The FDA Just Voted on BPC-157. It Was Close.

Show Notes

On July 23, 2026, the FDA's Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee voted eight to six, with one abstention, to recommend adding BPC-157 to the 503A bulks list. A recommendation, not an approval, and a margin that tells you how divided the room was.

Dr. Sasha Rose and Colin Renaud, PA-C walk through what BPC-157 actually is, where the research genuinely sits, and why the gap between how badly people want it and how little human evidence exists is the whole story. They cover what the 503A bulks list is, why ulcerative colitis was the use flagged for review, and why human clinical trials on this are so hard to run.

They are also direct about the parts nobody likes talking about: the quality and purity problem with unregulated online vendors, the exaggerated claims circulating on social media, and the fact that no peptide substitutes for diet and sleep.

For educational purposes only. Not personal medical advice.

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Welcome to the MedMatrix Method Podcast, where we talk about everything functional medicine. We are here one to two times every week. Today's episode is called the BPC-157 Battle, Innovation, Access, and the FDA. We've been looking forward to talking about this because BPC-157 is one of the most requested and most misunderstood peptides in the functional medicine space right now. This is going to be a discussion among myself, Dr. Sasha Rose, and Colin Renard. Together we're going to break down what patients should actually understand about BPC-157 and why FDA regulation has become such a major part of the conversation. We're going to talk about where the research is promising, where the human evidence is still limited, and how we here at MedMatrix think about healing and recovery through a broader functional medicine lens. Here's how today's episode is going to work. We're going to start with our discussion. As we go, if you have questions, which we encourage, make sure to drop them in the comments. Then we have a quick game that you have during our live Q&A. An important reminder before we get started, this episode is for educational purposes only. It's not meant to be personal medical advice and it should not replace care from your own medical provider. Peptide therapy should only be considered with qualified medical guidance, appropriate evaluation, legal access, quality sourcing, and safety monitoring. If you are interested in receiving personalized medical guidance from one of our providers here at MedMatrix, we would be happy to help. You can go to our website, book a discovery call, and start the process of becoming a patient there. Let's start with a quick introduction. Let's hear about you, Colin. Sure. Hi. I'm Colin Bernard. I'm one of the lead clinicians at MedMatrix. I have a pretty broad background in alternative medicine disciplines, natural medicine. I have been a functional medicine clinician for about 12 years. I am multiple board certified in anti-aging, nutrition, natural medicine, and I also hold a fellowship in functional medicine and anti-aging. I specialize in all kinds of things, from hormone replacement therapy to weight loss to nutrition to gut health to complex chronic illness, peptide therapy. That's a little bit about me. What about you, Dr. Rose? Who are you? Yeah. Good question. I'm Dr. Sasha Rose. I am a naturopathic doctor. I'm a licensed acupuncturist. I've been practicing functional medicine for over 20 years. I'm a published author, and I sit on the Forbes Health Advisory Board. Like Colin, I'm one of the lead providers here at MedMatrix. I would have to say BPC-157 is one of my very top favorite peptides, so I'm really glad that we're spending a whole episode on it today. Let's dive in. Before we get into the FDA debate, tell us what is BPC-157, and why do you think patients are asking about it? Let's start with what is a peptide, for those of you listening. We can back up, and let's do that. Let me back up a little bit. Yeah, let's do that. Just really quick. For those that are listening, a peptide is, by definition, a short chain of amino acids or a certain type of chemicals that plants and humans make and are basically made up of that are linked together by chemical bonds, and they act very similarly as functional messengers of proteins. So, the peptide's role in the body is to signal a cell, signal a hormone, regulate something like blood sugar or your appetite. They can also help with inflammation and healing. So specifically, BPC-157, and why we're talking about this and why patients are asking about it, BPC-157 stands for Body Protective Compound 157. It is a synthetic chain of 15 amino acids that are derived from a protective protein that's found in human gastric juice. That sounds a little weird, but it's basically juice or stuff in your gut. So BPC-157 has been widely studied in laboratory and animal models for its potential to accelerate the healing of tendons, ligaments, muscles, and the gut lining. So I think this is really where people are starting to express interest in it because of some of these potential benefits from a musculoskeletal perspective, gut health perspective. I have a lot of patients that are trying to get on it for old football injuries. I had a shoulder thing. I had a surgery. So there's a lot of potential in its healing benefits, and that's why people are asking about it. That's really why it's being seen so much in social media. There's a lot of longevity clinics that are utilizing this. There's a lot of athletic recovery that's utilizing BPC, and it's all over everywhere. If you're listening to podcasts, if you're listening to any type of biohacker or some of the really popular people on Instagram and TikTok and social media that are into the wellness trend or anti-aging or biohacking, you're not going to be able to miss BPC or other peptides. It's really being talked about everywhere. So yeah, and they're making various claims of different things, which we can get into. But yeah, that's kind of the basics of the BPC. Yeah, I mean, the claims that I'm hearing, seeing online