Peptide Show | Ksenia Petrushkina: Why are teenagers injecting peptides?

What happens when people start experimenting with peptides before seeing a clinician?

Ksenia Petrushkina sees the impact of peptides up close.

As Director of Regenerative Medicine at Ideal Medical in Miami, she works with patients using peptides, longevity therapeutics, and regenerative medicine, including people who arrive after already starting protocols they found online.

Before clinical medicine, Ksenia worked in cancer research. It taught her a lesson that still shapes how she thinks about peptides today: what looks extraordinary in a laboratory can fall apart completely in the real world.

Now she sees the problem from the other direction. Patients arrive with gray-market vials, protocols copied from influencers, and stacks containing multiple experimental compounds. Some are teenagers.

Ksenia is not anti-peptide. But she believes enthusiasm is moving faster than the evidence, and that separating promising biology from what is actually proven in humans will determine the future of peptide medicine.

She explains:

■ Why teenagers are buying and injecting peptides they find online
■ Why she has serious reservations about MOTS-c and other heavily promoted compounds
■ Why promising results in petri dishes and mice can fall apart in humans
■ Why stacking multiple peptides makes benefits and side effects almost impossible to untangle
■ Why better safety data and real-world reporting could determine the future of peptide medicine

Chapters

(00:00) - Intro
(01:52) - How Ksenia decides which peptides to use
(03:42) - Why Ksenia won’t recommend MOTS-c
(06:22) - The problem with gray-market peptides
(09:09) - What BPC-157 really tells us
(11:04) - Why peptide stacking makes no sense
(15:16) - Why doctors need better peptide data
(21:05) - How influencers distort peptide science
(23:20) - Why teenagers are injecting peptides
(26:20) - The future of peptide medicine

Watch the full episode on YouTube

Further reading

FDA: July 2026 Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee review covering BPC-157, TB-500, MOTS-c, and other peptide-related bulk substances: FDA PCAC July 2026 meeting

FDA: Current concerns around unapproved GLP-1 drugs, including retatrutide: FDA: Concerns with unapproved GLP-1 drugs

PubMed: Review of the safety, evidence, and regulatory status of approved and unapproved peptide therapies: Safety and Efficacy of Approved and Unapproved Peptide Therapies

PubMed: 2025 pilot study of intravenous BPC-157 in two human participants, discussed in the episode: Safety of Intravenous Infusion of BPC157 in Humans

Follow Ksenia Petrushkina

Instagram: @dr.kseniamiami
Instagram: @kpmiami
X: @drkseniamiami
TikTok: @dr.ksenia.petrushkina305
Website: KseniaPetrushkina.com

Follow Richard Skaife

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/richardskaife/

Peptide Show

Website: Peptide.Show
Instagram: @Peptide.Show
TikTok: @peptide.show
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YouTube: @PeptideShow

Peptide Show explores the science, medicine, business, and people shaping the rapidly evolving world of peptides.

Presented by Longr: longr.io

Follow Peptide Show for new episodes every Tuesday.

This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Some compounds discussed in this episode are investigational, unapproved for the uses discussed, or subject to changing regulatory requirements.

Creators and Guests

Host

Richard Skaife

Entrepreneur, Venture Capitalist and CEO of Longr, focused on longevity, health technology and emerging science.

Guest

Ksenia Petrushkina

Ksenia Petrushkina, MPAS, PA-C, is Director of Regenerative Medicine at Ideal Medical and Wellness in Miami. With a background in neurofibromatosis type 2 research, she focuses on peptide therapy, longevity, and regenerative medicine, with particular emphasis on evidence, safety, and real-world clinical use.

Editor

Toby Sorabjee

Co-founder and COO of Longr, working across longevity, health technology, investing and media.

What is Peptide Show?

Welcome to the world of Peptides. New episodes every Tuesday.

