Unsupported as statedL2PreclinicalTissue repair
“BPC-157 heals tendons in humans.”
Unsupported as stated — the human trials simply don't exist.
- The tendon-healing story comes almost entirely from rodent models (Level 2).
- No adequately powered published randomised controlled trial in humans supports it.
- 'Unsupported' means we don't know it works — not that we know it fails. Those are different claims and the difference matters.
Last reviewed 2026-07-10Compound profile MisleadingL4Strong humanGLP-1s
“If my GLP-1 stops suppressing appetite, it has stopped working.”
Misleading — appetite suppression is a sensation, not the mechanism of benefit.
- Early strong nausea and appetite suppression often fade as the body adapts, while metabolic and glycaemic effects continue.
- Weight trajectory, glycaemic markers and clinical measures are the outcomes that matter, not how loudly you notice the drug.
- Plateaus have many causes — energy balance shifts, adaptation, adherence — and self-escalating a dose to chase a feeling is exactly the behaviour clinicians warn about.
Last reviewed 2026-07-02Compound profile MisleadingL1MechanisticResearch literacy
“Natural peptides are automatically safe.”
Misleading — 'natural' describes origin, not safety.
- Insulin is natural and can kill you at the wrong dose. Botulinum toxin is natural too.
- Dose, route, duration and purity determine risk far more than whether a molecule appears somewhere in biology.
- Most peptides sold outside medical supply have no human safety dataset at all, natural-sounding or otherwise.
Last reviewed 2026-06-30
MisleadingL1MechanisticResearch literacy
“There are lots of studies, so it must work.”
Misleading — study count is not evidence quality.
- Two hundred rodent papers from overlapping research groups is weaker evidence than one well-run randomised human trial.
- What matters: study design, sample size, blinding, independent replication and whether the endpoint is clinically meaningful.
- A tall stack of Level 1-2 evidence never adds up to Level 4. Evidence levels aren't cumulative points.
Last reviewed 2026-06-30
MisleadingL1MechanisticCancer context
“If a pathway promotes angiogenesis it means the peptide causes cancer.”
Misleading — a mechanistic concern is not a demonstrated human risk.
- Angiogenesis is normal physiology: wound healing, exercise adaptation and menstrual cycles all depend on it.
- Tumours exploit angiogenesis, so promoting it is a legitimate theoretical concern worth naming — particularly for anyone with a cancer history.
- No human data show that BPC-157, TB-500 or similar compounds cause cancer. Equally, no human data establish they are safe in people with cancer. The honest answer is 'unstudied', and that is a reason for caution, not a reassurance.
Last reviewed 2026-07-10
Partly supportedL4Strong humanGLP-1s
“Retatrutide produces more weight loss than currently approved GLP-1 medicines.”
Partly supported — the trial numbers are striking, but it isn't approved and long-term data are pending.
- Randomised mid-stage human trials reported large dose-dependent weight reduction.
- Cross-trial comparisons are not head-to-head evidence; populations and protocols differ.
- Efficacy confidence is high; long-term safety confidence is not, because those data don't exist yet.
Last reviewed 2026-07-02Compound profile MisleadingL3Early humanMitochondria
“Elamipretide is an approved anti-ageing therapy.”
Misleading — it holds a narrow accelerated approval for a rare genetic disease.
- Approval for Barth syndrome does not extend to healthy ageing, performance or general mitochondrial 'optimisation'.
- Trials in broader indications have produced mixed or unsuccessful results.
- Reading a rare-disease approval as an anti-ageing endorsement is one of the most common errors in this space.
Last reviewed 2026-07-05Compound profile Promising but unprovenL2PreclinicalLongevity
“MOTS-c is a proven longevity therapy.”
Promising but unproven — great biology, missing trials.
- Human observational work links circulating MOTS-c with fitness and metabolic status.
- Rodent studies show metabolic improvements, but no randomised human trial of administration exists.
- 'Promising' is a compliment about the science, not a recommendation to inject it.
Last reviewed 2026-06-28Compound profile Unsupported as statedL3Early humanSkin & hair
“GHK-Cu injections give you the same benefits as the skincare studies.”
Unsupported — topical evidence does not transfer to systemic dosing.
- The human evidence is for topical cosmetic formulations with local skin endpoints.
