The scariest thing about gray-market peptides is how little we know

This is Optimizer, a weekly newsletter sent from Verge senior reviewer Victoria Song that dissects and discusses the latest gizmos and potions that swear they’re going to change your life. Opt in for Optimizer here.

Finding concrete data about gray-market peptides is a Sisyphean task. Unlike bona fide clinical drug trials, there are no official numbers. There’s little to no safety data. Some peptides have more anecdotal evidence than others, but a stranger on r/peptides is, perhaps, not an ideal information source. The fact is most people partaking in a dubiously legal activity aren’t going to shout it from the rooftops. What we do know about many of these unregulated, unapproved substances is simply this: A lot of people are taking them, unsupervised by medical professionals.