People say these peptides hurt them. Their stories are muffled in MAHA’s push for medical freedom

KFF Health News illustration/Getty Images

After the third day of squirting an experimental drug up his nose, Dylan Meetze felt horrible.

“It was like I was underwater, like it took the most to do anything,” he said.

Meetze stopped taking the drug but endured fatigue and anxiety for months afterward, and his eyes and muscles twitched, he said.

He had taken BPC-157, a peptide drug popularized by podcasts about wellness, longevity, and what’s called “body optimization.” “Peptide” is a general term for substances that are smaller than proteins but composed of the same building blocks. Dozens of peptide drugs , including insulin and GLP-1 weight loss medicines, have garnered approval by the Food and Drug Administration. But BPC-157 and many others have not because they haven’t undergone clinical trials.

This fact hasn’t stopped online influencers from promoting them as remedies for muscle injuries, gut issues, covid, and more. Use of BPC-157 is growing in the U.S., particularly among white males, according to a new analysis of millions of de-identified electronic health records. Since 2020, the analysis, which hasn’t yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal, found that more than 1,000 people told doctors they had used the drug.

Meetze said he decided to take BPC-157 after listening to Andrew Huberman, a Stanford neuroscientist with more than 16 million followers on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok, who talks up peptides frequently on his podcasts . Studies in mice suggest that BPC-157 helps muscles heal and has “very high safety profiles,” Huberman has said , “at least, with respect to the lethal dosing.” His guest on one episode , Craig Koniver, a doctor who sells peptides through his wellness clinic, called BPC-157 “super safe” and recommended it for “anyone who’s working out on a regular basis.” Koniver did not respond to requests for comment.

Huberman didn’t respond to multiple queries from KFF Health News, but an automatic reply linked to a disclaimer on his Huberman Lab website that says the podcast doesn’t constitute medical advice: “Any reliance on information provided through the podcast is solely at the user’s own risk.”

Hoping BPC-157 might help him advance as a weightlifter, Meetze said he bought the drug last year from an online vendor, Researchem. A chemical supply company with that name sells experimental peptides through its website , warning that the substances are “solely for laboratory research” and are “not intended for human consumption.” (It lists an address in Hillsboro, Oregon, that corresponds to a shared office space. A receptionist at the space said Researchem wasn’t registered there, and multiple queries from KFF Health News to the email address listed on the website went unanswered.)

Andrew Kelly/Reuters/File

FDA advisers support easing restrictions on six peptides. Here’s what those drugs are and what happens next

Companies are required to warn that experimental peptides, which haven’t been approved by the FDA, are for research use only. But many companies may soon be permitted to drop the warning because of a push by health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lower barriers to their use. He and other leaders of the Make America Healthy Again movement have promoted peptides as a way to improve the country’s health.

On the social media platform X, before he took the helm at the Department of Health and Human Services, Kennedy vowed to end the “aggressive suppression” of “peptides, stem cells, raw milk” and “anything else that advances human health and can’t be patented by Pharma.” (In fact, peptides are heavily patented.)

He has repeated the pledge since taking office. On Joe Rogan’s podcast early this year, Kennedy said he was a “big fan” of peptides and wanted to make many of them “more accessible.” On a podcast with the co-chair of the MAHA Action committee, Gary Brecka, Kennedy said the FDA’s role should be to assess science, “but not tell people and not tell physicians what they can and cannot prescribe.”

“If you want to take an experimental drug,” he added, “you ought to be able to do that.”

This summer, Kennedy’s health department appointed doctors with financial stakes in the peptide industry to a panel that advises the FDA. At an FDA meeting in July, the new appointees voted to ease restrictions on six experimental peptides, including the trendy compounds BPC-157, TB-500, and MOTS-c. Specifically, they advised adding these peptides to a list, called 503A, that would allow specialized pharmacies to make the drugs for human use, even though the FDA hasn’t approved them.

