Format
Decision guides
How to choose, when it fits, and the trade-offs to weigh.
13 articles
Growth hormone and recoveryDAC vs no DAC — what the half-life difference means in practiceYou've done enough reading to know there are two versions. CJC-1295 with DAC and CJC-1295 without DAC — also called Mod GRF 1-29, also called Modified GRF 1-29, also found in enough abbreviations and vendor names that the nomenclature itself starts to feel like a test. You've probably seen protocols recommending one and protocols recommending the other, sometimes with confidence that feels disproportionate to the evidence available. The distinction between them is real and pharmacologically significant. But it's a trade-off, not a verdict.7 min readHormonal and endocrineGH peptides vs TRT — picking the right intervention for the right deficit (men)You don't feel the way you used to feel, and you've been patient about it. Not dramatically worse — nothing that sends you to urgent care — but the baseline has shifted. Recovery takes longer. Sleep isn't as restorative as it should be. The body you used to maintain with modest effort now requires more and returns less. Libido has quieted in a way that feels like more than circumstance. Your energy through the afternoon has become something you manage rather than something you have. You've read enough to know that two categories of intervention keep appearing in the conversation: testosterone replacement therapy and growth hormone peptides. You want to understand which one — if either — addresses what you're actually dealing with.10 min readMetabolic healthMicrodose vs full-dose GLP-1 — picking the right intensity for the right goalYou've done the reading. You know GLP-1 receptor agonists exist. You know they work. But the conversation around them — the before-and-afters, the celebrity speculation, the prescribing provider ads — all seems to point at one thing: the full dose, the dramatic weight loss, the transformation narrative. And that's not quite what you're looking for. Or maybe it is, and you're not sure. You're trying to figure out whether the intensity of the intervention matches the intensity of your situation, and nobody has given you a framework for that.7 min readCompounding and complianceOral vs injectable peptide bioavailability — what the route actually changesYou found a peptide you're interested in and then you found what appears to be an oral version of it, and the oral version is cheaper and obviously more convenient and you'd rather not inject yourself if you can avoid it. Before you order the capsules, there's a question worth asking. Not a rhetorical question. A pharmacological one: does this compound actually survive the trip from your mouth to your bloodstream in any meaningful quantity?6 min readImmune modulationOral vs IV vs SubQ glutathione — what the evidence actually supportsYou've been reading about glutathione for a while now. The word shows up in detox conversations, anti-aging conversations, skin health conversations, chronic illness conversations, and functional medicine consultations. Everyone seems to agree it's important. What nobody seems to agree on is how to actually get it into your body — or whether most of the ways people try actually work. You're trying to decide between a daily oral supplement, periodic IV infusions, a subcutaneous injection protocol, or just ignoring the entire category and moving on. The decision deserves a cleaner framework than most of what's available.7 min readRecovery and inflammationPeptides vs PRP vs bone marrow aspirate concentrate — picking regenerative interventionsYour knee has been telling you something for six months. Or your Achilles. Or the rotator cuff that never quite finished healing from the incident three years ago. You've done physical therapy, you've been patient, the imaging shows something your orthopedist calls "degenerative changes" or "partial tearing" or "tendinosis," and now you're in a conversation about regenerative options. Three names keep appearing: PRP, BMAC, and peptides. You want to understand what each one actually is, what the evidence says, and how to think about which one — if any — makes sense for what you're dealing with.10 min readCompounding and complianceWhen to choose peptides vs traditional approaches — the meta-decision frameworkYou've been reading about peptides long enough that you've started wondering whether you're looking at a legitimate part of modern medicine or a sophisticated version of the supplement industry's tendency to package hope in molecular language. That skepticism is healthy. It's also incomplete. The honest answer is that peptides occupy a real but specifically bounded place in the clinical landscape, and the question isn't whether they belong there — they do — but when they're the right tool and when something else is.9 min readRecovery and inflammationPeptides vs exosomes — what's different and what's similarYou've been told two different things by two different practitioners. One says peptides — specific molecules, specific mechanisms, compounds that have been studied long enough to have something to say about. The other says exosomes — nanovesicles carrying a rich cargo of cellular signals, a newer and more complex tool, something closer to the regenerative medicine that's been making headlines. Both practitioners sound confident. The price tags are very different. The question you're left with is what the difference actually is, what the evidence actually says, and how to think about which one makes sense for what you're dealing with.10 min readMetabolic healthPeptides vs fasting and fasting mimetics — overlapping or distinct?You're trying to build a metabolic optimization approach and you've arrived at a crossroads that nobody's mapped very clearly. On one side: fasting, in its various forms, with decades of research and a straightforward mechanistic story. On the other side: a collection of compounds — some pharmaceutical, some peptide, some nutritional — that appear to produce some of the same effects without requiring you to stop eating. The question isn't really which one is better. The question is what they're each doing, where they overlap, and how to think about the whole category before you decide what belongs in your life.9 min readAnti-aging and cellular healthPeptides vs rapamycin for longevity — the decision frameworkYou're trying to decide where to start. You've read enough to know that the longevity pharmacology space has more than one lane, that something called rapamycin exists and appears in research conversations with unusual frequency, and that peptides occupy a different part of the landscape. What you haven't found is a direct comparison that treats both honestly — where the evidence is strong, where it's speculative, and how to think about the choice rather than just hand you a preference.9 min readCompounding and compliancePeptides vs supplements — when to escalate and when supplements are enoughYou've been taking supplements for years. Vitamin D, fish oil, magnesium, maybe a B-complex, possibly a few things you found in the back of a cabinet whose original purpose you've half-forgotten. You feel generally okay but not quite the way you want to feel, and the gap between okay and genuinely functional has started to seem like something worth addressing more deliberately. Someone mentions peptides. You pull up some information, the mechanisms sound compelling, the protocols look complex and clinical and you're not sure if you're ready for that, and you're also not sure if what you've been doing is actually covering the territory you think it's covering.10 min readGrowth hormone and recoveryPicking your GH secretagogue — Sermorelin, Ipamorelin, CJC, MK-677, HexarelinYou've read enough to know that exogenous HGH isn't what you're looking for — too blunt, too much regulatory weight, too far outside physiological range for what you're trying to accomplish. You've landed in secretagogue territory, and now the confusion has moved one level deeper. Sermorelin. Ipamorelin. CJC-1295. MK-677. Hexarelin. People in serious clinical peptide practices and people on bodybuilding forums use these names interchangeably in ways that suggest they're all equivalent options, when in fact they operate through different mechanisms, have different half-lives, different side-effect profiles, and are appropriate for meaningfully different goals.10 min readMetabolic healthSema vs Tirz vs Retatrutide — picking your incretinYou've been told there are options now. Your provider mentioned semaglutide, then mentioned tirzepatide, then someone in the waiting room mentioned something called retatrutide, and you left with three names written on your phone and no clear sense of which one is actually right for you. The differences are not cosmetic. The mechanism, the evidence base, the regulatory status, and the practical access path diverge in ways that matter — and chasing the highest weight-loss number from a clinical trial abstract is not the same as making the right decision for your specific situation.10 min read