I have moms of 15 year olds

come to me with the vials of Chinese peptides

there's a lot of influencers

right that try to advertise peptides

using mechanisms that are very questionable

and I've seen a lot of joints healed on BPC-157

and I've seen a lot of joints healed on

TB-500

but see unfortunately

people read the research on the petri dish

and they translate it into the human body

but it doesn't work like that

Can we prove it right now

No because nobody's studying it why don't we study it

If you want to know how people are really using peptide

Ksenia Petrushkina

is one of the few people who gets to see it up close

a patient bring her the protocols they've copied

the vials they've ordered online

and the questions they haven't known who else to ask

Before any of that Ksenia worked in cancer research

where she learned a lesson she's never quite shaken

what looks extraordinary in a lab

can fall apart completely in the real world

and right now

the real world of peptides is moving very quickly

Ksenia healed her cat with BPC-157

and TB-500

after being told it could never walk again

She's also had mothers walking to her clinic

carrying vials

brought online by their 15 year old children

So what are people really doing with peptides

when nobody's watching

And when did experimenting on yourself become

the first step with the doctor brought in afterwards

My guest today is Ksenia Petrushkina

Welcome to Peptide Show

Welcome to Peptide Show from Longr

My name is Richard Skaife

I'm an adventure capitalist and entrepreneur

and it's my great pleasure to welcome Ksenia

to the show hi

It is a pleasure to be here with you today

Now you're working at the uh

the intersection of peptides

longevity based therapeutics

um regenerative medicine

How do you go about picking which compound

and which protocol is right

for the clients that you're working with

what is your sort of evidence based

approach to selection of these compounds

And that's a great question

Usually I look at the research first

and I look at the human data

so if let's say

I have a patient ask me for other compound that have

absolutely no human data behind it

I tend to not suggest uh

to use that so and we discuss

I you

I mostly what I discuss in my practice the

those compounds that have evidence behind them

You know

even small human evidence will still count towards

then if you compare

something that only have been tested on mice

or petri dish will not be as favorable in my practice

again

as the compound that have some human data behind them

And you know and we do work in a space which has

you know limited amounts of human data

and of course we're all aware of of

why there are you know

such limited amounts of human data on compounds

which have quite often been um

you know administered for

you know quite long periods of time

You know if

if you were to sort of pick out a couple of examples

ones where you think that one there

I feel confident enough that there is enough

you know human data

but that one over there

that's something that I'm probably gonna have to give

you know a lot more consideration to

is there still a couple of good examples there

of where you feel more comfortable and

and where you sort of you know

have reservations at this moment

Sure and um

I will be honest with you

Everyone talks about MOTS-c

but I do personally have reservations about MOTS-c

That's one of the mitochondrial peptide that right now

too many people having side effects

while they are reintroducing MOTS-c to their protocol

it say so for me

that compound is a no

I will not be advising my patients to use that

because of lack of evidence

lack of safety and um

Not lack of side effects many

many people have reported numerous side effects

after injecting MOTS-c

especially when you reintroduce MOTS-c

some people have developed allergic reaction

or even anaphylactic shocks

after reintroduction of that compound

And compounds like tesamorelin or thymosin alpha-1, um

are much safer and uh

I would

I would prefer those and I can speak about those

um a lot with confidence than to speak

let's say about MOTS-c or IGF-1 LR3 or

I mean there are so many compounds that I wouldn't

recommend people using

I think one of the challenges that

you know we face at the moment is that there

there really isn't a centralized reporting

system for this so

you know how would you typically have to go about

you know forming those opinions in a

in a world where nobody's yet to really develop a

a platform with with commonality

where practitioners and prescribers and scientists can

can report those findings

Well I do understand science

I can read the research

and I can make my own hypothesis and um

So because I understand receptor biology

and because I understand

biochemistry of those compounds

I can imply or I can hypothesize

what can those compounds affect in a human body

in a human physiology

because from the mechanical standpoint

we can actually observe that domino effect

when you introduce this specific compound

and what cellular pathway does it affect

what receptor biology does it affect

and we can

predict what can happen within the human body

whether the human body will respond or not respond

Of course there are no product

And again this is how I actually um

Decide or talk about

or describe what can potentially happen to a patient

once that patient decide to use that compound

now we

We live in interesting times

and one of the common themes

yeah you know

when I'm talking to uh

you know people who are involved in

you know prescribing

and that sort of real frontline of medicine is

is conversations

with people who already started a protocol and

and then almost looking for guidance after the fact

is that something that you

you commonly see and uh

you know how does that sort of sit with you

Yes I do see that a lot

A lot a lot

I have

Let's say yesterday I had few new patients that came in

um for a consultation again on peptides