about BPC, there's kind of these different categories, I would say. There's those claims about gut repair, gut health. As you mentioned, kind of the musculoskeletal, so tendon and ligament recovery, muscle injury. Yeah, I mean, sometimes just overall and sometimes, like you said, recovering from a specific injury, whether it's old or recent, general inflammation, and definitely like among fitness influencers, I guess, kind of like post-workout recovery. And just then in that regenerative medicine space, I'm seeing kind of it just being talked about for overall regeneration. So that's kind of what I'm seeing, and that's also what I think I'm hearing from my patients. What is the FDA actually debating when it comes to BPC-157? Yeah, this is a good question, sort of the basis of our conversation. As you mentioned, on July 23rd, I believe it was in 2026, the FDA Pharmacy Compounding Advisor Committee voted, it was an eight to six vote with one abstention to recommend adding BPC-157 to the 503A bulks list. This non-binding vote could eventually allow licensed pharmacies to compound the peptide, but BPC-157 is not FDA approved yet, and it remains unverified by large scale human clinical trials. So the current regulatory conversation around BPC-157 is about having compounded pharmacies access to the drug, to compound it, talking about its safety, talking about its quality and whether certain BPC-157 related bulk substances should be allowed for use in the compounding pharmacy world. So for those that are listening, a compounding pharmacy is basically a specialty pharmacy that makes drugs by hand, right? That's how pharmacies were for a long time. The pharmacists actually made the drugs back in the day, but now when you go to your big box commercial pharmacies, all the drugs are already made. So compounding pharmacies will make creams and will make specialty capsules and they might make liquid style medications or suppositories or other types of things that are specialty needed by a patient, whether it's due to dosing or they need to remove some sort of a filler inside of the medication due to allergy. But basically, the FDA's agenda in July of 2026 listed BPC-157 related bulk drug substances for discussion. And as you said, identified ulcerative colitis as the use that would be FDA reviewed for BPC-157. But as we've talked about already, as we're getting started, there's a lot more to this peptide BPC-157 than just gut and ulcerative colitis use. So I think it's important that they're doing this, but as does the FDA, they're very narrowing it. You know, they can't just approve it for like, oh, use it for everyone. They have to approve it for a specific use. And that's what drug FDA approval is, is we use this drug for this disease. So I'm happy they're doing it, but it's potentially reducing its effectiveness, not effectiveness, but it's more widespread use. Does that make sense? It does. And I think it's a good segue into basically talking about access, right? So yes, you know, kind of maybe there's a patient dealing with, as we said, kind of the chronic gut issues. And yet there's also patients who are looking for more options in terms of injury and pain and inflammation. And you know, I think hopefully eventually that conversation will be broadened. And again, talking about access, like in your opinion, is this debate, do you think it really is about safety or access or both? Well, I think, you know, access matters to patients. Safety matters, access matters, it all matters. But access to BPC-157 matters because as you just said, patients want options, but safety matters as well because of quality, because of dosing, where did it come from, is it pure? How is it monitored? And then also what type of human evidence do we have? And we don't have human evidence in clinical trials on this yet, it's just all the evidence comes from animal and lab models. So in order for things to be accessed for human consumption, we need some sort of evidence in the human model. So that's really where the access part comes from. So you know, we're trying to be responsible, we're trying to understand the risks, the benefits. But as we said, if there are things that we could be benefiting from this peptide that go beyond gut issues, that would be great. But because of the way the FDA works, they have to hone in on a very specific thing so they can see if this thing is actually treating this condition. If they keep it broad, that's not how studies are done. You don't just do a study on a drug and watch what happens. Oh, let's see what happens. You have to actually have a very focused hypothesis or a question of if we do this drug, what is our outcome that we expect? And you have to measure that in studies. So like I said, I love that this access and safety question is being in debate is really happening. But I think there's a bit of a reductionist model to it's sort of it's sort of spilling into the health care system as it is with it's just this one thing that's going to be helped. But hey, ulcerative colitis is a big deal. You know, if that if we could use this in a regulatory way, I think that'd be great. Absolutely. Yeah. And I think like what you and I see every day is patient demand moving faster than the clinical research that you just mentioned or the clinical research that's still lacking. And it makes sense. I mean, people are in pain. They have high levels of inflammation. They are not the standard pharmaceuticals for, say, pain are not working or they don't want a patient for good reason, doesn't want to be on them long term. And they, you know, humans, human patients are not always wanting to wait for all the evidence and the research to be done when they've been in pain for years. So it's really I think it's just kind of an interesting balance because we also know that, you know, we have to we have to understand what we're what we're giving people and what's safe. And so just kind of finding that that balance, balancing out. Yeah. Well, I mean, social media and like just a popular opinion can change in weeks, right? Like something can go viral overnight. Yeah. And it completely takes over