Doctors are raising the alarm over a disturbing trend which involves children as young as 12 being offered unregulated peptides through online chat groups.
Dr Tim Jones from the Royal Australian College of GPs said young patients had told him they were being offered the products through WhatsApp, with sellers promising to mail them directly to their homes.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Unregulated peptides pose serious health risks
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“I’ve seen kids as young as 12 tell me that they’ve been offered these products online, and offered to just spend some money on a WhatsApp chat group and get a product mailed to their door,” Jones said.
Peptides are signalling molecules that can essentially tell certain parts of the body to switch on or off, potentially influencing multiple systems at the same time.
While regulated peptides are being used legitimately for conditions like diabetes and medically assisted weight loss, doctors are increasingly concerned about unregulated versions.
Jones warned many of the products being sold online had only been studied in animals, or had not been tested at all.
Dr Tim Jones from the Royal Australian College of GPs warns kids as young as 12 are accessing unregulated peptides. Credit: Sunrise
Serious side effects
Adding to the danger, intercepted products have in some cases been found to not contain what buyers believed they had.
“Because these products aren’t made to Australian quality and safety standards, their risk of contamination is high, and people can acquire pretty serious skin and soft tissue infections from just injecting them,” he said.
Doctors are also seeing worrying side effects among young people using the products, including hormonal changes.
“Increasingly, what I’m seeing in my young people are a lot of hormonal side effects, so changes in their body hair, changes in their anger levels,” he said.
The unknown long-term consequences are of particular concern. Because many of the unregulated products have not been adequately tested, doctors cannot confidently tell patients whether the side effects they experience will disappear once they stop using them.
Alex thought peptides were safe. He died of a heart attack at 33
The warning comes just days after Isabella Boutin spoke to 7NEWS about the death of her brother Alex, who suffered a heart attack and died aged 33 after years of using body enhancement drugs, including peptides.
Boutin said she only discovered her brother was using peptides a few years before his death, with Alex telling her the products were safe and had been recommended by a friend.
“I had no idea that they were going to be dangerous at all,” she told 7NEWS.
Alex used body enhancement drugs, including peptides, for years. Credit: 7NEWS
She has since spoken out in the hope of preventing other families from experiencing the same loss, warning that young men were dying from performance and image-enhancing drug use while the issue remained largely undiscussed.
“There’s no real words to describe the loss that we’ve had in our family,” Boutin said.
“I don’t want anyone else to go through this pain.”
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