In an email, HHS spokesperson Emily Hilliard wrote that every committee member satisfies the FDA’s ethics requirements. “FDA — not podcasts or politics — determines which substances qualify for inclusion on the 503A Bulks List,” she wrote. The FDA has yet to issue a final decision.

The vote went against FDA scientists who presented research on the six peptides, concluding there wasn’t enough evidence to show they improved any condition. Furthermore, the scientists highlighted a potential for liver damage, allergic reactions, or other serious consequences.

What you should know about peptides

“People are saying this is about medical freedom — putting decisions back in the hands of patients,” said Reshma Ramachandran, a regulatory science researcher at Yale School of Medicine. “But what we see in practice is that incentives aren’t actually centered around patients. They’re centered around selling products.”

Scientists also warned that drugmakers would be reluctant to invest millions of dollars into clinical trials on peptides if they could be sold without FDA approval.

“The chances of clinical trials getting done now are diminished,” said Eric Topol, executive vice president of Scripps Research, a biomedical science institute in San Diego. “We will have more people who are prey to predators that will sell, sell, sell.”

A lack of data leaves consumers in the dark.

Meetze sought help on Reddit, where people post about pain, headaches, vision problems, and a lack of motivation after taking experimental peptides. Peptide enthusiasts often comment on these posts with skepticism, attributing a person’s problems to contaminated products, preexisting conditions, or misuse of the drugs. The online vitriol in the Reddit conversations can be intense, so Meetze welcomed an invitation to join a private group on the social platform Discord in which people with BPC-157 side effects tried to figure out what happened to them and how to fix it.

“There are millions of success stories with these peptides,” Meetze said, “but no one wants to believe that this wrecks some of our lives.”

Amy Maxmen/KFF Health News

One member of the private side-effects group, a 46-year-old software engineer named Dominik E., said he got an excruciating migraine within days of taking BPC-157 with TB-4, another unapproved peptide — a combination called the “Wolverine Stack” because of its purported ability to heal wounds rapidly, like its namesake Marvel superhero.

“My left eye started throbbing really badly, and the left side of my face became numb,” he told KFF Health News, which agreed to only partially identify him and others interviewed for this article who were concerned about divulging sensitive health information.

After two months of migraines, Dominik said, the pain eased, but his face felt inflamed. “It is a total nightmare,” he said.

“I’m afraid how people will judge me,” said Lois S., a woman who works at a Michigan elementary school. She hoped BPC-157 and another unapproved peptide, retatrutide, would help with weight loss, but she stopped taking the treatment when she felt pain.

“I sought out this substance from a lab that clearly labeled it not for human use, purchased a syringe, and injected this in my kitchen,” she said. “That belies all logic about what a normal person would do.”

Peptide proponents argue that shoddy manufacturing — not the peptides — causes harm. Therefore, they say, the FDA must protect the public by allowing doctors to prescribe peptides made for human use by pharmacies that specialize in compounding medicines . Typically, compounding pharmacies manufacture alternatives to FDA-approved drugs so a patient can, say, get a liquid version of a drug that the original manufacturer makes only as pills.

Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg/Getty Images

The ‘Wild West’ of peptides is booming. Here’s what’s real, what’s risky and what’s next

Adding unapproved peptides to the FDA’s list of compoundable drugs would mark a departure from the list’s purpose, said Peter Lurie, a former FDA official who now directs the advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest. He noted that federal and state oversight for compounding pharmacies is often lax, and they’ve been cited for contamination .

Furthermore, he added, the move would mislead consumers into thinking they’re buying drugs backed by clinical trials. People promoting peptides often point to promising laboratory research as evidence. Rats with spinal injuries regained tail mobility after BPC-157 injections, for example, and old mice given the experimental peptide MOTS-c could run longer. On average, however, fewer than 10% of substances that show promise in animal studies prove effective in clinical trials.

