A wellness column in Business Day answers a reader who says everyone at his padel club is on a GLP-1 peptide except him, and asks whether he should "hop onto a prescription." The columnist's answer is that you cannot, and that anyone who can is doing it wrong.

The compounds in question are peptides, meaning chains of amino acids, and the column describes them in plain terms as being based on a chemical the gut already produces in varying amounts. They are popular enough that South African authorities have run large-scale crackdowns on peptide compounding pharmacies.

Two stories about the crackdowns

The official justification, the column notes, is protecting users of compounds that have not been through the full compliance process that the branded products cleared. The unofficial version, told in gyms and around padel courts, is that patent holders of the better-known and far more expensive drugs are flexing their influence. The piece reports both and endorses neither, which is the honest way to handle a rumor that happens to be plausible.

The lean mass number

This is where the column earns its keep. Friends boasting about losing 15kg to 20kg since March are quoting a scale figure, and the column asks how much of that was lean mass. Depending on which studies you look at, it says, lean tissue loss can run as high as 40% or as low as 25% of total loss.

Lean mass is not pure skeletal muscle: it includes water, glycogen, organ tissue and some nonmuscle soft tissue. Bone is measured separately and can decline with rapid weight loss, which the column says can be mitigated with strength training.

Why the rebound is worse

The scenario the column sketches is someone losing 15% of body weight, buying new clothes, then stopping without changing anything else. The weight returns without the muscle and bone, leaving a worse fat-to-lean ratio than at the start.

It also flags something it says is not discussed enough: a meaningful subset of users report lower energy and reduced spontaneous activity rather than new motivation to train.

Bottom line

The column's position is not anti-peptide. It is that people doing this with a nutritionist and a strength trainer get far better ratios between fat lost and the tissue you want to keep, and that the decision belongs with an accredited doctor who works with these patients.