BPC-157

A synthetic peptide 15 amino acids long. The literature describes it as a fragment of a protein found in human stomach juice. It is sold freeze-dried and labelled "for research use only". An investigation by Swedish public broadcaster SVT in May 2026 showed that a seller nonetheless gave usage advice to a reporter posing as a private buyer.

Sold as

Sold for injection under the skin or into muscle; an oral form also exists. There is no approved way to take it.

Legal status in the EU

Not approved as a medicine in the EU or Sweden, and not approved anywhere else either. In SVT's 2026 investigation the Swedish Medical Products Agency stated that selling it to consumers breaks the rules, and warned that what is actually in these products is often unknown.

A 2025 review reports that in animal models BPC-157 switches on several overlapping signalling pathways, mainly ones involved in growing new blood vessels and in wound-repair cell activity. How it works in humans has not been established.

Part of the bodyWhat happensHow it is knownKind of evidence

Stomach and gut

This is the only part of the body where BPC-157 has been given to people in a study with a comparison group. Adults with ulcerative colitis — a long-term disease where the lining of the large bowel becomes inflamed and ulcerated — were given it as a liquid rinse into the rectum. Disease scores fell in the people who got it, and they also fell in the people who got a dummy rinse. The difference between the two groups was too small and too uncertain to tell apart.

Measured in 53 adults with mild to moderate ulcerative colitis over two weeks; 46 finished. The trial was never published as a full paper, only as a conference abstract. The FDA could not check how the disease score was calculated or who was allowed in.

One small study

Source [11]

A painful knee

Injected directly into the knee joint at a private clinic in Orlando, Florida. Patients were later telephoned and asked to remember how much their pain had changed and how long the change lasted. Most said it had improved.

17 patients identified from clinic records, 16 reached by telephone. There was no comparison group, no scan and no pain scale. The authors state that no tool was used to measure function, stiffness or quality of life.

One small study

Source [04]Source [12]

The bladder wall

Injected in ten separate spots into the inside wall of the bladder during a single camera examination. The women had a long-term bladder pain condition and had already failed the standard drug for it. Most reported their symptoms had gone afterwards.

12 women aged 39 to 76 at one private clinic in Florida, one treatment session, no comparison group and no dummy procedure. The authors describe it as a pilot study.

One small study

Source [13]

Tendons

This is the reason most people buy it, and it is the part with no human evidence at all. In rats whose Achilles tendon was cut through surgically, the tendon held more load before failing than in rats given salt water. On tendon cells grown in a dish, the same paper found it had no effect on their growth on its own. It only cancelled out a chemical that was blocking them from growing. A separate rat-cell study found it raised the number of docking points for growth hormone on the cells, and those cells then grew faster only when growth hormone was added as well.

Rats and rat cells only. The rat study measured on days 1, 4, 7, 10 and 14. No published study has given BPC-157 to a person with a tendon injury. The first randomised trial in people — 120 planned, in hamstring strain — began on 2 February 2026 and has no results.

Only seen in animals

Source [09]Source [14]Source [15]

New blood vessels

In animals, one of the things it appears to do is switch on the signals that grow new blood vessels into damaged tissue. A 2025 review names this as one of several overlapping pathways it seems to act on, alongside effects on repair cells and on inflammation. The FDA's reviewers add that no molecule in the body has been identified that BPC-157 attaches to, so why any of it happens is not known.

Rats, mice and cells in dishes. In the rat gut and liver experiments, the FDA states that the dose needed to produce the effect could not be established, because two doses a thousand times apart worked equally well.

Only seen in animals

Source [06]Source [11]

Blood clotting and the liver

In the only repeat-dose animal safety study, daily injection into muscle shifted the blood test that times how long blood takes to clot. It got faster in rats and slower in dogs. Liver enzyme, blood sugar and blood fat readings also rose. The study's own authors concluded the peptide was well tolerated. The FDA, reading the same data, calls these clinically relevant safety signals, and notes that no longer study exists to see whether they persist.

Rats and dogs, injected once a day for 28 days, followed by a 14-day recovery period. Nobody has looked for either signal in a person.

Only seen in animals

Source [11]Source [16]

A systematic review (Vasireddi et al., HSS Journal 2025) screened 544 papers from 1993–2024 and included 36 studies: 35 in animals or cells, and 1 in humans. That one was a look-back at records where 7 of 12 patients with unspecified chronic knee pain reported relief lasting more than six months. The review states explicitly that it found no clinical safety data at all. A pilot study of intravenous infusion (Lee and Burgess, Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine 2025) covered two people over three days, had no control group, and both participants had already taken intravenous BPC-157 before the study began. A randomised phase 2 study in acute hamstring injury (NCT07437547, 120 planned) started in February 2026 and has no results.