because they've been using a grey market peptides

so the peptides that they buy online

and then they come in and they wanna do blood work

our office offers a blood draws so we can help them

even though I'm not managing them

because they're not getting the compounds from the

compounding pharmacy that is FDA regulated

and they buy the compounds elsewhere

and I of course

I have to warn them that I mean

whatever happens to them who is going to be responsible

but I try to help them

to explain to them what grey market means

and I also try to explain their blood work

if something is off on their blood work with kidneys

with liver with pancreas

that that pathology

maybe is coming from the grey market peptide

and you know

I have a lot of patients who comes

and they have used Reta

or mostly Reta, and then they do heavy metal screening

and their blood full of mercury

so now go figure are they eating too much tuna

or are they injecting something unregulated

In in indeed and

and for people who uh

you know have uh

maybe found this um

you know

this podcast by searching for the word peptides

uh you know

which is now

arguably one of the most searched terms on the

the internet

you know they're looking for a starting point

um perhaps they've gone away

and they feel that they've done their own research

and all of a sudden they've

they've you know

tried to master sort of pharmacology

which is a which is an unusual uh

you know claim to

to have what would you say to somebody

you know who was peptide curious and

and was ultimately you know

thinking that these could be really beneficial to me

what's the right way of going about it in your mind

But even if you're curious

you still if you do not have that background in science

is curiosity you know

curiosity killed the mouse

Is that the the

the the

the proverb the cat

alright the curiosity killed the cat

only the only killed the mouse in the mouse model

Yeah right

So read read and

you know

read and then you have to understand the research

Um I have an example

I can share an example with you

BPC-157

It is a very well known compound

it has been used by um

athletes for the past 15 years if not more

um and we do have some safety data on it

we have some

if you go to NCBI PubMed and you search for BPC-157

there's very small, um, human studies have been made

the recent one is when they injected BPC-157

intravenously

to two people and nothing bad happened

but I have a patient who have a mother

who has a friend who is diabetic

and that friend decided to buy the peptides

did not go to the clinician

So that friend is a lady who has diabetes type 1

So she bought the BPC-157

online, she started injecting it

And within 30 days she went blind

She went to the hospital and they said well

you had diabetic retinopathy and something happened

so she grew more blood vessels inside her eye

and that what happened, so BPC-157

known mechanism of it is angiogenesis

it is the growth of the new blood vessels

it is good on a broken knee

but it is not good on a diabetic eye

So that can we prove that BPC caused it

Of course not because we can't

But we can draw the educated conclusion

And again not everybody

and we know that

not everybody who is even curious about peptide

understand the pathology of it

they don't understand what they have inside their

body and how can and if it's a young man or young woman

OK but if it's someone over 45 postmenopausal

perimenopausal with arthritis

with diabetes with metabolic syndrome

started injecting experimental molecules

and nobody's injecting one

if you see they all get stocks

you know they buy two

three 4 5

I have patients who inject seven of them

at the same time and I say where is the logic there

you will never know what have produced side effect

what has actually helped you

um so how we cannot even

so we cannot use that person in a study because again

he's not using one compound

he used all seven

and then when I try to reason with these people

that you can I mean try to use maybe two

why use seven well

because seven is the stock

is the protocol that is produced by gym bros

or whoever they're online trying to sell

you know as many as possible

Which is could it be OK for a young 25 year old

Maybe but can it be OK for a 45 year old

It's completely different story

Your immune system will react

differently to the unknown

your immune

system can develop antibodies to the unknown

you know compounds that you introduce into your body

and people say BPC-157

is natural, well I beg to argue

I back to argue

because there is nothing natural about it

the what scientists found inside your GI tract

is the very large protein

and then they isolated the fragment of 15 amino acid

and they called it BPC-157

It will never

it was never naturally occurred within your GI tract

it was a part of the huge protein

so now your body can get upset with you by injecting

right I'm trying just to be um

to uh for people to understand

and would not like to see this compound in your body

so it will develop antibodies

so it may potentially cause unfavorable side effects um

Can we prove it right now

No because nobody's studying it and what I

every podcast that I'm invited to my again question

Why don't we study it

I'm not asking for randomized control trials

but I'm asking for some

some studies that universities are able to do

short studies let's start with that and

And I think that leads to a to a really good point if

if you are you know

you clearly spend a lot of time talking to

to people who are

you know you know

becoming users of a

of peptides or looking to become users

and a huge amount of um

you know education that needs to be done

and reeducation in many ways

if you were um

you know so putting these studies together what

what would they what would they look like

what would you like to see happening

if we have anybody who's watching you uh

you know is

is looking to you know

