Supplement
BPC-157 (Body Protection Compound 157)
Tendon, ligament and gut tissue healing.
Grade D, not yet tested: no human randomized trial has been run. This D records missing trials, not a finding that it does not work. How to read a grade →
BPC-157 is a lab-made protein fragment based on a substance in stomach juice. It is sold to heal tendons, ligaments and the gut. No study in people has ever been published comparing it with a dummy treatment. The claims come from studies in rats. Its safety in people is unknown.
- Dose studied
- Varied across the three human reports
- Form graded
- None. No approved form exists
- Cited PMIDs PubMed ID: the permanent number the US National Library of Medicine gives a published paper. Each one links to that paper's record on PubMed.
- PMID 40756949 →PMID 40789979 →PMID 41966639 →PMID 34324435 →PMID 39325560 →PMID 40131143 →PMID 28035768 →
A letter describes the human evidence, not the product, the manufacturer, or the ingredient's worth.
See the full evidence record →Who responds: this record's trial reading reports no subgroup that identifies who responds.
No human randomized trial has tested this at the dose and form graded, so there is nothing for a higher letter to rest on. A Route 1 Grade D records the absence of trials. It is not a finding against the compound, and it is not a finding that the compound is safe, because neither has been established. It may turn out to work once someone tests it. The grade moves when a qualifying human trial reports.
BPC-157 for tendon, ligament and gut tissue healing. No human randomized controlled trial People are assigned to the treatment or a comparison by chance, so the groups differ only in what they received. It is the design that can show cause and effect. of the compound has been run.
The trial that would change this grade.
A positive trial of this shape would move this entry to C.
Why the current trials fall short
No randomized trial result of BPC-157 in people has been published. The human reports are uncontrolled clinic series. One controlled trial with a published result would be the first.
Why people believe itTwo human sources; one published case report of benefit; no reports of harm.
The case for BPC-157 is that this short protein fragment, first taken from stomach juice, speeds healing of tendons, ligaments, muscle and gut in a large body of animal work, almost all from one research group. Clinics inject it and athletes use it on that basis, and patients describe fast recovery.
What supporters point to, and what each source actually shows. None of it is enough to move this letter higher; the trial described above under Evidence wanted is what would.
- Human study, no comparison groupIn a chart review at one clinic, 14 of 16 patients given knee injections of BPC-157, some with a second peptide, said by phone that their knee pain had improved. No comparison group, and the outcome was the patient's own report. PMID 34324435
- Human study, no comparison groupTwelve women with interstitial cystitis, a painful bladder condition, who had not responded to standard treatment rated their symptoms resolved or mostly resolved after one injection of BPC-157 into the bladder wall. A clinic series with no comparison group. PMID 39325560
A case report describes what happened to one or a few patients. It cannot show the treatment caused the change, and reports of success are published more often than reports of failure.
- Three patients with nerve injury after jaw surgery were treated with several peptides, BPC-157 among them, along with other treatments. The authors call the cases hypothesis generating. PMID 42876687
Searched PubMed, October 2026: 1 case report record(s) returned. The one record is a review with three cases of nerve injury treated with several peptides including BPC-157, and is listed.
How this letter has changed · latest: October 2026 · Corrected
The record said no human randomized trial 'has been run'; the developer group's review, Sikiric 2012 (PMID 22300085), states a phase II trial in inflammatory bowel disease was run, with no result indexed, so the record now says no result has been published. The dose line omitted the route used in the interstitial cystitis pilot, Lee 2024 (PMID 39325560): injection around the bladder lesion at cystoscopy, 10 mg; added. 'One clinic' is restated as what the abstracts support: one lead author, one named clinic and two unnamed private-clinic reports. Letter unchanged.PMID 22300085 PMID 39325560
Every change to a letter on this site is dated and published. The full evidence log →
Commercial disclosure
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No dose has been established in a controlled human trial. The three published human reports used intra-articular injection, injection around the bladder lesion during cystoscopy (10 mg total), and intravenous infusion, at doses that differed between reports.
BPC-157 is not an approved drug and is not a dietary supplement. Material sold online is unregulated, and the identity, purity and quality of that material has not been characterized in the published record.
No oral human trial is cited. The cited human reports gave BPC-157 by injection or by intravenous infusion (PMID 34324435, PMID 40131143), not by mouth on a daily schedule.
