48 min, 02 sec

In episode 17 of Gear, Growth, and Gains, Peter Magic (Janoshik) discusses the science and ethics of peptide and anabolic steroid testing. Peter, who leads a major Czech testing lab, details analytical methods (HPLC, LC-MS, GC-MS), market trends, and the prevalence of counterfeit products. He addresses peptide stability, endotoxin risks, and manufacturing advances, emphasizing that most peptides are more stable and safer than commonly believed. The episode highlights the need for rigorous, transparent testing and warns against unreliable labs, underscoring the importance of scientific integrity in the enhanced bodybuilding community.

Podcast Introduction and Disclaimers (00:00:30) Host introduces the show, gives disclaimers, and promotes Meso-Rx and related platforms.

Type-IIx Insider Program Launch (00:02:06) Details about the new premium content program, symposiums, ebooks, and a limited-time discount.

Guest Introduction: Peter Magic / Janoshik (00:02:55) Host introduces Peter Magic (Janoshik), his background, and his company’s focus on testing peptides and steroids.

Origin of the Janoshik Name (00:03:16) Peter explains the significance of the Janoshik name and its Slovakian roots.

Janoshik as a Folk Hero (00:03:46) Discussion about Janoshik as a real-life Robin Hood figure in Slovak folklore.

Starting the Testing Business (00:04:17) Peter describes how and why he started his testing business around 2012-2013.

Transition to Building a Team (00:05:10) Peter discusses moving from solo work to hiring staff and scaling the company over the last five years.

Lab Equipment and Analytical Methods (00:06:29) Overview of the lab’s equipment, including HPLC, LCMS, and GCMS, and their uses in compound identification.

Novel and Unlisted Compounds (00:09:07) Peter talks about encountering novel compounds not found in standard databases, including experimental cannabinoids.

Personal Accomplishments (00:10:11) Peter shares personal achievements, including his children and powerlifting milestones.

Most Egregious Fake or Underdosed Products (00:12:13) Discussion of recent trends in fake or underdosed products, including steroids replaced with other substances.

Current State of the Anabolic Steroid Market (00:14:45) Peter describes the decline in quality and availability of anabolic steroids and raw materials, especially from China.

Peptide Market Trends and SLU-PP-332 ("Sloopy") (00:17:48) Discussion about the peptide market, SLUPP 332, and issues with its formulation and solubility.

Testing NAD+ vs. Peptides (00:20:45) Comparison of testing methods for NAD+ and peptides, and challenges in purity assessment.

Challenges Testing hCG and HMG (00:23:26) Explains difficulties in testing hCG and HMG due to molecular variability and manufacturing differences.

IGF Peptide Authenticity (00:26:32) Peter discusses the rarity of authentic IGF-1 samples and issues with degradation and market quality.

Price vs. Quality in IGF Peptides (00:29:15) No correlation found between price and quality in IGF peptides based on testing data.

Endotoxins in Samples (00:29:53) Overview of endotoxin testing, its relevance, and the impact of manufacturing methods on contamination.

Manufacturing Methods and Endotoxin Risk (00:33:12) Differences between E. coli and mammalian cell line production, and their effects on endotoxin contamination.

Injection Safety and Endotoxin Risks (00:34:33) Discussion on the relative safety of subcutaneous injections and minor risks associated with endotoxins.

Peptide Stability and Degradation Experiments (00:36:16) Peter shares findings from informal experiments on peptide stability, agitation, and thermal stress.

Bribery and Maintaining Independence (00:39:24) Peter recounts experiences with bribery attempts and how company growth ensures independence and integrity.

Other Testing Companies and Industry Ethics (00:40:55) Peter critiques other testing labs, highlighting issues with legitimacy, transparency, and accountability.

Importance of Team and Employee Recognition (00:44:58) Peter emphasizes the contributions of his team and wishes for more recognition of their work.