conduct clinical studies what

what should they be uh

you know looking to do

and sure and I have an answer

because that's what I try to do in my practice

for example I have an athlete or not an athlete

so I have an athlete then I have just a regular

you know 40 year old Joe with a knee injury

so I would say why don't we do MRI prior

you starting BPC-157

and then we don't give you anything else but BPC-157

‌

and then we do MRI three months later

and we see whether the structure

you know, BPC-157

on mice and mouse model

it's supposed to heal your ligaments and tendons

so why won't why don't we do those

those studies here in practice is a case study

and I did offer it to my patient

but then patients would unfortunately

Would not want to go through MRI

lay in the machine spend the money for the MRI

because their insurance won't cover

you know a second MRI in 3 months

so virtually I would have to pay for all of that

So why don't we um

there are major universities that could actually are

that have a study

that do studies on orthopedic patients

so you know

This could be done and it's it's a case report

It's not a randomized that will not proven

but at least we can see

the safety profile on that specific person

we can see

whether the structural damage is being healed

by the proposed mechanism

Absolutely and I'm sort of just taking it to a

a slightly higher level um

in terms of the you know

sort of building uh

building protocols reporting uh

adverse reactions

um efficacy

you know generalised safety data

what what do you think needs to happen in the

in the in the sector to

to allow for uh

you know wider clinical adoption of peptides

and ultimately for no

practitioners who are peptide sceptical to

to become interested in this area of medicine

And as you're right

There are a lot of practitioners who are not

who are opposed to peptides because of the safety data

because of the FDA but even let's

if we don't talk about FDA

we need to prove to those practitioners that it is safe

we don't have to prove that it does anything correct

even for the people who are injecting

all we we want to do at this time is to prove it

that the compound is safe

and the second

stage would be proving that it actually works

and does something inside the human body right

Because that's how translational medicine works

When you do the experiments in the petri dish

and then you have great results

and then you move your research to mouse and then it

absolutely it gives you nothing

no results

But see unfortunately people read the

research on a petri dish

and they translate it into the human body

and they say OK

the petri dish but it doesn't work like that

And I used to work in and neurofibromatosis type 2

That's the research that I used to conduct

I I

My job was to hypothesize and

compare NF2 to other cancers

and take a cell line

and do the experiment on that cell line

And trust me

98% of experiments that succeeded in petri dish failed

in mice failed

so let's say in a petri dish

this compound would inhibit the growth of tumors

but in the mice it wouldn't the same with the peptides

We need to first prove that this

it's safety in petri dish well

In mice we have a lot and again

most of the compounds that uh

we have on the market have some evidence in mice

we do have research in on the mouse model

some of it and some have on on pigs and dogs

I believe

but now it has to be translated into human body and um

proved safe right

and that the efficacy you know

that we shouldn't even talk about the efficacy

until we talk about

we talk about the safety and we prove this

that it is safe and the politics of it

I am not familiar how much it takes you know

who is supposed to do that

and how much money it's going to take

and how much time it's going to take all

I know my research was strictly on one disease

it was NF2 and

I only worked with petri dishes and mice

and nothing else

So unfortunately beyond that is not my expertise yeah

I mean I think here when

when you look at some of the GLP-1 class and, uh

you know the ever expanding numerical range where

where people have been able to

you know potentially achieve a tangible activity

they've they've been comfortable after it's

you know investing hundreds potentially billions into

into clinical trials the

the challenges with a lot of these compounds

which have already found their way into the

the human population

is that intellectual property is very unlikely uh

to be able to be achieved therefore

they don't have the necessary financial incentive um

but you know I think there

there will have to be alternative mechanisms um

as more and more you know

compounds potentially find their way onto the con

you know can

compound list

and therefore find their way into patient population

so as an industry you know

finding ways where we can collaborate

and we can bring that data together is

is ultimately going to be um

you know the best thing for uh

you know the patient population

and a lot of the data around peptides

you know it's kind of anecdotal data

what

what sort of anecdotal data do you think you've proven

and also what anecdotal data you think you've disproven

in the work that you've been doing

Well there is a lot of anecdotal data indeed

even I've been working with peptides for the past what

six five

six years, and I've seen a lot of joints healed on BPC-157

‌

and I've seen a lot of joints healed on TB-500

and I've seen patients getting rid of their

fatty liver disease with tesamorelin and

And again is it

it is an anecdote

And I also conducted a survey on my Instagram page

where I ask people to fill up the survey

what are they using for what are they using

and how long have they been using it for

and there's a lot of good outcome

can I use it um

and you know

and give it to someone in research

not really because people say it's anonymous data

we're not going to even entertain it

Disprove let's

let me think about disproving the anecdotal data

