The Peptide Atlas
BPC-157
A 15-amino-acid piece of a protective protein found in stomach juice, made synthetically.
Class
Repair peptide (synthetic gastric pentadecapeptide)
Evidence
Early research
Status
Studied in research settings.
Forms
Studied mostly as injection; little data on how well it absorbs as a capsule
What people use it for
Injury recovery: tendons, ligaments, and stubborn gut problems. The most-discussed repair peptide in sports and rehab circles.
The signal
The body heals injuries by growing new blood vessels into the damaged area and sending in repair cells. In animal studies, BPC-157 speeds that process up [1].
How it works
In lab research it increases blood-vessel growth into injured tissue and gets repair cells moving faster [2]. Researchers have seen this in tendon, ligament, muscle, and gut tissue [1].
What the research shows
The animal research goes back about 30 years and is unusually consistent, with faster healing in most tissues tested. PubMed indexes 228 publications on it as of August 2026 (search: "BPC-157 OR BPC157"). Almost none of that is human data: our search found no published randomized human trials, so everything people quote about it comes from animal work.
What people get wrong
That the results people cite are human results (they're from rats and mice). And that capsules do what injections do. Most of the research used injections.
References
- Sikiric P et al., Pharmaceuticals (2026). Tendon, ligament, and muscle injury, osteotendinous, myotendinous, and muscle-to-bone junction healing and stable gastric pentadecapeptide BPC 157. PubMed
- Chang CH et al., J Appl Physiol (2011). The promoting effect of pentadecapeptide BPC 157 on tendon healing involves tendon outgrowth, cell survival, and cell migration. PubMed
Last reviewed 2026-08-24. Every reference is verified against the primary literature at review time. How the Atlas grades evidence