“A lot of this pseudoscience stuff sounds deeply impressive — inflammation this and telomere that — but at the end of the day, none of it really matters,” Lurie said. “You’ve got to show clinical benefit in humans: Does it work?”

Peptide promoters lean on anecdotes, often without verifiable numbers. In a podcast recorded at the White House, the MAHA influencer Brecka said: “Twenty million people have been prescribed these things without adverse events.” His guest on the episode, Brigham Buhler — who is the co-author of The Peptide Revolution and owner of a compounding pharmacy that sells peptides and a clinic, Ways2Well, that prescribes them — told Brecka that none of its 75,000-plus patients had reported adverse events from peptides.

Buhler cited even higher numbers in the movie MAHA Uncensored , a documentary featuring Kennedy and other leaders of the MAHA movement and that bears the MAHA trademark. In the segment on peptides, Buhler said: “Having treated literally hundreds of thousands of people through our compounding pharmacy, we’ve never had a major adverse event.”

Topol asks why those boasting success haven’t conducted clinical studies. “If influencers and companies really believe these peptides are helping people,” Topol said, “then they should put their profits back into rigorous research.”

Chris Woodward, a spokesperson for Brecka and his company, the Ultimate Human, said in an email that the health and wellness issues discussed on Brecka’s podcast do not constitute medical advice. “Mr. Brecka consistently advises his audience to consult a licensed physician,” Woodward wrote. Buhler did not respond to requests for comment.

Not all anecdotes are rosy. At an antiaging conference last summer in Las Vegas, two women were rushed to the hospital and intubated after being injected with experimental peptides and vitamins, according to citations that Nevada’s state pharmacy board issued against the doctor running the booth and his colleagues for prescribing and administering drugs without a state medical license.

Inside the gray market peptide industry

An FDA database for adverse events contains concerning reports. Although the database can’t prove that a drug, vaccine, or medical device caused harm — the reports are brief, unverified, and voluntary — it signals issues worth exploring. A 36-year-old woman was hospitalized in December after taking the experimental peptide BPC-157 for weight control and a skin disorder, for example, and a 48-year-old man was hospitalized with a “life-threatening” condition after taking the peptide.

FDA scientists presented some of these reports at the July meeting and flagged worrisome outcomes in animal experiments, such as a 2020 study revealing signs of liver toxicity in rats and dogs injected with BPC-157.

Brian Lee, a liver disease specialist at the University of Southern California, was among the panel’s minority who voted against easing restrictions. Without clinical studies, he said, afflictions that take time to develop, like liver damage and cancer, might not be spotted for years: “I think this endorsement can be potentially harmful, and I cannot in good conscience vote ‘yes.’”

The panel’s newcomers disagreed. “I do not believe the FDA made a good case on issues with safety with BPC,” said Kris Wusterhausen, founder of an antiaging company in Texas, the Resurge Clinic, which sells a BPC-157 product for $149.

“Once you’ve seen the effects of BPC,” he said, “you can’t unsee it.”

Deepak Srivastava, president of the Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco, designed a clinical trial two decades ago to see if a peptide he studies, TB-4, could repair tissue after a heart attack. Before enrollment, people volunteering for the study would be screened for early signs of cancer because TB-4 triggers vessel growth and cell migration, which might exacerbate malignant growths. He worries about the FDA panel’s vote to ease restrictions on a derivative of TB-4, before such trials have been completed, saying, “You need to have a healthy respect for the fact that drugs can be harmful.”

Pinchas Cohen, a peptide researcher at the University of Southern California, was less cautious, saying the FDA buzz might drive investors to fund trials. He’s seeking support to bring a peptide his lab identified, MOTS-c, to market. It’s “un-ideal” for people to take unproven drugs, Cohen said, but that’s what’s happening: “The world is changing and people like me need to accept that this is the new reality and find ways to make it as safe as possible.”

In the meantime, people like Meetze resort to podcasts and online forums for advice. His symptoms faded after a year, but he still had spells of feeling “zero emotions.”