a good part of the human population and everybody knows about it. But that doesn't mean that trials and FDA approval and government regulation that could take decades. Yeah. So it's like this, this whole peptide thing sparked so fast. And as you said, the regulatory machine behind it doesn't move that fast. Yeah. So that's one of the things. And then and as you mentioned with social media, like and again, we all see this all the time in terms of but specifically to BPC 157, like so, you know, what is the Internet maybe getting wrong about it? And I think it's, you know, just in the same way that maybe the FDA kind of moves really slowly. I would, as you said, it's like on the Internet thing, it's the opposite, right? Like things just are like so fast. And and there can be so many kind of, I guess, false or exaggerated claims. And so it's and again, people are in pain and people are really struggling. And then there's things online making it like, this is it. This is the magic ticket. It's this is, you know, and you can get this from somewhere, I don't know where, but it's, you know, it's available. It's there. And I think that is just as dangerous. Yeah, there's there's a there's such a social media is its own has become its own. I want to say, like, you know, we're we're health care providers, right? We live in a certain space. You know, we live in the functional medicine world. We do things. We have sort of a philosophy on how we practice medicine. Then there's the entire medical entity body. But social media is almost like a subset of health care. Of now it is millions, millions of people that do not have licenses, do not have any training of anything. And they are feeding into the ether, into the universe, tons of information. And nobody knows if it's right. Nobody knows if it's accurate. But you as a consumer, when you're scrolling, as you said, you're in pain, you're desperate. You've got this this athlete selling this peptide, you know, for whatever regeneration or anti inflammatory and, you know, and it's like, oh, I need that. And it's like, oh, if you use my code, my name, you know, you get 10 percent off at this, you know, unregulated online vendor so that you don't know where it's coming from and where it's sourced and the purity. So unfortunately, social media has taken on and is like the the advent of health care. But I don't necessarily think that's a good thing. Right. Right. So a lot of people are getting their health care advice from social media, from online people, coaches, influencers, and they're totally ignoring their doctors. And I'm not saying that's good or bad, but it's leading to a whole nother almost subset of health care that we have to be mindful of, that people are getting their information from this source and they're believing it. And we have to kind of gently accept that because we don't want people to feel like we're poo pooing when they feel like they trust, quote unquote, these online people. So, yeah. Yeah. It's not an easy place to be in. I don't know. No, it's not. So let's talk about what we actually do know about BPC 157. In terms of what you know, what you've learned, what does the animal research, what does animal research show about BPC 157? And likewise, what does it not prove? Yeah, so some of the key research findings in the animal and lab studies on BPC 157 are suggesting, as we said, there's some really good research on healing of torn or damaged soft tissues by boosting collagen production and something called fibroblast activity. There's also evidence that shows enhancing recovery from skeletal muscle trauma and helps protect muscle fibers from damage. And then we talked about gut health. BPC 157 promotes healing of the gastrointestinal lining and protects against ulcers or nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory and drug induced damage. There's something called angiogenesis that has been shown, which is a stimulation of the growth of new blood vessels via certain pathways to improve blood flow to an injured or poorly vascularized tissue. And then the other thing I know that's been studied in the animal and lab models are positive effects of bone defect healing and joint tissue integrity. So those are some of the things that we're seeing, but we want to be clear that the mechanisms are not the same in humans, right? If we're studying this in an animal, animal physiology is different. So we can see these positive effects and say, yes, tendon and ligament repair, muscle degeneration, but we just don't know if that's true in humans. So and, you know, essentially from an animal model, what does this not prove? You know, animal animal research can can create some sort of scientific rationale. It kind of gives us an idea of a physiology or what this is doing, but it does not prove that the same thing will happen in humans. If you know or are a veterinarian and ask them about their four year veterinary medical school training, they have to learn the anatomy and physiology of all the different animals because they're all different, right? That's why we go to human medical schools, not veterinary schools. So what we understand about human versus animal physiology, it's very different. So, you know, there was a 2025 musculoskeletal review that described BPC 157 as showing potential regenerative properties across animal models. But again, we don't know if that's true with humans. So that's really where the FDA is coming in and saying, well, sure, we see this. We see the popularity amongst the human population and the want and the demand. But is it safe, effective in humans? We just don't know that long term with clinical data. So, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think that was very well, well put. So we've talked about these different areas where BPC 157 kind of can potentially benefit a human body. Why do you feel like maybe you don't, but why is it potentially risky to talk about BPC 157 as if it like works the same in equal benefit for gut repair, for tendon healing, inflammation and recovery? Yeah, so it's risky to talk about something like BPC 157 for some of these claims of like gut