There is no human study that measures how long anything takes. The longest anyone has been given BPC-157 in a published study is two weeks. In rats and dogs given a single dose into a vein, half of it was cleared from the blood within about 5 to 15 minutes. When it was given to people as a rinse into the rectum it could not be detected in their blood at all. So nothing is known about how long it stays anywhere in a human body after the routes people actually use.

What was measuredWhat happenedIn whomHow it is known

Ulcerative colitis disease score

Fell by 3.2 points on BPC-157 and by 1.6 points on a dummy rinse. The estimated gap between the groups was 1.6 points. The range of uncertainty around that gap ran from −4.84 to 1.62, which crosses zero — so the study could not show the two treatments differed at all.

53 adults with mild to moderate ulcerative colitis, randomly assigned one-to-one, treated once a day for two weeks; 46 completed. Reported only as a 2005 conference abstract.

One small study

Source [11]

Knee pain, as remembered by the patient

14 of the 16 patients reached said their knee pain had improved. There was no comparison group and no dummy injection, so there is nothing to set that number against.

17 patients with various causes of knee pain at one private clinic in Orlando, Florida; records reviewed backwards and patients phoned afterwards. Four of them also received a second peptide at the same time.

One small study

Source [12]

Bladder pain symptoms

10 of 12 women reported their symptoms had gone completely, and 2 reported an 80 per cent improvement. Again there was no comparison group, so the figure cannot be separated from what would have happened anyway after a bladder procedure.

12 women aged 39 to 76 with moderate to severe long-term bladder pain who had not responded to the standard drug, one treatment session at one private clinic.

One small study

Source [13]

Blood tests after infusion into a vein

No measurable change in the markers of heart, liver, kidney or thyroid function, or in blood sugar. There was no comparison group, and both participants had already taken BPC-157 by vein before the study started.

2 healthy adults, one 58-year-old man and one 68-year-old woman, over three days.

One small study

Source [05]

Size of a surgically made hole in the bowel wall (rats)

From day 3 onwards the holes were about 40 per cent smaller than in rats given a dummy liquid. By day 28 the treated rats' holes looked closed to the naked eye. In the dummy-liquid rats they had shrunk by less than a tenth on the skin side and less than a quarter on the bowel side. The authors did not examine the tissue under a microscope, so whether it had truly healed is unknown.

Adult male Wistar rats, treated from 30 minutes after surgery for up to 28 days.

Only seen in animals

Source [11]

Stomach and gut damage from high-dose painkillers (rats)

Visible damage was more than 75 per cent smaller in rats given BPC-157 alongside or before the painkiller than in rats given the painkiller alone. No microscope examination of the tissue was done, and two doses a thousand times apart produced the same effect.

Male and female Wistar rats given a large single dose of aspirin, diclofenac or indomethacin, examined 2 to 24 hours later.

Only seen in animals

Source [11]

There is no clinical safety data. The 2025 systematic review found no clinical safety studies whatsoever, and the safety data that does exist comes from animals. Effects on the immune system, on tumour growth through new blood vessel formation, and of long-term use are all unstudied. Manufacturing is unregulated: in an analysis of 1,190 doping products seized at the Swiss border (Weber et al. 2017), fewer than 20 per cent of products contained the stated substance in the stated amount.

EffectWhat it feels likeHow often

Breathlessness that led to a hospital emergency visitSerious

A 28-year-old man injecting it under the skin for injury and inflammation. The report contains nothing about how long he had used it or what else he was taking. The FDA says that makes it impossible to judge whether BPC-157 caused it.

One of the three reports ever filed for BPC-157 in the FDA's adverse event database, counted up to 4 December 2025.

Source [11]

An immune reaction against the peptide itselfSerious

The body can learn to make antibodies against an injected peptide. The FDA states that no study of this has ever been done for BPC-157. It adds that a 15-amino-acid chain given by injection or nasal spray may carry a significant risk of it, and that the consequences range from nothing noticeable to life-threatening. The risk is raised when peptide molecules clump together, which depends on how a product is made and stored.

Never measured in anyone.

Source [11]

Skin and gums turning darker

A 40-year-old woman injecting a product containing both BPC-157 and TB-500 twice a day. The darkening appeared after a week, cleared when she stopped, and came back in the same way when she used the product again two weeks later. That pattern makes the product the likely cause, but because it contained two peptides it cannot be pinned on BPC-157.

One of the three reports in the FDA's adverse event database, counted up to 4 December 2025.

