Jayden Clark first heard about Chinese peptides at his Fourth of July party last year.

傑登·克拉克第一次聽說「中國肽」是在去年的獨立日派對上。

In the backyard of a San Francisco Victorian, tech workers in their 20s and 30s chatted against the backdrop of sunshine, grilled meats and a big American flag. One artificial intelligence founder mentioned buying cheap drugs directly from Chinese manufacturers. A group soon formed around him, jumping into the conversation to share their own sources for the medication they use for weight loss, productivity and fitness.

在舊金山一棟維多利亞式宅邸的後院裡，一些二三十歲的科技從業者在陽光下圍聚在一起烤肉，現場還有一面巨大的美國國旗。一家人工智慧企業的創始人提到自己直接從中國廠商購買藥物，價格低廉。人群迅速圍攏過來，爭相分享自己獲取用於減肥、提高效率和健身等各種藥物的管道。

Clark, 27, had lived through several injection crazes in the bodybuilding community (he’s a self-proclaimed “gym bro” who posts under the social platform X username @creatine_cycle), but was surprised to hear them talked about by the AI crowd.

27歲的克拉克在健身圈見過各種注射潮（他自稱「健身宅男」，社交平台X上的帳戶是@creatine_cycle），但聽到AI圈的人也在談論這些，還是讓他很驚訝。

“Something i have learned over this long weekend in SF is that the elites all have a chinese peptide dealer,” Clark, who hosts a podcast on tech culture, posted on X. The term “Chinese peptides” quickly became a meme.

「這個在舊金山度過的長週末讓我學到一件事：那些精英們都有自己的中國肽供應商。」主持一檔科技文化播客的克拉克在X上發文寫道。「中國肽」這個說法很快就變成了一個網路熱梗。

Gray-market peptides have flooded some corners of the tech scene recently, showing up in hacker houses, startup offices and even “peptide raves” sponsored by suppliers. One recent event at Frontier Tower in San Francisco featured a mix-your-own peptides workshop, a DJ playing techno with chemistry structures projected in the background and a dress code calling for “crazy futuristic cyberpunk attire.”

從「駭客之家」到創業公司的辦公室，甚至還有由供應商贊助的「肽派對」，灰色市場的肽類產品最近席捲科技圈的各個角落。最近在舊金山Frontier大廈舉辦的一場活動上，還有一個自己調配肽的工作坊，現場DJ播放泰克諾電子舞曲的同時，背景螢幕上投射著化學結構式，這場派對的著裝要求是「瘋狂的未來賽博龐克風服裝」。

Peptides are short chains of amino acids that regulate hormones and reduce inflammation in the human body. They are best known as the P in GLP-1s — the class of drugs that includes Ozempic and Wegovy, which have transformed the weight-loss industry by mimicking a hormone that suppresses appetite.

肽是由氨基酸組成的短鏈分子，在人體內起到調節激素和減少炎症的作用。它們最廣為人知的身份是GLP-1藥物中的那個「P」——這類藥物包括諾和泰(Ozempic)和韋戈維(Wegovy)等減肥神藥，它們通過模擬一種抑制食慾的激素，徹底改變了減肥行業。

But on Silicon Valley’s frontiers, a wider array of unproven, unregulated peptides has taken hold: People are trying BPC-157 and TB-500 for healing injuries by stimulating new blood vessel growth, oxytocin for improving eye contact (one OpenAI researcher called it “Ozempic for autism”), epitalon for sleep and retatrutide — a next-generation weight-loss drug still in clinical trials — for everything from appetite suppression to increased focus.

但在矽谷的前沿地帶，一系列未經證實、缺乏監管的肽製劑悄然盛行：人們嘗試用BPC-157和TB-500通過刺激新血管生長癒合損傷，用催產素來改善眼神交流（OpenAI的一名研究員稱其為「自閉症患者的諾和泰」），用埃皮塔隆(epitalon)改善睡眠，還用仍處於臨床試驗階段的下一代減肥藥瑞他魯肽(retatrutide)來達到從抑制食慾到提升專注力等各種目的。

According to U.S. customs data, imports of hormone and peptide compounds from China roughly doubled to $328 million in the first three quarters of 2025, from $164 million in the same period of 2024. This includes demand for GLPs, melanotan II, and other peptides from compounding pharmacies and gray-market suppliers.

