Do peptides live up to the hype? [Science review]

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

00:23 GLP-1 receptor agonists

00:41 Peptide drugs

01:26 Peptide trials data

03:55 FDA approval

05:46 Recovery

06:45 Outro

Transcript:

Peptides have skyrocketed to popularity in fitness circles due to their wide range of touted benefits: increased muscle growth, faster recovery, better strength development, improved wound healing, better sleep… The list is endless. It’s a tempting picture indeed, but what does the science really say? I reviewed all the available evidence on these peptides, and here’s what I found.

There’s one group of peptides that undoubtedly lives up to the hype. That’s GLP-1 receptor agonists. GLP-1 receptor agonists, most famously – Ozempic, help suppress your appetite and are enormously popular and effective and safe as weight loss aids. They basically just make you eat a lot less, reducing your energy intake and thereby causing a lot of fat loss. Peptide drugs have been around for a long time, but the GLP-1 drugs put peptides back on the map.

When we look at the other peptides that have become popular in fitness circles, the picture is a lot cloudier. This includes BPC-157, which I’m personally most interested in, Ipamorelin and other growth hormone boosters, and CJC-1295. Bodybuilders are notorious for injecting themselves with anything that could possibly-might-maybe increase their gains, safety be damned. They truly are the first frontier of ergogenics. In the case of peptides, this is very, very true. The main finding of my review is that there is essentially ZERO – – 0 – high quality human data on any of these, including BPC-157. There are no high quality human randomized controlled trials on any of these peptides for any of their purported benefits, including faster recovery, better sleep, better body composition… Nothing!

Virtually all of the data are in rodents, and that includes the safety data. All of the human data are studies like – two people taking it and then showing that there was an increase in growth hormone production, although there was also no control group, so there’s really no way to tell if it really was the drug. And that’s pretty much it. Basically, all the data are on mice and rats. And if you think something is highly effective and safe in rodents, then that’s pretty good for humans, right? Wrong!

A recent review on this concluded: “The failure rate for the translation of drugs from animal testing to human treatments remains at over 92%, where it has been for the past few decades. The majority of these failures are due to unexpected toxicity – that is, safety issues revealed in human trials that were not apparent in animal tests – or lack of efficacy.” Perhaps even more worrying is that there were some trials on some of these peptides, but they were not published or canceled. And for Body Protection Compound 157 even the rodent data are shady.

Almost all of the data come from one lab in Croatia by Sikirć et al. …or however you pronounce it. Now, absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence. Just because we don’t have good human trials does not mean that it’s not effective. However, usually when a drug is effective there are a lot of trials very quickly. In fact, the research usually explodes on these things when something is found to be effective. Commercial drug manufacturers usually race to be the first to slap a patent on it and commercialize it.

Some proponents of peptides have argued that this is not possible for peptides because they are so easy and cheap to produce. However, you can always have some novel delivery system or a proprietary mix. You can always slap a patent on that and then put a brand on it, and you can absolutely commercialize it. Even if it’s not so commercially viable to put a lot of money into these trials, and in this case it’s actually also not that expensive to do the trials, because the compound is already there and there are lots of people willing to try; it in these cases, at a minimum, you would expect that hospitals, medical centers or just research institutes would be on this.

So typically with drugs and supplements, absence of evidence in humans is actually a very bad sign, especially when some of the trials were canceled or not published. This strongly suggests that the human evidence was not there for commercial use or medical use. Even if the peptides do turn out to be effective when produced by clinical standards there is another issue. Because none of these peptides are FDA approved, due to the complete lack of evidence in favor of them in humans, there is also very little regulation surrounding their production. Most of these peptides are not made for human use. This means that the production centers are not as well regulated as they would be for a drug that does have FDA approval.

Now, I would note FDA approval is certainly not the end all be all, but in the case of production standards it does definitely help, especially because now all of these peptides available on the black market or online, they are for “research purposes” or animal use, and that means that the production standards are not nearly as strict as they would be if you buy, for example, a drug from a pharmacy. And specifically in the case of supplements and underground lab drugs, which is how most people get their steroids, there is tons of evidence that the majority, not just some, but the majority of these supplements and drugs are adulterated, they have some ingredients that are not on the label or they don’t have what is on the label. So contamination, adulteration, faking, under dosing, all of these things are extremely common in this market.

In contrast to all of these red flags there is basically only one line of evidence in favor of using peptides, and that is the human anecdotes. There are tons and tons of anecdotes of people that are raving about the use of these peptides, including some generally very well informed and evidence based individuals. However, even from the most well-intentioned and informed individuals I am extremely skeptical about anecdotes, especially in this case.

I have been in the industry for over 15 years and I’ve seen many supplements and drugs come and go, and all of them had a lot of hype behind them. The hype train was real, but still they just faded into oblivion, never to be heard from again over the course of a couple of years. Fads in the supplement industry are not unlike fashion. And this is especially true for recovery, which is the main benefit purported from body protection compounds and all these growth hormone boosters.

When it comes to pain management there is a very well documented and strong placebo effect. It is very easy to take one of these peptides and actually experience less pain and feel more recovered. This is why in the physiotherapy and rehabilitation industry we have so many fads… Massage guns, cupping, cold plunges… All of these things had lots of people swearing by their efficacy, and it turned out in research that when we control for the placebo effect none of these things actually improve recovery.

Perhaps this time is different. I would love it. I would love it if BPC-157 in particular turned out to be safe and effective, because it would help me do a lot more kickboxing without getting injured all the time. However, as the evidence stands, I’m going to be a negative Nancy and I cannot publicly endorse people to inject themselves with things that simply have no human safety or efficacy data. If you’re more optimistic about peptides and you want to use them, by all means go ahead. It’s your body. You can do whatever you want to do with it. I’m just here to give you the information.

If you want to get an unbiased, in-depth review of all topics that serious lifters might be interested in to take their physique and performance to the next level, check out my online PT course. The link is in the description. See you next time.