Podcast Wrap-Up and Final Promotions (00:46:00) Host thanks Peter, wraps up the episode, and promotes related forums and lab bloodwork services.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:00:30  This show is not intended for the treatment of prevention of disease, nor is a substitute for medical treatment, nor as an alternative to medical advice. No part herein, nor any statement, act or omission made by Cormac Mannion or Ampouletude LLC or its agents or affiliates are to be construed as treatment of any medical condition, medical advice, nor to delay necessary medical treatment. Scientific evidence is discussed for informational purposes only. No patient-doctor relationship is formed. This is the 17th episode of Gear Growth and Gains, brought to you by Meso-Rx, the leading platform for open and unfiltered discussion on enhanced bodybuilding. Members freely share experiences, hold sources accountable, and ensure transparency. No censorship, just real reviews. Visit Meso-Rx at www.thinksteroids.com/community and start posting if you want to subscribe to the Gear Growth and Gains newsletter, visit https://typeiix.substack.com to subscribe or go to ampouletude.com and click Sign up for Type-IIx's Newsletter. And don't forget to check out @geargrowthgains one word on Telegram. I am also offering my most valued subscribers early access to the Type-IIx Insider Deal, a special offer for premium content via Substack, the Type-IIx Insider Program that includes not only premium exclusive articles not found anywhere else that delve insanely deep into important drug and training topics, but also exclusive ebooks that I'll distribute through Substack and access to symposiums, my notorious live presentations, and Q and A's.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:02:06  This is all happening at https://typeiix.substack.com/typeiixinsider And to celebrate the launch of this Type-IIx Insider Program, premium content, symposiums, ebooks, and premium articles, I'm giving away a limited time 20% off deal for all new Type-IIx Insider signups. So check it out. It's a few bucks a month and again, that's https://typeiix.substack.com/typeiixinsider To sign up for the Type-IIx Insider Program.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:02:55  We're on.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:02:56  Yes, Peter. Nice to meet you. Thank you for coming here, Peter. So I'm here today with Janoshik. Okay, so everybody knows him as Janoshik. He is the biggest company involved in this space for testing peptides. Peter Magic is here. He's Slovak now in the Czech Republic. Is that correct? You're actually from. You're Slovak? Yeah, yeah. Slovak.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:03:16  Yeah, yeah. I was born in Slovakia. I actually used the name Janosik to distinguish the fact that I'm from Slovakia. It's like the national hero over there. And many, many years ago, we just roamed the anonymous boards online.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:03:32  but we sort of wanted to get distinguished. So we set up some nicknames, like the Italian Janacek, etc., etc. and it sort of stuck with me, you know?

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:03:46  Yeah. From what I understand, Janoshik is like the real life Robin Hood, from what we hear over here. He was like a highwayman, but actually existed. Is that true?

Multiple Speakers 00:03:54  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:03:56  That's true. and he's really well known in Slovakia. They made a couple of movies about him. And it's a folk legend.

Multiple Speakers 00:04:04  Basically, I can't like. I can't believe we don't know who it is. Like, it's just. Yeah. First. First I've ever heard of Janoshik is your company. So when did you open up business on janoshik.com for the international online market?

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:04:17  Well, I've been around since 2012 or 2013. I would have to check. and I'm not really confident. You know, I didn't keep too many records from back then, but it was just walking with friends.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:04:29  You know, I had many friends in the bodybuilding and powerlifting and weightlifting communities in general, and they had this issue that they were using stuff and they didn't have a slightest idea what they were using. There were some companies like Semic in Switzerland and so on. we did the test, but they were incredibly so expensive. Wrong all the time. So they weren't accepting private people, private person business, and I figured I might try it out to help my friends at a local university. So we did just that.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:05:10  Yeah, that's pretty cool. I mean, to be able to help your friends out like that. So at what point did you transition from handling testing yourself to building out a team? And how is that scaling process altered your day to day involvement?

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:05:22  Wow. I did all the testing myself until, like five years ago when then I hired some help for. So it's only.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:05:34  Been five years. Really? Okay, yeah, but you've been around. You started doing this, like, a decade ago, and in the last five years, you've really grown.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:05:41  Yeah. Yeah, that's that's. I was handling it all myself for quite a while. That's been real difficult. But I started building a team roughly five years ago when I hired a girl to help me out who was studying chemistry in Prague. So she helped out at the lab and she was a great help. She actually was working here until this summer when she left for maternity leave for so. And she might she might be coming back after that. And over the time I hired my now CEO Jakub and other help. And right now, right now, there's like 30 people, over 30 people involved.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:06:29  Are you over 30 people? That was my next question. I was going to ask how many people you have. Wow. So you've grown tremendously. That's great. Tell us about the equipment that you actually use. Like just in broad strokes. Like what different types of machines do you need for all this analytical chemistry work?

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:06:44  Well, we do have a lot of machines. We are mostly liquid chromatography HPLC lab.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:06:49  That's what's more what I'm specialized at. That's what I'm by. So that I can do everything from, setting up the machines, maintaining them, creating new methods, doing the analysis and quality assurance and quality control, which which is really great. So we focus on that mostly. it's great for routine screening and many of the tests, most of the tests we do are routine ones, like we repeat the same test all over again. but of course, we do have more advanced equipment like LCMS. Which is great. It's, it's a mass spectrometer coupled to the HPLC. So you can see the molecular mass of what you are seeing. It's great for confirming that what you're seeing really is what you think it is. sometimes we can use it to identify unknowns or degradation of the of the target compounds and stuff like that. We also have GCMS, which I adore. For the qualitative testing, for identifying stuff, you know, many anabolic steroids, they're not quite. Not quite well visible in the UV spectrum, which is what most of the HPLC use.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:08:08  They use UV detection ultraviolet. So we confirm the presence of the steroids or the amount with the GCMS, for example. We prefer to have, confirmation from a different source. So we do that. And the GCMS is really good for identifying complete unknowns. If the compound of interest, if we receive something and we don't have the slightest idea what it is. we try to dissolve it. And if it is volatile, we can test it with the GCMS and the GCMS has a library. this library, which has a couple of hundred thousand compounds in there, and it can compare. The results with the library. So even if it's something we've never seen before, we can identify it. So that's that's really great.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:09:07  What's something we've had within the last like within the last few months, like, what's something that wouldn't have been in that database. Like what would be something that was like, totally novel that you ran into?

