What went up?
Ipamorelin is a lab-made peptide that prompts the pituitary, a gland beneath the brain, to release growth hormone. In early animal and cell experiments, it raised growth hormone without the same rise in some other hormones. That's what researchers meant by selective. It wasn't a safety guarantee.
A study in healthy male volunteers also measured a burst of growth hormone. It described the hormone response, rather than showing better sleep, stronger muscles or faster injury recovery.
Did recovery improve?
A human trial after bowel surgery asked a practical question: could people tolerate a meal sooner? The main result didn't show a clear benefit over placebo, a comparison without the active substance.
That disappointing answer belongs beside the hormone finding. It doesn't prove every proposed benefit is impossible. But the trial didn't establish the recovery benefit it set out to test, and it wasn't a test of sports injuries.
What about safety?
The FDA reports serious adverse events, including deaths, in a study using intravenous ipamorelin, given into a vein. That doesn't establish that ipamorelin caused the events. It does make a blanket claim of safety hard to defend.
The short human studies can't settle long-term safety or a different way of giving it. Claims about better recovery need both parts of the answer: a useful benefit and a clear account of harms. The comparison page keeps that distinction in view.