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Chapter 1: What are peptides and why are they trending?
a listener production.
Hi, I'm Sarah and this is Small Talk. It's not quite a news headline, but it is what the girls are talking about. And today I'm here with one of my favorite podcasters, the host of Science vs. Wendy Zuckerman, here to talk to us today about something that has genuinely been all over my algorithm for months now.
I'm so excited to get into it because I've been so scared to talk about it and it's peptides.
Yes. Welcome. Welcome. I understand what you mean by scared to talk about it because when something isn't this big online, it's just, it does just feel overwhelming. I know, I know what you mean. We've had peptides on our radar for ages and no one on the team has been up for the challenge. And then I said, I will do it guys. I will do, I will research peptides.
So I did it and now I can talk to you about it. No, thank you so much for doing it. Because it's also one of those things that people are getting slammed on both sides. You speak out against and say you like caution peptides and people kind of yell at you for that. And then you're on board peptides and people like you're an idiot. So I'm so confused.
It's wild, the peptide heretics, the hate out there, the true believers.
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Chapter 2: How do peptides work in the body?
I mean... Yeah, it's wild. And just, yeah, the space around it, people really want to believe in peptides, that's for sure. I've scrolled so much. I've read so many Reddit pages and, of course, the scientific literature. And there's nothing quite like peptides, I will say, at the moment.
No, and I get it because I'm reading and I'm watching these TikToks and I want to believe. Like, I would love to believe this, but I'm so... I mean, it feels like this was the perfect topic for something like Science Versus because, I mean, what you sort of do is take the internet panic and the misinformation and then give the actual evidence.
And is this kind of one of the craziest ones that you've done in a while?
I think so. I mean, I think what makes peptides so interesting and why there is such...
virulence out there for it is because there is some science here some good science yeah around peptides and then there's also a lot of nonsense and so you can't say peptides are crap because peptides are just small proteins and our insulin is a peptide anyone with diabetes knows how important insulin is um it's a peptides themselves aren't crap it's sort of like saying proteins are crap you
Can't say that. Our whole body is made of proteins. So there's interesting stuff in there, but then there are the things that people are injecting, that people are buying online, and the claims around them are just swirling in this really crazy, crazy way. I will say this is, it's just one of those trends. It's funny because it hit my radar about two years ago
And just in the last few months, I think it has gone, it's shifted the norms of what is okay in a really crazy way. I think like the fact that in just the last few months, because peptides have been in the
bodybuilding community the sort of peptides where you're injecting yourself to get stronger to look a certain way certain bodybuilders and have been playing around with them for two decades let's say so they're not super new but then other kinds of peptides the fact that we have this whole new generation and cohort of people injecting themselves with things that they've bought online and all of a sudden this is all okay and people like you and me are now going wait
should I be doing this? Would you ever have imagined three months ago that we would even be close to thinking, should I be doing this? And that is the power of social media and the algorithms just pushing what is normalised and OK behaviour.
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Chapter 3: What is the difference between medical research and wellness hype around peptides?
But that's basically what it is. And they can do some really, really important things in our body. And I think what's really exciting from a science perspective is that we're actually still discovering new peptides in our body. And that's really cool from a medicine and scientific perspective because
It's sort of created this new world where there's many diseases out there that we don't fully understand. You know, I think anyone who has hit up against the medical system where suddenly your doctor goes, ah, we don't know, you know, whether you've got a parent with Parkinson's disease, whether you've got depression, there are a lot of things medicine doesn't know. And now we're discovering...
peptides, new peptides in our body, and maybe in the future we'll find out that they play a role in all of these great mysteries of medicine, or some of them do, and maybe they'll be developed into treatments. Now, that's the exciting side of science, and it's all very new.
What's happening online, though, is that people are taking certain peptides, and I think a really popular one, GLP-1s, for example. So that mimics a peptide that is in the body, and it helps you feel full and this sort of thing. And so GLP-1s, that's Ozempic, Wegovii. and you inject them into your body and they work as GLP-1s. Many people have lost a lot of weight on these drugs, right?
And that, when I talked about shifts in what's become normal, GLP-1s are attributed to starting this change of people feeling like it's okay to inject yourself in order to change your body. Because In the past, that was really the domain. People with diabetes have been injecting themselves with insulin for an awfully long time.
But it's the thing a lot of people would say, I don't know if I'm comfortable with that. GLP-1s come along and they've really flooded the market. And now we're hearing stories of people who really don't need to be taking them. taking them and I'm not the cops. I think people can do what they think is best for them. But what it has done is shift what's okay.
So now if you're injecting yourself in order to lose weight, whether you medically, quote unquote, need to be losing that weight or not, there's then it's like, okay, well, what if I started injecting myself in order to make my skin look better? What if I started injecting myself with something that people say will give me bigger muscles or people say this or that or this or that?
And so now all of a sudden we have this market flooding with these peptides that people say can do just about anything. And what is interesting from a sort of misinformation or fads perspective is is that fads often start with this little grain of truth. So we have GLP-1s, they really can do something. Peptides do important things in your body.