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:09:16  Well there's a whole lot of stuff that's totally novel. That's not in the databases where we see a lot of uncommon esters with steroids.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:09:24  We see, novel peptides that are database. It's a couple of years old, and it cannot be used for peptides because they're not volatile. But, while we're saying experimental cannabinoids, which, which only been developed a couple of months ago or weeks ago, even so, they, they cannot be listed in any database in the world that. But we do, we do research work as well, so we can confirm even a compound that never, ever been tested before. No. While we we we can work on that and figure it out. So we do a lot of interesting stuff like that, even if it's not in a library. If we know what we're looking for, we can confirm it.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:10:11  That's great. Okay, so besides, besides building your business, Peter, what are some other accomplishments that you're proud of?

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:10:19  Well, I'm pretty proud of my three kids and dealing with that before I've been 30.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:10:26  That's the first we've heard of this. Nice.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:10:29  Yeah, it has been. This band has been a rough time studying med school, dealing with the business, and dealing with the kids who refuse to sleep at all.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:10:38  That's been. That's been a very rough time for me. My first kid, he didn't like to sleep for more than 10 to 15 minutes, in a row, so I was not quite far away from throwing myself under a train, but I persevered. Other than that, yeah. And I'm still pretty proud of the fact I used to deadlift 270 kilos.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:11:02  270 kg! I thought you were going to say pounds. And I was, like, going to move on to the next. But yeah, that's pretty good. That's like that's like 600.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:11:10  Yeah.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:11:11  That's solid. Well close. Yeah. Very strong.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:11:15  I'm not sure how it is in pounds.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:11:17  How much did you weigh in KG at the time.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:11:20  Yeah it's roughly 600. Yeah. Well well I was 110 kilos, so it's pretty strong.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:11:27  No that's very that is an achievement. That's that doesn't that's that's you're much bigger than you are now.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:11:33  Yeah. Yeah, yeah I was, I was I was rather huge. Oh, you know, I actually felt one year at the med school, so I only took some classes for a year, so I had like tempers and the schedule I was used to.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:11:49  So I took on heavy lifting and, I got really big.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:11:54  that's really big. Yeah. That's good. yeah. Only plants grow naturally. We know. All right, so what's the what's. Let me ask you this. Peter. So in the last few years, let's say in the last 2 to 3 months, even, what's the most egregious under dosed or fake product that you've encountered?

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:12:13  Wow. Way to say a lot of stuff that turns out to not be the stuff it claims to be at all. That's right. A common occurrence with anabolic steroids. In recent months, we're seeing a lot of pretty much everything except anabolic steroids. We see a lot of vitamin E being sold, tocopherol acetate sold as steroids. We see, acetaminophen being sold, steroids with floor being sold. Steroids. That's all we we see a lot of Viagra being sold steroids, which is funny because a couple of years ago there was, the market dried up for Viagra. Pardon me. so. And you could see steroids being switched for Viagra.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:13:00  Now is the other way around.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:13:02  So, yeah, Viagra used to be expensive, too. All those Pde5 inhibitors were, like, really expensive when they first came out on the market. Pharmaceutical. Yeah.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:13:12  And like 5 or 6 years ago. if I'm correct, there was a huge bust in China and all the Viagra sources disappeared. And right now, it's so abundant and cheap that people do sell it as steroids because there is no steroids on the market. So we see a lot of that. of course, we often see the more unique and rare compound is the higher likelihood of it being something else entirely or compound molecule with similar effects. We see that with hair loss drugs a lot. We've seen I posted about it on Meso recently. We've seen there's the tirzepatide that actually contain contain no tirzepatide, but it only contains contained what we strongly believe was insulin. Or at least this we think it was insulin glargine. Again, if I'm pronouncing it correctly, I have no idea.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:14:13  I've never actually said it out loud in English. And that is long insulin. So it's the likelihood. Yeah. Yes. Likelihood it will kill you is not quite high. But a year or two ago we've seen other fake Ozempic which were like insulin aspart, which if I recall correctly was is fast insulin, which actually can kill people. So that I, I've been right on happy to see stuff like that on market. We actually send a warning story.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:14:45  Do you think things have gotten worse recently?

