JUAN LEIJA, 38, had a problem: He was a personal trainer and a serious lifter whose elbow pain prevented him from doing some of the most fundamental lifts. “I’d been dealing with tendinitis for a year,” he remembers, “but it had been extreme for about six months. It felt like there was something broken in there.”
Just as Leija was starting to worry about his ability to train, a friend of his who owns a wellness clinic told him about something called BPC-157. It’s an injectable peptide compound that, his friend said, could do for Leija’s elbow what a year of conventional and alternative therapies couldn’t: make the pain go away.
“I went home and looked it up,” Leija says. Evidence was scarce, but enthusiasm wasn’t. Satisfied users—athletes, fighters, soldiers, and gym rats among them—referred to it as the Wolverine peptide for its healing powers.
BPC-157 is part of a growing list of compounds called peptides gaining interest in fitness, wellness, and antiaging circles. The buzz comes from their supposed potential to help you build muscle, cut fat, sleep better, or, with peptide PT-141, rekindle sexual desire—all without the side effects of riskier, more powerful options like testosterone and synthetic growth hormone.
