Peptides are nothing new to sports.

BPC-157 was discovered in 1990 and the wound-healing/recovery options offered obvious athletic advantages, particularly in endurance sports. But that long history hasn’t kept the peptides from looking like the latest thing in the very recent explosion of use in all manner of sports, causing some observers to question not only whether peptides are safe, but whether organized athletics and the general fitness industry are even remotely ready for them.

Let’s dive in.

As with so many performance-enhancing drugs, the use of peptides is filtering down from the heights of elite athletes whose livelihoods depend on race results to weekend warriors looking to beat their friends to the coffee shop on a Saturday morning ride with their local bike club.

Whether the peptide-boosted sprint to tht café finish line is legitimate, legal or simply ill-advised doesn’t seem to matter to peptide-boosted amateurs, but it matters a lot to Kris Cutaj, certified physician assistant and founder of NuHealth Medical Wellness.

Cutaj prescribes peptides and he is still wary of how they are showing up in sports and fitness. “Are they misused? Constantly, and almost always outside a medical setting,” says Cutaj, who describes himself as worried more about the supply chain than the peptides themselves. The lack of medical supervision and sketchy supply chain short-circuit the conversation around sports and peptides, Cutaj says. “There may be legitimate, supervised uses for a few of these, but the sports market is largely unregulated, unmonitored, and now increasingly against the rules. That's a bad combination.”

The combination of athletic ambition and youthful judgment is also troubling for Jill White, a doctor of pharmacy who works with peptides and is confident of their benefits. White says she sees or hears about teenage athletes urgently seeking an edge who may not be well informed or old enough to make a responsible decision. Even when a parent is brought into the conversation, the information they are getting may not be reliable. “If families don't know a healthcare professional who is knowledgeable about peptides, many are going to Google, Reddit, social media, influencers, podcasts, or RUO [research use only] websites to figure it out themselves,” White says. “The problem is there still aren't a lot of healthcare professionals who are both knowledgeable about peptides and willing to have those conversations.”

The people and the peptides

Not everybody seeking peptides is seeking an athletic edge, says Dr. Sara Siavoshi DO, founder and CEO of DrBrainRx, and many of them are decades past the youthful ambition that White describes. She sees a mix in her patients. "The typical person asking me about peptides isn't trying to win the Olympics. It's the 48-year-old training for an Ironman, the 55-year-old CrossFit athlete recovering from a shoulder injury, or the 65-year-old who wants to keep skiing, golfing, or playing pickleball without feeling like they're falling apart,” Siavoshi says. “The conversation has shifted from ‘How do I perform better?’ to ‘How do I recover better so I can keep doing the things I love?’ That's a very different patient population.”

Oliver Caitlin sees the same pattern. Caitlin follows doping trends in the world of high-level athletes as president of both the Anti-Doping Sciences Institute and the Banned Substances Control Group. What he sees in the amateur ranks is almost more concerning than what the pros might be doing, he says. Elite athletes are talking to trainers and medical staff who know what peptides can and can’t do and can micromanage their use. The “armchair athlete realm” is not getting that expertise, Caitlin notes. Their trainer is Google.
“Consumers are much more impacted by the influencers and the the bro culture and whatever.”

The amateur athletes are also more vulnerable to the sketchy supply chain Cutaj describes. “I think users would probably be pretty concerned if they were to really realize where these things are coming from, and the general lack of attention to quality,” he notes. 

In the end, they might not be getting what they paid for and also not getting what they expected even when the peptides are made responsibly. The claims people might read online either do not stand up to scrutiny and may be based on entirely anecdotal research, some of that “research” coming from the influencers themselfs. Ilana Schachter, a registered dietician and nutritionist for Consumer Health Digest. “Overall, peptides represent an area of growing scientific interest, but athletes should be cautious about exaggerated claims surrounding their benefits. While some peptides may have legitimate medical applications, using them for performance enhancement carries potential risks,” Schachter says.

Practitioner peril

From Caitlin’s vantage, the amateur and elite athletes are not the only ones put at risk by the questionable supply. Indeed, the challenge for practitioners is not just whether the peptides are safe and whether the efficacy is proven. Caitlin has followed the sports nutrition supplements category for decades, and seen how often pharmaceutical drugs are discovered in products sold as supplements. A sports nutrition supplement promising steroid-like results will often include actual steroids.

The same is undoubtedly true for peptides. When a product is sold with a certificate of analysis, that doesn’t always mean the lab tested for the controlled substances that may be included, Caitlin notes. Even if Robert F Kennedy Jr employs enforcement discretion to effectively make popular peptides legal, rules on prescription pharmaceuticals could still apply. If a peptide promoted as a testosterone booster contains actual testosterone or illegal selective androgen receptor modulators (SARMs) and a practitioner then sells or prescribes it, “all of a sudden, your legal risks are are significantly magnified,” Caitlin says.

In the populations peptides are serving and will serve, such issues are often not considered, Caitlin adds. “That's never really in the minds of trainers, and rarely in the minds of users,” he laments. Ignorance, as always, is no protection from enforcement.

