functional_dev »

tbojanin wrote: post #21

I tried retatrutide for 10 weeks, here are my results: Before: 5'7, ~182lb Bench 1rm: 315 Squat: 5x10 225 Deadlift: 5x5 315 After: same height lol, 154lb Bench 1rm: 285 Squat: 5x10 205 Deadlift: 5x5 275 Suffered some anhedonia towards the end but that went away ~1wk after stopping. Overall pretty good, not any side effects. Definitely fixed my food craving problem. I didn't have a high intake of protein during the 10…

Did you try increasing protein intake during the cut?

Re: Peptides: where to begin?

#419

Post by kjkjadksj »

mpreda wrote: post #406

Given that many people experiment on themselves anyway, I feel it's a pity and a loss for science that the outcomes of those self-experiments are not collected and aggregated. The article itself raises the issue of "lack of clinical data", given that these substances are relativelly new. But the lack of data may originate from a certain stiffness, or lack of accessibility and high cost of clinical trials. An alternat…

The quality of data really are too poor. To get enough sampling to achieve sufficient power to overcome these issues would be a pipe dream imo.

Re: Peptides: where to begin?

#420

Post by thefz »

comrade1234 wrote: post #39

I know a couple of people that should know better (phds in biosciences but now doing corporate management) taking expensive weird Chinese peptides that would probably be better off if they did some cardio a few days per week and ate better.

Exercise because you enjoy it (and it provides countless benefits) but for weight loss it is not going to do anything. Diet alone is enough.
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