repair, inflammation, recovery, tendon healing, because these are all different conditions. There's different mechanisms of action. There's different root causes and different, almost unlimited amount of variables that could play into why this is happening in a patient. So when you claim one thing as a broad stroke, it reduces that issue down to being very, very simple, like it can only have one root cause. And that's just not true of human anatomy and physiology. It's sort of when I explain, I explain a very similar phenomenon to my patients of like, OK, if your chief complaint is fatigue, oh boy, the differential diagnosis or all the different possibilities of why a patient could be fatigued is very long, you know, headaches, fatigue, brain fog. It's like, oh boy, OK, we've got a lot of work to do. We've got to figure this out. The same thing goes with this. And this is why the FDA is trying to narrow focus BPC 157 as being used for ulcerative colitis, because they need something very specific. If it's if it's looked at in a broader scope, then you're ignoring all these other possibilities of of factors that could play into something. So, for example, like if we just say gut health, you know, BPC 157 is good for gut health. What the heck does that mean? Right. Is it going to affect your your microbiome? Is it going to affect the tissue? Is it going to affect the mucous membranes? Is it going to affect how you go to the bathroom? I mean, there's so many things. So this is why the FDA is being specific. And I think this is where we do a really good job in our line of work and also in the clinic. And also on this podcast, we talk about the functional medicine approach is really we can't use a peptide to just cure. It's not the be all end all. Right. Oh, here, peptides are going to cure you could cure everything. No, that's not how it works. As you said at the top of the podcast, we can't ignore nutrition. We can't ignore the foundational support. We can't ignore sleep. We can't ignore stress. We can't ignore hormones. So that's really where I think this is risky. And this is where social media is doing a really good job with stuff like this is they grab you. Oh, you have this would do that. You know, here here's my code. Ten percent off. You're going to feel amazing. You're going to be, you know, peak of whatever. So that's why it's not really a magic fix. Do you do you see do you have other? Absolutely. Yeah. I think it's like if there I feel like a big take home message from this episode really could be that even though BPC one five seven, you know, might be healing in so many ways for a lot of people. It's there. Nothing is a magic fix or magic pill. And that would include this peptide. And as you know, if anybody's heard us before, we talk about this over and over again, because I think it's so important that, you know, at MedMatrix and in functional medicine in general, we're looking at like the whole person and so many different aspects. So like that really good example of the differential in terms of fatigue. Right. So healing is not just taking a peptide. It's really like your protein intake, your nutrient status, your level of inflammation, your sleep, your stress, your blood sugar, gut health. You know, what are you doing? What's your physical activity like? And and that's different for every person. And so, yeah, I just think that's so important, probably in every episode that we do for various reasons. Whatever the main topic is, I think it's it can be hard because I think we all want to just have one thing and one answer. And, you know, human physiology, human human bodies just aren't that simple. No, definitely not. Yeah. So let's talk a little bit more about kind of. The FDA and kind of what the FDA, what concerns the FDA has raised about compounded peptides in general and BPC 157, because I think people know that there's been concerns about safety, but talk a little bit about what the more specifically what the FDA has raised in regard to that, to those concerns. Yeah. So the concerns that are being raised by the FDA about BPC 157 and just compounded peptides in general is that compounded drugs that could contain BPC 157 may pose some sort of risk for certain routes of administration. It may involve peptide related impurities. And then the the safety is the biggest thing. You know, the FDA has had no or very limited safety related information. So in terms of the proposed routes of administration. So how is this being given? Right. Are you injecting it? Are you ingesting it? Is it through an IV? Is it something else? So and this is really where the the biggest battle is between the FDA and buying peptides from like on unregulated online vendors. You know, online peptides may have a quality problem, a purity problem, a sterility problem. Do you even know how to dose it? Is it contaminated with anything? Are you even getting what you paid for? Right. Is it even in that little vial that you buy? And these online companies are not regulated by any type of pharmacy or any type of regulatory agency. So there's no ongoing monitoring that that not know. I mean, maybe some are, but they don't they don't have to to sell these products because they label them as not for human consumption. So I think this is really where the FDA has the most concerns is. They don't I was talking to a colleague, a friend about this. They I think the FDA, it seems as though the FDA's position is we don't want to take this. I want to call it a quote unquote fad because I don't want to think that peptides are a fad because I love them. But I don't I think the FDA is not is trying not to just buy into the hype and just be like, yeah, here you go. Do it. We're fine with it. They they're trying to stay very rigid in the way they do things. As we said, it could take decades for regulatory guidance to happen based on human clinical trials. So that's I think where the the disconnect is coming from. Yeah, absolutely. And just that, you know, with everything that that we put into our bodies, like especially with peptides, quality control really does matter. And that, you know, even as you said at the beginning, like