r/Biohacking: rules, karma requirements and posting culture

Who posts here

Many posters are on their first vial and ask how to titrate, how much water to add or whether a side effect is normal. They get answered, usually kindly. The vocabulary is not explained, though: reta, tirz, pinning, bac water and units are assumed from the first line. A question that shows no homework at all sometimes gets told the person should not be taking the compound yet.

• People losing weight on GLP-1 type peptides, from first week to two years in.
• Men combining testosterone therapy with fat loss compounds and gym work.
• Women using peptides for skin, hair or perimenopause weight changes.
• Experienced users running several compounds who answer the dosing and reconstitution questions.
• Newcomers who bought a vial and are nervous about the first injection.

Karma and account requirements

What it takes to get a post through in r/Biohacking.

What you can post

What happens to a new post

Where the most recent posts ended up. Sample size: 400.

• Stayed up88%
• Removed by Reddit's filters11%
• Removed by moderators1%
• Deleted by the author<1%

Reddit counts a removal by the subreddit's own AutoModerator rules as a moderator removal, so that share is not all human. Held by AutoModerator means the post is waiting in the mod queue.

The rules, in the mods' words

1. 1

   Respectful and Constructive Dialogue

   - Treat fellow members with courtesy and respect. Disagreements are natural, but engage in discussions with maturity and focus on the ideas presented rather than personal attacks. - Use language that is civil and free from offensive, derogatory, or inflammatory remarks.

2. 2

   Credible and Informed Content

   - Share information from reputable sources, such as peer-reviewed scientific journals, reliable news outlets, and credible research institutions. - Avoid spreading unverified claims, pseudoscience, or exaggerated statements. Misleading information can harm the quality of discussions.

3. 3

   Promotion of Ethical Research

   - Encourage discussions that emphasize ethical considerations and responsible conduct in life extension research and interventions.

4. 4

   Engagement in Healthy Skepticism

   - Maintain a critical mindset and be open to evaluating new ideas. Constructive skepticism is welcome, but ensure your skepticism is backed by rational and well-reasoned arguments.

5. 5

   In-Depth and Thoughtful Contributions

   - Contribute meaningful content that adds value to the subreddit. Low-effort or irrelevant posts may be removed to maintain the quality of discussions. - When sharing personal experiences, provide context and considerate details to enhance the depth of your contribution.

6. 6

   Guidelines for Sharing Links and Resources

   - When sharing external links or resources, provide a brief summary or explanation to help others understand the content's relevance. - Refrain from excessive self-promotion or spamming. Posts and comments should contribute to discussions rather than solely promoting personal interests.

7. 7

   Privacy and Confidentiality

   - Respect the privacy of individuals mentioned in discussions. Refrain from sharing personal information without consent.

8. 8

   Report Inappropriate Content

   - If you come across content that violates these guidelines or the Reddit site-wide rules, please report it to the moderators for review. This helps promote a self-policing moderating system and allows swifter action to be taken on posts.

These are the rules as archived in January 2025. Rules change. Check the sidebar before you post.

The culture

The description promises cognitive enhancement, longevity and CRISPR. What the feed actually holds is peptides. The most common word in recent posts by a wide margin is the nickname for retatrutide, followed by weight, dose and peptides. If your topic is not an injectable, weight loss or body composition, you are posting to the wrong crowd.

It is a very active room for its size: about 134,000 members and roughly 125 posts a day, with a median of nine comments each. Text makes up about 70% of posts and images about 20%, but the images own the top of the subreddit. Nearly every top post is a before and after photo with a weight, a timeline and a list of compounds. Titles are short, around five words.

The written rules talk about peer-reviewed sources and healthy skepticism, and they read like they were written for a different community. Day to day, the place runs on personal reports and peer dosing advice for compounds bought outside a pharmacy. The sceptics show up in the comments: people telling a beginner not to stack three things at once, to question purity, to get bloodwork, or to ask a clinician. Each post gets an automatic comment asking members to vote on whether it belongs.

