GH secretagogues and safety — what should someone actually read up on?

Good framing to separate documented, overstated, and unknown. A few that are reasonably documented in the GH-excess literature (mostly from acromegaly and GH-therapy studies, which is an imperfect proxy): reduced insulin sensitivity and higher blood glucose, fluid retention, and joint/carpal-tunnel type symptoms. Those show up consistently enough to take seriously as a class-level signal.

The IGF-1-and-cancer concern is real as a biological hypothesis and worth understanding, but it's mostly epidemiological association and mechanism, not proof that a given secretagogue causes cancer — I'd file it under 'plausible, unresolved, respect it.' The biggest honest category is simply 'unknown': the specific research peptides people discuss have little to no long-term safety data in healthy trained adults, and product identity/purity adds a whole separate uncertainty. For anyone weighing actual health decisions, this is squarely a conversation for a qualified clinician, not a forum.

That's a clean taxonomy — documented class signals, plausible-but-unresolved, and genuinely unknown. The reminder that acromegaly data is an imperfect proxy is important; it's chronic pathological excess, not the same thing. Appreciate you not flattening it into either 'totally safe' or 'you'll get cancer.'

Sharing purely as personal anecdote and not advice: the water retention and mild carpal-tunnel-type wrist tingling are the two things I've seen people mention most often in passing, which lines up with the documented list above. Not a recommendation in any direction — just noting the anecdotes seem to track the literature rather than contradict it.