Not medical advice

Bonjour,

We’re throwing a big one in Buenos Aires in a few weeks with pod network and Polygon, with party pals Privy and Blockaid, rsvp here.

ily,

Writer: Natasha 
Editor: Deana 

Everyone is using Polygon for payments.

There’s a trend taking over Tech Twitter where people are filling syringes and injecting non-FDA-approved substances into their bodies. The timeline name for it is Chinese Peptides. My first introduction to the trend came from an article by the lovely Zara Stone about how everyone in Silicon Valley is juicing.

I’ve since been unable to escape the discourse, but my curiosity about how they work, what they do, and why people are taking them hasn’t yet reached its limit.

First off, I want to say a few things:

(1) I am not Natasha Hoskins, MD (no fucking shit, but just to be clear).
(2) I’m neither endorsing, promoting, judging, nor discouraging their use (your body, your choice).
(3) Some people are taking peptides for legitimate health purposes and that is not what I am talking about here.
(4) Most of what I’ve learned about these substances is from group chats, Discord servers, and ChatGPT, so DYOR.

For an ELI5 of peptides, you can think of them as mini proteins that send specific instructions or signals to your body. Proteins are made up of hundreds or thousands of amino acids strung together, while peptides are much shorter chains of amino acids that act like switches, telling your body to do something.

Our bodies naturally produce certain peptides, but there are also synthetic ones that people use for both medical and/or cosmetic purposes. Some are FDA-approved, and others are not.

Chinese peptides are synthetic peptides manufactured and sold in China, and the term has become a catch-all for tech elites’ grey-market use of performance, longevity, and cosmetic compounds.

Tech Twitter is taking them to look hotter, live longer, and be smarter.

Peptide users are creating custom cocktails to optimize for their goals. Think of The Ordinary but for your insides. It’s risk ON in the gc.

The convergence of looksmaxing, the longevity movement, early adopters, mistrust of the healthcare system, and the normalization of at-home syringe use from GLP-1s has brought us here.

There is so much to unpack here, but if you are wondering what tech bros are up to lately, it’s this.

Anyway, I’m 2 for 4 on the below, so who am I to judge.

All that to say, if you’re into fringe biohacking and experimentation and want to learn more, listen to the livestream we did today here.