But again I mean

a commonly held belief uh

I mean and these beliefs are of course

are slightly surreal because they

they appear on TikTok we

we have no way of really validating uh

the the

the the solidity of the belief in the first instance

but then it gets widely shared

so I mean maybe a sort of a common one that you

you know

reoccurringly see and you look at it and you think

I'm not too sure about that hmm

Well there's a lot of

There's a lot of influencers right

that try to advertise peptides using

mechanisms that are very questionable

uh for example

We can't even talk about using MOTS-

c and SS-31 together

because one will produce mighty conjure

which is neither MOTS-

c nor SS-31 is making new mitochondria

SS-31

actually stabilizing the cardiolipin membrane

and by stabilizing it

you have a production of ATP that it is more stable

Now MOTS-c, an energy rerouting peptide

Can it produce more mitochondria

I don't see the mechanism

how can it produce but you can produce your own

my MOTS-c by going to the gym

People don't understand that you don't need MOTS-c

You can go to the gym and the younger you are

the more MOTS-c you will produce

So and look at the social media

Who is using those peptides

teenagers from 17 to 25 to 28

and they are raving about results

what results inside of them

all those peptides are regulated

they're upregulated

exactly so

you adding something that you already have in abundance

I see

You know I see no benefits

um also

I have

70 year old patient who does not benefit from BPC-157

I have two patients

one is 70 and one is 40 with the same ACL

let's say partial tear

and the 40 year old will heal much better

will heal on BPC-157

and 70 will not because again peptide is a

message

that your body have to come and actually do something

and I believe the the older you are

because your body is no longer the

the organ system are

maybe not communicating so well with each other

so the regeneration itself is so slow

BPC may not even help

But I cannot prove it but I see exactly

You know you touched on

you've been operating in this particular field

for around seven years

what do you think you've seen change

and you know

has the addition of influencers been a holy

positive thing neutral

or perhaps a negative thing

I think a negative absolutely negative

Because I think here I'm here in Miami

I have 50 I have moms of 15 year olds

come to me with the vials of Chinese peptides

and they say

my children have been buying this online injecting

she's not eating because they're injecting Reta at 15

they're injecting MOTS-c, they're injecting protocols

that's absurd

So what's good you know

those children are watching these influencers

and those influencers are promising you longer life

prettier hair a beautiful skin and all of that

but it's it's completely the fountain of eternal youth

with Gilgamesh

yes which is not going to happen

and now we have here in Miami

and I know personally

mom whose friend's child died from injecting Reta

on her kitchen

within 20 minutes after the injecting 16 year old boy

You know and I'm sure there are so many

cases of this that we just don't hear them online

because nobody talks about it

but we have to speak

I have two patients of mine with liver failure

after Reta in a

in Aventura hospital like date

yeah date

And now Janoshik, you know

Janoshik, who is testing all the peptides

even on his channel he said for the past two months

the vials that he gets contains no peptides

it just empty feeling nothing else

So Chinese don't even put peptides in those

they just put some powder

You know they got not as bestes

and then you reconstitute it

and you inject yourself with

So there is no regulation

Am I against peptides absolutely not

But I am for regulating this field

And it was so regulated when I was

you know 4

5 years ago I mean

people would be very cautious

And I would explain to them listen

we don't have much evidence

but if you're willing to try

you can try I

I I was never

you know you can try this because no

because I'm a medical professional

I gave the nose I cannot really I

I will never harm you but I have to warn you

and I would talk about those

peptides that have human evidence

and I would encourage people to try those

instead of trying something that we don't have much of

the safety data absolutely

I think some some

some some very poignant and uh

important uh messages

there in terms of the uh the safety first approach

you can be pro peptides you could believe in uh

in in the power of the the therapeutics and

and what will come in the future with

without sort of throwing all or form of sort of risk

um out of the window uh

We'll try and finish it

we'll try and finish on the on a positive note

We have the same same question for all of our guests

um the next 10 years

what do you think the the sector will look like

or perhaps even

what do you hope the sector will look like

I think that the hype will come down

because this is not something new

peptides have been around for many

many years

some of them have been patented

then those who have discovered them

abandoned their research

but some of the peptides will definitely

will find their niche

and will become some pharmaceutical agents and

or will be moved to the category 1

and we are we're gonna be safely using it

and I believe more and more practitioners

maybe will start

putting down their personal cases of patients

and that's what I want and actually that's the

that's the future I see the more we record right

the more safety we will gather

the brighter the future is going to be for the

for those who would like to use peptides

so we'll have more knowledge

the more knowledge we'll have the

more precise the medicine will become

when it comes to peptides and patients

So yeah it's been a truly fascinating conversation

Thank you so much for your insights on Peptide Show

Thank you for having me thank you so much