This is the first episode in a new series: the Top 20 Peptides. Over twenty episodes, Dr. Ethan Hausman-Marquis examines the most researched compounds in longevity and regenerative medicine — the real biochemistry, the honest evidence base, and the regulatory context behind each one. No hype, no discount codes. Just the science.

We start with BPC-157. Derived from a naturally occurring sequence in human gastric juice and studied for over thirty years, it's the peptide that put this whole field on the map — and one of the most misunderstood molecules in it. This episode covers how it was discovered, what its proposed mechanisms actually are at the molecular level, what the preclinical research genuinely shows across five areas of investigation, and why a 2025 systematic review of 544 published articles found exactly one human clinical study  ...