A guy I know in Estonia used to sell peptides, swearing by them for health and longevity. He was always vague on what they were or how they worked, but hyped 'peptides!' I believe he imported them from Russia.

I felt a little skeptical ;) I suspect his business has now stopped, with border controls. It never occurred to me at the time to wonder about the legality of the supplements.

The same guy also swore by electric gyms. He believed working out was for chumps: takes too long, too manual, too much effort. Instead, he went to a place he knew -- again, today I wonder about regulation and legality -- where they wired him up via electrodes and ran current through his skin, the idea being it would stimulate his muscles. I saw a machine and recall the current could go quite high, and they would place electrodes on your chest. They openly warned about setting it too high. I wondered how it affected his heart.

I have a friend from way back, 75 years old now in Hawaii injecting peptides for years. He works out constantly, seems to be in decent health, the Chinese peptides have not done him in him (yet). He swears by his peptides. I suspect the effects may be psychosomatic, but it remains to be seen.

Here’s a good warning the “researchers” may not value much.

“Grey market products lack cold-chain guarantees, undergo unknown storage conditions, and arrive with certificates of analysis from labs users cannot verify, (…) One Belgian market study found grey market peptides containing 10-90% less active ingredient than claimed, plus microbial contamination, heavy metals, and cross-contamination with other substances”