根據美國海關的數據，2025年前三個季度從中國進口的激素和肽類化合物總額約為3.28億美元，幾乎是2024年同期1.64億美元的兩倍。這其中包括調配藥房和灰色市場供應商對GLP類藥物、美拉諾坦II以及其他肽製劑的的需求。

Aside from the GLP-1s for weight loss, none have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration to sell for human use. Pharmaceutical companies have been reluctant to invest in peptide trials, given that most are easy to manufacture and don’t directly target a disease. These conditions have fostered a thriving gray market.

除了用於減肥的GLP-1類藥物，其餘肽製劑均未獲得美國食品藥品監督管理局批准用於人體。由於多數肽類易於合成且不直接針對特定疾病，製藥公司對相關臨床試驗投資意願不足，這催生了繁榮的灰色市場。

At one New York City meetup of biohackers — people who experiment with regimens and supplements to improve their body’s performance — “each week someone will bring something new, and everyone will inject it,” said David Petersen, a tech investor and co-founder of the logistics unicorn Flexport. “It looks like a bunch of heroin addicts,” he joked. He has been using peptides since 2018, and credits epitalon with adding “an hour and a half” of sleep, and melanotan, which increases melanin production, with curing his rosacea.

科技投資人、物流業獨角獸Flexport的聯合創始人戴維·彼得森描述紐約的生物駭客（所謂生物駭客，是指通過各種養生法和補充劑來提升身體機能的人）聚會場景時稱：「每週都有人帶來新玩意兒，大家就會集體注射。」他開玩笑說：「看起來像一群海洛因癮君子。」自2018年使用肽製劑以來，他聲稱埃皮塔隆為自己每晚增加了「一個半小時」睡眠，而促進黑色素生成的美拉諾坦(melanotan)治癒了他的酒渣鼻。

The FDA has warned that many peptides pose “serious safety risks” because of potential impurities and immune reactions. It has also barred pharmacies from compounding them, though enforcement is uneven.

美國食品藥品監督管理局警告稱，許多肽類因可能含有雜質並引發免疫反應而存在「嚴重的安全風險」。該機構也已禁止藥房對它們進行復配，儘管執法力度參差不齊。

Personal use is legal, though most doctors advise against it. “It’s unfounded and reckless,” said Dr. Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, a research center focused on individualized medicine.

個人使用肽製劑在美國屬合法行為，但多數醫生持反對態度。「這既缺乏依據又極為輕率，」斯凱瑞普斯轉化醫學研究所所長埃里克·托波爾博士表示。該機構是以精準醫療為核心的研究中心。

Experimental peptide injections occasionally result in medical emergencies. In July, two women were hospitalized with swollen tongues, breathing difficulties and an increased heart rate after getting peptide injections at an anti-aging festival in Las Vegas. It’s unclear what specific peptides they received.

實驗性肽注射偶爾會導致醫療緊急情況。去年7月，兩名女性在拉斯維加斯抗衰老節接受肽注射後，因出現舌頭腫脹、呼吸困難及心率加速而送醫治療，她們具體注射了哪種肽尚不明確。

Still, for some in the tech world, using peptides is a form of faith in the possibility of infinite self-optimization. Clark said peptides, to some, offered tantalizing shortcuts: “Why be really consistent at the gym for six weeks if I could instead work 16 hours at my research job?”

儘管如此，對部分科技界人士而言，使用肽製劑體現了對無限自我優化可能性的信念。克拉克指出，在某些人看來，肽製劑提供了誘人的捷徑：「如果我可以每天在研究工作中乾16個小時，何必在健身房苦練六週？"

But it also reveals a Silicon Valley mindset in which some believe that — as innovators shaping our world — they don’t need guidance from federal regulators or medical doctors because they’re doing their own experimentation.

