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Ever since the “peptides craze” began in the early 2000s, so did the list of their potential benefits… not only that, it seems as though the list kept on growing and continues to grow to this very day.

So far we’ve heard that peptides can help you:

Keep a tab on your blood glucose levels
Lose excess weight
Build muscle
Shorten the recovery time
Speed up wound healing
Boost hair growth
Improve skin health
Strengthen your immune system and
Reduce the signs of aging

This is quite a list, don’t you think? But are there any scientific studies to back up all these claims? Or are we selectively plucking bits and pieces from various sources without giving the entire context?

This is exactly what we’re going to research in today’s article, we’re gonna go over the publicly available scientific studies to see what’s real and what’s fiction.

Let’s dig in!

Peptides And Blood Glucose Levels

Just in the last few decades, we’ve seen an alarming rise in diabetes among the adult US population. The exact cause varies, but a major contributing factor is our sedentary lifestyle as well as poor eating habits.

Fortunately for everyone suffering from this disease, the discovery of insulin turned things around and allowed us to manage this, previously considered fatal disease.

Ever since the discovery of insulin, researchers worked on other treatment types and other substances that could help manage blood glucose levels and diabetes as a whole. One such substance is peptides.

Several groups of peptides have been studied and identified to decrease blood glucose levels as well as improve insulin uptake, helping people manage their diabetes.

Weight Loss

When it comes to peptides and weight loss, it’s interesting to note that peptides were never actually studied/researched (and eventually synthetically produced) to treat obesity. They were originally studied for their ability to control the blood glucose levels and help patients with diabetes (as noted in the previous section).

But medical practitioners and researchers noticed one thing in their diabetic patients - they started to lose weight… a lot of it.

The next thing on the list was to determine just how effective peptides are when used for weight loss exclusively (regardless of the diabetes).

One recent study from the New England Journal Of Medicine did just that. Researchers took a huge sample of 1961 adults with a BMI of 30 or greater (this results puts them in the Obese Class 1 category - a person whose weight is significantly above the normal range and is at an increased risk for diabetes, cardiovascular problems and others) and without diabetes.

All participants were divided into two groups, the placebo one and the one where 2.4mg of semaglutide was administered subcutaneously, once a week. Also, everyone was advised to make some changes to their eating habits, as well as introduce a moderate exercise routine (such as walking, no more than 150 minutes a week).

Final results showed a whopping change in body weight in the semaglutide group, where the participants lost 15% of their body weight, while the placebo group lost “only” 2.4.

Though we are looking forward to more studies, this one was a clear win for the mighty peptides.

Building Muscle

Muscle building is one of the most well-known and sought after benefits associated with peptides, and the very reason this compound is so popular among bodybuilders.

Though, if we’re honest, the exact mechanism of action is not entirely known, what we do know is that Human Growth Hormone and Insulin-like Growth Hormone 1 regulate muscle mass development and maintenance.

In GHD adults, there is evidence that serum GH affects muscle mass maintenance, but in healthy adults neither GH nor IGF-I has or enhances the hypertrophic effects of exercise. In contrast, much evidence supports the hypertrophic effect of autocrine/paracrine IGF-I in animals and suggests that it may play a role in adaptation to overload in both animals and humans. Increased muscle expression of IGF-I also enhances the effects of training in animals. Local injection of GH or IGF-I protein or plasmids is effective in animal models and may eventually be used with therapeutic ends. There is evidence for an effect of GH on other performance parameters that is related to increased lean body mass as opposed to increased skeletal muscle mass.

Wound Healing

Recovery And Wound Healing

The most common types of injuries to occur in our body are various sprains, strains, soft tissue tears and damages. Speaking of connective tissue injuries, they are the ones that take a longer time to heal. This is mostly due to the different phases an injured tissue needs to go through - swelling, pain, new cell proliferation and ultimately remodeling.

The most commonly used peptides for improved muscle healing are TB-500, Ipamorelin and CJC-1295 as these will promote regeneration and improve blood vessel migration, induce new cell creation, GH stimulation resulting in increased rate of cellular repair.

One of the most recent studies (done in 2023) set out to investigate just these claims. The research showed that peptides not only reduced localized inflammation (at the site of the wound), but also promoted epithelization, granulation tissue formation, collagen deposition and angiogenesis (the formation of new blood vessels).

Peptides also shown promising results in bone and nervous tissue healing as they promote osteogenic (bone growth) activities, and nerve cell repair and regeneration,

Hair Growth

To better understand how peptides affect hair growth, we first need to talk about the hair itself and the way it develops and grows.

The foundational building block for our hair is the hair follicle - a structure within your skin from which the hair grows. The actual hair growth goes through three phases:

Anagen - this is the very first hair growth phase and could take between 2 and 7 years. This growth provides blood vessels and nutrients required for the hair to grow.
Catagen - this is the second phase where the actual hair gets detached from the blood supply and usually takes around 2 weeks
Telogen - this is the third and final stage of hair growth where the hair sheds and fall off

There haven’t been that many studies looking into the effectiveness of peptides in hair growth but if we look at one from 2018 and the most recent one from 2022, the results clearly show an increase in diameter and the depth of the hair follicles. Which further resulted in increased hair regrowth score in both orally and topically administered peptides.

Immune System Benefits

Peptide’s effect on the immune system has long been known. This is evident in some of the earlier studies (compared to the ones we’ve commented on so far). This particular one was done in 2014 and explores peptides as an immunomodulating agent, meaning it can either block or stimulate immune system response.

So, the primary role of our immune system is to identify and recognize foreign matter and neutralize it, while keeping the cells of our body out of harm’s way.

Research has shown that this response depends on something called protein-protein interaction where several proteins on the cell’s surface generate this immunological response. Traditionally, these protein synapses are under the control of antibodies, upon which many immunomodulation drugs on the market are built.

The problem with these drugs is their base, antibodies, tend to get unstable… especially after long-term use. And this is why we’ve turned our heads to peptides.

Peptide-based drugs have a significant advantage here as they won’t trigger an immunogenic response and will generally be much more stable, making them more suitable for prolonged usage.

Anti Aging

An increased lifespan, besides being one of the greatest things modern lifestyle brought, does come with a number of not so welcomed side effects. Most common side effects being:

Dry, sensitive skin,
Increased inflammation through the body
Deep, pronounced wrinkles
Chronic pain
Cognitive problems etc.

We are used to hearing about peptides as being a “miracle” substance, and being able to help reduce (or even eliminate these problems), but will it really?

One particular study from 2022 sheds more light to this matter as it sets out to investigate the effects of peptides on aging-related health issues.

Being the biggest organ in our body, the study first looked at the effects of bioactive peptides on skin aging. Indeed, some peptides observed in the study showed antioxidant effects, being able to delay skin aging by relieving oxidative stress (which deepens the wrinkles and makes the skin overly dry). Not only that, peptides can reduce the rate of collagen hydrolysis (water induced molecule breakdown) which contributes to skin maintaining its elasticity and youthful appearance.

Besides the skin, peptides are also used to slow down brain aging, lung, liver and kidney aging, but also showed promising results in promoting heart health and slowing down the aging and breakdown of blood vessels.

Disclaimer: The above is a contributor post, the views expressed are those of the contributor and do not represent the stand and views of Outlook Editorial.