Peptide Critic Community

@sunshine_day the thing to realize about COAs is they are entirely a game of layered trust. Vendor posts COAs. Great. How do you know they are shipping you vials from the same batch? Well... one way to resolve that is to have random customers the vendor has shipped vials to send them in for further testing. Keep in mind none of this is perfect (including when done by pharmaceutical companies). Testing and COAs are good. From random customers is better. But at the end of the day, if you do this enough, you will realize every vial is slightly different, even in the same batch. You can do things that increase confidence, but never perfect it. That's the trade we make every time we take anything, ROU or otherwise.

Personally, I find the Nexaph community testing increases my confidence. But even with Nexaph, they send all of their stuff to Janoshik. Janoshik doesn't do purity testing for 5-amino-1mq, so I send three vials of every batch of 5-amino-1mq I buy from them out to AFI to get them tested myself (I typically post the results here as a community service) so I can get that data. Good news is: those tests have always in my experience come back golden. Boosts confidence (at least in me). I still do it every time I order 5-amino-1mq.

One of the things to realize is that (reasonable) skepticism is a community service. We've seen dramatic improvement in testing of peptides over time precisely because the customer community demands it, and rewards companies that do it better with their business. This lifts all boats. Which is a round about way of saying: good on you for asking the question, and I hope you have found my answer helpful

@afkar7 It's probably better to think about this in parts:

1. Can you be researching too many peptides at once?
2. Can you introduce too many peptides to close together?
3. Are there some peptides you shouldn't research at the same time?

I consider "Can you be researching too many peptides at once?" to be something of a matter of personal choice/opinion. I personally choose not to research to many at once. Part of that is about too many peptides at once, part of it is also about finding that more than about six pins at a time starts feeling like a lot of work to me.

There are good pragmatic reasons to answer "yes" to "Can you introduce too many peptides to close together?". Peptides sometimes have side effects that can be quite personal to the user. For me a peptide might work great and for you it might not and might introduce a side effect. If you start peptides (or at least new ones) one at a time... you have a pretty good idea of which one is producing an effect (or at least a better idea).

As to "Are there some peptides you shouldn't research at the same time?" - there are a lot of peptides that hit the same receptors and so you probably don't want to use them together. For example while there are exceptions, you probably want to stick to one GLP-1 at a time. Or one GRSH (Growth Hormone Stimulating Hormone) peptide at a time. At the very least you want a really well thought out reason to be hammering the same pathways with multiple peptides.

Hope that helps

@peptidepete - take all of this with a grain of salt as my background is in physics, not chemistry.

Also, just to be clear: your body your rules Just thought it might be useful to someone to see how one semi-misguided physicist thought about the issue

I always consider copper toxicity. But I don't fear it, I evaluate my risk.

If one trusts wikipedia then GHKCU has a molecular mass of 340.38 g/mol and a chemical formula of C14H24N6O4 - the important detail from which is that it has one Cu atom. Copper's atomic weight is 63.546 - meaning that's roughly the contribution of that single copper atom to the molecular mass of GHKCU.

So GHKCU is 64.546/340.38 = 0.1896292379 % copper by mass. Lets call it 19% for conversational purposes.

So 10mg per day of GHKCU is ~1.9mg of copper per day.

So the question is: is that a lot? is it enough to cause copper toxicity?

NIH recommendations for copper intake are about 0.9 mg per day. Please note that is likely for food... which means you would need to consider absorption (zinc competes). Please also note you get copper from your food as well.

So off the cuff - I'd worry enough to look deeper about taking 10 mg of GHKCU (1.9 mg of copper) per day. Panic - no. But I'd look more deeply into issues of bioaccumulation, how badly NIH is lowballing copper recommendation, absorption rate corrections for the NIH's recommendation etc.

Please note: I do take 2mg per day of GHKCU - but that 380 mcg (0.38 mg) doesn't worry me particularly.

I have seen it alleged in several places (sadly without adequate sourcing) that the 10-20mg dosing was for Epithalamin (the pineal gland extract) not Epitalon (the synthetic peptide derived from what was found in Epithalamin) and thus the dosage for Epitalon should be much smaller.

Does anyone have references or data to help disambiguate here? Or am I mistakenly repeating unfounded rumors?

I'm currently doing 5mg M,W,F. Please though, for the love of God titrate up to that dose slowly. There is an unusual, but not rare, histamine reaction in some folks that can get as far as anaphylaxis. I've never had that issue, but the safest way is to start low and slow and work up and keep some liquid benadryl or an epipen close at hand just in case.

@pep_researcher @newenough I kind of split the difference... @pep_researcher is entirely right about the native default capabilities of folks. I myself shudder in terror (for their safety) when I encounter the normal persons ability to math around this stuff. But I've also repeatedly encountered folks who are making a genuine reach into which they invest effort to try to uplevel themselves to be responsible participants in this endeavor. I'm a sucker for folks who are reaching. It's why I periodically put effort into detailed walk throughs of how to think about re-constitution... because a lot of folks are reaching, and are plenty smart enough in principle to play, but have been so mis-served by our education system they are not out-of-the-box equipped... so you help them uplevel.

