New Scientist
Peptide injections are exploding across the wellness world, promising everything from faster healing and weight loss to anti-ageing benefits, often without solid human evidence.
Problematic peptides
Author: Grace Wade
PEPTIDES are everywhere, so much so that wellness spas, massage parlours, chiropractor offices and rehabilitation clinics, particularly in the US but also elsewhere, are offering peptide injections.
Proponents claim they can help combat ageing, heal injuries, dampen inflammation, accelerate weight loss and treat a seemingly endless list of conditions. There is little robust evidence to back up these claims, but that hasn’t stemmed people’s enthusiasm. Estimates suggest the unregulated market for peptides is a $100 million to $3 billion industry.
“Because there’s no regulation, it’s like a free-for-all,” says Alexander Weber at the University of Southern California. That was part of the impetus behind what I found to be a shocking decision by an advisory committee to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It recommended the agency allow select pharmacies to manufacture the compounds and permit doctors to prescribe them.
Although this mitigates the risks associated with buying these products on the unregulated market, which has no manufacturing oversight, it sends the unfounded message that these compounds have been demonstrated to be safe and effective.
Put simply, peptides are small proteins. The first commercial peptide drug was insulin in the 1920s. In the past decade, the FDA has approved more than 40 peptide drugs for therapeutic use. This includes semaglutide, the main ingredient in medications like Ozempic and Wegovy, which have transformed the treatment of obesity and type 2 diabetes.
Online retailers now ship peptides directly to doors across the US, UK, Canada and European Union, among other places. But most of these aren’t approved drugs – they are experimental compounds meant only for research, says Weber. This puts them in a regulatory grey zone. Because the FDA hasn’t yet deemed the compounds safe and effective, doctors can’t prescribe them as medications. Yet they can still be bought and sold legally, so long as the supplier doesn’t make any health claims about them. Similar grey areas exist in the UK and EU.
One of the glaring drawbacks of this set-up is the risk of contamination. A New Yorker article published in April found that some peptides purchased through one online retailer contained lead, signs of bacterial contamination or a much smaller dose than advertised.
This is probably one of the justifications for the FDA advisory committee’s decision. It recommended the agency add six experimental peptides to its compounding list, rejecting only one.
If the FDA accepts the committee’s recommendation, it would allow select pharmacies – which adhere to standards around product integrity, safety and purity – to manufacture the compounds. This would bring these six peptides under some regulatory purview. However, such a move would also lend each of these peptides an air of credibility when, in fact, none of them has been tested in a scientifically rigorous way.
Instead, most research comes from animal studies. For instance, Changhan David Lee at the University of Southern California and his colleagues have found that MOTs-C, a peptide released during exercise, can help regulate blood sugar and prevent obesity in mice, as well as improve speed. But these studies are a long way off from determining efficacy in humans.
It also isn’t clear how these peptides should be administered. “What strength should you use? What frequency? How long do you cycle on and off? None of these things have been elucidated as to what is most effective,” says Weber.
It is possible that regulating the manufacturing of these peptides could accelerate research into their effects. But in the meantime, people will be treating themselves as guinea pigs.Grace’s week
What I’m reading
Famesick: A memoir by Lena Dunham. It is a raw, tell-all autobiography about navigating young adulthood and chronic illness in the spotlight
What I’m watching
Season 3 of Rick and Morty because I can never get enough of Pickle Rick
What I’m working on
A thought-provoking Q&A about the wellness industry
Credits: TCA, LLC.