What lands

• Before and after photos with starting weight, current weight, time on the compound and the dose. These are the top posts by a long way.
• Milestone updates that include the unglamorous parts: diet, training, calories, what went wrong early.
• Posts about side benefits or hidden costs nobody warned you about. They pull hundreds of comments.
• A structured progress log that labels itself as one person's experience and not advice.
• A debate prompt that touches the community's identity, such as a jab about trusting peptides more than mainstream medicine.

What gets removed or ignored

• Posts from accounts under 15 days old, removed by AutoModerator.
• Posts from accounts with too little comment karma, labelled likely spam with no appeal.
• Moderator removals are rare, about 1% of the sample. Most of the ones we saw had their titles wiped. One with a readable title was written in polished, generic wellness language of the kind that reads as marketing.
• Excessive self-promotion or spam, per the link sharing rule.
• Low effort or irrelevant posts, per the rules, though plenty of one-line dosing questions stay up.

The unwritten rules

• Learn the shorthand before you post. Writing out full drug names where everyone else uses nicknames marks you as new, which is fine, but not knowing what a unit is draws a lecture.
• Give numbers. Height, weight, dose, weeks, vial size and how much water you added. Replies ask for them immediately if they are missing.
• Add a line that it is your experience and not medical advice. Regulars do this routinely.
• Do not ask where to buy in the open, and do not name a vendor. Experienced posters make a point of keeping sources out of their posts.
• Comments are short, about 18 words, and very few contain links. Praise for a specific supplier or product stands out as planted.

Self-promotion

The rule sits inside the link guidelines: no excessive self-promotion or spamming, and posts should add to discussion and not only serve your own interest. That leaves room in theory. In practice the account age and comment karma gate does most of the anti-spam work, mods remove little by hand, and the community is wary of anything that smells like a vendor because sourcing is a sensitive subject here. A brand has nothing to gain from a product post. Personal results with full details are the only currency.

How people write here

Typical post length

66 words

Typical title length

5 words

Titles phrased as a question

29%

Typical comment length

18 words

Comments that include a link

2%

The regulars

The accounts that showed up most in our sample. Worth reading before you post: they set the tone, and they are usually the first to reply.

Top keywords

The words and phrases that show up far more often here than in other communities, from recent posts in r/Biohacking.

• reta 143 posts
• peptides 41 posts
• dose 49 posts
• weight 56 posts
• retatrutide 23 posts
• lbs 35 posts
• tirz 21 posts
• peptide 25 posts
• cjc 18 posts
• muscle 30 posts
• mots-c 20 posts
• tesa 19 posts
• ghk-cu 18 posts
• vial 19 posts
• dosing 17 posts
• klow 16 posts
• fat 31 posts
• ipa 16 posts
• protocol 23 posts
• taking 49 posts
• ss-31 12 posts
• kpv 12 posts
• ghk 12 posts
• lost 40 posts
• body 36 posts
• starting reta 9 posts
• dac 9 posts
• dosage 16 posts
• cjc ipa 11 posts
• bac 13 posts
• mg vial 8 posts
• tesamorelin 10 posts
• ghkcu 10 posts
• doses 15 posts
• food noise 10 posts
• nad+ 11 posts
• bac water 10 posts
• side effects 16 posts
• ipamorelin 9 posts
• appetite 15 posts

Posts that did well

• 2 years of peptides… life changing!!!3.9k upvotes · 335 comments
• 18 month mark3k upvotes · 838 comments
• 8 Months2.8k upvotes · 784 comments
• How would you respond?2.6k upvotes · 1.7k comments
• never going back.2.2k upvotes · 393 comments
• 19 weeks on peptides1.3k upvotes · 169 comments
• Been on Reta since April been in the gym 4x a week since may 4th down to 235lbs1.3k upvotes · 153 comments
• How it’s going after almost 50 pounds1.1k upvotes · 119 comments

Common questions