Why Everyone Is Talking About Peptides

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

I'm Steve Booth, CEO of Baird, an independent wealth, asset management, and global capital markets firm. At Baird, our 5,000 plus employees are united by an unwavering commitment to excellence and a genuine passion for helping our clients and each other succeed. As a privately held, truly employee owned company, we treasure our independence since we can focus on delivering results to clients and taking care of our people throughout the cycles in our serve markets. Learn more at rwbaird.com/wsj.

Alex Ossola (0:33)

Hey, What's News listeners, it's Sunday, May 31st. I'm Alex Ossola for the Wall Street Journal. This is What's News Sunday, the show where we tackle the big questions about the biggest stories in the news.

On the show this week, we're talking about peptides, the drugs that have taken social media by storm for people who say they help them look and feel better.

Sara Ashley O'Brien (0:53)

It's the sort of promise that people always want, like you want to not get the sun exposure, but you want to look tan and glowing.

Alex Ossola (0:59)

But taking the drugs comes with more risks than some users may have bargained for.

Peptides are having a moment. If you spent time online, you've probably seen posts from users who say the drugs can do everything from improve their skin, to helping them get better sleep, to simply just feeling good in their bodies.

SPEAKER_4 (1:22)

Hey, so I take peptides, and I have since November, and I have four kids. I have never been this confident, felt this good, looked this good, not since I was at least 19 years old.

SPEAKER_1 (1:35)

Let's go over GHKCU, otherwise known as the Pretty Boy Peptide. This is known to give you the glass skin effect that everybody's been talking about.

SPEAKER_5 (1:41)

The top five peptides I'd recommend to get jacked and shredded before summer and flex on your ex, respectfully.

Alex Ossola (1:47)

But it's not just influencers who are into peptides. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has also touted their use and vowed to make them more accessible. Here he is on Joe Rogan's podcast earlier this year. Yeah, I mean, I'm a big fan of peptides.

SPEAKER_4 (2:02)

I've used them myself and used them with really good effect on a couple of injuries.

Alex Ossola (2:09)

Even the DJ and record producer Diplo was talking about them on stage at the WSJ's Future of Everything Festival earlier this month.

SPEAKER_5 (2:17)

I think I met 40 people yesterday that was talking about peptides at the Metball after-party.

Alex Ossola (2:20)

But here's the thing. Many of the uses that people say peptides are great for are not scientifically proven and may come with side effects or dangers we don't know about. Once more, users are increasingly finding the drugs on the gray market, which presents its own set of risks. I discussed all this with Sara O'Brien, who covers the business and culture of wellness for the journal.

Sara, I want to start with the bare bones definition of what a peptide is. If I were in high school biology class, what would I learn about what a peptide is?

Sara Ashley O'Brien (2:54)

Peptides are short chains of amino acids. They act as signaling messengers that help your body regulate different functions. They might work in one part of the body and they signal things to other parts of the body as well. Insulin is a peptide.

Insulin helps your body turn food into energy and manages your blood sugar levels. Now, if the body doesn't make insulin, that's where a synthetic insulin injection would come into play. GLP-1 is the next obvious one. Now, GLP-1 is a peptide that exists in their body. It's also the basis for pharmaceutical drugs like Ozempic. And what it does is it sort of triggers the feelings in your body of being full, and it shuts down your hunger signals.

A synthetic GLP-1 drug like Ozempic is engineered to basically last a lot longer than the natural GLP-1 does that exists in people's bodies today. So that's why people tend to eat less and they tend to stay full for longer when they are taking Ozempic or one of the GLP-1 drugs.

Alex Ossola (3:54)

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

Sara Ashley O'Brien (4:01)

The term is very broad as you've alluded to. People are injecting peptides that they say are for everything from like muscle recovery to hair growth, to making their skin glow, a lot of physical but also aesthetic benefits. But the ones that people are often talking about on places like TikTok and Instagram that they're injecting at home are unapproved drugs. So a lot of them are based on anecdotal evidence, but they have not gone through the same lengthy approvals that a drug like ozempic has to go through like the clinical trials and all of that to prove the safety effectiveness and the manufacturing process for the drug.