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:14:49  That way with steroids. Yeah. By far the the raw powders, they basically disappeared of the market. We used to see a lot more samples coming in from China about a peptides being roughly the same. For a while. We had an explosion of interest in peptides since like 2022. And usually the switch ups there, the quality issues that are not so pronounced in the market, there's been random switch ups, like the people use same abbreviation for two different compounds, and they switch up the samples or the same color stopped while they'll switch for each other.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:15:28  the quality decreased a little in recent months.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:15:32  But it has increased recently like decreased decreased.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:15:36  It got.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:15:37  Worse.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:15:37  Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. But it's it's it's only slight.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:15:41  So all the anabolic, all the anabolic are in a bad state. Now you're thinking like you're seeing actually you're actually seeing this. You're seeing that the anabolic steroid market. I've heard a lot about Masteron being basically unavailable, but you're saying that across the board a lot of this stuff is actually low quality and replacement product.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:16:01  Well, we don't really know what the sample is supposed to be. We test anabolic steroids blind, so we're not really sure what it was supposed to be. Most of the time, funnily enough, we're seeing a lot of good quality drostanolone, Masteron. usually when there's, when the when it's fake, as it switched for something else, everything is switched. but we're not really seeing we're not really seeing a compound switch for, like, we're not seeing anything notable to be happening with the drostanolone or methenolone which is either common on.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:16:40  Oh. Come on. people say that it's just around and that it's fake the most often, but we're not really seeing that.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:16:49  Yeah. Are you. Are you getting any samples of it recently, or have they gone down with the steroid market? I thought that there was a shortage. Like, people are having trouble getting Masteron. So are you seeing that come in less frequently to you that you've noticed?

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:17:03  We're seeing a lot less steroids coming in in general. Really?

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:17:07  Okay. People want to make sure it's real then. Okay.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:17:09  And, we've seen it. We've seen a massive decrease of the samples coming straight out of China. The raw samples coming from China. It's mostly people testing, I think all the warehouse stuff, because the purity is lower than it used to. So we're assuming those are old stocks or something. Yeah. But yeah that's that's about it. There's there's still some, some stuff coming in but we don't have Chinese factories contacting us directly for the testing, which I assume is that there is no production at the moment, or at least not from the people we've been used to.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:17:48  Yeah. Makes sense. I mean, I think there's been arrests and things, but we don't really know. Actually, we really don't know. It's just people have just disappeared. Kind of, So there's a lot of talk about peptides. So one peptide that's been on the market a lot of people are interested in now is SLU-PP-332 "Sloopy", now it's a highly experimental peptide from a new class of drugs called ER alpha or ER pan agonists. They're estrogen-related receptor alpha agonists. Have you seen this. And if you have what's your impression of the purity of this drug.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:18:22  Yeah. Well we're seeing it a lot. It's not a peptide. it's a regular compound. It's not a peptide. Not not composed of amino acids. well, about the effects, I don't really know nothing about it. We just test set stuff up the purity. It is not not notable. It is a small molecule. It is not difficult to make. So, okay, there's nothing there's nothing notable coming happening with the purity. But the issue we're seeing often with this is that people, they try to put it into the peptide vial, you know, like life light back and into the peptide.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:19:07  Well, but then you have this major issue with the fact that mannitol, which is used to create the light in the vial, is water soluble. Right. And then you have SLU, whatever. How it's, I haven't done my spelling bee in a while. it's not water soluble. It's soluble in alcohol, it's soluble in DMSO, but it's not soluble in the water. So if someone creates the peptide vial. with Sloopy is. And there's a nice bug with mannitol. They probably dissolve that in the water, which they then freeze dried off. But that means, given it's not the actual compound, it's not soluble in the water. It means it crashed somewhere on on the manufacturer during the manufacture, and it never made it to the vial actually. And we're seeing that a lot. So if you have a nice sweet vial of this product that dissolves, that has a perfect pack of mannitol, dissolves perfectly in water, then the likelihood that there's SLU-PP is close to zero. You're only going to get trace amounts from that.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:20:20  Very interesting. I didn't I thought it only came in vials, too. Interesting. Yeah. Okay, good. So, let me ask you.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:20:28  Supposed to be orally active, I believe. Okay, I'm not sure, but we're still in tablets of it, and we're. Well, those are usually not problematic in regard to those, but the injectable vials, they just don't work. You cannot expect people to inject DMSO or mannitol.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:20:45  Yeah. Okay. Now NAD+ is another one. NAD+ is not, strictly speaking, a peptide. It's a dinucleotide. I think what's the difference between testing this and testing a vial of GH?

