FAQ11 min read
Can Peptides Cause Kidney Problems?
Your kidneys filter about 180 liters of blood every day, removing waste while keeping what your body needs. They're also responsible for clearing many drugs and peptides from your bloodstream.
FAQ
Quick answers to common peptide questions.
FAQ10 min read
Can Peptides Help After Surgery?
Surgery inflicts controlled damage. A surgeon cuts tissue, removes structures, repairs organs, or replaces joints — and then your body has to clean up, rebuild, and heal.
FAQ10 min read
How Do Peptides Differ from Biologics?
The terms "peptide" and "biologic" get used loosely — sometimes interchangeably, sometimes incorrectly.
FAQ11 min read
Can Peptides Cause Autoimmune Reactions?
Your immune system is designed to distinguish "self" from "not-self" — to leave your own proteins alone while attacking foreign invaders. When this system misfires against your own tissues, the result is autoimmunity.
FAQ10 min read
Can Peptides Help with Scars?
Scars are the body's imperfect solution to a wound. Instead of rebuilding the original tissue with its organized collagen architecture, blood vessels, hair follicles, and sweat glands, the body patches the gap with dense, disorganized collagen fibers — functional enough to close the wound, but
FAQ13 min read
How Are Peptides Made?
Every peptide you've ever read about — from [BPC-157](/peptides/bpc-157-complete-scientific-guide/) to [semaglutide](/peptides/semaglutide-complete-pharmacology-guide/) to the Matrixyl in your face serum — had to be built. Amino acid by amino acid, purified, tested, and packaged.
FAQ12 min read
What Are Bioregulator Peptides?
In the West, the peptide conversation centers on BPC-157, semaglutide, and growth hormone secretagogues.
FAQ10 min read
Can Peptides Be Used with Other Supplements?
If you're using peptides, chances are you're also taking supplements. Maybe it's creatine for performance, vitamin D for general health, fish oil for inflammation, or a greens powder because someone on a podcast told you to.
FAQ11 min read
Can Diabetics Use Peptides?
Diabetes and peptides have a longer relationship than most people realize. Insulin — the first peptide ever used as a medicine, discovered in 1921 — has been keeping diabetics alive for over a century.
FAQ10 min read
Can Peptides Cause Hair Loss?
The fear is understandable. You start a new peptide protocol — maybe for recovery, growth hormone optimization, or metabolic health — and a few weeks later, you notice more hair in the shower drain. Was it the peptide? A coincidence? Something else entirely?
FAQ9 min read
Are Peptides Vegan?
If you follow a vegan lifestyle, the peptide world can feel like a minefield. Collagen peptides come from cow hides. Thymosin is extracted from calf thymus glands. Even some "natural" peptide supplements have animal-derived ingredients hiding in their formulations.
FAQ11 min read
Can You Build Tolerance to Peptides?
A few months into a peptide protocol, the results seem to stall. Sleep isn't as deep as it was during week three. Recovery doesn't feel as accelerated. The skin glow from your copper peptide serum has plateaued. The obvious question: has your body built a tolerance?
FAQ11 min read
Are Peptides Addictive?
You hear it in online forums, podcast comment sections, and late-night group chats: "Once you start peptides, you can't stop." It sounds alarming. It also sounds a lot like the kind of claim that gets traction precisely because it mixes a kernel of truth with a heap of misunderstanding.
FAQ9 min read
Do Peptides Need to Be Refrigerated?
Peptide storage might sound like a mundane topic, but it directly affects whether the peptide you paid good money for actually works when you use it. Peptides are proteins (or protein fragments), and proteins degrade.
FAQ11 min read
What Are the Most Studied Peptides?
Not all peptides are created equal when it comes to evidence. Some have thousands of published studies, multiple clinical trials, and decades of clinical use. Others have a handful of animal experiments and a lot of online enthusiasm.
FAQ11 min read
Can You Take Peptides Long-Term?
Many people discover peptides for a specific reason — an injury, a weight loss goal, a skin concern — and then face a follow-up question: can I keep using this indefinitely? Should I?
FAQ10 min read
What Does 99% Purity Mean for Peptides?