Peptide users describe this condition as anhedonia. It’s come up on Huberman’s podcasts .

Trying to navigate the $7 trillion wellness industry

Huberman occasionally mentions other potential peptide risks, like cancer, sprinkling them into advice on how to take them. Take a 2024 episode with 1.2 million views: “I do not think that BPC-157 is not without its quote-unquote ‘side effects,’” Huberman says. “If you’re going to go down this path of taking BPC-157, I would encourage you to take the minimal effective dose, to not simply do it every day, and certainly to not do it continuously, and of course to monitor your other health metrics for anything that could potentially resemble cancer or tumor growth, because obviously stimulating angiogenesis for wound repair sounds like a great thing, recovering and being able to do your workouts or play your sport, or move about more comfortably, of course, a wonderfully attractive thing to do.”

“Isn’t that what we all want? But obviously not with the trade-off of growing a tumor,” he said, before interrupting the discussion to advertise a supplement company sponsoring the show.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF .

KFF健康新闻插图/Getty Images

在连续三天往鼻子里喷入实验性药物后，迪伦·米茨感觉非常难受。

“感觉就像我在水下一样，做什么事都异常艰难，”他说。

米茨停止服用这种药物后，他说，之后的几个月里，他一直感到疲倦和焦虑，而且他的眼睛和肌肉还会抽搐。

他服用过BPC-157，这是一种肽类药物，因一些关于健康、长寿和所谓“身体优化”的播客节目而广为人知。“肽”是一个统称，指的是比蛋白质小但由相同基本结构单元构成的物质。数十种肽类药物，包括胰岛素和GLP-1减肥药，已经获得了美国食品药品监督管理局（FDA）的批准。但BPC-157和许多其他肽类药物尚未获得批准，因为它们没有经过临床试验。

尽管如此，一些网络红人仍然大力宣传BPC-157可以治疗肌肉损伤、肠胃问题、新冠肺炎等疾病。一项对数百万份匿名电子健康记录的最新分析显示，BPC-157在美国的使用量正在增长，尤其是在白人男性群体中。这项尚未在同行评审期刊上发表的分析发现，自2020年以来，已有超过1000人告诉医生他们曾使用过这种药物。

米茨表示，他是在听了斯坦福大学神经科学家安德鲁·胡伯曼（Andrew Huberman）的播客节目后决定服用BPC-157的。胡伯曼在YouTube、Instagram和TikTok上拥有超过1600万粉丝，经常在他的播客节目中大力宣传肽类物质。胡伯曼曾表示，小鼠研究表明BPC-157有助于肌肉修复，并且“安全性非常高”，“至少在致死剂量方面是如此”。胡伯曼曾邀请一位名叫克雷格·科尼弗（Craig Koniver）的医生做客他的一期播客节目。科尼弗医生通过他的健康诊所销售肽类物质，他称BPC-157“超级安全”，并推荐给“任何经常锻炼的人”。科尼弗医生没有回复置评请求。

Huberman 没有回复 KFF 健康新闻的多次询问，但自动回复链接到他 Huberman Lab 网站上的免责声明，该声明称播客不构成医疗建议：“任何依赖通过播客提供的信息的行为均由用户自行承担风险。”

米茨表示，他希望BPC-157能帮助他提升举重成绩，去年他从一家名为Researchem的在线供应商那里购买了这种药物。这家名​​为Researchem的化学品供应公司在其网站上出售实验性肽类药物，并警告称这些物质“仅供实验室研究使用”，“不得用于人体服用”。（该网站列出的地址位于俄勒冈州希尔斯伯勒，但实际上是一个共享办公空间。该办公空间的接待员表示，Researchem并未在此注册，KFF健康新闻多次向网站上列出的邮箱地址发送邮件询问，均未收到回复。）