這同時折射出矽谷的一種思維模式——有些人認為，既然他們是塑造世界的創新者，他們就無需聯邦監管機構或醫學專家的指導，因為他們這是在進行自己的實驗。

The drugs can be purchased directly from factories in China, the world’s peptide manufacturing hub, or through the websites of U.S. intermediaries that import and test them. They arrive in powders in vials labeled “for research use only,” but the warning is a thin legal fiction. Users mix the peptides with sterile water and inject themselves, often with insulin syringes bought from Amazon.

這些藥物可以直接從中國的工廠購買（中國是全球肽製劑的製造中心），也可以通過美國中介網站購買，這些中介負責進口並進行檢測。肽製劑到貨時以粉末形式裝在小瓶裡，上面標著「僅供研究使用」，但這類警示只是法律上的遮羞布。使用者將肽粉與無菌水混合後自行注射，通常用的是從亞馬遜買來的胰島素注射器。

The economics of off-market peptides are undoubtedly appealing. Prescription GLPs like Ozempic (semaglutide) and Zepbound (tirzepatide) could cost more than $1,000 per month until fairly recently, while the “research use” equivalents went for one-fifth the cost.

灰色市場肽製劑的經濟吸引力毋庸置疑。直到不久前，像諾和泰和替西泊肽(Zepbound)這樣的處方GLP類藥物每月可能要花1000多美元，而「研究使用」的替代品只要五分之一的價格。

​Online advertising of unauthorized peptide formulations grew nearly eightfold from 2022-24, said Gerard Olson, director of research at LegitScript, a firm that tracks problematic online marketing of pharmaceutical and other products. Dr. Paul Abramson, a concierge doctor in San Francisco, said he had seen a big uptick in peptide use in 2025, especially among young men in the tech industry.

據追蹤醫藥產品違規網路營銷的LegitScript公司研究主管傑拉德·奧爾森透露，未經授權的肽類製劑的網路廣告在2022年到2024年間增長了近八倍。舊金山的私人醫生保羅·艾布拉姆森博士表示，他發現2025年肽類使用量顯著上升，尤其在科技行業的年輕男性群體中。

While weight loss is still the most popular driver of peptide use, patients are microdosing — taking very small amounts of — GLPs with the hope that it will help them combat other vices: alcoholism, excessive video game playing or online shopping. There are no clinical trials supporting microdosing, though anecdotal accounts are enticing to some.

雖然減肥仍是肽使用最主要的驅動力，但部分患者正嘗試微劑量GLP-1療法——期望通過極小劑量對抗其他成癮行為：酒精依賴、過度電玩遊戲或網路購物。儘管尚無臨床試驗支持微劑量療法的有效性，但個例傳聞對某些人來說很有誘惑力。

“It just seems to be this obsession with cognitive maxxing,” said Clark, who remains a peptide skeptic.

「這看起來就是一種對『認知極限拉滿』的痴迷，」對肽類仍持懷疑態度的克拉克說。

Anelya Grant, 41, is a co-founder of an AI billing startup by day and an amateur peptide blogger by night. She began microdosing semaglutide in 2023 when a friend suggested that it could mitigate work-induced stress eating. She said it was so effective that she had dived into a rabbit hole of personal peptide research.

41歲的安妮婭·格蘭特白天是AI計費初創公司的聯合創始人，夜晚則化身業餘肽類部落客。2023年，在朋友指出GLP-1藥物可以緩解工作壓力引發的暴食後，她開始微劑量注射司美格魯肽。她稱效果顯著，自此墜入個人肽研究的"兔子洞"。

After consulting a sports performance doctor, Grant added five more peptides to her regimen: MOTS-c, epitalon, GHK-Cu, Ipamorelin and Kisspeptin-10. Their hoped-for health benefits include better metabolism, muscle growth, skin, sleep, energy and hormone regulation. She orders them directly from Chinese manufacturers, which charge $50 to $100 per kit (one-tenth what FDA-approved U.S. labs charge), then pays an extra $250 to send them to Janoshik Analytics, a lab in the Czech Republic, for purity testing.

