Editorial standards & review process

1. What this site is — and is not

LongevityPeptides.co.uk is an independent UK-based editorial reference covering research peptides relevant to longevity biology. The site exists to summarise the published evidence on each compound — mechanism of action, research history, summarised studies, safety profile, and UK regulatory status — in plain English, with appropriate conservatism about what the literature does and does not support.

It is not a clinical resource. It does not give dosing guidance for human use, does not recommend therapeutic protocols, and does not constitute a medical relationship between the reader and the editorial team. Every page carries the prominent "For laboratory and research use only — not for human consumption" disclaimer, and that framing is load-bearing across the whole site.

2. The editorial team

The site is produced by a small editorial team operating under the LongevityPeptides.co.uk masthead. The team works under a shared editorial process rather than under individual bylines. We have made the judgement that for a small-team independent resource, a documented process with consistent standards is a more honest representation of how the work is done than attaching individual names to pages that have been edited by multiple contributors.

Where a named author or reviewer is appropriate — for example, if a clinical specialist provides direct technical review of a specific page — that attribution will be added to the page in question. As of the current publication cycle, no individual external reviewer attribution applies to any page on the site.

3. Research sources we treat as authoritative

Content on this site is built primarily from peer-reviewed primary literature. In practice this means the following source hierarchy, in order of weight:

1. PubMed-indexed primary research — original published papers, with preference for studies reporting design, methods and outcome data in sufficient detail to be summarised faithfully. We cite individual studies via PubMed identifier or canonical journal record where one exists.
2. Peer-reviewed reviews — comprehensive review articles from established journals (Cell Metabolism, Aging Cell, Nature Reviews Endocrinology, Trends in Endocrinology and Metabolism, BioMed Research International, and equivalents).
3. Regulatory and institutional sources — MHRA, EMA, FDA filings, the UK Human Medicines Regulations 2012, and the published outputs of recognised research programmes (St Petersburg Institute of Bioregulation and Gerontology; the Pickart laboratory output; the Szeto-Schiller research at Weill Cornell; the Cohen laboratory at USC; the Stealth BioTherapeutics clinical-trial dataset).
4. Clinical-trial registries — ClinicalTrials.gov and the EU Clinical Trials Register for verification of trial status, primary endpoints and outcome publication.

Sources outside this hierarchy — commercial blog posts, undated forum threads, broker/supplier content — are not cited as evidence. They may appear in resource lists where their function is clearly editorial signposting rather than scientific claim.

4. Citation standards

Each peptide page includes a dedicated "Summarised studies" section in which the principal supporting research is presented in structured callouts. Each callout records study year, lead authors, design (in vitro, rodent, primate, human pilot, human RCT, review, meta-analysis), model or participant group, and a one-sentence outcome summary, with the journal citation and PubMed link where available.

We avoid weaker citation forms. We do not aggregate "studies show that…" sentences without supporting links. Where a claim rests on a single small study, we say so explicitly. Where evidence is internally inconsistent or contested, we describe the contest rather than picking a side.

5. Dating, versioning and the review cadence

Every editorial page on the site carries a "Last reviewed" timestamp visible to the reader near the page heading and emitted as dateModified in the page's structured data. Where a page was first published on a date different from its last review, both dates appear.

The standard review cadence is quarterly. At each quarterly pass, the editorial team checks every peptide page for newly published research, regulatory-status changes, and citation drift (broken links, retracted papers, updated DOIs). If material changes are made, the "Last reviewed" date is updated; if no changes are required after the review, the date is still rolled forward to indicate the review took place. Pages that have not been reviewed in the current cycle are not silently presented as up-to-date.

Major restructures — addition of new studies, expansion of safety sections, addition of new comparison or protocol pages — also trigger a date update on every affected page. Cosmetic edits do not.

6. The error-correction process

We try to be accurate. We also accept that on a site covering a moving research field, errors will be made. If you identify a factual error on any page — a misstated study outcome, a misattributed author, an out-of-date regulatory claim, a broken citation — please use the contact route to flag it.

Material corrections are made by editing the affected page directly, updating the "Last reviewed" date, and adding a brief correction note in the page footer or in the relevant section. We do not silently rewrite material claims: where the correction changes the substantive content, a visible correction notice remains on the page.

7. Conflicts of interest and commercial relationships

LongevityPeptides.co.uk does not sell research peptides. The site carries no advertising network, no programmatic ads, no sponsored placements and no paid editorial content. We do not accept payment for inclusion of any compound, and we do not accept payment for favourable coverage.

The site links to two UK research-peptide suppliers — PeptideAuthority.co.uk and PeptideBarn.co.uk — in dedicated "Where to source for laboratory research" callouts on each peptide page. Those links are editorial: they exist because the suppliers publish public catalogues and analytical certificates that are relevant to readers sourcing reference material for laboratory work. We have no commercial relationship that influences the inclusion of those suppliers or the content of any page on the site.

The site also cross-links to sister educational resources operated under the same editorial umbrella (PeptideStacks.co.uk, ResearchPeptideCalculator.co.uk, BestHealingPeptides.co.uk). These cross-links are disclosed where they appear and exist because the topical coverage is complementary.

8. UK regulatory framing

None of the peptides discussed on this site is a licensed medicine in the United Kingdom. None is approved by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) for diagnosis, treatment, cure or prevention of any disease. Under the Human Medicines Regulations 2012, supply, advertising or promotion of unlicensed medicinal products for human use is not permitted in the UK.

The site frames every compound in the research-only context that applies in UK law. Where a compound is licensed outside the UK (Thymosin Alpha-1, Sermorelin historically), we note this explicitly. Where a compound is in active clinical development with the MHRA aware of trial activity (SS-31/elamipretide), we note this. Where a compound has cosmetic approval but no medicinal authorisation (GHK-Cu), we note this distinction.

9. Privacy and data

The site collects minimal data. We do not run third-party advertising trackers. The newsletter and contact-form endpoints are used only for the stated purpose. Full detail is in the privacy policy.

10. Feedback

Corrections, citation suggestions and editorial feedback are welcome via the contact page. We cannot answer individual questions about treatment, dosing, or specific personal use of any compound on this site — those questions belong with a medically qualified practitioner.