安德鲁·凯利/路透社/档案照片

FDA顾问支持放宽对六种肽类药物的限制。以下是这些药物的名称以及后续进展。

公司必须警告消费者，未经美国食品药品监督管理局 (FDA) 批准的实验性肽类药物仅供研究使用。但由于卫生部长小罗伯特·F·肯尼迪 (Robert F. Kennedy Jr.) 推动降低此类药物的使用门槛，许多公司可能很快将被允许取消这一警告。他和“让美国再次健康”运动的其他领导人一直倡导使用肽类药物来改善国民健康。

在担任卫生与公众服务部部长之前，肯尼迪曾在社交媒体平台X上誓言要结束对“肽、干细胞、生牛奶”以及“任何其他有益于人类健康且无法被制药公司申请专利的物质”的“肆意压制”。（事实上，肽类物质已被大量申请专利。）

自上任以来，他多次重申这一承诺。今年年初，肯尼迪在乔·罗根的播客节目中表示，他是肽类药物的“忠实拥趸”，并希望让许多肽类药物“更容易获得”。在与MAHA行动委员会联合主席加里·布雷卡共同主持的播客节目中，肯尼迪表示，FDA的职责应该是评估科学，“而不是告诉民众和医生他们可以开什么药、不可以开什么药”。

“如果你想服用实验性药物，”他补充道，“你应该能够这样做。”

今年夏天，肯尼迪的卫生部门任命了一些在肽类药物行业拥有经济利益的医生加入一个向美国食品药品监督管理局（FDA）提供建议的专家小组。在7月份的一次FDA会议上，这些新任命的成员投票决定放宽对六种实验性肽类药物的限制，其中包括热门化合物BPC-157、TB-500和MOTS-c。具体而言，他们建议将这些肽类药物添加到名为503A的清单中，允许一些专业药房生产这些药物供人使用，即使FDA尚未批准它们。

美国卫生与公众服务部发言人艾米丽·希利亚德在一封电子邮件中写道，委员会的每位成员都符合美国食品药品监督管理局（FDA）的道德要求。她写道：“FDA——而不是播客或政治——决定哪些物质符合列入503A散装药品清单的资格。” FDA尚未发布最终决定。

投票结果与FDA科学家提交的关于这六种肽的研究结果相悖，科学家们得出结论，没有足够的证据表明这些肽能改善任何疾病。此外，科学家们还强调了这些肽可能造成肝损伤、过敏反应或其他严重后果。

关于肽，你应该知道些什么

耶鲁大学医学院监管科学研究员雷什玛·拉马钱德兰表示：“人们说这关乎医疗自由——将决定权交还给患者。但我们在实践中看到的是，激励机制实际上并非以患者为中心，而是以销售产品为中心。”

科学家还警告说，如果肽类药物无需获得 FDA 批准即可出售，制药商将不愿投入数百万美元进行临床试验。

“现在临床试验得以完成的可能性降低了，”位于圣地亚哥的生物医学科学研究所斯克里普斯研究所执行副总裁埃里克·托波尔表示，“我们将看到更多的人成为那些兜售、兜售、再兜售的掠夺者的猎物。”

数据匮乏让消费者一无所知。

Meetze在Reddit上寻求帮助，那里的人们经常发布服用实验性肽类药物后出现的疼痛、头痛、视力问题和缺乏动力等症状。肽类药物的爱好者们常常对这些帖子持怀疑态度，认为这些问题是由于产品污染、患者本身存在疾病或药物滥用造成的。Reddit上的讨论往往充满激烈的争论，因此Meetze欣然接受了加入Discord社交平台上一个私人小组的邀请。在这个小组里，服用BPC-157后出现副作用的人们正在努力寻找病因和解决方法。

“这些肽类药物已经带来了数百万个成功案例，”米茨说，“但没有人愿意相信这会毁掉我们一些人的生活。”

艾米·马克斯曼/KFF健康新闻

一位名叫 Dominik E. 的 46 岁软件工程师，同时也是私人副作用研究小组的成员，表示他在服用 BPC-157 和 TB-4（另一种未经批准的肽）几天后就出现了剧烈的偏头痛——这种组合被称为“金刚狼组合”，因为它据称能够像漫威超级英雄金刚狼一样快速愈合伤口。

