The 'Peptide Gold Rush' Is Here, and I'm Freaked Out

I had a...spirited...conversation with some peptide purveyors.

Hello!

I’m sorry to bring you another semi-dystopian post after last week’s AI grannies, but it’s newsy at the moment due to some upcoming FDA decisions, plus it’s probably about time that I wrote about peptides. I have a couple earnest and hopefully helpful stories in the works for the next few weeks for balance.

The (pep)tidal wave of peptide-pushing really worries me. First of all, I see so much of it being shilled by midlife influencers, and it irritates me that they’re trying to take advantage of people who are struggling to feel better. Second, I have two sons in their 20s who are into working out and eating a lot of protein, and I’m terrified they’re going to get sucked into all this, with bad consequences. So I’m trying to understand the stakes.

Try to stay cool this week (need a fan?), and have a relaxing holiday!

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Probably not what a peptide shot looks like. (Photo: Ian Talmacs for Unsplash)

The conversation about injectable peptides has turned from, “What are they?” to “How much money can we make?” Both Bloomberg Businessweek and the Wall Street Journal published stories within a week of each other last month, both calling it the “peptide gold rush.” A few weeks ago, I had a front row seat to what this looks like and who’s partaking. And I am really worried.

I’m assuming most of you have heard of peptides, but if not, here is a simple explainer. (Not to totally confuse you, but GLP-1 medications, which have FDA approval and years of research, are a type of peptide too. It’s a big category.) I’m talking about the ones that aren’t official medications yet. They are the darlings of the wellness and longevity movements. What is most important to know is that they have very few (if any) human studies to support the claims that are made. Plus:

• Most aren’t FDA-approved. (There are a few that are, but they’re used off-label for longevity purposes.)

• We don’t know the potential long-term side effects.

• They are often sourced from sketchy overseas labs.

• Some, because of their mechanism of action, could induce tumor growth.

• Some have been found to have contaminants or not contain the actual peptide.

• We have no idea how they interact with other medications, or each other, since many are taken as “stacks” of multiple different peptides.

Here’s a reading list to support everything I just said above:

• Why Are People Injecting Themselves with Peptides? [The New Yorker]

• Life on Peptides Feels Amazing [New York Magazine]

• Is the Peptide Craze Backed by Science? The Promise Behind the Hype [Nature]

• The Peptide Craze [Ground Truths]

I was invited to an event at a fancy hotel in NYC to introduce editors and influencers to a new company that will be providing compounded peptides (meaning they’re manufactured in special pharmacies outside of the traditional pharmaceutical business), marketing materials, and “credentialing” to clinics and medical practices that want to start giving them to patients. As a perk, I could opt to get an NAD+ shot, a popular longevity supplement that is not actually a peptide, at the event. (No thanks! One company had to recall theirs last year because of contamination.)

I’m not going to name the company that was sponsoring the event, because I didn’t get the whole presentation and didn’t take notes, mostly because the founders and I were all kind of hollering at each other by the end. I was there for maybe 15 minutes.

When I entered the event, the publicist told me, gleefully, that they wanted to get ahead of the upcoming FDA pharmacy compounding advisory committee meetings happening later this month, to raise awareness. The industry is pretty optimistic, based on RFK Jr’s enthusiasm for peptides, that the FDA will make it easier to prescribe and sell some of them in the US.

They probably are right to be excited. This week, the FDA panel that will look at easing restrictions was announced, and it’s made up of a whole bunch of doctors and other people directly involved with prescribing, selling, and producing peptides, according to the AP.

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I went in ready to ask some questions of the founders, which included a former healthcare business person, a cosmetic dermatologist, and an internal medicine doctor. But it devolved pretty quickly.

Sample question: How are they going to come up with safe protocols since there have been no studies to standardize it? The internal medicine doctor left the room when I started asking questions, the dermatologist stopped answering and just glared at me, and the business person got pretty defensive. She was the one who mainly answered my questions. I’d call the vibe in the room “defiant.”

An aside! For 17 years I was a registered nurse and then a nurse practitioner, practicing in pediatric oncology. I haven’t worked in healthcare since 2011, but I’ve kept up my license, certification, and continuing education requirements. I do not pretend to know everything about modern medicine, but my background has come in handy often in my current profession.

They tried out two arguments. First, they said that these are all substances that already exist in the body, which I understood as an implication that they are therefore natural and not of concern. This is a common tactic. The Guardian recently released a 15-minute mini-documentary, and in it, one peptide company founder who counts a lot of middle-aged people as customers, proudly said she was anti-vax, but peptides are in your body, so!

My retort to this is: So is insulin, but if you give me a huge injection of it, it could kill me. This also doesn’t take into account that peptides are still chemicals produced in a lab, with all the potential pitfalls that entails. Nothing about it is natural.

