Browse evidence-based analysis of health-related claims and assertions
Peptide antibiotics can tell the difference between bacterial and human cells because they have different electrical charges - bacteria have negatively charged membranes while human cells are neutral.
Mechanistic
Scientists are developing about 22 special protein pieces (called peptides) that can fight bacteria and fungi, and all of them are being tested in human clinical trials right now.
Descriptive
Since 1955, the FDA has approved 12 medicines made from small protein pieces (peptides) that can fight bacteria and fungi. These are important medicines doctors use to treat serious infections.
When researchers stop or hide studies on peptides, it usually means those studies didn't show good results for helping people - so we don't have solid proof that peptides actually work safely for medical or commercial purposes.
Correlational
If scientists develop peptides that actually work well for treating conditions, they could potentially sell them as patented medicines using special delivery methods, and this success would draw more hospitals and medical researchers to study and use them.
When people get treatment for pain, sometimes they feel better just because they expect to feel better - not because the treatment actually changed anything in their body.
Many workout supplements and black market drugs don't contain what the labels say - they might have harmful stuff mixed in or be labeled completely wrong.
Peptide products like certain supplements aren't checked by the FDA like regular medicines are, so the quality and safety standards for making them may not be as strict as what drug companies have to follow.
BPC-157 is a healing peptide that's mostly been researched by one small group of scientists. Usually, when a drug really works, lots of different scientists all over the world start studying it right away.
When scientists develop new drugs using animal tests, more than 92% of them fail when tried on humans - either because they're toxic or don't work as expected.
Quantitative
Most peptide studies are done in mice or rats, and when humans are studied, it's usually just basic observations without proper comparison groups.
Scientists haven't done proper human tests to see if certain peptide supplements like BPC-157, Ipamorelin, or CJC-1295 actually help with recovery, sleep, or body composition.
Medications that mimic a gut hormone called GLP-1 can make people feel less hungry, eat less food, and lose body fat over time.
Causal
Most drugs that look promising in animal studies—over 92% of them—end up failing when researchers try to use them in humans, and this high failure rate hasn't changed much in decades.
Researchers tested 12 brain health supplements and found that most of them had hidden ingredients not listed on the label - about 83% had at least one secret compound, averaging over 3 hidden ingredients per bottle.
The study claiming BPC 157 is safe at super-high doses has big problems - they didn't say how they gave the drug, didn't check if it was even stable, and didn't do proper safety tests.
There's only been one official clinical trial testing BPC 157 in humans, and it was cancelled. The other safety data we have comes from tiny, unpublished studies that aren't reliable enough to prove this peptide is safe or works as a medicine.
BPC 157 disappears from the blood very quickly (in less than 30 minutes) in animals, but people are selling it in 200 microgram capsules without knowing if this is safe or even reaches the bloodstream.
There's no real evidence BPC 157 fights cancer - the only study people cite is one old experiment with cancer cells in a dish that nobody has repeated, and some studies about weight loss in sick patients that don't actually measure tumor growth.
BPC 157 doesn't just 'balance' nitric oxide - research shows it actually increases nitric oxide production, and we don't know if this could be harmful at higher doses people might take.
A peptide called BPC 157 helps grow new blood vessels in injured muscles and tendons, but scientists worry this same blood vessel growth could also help tumors grow - and they haven't done enough safety studies to check if it causes cancer.
Most BPC 157 studies in animals only give one tiny dose one time, so we don't know what happens if someone takes a bigger dose, takes it many times, or takes it for a long time.
Almost all BPC 157 research comes from one lab, which means other scientists haven't been able to check if those results are true or apply to other people.
Many sports supplements you can buy contain hidden illegal drugs that athletes aren't allowed to take. Studies found that between 12 and 58 out of every 100 supplements have these banned substances in them, which could accidentally make an athlete fail a drug test.