“我的左眼开始剧烈疼痛，左脸也麻木了，”他告诉KFF健康新闻，该新闻同意只部分透露他和本文采访的其他受访者的身份，因为他们担心泄露敏感的健康信息。

多米尼克说，偏头痛持续了两个月后，疼痛有所缓解，但他的脸却感觉发炎。“这简直是噩梦，”他说。

“我害怕别人会怎么评价我，”在密歇根州一所小学工作的洛伊斯·S说道。她原本希望BPC-157和另一种未经批准的肽类药物retatrutide能帮助她减肥，但当她感到疼痛时，她就停止了治疗。

“我从一家明确标明非人类用途的实验室购买了这种物质，买了一支注射器，然后在厨房里注射了它，”她说。“这完全违背了正常人会做的事。”

肽类药物的支持者认为，造成危害的并非肽类药物本身，而是劣质的生产工艺。因此，他们认为，FDA必须允许医生开具由专门配制药物的药房生产的供人使用的肽类药物，以此来保护公众。通常情况下，配药药房会生产FDA批准药物的替代品，例如，让患者能够获得原生产商仅生产的片剂药物的液体版本。

大隅知宏/彭博社/盖蒂图片社

肽类药物领域正处于蓬勃发展的“蛮荒西部”状态。以下内容将揭示其真实面貌、潜在风险以及未来发展趋势。

前FDA官员、现任公共利益科学中心主任彼得·卢里表示，将未经批准的肽类药物添加到FDA的可配制药物清单中，将背离该清单的初衷。他指出，联邦和州政府对配制药房的监管往往松懈，这些药房曾因污染问题受到处罚。

此外，他还补充道，此举会误导消费者，让他们以为自己购买的药物都经过了临床试验的支持。推广肽类药物的人常常引用一些有前景的实验室研究作为证据。例如，脊髓损伤的大鼠在注射BPC-157后恢复了尾巴的活动能力，而接受实验性肽MOTS-c治疗的老年小鼠则能跑得更久。然而，平均而言，在动物实验中显示出疗效的物质中，只有不到10%能在临床试验中被证实有效。

“很多伪科学的东西听起来都很厉害——什么炎症、端粒什么的——但归根结底，这些都无关紧要，”卢里说。“你必须证明它在人体上有临床疗效：它真的有效吗？”

肽类药物的推广者往往依赖轶事，而缺乏可验证的数据。在白宫录制的一期播客节目中，MAHA（美国医学协会）的知名人士布雷卡（Brecka）声称：“两千万人服用过这些药物，没有出现任何不良反应。” 而他在该期节目中的嘉宾布里格姆·布勒（Brigham Buhler）——《肽类药物革命》的合著者，同时也是一家销售肽类药物的配药药房和一家名为Ways2Well的诊所（该诊所提供肽类药物处方）的所有者——告诉布雷卡，他们诊所超过7.5万名患者中，没有一人报告过服用肽类药物后出现不良反应。

布勒在纪录片《MAHA Uncensored》中引用了更高的数字。这部纪录片以肯尼迪和其他MAHA运动的领导人为主角，并带有MAHA商标。在关于肽的片段中，布勒说：“我们通过配药药房治疗了数十万患者，从未发生过重大不良事件。”

托波尔质问道，那些吹嘘成功的公司为何没有进行临床研究。“如果网红和公司真的相信这些肽类药物对人们有帮助，”托波尔说，“那么他们就应该把利润投入到严谨的研究中。”

布雷卡及其公司“终极人类”（Ultimate Human）的发言人克里斯·伍德沃德在一封电子邮件中表示，布雷卡播客中讨论的健康问题并不构成医疗建议。“布雷卡先生一直建议听众咨询持证医生，”伍德沃德写道。布勒未回复置评请求。