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:20:58  While not too much. In fact, we just dissolve. We just dissolve it and test it with HPLC. A different method, of course, but with peptides you can determine purity, like the general consensus in the scientific community. If something is a peptide, every peptide is a bunch of amino acids that are connected via the peptide bond. So and the peptide bond, it has a common property of absorbing UV light at a certain wavelength.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:21:29  So if you have two peptides, you can be sure that you can see both. Or if you have an unlimited amount of peptides, you know you will see it in the UV region where the peptide bond can be seen, because without that they wouldn't exist. So you can measure purity of peptides. it's a rough idea. It's not 100% correlated. But if you take a look at the UV light and you see your target compound, it absorbs 99% of the light, in the UV region and then some impurity, it absorbs 1%. You can get you can be rather sure, rather confident that your peptide really is 99% pure, given the peptide purity like target peptide over total peptide and the impurities with the g, h, you know, it's oxidized gh, they are mediated g h. some switched amino acid variant. So when you take a look at the graph at HPLC, you can be sure you're seeing all these impurities. And you calculate the purity from that one with known peptides. It doesn't work like that because the impurities, they don't have to share the same property.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:22:43  So you cannot really use there's no general consensus for the purity testing of compounds other than peptides in the scientific community. So for example, in your NAD+, it degrades in something that doesn't have the same absorbance at the same particle wavelength. And your graph is showing 50% of NAD+ and 50% of some impurity. But you cannot just make the claim it's 50% pure. It might just well be 95% pure or just 5% pure because the shared property, it's just not there. So you cannot really use the percentages on the graph to tell the purity of it.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:23:26  hCG and HMG. I think those are also challenging for testing too, since they're difficult to pin down to a reference standard. That's what you've written before from my memory, and might be derived from human or different animal sources. Is that correct?

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:23:41  Well, hopefully not. Animal source is that they can be human sources or they can be recombinant technology and not really sure animal sources would work, and I've never seen that one. But HCG and HMG, there's a couple of issues with them.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:23:59  One of them is that these molecules that have an extreme variety, like you have this peptide amino chain, and then you have all sorts of weird glycoproteins and other stuff bound to them which influence it. physical characteristics like molecular mass, like you have the peptide ball, let's say it's 1000 long, and then you have random line glycoproteins bound to it, but they increase and decrease the mass of the the mass itself of the compound. So for human or many recombinant forms of the ACG, one milligram is not equal to one milligram of a different form of this. So the margins of error on testing this are rather huge. It's more difficult to tell with the human derived forms, but you're not seeing those anymore because, you know, human derived it means involves a gathering pee of pregnant women. And that's a tad more difficult at this point than recombinant technology, which is getting cheaper and cheaper and cheaper. So I don't think that's, there's a black market for pregnant women urine going on in China. I think it's mostly recombinant technology like GH.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:25:21  Yeah, yeah. Of course the peptide is quite complicated. So with the manufacture and everything, the purification, there is a major differences between the manufacturers. also, HCG seems to be very sensitive to the quality of manufacture, like from one manufacturer. You see the the batch lasting years without any significant issue from other manufacturers. It degrades rapidly within months, to the point that it's hard to even detect the original hCG about HMG. Again, the it has much more variance in the activity, like one milligram of one form of HMG. Human menopausal gonadotropin might be equal to 500mg of different one. But so you need factory data on the bioactivity. We provide these results in the detected amounts. But to tell you the IU the international units of activity, you actually would need to do bio equivalence tests, which are usually done on by cultivating cell lines or by injecting Thing. Castrated mice or rats?

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:26:32  All right. So your perspective on IGF peptide specifically would be valuable. I've heard you've had so much to say about this on, on meso I've seen so what percentage of IGF-1 samples you test actually contain what they claim to contain?

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:26:45  Well, IGF-LR-3 they usually test.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:26:49  Well, as far as I can tell, about the DES, roughly one out of ten samples actually does. Okay. And most of it we don't attack nothing. I'm not really sure how how it's supposed to work, but it's a rather rare sight to see a real one.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:27:10  And it's a rare sight to see a real IGF-1?

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:27:15  It's a rare sight to see a real IGF-1 or IGF-1-DES again, not haven't done my spelling bee. the LR3. It's usually good when we're seeing it. It tends to be great faster than other peptides, but. Yeah. about the IGF-1, like mecasermin. we've only seen a couple. 4 or 5 real samples, actually.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:27:45  Oh, interesting.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:27:46  Yeah. Yeah. I'm not really sure. Why is that? Because there's not much difference between that and LR3. I've been I've been thinking it might be because it's more sensitive. Like, by the time it gets to us, it degrades to the point. It's untestable, like it's sensitive to storage and temperature and everything.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:28:12  And by the time it gets to, it just sort of aggregates and doesn't dissolve anymore. Or it's simply not being sold on the black market. Well.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:28:23  I mean, if it's the first, if it's the first reason, you would think I mean people it's going to it's the same issue if people are getting it shipped to them, if they're buying it online, it's getting shipped to them. It's probably no good by the time it gets to them either. If it's degrading.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:28:34  Yeah, we don't know. We're usually not seeing that with the peptides. They they hold up. They're much less prone to degradation than people online claim. But with the mecasermin we've only seen we've tested it like we've had or we've been. It's been ordered to test like 30 or 40 times, but we've only seen 3 or 4 real ones over the entire time we tested. As far as I can remember, I'm not checking the entire database right now, but it really is like that.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:29:06  Yeah. No. So there's a bunch of different I mean, you mentioned there's at least 3 IGF peptides that you see, right? Like LR3, there's DES and there's IGF-1.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:29:15  Like I mean from your testing data, is there any correlation between price and actual quality?