When you see "99% purity" on a peptide product, it sounds reassuring. Almost perfect. Just 1% of something that isn't the peptide you ordered. But what does that number actually mean? How is it measured? What's in that remaining 1%? And is 99% actually good enough?
FAQ11 min read
Are Research Peptides Safe for Human Use?
Every vial comes with the same disclaimer: "For research use only. Not for human consumption." Every buyer ignores it. And every buyer should understand exactly what that label means, why it's there, and what risks they're accepting.
FAQ11 min read
What Is Peptide Therapy vs. Peptide Supplements?
Walk into a dermatologist's office and you might get a prescription for bremelanotide — an FDA-approved peptide drug delivered by injection. Walk into a supplement store and you might find "peptide complex capsules" on the shelf next to the protein powder. Both are called "peptides.
FAQ9 min read
Can You Mix Different Peptides Together?
One of the most common questions in peptide therapy: can you draw two peptides into the same syringe and inject them together? Or reconstitute multiple peptides in the same vial?
FAQ10 min read
Do Peptides Expire?
That vial of BPC-157 in the back of your fridge — the one you reconstituted six weeks ago and forgot about. Is it still good? What about the sealed lyophilized peptide that's been sitting at room temperature since it arrived three months ago?
FAQ11 min read
What Are the Risks of Buying Peptides Online?
The internet makes peptides remarkably easy to buy. A few searches, a credit card, and a vial of BPC-157, TB-500, or CJC-1295 arrives at your door in a week. No prescription required. No questions asked. Sometimes at prices that seem too good to be true.
FAQ11 min read
Are Peptides the Same as HGH?
This is one of the most common sources of confusion in the peptide world. Someone mentions they're using "growth hormone peptides," and the immediate assumption is they're taking HGH — human growth hormone, the same substance that's been in doping scandals and anti-aging clinics for decades.
FAQ11 min read
What Is the Best Peptide for Beginners?
"What peptide should I start with?" is one of the most common questions we get at PeptideJournal. And the honest answer is always the same: it depends on what you're trying to do.
FAQ9 min read
Do Peptides Show Up on Drug Tests?
If you're using peptides — or thinking about it — and you're subject to any kind of drug testing, you need to understand a key distinction: the answer to "do peptides show up on drug tests?" depends entirely on which drug test and which peptide.
FAQ10 min read
Are Peptides Safe for Pregnant Women?
Pregnancy changes everything about how you evaluate what goes into or onto your body. Medications you've taken for years suddenly require reconsideration. Skincare products get a second look.
FAQ10 min read
Do Peptide Creams Actually Penetrate the Skin?
It's the elephant in the room of peptide skincare. You buy a $90 serum containing Matrixyl, Argireline, or copper peptides. You apply it to your face every morning and night. But does any of it actually get past the skin's surface and reach the cells where it needs to work?
FAQ9 min read
Can Peptides Replace Botox?
Every few years, the skincare industry crowns a new "Botox alternative." Lately, peptides have claimed that title. Products containing Argireline, Snap-8, or Leuphasyl promise to relax wrinkles without needles. Instagram ads show split-face comparisons. Beauty editors call them "topical Botox."
FAQ11 min read
What Is Semaglutide and How Does It Work?
Semaglutide is the most commercially successful peptide drug in history. Sold under the brand names Ozempic, Wegovy, and Rybelsus, it generated over $20 billion in revenue for Novo Nordisk in 2024 alone. It has been prescribed to millions of people worldwide for type 2 diabetes and obesity.
FAQ11 min read
What Is BPC-157 and Is It Safe?
BPC-157 might be the most talked-about peptide that has never been tested in a published human clinical trial. It has over 100 animal studies showing it heals practically everything — tendons, ligaments, muscles, gut lining, brain tissue, bone.
FAQ12 min read
Can Peptides Help with Aging?
Aging is not one thing. It's a collection of processes happening simultaneously — collagen breaking down in your skin, growth hormone levels dropping, mitochondria becoming less efficient, chronic low-grade inflammation building up, telomeres shortening.
FAQ11 min read
Are Peptides Legal in My Country?
You've heard about peptides — maybe a friend mentioned BPC-157 for a nagging injury, or you've seen GLP-1 drugs like semaglutide dominating headlines. Now you want to try one. But before you click "add to cart," there's a question you need to answer first: is it even legal where you live?
