Alex Ossola

What's more, users are increasingly finding the drugs on the gray market, which presents its own set of risks.

I discussed all this with Sarah O'Brien, who covers the business and culture of wellness for the journal.

Sarah, I want to start with the kind of like bare bones definition of what a peptide is.

Like if I were in high school biology class, what would I learn about what a peptide is?

So when someone on social media is talking about all their peptides and their peptide stack, do they mean something different?

Right.

And just to clarify what unapproved means, there's off-label use for many drugs, and then there's using a straight-up illegal drug, and there's a lot of stuff in between.

Where does this fall?

Who is primarily buying these drugs and who's selling them?

How much does it typically cost to buy these drugs off social media?

Coming up, the risks that unapproved peptides bring and where they go from here.

That's after the break.

I know that you said that the FDA hasn't approved these drugs for some of the things that people are taking them for.

But that doesn't mean they don't do that.

Do we actually know that any of these peptides as ingredients do some of the things that are promised?

Unattended side effects is a pretty big negative consequence of some of this.

But are there possible other negative consequences that come with how people are acquiring these drugs?

I want to zoom back out now for a minute because...

This is a particular moment in the sort of pursuit of beauty, the pursuit of perfection.

But I would say pretty confidently that this is not the first, right?