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Peptides promoted by influencers on social media promise miraculous results of healing, regeneration, and growth. But are they too good to be true? Nicole Wootton-Cane takes a look at the murky unknowns behind these ‘holy grail’ compounds
Sunday 30 November 2025 10:20 GMTComments
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“Why would I want to wait six months when I can inject peptides and look like the best version of myself in 30 days?”
Walker Harrell speaks from behind a screen that pans down to show his body - slim, muscular, and what many can only attain through a strict diet and exercise regime. Except, he tells his audience, hard work isn’t how he achieved this.
Instead, he says, he has been injecting peptides - and by following the link in his bio, you too can appear “more youthful”, leaner, and tanned.
Social media platforms, including TikTok and Instagram, are filled with creators claiming they can help promote healing, erase acne and build thicker muscles, all through a simple injection.
Even popular podcaster Joe Rogan has claimed to reap the benefits of experimental peptide BPC-157 for healing an injury on his popular podcast The Joe Rogan Experience, where he has said the compound fixed tendonitis in his elbow “in two weeks”.
For teenage boys in particular, the messaging can be potent. Videos seen by The Independent tout the compounds as essential for “looksmaxxing” - a trend by which people attempt to boost their physical attractiveness - and even suggest taking them during puberty can impact your “results” as you move into adulthood.
open image in galleryInfluencers are advertising the unregulated compounds as ‘stacks’ to enhance physical attributes (TikTok)But underneath the ripped torsos and perfect skin, there is a murky world of unknowns and risk.
Peptides were first discovered with the isolation of insulin in the 1920s, now a life-saving treatment for millions of people with diabetes. But many others - including those being promoted on social media platforms - are still considered “experimental” and have never been subject to rigorous clinical trials. In the UK and US, these are sold under a warning label: “For research purposes only. Not for human consumption”.
Speaking to The Independent, experts said the risks of buying such research chemicals are “substantial”.
Dr Adam Taylor, professor in anatomy at Lancaster University, says if peptides sound too good to be true, that’s because they probably are - and those who are using them are “running the risk of turning themselves into a lab rat”.
Peptides are short chains of amino acids that serve as the building blocks of proteins, Dr Taylor explains. They work by acting as messengers telling specific parts of the body what to do - whether that be repair, grow, or heal.
“What we've got now is a lot of peptides coming to market that are being advertised as helping you be able to heal quicker,” Dr Taylor says. “A lot of these are the quest for the holy grail in terms of regeneration and rejuvenation.”
open image in galleryExperts say people are turning themselves into 'lab rats' by trying the unregulated compounds (TikTok)He adds that the newer compounds are often marketed and advertised through influencers who have a “limited scientific authority” to speak to their legitimacy, meaning viewers are unable to see the full picture behind the image being sold.
One copper-based peptide GHK-CU purports to boast “exceptional anti-ageing, regenerative, and even anti-cancer properties,” according to one online seller.
Another set, known as the ‘Wolverine stack’ after the Marvel character’s exceptional healing properties, promises to accelerate healing and support muscle recovery.
But Dr Taylor says if this were proven, we would see it being used in medical settings.
“If these peptides were safe for human use, we would be using them to treat patients,” he said. “Some haven’t been trialled in patients. But in some circumstances where they have been trialled, they're just not showing the kind of benefits that we would need to make them effective enough to bring them to market through the NHS.”
Instead, Dr Taylor says these unregulated peptides carry a number of risks: “If you have an allergy and you're sticking a peptide into a muscle or even into a vein into your blood supply, you could end up with a really serious anaphylactic and potentially life-ending reaction to something that was unknown in there,” he said.
“Sticking needles into your body as an untrained professional comes with high risk. If you hit a nerve or a blood vessel, or you introduce an air bubble into your vasculature, you're going to end up potentially doing serious, if not life-ending damage.”
open image in galleryStudies suggest the number of gym-goers using performance enhancing drugs has more than tripled since 2014He adds there is even some suggestion they could activate pathways used by cancers to attack the body - although he stresses this has not been proven with direct evidence.
“Users are running the risk of turning themselves into a lab rat,” he says. “One of the biggest challenges with a lot of these peptides is that you don't know your own physiology. You don't understand what underlying things are lurking beneath and what may they may trigger.”
The sudden explosion of the compounds on social media appears to target teenage boys - something Dr Taylor says is “particularly risky”.
“Not only is your body still developing in the way that you can see, but you're also still developing physiologically,” he explains. “The hormones that you produce for various tissues in the body are still not at their potentially at their full effect. You wouldn’t want to interrupt those hormonal pathways.”
It is difficult to obtain exact data on how many people are using peptides in the UK as they are unregulated. However, analysis of Google search trends shows nearly ten times as many searches for the compound in 2025 compared to 2020 - and studies suggest the number of gym-goers using performance-enhancing drugs has more than tripled since 2014.
Dr Taylor told The Independent it may take many years for the full story behind peptides to emerge. “I think it's going to be when this generation get to kind of middle age,” he says. “They may have some desired effects, but they can also have undesired effects, and I think that’s what we will see with a lot of these products in the future”.
His warnings were echoed by Dr Laura Grainge, medical director at It's Me & You aesthetics clinic. She told The Independent she has seen a distinct rise in patients presenting with complications - mostly injection site reactions - after buying research chemicals online.
Dr Grainge added that the risks are “entirely down to a lack of regulation” as customers have no guarantee of the purity, sterility, or true contents of their purchases.
“Since these are not proven medical compounds, they can cause unpredictable and potentially severe systemic issues such as hormonal imbalances, heart palpitations, anxiety, and unexplained inflammatory responses,” she added.
“The risk is simply not worth the unproven, short-term gain.”
The UK regulatory body for medicines, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), told The Independent that it “disregards” claims that products are for “research purposes” if it is clear the claims are being used as an attempt to avoid medicines regulations.
A spokesperson added it “strongly advises against purchasing and using unauthorised medicinal products, particularly those promoted on social media”.
Meta said it had removed the accounts brought to its attention by The Independent, adding it does not allow content that “aims to sell or encourage the consumption of potentially unsafe drugs, products or supplements”.
A TikTok spokesperson said its community guidelines forbid “trading, marketing, or providing access to regulated, prohibited, or high-risk goods and services” adding this “includes regulated substances such as products marketed for weight loss or muscle gain”.
“We have banned the hashtag #peptide, and we have removed the accounts shared for violating our Community Guidelines,” it continued.
Joe Rogan and Walker Harrell have been approached for comment.
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