The Peptide Addict
METHODOLOGY

Methodology

How The Peptide Addict evaluates evidence, scores compounds, and separates signal from noise.

This page explains how The Peptide Addict produces its editorial content. If you want to challenge an assessment, this is the framework to challenge it against.

The four lenses

Every major article analyzes a compound, study, or market event across four separate dimensions:

  1. Evidence — What human evidence actually exists? How strong is it?
  2. Safety — What are the known risks? What's unknown?
  3. Legal and access reality — Is it approved, compounded, research-use, or prohibited? How does access actually work?
  4. Market integrity — Who profits from the story, and where are incentives distorting the narrative?

These are separated deliberately. The market conversation routinely collapses them. A compound can have interesting mechanistic evidence and be legally unavailable. It can be FDA-approved and still have a hype gap. It can be broadly safe and still be a bad choice for a specific person. Keeping the dimensions separate keeps the analysis honest.

The evidence ladder

When we evaluate a claim, we rank the source material against a strict hierarchy. Higher tiers outrank lower ones. Every time.

  1. Regulatory status, approved labeling, and official warnings
  2. Meta-analyses and systematic reviews of human trials
  3. Randomized controlled trials in humans
  4. Other human trials and observational data
  5. Mechanistic human biomarker data
  6. Animal studies
  7. In vitro studies
  8. Expert opinion
  9. Anecdotes, forums, and social media
  10. Vendor marketing

House rule: the lower the evidence tier, the stronger the caveat. Marketing copy does not count as evidence at any level.

A common error in peptide content is treating Tier 6 (animal studies) as if it were Tier 3 (randomized trials). We won't do that, and we'll flag it when other sites do.

The Peptide Addict Scorecard

Every major compound profile carries a visible scorecard across six dimensions:

  • Evidence strength — how strong is the overall evidence base?
  • Human data depth — specifically, how much human data exists?
  • Safety certainty — how well-characterized is the safety profile?
  • Regulatory clarity — is the legal status clear?
  • Access complexity — how simple or complex is the path to obtaining it?
  • Hype gap — how far does public enthusiasm exceed the quality of evidence?

Each dimension scores Very Low / Low / Moderate / High / Very High on a 1–5 internal scale. We publish the scorecard at the top of the article so readers can see the editorial assessment before reading the argument.

The hype gap dimension deserves special mention. It's our signature metric. A compound can have high popularity and low evidence — that's a high hype gap, and it's worth naming directly rather than hiding behind qualified language.

Source network

Our analysis draws on six intel streams:

  • Scientific — PubMed, Google Scholar, clinical trial registries, peer-reviewed review journals
  • Regulatory — FDA notices, warning letters, compounding guidance, enforcement actions
  • Vendor — vendor websites, product catalogs, COAs, terms and policy changes
  • Community — Reddit, X, YouTube, niche forums (for question discovery, not proof)
  • Expert — physicians, pharmacists, lab professionals, telehealth operators, legal observers
  • Commercial — Google Trends, advertiser behavior, clinic funnel messaging, category growth signals

Community reports are treated as leads, never as proof. Expert context is verified against independent sources.

Editorial review checklist

Before we publish any major article, we verify:

  • Human evidence is clearly distinguished from preclinical evidence
  • Certainty is not overstated
  • Unknowns are explicitly acknowledged
  • Legal and access context is included where relevant
  • The tone avoids promotional language
  • Safety and side effects are covered honestly
  • Any conflicts of interest are disclosed
  • Internal links connect to the right evergreen pages
  • The article would still be credible in 12 months

Updating and corrections

The Peptide Addict is a living library. When new evidence emerges — new trials, new regulatory changes, new safety signals — we update the affected pages. Significant updates are noted in the Research Desk.

Corrections are published openly. If we get something factually wrong, we don't quietly edit — we acknowledge the error on the page and in the newsletter. Trust is the whole moat, and trust requires transparency about mistakes.

If you have a methodological concern or a correction, let us know through the newsletter reply line when it goes live.