It started with an Instagram video of an influencer touting the most effective weight-loss peptides. In two taps, your feed is filled with a peptide-driven weight loss journey. And then the rabbit hole started: YouTube explainers, AI-reduced scientific papers, Reddit post obsessions, private chat groups. Finally, there are powdered weight-loss drugs shipped from China that are unapproved and still in trials.Hundreds of people across India rely on these imported products, in part to reduce the price of doctor-prescribed drugs such as Mounjaro, which costs 16,000 rupees a month. Semaglutide (trade name Ozempic) has become cheaper, but even that is unlikely to undermine the market for “Chinese peptides.” Driving this trend is a desperate search for ways to delay the weight loss plateau. Even the most potent GLP-1 can only work so far, as the gut eventually adapts to the drug. Stopping them can lead to gradual weight regain.