并非所有轶事都令人欣慰。据内华达州药房委员会对展位上的医生及其同事发出的传票显示，去年夏天在拉斯维加斯举行的一次抗衰老会议上，两名女性在注射了实验性肽和维生素后被紧急送往医院并插管治疗。传票指控他们在没有州医疗执照的情况下开具和使用药物。

灰色市场肽行业内部

美国食品药品监督管理局（FDA）的不良事件数据库中包含一些令人担忧的报告。虽然该数据库无法证明某种药物、疫苗或医疗器械造成了伤害——这些报告简短、未经核实且为自愿提交——但它揭示了一些值得探讨的问题。例如，一名36岁的女性在服用实验性肽BPC-157（用于控制体重和治疗皮肤病）后于12月入院治疗；一名48岁的男性在服用该肽后出现“危及生命”的症状并入院治疗。

FDA 科学家在 7 月份的会议上介绍了其中一些报告，并指出了动物实验中令人担忧的结果，例如 2020 年的一项研究揭示了注射 BPC-157 的大鼠和狗出现肝毒性的迹象。

南加州大学肝病专家布莱恩·李是少数投反对票反对放宽限制的专家之一。他表示，如果没有临床研究，像肝损伤和癌症这类需要时间发展的疾病可能多年都无法被发现：“我认为这项支持可能会造成潜在危害，我无法昧着良心投赞成票。”

专家组的新成员们持不同意见。“我不认为FDA就BPC的安全问题提出了充分的理由，”德克萨斯州抗衰老公司Resurge Clinic的创始人克里斯·伍斯特豪森说道，该公司以149美元的价格销售BPC-157产品。

“一旦你看到了BPC的影响，”他说，“你就无法视而不见了。”

旧金山格莱斯顿研究所所长迪帕克·斯里瓦斯塔瓦（Deepak Srivastava）二十年前设计了一项临床试验，旨在研究他研究的一种名为TB-4的肽是否能够修复心脏病发作后的组织。由于TB-4会促进血管生长和细胞迁移，这可能会加剧恶性肿瘤的生长，因此在招募志愿者之前，所有志愿者都会接受癌症早期迹象的筛查。他担心FDA专家组在相关试验完成之前就投票决定放宽对TB-4衍生物的限制，并表示：“我们必须对药物可能造成的危害保持足够的重视。”

南加州大学的肽研究员平查斯·科恩则没那么谨慎，他认为FDA的关注可能会促使投资者资助临床试验。他正在寻求支持，希望将他实验室发现的一种名为MOTS-c的肽推向市场。科恩表示，让人们服用未经证实的药物“并不理想”，但这就是现状：“世界在变化，像我这样的人需要接受这个新的现实，并找到尽可能安全的方法。”

与此同时，像米茨这样的人只能求助于播客和在线论坛寻求建议。一年后，他的症状有所缓解，但仍然会时不时地感到“毫无情绪”。

肽类药物使用者将这种症状描述为快感缺失。Huberman 的播客节目中也讨论过这个问题。

试图驾驭价值 7 万亿美元的健康产业

Huberman偶尔会提及其他潜在的肽类风险，例如癌症，并在服用建议中穿插提及。以2024年一期观看量达120万的节目为例：“我认为BPC-157并非没有所谓的‘副作用’，”Huberman说道。“如果你打算服用BPC-157，我建议你服用最小有效剂量，不要每天都服用，更不要持续服用。当然，你还要监测其他健康指标，留意任何可能类似癌症或肿瘤生长的迹象。因为刺激血管生成促进伤口修复听起来很棒，可以帮助你恢复健康，恢复锻炼、运动或更舒适地活动，这当然是一件非常吸引人的事情。”

“那不正是我们都想要的吗？但显然，我们不能以长肿瘤为代价，”他说道，然后打断了讨论，宣传一家赞助该节目的保健品公司。

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