Advances in regenerative medicine are generating growing interest across healthcare, high-performance sport and veteran communities seeking new approaches to injury recovery, chronic pain and long-term wellbeing. As experimental peptide therapies attract increasing public attention, they are also raising important questions about scientific evidence, regulatory oversight and consumer safety, particularly as demand begins to outpace the availability of robust clinical research.
Most people know Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov as the scientist who trained dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell, laying the foundations for our understanding of conditioned reflexes. Far fewer know his research into gastric secretions earned him the 1904 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the physiology of digestion.
Decades later, that pioneering research on gastric physiology would help inspire scientists investigating naturally occurring compounds within the stomach, work that ultimately led to one of today’s most talked-about areas of regenerative medicine: peptides.
More than a century later, scientists are exploring whether tiny naturally occurring molecules known as peptides could help repair damaged tendons and ligaments, reduce inflammation, improve recovery and even influence sleep, metabolism and healthy ageing. While some peptide treatments, including insulin and the blockbuster GLP-1 weight-loss drugs (Ozempic and Mounjaro), are already firmly established in mainstream medicine, many others remain experimental, attracting enormous interest from athletes, biohackers and people living with chronic injuries.
Some experts say either these compounds are as remarkable as many users claim and we’re missing an important therapeutic opportunity, or millions of people are injecting products that don’t work or could even be harmful, as they access them on grey or black markets.
Despite the excitement, Australia’s regulators urge caution
While excitement around peptides is growing worldwide, Australian regulators are urging caution. The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) says it is increasingly concerned about the rise in the importation, compounding, supply and advertising of unapproved peptide products, warning they pose potential safety risks to consumers.
The TGA defines peptides as “short chains of amino acids” that can “mimic or stimulate natural biological processes”, including those involved in growth, metabolism and tissue repair. While peptide medicines such as insulin and GLP-1 drugs are approved for use in Australia, many of the compounds generating interest online are not.
Products containing compounds such as BPC-157, GHK-Cu, TB-500, retatrutide and CJC-1295 have not been assessed by the TGA for their safety, quality or effectiveness. Despite this, they are increasingly promoted on social media and online with claims ranging from faster injury recovery and muscle growth to weight loss, anti-ageing and enhanced cognitive performance. The Australian regulator says these products present “significant regulatory and public health risks” and is actively monitoring their supply and promotion from both safety and compliance perspectives.
That caution extends further than the Australian health regulator. Sport Integrity Australia warns against athletes using several unapproved peptides, including BPC-157, which is banned under the World Anti-Doping Code Prohibited List 2025. While BPC-157 has gained attention due to its role in potential tissue repair, the agency says there is limited human evidence to support its use and much of the research points to laboratory and animal studies.
Popularity grows despite regulatory barriers
However, despite Australia’s cautious regulatory approach, peptides are attracting growing attention from athletes, researchers, people living with chronic musculoskeletal injuries and the broader wellness community.
US-based internal medicine physician Dr Abud Bakri, who has a particular interest in peptide therapies, describes peptides as “one of the languages of the human body”.
“The body likes these different languages to communicate between cells… and peptides are one of those languages,” Dr Bakri told Dr Andrew Huberman in an interview.
According to Dr Bakri, the scientific journey that began more than a century ago with Ivan Pavlov’s Nobel Prize-winning research into gastric secretions ultimately led to one experimental peptide generating global interest.
“Pavlov… would feed dogs food and collect their gastric juices,” Dr Bakri said. “People were taking gastric juices for gastrointestinal discomfort and wound healing long before anyone knew what BPC-157 was.”
Researchers later hypothesised that the stomach must contain compounds capable of protecting its own lining from constant exposure to acid. In the early 1990s, Croatian scientists isolated one of those compounds, a 15-amino-acid fragment known as BPC-157, which has since become one of the most widely discussed experimental peptides.
