# Five Peptides. One Question: What Does the Evidence Actually Say?

> British Colombia Peptides — Research Peptide Fundamentals — Research Peptide Fundamentals: a plain-English orientation to BPC-157, semaglutide, ipamorelin, NAD+ and GHK-Cu — what each is, how it works, and what the literature shows, read against the Canadian research landscape.

**RESEARCH PEPTIDE FUNDAMENTALS**

A cited orientation to BPC-157, semaglutide, ipamorelin, NAD+ and GHK-Cu — mechanism, findings, and honest gaps, read against how peptide research access differs north and south of the border.

### [BPC-157](/bpc-157)

A stable gastric pentadecapeptide studied in rodents for tissue repair and angiogenesis. Human data are three small pilots. Lead compound on this desk.

### [Semaglutide](/semaglutide)

An FDA-approved GLP-1 receptor agonist with the deepest trial record here — diabetes, weight, cardiovascular and kidney outcomes, all cited.

### [Ipamorelin](/ipamorelin)

A selective growth-hormone secretagogue. Its only human RCT missed its primary endpoint. A study in restraint, not hype.

### [NAD+](/nad)

The cell's central redox coenzyme. Precursor trials raise blood NAD+ reliably; hard clinical outcomes in humans remain unproven.

### [GHK-Cu](/ghk-cu)

A copper-binding tripeptide with a long topical cosmetic record and a much thinner case for anything beyond the skin.

## The short version

This site is a research digest, not a shop. It reads five *research peptides* — short chains of amino acids studied in labs and, for some, in clinics — and reports what the published literature actually found, compound by compound. Two things separate these five: how much of the evidence comes from animals versus people, and whether any regulator has approved the compound for a specific human use.

**Semaglutide** is approved and has the largest human trial base of the five. **BPC-157**, **ipamorelin**, and **GHK-Cu** are not approved as medicines; each has a mix of preclinical (mostly rodent) mechanism work and a small, sometimes disappointing, human dataset. **NAD+** sits in between — sold as a supplement, with human trials that reliably raise blood NAD+ but have not yet nailed down which clinical outcomes that translates to.

Wherever a page reports what people online say they experience, it is labeled *anecdotal, not clinical evidence* and never comes with a dose. Wherever a page cites a number — a percentage, a half-life, a trial size — that number traces to a numbered source on the [references page](/references).

## What are research peptides?

A peptide is a short chain of amino acids, the same building blocks that make up proteins, just far fewer of them strung together. Some peptides on this site are copies or near-copies of molecules the body already makes — semaglutide mimics a gut hormone, GHK-Cu occurs naturally in blood plasma and declines with age. Others, like BPC-157 and ipamorelin, are synthetic sequences engineered to be more stable than anything found in nature, which is exactly why they have to be studied rather than assumed safe.

"Research peptide" is also a regulatory label. Compounds sold that way are marketed for laboratory use, not human consumption, and fall outside the quality controls that apply to an approved drug: no guaranteed purity, no guaranteed dose accuracy, no formal safety monitoring. That distinction matters more for some of the five compounds here than others, and each compound page states plainly where its own evidence and its own regulatory status stand.

## The Canadian research landscape

This desk uses a Canadian lens. It does not treat a US regulatory label as a Canadian one. Health Canada and the FDA maintain separate records. Access, approval, compounding and research oversight must therefore be read by jurisdiction. The supplied compound corpus is strongest on the US record, so this digest does not infer a Canadian approval or restriction where the source set does not document one.

The practical rule is narrow. First identify the evidence class: approved medicine, investigational compound, supplement context or topical cosmetic ingredient. Then separate that scientific classification from the legal status in a particular country. The compound pages report the sourced evidence and compliance notes available here. They do not turn an FDA status into a Health Canada claim. That boundary is deliberate. It keeps the Canadian frame visible without manufacturing a statute, program or access pathway that the cited literature does not establish.

## How to read the evidence

Start with the model. A result in a rat, ferret, cell culture or isolated skin sample is evidence about that model. It is not a human outcome. A human safety pilot can show that no measured problem appeared in a small window. It cannot prove benefit. A randomized controlled trial can test a defined question in a defined population. It still does not answer every use claim attached to a compound.

The five pages keep those layers separate. Mechanism explains what a molecule is thought to do. Findings report what a study measured. Anecdotal reports show what communities say they notice; they remain anecdotal, not clinical evidence. Safety sections distinguish an observed adverse event from a theoretical concern. The [comparison](/compare) then ranks the evidence by maturity, not popularity. That sequence matters. It prevents a plausible mechanism from being promoted into a clinical result. It also prevents a thin or negative trial from being treated as proof that every research question is closed.

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A literature desk on five research peptides, read against the Canadian regulatory backdrop — not a clinic, not a vendor, not a prescription.