- Injecting a copper-carrying peptide is a fundamentally different exposure with different risks, including copper balance.
- No controlled human trials support systemic injectable use.
Last reviewed 2026-06-22Compound profile SupportedL5Practice-changingGLP-1s
“Semaglutide reduces cardiovascular events in higher-risk people.”
Supported — within the specific populations studied.
- Dedicated cardiovascular outcome trials in defined higher-risk populations support this.
- 'Supported' here is population-specific; it is not a promise of benefit for everyone who takes it.
- This is what Level 5 evidence looks like, for contrast with most of this registry.
Last reviewed 2026-07-02Compound profile Unsupported as statedL1MechanisticLongevity
“Epitalon extends human lifespan.”
Unsupported — human lifespan extension has never been demonstrated for any peptide.
- The supporting literature is old, narrow and largely unreplicated independently.
- Telomerase activation in cell culture is mechanistic evidence, not a lifespan outcome.
- Human lifespan trials are extraordinarily hard to run, which is precisely why nobody should claim to have won one.
Last reviewed 2026-06-15Compound profile Unsupported as statedL3Early humanGrowth hormone axis
“Peptides that raise growth hormone will build muscle in healthy adults.”
Unsupported as stated — raising a hormone is a surrogate endpoint, not a result.
- Early studies confirm GH and IGF-1 rise; that was never the hard part.
- No controlled trials show meaningful muscle or performance gains in healthy adults from GHRH analogues or secretagogues.
- Water retention and scale weight changes are frequently mistaken for tissue gain.
Last reviewed 2026-06-20Compound profile Unsupported as statedL1MechanisticSafety
“Research-grade peptides are the same as pharmaceutical-grade medicines.”
Unsupported — 'research use only' is a legal category, not a quality guarantee.
- Unapproved supply chains have documented problems with purity, sterility, mislabelled content and dose accuracy.
- A certificate of analysis supplied by the seller is not independent verification.
- This risk is separate from — and often larger than — the pharmacology of the molecule itself.
Last reviewed 2026-07-08Compound profile MisleadingL1MechanisticSafety
“Nobody has reported serious harm, so it must be safe.”
Misleading — absence of reported harm is not evidence of safety.
- Unapproved compounds have no systematic adverse-event reporting system behind them.
- Harms that are delayed, rare or non-obvious are exactly the ones anecdote misses.
- Silence in a forum is not a safety dataset.
Last reviewed 2026-06-30
SupportedL5Practice-changingGLP-1s
“Tirzepatide improves obstructive sleep apnoea in people with obesity.”
Supported — in the randomised trial populations studied.
- Dedicated randomised trials reported reduced apnoea severity.
- Effects are tied to the studied populations and treatment durations.
- This is a good example of a claim moving from 'promising' to 'supported' because someone ran the trial.
Last reviewed 2026-07-02Compound profile Partly supportedL2PreclinicalTissue repair
“TB-500 and thymosin beta-4 are the same thing.”
Partly supported — related, but not interchangeable, and marketing blurs it deliberately.
- Thymosin beta-4 is the full naturally occurring protein with a genuine research history.
- 'TB-500' typically denotes a shorter synthetic fragment sold as a research chemical.
- Citing thymosin beta-4 clinical work to sell TB-500 for tendon repair is a category error.
Last reviewed 2026-07-10Compound profile MisleadingL5Practice-changingMelanocortin
“PT-141 / bremelanotide is an approved sexual-performance enhancer for everyone.”
Misleading — the approval is deliberately narrow.
- Vyleesi (bremelanotide) is FDA-approved for acquired, generalised hypoactive sexual desire disorder in premenopausal women — a specific diagnosis, not a performance claim.
- It is not approved for men, for postmenopausal women, or for general sexual enhancement.
- Products marketed as 'PT-141' outside that indication are unapproved uses of a research-market product.
Last reviewed 2026-08-23Compound profile MisleadingL2PreclinicalMelanocortin
“Melanotan II is basically the same approved medicine as afamelanotide.”
Misleading — related chemistry, completely different regulatory reality.
- Afamelanotide (Scenesse) completed a full development programme and is approved for one rare disease, erythropoietic protoporphyria, as a clinician-administered implant.
- Melanotan II has no approval anywhere and sits on the FDA's 503A Category 2 list of substances with identified significant safety risks for compounding.