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The peptides this new company is offering will be manufactured in compounding pharmacies in the US. On the FDA’s own website, it states: “FDA does not verify the safety, effectiveness or quality of compounded drugs before they are marketed.” States regulate compounding facilities, but there is still no guarantee that the peptides will be safely made and contain what they say they contain, never mind that we don’t know what they really do.

When I asked about studies and approvals, their second argument is that “nutraceuticals,” (I really hate this science-washed word) aka supplements, don’t have them, so why should peptides? (I’m paraphrasing here.) This is where I kind of lost it, because THEY SHOULD.

What disturbs me most about all of this is the involvement of so many doctors who should know better. In the days of Goop’s jade eggs and even with many supplements, I could reliably expect any doctor I called when reporting a story to debunk wellness bullshit and call out potentially dangerous treatments. But now, so many of them are actively involved in and profiting from this peptide boom.

Obviously, medicine makes mistakes and doctors are not gods. Plenty of doctors make money on the side, like dermatologists and plastic surgeons who sell pricey and often useless skincare in their offices. Many prescription drugs are way too expensive, and doctors prescribe medications off-label all the time. The FDA is not omniscient. And I understand that some peptides do have the potential to be helpful.

But it really worries me that so many physicians are willing to risk patient health on peptides before we know a lot more. When I Googled “peptide doctors in NYC,” I got a long list of providers with MD after their names.

It feels like they’re essentially prescribing on vibes. Is it the money? Are they true believers? I’m sure they will all ask their patients to sign airtight waivers in case something goes wrong.

During COVID, a lot of people stopped trusting the medical establishment, but I can see how this could get twisted around now. I can imagine someone saying, “Well, my doctor recommended I take BPC-157, which is the same argument you tried to make to me when I refused a COVID vaccine.” Which doctors can we actually trust now?

The American Medical Association (AMA) discussed peptides at its most recent meeting, without issuing any sort of strong statement. I’m sure everyone is waiting to see what the FDA does. It was heartening to see that some “career scientists at the FDA state there’s insufficient evidence to support changing the designation for any of the seven peptides under consideration,” according to NPR.

But I wish more doctors would read this recent article meant for laypeople on the AMA’s website about peptides: “While interest in new peptide injections continues to grow, Dr. Tam emphasized that ‘unfortunately, there just isn’t enough valuable, statistically significant evidence that points us to be able to recommend them safely.’”

So why are some of them doing just that?

Good For Your Age is a newsletter that analyzes and reports on the beauty industry, aging narratives, and questionable wellness trends (with a side of nostalgia and pop culture) through a Gen X lens. Subscribe via the blue button below. But keep reading, there’s more…

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• Halle Berry is at it again. She collaborated on a product with Joylux (makers of a vaginal red light device) called *sighs deeply* “Juicy Like a Peach.” It’s a “vaginal dryness treatment” featuring a molecule that “creates a breathable moisture retention barrier.” I have no idea what that means. Here’s how she explains it: “I think we all — always, but especially at this time of life — want to be juicy like a peach ‘down there.’ That’s the biggest problem that we’re having … Every day, we put a moisturizer on our face, morning and night. Why are we doing that? To keep our skin supple, to stop it from aging. The same is true for our vaginal health. This new product is something you use daily.” It’s not clear in the story, but Berry is a Joylux investor, she’s not just a brand spokesperson. Also, she just ruined peach season for me. [NewBeauty]

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Don't Buy What the Menoposse Is Selling

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• Clinique is Black Honey-fying everything, adding an eye shadow quad, mascara, and a very Chanel Vamp-y nail polish to the mix. I am not mad at any of this. I’m glad new generations continue to find the OG Black Honey lip product. I still use it! [Clinique]

• I don’t love a lot of the Laura Geller makeup products, but she has really charmed me with her latest collaboration with Didi Conn, aka “Frenchy” from Grease. It’s for the launch of a new combo root touch-up/eyebrow product. [LauraGellerBeauty Instagram]

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• Here is a whole story seemingly promoting biotin, both topically and orally, for hair shedding. The authors do note that biotin really doesn’t live up to the hype, but they linked to a whole bunch of products anyway. Last year, the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology wrote, of biotin: “There is scant evidence for supplementation in healthy individuals, but definite risk of potential harm.” [Vogue]

• Influencer Salina Williams, 54, details what it’s like to get a full mouth of tooth veneers. (It costs $80,000, though that’s not what she paid.) Her transformation was pretty incredible. [Allure]

• “A pair of concurrent European museum exhibitions have taken up the cause for a generation few seem interested in talking about now.” Yes, of course it’s Gen X. Rude. Two new exhibits explore the art of our people, one at the Deste Foundation in Athens (“Gen X: Tales from the Forgotten Generation”) and one at Tate Britain (“The 1990s: Art and Fashion”). [Art Basel]

• I saw the word “SHEconomy” somewhere recently, and I’m sorry I did.

Thanks for reading!