When Health Canada warned people last Thursday not to buy or use unauthorized injectable peptide drugs, CBC News purchased three such products online. 

In an emailed response to questions from CBC News, Health Canada said it had received four complaints in six months about adverse reactions in people who took unauthorized peptides. Peptides are short chains of amino acids that act as building blocks of larger proteins and are important for growth, metabolism and healing. 

Experts say the unauthorized products fall into regulatory grey zone, with limited evidence of safety and risks that include hormonal imbalances, the growth of cancerous tumours, and liver or kidney damage.

Health Canada noted that a causal link had not been established between the products and the reported adverse effects. The department does regulate some peptides as drugs. 

Doctor raises purity, side effect concerns

The medications approved by Health Canada are often prescribed by a doctor, such as glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists, or GLP-1s, a class that includes Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro injections used to treat obesity and diabetes. 

Dr. Daniel Drucker’s research at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute at Sinai Health in Toronto helped pave the way for GLP-1 medications. Drucker cautions that many of the peptides promoted online do not have a large body of medical evidence showing their safety and effectiveness the way GLP-1s do.

How do semaglutides or GLP1’s work?

What are the benefits and drawbacks of semaglutides or GLP1’s, the group of drugs commonly known as Ozempic, Mounjaro or Wegovy, on the human metabolic system? Endocrinologist Dr. Jordanna Kapeluto specializes in the management of obesity and metabolic diseases at UBC and speaks to CBC’s Dan Burritt on how the drugs work and what to watch out for.

Drucker warns that the purity of many peptides sold online is not clear and how the body reacts is hard to predict.

“You might be allergic to it,” Drucker said. “It might be a substance that your body has never seen before, so you mount an immune response and it can have unintended side effects on many parts of your body that can be potentially even fatal. This is not something we would encourage at all.”

In contrast to the many steps the pharmaceutical industry takes to ensure medications are safe and effective, Drucker said a mail-order peptide supplier does “almost nothing.”

No regulation

Health Canada said it has seized several unauthorized injectable peptides, adding that many other unauthorized products exist and should be avoided.

CBC News found many products for sale claiming to improve sleep, build muscle and slow aging, and bought three from different companies. The products arrived as powder labelled “for research purposes only,” with no instructions. One product label stated it was not for human or veterinary use.

Kinesiology professor Stuart Phillips at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., said unauthorized peptides fall into a regulatory grey zone. Many products are not compounds tested in human clinical trials with an eight-digit Health Canada Drug Identification Number or controlled substances like anabolic steroids.

“People are getting powder in a vial … mixing it up and injecting themselves,” Phillips said. “Like if that doesn’t scream high-risk behaviour to you, I’m not sure what does.” 

If peptides were effective, pharmaceutical companies would patent and sell the medications, Phillips said. He suspects pharmaceutical companies likely examined popular injectable peptides but opted not to pursue them because of weak results or safety concerns.

Phillips said Health Canada may need to go beyond warnings and tighten regulation of peptides to better protect Canadians.