- Saying 'it's basically the approved one' erases the entire difference between a finished trial programme and an abandoned one.
Last reviewed 2026-08-23Compound profile MisleadingL2PreclinicalNeuro & cognitive
“Semax is FDA-approved as a nootropic nasal spray.”
Misleading — it is not FDA-approved at all.
- FDA material notes Semax is registered in Russia as nasal drops; that is a foreign national registration, not FDA approval.
- Intranasal and injectable Semax products marketed in the US are unapproved, and the FDA placed Semax on its 503A Category 2 list of substances presenting significant safety risks for compounding.
- Category 2 means identified significant safety risk for compounding — not that 'the FDA banned it', and not approval either.
Last reviewed 2026-08-23Compound profile Unsupported as statedL1MechanisticGut & immune
“KPV has human clinical evidence for gut healing.”
Unsupported — the FDA identified no human studies at all.
- FDA material for the 2026 compounding review states that no clinical studies or human exposure data for KPV were identified via any route.
- The gut-healing story rests on cell and animal work — Level 1-2 evidence.
- Human safety risks are unknown, which is a warning, not a technicality.
Last reviewed 2026-08-23Compound profile MisleadingL4Strong humanMetabolic
“Setmelanotide is another general-purpose weight-loss GLP-1.”
Misleading — wrong mechanism, wrong population.
- Setmelanotide is a melanocortin-4 receptor agonist, not a GLP-1; the drug class is different.
- Its approval covers obesity due to specific genetically defined syndromes (such as POMC, PCSK1 or LEPR deficiency and Bardet-Biedl syndrome), confirmed by genetic testing.
- It is not indicated for, and has not been shown to work as, a general obesity treatment.
Last reviewed 2026-08-23Compound profile MisleadingL5Practice-changingRoutes & formulations
“Peptides can't be taken orally — stomach acid destroys them all.”
Misleading — approved oral peptide medicines exist.
- Linaclotide and plecanatide are orally administered peptide medicines, FDA-approved for constipation indications, that act locally on the gut lining with minimal systemic absorption.
- Oral semaglutide (Rybelsus) reaches the bloodstream using an absorption-enhancer formulation — oral systemic peptide delivery is difficult, not impossible.
- The reverse error matters too: an oral formulation existing for one peptide says nothing about whether some other peptide works orally.
Last reviewed 2026-08-23Compound profile MisleadingL3Early humanRoutes & formulations
“Oxytocin nasal sprays sold online carry the same evidence as medical Pitocin.”
Misleading — the approved evidence belongs to IV/IM obstetric use only.
- Approved oxytocin (Pitocin) evidence covers supervised IV infusion and IM injection for specific obstetric indications such as labour induction and postpartum bleeding control.
- Intranasal oxytocin behavioural research is small and inconsistent, and research-market nasal sprays are unapproved products of unknown purity.
- Evidence is route- and indication-specific: IV obstetric data does not validate wellness nasal-spray claims.
Last reviewed 2026-08-23Compound profile MisleadingL5Practice-changingGLP-1s & incretins
“All GLP-1 peptide drugs are weekly injections.”
Misleading — the class spans different schedules and even routes.
- Exenatide and lixisenatide are approved GLP-1 medicines with more frequent injection schedules than the weekly agents.
- Oral semaglutide (Rybelsus) is an approved daily tablet, while injectable semaglutide is weekly — the same molecule in different formulations.
- Schedules and routes vary by product and formulation; this registry provides no dosing instructions, but the 'all weekly injections' shortcut is factually wrong.
Last reviewed 2026-08-23Compound profile MisleadingL5Practice-changingRoutes & formulations
“If a peptide comes as a nasal spray, it must be an experimental research chemical.”
Misleading — several fully approved medicines are nasal peptides.
- Nafarelin (Synarel) has been an approved nasal-spray medicine for decades, nasal glucagon (Baqsimi) is an approved rescue treatment for severe hypoglycaemia, and nasal desmopressin and salmon calcitonin products have held approvals for defined indications.
- Route tells you nothing about evidence on its own; what matters is whether a regulated development programme exists behind the product.
- The reverse heuristic is equally wrong: an injectable research peptide is not 'more medical' than an approved nasal one.
Last reviewed 2026-08-23