even though it's kind of a sequence of amino acids and doesn't sound like it's that complicated, like peptides are complex. And so the purity, the stability, the storage, as you mentioned, the sterility, they all like if there's impurities, that's going to make a difference. So I know like here at MedMatrix, we're very conscious of, you know, where we are sourcing all of our medications. But, you know, definitely including including the peptides. So I do think there is a difference in terms of where you're getting where you're getting your peptides. Yeah. And this is really what the FDA stuff, I think, is basically saying. Yeah, there's just limited safety and effectiveness data. So how can we how can we go along with this? Right. So, yeah, I get it. Yeah, I get it. But it's frustrating. Yeah, exactly. It's so slow. Yeah. So in your practice, you know, coming, you know, at it from a functional medicine approach. What would you want to evaluate in a in a patient, whether you're meeting with a new patient or this is an established patient coming to you maybe for a new concern? What would you want to look at in this individual's health before you would even consider recommending or prescribing peptides? Yeah, that's a great question. We we want to evaluate a patient over a lot of different variables before even considering peptides, just because, as we mentioned earlier, there are nuances as to what the goals are of the patient. You know, is is the patient coming to me and just saying, I want to try this peptide? Well, it's like, well, why? What do you want to use it for? So, you know, we're reviewing the health history. We're talking about symptoms. And when we're talking about symptoms, we're talking about goals. Right. What are your goals? What do you want to accomplish? Is there some sort of injury that you're trying to mitigate? What's what type of medications are you taking? As we've said thousands of times on this podcast, what is what is the foundation look like? You know, are you sleeping? Are you eating well? How's your protein intake? What is your blood sugar doing? What are your hormones looking like? Your gut health, liver function, liver function, thyroid function, kidneys. And then really trying to again, I think the biggest goal that I'm trying to understand when a patient asks about peptides or I might even mention it as a possibility, it's like, what is this aligning with our goals and and do we understand the safety, the risks and whether this is actually clinically appropriate? Because as we said before, it might look really sexy on social media. But is it really something that is going to be worth it for you to do? You know, because if we have this conversation all the time, I know I do. I know you do. When I basically say, hey, listen, I know we have to fix X, Y, Z, but you're not sleeping, you're not eating well, you're vitamin D deficient, you're stressed to the max. We got to fix that first. No peptide is going to substitute bad diet or bad sleep. So and that's and that kind of again goes back to what you were saying earlier, Dr. Rose, about this quick fix thing. I think as humans and kind of the American cultures, we want a quick fix. So when we're seeing this really sexy person on Instagram promoting BPC, it's like, oh, my God, I need that. I know I want that. That sounds great. It's like, no, no, sorry. You need all these other foundational things first. Maybe most. Yeah. And I think that I think people are drawn to our field of medicine because they want more natural. They want, you know, kind of something that's that is different from the conventional medical or medicines that are offered. And I think unwittingly they might not realize that they just kind of want a green version of without a change in the paradigm. And again, understandable. Like, you know, none of us really, you know. It's hard to do the work. It's easier to take a pill or, you know, take anything that'll make everything all the pain go away, all the suffering go away. But you and I know from years of practice that that doesn't usually work. It's not sustainable. It's certainly not getting to the root cause. So it's an interesting conversation to have with people. Yeah. Well, we had this we had this conversation last week on the podcast when we were talking about when you're doing everything right, but still not losing weight. You know, it's like, are you really doing everything right? Are you just trying to mask over some of the diet and lifestyle things that you're not doing by trying a peptide from this guy on Instagram who's a coach, who doesn't have any experience, who's giving you a 10% off code, who looks really hot and like he's working out or something. And it's like you're missing the point. You're getting really specific in that description. Well, it's like this is what we see, right? You see these people, they're all hot, they're all, you know, in swimwear, something on a beach somewhere or something. And it's it's it's it's they're emulating who they know. We all want to look like that. We want to we want to feel how they look like. Exactly. I want to feel and look like this person. So if I buy this thing that they're advertising on my 10% off code that he's giving me, I'm going to look just like that. It's like, no, you're missing the point. So, yeah, it's it's a it's a whole paradigm. Yeah, but it's what we as you said, I think it's what we do really well. You know, we educate that. Listen, this is not magic. And if it was, everybody would be skinny and gorgeous and all the things, right? Totally right. Yeah. So kind of along those lines, like at MedMatrix, when we you know, when we do have someone who is focused on healing and recovery and gut repair, you know, if it's not already obvious, we help by evaluating that whole healing environment. So we're not handing out peptides. You know, we're looking at gut health. We're looking at inflammation, nutrient status, overall metabolic health. We can't talk about this enough. Quality of sleep, you know, stress, resilience, hormones, various medications, again, in what's pertinent, especially for maybe BPC 157 is injury