Procedure
Methodology
Two labels sit on every compound here: how far the human evidence goes, and whether you can lawfully get it. This page is the procedure behind both — how a source is resolved, what moves a compound between tiers, and the whole register graded in one table so you can check the rubric rather than take it on trust.
Last updated · Questions: research@peptideworth.com
Where this page sits
This is the procedure: the steps, the gate, and the rubric applied to every compound on the site today. The commitments behind it — what counts as a source, how an absence claim is worded, what a calculator may output, who writes this and what we do not claim — are on the editorial policy. Neither page repeats the other.
What this rubric has graded so far
Three counts, read out of the published compound pages rather than typed here — which is the first thing this page is demonstrating.
8
Compounds graded
Each with its own evidence page, sources, and required disclosure.
53
Sources cited
Resolved live against the database that owns them, never written from memory.
2
Sold with no human data
Compounds a reader can find offered for sale that have never been tested in people.
How a source gets onto a page
Every reference on this site is resolved through the database that owns it, in this order. A citation that cannot complete these steps does not ship — it is not softened into “research suggests” and it is not carried over from another article.
- Complete
Search the record, do not recall it
The starting point is a query against the registry or index, never a paper someone remembers. An identifier written from memory is the single most common way a fabricated citation enters a page.
- Complete
Pull the record's own summary
Authors, year, journal, title and identifier come back from the database itself and are stored exactly as returned. A DOI is read out of that record; it is never assembled from a pattern.
- Complete
Open the abstract, not the summary
The number the page is about to print has to appear in the source. “About 15%” attached to a paper reporting 14.9% is a rewrite, not a citation.
- Complete
Check the claim, not the topic
A source that is merely adjacent to a sentence does not support it. The question is whether the claim follows from the record, and a source that only shares a subject is a wrong-source failure.
- 5 — Current step
Re-resolve before every build
The stored reference is checked back against the live record automatically, so a citation that has drifted from its source fails the build rather than sitting on the page.
The gate that runs on every build
Editorial discipline is not a control. The check that actually keeps a fabricated reference off this site is automated and blocking, and it runs in two layers because the first layer alone is not enough.
Layer 1 — structural
Always blockingEvery inline citation marker points at a reference that exists, every reference is actually cited somewhere, no reference is duplicated, and an identifier in a link matches the identifier stored beside it. Offline, instant, and fatal.
Layer 2 — provenance
Blocking on mismatchEvery reference carrying a database identifier is resolved live and its stored title compared to the real one. A confirmed mismatch fails the build.
Why the second layer exists
The rubric, applied to every compound
Two labels, kept apart on purpose — what the evidence supports, and what you can lawfully obtain. The editorial policy states what each label means. What follows is the whole register with both labels attached, so the rubric can be audited rather than believed.
Ordered by how far the published human evidence goes, strongest first — then alphabetically. Nothing else moves a row. The sort reads the evidence tier and the compound's name. There is no partner flag, priority number or featured slot in our content model for it to read, and none will be added — an evidence-graded list a commercial relationship could reach would make the whole rubric a decoration.
| Compound | Human evidence | Can you get it? | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| Semaglutide | Randomized trials | FDA-approved | 7 |
| Survodutide | Randomized trials | Research use only | 6 |
| Tesamorelin | Randomized trials | FDA-approved | 9 |
| Tirzepatide | Randomized trials | FDA-approved | 9 |
| Cagrilintide | Early human | Research use only | 6 |
| Retatrutide | Early human | Research use only | 8 |
| BPC-157 | Animal only | Compounding restricted | 3 |
| TB-500 | Animal only | Research use only | 5 |
By evidence tier
- Anecdotal0
- Animal only2
- Early human2
- Randomized trials4
By availability
- FDA-approved3
- Compounding restricted1
- Research use only4
The two labels are independent, and the pairs that fall out of that are the reason they are not collapsed into one score:
- Real evidence, still out of reach — Survodutide, Cagrilintide and Retatrutide. Trials have run in people; a US reader cannot lawfully obtain them today. A single score would read these as mediocre.
