The What Are Peptides Explainer Team

The explainer team writes for people meeting this subject for the first time. Every term is defined where it appears, and nothing assumes prior background in biochemistry.

20 articles

• What Is Growth Hormone?

  Growth hormone has been sold as an anti-aging treatment for more than thirty years, largely on the strength of one small study. Here is what the hormone actually is, and why replacing a deficiency and topping up a healthy person are not the same thing at all.

• Why Do Side Effects Happen?

  A side effect is usually not the molecule going wrong. It is the same effect, happening somewhere in your body you were not thinking about — and receptors explain exactly why.

• Why Two Sources Disagree About the Same Compound

  You look something up, one page calls it promising, another says there is no evidence, and both cite studies. Here is why that happens, and why it usually means the evidence is incomplete rather than that somebody is being dishonest.

• What Is TB-500?

  The honest answer starts with a wrinkle in the name, so we will start there too. Here is what TB-500 is, what the natural molecule behind it genuinely does, and where the evidence stops.

• Where Do Peptides Come From?

  Some peptides your body makes, some come from other living things, and many are built from scratch in a laboratory. Here is how each of those actually happens, and why the word "synthetic" tells you far less than most people assume.

• What Does "Research Use Only" Mean?

  Four words on a label, easy to read straight past. They are not fine print — they name a real category, and they tell you which list of requirements was never applied to the material inside.

• How to Read a Health Claim

  Most claims that mislead people are made entirely of true statements. Here is how the wording does it, one move at a time, and the five short questions that put the missing pieces back.

• What Are Collagen Peptides?

  This is probably the most-asked peptide question there is, and it deserves better than either a sales pitch or a debunking. Here is what collagen peptides are, what the human trials actually found, and which parts are still guesswork.

• What Is GHK-Cu?

  GHK-Cu is three amino acids with a copper atom attached, and it turns up on skin product labels. Here is what it actually is, why the copper is the interesting part, and what the evidence really supports.

• What Are GLP-1 Medications?

  They are copies of a hormone your gut already releases after every meal, rebuilt to last about a week instead of about two minutes. Here is what that hormone does, what the large trials actually found, and what the honest downsides are.

• What Is BPC-157?

  You have probably met this name attached to some very confident claims, in both directions at once. Here is the plain version: what BPC-157 is, what researchers think it might do, and how much of that has actually been shown.

• What Happens to a Peptide in Your Body?

  Most peptides are taken apart and cleared out within minutes of arriving. Here is what half-life actually means, how your body does the removing, and why a short life is not a flaw.

• Why Most Peptides Cannot Be Swallowed

  Almost no peptide works as a pill, and the reason is simpler than it sounds. Your digestive system is built to take apart exactly this kind of molecule, and it is very good at its job.

• What Is a Clinical Trial?

  A trial is not just a group of people trying something and reporting back. It is a comparison, arranged carefully in advance — and the care taken over that arrangement is what decides whether the result is worth anything at all.

• What Is a Receptor?

  A receptor is the part of a cell that a particular molecule fits into, and it quietly explains almost everything about how these compounds work. Here is the picture, including the part most beginners get backwards.

• What Is the Difference Between a Peptide and a Protein?

  There is no chemical difference between the two. They are the same kind of molecule, and the only thing separating them is length — plus a line that people agreed to draw.

• Why a Mouse Study Is Not a Human Study

  You read that something "was shown to heal injuries." That sentence may be perfectly true and still be describing twelve mice. Here is how to tell the difference, and why it matters more than almost anything else you can learn about reading health claims.

• What Is a Hormone?

  A hormone is how one part of your body tells another part, far away, what to do. Here is how that message travels, why it only changes certain cells, and why peptides keep turning up in the same conversation.

• What Are Amino Acids?

  Amino acids are the small parts your body links together to make proteins and peptides. Here is what one of them actually is, why there are twenty, and what the word "essential" really means.

• What Is a Peptide?

  A peptide is a short chain of amino acids. Here is what each of those words means, why the order of those amino acids decides everything, and why your body is making peptides as you read this.