FAQ11 min read
Do Peptides Work for Weight Loss?
Some peptides produce the most dramatic weight loss results in pharmaceutical history. Others have no meaningful evidence behind them. The gap between what's proven and what's marketed is enormous — and knowing the difference can save you thousands of dollars and months of wasted time.
FAQ10 min read
Why Are Peptides So Expensive?
Making a peptide is nothing like making a standard pharmaceutical pill. A pill starts with a chemical formula, synthesized from cheap reagents in a few reaction steps.
FAQ9 min read
Can You Get Peptides Over the Counter?
Some peptides, yes — and you probably already have. If you've used a moisturizer with "peptide complex" on the label or added collagen powder to a smoothie, you've bought peptides over the counter without a prescription, a doctor's visit, or any regulatory hurdle.
FAQ9 min read
What Is the Difference Between Peptides & Amino Acids?
Amino acids are the individual letters. Peptides are the words. Proteins are the sentences. If you understand that analogy, you already grasp the core relationship — amino acids link together to form peptides, and longer peptide chains fold into proteins.
FAQ8 min read
Are Collagen Peptides the Same as Therapeutic Peptides?
No. Collagen peptides and therapeutic peptides are both called "peptides," and that shared name creates genuine confusion. But they're as different as orange juice and orange-flavored medicine. One is a food-derived nutritional product you buy at the grocery store.
FAQ11 min read
Can Peptides Interact with Medications?
Yes — and the most clinically significant interaction is hiding in plain sight. GLP-1 agonists slow gastric emptying, which can change how fast your body absorbs every pill you swallow. If one of those pills is a blood thinner, a seizure medication, or birth control, the timing shift matters.
FAQ9 min read
What Happens When You Stop Taking Peptides?
What happens next depends entirely on which peptide you stop and why you were using it. Stop semaglutide, and you'll likely regain most of the weight you lost within a year. Stop BPC-157 after a full healing protocol, and the structural repairs may persist indefinitely.
FAQ11 min read
Can Peptides Cause Cancer?
The straight answer: no peptide used in therapy has been proven to cause cancer in humans. But several peptides raise theoretical concerns because they activate biological pathways — growth factor signaling, angiogenesis, cell proliferation — that cancer also uses.
FAQ10 min read
How Much Does Peptide Therapy Cost?
Peptide therapy can cost anywhere from $20 a month for a collagen supplement to $1,850 a month for brand-name Wegovy without insurance. The price depends on the peptide, the source, whether your insurance covers it, and the format — brand-name drug, compounded preparation, or research chemical.
FAQ9 min read
Do You Need a Prescription for Peptides?
It depends on the peptide. Some you can buy at Sephora. Others require a doctor's prescription and a licensed pharmacy. And a third category exists in a legal gray area that confuses everyone — including regulators.
FAQ9 min read
Can You Take Peptides Orally?
Most peptides can't survive your stomach. The combination of hydrochloric acid (pH 1.5-3.5), pepsin, and a battery of proteolytic enzymes in the small intestine breaks peptide bonds apart before they can reach the bloodstream.
FAQ9 min read
How Long Do Peptides Take to Work?
The timeline ranges from days to months — and it depends almost entirely on which peptide you're using and what you're trying to achieve. A GLP-1 agonist can reduce appetite within the first week.
FAQ11 min read
What Are the Side Effects of Peptides?
Every peptide has a side effect profile — and they're as varied as the peptides themselves. The nausea you might experience on semaglutide has nothing to do with the water retention from growth hormone peptides, which has nothing to do with the mild skin irritation from a copper peptide serum.
FAQ11 min read
Do Peptides Really Work? Evidence-Based Answer
"Do peptides work?" is the wrong question. The right question is: "Which peptide, for what purpose, and based on what evidence?"
FAQ9 min read
Are Peptides Steroids? Clearing Up the Confusion
No. Peptides are not steroids. They're different molecules, with different structures, different mechanisms, and different effects on the body.
FAQ14 min read
Are Peptides Safe? Everything You Need to Know
The short answer: it depends on which peptide you're talking about. Some peptides have decades of safety data behind them and full FDA approval. Others have never been tested in a single human clinical trial.