Clinical Snippets August 26

Yeah, well, the first one, again, this one's been in the press a lot lately, so I think most people are probably going to be aware of it, but it's around peptide use, illicit peptide use specifically.

So Medsafe has recently published a consumer advisory, which I've put links to in the show notes, on the potential risks of using unapproved peptide products and selective androgen receptor modules, or SARMs, which kind of have accompanied the influx of peptides.

So there's an increasing number of unapproved products being promoted online.

And some of the commonly advertised ones which you could come across are things like BPC-157, CJC-1295, GHRP-6, Ipamoralin, Kispeptin.

Melotan 2, retitrutide seems to be quite a common one, C-Lynx, C-Max, TB500 and thymosin.

I will remember all of those.

There's a whole variety of them.

A lot of them are injectable.

In fact, I think most of them are injectable.

But the important message, I think, A, to be aware that you will have people, you will have patients using them.

I think it's inevitable.

Medsafe has not assessed these products for quality, safety or efficacy and they're unapproved and it's actually illegal to import, use or sell the products.

So there is a very real risk that the products may be of poor quality, not contain the substance claim on the label if they happen to be labelled and can contain other harmful substances not on the label or not be sterile.

And because people are injecting them, it means there's a significant risk of or potential for life-threatening infection from using them.

So there's a specific warning regarding retatrutide with international reports having linked black market retatrutide to fatal overdose, contamination, severe neurological symptoms, hair loss, and other serious adverse effects.

And there's been quite a lot of stuff coming out of Australia on another commonly obtained peptide, melanotan-2, which is often called the Barbie peptide.

Oh,

gracious.

That comes as injections or nasal sprays and is used to promote tanning.

And it's been associated with sudden increase in atypical pigmented lesions and melanoma risk, AKI, hypertension, cerebral edema, and priapism, which I guess might be attractive for some people.

Basically, there's a lot of information from Medsafe, but I think the really good website, if you want to direct patients to it who are using Medsafe, is thelevel.org.nz. And again, I'll put a link in the show notes.

And it gives just fairly frank information on risks, talks about benefits.

It's basically just straight up information, non-judgmental for users.

But it does include how to minimize your risk as much as possible, including using needle exchange facilities.

And I just noticed in the press yesterday that New Zealand needle exchange facilities have been overwhelmed recently, and presumably it's related to this growth in the use of peptides.