We all get by with a little help from our friends...

@myb I have a bunch of that batch as well. I haven't started using it yet, but I did sent three vials out for independent testing (I didn't like Janoshik's lack of purity testing). Came back 99.7% pure. Also ran heavy metal and sterility testing... came back clean on those too.

@jborja Its a bit of a mess. Rumor is that Paramount is supplied by Alpha Biomed, but Paramount effectively provides zero COAs... so you have no idea what you are getting. Rumor has it Biolongevity Labs is also supplied by Alpha Biomed, and they do provide COAs.

A big part of it is really where you choose to put your trust. Suppliers like Nexaph (which supplies EZ Peptides) provide COAs for purity and mass, and have communities that also provide additional testing for each batch from vials shipped to those customers from that batch. This still requires you to trust that (a) they are telling the truth about batches and (b) purity/mass is more or less consistent within the batch.

Paramount requires you to trust that Alpha Biomed is supplying them with stuff that is 'ok' for some unknown definition of that... I find that super wishy washy. Do I trust Chinese supplies? No. But I also don't trust US suppliers a priori either. I trust a bit more tests and incentives. That's where the Nexaph (and by extension EZ Peptides) makes me more comfortable. Because their community tests the vials they actually ship out in the batch, and Nexaph doesn't have a good way to influence that, there is a decent probability they'd be caught if they did anything shady (and they know it). Hopefully that holds and they keep being a good supplier (as has been pointed out... suppliers can go bad quickly... Paramount used to provide COAs for example).

@WesEqualshXc It also reduces (but does not eliminate) the possibility that Nexaph is shipping multiple batches under a single batches testing, because effectively the vials being tested are randomized across all the vials they send out under a given batch ID. Its all a statistical game, but the probabilities are better with Nexaph than with many others.

I am generally a fan of Nexaph, and use them for many many things... but one thing I'm not a fan of is certain compounds (like 5-amino-1mq) Janoshik does not offer purity tests for (only mass tests) and since Nexaph exclusively uses Janoshik (for reasons I broadly agree with) I don't personally trust those tests. So I run my own. And what I can say is that at least for 5-amino-1mq not only do the third party tests I've commissioned directly via Analytic Formulations come back at excellent purity and acceptable (to me) mass (a bit overfilled, but manageable) but also are clean on sterility, heavy metals, and endotoxins.

Again, its a statistical game, so take that simply as more data points to add into the risk tolerance computation

For folks who are interested, I tested for purity (and mass, and sterility, and heavy metals) the 5-amino-1mq I got from Nexaph (batch AMINOMQ5001242026-02 ) and these where the results. Clean on all counts!

@radasaurus Here's what I've seen so far from Nexaph. Fennrick doesn't like them because Fennrick weights heavily whether the sample's mass matches the label. Nexaph tends to overfill a bit. If that's a problem for someone, then they probably shouldn't use Nexaph. It is however a very common problem, and I've rarely found a vendor who doesn't have it.

What I do know is I've run my own testing on two different batches of their 5-amino-1mq. I choose to do this specifically for 5-amino-1mq because Nexaph runs all of their testing through Jashonik. For 5-amino-1mq Jashonik doesn't provide purity testing. I'm a bit of a stickler on wanting purity testing.. so for each of two batches of their 5-amino-1mg I ran three vials from each batch through Analytic Formulations for testing for mass, purity, heavy metals, endotoxins, and sterility. Passed on all counts with flying colors.

I don't do my own testing for everything I buy from them. But I do have their COAs, and on telegram the community donates vials they have received from batches ordered from Nexaph for testing as well... and so I have those COAs as well.

Is it perfect: absolutely not. I could point out to you at great lengths the potential weaknesses in the chain that could be exploited by a vendor who is actively seeking to cheat you. Is it better than what I get from a telehealth vendor working with a compounding pharmacy: enormously (try finding dosages or any proof of them meeting standards on their websites... I'll wait).

I'm a trust but verify kind of person. I've got the training and background to make decent (not good, but decent) risk evaluations based on data. I trust Nexaph exactly as far as I can verify them. That said... I feel better about their verification than I do about most folks.

I have to say... my only complaint about Nexaph is the small number of things I'd like to buy they don't carry

@researchcat another big question is "what are you testing". For example, I test monthly:

Copper RBC - to make sure I'm not overdoing my GHKCU

Zinc RBC - to track my efforts to raise my seriously low Zinc via supplementation

CMP (Comprehensive Metabolic Panel) - tracks kidney and liver health - its cheap, and those organs are critically important

IGF-1 - important if you are going to mess with growth hormone related peptides

Pancreative Function Test (Amylase and Lipase) - this one is super important if you are on any GLP-1 peptide - pancreatic issues on those peptides is a known side effect and if you get that side effect, it can hospitalize you and do serious serious harm. Most folks don't get it... but much better to catch early.

