Why everyone’s talking peptides—should you buy in?

For this week’s Top Story, we’re looking at the recent health trend of peptides—and why they’re so expensive.

You’ve likely seen talk of them on TikTok or heard about them on a podcast. Peptides are the latest health trend being hawked by wellness influencers, promoted as a shortcut to help you with everything from weight loss to anti-aging to muscle recovery. They’re being touted by the usual suspects devoted to biohacking, including the Kardashians, Hailey Bieber, Jennifer Aniston, and Joe Rogan, who even popularized an injectable duo, frighteningly called the “Wolverine” stack. Are they worth the injection pain and the cost?

Why is everyone jumping on the peptide bandwagon right now?

“Let’s face it, everyone wants to be healthier, everyone wants to live longer, and everyone wants to look like a movie star,” says Joe Schwarcz, director of the Office for Science and Society at McGill University. But when it comes to peptides, especially injectables, he says, there are a lot of unknowns. “People are being totally misled by these influencers and, of course, most of these wellness influencers don’t have any kind of scientific background.”

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What are peptides, and are they all the same?

Peptides are short sequences of amino acids, which are the building block of proteins that occur naturally in the body, explains Schwarcz. There are hundreds of peptides, performing all kinds of different functions. In Canada, a number of them are available as medications. Insulin and semaglutides, such as Ozempic, are peptides. (Read how the cost of Ozempic compares to that of diet and exercise.)

But not all peptides are created equal.

If you can buy a peptide online without a prescription (such as through an affiliated link on social media) you are likely buying an unauthorized drug, meaning it is not approved by Health Canada. And that brings up lots of issues. In fact, this has become so rampant, Health Canada issued a public advisory warning people not to buy or use unauthorized injectable peptide drugs sold online for wellness purposes, citing potential serious health risks.

“A peptide is simply a type of molecule, not a badge of safety or effectiveness,” says Stuart Phillips, a professor in the Department of Kinesiology at McMaster University. If it’s not yet approved, that means it has not been evaluated for safety, effectiveness or quality.

“Approved peptide drugs have been evaluated in years or decades of human trials for a specific condition,” says Phillips. Their identity, purity, dose, manufacturing, storage, benefits, contraindications and adverse effects are well established, he says. “Many peptides promoted online have none of those safeguards.”

The risks of unauthorized peptides

Before you fork over the cash, know that there are major concerns with using an unauthorized peptide.

First, manufacturing peptides is very complicated, says Schwarcz, and there’s a real risk of including impurities (contamination) that can have biological activity—including the potential to harm you.

“An unauthorized peptide may contain too much, too little or none of the stated ingredient,” says Phillips. “It may contain another drug, bacteria, fungi, endotoxins, solvents, heavy metals or particles.”

Is there a future cost?

As well, there’s not enough research on the effects of certain peptides on humans. “It’s very difficult to say what the actual risks are. We don’t have any studies where people have taken them or people have been followed for some significant time,” says Schwarcz. “There are theoretical possibilities here which are very considerable. That’s why it’s like playing Russian roulette. You don’t know what the end result is.”

Health Canada warns that these unauthorized peptides may cause hormonal or blood sugar changes, liver or kidney injury, blood clots and other serious complications. And because they are usually self-administered, they carry significant risk of user injection errors.

People should only get prescribed medications from a licensed Canadian pharmacy  that requires a valid prescription and has a verifiable Canadian address, recommends Phillips.

Don’t get scammed by professional-looking websites, certificates or even claims like “research grade,” says Phillips. Authorized drugs should also have a Drug Identification Number, or DIN number on its label, which can be checked in Health Canada’s Drug Product Database.

How much do peptides cost in Canada?

Taking peptides can impact your bank account, without any proven return on investment. Peptide therapy can cost anywhere from a few hundred dollars a month to thousands, depending on the product, its source and how many peptides are combined. 

There’s also an opportunity cost, says Phillips. “Someone may spend months self-treating an injury while delaying an accurate diagnosis and an effective rehabilitation program.”

If peptide BPC-157 is popular, it should be OK to buy, right?

“BPC-157 is a synthetic 15-amino-acid peptide promoted as a healing or regenerative compound,” says Phillips. Online claims say that it accelerates muscle, bone and tissue repair, while reducing inflammation.

“Those claims are based predominantly on experiments in cells and laboratory animals,” says Phillips. “Showing that something changes a signalling pathway in a rat is very different from showing that it safely heals a human tendon.”

BPC-157 also has proposed effects on blood-vessel formation, which raises unresolved theoretical questions about tumour biology—meaning it could increase your risk for certain cancers. “That does not prove it causes cancer, but it illustrates why proper safety testing is necessary,” says Phillips.

Actually, BPC-157 was specifically included in Health Canada’s warning; the department advises consumers not to buy or use it.

What about peptide creams, pills or powders?

“Oral ingestion leads to almost immediate decomposition of the peptides by gastric juices,” explains Schwarcz. “So, all these compounding pharmacies who are selling oral peptides are really misleading people. First of all, there's a problem of where they are getting the raw materials, whether it really is the best peptide to start with, and then they are compounding it into a pill. But they’re very good at using weasel words and trying to convince people of the activity of these things.”

What about the dozens of products in the peptide skincare category at Sephora—does any of it work? Different types of peptides can help smooth the skin, stabilize collagen, support moisture, and reduce fine lines, says Schwarcz. But he questions the significance of these benefits. “The bottom line is that certain peptide formulations can improve the skin’s appearance but calling them ‘nature’s Botox’ is nonsense,” he says. “Peptides are more likely to reduce bank accounts than deep wrinkles.”

There’s just not enough data on peptides in skincare, says Phillips.

That doesn’t mean peptides are all hype. There is real promise to some of these peptides, says Schwarcz, but the science (and standardized manufacturing) just isn’t there yet.

“It’ll be interesting to see where we are in 10 years: legitimate approved peptides that everyone is enjoying the benefits of, or an absolute disaster where none have been shown to work and that this was all a giant placebo experiment—or worse, they are causing increased rates of cancer and adverse reactions,” says Phillips.

But for now, “if something sounds too good to be true, it almost always is,” warns Schwarcz.

Read more from this issue of The Get:

1. Cheap skincare products that actually work
2. What does “pay transparency” even mean? Aman Malhi knows
3. DIY versus hiring someone to fix home repairs in Canada
4. What exactly happens to your belongings when you pass away without kids or a partner in Alberta?