在諮詢了一位運動表現醫生後，格蘭特又在自己的方案中加入了另外五種肽：MOTS-c、埃皮塔隆、GHK-Cu、伊帕瑞林(Ipamorelin)和親吻肽-10(Kisspeptin-10)。她期望它們能改善新陳代謝、促進肌肉增長、改善皮膚狀況、提升睡眠質量、增強精力以及激素調節等。她直接從中國製造商那裡訂購這些產品，每套價格在50到100美元之間（只有美國經食品藥品監督管理局批准實驗室價格的十分之一），然後再額外花250美元把樣品寄到捷克的一家實驗室Janoshik Analytics進行純度檢測。

Asked if she had any background in biology, she laughed. “Absolutely no,” she said. Like many fellow peptide enthusiasts, she gets her information primarily from word-of-mouth testimonials, Reddit threads, podcasts and conversations with ChatGPT. “It’s another thing I can tweak in addition to my SEO,” she said.

當被問到是否有生物學背景時，她笑了。「完全沒有，」她說。像許多肽愛好者一樣，她主要從口耳相傳的經驗、Reddit討論串、播客以及和ChatGPT的對話中獲取信息。「這就像優化搜索引擎排名，不過是另一個可供調試的參數，」她說。

Several other founders analogized their openness to untested peptides to their tolerance for business risk.

還有幾位創始人把自己對未經測試的肽製劑的開放態度，比作他們對商業風險的容忍。

Abramson, whom Grant interviewed for a post on her blog, was less convinced. “The entrepreneurial parallel isn’t funding a scrappy startup,” he said to her. “It’s wiring money to an unregistered offshore entity based on a pitch deck.”

格蘭特在部落格文章中採訪過的艾布拉姆森對此持保留意見。他對她說：「這不像投資一家有衝勁的初創公司，更像是憑一份炫酷的融資演示稿，就把錢匯給未註冊的離岸空殼公司。」

Topol, who has covered these trends in his Substack newsletter about medical misinformation, worries that people are extrapolating from the success of GLP-1s to dozens of untested, unrelated peptides, exposing themselves to contamination and long-term health risks in the process.

托波爾在其關於醫療虛假信息的Substack通訊專欄中報導這類趨勢，擔憂人們會將GLP-1類藥物的成功盲目套用到數十種未經測試、毫無關聯的肽類藥物上，在此過程中使自身暴露於藥物污染和長期健康風險之下。

“‘Do your own research’ has lots of dangers,” Topol said. “If they really were good citizen scientists, they would know what the criteria are: randomized, placebo-controlled trials; peer-reviewed publications independent of the company. We don’t have any of those studies for most of these peptides.”

「『自行研究』這種做法暗藏諸多隱患，」托波爾表示。「如果他們真的算得上合格的公民科學家，就該清楚科學驗證的標準是什麼：隨機安慰劑對照試驗、與藥企無利益關聯的同行評審論文。而絕大多數這類肽類藥物，都沒有經過任何此類研究的驗證。」

Topol identifies the root cause of such amateur biohacking as growing distrust of the medical establishment, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. Where people have lost trust in the FDA, wellness influencers such as Andrew Huberman and Joe Rogan have brought experimental peptide use into the mainstream, in Rogan’s case while being sponsored by Ways2Well, a company selling “clinician-supervised peptide therapy.”

托波爾指出，這種業餘生物駭客行為的根源，在於公眾對醫療機構的信任度日漸下降，新冠疫情後，這種不信任感更是愈演愈烈。在人們對FDA失去信任的背景下，安德魯·休伯曼、喬·羅根等健康領域網紅將實驗性肽類藥物的使用推向了主流。其中羅根本人還接受推銷「臨床醫生監督肽類療法」的Ways2Well公司贊助。

In an X post in October 2024, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is now secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, pledged to end the “aggressive suppression” of peptides. (The FDA under President Joe Biden took enforcement action against some peptide sellers.) But while the Trump administration has approved Wegovy’s pill form after adding oral GLP-1s to the FDA’s priority review list, it hasn’t taken action to deregulate other types of peptides. An HHS spokesperson said the agency “cannot comment on future policy decisions.”