- On sale, never tested in people — BPC-157 and TB-500. Widely marketed, and the published work is animal or cell data. A single score would read these as merely unproven rather than untested.
What moves a compound between tiers
A grade is a statement about the published record, so only the published record moves it. The four steps and what each one requires:
Evidence strength: Randomized trials. Randomized controlled trials in humans, at scale.
Anecdotal
0 on this siteUser reports and forum consensus. No controlled data.
To reach it: Nothing published. The compound is discussed, sold and reported on by users, and no controlled study of any kind exists. This is the floor, and a compound stays here however loud the marketing is.
Animal only
2 on this siteRodent or cell studies. Nothing published in humans.
To reach it: At least one published study in animals or cells, with the species and the model named on the page. An animal result never implies a human one, and the tier exists to stop it being read as though it did.
Early human
2 on this siteSmall, open-label, or phase 1/2 trials. Promising, unproven.
To reach it: At least one published study in people — small, open-label, or an early phase. Enough to say something has been measured in humans, never enough to say it works.
Randomized trials
4 on this siteRandomized controlled trials in humans, at scale.
To reach it: Randomised, controlled, published trials in people, at a size that can support a conclusion. A registered trial does not count; a completed trial with no posted results does not count either.
Demotion is a real outcome
How an absence is bounded
The most useful sentence on this subject is usually about something that does not exist, and it is also the easiest one to overstate. Every absence claim here is written to a fixed shape — what was searched, where, and when — and the editorial policy sets out why.
The procedural half of that, which is what this page owes you:
- The search is run against the database that would hold the thing, not against a general web search. “Nothing on PubMed” and “nothing on the internet” are different claims and only one of them is checkable.
- The date is the date the search ran, and it is printed. An absence claim decays; a dated one decays visibly.
- An absence of reported harm is recorded as an absence of looking whenever that is what it is. Nobody having studied an interaction is not evidence that the interaction is safe.
- A negative result is published as a result. A search that finds nothing is a finding, and dropping the topic instead would leave the reader to assume the opposite.
What we will not publish
A site about compounds most people cannot lawfully buy is defined as much by what it refuses to print as by what it grades.
- Report what a trial administered, under supervision, as a description of what was done
- Convert a number you supply into concentration and syringe units, with the arithmetic shown
- State plainly when a compound has no human data at all, including when it is widely sold
- Name what is not known, and say who has not looked
- State, imply, default to or suggest a dose for anyone
- Publish a protocol, a schedule, or a cycle for any compound or combination
- List sellers for a compound under active FDA compounding restriction
- Present an animal result as though it described a person
On seller lists for restricted compounds
What a calculator here actually does
A dosing tool is the highest-liability surface on this site, because it does not describe a number — it hands one to a reader. The rule, stated in full on the editorial policy, is that our tools convert and never recommend. Mechanically, that means:
- You supply the dose
- Every field ships empty. There are no presets, no “typical” placeholder, and no default that a reader could mistake for a suggestion.
- We supply the arithmetic
- The output is your figure converted into concentration and syringe units, with warnings when it exceeds the vial or the syringe. If a tool cannot compute without inventing a number, it computes nothing.
How often this is checked again
A date on a page is a claim about work, and a freshness stamp with no re-reading behind it is a lie with a date on it. What actually gets re-opened, and when:
Citations
Every buildAutomatic. Every stored reference is re-resolved against the live record, and a confirmed mismatch stops the deploy.
Evidence grades
When a readout landsA trial reporting, a registry status changing, a retraction, or a regulator action triggers a re-read of the compound page — not a scheduled sweep, because evidence does not arrive on a schedule.
Availability labels
QuarterlyApproval status and compounding restrictions are re-checked against the regulator's own database, because this is the label most likely to be quietly out of date.
When this procedure gets it wrong
It will. A number is read out of the wrong arm of a trial, a grade lags a readout, an availability label is a quarter stale. When that happens the fix is published as a fix — what was wrong, what it is now, and when it changed — on the corrections page, which is also where to send one. A claim on this site that you cannot trace back to its source is worth reporting, and it is the report we most want to receive.