Although it may not be the Oxford Word of the Year for 2026, Peptide is certainly in the running.
Injectable peptides are all the rage on social media, from your local influencer to gym bros.
They’re now in mainstream news, when they go wrong.
They are taken and promoted for an endless number of reasons. According to whomever you speak with, these supplements will either give you an extra pep, a better tan or make you glow. They may even help you build bigger muscles.
What are these new chemical products?
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Social media is awash with dangerous peptides promoted by influencers, and the regulators can’t keep up.
These are chemical messengers
Exogenous or endogenous, many peptides are found in our bodies. They are shorter than protein chains and completely natural.
Synthetic peptides are created by laboratories for a variety of purposes.
Peptides are precision chemical messengers that regulate critical body processes, such as metabolism and growth. They also control immunity and repair of tissue.
Water-soluble molecules cannot cross cell membranes directly.
They bind receptors found on target cell surfaces to initiate a series of internal events.
These are some of the most important categories of peptides:
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Peptide hormones, such as the human growth hormone. They regulate the metabolism, growth, and other processes throughout the body.
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neuropeptides (endorphins).
They are neuropeptides that signal in the nervous system and brain to affect mood, appetite, and pain.
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Growth factors (IGF-1). They stimulate the growth, division and repair of cells.
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immune modulators (thymosin alpha-1). They can either dampen or tune the immune response.
Influencers on social media claim that peptides boost energy levels, help build muscles or give you a glowing complexion.
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Peptides are commonly used in many medicines
Some peptide drugs are well-known and have a legitimate history: Insulin, for instance, is a hormone peptide with a lengthy clinical usage.
People now take peptides to achieve a range of goals, such as weight loss. For example, glucagon like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1s) suppress appetite and reduce stomach function.
The use of these peptides for weight loss or diabetes management has become common.
Other are used to ‘optimise’
Recent peptide use and talk is mainly for online products that promote weight loss, muscle gain, injury recovery or tanning. They also tout anti-ageing properties, increased energy levels, improved libido as well as enhancing libido.
The majority of people who use these products don’t inject into veins. Peptides can be injected subcutaneously (just under the skin) with smaller needles similar to insulin into the upper arm, abdomen or thigh.
Other enhancement peptides are also available in creams, nasal sprays or tablets. Most enhancement peptides are injected.
The peptide boom is only one part of a larger push towards “human enhancement”, in which the lines between treating illnesses and improving a healthy body continue to blur.
The use of social media to promote enhancements substances such as peptides is extending beyond elite sports.
We don’t know yet which peptides in Australia are the most common or how their use patterns are changing because we do not have a routine monitoring system.
What is the regulation of peptides?
Australia regulates peptides used as therapeutic products.
The Therapeutic Goods Administration has not evaluated the safety, effectiveness or quality of many products that are advertised and sold on the internet. These include BPC-157, which is promoted for gut and injury recovery.
Importing or supplying these products for human consumption without TGA authorisation, is illegal.
Online vendors are the main source of these substances. This market is driven by social media. Influencers promote and push products online by promoting referral links.
They also tell people about how to make their skin glow.
Labeling these substances as “research chemicals” (or “for research use only”) or “research chemicals”, is a key way that suppliers exploit to sell them in the United States.
This does not mean that these substances are safe or legal for human consumption. This does not apply to Australia.
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It’s the Enhanced Games or’steroid Olympic’. The Enhanced Games are a danger to athletes and spectators alike.
What are the possible risks?
It’s not always the peptide that poses the greatest risk. Online enhancement products may have much more or less of an advertised ingredient.
In our recent lab testing, we found that retatrutide doses were almost twice the amount labelled.
Some products contain contaminants, impurities or completely different substances.
Risk exists even with a product that is correctly labeled and uncontaminated. The majority of enhancement peptides are not tested on humans, and their safety is unknown.
If equipment is shared, there are risks for infection, abscesses, scarring and bloodborne viruses.
Many users of enhancement drugs, such as peptides, do not disclose this to the health and drug service, which means they could miss out on advice about harm reduction, sterile injection equipment, and accurate information.
What is needed to be done
Australia is in need of:
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Monitoring emerging products to identify harms and hazards
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Action on the way these products are advertised and sold online is needed: enforce existing laws against advertising non-approved therapeutic goods, and hold platforms responsible for referral link selling
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Clinical education is needed for the increasing number of clinicians that encounter peptides in their daily clinical practice.
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Information based on evidence that is delivered to people via the same platforms online where products are advertised
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Research on the broader “enhancement ecosystem” including people’s movement between products, their source of information, dosing protocol, driving factors, and online community norms regarding risk.
If we are to avoid injuries, harm-reduction and health education will be key.