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:29:21  Oh no no no no no I.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:29:23  I've been testing LR three a decade ago, and it was. There was a certain provider.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:29:33  Yeah,

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:29:35  Was selling that, and it's been a rather cheap and rather high quality to start with. And we've seen it. basically, in my experience, there's zero correlation between price and quality in this regard for the IGF peptides.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:29:53  Yeah. Now we had a conversation. I spoke with a guy last week, Tom Jeffers. we discussed endotoxins and samples, and you have discussed this a little bit as well before. I want to say, what can you say about endotoxins in samples? Like, if it's if something not reconstituted. Have you encountered any levels that exceed the standard toxicity?

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:30:16  We do an insane amount of endotoxin tests right now. We actually have three people dedicated to that in the lab because it involves a lot of, hand work, like pipetting and stuff. well, the endotoxin is mostly issue with the recombinant peptide.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:30:38  A recombinant proteins were a while ago. The only way to get a bigger, peptide or protein manufactured was to have a gene engineered and insert the gene into E coli bacterium, which is a gram negative bacterium, which means it has endotoxin in its cell wall. And the bacteria grew. And along with them, your target compound multiplied. They created it your target peptide or protein. And then you basically extracted it from the 11 bunch of bacteria which you killed beforehand, hopefully. But if you didn't do your cleanup properly, you end up with a lot of cell walls from those bacteria, and your immune system is like, oh, hey, this part. This molecule is on the cell wall of bacteria. Well, I better go haywire over this. So if there was not proper cleanup, there was high endotoxin levels and it caused issues. But right now, once the peptides, they're not manufactured in recombinant manner. They are manufactured by something called solid phase synthesis, which means that there's no significant level of bacteria.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:31:52  It's not literally growing inside bacteria. so there's no significant levels of endotoxin involved. But people like to stay cautious with endotoxin testing. And there's an interesting. What's interesting, we're seeing, levels, for example, when we see levels over 5 or 6, endotoxin units in a while. And the client, They also ordered sterility testing. Like to see whether something is actually alive and growing inside while, it usually turns out positive. We measure more than five, endotoxin units in the wild. So we have almost 100% correlation between higher endotoxin measurements and the sterility testing, which is great because it means that my team, my people, they're doing a great job and they're not screwing up because we have actual confirmation from two different tests or that they come from each other.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:32:57  Yeah, it makes sense with the E.coli method, which is what they use to make. GH still usually isn't it?

Multiple Speakers 00:33:03  Yeah, they do.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:33:04  Because they have to. So you're saying they have to clean up during the manufacturing process or it can end up with endotoxins.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:33:10  Okay. That makes sense.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:33:12  so the more skilled the companies that want to distinguish themselves, the the modified mammalian cells or fungi cells, fungi cell lines, or how it's called candidus. I'm not sure. That don't have endotoxin on their cell walls. And they use different organisms to produce the human growth hormone so that there is no risk of endotoxin contamination at all because it's not in the manufacturing process. I think Sarah's team, maybe they did it. I think there's Sarah's team that use recombinant DNA technology. It's produced by a mammalian cell line of C1 two seven. So they do this so they avoid, risk even risking the, the endotoxin contamination. They also might do it to save up on the cleaning up, which is rather expensive, but it's pretty interesting. There's most of them that are still done with this E.coli because it's the easiest and cheapest and some, some manufacturers distinguish themselves by producing it in a different organism, which really helps with endotoxin risk. So that is about the risk. I keep talking about endotoxin risk.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:34:33  Well, what I think a lot of people wonder what it means for them, right. what were the peptides? They're mostly injected subcutaneously. So what? The risk in the mouth is some local irritation. Like if you're getting a tiny bit of bacteria or bacterial cell walls under your skin, it's no different than scratching yourself, too. So it's not like something that's going to kill people. It's just most likely caused some minor inconvenience of redness, itching and so on. So the people that don't have to be worried to death about something not being perfectly sterile, there's been publications that people might as well, you know, the diabetics, they might as well inject the insulin over the cloth, or the dirty clothes. Without any cleaning up. And the risks are barely notable. If at all. Which. It's been an interesting publication. It's just to show that people with the subcutaneous injection is exceedingly safe route of administration compared to intramuscular or intravenous, which.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:35:41  Means.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:35:41  Not not much, not not recommended for anything anymore that can work in any other different manner of injection.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:35:50  Yeah. I mean, people get injections, pretty people get infections pretty often with intramuscular especially like the quad. Like certain certain sites, people who do have issues, it might be 1 in 100, but that's kind of a lot, you know like.

