[EvanAnderson]

I'm in western Ohio and had heard about the peptide fervor on podcasts but never IRL. Today, at my daughter's soccer game, I overheard a long conversation between two guys in their mid-40s comparing their peptide regimens (along with just discussing their fitness activities).

I'd never actually heard anybody talk about it before. At first it was the generic CrossFit talk I'm used to hearing, then to diet and recovery / injury stuff, but then it too the peptide turn. It sounded like both of them are injecting themselves from stuff they're buying on the Internet. They both talked about it like it was just the most natural thing.

[mh2266]

> It sounded like both of them are injecting themselves from stuff they're buying on the Internet.

lol, wtf. I mean, I am a moderately serious cyclist, I guess (~250 miles/week) and also climb, hike, other outdoors sports etc. So I do care about performance and diet and such. But there is zero chance I am sticking a needle full of something I bought on the internet into myself—what on earth?

[secabeen]

GLP-1s are the gateway drug to this whole world. It's not hard to rationalize that they are safe, and approved, but too expensive. If your insurance stops paying, or will never authorize it in the first place, going gray market may be the only choice to stay on a drug that works for you.

Of course, once you are placing an order, it's only one more add-to-cart click to add something completely untested to your order.

[bodiekane]

Cycling has a pretty rich history of people injecting themselves with things they bought on the internet- EPO, testosterone, etc.

The bodybuilding subculture has been injecting testosterone, about 50 different testosterone-like drugs (Tren, Clen, Deca, etc) for the past 50 years, HGH for the past 30 years and IGF for the past 15 years.

The psychonaut subculture has been buying research chemical derivatives of serotonin and dopamine for decades for their psychedelic effects, and the nootropic community doing similar things for compounds that increased attention, memory or mood.

In prior decades, the transgender community often relied on buying & injecting drugs on the internet for gender affirming care they were unable to get from their healthcare systems.

There are risks, but also, if tens, hundreds or thousands of other customers have purchased and used something from the vendor, that's probably as reliable of a signal as most regulatory regimes are.

[JeremyNT]

It's got to be Dunning-Kruger, and I'm convinced chatbots have made it way worse.

A lot of tech bros seem to be of the opinion that, given their superior intellect (as evidenced by their successful careers), they can master any domain. As great as semaglutide is, surely more is possible for people willing to move fast and break things, right?

All they need to do is apply their superior methodology to "biohacking!"

Of course they run it all by SuperGrok to be sure, and when it tells them yes, they are indeed absolutely right, it's off to the races - to discover that fountain of youth by injecting some sketchy grey market snake oil.