And then all of a sudden, that story merges with, okay, this other peptide, that is also really important. Oh, and by the way, it'll also help with your cognition. Oh, and by the way, also your skin. And your stomach. Your stomach has problems? Oh, and I took it and all of a sudden I was super smart. Oh, and my anxiety disappeared. And you just trace it back.
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Chapter 4: Why is biohacking culture influencing peptide use?
And you're like, what? This peptide does this other thing in the body and now you're saying it's doing all this other stuff? And that is the story of just misinformation and fads and it's just playing out on a massive scale when it comes to peptides.
Yeah, it's really tough to try and figure out what all these different ones do or to be an expert in any of them or know which ones might have science and which ones don't. And I know that you've spoken about this before, but there's like the two ones that you looked into were BPC-157 and MOTC, right?
Yes.
And... One was a little bit more valid than the other, but then I guess you get the skincare one, which is like the GHK-CU, and then there's Retta, which is like the replacement in a way for Ozempic. But from what I've learned from you as well is like the motzy one sort of got snuffed out a bit when Ozempic took off, right?
Yeah. Yeah, it was a really interesting story. And I think what you're pointing to as well with the fact that each peptide has its own kind of science story and its own question about whether it works, there's this law called Brandolini's law, which is basically that it takes so much longer to fact check any garbage that people say online. Yeah.
And so basically someone can come out on TikTok and say, peptides are the absolute best. You need to be on them. They have changed my life. And then someone like me goes, oh, there's a dozen peptides people are taking. Each peptide has studies, some in rats, some in lab studies, very few in humans. And then I've got to fact check them one by one by one. And so we already had a 40-minute episode.
that tackled MOTC and BPC-157. And then I'm like, what about all the others out there? We'll probably do many more episodes. But I think from the human studies we have, so MOTC is one of the peptides out there that people are taking for losing weight. They say it's giving them energy. Some take it to live longer. There's a little bit of a rumor going around that RFK Jr. is taking MOTC.
It may sort of live in this kind of soon become a little more legal in the U.S. I don't think they're talking about doing that in Australia. So right now, if you buy it online, you really have no idea what you're getting. But the interesting thing with MOTC is it really was born of science. There was some exciting research in mice.
It moved into a small clinical trial in 20 people who had a high BMI and fatty liver. And in the clinical trial, what's kind of interesting is that it didn't do that well. When you really ā I looked at the poster of the results and I was ā Just like, what? This is what everyone's excited about? Statistically, the placebo group didn't lose more weight than the group on MOTC.
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Chapter 5: What are the risks associated with using peptides?
So it didn't really help. It didn't clearly help people lose weight. It didn't clearly help with fat around the liver. And that's enough for the internet to take it on hold. And so it's funny because a lot of the... Peptide haters out there say absolutely accurately that these peptides don't have long-term trials in them and some of them haven't even been tested in humans.
But then when you ā it's kind of even more wild than that because then when you look at the trials that we have that say this one, yeah, 20 people went for a month, it's not even that impressive. Yeah. So even if I was so generous to say, let's have a look, what do we see here? It's just not that exciting.
And then exactly as you said, I spoke for our episode, I spoke to the researcher who did these clinical trials and who is this clinical trial, I should say, not these. It's just the one, this clinical trial. And he's really excited about MOTC and he hopes that it becomes a drug.
And after that clinical trial, there were some exciting findings, but then Ozempic entered the room and they lost their funding. So they couldn't do any more research on it. And Ozempic has become the clear winner in terms of drugs because we know that it really does work. So yet from that to the internet and various big influences thought, well, you know what? You know what?
I think you should take it anyway.
Well, it's not even just I think you should take this one. Something that I've been noticing as well is, like, We could put a little mix together. You could have the tanning one and the skin one. And they're calling it like the Barbie peptides. And I was like, this is not what I meant by women in STEM. Like, can we not mix that? That's terrifying. That's so scary.
The stacks. The stacks. That's right. That's right. Let's take one thing that we don't really know what it does in the body. Let's mix it up with some other stuff.
Do you think this is like part of like what you're saying from someone who is, you know, backing the science and understanding the science, but looking at it culturally, do you think we're sort of in a moment that it's not even about being healthy anymore?
Like we're trying to optimize every facet of ourselves, of our lives, better sleep, better skin, faster recovery, no body fat, more productivity. Like, do you think this is just this big shift in biohacking culture at the moment?
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Chapter 6: How does social media impact perceptions of peptide safety?
But we use these code words, really, wellness, body hacking, looks maxing, whatever the new version of it is, when really if we were being honest with ourselves about why we want to do these things, it's because we want to look a certain way.
That something in society, and it's probably not your doctor, something in society is telling you this is how you need to look and this is how you'll be happy. I mean, I always come to this question of will it make me happy? That's my goal in life. It's not to look great. It's to be happy. Because I'm a person who lives in the world as well, right?
And that's what I think stops me from entering this world because I don't think it ever ends, right? You take the peptide to look a certain way. Let's say it works. Let's say... By pure magic, a broken clock is right twice a day, right? So let's say you happen to get the peptide that in 10 years' time, science will tell you that it actually did work. It did make your skin look a certain way.