Source [11]

Redness and swelling where it was injected

A 55-year-old woman, lasting nine days. She was injecting a second peptide at the same time, so the FDA could not attribute it.

One of the three reports in the FDA's adverse event database, counted up to 4 December 2025.

Source [11]

Headache and wind

Reported in a phase 1 study where the peptide was given as a liquid rinse into the rectum. Volunteers got one dose, then a week later one dose a day for seven days. The results exist only as two conference abstracts, and the FDA notes the safety monitoring is not described.

The two most commonly reported complaints among 32 healthy volunteers in the only tolerability study. The authors report no obvious difference in how often they happened on BPC-157 and on the dummy rinse.

Source [11]

These are the amounts the studies below gave their participants, and they are here as facts about those studies. They are not a recommendation, not a starting point and not a range to pick from. What a person should take, if anything, is a question for a doctor who knows them.

Phase 1 tolerability study in healthy volunteers, given as a liquid rinse into the rectum. Four dose levels were tested, six people on BPC-157 and two on a dummy rinse at each level.

0.25, 0.5, 1 and 2 mg per kilogram of body weight

One single dose, then a week with nothing, then one dose a day for seven days. 32 people randomised, 24 received BPC-157.

Source [11]

The ulcerative colitis trial (Ruenzi et al. 2005), 53 adults randomly assigned to BPC-157 or a dummy rinse.

80 mg as a liquid rinse into the rectum, once a day

Two weeks

Source [11]

The knee pain records review at a private clinic in Orlando (Lee and Padgett 2021). Different patients had received different amounts, and the published records do not explain why.

Between 2 mg and 4 mg injected into the knee joint itself, given once or twice

One or two injections; the review looked back over the clinic's files

Source [11]

The bladder pain pilot study in 12 women (Lee, Walker and Ayadi 2024), given during a camera examination of the bladder.

1 mg into each of ten spots in the bladder wall, 10 mg in total

One single procedure

Source [13]

The two-person infusion study (Lee and Burgess 2025), given into a vein over an hour on each of two days.

10 mg on day one and 20 mg on day two

Two days, with blood tests on day three

Source [05]

What people report

• Whether it does anything at all when injected under the skin — the way nearly everyone who buys it uses it — has never been published in a single human study.
• Whether the body makes antibodies against it: never studied. The FDA names this as a significant risk for a peptide of this size given by injection or nasal spray.
• Whether it causes cancer: no study exists in any species.
• What the new blood vessels it grows in animals would do in a person who already has a tumour.
• How much of it reaches the blood after a tablet, an injection under the skin, a nasal spray or a cream: no human data for any of these. After a rectal rinse it was not detectable in blood at all.
• What happens beyond two weeks: no published human study has run longer.
• Whether the faster and slower blood clotting seen in rats and dogs after 28 days of injections happens in people: nobody has looked.
• Whether it is safe in pregnancy: the only data is one rat experiment covering ten days of pregnancy, by a route no person uses.
• What molecule in the body it attaches to: the FDA states no target has been identified, which is why the effects reported in animals cannot be checked for biological plausibility.
• How often products sold as BPC-157 contain what the label says: never measured for this substance.

Is it approved as a medicine anywhere?

No. The FDA stated in its May 2026 evaluation that there is no approved product containing BPC-157 in any country. It does not appear in the European, Japanese or international pharmacopoeias. New Zealand's medicines classification committee recommended in May 2023 that it be made a prescription-only medicine, but that is a control on supply, not a finding that it works. In Sweden, an SVT investigation in May 2026 reported that selling these injectable peptides to consumers is against the law, and the Medical Products Agency warned that what is in them is often unknown.

Source [10]Source [11]Source [17]

Didn't an FDA panel just clear it in July 2026?

An advisory committee voted 8 in favour, 6 against and 1 abstention on 23 July 2026. The vote was to recommend that US compounding pharmacies be allowed to make BPC-157. That is advice, not a decision: the FDA says it generally follows such recommendations but is not legally bound by them, and a formal rulemaking process would have to follow. The FDA's own reviewers had recommended against it in the briefing paper written for that same meeting. Their grounds were that the substance is not well enough characterised chemically, that there is a lack of evidence it works, and that there is insufficient information to describe its safety.

Source [11]Source [18]Source [19]

Has anyone studied the injection under the skin that people actually buy it for?

Not in a published study. The FDA searched the literature and the trial registers in December 2025. It found no human study of BPC-157 given under the skin, by mouth, into the nose or onto the skin. The five published human studies used a rinse into the rectum, an injection into a knee joint, an injection into the bladder wall, and an infusion into a vein. A phase 2 trial of daily injection under the skin for hamstring strain started in February 2026 and has no results.