Multiple Speakers 00:36:01  Yeah, yeah.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:36:02  So if people can avoid issues into into the mass injection into the muscle and can do it subcutaneous, which they can do with peptides, it's best done that way because it's the least risky way of administration.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:36:16  Thracian. Now I know you. I know you've ran some not strictly controlled experiments to answer a lot of bodybuilders questions and your own curiosities, like some that come to mind, was like degradation with GH and hCG. you did that, that you also did like stability versus agitation. Shaking LR3 IGF-1 I think it was. And heat, thermal stress like you stuck G.H. outside the window one time and saw what happened there. Can you can you kind of talk about some of these experiments or any others you've done and what you learned from them?

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:36:52  Well, I've done a.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:36:53  Lot of experiments, but many of them are classified. You know, I'm not free to talk about the results of our clients that they paid for. And there's been their massive peptide testing groups like tens of thousands of people with which is which is astonishing. And they work well. They got they paid for a lot of experiments and Degradations, etc. but what we generally find is that the peptides. They are much more stable than people claim. for example, your G.H. probably can handle years.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:37:29  Of.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:37:29  Abuse before it breaks down to the point it's not. Working anymore, it's not it's not really sensitive to shake and drop in anything we've tried. We've run. I've run tests on that out of my pocket. So to just confirm, because I was getting set of people claiming, like, if you inject water too fast into your peptide, you're ruining it and it won't work. It's mostly something that's been claimed by people selling empty vials for a while. So. So I wanted to disprove this sort of thing, even if, if I had to do it out my own course and about.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:38:08  Of course, some peptides are more sensitive than others, but generally they're rather rare. They can handle a lot. We've seen what we've seen with the huge amount of testing of peptides we've done in recent years, is that a lot depends on the manufacturing quality. Like I said, with the HCG, between different manufacturers, you see, you could see a sample degrading many times faster with the bad quality manufacturer than with a high quality manufacturer. Or we've seen interesting stuff like probably from leftover oxygen or leftover something in the wild. Like you could see the peptide degrading very fast from the 99% to 97. And then it stopped. Then it started degrading in the usual manner of unnoticeable, degraded and noticeable degradation. But something for the first couple of weeks. Maybe the leftover oxygen? Who knows? Leftover moisture? I have no idea at all. It made it a great much faster in the first couple of weeks. So we've been seeing interesting stuff like that. And with the great amount of, with the great amount of tests, we've been able to get stuff like this.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:39:24  So let's switch gears and talk a little bit about the industry you work in, in ethics here. So have you ever faced pressure from like manufacturers or sources attempting to influence your testing outcomes? If so, how have you maintained independence?

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:39:38  Well, we.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:39:39  Of course, we've had people try to bribe me. I think it might have been hundreds, if not thousands of times at this point. it's been mostly well, it's been mostly maybe an a proud person refusing that, you know, many, many years ago when $1,000 was actually a lot of, money for me, I refused it because of my of my being a proud person. And then at some point, it simply stopped making any sense.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:40:10  Like that.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:40:14  Even a $10,000 bribe. The bar is no white anymore for us, where a company of 30 people are, monthly budget is in millions of dollars. So there's simply the people that cannot afford to bribe us anymore.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:40:32  There you have it. That's good.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:40:35  We're just. We're just far too expensive now.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:40:39  and it's not really possible anymore. There's too many people at the company. there's multiple rounds of check ups. there's multiple rounds of check ups. for every result, it usually needs to go through at least two.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:40:53  So what do you.

Multiple Speakers 00:40:54  Think about.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:40:55  What do you think about other testing companies? Like, for example, when we were talking last week about endotoxin and stuff? I mean, I saw I saw a lab report that was showing crazy endotoxins in a sample, and it was a different testing company. I can't even remember their name. but like, what do you think about these other companies that are out there? Like, do you think there's like companies that are like just frauds, scammers or criminals? Who do you.

Multiple Speakers 00:41:18  Know?

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:41:19  Most of them.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:41:19  Are.

Multiple Speakers 00:41:20  Yeah.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:41:20  Well, for most of the companies you cannot even find. Well, first, if they even have registered LLC, then you find out that LLC limited liability company is registered in an office building where there is no labs at all.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:41:35  If they even have one registered, if you check the testing labs, most of them are have no official documents. even if they have an official company, you find they have no paperwork for actually dealing with the chemicals. There's only a couple of companies that are actually do have the paperwork in place, like peptide tests, I think, or lab for docs. They're, they're they're one of the few actual real companies in the field for the others. Well, I will let people to make their own opinions. But if you can't even find a company registration, they're anonymous. They're not accepting anonymous payments. well, what.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:42:20  In this country? I think it was chromate or something like that. Does that sound familiar to you?