Are you happier now is a question I would love to know. Or does it never end? You start, your skin looks a little bouncier, but then a little wrinkle forms because it always will. And then what do you do? And then what do you do? And then what do you do? At what point do you tell yourself, wait, what if I'm just comfortable with getting wrinkles?
What if I start looking at people who have wrinkles and trying to change my brain to say, that is beautiful. That is awesome. Wow, look how much you've smiled. Look how many crinkles you've got. Like how do we do that?
And it's crazy because, you know, now that we're moving to video and I have to look at myself so much in the editing room, it really is a mental task to change what you think is beautiful or whatever. And particularly as a woman, as a female presenting person, there's so few models out there, role models of what just a normal, fun,
femme person looks like who hasn't had all the modifications, right? So sometimes I just have to look at men and I'm like, look at that. Look at that handsome man with wrinkles. Goal in life.
You know? I agree. It's funny, though. Like, I think when talking about men, too, a lot of the influences that are coming up are men as well and their wellness culture is doesn't get checked in the same way for guys.
Like I think when we hear girls talk obsessively about food or skin or whatever it is, we're very quick or at least we train, we see it within ourselves to go, oh, I know what's happening there. Whereas guys can't really pick it up with each other and they get really obsessive with it.
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Chapter 7: What scientific evidence supports or refutes peptide claims?
masculine thing right now, extra muscles that are so big that aren't really a metric of health at that point. You know, muscles are really, really important for our longevity and our balance and many, many things. But there gets to a point where you've hit a limit and you're building muscles just because you want to. which is so, so fine.
You want to build muscle, but you can couch it in this world of health. A little bit of muscle's good, more muscle's better. Whereas for some of the more sort of femme-related activities, it is harder to couch under wellness. Like there's really, it's hard to find the words because as you say, you're like, that's just because you want to look good.
But you're right, it's all part of the same story. We're all just fooling ourselves if we think that this is for health. And I don't know how we break away from that because peptides has just pushed it so much forward to just sort of keep going. Now inject yourself.
It is. I think it's the emotive language of it. It's the, like, regenerate, repair, anti-aging, reverse aging, healing faster. And you're listening to that going like, oh, my God, that sounds fantastic. Especially when... I think there's a bit of a Venn diagram happening because there's that kind of emotive language.
And then the flip side is, and I think especially we're seeing this maybe in the States or trickling down even in manosphere culture, which is there's a real conspiracy all the time that the doctors and the science is lying to us in some way. Absolutely. And I know you've written about this, and I think this is just such a big part, like...
When I have these conversations with friends even about peptides and you come to it quite openly because it's an open conversation and I am curious about it and they'll say, like, well, Australia is so behind and the US is miles ahead and they're just not approving it because the FDA doesn't want it approved.
The war on peptides.
There's so much conspiracy.
Yes, yes. Yes, this is insane and it fits into a narrative of where the victims... There's a war against us. The establishment is against us and we've got to fight it for our health. You know, it really helps when you're the victim. It helps you to get to a certain mindset. And it's funny because it's in the U.S.
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Chapter 8: What does the future hold for peptides in wellness and medicine?
big movers in the peptide world who did not take their COVID vaccines because they weren't tested enough despite the thousands and thousands of people who have taken them for studies. And yet they're like, you know what? You know what I will take though? Peptides. A couple of mouse studies. I'm in. I'm in. I'm in. And that incongruity is just wild to me.
And they will trust... Because what they're really trusting is the power of anecdote, is what their friends say, the power of placebo. That is what they're putting their faith in. But they don't want to admit that because everyone wants to believe that they... believe in science and facts.
So you have this great irony happening around the conversation with peptides that these people are clearly anti-science. They're anti-regulation. They don't believe in clinical trials because if they did, then they would wait for the clinical trials before injecting themselves with unproven products. Yeah. So they don't really believe in the process of clinical trials.
They believe in the power of a story, the power of an anecdote, the power of someone on Reddit or TikTok who had an amazing story. But they don't want to say that because they know that sounds illogical. That sounds crazy. Why would you believe an anecdote? So instead, they'll sort of say that there's the science on rats or rodents, these studies that don't really hold this way.
They'll say, that's what I believe in. Mountains of studies in rodents show this is effective.
You know what's funny, though, is I've heard that, but I've also heard, and that's why it was so great listening to your episode, because I was like, okay, now I know what the actual science was. Because the other part of it was, the science is definitely there. Like, Hooperman says so. It's there. We know. Australia's just always five years behind.
So let's just get our hands on it on the internet, because we're just, it's so annoying that we live here.
Yes. That is what's crazy to me, exactly. And these big names may say rodent studies if you listen carefully, but the broader picture, it doesn't feel that way. It feels like there's mountains of research. But really, it's really just an emperor's... new clothes sort of situation, I think, when it comes to peptides. I was really surprised.
And I tell you, the researchers who have gone into this with an open mind, thinking, okay, what is going on here? And most of the researchers, so I specifically was looking at peptides related to rejuvenation, as you say, muscle, helping with muscle healing, so BPC-157, more like athletic-style peptides used for energy and things like that.
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