2024年10月，現任美國衛生與公眾服務部部長小羅伯特·F·甘迺迪在社交平台X上發文，承諾將終止對肽類藥物的「強行打壓」。（拜登政府執政期間，FDA曾對部分肽類藥物銷售商採取過執法行動。）不過，儘管川普政府將口服GLP-1類藥物納入FDA優先審評名單，並批准了Wegovy的片劑形式，但尚未對其他類型肽類藥物採取放寬監管的措施。衛生與公眾服務部的一名發言人表示，該部門「無法對未來的政策決策發表評論」。

One 29-year-old startup founder had been taking prescription GLP-1s for nearly two years. Her weight dropped, but it came with frequent depressive swings. “I couldn’t get out of bed and work,” she said. (She spoke on the condition of anonymity because she worried that her use of the drugs would affect her career prospects. Biohackers who are addressing their productivity generally seemed more comfortable speaking publicly than those trying to lose weight, suggesting more stigma around the latter.)

一位29歲的創業公司創始人已使用處方GLP-1類藥物近兩年。用藥後她的體重有所下降，但副作用也隨之而來——頻繁出現情緒低落的波動。「我一度連起床工作都做不到。」她這樣說道。（出於擔心用藥經歷會影響職業前景，她要求匿名接受採訪。相較於減肥者，通過這類藥物提升工作效率的「生物駭客」們似乎更願意公開談論相關話題，這也反映出社會對減肥用藥的污名化程度更深。）

For the startup founder, the health benefits of weight loss were greater than the risks. She said she felt professional pressure to look good on camera. “I’ve been watching a ton of launch videos,” she said. “I definitely notice now that founders aren’t overweight.”

對這位創始人而言，減肥帶來的健康益處大於潛在風險。她坦言承受著職業壓力，必須在鏡頭前保持良好形象。「我看了大量發布會影片，」她說。「現在我明確發現，那些創始人裡幾乎沒有超重的人。」

Several off-label peptide users, including that founder, expressed excitement about what they saw as the Trump administration’s relatively laissez-faire approach to drug regulation. It echoes the sentiment of Silicon Valley leaders such as Balaji Srinivasan and Joe Lonsdale, who have accused FDA regulators of being overly cautious.

包括這位創始人在內，多名非適應症使用肽類藥物的人士都表示，川普政府在藥物監管方面���取的相對自由放任政策讓他們感到振奮。這一態度與巴拉吉·斯裡尼瓦桑、喬·朗斯代爾等矽谷領軍人物的觀點不謀而合，這些人曾指責FDA的監管機構過於謹慎。

Medical experts are frustrated by this mindset.

但這種心態讓醫學專家們深感挫敗。

“The point of the FDA is to protect patients and consumers from shady medical entrepreneurs who would sell unsuspecting people dangerous things,” said Dr. Aaron Kesselheim, a professor at Harvard Medical School and expert on medical regulation. “I think these people are doing things that are bad for their health based on the evidence, which is that there is none.”

「FDA的職責，就是保護患者與消費者免受無良醫療從業者的侵害——這些人會把危險產品賣給毫無防備的民眾，」哈佛醫學院教授、醫療監管領域專家亞倫·凱塞爾海姆博士表示。「我認為這些人正在做一些對自身健康有害的事情，我的依據就是：目前沒有任何證據證明這些東西是安全有效的。」

But from the startup founder’s point of view, “We might all be better off if we let the crazy people try the crazy peptides and filter down to the rest of us, instead of the system, which takes 10 years and is meant to protect everyone from everything.”

但從創業公司創始人的視角來看，「與其依靠這套耗時十年、試圖面面俱到保護所有人的體制，不如讓那些瘋子去嘗試這些新奇的肽類藥物，最終再讓成果惠及我們所有人。這樣一來，或許我們都會過得更好。」