How different patients and populations respond to peptides, and how little is known about that, could also become a legal liability in cases of illness and injury, as would the quality of what might be sold in a gym or a practitioner’s clinic. Caitlin works with supplement companies on quality and what works for a supplement certificate of analysis in an herbal supplement might not be appropriate for peptide product testing. The standard for supplements has long been high-performance liquid chromatography, but Caitlin sees little application for that technology in peptides. “HPLC on its own can look at purity, but not really deal with the identity component of these things. HPLC testing is not going to tell you if your amino acid sequence is wrong.”

Put to the test

The pickleball players Siavoshi describes are never going to hear a World Anti-Doping Agency testing team knock at their door, but even if they did, it’s not clear that peptides would trigger a career-derailing positive test.

Caitlin says testing for peptides is difficult on its own and made nearly impossible by the fact that many peptides flush through the body in hours, making detection impossible unless conducted immediately after injection. The athletes that have been accused of abusing peptides have been named via “non-analytical positives,” meaning they talked about using peptides and investigators connected the dots. Actual positive test results are almost unknown, Caitline says.

Ease of access, lack of effective testing and high stakes make peptides a go-to strategy for athletic ambition.

Peptide use is prohibited, Siavoshi notes, but understandable. “Think about the incentives. If you're a professional pitcher with a partially torn rotator cuff six weeks before the playoffs, or a cyclist trying to recover from an overuse injury before the Tour de France, shaving even a few weeks off recovery could be worth millions of dollars. That's where the line between therapy and performance enhancement becomes very blurry.”

The matter could be further blurred as regulations change. GLP-1s may be peptides but they are also approved drugs and not banned in sports. Right now, retatrutide is an unapproved peptide and banned in sports, but if Eli Lilly gets it across the finish line at the FDA, it moves off the banned ingredients list.

Siavoshi is not convinced the doping argument is a significant concern in the rising debate over peptide use. Among the challenges in how peptides find an appropriate place in the modern wellness and optimization movements, use by elite athletes barely registers. “I actually think focusing only on doping misses the bigger story,” Siavoshi says. “The fastest-growing market isn't elite athletes trying to gain an unfair advantage. It's healthy adults trying to stay active longer, recover faster, preserve muscle, and extend their healthspan. That's why peptides have become one of the most controversial areas in modern sports and longevity medicine.”

News roundup

Clarity and control

On July 28, 2026, the FDA issued Revised Draft Product-Specific Guidances (PSGs) covering 17 peptide therapeutics, including semaglutide, tirzepatide, liraglutide, teriparatide, and glucagon. The move updates benchmarks for impurity thresholds, higher-order structural assessment, and innate immune response testing.

Impacts and analysis:

·       Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA) evaluation criteria provides generic drug manufacturers with a direct roadmap to produce FDA-approved generic GLP-1s and metabolic peptides as exclusivity periods expire.

·       Clinicians should anticipate higher scrutiny across all peptide products, reinforcing why practices should rely on FDA-evaluated generic drug channels rather than custom compounding workarounds. 

Patient pushback

On July 27, 2026, the Partnership for Safe Medicines (PSM) released formal statements and testimony following the PCAC votes, highlighting severe patient safety risks linked to unapproved injectables at medical spas and wellness centers.

Impact and analysis:

Big pharma steps in

On July 20, 2026, Samsung Biologics launched an all-cash $1.81 billion tender offer to acquire PolyPeptide Group, one of the world's largest specialized contract manufacturers for raw peptide active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). Two weeks later, CordenPharma closed acquisition of AmbioPharma.

Analysis:

Coordinated control

On July 29, 2026, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), alongside state regulatory bodies from California and Utah, filed a federal enforcement complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California targeting major direct-to-consumer (DTC) telehealth platforms marketing peptide therapies, GLP-1s, and wellness compounds.

Analysis:

·       Many popular DTC platforms leverage viral celebrity sponsorships and influencer social media ads to drive high-volume patient acquisition for peptide protocols.  This action illustrates why getting attention from consumers can mean getting attention from regulators.

·       The FTC complaint alleges these platforms falsely promised "100% private, confidential, and secure" medical consultations, but automated tracking pixels and uploaded customer intake lists were used on social media ad networks to target consumers who clicked on celebrity/influencer  promotions.

·       The implications for practitioners are complex. Clinics using third-party marketing tools on landing pages where patients submit health intake forms or inquire about celebrity-popularized peptide treatments could face significant enforcement exposure under both HIPAA and FTC consumer protection laws. Smart clinic operators will audit digital marketing platforms and patient onboarding funnels to ensure tracking scripts are strictly stripped from forms collecting health data or treatment requests.

Of peptides and performance

Q&A with Dr. Sara Siavoshi, DO

 Sara Siavoshi’s DrBrainRx telehealth platform focuses on brain health, but sports and fitness are frequently part of the conversations she has with patients. The nature of those conversations might be a surprise to people who view peptides through a performance lens, mistakenly equating the goals with muscle-building and the high physical demands of elite athletes. The modern peptide patient is very different, Siavoshi says.

 What do peptides mean for sports, and is this something fitness enthusiasts or weekend warriors are looking at?

