Dr. Peppa

Peptides by goal: a doctor's 7-minute map of the field

Published by Dr. Peppa ·

Title graphic reading 'A doctor's 7-minute map of peptides' beside a portrait of a doctor in scrubs
AI-generated illustration. Not a photo from the video.

Disclosure: Dr. Peppa is owned and operated by Medtruva LLC, which sells peptide products, including some compounds discussed on this site. Advertisements are labeled.

The quick version

  • Dr. Ashley Froese, DO, organizes peptides by goal rather than by chemistry, which is a genuinely useful way in to a confusing category.
  • Below is her full map, compound by compound, with what each one is and where its evidence stands.
  • The evidence levels vary enormously, from FDA-approved drugs to single studies in cell cultures.
  • She notes this herself: most of what's known about these compounds comes from cellular and animal research.

The video

Doctor Explains Peptides in 7 Minutes (Anyone Can Learn) was published on June 24, 2026 by Dr. Ashley Froese, DO, a board-certified family medicine physician. It has been watched about 162,000 times. It's a condensed version of a longer explainer she made earlier.

Her framing is practical. You can't usefully ask "what peptides should I take?" because there are dozens of them, so she sorts them by goal and walks through each group.

Worth knowing: the video's description links to her paid course, "Peptide Mastery," and includes an affiliate link to an oral BPC-157 and KPV supplement, labeled as an affiliate link in her own text. She also says her reason for making the video is that people are buying peptides from research-chemical websites either way, and she would rather be a resource than a barrier.

The 60 seconds of biology

She starts with the setup: cells contain DNA and mitochondria; mitochondria make energy; stress, inflammation and poor sleep degrade how well cells send and receive signals. The pituitary gland coordinates growth and repair signals, the adrenal system handles stress, and chronic inflammation and insulin resistance interfere with the receptors cells use to hear those signals.

Her summary of the problem: your body may be sending the right signals, but the cells aren't listening. Peptides, in her framing, are signaling molecules that might help the message land.

The map, group by group

For inflammation: GHK-Cu, KPV, thymosin alpha-1

All three have been studied for calming inflammatory pathways, at three very different levels.

For injury recovery: BPC-157 and TB-500

BPC-157 is a 15-amino-acid sequence derived from a protein reported in gastric juice. Froese describes it as helping tissue become more sensitive to the body's own repair signals. The closest study is a 2014 experiment in which it raised growth hormone receptor expression in rat tendon cells. FDA's July 2026 briefing states that its molecular targets "have not been identified."

TB-500 she describes as a GPS that helps cells migrate to an injury. That migration research is real, but it's on thymosin beta-4, the full-length protein, in cells and animals. FDA's briefing is explicit that "thymosin beta-4 and TB-500 are not the same substance," and that it found no human exposure data for TB-500.

For energy: SS-31 and MOTS-c

SS-31 is the one peptide here that reached approval. FDA granted accelerated approval to elamipretide in September 2025 for Barth syndrome, a very rare condition, on the strength of a 12-patient trial. A larger 218-patient trial in a different mitochondrial disease missed its goals, which is the other half of the picture.

MOTS-c is studied for mitochondrial function and for building new mitochondria. Human data so far is observational — exercise raises the body's own levels — while the work on giving it as a treatment is in mice.

For growth and recovery: sermorelin, CJC-1295, ipamorelin, tesamorelin, IGF-1 LR3

Froese groups the first four as peptides that tell the body to release more growth hormone. Three of them are GHRH analogs. Ipamorelin works differently, through the ghrelin receptor.

Their status varies widely: tesamorelin is FDA-approved, sermorelin's US product was discontinued, and CJC-1295 and ipamorelin are not approved.

IGF-1 LR3 she describes as a synthetic version of IGF-1. It's more precisely a modified analog, longer than natural IGF-1 and altered so it evades the proteins that normally bind it, which makes it act far longer. The approved recombinant IGF-1 is a different product entirely.

For fat loss: semaglutide, tirzepatide, retatrutide, AOD-9604, tesamorelin

Semaglutide and tirzepatide are the approved drugs in the group, cleared first for diabetes (2017 and 2022), then for weight management (2021 and 2023).

Retatrutide is in trials and approved nowhere. In a phase 2 trial, average weight loss reached about 24% at 48 weeks. Froese also says it raises metabolic rate during weight loss; that finding comes from animal work, and no published human trial has measured it.

AOD-9604 is a fragment of growth hormone studied for mobilizing fat. Its clinical history is the part usually left out: a phase 2b obesity trial in the mid-2000s failed to beat placebo, and development stopped.

Tesamorelin reduces visceral fat, and that's on its FDA label — specifically for excess abdominal fat in HIV patients with lipodystrophy. The same label says it isn't indicated for weight loss.

For focus: semax and dihexa

Semax is registered in Russia and has been studied there for stroke and cognitive conditions. The link to BDNF, a protein involved in learning, comes from rat studies. We found no placebo-controlled trial in healthy people testing focus or alertness.

Dihexa comes with the video's own warning, and it's a fair one. The striking "millions of times more potent than BDNF" figure traces to a university press release rather than a head-to-head experiment, according to the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation's review, which also notes no long-term safety studies in animals or humans and a theoretical cancer concern tied to the pathway it acts on.

For anxiety: selank

Human studies exist, mostly Russian, comparing selank with benzodiazepines in anxiety disorders. They are small and largely without placebo groups, and we found no independent replication outside Russia. The claim that it modulates cortisol responses didn't lead us to a primary human study.

For sleep: epitalon, pinealon, DSIP

Epitalon's telomere result is a 2003 study in cultured human cells, from the Russian group that developed it, with no independent replication we could find. Much of the melatonin research involves Epithalamin, a pineal extract, rather than the epitalon peptide. For pinealon, we found no clinical evidence.

Delta sleep-inducing peptide has consistent effects in animals. FDA's review describes the human evidence as "insufficient," with studies that were "inconclusive and at best preliminary." It was the one peptide an FDA advisory committee voted against in July 2026.

On access

Froese opens by noting peptides are becoming more accessible again through compounding pharmacies. That's the direction, though not yet the law. An FDA advisory committee recommended six of seven peptides in July 2026, but the vote is non-binding and no rule has followed. Separately, earlier in 2026 many peptide nominations were withdrawn, so FDA's restricted category now lists only six substances, none of them the peptides in this video.

The useful takeaway

The organizing idea is the valuable part: start from what you're trying to achieve, then look at what's actually known about the compounds people associate with that goal.

The second half of that sentence is where the work is. As Froese says herself, most of what's known here comes from cells and animals. The compounds in this video range from approved drugs with labels and trial data to molecules whose entire human record is a single small study from the lab that discovered them. Those are not the same thing, even when they appear in the same list.

Sources

The video

FDA records

Studies and reviews