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:42:25  Yeah, he was he was on Meso. and every single blind test or every single interweb comparison, they failed. Hot. So so so so they sort of fled the forum and, well, for most of these companies, well, most of the manufactured distributors, they just won't report with the nice number to slap on them.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:42:46  So if you just copy the number of the of the vial and put it and put down some sort of a graph, it's, it's enough for these companies. But it's up to people to decide whether they will accept it or not. Like if someone is anonymous,

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:43:03  Because the report or the report looks almost good, like it looks like it's like scintillating, you know, like they it's like colorful. It's got that. But it's just somebody, like using. Using software to make it look good. It might not even be tested. That's very interesting. All right. So if.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:43:18  If, if they have no paperwork or anything. No LLC. What accountability do they have and what what is actually pushing them to do their work. Honestly for us where government supervised because we're by far the biggest importer of scheduled compounds by the amount of packages in the European Union. So we cannot really just excuse my French, but we cannot really fuck around because we would get shut down hard and along with me, it would also, influence the lives of all my employees.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:43:54  There's over 30 of them. So we're not really, so we're we really, really have good incentive to keep on doing this very profitable business that has given the living hurt to many people. But about the other labs. Well, there's been a lot of interweb testing done by the huge testing groups, and for most of the tests, they're using me. If there is independent testing groups, they're mostly using us, which kind of is telling something not not to be too full myself, but I'm very proud of that. The fact that.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:44:34  You should.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:44:34  Be we passed that. We passed all those, reviews and comparisons and everything.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:44:42  Yeah. I mean, you've built substantial trust in the community for a reason. So what question do you wish interviewers would ask you that they'd never do? Before we get before we get going and wrap it up, it's been almost an hour here. What question would you what question would you love to hear from somebody asking you a question on a podcast?

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:44:58  Well, I would love to ask the people ask about my employees because at this point, it's not just me.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:45:04  It was a one man show for a while, and up until a year ago I did most of the analytical work actually, but right now it's mostly it's mostly my team handling analyses, and I'm supervising them and dealing with the stuff they cannot handle anymore. And I would love to underline that most of them are doing a really great job. Like I have to name girls like Elisa, Torres, Katarina Bara. a lot of them are girl names. We have a lot of, we have a lot of girls in my company, and they're doing a great job. And I don't feel they're. I'm getting a lot of emails from people about how much they love me. I love my work, love my interviews, but a lot of that is actually them now. So it would be great if people asked about them and told them they're doing a great job. But because, you know, they're not dealing with the emails, they're not communicating with the clients, they don't have the public face.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:46:00  And I hope they hear this and listen to this because their boss is very happy with them.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:46:05  That's good to hear. All right, I'm gonna. We're gonna wrap this up. Peter, thank you for talking to me. thanks for taking the time. I hope Janoshik continues to grow. And. And everybody trusts Janoshik. So just use Janoshik. Don't use chromate or whoever they are. All right.

Peter Magic (Janoshik) 00:46:21  All right. They didn't want to put it like that, but sounds about right. Thank you so much. I hope I hope you have a great weekend.

Cormac Mannion (Type-IIx) 00:46:29  All right. Thanks a lot. Take care. Listen up all you enhanced fucks! The forum at thinksteroids.com is your go to source for everything enhanced.

Multiple Speakers 00:46:38  We're not just another board we're the most trusted harm reduction community in the game. You should be looking only at unfiltered reviews where members don't bullshit at meso they definitely tell it like it is. Don't waste time with shills, visit thinksteroids.com/community and start posting now. Hey guys, I don't know what you're doing for your bloodwork, but if you're using anyone besides Fitomics, you're lighting money on fire and probably not getting the right biomarkers to boot.

Multiple Speakers 00:47:05  This is especially true if Labcorp's within driving distance to you, because they're literally one third the price of the competition. Use coupon code type-iix. That's type E hyphen II x. It's not case sensitive. You'll save 10% if all you have nearby is. Quest is still the best option because while there's like one cheaper company, they don't offer as many biomarkers and they end up not being worth it. So sign up for the Research Labs Insider at fitomics.org That's Fitomics for by far the best lab work options available in the US, except for New York, New Jersey, and Rhode Island where self requisitioning bloodwork isn't legal, at least not yet. If you're confused at all, the best thing to do is visit my site at Ampouletude.com click Sign Up for Type-IIx's Newsletter, sign up, and when I send out my occasional valuable Never Spam newsletter, I include the steps to sign up and use Fitomics.

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