history and of course, the individual's goals. And so the plan will almost always include foundational care, maybe targeted nutraceutical supplementation, lifestyle strategy, modifications, advanced testing, and then when appropriate and available, targeted therapies, which may include peptides. Do you want to add to that in any way? I mean, it's a lot of things you mentioned. I mean, yeah, I think that I think the take home is may include peptides. Right. I think that's the real take home is, you know, when patients come to us and they're seeing all the sexiness on social media of the advertising and it looks really, really alluring and very, very, you know, it grabs your attention. The. The conversation turns into, well, I want this peptide to do what is being claimed to me in this Instagram video or in this advert, whatever I'm seeing that's capturing my attention as a consumer. So from our perspective, when we I think from my perspective, I know you when I talk to patients about a peptide or, you know, something in terms of a plan, it's got to be practical. That's the biggest thing. It's got to be practical to be patient centered. It's got to validate the patient's interests. It's got to really look at what is it what is it we're doing. And from the first visit, as we've been talking about on every podcast, is how invested are you as the patient to want to make certain changes to acts to accelerate your health journey? You're not going to come here and we're just going to give you a bunch of stuff and you're going to do nothing. That's not how this works. If you want to do that, we're not the right practice for you. Right. We we emphasize significantly that health and I emphasize with patients all the time is that your health journey is a 50 50. I will give you 50 percent of things. It might be peptides, maybe medication. It might be herbs. It might be supplements. It might be whatever. You've got to do your 50 percent, right? You're working on your self-care. You're working on your diet. You're working on all these things that we need to do to optimize your health. So that's really where I think the biggest part of this is. So this goes beyond just a peptide conversation. But really, why are we even looking to do a peptide? Right. What what's the goal here? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, again, I hope this has come across, but it's really it's about kind of responsible innovation. And I think that's what we are practicing, hopefully within functional medicine, definitely here at MedMatrix. And so responsible innovation being, you know, open to new tools, but always respecting evidence and safety and regulation, quality dosing. And as we've said, kind of patient selection, not just throwing all these peptides at anybody and everybody. And and as we've said over and over, really sticking to our principles in terms of root cause care. So, yeah, not dismissing, you know, innovation, but also not letting hype, social media, et cetera, kind of replace clinical judgment. So it's an interesting place to sit. Yeah. And that's really where I think I was saying earlier, you know, like social media and biohackers and they're becoming their own subset of health care. Right. Like I think, yeah, there could someday be a regulatory agency for social media influencers like you get a license to be a. I don't know. Probably not. But it's like a whole other subset of health care, because that's where so many people are getting this information from. And these biohackers that have these huge podcasts, right, millions and millions of dollars put into these podcasts and and they're talking about this stuff and then people want to know about it. And then they go to their doctor. It's like the doctor's like, well, this is an FDA approved. We can't prescribe it. It's not safe. It's not this. It's not that. But with patients, unfortunately, becoming more and more unhappy, I'll say, with some of their health care that they're receiving. Right. It's very reductionist. It's very you're not getting a lot of attention, short visits. You know, they might not be getting their problems answered. They're like, well, screw this. I'm going to get this peptide from this guy on this podcast and I'm going to try it. Yeah. So it becomes this sort of inevitable that it's just going to happen eventually anyway. So I think it is really important for us as health care providers and doctors and clinicians, whether it's in the functional medicine space or the conventional medical space to you've got to listen. You've got to really understand where your patient is coming from, because they're going to do it anyway, even if they don't get your blessing. The media and the podcast is so strong in their face that they're going to be convinced to do it. Yeah. So, yeah, yeah. I think being on the patient's side makes the relationship better. That's what I try to do with patients and try to meet them where they are. Yeah. Well put. Yeah. Yeah. So let's talk about specifics a little bit. So when somebody does come to MedMatrix and say they are asking about BPC 157 or peptide, you know, I've been hearing peptides, this, that on. And I you know, but I in a good way, they kind of want a professional, you know, clinical opinion on it. Give me walk me through it. What would the process actually look like if you're working with that individual? Um, when someone comes to MedMatrix asking about a peptide or BPC 157 therapy, the the the conversation needs to start at what are our goals? That's the first thing. And we really need to understand from the beginning of the patient's full health history, their symptom timeline. Have they had an injury? Is there a gut issue? We have to review their medications and their supplements. We have to understand their nutrition. And then we really need to have a discussion about what these tools look like, right? Is it safe for you? It's not FDA approved. Does it align with your goals? We need to talk about the regulation, the quality, the dosing, the monitoring and really what that all means for the patient, because they need to understand that we are basing these clinical