Unlike many experimental compounds that target a single disease or organ, BPC-157 has attracted attention because laboratory or animal studies have suggested it may influence multiple healing processes. Researchers have investigated its potential role in wound healing, muscle recovery, tendon and ligament repair, nerve regeneration, inflammation and protection of the digestive tract.
While clinicians experimenting with peptide therapies report encouraging patient experiences, regulators continue to caution that these observations have yet to be confirmed through robust human trials.
Australia catches the peptide wave
The excitement surrounding BPC-157 isn’t restricted to overseas clinics, and in Australia interest has also surged despite the compound remaining outside of Australians’ reach in the approved medicines pathway.
While reliable data on peptide use is lacking, Australian researcher Tim Piatkowski, an NHMRC Research Fellow in the School of Public Health at the University of Queensland, says several proxy measures point to rapidly growing demand.
“At the moment we don’t have any solid prevalence data, all we’ve got is proxy measures that we can rely on,” Mr Piatkowski told the ABC’s Health Report.
“As of May 2026 there are a couple of hundred thousand posts on Instagram regarding peptides, and I think a couple of hundred-thousand videos on TikTok … needle and syringe providers are seeing a huge influx in service provision for the equipment necessary to inject these substances, so much so that down the Gold Coast there are needle and syringe providers that have seen a 600 per cent increase in terms of the service provision from this year versus last year.”
Many peptide therapies are best delivered via injection or topical application as gastric juices destroy the peptides when ingested, Mr Piatkowski said, and Australians are accessing these peptides through two pathways.
Some bypass the healthcare system by purchasing products online through underground suppliers and social media channels. Others are accessing through anti-ageing and testosterone replacement clinics where some peptides are prescribed under Australia’s poisons scheduling framework despite not being approved medicines. He said this has created a confusing regulatory landscape with compounds such as BPC-157 falling outside Australia’s approved medicines pathway, while circulating through underground and some clinical settings.
Although BPC-157 has been investigated for tissue repair and collagen synthesis, Mr Piatkowski said there have only been a handful of human pilot studies completed to date, although there is a lot of anecdotal evidence supporting their use.
“A lot of people do order these and do express positive stories about how it’s relieved their pain, or they’re feeling better … we’d be foolish to discount that completely,” he said. “It really just points to the fact that we need to gather the resources and interrogate this with robust research.”
Mr Piatkowski said the risks extend beyond the limited research. While some products are legitimately made through licensed pharmacies, others are manufactured in unregulated environments before being sold online with claims of purity and potency. He said that some so-called “compounded” peptides could be produced outside professional pharmacy settings with no independent oversight, chain of custody, or verification the product contains what the label claims.
Drawing on his previous ROIDCheck research into Australia’s illicit anabolic steroid market, he said the same underground supply chains and quality concerns appeared to be emerging in the peptide market, making it difficult for consumers to know exactly what they are injecting.
More than 120 years after Ivan Pavlov’s Nobel Prize-winning research into gastric secretions, the compounds hidden within the human body continue to reveal new possibilities. From insulin and GLP-1 medicines, such as Ozempic and Mounjaro, that have transformed the treatment of diabetes and obesity, to experimental peptides such as BPC-157, scientists are continuing to uncover the remarkable ways these tiny chains of amino acids communicate with and influence the body’s own healing systems.
Whether BPC-157 ultimately fulfils its early promise remains unanswered. Laboratory and animal studies have generated considerable excitement, clinicians continue to report encouraging patient experiences, and public interest shows little sign of slowing. Yet until larger, well-designed human clinical trials establish its safety and effectiveness, regulators are likely to remain cautious.
For now, peptides occupy a fascinating space between scientific promise and clinical proof. The challenge for researchers, regulators and clinicians will be separating genuine therapeutic breakthroughs from hype, ensuring that if the next great advance in regenerative medicine does emerge, it is supported by the evidence needed to change modern healthcare.
