From influencers to athletes, more and more public figures are promoting peptides as a path to wellness, claiming they help with injury recovery, weight loss, slowing aging, and improving mood.
However, experts warn that behind this trend lies an unclear and often unregulated industry.
What are peptides?
Peptides are short chains of amino acids. Some of them are produced naturally in the body and perform important functions. For example, insulin, oxytocin, and vasopressin are peptides that affect blood sugar regulation, social behavior, water retention, and blood pressure, respectively.
Other peptides are created when proteins are broken down in the body, such as during the digestive process. In recent years, interest in using peptides for therapeutic purposes has increased significantly, especially for weight loss, anti-aging, and injury recovery.
This category also includes prescription weight-loss drugs based on synthetic peptides that mimic natural hormones, such as semaglutide, found in Wegovy, and tirzepatide, found in Mounjaro. However, many peptides on the market have not gone through the rigorous regulatory processes required for drugs and are often sold as experimental products for self-injection.
Who is using these products?
According to Dr. Luke Turnock, a lecturer in criminology at the University of Lincoln, peptides were initially of limited interest, mainly among weightlifters and bodybuilders during the 2010s. At the time, the most widespread were peptides related to the release of growth hormone, such as GHRP-2 and GHRP-6, while other peptides such as TB-500 began to be mentioned.
Since then, interest has grown significantly. Some peptides, such as BPC-157 and TB-500, have become popular through podcasts and social media, where they are claimed to aid in injury recovery. Their combination is known by some users as the “Wolverine stack,” referring to the Marvel character. Others, such as CJC-1295, MK-677, and ipamorelin, are promoted for muscle growth, while GHK-Cu is promoted for anti-aging effects.
Today, social media is filled with content about peptides, how to sell them, buy them, and inject them. According to Turnock, the main users remain people interested in health, fitness, and wellness.
Is there scientific evidence for the claims?
Experts point out that for most experimental peptides, there is little scientific evidence to support the claims made about them. Even when studies exist, they are often conducted in animals or cells, not in humans.
A recent review by American researchers of peptides advertised for musculoskeletal injuries noted that BPC-157 has shown potential for tendon and muscle repair, but these findings remain largely unproven in human clinical trials. There are no randomized human studies of these uses, and the reported cases have serious shortcomings.
TB-4 and the synthetic version TB-500 have also shown some positive signs in laboratory and animal studies, particularly for blood vessel formation and tissue repair. But human data on musculoskeletal problems are lacking. Experts point out that there are no studies with human participants for TB-500. Furthermore, these substances are banned in sports and appear on the list of substances prohibited by anti-doping authorities.
Another problem is the lack of clear information on indications, dosage, frequency and duration of treatment.
What is the legal situation?
In the UK, many popular peptides are not automatically considered medicines and are therefore not regulated by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, MHRA. However, the situation changes if sellers, whether websites, clinics or social media accounts, claim that peptides have medicinal effects.
According to Lynda Scammell from the MHRA, if a product containing peptides makes medical claims, or if it is used in a way that falls within the legal definition of a “medicinal product”, then it must have marketing authorisation to be legally sold or supplied in the UK.
The MHRA also stresses that labelling "for research purposes only" is not sufficient to avoid scrutiny. If promotional materials indicate that products are intended for human use, the authorities may take regulatory action.
What are the risks?
Experts raise some concerns about the use of experimental and unregulated peptides. Professor Adam Taylor from Lancaster University explains that promising results in preclinical studies, such as those in animals or cells, do not necessarily mean benefits in humans.
He points out that many substances that look promising in the laboratory fail to pass safety, toxicology, and effectiveness tests in humans. For this reason, the lack of clinical evidence makes their use unsafe.
Another concern is related to the purity of the products. Peptides produced for laboratory research may contain other components dangerous to humans or bacterial endotoxins, which in severe cases can cause septic shock.
Taylor adds that natural peptides are maintained by the body at very specific levels. Artificially increasing these levels through injections can disrupt the balance of the body's systems. Furthermore, many peptides participate in several biological processes at once, so their use can have unforeseen consequences.
There are also theoretical concerns about tumors, as some peptides are produced in higher amounts in some types of cancer. Although there is currently no evidence that injecting these substances causes such an effect, experts point out that if a person has low-grade inflammation or early signs of cancer, interfering with these biological pathways could be problematic.
In addition to the risks of self-injection, such as mis-injection or interactions with medications the person is taking, a major problem is the lack of medical monitoring. It is not clear how long people use these peptides and what consequences may occur over time.
Experts warn that if something goes wrong in the short term, users may not realize it immediately. Whereas if the damage develops slowly, the consequences may already be done before they are noticed. /GazetaExpress/
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