decisions off of parameters that are not as clear. So, you know, there's a lot of things that are not FDA approved, right? Supplements are not FDA approved, but we still use them, right? They use them all the time, but they're not FDA approved. So does does it mean we shouldn't use peptides? No, it doesn't. But it means that our job in educating people is really important. Absolutely. Yeah. I think that's where the that's really what the process looks like for me. Yeah. With my patients. Do you have any anything else? No, I think that's great. I think that's great. So I'm a little late in just repeating this, but just to say again, everything that we do say on this episode is just educational purposes, only not for the purposes of medical or personalized advice. I want to do a quick game and then we have a few questions, maybe just one or two, and then if you have a question, you can ask it. This is it's not too late. Drop it in. Drop it in the comments. OK, so BPC 157, fact or fiction? Oh, gosh. What if I get it wrong? That's fine. Oh, OK. OK. The FDA's concerns about BPC 157 are primarily because it has been shown to be dangerous in human studies. False. Well, we have it. We don't have human studies. Exactly. Oh, OK. I was like, OK, yeah, it's a little bit of a trick question, right? FDA's concerns are not primarily based on evidence of widespread harm. It's more like, as you have said, you know, there's a lack of adequate human clinical trials. So lack of evidence doesn't, you know, mean evidence of harm. Yeah, yeah. Fact or fiction? One reason the FDA has objected to compounding BPC 157 is that the peptide is not a component of any FDA approved medication. True. Yes. It's not, right. It's not on the bulk list. Exactly. Yeah. Right. So, you know, your stuff, you know, OK. I did my research before we started. So it's not it's not an ingredient. BPC 157 is not an ingredient in an in an already approved drug. So that's why it's eligibility for routine compounding has been disputed. BPC 157 has been shown to accelerate the spread of BPC 157. BPC 157 has been shown to accelerate tendon healing in multiple animal models. True. Yes. Yeah. And that's one of the strongest areas of preclinical evidence. And the animal studies have reported improved tendon to bone healing, collagen organization, biomechanical strength. And as we have said repeatedly, the question is if those findings can translate to humans. BPC 157 works primarily by increasing growth hormone levels. I think this is an important one. That's false. It is false. Yep. There are other peptides that do that. Exactly. Exactly. Such such as such as CJC 1295, Ipamirelin, IGFLR3, Sermoralin, Tessamoralin. Yeah, I think. I don't know if there's others. I think there are. Maybe I can't remember. Yeah. So I think that's an important distinction. As you mentioned earlier, BPC 157, the proposed mechanisms include effects on angiogenesis, nitric oxide signaling, inflammation and tissue repair pathways. So let's do this one. The FDA has conducted large randomized clinical trials showing BPC 157 does not work. No. Exactly. No such trials exist. No. Some researchers believe that BPC 157 may have effects beyond musculoskeletal healing, including potential impacts on the nervous system. And as we mentioned, gas, the gastrointestinal tract. It could. Yes. True. True. Yep. So the animal research has explored potential neuroprotective effects, nerve regeneration, inflammatory bowel disease models, gastric ulcer healing, even neurotransmitter interactions. These are preliminary findings. OK, so. Here we go. This is a myth or reality kind of rapid fire. No FDA approval means it doesn't work. Myth or reality? Reality. No. No. Right. No. Yes. Sorry. It's double negative. Yes. Double negative. Yep. I'm testing you the end of the day on a Thursday after a long week. Social media popularity is not the same as scientific consensus. True. I think that we've said that quite a bit. All right. Let's leave it at that. Because the other interesting thing about this, too, that I learned is that BPC 157 is categorized on athletic prohibited lists. And it's a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very athletic prohibited lists. And it's banned by like the World Anti-Doping Agency. It is. So there's something to be said for that, too. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's included in the prohibited list because it's not. Yeah, it's not approved for therapeutic use. It's not approved. Right. Right. So that's the whole thing. It's not approved for humans. So they can't they can't they have to they have to prohibit it. Right. All right. So how about some questions here? It was a good question. It was a good question from our friend Rhonda. She said, why not a voluntary human clinical trial? People are already using the injectable. She has someone that she knows that's doing it. So why not a voluntary human clinical trial? It's a good question. It is a good question. Why don't they do voluntary human clinical trials? Well, the thing is, as we've talked about a little bit is with the FDA's goal. And I'm not saying it's right or wrong. It's just is is they have to come up with a hypothesis. OK, BPC one five seven is being used to treat X. Yeah. And what they're trying to do is the X being ulcerative colitis. So they have to see if it's effective against ulcerative colitis to get it approved for the use of ulcerative colitis. They can't just get a bunch of people round them up, give them all BPC and see what happens. Right. That's not science. It's not effective medicine either from like a pharmacological perspective. You can't just see what happens. You have to when we make drugs, they're made for very, very specific reasons. Right. Like an antibiotic is made for a very specific thing. It's not just, oh, well, see what happens. Is that is that a good answer? Yes. I mean, I think, you know, I'm not a researcher, but the volunteers would have to have, you know, obvious diagnoses of ulcerative colitis and they'd have to all kind of fit in a certain parameter. Like, you know, they're on they're on other medications or they're not on other