Despite Health Canada’s warnings against the use of unauthorized peptides as a health and fitness shortcut, a CBC News investigation uncovered doctors using a regulatory loophole to prescribe one of the unproven products to patients.
The popularity of peptides has surged as fitness influencers endorse them to build muscle, reverse the signs of aging and lose weight.
Peptides are short amino acid chains naturally produced by the body that act as building blocks of larger proteins that support growth, metabolism and healing.
But unlike approved peptides used in medicine, such as insulin and GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic, Health Canada tells CBC “unauthorized peptide products sold for wellness purposes have not been assessed for safety, quality, or effectiveness.”
And yet, CBC News found doctors promoting and prescribing a popular unauthorized peptide called Body Protection Compound-157 (BPC-157) that is touted to help accelerate muscle growth and tissue repair.
That’s because the same regulator prohibiting BPC-157’s sale as an injectable drug or a licensed natural health product says it can be compounded as a pill by pharmacies — with a doctor’s prescription.
“It’s maddening,” said Timothy Caulfield, a professor in the faculty of law and the school of public health and research director of the Health Law Institute at the University of Alberta.
Doctors should be “warning their patients about these products, not providing them,” he said.
Hidden camera claims
CBC News journalists armed with hidden cameras visited two doctors — at clinics in Ontario and B.C. — that advertised unauthorized peptides to hear the health claims offered to patients.
“I’m on some peptides myself,” said Dr. Shawn Seit, speaking to an undercover CBC journalist at his Rejuuv Medi Spa in Markham, Ont. “So, that’s how safe I feel they are.”
In a recorded one-on-one consultation, Seit said that BPC-157 “really helps in terms of healing and inflammation.”
A CBC News hidden-camera investigation uncovers unauthorized peptides, such as BPC-157, being promoted across Canada. For The National, CBC’s Idil Mussa breaks down what the team uncovered and how the findings sparked a series of new investigations by Health Canada.
In B.C., Dr. Charles Jiang claimed, until recently, on his Richmond Anti-Aging Clinic website that BPC-157 can be used for “musculoskeletal and gut lining repair.” He also told a CBC journalist during an in-person visit that unlike peptides sold online, the ones he prescribes are safe.
“When you order online, you never know what is the truth behind it,” said Jiang. “If you come to us we are professional doctors.”
Caulfield says physicians that prescribe unauthorized peptides are capitalizing on a fad that could be risky.
They’re “leveraging a longevity wellness trend,” he said. “Despite the fact there’s no evidence and real potential harm.”
Jiang did not respond to CBC’s repeated requests for comment.
In emailed statements, Seit said his aim is “always directed at optimizing my patients’ care and treatment” and that he is permitted to compound BPC-157 as a natural health product (NHP), which Health Canada confirmed. The same is true of any doctor in the country.
Compounding BPC-157: A regulatory loophole
In a statement, Health Canada said “BPC‑157 has not been authorized, its safety, efficacy, and quality have not been assessed … and there is limited scientific evidence to support its use, including a lack of established human dosing protocols.”
In addition, the regulator says BPC-157 is not approved for use in any NHPs in any form, including oral and injectable, but it can still be compounded for topical use or oral administration as an NHP.
That means doctors can prescribe BPC-157 to patients and compounding pharmacies — that mix custom medications — can formulate them.
“Nobody’s minding the store,” said Stuart Phillips, a professor of kinesiology at McMaster University in Hamilton.
“Health Canada won’t approve it as a drug, but it slips through as a compounded natural health product, where the federal safety check basically doesn’t happen.”
Health Canada considers NHP compounding within a practitioner-patient relationship distinct from manufacturing and not subject to the same regulatory oversight.
“The practitioner-patient relationship is supposed to be where evidence gets turned into advice. But you can’t practise evidence-based medicine on a substance that has no evidence,” said Phillips.
The federal agency says compounding must not be used to circumvent the federal drug review and approval process, but Caulfield says that appears to be the case.
“BPC-157 is not an NHP,” he said.
“Compounding is not meant to be a strategy that allows consumers to go around regulatory oversight, which seems to be what is happening here if they allow the application of NHP rules.”
Seit said the prescriptions he provides “do not circumvent regulatory oversight.” The regulatory bodies to which Jiang, Seit and those pharmacies belong had various responses.
In a statement to CBC News, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario said the information physicians provide to patients or the public about treatments should be accurate and informed by evidence.
The College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia said it doesn’t have specific guidance on prescribing oral BPC-157, but expects “licensees to exercise professional judgment to ensure they are providing safe and appropriate patient care.”
The Ontario College of Pharmacists says compounding an NHP using ingredients unauthorized by Health Canada could be investigated as a breach of professional conduct.
The College of Pharmacists of British Columbia states it “cannot be determined in general terms” whether a pharmacy has violated its standards.
Health Canada says it is illegal to promote health products that have not been authorized for sale, including compounded products tailored to individual patients.
After CBC News asked the department about the websites advertising BPC-157, it said it was investigating whether those activities complied with the Food and Drugs Act.
The mention of peptide therapy and BPC-157 was also taken down on Seit’s and Jiang’s websites after CBC News contacted them for comment.
All hype, no research
During CBC’s undercover consultation, Seit admitted there was a lack of clinical human studies on BPC-157.
“A lot of these studies are based on animal models,” he said. “They’re not based on human models.”
In an email to CBC News, he stated he was candid with his patients about the current research regarding BPC-157.
Jiang’s clinic website also stated that BPC-157 had “limited human trial data.”
Phillips, at McMaster University, says the lack of human trials raises serious questions about BPC-157’s potential health risks.
“There are basically no published human efficacy trials for BPC-157.”
Phillips says all he can find is one small safety study from a decade ago, and a trial that only started enrolling participants this past February.
“Almost everything else is rodent work.”
Patricia Brubaker, a professor emeritus of physiology at the University of Toronto, has taken a hard look at the research and has come to a similar conclusion about BPC-157’s alleged benefits.
“Animal models do not always translate into humans. Dosing doesn’t translate into humans. Safety doesn’t translate into humans necessarily,” said Brubaker.
Brubaker says drugs need to be carefully tested in stages before they are approved for use in people.
“It’s really important that scientific discoveries are translated from the bench cells, animals into humans through a series of clinical trials that prove at every step, with increasing numbers of subjects, that this product is effective, that it’s safe, and that you know how much of it to administer.”