Five years ago this conversation was mostly happening in bodybuilding forums. Today it's happening in orthopedic clinics, longevity practices, and among recreational athletes. The typical person asking me about peptides isn't trying to win the Olympics. It's the 48-year-old training for an Ironman, the 55-year-old CrossFit athlete recovering from a shoulder injury, or the 65-year-old who wants to keep skiing, golfing, or playing pickleball without feeling like they're falling apart. The conversation has shifted from "How do I perform better?" to "How do I recover better so I can keep doing the things I love?" That's a very different patient population.

Are peptides being misused, and what goals are people seeking to achieve with them?

Both. When used appropriately under physician supervision, some peptides may have a role in supporting recovery, preserving muscle, or improving body composition in carefully selected patients. But that's only one side of the story. The misuse is what concerns me. Social media has dramatically outpaced the science. I've seen teenagers and young adults buying "research peptides" online, following a TikTok dosing protocol, and injecting products that may not even contain the peptide listed on the label. They often have no idea where the product was manufactured, whether it's sterile, whether it's accurately dosed, or whether it's contaminated. That's a much bigger concern to me than the peptide itself. A peptide with a plausible biological mechanism is one thing. An unlabeled vial purchased from an anonymous website and injected based on advice from an influencer with no medical training is something entirely different. The other misconception is that peptides are shortcuts. Recovery, muscle preservation, and healthy aging still depend on sleep, nutrition, resistance training, and rehabilitation. No peptide replaces those fundamentals.

Are they being used for doping or performance enhancement, and are people getting caught?

Without question, some peptides are being used for performance enhancement, particularly compounds that influence the growth hormone pathway or recovery. Think about the incentives. If you're a professional pitcher with a partially torn rotator cuff six weeks before the playoffs, or a cyclist trying to recover from an overuse injury before the Tour de France, shaving even a few weeks off recovery could be worth millions of dollars. That's where the line between therapy and performance enhancement becomes very blurry. Because of that, many peptide hormones and growth hormone secretagogues are prohibited by the World Anti-Doping Agency. Anti-doping laboratories have become increasingly sophisticated and can detect many prohibited peptide compounds or their biological effects, although detection depends on the specific peptide and the timing of testing. But I actually think focusing only on doping misses the bigger story. The fastest-growing market isn't elite athletes trying to gain an unfair advantage. It's healthy adults trying to stay active longer, recover faster, preserve muscle, and extend their healthspan. That's why peptides have become one of the most controversial areas in modern sports and longevity medicine. 

 Peptides at the starting line

Q&A with Oliver Caitlin, Banned Substances Control Group

Oliver Caitlin has been watching sports doping trends for decades, but he’s not sure he’s seen anything like peptides and the way they are showing up in athletic events and unexpected setting like running clubs and the neighborhood gym. We talked to him about what peptides mean, and what the doping control community can do about it.

How are peptides showing up in sports?

There is a lot of talk about athletes using peptides, but there haven’t been a lot of positive drug tests to date. These substances have historically been challenging to detect, but that is slated to change in the future as the sport drug testing industry starts to do more testing on dried blood spots instead of urine.

What kinds of athletes are using them?

Peptides are attractive to all different sorts of athletes. With marketed benefits spanning from injury repair to muscle building to endurance, there are peptides that may be attractive to athletes across the spectrum of sports.

Is there real science of performance enhancement or is it mainly "bro science" at this point?

There isn’t any proven science that supports the performance enhancement claims some peptides make, but it is hard to ignore the potential that some of them seem to have. As we sit, most of the science surrounding peptides comes from relatively small animal studies. There have been a growing number of studies focusing on humans as the industry progresses, but still no clinical trials for any of these peptides that prove efficacy or focus on long-term safety. Bro science and influencers are driving the marketing, but the underlying science is so far lacking the proof to support the claims.

How are anti-doping organizations reacting?

Anti-doping organizations are well aware of these unapproved peptides. Any unapproved peptide is considered banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency, and many have been added to the Prohibited List. There is a recognized challenge with detection, and we will need a lot more money spent on anti-doping research in order to close the gap between use and detection.

How big a problem is it?

 Peptides are certainly a concern in anti-doping circles; as they continue to explode in popularity among everyday consumers, it is hard to believe that athletes aren’t using them. We have seen a handful of non-analytical positives for peptides, but not positive drug tests. From a sport drug testing perspective, it is a big problem as there are likely to be a lot of athletes using them that don’t show up in the drug testing statistics. The global anti-doping research budget is only around $10 million a year, and that is not enough to close the detection gaps that currently exist for drugs like peptides.

What would you tell an athlete, trainer, or coach who is advising athletes?

 The claims behind peptides are certainly attractive, but the proven benefits are lacking in the published research. Anyone advising athletes should be steering them away from these unproven treatments, but that is very hard to do given the barrage of marketing behind peptides and the numerous influencers that tout their benefits. Studies have shown that peptides are subject to a lot of quality concerns and may be contaminated or adulterated with other substances, which represents a growing concern for any athletes that choose to use.