medications. They're, you know, this much kind of progressed in the disease or they're not, or this is that kind of thing to for, as you're pointing out, for the study to have any valid. You have to limit the variables or try to. But that's very hard to do in humans. It is. So there's so many things that kind of can play a role. Yeah. All right. Another question. Does BPC-157 help older people heal more than younger people or is it really just beneficial for younger people? Again, I don't know that we can answer this because it hasn't. We don't know if there's an effects on age. I don't know that I can answer that, you know, like we don't have clinical trials in humans. I guess you would have to once if there was a clinical trial, you'd have to see one of the parameters that they would have to study is age. You know, is it not as effective for older people and younger people? And this is really this is why this is why there's pediatric medicine and adult medicine, because we have certain understanding about how kids function versus adults. How many people are lining up to voluntarily have their kids be a part of an experimental study on an experimental drug? Not that many. So we don't know about how certain things affect certain ages. So it's the same sort of thing. We just don't know. And I think I mean, I think this person might be asking about everybody's like all adults, but like, you know, younger adults versus older adults. No, I know. I'm just saying like age. Yeah, age matters. It does. It does matter. And I think we don't because we don't have, you know, humans studies. We don't we can't really answer it. But I don't know what we do know about BPC one fifty seven. I don't think it's I don't think it's ruling any age out. Yeah. Got another question. Do you think this would be helpful for someone with CRPS, which is complex regional pain syndrome, fibromyalgia and dystopia? Person has good diet, routine, higher protein and cardio, pulmonary workouts under supervision three times a week. We can't give medical personal medical advice, can't give medical advice. Would BPC be helpful for like a musculoskeletal based type condition? Possibly. But again, is it what is the driver of the CRPS, the fibromyalgia, the dystopia? Those conditions are not BPC one five seven deficiencies. Right. So, you know, dystopia, fibromyalgia, CRPS are very complex conditions. They're not a deficiency of a peptide. So it really there could be some palliation of something. But is it a treatment? That's a hard thing to say. Do you? Yeah. Like I said, I think you said that. Well, I don't think it's, you know, it shouldn't take the place of like what we talk about with root cause investigating root cause medicine. And so I think the answer has to be maybe. Yeah, maybe. Yeah, possibly. Yeah. Do you see that? This is a kind of outside of what we're talking about. And this is we're going to save this question for another podcast. Do you see that functional medicine practice will ever be covered by insurance so it is more attainable? Our media gods that put on our podcast and that help us do this. We're going to write that down and we're going to plan that for one goddess in particular. One goddess in particular. Shout out to Leah. We're going to do that. It's going to be a great episode of a podcast. So stay tuned. We'll do that. And we have we have we have done at least one on insurance. But we do we do like to kind of that's a very, very important and common question. And so we we will revisit it periodically. Definitely. Yeah. All right. Let's do a takeaway. So, Colin, what is the biggest takeaway for someone who is watching the BPC 157 debate and wondering what to believe? And I think we can see that even from some of these questions. What's the takeaway here? Yeah. So the biggest takeaway for someone watching the debate about BPC 157 and sort of how to what are they supposed to believe about it is really it's this peptide, the BPC 157 peptide is the perfect example of the tension between what you're seeing online the sexiness of social media, the draw of it, how how inviting it looks to then understanding how to access it. Is it safe? How is it regulated? And what's the evidence behind its efficacy? So it may be promising and it may look really fun. It may look really nice. But patients need to understand that this promise is not the same as it's been proven to work. So functional medicine and the functional medicine approach gives patients a really smart framework of understanding what are our goals? What are we trying to use this for? What does the evidence show? What is how safe is it? Is it regulated? And also it gives patients a way to access certain treatments to avoid these illegitimate markets online and then also evaluate the root causes of things. Right. That's really what we're trying to do. Taking a peptide does not give us a root cause answer. So it could be part of a solution. It can be part of a treatment plan. But ultimately, we're trying to get to a root cause of a solution and build a personalized plan for someone. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well said. Thanks. So this has been great. If you are listening and you are not already a patient at MedMatrix, but you are interested in exploring if it would be a good match, you can go to our website, which is MedMatrixUSA.com. You can book a discovery call and learn more about the process from there. If you want to share this episode with a loved one. They're always available on Spotify, YouTube and Apple podcasts. What am I forgetting, Colin? You must be a patient. You must be a resident of Maine or New Hampshire. Maine or New Hampshire. At this point. At this point, to be a patient. So, yeah, go to MedMatrixUSA.com to book a discovery call. It's free. That's really where your journey will start. Yep. Always fun. Very fun. Yep. So again, Colin and I are here every Thursday. And then there's also other ones throughout the week as well. So stay tuned. We cover a variety of what I will say is very interesting and pertinent topics. I think so. Yeah. And yeah, I hope everybody has a good night. Yeah. Thanks, Dr. Rose.