The Wolverine Stack debate misses the point (and needles)

Diamond Rhino

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The Wolverine Stack debate misses the point (and needles)

There's some bold claims out there about BPC-157, the recovery and rehab peptide, but if you look you can also find modest claims as well.

Brady Dale

Apr 06, 2026

Whenever some big change hits the world, the conversation goes the same way:

People on the frontier dive in and pat each other on the back for seeing the future (mistakes get made).
The mainstream rolls its eyes, clutches its pearls, wrings its hands and says “tsk, tsk, tsk” (opportunities get missed).
Eventually Matthew Yglesias and Scott Alexander write very long posts about them. No one reads both.

Diamond Rhino, the inimitable podcast, sits in the middle of all that. It puts the frontier and the mainstream together on one show and asks if there aren’t some good points made on both sides.

So, here we are in week two of our coverage of peptides, the industry that’s already bigger than video games were when everyone got surprised that video games were bigger than Hollywood about a decade ago.

The only people who aren’t behind on this issue are in too deep.

So, this week, I dig into claims focus have made about BPC-157 (mostly) and also TB-500, the two grey market peptides that often get combined into what’s known as “The Wolverine Stack” — because they are each thought to help people heal.

It’s just that they don’t help everyone heal! And when they do help, results vary! And also people keep making themselves sick, but not because of what was put in the vials.

More on all of this on today’s episode. Are you hyped? (we’re against hype about everything except this newsletter).

But here’s the part you’re not going to expect but is actually going to really help ground you through the conversation: We’re going to start with some really modest claims from people you have never heard of.

Anecdotes aren’t data, but they are information.