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, the kind of physique 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 the popular podcaster Joe Rogan, who does not sell peptides, has claimed on his popular podcast The Joe Rogan Experience to be reaping the benefits of experimental peptide BPC-157 for healing an injury, claiming that the compound fixed tendinitis 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 in which people attempt to boost their physical attractiveness – and even suggest that taking them during puberty can impact your “results” as you move into adulthood.
But underneath the ripped torsos and perfect skin, there is a murky world of unknowns and risk.
Peptides were first discovered in the 1920s with the isolation of insulin, now a lifesaving 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 the US, these are sold with a warning label: “For research purposes only. Not for human consumption.”
Speaking to The Independent, experts said the risks of using these research chemicals are “substantial”.
Dr Adam Taylor, professor in anatomy at Lancaster University, says that 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 the market that are being advertised as helping you be able to heal quicker,” says Taylor. “A lot of these are the quest for the holy grail in terms of regeneration and rejuvenation.”
He adds that the newer compounds are often advertised by influencers who have “limited scientific authority” to speak to their legitimacy, meaning that viewers are unable to see the full picture behind the image being sold.
One copper-based peptide, GHK-CU, purports to possess “exceptional anti-ageing, regenerative, and even anti-cancer properties”, according to one online seller.
Another set, dubbed the “Wolverine stack” after the Marvel character’s exceptional healing properties, promises to accelerate healing and support muscle recovery.
But Taylor says that if this were proven, we would see these substances 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.”
Taylor says that using these unregulated peptides carries serious 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 warns.
“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.”
Taylor adds that there is even some suggestion that these substances could activate pathways used by cancers to attack the body – although he stresses that 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 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 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 the drugs are unregulated. However, analysis of Google search trends reveals nearly 10 times as many searches for these compounds in 2025 compared with 2020 – and studies suggest that the number of gym-goers using performance-enhancing drugs has more than tripled since 2014.
Taylor believes that 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 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 are 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.
Grainge adds 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 adds. “The risk is simply not worth the unproven, short-term gain.”
The UK regulatory body for medicines, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, told The Independent that it “disregards” claims that these products are for “research purposes” if it is clear that such claims are being used in an attempt to avoid regulations.
A spokesperson added that the agency “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 that 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 that 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 said.
Joe Rogan and Walker Harrell have been approached for comment.