I get these pretty cheaply at Ulta Labs

For glutathione try a concentration of ~200 mg/ml. For a ~1500mg vial that would mean ~ 7.5ml of bac water. @randy has a video showing how to do such dilutions for GHKCU here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TV2OBcQsTD8

@myb thank you for sharing that info. I'd had the vague notion that reta improved kidney disease... but admit to not having chased it down thoroughly.

One other thing to be aware of (you probably know, but others may not) is there are two ways to measure eGFR - the traditional computes it from Creatinine and the other from cystatin c. Cystatin C is usually considered to be more reliable... but always run it with inflammation markers like hscrp. The reason is that cystatin C can be thrown off by chronic inflammation in a way that will tank the eGFR calculated from it. I usually run both for this reason.

I am going to presume here you mean 1 click on a peptide injection pen similar to the v2's sold on peptide critic.

I'm also going to talk you through how getting the answer works before pointing you to the peptide calculator. The calculator is extremely helpful, but if you understand what is going on, its easier to catch your own errors.

Each click of a peptide pen represents 0.01 ml (one hundredth of a milliliter), typically called a 'unit'. The v2 can click up to 60 units, which would be 0.6 ml (60/100 milliliters).

But your question wasn't about volume (milliliters) it was about mass (milligrams).

When you receive a vial it typically has printed on the label the number of milligrams (mg) in the vial. Be cautious with this, as many vendors overfill (or, less commonly underfill) their vials. So if a vial says it contains 10mg, it might contain 12.4 mg, or 9.6 mg (or some other value). You can get a sense for what the likely mass in the vial is by looking at its COA, which will generally include that information. Its important to realize that even the COA isn't perfect on that count though, as its only measuring the vials from the batch that were provided, and so while it can be generally indicative, its not gospel. If multiple vials from the batch are reported tested on the COA, and their reported masses are close, you can be slightly more confident that the variation between the vials tested and your vial are small.

When you reconstitute a vial of peptides, you add some volume of a reconstitution fluid, typically bacteriostatic water.

This results in a concentration of peptides (mg/ml). So for the sake of example, if you had a 10mg vial and added 1 milliliter (ml) of water to the vial to reconstitute, your concentration would be: 10 mg / 1 ml = 10 mg/ml.

So how do you get to the 'click' (unit) amount in mg. Well, 1 ml = 100 units. So a concentration in mg/ml = mg/(100 units).

So in our example with a 10mg/ml concentration, that would be 10mg/ml = 10mg/(100 units) = 0.1 mg/unit.

In practice, people often work backwards from the dose they want to insure its a round number of units that is easy to remember. For example, if you wanted a 0.5 mg dose (500 micrograms(mcg)) of your peptide, and you find 10 units (10 clicks) a convenient round number, you'd want

concentration * 10 units = 0.5 mg

since 10 units is 0.1 ml that means

concentration * 0.1 ml = 0.5 mg

so

concentration = 0.5 mg/ 0.1 ml = 5 mg / ml

If your vial was 10 mg, that means you'd add 2 ml of reconstitution solution to it to your vial.

Peptide Critic has been kind enough to provide a calculator to help you do the computations:

https://peptidecritic.com/peptides/peptide-calculator

@steve I have since successfully reconstituted ARA-290 at a 1 mg/ 10 units concentration with BAC water. No gelling up or other issues.

@Blazer Let's walk through the math slowly.

You added 2 ml of bac water to a 20mg vial. So your concentration is 20mg/2ml = 10mg/ml.

You then transferred it to a pen.

Pen (and insulin syringe) units/clicks are 0.01 ml - 1/100th of a ml.

10mg/ml = 10 mg / (1ml * (100 units/ml)) = 10mg/100 units = 0.1 mg/unit

10 units at that concentration would be 10 units *0.1mg/unit = 1 mg

(I personally find it easier to think of the concentration as 0.1 mg/unit = 1 mg/ 10 units).

Does any of that help?

@peptidepete - totally agree. That's why I also run copper rbc to try to capture cellular copper levels as well

Speaking of which UltaLabs is a super easy (and cheap... often cheaper than with insurance) way to run your own lab tests. I'm checking my copper rbc (along with many other things) monthly currently. I don't expect to see it go out of range... but I'm cautious

Good to run standard liver and kidney markers as well... I recently discovered that way I was getting a little too happy with the glutathione, and paradoxically if you take that one to far, your liver enzymes can get grumpy... so I have backed off.

@diegoc For the moment I've cut out my glutathione subq until my next monthly blood work shows my liver enzymes go back to normal. That would confirm my hypothesis and allow me to look at some re-introduction. Previously I'd been doing ~ 50mg morning and evening daily (100mg per day) and biweekly 1200mg glutathione IVs. In retrospect that dosing was always probably pushing things... but it was one of the things I could feel immediately in my body positively, so I got carried away

As to the 2mg vs 10mg of GHKCU. I've never gone about 2mg per day, so I can't speak to the 10mg utility (that's a question for @peptidepete ). I am doing the 2mg per day for general healing and skin and hair. I have received complements since starting it on my skin appearance, but I also have a lot of other things in motion positively, so am reluctant to solely ascribe that to GHKCU.