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Healing & recovery

BPC-157, TB-500 and the rest of the repair compounds. The most-discussed category online and the least-evidenced one here, which is worth saying in the first line, not the footnotes.

BPC-157 and TB-500 dominate this conversation, and both have a real body of animal research behind them. Rodent tendon, ligament and gut-injury models, mostly, with results that are often striking.

Neither has a completed human trial showing the same thing. That is the sentence most pages in this category leave out. Every profile here carries an evidence level for exactly this reason, and none of them describes a rodent result in language borrowed from the clinic.

BPC-157

Preclinical

A synthetic 15-amino-acid peptide studied in animals for effects on tendon, ligament and gut tissue repair. No completed human trials.

Healing & recovery

TB-500

Preclinical

A synthetic fragment of thymosin beta-4, a naturally occurring protein involved in cell migration and tissue repair. Animal evidence only.

Healing & recovery

GHK-Cu

Preclinical

A naturally occurring copper-binding tripeptide with a long history in topical skincare research. Injected use is not what the research studied.

Skin & hair · Anti-aging & longevity · Healing & recovery

KPV

Preclinical

A three-amino-acid fragment of alpha-MSH studied for anti-inflammatory effects, largely in animal models of gut inflammation.

Healing & recovery

LL-37

Early human trials

The human body's own antimicrobial peptide, part of innate immunity. Genuinely important biology, and implicated in causing disease as often as treating it.

Healing & recovery

ARA-290

Clinical trials

An eleven-amino-acid fragment of erythropoietin that keeps the tissue-repair signalling and drops the blood-thickening. Studied properly in nerve damage, with a published randomised trial.

Healing & recovery

Thymulin

Preclinical

A genuine thymic hormone with real immunology behind it, and no clinical development. It only works with zinc bound to it, which is the most useful fact about it.

Anti-aging & longevity · Healing & recovery

Thymosin Beta-4

Clinical trials

The full 43-amino-acid protein that TB-500 is a fragment of. It reached phase 2 trials in humans. TB-500 never has.

Healing & recovery

VIP

Clinical trials

A real human hormone with a real clinical history, including an emergency authorisation attempt during COVID. Its community use for mould illness has no trial behind it at all.

Healing & recovery

GLOW

Preclinical

A pre-mixed vial of GHK-Cu, BPC-157 and TB-500 at 5:1:1. One draw delivers all three, in proportions most people underestimate.

Healing & recovery · Skin & hair

KLOW

Preclinical

GLOW with KPV added: four compounds in one vial at 5:1:1:1. The newest and least studied of the common blends.

Healing & recovery · Skin & hair

Thymosin alpha-1

Approved for another indication

An immune-modulating peptide approved in more than thirty countries for hepatitis B, and studied in sepsis and as a vaccine adjuvant. Not approved in the United States.

Healing & recovery · Anti-aging & longevity

Why the animal data does not settle it

Healing models in rodents are informative. They are not a shortcut. Doses do not scale cleanly between species — healing timelines differ — and a tendon transected under anaesthesia is not the tendon someone tore playing football eighteen months ago — and then never rested.

The honest position is that these compounds are interesting on the preclinical evidence and unproven in people. Both halves of that sentence matter, and most of what is written about them keeps only one.

What each one actually is

BPC-157 is a fifteen-amino-acid fragment of a protein found in gastric juice. It is studied for tendon, ligament and gastrointestinal repair, and it is dosed in micrograms.

TB-500 is a synthetic piece of thymosin beta-4, the region that handles actin binding, and it is dosed in milligrams. That is a thousandfold difference between two compounds that are routinely run in the same week by the same person. If you take one thing from this page, take that.

Thymosin beta-4 itself is the whole peptide, not the fragment, and vendors sell the two as though they were interchangeable. KPV, LL-37 and ARA-290 approach inflammation from different directions and are far less discussed, with proportionally less to read.

Reading a healing protocol

Protocols here are almost entirely community-derived, and this site labels them that way rather than dressing them up. A loading phase followed by a lower maintenance dose is the conventional shape. The numbers inside it come from practice, not from a study that compared it against anything else.

Where a stack combines these compounds, our pages give each item its own role, schedule and week range. The common pattern is not to run everything for the full block, and a plan that reads as one undifferentiated list has lost that.

Read next

Head to headBPC-157 vs Thymosin Beta-4The two halves of the repair pairing, compared instead of combined. This is also where the TB-500 naming confusion does the most damage.Head to headBPC-157 vs TB-500Two research peptides discussed for tissue repair. Both rest on animal evidence, and they differ in proposed mechanism and in dose scale.StackBPC-157, TB-500 and GHK-CuThe repair pairing with a copper peptide added for connective tissue. Three preclinical compounds, and the copper is the one with an actual ceiling.StackBPC-157 and TB-500The most commonly run repair pairing. Two compounds on different schedules, on the reasoning that one builds blood supply and the other moves cells into the gap.GuideReading a dose protocol without misreading itWhere the numbers on a compound page come from, what a range is telling you, and the unit slips that turn a protocol into a tenfold error.GuideHow to reconstitute a peptide vialMixing a freeze-dried vial without contaminating it or destroying what is inside. The technique is the same for every compound; only the numbers change.GuideStoring peptides properlyDry powder and mixed solution have completely different shelf lives. The clock that matters starts when you add water.

Common questions

Is there human evidence for BPC-157 or TB-500?
Nothing that would support a healing claim. The evidence base is preclinical, predominantly rodent injury models, and some of it is genuinely compelling. No completed human trial demonstrates the same effect. Each profile states its evidence level rather than leaving you to infer one.
Why are BPC-157 and TB-500 dosed so differently?
Different molecules at different potencies. BPC-157 protocols are written in micrograms — TB-500 protocols in milligrams — a factor of a thousand apart. Carrying a number from one to the other is the worst arithmetic mistake available in this category, and it is easy to make because the two are so often used together.
Can they be mixed in one syringe?
People do it, and it makes any reaction impossible to pin on either one. Our stack pages set out combinations as separate items with separate schedules for that reason.
Are they legal?
It depends where you are, and none of the main compounds here is an approved medicine in the major jurisdictions. Every profile carries a dated regulatory line naming the jurisdiction it applies to. That line does not cross a border with you.

Last updated 21 Aug 2026