Source [09]Source [11]

Who ran the human studies that report good results?

Three of the five published human studies come from the same doctor, working at private clinics in Florida: the knee one, the bladder one and the two-person infusion. All three appeared in the same journal. All three were uncontrolled: no dummy treatment and no comparison group. In the knee study the outcome was what patients remembered when phoned afterwards. The FDA's summary table records the compounding pharmacy that supplied the peptide for each; one of them did not wish to be named.

Source [11]

Was there ever a proper study that was abandoned?

Yes. A phase 1 study in healthy volunteers in Mexico (NCT02637284) planned to give 42 people BPC-157 as a tablet. They were to get a single dose first, then 3 mg three times a day for two weeks. It started in October 2015. No results were ever posted: the registry's own record shows a results submission was released on 23 May 2016 and then withdrawn, and the study's status is listed as unknown. A registry entry is not a result.

Source [20]

Is what is in the vial actually BPC-157?

Nobody has tested that for BPC-157 specifically. What exists is a wider check: when Swiss customs analysed 1,190 doping products seized at the border, fewer than 20 per cent contained the substance named on the label in the amount stated. The US Department of Defense's supplement safety programme lists BPC-157 as an unapproved drug that turns up in wellness products, often sold under a "research use only" label.

Source [08]Source [21]

Each letter represents one amino acid.

1. [01]2023 doping list, Antidoping Sweden (the WADA list in Swedish) — S0 names BPC-157 explicitly (2023)
2. [02]BPC-157: Experimental Peptide Creates Risk for Athletes (USADA) — prohibited under S0
3. [03]Athlete Advisory: Explanation of Key Changes on 2022 WADA Prohibited List (BPC-157 added under S0 from 2022) (2022)
4. [04]Emerging Use of BPC-157 in Orthopaedic Sports Medicine: A Systematic Review (HSS J) (2025)
5. [05]Safety of Intravenous Infusion of BPC157 in Humans: A Pilot Study (n=2) (2025)
6. [06]Regeneration or Risk? A Narrative Review of BPC-157 for Musculoskeletal Healing (Curr Rev Musculoskelet Med) (2025)
7. [07]BPC-157, PubChem CID 9941957 — synonym list confirms H-GEPPPGKPADDAGLV-OH
8. [08]Qualitative and Semiquantitative Analysis of Doping Products Seized at the Swiss Border (n=1190) (2017)
9. [09]BPC 157 for Acute Hamstring Muscle Strain Repair (NCT07437547, fas 2, rekryterar) (2026)
10. [10]SVT investigation: peptides contain banned substances — buyers can be prosecuted (in Swedish) (2026)
11. [11]FDA Briefing Document for BPC-157-Related Bulk Drug Substances, Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee, 23–24 July 2026 (section II.C, ulcerative colitis) (2026)
12. [12]Lee E, Padgett B. Intra-Articular Injection of BPC 157 for Multiple Types of Knee Pain. Altern Ther Health Med 2021;27(4):8-13 (2021)
13. [13]Lee E, Walker C, Ayadi B. Effect of BPC-157 on Symptoms in Patients with Interstitial Cystitis: A Pilot Study. Altern Ther Health Med 2024;30(10):12-17 (2024)
14. [14]Staresinic M et al. Gastric pentadecapeptide BPC 157 accelerates healing of transected rat Achilles tendon and in vitro stimulates tendocytes growth. J Orthop Res 2003;21(6):976-83 (2003)
15. [15]Chang CH et al. Pentadecapeptide BPC 157 enhances the growth hormone receptor expression in tendon fibroblasts. Molecules 2014;19(11):19066-77 (2014)
16. [16]Xu C et al. Preclinical safety evaluation of body protective compound-157, a potential drug for treating various wounds. Regul Toxicol Pharmacol 2020;114:104665 (2020)
17. [17]New Zealand Medicines Classification Committee, minutes of the 70th meeting, 25 May 2023 — BPC-157 recommended as a prescription medicine (2023)
18. [18]July 23-24, 2026: Meeting of the Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee (FDA advisory committee calendar) (2026)
19. [19]FDA Panel Votes to Loosen Restrictions for Four Peptides (Pharmaceutical Executive) (2026)
20. [20]Phase I, Pilot Study in Healthy Volunteers, to Assess the Safety and Pharmacokinetics of PCO-02 (NCT02637284, 42 planned, no results posted) (2015)
21. [21]BPC-157: A Prohibited Peptide and an Unapproved Drug Found in Health and Wellness Products (Operation Supplement Safety, US Department of Defense)