Checked against the published summaries; the full papers could not be read. What the cited trials did, not a schedule. Every supplement, by trial timing →
BPC-157 is an unapproved drug with no controlled human safety data. The FDA has stated that it lacks sufficient information to know whether the drug would cause harm when administered to humans, and has noted that a 15-amino-acid peptide given by injection or nasally may pose a significant risk for immunogenicity. Use is a decision for a clinician, especially in pregnancy, alongside medication, or with a health condition.
No human drug-interaction study of BPC-157 has been published. BPC-157 is prohibited in sport under the World Anti-Doping Code. Check for drug interactions with your clinician or pharmacist.
Three records exist and none is a human drug-interaction study. A human drug-interaction search for BPC-157 returned three records in August 2026, and reading them is what settles it: two are narrative reviews and the third is a rat study of corneal anesthesia. The record's statement that no human drug-interaction study has been published survives that check. The count is recorded as three rather than zero because three is what the query returns, and anyone can re-run it. Basis: pharmacological mechanism, not a human study. Searched PubMed in August 2026: 1 query, 3 human results.
Every efficacy finding cited on this page comes from an animal model. The three human reports measured self-reported improvement, single-arm symptom change, and short-term tolerability in two people. None measured a tissue-healing endpoint against a control group.
Primary evidenceEight papers, each linked to its PubMed record.
Vasireddi et al. (HSS Journal, 2025; PMID 40756949) - systematic review A review that searches for every study on a question using a method set in advance, then assesses them together.: 544 articles screened, 36 included, of which 35 were preclinical and 1 was clinical; the review reports that no clinical safety data were found. McGuire et al. (Current Reviews in Musculoskeletal Medicine, 2025; PMID 40789979) - narrative review: three pilot studies have examined BPC-157 in humans, and the review characterizes the compound as investigational. Mendias and Awan (Sports Medicine, 2026; PMID 41966639) - narrative review of approved and unapproved peptides: favorable tissue-repair outcomes in animal models, rigorous human safety data scarce. The entire human record consists of three uncontrolled reports sharing one lead author, one from a named Orlando clinic and two from an unnamed private clinic. Lee et al. (Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, 2021; PMID 34324435) - retrospective one-year chart review of intra-articular injection for knee pain in which improvement was captured by telephone self-report and no measurement instrument was used. Lee et al. (Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, 2024; PMID 39325560) - single-arm pilot in 12 women with interstitial cystitis, no control group. Lee et al. (Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, 2025; PMID 40131143) - intravenous safety pilot in 2 subjects, both of whom had received intravenous BPC-157 before the study. Cox et al. (Drug Testing and Analysis, 2017; PMID 28035768) - detection method developed for confiscated BPC-157 vials; the compound is prohibited in sport. Sikiric et al. (Curr Med Chem, 2012; PMID 22300085), from the group that developed the peptide, state that BPC 157 (PL 14736) was tested in a phase II clinical trial for inflammatory bowel disease; no result of that trial is indexed. Grade D Route 1: no result of a human randomized controlled trial of BPC-157 has been published.
No human randomized controlled trial of BPC-157 was identified. 211 PubMed records mention the compound; none carries a randomized-controlled-trial or clinical-trial publication type. A looser free-text variant returns three records (PMID 42123471, PMID 31266512 and PMID 30598581) the first a review and the other two rat studies matched on the word randomized. None is a human trial, so none is a counter-example.
- Query run
- (BPC-157[tiab] OR "BPC 157"[tiab]) AND (randomized controlled trial[pt] OR clinical trial[pt])
- Database
- PubMed
- Date run
- 2026-07
- Human randomized trials returned
- 0
The three human reports are cited because they are the complete human record, not because they support a benefit. All three are uncontrolled, all three come from a single clinic and a single author group, one measured its outcome by telephone self-report with no instrument, and the intravenous safety study enrolled two people who had both taken the drug before. They establish that BPC-157 has been given to humans and reported on. They do not establish that it works.
The FDA Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee reviewed BPC-157 (free base and acetate) in July 2026. The agency's briefing document identified five human clinical studies in total, all of short duration, and stated that no study administered BPC-157 by the oral, subcutaneous, nasal or transdermal route in the nominated indication; the single ulcerative-colitis trial exists only as a meeting abstract. The briefing also noted that a 15-amino-acid peptide given parenterally or nasally may pose a significant risk for immunogenicity, and that information on identity, purity and quality attributes was lacking or inadequate. FDA concluded that neither form should be placed on the 503A bulk drug substances list. BPC-157 appears on the FDA's list of substances nominated but withdrawn, where the agency states it lacks sufficient information to know whether the drug would cause harm when administered to humans.
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