How to read this field at all
6 guides · about 43 minutesBefore any particular compound: what a peptide actually is, how the names work, and how to tell a strong study from a weak one. If you read one path, read this one — the rest are easier afterwards.
1
Sets out what the library covers and what it deliberately does not, so you know what you are reading.
2
The object of study. Everything after this assumes you know what distinguishes a peptide from a protein and from a small-molecule drug.
3
Comes early on purpose: the naming conventions are the difference between reading a compound name and decoding one. Later guides use these names without explaining them again.
4
How to read a study — sample size, controls, what a p-value does and does not tell you. This is the skill the rest of the library depends on.
5
Applies that skill to the whole library at once, and shows how much of the field rests on animal work. The drop-off is the lesson.
6
Closes the loop on the evidence you will meet outside a journal. Placed last because it only makes sense once you know what the published standard looks like.
Metabolic research
6 guides · about 51 minutesThe most active area in peptide research, read in the order it actually developed — receptor family first, then one agonist at a time, then the comparison.
1
The receptor family underneath every compound in this path. Read alone, each drug looks like a separate story; read after this, they are one story.
2
The approved baseline the whole field is measured against. Every later compound is described in terms of how it differs from this one.
3
Adds a second receptor. The point of reading it after semaglutide is seeing what the second receptor actually bought.
4
Adds a third. The same question again, and the clearest illustration of why more receptors is not automatically better.
5
The direct comparison, which only works once all three are familiar. Reading it first would be memorising a table.
6
Where the research is heading, including the candidates that have not worked. Ends the path on the open questions rather than on a compound.
Recovery and tissue repair
6 guides · about 45 minutesThe most over-claimed corner of the field. This order puts the mechanism first so the individual compounds are read against it rather than against marketing.
1
What tissue repair involves biologically, and why it is hard to measure. Sets the standard the next four guides are held to.
2
The most discussed compound in the area and the one with the widest gap between claim and published human evidence.
3
Read after BPC-157 because the two are almost always discussed together, and the evidence bases are not equivalent.
4
The full protein TB-500 is a fragment of. Placed here because the relationship is the single most common point of confusion in this area.
5
A deliberately different case: a very short peptide with a narrow, specific mechanism. Useful contrast after three broad-claim compounds.
6
The comparison last, because a comparison is only informative once both sides have been read properly.
Longevity and bioregulators
6 guides · about 42 minutesThe Russian bioregulator literature is large, old, and mostly untranslated. This path builds the context needed to read it without either dismissing it or overstating it.
1
The framework. Without it the individual bioregulator guides read as a list of unrelated tissue extracts.
2
The most studied of them, and the one with the clearest claims to examine.
3
Same organ, different peptide. Read after Epitalon so the difference is visible rather than asserted.
4
Resolves the two directly. Placed after both, for the same reason every comparison in this library is.
5
Moves from the pineal to the thymus, showing the pattern generalises — or does not — across organ systems.
6
The methodological question hanging over the entire category: what was actually in the preparation being studied. Ends the path on the caveat rather than the compound.
Skin research
6 guides · about 43 minutesCosmetic peptides have more human data than most of the field and weaker effect sizes than the marketing suggests. Read in the order of what each one is actually claimed to do.
1
The chemistry first — copper complexes behave differently from ordinary peptides, and that difference explains the next guide.
2
The specific copper peptide the previous guide describes in general. The pairing is the point.
3
A signal peptide with a different mechanism entirely. Introduces the idea that "peptide" in skincare covers several unrelated strategies.
4
The third strategy — neurotransmitter inhibition — and the one whose claims are most often overstated. Read third so the contrast with the first two is available.
5
A recent entrant with a distinct rationale, useful for seeing how a newer claim is constructed and what evidence it arrives with.
6
Ends on the ingested rather than applied case, which is a different field with different evidence — and the most common thing readers conflate with everything above.